For Whom the Minivan Rolls

by JEFFREY COHEN

  “Would it be acceptable if we were to talk while I plant this bush?” he asked. “I really prefer not to leave it out of the earth much longer.”

  “Be my guest,” I told him. “No skin off my nose.” I’d been staring at his, and the comment just came out. Sue me. He didn’t appear to notice.

  Using a spade, he widened the hole he was digging, then got down on his right knee and began deepening it with a hand tool. Martin wasn’t perfectly neat, but his backyard certainly was. The lawn and the garden were so well-kept you’d think Mike and Carol Brady lived here. Maybe they did. After all, Mike was gay and Carol went out on a date with her son Greg. You never know what goes on in some households.

  “How well do you know Madlyn Beckwirth?” I began with the standard opener. Again, there was no guilty flinch, no tic in Barlow’s lip, no raising of the eyebrows. He was a better actor than Mike Brady, too.

  “Well, as I have indicated, she is Rachel’s closest friend. I see her quite often when she and Rachel are planning the campaign, and socially when Madlyn and Gary come by for dinner.” Barlow picked up the small, and measured it in the hole, determined an imperfect fit, and removed the bush. An imperfect planting simply would not do. He began digging again, hard, working up a sweat.

  “So then you don’t know of any reason why she’d decide to run away from her husband and son?”

  Barlow stood up and smiled a wry smile. “You realize, of course, that ‘reason why’ is redundant. The word ‘reason’ implies that you are asking ‘why.’” He placed the bush in the hole again, and this time it fit exactly.

  “Fine. Then tell me the reason that you decided not to answer my last question.”

  He started to fill the hole with top soil, and frowned at being scolded. You’d think Rachel Barlow’s husband would be used to getting scolded. “In answer to your query, no, I know of no reason Madlyn would want to be away from her family.”

  “No trouble in her marriage, then?”

  “Martin!”

  Rachel Barlow, a grocery bag in hand, stood in the archway, gate open, looking impatient. She was wearing a very neat L.L. Bean denim shirt and Banana Republic khakis, and looked like as if she were about to cover supermarket shopping for Yuppie Life magazine.

  Her husband straightened up at the sound of her voice, and seeing her holding the bag, literally ran to her side and relieved her of her terrible burden, which appeared to be an entire loaf of white bread.

  “There are more packages in the car,” she said. He nodded, ever the humble manservant, and went off to unload the victuals from the late model Volvo station wagon, parked next to the even later model Ford Explorer minivan in their side-by-side driveway.

  Rachel, relieved of the tedious task she had been facing, noticed me. She walked over, trying to find her political candidate smile and coming up, instead, with something that looked like Joan Collins in Dynasty.

  “Something I can help you with, Mr. Tucker?”

  I tsk-tsk’ed her. “Ending a sentence on a preposition, Mrs. Barlow.” I shook my head. “I can’t imagine your husband would approve.”

  “Martin’s grammar is an excellent example for his students, Mr. Tucker. I wish more people would pay as much attention to syntax.”

  I considered punning on the idea of “sin tax,” but gave it up as too obvious. “In answer to your question, Rachel, I’m actually here to talk to Mr. Barlow.”

  “Doctor Barlow. He has a Ph.D. in English Literature.”

  I glanced over at Doctor Barlow, who was now attempting to navigate a two-liter bottle of Diet Dr. Pepper into his home without taking a five-minute time-out to catch his breath.

  “I hoped he might be able to shed some light on Madlyn Beckwirth’s disappearance. Does he know her well?”

  Rachel’s veneer of pleasantness—thin though it was—disappeared entirely. She positively scowled, and put an impatient hand to her hip. “I’m sure Martin has already told you that he and Madlyn know each other chiefly through me, and that I would be the best person to talk to about her state of mind. I told you, Mr. Tucker, I’m afraid the poor woman is lying dead somewhere, and you’re doing nothing. . .”

  Martin, having restocked the kitchen (and for all I know, repainted it as well), reappeared at his wife’s side. There was no outward sign of affection between the two of them, but they made heavy eye contact, and the bond was unmistakable. Also obvious, at least to me, was that he was scared to death of her. He picked up the spade and stood at her side. She put an arm on his shoulder. “Suburban Gothic.”

  More out of annoyance than strategy, I looked Rachel Barlow in the eye and said, “then I suppose there is no truth to the rumor that Martin and Madlyn are having an extramarital affair.”

  Their reaction was the last thing I expected. Each got the identical smug smile, just a little tinge of amusement, around the lips. Martin Barlow looked me straight in the face. “I can assure you, Mr. Tucker, that is not happening.” He seemed to find the notion of sex with Madlyn hilarious. I’d seen pictures of her, and while it wouldn’t exactly rate as highly as a romp with Salma Hayek, it wasn’t hilarious either. “It is, indeed, absolutely impossible,” he added.

  For a woman who believed one of her closest friends was a murder victim, Rachel Barlow was having an equally hard time masking her repressed humor. It was the first sincere smile I’d ever seen on her face.

  “I can’t imagine Martin having an affair with Madlyn,” Rachel said. “I can’t imagine Martin having an affair with anybody. But especially Madlyn!”

  I left the two of them like that, grinning like a couple of Jack-O-Lanterns. Whatever it was that was tickling them, I didn’t want to be around when they decided to act on it.

  Something was bothering me, though—that smile on Martin Barlow’s face. It looked the same as his wife’s, of course, but on closer examination, his eyes were maybe a fraction wider, his lips just a hair tighter.

  Either he was a man with something to hide, or I was a paranoid conspiracy theorist who would make Oliver Stone’s eyes roll in disbelief. But there was something going on with one of us, and I didn’t think it was me.

  I was feeling more stymied than ever on the Beckwirth story, but at least I knew who I’d be voting for in the mayoral primary.

  Sorry. That should be “I knew for whom I’d be voting.”

  Chapter 24

  Clearly, what I needed was a break. I mean, paranoid fantasies about Martin Barlow’s smile were the limit for a man whose most serious deductive reasoning usually involved sorting white athletic socks out of the laundry for a family of four, all of whom at some time in the day wore white athletic socks.

  The best kind of mental vacation, of course, would have been an afternoon in a secluded spot alone with someone as attractive as, say, Abigail Stein. But since that wasn’t going to happen, at least not today, and since I still had another mystery to solve, I left the Barlow house and went to Big Bob’s Bar-B-Q Pit.

  It was a small store front on Edison Avenue, catercorner to the Buzbee School, and a favorite afterschool hang-out for the kids, especially since two arcade video games had been installed a few months ago.

  Big Bob’s was a small place for a fast-food restaurant. It consisted mainly of a counter, with four stools in front of it and a blackboard suspended from the ceiling behind it. The blackboard held the menu, which didn’t seem to have been changed since Big Bob had moved in. Ribs, burgers, hot dogs, and chicken “fingers” were the staples. A side dish was generally french fries, and your beverage was of the carbonated variety. Big Bob could have named the place “Seventh Level of Cholesterol Hell,” and it would have been just as accurate.

  I decided that my investigative reporter mode had not been doing wonders for me in this matter, so I gave in to all my detective impulses. I walked into Big Bob’s with enough attitude for ten men, or at least one man a few inches taller than me. I considered turning the collar of my denim jacket up, but decided that would have been too much. And
there just wasn’t enough time to take up smoking.

  No one was in the place except Big Bob himself, a man of about 40 with a crew cut, and a tattoo on either forearm—one of an eagle, the other reading “Big Bob.” That second tattoo was pointed up, at Bob’s eyes, in case he ever forgot his own name.

  I sat on the stool nearest the cash register and stared up at the blackboard like there might actually be a surprise on the menu. Big Bob walked over and stood in front of me for a few seconds before curiosity got the better of him.

  “Can I help you?”

  “Burger, fries, Diet Coke,” I said, wincing inwardly at the “Diet.” It’s hard to be macho when you’re avoiding unnecessary carbohydrates. After finishing this story tomorrow, I’d have to get serious about my diet—tomorrow. “And make the burger well-done.”

  Bob nodded and turned to prepare the food on the grill that was maybe three feet behind him, visible to all who sat on the stools. He put the beef patty on the grill and got to work on the deep fryer, and barely turned when I spoke to him.

  “This look familiar?” I asked, pulling the barbecue sauce squeeze container out of my jacket’s inside pocket. I held it up for him to see.

  Bob finished his potato preparations and turned to look. “Yeah, it’s one of my squeeze bottles. So?”

  “So, you missing one of these lately?” I asked in my best Bogart, which wasn’t too good, even with the recent practice. “Had a little shrinkage on the condiment containers in the last few days?”

  Big Bob turned the burger over, despite my request for well-done, and chuckled. “You’re kidding, right? You think I know every time one of the little punks steals a ketchup bottle? I’d be out of business in a week if I worried about little stuff like that!”

  Okay, so I felt foolish, but when had that ever stopped me? “Well, take a look at this one. Maybe it’s different. Maybe it’s special.”

  “How?” asked Bob, taking the spuds out of the deep fryer and shaking off the oil—well, some of it, anyway. “Has it got a naked picture of Buffy the Vampire Slayer on it?” He laughed at his own Shavian wit.

  “Just take a look, will you?”

  Big Bob gave me a very skeptical look, took the burger off the grill, and brought me my lunch. The burger was still bleeding onto the roll. I handed Bob the bottle.

  “So?” I asked.

  “You’re right!” he marveled. “It is different! It’s. . . it’s. . . it’s barbecue sauce!”

  Bob laughed so hard, he practically suffered the heart attack his food had been promising everyone else. He doubled over behind the counter and guffawed himself into a quivering mass.

  “All right, all right,” I mumbled. “You don’t have to rub it in.”

  When he could finally straighten up again, he leaned on the counter in front of me. “What do you think I do, specially mark each one in case it gets robbed?” he said, still grinning.

  I took out the slip of paper with Anne Mignano’s handwriting on it. “Well, how about this, then?” I said. “You recognize any of these kids? They might come in here after school.”

  Bob didn’t even bother to look at the paper. “What, you think I know their names?” he said, starting to chuckle again. “You think I’m, like, the local malt shop owner, and when Archie and Jughead and Veronica come in, I call out their names, and they say, ‘hi, Pops!’? Is that what you think?” He started laughing again, and I tried a french fry. It was still cold on the inside.

  Bob composed himself again while I contemplated sending my lunch back to the chef with a negative review. “Geez, Mister, you made my day, I gotta tell you,” he said. “Think I’d recognize a squeeze bottle.” Chuckle. I was thrilled to bring a little levity into what must obviously be a drab and dreary life. “What do you want to know for, anyway? You a cop or something?”

  “No,” I told him. “I’m not a cop. Or anything.”

  I picked up the burger and took a bite. It was barely cooked, and juice dripped down my chin.

  “How’s the burger?” Bob asked.

  “Perfect,” I said. “Now, where’s the Diet Coke?”

  Chapter 25

  After eating maybe a third of Big Bob’s elegant repast, I retreated to my office and spent the afternoon wrestling with a love scene, which is the hardest thing to write for a movie. There have been so many such scenes that it’s nearly impossible not to repeat something that’s been done before, and virtually every line of dialogue you can think of sounds like a cliché. But this is the kind of work I desperately want to do, and so I toiled away at it for a couple of hours, writing all of a page and a half, which I’d probably delete tomorrow. Nobody ever accused writers of being rational.

  Maybe I wasn’t up to snuff because it was a tad early. Under normal circumstances, I can’t write a word of screenplay before three in the afternoon. I don’t know why. I can know exactly what I’m trying to accomplish as early as ten in the morning, but I can’t bear to bring myself to the keyboard and create something new before that clock hits three. Then, of course, I am wildly inspired, clear in my vision, unbridled in my enthusiasm. And that’s when my kids get home from school. So I periodically try to force myself to write earlier in the day, but it’s never much of a success.

  Today, however, I didn’t think that was the problem. The Beckwirth story was invading my mind, and it was hard to concentrate on the fiction I was trying to create. There was something vaguely spooky about the look on Martin and Rachel Barlow’s faces, that eerie laugh when I’d suggested that what Diane Woolworth had heard was true. There was more to it than simple amusement. They were enjoying Madlyn’s predicament. And that didn’t jive, at least for one of them.

  I gave up on the love scene because my characters just wouldn’t cooperate. Ungrateful little bastards. You give them life, you name them, you point them toward each other and make their lives interesting, and they repay you by going off on their own and screwing up your plans to exploit them. At least you don’t have to pay their college tuition bills.

  Why hadn’t Westbrook called yet? If he’d found something, would he deliberately hold back? If he hadn’t found something, would he deliberately take the rest of the day off to visit Pizza Hut?

  I checked the Bullwinkle clock. Almost two-thirty. The kids would be home soon. But it was possible Barry Dutton would be back in his office by now. Should I call?

  Call and say what? That a crazy lady who thinks she’s British heard that maybe Martin Barlow was having an affair with a woman whose husband was about fifteen times better looking and fifty times richer than him? That someone saw a minivan driving away from Madlyn Beckwirth’s house during the night she left, but not necessarily at the time she left? That Martin Barlow had a guilty smile on his face? That I had to write something for the newspaper by tomorrow? And that the question I really wanted to answer was: who’s been writing nasty things about my kid on the sidewalk with a zesty beef topping?

  I’d had enough of this Beckwirth thing. It was taking up too much time, leading to too many dead ends, and causing me to come into contact with people I’d prefer to avoid at all costs. I’d received a threatening phone call and been followed by a threatening minivan. All this to make a measly thousand dollars.

  Okay, so I could use the thousand dollars. But it wasn’t like the sheriff was at the door evicting us. Abby makes a nice living, and even if I don’t, I did have other work. And I was sure Spielberg would be calling directory assistance for my number any minute now.

  Did I really need this story? Couldn’t my time be better spent finding out who hated my son, so I could beat that child to a bloody pulp and feel better?

  That did it. I picked up the phone and called Dave Harrington. He sounded relieved when he heard it was me. “You got the missing woman story, Aaron? Tell me you’re a day early.”

  Swell. He was going to make this easy. “Well, to tell you the truth, Dave, I was just calling to say, well, that is. . .”

  “Aaron, this doesn’t sound good
. . .”

  There was a beep in my ear, my call waiting device indicating another call on the line. We home office workers are so high-tech!

  “Can you hang on a second, Dave? I’ve got another call.” I hit the “flash” button on my phone, and immediately found myself voice-to-voice with my agent, Margot Stakowski, of the Stakowski Agency of Cleveland, Ohio.

  “Aaron!” That’s Margot’s way of saying “hello.” And she always sounds surprised, as if she were calling Francis Ford Coppola and got me by accident.

  I rolled my eyes, and managed to stifle a sigh at the sound of her voice. “How you doing, Margot?”

  “This business sucks,” she said. “I’m just checking in to see what’s going on.”

  This took a moment to sink in, just like it always does. “You’re calling me to find out what’s going on? Isn’t it supposed to work the other way around? Aren’t you supposed to know what’s going on, and then let me know?”

  “Don’t get testy. I had to drive my mother to her rehab today, and I’m buried under a pile of scripts.” Margot’s chief function as an agent is to read other people’s scripts. She read mine once, and since she was the only agent to offer me representation, I was thrilled to sign on. But nothing had happened since then. And now she called every week to find out if I’d managed to make myself a deal she could siphon ten percent from.

  “Is anything up, Margot? I’ve got an editor on the other line.”

  “Oh! No, go ahead. Let me know if you get a book.” Margot always thought the mere mention of the word “editor” meant “book.” In fact, “publisher” means “book.” “Editor,” at least in my world, means “cheap newspaper or magazine work.”

  “Okay. Talk to you next week.”

  I clicked the flash button again, and got Dave in mid-cupcake. “I’m not taking up too much of your time, am I, Aaron?”