“Well, thank you for letting us come on such a hard day for you,” I said, and stood up. Abby looked a little surprised, but patted Ethan on the leg to let him know it was time to go. He stood and walked to the door without taking his eyes off the Gameboy, a skill at which I have often marveled.
“It’s all right,” said Mrs. Rossi. “I appreciate being around the young people. And I appreciate what you’re trying to do. If I can help in any way, please let me know.”
I stood and walked to the door, and Abby picked Leah up off her lap and informed her we were leaving. Leah stared at the TV, and moaned, “but we were just getting to the good part.”
Chapter 20
Mrs. Rossi gave me Marie Aiello’s address in Westfield, but when we stopped by the house, nobody was home. I left a business card wedged in the door, the one with “Aaron Tucker, Freelance Writer/ Screenwriter” and my phone numbers, fax machine number, email address, home address and, if I remember correctly, hat size. On the only open space, the back, I wrote, “Please call re: Madlyn Rossi.”
Then we took the kids to see some god-awful movie. If some non-Asperger’s 11-year-olds saw a poster for this dog, they’d have stayed three blocks away—it was that uncool. But Ethan and Leah, the whole way home, re-enacted the film’s supposedly hilarious highlights.
I had just been paid for a Parenting Magazine piece the day before, and was feeling flush, so, on the spur of the moment, headed to dinner at the Italian restaurant where we knew Ethan would be able to find pasta prepared to his exacting standards. By the time we got home, it was late, and Leah had fallen asleep in the car. Ethan attached the light to his Gameboy and remained relatively quiet, occasionally humming what he considered to be mood music appropriate to the game he was playing.
We hadn’t planned on being out this late, and hadn’t turned on the front porch light before leaving, so the house was unusually dark when I carried Leah up the brick steps to the front door. I had my keys in my right hand, and was about to lean over the lock, when something stopped me.
“What’s the matter?” said Abby, but I put a finger to my lips the best I could and shushed her. I motioned to her to take Leah from me and back to the car, which isn’t so easy to do when you’re trying not to wake a sleeping seven-year-old.
I put a finger to my ear, and then pointed toward the door. “I hear something inside.”
Abby immediately turned and walked back down the steps, carrying Leah. She made it to the car, huffing and puffing, and put down Leah, who was finished pretending to be asleep because this was just too darned interesting. I followed her to the car. Ethan was still in the back seat, playing Gameboy. We’d left him there until we were inside because, well, it’s just easier that way.
“What did you hear?” Abigail asked.
“I don’t know. It sounded like somebody knocking around in the living room. But the lights were out. I’ll go in and take a look around.”
Abby gave me a look which froze me in my tracks, and opened the passenger side door of the car. The dome light came on, which made Ethan smile, and Abby reached in for the cell phone. She handed it to me.
“Nine-one-one,” she said.
I called police headquarters at the regular number, and got a dispatcher I didn’t know. I asked for Barry, but he was not in the station, and the dispatcher asked what my problem was. I didn’t have time to provide a long explanation, so I told him I thought there was some intruder inside my house.
“Are you inside the house now?” he asked.
“No, I’m outside in my driveway. We just got home, and I heard something inside the house.”
He asked for my address, and when I gave it to him, there was a long pause. “Aaron Tucker?” he asked. I acknowledged that I was, indeed, myself. “It may be a while before we can send someone, Mr. Tucker,” he said with a sneer in his voice. “You know, Saturday nights are awful busy, and. . .”
Abby, who had been listening at my shoulder, grabbed the phone out of my hand. “This is Abigail Stein, attorney at law,” she snarled into the phone. “If you don’t get a patrol car to my house in five minutes, I’ll see to it that the department is investigated by the state Attorney General’s office and you personally will be under indictment by the end of the week.” More than just a pretty pair of legs, my wife.
The cops showed up in three minutes—two cars, each with a uniformed officer. The lights were flashing and one had the siren on as he pulled up.
“Good,” I said to Crawford as he got out of the car. “I think you snuck up on him.”
“Just keep the children out of the way,” he said without looking at me, and got out his flashlight. He motioned to the other cop, whose name, according to his badge, was Morgan. Morgan went around the back of the house to make sure nobody got out that way.
“Any sign of forced entry?” Crawford said to Abigail, who shook her head. He turned in my direction. “Any enemies you might want to mention?”
“None you don’t know about.”
“Is the door locked?” I nodded, and held out the key. Crawford took it, and motioned us back toward the car.
Crawford approached the front door very slowly, tried to see into the living room through the front window, but couldn’t get a good look. It was too dark inside, and the streetlight, instead of illuminating the interior, was reflecting off the window glass and made it more, not less, difficult to see.
“Daddy,” Leah said, “is there a robber inside our house?”
“We’ll see, Honey,” I said. “If there is, the police officers will get him.”
Abby told Leah to get in the car with Ethan, but she didn’t want to. The only way Abigail could get our daughter to sit inside the car was to get in the front seat herself and close the door. The dome light went off, which made Ethan scowl.
Crawford picked up his walkie-talkie and said something into it, then listened. He nodded, although Morgan certainly couldn’t see him from the back of the house. Crawford took the key I had given him and slowly turned it in the lock. When the door was unlocked, he took his gun out of the holster on his hip, and Leah’s eyes grew wide. Crawford checked the gun, put his hand on the doorknob, and his lips started to count: one, two. . .
Abby, her car window open, reached out and grabbed my hand.
Crawford abruptly slammed open the front door, holding the flashlight in one hand and the gun in the other. “Police!” he shouted, and started moving the light around the room. His head turned abruptly, and Morgan came in from the back, also with his flashlight on. They both scanned the living room with their lights, and suddenly, Crawford shouted, and held open the screen door as wide as it could go.
Just then a little brown bat flew out through my open front door. He headed directly for the trees across the street, then toward the park, and was out of sight in a matter of seconds.
The cops turned on the living room light and looked around. Morgan even went upstairs and turned on the lights in all the bedrooms.
“Did we make the bed this morning?” Abby asked me quietly. I shrugged.
Crawford walked out the front door, smiling. Morgan, behind him, merely waved, got into his car, and drove off. Crawford couldn’t resist the temptation. He walked over to me.
“Got rid of your intruder, Mr. Tucker,” he said.
“Thanks,” I said sincerely. “Glad nobody was hurt.”
“Better get a cap for your chimney. And next time, before you call the cops, try the old tennis racket bit,” he said. “I hear that works real well with flying rodents.”
He got into his car and drove off.
“Bats aren’t rodents,” Ethan said in the back seat. “They’re chiroptera mammals.” Abby just stared at him, then turned her head to me.
“I guess we were worried for nothing,” she said.
“No, we weren’t,” I told her. “We just weren’t right this time. And I’m tired of it.”
“Next time we’ll know better,” she said as she opened the car doo
r for Leah.
“There’s not going to be a next time,” I said. “I’m putting an end to this show right now.”
Chapter 21
This time, I wasn’t going to devise a plan, much less put it in motion, without first discussing it with Abby. And I did. She said she wasn’t crazy about the particulars, but overall didn’t see any other way to end this whole mess. So she finally consented. Secretly, I’d been hoping she’d suggest some improvements.
I couldn’t start anything on Sunday, but I could prepare. Abby took the kids to a children’s museum we like in Staten Island so I could do some research.
The freelance writer’s best friend used to be the public library. Now it’s the Internet. You point your browser toward any keyword you happen to like, and the next thing you know, all sorts of information about your friends and neighbors pours into your living room.
In this particular case, I used a search program called Copernic, which consolidates a number of search engines, to get me some background on “Respa, Worthington and Mattingly,” the Wall Street firm that Gary Beckwirth worked for before hitting it big in the Internet stock lottery. A number of the search engines that Copernic uses found sites that mentioned the firm, and eventually I was able to come up with the information I wanted, which was a personnel list for the years Beckwirth worked there.
I printed out that screen, then went to Beckwirth’s current company’s web site, and compared the personnel roster against the paper. There were three matches. One was Beckwirth. The other two were Miriam Lybond, a bond trader, and William Ryan, who worked in the accounting department.
I was willing to bet that Miriam knew Beckwirth better personally, and that Ryan knew more about his finances. As it turned out, Beckwirth’s finances were not the most interesting part of this story, so I looked up Miriam Lybond on the Internet White Pages, and found her in North Brunswick, New Jersey. I called the number, and found Miriam at home.
When I told her I was a reporter working on the Madlyn Beckwirth story, she almost hung up. “I don’t believe for one minute that Gary had anything to do with her death,” Miriam said boldly.
“Neither do I,” I told her. “I’m working on the story to see if I can prove he didn’t do it.”
There was silence on the other end of the line. Miriam clearly hadn’t expected to hear that. She began to reconsider. I could practically hear the wheels turning in her mind.
“What do you want to know?” Bingo.
“I’m working on background,” I said. “Nothing really pertaining to the crime itself. You knew Gary when he was working at Respa, Worthington, right?”
“Yeah. He was setting up the web trading, and I was selling municipal bonds.”
“Was he married to Madlyn then?” I asked.
“That’s right. It was when they were married the first time.”
“Sure. The. . . first time. Do you know what happened after they broke up?”
“Well, Gary was devastated. I mean, you never saw a man pine for his wife like that. He couldn’t believe she’d leave him for another guy.”
The surprises were coming too fast for me.
“Did he manage to get over it?”
“Well, you know that he got married again, don’t you?”
The way she said it, Miriam made it clear she didn’t mean that Gary had married Madlyn again, or at least, that wasn’t what she was referring to. When in doubt, tell the truth. It’s too hard to remember the bullshit.
“No, I didn’t know,” I said. “This is exactly the kind of background I need. Who was the new wife?”
“Well, she was this blonde who started as a secretary, like me, and eventually ended up running the whole futures division. One of those. A real cheerleader type. All the guys were after her. Except Gary. Maybe that’s what made her set her sights on him. And once she decided she wanted him, there wasn’t any doubt. God, I wish I could remember her name. . .”
“Rachel,” I said. “I think her name was Rachel.”
An awed pause. “That’s right!” shouted Miriam. “How did you know that?”
“I’m not really sure,” I said.
“Rachel Aston,” she said. “Now I remember. I guess they didn’t stay married that long, because he went back with Madlyn again. Whatever happened to Rachel? Do you know?”
“I’m not really sure.” It was the only thing I knew how to say now.
“I’ll bet she’s the CEO of some big corporation,” said Miriam. “That woman was the most ambitious person I ever met.”
I hung up feeling absolutely dizzy, and felt the immediate need to recap our game of “Marital Musical Chairs.” Gary Beckwirth marries Madlyn Rossi because he gets her pregnant. For some reason, they decide to abort the pregnancy, and in a matter of weeks, Madlyn leaves Gary for an as-yet-unnamed guy.
Rachel Aston, who, the smart money would wager, now goes by the name of Rachel Barlow, nabs Gary, after an extended bout of the bummers. But Gary and Rachel don’t stay married, because by the time everybody decides to move to Midland Heights, Gary’s back with Madlyn and Rachel has married a proper-sounding English professor whose connection to this wacky story was, so far, somewhat hazy.
After downing a salad, I really didn’t want lunch, so I went to Richardson Park, just a few blocks from my house, for a rally in honor of our beloved Mayor, Sam Olszowy. Actually, I went to the preparations for the rally, which was going to start at four. It was one o’clock, and Olszowy was already there, watching his minions build a tent for the speeches and inevitable coffee. Nobody ever furnished hot chocolate at these events.
I don’t know why I wanted to talk to Sam. I guess I figured it was only fair. Part of the “Equal Time” law maybe. If you cover a murder affecting one side of the political fence, you have to get the reaction from the other side, or something like that.
Olszowy didn’t have a reaction to Madlyn Beckwirth’s murder. In fact, he didn’t know who Madlyn Beckwirth was. He had been mayor of Midland Heights for so long, and a non-rising non-star in the local Democratic party for so many years, he was just running on auto-pilot. There’s a murder. There’s not a murder. It’s all the same to him.
Sam Olszowy, maybe sixty-two years old, was dressed in a suit and tie, and had very little of his original hair left. What hair there was he had clearly bought from some mail order outfit. The color didn’t match his sideburns, and it looked like he was walking around with a bird’s nest on his head. It was a wonder he could get from one room to another without dislodging the silly thing, but he seemed oblivious to appearances.
“I don’t have much time, young man,” he said, although he had three hours before anyone would ask him to smile and shake hands, and they were the most strenuous things he’d do that day. “What’s on your mind?”
There are times you go into an interview with prepared questions and an agenda, and other times you simply ask the first thing that’s on your mind. These free-association type interviews are generally more interesting, because you’re flying without a net, and you can crash and burn much more easily. And that’s what I was in danger of doing with Sam Olszowy. I didn’t expect anything from this interview, so I winged it, throwing out the first name I thought he’d recognize.
“Milt Ladowski,” I said.
“That son of a bitch,” were Olszowy’s first words. “I don’t know how many times he’s tried to get me thrown out of office. Technicality this, Sunshine Law that. Lawyers. Can’t trust a one of ’em.”
“I’m married to a lawyer.”
“Lock up your wallet at night,” he said. “You’re not safe in your own bed.”
“So why have you kept Ladowski on for all these years?” I asked, ignoring the slight to my wife.
“The mayor in this town has less power than the deputy in the animal control department,” he said. “I’ve tried to get rid of Ladowski five times. And if I’m re-elected, I’ll try again. But he’s assured of a position if that bitch is elected. She’s already pro
mised him he can stay on, and she’ll even raise his salary so he can buy another goddam kraut car.”
I left before he had time to offer me coffee. I wasn’t sure what I’d found out, but I did know one thing: neither candidate was getting my vote for mayor in less than two weeks.
Chapter 22
Milton J. Ladowski, Esquire, has a very nice private office on the thirty-second floor of an office building in Edison, New Jersey, right near the Metropark train station. Ladowski’s office features real maple doors, thick pile carpeting, a wet bar, seven telephone lines, computers networking together Ladowski’s sixteen associates, a stereo system (which usually plays Mozart and Brahms while Ladowski is working), and a view of the surrounding area, which includes parks, highways, shopping malls, and condominium complexes.
I’ve never actually been inside Ladowski’s private office, only his borough office. That description comes from a piece that New Jersey Monthly magazine ran on Ladowski in 1998. The feature was written by a freelancer I know casually, who would believe you if you told her that King Kong used to date your cousin. So take the information for what it’s worth.
I have, however, been outside Ladowski’s building, and I was there at about 10:30 the following Monday morning, in the blue 1991 Plymouth minivan that Abigail forced me to buy. Her reasoning was that when Leah or Ethan wanted to go somewhere with their friends, I could drive more of the kids together at once. My reasoning was that this was, at best, a dubious advantage. Her reasoning prevailed, I signed the purchase agreement against my will, and we have a minivan. What the hell? If we didn’t have one, we’d probably be voted out of Midland Heights, though we’re in serious danger of that, anyway, these days.
Detective novels go to great lengths to explain to their readers exactly how tedious and awful stakeouts are. They seem to think that the movies have made stakeouts seem glamorous and exciting, when in reality, movies and TV generally show two grungy men sitting in a nondescript car while, inevitably, it rains, and lots of time passes, as seen through lap dissolves.
For Whom the Minivan Rolls Page 20