Chapter 6

The kids had eaten by the time Abby came downstairs. We long ago gave up on the idea of a nice family dinner during the week, since for Ethan, eating is merely a quick snack to be gulped down as quickly as possible between cartoon shows, and Abigail gets home on the late side for the kids, so there’s no sense in delaying dinner. They’re dangerous when hungry. On weekends, or the days when Abby gets home early enough, or when the kids have late snacks, we eat together.

I was cutting up salad stuff when Abigail walked into the kitchen, having changed into a pink T-shirt and gray sweatpants. She frowned, because I was cutting lettuce with a knife. I frowned, because the sweatpants prevented me from seeing her legs.

“You know you’re supposed to tear lettuce.” She had passed both children on the way in, and they were so deep into the umpteenth rerun of Hey Arnold that neither could be bothered to turn around and talk to her. The thrill of her homecoming, like every night, had been brief. For them.

“I don’t see how it tastes any different torn, and this is faster.” She did one of her “you’re-such-a-guy” eye-rolls, and reached under the counter for a pot, which she filled with water and put on the stove. I guess she didn’t know what she was going to cook yet, either.

“So this guy wants you to, what, find his wife?” Abby squeezed in between me and the countertop to reach up for some of what we call “the adult noodles.” The flavored pastas we keep in an upper cabinet. I didn’t make much of an effort to get out of her way, and she smiled. She knew I liked being squeezed next to her.

“Yeah, it’s ridiculous. He thinks I’m Mannix or somebody.”

“God, you are old.” She went to work with some sun-dried tomatoes, olive oil, and garlic to make a pasta sauce that might once have been in a cookbook. Or not. All I know is, it involves the food processor, which means extra clean-up time for the kitchen crew, which is mostly me.

“Look on the bright side,” I said. “I could have made a passing but obscure reference to C. Auguste Dupin.”

“Edgar Allan Poe, right? The Purloined Letter? Murders in the Rue Morgue?” I started slicing two celery stalks. Abby wrinkled her nose a little. She won’t admit it, but she doesn’t much like celery. It’s one of the few vegetables I can claim an edge on.

“Very good. Keep that up, and I’ll make you stay after school.” I gave her my best Groucho eyebrow-wiggle, but she was too intent on cooking to swoon.

“So, why exactly does he think that you’re New Jersey’s answer to Elliot Ness?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea. But if it means I’ll keep running into you in the middle of the day, I don’t really mind.” The lid on the pot was leaking steam, so Abigail put in the linguine and lowered the flame.

“Don’t count on it. I’ll be in the office the rest of the week.” She turned back to face me, and I slipped my arms around her waist and kissed her.

“This is my favorite part of the day,” I told her. I spend half my time trying to come up with new ways to tell her I love her. And we’ve been married 14 years. Disgusting, isn’t it?

“Well then, anything that would have happened later tonight would have been a letdown, wouldn’t it?”

“What’s this ‘would have’ stuff?”

“Well, I don’t want to disappoint you. . .”

I was just about to kiss her again when the phone rang. Abigail was standing right next to the kitchen wall phone, but simply stood and looked at me. She refuses to answer the phone at home, insisting that it’s either a business call for me or someone she doesn’t want to talk to. Luckily, I wasn’t far from her, and I reached past her head to pick up the phone.

“Hello?”

The voice was muffled, as if a cloth had been placed over the mouthpiece, and the caller mumbled, just in case the cloth wasn’t doing its job properly. The caller was definitely male, but that’s all I could tell. In fact, I barely made out a sound before I heard the name “Madlyn Beckwirth.”

“What? What did you say?”

Whoever it was spoke up just a little, as if irritated by my inability to hear him the first time. “I said you should leave Madlyn Beckwirth alone. Find her, and you’ll kill her.”

“Who is this?” Bright question. Like the guy’s going to just give me his name, address, and social security number while perpetrating what I was relatively sure was a crime. And there are people who think I’m a detective. “Hello?”

Click.