Chapter 9

Gerry Westbrook knew roughly as much about Madlyn Beckwirth’s disappearance as I know about Organic Chemistry, and that’s a course I assiduously managed to avoid in high school.

Westbrook had faxed the State Police and the surrounding cops about Madlyn, checked the morgue and the hospitals, and then gone out to Denny’s and forgotten the whole thing.

After the necessary 30-second conversation with Westbrook to find this out, I walked out of the police/fire building and inhaled as much air as my little lungs could hold. We’d been experiencing typical March weather—one day of unseasonable warmth, followed the next day by a slap in the face of late-winter chill. This was one of the warm days, so I decided to walk to Gary Beckwirth’s house from the police station.

I had stuck the cell phone in my jacket pocket on the way out. Flush with a $6,000 paycheck sent me by the online service of a cable entertainment network, I had bought myself a wireless phone a couple of months before. Abby had had one for a few years already. Since I’d covered the wireless industry for years, I got a deal. I was still trying to figure out how to pay the monthly rate, but what the hell, I looked cool talking while I walked, like I was negotiating a three-picture deal with Paramount on the way to the Foodtown. On a whim, I whipped the phone out and tried Abigail’s office number. Surprisingly, she answered.

“Abigail Stein.”

“How dare you defile my wife’s name like that?”

“I know. I feel so cheap. How are you?”

“Fat,” I told her. “I just bribed the chief of police with fried dough.”

“You should go to the Y.”

“Can’t. I have to go talk to Beckwirth. I only have until next Thursday on this, and right now I’m nowhere.”

Abby was silent. She was probably in her problem-solving mode, frowning.

“I can hear you frown,” I said.

“You should be here. It’s quite fetching, really.”

“I had a dog once who was quite fetching.”

She groaned. I have that effect on women. “Was there a point to this call, or are you just trying out awful puns and figured I didn’t have anything else to do but listen?”

“I’m strolling up Edison Avenue in the warm March sunshine, and the blue sky made me think of you.” There was more silence on the line. “Now I can hear you smile.”

“It’s even better than hearing me frown.”

I smiled. “I know.”

I usually change topics in a conversation like a 1986 Dodge pickup in need of a ring job. Abby shifted conversational gears smoothly, like a BMW. “What did Barry have to say about the phone call?” she asked. She was already calling it “the phone call.” Eventually, it would become “The Phone Call,” and then I’d really be in trouble.

“He’s going to get our phone records from Verizon. He’ll trace it.”

“Good,” she said. “I shudder to think what would have happened if one of the kids had answered the phone.”

“I’d have died of a heart attack. They don’t answer the phone when they’re sitting right next to it. They inherited that gene from their mom.”

I was now passing the supermarket. Industrious Midland Heights residents were jockeying for parking spaces in the store’s woefully inadequate lot. Of course, because this is New Jersey, nobody was walking, not even the people who lived across the street from the supermarket. So naturally the parking lot was woefully inadequate. Because I was counter-culture, and walking outside to get to my destination, I might have patted myself on the back for my commitment to the environment, but then, to be a complete environmentalist, I probably would have had to jettison the cell phone I was holding next to my ear (hadn’t it been linked to cancer somehow?).

“Is it possible that it was Madlyn Beckwirth herself calling you?” Again, my wife’s amazing capacity to change the subject served her well.

“No, it was definitely a male voice on the phone. On the other hand, since I wouldn’t be able to pick Madlyn out of a line-up, it’s equally possible I wouldn’t know if she had a voice like James Earl Jones.” A woman in the Foodtown parking lot was wrestling with this weird gadget they have that makes you pay 25-cents for a cart, then pays you back when you leave. She shook the gadget both ways, then hit it with her purse. Clearly, it wouldn’t give her back her quarter. Finally, she kicked the cart, yelled something in the store’s direction, and stomped back to her minivan. Another quarter in the pockets of the Establishment. If she came back with a pair of channel locks and cut the gadget off, every citizen of the borough would have applauded.

I passed the supermarket and crossed the main drag of Midland Heights, Midland Avenue (original, huh?), against the light, trotting across the far lane. A guy in a Mercedes-Benz 4x4 honked and gave me the finger as he passed. Probably on his way to pick up his tuxedo for some mountain climbing.

“That call really worries me, Aaron,” said Abigail. “Somebody knows what you’re doing, and they know where you live.”

“That’s why I have you to protect me, Love.”

“Everything’s not a joke, Baby,” she said. “We have two small children living in our house.”

I considered pointing out that Ethan is not close to being a small child, and could in fact take me two out of three falls, but I saw her point. “I’ll be careful, Honey. And if this gets out of hand, I’ll tell Harrington he can have the assignment back.”

Beckwirth’s house was a block past the library, and I was approaching it now. “I’ll talk to you later, Abby. Don’t worry.”

“What, me worry?” My wife—a regular Alfred E. Neuman.

I said a few loving-husband things far too mushy to record for posterity, put the phone—which was already flashing the “battery low” signal—back in my pocket, and rang the bell on Beckwirth’s door. The huge house stood silent, and I half expected a thin, bald-headed butler with a British accent, to open the door. Ian Wolfe, maybe. John Gielgud, if it was going to be a big part, and he was still alive.

My luck, it was Beckwirth. At least he had shaved, and was dressed in clean clothes, but he still had that recovering-addict look in his eyes, and his skin looked like it was made out of vanilla Turkish Taffy that had melted on the sidewalk. There was an upside, though. This time he didn’t hug me. You have to accentuate the positive.

“Well, Gary, you got me. I’m not sure why you wanted to so badly, but you got me.”

“Come in,” he said quickly. I did, and he closed the door. His mood was not nearly as welcoming as it had been the last time. Again, I wasn’t complaining, because it seemed there would be no physical contact on this visit, but now that Beckwirth had gotten me involved in finding his wife, he didn’t seem to want to know me anymore. Familiarity, apparently, really does breed contempt. At least in my case.

“Sit down,” Beckwirth said, pointing at a loveseat in the adjoining room, which I guess was a study, or a library, or a sitting room, or some other kind of a room that people in the middle class generally don’t have. Maybe if I did find Madlyn, I’d tell Beckwirth my fee required the moving of one of his mansion’s extra rooms to my house. I could badly use a separate room for my office. That morning, I’d stepped on a Working Woman Barbie getting to my fax machine, and put a permanent dent in my right instep.

“What’s the matter, Gary? Having me isn’t as pleasing a thing as wanting me?” Star Trek. Sometimes you have to go with the classics.

“I want to go over your strategy. I want to know everything you’re going to do before you do it.” Beckwirth, I guess, was used to dealing with employees. Now that I was, indirectly, working for him, he thought I was an employee.

“I can’t do that.”

He stared. No doubt his minions had never said “no” to him before, and his body language said clearly, “You must have misunderstood. This was not a request.” Then, with real words, he put it to me this way, “Of course you can. Just tell me what you plan to do.”

“No. For one thing, I don’t know that you didn’t have something to do with Madlyn disappearing.”

Now, Beckwirth positively sputtered. It was a good performance, though I’m no drama critic. I’m no detective, either, so any observations I make have to be taken with a shaker of salt. “Why would I be so anxious to have you investigate if I were behind Madlyn’s kidnapping? That’s ridiculous.”

“You could be doing your best to divert suspicion,” I said calmly. “Or you could be doing your best to hamper the investigation by making sure the least competent person available is working on it.”

Beckwirth did his best to smile a friendly smile in a regular-guy sort of way. I’m sure most women would have ripped off their underwear and launched themselves at him after he gave them such a smile, with just enough teeth and a twinkle in his eye. Well, some women. Not Abigail, I’d like to think.

“Oh, you’re just being modest,” he said.

“No, I’m not. I haven’t the faintest idea if I’m doing the right thing. I could be hampering the investigation myself, because I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’m what you asked for, and I’m what you got. At a bargain price for an investigator, I hasten to add. And an inflated price for a freelancer.”

His eyes narrowed. “Is that it? Not enough money?”

I threw my hands up, exasperated. “No, that’s not it!” I, well, screamed. “I’m telling you that if you’re really trying to find your wife, you’re going about it in the wrong way! You’ve hired the wrong man! Is that clear enough?”

Apparently, it wasn’t. Beckwirth tried the ol’ regular-guy smile again. “Don’t worry. I have faith in you.”

There is nothing you can do with some people. Gary Beckwirth was one of them. So I proceeded. First, though, just to show him my level of irritation, I sighed.

“Ooooooooookay,” I said. “The first thing I have to do is talk to your son.”

The businesslike frown and impersonal tone came back to Beckwirth. He picked up a croissant from—I swear to God—a silver tray on the coffee table, and took a bite. Apparently, he could shift gears easily, too. I considered taking myself in for a tune-up. “Joel? That is your son’s name, isn’t it?” I said.

He ignored me. I was getting used to being ignored. “Joel is very upset by his mother’s disappearance. I don’t think he would be very helpful to an investigation.”

“All right, we’ll wait a little while on Joel.”

Beckwirth stood, to better intimidate me. It wasn’t working, largely due to the croissant crumbs on his shirt. “I don’t think you understand. I don’t want you to involve Joel at all. Besides, there’s no reason to talk to Joel. This is a case of kidnapping, and it’s tied to the campaign for mayor. Joel has nothing to do with it.”

“You think that people would resort to abduction over a $20,000-a-year part-time job?”

“You have no idea, Aaron. The corruption in this town is rampant. And the other side will stop at nothing to keep what they have.”

The other side? I wasn’t interested in playing this role. I wasn’t interested in being in this movie. I had no response to the torrent of clichés he had just tossed at me.

“When do I get to talk to your son, Gary?”

“I just don’t see the point to that,” he said, his face impassive.

I stood. Two could play this standing-up game. My intention, however, was not to intimidate Beckwirth. My intention was to leave.

“Mr. Beckwirth. . .”

“Gary.”

Oy gevalt. “Mr. Beckwirth,” I began. “I’m a reporter following a news story. I’m under contract to the Central New Jersey Press-Tribune to investigate, and write about, the disappearance of your wife. I’m under no obligation to you whatsoever. So we’re either going to proceed by my rules, or I will go home, call my editor, tell him I’m unable to find out anything, and your wife will remain missing. Until such time as the police find her, which in all probability they will. Now. Am I going to get to talk to your son, or am I going to turn down the assignment and get back to something I know how to do?”

“Joel isn’t here.”

In retrospect, I don’t know why I didn’t go for his throat at that moment. I certainly wanted to go for his throat. It would have made me feel better. It would have been the right thing to do. Probably visions of arraignments and prison terms danced in my head. I’ve not been married to an attorney all these years for nothing, after all. In any event, I didn’t give Beckwirth the throttling he deserved.

I didn’t even ask why he hadn’t mentioned his son’s absence throughout this conversation. I merely stared at him a moment, hoping my eyes would convey contempt and astonishment at his behavior, and pressed on.

“Fine,” I said a little too forcefully. “I’ll talk to him later.” I didn’t give Beckwirth time to interject. “Now, may I see your last three months’ worth of phone bills?”

Beckwirth put down the croissant and turned away to look out the window. I half expected him to walk to a wet bar and pour himself a brandy from a crystal decanter, like they do on all the soap operas when the director can’t think of any other way to communicate tension.

“I don’t see what benefit that would have,” he said.

I turned and left.

Oy gevalt.