For Whom the Minivan Rolls (27 page)

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 promised 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.

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.

This was my first stakeout, and so far, it had been
brief and quite pleasant. I had gotten there about fifteen minutes
before I knew Ladowski would be leaving the building. I had called
his office that morning and asked if he’d been in all day. No, his
secretary said, he’d be leaving around 10:30. Thanks, I said, and
that pretty much did it for sitting around for long periods of time
fogging the window with my breath and hot chocolate steam. In the
movies, it’s coffee steam.

Also, it was sunny and about sixty-five degrees,
this early but pleasant April day. I had my tape player on, and
Ella Fitzgerald was singing “Someone To Watch Over Me” when
Ladowski walked out of the building, into the parking lot, and to
the door of a silver Infiniti. Don’t ask me the model. All
obscenely expensive cars look alike to me.

I started up my pain-in-the-butt-minivan, checking
my disguise in the vanity mirror, which is on one side of my sun
visor. I had pulled down, over my eyes, a New York Yankees baseball
cap—a real one, not the kind with the adjustable band in the back.
I was also wearing dark sunglasses with a little image of Mickey
Mouse in the lower part of the left lens—a pair I bought for an
emergency during a trip to Orlando two years ago. A denim
work-shirt filled out the image. That’s all that mattered because,
if Ladowski saw me at all in the minivan, he’d see me only from the
steering wheel up.

You follow most people so you can observe them
without their observing you. But I had just the opposite in mind. I
very much wanted him to see someone following him, though not
clearly enough that he’d recognize me, because let’s face it, I
don’t cut what they’d call a threatening figure. So a little
finesse, but not too much, was called for here.

Milt drove out of the parking lot and toward Route
27, which takes you either north toward the Garden State Parkway
and Newark or New York, or south toward New Brunswick. I muscled
the minivan, which has steering like a Sherman tank, out of the lot
behind Ladowski, and stayed two cars back of his fancy-shmancy
Infiniti heading toward 27.

Once at the two-lane highway, he made a left, which
would indicate he was headed south. Good. A trip into the city
today might have taken me too far out of the way to be back home
when the kids trooped in after school. Different gumshoes have
different concerns.

Milt was driving calmly. He didn’t notice me yet.
Probably wanted folks to believe he was listening to Mozart and
Brahms on the onboard CD changer. More likely he had a Metallica
album on. (I never believe it when people say they only listen to
classical music or watch only public television.)

I decided to push it a little and get his attention.
So I pulled the van out from behind an original Volkswagen Beetle I
was tailgating and passed it and a Chevy to get directly behind
Ladowski. The Chevy driver wasn’t pleased when I nosed my way in
between him and Milt, but I wasn’t getting paid to make friends
with the Chevy guy. Come to think of it, I wasn’t getting paid at
all.

Milt still didn’t seem to notice, so I got closer,
and started to tailgate him. This got his attention, and he speeded
up a little bit. So did I. He went a little faster. Me, too. Soon,
we were doing 65 in a 45-mile-an-hour zone. He must have begun
wondering what the hell was going on.

He changed lanes. Whaddaya know? So did the minivan
behind him. Then he headed for the fork in the road where Route 27
runs into Midland Heights, and coincidence of coincidences, so did
the minivan.

Ladowski, I hoped, was now sweating behind those
very expensive sunglasses of his. He was, in fact, driving like a
man who was sweating, all right. He wove back and forth in the
right lane, wondering if he should call the cops on his cell phone
or if he was just being paranoid. Why would this old, beat-up
hunk-of-junk minivan behind him be tailing a classy piece of
machinery like his?

I’m assuming he let out a sigh of relief when I
passed him on Edison Avenue. But because I knew where he was going
by this point, I had made a quick change in my plans.

I wrestled the minivan into the Borough Hall parking
lot, and backed into a space. Now I wanted him to know exactly what
he’d seen in his rear view mirror. I pushed the button to open my
back hatch, and got out through the back just as Ladowski was
pulling into the lot. He didn’t notice the minivan right away, but
did a double-take when he saw it. But it was too late. He was
already out of his car.

Ladowski stared at the minivan, frozen. He couldn’t
know if the evil tormentor who had tailed him here was still in the
vehicle, or if he was walking into an ambush. The thought processes
were practically spelled out on his face like that ribbon news line
that used to run on Times Square.

I settled it for him by circling around behind his
car, crouching until I was right behind him, and grabbing him from
the back. He let out a sound similar to that of a gosling pushed in
front of a tractor. (I’m only guessing here.)

Since I’m considerably smaller and lighter than
Ladowski, I knew I couldn’t hold him long. So I snarled into the
back of his neck, “this is what it feels like to be followed around
by a blue minivan, Milt. How do you like it?”

When I let him go a little, he spun around. When he
recognized me, he began to sputter.

“Aaron, are you out of your mind? What’s the idea
of. . .”

“Of having someone followed by a minivan, Milt? I
could ask
you
that same question, couldn’t I?” My facial
expression was the one I use on Ethan when he’s decided he’s not
joining a Saturday night dinner with the family because they’re
showing “a very special episode of
All That.
”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Ladowski
said, in the least convincing voice since Regis told Kathie Lee
he’d miss her.

“Yes, you do. The only one who would have wanted me
followed was Gary Beckwirth. He was the only one obsessive enough
about what I was doing to care. And Beckwirth wouldn’t have known
how to go about finding people to trail someone. If he had, he’d
have cracked open the Yellow Pages to find himself a private
detective. No, he’d go to his friend and legal advisor, and you’d
go through your files of clients whom you’d kept out of jail. And
since they weren’t technically breaking any laws except the speed
limit, they’d be happy to do it. For a small fee. How’m I doing so
far, Milt?”

He said what everybody says when you catch them
red-handed. “You have no proof.”

“I don’t need any proof. I’m not having you
arrested. I’m not even going to get you disbarred. But I’m going to
get to the bottom of Madlyn Beckwirth’s murder, Milt. I’m this
close as it is”—and here I held up my fingers, millimeters apart.
“I know about Gary and Madlyn’s annulment, and I know Gary was
married to Rachel Barlow. I know that Gary took out a credit card
in your name—it’s easy, if you know the other person’s Social
Security number—and paid for Madlyn’s trip to Bally’s. That’s only
a taste of what I already know. This whole sick story is going to
come out, and when I put a couple more pieces together, your name
is going to figure prominently, I’m sure. Look for it to show up in
some very prominent publications. I doubt the coverage will be as
flattering as the profile in
NJ Monthly.
”

I dropped my hands off his biceps, turned, and
walked back to the minivan. Ladowski’s expression was a mixture of
amazement and something else.

Fear. That’s what it was.

Now, I’d better turn something up, or I was going to
look extremely foolish.

When I got home from harassing Milt Ladowski, which
I have to admit had been, for me, the most satisfying chapter in
this whole sorry story so far, there was a message on the machine.
I pushed the button next to the flashing light.

“Hi, uh, my name is Marie Aiello. You left a card in
my door a couple of days ago. . . Anyway, I’m looking for
Aaron Tucker, and here’s my number. . .”

It took me as long to dial Marie’s number as it does
for Bernie Williams to turn on a fastball and drive it into the
right field bleachers. But it seemed like an eternity, and my inner
voice was chanting the entire time, “be home, be home, be home,
be. . .”

“Hello?”

“Hi, this is Aaron Tucker. Is
this. . .”

“Oh, hi. Yeah, this is Marie. I called you maybe an
hour ago. You’re the one who’s investigating about Maddie Rossi,
right?”

“That’s right.”

“You know, I wasn’t going to call you. I’ve been
getting calls from the papers. But every one of them wanted to talk
about Madlyn
Beckwirth
. Not you. You asked about the Maddie
I know.”

I had written the name that way—Madlyn Rossi
—because I figured Marie would recognize it more fondly. But I
hadn’t really given it all that much thought. You never know which
details are going to make the difference.

“I spoke with her mother the other day,” I said.

“And don’t think I didn’t call Mrs. Rossi to check
you out,” Marie answered. You had to like a friend who was still
loyal after death. “She said you were a nice man, and you had a
very cute daughter.”