For Whom the Minivan Rolls Read Online Free PDF

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.

Chapter 7
    I must have been staring at the phone, because Abby
looked at me with concern. Her eyes kept moving from my face to the
receiver in my hand.
    “Somebody selling us something?”
    I hung up the phone and walked to the kitchen table.
I sat down. Abby walked over, worried now.
    “What is it? Who was that?”
    “I don’t know. Somebody said that if I find Madlyn
Beckwirth, I’ll kill her.”
    “WHAT? What the hell does that mean?” She sat
down in another of the kitchen chairs, which creaked. I made a
mental note to tighten the screws under the chairs. Somehow, that
didn’t seem terribly important right now.
    “I have no idea. Some guy said I should leave Madlyn
Beckwirth alone, because if I found her, I would kill her.”
    “Jesus!” But even then, I could see the legal mind
going to work. She frowned. “Who knows you’re looking for Madlyn
Beckwirth?”
    I thought. “Nobody. Gary Beckwirth, Milt Ladowski,
and Dave Harrington. I think we can eliminate Harrington from the
suspects. Beckwirth is desperate for me to find Madlyn, so he
wouldn’t call, and Milt is the one who hired me.”
    “Milt Ladowski wouldn’t make a call like that,” said
my wife. “His whole law practice could be ruined if he’s found
making a threatening call.” One of Abby’s few failings is that