For Whom the Minivan Rolls by JEFFREY COHEN Page A

screenwriter.”
    “I thought to be considered a screenwriter, you have
to get paid for it.” That’s what the twinkle was about. He was
looking for a place to stick the needle in, and he’d found my soft
spot. Right where he knew it would be.
    I didn’t rise to the bait. “I’ve gotten some option
money,” I said. “Besides, I’m living three thousand miles away from
the right place for that kind of work. And how is this helping me
find Madlyn Beckwirth?”
    He knelt down, taking the hook out of my hand and
starting it himself. Of course, for him, it went in like it was
dying to start its new life as a spring anchor. “I thought I was
helping you put up a screen door. Since when am I supposed to help
you find Madlyn Beckwirth?”
    The hook was in, and I actually managed to attach
the spring without any outside help. “Since you decided to belittle
my fee,” I told him. “You want to mock me, you can at least help
me, too.”
    “I do all the work around here.” He started
attaching the hook to the door, and neither of us tried to
perpetuate the myth that I was actually doing anything useful in
this project. I sat down.
    “Let’s assume for the moment that I can’t talk to
the kid and I can’t get the phone records,” I said. “Where does
that leave me? I have no options.”
    “Sure you do.” Mahoney had the hook embedded in the
door securely and was stretching the spring to meet it. This door
would close faster than a frog’s tongue going after a fly. “You can
still talk to the friends of the family, you can go after this girl
who’s running for mayor, you can get the cops to run Madlyn’s
credit cards and see if she’s charging up a storm in Vegas on the
old man’s Visa.”
    He attached the spring to the hook, and tried the
door. Sure enough, it closed perfectly, with a satisfying SNAP!
that would undoubtedly become tiresome this coming summer. “I don’t
want to talk to the woman who’s running for mayor,” I said
thoughtfully.
    “Why not?”
    “Because the rich guy wants me to. That’s what this
whole maneuver has been all about. He wants to control the way I
track down his wife.”
    Mahoney set about measuring for the doorknob. “You
got any coffee?” he asked. That was it—I’d been relegated to
kitchen duty. I got up. He chuckled as I walked away from the front
door and toward the kitchen.
    “Rich people suck,” he said to himself.

Chapter 11
    Rachel Barlow sat in her kitchen, which was bright
and airy and had nice white lace curtains on the windows. Plants
hung from the space over the sink, where they’d be sure to get
plenty of light and moisture. The wallpaper was a subdued pattern
of milk pails and straw piles. The floor was ceramic tile. The
chairs and table were country oak. There was absolutely nothing out
of place. It was like being in the Museum of Suburban Kitchens.
    Rachel herself, every inch the political candidate,
subsection: female, was in a very sensible skirt and blouse, not
showing anything above the knee or below the shoulder blades. Thank
goodness, or my uncontrollable male urges might have moved me to
throw her down on the center island and have my way with her. She
was tall and blonde, and looked like she really wished she could
wear a beehive hairdo, because it would have made her more
comfortable.
    “Can I get you some coffee?” she asked in a voice
that sounded very much like that of a Barbie doll who had grown up
and gotten her MBA. “We have regular and decaf.”
    “No, that’s okay,” I said. “I think we should just
get going on this.”
    I know. I had just told Mahoney I wasn’t going to
talk to Rachel Barlow, and here I was, talking to Rachel Barlow.
Well, there were good reasons for changing my mind. For one, I had
already checked with Dutton, who had nothing on Madlyn’s credit
cards, but expected word back on my telephone records by that
afternoon. And I had talked to two of Madlyn and Gary’s friends
(actually, Madlyn’s), both of