A Farewell to Legs Read online

  A Farewell to Legs

  An Aaron Tucker Mystery

  Jeffrey Cohen

  Copyright 2003 by Jeffrey Cohen

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by electronic means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote passages in a review.

  All the characters in this book are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Published by Bancroft Press (“Books that enlighten”)

  P.O. Box 65360, Baltimore, MD 21209

  800-637-7377

  410-764-1967 (fax)

  www.bancroftpress.com

  Cover and interior design: Tammy Sneath Grimes, Crescent Communications

  www.tsgcrescent.com • 814.941.7447

  Author photo: Frank Dougherty

  ISBN 1-890862-29-0 (cloth)

  ISBN 1-890862-34-7 (paper)

  LCCN 2003108324

  Smashwords Edition

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  To

  The Brotherhood of the Tray

  Contents

  Prologue

  Part 1. The Lizard

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Part 2. The Dog

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Praise for Jeffrey Cohen and A Farewell to Legs

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Cheri (pronounced “She-REE”) Braxton got out of bed and walked to the bathroom door, not bothering to cover her naked body with a sheet, the way they do in the movies. She’d never understood that: two people have just spent the night going at it like sex has just been invented, and the next morning, they’re always covering up, as if they hadn’t just spent ten hours looking at each other’s good parts.

  The guy in her bed, Louis (pronounced “Louis”) Gibson, pushed back the few strands of hair left on his head and admired the view as Cheri walked to the bathroom. He smiled as he always did, and it was convincing, ingratiating, and emotionless.

  “Baby,” he said, “I like nothing better than watching you walk away.”

  She stopped, turned, and modeled her form, giving him a good long look. “What’s the matter, Louie?” she asked, her voice a disgusting drawl she thought sounded cute. “You don’t like seeing me walk toward you?”

  “Of course I do,” he said flatly, dismissing her. “I was trying to be romantic, and you spoiled it.”

  She harrumphed, and walked into the bathroom. Cheri had intended to splash some cold water on her face and pee, but if that was the kind of attitude he was going to have, Louie could just lie there and wait while she took a long hot shower. She turned on the water in the tub and opened the medicine cabinet. Might as well brush her teeth, too.

  Louis put his hands behind his head and lay back on the pillow. This thing with Cheri was already starting to get old, he thought. Six weeks, and she was pissing him off as often as his wife. At least his wife had waited until they were married a couple of years before she started complaining that he wasn’t romantic enough. So he’d gotten her pregnant again, and then she had so much to do watching the boys that she didn’t have time to nag about his ignoring goddamn Valentine’s Day.

  Cheri, though, was another story. She’d broken the land speed record for annoying Louis. A nice ass—he’d certainly admit she had that—but she had a mouth on her, too, and who needed that in a mistress? Mistresses were for sex, for chrissakes. If he wanted backtalk, he could stay home. It was a good thing this relationship would be over soon.

  Louis smiled as he lay there. If he wanted, he could find six or seven other girls within a week—exotic ones, too. Not white bread bores like Cheri Braxton. Life was good these days. The right people were getting elected, and that meant contributions were pouring in. He had his pick of the women he knew, and he had plenty of money. More than anyone knew. What else did a man need?

  Louis closed his eyes and smiled contentedly.

  Cheri stayed in the shower as long as she could, until she couldn’t think of any other body parts that needed cleaning. And the longer she stayed under the hot water, the more steamed she got.

  Who the hell did this joker think she was? A $40 whore he could call whenever he felt like it, screw however many times he could that night (which was usually once), then turn and leave and not call until he got horny again? Why not leave money on the dresser when he left? She had a college degree, after all! She worked for a government agency, and had the potential to move up into a managerial position. She didn’t have to put up with this from a guy 15 years older than she was!

  She got out of the shower and put on a terrycloth robe hanging from a hook on the back of the bathroom door. Screw him! It wasn’t like she loved the little jerk. She didn’t even like him. But he had powerful friends, and she had ambition. Still, no job she could get in this government was worth having to put up with him. She could find somebody else to screw, and maybe even enjoy it.

  Cheri opened the robe and looked at herself in the full-length mirror on the back of the door. Not bad at all for 27. Everything was still where Nature had put it. Gravity hadn’t started its inevitable pull to the ground. She looked damn good, if she did say so herself. Better than she’d been giving herself credit for. Better than anybody old Louie out there would see again, for a long, long time.

  That was that, then. It didn’t even take much courage to decide. She’d just go out there right now and tell Louis this was the last time they’d see each other. Let him find somebody else to watch walking away from the bed.

  She tossed back her damp hair in a defiant gesture, left the robe open (so he could see what he’d be missing), and marched out to give Louis his marching orders.

  The only thing that stopped her was the stunned, amazed expression on his face. That, and the kitchen knife sticking out of his chest.

  Part 1: The Lizard

  Chapter

  One

  In retrospect, it all started with the lizard.

  “A gecko?” I said. “You want to give an eight-year-old girl a gecko?” />
  I stared into my bedroom closet with what I’m sure was the same expression Dr. Livingstone had assessing the Nile for the first time, a combination of absolute wonderment and complete confusion. My wife Abby stood behind me, doing her very best not to snicker.

  “They make very low-maintenance pets,” she said in a soothing tone, as if she were addressing a potentially dangerous mental patient. “You don’t have to walk them, you very rarely have to clean the aquarium and they never make any noise. Try the blue one.”

  She indicated a royal blue Gap t-shirt I’d been avoiding. I turned to her, surprised, and pointed at it. Yes, Abby nodded, that one.

  “I can wear a t-shirt to a high school reunion? And why, exactly, does our daughter even need a pet that looks like it escaped from The Land That Time Forgot?”

  Abby smiled tolerantly, once again secure in the knowledge that I would, indeed, collapse into a heap of quivering jelly without her. On her way to the bedroom closet door, she pressed by me (and I did very little to get out of her way, thus necessitating as much pressing as possible).

  “Leah loves animals. I want to encourage her to develop that interest, and this is the easiest way to start her on her way. Don’t worry—you won’t have to do anything.”

  “Famous last words.”

  My wife, befitting a woman of her dignity and accomplishment, stuck her tongue out at me. She leaned into the closet (we have a lean-in closet in our bedroom, meaning that it’s roughly the size of a small refrigerator, so all you can do is lean in) and came out with the blue T-shirt, a pair of black jeans I actually fit into, and my black sport jacket, which is made of something that approximates suede without actually harming any animals to produce it. Abby laid the clothes out on the bed. “There,” she said.

  “My Hollywood scriptwriter disguise,” I said, nodding. On the rare occasions that one of my screenplays has generated enough interest for me to actually meet with a producer (and that is upwards of once), I have worn this exact ensemble. I began to take off my hideous flannel shirt (with only two holes in it) and my worn-to-the-white jeans (three holes, but two are in the knees).

  “Certainly,” Abby said. “Show your old classmates how cool you are.”

  “Cool, my love, is something I’ve never been able to pull off successfully.”

  “Fake it,” she said. I grunted at that, and considered the question of the lizard again.

  “So let’s suppose—and I want to stress that suppose—that I agree to this lizard thing. What does Jurassic Junior eat?”

  It’s so rare I get to see my wife blush. As with everything else, it becomes her, but it’s unusual that she’d be flustered enough to let it show. I braced myself. She mumbled something.

  “What?”

  “WORMS!” she shouted, unintentionally, I presume. “It eats. . . worms. And they have to be. . . live.”

  “Live? As in alive? We’re asking our eight-year-old to feed one living thing to another living thing as a character-building experience?” During this exchange, I had managed to don my entire screenwriter disguise, minus the jacket (which would make me sweat no matter what the weather, and so was best left for later).

  “Well, she’s perfectly okay with it,” Abby said as I sat down again to put on my classy sneakers. “Melissa has one. . .”

  That’s all I needed to know—the discussion was over. Leah and her friend Melissa are actually the same person, but you need two bodies to harness all their combined energy. They’re constantly in motion, constantly talking, and constantly together, so whatever one does, the other must certainly do. There’s no arguing with Melissa. Ever.

  “Where do we get these worms?” I sighed. “Do we have to dig in the back yard? Remember, we have no, um, soil in the back yard.”

  “The pet store. Then we keep them in the refrigerator.”

  “The same refrigerator where we keep our food?” She nodded, and I think actually looked a little nauseated.

  I stood up and put an arm over my wife’s shoulder. “Is there any power on heaven or earth that can stop this?”

  “No.”

  “Any chance I can get some sex out of saying yes?” I figured it was worth a shot.

  “Not tonight. I’ll be asleep long before you get home.”

  From downstairs, I could hear the doorbell ring, followed by Leah’s shrill shriek. “It’s Uncle Mahoney!” Abby and I started wearily toward the stairs.

  “All in all,” I told her, “this night is not starting out terribly well.”

  Chapter

  Two

  “Remind me why we’re going to this thing.”

  Jeff Mahoney, all six-foot-whatever of him, was scrunched into the passenger seat of my 1997 Saturn four-door. He had pushed the seat back as far as it went, and still his knees were threatening to hit his chin.

  “It’ll be fun,” I said unconvincingly. “We haven’t seen these people in twenty-five years.”

  “And we didn’t like them then,” he reminded me.

  “You’re not going in with a terrific attitude,” I pointed out.

  “And you expected. . . what?”

  I grumbled something under my breath and shoved a cassette into the car radio. John Mayer. Room for Squares. He grimaced, but didn’t say anything. To him, any music recorded after 1979 is suspect.

  He was right, of course, although not about the music. There was no reason for me to have anticipated anything but a sour attitude from him, since it had been my idea for us to go to our 25th year high school reunion. Overcome by a sudden, inexplicable wave of nostalgia, I had responded to the invitation in my mail (along with the inevitable bills) by convincing him that we would spend the evening drinking and making fun of our former classmates. Well, he could drink, anyway. I’d appointed myself designated driver. The major effect of alcohol on my system is to make me sleepy.

  I don’t know what it was that convinced me to go. At Bloomfield, NJ’s prime example of a high school in the mid-1970s, students divided themselves into the usual cliques: the jocks, the cheerleaders (who existed mostly to sleep with the jocks, thus serving to doubly tweak the rest of us), the brains (this was years before nerds were invented, and decades before computer geeks), and the remedial students.

  And then there was Us. Myself, Mahoney, Friedman, Wharton, and McGregor. We were a group because we didn’t fit in with any of the other groups—we fell between the cracks. And we got along because we expected nothing of each other, and got exactly that. Besides Mahoney, who was still my closest friend, I had-n’t seen the others in at least 10 years.

  So maybe it was that kind of reunion I had been trying to manufacture. I’d blackmailed Mahoney into going by telling him I wouldn’t go without him, and had emailed Bobby Fox, who was coordinating the reunion (and who was still, at 43, calling himself “Bobby”), to be sure Friedman, Wharton, and McGregor would be there. But I hadn’t told Mahoney, and I didn’t know why.

  Now, he listened thoughtfully to the music, wrinkled his brow, and turned it down a notch. “This guy’s not bad,” he said. “But he’s never going to replace Jim Croce.”

  “I’m sorry. I left my Bad Company tape back home in my white double-knit leisure suit.”

  Mahoney grinned. “Somebody get up on the wrong side of the bed this morning?”

  “I can’t remember why I wanted to go to this thing, either,” I admitted.

  “It’s because Stephanie Jacobs is going to be there,” he said matter-of-factly. “You’ve had the hots for her since Gerald Ford was president.”

  Stephanie Jacobs! I hadn’t even thought of her. Would she be at this miserable wing ding?

  “Everybody had the hots for Stephanie Jacobs,” I reminded him. “And when I say ‘everybody. . .’”

  When Mahoney and I were seventeen, all of us considered Stephanie Jacobs the ideal woman. Built so that she looked naked even in a down parka, Stephanie was rumored to have caused cardiac arrest in middle-aged men of, say, 30 or so.

  “Not ev
erybody,” said Mahoney.

  “Your memory fails you,” I told him. “I remember a time you gave Stephanie Jacobs a ride home in the Mustang, and you talked about nothing else for six weeks.”

  “Bullshit,” he said. “It was only four weeks.”

  “Nonetheless. You had just as many hots for Stephanie Jacobs as everybody else.”

  His eyes got a little dreamy. “That Mustang was a great car,” he said.

  I decided to pretend he hadn’t spoken. “Anyway, she’s not the reason I wanted to go tonight,” I protested as I pulled into the parking lot of the luxurious Vacation Inn of Carteret, New Jersey. “I hadn’t thought once of her before you mentioned her name right now.”

  “Sure,” said Mahoney. “You just knew she liked me better, anyway.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  We got out of the car after I parked, which made sense. If we’d gotten out before I’d parked, the car might very well have run over our feet and hurt us, and possibly destroyed property at the Inn. It’s important to follow certain procedures.

  I led the way toward the door marked “Banquet Room,” which was sure to be an overstatement. And about 20 feet from the door, I stopped dead in my tracks.

  Mahoney, who came close to barreling into me and causing permanent damage, slammed on his heels. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he yelped.

  “I can’t go in. Let’s go to the movies or something. This was a bad idea.”

  He laughed. “It’ll be fun! We haven’t seen these people in twenty-five years!” he said.

  “Yeah, and we didn’t. . .”

  “Why, Aaron Tucker,” purred a voice behind me that was laced with sex and nostalgia. “I hear you solve mysteries.”

  Mahoney and I both spun around and muttered something in the tradition of Jackie Gleason’s classic “homina, homina, homina.”

  Stephanie Jacobs, in a dress covering considerably less than a down parka would, stood maybe five feet away.

  She smiled a satisfied smile that indicated she knew exactly what effect her voice would have on us. On me, really, since she wasn’t looking at Mahoney at all. Her deep blue eyes bored into me, and I’m pretty sure left a hole in the back of my head. Stephanie looked just as good as she had at 18, which was entirely unfair of her.