Some Like It Hot-Buttered (25 page)

“Who found the pirated DVDs?” he asked me. “You were there.”

“Officer Patel,” I said.

Dutton shook his head. “No. Officer Levant led him down there. She discovered the cartons, and then sent him back up to tell O’Donnell.”

That didn’t seem so significant. “So?”

“Think about it,” Dutton said. “An ambitious young officer makes a discovery like that, has a chance to impress her chief and the county prosecutor’s investigator, and she goes out of her way to give another the glory? It doesn’t make sense. Unless . . .”

“Unless she already knew the discs were there, and she wanted to distance herself from them,” I said. “How did you know she found the discs? Patel told you?”

Dutton nodded. “He felt bad about taking the credit. But think: Officer Levant has been all over the murder case, but hasn’t brought anything to the piracy case. And I had specifically assigned her to the piracy case to see what she’d bring in. Yet everything she’s discovered herself has been about the murder: the bottle of clonidine and the idea that Ansella was at the theatre with his best friend’s wife. The idea that Amy Ansella was at Comedy Tonight the night of the murder. Any idea where she might have gotten that one?” I remained silent. “That’s what I thought.”

I considered Dutton’s argument. “No,” I said. “I don’t buy it. All that’s circumstantial. And that still doesn’t address the fact that Leslie wasn’t there the night of the powdered sugar incident.”

Dutton smiled. “Can’t you stop saying things like ‘powdered sugar incident’? It’s hard to remain professional.” He shook his head, seemingly to clear it. “If Officer Levant wasn’t at the theatre that night, but she was all the other times the projector was readied ahead of time, what does that tell us?”

“That it wasn’t her.”

He shook his head, this time to say no. “It tells us it probably wasn’t her
that night
,” he said. “We have to assume there were others in on the piracy scheme. One person didn’t do all of this.”

“You thought Anthony did it all by himself.”

Dutton looked amused. “Did I?”

“You did. And what makes you think Leslie even knows how to run the projector? I’m lucky
I
know how to do it. And I’ve gotta tell you, you and Leslie weren’t having much luck changing reels the night I saw you in there.” There! I hadn’t thought of
that
before.

Dutton looked at his sandwich and frowned. “I should have gotten some ham,” he said.

“Ha! I got you.”

“You were the one who first brought up Officer Levant as a suspect, not me,” he reminded me. Guilt isn’t inflicted only by parents.

“I don’t believe Leslie did it. I’m sorry I said anything.” I put down my sandwich. It wasn’t much of a gesture of anguish, but it was the best I could do in this setting. “There’s no evidence, and here we are, convicting a lovely young woman of crimes we can’t possibly know she committed. ”

“You
are
sleeping with her, aren’t you?” Dutton pointed an accusing finger at me.

I looked away. “No,” I said. “We’re taking a break from each other . . .”

He looked heavenward, but didn’t seem to get any divine inspiration for his effort. “Why can’t you ever just tell me something the first time?” he scowled.

“Look, Chief,” I said. “I’ve only known you a few weeks. I don’t trust you, and you don’t trust me. That’s okay. But look at this from my point of view. My main concern here is Anthony. If I tell you something before I can consider it, and I don’t know how you’ll react, I could do him serious harm. And if there’s someone I’m responsible for, and the question is whether to do them harm or not, I’m always going to come down on the side of not. That means being cautious with you.”

“You’re not Anthony Pagliarulo’s father,” Dutton said quietly.

“No, but his father asked me to find out what happened. His father thinks it’s his fault because he asked Anthony to pick up a prescription.”

Dutton washed down the remainder of his sandwich with black cherry diet soda, which is one step above drinking Drano, in my opinion. But to each his own. “It’s not his father’s fault. But the prescription presents more questions.”

I sighed. “What
about
the prescription? What about Ansella’s dying from poisoned popcorn? There’s no evidence Ansella even knew about the pirated videos, let alone had anything to do with them. Even if Leslie did know how to thread the projector, a lot of this still isn’t explained.”

“That’s the problem with this case. There’s no evidence of
anything
.” Dutton eyed the counter and, I thought, contemplated making another sandwich. He shook his head and started the cleanup.

I nodded. “Nothing adds up yet. But if Anthony calls again, I want to be able to tell him that he won’t be arrested the minute he shows his face in Central New Jersey. Can I tell him that?”

“We’re looking to question him, that’s all,” Dutton said. “There’s no arrest warrant that I know about.”

“How about O’Donnell?”

“If he obtained a warrant, I’d see a copy, and I haven’t,” Dutton answered. “Nobody’s getting out the bright lights and the rubber hose just because your projectionist might want to surface one more time.”

“That’s good enough for now,” I said. “What have you guys and the county been doing about Ansella?”

Dutton’s face closed for business. “That’s an ongoing investigation. I’m not telling you about that.”

“Which leaves me to draw my own conclusions,” I told him.

“Is that a threat? I don’t like amateurs running around muddying the water in a murder investigation. I don’t like it when they interview witnesses and visit the widow of the victim on three separate occasions.” Dutton watched my face carefully as he said that.

“You knew about that?”

“You’re not sleeping with her, too, are you?” He’d seen Amy Ansella and he’d seen me. It wasn’t a serious question.

“I’m not sleeping with
anybody
. I’m sleeping with her late husband’s video collection. It takes up most of my apartment.”

“Let me know if any copies of pirated movies show up.”

“Vincent had better taste than that. I haven’t found a really bad comedy in the bunch.”

Dutton stared at me a little more intensely, to make sure I wouldn’t dodge his comment again.
“You let me know if any copies of pirated movies show up.”

“So I have to let you know everything I find out, and you won’t tell me anything?” I dodged.

“I’m sorry, which one of us has the badge?”

I stood up, took my plate to the dishwasher, and put it inside. “The one who wants one,” I said.

“Good. At least we have our roles straight.”

“I’m going to keep asking people questions, Chief,” I said as I walked to the front hall, where the front wheel of my bike was resting against a wall. “I don’t want you to think I’m sneaking around behind your back.” I picked up the wheel and walked toward the front door.

Dutton rumbled, but that might have just been the black cherry soda. “Just be a little bit quicker in reporting anything you might find out, okay, Elliot?”

I thought about that. “Okay,” I said. “I don’t think you’re trying to screw anybody who’s innocent. I’ll let you know.”

His face was solemn. “Thanks. The residents of Midland Heights will sleep more soundly tonight, knowing you’re out there protecting them from evil.”

“All in a day’s work.” I refrained from spitting (since there was no spittoon) or adjusting my ten-gallon hat (since I didn’t have one of those, either) before I walked out.

But when I got outside and started walking toward my bike, which leaned against Dutton’s garage door, I realized I had forgotten something very important. Not feeling completely comfortable with the situation, I went back and rang the doorbell. Dutton looked surprised when he opened the door and saw me there.

“Thanks for the sandwich,” I said.

36

I spent most of Tuesday mulling over what had happened, and it came to this: not much. I had theories, and some of the facts supported them, but others didn’t. And I had the chief of the Midland Heights Police Department sort of on my side, but sort of not.

Not to mention, I hadn’t heard from my ex-wife in a few days, and the woman I’d begun a relationship with had moved from police officer to suspect, and besides, wasn’t talking to me. By my choice.

By Wednesday morning, having gotten through the slowest night of the week at the theatre, I was ready to push on. And Joe Dunbar, Vincent Ansella’s closest friend, was taking the day off from work to attend to what he called “family business.” He wasn’t anxious to have me in his home, but he couldn’t come up with a plausible excuse not to, so I rode the bike up to his neighborhood, which wasn’t far from Amy’s, on the other side of Piscataway.

“I’m actually cleaning up stuff for our yard sale on Saturday, ” he admitted when he let me in. “That’s why the place looks like this.”

“You must have a really understanding boss,” I told him.

“I do,” he said. “I work for my wife.”

“Christie?”

“No,” he said. “My
other
wife.” Then Dunbar stopped. “You know Christie?”

I’d forgotten he didn’t know I’d spoken to his wife. “Amy Ansella mentioned her.”

Dunbar scowled. “I bet,” he said.

I walked into the room, which was filled with cartons of vinyl LPs, VHS tapes, a couple of wigs, old clothing, and what my mother calls
tchotchkes
, knickknacks that serve little purpose beyond looking remarkably odd on people’s shelves. There were New York Mets yearbooks, drinking mugs, and bobblehead dolls, as well as some exercise equipment (small free weights and the like) and cook-books. And this was just in the living room.

“Why don’t Amy and Christie get along?” I asked.

Dunbar didn’t react outwardly; he just kept walking. “Their husbands were friends,” he said. “Didn’t mean they had to be.”

“What exactly does your wife do?” I asked as we navigated through the room toward the kitchen. I already sort of knew from visiting her office, but I wasn’t supposed to tell Dunbar I’d talked to Christie, so I was playing dumb.

“She runs a company that trains medical records personnel for hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and support services,” Dunbar said, clearly not for the first time in his life. “Christie provides the training, and then helps find jobs for these people. I mostly do the human resources work and run the office, and I handle all the interaction with employers that Christie doesn’t do herself.”

I’m embarrassed to say that the first thought that came to mind was: a guy whose wife deals with a lot of pharmaceutical companies might be able to get hold of some prescription medications.

Dunbar must have seen it on my face, because he said, “Don’t even think it. Pharma companies are very closely regulated, and you can’t just get a prescription for something because you want it.”

“So Christie doesn’t have high blood pressure?”

He moved some boxes out of the way as we walked from the kitchen to the “family room,” where there were yet more cartons. Dunbar made room on two chairs for us to sit. “No, she doesn’t,” he said. “But before you ask, yes, I do. And no, my doctor took me off clonidine six months ago. I don’t have any.”

“I’m sorry, Joe. But you know there are still a lot of unanswered questions.”

He waved a hand to brush away the insult. “I understand, ” Dunbar said. “You’re a movie theatre owner. You have to ask tough questions.” He smiled.

I was playing cop a little too hard, and I smiled back. “I know. It’s silly. But I can’t leave it alone. If Vincent had been killed at the Loews in New Brunswick, you wouldn’t be seeing me now.”

“The Loews wouldn’t be showing
Young Frankenstein
, would it, now?”

Dunbar’s cell phone, which he wore clipped to his belt, rang. It was a simple ring, which I appreciated. Dunbar apparently didn’t feel the need to express his individuality through the way his cell phone interrupted the rest of his life, and I found that refreshing. His conversation, which was clearly about business (he kept using words like “invoice” and “sessions”) lasted only a minute or so, and then he turned his attention back to me, apologizing.

“No problem,” I said. “It’s a hazard of modern life. So, is the business doing well?”

Dunbar nodded enthusiastically. “It’s still new, you know. We’ve only been doing this about a year. Christie used to be a beautician, you know, but she . . .” He got a little teary. “Christie is a cancer survivor, and when she came out of the chemo and the radiation with a pretty clean bill of health—for now; you know, they’re never sure until a few years have gone by—then she decided she wanted to help the industry. Help people get better, you know. She wasn’t a doctor or a chemist or anything, so she figured she could get them the best help they could have. And she asked me to give up my job to help her.”

“What were you doing before?”

“I was a sales rep for a replacement windows manufacturer until she got sick. My territory was the whole East Coast. I’d have to be away too much, and I couldn’t do that when she was sick. So I quit.”

I never know what to say when someone tells me a story like that. “Well, I’m glad she came through it all right,” I told him.

Dunbar nodded, and looked at me a while, waiting for something. I was wondering what to say next. “I guess you’re going to ask me again about Amy calling me ‘murderer, ’ ” he said.

That seemed like a good place to start, seeing as how he’d brought it up. “It was on my mind,” I told him.

“I’ve been thinking about it a lot. I really don’t understand what she was getting at. I think she was just so emotionally out there at the funeral, you know, she’d say or do anything. She was in shock.” Dunbar leaned back on his cushioned seat and stared at the ceiling. “The poor kid. It came so out of the blue.”

“Joe, I’ve got to ask: where were you the night Vincent died?”