It Happened One Knife (12 page)

“They don’t always come up here.”

Dutton nodded, then stopped in his motion. “Could the cleaning crew . . . ?”

I shook my head. “They weren’t up here the night of the screening. In fact, they had been through here the day before, but not on that day. And no, they don’t have a spare key.”

Chief Dutton’s mouth curled in disappointment, and then he went back to his examination. “Not that I have to explain myself to you, but I’m just testing a very unlikely theory,” he said.

“What’s the theory?”

Dutton knocked on the floor under the console. “What’s under here?” he asked. “It sounds hollow.” He pointed to a wooden panel with four screws attaching it to the floor.

“It is hollow,” I answered. “That’s where we store the tools that I hope I never have to use on the projector.”

Dutton reached into his pocket for a Swiss Army knife, which he opened to the screwdriver attachment. He started undoing the screws that held the panel down.

“Chief, nobody could have gotten into the booth through there; it’s much too small,” I said.

Dutton continued with the screws, but had some trouble using his knife attachment. I reached over to the table and picked up a Phillips head screwdriver, which I handed down to him.

“This’ll be faster,” I said, filling the silence. Dutton was intent on what he was doing, and didn’t even thank me for the screwdriver. “No, no,” I said. “It was nothing. Really.”

The screwdriver did work faster, and in less than a minute, he could lift the piece of plywood up off the floor. The space underneath, maybe five feet by five feet, was dark, and there was no light under the console. Before he could ask, I handed Dutton a flashlight. Again, there was no response.

“Stop it. You’re too kind.”

He lay down on the floor to get a better angle, and shone the flashlight into the storage space, moving it from side to side. After a few seconds, he stopped.

“Uh-oh,” Dutton said.

“What-oh?” I asked.

He reached into his pocket and took out a plastic bag, which he put over his hand. Then the chief of police from my little town stuck his hand into my storage space, and pulled out a large plastic case containing reels of film. Then another.

They were very clearly marked, KILLIN’ TIME.

"Maybe my theory wasn’t so unlikely after all,” Dutton said.

14

I
stared for what felt like a long time. Dutton stood up and put the cans on a table next to the control console. He opened them, still with the plastic bag on his hand.

Sure enough, there were reels of film inside.

“Is there a way you can tell without touching them whether this is the right film?” Dutton asked me.

Slowly regaining the power of speech, I said, “Not really. I could check the first reel to see if it’s Anthony’s film, but I’d have to touch it.”

“Do you have any plastic bags?”

I reached into a cabinet on the wall and came out with a pair of Playtex rubber gloves. “Will these work?” I asked.

Dutton shook his head. “The kind you use in a kitchen leave marks. Just put some bags over your hands. That’s the best we can do under the circumstances.”

“You’re not calling in more cops?” I asked.

“Not yet. Please, just check the film.”

I had a box of sandwich bags (Ziplock) in the snack bar area, so after I hobbled downstairs, got them, and then hobbled back up, I slipped two over my hands and took the first reel (they’re numbered) from the film can on the table. I didn’t want to put it on the projector, so I picked up a thick marker from the counter, ran it through the center hole on the reel, and unspooled the first several feet of film, until an image showed on the print.

It was a title—white on black, of course—that read, “A Film by Anthony Pagliarulo.”

“That’s it,” I told Dutton. “It’s Anthony’s movie. How did you know it was down there?”

“I didn’t,” Dutton told me. “I thought it was . . .”

“Unlikely.”

“Yeah. But it struck me that something this size couldn’t be carried out of here in a crowd, even one that was dwindling, without somebody seeing it. It’s not the kind of thing you stick in a backpack and sneak out.” Dutton sat down on one of the stools.

“So if it hadn’t been carried out, it had to still be here somewhere. But why would someone want to
hide
Anthony’s film?” I would have sat down, too, but the stools didn’t have nice soft pillows on them.

“For the same reason they’d want to steal Anthony’s film,” Dutton said. “So Anthony couldn’t have it.”

“None of it makes any sense,” I told him. “The only people who have keys to this booth are Anthony and me. I know
I
didn’t stash the film in there, and there’s no reason under the sun why Anthony would deprive himself of his baby.”

Dutton nodded. “I know. I’m not any closer to figuring out who did this, but now I know where the film is.”

“I’m starting to think you did it,” I told him.

“Nah. I’m more likely to steal
The Sound of Music
.” He gave me a look that dared me to make fun of him, so of course I didn’t. I’m a coward, but an honest coward. “Anyway, there’s only one thing to do now.” He put the reel back in the film can, still wearing the bag on his hand, and then closed the case, making sure it was securely fastened. “You don’t have rats in there, do you?” he asked, pointing to the storage space.

“If I do, I’d rather not know about it. Why?”

Dutton did the last thing I’d have predicted: he took the film cans, got down on the floor, and put them back into the storage space. Then he went about replacing the screws that held the plywood panel in place.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“I can’t be sure, but I think I’m putting the cover back on your storage area,” Dutton said. “It’s possible I’m making a pastrami sandwich, but I’ve never seen one that looked like this before.”

My mouth opened and closed a few times. “Why?” I managed to croak out.

“Ah! A much more pertinent question,” Dutton chuckled. Large men chuckling can be an interesting sound. In this case, it was less ominous than annoying. “The one advantage I have right now, assuming that you didn’t stash the film when you were in a delusional state, is that I know where the film is, and the person who put it there doesn’t know I’m aware of it.”

“He doesn’t know that you know.”

“Right,” Dutton agreed, finishing the last screw. “So if I remove the film now and whoever stole it comes back to check, I’ll lose that advantage.”

“He’ll know that you know.”

“Uh-huh,” Dutton nodded. “And then he—or she— would have an advantage on me.”

“You wouldn’t know that he knew you knew.”

Dutton’s eyes narrowed. “Okay, you want to stop doing that? Yes. In an investigation, it’s always best to exploit any advantage you have. So I’m not going to concede the upper hand if I don’t have to.”

“Well, is it even a crime now that you know the film wasn’t stolen?”

The chief thought about that. “Let’s say for a moment that Anthony hid this himself.”

I sputtered. “Why . . . ?”

Dutton held up a hand. “If there really
is
insurance, but he’s saying there isn’t, he could be trying to hold the company up for the cost of the film. If Anthony
didn’t
hide the film, someone else could be blackmailing him to return it. Until I know, I have to assume it’s a crime, and I can’t let the information out.”

It took me a while to digest that, and I grudgingly nodded. “But aren’t you going to get the film cans dusted for fingerprints? Wouldn’t that tell you who took the film?”

“Suppose the only prints on there are yours and Anthony’s, ” Dutton said. “What will that tell me? Besides, I can get them dusted here, when I’m sure no one is around, rather than have to take them away. You’ll cooperate with me on that, won’t you?”

It took a second, but I nodded. “Sure.”

“Then I’ll still have my advantage.” He stood, handed me the screwdriver and flashlight, and brushed himself off. “Better that way.”

“You’re putting an awful lot of time and effort into a simple break-in, Chief,” I said.

He shrugged. “I have strange interests.”

“I appreciate it. Is there anything I can do to help?”

Chief Dutton looked me directly in the eye with great purpose and said, “Yes. Run a movie theatre and don’t get shot. Leave the investigation to us.”

That was certainly my plan. Except for that last part.

15

“WHAT
the hell happened to this thing?” Moe Baxter assessed the perforated passenger door of Sophie’s Toyota Prius with a twisted grin. “It looks like somebody shot it with a bird gun.”

“Don’t be melodramatic, Moe,” I told him. “Just tell me how long it’ll take to fix, and how much it’s going to cost.”

Moe, a mechanic and auto body repairman of considerable repute, dropped his eyebrows and thought, examining the door and the destroyed side mirror with a more professional attitude. “Sorry, Elliot,” he said. “What happened to it?”

“Somebody shot it with a bird gun,” I said.

He gave me a look that was eloquent and long-winded. I made a “so what” face and gestured back toward the car door. Moe decided to shorten the banter and return to business. Especially since I, in an unusual turn of events, was paying.

“I can do it in a week,” he said. “Look good as new.”

“A week!” I lamented. “The kid told her parents she ran into a freak hailstorm.”

“And they bought that?” Moe was stunned.

“You should meet these parents,” I said. “But I can’t keep Sophie out of her car for a week. Come on, Moe. This is for me.”

“For you, ten days.”

“You can do it in two, and you know it,” I countered.

Moe’s eyes rounded to perfect circles. “Two days! I’m lucky if I get the replacement panel for the inside of the door in two days!”

“Three,” I offered.

“Six,” Moe said.

“Three.”

“Five.”

“Three,” I said.

“Four.”

“Three.”

“Okay, three,” Moe sighed. “But I’m gonna clip you on the price.”

“Fair enough. Now. What have you got for me?” Moe and I have an arrangement—okay,
I
have an arrangement, and Moe wishes I would forget about it, but it works: when I really need a car for a day or so, I test-drive some of his trickier completed repairs and make sure they’ve been done to his exacting standards. I’ve never run into one that hasn’t, because Moe and his troops do amazing work, but it serves a purpose. Mostly, it serves the purpose of getting me a car for the day without having to pay for it.

As is part of the ritual, Moe rolled his eyes and wailed in my direction. “Don’t start with me, Elliot. Buy yourself a nice used car. I’ll help you find one.”

“I don’t want to own a car, Moe. I don’t want to contribute to global warming.”

“I give you an SUV to drive that’s the size of Montana, and you tell me how you’re not contributing to global warming. Do you sense a flaw in your logic?”

“Not in the least,” I said. “Come on. I know you’re going to loan me something, and you know you’re going to loan me something. Now, which one is it going to be?”

“I’ve got a Hyundai Sonata that had radiator problems,” he said. “With any luck at all, we didn’t fix it right, and you’ll get stuck on the side of the road. How far are you going?”

“Englewood,” I said.

I
know I could have called Harry Lillis on the phone and asked him the same questions, but I needed to see his face when he answered them. The man was an actor, and a good one (comedians are rarely acknowledged as such, unless they take on a “serious” role to show off), but I hoped I could tell if he was lying to me. Dutton had asked me to do interviews on the phone, but I didn’t find the chief that intimidating. When he wasn’t around.

Having been there before, I felt I knew the Booth Actors’ Home well enough to get by without a guide, but I was required to sign in at the entrance, and was told that Mr. Lillis was in his room. The woman at the desk called on the phone, and Lillis must have said it was all right for me to be sent in, because she nodded at me, so I went.

He was fully dressed, sitting on his bed with an acoustic guitar to one side when I walked in. Lillis had occasionally played the guitar in his movies, but never seriously. I was surprised to see he was keeping up with it, and after the inevitable joke about my padded posterior (“You look like Ethel Merman”), I told him so.

“It’s one of the few things you can still do at my age,” he said. “You have to fill the hours that sex used to take up.”

“There’s Viagra,” I suggested.

Lillis waved a hand. “I don’t believe in performance-enhancing drugs,” he said. “Babe Ruth was a better hitter than Barry Bonds, and he used performance-
decreasing
drugs.”

I told him about my visit to Les Townes’s home, and Lillis listened carefully, raising his bushy eyebrows when I got to the part about the shotgun. When I mentioned Wilson, his eyes half closed and he said, “Oh yeah, the son.” That was all.

“Why do you think Mr. Townes was so upset by a simple question?” I asked Lillis.

“Let me ask
you
something,” he countered. “Why did you go there to begin with?”

Well, that was confusing. “You told me that Townes killed his wife,” I said. “You were practically asking me to look into it, weren’t you?”

“How was I asking you?” Lillis’s eyes were clear and looking through me. “Why would I ask the owner of a movie theatre to look into a murder that took place fifty years ago? Who are you, Mr. Moto? Besides, I already know who did it.”

I didn’t have a coherent answer for that other than, “Well I
thought
. . .” So instead, I asked him, “If you weren’t asking me to investigate, why did you even mention it?”