So who got him the job? I called Helen and asked.
“I remember him working at the courthouse,” she said. “He kept to himself.”
“No friends?”
“He used to eat lunch with a deputy by the cemetery.”
“Which deputy?”
There was a long silence.
“Helen?”
“One of the guys who suffocated the inmate at the jail. Son of a bitch.”
I could hear the receiver humming in my ear. “You can’t be expected to remember information from twenty-five years ago.”
“No, no, I screwed up. The deputy was his cousin. He probably put in a word for Molinari and got him the job. Maybe Molinari’s death is connected to the scandal at the jail.”
“Could be,” I said.
“Dave, I had my head up my ass. I pulled your badge when I should have pulled my own. The deaf man, what was his name?”
“Frank Dubois,” I said.
“Where was he from?”
“New Orleans. He went to Tulane. A former AB kid named Spider Dupree said that Dubois had a coat of arms tattooed on his back and spoke Latin or Greek.”
“Dave, I need to apologize to you. I acted like a real bitch.”
“You may be lots of things, but that’s not one of them,” I said.
“That’s why I love you, Pops.”
I called Bailey and told her what I’d learned.
“You think Molinari was payback for the suffocation death?” she said.
“Yeah, I do.”
“So who’s the tie-in with Molinari?”
“I don’t know. Maybe one of our movie friends.”
“I need to tell you something,” she said. “Desmond called me last night.”
“You don’t have to tell me anything, Bailey.”
“He asked me to go to Arizona with him. I told him no.”
“Bailey—”
“I don’t know if it’s over between us or not,” she said.
“It was wrong from the jump. Not on your part. Mine. I took advantage of the situation.”
“I’m a victim?” she said. “I’m too young and inexperienced to know what I’m doing?”