Unanticipated Consequences

Marsha Warner pulled into her garage thinking about what she and her husband Mark should have for dinner. She was bone tired that afternoon; aches and pains from a chronic case of spinal stenosis made it nearly impossible to focus on dinner. She was hoping her husband was making dinner for them. Even hot dogs sounded good, as long as she didn’t have to cook.

 The door from the garage to the hallway was locked, which surprised her. In fact, Mark usually greeted her at the door with a glass of Chardonnay.  Maybe he was taking a late nap. He had retired recently and was urging her to retire too, but she wasn’t quite ready. In less than a year, she’d be 66 and eligible for full social security benefits.

 She walked into the kitchen. There was nothing on the stove. She’d probably have to cook after all. Then she went into the living room, expecting to find her husband asleep in his recliner. When he wasn’t there, she began to panic a little. She called out to him, “Mark, where are you?” No response. She turned toward the front door and saw her husband’s body lying in front of it. She ran to him and shouted his name. He was lying on his left side. When she turned him over and saw all the blood on his Rutgers T-shirt, she screamed.

In Claremont, New Jersey, Detective Dennis Conti was already on his way home when he got the call. It was Inspector Palmeri. “Dennis, I know your shift is over, but I got a possible homicide in your neighborhood. Can you get over to 437 Tyne Avenue? A 70-year-old guy by the name of Mark Warner was found dead in his living room.”

 Conti, who, at 53, still had a full head of mostly black hair, cursed under his breath. He was hoping to watch Monday night football. The Giants were playing the Steelers. Now he’d be lucky to catch the fourth quarter. “Isn’t Bill Janus at his desk? He was there when I left. Can’t he take the call?”

 “He’s in the middle of the Holt case. He has a couple of witness interviews set up,” Inspector Palmeri said. “You’ll miss the game but the overtime will help you get over it, okay?”

 Conti turned on his GPS and followed the directions to the Warner address. Upon arrival, he was greeted by Ted Lapinski, a uniformed sergeant who was standing guard over the body, a bit too close for Conti. “Lapinski, how many times do I have to tell you to keep your distance from the crime scene?” 

 “Oh, right detective.  Guess you forgot to tell the wife not to get too close to her husband’s body.”

 Conti shook his head. It was true. Crime scenes in domestic situations were often compromised by well-meaning and, sometimes, not so well-meaning, family members. “What do we have here?”

 Officer Lapinski, a tall man, who wasn’t too far from retirement, offered his assessment. “We have one Mark, Warner, a 70-year-old retiree found here at his front door by his wife, Marsha Warner. He was shot in the chest. Believe it or not the gun was on the floor next to him, but whoever pulled the trigger made no attempt to make it look like suicide, not with two shots in his chest.”

 “His wife found him?” Conti asked.

 “Yeah, the wife, when she got home from work,” Lapinski said. He took his cap off and scratched his head. “Pretty broken up. She’s in the kitchen if you want to talk to her.”

 “Yeah, in a minute. The lab guys are on their way here. So, you figure this guy goes to answer his door and somebody caps him. Any personal belongings missing?”

 “Not according to his wife. She said she checked. His wedding ring and his college ring are still on his fingers. His wallet is still in his hip pocket and his money clip, with about forty bucks was in his side pocket, left side.”

 “She actually checked?” Conti asked.

 Lapinski shrugged. “Probably in shock.”

 “Nothing missing from the house?” Conti asked.

 “Nothing obvious. Mrs. Warner is in no shape to do a detailed search.”

 “Do they have a security alarm, cameras, anything like that?”

 “No.”

 The crime scene investigation team arrived. Claremont was a mostly upper middle-class northern New Jersey town just fifteen miles from Manhattan. Not all the residents were well heeled, of course, but a steady influx of transplants from Manhattan and more recently Brooklyn, had turned Claremont into a desirable upscale town. Thanks to growing tax revenues, Claremont had first class police and fire departments.

 The lab techs started by bagging the gun which Detective Conti hadn’t taken a look at yet. It peaked his interest immediately, because of its size. “What kind of gun is that?” he asked no one in particular.

 “That’s an NAA Mini .22 LR revolver,” Lapinski said. “I have a couple of them. Nice and light, only 4.5 ounces and as you can see, really small.”

 “Ever see one of those used in a homicide case before?”

 “Can’t say that I have. It’s small, easy to conceal, but it’s just a five-shot single action gun.”

Detective Conti inspected it through the plastic bag. “So, whoever did this had to cock the trigger twice to put two slugs in Mr. Warner. And I doubt the second one was necessary considering it was likely at very close range.”

 “Exactly,” Lapinski said.

 “How do you know the NAA Mini?” Conti asked.

 “A movie. Ever see Assassination Tango with Robert Duval?”

 “No.”

 “He plays a hit man who gets a job in Argentina. The Mini was his weapon of choice.”

 “And he dances the Argentine Tango?”

 “I thought you said you didn’t see the movie.”

 “I didn’t. Last year, Karen and I took dance lessons for a while,” Conti said. “Anyway, it’s an odd choice for a murder weapon.” He headed down the hall to the kitchen.

 Mrs. Warner was sitting at an oval shaped kitchen table with her son, Don. Conti walked in and introduced himself. “I’m very sorry for your loss,” he said to both of them. Mrs. Warner was still an attractive woman. Her pretty face, encircled by mid-length, ash blonde hair, had a youthful look. He double checked his notes to confirm she was indeed 65 years old.

 “Mrs. Warner, do you have any idea of why someone might do this to your husband?” the detective asked.

 The woman shook her head no and reached for another tissue. Her son, Don spoke up. “Detective, the only thing we know about this kind of thing is what we see on television, most of it wrong, I’m sure. But I want to assure you that my mother had nothing to do with this. My parents loved each other very much.” 

 “Mr. Warner, I understand your concern. But, it’s standard procedure in cases like this to start as close as possible to the victim and work outward from there. Now, did your father have any enemies that might want to do him harm? A dispute with a neighbor? I understand your father was retired. Were there ever problems with co-workers or someone your father had to discharge from employment?”

 Marsha Warner answered. “My husband was a mild-mannered man. He worked as a high school teacher for many years. He didn’t have many friends, only one really. He was an opinionated man, but he wasn’t the type to quarrel with others.”

 “Would you like a drink, detective, water or juice?” Don asked.

 “No, I’m not going to take up much more of your time.” Conti quickly made eye contact with Marsha Warner, and then turned back to her son. “Don, I need to speak with your mother privately, for a moment.”

 “Why?”

 “Don, go into my bedroom and call Uncle Jim and Aunt Marie, please,” Mrs. Warner said. Before he left the room, her son opened the refrigerator, pulled out a bottle of orange juice and poured half a glass for his mother. When he left the room, Marsha Warner looked at the detective and said, “You want to know if either my husband or I were having an affair, correct?”

 “I’m afraid so,” Mrs. Warner.

 “Well, I doubt that my husband would ever do a thing like that. He went to Mass every Sunday and never missed a Holy Day of Obligation, either.” She did her best to stifle a sob.

 “Take your time Mrs. Warner. I apologize for having to ask you these questions.”

 Mrs. Warner took a sip of orange juice. “I had an affair.”

 “I see.”

 “Does my family have to know about this?” she asked.

 “I can’t promise, but I doubt it,” Conti said. “Is the affair over?”

 “Yes.”

 “How long ago?”

 “About five weeks ago, I told him I couldn’t see him anymore. It just got too hard for me. You see, my husband could be a verbally abusive man. Never in front of others, of course, but sometimes, when he got angry about something, he would yell at me. We were going through a real rough patch when I met Matt.”

 “How long did the affair last?”

 “I’m ashamed to tell you. It was almost six years.” She hesitated a moment. “It sounds ridiculous, I know, but I loved my husband.”

 Conti knew to be patient. He hated this part of his job. Every instinct in his twelve years working homicide told him this woman was not capable of murder. Still, he’d been surprised before. “How did Matt take it when you ended the relationship?” 

 “He wasn’t happy about it. He tried to talk me out of it, even offered to get a divorce and marry me.”

“And you said no?” She nodded. “How did Matt take your refusal?”

 “He got really nasty, at first, but he calmed down and apologized.”

 “Is he a temperamental type?

 “Not with me. Like my husband, he is an opinionated man, very intelligent.”

 “You said your relationship with Matt became too hard for you. Can you tell me why?”

 Mrs. Warner took another sip of juice. Her hands were shaking so much she had to use them both to hold the glass. “Sneaking around takes a lot of energy. You’re always afraid you’ll run into someone you know, or worse, you’ll be seen, but won’t realize it,” she said. “And Matt was never satisfied with the amount of time I could give him. It got to be more than I could handle.” 

 “Have you spoken with him recently?” Conti asked.

 “About a week ago. I asked him not to call me anymore. He was kind about it. He said he understood and he wished me well.”

 “Anything else?”

 “He told me I would be calling him when I missed him enough.”

 Conti smiled. “I’ll need his last name and his contact information,” Conti said.

 Mrs. Warner reached for her cell phone and pulled up Matt’s information. She handed the phone to Conti. Don walked back into the room. Conti looked at him and said, “We’re almost finished, Mr. Warner. Maybe you could wait outside for me. I have a few more questions for you.”

 Matt’s last name was Keegan. The detective wrote down his address and phone number and returned the phone to Mrs. Warner. She looked up at him and said, “Please be discreet, Detective Conti. Matt is a good man really, and I don’t want to hurt him or his wife.”

 “I understand.”

 Before he left, he chatted with Don Warner for a few minutes inquiring about his whereabouts that day, mostly a routine inquiry. Don couldn’t fathom such a tragedy. “Could it have been a case of mistaken identity?” Don asked. “Right now, it’s too soon to rule anything out, so yes, it’s possible.” 

 Conti decided to go back to the station and write up what he’d learned so far. Also, he wanted to see if he could meet Matthew Keegan that night. If the man committed murder, he wanted to talk with him as soon as possible, before he had time to rationalize his behavior. Mrs. Warner had told him that Keegan was a retired businessman, who had once owned several fast food restaurants. He could just go to the man’s home, unannounced, but he didn’t want to turn the man’s life upside down unnecessarily. He called Keegan’s cell and the man picked up. “Keegan here.”

 “Matthew Keegan? This is Detective Dennis Conti of the Claremont Police. Is this a good time for us to talk?”

 “What’s this about?” Keegan asked.

 “Mark Warner was murdered this afternoon. I need to ask you a few questions.”

 “Who is Mark Warner?” Keegan asked. His voice had dropped to nearly a whisper.

 “You know who he is Mr. Keegan. I’ve already spoken to Marsha.”

 “I see. Well, I’m as shocked as anybody,” Keegan said.

 “I’m going to swing by your house in about thirty minutes.”

 “Not possible. I’m in Cherry Hill tonight. How about if I come to your office tomorrow morning? You’re on Valley Road, right?”

 Conti thought it over. The man had already lied, not entirely unexpected under the circumstances. Cherry Hill was a good two hour drive from Claremont. “That will work. I’ll meet you at nine o’clock,” Conti said. He went back to his paperwork, putting in the necessary requests for the cell phone and Internet records of the decedent, his wife, their son. He wanted access to phone calls, texts, emails and Internet searches that might relate to weapons, or other methods of killing someone.

 He got home in time to see the last three minutes of the Giants-Steelers game. He was glad he got the call. He’d racked up a solid four hours of overtime pay and missed another Giants loss. He poured himself a Scotch on the rocks and made a ham sandwich. He missed the days when his wife Karen would have a real meal waiting for him. They had a good marriage for a long time, raised two children and managed to stay close in spite of his odd hours and his many moods, driven by the nature of his work. Like every good detective, his cases stayed with him well after his work day ended.

 Eventually, Karen tired of his long hours. And, her career had reached the point where she was making excellent money decorating and furnishing offices in and around Manhattan. She worked closely with sophisticated business types, which exposed her to a wide variety of ideas and lifestyles. The more she learned, the more she questioned the way her life she had chosen. An honest woman, she asked Dennis for a separation. She needed time to think.

 He wasn’t happy about it, but he was no stranger to marriages falling apart. They both had friends whose marriages failed. Karen stayed in their home and he rented a condo while they sorted things out. They’d been sorting them out now for eighteen months. He knew Karen had started dating, but he was reluctant to do that because he felt, in the long run it would only delay, or even preclude them, from getting back together.

The next morning the detective got to work early. His sometime partner, Detective Shanese Davis, was already there, reading his report on the Warner murder. Their desks faced each other. “Dennis, there’s some jambalaya in the fridge for you. I made a huge pot last night. You can have it for lunch.”

 Shanese was an excellent cook. “Thanks, where were you last night? That jambalaya sounds a lot better than the ham sandwich I had for dinner.”

 “You’re going to love it.”

 “I’ll never understand why your husband left. Everything you make is incredible,” Conti said.

 “According to his mama, he left because I was too demanding in bed,” Shanese said. They laughed and Conti pointed to the report Shanese was reading. “Any thoughts?”

 “Yeah, Marsha Warner must be one hot chick. Sixty-five and still getting it on.”

 Conti poured a cup of coffee and refilled Shanese’s cup “She’s attractive, but she looks more like a woman who hands out communion wafers on Sundays,” Conti said. “Her lover, one Matt Keegan, is due in here for an interview soon.”

 “Oh, I want to meet him,” Shanese said. “Please tell me he’s only 35 and handsome.”

 “Your mother-in-law might be right about you.”

 Promptly at 9:00 a.m. Matthew Keegan walked into the station house. The woman on duty at the front desk escorted him to the interview room. When Davis saw him through the glass partition, she saw a man who was still fit, with close cropped salt and pepper hair, wearing wire rimmed glasses. “Darn it, he’s two 35s, isn’t he?”

 “Yeah, he’s 70,” Conti said.

 Conti introduced himself and Shanese Davis to Keegan and thanked him for coming in to see them. “We won’t keep you too long, Mr. Keegan,” Conti said. “Just a few questions.”

 “I have as much time as you need,” Keegan said.

 “That’s fine. Now, have you spoken to Mrs. Warner since you and I spoke last night?”

 “Yes. I called her to express my condolences. She’s really worried about her family finding out about us.”

“You understand that in circumstances like this, based on many years of experience, we need to rule out you and Mrs. Warner first as possible suspects,” Detective Davis said.

 “You can’t be serious,” Keegan said. “Why on earth would either one of us want to do a thing like that?”

 “Love has a way of making people do crazy things, Mr. Keegan. I understand you took it hard when Mrs. Warner’s decided to end your relationship,” Conti said.

 “Really? Did she tell you that?”

 Conti didn’t answer him. He just waited. 

 Keegan drummed his fingers on the tabletop. “I see where you’re headed and frankly, you don’t have a clue about this. You’re both too young to get it.”

 “Educate us then,” Davis said.

 “If Marsha and I were half the ages we are now, you might have a point. What you don’t understand is that at our age, we’re not interested in blowing up our lives for something that, in the long run, probably won’t turn out too good.”

 “I’m not following you,” Detective Conti said.

 “Yeah you are, but okay, it’s like this. Marsha’s husband’s death is the worst news I could possibly have gotten. I had the perfect setup. We were both married. Neither one of us could afford to get too involved. Too much at stake. With her husband gone, she might decide that I should get a divorce, which will never happen, by the way.”

 “So, the breakup didn’t upset you?” Conti asked.

 “Of course it did. At my age it isn’t easy to find someone for fun and games. And I’ve never paid for it, never would. Anyway, we’ve broken up before, but she always comes back.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “It might be too risky to take her back, now.”

 “Why is that?” Davis asked.

 “She’ll want me to get a divorce. And as I said, not happening.” Keegan leaned back in his chair and wrapped his hands behind the back of his head. “Any other questions?” he asked.

 “A few,” Conti said. He was beginning to dislike this man and he didn’t have to look at Shanese to know she was on the same page. “Do you own any firearms?”

 “I own a hunting rifle.”

 “Have you ever fired a handgun?”

“In the Army, but not since then.”

 “Where were you yesterday afternoon?” Davis asked.

 “In my home office, alone. My wife was doing charity work. She does it every Monday.”

 “Where does she do that?”

 For the first time Matt Keegan’s face showed some concern. “You’re not going to talk to her, are you?”

 “We’ll see. Again, where does she volunteer? Conti asked.

 “Meals on Wheels in Montclair, from noon to four.”

 “So, you were home alone. What were you doing?” Davis asked.

 “Why do you ask?”

 “This will go a lot faster and easier if you just answer our questions, Mr. Keegan,” Conti said.

 “Okay. I was editing a book I’m working on about the history of Mardi Gras. I try to go every year.”

 “I’d like your permission to take a look at your computer,” Conti said.

 “No. There’s no cause. A man died. I was sleeping with his wife, but I had nothing against him. I had nothing to do with this.”

 “We can get a search warrant,” Davis said.

 “If you have probable cause. Now let’s see. You can’t place me at the scene, you can’t connect me to whatever weapon was used to kill the guy and as for motive, I think I’ve explained that. I had none. Quite the opposite.”

 “Did you offer to get a divorce when Mrs. Warner broke it off?”

 “Hell no.”

 “Because that would contradict your earlier statement about being past the stage of where either of you would get a divorce,” Conti said. He opened a folder and flipped through a few pages. “Mrs. Warner told me you offered to divorce your wife.”

 “If I said something like that, it was only by way of keeping things going,” Keegan said.

 “So, you did offer to get a divorce,” Davis said.

“Listen, I don’t remember saying it. Maybe Marsha was hoping I would get one. I don’t know.”

 The interview was over. Conti said he would call Keegan if he had more questions. Keegan again asked for reassurance that they wouldn’t contact his wife. “Nothing to worry about on that score right now,” Conti said. He enjoyed making the guy squirm a little.

 Davis and Conti walked back to their desks. “Grab your coat, partner. We need to canvas the Warner’s neighborhood. Let’s see if anybody has a home security system. We might get lucky.”

 “What do you think of Matt Keegan?” Davis asked.

 “An arrogant jerk is my first impression. What do you think?”

 “I think he went out of his way to minimize his feelings for Marsha Warner. I want to see what the texts and emails between them reveal.”

 With the help of two patrolmen, the partners canvassed the streets where a car might be seen driving on Tyne Avenue where the Warner’s lived and if any of the homes nearby captured anyone who might have rang the Warner’s doorbell.

 “This should have been done last night,” Davis said.

 “Well, I think they started to, but there was a fire a few blocks away and a car accident on Bloomfield Avenue. These guys got too busy,” Conti said.

 The two patrolmen covered homes within two blocks of the Warner residence. The homicide partners went to work on homes nearby. They got lucky on the first house, which was directly across the street from the Warner’s. The homeowners had a security camera system including a front door camera that captured what appeared to be a very heavyset man with a beard at the Warner’s front door at 2:14 p.m. on the day of the incident. 

 Two doors down, another homeowner had a security camera attached to their garage. The same man was seen getting out of a silver Dodge Challenger at 2:12. He returned to the vehicle at 2:14.  Conti and Davis arranged to have the videos sent to headquarters where they could be analyzed and hopefully, enhanced. They had no doubt that the perp had been caught on camera.

 The patrolmen didn’t do as well, but they managed to find a video from a street in the business district that matched the description of the Challenger.  With that information the video lab might be able to track at least some of the route the car took. If they could trace it back to somewhere close to its point of origin, it might lead them to the perpetrator. Many of Claremont’s businesses were cooperating with police, giving them automatic access to their video footage.

 When Conti and Davis got back to the station house, they immediately met with Inspector Palmeri to bring him up to date. Commenting on the videos, he said, “This is a nice break, you two. Good work. What’s next?”

Conti and Davis looked at each other. “We wait to see if the video crew can trace that Dodge Challenger to its point of origin or somewhere nearby,” Conti said.

 “Tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest, we should have the phone and email info on the Warner family. And if we’re lucky a preliminary crime scene report,” Davis added.

 Inspector Palmeri nodded. “You’re forgetting something. I’m surprised.”

 “You mean the picture of the guy who probably did it?” Conti asked. “We’ll see.”

 “Interesting. You have doubts?”

 “I like the boyfriend for this,” Conti said.

 “Me too.”

 “I saw the boyfriend when he came in this morning. Did he lose a hundred pounds overnight?” the inspector asked. “Run a background check on this Keegan guy.”

 Just before it was time to leave for the day, Davis noticed that Conti seemed preoccupied.

 “Haven’t heard from Karen?” she asked.

 “Nope, not a word. I guess it’s over.”

 Every Sunday night, promptly at 7:00 p.m. Conti called Karen to catch up on things. She always took his call. Mostly they talked about their work and of course their children. Their daughter, Angela had recently been engaged. They talked about the wedding, especially how they were going to pay for it. Their son, Ryan had just recently decided to enter the police academy, something his father enthusiastically supported. Karen was disappointed. She had been hoping Ryan would opt for law school.

 The last time they spoke, three weeks ago now, Karen seemed distracted. Conti was sure she had company, but he didn’t want to ask. When he mentioned it to Shanese the next day, she said, “You call her every Sunday, right?”

 “Yeah.”

 “Just a thought, but maybe you should try not calling her for a while. See if she calls you.”

 “And if she doesn’t?”

 “Then you know what you’re dealing with.” 

 Conti took her advice. That was three weeks ago.

When Davis heard that Karen hadn’t called, she thought Conti might be right, but she hoped she was wrong.

 That night, after dinner he sat back in his recliner and drank Scotch, while he channel surfed. Just as he was drifting off, his cell went off. For a split second, he wondered if he was on call. “Conti here.”

 “Hi Dennis, it’s Karen.”

 He sat up straight. “Hey, everything okay?”

 “Yeah. I just haven’t heard from you for a while so I guess I wanted to ask you the same thing.”

 “Doing okay. Working a homicide with no witnesses and no clues.”

 The Warner case, by any chance?” 

“Right.”

 “I know Marsha Warner. She used to come to my Bible study group.”

 “Is that right? How well do you know her?”

 “Uh-oh is this an official interrogation?” Karen asked.

 Conti laughed. She was in a good mood. Sounded more like her old self. “It’s an odd case. So far, we haven’t found anyone with a grudge against Mark Warner.”

 “You think Marsha’s involved?”

 “I’d be surprised, but it’s too soon to rule her out.”

 “I don’t know her well, but I can tell you she was outspoken at times at Bible study. She complained about her husband a lot.”

 “Interesting.” Conti got up and looked for a notepad.

 “She said he was steady as a rock, completely predicable. He was on some kind of medicine that she said made him irritable at times.”

 “Did she ever express a desire to get a divorce?”

 “No, nothing like that.”

 “Okay, on another topic, Ryan called me this afternoon. He starts at the academy next week.”

“I know, he called me too.” She hesitated a moment. “Angela and Steve set a date for the wedding, July 23rd. We have about nine months to prepare.”

 “Wow. We should get together to discuss it,” Conti said.

 “I know. Can you do it Saturday afternoon? Angela will be here.”

 “Sure.”                     

 It was taking longer than expected for the records pertaining to texts, phone calls and emails to arrive. There was an unusual backlog of recent cases. Conti was frustrated. His investigation was stalling. He was patient, though. He waited until a week after Mark Warner’s funeral to visit with Marsha Warner again. He asked her whether Mr. Warner had any life insurance and when the policies had been issued.

 She told him Mr. Warner had a modest policy that he had purchased years ago. “It’s going to be a struggle for me without him,” Mrs. Warner said. “I’ll still get his pension, but not all of it, of course. I don’t know when I’ll be able to retire now,” she said.

 Conti pulled out his iPad and showed Mrs. Warner the grainy video of the man going up their front steps. “Have you ever seen this man before?” He paused the video so she could take a good look.

 She stared intently at it and shook her head. “No, is that the man who killed Mark?”

 Conti watched Mrs. Warner for any reaction, possibly a tell, but no such luck. He put the iPad away. “We think it could be,” he said. “I have a few more questions for you, sorry.” He paused a moment. “Mrs. Warner, did you ever seek the advice of a divorce lawyer?”

 “Certainly not. It wasn’t like that, detective.”

 “But Mr. Keegan did offer to get a divorce, right?”

 “Yes, when I told him it was over,” she said.

 “I spoke with Mr. Keegan last week. He said he called you on the night of the incident. Have you spoken to him since?”

 Mrs. Warner picked up her knitting needles and started working on a sweater she was making. “He’s called me several times. I took one of the calls and we chatted a while.”

 “What did you talk about?”

 “He wants us to start back up again, but I told him I can’t do that. He said something about how he knew I needed some time, but he would wait for me.”

“Would you like to see him again at some point?” Conti asked.

 Mrs. Warner put the needles down. “Detective Conti, for the life of me I cannot understand how a question like that could possibly have anything to do with my husband’s murder.”

 “Who’s the sweater for?” Conti asked, changing the subject.

 She picked up the needles again. “My son.”

 “Mrs. Warner, I’m not saying Mr. Keegan is a suspect, but I think you should be aware that we haven’t cleared him yet. Obviously, you’re free to do what you want, but I hope you’ll be cautious for a while.”

 “Thank you, detective. I think you’re barking up the wrong tree with Matt.”

 “I hope you’re right.”

 Mrs. Warner picked up a tissue to dab a few tears she had been fighting to hold back. “Am I in the clear, detective?”

 “Not yet.”

 When Conti got back to the station house Davis was waiting for him. “We finally got reports from the lab. Your guy was shot twice in the chest with a .22 short from the NAA Mini. The gun was last registered to a Remi Hayata, in Indianapolis.” Davis looked up from the report she’d been reading. “He said it was stolen five years ago. Anyway, time of death was between 1:00 p.m. and 3:30. Warner died instantly from the gunshots.” She flipped to the next page. “No fingerprints were found that might give us any leads.”

 “So, all we have is grainy video of a fat guy with a beard?” Conti asked.

 “No, the Challenger was traced to Verona, about nine miles from the Warner home. The videos of the car show New Jersey license plates, but it turns out the plates were stolen.”

 “How’d we trace the car then,” Conti asked.

 “Dealer decal on the trunk lid. The car is still on a used car lot in Verona.”

 “Our perp did some planning. But they always screw up something,” Conti said. “Where in Verona?”

 “The car is registered to the owner of a used car dealership, a guy named Dave Siegel.”

 Conti stood up and got ready to go. “Not so fast, Detective Conti. The Inspector wants to see you about another case you’ve supposedly been working.”

“Fine, can you go see Siegel?”

“Sure.”

 “See if he knows Matt Keegan,” Conti said.

 “Thanks, I never would have thought of that. Your experience is something to behold.”

 “Shut up, Shanese.”

 “Detective Davis, thank you.”

 “Karen called last night.”

 “Glad to hear it, but you still owe me an apology.”

 “I apologize.”

 “That’s better. When I get back, I want to hear how it went with Karen.”

 There were an enormous number of texts going back six years between Marsha Warner and Matt Keegan. The detectives were able to quickly dispense with Don Warner’s information. His relationship with his parents was loving and respectful. The late Mr. Warner wasn’t a man to text very often, but the detectives soon realized that he may not have been as naïve as they assumed.

“Oh man, listen to this, Dennis,” Davis said. “Mr. Warner sent a text to a guy named Edwin that reads, ‘I think Marsha is up to something. Don’t want to speculate. No good can come from it.’”

 “When was it sent?”

 “Three years ago, Davis said. 

 “That it?” Conti asked.

 “No, the friend wrote back. ‘Seeing another man?’”

 “And?”

 “Warner writes, ‘It’s possible”

 “Keep looking. Maybe he figured out it was Matt Keegan.”

 But Detective Davis didn’t see any further references to Mr. Warner’s concern about his wife. Davis called Edwin to check. He told her the subject never came up again. The communication between Matt and Marsha was more revealing than lovers engaged in that kind of relationship realized. Taken one message at a time it seemed harmless enough, but when viewed as a whole it would be obvious to anyone that both parties were meeting to have sex frequently during the early years of their relationship. They gave each other pet names and expressed their love often.

As the years went by, there were fewer texts and the tone shifted back and forth, almost comically, between frustration and renewal. Matt would complain about not seeing enough of Marsha and she would make excuses, claiming she was extremely busy running errands. The couple would go weeks with no communication. Eventually, Marsha would send a friendly text and the cycle would renew. It also appeared that Keegan occasionally gave Mrs. Warner gifts, money and a few times, jewelry.  

 “It sounds like she’s was screwing him just enough to keep him interested,” Davis said.

 “Yeah. Looking at the dates on all these messages, it’s obvious that he would give her the silent treatment for a couple of weeks until she agreed to put out,” Conti said.

 “Put out?” Davis looked at Conti.

 “An inaccurate description?”

 Davis swatted his arm and tried not to laugh.

 It seemed clear to both Conti and Davis that Mrs. Warner was more interested in having a sympathetic listener, while Matt Keegan was more interested in the sexual nature of the relationship. Eventually, the relationship took on aspects of a negotiation where the parties each made promises to give each other what they wanted.

 There was one joking reference that caught the partners’ eye. Mrs. Warner was complaining about a man who’d recently become her boss at work. Apparently, he was very demanding and at times downright rude to her. In one text she wrote, “I wish you could make him go away!”

 Keegan quickly offered to take care of him, permanently. “I wish you would,” Mrs. Warner wrote back. Admittedly, her messages contained smiley faces indicating she was joking. Still, in light of Mr. Warner’s murder, the detectives noted the offer. Her boss was alive and well. Conti checked.

 It wasn’t until the following morning that Conti and Davis were able to reconnect. Davis called Conti on her way to work. “Spoke with the car dealer yesterday. He denies knowing Keegan.”

 “Does he have a beard?”

 “No and he’s as thin as angel hair pasta,” Davis said. “But he remembered the big guy. Said his name was Gilbert Roselle. The man took a test drive and was gone for around forty-five minutes.” 

 “Siegel had a copy of Roselle’s driver’s license, no?”

 “He did.”

 “You do a search for Gilbert Roselle in the New York metro area?” Conti asked.

 “What do you think? Found two of them. One is 90 years old and the other is 47 and lives in Yonkers. He’s one of us, on the job.” 

 Conti shook his head. “We’re missing something. I don’t know who this Gilbert Roselle is, but I’ll bet he doesn’t exist,” he said.

 “Roselle’s driver’s license had a Newark address. But Newark doesn’t have a Mississippi Ave. So, yeah, I’d say Mr. Roselle doesn’t exist,” Davis said.

 “We need to get a look at Matt Keegan’s phone and computer,” Conti said.

 “Like the Inspector said, unless he’s a speed dieter, I don’t think he’s our guy,” Davis said.

 “None of this is making sense. The logical answer here is that Keegan did this. And if I’m right, how do we know Mrs. Keegan isn’t next?”

 “You sure Mrs. Warner didn’t help?”

 “I don’t know. Maybe she encouraged him to do it, but wouldn’t they have agreed in advance to say their breakup was mutual? She says he wants to start up again”

 “Good point. Why don’t you talk to Keegan again, maybe this time in his home?” Davis asked.

 “I hate doing that to his wife,” Conti said. “I’m pulling into the station now. I’m going to check the wife out. Maybe she’s still working.” He went to his desk and did a Linkedin search. Jeanette Keegan was easy to find. She was still working. He called her employer and asked for her. When she answered, he hung up. Five minutes later, Davis walked in with coffee for both of them. “Don’t take your coat off. Let’s go see Matt Keegan. His wife is at work.”

 “You drive. I need my coffee.”

 Matt Keegan’s car was in the driveway. They rang the bell several times before he came to the door. Still in his robe, he stepped outside. “What are you doing here? My wife is in the house and I think I’ve answered all your questions.”

 “Your wife is at work. I can call her and introduce myself if you like.”

 Keegan gave Conti a dirty look. “Let’s make this fast. I don’t have all day.” He ushered the detectives into his home. “We’ll meet in the kitchen.”

 Keegan and Davis sat down, but Conti said had to go to the bathroom. “It’s around the corner, you can’t miss it,” Keegan said, clearly irritated.    

“I won’t be long.” Conti took his time, walking as quietly as he could on the hardwood floors. He deliberately went past the bathroom, wanting to sneak a look at the family room, which was just a few feet past the bath. He walked in and took a quick look around. There was a fireplace with a stack of logs leaning against a brick wall. There was a stack of DVDs sitting on an end table next to a recliner. Keegan was obviously a movie buff. Conti took a quick look at the titles. He could hear Shanese asking if she could have a glass of water. Then she asked Keegan a question about his granite countertops.

 In the middle of the stack of DVDs, Conti saw something that made his pupils dilate. He pulled out his cell phone and quickly snapped a photo of what he saw. Then, he took a few pictures of the room itself, always keeping the DVD stack in the picture.

 He walked back to the restroom and flushed the bowl. When he came out, Davis was showing Keegan photos of the silver Dodge Challenger. “I hate Chrysler products,” Keegan said.

 “Do you know a man named Dave Siegel?” Davis asked.

 “Nope. Listen, I have a busy day ahead. I don’t have time to play twenty questions.” He stood and waited.

 “Okay, Mr. Keegan. No further questions right now, but you may want to come clean with your wife. Better she hears it from you,” Conti said.

 “What the hell do you mean by that?” Keegan asked.

 “I saw Marsha Warner yesterday. She asked if she was in the clear. I told her what I’m telling you, now. Not yet.”

 As soon as they got in the car, Davis turned to Conti and said, “What the hell was that all about? Why did you terminate the interview?”

 “You had more questions?” Conti was smiling.

 “I should get you into my weekly poker game,” Davis said. “Spill it Dennis.”

 “It doesn’t prove anything, but you know the gun, the NAA Mini that was used on Warner?”

 “Yeah, weird little gun.”

 “Sergeant Lapinski was on the scene when I got to the Warner’s. He owns a mini just like the one we found. Told me he’d seen it in a Robert Duvall movie, Assassination Tango.”

 “Never heard of it.”

 “Well, Keegan has quite a few DVDs in his family room, including Assassination Tango.”  

 “I suppose it could be a coincidence,” Davis said, “but I don’t believe that.”      

On Saturday afternoon, Dennis Conti arrived promptly at 3:00 p.m. at his former Claremont home to meet Karen and Angela. He was pleased to see that their son Ryan was also there. He’d brought a dozen Italian pastries with him from Calandra’s Bakery. Karen put out cheese, salami and olives and opened a bottle of wine. They talked about Angela’s wedding plans. There was some good-natured teasing about how much the wedding would cost.

The four of them were enjoying each other’s company which really lifted Conti’s spirits. While they were clearing the kitchen table, Karen asked about the Warner case, which surprised Conti because he never discussed his ongoing cases with his family. The siblings cast sideways glances at each other, worried that a nice afternoon together might be ruined if their father chastised their mother.

 Conti surprised them. “We have bits and pieces, but something’s not right. I can’t put my finger on it. We have video of an obese guy with a beard driving up to the house and going in around the time of the murder, but Mrs. Warner doesn’t recognize him and we don’t think he’s in the system.”

 Surprised that his father was actually discussing a case, Ryan asked, “Can we see the video?”

 Conti shook his head, but he was smiling. “That means yes, Daddy,” Angela said.

 Now, husband and wife exchanged glances. It was a sweet, private moment between them. He picked up his keys and handed them to Ryan. “Get my iPad out of the car.” The four of them watched the video in silence. Then Angela, who was a dietician, asked, “Can I see that again, please?”

After viewing it again, she said, “Did you guys notice how easily he went up and down those steps? There are at least six of them and they’re steep. The guy looks like he weighs at least 300 pounds. Trust me, somebody who weighs that much has aching knees. They can’t move that fast either.”

 Conti ran the video again. How had he and Shanese missed that before? Angela was right. He reached up and pulled his daughter close to him, kissing her cheek. “You should be going to the Academy too.”

 On Monday morning Inspector Palmeri called his usual staff meeting to get an update on each detective’s active cases. When he got to Detective Conti, he said, “Before you get to any of your other cases, where are you on the Warner murder?”

 “All but cleared, I think. I just need to connect a few more dots on Matt Keegan.”

 “Fill us in.”

“Okay, he’s having an affair with a married woman who ends it. He’s not happy about. I think he decided to kill her husband, thinking he could have her to himself. We took a closer look at the texts and emails between them. As time went by, we believe he upped the ante to keep her going. The dollar amounts were never discussed, but she used words like generous, very generous and too generous in that sequence.” Conti paused for effect. “I called Mrs. Warner and she confirmed it. She told him after the last one, $500, that she wouldn’t take his money anymore.” 

“That’s motive, in spite of what Keegan said about preferring that the husband was alive. He was running out of options.” Conti pulled out the bag he’d picked up from the evidence room. It was the gun. “Then he has that Robert Duval movie in his house, the one where the hitman used the NAA Mini. It’s sitting next to his TV. But we’ve been stuck by the video of the bearded, obese guy who drove that Dodge Challenger up to Warner’s home. Over the weekend I studied the video again and I noticed that the guy climbing the steps to the front door didn’t move like a guy who weighed 300 plus pounds. He did even better, going down the steps.” Conti didn’t dare mention that he had shown the video to his family.

 “A fat suit?” Davis asked. There was some laughter in the room now.

 Palmeri held his hand up. “Let’s assume it was a fat suit. From what we know, this guy Keegan was really careful. You really think you can find the costume store in the metropolitan area that sold him one?”  

“Maybe not, but Shanese told me that the license plates on the Challenger were stolen.” He looked Shanese.

She picked up a piece of paper. “The plates were registered to a woman named Greta Tuccillo. We weren’t able to reach her until this morning. She’s been in England on business.”

“I’ll bet the car was parked at Newark Airport,” one of the other detectives said.

“Bingo!” Davis turned to Conti, who pointed back at her, gesturing for her to continue. “Before our shift is over, it’s better than even money that security cameras at the airport are going to show Mr. Keegan, without his fat suit, stealing those plates.”

 “I hope you’re right, Davis,” Inspector Palmeri said. “Otherwise, you guys could be visiting costume stores for months.”

Matt Keegan had done an excellent job planning Mark Warner’s murder and he might have gotten away with it, had it not been for his decision to steal the license plates and substitute them for dealer plates. Had he thrown the gun in the Passaic River instead of leaving it at the scene, Detective Conti probably wouldn’t have discovered the connection between the weapon and the movie. The background check they ran on Keegan was also revealing. While he’d never been arrested, police had been dispatched a number of times to his places of business, because he’d roughed up customers who he said were behaving badly. He also had a history of firing store managers who disagreed with him. Conti interviewed several of them. One guy said, “He’s the type who always has to be right, the smartest one in the room. And he always has to win. He’s a classic sore loser.”

The next time Detectives Conti and Davis went to Keegan’s home they didn’t bother checking on whether Annette Keegan might be home. As it turned out she wasn’t there. At first, Keegan refused to let them in. Conti pulled out his new DVD of Assassination Tango and said, “We didn’t come to visit, Mr. Keegan. You’re under arrest for the murder of Mark Warner.” 

“You’re crazy, detective,” Keegan said, but he couldn’t take his eyes off of the DVD.

 Conti read Keegan his rights and Davis handcuffed him. “I want a lawyer,” Keegan said.

 “You’ll need one,” Davis answered.

There was no trial, of course. Confronted with the evidence, Keegan reluctantly chose to plead to voluntary manslaughter and got a lighter sentence. His wife divorced him.

 Detective Conti paid one final visit to Marsha Warner. “My husband paid for my sins, didn’t he?”

 Conti hesitated for a moment. There was some truth to what Mrs. Warner said. She was looking at him, her eyes pleading. “Mrs. Warner, on the day we met, you told me your husband had been treating you badly.”

 “I never said that,” Mrs. Warner said.

 “Perhaps not in those words, exactly. Regardless, you tried to do the right thing by ending the relationship with Keegan. Maybe it was just your husband’s time, and Keegan was the instrument used to carry it out,” he said.

 “With my help.” She reached for a tissue and wiped her tears.

 Conti softly replied, "It's not really for us to say. Sometimes our actions have painful, unanticipated and unwanted consequences. Life is so much more complicated than we like to think."

 Mrs. Warner slowly nodded her head in silent agreement.

 As he got into his car, Conti thought about how the woman would have to live with her mistake, and would probably punish herself for it. Eventually, her family would find out about her affair with Keegan, and she would suffer even more.  He started the car and drove away.

That evening Dennis Conti took his son and daughter out to dinner to thank them for their help in solving the case. Karen was invited, but she said she was busy. The case of the Conti marriage was yet to be solved.