If the police were going to arrest Dan Wozniak, they could have waited. Waited until after the wedding and the honeymoon. The strapping actor was in the midst of the busiest week of his life, and sitting in an interview room at the Costa Mesa Police Department was a serious inconvenience.
But, really, Dan had no choice but to go along with the police after they’d barged into his bachelor party and made a whole dramatic scene by placing him in handcuffs in front of his friends. As bachelor parties went, it had been a pretty tame gathering, just a bunch of guys hanging out at a suburban Japanese restaurant, eating sushi and drinking saki. Dan had been a lumbering presence in his Hawaiian shirt and khakis, telling stories the way he always did and chortling loudly. But the other patrons hadn’t minded. With his trimmed, brown beard and large, blue eyes, Dan was pleasant to behold, genial, if not a bit affected and stagy. Certainly, no one would have taken him for the person whose face would stare out at the public from newspaper covers and television shows, described alternately as a conniving sociopath and callous predator.
Certainly the detectives flanking Dan weren’t treating him like a criminal. While Dan enunciated his sentences, and spoke in a solemn timbre that suggested that all he wanted to do was help them, the investigators smiled and nodded at the suspect, fetching him water and acting as if they related to his predicament.
“Before we can actually talk to you,” Dan was told, “I have to read you your rights.”
Wozniak didn’t seem worried. “I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”
Although he had never made the quest some forty miles north to ply his trade in Hollywood, Dan appeared contented in his accomplishments on the stages of Orange County. He and his fiancée had recently completed a run of the play Nine at the Hunger Artists Theatre Company in the town of Fullerton. Daniel had received glowing reviews for his virtuosity in the lead role, while his girlfriend, Rachel Mae Buffett, played one of his innumerable love interests.
Rachel was a cute, button-nosed blonde who looked every bit like the homeschooled Christian girl she’d been. She’d even found work in Disneyland, playing a storybook princess to the squeals of young visitors. The problem was that there were a lot of girls in Southern California who looked like Disney princesses. And, as much as local theater audiences appreciated Dan Wozniak, the couple couldn’t really pay their bills. Recently, investigators would learn, Rachel had been perusing the Internet in search of topless dancer jobs that might yield some crumpled tens and twenties. It was the same night that she and Dan had appeared in a rendition of Nine—the night that a body was found in the apartment downstairs.
That was the reason that police had come into the Japanese restaurant, waving their badges and patting down the guest of honor. There was the suspicion that the affable actor might know something about the dead girl in his neighbor’s apartment.
In the interview room, Dan insisted that he hadn’t had any dealings with a corpse. But, since they were being completely frank with one another, there were a few details, he admitted, that he’d neglected to tell the police.
“Now, I have a quick question,” he started. “If I disclose to you something that was wrong, to my standing, can you use that against me?”
The detectives seated closest to Dan drew a breath.
“Not related to what happened,” Dan added quickly, sweeping a hand to the side for emphasis.
“Are you talking about lying to us?”
“No, this is something completely—An illegal act, an idea, the whole thing started because of an illegal act”—Dan shook his head from side to side—“that I…” He breathed in and considered his next word.
“Well, why don’t you just tell us?” the detective urged in a warm, empathetic tone. “Just tell us. I can’t tell you until you actually tell—”
Dan spoke over the investigator, holding up his palms and shaking his fingers. “You know. I don’t care.” He folded his hands and leaned into them, then separated his fingers. “Here it is.”
What followed was a long, convoluted tale about not the dead body, but a scheme that he claimed to have launched to procure some desperately needed funds.
His partner, he said, was a resident of his building, the same downstairs neighbor in whose apartment the cadaver had been located. Interestingly, the neighbor had also been missing since shortly before the discovery of the dead girl. Detectives patiently listened as Dan assured them that the purpose of the plot had never been to perpetrate violence but to generate cash. It was a relatively harmless endeavor, Wozniak said, and, when it was over, he was excited that he’d finally raised enough revenue to pay off his debts.
“I said…, ‘Everything’s set,’” Dan stated at the conclusion of the yarn. “‘All squared. We got away with murder.’”
Catching himself, he quickly shut his eyes and brought his fingers up to his face, moving his head from side to side. “Sorry,” he muttered. “Bad pun.” He coughed out a short laugh. “Bad, bad pun.”
Within days, police would find the severed head of the missing neighbor in a nearby nature center. But, right now, detectives had yet to learn anything about that. All they knew was that they hardly believed anything that Wozniak was telling them.