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Damn it, he had a point. O’Donnell sighed dramatically, which didn’t fit his manner. “I don’t think anyone on your staff is a criminal, Freed,” he began.
    He was interrupted by Officer Patel, who walked into the auditorium with an air of urgency I had not seen the previous night. Sophie and her parents, in the corner, were arguing, probably about her attitude (I distinctly heard the word “ Moth- errrr”). The two cops took notice of Patel, but kept flashing their lights under the seats in row B. O’Donnell and I were the only other people in the room, unless you counted Anthony, who was snoring ever-so-slightly by now.
    “You’d better take a look downstairs,” he told O’Donnell. “There’s something you’re going to want to see.”
    Downstairs? I hadn’t been in the basement in days, maybe weeks, now that I thought about it. The door was always locked when we were open for business. How could Mr. Ansella’s murder have anything to do with my theatre’s musty old basement?
    “I’m coming with you,” I told O’Donnell. He didn’t object, but then again, he didn’t say anything at all. He gestured to the two cops with the flashlights, and they followed him.
    Patel seemed anxious to get O’Donnell downstairs quickly, so we didn’t waste any more time. I noticed Sophie and her parents follow us out of the auditorium. Anthony was perfectly happy, his legs up on row G, seat 12. It would have been cruel to disturb him.
    At the door to the basement was the open padlock, whose key I had given the officers when I arrived. The light was on in the stairwell, and Patel led the way. At the top of the stairs, O’Donnell pointed to Sophie and her parents. “Stay up here,” he said. There was no protest. Even Sophie looked like she’d prefer it that way; the look from last night was back in her eyes.
    O’Donnell followed Patel and I followed O’Donnell. The stairs were narrow, and frankly, I was curious, but in no hurry to confront whatever had gotten Patel so excited. He hadn’t blinked once the whole time he was in the auditorium.
    Officer Leslie Levant was at the bottom of the stairs, looking considerably more serious than she had the previous night. This was alarming, as the previous night there had been a dead body in the room. I tried to catch her eye, but she was looking straight ahead, following Patel with her eyes.
    The basement was, well, a basement. I didn’t keep anything perishable or edible down there, as I couldn’t completely vouch for the absence of nonhuman forms of life. There were some tools; some broken seats; access to the electrical, heating, air-conditioning, and water systems; cleaning supplies; and a good deal of dust and grime. Cleaning the basement of Comedy Tonight had always seemed somehow superfluous, like polishing the decks of the Titanic .
    Had I known we’d be entertaining down here, I might have reconsidered that position.
    I might also have noticed the rows of large cardboard cartons to which Patel was now leading O’Donnell and, by extension, me. I definitely hadn’t put them there, and to the best of my memory, had never even seen them before. But Patel was just about panting in anticipation.
    “You see?” he said to Sergeant O’Donnell. “There are close to two hundred boxes. Almost ten thousand in all.”
    “Ten thousand what ?” O’Donnell and I said, almost in unison.
    Patel opened the flap on one of the cartons and pulled out a small jewel case. Levant came up behind me and stood a little to my left. I didn’t see her, but I could tell she was there.
    “These,” Patel said. “Almost ten thousand of these .”
    O’Donnell held up the jewel case, the size of a CD or computer disc, and I caught a look at the artwork on the front cover, which made my stomach fall to an area somewhere around my left knee.
    “Okay, I give up,” O’Donnell said. “What do some CDs have to do with . . .”
    “They’re not CDs,” I broke in. “They’re DVDs.