In case you missed it, actor Matt Dillon was busted the day before New Year’s doing 106 miles per hour on Interstate 91 in Newbury, Vermont. Penalties range up to $300 and three months in jail. Dillon was driving a rented Chevy Malibu. His publicist had no comment. End of story, right? Wrong.

Even these small details don’t hold up, if you think about them. Matt Dillon in a Chevy Malibu? Matt Dillon? Mr. To Die For? Mr. Something About Mary? Not a chance. For only 25$ more per day, Dillon could have rented a car with serious muscle, more in line with the rates of speed he tends to prefer.

We’re supposed to believe that Hollywood golden boy Matt Dillon needed to save $50 or $100 bucks on his New Year’s vacation, so he went with a weenie wagon like the Malibu?

Something smells here. Something smells real bad.

And when you’re driving 106 mph, you’re either driving to something you really, really want, or away from something you really, really don’t.

So we have a Hollywood B-lister, in a clearly disposable rental car, driving at breakneck speed away from something further up on 91. Maybe as far as St. Johnsbury? Perhaps the Fairbanks Museum, home of the far-reaching Eye on the Sky Weather Center?

It sounds crazy, but when you think about it there’s no other answer that fits the facts: Matt Dillon and weatherman Steve Maleski, clearly engaged for years in some sort of syrup-smuggling or other illicit activity, have a falling out over money, and Maleski gets physical, maybe pulls a piece. Dillon flees. But only as far as Newbury. Which is where the cops tag Dillon, and book him.

To his great relief, given the options.

A dangerous and little known alliance: Maleski and Dillon in happier times. A VDB source says that in addition to money, the falling out may have arisen from Maleski’s contention that recent Hollywood accolades had given his former partner in crime “a big head.”