Some Like It Hot-Buttered (21 page)

I decided to reach out. “So Sophie,” I said, immediately sounding ridiculous. “What’s new?” It was a way to kill the time until we could both go home. And I assumed anything with the word “kill” in it would appeal to Sophie.

She stared, as I was surely speaking some obscure dialect known only to bush people in a single remote African village. “New?” Sophie asked. “What is this obsession with newness? Don’t the ancients have anything to teach us? Have you ever read
The Tibetan Book of the Dead
?”

“Still don’t want to tell me what you’re hiding from your folks?” Stare. “You’re not doing drugs, are you?”
Big
stare. I walked away.

It’s a full life I lead.

Turning over in my mind all the information I had on Ansella’s murder—and believe me, it didn’t take long—I kept coming to one conclusion: the only person who had any reason to want Vincent Ansella dead was his wife. If he was indeed having an affair with Marcy Resnick, or anybody else, Amy Ansella could certainly have become enraged. It happens. It doesn’t as a rule happen much to men who looked like Ansella, but love is a funny thing. I’m told. Even if Vincent
wasn’t
having an affair, Amy certainly believed he was, and therefore the whole “enragement” scenario could still apply. Maybe the front she showed—that she barely cared about her husband—was just that: a front.

But if Amy
didn’t
really believe Vince was prowling around outside the marriage bed, did she have a reason to want him dead? Considering that he’d worked for an insurance company for many years, his own policy was substantial, but hardly winning-lottery-ticket substantial. There were easier ways to end the marriage than by spicing Ansella’s popcorn with blood pressure nukes.

Okay, I thought, putting away the vacuum and locking the storage closet, so riddle me this, Batman: if Amy Ansella didn’t kill her husband, who else had any motivation to see him dead? As far as I could tell, the answer to that was: nobody.

So I settled on Amy Ansella as my chief suspect, lacking trifles like proof. But that still didn’t answer a lot of questions. For example, who was the blond woman who gave Vincent a good-bye kiss in the middle of the movie? Christie Dunbar? She had only offered the lame “I was out” defense, which I believe was dismissed in the case of
I.M. Lying vs. O. Please
. Whomever the mysterious blonde was, did she give him the poison as a parting gift? Was there another person somewhere out there who hated Vincent Ansella enough to end his life? Not to mention, ruin his appreciation of a classic comedy?

Sophie nodded a couple of times in my direction, both an indication she was through for the night and an appreciation of the beat being drummed into her head. I walked her to the door, unlocked it, let her out, watched as she got into her father’s car and drove away, then locked the door and went back to the lobby. It drove Sophie just a little crazy that her father had to pick her up after work, but in New Jersey, sixteen-year-olds can only have a limited learner’s permit, and can’t drive without a licensed driver in the car, and not at all after midnight. The look on her face was priceless. The look on her dad’s face, one of absolute adoration for his baby girl, was heartbreaking. One finds entertainment in strange places.

Everything was just the way it had been before the doors had opened this evening. Mostly clean, mostly painted, mostly restored. I lived in a world that was defined by the word “mostly.”

I was mostly over my marriage, mostly healthy (the only flaw being the stitches in my leg, which were beginning to itch), mostly independent, mostly doing what I wanted to do, and mostly content with my life. But I was finding that the gap between “mostly” and “sufficiently” was widening.

Was this it for the rest of my life? Pushing the rock that was Comedy Tonight uphill every evening just to see it roll back down every night? Reveling in my self-reliance, only to find that it meant I had nobody else I could rely upon? Banging my head against the wall trying to solve riddles no one had asked me to solve?

Okay, so that last one probably wasn’t going to last the rest of my life. Not unless the driver of the Lexus was waiting for me on the way home again tonight. A thought I’d had every night since he tried to run me down.

I finished shutting the theatre down and walked outside, steering the bike without getting on. Suddenly, the prospect of my daily commute back to New Brunswick wasn’t quite as pleasant a thought as it had been before.

As I walked down Edison Avenue, trying to convince myself to mount up and start pedaling, I noticed a car slowing in front of the theatre, and turned instinctively to ready myself. But this time the car was a Honda Accord, and behind the wheel was Chief Barry Dutton.

“You want a ride?” he asked. “I’m going your way.” I nodded, thanked him, and took the bike’s front wheel off so the rest would fit into the trunk.

“What are you doing driving into New Brunswick at this time of night?” I asked him when I got in. “Don’t you live in Midland Heights?”

Dutton nodded. “Sure. We have a residency requirement.”

“So what’s this about?”

He hesitated. “Officer Levant told me about your . . . mishap the other night, and I want to see if that mysterious Lexus of yours is back again.”

“You came out to give me a ride home? At midnight?”

“My wife’s at a convention in San Diego,” he said. “I didn’t have anything to do.”

We drove south into Highland Park, and Dutton pulled over just short of River Road, and turned off his headlights. It was warm enough to leave the windows open, so he did.

“I asked the Highland Park police chief to watch for a Lexus around this time each night since you reported the . . . attack,” Dutton said. “They’ve pulled over two so far, but neither of them had an L on the license plate, and one of them was dark blue.”

“So what are we doing here?”

“We’re on a stakeout,” the chief said. “I brought you a cup of decaf and a bagel.” And sure enough, he produced both items from a Dunkin’ Donuts bag he had on the floor behind him.

“A decaf?”

“I didn’t want to keep you up all night.”

“Very considerate,” I said.

“To protect and to serve. Here.” He handed me the bagel and put the coffee in a cup holder in the console.

We sat for a while as I ate the bagel and Dutton sipped on a coffee (he hadn’t brought any food for himself). Finally, he turned to me. “Are you sleeping with Leslie Levant? ” he asked.

I came very close to a coffee spit-take that Jerry Lewis would have envied. “Did you really just ask me that?” He nodded. I shook my head. “No,” I answered honestly. And the odds were, I never would be. Thanks for reminding me, Chief.

“Good,” Dutton nodded. “I don’t think she’s good for you right now.”

“Since when are you Dr. Phil?” I asked.

“I’m just making conversation.” He stopped doing that, and we watched the road silently for a while longer. “You know, she can bench-press two hundred pounds,” Dutton said out of the blue.

“That’s great; I’ll put it on the back of her bubblegum card. What are we talking about, Chief?”

“I’m just watching the street.” And he stopped talking again.

The Lexus seemed determined not to show up tonight. “Where did you first notice the Lexus that night?” Dutton asked.

“In Edison, about a half mile up.” I finished the decaf, which would have been fine without the sugar.

“So what are we doing here?”

I shrugged. “You’re the cop.”

Dutton started the car and said something quietly to himself. I didn’t ask.

Silently he drove me the rest of the way to my front door, which hadn’t gotten any less green since I saw it last. I got out and took my bike out of the trunk. Walking to the driver’s side, I saw Dutton lower the window, and I stood by his door.

“Thanks for driving me. I was a little nervous about riding home tonight.”

He nodded. “I was, too.”

“Aw, Chief. You go on like that, and people will talk.”

He gave me a patented look to indicate that he was a practicing heterosexual, and began to raise his window. I held up my hand. “One thing,” I said.

“Yeah?”

“What was this all
really
about? Maybe you were concerned, but you’re not going to come and drive me home every night. What am I missing?”

Dutton considered me for a long moment. “That’s what I’d like to know,” he said, raised his window, and drove away. He didn’t even wave.

It had been a less than satisfactory evening. But on the plus side, nobody had made an attempt on my life, which made it an improvement over other nights I’d had recently. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Sort of.

You should never assess an evening before you’re asleep in bed, however. When I got inside, against all logic, the phone was ringing. And the caller ID indicated an out-of-area call with no number listed.

Usually, I let those calls go, assuming they’re from people trying to sell me insurance or heavy breathers who can’t read a phone book properly. But it was after midnight, and the insurance salesmen are mostly off work by then. If it was a heavy breather, I could have the satisfaction of telling the idiot I had his phone number and would be giving it to the proper authorities, even if it wasn’t true. So I picked it up and said, “Yeah?”

“Mr. Freed?”

Anthony.

30

My head was reeling, and it being the wee hours of the morning didn’t help. I gripped the cordless phone so hard I truly expected to find finger indentations when I hung it back up later. I wondered if I could use *69 when I got off.

“Anthony!” I sounded just a little less frantic than Oliver Hardy when a piano was plummeting down 150 stairs directly at him. But perhaps this wasn’t the moment for a classic comedy reference.

“Yeah, hi?” His voice betrayed a little confusion, like he was expecting someone other than me to pick up the phone. Someone who could speak rationally.

I tried very hard to control my tone. “Where . . . are you?” I asked.

“I’m on set,” he said with great pride. “We’re shooting the bakery scene, and I have to get off in a minute before the light shifts.”

Okay, so he was shooting the bakery scene. Sure. The bakery scene.
What
bakery scene? The kid’s on the lam from every law enforcement agency in the country and he’s filming a cookie transaction?

“The bakery scene?”

“Yeah, and we have to clean up from the last take. There’s fake blood all over the cheesecake.”

“Anthony,” I said, biting my lip so hard I had to wonder if they make Band-Aids for lips, “tell me where you are. Maybe I can help you.”

“I don’t see how,” he said. “The script is locked. Believe me, it’s not that I don’t respect your opinion . . .”

One of us was insane, and I wasn’t entirely convinced it wasn’t me. “Listen to me carefully, Anthony. The police are after you. The FBI is after you. For all I know, the United Federation of Planets is after you. You have to tell me where you are, and let me help you get out of this mess.”

There was a pause. Then I realized Anthony had put his hand over the mouthpiece of his cell phone. “Sorry about that,” he said when he came back, “the DP was asking me about a gel on the key light. What were you saying?”

“I was saying that you are wanted by the police in connection with video piracy and possibly murder, and you have to tell me right now where you are so I can help you.”

At least this time he’d been listening. “You’re kidding. Why do they think I had anything to do with the DVDs? And who got murdered?”

If the kid was faking, he was doing a really mediocre job of it. His delivery was fine, but the lines were awfully scripted—you ask about the murder
first
. “So you admit you know about the movies.”

“Sure. I agreed to store them in the basement of the theatre. ” No biggie. A federal crime. What’s your question?

“Agreed with whom?” Even under duress, I was being grammatical. I want that noted when the truth is finally told.

“I’m . . . not supposed to say. They told me not to call, not to call my folks, either. You know, so nobody gets in trouble. But I didn’t do anything. I just unlocked the door a couple of times.” Anthony sounded concerned, much as he would be if someone had told him that he needed to get a haircut or had to write another paper to pass a class. Not like he could go to jail for the rest of his life.

“They also think you had something to do with Vincent Ansella’s murder.”

You could hear his eyebrows rise. “Who’s Vincent Ansella?”

“The guy in row S, seat 18.”

“They think I killed him? That’s crazy! He had a heart attack.” I was starting to believe him.

“Anthony, why were you calling?” I had paced around the kitchen to the spot where the countertop had a permanent wound in it. If someone knew I was talking to Anthony . . .

“I felt bad about missing work.” Anthony wasn’t pulling a Richard Kimble; he was pulling an Alicia Silverstone: he was
Clueless
.

The tumult around him seemed to increase in volume again. “I’ve got to go, Mr. Freed. We’re losing our light. I’ll call you again in a few days.”

“Wait! Who did you open the door for? Who told you not to call your parents?”

He hung up.

31

Carla Singelese lived in Bohn Hall at Montclair State University, but even from her eighth-floor dorm room, you couldn’t see the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center or the Abbott and Costello Center, so there was little point in looking out the window.

Neither of us was interested in the view, anyway. Carla, even with only one exam left in the semester, looked worried, sitting on her bed with a residence advisor (named Arnold) present, although Arnold seemed mostly interested in eyeing Carla when he wasn’t perusing the copy of
Maxim
he’d brought with him. He was probably comparing Carla to Jessica Alba. Carla would come up wanting, but it wasn’t really a fair comparison. She didn’t have lighting, makeup, and a personal trainer.