“It’s a wonder they let me walk the streets, isn’t it?” I asked.
“Are you going to tell me, or not?”
“It’s true; I’ve met someone,” I said. “I don’t know how serious it is yet.” I went on to tell her that it was someone I’d met at the theatre recently (which was technically true), but gave her few details, which irked her. Good. But I’m not bitter.
Not that there were a ton of details to convey, anyway. Leslie and I had kissed a little, then she’d said it was late, and I interpreted that to mean she wanted to go home. I couldn’t tell by the look on her face whether I was correct, but Leslie did, in fact, leave. And I was up half the night, kicking myself.
Sharon decided to switch tactics by changing the subject upon the arrival of her club sandwich and my turkey on rye, hold the cholesterol. “So what’s going on with your projectionist?”
“Anthony,” I reminded her.
Sharon nodded. “Yes. Anthony. Has he shown up yet?”
I recounted for her the seemingly unending string of circumstantial evidence that was building up around my missing projectionist, and my eerie feeling that he had been nearby the night before. Sharon listened intently, as she always does, really paying attention to every word, chewing thoughtfully, but without showing you anything she was chewing. It’s an art I intend to emulate as I go through life. I should start any day now.
There was a long moment when I was finished with my tale, and I studied her face, which is something I like to do when I’m in the mood to torture myself. It’s the same open, friendly, in some ways beautiful face I remember pursuing and, to my amazement, winning years ago. But now it was one that chose to look into another man’s eyes with romantic thoughts, and into mine with the same characteristics as a winter fleece: soft, comfortable, but a reminder that it’s cold outside.
“So?” I asked finally.
“So, what?”
“So, what do you think about Anthony?”
She frowned. “What I think is irrelevant. What are you going to do about it?”
I probably looked as confused as Stan Laurel being asked to do logarithms. “What do you mean, what am I going to do about it? What
should
I do about it?”
It was her turn to look surprised. “Seems to me the man I was married to would have been actively looking into this. A guy who works for you is in serious trouble, he hasn’t been seen since Wednesday, and he’s implicated in a crime that took place in your building. Aren’t you the same man who was offended that someone chose his theatre to kill a total stranger in?”
“That’s ‘in which to kill a total stranger,’ and he was a stranger to me, not to the killer, I’m guessing.”
“Thank you, Professor Grammar.”
“And you may recall that the man to whom you were married is the very same man you chose to divorce, probably for the same exact reasons.” Divorce is nothing if not an endless quest for the upper hand.
“Let’s keep our divorce out of this conversation. What are you going to do about Anthony?” Sharon’s eyes weren’t widened any more than usual, but they seemed to be looking directly into my soul, assuming I had one.
“The police have specifically advised against my doing any investigating,” I pointed out. Well, one member of the police department had said it was a bad idea, right before she kissed me. That had to stand for something.
Sharon’s face got an “aha!” expression and she pointed a finger at me. “Oh, my god, you’re dating the cop, aren’t you? The one you told me about, from the theatre?”
“Yeah,” I said, “and you’re sleeping with a bald anesthesiologist. What’s that got to do with anything?”
“Gregory isn’t bald. His hair is thinning.”
“Vertical stripes are thinning. Gregory’s bald.”
“Let’s try to stay on topic, shall we? So your girlfriend is telling you not to help your employee, and you’ve decided to listen.” Sharon took on an expression that made it seem less painful not to be married to her anymore.
“She’s not my
girlfriend
; I’m not in the seventh grade. And I’m not investigating because I’m not an investigator. Who died and made me Sam Spade?”
“They’re after your projectionist for more than pirating movies now, Elliot; they think he’s involved in the murder. And what about the murdered man? Did that stop bothering you when the cop got into your bed?”
I felt no need to correct her. “We’re getting into weird territory here, Sharon. You almost sound jealous.”
She went and did the one thing that I’d never be able to forgive—she looked at me affectionately. “Elliot,” Sharon said, “you have the strongest moral sense of any man I know. You don’t drive a car because you believe in conservation. You run a comedy theatre because you believe in laughter. You didn’t contest our divorce because you believe that I have the right to be happy, even if it’s with another man.”
“I’m still undecided about that one,” I said.
She ignored me, which was wise. “I can’t believe that a man as decent as you, and with as strong a sense of right and wrong, could just stand by and let this go on. I really can’t believe it.”
Now, that was hitting below the belt.
18
It was surprisingly easy to arrange an interview with Amy Ansella; I didn’t expect she’d be alone the Saturday after her husband died, but apparently friends and family had left her to her own devices. Sharon dropped me off at Amy’s Piscataway home, and noted the easy walk to the bus stop before driving away, a smug expression on her face. I cursed her quietly as I walked to the door.
The house was nice but unassuming, a Colonial on a street of Colonials, and well kept, much like the woman who answered the door.
Amy Ansella, close up, was not quite as stunning as she had been from a slight distance, but she was still enough to temporarily cloud my brain. Luckily, this time I’d told the truth, so I didn’t have to remember the name of a fictional newspaper for which I’d come to interview her. She’d agreed to talk with me anyway.
She ushered me into a very nice living room, with well-polished hardwood floors and a wide-screen TV hung on the wall.
“I’m not sure I understand why you’re here, Mr. Freed,” she admitted as she gestured toward the sofa, but I stood, uneasy and more interested in surveying the room.
“I’m not sure I understand it either, Mrs. Ansella, and please call me Elliot.”
Everyone has a yardstick by which they, well, measure other people. For some people it’s the religion to which they belong, the political party they support, or the sports teams they root for. With me, it’s taste in movies, and judging by the DVD collection that dominated one half of the room, taking up shelf after shelf, Vincent Ansella and I could have been brothers. Or two sides of the same multiple personality disorder.
It took a lot to distract me from a woman like Amy Ansella, but this was a treasure trove: Buster Keaton, Laurel and Hardy, Lillis and Townes,
Fatty Arbuckle
, for god’s sake! Of course the Marx Brothers, but even episodes of
You Bet Your Life
, not to mention Woody Allen on
What’s My Line
and Peter Sellers in
The Goon Show
. There was a wonderful British comedy miniseries called
Flickers
, with Bob Hoskins and Frances de la Tour, that I would have bet my last quarter wasn’t available on DVD, but Vincent Ansella had it. Truly, a man after my own heart.
“Are you here about Vincent’s collection, Elliot?”
That snapped me back to attention. “No, I’m not, Mrs. Ansella, but if I were, I’d be awfully impressed. He has titles here that make my mouth water.”
“Vincent was a . . . what did he say . . . a
completist
,” she said, visibly proud of herself for remembering the word. “When he set his mind on something, he didn’t rest until it was done. And his mind was
always
set on classic comedies. But if it’s not his movie collection, Elliot, please help me understand why you’re here.”
She gestured again to the sofa, and, reluctantly, I pulled myself away from the Comedy Museum and sat facing her. Not knowing the nature of the planned visit, Amy had put a pot of coffee and some Oreos on the coffee table.
“I don’t want to seem presumptuous, Mrs. Ansella . . .”
“Amy.”
I nodded. “But the fact is, it bothers me that your husband . . . died . . . in my theatre. I want Comedy Tonight to be a happy place, and somehow, it seems to be, well . . .”
“Insulting?” Wow. Beautiful
and
able to decipher my babble. Where was she when I was looking for a wife?
“For lack of a better word, yes. I don’t want to overstate it, and I’m not interested in adding to your pain, but . . .”
Amy Ansella stood up. She was wearing black, but it was a scoop-neck T-shirt and black jeans that were fitted for maximum effect. In all that black, she could have been Sophie’s Goth mother. “Don’t worry about my pain, Elliot, ” she said, although her mouth was tightened, and she walked toward the fireplace, which had no wood in it. “My marriage wasn’t exactly the best there ever was.”
“I’ve heard rumors,” I said.
She turned a little too quickly. “From his office? Did Marcy Resnick have the nerve to say something about it?”
How did she know I’d seen Marcy? “Well, she just said there had been rumors,” I said, “but she said they were lies.”
“She would,” Amy spat. “The lying bitch.”
“Are you saying that your husband and Marcy Resnick . . .”
“Maybe you don’t understand, Elliot. Are you married?”
“I’m divorced.”
“Did your wife cheat on you?” Her eyes were not wavering, looking straight into mine.
“Let’s just say she married someone else very soon after we divorced,” I sidestepped.
“So you do understand.”
“When you say your marriage wasn’t the best . . .” I wanted to get off my miserable love life, and back to Amy’s.
“I meant exactly what you think,” she said. “My husband was having an affair with Marcy Resnick.”
“What makes you think that, Amy?” I don’t know why, but Marcy’s denial had struck me as genuine, and frankly, I thought she could have done better than Vincent Ansella if she’d wanted to, at least in the looks department (then again, so could Amy). But maybe I was projecting. Being back on the dating scene had me thinking about a lot of women differently than I had, say, a month before.
“My husband confessed it to me the night he died.”
That took a moment to sink in. “He told you he was having an affair with a coworker, then went out to the movies?”
Amy looked down, and I don’t think she was considering eating an Oreo. “We fought,” she said. “I knew something was wrong, but I didn’t suspect . . . or maybe I did. But when he said it out loud, that he was in love with Marcy Resnick, and wanted to get a divorce, well, I didn’t handle it well. We had a very loud argument; I’m sure the neighbors heard some of it. And he stormed out. It occurred to me he’d go to the movies; that’s what he did to calm down. If a movie made him laugh, he could lose himself in it.”
“And while he was there, someone poisoned him.” Wait. Did I say that out loud?
Amy Ansella, who had been staring at the floor, looked up suddenly with fury in her eyes. “I know what you’re thinking, but it wasn’t me,” she said.
“You don’t know what I’m thinking,” I said, “and I have no reason to think it was you. I’m only the theatre owner.”
The fury faded, replaced by weariness. “You don’t talk like a theatre owner. You talk like a detective.”
“Watch enough Bogart and everybody talks like a detective. But I do have one question. At the memorial service, you called Joe Dunbar a murderer. Do you think that Joe killed your husband?”
“I think you need to go now, Mr. Freed,” she said. Amy stood up, clearly a signal that I should do the same, and I did.
“But . . .”
“I don’t need to explain myself to you,” she said, with the loveliest smile I’d seen in some time. “You’re only the theatre owner.”
19
It was getting late after Amy politely kicked me out of her house, so I caught the bus back to Midland Heights to have some dinner before opening the theatre for the night. My head was starting to hurt from all the things I didn’t know, and that was troublesome. Besides, I’d tried calling Joe Dunbar from a pay phone near the bus stop, and he wasn’t answering. I left a message.
A sign over one of the front seats asked me if I was “Depressed? Lonely?” I hadn’t really thought so, but if they were putting ads up on buses just to ask me that, I figured it was worth more than a knee-jerk reaction. I should consider.
Before this week, I hadn’t been even a little involved with a woman since Sharon, and she’d been married to the somnambulist for almost a year and a half now. So my bat-ting average hadn’t been great, and I really didn’t know what my current status with Leslie was, aside from the fact that she looked terrific and we bantered nicely. We needed to find the time to actually get to know each other.
Yet, as soon as she’d suggested that I shouldn’t look into the situation with Anthony and Ansella’s murder, I’d begged off, and as soon as Sharon had noted the wussiness of that move, I’d called Amy Ansella to ask for an interview.
Man, I was easily manipulated.
It wasn’t a long ride back, and the bus stopped within a block of Comedy Tonight, so I was in my office eating a Quiznos chicken sub an hour before I’d need to start getting the place presentable. I’d done most of the cleaning up the night before, after convincing Dutton I wasn’t withholding any
more
information, so the theatre was in pretty good shape. It would be just as difficult tonight without Anthony, but there was nothing to be done about it. Maybe I should teach Sophie how to use the projector. On the other hand, maybe the elves who had threaded it up the previous night would take up permanent residence, and I wouldn’t have to worry about it. Maybe . . .
“Mr. Freed?” I wasn’t expecting to hear a voice, so it startled me. I didn’t exactly do a spit-take, but the ratio of chicken inside my mouth to outside definitely saw a shift in that second.