Some Like It Hot-Buttered

by Cohen, Jeffrey

  That was true of this box. In it were Gene Wilder films, from Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory to Haunted Honeymoon (and even some appearances on Will & Grace) coupled (inevitably) with Mel Brooks movies. Once again, Vincent was the ultimate completist: he had everything in Mel’s canon, from appearances on The Muppet Show to The Critic, an animated short film that won Brooks his first Academy Award. There were the classics, and the duds, both Life Stinks and The Twelve Chairs. There was the remake of To Be or Not to Be, which probably drove Ansella insane when he tried to cross-reference Mel Brooks with Jack Benny and Ernst Lubitsch.

  But that wasn’t what bothered me. Ansella should have all those titles. It was the sort of thing that had made me salivate over the collection to begin with. But the weird part was that the collection wasn’t complete, and it wasn’t complete because it omitted a film that even the most casual fan would have.

  Vincent Ansella’s comedy collection didn’t include Young Frankenstein. His favorite movie.

  And suddenly, everything made sense.

  But, of course, that’s when the phone rang. I stood slowly, having been on my haunches for a while, and still stunned by what I’d discovered. So the phone rang a number of times (I turn off the machine when I’m home) before I answered.

  “Were you in another area code?” Chief Barry Dutton asked.

  “Sorry. I was . . . something odd . . .”

  “You’ve been something odd since I met you,” he said, but then his voice became more serious. “I just wanted you to know, Elliot, that something’s happened.”

  I shook myself awake. “Something with Anthony? Chief, is he okay?”

  “It’s not something with Anthony,” Dutton said. “He was sent home last night. O’Donnell hasn’t charged him yet. But that could change. It’s something else.”

  I waited. “What?”

  “Amy Ansella just shot Joe Dunbar in his garage.”

  I was so stunned, I didn’t ask what part of the body a ‘garage’ was. I hesitated. “Is he . . .”

  “No,” Dutton answered before I could finish the question. “He’s alive. His wife hit Amy over the head with a vase just as she fired. It grazed Dunbar in the neck, but he’ll be okay.”

  “Which hospital?”

  “I don’t think I want to tell you.”

  “Chief, if he can talk, or even communicate, he can confirm a lot of stuff.”

  “Yes. To us. You are not a law enforcement officer. Stay home. I’ll call you from the hospital.” Dutton had called me, hadn’t he? Wasn’t that like asking me to show up?

  “I need to see him, Chief.”

  “Not yet.” Dutton sounded stern. “The man’s been through enough for one day, Elliot. Let him recuperate.”

  “You don’t understand, Chief. I think I’ve got this thing figured out.”

  “How’s that?” He sounded amazed. I inspire that kind of confidence.

  “I promise I’ll tell you when I see you. Now can I come to the hospital?”

  42

  I still couldn’t call Sharon for a ride, although that routine was starting to get old, and while it was possible to ride the bike to John F. Kennedy Hospital in Edison, it would take time. I didn’t want to use up a lot of time.

  Moe, however, was not as forthcoming as usual. “I just don’t have a loaner for you today, Elliot,” he told me before I could even get the question out of my mouth. “Nothing I’ve got in the shop runs, and the body work isn’t done yet, so I can’t give you those to test-drive. Take a bus.”

  “I don’t have time for a bus, Moe. Come on, there’s got to be something.”

  “There isn’t. Maybe this is a lesson for you.” If Moe was the type to chew on unlit cigars, the picture would have been perfect, but in fact, he’s a germophobe and a recovering nicotine addict. You can’t always figure people. “If you had your own car, you wouldn’t run into this kind of problem.”

  “Impersonating my ex-wife won’t do it for you, Moe. Frankly, you don’t have the legs for it.” I looked around the lot, hoping there was a vehicle of some sort that I could talk him into loaning me. “How about the Nissan?” I pointed.

  Moe shook his head. “Transmission.”

  “So it slips a little.”

  “It doesn’t have one.”

  “Oh.”

  I couldn’t see the entire lot from where we were standing, so I moved out into the center of the lot, and Moe followed reluctantly. I watched his eyes carefully. Sooner or later, he would slip. There was something he didn’t want me to notice, and if I waited long enough, he would sneak a guilty glance in its direction.

  Aha!

  It was a silver Lexus with an obvious dent in its passenger side rear fender. A long scrape that looked like it had come in contact with a road divider, or . . .

  Hey, wait a minute!

  “Moe,” I said, trying to control my breathing. “When did that Lexus with the dent come in?”

  “Oh no, Elliot, forget it. You’re not getting the Lexus.”

  I spoke slowly. “Answer the question. When was it brought in?”

  He thought. “Yesterday, I think. The owner actually wanted me to give him a loaner, can you imagine? What am I, a Lexus dealer?”

  “Yeah, imagine. You wouldn’t happen to have the owner’s name, would you?”

  I think the look in my eye might have spooked Moe a little. “Not to give to you, Elliot. No chance.”

  “It’s important, Moe.” I’d have shown him the stitches in my leg, but only as a last resort. Even I didn’t want to look at them.

  It took another ten minutes of convincing, and I did actually pull up my pants leg to show the scar to Moe, which is what put him over the top. Moe would do anything to avoid having to look at my leg.

  “Let’s check the work order,” he said, and we walked to the office. Moe checked the order number against the number on the key hanging on a hook over his desk, and pulled out the paperwork on the Lexus. He handed me the work order, which had the owner’s name and address printed very neatly on top, in Moe’s own hand.

  “Can I use your phone?” I asked him.

  “You don’t have a cell phone, either?” Moe rolled his eyes to the ceiling.

  “Do you know what those things do to your brain?”

  “Man, you’re cheap.” He pointed to the phone. “Out of the area, you call collect.”

  “Oh, and under the circumstances, I think the owner of the Lexus owes me a ride, don’t you?” He grumbled, but threw me the key.

  “Gas it up,” he said, and walked out.

  I picked up the phone and called Sharon.

  43

  By the time I drove the Lexus up to JFK, O’Donnell and Dutton were already in Joe Dunbar’s hospital room. On my way into the room, I saw Christie Dunbar in the hallway, sitting between two uniformed officers on orange plastic molded chairs. She looked up at me, gestured vaguely with her hands, opened her mouth, and didn’t say anything. I took her hand for a moment, closed my eyes, and then let it go. I couldn’t say anything, either.

  Dunbar, with an IV in his left hand, didn’t look all that bad for a guy in the hospital. The left side of his neck was bandaged, and there was a bandage on the right side of his head, where he must have hit the concrete garage floor. His eyes were a little unfocused, but he was awake, and holding a little whiteboard and a marker in his hands. I assumed that meant he was having trouble speaking.

  The cops looked up when I came in.

  “Mr. Dunbar has been telling us quite a story, as well as he can,” Dutton said. “But I forgot: you have it all figured out, don’t you?”

  “I think I do,” I said. “Can I test my theory against what Joe told you?”

  I looked at Dunbar, whose eyes were at half-staff. He nodded, sort of.

  “We’re not here to play games,” O’Donnell said.

  “No, but I’ll bet Dunbar can’t talk all that well, and doing too much writing is going to tire him. He can nod to confirm what I say
if I’m right.”

  “Go ahead,” O’Donnell grumped. “Let’s see how smart you are.”

  I walked to Dunbar’s bedside and made eye contact. He perked up a little, at least opening his eyes all the way.

  “You understand what we’re doing, Joe?” I asked. Dunbar nodded. “You call me off if I’m wrong.” Another nod.

  I looked over at Dutton and tried not to smirk. “Amy Ansella was having an affair, wasn’t she, Joe?” Dunbar nodded. “With you, wasn’t it?”

  Dunbar shook his head, no.

  I stopped myself before asking, “Are you sure?” I could be relatively certain Dunbar knew whether he was sleeping with Amy Ansella. I tried not to look directly at O’Donnell and Dutton. “Then, who?”

  Dunbar’s mouth tightened, and for a moment, I thought he was going to cry. He looked at the whiteboard in his hand, but then gestured me over and whispered, “Marcy.”

  “Marcy Resnick? Amy was having an affair with the woman from her husband’s office?”

  Dunbar nodded.

  I was reeling. “But you said you didn’t know Marcy,” I told him. See? You’re wrong! Dunbar made a face that said, I was lying, genius. Then he went back to looking sad.

  “Maybe you don’t know the whole story, do you, Freed?” O’Donnell said.

  I regained my composure. I had to prove myself, and I did know what I knew. I was pretty sure my theory would still hold up. I began again, more slowly, piecing in this new information as I went along.

  “All right. Amy and Marcy met through company functions—or maybe after Marcy and Vincent became friends at work—and at some point, they began an affair. Amy and Marcy were together at Comedy Tonight the night Vincent was killed. Right, Joe?”

  Dunbar nodded. He seemed a little more awake now.

  “Vincent had known about the affair for months, or at least, he’d known his wife was cheating on him. His sister says he told her, and the change in his mood would be explained that way,” I continued.

  I looked at Dunbar. A tear was forming in his right eye. “The thought of it was dragging him down. He confided in you. He would do that. You had to carry this around for a while, didn’t you?” Again, a nod from Joe Dunbar. “And right after your wife had gone through a bout with cancer. It must have been awful. Seeing your best friend destroyed by something like that. He’d loved Amy so much. And you couldn’t do anything. You felt bad that you couldn’t help.”

  Dunbar hung his head. I was on the money so far. “And then something happened that you’re blaming yourself for, but it’s not your fault, Joe.”

  He looked up, wondering if I knew what had actually happened.

  “You told him who Amy was cheating on him with, right?”

  Dunbar nodded.

  “How did you know?” I asked him, genuinely curious.

  Dunbar took a moment and scrawled on the board, “Saw them together.”

  “So, you didn’t know they were lovers; you just mentioned to Ansella that you’d seen his wife with his friend from work,” Dutton said, piecing the puzzle together, filling in holes I hadn’t. Dunbar nodded again and bit his upper lip.

  It took him a long time to write on his whiteboard: “Vince mentioned to Amy in passing that I’d seen her and Marcy together. She went off, confessed everything. Like she’d been waiting to tell him.” Dunbar showed us the board, then put his head down. It shook a bit.

  “That set off the chain of events,” I told Dutton and O’Donnell. “With the knowledge that his wife was having an affair with Marcy Resnick, Vincent confronted Amy, and they had the argument the neighbors heard the night he died.”

  Dunbar started scribbling again, and held up the board. “More,” he had written.

  This time, I nodded. “You guys already had a plan for Vince to get even with Amy, didn’t you? You were going to make sure Amy saw Vincent cheating on her, too.”

  Dunbar wrote, “Before we knew it was Marcy.”

  “The timing was just a coincidence?” I asked, and Dunbar nodded. “So Amy was supposed to come to Comedy Tonight with Vincent that night?” But Dunbar shook his head, no.

  He wrote, “In the car.”

  I got it, then. “Amy saw him getting picked up for the movies, and she saw who was picking him up, right, Joe?”

  Dunbar nodded, and a tear crested over his cheek.

  “So?” O’Donnell asked. “Who was it? Who was Ansella’s mistress?”

  Dunbar smiled a little and pointed to himself.

  “In drag. The ugliest woman Leo had ever seen,” I reminded Dutton. “And Leo is a veteran of the merchant marine. ”

  “It was you?” Dutton said to Joe, who nodded agreement. “Why?”

  “Vincent wouldn’t ever cheat on his wife, no matter what,” I answered. “But he wanted Amy to think he could, so he and Joe cooked up what was, for them, a logical scheme. Joe’s wife, Christie, who used to be a beautician before her cancer, probably helped. She made Joe up as a woman, gave him one of her chemotherapy wigs, and probably had a good laugh when he went out the door.”

  Dunbar nodded and dropped his head again. He blamed himself.

  “Do you know if that’s when Vincent stole your last bottle of clonidine?” I asked Dunbar.

  His eyes widened, and now he bit both lips. He shrugged; he didn’t know.

  “But you did discover it missing later?” I asked.

  Dunbar nodded. He wrote: “My fault.”

  I shook my head. “No,” I said. “Amy called you ‘murderer, ’ but you aren’t really a murderer, Joe.”

  Dunbar’s eyes began to tear, and he nodded his head: Yes, I am.

  “No, you’re not. You inadvertently provided the means, but Vincent Ansella killed himself.”

  Dutton’s head turned sharply, and he watched Dunbar for a reaction. Dunbar’s eyes were still tearing, but they widened a bit. And he shook his head up and down, yes.

  “Wait a second. Ansella poisoned his own popcorn?” O’Donnell said. “Why in god’s name would he do that?”

  “Because the world wasn’t funny for him anymore,” I said. “It was that important to him.”

  Dunbar’s jaw dropped open. I was right.

  “Vincent found out Amy was being unfaithful to him, even before he knew with whom.” I turned to Dunbar. “He loved Amy, and tried to ignore it, but it went on for months, and it wore him down. But the real blow was when the movies, the classic comedies, the thing that always provided relief for him no matter what his problems were, stopped helping.”

  “What were you, his psychiatrist?” O’Donnell wanted to know. “How do you know what he was thinking?”

  “Because I have his video collection, and I understand the way his mind worked,” I answered. “He and I had similar tastes, and we catalogued the same way.”

  “Catalogued?” Dutton asked. “You’re basing this on how Ansella listed his videos?”

  “No, not exactly. But he had the most complete, comprehensive classic comedy collection I’ve ever seen.”

  “Nice alliteration,” Dutton said.

  “Thanks. I was working on that the whole way here. Anyway, Ansella had more comedy videos than anyone I’ve ever known, or known about. And I have some connections in the area, remember.”

  “So what’s that got to do with suicide?” asked O’Donnell.

  “I’ve been organizing the collection since Amy sold it to me,” I explained. “And it’s magnificent. But there’s no copy of Young Frankenstein.”

  They waited. For quite a long moment.

  “That’s it?” They both seemed to ask at once.

  “That’s enough,” I said. “See, Young Frankenstein was Vincent Ansella’s favorite movie. It was the one thing that was always guaranteed to pull him out of the doldrums, and there is no way—no way—that he’d ever consent to live without owning it. Unless he didn’t think it was funny anymore. Unless he knew he wasn’t going to be living much longer.”

  I looked at Dunbar. He scribbled on the
whiteboard, and held it out for me to see: “That’s why you’re theater.” I overlooked his spelling and handed him back the board. He wiped it off with a paper towel.

  “Yes, I understand now,” I told him. “See, Amy’s affair was draining Vincent of his humor. People who worked with him, even his own sister, said that during the last months of his life, he wasn’t the same man. He was humor-less, he no longer found anything funny, and he seemed not to care about anything.”

  There wasn’t a sound in the room now, as they were all paying attention to what I said. “When he didn’t have comedy to lean on anymore, Vincent didn’t have any internal support system left. He had you, and his sister, but I’m sorry, Joe. He needed something else.” Dunbar was crying openly now.

  “He started selling off his video collection, just a little bit. Especially the titles that had once meant the most to him. I checked. It was like they caused him the most pain now. As it stands, his collection has no A Night at the Opera, no Sleeper, no Hail the Conquering Hero. Some of the Laurel and Hardy shorts are gone. There’s no Lucille Ball.”

  “Oh, come on,” said O’Donnell. “You’re going to base a suicide on holes in the guy’s video collection? Suppose he never owned those movies. Suppose he just didn’t like them.”

  “There were spaces for them on his inventory list, which he kept dutifully literally until the day he died. And he’d deleted them. You can see it; he listed them alphabetically and by year of release,” I told him. Then I looked at Dunbar. “Did he own them, Joe?” Dunbar nodded. “Did he sell them off, at the end?” Yes, again. “I checked on eBay, and there are still a few items listed under the name VincAns. Things that didn’t sell in time, I guess.”

  “I hate to say it, but you might be right,” O’Donnell said. “He had one outlet, and that didn’t work for him. He had access to the pills, and the fact is, Vincent Ansella was the only one who had a reason to want Vincent Ansella dead. Makes sense, Freed.”