Hotline to Murder

by Alan Cook

  “No. Croyden is at home with his wife and kids. We can’t blow this.”

  “Somebody will be on duty. I’ll call them.”

  Tony lifted a telephone receiver, but Shahla grabbed it at the same time. They froze, with Tony sitting and Shahla standing. Each had one hand on the receiver. Their hands partially overlapped.

  Tony’s first inclination was to jerk the receiver or yell at Shahla, but with an effort, he brought himself under control. Then he became conscious of the touch of her hand on his. He couldn’t let that affect him, either. He said, “What do you think we should do?”

  “Meet him.”

  “Us? Together?”

  “Sure. If they’re two of us, we’ll be safe.”

  “It isn’t going to happen. First of all, you’re not going anywhere except home. You’ve got school tomorrow. And how would I explain to your parents that I was running around the back streets of El Segundo at midnight with their underage daughter? Second, we’re going to turn this over to the police.”

  Shahla kept her grip on the receiver and Tony’s hand. She said, “Tony, the police will screw this up.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “Because…because. It was…it’s too long a story, but you can believe me when I say that I don’t trust the police.”

  He finally heard himself saying, much against his better judgment, “All right, this is what I’ll do.” He looked at his watch, which was on his left or unengaged hand, to gain time. It was almost ten o’clock. “We’ll close up shop, and you’ll go home. I will meet Fred, the Chameleon, at the designated time and place.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “No, Shahla, you’re not.”

  “You’ll get hurt going all alone.”

  “My roommate has a gun. I’ll take it with me.”

  They stared at each other, neither one moving. If this is a test of wills, Tony thought, I’ve got to persevere. I’m responsible for her safety.

  Shahla said, “So you aren’t going to call the police?”

  “No.”

  Shahla relaxed her grip on the receiver and his hand. Slowly she pulled her hand away. Slowly he hung up the receiver.

  Shahla scribbled on a piece of paper and handed it to him. “This is my cell phone number. Promise you’ll call me when you get back.”

  “Who knows what time that will be? You’ll be asleep. And I’ll wake up your parents.”

  “No you won’t. I have my own room. And I won’t be asleep. I’ll be waiting.”

  “That’s a really bad idea. What if I forget to call?”

  “I’ll go crazy. So promise you’ll call, okay? Even though we’ve just met, I don’t want to lose another…friend. I’ll worry until you call.”

  Tony felt trapped. “All right, I’ll call you.”

  Shahla gave him a hug so quick he wasn’t sure it had really happened.

  CHAPTER 7

  Beams from a streetlight filtered through tree leaves to where Tony sat in his car, like water seeping through a membrane, providing just enough light so that it wasn’t pitch black inside the car. He had picked this spot for its darkness. The car would just be an innocuous shadow to a person standing at the intersection, fifty feet away, and he would be invisible to that person. The intersection itself was much better lit, with streetlights on two corners.

  Tony was nervous. He caught himself lifting his chin in a basketball head-fake movement. Except that he had never been very good at basketball, because of his lack of height. The head-fake, which appeared when he was under stress, was modeled after that of one of the all-time greats, Elgin Baylor, who he had seen play only in videos, never in real life. Elgin was now an executive with the Los Angeles Clippers, a hapless professional basketball team that was not to be confused with the many-times NBA champion Los Angeles Lakers that Elgin had once played for.

  He looked at his watch. He could just barely see the hands. Ten minutes past twelve. Five minutes to the meeting time with Fred the Chameleon. But Fred expected a juicy teenage girl, not a slightly overweight male marketing manager. What was he going to do if Fred actually showed? He only had a vague plan.

  What was he doing here, anyway? Why had he given in to Shahla? At least he had done one thing right; he had not let her come with him. That would have been a disaster. It wasn’t that he was afraid. Well, not very afraid, anyway. El Segundo just wasn’t a very scary place. It wasn’t an upscale community like Bonita Beach, but the few people he had seen on the street didn’t look like hoods or gangbangers.

  He had Josh’s gun, a nine-millimeter. And it was loaded. He had fired it only one time when he had gone with Josh to a firing range. But Josh had given him a quick review, and he felt fairly confident about using it. He patted the hard bulk stuck in his belt, underneath the sport coat he had donned, and wondered for the tenth time whether the safety was really on so that he wouldn’t accidentally shoot himself in the balls.

  Josh had been surprisingly good about not asking too many questions. Tony had told him he had a midnight meeting, about which he was somewhat apprehensive because of the location, but he hadn’t mentioned that it was in connection with Joy’s murder. Josh would have volunteered to come along, and knowing him, Tony was afraid he might cause trouble. Josh pictured himself as a vigilante.

  Tony heard footsteps as somebody approached from behind and walked past his car on the sidewalk. He froze, wondering whether he was really invisible. At least he was on the other side of the car from the pedestrian. And it was difficult to see into a Porsche with the convertible top down. As the person came into his field of vision, Tony saw that he was a man wearing jeans and a light jacket, possibly leather, against the Los Angeles night chill. He was also wearing a baseball cap. He walked rapidly, his body slouched, his hands in his pockets.

  Did he look like somebody who was expecting to meet a girl he didn’t know? Not really. He looked furtive, like a person who was afraid of human contact. Tony watched to see if he turned the corner or crossed the street when he got to the intersection, but he didn’t. He stopped under the streetlight and glanced quickly around. He reminded Tony of a small animal watching for enemies.

  Was this the infamous Chameleon? He did look weird, but not dangerous. He was thin and his slouch made him look short. Tony couldn’t see his hair because of the cap. He was too far away, and it was too dark for Tony to get a look at his face.

  It was time for Tony to execute his plan, what plan he had. He pulled out his cell phone. The dial lit up, in response to his touch, and he entered the number Fred had given to Shahla. He pressed the Send button. The phone rang in his ear. The man on the corner gave no indication that his cell phone was ringing, and Tony couldn’t hear another ring, if there was one, even though his window was cracked open.

  After several rings, an answering service came on the line. A male voice said, “This is…” and gave the telephone number Tony had attempted to enter. “You know what to do,” the voice continued. Then there was a beep.

  Tony pressed the button to end the call. The man on the corner hadn’t moved. Either he had ignored the call or he didn’t have his cell phone with him. The third alternative, of course, was that Fred had given Shahla a bogus number. Was the voice on the phone Fred’s voice? Possibly. But Tony wasn’t certain. It didn’t sound quite the same as the voice he had heard at the Hotline. And not only did Fred have many different voices, according to the Green Book, but the reception on this phone and the office phones also had some built-in distortion.

  Tony had done all he could. It was time for him to leave. But he didn’t want to start his engine with the man standing there. The man would know that Tony had been watching him and might be startled into doing—what? Now the man was smoking a cigarette. Tony looked at his watch and thought he read the time as 12:20.

  His anxiety level grew. He couldn’t wait here forever. And he had the uncomfortable feeling that he should be doing more, with the man still in sight. He made a decision.
He quietly opened his car door, just as another car went through the intersection and masked the noise. He stepped out as his heartbeat accelerated. He left the door ajar so that the sound of it closing wouldn’t alert the man.

  However, Tony also didn’t want to sneak up on him. He stepped up onto the sidewalk and started to approach the man, deliberately making noise with his sneakers slapping the pavement, trying to give the effect that he had been walking for some time. The man couldn’t fail to hear him.

  The man didn’t turn around as Tony approached, but he did raise his head. A frightened animal, listening. He dropped his cigarette on the ground and stamped on it. Then he abruptly started walking across the street. Fast. Still slouching, but his hands weren’t in his pockets. As he reached the other side, he turned around and took one quick look at Tony. Then he redoubled his pace, along the street at right angles to the one on which Tony was parked. He didn’t look back again.

  Tony watched him, trying to picture his face. His cap brim had shielded it from the streetlight. All Tony could remember was a black void. He walked slowly back to his car, wondering how he was going to get enough sleep to stay awake at work that day.

  It wasn’t until he was almost home that he remembered he had told Shahla he would call her. He didn’t want to wake her up, but he had promised. This time he stopped directly under a streetlight and turned on his dome light for good measure so that he could see to press the buttons.

  After two rings a sleepy voice said, “Hello.”

  “Did I wake you?”

  “Tony? No, I was awake. What happened? Are you okay?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. A guy showed up, but I couldn’t get him on the cell phone. I’m not sure he’s the one.”

  “Oh. Well, we can talk more about it tomorrow.”

  “I’m going to pass the information on to Detective Croyden.”

  “Tony. You can’t!”

  “I have to. It’s the right thing to do. Go back to sleep. Goodnight.” He quickly pressed the button to end the call so that he couldn’t hear her protests.

  ***

  Detective Croyden sat down hard on the swivel chair in his small cubicle and said, “Okay, Tony Schmidt, what have you got for me?”

  Tony seated himself just outside the cubicle—there wasn’t room inside—on the folding chair that Croyden had carried over and wondered how strong Croyden’s chair was. Croyden was no lightweight. In fact, he had probably played football at sometime in his life—perhaps linebacker.

  Tony realized that despite the fact that he had had most of the day—or at least snippets here and there between talking to clients on the phone—to think about what he was going to say, he still hadn’t come up with anything good. But he had to get out of this mess before he got himself in any deeper.

  He gave a head-fake and dove in. “One of the callers to the Hotline has been talking about Joy in such a way that we think it’s possible he might be Joy’s killer.”

  Croyden picked up a spiral notebook and started writing with what Tony thought was a Mont Blanc pen. He said, “Who’s we?”

  “Shahla Lawton, one of the other listeners, and me.” He wondered how Croyden could afford a Mont Blanc pen.

  When Tony hesitated, in order to let Croyden ask more questions, the detective said, “Go on. Tell me the story.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee. A thick and hairy leg showed above a white sock. The chair creaked. He had his jacket off, and Tony could see the gun in a holster on his left side. Tony pictured Croyden drawing the gun. He must be right-handed.

  And Tony did tell him the story. In fact, he told Croyden more than he intended to. Croyden didn’t need a class in active listening. He was so good at using silence and occasional probing questions that Tony knew he was talking himself into trouble. About the only thing he didn’t tell about was the gun he had borrowed from Josh. And he made it sound as if going to meet the Chameleon was his idea, not Shahla’s.

  When Croyden was apparently satisfied that Tony had nothing more to tell, he planted both feet firmly on the ground. He leaned forward and looked Tony in the eye, the way a linebacker looks at a quarterback he is about to sack. The broken nose in the middle of his tanned face enhanced the image. He spoke, his words coming slowly. “Have you been trained as a police officer, Tony?”

  “No…sir.” The ‘sir” came out involuntarily.

  “Were you in the Marine Corps, by any chance?”

  “No.”

  Croyden spoke faster. “How about the Green Berets?”

  “No.”

  “The Navy Seals?”

  “No.”

  “Then what the hell were you doing risking your life trying to impersonate somebody who knows what they’re doing?”

  “It was a stupid thing to do.”

  “Actually, I wouldn’t care so much if you lost your life through your own stupidity. But in this case, you spooked a possible suspect. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t slap the cuffs on you for trying to play the hero?”

  Tony couldn’t think of any.

  Croyden took his eyes off Tony’s and lowered his voice. “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want to go beyond this room. We subpoenaed the records of the Hotline’s incoming calls from the phone company for the last month. We found the numbers for all the obscene callers by comparing the times of the calls to the times listed on the call reports. We are in the process of checking out each of these perverts. I’m telling you this so that you know we’re actually doing something and not just sitting on our butts.”

  “What about confidentiality?”

  “That’s why I don’t want you to say anything. Your boss, Nancy, is afraid that if this leaks out, the Hotline will lose its status as a confidential service. Mind you, we’re only checking on the callers you call masturbators, and I don’t believe they deserve confidentiality.”

  “So you’ve already got a line on the Chameleon.” Tony felt redundant.

  Croyden still wasn’t looking at Tony. “Well, we’ve had a problem with that guy. He calls from a cell phone. We checked it out, and the number belongs to a woman who couldn’t be the Chameleon. She says she lost her phone and doesn’t know who’s using it. She may be stonewalling, but we haven’t been able to convince her to tell us anything more.”

  “So the number he gave Shahla…”

  “Even if he gave her the number he is using it may not do us any good.” Croyden looked at Tony and said, “What were you doing the night Joy was killed?’’

  The change of subject was so abrupt that Tony was taken aback. He stared at Detective Croyden.

  “Routine question,” Croyden said. “For the record.”

  “I-I went to a movie. Alone. But I kept the ticket stub.” That demanded an explanation. “I keep all my ticket stubs.”

  “What time was that?”

  “About eight to 10:30.”

  “Don’t lose the stub,” Croyden said, making a note. He didn’t even say anything about how Tony could have purchased the ticket to provide himself with an alibi.

  CHAPTER 8

  When Tony arrived at the Hotline office for his Friday evening shift, he found the door unlocked. He entered the office, wondering about this breach of the rules, and saw that there were two people in the listening room, both males. Apparently, they weren’t worried about outsiders getting in.

  As he entered his hours in the book, one of them came out of the listening room. He was a teenager, tall, blond and a little bit gawky, wearing a Bonita Beach High School T-shirt. At the same time, Tony heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, Kevin, we need to talk to you for a minute.”

  Tony turned and saw Shahla coming out of the snack room carrying a plate of chips. What was she doing here? He had been convinced that she would never speak to him again. Maybe she had worked the four-to-seven shift with these guys and was just finishing up. And who were “we”?

  Shahla continued, “Kevin, this is Tony.”

  Th
ey said hi and shook hands.

  “Kevin is a senior at Bonita Beach,” Shahla said to Tony. “Tony is new here.”

  At least she was speaking to him.

  “What we need to know,” Shahla said to Kevin, “is what you were doing the night Joy was killed.”

  “Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” Kevin asked with mock indignation.

  “Your rights just went down the toilet,” Shahla said. “Answer the question.”

  Tony had hoped Shahla was off this kick. At least she had waited until he showed up. But she was being awfully blunt about it.

  “All right, officer,” Kevin said, “I know when I’m defeated. I was at lacrosse practice.”

  “Sure you were,” Shahla said. “At night and before school started? A likely story. What were you really doing?”

  “It happens to be true,” Kevin said. “We had preseason practice. And since we have to share the field with the football team and the soccer team and some of our players had summer jobs, we practiced at night. It’s a good thing we got lights on the field last year. The coach and all the other players can vouch for me.”

  “What time did practice end?”

  “It was almost ten. And then we took showers. We’ve got the same practice schedule tomorrow night. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come into our shower room at ten tomorrow evening. We’re a friendly group. Then you can see for yourself.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Watch out for these guys,” Kevin said to the man who was just coming out of the listening room. “They’ll try to pin Joy’s murder on you.”

  “Maybe they’re trying to cover up for themselves,” the man, who Tony recognized as Nathan, said, with a half-smile.

  Nathan was wearing the same sweatshirt he had worn at his last Hotline session on Monday.

  “What we want to know,” Shahla said, without smiling, “is what you were doing and where you were the night of Joy’s murder.”

  Nathan said, “You don’t want much, do you? But by the way, I’ve already told this story to Detective Croyden.”

  “Humor us and tell it again,” Shahla said munching on a chip.