Hotline to Murder

by Alan Cook

  Nobody was in sight. He wasn’t sure he wanted to talk to anybody, anyway. He stood at the back, wondering why Nathan was attracted to this particular church. It didn’t look very substantial. He was about to leave when he heard footsteps resounding from contact with a hard floor, coming from somewhere behind the platform. He hesitated, wondering whether it would look as if he were up to something if he left now.

  A man came through a doorway that Tony hadn’t seen before, in the wall behind the platform. He was a big man, and he walked rapidly, with a purpose that gave Tony a moment of trepidation, until he realized that the man hadn’t seen him. He took a step to attract the man’s attention.

  The man stopped halfway down the aisle that went between the rows of pews and said, in a deep voice, “How can I help you, brother?”

  Tony’s first thought was to wonder whether Shahla would claim that the man should have said, “How may I help you, brother?” He hesitated for an awkward moment and then decided that truth was the best policy. He said, “I know somebody who attends services here and I was curious.”

  The man came up to him and stuck out a giant hand saying, “I am the Reverend Luther Hodgkins.”

  Tony said, “Tony Schmidt,” failing to match the resonance of the Reverend’s voice. His hand got lost in that of the larger man. He was dark-skinned, with graying hair, and could have played football with Detective Croyden. He was dressed in a colorful Hawaiian shirt.

  “Who is this parishioner of whom you speak?” Reverend Hodgkins asked, or rather rumbled.

  “His name is Nathan…” Tony tried to remember Nathan’s last name.

  “Nathan Watson?”

  “Watson…right. He’s white.”

  “We do not discriminate at the Church of the Risen Lord. What has Nathan told you about the church?”

  “Nothing, actually. He said he had attended an evening service here on Thursday, August 29.”

  Reverend Hodgkins stepped past Tony and opened the outside door, letting in a slanting ray of light from the setting sun, which momentarily blinded him. The Reverend turned around and surveyed Tony, who realized he had let in the sunlight so that he could see him better.

  “Are you with the police?” the Reverend asked.

  “No sir,” Tony said, blinking to regain his eyesight. He stepped back from the doorway so that the sun wasn’t in his face. “Nathan and I, ah, work together. I was interested in finding out more about the church.”

  “Nathan is a faithful member of the Church. However, I’m not surprised that he has not told you anything specific about our beliefs, because we have been ridiculed by nonbelievers in the past. However, if you are serious about wanting to learn the truth, I will be glad to enlighten you. Take a seat.”

  Reverend Hodgkins sat down at the end of the last pew and motioned Tony to sit in the pew across the aisle from him. Tony wasn’t sure he wanted to learn so much about the Church that he be required to sit down to do it, but he was under the spell of the Reverend. He sat.

  “First, I must apologize for the lack of lights,” the Reverend said. “The electric company lists its employees among the nonbelievers. However, we will not be needing electricity or anything else of the material for very long.”

  As soon as Tony sat down, his feeling of tiredness came back to him, and he slumped on the hard, wooden bench. However, the statement of Reverend Hodgkins woke him up with a jolt. The Reverend was looking past him, lost in some sort of reverie. Tony waited for him to continue.

  “All churches seek the truth. Few find the whole truth. Others have tried to pinpoint the Day of Judgment. They have failed, resulting in great embarrassment and financial loss. It is only now, with the advent of powerful computers and the Internet, that I have been able to do what others failed to do.”

  “The Day of Judgment?” Tony had been raised in a Protestant church-going family, but it had been years since he had been inside a church, except for weddings and his grandfather’s funeral.

  “The day when Christ shall return to earth and clasp the faithful to his bosom. The day when the believers shall rise triumphantly into heaven. The day when we will no longer need the worldly goods that keep us fettered. The day when the chains of greed and ambition shall be cast off.”

  The Reverend’s voice grew louder as he talked, filling the small church auditorium. He was no longer seeing or speaking to Tony. He went on in the same vein, while Tony wondered whether he was going to preach a whole sermon. He apparently came back to reality, because he stopped after a couple of minutes.

  Tony said, “Reverend, when is this Day of Judgment?”

  Reverend Hodgkins looked at him. When he spoke, it was back in his normal voice, which was loud enough. “It is for the believers to know when the great day will occur. Our parishioners will be ready. Ready to be swept up to glory.”

  “In other words, I have to join your Church in order to receive this information?”

  “In one word—yes.”

  Tony remembered hearing stories about people who thought they had pinpointed the Day of Judgment. “So all your followers are selling or giving away all their possessions and meeting on a hilltop on this glorious day?”

  Reverend Hodgkins fixed Tony with a disconcerting stare. Perhaps a suspicious stare. He stood up. Tony stood up. The Reverend walked to the entrance and said, “Brother, I have things to do, and I’m sure you do too. I hope that God goes with you on your journey.”

  The interview was over. Tony had enough presence of mind to shake hands with the Reverend as he went out the door and say, “Thank you for a most enlightening conversation. God be with you, Reverend.”

  The Reverend stood in the doorway and watched Tony as he climbed into his Porsche. Or perhaps he was looking at the car. There was a gleam in the Reverend’s eye that Tony didn’t think he had seen before in a man of the cloth.

  CHAPTER 15

  When Tony reached home, he wanted nothing more than to drink a beer, eat a frozen dinner heated in the microwave, collapse in front of the television set for a couple of hours, and then retire to bed for some much-needed sleep. As he pulled into his carport, he saw that Josh’s car wasn’t in the space next to his and that buoyed his spirits. He wasn’t up to facing Josh at the moment, especially after their fight last night.

  The temporary uplift was dashed when he opened the refrigerator and discovered that all the beer was gone. Josh and his buddies had drunk it all. Unless there was some left in the cooler. He fruitlessly looked for that container in the living room and finally went out onto the patio and discovered it upside down, where it had been left to drain. Beerless.

  He settled for a glass of white wine from a half-empty bottle in the refrigerator. It was the cheap stuff from Trader Joe’s, but it wasn’t bad. He found a dinner in the freezer that he knew would be the consistency of wood chips and dirt, with a taste to match, but he didn’t care. He placed the container in the microwave and turned it on.

  Tony sipped his wine and checked the messages on his answering machine. Two for Josh, both from males. None for him. While he waited for the dinner to heat up, he thought about his roommate. He remembered for the first time in his busy day that he had wondered last night whether Josh was Joy’s killer. Now, after a day had elapsed, he couldn’t picture Josh as a murderer, but he knew the thought would nag him unless he made sure. He had to find out what Josh had been doing the night of the murder.

  Josh was probably at work at the television station, but he might be coming home any time. Tony raced upstairs and into Josh’s room. He turned on the light and then remembered that since Josh’s room faced the carport area, if Josh drove in right now, he would see the light on in his room and become suspicious.

  Damn. Tony turned off the light, went down the hall to his own room, and retrieved a small flashlight. This was going to make the job harder. Returning to Josh’s room, he wondered whether Josh had left his calendar there. Tony knew that Josh had recently started using an electronic calendar at wo
rk, but he was suspicious of automation and had loudly proclaimed that he was still going to maintain his manual calendar.

  Josh was messier than Tony. The bed was unmade. Dirty clothes were piled on the only chair. A distinct locker-room odor emanated from them. Tony was thankful he didn’t ordinarily have to look inside this room. It was a better situation than college, when they had shared a single room. Josh did have a table, which he used as a desk. Papers were piled on it in seemingly random fashion.

  Tony quickly leafed through them, using his flashlight to see, looking for a calendar. He heard the sound of an engine in the carport area. It was either Josh or a neighbor. He went to the window and peeked out between slats of the blinds. He saw Josh’s car pulling into his carport. Tony figured he had thirty seconds.

  He riffled quickly through another pile of papers. In the middle he found the calendar, one page per month, not exactly state-of-the-art. It was open to September. He went back one page and checked the square of August 29. Nothing was written in the square. It was completely blank. Other days had notices of appointments or social engagements, so Josh was still using the calendar.

  Tony could hear Josh coming in through the unlocked door from the patio. He quickly shoved the calendar back into the stack—too hard. The whole stack of papers fell onto the floor. Frantically, Tony scooped them up with both arms and plunked them on the table. Then he took two giant steps out of the room and closed the door. At the last instant he remembered to close it softly. As he was going down the stairs, Josh started up them.

  “Hey, Tony,” Josh said as they passed each other. “How was your day?”

  “Tiring,” Tony said warily. “And yours?” At least he hadn’t called him Noodles.

  “Swinging. We got a scoop on network news in the case of the kidnapped little girl.”

  “Wonderful,” Tony responded, but he was already down the stairs and headed back into the kitchen. Josh didn’t seem to be in a bad mood. Now if only he didn’t notice that his papers were messed up. And if he didn’t bring up last night, Tony wouldn’t. Tony retrieved his TV dinner from the microwave, poured himself another glass of wine, and sat down at the table in the family room, which doubled as a dining room.

  Josh came downstairs five minutes later, looking comfortable in baggy shorts and a T-shirt. He opened the refrigerator. After a few seconds of searching, he said, “Looks like I blew it. Drank up all the beer. Sorry about that. You want me to make a beer run?”

  “Don’t do it for me,” Tony said. “I’m going to bed early tonight.”

  “I’ll get some tomorrow.”

  The area between the family room and the kitchen was mostly open, so Tony watched as Josh poured himself a glass of wine from the bottle on the counter and then took a package of wieners out of the refrigerator. He stabbed one with a fork and held it over the flame of a burner on the gas stove, as if he were at a wiener roast. He whistled as the wiener started to sizzle. Tony cringed as he watched the grease drip onto the burner, but he was determined not to say a word, especially one that might upset Josh.

  “I haven’t heard anything new about the Hotline murder for several days,” Josh said. “Have you got any inside information for me that I can put on the air?”

  “Nothing new.”

  Josh ate this wiener right off the fork and then stabbed a second wiener and held it over the flame.

  Tony saw his chance. “Detective Croyden has been checking the alibis of everybody who was connected to Joy in any way. When he asked me about my alibi, I realized that I didn’t have anybody to vouch for me that night.” He forced a smile. “I went to a movie all alone. I don’t remember where the hell you were. Where were you, anyway?” He said this in what he hoped was a jocular tone.

  Josh turned his wiener over to sear the other side. With his free hand he scratched his head. “Where was I the night of the murder? I’ll have to think about that.”

  Josh fell silent as he finished cooking his wiener to his satisfaction and ate it off the fork. Tony felt frustrated that the opportunity to get Josh’s alibi had apparently been lost. If he asked again, Josh was sure to get suspicious. Josh brought his glass of wine over to the table and sat down.

  He said, “Was Joy one of the girls that was here the day you had the Hotline people over when I was out of town?”

  The question startled Tony. He had never told Josh that he had invited the class over and had hoped he wouldn’t find out. He said, “What are you talking about?” still trying to maintain a bantering tone.

  “Don’t pull that shit with me. Rob told me all about it. He said the pool was full of young babes in bikinis. He and some of the other guys who live here sat around the pool, drank beer, and watched. But you did it behind your old roommate’s back.” Josh affected a hurt look.

  Watched. Ogled. Tony remembered that well. Rob was a neighbor. Since the pool was in the common area, he couldn’t exactly drive them away.

  “They particularly mentioned a tall, gorgeous blonde,” Josh continued. “Stacked.” He placed his hands around imaginary breasts. “I kind of figured that might be Joy.”

  “It was Joy,” Tony conceded. “In fact, that was the only time I ever saw Joy.”

  “You’re one up on me. I have to live with the pictures we got from her parents. But I’m still pissed that you left me out.”

  “I didn’t want you ravishing all of them. My reputation is that of a good guy, and I can’t let them know I have you for a roommate. They’d probably kick me out of the Hotline.”

  “That might be the best thing that could happen. I don’t like what you’re turning into.”

  Josh kept score of all the beautiful girls he saw, dated, bedded. It was a contest for him. Still, he had no reason to kill one.

  “In a theoretical sense, I can understand the attraction,” Josh said, as if analyzing a movie. “A beautiful but unobtainable girl. If you can’t have her, then nobody can have her. Kill her while she’s still perfect. Then you’ll have a memory that nobody else can have. Forever.”

  Or did he have a reason to kill her? Tony remembered something—the missing underwear. He needed to search the drawers of Josh’s dresser. But he would have to be more careful the next time he went into his room.

  CHAPTER 16

  As Tony entered the Hotline, office he saw two people in the listening room. Young people on the four-to-seven shift. He signed in. It was only Wednesday, and he wasn’t scheduled to work again until Friday, but he had decided to come in tonight because curiosity had gotten the best of him. He had called the office and talked to Gail, who had told him that Nathan was working the seven-to-ten tonight. Tony had decided to work with him.

  Tony said hello to the two as he went into the listening room. He recognized their faces, if not their names. He admired the listening skills of the girl as she finished up a call. These kids were good. They certainly didn’t fit one common stereotype of teenagers: egoists who ignored the rest of the world. Older generations might not approve of their clothes, their tattoos, and their piercings, but they had to admit that at least these particular youths had compassion. They cared.

  Nathan arrived right on the dot of seven. Tony watched him as he signed in. He admired Nathan’s tall, blond good looks and compared them to his own shorter, darker appearance. But there was something different about him. Tony realized that it was the first time he had seen Nathan wearing short sleeves. Well, they had been having hot weather—hotter even than in August. But this was typical in Southern California.

  Nathan came into the listening room. He showed surprise as he said hello to Tony.

  “I wasn’t doing anything tonight,” Tony told him, “and I couldn’t stay away. I thought I’d keep you company.”

  “Good. Kyoko was scheduled to work, but I don’t think she’s going to show. I was going to work anyway, all alone if necessary. Who cares about the rules? I’m not afraid.”

  After Nathan got himself something to eat and they each took a phone call, Ton
y had a chance to start a conversation. He said, “Tell me about your church—what is it, Church of the Resurrected Jesus, or something like that?”

  “Church of the Risen Lord. What would you like to know?”

  Tony noticed, as he had before, that Nathan didn’t look directly at him when he spoke.

  “Well, how did it get its name, for one thing?”

  Nathan finally looked at him, for a moment, as if he were trying to find out what he was driving at. “Are you a Christian?”

  “You mean, as opposed to being a Jew or a Muslim? Yeah, I guess I’m a Christian.”

  “That didn’t exactly sound like a wholehearted religious endorsement. Anyway, you know the story, right? Jesus was crucified, dead, and buried. The third day he rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, et cetera, et cetera.”

  “Sure.”

  “Okay, well the deal is that he’s coming back to get us. And take us with him. At least some of us.”

  “The true believers.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Tony figured he had better ask his next question carefully. “Who are the true believers? Are they just the members of your church?”

  “Well, there may be some others who got it right,” Nathan hedged.

  “How many members does your church have?”

  “I don’t know. A couple hundred, I guess.”

  “Isn’t it going to be awfully lonely in heaven?”

  Nathan looked upset. “Are you scoffing at my religion?”

  “No, no, just trying to find out the truth. When is it going to happen?”

  “When is what going to happen?”

  “This…Ascension, or whatever you call it.” He had almost said Day of Judgment, but that would have been quoting Reverend Hodgkins, and Tony didn’t want Nathan to know that he had actually gone to the church.