Hotline to Murder

by Alan Cook

Carol brought Tony’s crutches to him and said, “We have to go into the bedroom.”

  Tony slowly got up and followed her into the bedroom, still not clear about what was happening. He noticed that the bed was unmade, which wasn’t like Carol. The bedspread, the blanket, even the top sheet, all lay on the floor at the foot of the bed, leaving it covered by the bottom sheet.

  “I didn’t figure on your injury,” Carol said. “I don’t suppose you can kneel on that knee.”

  “No.”

  “Well, turn around.” She turned him so that his back was to the bed and said, “Sit.”

  He sat.

  “Give me your crutches. Now lie down on your back.”

  He lay down, partly as a result of a push from Carol. She helped him scoot his body up until he was completely on the bed.

  “All right,” Carol said, unbuttoning her blouse. “I can do most of the work, but you have to help me some. For starters, how about unbuckling your belt and unzipping your pants.”

  ***

  “Time for you to go,” Carol said, raising her head from Tony’s chest.

  Her naked body was lying on top of his naked body, and Tony would just as soon stay like that forever. She rolled off him and sat up.

  “How much help do you need getting into your clothes?”

  “Oh, I think I can manage if you put them within arm’s length.” Tony was still in a euphoric daze and was having trouble coming back to reality. However, having no choice, he started putting on his clothes. Carol did the same.

  “There are a couple of things I need to tell you,” Carol said. “I will be moving in with Horace next weekend.”

  “You’re moving out of the apartment?”

  “I won’t need it anymore. Horace has a beautiful house on the beach. Not only is he rich, he loves me to pieces. And he listens to me. Even better, he pretty much agrees with everything I have to say.”

  Ouch. Well, Tony had not come here expecting anything different. Still, this was a quick reversal. “You said you needed to tell me a couple of things. What was the other?”

  “If Horace is lacking in one thing, it’s…I guess you would call it, libido. Something you never lacked. I just wanted to experience what it was like between us one more time. But the upshot is, this was the last time. If I’m going to live with a man, I’m going to be faithful to him.”

  “I wish you every happiness,” Tony said. “And thank you for a nice evening.” What else could he say?

  CHAPTER 24

  As Thursday afternoon advanced inexorably toward evening, Tony became more and more worried about Shahla. Although he had been upset with her on Monday for talking to Nathan about the possibility of attending a service at the Church of the Risen Lord, he hadn’t really believed she would do it. But the more he thought about it, the less sure he was of this conclusion.

  Shahla was impetuous, and if she thought she could find out something about Joy’s murder by attending the service, she would go. In addition, Tony had seen her writing in a spiral notebook in the car while they were driving home from Las Vegas. When he had asked her whether she was writing poetry, she had said no, she was taking notes. For what? She said for the true-crime book she was going to write. So now she pictured herself as a reporter. And reporters went wherever there were stories. And the premise of this Church might be enough of a story to entice her to attend one its services.

  Tony called Shahla’s cell phone number about 4:00. When she didn’t answer it, he didn’t leave a message, figuring that if she was planning to go to the service, she probably wouldn’t return his call. By 5:00 Tony had become so anxious that he was no longer able to work. He left his office and walked—limped—to his car. He was becoming more adept at using the crutches, but they were a damned nuisance, and he would be glad to be rid of them.

  He decided to drive to Shahla’s house and deal with her face to face. On the way there, he thought about Carol and last night. What an ending to that romance. Had she spoiled him for other women? If all their evenings had been like that one, they would still be together. He was going to have a hard time getting over her.

  Tony pulled Josh’s SUV to the curb in front of Shahla’s house and was carefully negotiating his way out of the vehicle when Rasa drove into the driveway. She was undoubtedly coming home from her work at the hospital. Uh oh. He wasn’t sure whether she would be happy to see him. After all, he had driven her daughter to Las Vegas and not returned for over twenty-four hours.

  Better to face the situation head-on. He limped up the driveway and greeted Rasa as she got out of her car. He was struck again by how much she looked like a short-haired and darker version of Shahla.

  She looked at him and said, “Tony, what happened to you?”

  He was certain that Shahla hadn’t told her everything about their trip, so he said, “I had a fall, but I’ll be all right. I just have to be on crutches for a week or so.”

  “Did you see doctor?”

  “Yes. In fact, I went to the emergency room at your hospital.”

  “Good. They have good doctors there. Are you here to see Shahla? She has cross-country practice in afternoon, but she should be home soon.”

  “All right, but I’d like to talk to you for a minute, if I could.”

  “Sure. Come into house.”

  Rasa collected the mail from the curbside mailbox, and Tony followed her carefully up the driveway and then up several steps to the front door. Once inside, she waved him into the living room and excused herself. He sat on the couch and thought about what he should say. Five minutes later she returned, having shed her work clothes and donned a dark blue sweat suit that made her look even younger than she already did.

  She sat in the chair she had sat in when he had been here before and said, “Shahla told me nothing happened on Las Vegas trip. Since you were gone so long that is hard to believe.”

  “It is a bit of an exaggeration,” Tony agreed. “We talked to this guy, Paul, who is the poet. We went into one of the hotels so Shahla could see what it looked like. And then we…well, we followed Paul and a girl. But we did it carefully and were never in any danger.” Then how come he was on crutches?

  “Shahla said you fell asleep on drive home.”

  “Well, fortunately, I stopped before I fell asleep, and I took a nap. But that’s why we didn’t get home until Sunday morning.”

  “Thank you for keeping Shahla safe.”

  “You’re welcome.” He wasn’t sure he deserved her thanks. “Let me tell you the reason I’m here. When Shahla and I were on the Hotline Monday evening, another listener was there who talked about a church he belongs to. They have a service on Thursday evening, and he invited Shahla to attend the service.”

  “What church is this?”

  “It’s called the Church of the Risen Lord. It’s a sort of Christian Church, but it has kind of a funny idea.”

  “We do not go to church. I have not had faith since my husband was murdered. Did Shahla tell you about that?”

  “Yes.”

  Rasa paused, as if contemplating whether to say more about her husband. She apparently decided against it.

  “I have not raised Shahla in religious environment. Sometimes I feel little guilty about this. If she wants to attend church, it is all right with me.”

  “Well, this church is at least ten miles from here and not in a great part of town. I don’t think Shahla should be driving there alone—especially at night.”

  “I see.” Rasa frowned. “Thank you for telling me. I think I hear Shahla now. We will talk to her together.”

  Shahla had apparently received a ride home from a classmate, because Tony heard the sound of a car driving away at the same time as the front door opened.

  “Shahla,” Rasa called. “We are in living room.”

  Shahla appeared a few seconds later, her hair in a ponytail, wearing running shoes, shorts, and a white athletic bra. Tony knew that the cross-country team had uniform shirts, but on warm days, the girls
often took off their shirts and ran in just their bras, at least in practice.

  “Tony,” she said startled. “What are you doing here?”

  “Tony has come because he is concerned about your safety,” Rasa said.

  “Where’s your car? And what are you doing with crutches? You didn’t have crutches on Monday.”

  “Long story,” Tony said. “But it can wait. Right now, we want to know whether you were planning to go to Nathan’s church service tonight.”

  Shahla looked from one of them to the other, as if they were conspiring against her. For a moment, Tony thought she would explode, and then as he watched in admiration, she deliberately got herself under control. When she spoke, she was completely collected.

  “You two look like parents, sitting there in judgment.”

  “One of us is your parent,” Rasa said. “But we are both concerned about you.”

  “Let me tell you the reason I want to go,” Shahla said. She paused, perhaps for effect. “The police have not solved Joy’s murder yet. I think everything should be done to solve it. Nathan is a queer duck. Being a queer duck is not enough to go to the police with. I want to see if I can get enough information about him to make it worthwhile to go to the police.”

  “Tony says church is far from here and in dangerous part of town.”

  “How do you know?”

  Tony said, “Because…I’ve been there.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “I haven’t told you everything.” Tony held up his hand, as if to ward off her anger. “I talked to the minister. I didn’t get all the answers I wanted. I agree with you, there is something strange about it. And about Nathan, for being a part of it. Which is all the more reason you shouldn’t go. I’ll tell you what I’ll do; I’ll go to the service tonight.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “There is no need for that. I can handle it.”

  Shahla took a visible breath, again appearing to calm herself down. Then she said, “There is a good reason. You are on crutches. You have helped me. Now I can help you. It isn’t safe for you to go alone on crutches.”

  Rasa nodded. “Shahla has good point. But if church is in dangerous part of town, neither one of you should go.”

  “It isn’t that dangerous,” Tony said. “Nathan goes there. I would be all right.”

  Rasa turned to Shahla. “What is your homework situation?”

  “I worked for two hours after class and before cross-country practice. I only have a little more to do.”

  “You do rest of homework while I make dinner for all of us. Then you may go to service. But I want you back by ten.”

  “Agreed,” Tony said, before Shahla could say anything.

  This was the second night in a row that Tony had been invited out for dinner. He could get used to this. He helped Rasa in the kitchen while Shahla showered, changed her clothes, and finished her homework. He and Rasa chatted about her job as a nurse, and he told her about Bodyalternatives.net. She was intrigued with the concept, especially for weight loss, and said that she had several patients she would refer to his company. Tony gave her a bunch of his cards.

  When dinner was about to be served, a boy of ten or eleven materialized from a stairway that led to the basement. Tony hadn’t even known he was in the house. Rasa introduced him as Kirk. He had Shahla’s coloring and a slight build. Tony shook hands with him and said, “Hey, Kirk, glad to meet you. What do you do in the basement, plot the overthrow of the world?”

  “Yeah, stuff like that. I play computer games and surf the net.”

  “I hope you don’t go to any of the bad sites.”

  “Aw, Mom got some computer geek to put a lot of controls on the computer to keep me out of those sites. I haven’t found a way to get around all of them yet.”

  “Good. It can be dangerous out there.”

  “Yeah. Right. Say, are you Mom’s boyfriend?”

  Rasa overheard and said, “Tony works with Shahla on the Hotline.”

  “You’re too old for Shahla. And I’d say you’re too young for Mom.”

  Kirk was still trying to figure out where Tony fit in when Rasa called them to dinner.

  CHAPTER 25

  “There’s something else I haven’t told you,” Tony said as he and Shahla drove to the church. Actually, there were several things he hadn’t told her, but he figured it was better to spring one at a time.

  “How can I ever trust you again?” Shahla asked, but in a way that told Tony she wasn’t serious—or at least not completely serious.

  Shahla was wearing a fairly modest dress, which was her version of what to wear to church, along with a light jacket against the chill of the evening. She wore her hair in a bun. She looked good, but then she was one of those disgusting women who looked good wearing anything.

  “I have been doing some more investigating on my own,” Tony said, stalling a little. If he opened Pandora’s box, he wouldn’t be able to close it again. “I had some reasons, which I won’t go into right now, to take a look at…my roommate.”

  “Your roommate? I haven’t met your roommate. In fact, the only friend of yours that I have met is that woman—what’s her name?”

  “You mean Carol?”

  “The one who said snotty things about me. Have you seen her recently?”

  Had he seen her recently? How could he answer that with a straight face? “Yeah. I ran into her. She’s living with that man who was with her.”

  “I guess you won’t be dating her anymore.”

  “I guess not. Anyway, as I said, I was taking a look at my roommate, and I happened to search his room. And I found something.”

  “What did you find?”

  “I found…well, I found a pair of panties.”

  “Panties?” Shahla almost screamed. “What did you do with them?”

  “Nothing yet. I just found them. I have them with me. They’re in the attaché case on the seat behind me.”

  Shahla unbuckled her seat belt, turned around and retrieved the case, which she brought to the front seat. She reached in and, after searching briefly, pulled out the white panties. She held them up and looked at them by the light of the streetlights they passed.

  “Do you think they could be Joy’s?” Tony asked.

  “I don’t know. The size is okay. But they’re a little…”

  “Conservative?”

  “Yeah. I mean, not all girls wear thongs all the time, but these are, like, for an older woman, or perhaps a style of a few years ago.”

  “So you think they might be too old-fashioned for Joy.” Tony was willing to grasp at any feather of hope that would clear Josh, to paraphrase an Emily Dickinson poem that Shahla had recited to him.

  “Maybe. I need to see them in a better light.”

  “I’ll bring them to the Hotline tomorrow. We can study them there.” Anything to delay taking them to Detective Croyden.

  “You didn’t find a bra with them?”

  “No.”

  “It’s easier to tell whether a bra belongs to someone.”

  Tony was immensely relieved about Shahla’s uncertainty. For a few minutes he had been second-guessing his decision to show the panties to her. He made sure that she put them back into his case. He wanted to keep them in his possession.

  ***

  Parking was at a premium near the Church of the Risen Lord. Tony pulled into the small parking lot, but there was not a space to be had.

  “It doesn’t look like a church,” Shahla said. Some of her enthusiasm for the project seemed to have dissipated.

  Tony wasn’t willing to double-park and block another car because he wanted to keep a low profile. He carefully backed out of the lot into the street and finally found a space a block away that he could ease the Toyota into. He parallel-parked and then hesitated.

  He said, “Do we really want to do this?”

  Shahla was also hesitating. Perhaps the reality of walking at night on a dark street in a strange part of
town was giving her pause.

  “Can you walk that far on your crutches?” she asked.

  “Of course.”

  Tony didn’t want his infirmities to be the excuse for their failure. He opened the door and carefully stood in the street, with the help of the crutches. He navigated to the narrow sidewalk and laboriously started along it. Shahla walked two steps behind him, staying out of his way. He watched in the dark for cracks in the concrete that might upset him and felt empathy for disabled people who faced these problems every day of their lives.

  They passed small, older houses with small but tidy front yards, perhaps built right after World War II. Lights shone in some of the windows, but there was nobody else on the street.

  As they neared the church, Shahla said, “I hear singing.”

  “The service must have started already,” Tony said.

  It was after 7. The singing grew louder as they came to the front of the church and started up the walk to the door. A wheezy organ backed the vocal. Tony thought he recognized a hymn from his youth, but this version of it was livelier and more melodic than he remembered. They must have paid their electric bill. Lights were on inside the church.

  When Shahla opened the door, he could pick out distinct voices, from bass to soprano, with some singing harmony to the melody of the others. The notes reverberated off the walls and ceiling and filled every corner of the room. Their religious practices might be suspect, but their music was top-notch.

  Tony went through the doorway first. He saw that most of the pews were filled. The congregation was standing. The men and women and a few children swayed to the music, adding the impact of their bodies to that of their voices. The Reverend Luther Hodgkins stood in front leading the singing, and Tony could clearly hear his booming bass voice over those of everybody else. The voices of the robed members of the choir also penetrated to the back of the room. Shahla came in behind Tony and stood beside him, looking awed.

  Tony felt a presence on the other side of him. He turned his head and saw a man smiling and holding out a program toward him. Tony nodded his thanks—there was no point in trying to talk over the singing—and took it, being careful not to lose control of his crutch. He led Shahla to the back row of the pews, which, fortunately, was empty on one side. She went past him, and he stayed on the aisle.