Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 23

Tony remembered the way to Carol’s apartment so well that he could have driven it blindfolded. As it was, he was driving it with one leg. He was thankful for Josh’s SUV. At least he didn’t have to rent a car, in addition to making hefty lease payments on the Porsche. He forced himself not to worry about what Josh was doing with his car.

During his few free moments at work, he had used the time to worry about something else: what to do with the panties. He couldn’t bring himself to turn them over to Detective Croyden. He couldn’t rat out Josh, especially since he would have to drive Josh’s car to the police station to do it.

Josh had been super nice to him ever since their little “talk,” during which Josh had said he would move out within thirty days. He hadn’t mentioned moving out since, and there was no evidence that he was looking for another place to live. He hadn’t violated Tony’s rules about having loud visitors over on work nights. He was still a slob, but Tony could live with that. At least Tony knew Josh’s habits. And he always paid his rent on time. What would life be like with a new roommate he didn’t know anything about? It would be risky, to say the least.

While he was driving to Carol’s apartment, Tony thought some more about the panties. Even though he had finally opened his mind to the probability that Josh was somewhat of a misogynist, he still couldn’t picture him as a cold-blooded murderer. Josh might have looked up the address of the Hotline office in Tony’s notebook. He might have gone to the office out of curiosity. He might have seen Joy come out. He might even have accosted her, verbally, perhaps tried to make a date with her. But murder her? Tony couldn’t picture it.

But this line of reasoning fell apart as Tony thought once again about the panties stuffed into the bottom of his attache case. He couldn’t explain them. And they badly needed an explanation.

Here was Carol’s apartment building. Fortunately, a parking place appeared, on demand, on the street close to the entrance. Unfortunately, Carol lived on the second floor and there wasn’t any elevator. Tony had practiced using the crutches on his own stairs; going up last night, coming down this morning. It had not been easy.

He was glad that none of the apartment dwellers was watching as he made his way up the stairs, trying not to fall, trying not to look too awkward. It was like attempting to play a new sport at which one has no experience. That he made it to the second floor without disaster was a major relief to him.

As he rang the bell to Carol’s apartment, he realized that he was looking forward to seeing her. That quickening of his pulse, that feeling of glad anticipation-they returned as he waited for her to open the door. When she did open the door, she looked as good as he had pictured her, except for the expression on her face.

“Tony, what happened to you?”

“I, uh, fell down.”

“You didn’t tell me. Oh, you poor dear. Are you all right?”

She gave him a gentle hug, which he couldn’t return because his hands were holding the crutches.

“It’s just my knee. It’ll be all right in a couple of weeks. I can make it through the doorway.”

Carol was trying to help him, but she didn’t know how to do it. He smiled a wry smile. Perhaps he should have gotten hurt while they were dating. Then she might have had more sympathy for him.

“Dinner is all ready. Here, would you like to sit in this chair?”

“That should work. I just need room to stretch out my left leg. There’s a bottle of wine in my fanny pack.”

Carol laughed as she extracted the Merlot.

“I can always count on you to bring the right wine, even when you can barely walk.”

He had been using the fanny pack to carry essential papers and other items today because his hands were tied up. Carol had the small table set intimately for two, with candles and even cloth napkins. When he had called her, asking for a little of her time, he hadn’t expected her to invite him to dinner. But he also hadn’t been able to refuse the invitation. What was the occasion? He knew he shouldn’t ascribe any special meaning to it.

Tony sat down in the proffered chair, and Carol took his crutches-and placed them out of his reach. He almost protested; he felt like a prisoner. He watched her as she opened the wine in the adjacent space that was the small kitchen and placed the food on the table. She looked unbelievably good in form-fitting white pants and a purple silk blouse. A blouse that he was sure he could see through in the right light.

And then when she passed through a beam of light pouring in the window, courtesy of the setting sun, he had the revelation that not only could he see through the blouse, but she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath it. He had a sudden and overwhelming urge to bury his face in that blouse. It was a good thing he couldn’t get up. None of the outfits he had seen on the teenage girls even approached this one in sensuality. All his libidinous feelings for her came back. How long had it been since their liaison had ended? How long had he been celibate?

Tony barely noticed what he was eating. The Caesar salad, the barbequed ribs, the mashed potatoes, the wine; he ate and drank them automatically, but didn’t taste them as they entered his mouth and slid down his throat. Carol chatted about various things, and he agreed with everything she said-for a change. Until she started talking about the Hotline.

“You know that Josh called me because he was worried about what had happened to you since you started working at the Hotline.”

“Yes. Remember, you called me and told me.”

“But I didn’t know what he was talking about until I saw you with that teenybopper at the Beach House.”

“I work with her on the Hotline.” He kept his voice even. And if it was Shahla that concerned her, he knew that her concerns were different than Josh’s.

“Right. But as I recall, it was rather late at night. And she had the kind of innocent good looks that men can’t resist.”

Tony decided that silence was his best option at this point and was thankful once again for his Hotline training. He put a large bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth so that he couldn’t say anything.

“Okay, I’ll get off it.” Carol smiled a thin smile. “After all, it’s none of my business anymore.”

“Let’s talk about the reason I wanted to see you,” Tony said after swallowing the potatoes.

“You said you wanted to show me a poem that might have something to do with the girl’s murder. What was her name?”

“Joy.”

Carol had been an English teacher for a few years before she became disgusted with principals who didn’t back her and the lack of discipline that made teaching difficult. She had quit teaching and gone into the computer industry. She was making far more money than she would ever have made as a teacher. Tony explained the circumstances of finding the poem but not the fact that Shahla had been with him. Don’t borrow trouble.

“If you gave the poem to the police, how is it that you still have a copy?”

“I entered it into a computer, being careful about fingerprints, of course.”

“Were there any fingerprints on it?”

“Only a couple of mine before I started being careful. Whoever wrote the poem was even more careful than I was.”

“So, as I understand it, what you want me to do is to read the poem and then tell you who wrote it.”

“Yes, please, if you would be so kind.”

They both laughed. This was more like it.

“All right. But before I perform this feat, let’s have dessert.”

Tony had several more opportunities to observe the enticements inside Carol’s blouse while she cleared the table. He saw the mole on her breast that had bewitched him once upon a time. He realized that he badly needed to find himself another girlfriend.

Carol did something behind the counter that separated the table from the kitchen. It involved matches, as Tony could tell from the smell. He wondered whether she was going to add to the two candles already on the table. Then she lowered the lights, leaving the room lit mostly by the candles. She came back to the table, carrying a cake with birthday candles on it and singing “Happy Birthday.”

Tony was flabbergasted. He had completely forgotten that his birthday was only two days away. Carol placed the cake in front of him and gave him a light kiss on the lips.

“Make a wish and see if you still have enough wind in your ancient body to blow out the candles.”

Tony did. He didn’t count to see if she had gotten the number right. At some point, you had to stop counting. He cut the cake and they ate it in an atmosphere as amicable as that of the best day they had spent together, while drinking creme de menthe in miniature glasses with silver stems that Tony had given Carol for a Christmas present. Time stood still.

When they had finished, Carol broke the spell saying, “Okay, let’s see the poem. And move your chair back from the table. Will I hurt your knee if I sit on your lap? I think I can get the best perspective from there.”

God. What was she trying to do? She was temptation personified. How was he going to keep his hands off her blouse? Tony realized that he would be the sourpuss if he refused her, so he backed his chair up and guided her to a safe position on his lap. He put his arms carefully around her waist, that being the most innocuous place for them. Carol picked up the computer printout of the poem, which Tony had placed on the table when he arrived, and read it through, seemingly concentrating on the words to the exclusion of everything else.

Tony read the poem again over her shoulder:

She wears a summer dress, spaghetti straps to hold it up, or is this so? Perhaps it's gravity, the gravity of con- sequences should it fall. If she should don her dress one day but then forget to pull them up, those flimsy wisps of hope so full of her ripe beauty, do you think the weight of promises within, or hand of fate, would slide it down, revealing priceless treasures?

If so, would she invoke heroic measures to hide the truth, for fear this modest lapse would air the secret of spaghetti straps?

When she was finished, Carol said, “That poem was written by somebody who has written a lot of poems. It was not an amateur effort.”

“What else can you tell me about it?”

“There are not many people in the world who can write a poem like this. Technically, it rates an A. It has images, meter, enjambment, clever rhymes. As to the subject matter, my first inclination is to rate it a C minus and say it must have been written by a horny teenager.”

“Except that a horny teenager couldn’t write it.”

“Exactly. Unless he had previously written a few hundred poems and had some talent to boot. If that person exists, I never saw him in any of my classes. And, in addition, although the subject matter is suspect, the way it’s handled, in a poetic rather than a voyeuristic fashion, would probably prompt me to give it a higher grade than a C minus. I can imagine one of my students writing something like, ‘What if her boobs flopped out of her dress?’”

“Okay, we’ve settled the grading. I’m sure the author will be pleased. But who did write the poem?”

“Somebody with talent and a lot of poetic experience. Somebody who remembers what it’s like to be a horny teenager.”

“Or somebody who is a horny adult,” Tony said, his thoughts about Carol’s blouse still heavy on his mind.

Carol turned toward Tony so that her mouth was not more than two inches from his and said, “Do adults still get horny?”

Tony couldn’t say anything. She kissed him. At first he sat there, not responding, wondering what was going on. Then, before he could return her kiss, she jumped up from his lap and said, “This brings us to my present for you. Or perhaps it’s for me.”

“Present?” Tony said dumbly.

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?