Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 29

“When did you last see Shahla?”

Tony tried to ask the question in an even voice, hoping that his example would help to calm Rasa down enough so that he could understand what she was saying. Upon receiving her call, he had immediately driven to her place, knowing that he would never be able to communicate with her by phone. When he had arrived, she had started talking as soon as she opened the door, so rapidly that he still couldn’t understand her accented words. He had suggested they sit down in her living room. She appeared to be a little calmer now as she answered.

“This morning. She came down about eight o’clock and had something to eat.”

That was better. The act of sitting had slowed the flow of words; they were now intelligible to Tony. He said, “And then what happened?”

“She said she was going to study with her girlfriend. Her girlfriend lives short distance from here so she walked.” And Rasa’s car was in the driveway.

“And she was supposed to come home at a certain time?”

“That is too much to ask. I told her to call me at noon and tell me where she was. She did not call so I called her cell phone. I got message.”

“Did you call her girlfriend?”

“Yes, I called girlfriend. There was no answer.”

“And you haven’t heard from her since.”

“No. I called again and again and always got message. She must not have phone with her. Otherwise she would return my calls.”

“What do you think happened to her?” As soon as he asked it, Tony wished he could withdraw the question.

Rasa sobbed, “I think Joy’s murderer has kidnapped her.”

He wasn’t used to all this emotion, except from the callers, and with them he had the safety of a phone line between them. At least Rasa didn’t say she thought Shahla was dead. But she did look close to collapsing. Tony reflected that in the days before cell phones, it wasn’t unusual for a teenager to be out of touch with her parents for several hours, or even all day. Now, parents expected instant access to their children. He didn’t know whether to be worried or not. If it weren’t for the fact that a murder had been committed…

“Let me try her,” Tony said. He pulled out his own phone. God. The world was being run by them. He called Shahla’s number and waited. It rang twice and went to voice mail. After the beep, Tony said, “Shahla, it’s Tony. Please give me a call at your earliest convenience.” He gave his number and hung up.

“What should I do?” Rasa asked wiping her eyes with a tissue.

She was looking to him for guidance. Because of the circumstances, immediate action was called for. And maybe it would get her to stop crying. “I think we should call the police.”

“Do you think police will help?”

“That’s their job.”

It was after 9 when Tony got back to his townhouse, emotionally exhausted and starving. He hadn’t had anything to eat since about noon. He rummaged through the refrigerator and found some leftover chicken that Josh had bought at a fast-food restaurant and not finished. A parting gift from his ex-roommate. He gave it the sniff test, and it passed, so he ate it, along with a potato and some frozen corn that he microwaved.

It had been a thoroughly bad day. First Josh and then Shahla. After Tony had called the Bonita Beach Police, the desk officer had called Detective Croyden who was at home. Tony had actually been shocked that Croyden wasn’t working. And then he realized that he expected Croyden to be on duty all the time. And it almost seemed as if he was. When Shahla and others badmouthed the police for not solving the murder, they were ignoring Croyden’s work ethic.

Croyden had come to Rasa’s home. She had repeated her story to him. Tony had told him about his meeting with the Chameleon. Otherwise, he would have been withholding evidence. Croyden hadn’t even chewed him out. He just took notes with his Mont Blanc pen and looked properly concerned. An officer Croyden had brought with him started calling friends of Shahla from a list supplied by Rasa.

Tony belatedly told Croyden that Josh had moved out. Croyden made a note and looked at Tony for a moment with what was almost a compassionate expression. He said, “You still did the right thing. It’s hard to rat out your buddy, but sometimes to have to do it.”

“You don’t think he’s involved in this, do you?” Tony asked, shocked by Croyden’s serious tone.

“His story about the panties sounds legit. We’re checking on his alibi for the night of the murder.”

Tony couldn’t recall that Josh had given him an alibi. But he felt relieved. Even if Josh never spoke to him again, he didn’t want him to be convicted of murder.

A female friend of Rasa’s arrived to comfort her. Detective Croyden was using the house as a temporary command post while he coordinated the efforts of several officers in the field. In between phone calls, he asked Rasa questions about Shahla’s friends and habits.

After watching him in action for a while, Tony began to see him in a better light. He really was a good policeman. It relieved Tony’s mind a little. He still wasn’t convinced that Shahla had met with foul play, but whether she had or whether she hadn’t, Croyden was doing his best to find her.

Eventually, Tony began to feel expendable, like a disposable razor. So he left. He decided to conduct his own search. He drove slowly, up and down almost every street in Bonita Beach-the streets that crossed Pacific Coast Highway and ran downhill to the water, and the cross streets parallel to PCH and the coastline. He did this for two hours-until his gas gauge registered empty.

What else could he do? The more he tried to think, the more his brain wouldn’t function. It was then he realized that he was exhausted and starving. He drove home and parked in his carport. After staring at the empty space where Josh’s car used to be, he dragged himself into the house and went to the refrigerator.

Tony leafed through the pages of the Green Book at the Hotline office on Sunday morning, concentrating on the inactive callers at the back of the book. Detective Croyden had considered all of the active callers as possible suspects, and as far as Tony knew, he had discarded all of them except Fred the Chameleon. And Tony had discarded Fred as a suspect. Tony was sure that Croyden had also looked at the inactive pages, but because there was no way to contact the people who were no longer calling the Hotline, he really didn’t have any leads to follow.

Tony wasn’t sure he could do any better, but he read the description of each caller, looking for something-he didn’t know what- that might set off an alarm in his brain. He read the information for each inactive caller and then went back and reread it for just the male callers. Then, for some reason, he came back and read the page for one caller a third time.

This was a man who had given a variety of names, none of which had any special meaning for Tony. His Hotline nickname was Cackling Crucifier. He had called for several years and apparently stopped calling very abruptly about nine or ten months ago. He was given the name because of his weird laugh and because he liked to talk about religion. He appeared to carry a lot of guilt. He talked as if he thought he had personally crucified Jesus. He asked listeners about their religions. He always had a television set on in the background. The page on him said not to discuss religion or give him any personal information.

Tony had come into the Hotline office because he wanted to feel as if he was doing something to help find Shahla. Besides, he couldn’t stand the quiet in his townhouse with Josh gone. He had called the Bonita Beach police first thing this morning to get an update on the search for her. No news. Now that he was here, he realized that this was where he usually saw her. He missed her. It occurred to him for the first time that if something had happened to her, he might never see her again. He shuddered.

He was sitting at the white table in the outer office. A girl named Anne was in the listening room. Tony knew she had been a listener for a couple of years. When she hung up from a call, Tony carried the Green Book into the listening room and said, “Anne, did you ever speak to this guy called Cackling Crucifier?”

“Several times,” she said. “He was what I would call a Jesus freak.”

“Did he ask a lot of questions?”

“Yeah. He wanted to know if I went to church and if I had accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I didn’t tell him I was Jewish.”

“Did he ever ask where the Hotline was located?”

“He may have, but if he did, I didn’t tell him.”

“What else can you remember about him?”

“He had a distinctive laugh. Kind of a cackle. That’s how he got his name. I’d recognize his laugh anywhere.”

“Anything else?”

“He asked what I looked like and whether I’d go out with him. He got pretty personal. I blew him off. Once or twice he became abusive, saying that I was immoral and would go to hell. When he did, I hung up on him.”

“The book says he lives in Los Angeles. Did he ever tell you anything more specific than that?”

“I don’t think so. I imagine he lives somewhere within fifty miles of here.”

He and a few million other people.