Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 36

Nathan lived on a quiet street lined with apartment houses that resembled in some respects the one where Fred, the Chameleon, lived, only it was more upscale. Now that Tony had his own house, all apartment houses designed for single people looked pretty much alike to him. The apartments were too small, too seedy, even when well cared for. He was glad that he no longer lived in one. But he became depressed when he thought that if he couldn’t keep up the payments on his townhouse, because of the loss of income from Josh, he might have to return to that life.

Tony parked the Porsche on the street, several buildings short of the one where Nathan lived. He turned to Shahla, but before he could say anything, she started talking, rapid-fire.

“I’m going with you. We know that Nathan doesn’t have a gun. You’re still not at full speed, and I can run faster than you can, in case it becomes necessary to go for help. And it will be easier for two of us to overpower him. Besides, it’s not safe for me to stay in the car alone.”

Tony had opened his mouth to speak when she started her speech, and then closed it. Finally, he opened it again and said, “That’s just what I was going to say.”

Shahla said, “Let’s go get him, partner,” and gave him a high five.

The entrance to the apartment building was through a gate made of vertical iron bars, which Tony discovered was locked. He wondered how they could get through the gate. A young man approached it from the inside and opened it. Shahla smiled at him as he walked past her and grabbed the handle before the gate closed behind him. The man kept walking.

“After you,” she said to Tony, sweeping her hand toward the opening in invitation.

They walked through a passage into an interior courtyard, with the apartments forming a rectangle around it, on two levels. The doors to the apartments opened off the open courtyard and the balcony above it. The main feature of the courtyard was, of course, a swimming pool. Maximum sun, maximum fun. The quintessential California experience. Except that nobody was using the pool.

They quickly ascertained that Nathan’s apartment was on the ground floor. Tony’s first thought was that Nathan was certainly not going to bring Tina here. There would be no way to sneak her into his apartment with all this openness. His second thought was that maybe he had taken her somewhere else to kill her. No, no, no. Don’t think like that.

The drapes were drawn over the windows of Nathan’s apartment. Tony hesitated. Another effect of the sunny courtyard was to wipe out his feelings that this might be in any way dangerous. He knocked on the door. There were no sounds from within. He knocked again, too soon, like in the movies where they assumed that five seconds was enough time for someone to answer.

“The window’s open,” Shahla said.

As Tony waited for nobody to answer, Shahla was removing the screen from in front of the window. He looked apprehensively around to see if anybody was watching. He couldn’t see into the other apartments, of course, but the shadow cast by the balcony directly above them did partially mask her efforts.

“Cover me,” Shahla said.

She had removed the screen and opened the window wider. She meant for Tony to literally cover her-place his body in between her and the courtyard.

“Let me go,” he said. Nathan might still be inside.

“You have to watch your knee.”

Shahla put her leg up on the windowsill. Tony got directly behind her and gave her a boost as she went through the open window and landed on the floor inside. He quickly replaced the screen, hoping that nobody had seen anything and called the police. Shahla opened the door and let him in.

“The place is deserted,” she said.

Tony went into the apartment and looked around. All the furniture was gone. The carpet was dirty and there was some trash on the floor. Nathan hadn’t attempted to clean the place. This was apparently the living room. A divider doubling as a counter was at the other end of the room, with a small kitchen behind it. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Tony’s nose detected the stench of rotten food. The odor came from a metal garbage container, which hadn’t been emptied.

A short hallway led in one direction to the bathroom and in the other direction to a bedroom. They went into the bedroom. There was no bed, but there was a built-in closet. Tony opened the wooden folding doors. Some clothes were hanging up in the closet. Pants and shirts. Old clothes. On one side of the closet were built-in drawers. Tony opened each of the drawers and quickly went through the contents: a sweater, a sweatshirt, some underwear, and socks.

In the bottom drawer, underneath some T-shirts, he felt something with a different texture. Smooth and satiny. He pulled it out.

“Shahla.”

Shahla turned from where she was investigating some sheets and blankets that had been thrown into a corner. Tony held up a pair of barely-there panties. She raced over and grabbed the lingerie.

“Those belong to Joy. I’m sure they do. They look like something Joy would wear.”

Tears were streaming down her face. Tony felt something else. He pulled out a bra. Shahla took it and looked at the label.

“It’s a 34B. I’m sure that’s right for Joy.”

“We’ve got our man,” Tony said, grimly. “Now all we have to do is find him. Put them back in the drawer.”

“Put them back?” Shahla looked perplexed.

“I’m going to tip off the police. But we’ve got to leave the evidence here, where they can find it. If we take it to them it may be tainted, somehow.”

Shahla reluctantly put the items back in the drawer, but on top of the T-shirts so that there would be no question about the police finding them. Tony returned to the other room. There was a telephone sitting on the counter between the living room and the kitchen. He picked up the receiver and listened. He heard a dial tone.

“It works.” He punched in the number of the Bonita Beach Police. He gave his name to the desk officer, who recognized it in connection with the chase. He asked whether the kidnapper’s car had been spotted. Negative. He said he had more information on Joy’s murder and Tina’s kidnapping. He gave Nathan’s full name and address and said he had reason to believe that Nathan was the kidnapper. He said he thought the police would find evidence in Nathan’s apartment. He didn’t say that Nathan expected to ascend into heaven tonight. He figured that would require too long an explanation.

“We’ll have to get a search warrant,” the officer said.

“Nathan has moved out so I suspect all you need is the manager’s permission,” Tony said. He had a thought. “Give me five minutes, and I’ll get you the manager’s phone number.”

He hung up and said to Shahla, “The manager is in the first apartment on the right as we came into the courtyard.” They went to the front door. “Wait. Let’s see if anybody is about.” They peeked through the drapes and saw no sign of life. They went out the door and shut it behind them.

As they walked to the manager’s apartment, Shahla said, “If the manager is a woman you do the talking. If he’s a man, let me talk.”

“Who died and left you boss?” Tony asked. When Shahla looked ready to retort, he raised his arms and said, “Just kidding. We’ll go with that.”

They knocked on the manager’s door. A small, elderly woman opened it. She was bent over, which made her look even shorter than she was. Tony had the nod.

“Good morning, ma’am,” he said. “My name is Tony and this is my sister, Sally. “We are friends of Nathan Watson.”

The woman looked at them without speaking for a moment. Then she said, “Friends of Nathan? Then why did you break into his apartment?”

“Break in?” Her drapes were open. She had seen them through the window. “Er…we were trying to find Nathan.”

“Nathan is gone. He moved out two days ago. So I’m sure you didn’t get anything. But I’ve called the police, anyway, in case you caused some damage.”

“ You called the police?” This was a reversal. Tony couldn’t think straight. “What police?”

“LAPD, of course. They’ll be here shortly.”

Shahla was tugging on Tony’s arm. “Let’s go.”

“Do you know what Nathan is going to do?” he asked.

The woman stared at him coldly, without speaking. Considering her small stature, she looked formidable.

Shahla tugged harder. “Let’s go,” she said again.

Tony went with her. They moved swiftly through the outside gate and along the street to his car. He looked back when they reached the car. She wasn’t watching them. He suspected she had stayed within the safety of her apartment. They got into the car.

“Drive,” Shahla said. “If we get detained by the police, we’ll never find Nathan.”

Tony drove. He wound through the largely residential streets for a mile or so and then, figuring they were safe, he parked again.

“It’s a good thing they didn’t respond faster,” he said, “or we would have been trapped like a fox in the henhouse. I’d better call Bonita Beach and give them an update.” He got out his cell phone.

“Don’t tell them we broke into the apartment.”

“I won’t.” He told the desk officer that LAPD was going to the apartment building and suggested that this was a good time to coordinate with them to search Nathan’s apartment.

“How do you know this?” the officer asked.

Tony disconnected.

“I hope it doesn’t get screwed up and the evidence lost,” Shahla said.

“We can’t worry about that,” Tony said. “We’ve got to find Nathan.” His shoulders slumped. “But how do we find him?”

“Give me his cell phone number,” Shahla said.

“Why?”

“I’m going to call him.”

“You’re what?”

“I’m going to call him. What else can we do? We have to keep Nathan from killing Tina.”

Shahla took the cell phone and the piece of paper with Nathan’s address and telephone numbers on it from Tony. Her mind was moving faster than his. And it was going to take speed if they were going to save Tina. But before she tried to call Nathan, she had to call the Bonita Beach Police one more time.

She called, using redial. The desk officer answered after two rings and said, “Bonita Beach Police.”

“This is Shahla.”

“Where are you?”

She wasn’t falling into that trap. “I’m only going to say this once, so listen carefully. We believe that Nathan Watson has kidnapped Tina. He belongs to the Church of the Risen Lord. The church is on…” she looked at Tony and he said, “Brora Street.” She repeated, “Brora Street, in LA. The minister is Luther Hodgkins. The members think that they are going to ascend into heaven tonight at midnight. We don’t know the location where they are gathering, but it’s probably a local hilltop. We know it’s somewhere near a bus line. We are hoping that Nathan is going to take Tina there so that she will ascend with them.”

“Spell the name of the minister.”

Shahla spelled it. “Have you got that?”

“Where are you now?”

“Have you got all the information?”

“I want you two to come to the station and stop playing detective. You’re going to mess this whole thing up. Or get yourselves killed.”

Shahla disconnected and said, “He wants us to come to the station.”

“You did that better than I could have,” Tony said.

Shahla was pleased with Tony’s compliment. But the hardest part was yet to come. She punched in Nathan’s cell phone number. As it rang, she wondered if he still had the phone with him. Or whether the number was disconnected. She should at least get some kind of a message. Finally, voice mail came on. It was Nathan’s voice. Shahla felt some relief.

“Nathan, this is Shahla,” she said after the beep. “I-I have changed my mind. I feel in my heart now that you are correct. The website of the church says that the ascent into heaven is going to be tonight. I want to go with you, Nathan. Please. Give me a call.” She recited Tony’s cell phone number.

“Did I put enough passion into my voice?” she asked after she disconnected.

“That will get him if anything can. What should we do while we wait for him to call back?”

“I saw a McDonald’s a couple of blocks from here. Let’s get something to eat.”

Shahla ate her Big Mac with gusto and popped each ketchup-drenched French fry into her mouth, separately, in order to fully savor it. Since her brush with hunger, yesterday, food had risen in her scale of importance. She hoped that this newfound appetite wouldn’t make her fat. Tony was eating a more sensible fish sandwich.

They were sitting in the car, parked outside the McDonald’s. A Porsche wasn’t the most comfortable place to eat lunch, but at least it was temporarily shaded from the September sun by the fronds at the top of a tall palm tree, and the top was down so they benefited from a wisp of a breeze.

Other people, young and old alike, continuously streamed in and out of the restaurant, like bees at a hive. The young ones looked like high school students. Apparently this was a lunch hangout for a local school. Shahla remembered that she should be in school. She felt a pang of conscience. She hated to miss even one day.

When the cell phone rang, it startled her, even though she was hoping it would ring. She had the Big Mac in one hand and a couple of fries in the other. “Let me answer it,” she said, desperately trying to free her hands without spilling food all over herself and the car. She gave a quick swipe to her greasy fingers with a paper napkin and pressed the talk button on the phone.

“Hello, this is Sa…Shahla.” She had almost given her Hotline name of Sally.

“Are you alone?”

Shahla felt a chill as she recognized the voice of the Cackling Crucifier. Or was it Nathan? It was both of them. Tony was right; the Crucifier and Nathan were the same person. She had never heard Nathan’s voice on the phone before.

“Yes,” she lied.” She looked at Tony and put her finger to her lips.

“I hear noises in the background.”

“I’m in the parking lot of a restaurant.” Stay as close to the truth as possible.

“Where is your maniac boyfriend?”

“He…had to go to work.”

“You’re using his phone.”

“He…he lent it to me. I left mine at home.”

“You said you wanted to be part of the Ascension.”

“Yes.” She clamped her mouth shut so she wouldn’t be tempted to say anything more. She had to find out how much information Nathan would give her before she started asking questions and made him suspicious.

“You haven’t given up your worldly possessions.”

“Can’t I…that is, can’t you take me as your…guest?” She couldn’t bring herself to use a stronger word, such as concubine.

“Is that what you want?”

No. “Yes.”

“How can I trust you?”

That question was unanswerable and might lead to her babbling. She remained silent, with an effort.

“Will you still feel the same way tonight?”

“Yes.”

“We’ll see.”

Shahla was afraid that Nathan would hang up. She said, “There is one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“If you take me, you have to let Tina go.”

Silence. Had he already killed Tina? Was this in vain? Shahla could hardly breathe. Beside her, Tony had cocked his ear and was staring at her, as if he wanted to snatch the phone. She put up her free hand to forestall him.

“That might be arranged.”

Shahla exhaled. “Let me speak to Tina.”

More silence. She wanted to yell into the phone. Only her Hotline training prevented her from doing that.

“Shahla?”

It was Tina’s voice, soft but unmistakable. “Tina, are you all right?”

“My hands and feet are taped. He says if I scream, he’ll tape my mouth too. He…he’s got a knife.”

She was crying. Shahla had heard Hotline listeners cry on the phone, and she knew the sounds well. At least Tina was still alive. “Are you in the car?”

“Yes.”

“Answer yes or no. Do you know where you are?”

“No.”

“Did you travel on the 405 to get where you are?”

“Uh…yes.”

“Do you see any hills close to you?”

There was some confusion on the other end of the line. Then Nathan’s voice said, “So you know she’s all right. I’ll call you later to make sure you’re still interested.”

“Nathan, wait.”

There was a click and the silence that signaled a hang up. Shahla turned to Tony. “You may be right. They may not be far from here.” She filled him in on the rest of the call.

“You did a good job.”

“That isn’t going to save Tina.”

“It helps.” He patted her shoulder. “Let’s do some exploring.” He started looking at the Thomas Guide.

Shahla was glad Tony was with her. He would keep his cool. He would prevent her from going off like a rocket ship.