Hotline to Murder

CHAPTER 40

Tony found the trail that went downhill from the plateau to the picnic area. He couldn’t wait for the police to get their act together and send officers to help him. He started down the trail by himself. He went slowly, being careful of his knee, shining his flashlight to the right and to the left, searching among the bushes and the shadows for signs of life.

If he hadn’t been afraid of what had happened to Shahla, he would be enjoying himself, hiking in the cool of the evening with the lights below, knowing that even though he could see the city where millions of people lived, here he was alone.

He had gone some distance when he heard a cry for help, somewhere below him. He shone his flashlight down the hill. At first he couldn’t see anything except dirt and brush. He moved the light in an arc, covering both sides of the trail. Then he saw somebody, off to the left of the trail.

“Down here,” shouted the urgent voice.

It was Shahla. “I’m coming,” Tony called. She appeared to be sitting in the brush. “Are you all right?” he asked, as he came closer to her.

“I’ve got Nathan,” she said. “But I don’t know how long I can hold him.”

Tony picked out Nathan with the help of the flashlight. Shahla was astride his back, with her hands on his head. He was face downwards, with his feet higher than his head, and he looked about as helpless as a man could be.

“Where is the knife?” Tony asked, working his way through the brush toward them.

“In the bushes.”

Tony climbed onto Nathan’s back, behind Shahla. Nathan groaned as the additional weight pressed him further into the spines.

“Am I happy to see you,” Shahla said. She shifted her position and sighed. “That’s better. You came along just in time. Branches were sticking into my legs, but I was afraid to move.”

Tony saw a mess on her shoulder and said, “You’re bleeding,”

“I am? Just another scratch. I think he got me with his knife. Even though he wanted me unmarked.” She raised her voice. “Is that why you strangled Joy instead of stabbing her? So she would be beautiful for you?” She shoved Nathan’s head into the brush and received a groan in response.

Tony pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and pressed it against Shahla’s wound to try and stop the flow of blood. He said, “I think wearing my sweatshirt helped you. It’s loose enough so that the knife didn’t penetrate it very well. But it’s torn.”

“It gave its life to save me.”

“We’ll have it framed. By the way, the police should be down here shortly.”

“Oh yes, the police. They missed all the fun.”

Tony didn’t like hospitals. He didn’t watch emergency room shows on television. The last time he had been admitted to a hospital was when he had suffered a ruptured appendix, at the age of eleven. He didn’t visit other people in hospitals if he could avoid it.

However, he wasn’t going home without making sure that Shahla was all right. He hadn’t realized she had other wounds besides the one on her shoulder until the police arrived and released them from their positions on top of Nathan. Then he saw that she had scratches all over her body, the most dangerous one being close to her eye. A policeman had driven her to a hospital in Culver City, and he was going there now.

Tony had been up all night, and he felt exhausted, now that the adrenaline was wearing off. He had wanted to go to the hospital with Shahla, but she had told him to stay and help in the search for Tina. She had been adamant about it.

So he assisted the police as they combed the level part of the park. He was reminded of the story of the man who searched for his wallet underneath a streetlight, even though he thought he had lost it in a dark alley. However, Tony had to agree that it didn’t make any sense for Tina to go back up the hill after she made it down. And she wasn’t on the trail. So why not search in the easiest place?

There was a small fishing lake near the picnic ground. Tony walked to the lake, with the help of his flashlight. He didn’t spot anybody around the lake, but he did see restrooms. Where would a girl logically hide from a man?

He knocked on the door of the women’s room. He didn’t hear anything so he opened the door. It was dark inside. He shone his flashlight around and called, “Tina. It’s Tony. We got Nathan. You can come out.”

One of the stalls was locked. By standing on his toes he could look over the door. He shone the flashlight around the stall. Huddled in a corner beside the toilet, looking scared, sat Tina.

It took him a couple of minutes to coax her to come out of the stall. Then he escorted her to the picnic ground. When Tina saw the police and realized she was safe, a torrent of words came out of her mouth. She said, among other things, that she and Nathan had entered the park while it was still open, through an entrance from a residential area. This was before officers had been stationed at the entrances.

The two had scurried through the gate in broad daylight when a nanny tending a baby had opened it with a key she had. They had hidden in the brush when officers and employees searched the park, after it closed. Nathan had taped Tina’s mouth during this period. They had joined the others on the plateau only a few minutes before the action started.

Throughout, Nathan had controlled Tina with the threat of his knife and by keeping a strong grip on her arm. She had been too scared to scream or to ask anybody for help. In spite of her name, she didn’t speak Spanish, and so she didn’t try to communicate with the nanny in that language. And she thought the members of the congregation were somehow working with Nathan. It sounded as if she had convinced Nathan she believed in the Ascension so that he wouldn’t kill her.

Tony went to a local police station with a mixed group of officers, including police from Bonita Beach and LAPD, and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies. Detective Croyden was there. After he told them about borrowing the truck, they found the owner, who was still at work, and effected an exchange of the vehicles. Tony suspected they did this because they thought he had stolen the truck.

As he told his story, he learned that they had found the bra and panties at Nathan’s apartment. They appeared to have no doubt that Nathan had murdered Joy. The testimony of Tony and Shahla would be vital to the prosecution. That was nice to hear. Nobody criticized him for not working more closely with the police, now that the case was solved.

As for the faithful who had not been carried up to heaven on schedule, Detective Croyden said they told him that they had entered the park from the backyard of one of the parishioners, much as Tony had envisioned. Luther Hodgkins had stationed himself at the entrance, which was through a hole in the fence, acting as ticket taker, meaning that he took all their cash. But then he disappeared. Nobody remembered seeing him on the plateau. The police had put out an APB for him.

In spite of this, the parishioners still believed in the Ascension. Some believed they had seen Jesus. They tended to blame the police for screwing it up. However, it would still happen. But, as Croyden wryly remarked, their faith wasn’t going to help them survive without food and shelter until they got the timing right.

Now, as Tony walked out of the morning sunlight and through the doorway into the hospital, the first thing he saw was a shop selling flowers and balloons. Women liked flowers. He went into the shop and purchased a bouquet in a vase. He learned Shahla’s room number from an attendant at the information desk and took an elevator to the third floor.

He walked along the corridor, past the nurses’ station, trying not to look into the rooms, until he came to the correct one. As he went through the doorway, the first thing he saw was Shahla, asleep in a hospital bed, complete with its fancy gadgets for raising and lowering the whole mattress or sections thereof.

Shahla’s body looked like a disaster area. Her left shoulder was bandaged, and she had a patch over one eye. Scratches covered her face, arms, and legs, which were bare. However, she seemed to be sleeping peacefully. Her dark hair was spread out on the pillow. She had an IV going into her wrist. She was wearing a hospital gown, and a sheet covered the trunk of her body, to give her what little modesty could be had in a hospital.

Tony noticed Rasa, who was sitting beside the bed. For some reason, he hadn’t pictured her being here. When she saw him, she smiled and stood up. She took the flowers and placed them on a table beside the bed. Then she gave him a big hug.

“Thank you for helping Shahla,” she said softly.

Helping Shahla? He had almost gotten her killed.

“Shahla told me everything,” she continued. “How you rescued her from man who tried to kidnap her and how you looked for Nathan and Tina.”

That was definitely the abridged version. Tony asked anxiously, “Will she be all right?”

“She will be fine.”

“Her shoulder and her eye?”

“Her eye is not hurt, for which we are thankful. The cut on her shoulder is not serious. She can go home this afternoon.”

Rasa was a nurse so she should know. They didn’t keep patients in hospitals very long these days, but it was probably just as well. From his own experience, he knew that a hospital wasn’t a good place to rest. As if to prove his point, a young lady bustled into the room and said that she had to take Shahla’s “vitals.”

Of course this woke Shahla up. As soon as she saw Tony, she held out her arms for a hug. She gave him a surprisingly strong hug, considering what she had just been through. The nurse’s aide told her to calm down or it would affect her blood pressure and heart rate.

Shahla tried to stay still until the nurse’s aide was through with her, but as soon as the woman left, she pointed to a television set attached to the wall and said, “We saw on the news that they found Tina, but I want to hear your side of the story.”

“ You are most of the story,” Tony said. “After all, you stopped Nathan.”

“Shahla is hero,” Rasa said proudly.

“She certainly is,” Tony said. “But don’t you need your sleep now?”

“I can sleep this afternoon at home. Besides, I feel fine. I’m going to school tomorrow. So tell me what happened after I left.”

Tony told the story, answering Shahla’s questions. When Shahla had heard it all, Tony said, “I have a question. You know and I know that Nathan is no poet. So who wrote the poem about spaghetti straps?”

Shahla was silent for a few seconds. Then she said, “I did.”

“But…why?”

“Because I wanted to make sure you stayed involved in the case. I needed your help to solve it. And I wasn’t about to leave it to the police. I placed the poem by the door when you were taking a call, so it would look as though somebody had slid it underneath.”

“Without getting any fingerprints on it.”

“Yeah. Wasn’t that clever? I held it with a napkin. I didn’t even get prints on the paper when I printed it with my computer.”

“So our trip to Las Vegas was for nothing.”

“Nothing?” Shahla’s face fell. “ Didn’t you enjoy it? At least until you hurt your knee? I am sorry about that.”

Rasa looked from one of them to the other and said, “Did Shahla trick you?”

Tony said, “I take full responsibility for my actions. And yes, I did enjoy the trip to Las Vegas.”

“I have a question,” Shahla said. “We have been to Las Vegas together, we have eaten many meals together, I have even slept in your…house.” Tony was sure she had been about to say “bed.” “But it’s always been business. We’ve never had a real date. When are we going to have a real date?”

“Uh.” Think, Tony. “When you’re eighteen.”

“I’ll be eighteen on December twelfth. Okay, good, I’ll put it on my calendar.”

“I’d better get going so I can catch up on my sleep. I suspect Mona will really be pissed if I don’t show up for work tomorrow.”

“Give me a hug.”

But instead of hugging him, Shahla pulled his lips down on hers and kissed him hard. When she finally released him, he gave a head-fake of embarrassment and looked at Rasa. She was shaking her head-but she was smiling. Dating Shahla wasn’t going to be the worst thing that had ever happened to him. And it definitely wouldn’t be boring.