Hotline to Murder

front of the truck. Something had spooked Nathan, and he had taken off.
    Tony scrambled over to the driver’s seat and sat down. Shahla ran around to the passenger side and jumped in. Tony slammed the gearshift into first gear and took off after the silver car. It had immediately turned the corner and was heading back toward La Cienega.
    “Call the Bonita Beach Police,” Tony said. “They can coordinate the chase. We’ve got to try to keep him in sight and give the police an opportunity to stop him.”
    “What about Tina?”
    “We’ll have to take the chance. As long as he’s driving, he won’t hurt her—unless he cracks up. And we won’t get too close to him”
    Shahla got the Bonita Beach station on the line. She gave reports on Nathan, which were passed on to other units. “He’s heading north on La Cienega…he’s turned left…he’s turned left again…he’s disappeared.”
    Nathan had lost them again, through a series of risky but clever left turns. When he was sure Nathan was long gone, Tony parked the truck, despondent. He and Shahla sat slumped in their seats, not speaking. A police car rolled by a few minutes later, but aimlessly, without direction.

    CHAPTER 38
    “He knows you’re with me,” Shahla finally said. “I’m sure he won’t speak to me again.”
    “It’s time for the faithful to gather,” Tony said. The sun had set. “Let’s go back to the park. That’s where we’ll find Nathan.” He said it with more confidence than he felt. Even if that was the gathering place, had they scared Nathan so much that he wouldn’t show up?
    “It’s all we can do.” Shahla was really in the dumps.
    They took the exit from La Cienega that led to the park. As they drove toward the entrance, they saw a police car parked across the road, completely blocking it. Two uniformed officers, one male and one female, were leaning against the car, shining flashlights at Tony’s truck to make sure he stopped. He did.
    “Don’t get out,” Tony said to Shahla. He didn’t want them making any moves that might look suspicious to the police.
    The female officer came to Tony’s window and said, “The park is closed.”
    Tony said, “I’m Tony and this is Shahla. We’re the ones who spotted the kidnapper a little while ago. He’s with the group that believes they’re going to ascend into heaven tonight. We think they might come here.”
    “That’s why we’re here,” the officer said. “We cleared everybody out at sunset. That’s when it closes, anyway. There’s nobody in the park. If anybody shows up, they have to go through us.”
    “When we were here this afternoon, we found a couple of gates leading from the ridge into residential areas. Somebody must have keys to those gates.”
    “We have units stationed at all the gates.” The officer spoke with finality.
    “Have you found this Reverend Hodgkins? He’s the leader of the church group.”
    “We know who he is. We’re on the lookout for him.”
    The fact that they hadn’t found him wasn’t comforting. In fact, Tony felt uncomfortable about the whole situation, but he had run out of possibilities. If the parishioners couldn’t come here, where would they go? And more important, what would Nathan do with Tina?
    After more conversation, during which the officer tried to convince Tony and Shahla that the police had the situation completely under control and there was nothing the pair could do to help, Tony turned the truck around and headed back toward La Cienega.
    “Their uniforms look different than those of the Bonita Beach Police,” Shahla said.
    And LAPD, which Tony had initially assumed they were. The uniforms were tan, not blue. “They must be sheriff’s deputies,” Tony said. “Which means that the park isn’t within the city limits of Los Angeles.”
    “Police are police. If there is a way to screw it up, they’ll do it.”
    “We won’t stop looking. If we can spot some of the church people, we might be able to find out what they’re going to do. And they may lead us to Nathan.”
    It was unsatisfactory, but it was their only hope. Tony followed a route that went around the large park. Occasionally, a patrol car went by them. He didn’t spend much time in the residential area north of the park because he felt that was fruitless. They did investigate some open spaces on the other sides. Sometimes they had to get out of the truck and walk over the mostly bare ground, which was populated with the ubiquitous