Hotline to Murder

me as a friend,” Tony said, trying to lighten the atmosphere, which had suddenly become very heavy. “Let’s see, what was I doing?” He hadn’t thought about it before. He hadn’t thought of himself as a suspect before. He drew a blank. He tried to work backward from the time he had heard about Joy’s murder. He had been busy all that day. And the night before? He had done some preparation for his talk to the women’s club. He had been lonely and restless. Josh was out somewhere. Carol was out of his life permanently.
    “I went to a movie.”
    “What movie?”
    “Uh… Lost in Translation , with Bill Murray. It’s about this American actor who goes to Japan to make a Suntory commercial…”
    “Whom did you go with?”
    For some reason he didn’t want to admit that he had gone by himself. “I…uh, couldn’t find anybody to go with.”
    “So you went alone. Can anybody vouch for you?’
    “No.” He would be just another faceless patron to the ticket taker. And he hadn’t seen anybody he knew.
    “So you don’t have an alibi.” Shahla looked at Tony with an unfathomable look in her eyes.
    “Ticket stub. I save ticket stubs. I throw them into a bowl. It shows the date and time of the show. It didn’t get over until about 10:30.”
    “A ticket stub, eh?” Shahla said, imitating a prosecuting attorney. “That was clever of you. You purchased a ticket, but didn’t actually see the movie. Or you left in the middle…”
    “You don’t really believe I killed Joy,” Tony said getting hot despite his attempt to stay cool. He felt sweat forming in his armpits.
    “What I think is that Detective Croyden should be asking these questions,” Shahla said. “But since he isn’t, maybe you and I should.”
    “Does that mean I’m exonerated?”
    “For the time being. But only because you don’t appear to have a motive. However, in this kind of case, when the murderer is finally caught, the neighbors always say, ‘But he was such a nice boy. He couldn’t have done it.’ So we have to look for hidden motives.”
    Tony was able to chuckle. “I think you’ve got a career all mapped out in the district attorney’s office.”
    “Actually, I’m going to be a writer. But I may write true crime. And I may have my…” Shahla became choked up and couldn’t continue for a moment, “…first story.”
    “You have to be careful about doing your own investigating. What if you asked the real killer for an alibi? What do you think he’d do to you?”
    Tears welled up in Shahla’s eyes and started running down her cheeks. Tony had an urge to comfort her, to touch her, to hold her. He knew that was the wrong thing to do. Empathy, not sympathy. He said, “This must be very diff….” He’d already said that. He gave her a tissue from a box on one of the tables.
    Shahla wiped her eyes and said, “When I heard about Joy, I didn’t believe it. It still doesn’t seem real. She can’t be gone.”
    The phone rang. Tony reached for it, but Shahla said, “I’ll get it,” and answered before Tony could. She immediately placed the call on the speaker. She pressed the mute button and said, “It’s him.”
    The caller was saying, “…advice on how to prevent what happened to Joy from happening to you.”
    “What’s your advice?” Shahla asked.
    “You girls need to wear more clothes. When you walk around strutting your stuff, showing off your body, wearing tight short skirts up to your butt, with no underwear, you’re asking for it.”
    It was an inappropriate call. The Hotline rules said to hang up at this point. But it was obvious that Shahla had no intention of hanging up.
    She had the Chameleon’s page from the Green Book open in front of her. She said, “Is this Fred?” using one of several names the Chameleon had previously given Hotline listeners.
    There was silence at the other end of the line. Shahla said, “I need to call you something. Is it okay if I call you Fred?”
    More silence. Then the caller said, “All right. Tell me, Sally, are you wearing underwear?”
    “Are you on a cell phone, Fred?” There was a pause, and Shahla said, “Fred, talk to me.”
    “How did you know?”
    “I’m clairvoyant. Are you at work?”
    Tony was reading the Green Book over Shahla’s shoulder. Did he really work as a security guard?
    “What makes you think that?”
    “Just a guess. Where do you work?”
    “That’s none of your business.”
    “You sound like an interesting person. I