Hotline to Murder

embarrassed when she did that. He guessed he wasn’t cut out to be a detective.
    He signed in and took the good seat by the window. No sooner had he sat down than the phone rang. He answered it with his usual greeting: “Central Hotline. This is Tony.”
    “I’m fifteen, and I’m a runaway.”
    There was nothing like being smacked in the face by the first pitch. It was a girl’s voice. Tony thought fast. He said, “Are you safe where you are right now?”
    “I’m at a phone booth.” She named an intersection in Santa Monica. “And I’m not going back home.”
    Tony decided not to ask her reasons. It wasn’t his job to judge her. It was his job to make sure she was safe. Shahla had just come in through the door he had left unlocked for her. He put the call on the speaker and looked out the window. The sun was setting. He didn’t want the girl to be out there alone in the dark.
    “Do you have any friends or relatives who can help you?” Tony asked.
    “Not here. Not nearby.”
    She sounded frightened. She may be having second thoughts, but whatever crisis impelled her to leave home must outweigh her fear. Tony was frantically leafing through the directory of available services in Southern California. He said, “There are shelters you can go to. Some of them will pick you up.”
    At that moment, his eyes focused on such a shelter with a Santa Monica address. Thank God. “I’ve got a number for you. Do you have money so you can call the number or do you want me to call it for you? Oh, they take collect calls.”
    “I’ve got some money.”
    “Do you have a pencil and paper?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay, write this down.” He gave her the number. “Call it immediately. If they can’t help you, call us back. Okay?”
    “Okay. Thanks.”
    “And call us back to let us know that you’re all right.”
    She promised and hung up. Tony hated to lose the connection. The chances were that she wouldn’t call back.
    “She’ll be okay.”
    Tony looked up into Shahla’s dark eyes.
    She said, “That’s a tough call because we probably won’t find out what happened. But you did the best you could.”
    What if that wasn’t good enough? Tony continued to brood about it.
    “I see you grabbed the good seat.”
    Shahla feigned being upset and sat down at another table.
    He had to shake himself out of his depression. “You snooze, you lose.”
    “I had to take my mom to her class. It was the only way I could get the car.”
    Apparently, they were a one-car family. Unusual for Bonita Beach. But with her father dead…. She had a tough road to travel with only one parent.
    Shahla went to the snack room and came back with her usual plate of chips. She said, “Have you thought over what I told you about Martha?”
    He had not told her he was going to talk to Martha. He was hoping that as a result of their meeting he could report that she had an ironclad alibi and couldn’t possibly be a suspect. Unfortunately, it hadn’t turned out that way. Martha’s alibi was clad in a light mist that could be blown away by a gentle breeze. However, Detective Croyden also knew that.
    Tony wanted to keep Shahla out of it. He didn’t believe Martha had a motive for murdering Joy, even though Shahla might not agree. If Shahla was jealous of Martha’s relationship with Joy, she might do something she would regret.
    “I think Detective Croyden has already talked to her. I understand he talked to all the members of the volleyball team.”
    “Who told you that?”
    Who told him that? “I can’t remember. Maybe Croyden did.”
    “But he hasn’t talked to all the members of the Hotline.”
    “There are a lot more of us. And I think he’s talked to everybody who knew Joy.”
    “How does he know who knew Joy?”
    Tony didn’t like getting the third degree. He said, “Let’s work on that poem. Have you thought of anybody else who might have written it?”
    “No. And before we start speculating, shouldn’t we find out if there were any fingerprints on it?”
    “How are we going to do that? I know. I’ll call our Indian buddy and see if he’ll tell us.”
    “Our Indian buddy?”
    “Crooked Nose.” Tony took out his cell phone and then extracted Detective Croyden’s card from his wallet. Croyden had been working late on Friday. Maybe he was working the afternoon-evening shift to give him a better opportunity to talk to people who might have knowledge of Joy’s murder.
    “Tony, it’s Native American, not