Hotline to Murder

he made his way up the stairs, trying not to fall, trying not to look too awkward. It was like attempting to play a new sport at which one has no experience. That he made it to the second floor without disaster was a major relief to him.
    As he rang the bell to Carol’s apartment, he realized that he was looking forward to seeing her. That quickening of his pulse, that feeling of glad anticipation—they returned as he waited for her to open the door. When she did open the door, she looked as good as he had pictured her, except for the expression on her face.
    “Tony, what happened to you?”
    “I, uh, fell down.”
    “You didn’t tell me. Oh, you poor dear. Are you all right?”
    She gave him a gentle hug, which he couldn’t return because his hands were holding the crutches.
    “It’s just my knee. It’ll be all right in a couple of weeks. I can make it through the doorway.”
    Carol was trying to help him, but she didn’t know how to do it. He smiled a wry smile. Perhaps he should have gotten hurt while they were dating. Then she might have had more sympathy for him.
    “Dinner is all ready. Here, would you like to sit in this chair?”
    “That should work. I just need room to stretch out my left leg. There’s a bottle of wine in my fanny pack.”
    Carol laughed as she extracted the Merlot.
    “I can always count on you to bring the right wine, even when you can barely walk.”
    He had been using the fanny pack to carry essential papers and other items today because his hands were tied up. Carol had the small table set intimately for two, with candles and even cloth napkins. When he had called her, asking for a little of her time, he hadn’t expected her to invite him to dinner. But he also hadn’t been able to refuse the invitation. What was the occasion? He knew he shouldn’t ascribe any special meaning to it.
    Tony sat down in the proffered chair, and Carol took his crutches—and placed them out of his reach. He almost protested; he felt like a prisoner. He watched her as she opened the wine in the adjacent space that was the small kitchen and placed the food on the table. She looked unbelievably good in form-fitting white pants and a purple silk blouse. A blouse that he was sure he could see through in the right light.
    And then when she passed through a beam of light pouring in the window, courtesy of the setting sun, he had the revelation that not only could he see through the blouse, but she wasn’t wearing a bra underneath it. He had a sudden and overwhelming urge to bury his face in that blouse. It was a good thing he couldn’t get up. None of the outfits he had seen on the teenage girls even approached this one in sensuality. All his libidinous feelings for her came back. How long had it been since their liaison had ended? How long had he been celibate?
    Tony barely noticed what he was eating. The Caesar salad, the barbequed ribs, the mashed potatoes, the wine; he ate and drank them automatically, but didn’t taste them as they entered his mouth and slid down his throat. Carol chatted about various things, and he agreed with everything she said—for a change. Until she started talking about the Hotline.
    “You know that Josh called me because he was worried about what had happened to you since you started working at the Hotline.”
    “Yes. Remember, you called me and told me.”
    “But I didn’t know what he was talking about until I saw you with that teenybopper at the Beach House.”
    “I work with her on the Hotline.” He kept his voice even. And if it was Shahla that concerned her, he knew that her concerns were different than Josh’s.
    “Right. But as I recall, it was rather late at night. And she had the kind of innocent good looks that men can’t resist.”
    Tony decided that silence was his best option at this point and was thankful once again for his Hotline training. He put a large bite of mashed potatoes into his mouth so that he couldn’t say anything.
    “Okay, I’ll get off it.” Carol smiled a thin smile. “After all, it’s none of my business anymore.”
    “Let’s talk about the reason I wanted to see you,” Tony said after swallowing the potatoes.
    “You said you wanted to show me a poem that might have something to do with the girl’s murder. What was her name?”
    “Joy.”
    Carol had been an English teacher for a few years before she became disgusted with principals who didn’t back her and the lack of discipline that made teaching difficult.