Hotline to Murder

pictures. That’s why he hadn’t noticed it before.
    “Here,” Fred said, pulling a phone book out from one of the piles. He handed it to Tony.
    “Thanks.” Fred didn’t look at him when he handed him the book. In fact, he hadn’t looked him in the eye since he first opened the door.
    Tony noticed a cell phone for the first time. The cell phone from which Fred made his calls to the Hotline? It was sitting on top of some magazines, on an end table beside a dilapidated chair, which was also covered with junk. There was a plastic gizmo beside it that looked like a toy. Tony had never seen anything like it. It occurred to him that it might be the voice-altering mechanism that the Chameleon used.
    Tony pretended to be looking through the phone book. He said, “Are you a writer? I see you’ve got some notebooks.”
    “No. I just use them to put…put pictures in.”
    More pictures. “So you don’t write poetry?”
    “Not a chance. I’m the world’s worst poet. Excuse me for a minute.”
    Fred went through the doorway leading to what Tony assumed was the bathroom and closed the door. Tony took a step and picked up one of the loose-leaf notebooks sitting on the chair. He quickly riffled through it. Sure enough, it was crammed with more pictures of girls, taped to the pages. He didn’t see one word of writing.
    Tony replaced the notebook before Fred returned and resumed his perusal of the telephone directory. It was time for him to make as graceful an exit as possible. But first, was there any way to figure out whether Fred had the potential to be a killer? He remembered his Hotline training regarding noninvasive questioning.
    “You must really love girls,” Tony said as Fred returned to the room.
    Fred shrugged without looking at him.
    “Do you ever get irritated with them?”
    Fred thought about that for a moment, still without looking at Tony. “Yeah. They don’t pay much attention to me.”
    “And you wish they would.”
    “Yeah.”
    But he said it wistfully. Tony could not detect any undertone of anger.
    “Apparently my friend isn’t in the phonebook. Thanks for letting me look at it.” Tony walked the couple of steps to the door, carefully, both to avoid the piles on the floor and to protect his knee. He had been standing since he had left the car, and his knee was beginning to ache.
    Fred glanced up almost to Tony’s eyes and said, “You’re welcome.”
    He didn’t say anything more. He stood in the middle of his room and seemed to be looking at the pictures on one of the walls. As Tony closed the door, he was still standing there, motionless.
    Tony went slowly down the stairs, leaning on the railing with his arm to support much of his weight, each time he lowered his left foot from one step to the one below. He limped to the SUV and settled himself into the driver’s seat. He drove home at a leisurely pace, while thinking about Fred. And being glad that he wasn’t Fred.

    CHAPTER 28
    The next morning as Tony prepared his version of an omelet for breakfast, he thought some more about Fred. He couldn’t picture Fred as a killer. A masturbator, yes. He was obviously that. The pictures, the phone calls, the voice-altering mechanism. The girls had been trained to hang up on him whenever he started talking dirty—and rightly so. But he didn’t appear to have any normal sexual outlets. Whatever normal meant.
    Not only did he show no signs of anger or pugnacity, he wasn’t as big as Joy. And Tony couldn’t picture him wielding a knife to subdue her, let alone strangling her. When Tony had gone to meet him the first time, Fred had fled before he even knew that Tony was a man instead of a girl. It had probably taken all the guts he had just to go to the meeting place. He had undoubtedly persuaded himself that Shahla—Sally—wouldn’t show up, and so he was safe. But when someone did show up, he couldn’t face the situation.
    And last night, Shahla had again talked him into meeting her. This invitation was so different from the usual hang ups he received from the girls that he had been flustered enough to give his work address. He had grasped at a thread of hope, while probably dreading what would happen if she actually came. But when she didn’t come, it cemented his self-image. He was a loser, and girls wouldn’t have anything to do with him.
    One more thing. Fred undoubtedly had an alibi for the night of the murder. He had probably been working. And although he worked alone,