“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 was hoping we could get together.”
Tony was disturbed by what Shahla was doing, but he knew if he cut off the call, she would hate him forever.
There was silence on the line. Tony and Shahla looked at each other. Tony found himself holding his breath.
“Are you on the level?” The voice was almost plaintive.
“What do you think, Fred?”
Shahla’s answer was brilliant. Let him draw his own conclusion. The imaginations of the callers didn’t work like those of “normal” people. He might convince himself that she was interested in him.
“Well, I don’t know.”
Tony suspected that Fred, or whatever his name was, had problems relating to women in real life.
“What time do you get off work?” Shahla asked.
“Midnight.”
“And what’s your cell phone number?”
After a hesitation, Fred reeled off an area code and seven-digit number. Tony quickly wrote it down and mouthed to Shahla to have him repeat it. She asked him again, and he gave the same number a second time.
Then Shahla said, “Where shall we meet?”
Another hesitation. Then he gave an intersection. Tony wrote down the names of the streets while Shahla verified them with Fred.
“Shall we say 12:15?” Shahla asked.
“All right. Listen, I gotta go.”
The line went dead. Shahla looked jubilant. “We got him,” she almost sang. She danced around the room.
“Not so fast, young lady.” Tony was alarmed at Shahla’s reaction. “First of all, we don’t know whether the information he gave us is correct. But in any case, we have to pass it along to Detective Croyden.” He pulled the detective’s card out of his wallet.
“No. Croyden is at home with his wife and kids. We can’t blow this.”
“Somebody will be on duty. I’ll call them.”
Tony lifted a telephone receiver, but Shahla grabbed it at the same time. They froze, with Tony sitting and Shahla standing. Each had one hand on the receiver. Their hands partially overlapped.
Tony’s first inclination was to jerk the receiver or yell at Shahla, but with an effort, he brought himself under control. Then he became conscious of the touch of her hand on his. He couldn’t let that affect him, either. He said, “What do you think we should do?”
“Meet him.”
“Us? Together?”
“Sure. If they’re two of us, we’ll be safe.”
“It isn’t going to happen. First of all, you’re not going anywhere except home. You’ve got school tomorrow. And how would I explain to your parents that I was running around the back streets of El Segundo at midnight with their underage daughter? Second, we’re going to turn this over to the police.”
Shahla kept her grip on the receiver and Tony’s hand. She said, “Tony, the police will screw this up.”
“What makes you say that?”
“Because…because. It was…it’s too long a story, but you can believe me when I say that I don’t trust the police.”
He finally heard himself saying, much against his better judgment, “All right, this is what I’ll do.” He looked at his watch, which was on his left or unengaged hand, to gain time. It was almost ten o’clock. “We’ll close up shop, and you’ll go home. I will meet Fred, the Chameleon, at the designated time and place.”
“I’m going with you.”
“No, Shahla, you’re not.”
“You’ll get hurt going all alone.”
“My roommate has a gun. I’ll take it with me.”
