Hotline to Murder (26 page)

“Several times,” she said. “He was what I
would call a Jesus freak.”

“Did he ask a lot of questions?”

“Yeah. He wanted to know if I went to church
and if I had accepted Jesus as my personal savior. I didn’t tell
him I was Jewish.”

“Did he ever ask where the Hotline was
located?”

“He may have, but if he did, I didn’t tell
him.”

“What else can you remember about him?”

“He had a distinctive laugh. Kind of a
cackle. That’s how he got his name. I’d recognize his laugh
anywhere.”

“Anything else?”

“He asked what I looked like and whether I’d
go out with him. He got pretty personal. I blew him off. Once or
twice he became abusive, saying that I was immoral and would go to
hell. When he did, I hung up on him.”

“The book says he lives in Los Angeles. Did
he ever tell you anything more specific than that?”

“I don’t think so. I imagine he lives
somewhere within fifty miles of here.”

He and a few million other people.

CHAPTER 30

When Shahla left Jane’s house, she walked to
the beach. One of her friends from school, Lacey, lived in a
three-story house right on the beach. Lacey’s parents were away for
the weekend. Lacey had decided this was the ideal opportunity to
throw a party.

Rasa didn’t allow Shahla to attend parties
that weren’t supervised by adults. So Shahla hadn’t bothered to
tell her about this party. Doing schoolwork with Jane was her
excuse to go out. And she and Jane had done schoolwork, Shahla
rationalized, as she felt a twinge of guilt. But she also deserved
a little fun.

It had been exactly one month since Joy had
been murdered. A month during which she had grieved for Joy while
she attended school, filled out college applications, and run
cross-country. And hunted for Joy’s killer. A month of unrelieved
stress. Except for the trip to Las Vegas with Tony. That had been
fun, at least until Tony got hurt.

She wouldn’t stay at the party long, only an
hour or so. Just long enough to relieve her tension. It was a beach
party, mostly outdoors. During the day. What could happen?

The party was already swinging when Shahla
arrived. She heard it while still a block away as she turned onto
the concrete beach path at the end of a street. Music blared from
strategically placed speakers and inundated passersby. As Shahla
approached the house, she saw teenagers strewn across the back
patio: bikinied girls and bare-chested boys. They were eating,
drinking, and shouting at each other over the din of the music.

Shahla stepped onto the stone floor of the
patio from the beach path and threaded her way among the bodies,
saying hello to several of them, although her voice was drowned
out. She entered the house through wide open doors and spotted
Lacey ladling some liquid concoction out of a large punch bowl.

Lacey, who was dressed in the skimpiest
bikini Shahla had seen for a while, gave Shahla a hug and shouted
in her ear, “Have some punch. It’s better than beer because the
cops patrol the beach path and might see it. And get out of those
clothes.”

The cops should be looking for Joy’s
murderer, not underage drinkers. Shahla picked up a cup of the
yellowish liquid and looked for a spot where she could stow her
daypack. Various articles of clothing were lying along the wall.
She picked a corner of the spacious living room, dumped her pack,
and took off her jeans and top. She was wearing her own bikini
underneath.

She took a sip of the punch as she headed
for the patio. It had a sweetish taste. She understood that it
contained alcohol, but it couldn’t be too potent. She wouldn’t
drink much. Meanwhile, she was hungry. She headed for a table
covered with food.

***

A ray of sunlight slanting in through the
open doors and into her eyes brought Shahla back to reality. She
sat on one of the jumbo-sized leather couches while a boy regaled
her with a tale about a wild weekend spent in Tijuana. The sun was
setting over the ocean. She hadn’t noticed time passing. The party
had gravitated indoors as the afternoon grew cooler, but she had
talked, danced, eaten—and drank. She had not thought about Joy or
her mother or the necessity for going home for several hours.

Muttering an excuse, Shahla jumped up from
the couch. She stumbled as a wave of dizziness overcame her, and
she almost fell back down in a heap. Blinking her eyes to clear her
head, she searched for her clothes and pack. Fortunately, they were
in the corner where she had left them. As she struggled to pull on
her jeans without falling, she experienced a moment of fear as she
thought about what her mother would say.

At least she hadn’t gone upstairs. Reports
had drifted down from the upper two floors—reports about girls
losing their tops. And other things. She hoisted her pack onto her
shoulders and walked unsteadily out the still-open doors. The
cooling evening air helped to sharpen her senses. She needed to
call her mother.

Shahla practiced talking to herself as she
pulled her cell phone out of the pack, to make sure her voice
sounded normal. At least one walker heading the other way on the
beach path looked at her strangely. She turned off the path and
headed up the hill on one of the residential streets—where the
folks lived who couldn’t afford a McMansion adjoining the beach.
She was about to place the call when the phone rang. Her mother had
beaten her to the keypad.

She pressed the “talk” button. “Hello.”

At first she didn’t hear anything. This
couldn’t be her mother. Her mother would have started in on her
immediately. She said hello again.

“Where are you?”

The voice sounded unnatural. She couldn’t
decide whether the caller was male or female. It sounded like one
of the voices the Chameleon used. But of course it couldn’t be
him.

“Who is this?”

“I need to talk to you.”

She looked at the number of the caller. She
didn’t recognize it. It certainly wasn’t a friend of hers, unless a
joker was playing a trick on her. Could a listener on the Hotline
who was familiar with the Chameleon be getting his jollies?

“Who is this?” she asked again, more
forcefully.

“I’m trying to help you,” the voice
said.

“If you don’t tell me who this is, I’m going
to hang up.”

“Wait. I’m really trying to help you.”

“Is this Fred?” Shahla asked, using the name
she had called the Chameleon.

The voice on the phone didn’t deny it.
“Where can I meet you? When are you going home? You haven’t been
there all afternoon?”

How did he know that? Shahla’s hands began
to shake. She was within ten minutes of her house. Was it safe to
go there?

“Where are you now?” Shahla asked, trying to
keep the fear out of her voice.

“I’m cruising along Sandview Street.”

Sandview was the street where she lived. It
ran most of the length of Bonita Beach, parallel to the ocean.
Shahla was just now coming to it, preparing to turn right, toward
her house. She quickly looked both ways on Sandview. None of the
cars in sight was moving; all were parked. Instead of turning onto
Sandview, she ran across it and continued to trot up the hill.
Jane’s house was just two blocks from here. She had to get there.
Jane and her father would help her.

She heard a car behind her, and looked over
her shoulder without stopping. This action made her a little dizzy.
After a second or two, she could make out an older couple in the
car. No danger there. She swiveled her head back to the front just
in time to see a lamppost looming right in front of her eyes.
Instinctively she threw out her hands to keep herself from crashing
into it. As her left hand hit the post, she heard a sickening
crack. The phone had crunched between her hand and the scalloped
metal.

There was no time to check for damage, so
she shoved the phone into her pocket. She was panting freely as she
turned the corner onto the street where Jane lived. As she
approached Jane’s house, she didn’t see any lights on inside, and
it was now quite dark outside. She ran along the driveway, which
sloped downhill, and then up several steps to the front door. She
rang the bell. She heard the chime, but no other sound came from
within the house.

Then she remembered. Jane and her father had
taken an overnight trip. They had been going to leave soon after
Shahla left the house. There was no help here. She started shaking
again. What could she do? She turned and faced the street. Nothing
was moving. But she wasn’t safe here. The driver of any passing car
would spot her.

The house sat on a hillside lot that slanted
down toward the ocean. It had a lower floor with an entrance in the
back of the house. The rest of the floor was underground. Shahla
quickly walked around the house toward the back. She felt minor
relief when she was no longer visible from the street.

He must be lurking nearby. He would be
looking for her. She had to stay out of sight. The entrance to the
lower floor of the house was a sliding glass door. She gripped the
door handle and tried to slide the door open. It didn’t budge. What
now? There was a window beside the door. A screen covered it.
Shahla looked through the screen and saw that the window was open.
Thank Mother Nature for warm weather.

First she had to get the screen off. It was
set into grooves on either side of the window, but it could be slid
horizontally out of one groove at a time. If only she had something
to hold onto. The screen was smooth on this side. She had to slide
it by putting pressure on the screen and her shaking hands had
trouble applying any pressure.

She put her body weight behind her hands to
exert more pressure. Just when the screen started to move, her
weight caused its mesh to pull away from the frame. Now she owed
Jane’s father a new screen. Since the screen was ruined anyway, she
pulled out enough of the mesh so that she could stick her hand
through the gap. Then she was able to grip a tab on the inside of
the screen and pull the screen out of one of the grooves. And then
the other.

Shahla opened the window wide enough to
admit her body, dropped her pack inside, and then crawled through.
Her feet found the floor, and she stood up. She reached back
through the open window and picked up the screen, which she had
left leaning against the house. She replaced it in the grooves and
flattened the damaged mesh as much as she could. At a glance,
nobody could tell it had been tampered with, especially at night,
which was fast approaching. She closed the window and locked it.
She also closed the curtains.

She felt momentarily safe. She pulled a
sweatshirt out of her pack and put it on. Now she had to call her
mother. Drapes covered the sliding door, so it was dark inside the
room. She wasn’t about to open the drapes. She tried to picture the
layout of the room. Jane had brought her down here from the
upstairs once. This floor was used primarily for storage of
furniture. There was a bathroom at the other end. The bathroom had
a light. She needed to use the bathroom anyway.

She started walking gingerly toward the
bathroom. Not gingerly enough. Her toe hit something hard. “Shit.”
Trying to ignore the pain, she continued, using her hands to help
her locate pieces of furniture she had to navigate around.

After what seemed like a cross-country trip,
during which she was careful not to look behind her because
something might be following her in the dark, she reached the
bathroom and found the light switch by feel. Being able to see
again calmed her a little. After using the toilet, she retrieved
the phone from her pocket.

One glance convinced her that it was damaged
beyond repair. What had been an intelligent electronic device was
now an inanimate mixture of scrap plastic and metal. She threw it
savagely into a wastebasket. What alternatives did she have? She
was sure there wasn’t a house phone on this floor, but to make
sure, she opened the bathroom door wide and used the light that
came into the main room to scan it for a phone.

The piled-up furniture blocked her view of
all the corners, but she didn’t see a phone in any of the logical
places. She did see the stairs to the upper floor and those gave
her an idea. She would use the phone upstairs. She found another
switch that operated a light that lit up the stairs. She padded up
the stairs slowly—her toe still hurt—and turned the latch of the
door at the top.

The door wouldn’t open. It was locked from
the other side. Shahla would have screamed, but there was nobody to
hear her. Instead, she hit the door and hurt her knuckles. She
plodded slowly back down the stairs. She was cut off from the
world.

She saw a third switch and flicked it. A
light in the ceiling came on. She immediately turned it off. It
might be visible from the outside, even through the drapes. She
walked over to the sliding door by the indirect light coming from
the bathroom and the stairway. She peeked through the drapes.

It was almost dark outside. Maybe she could
make a run for it to her house. She removed a security stick from
the slide and was about to open the door when she saw something
move out there.

She froze, momentarily, and then quickly
pushed the drapes back into place. Even the dim light could
silhouette her. She was panting as if she had just run up the hill
from the beach. She went to the wall beside the door and pressed
her body against it. She didn’t move for a few seconds. But she
couldn’t stay here. She inched sideways slowly, and peeked through
the drapes again.

At first she didn’t see anything except a
last glow of daylight over the ocean. The house that was directly
behind was too far down the hill to see, and apparently fences
blocked lights from the houses on either side. As her eyes adjusted
to the dark, she could see shapes of trees and bushes in the yard.
One of the bushes was large enough for someone to hide behind. It
was located approximately where she had seen something move.