Free Hotline to Murder by Alan Cook Page A

did.”
    Shahla went and got a copy of the Green Book
and pointed out a page to Tony. The Hotline handle for him was
“Paul the Poet.” His story was that he had been abused by his
parents as a child.
    The telephone rang. It was Tony’s turn to
answer it. A woman with a cultured voice was on the line, with a
slight New York accent. She was definitely a cut above the usual
Hotline caller. Tony immediately pegged her as living in West Los
Angeles, perhaps Beverly Hills. He would try to get that
information before the end of the call.
    The call went on and on. She was
middle-aged, married and divorced, and trying to decide what to do
about her boyfriend. He had his pluses and minuses. In fact, she
recited them so readily that Tony wondered whether she had already
taken a sheet of paper, drawn a line down the middle, and written
the pluses on one side and the minuses on the other.
    While they talked, Shahla took a number of
calls. At the end of two hours Tony figured that he and his caller
had solved most of the world’s problems. Or at least the problem of
her boyfriend. She had a plan of action and thanked him for helping
her arrive at it.
    After Tony hung up, Shahla said, “I thought
you were going to marry her.”
    “She’s too old for me,” Tony said laughing,
“but it sounds like she has some money. Maybe it’s not a bad idea.”
He looked at the clock on the wall of the listening room. It was
almost ten. He said, “Time flies when you’re straightening out the
world. I want to make a copy of that poem before we get out of
here.”
    “On the copier?”
    “No. Flattening it on the copier might
destroy any fingerprints. I’ll enter it on one of the office
computers and then print it out.” Tony went to the administration
room, turned on Patty’s computer and typed in the poem, using
Microsoft Word. He had honed his typing prowess writing papers in
college and made short work of it. Then he printed it. Shahla asked
him to print a copy for her. When he was through, he deleted the
poem from the computer.
    “No sense leaving evidence,” Tony said.
“Now, we’ll replace the original poem in the envelope and place
that in a larger envelope to preserve whatever there is to
preserve.” He used his handkerchief to handle the documents,
determined to keep them as clean as possible. “Then I’ll take the
evidence to the police station.”
    “Tonight?”
    “Yes, tonight. No time like the present. And
I need to explain to them how my fingerprints got on the
envelope.”
    “I’ll go with you.”
    “We’ve been through this, Shahla.”
    “This is different than the other night.
First, it’s Friday night. There’s no school tomorrow. And it’s only
a few blocks to the police station. I’ll call my mother and tell
her exactly where I’m going so she won’t worry.” Tony’s look must
have been disbelieving because she said, “Yes, some teenagers do
actually communicate with their parents. Besides, I never got a
chance to tell you why I think Martha may be a suspect.”
    Shahla whipped out her cell phone before
Tony could mount a solid defense and got her mother on the line.
Her side of the conversation went something like this: “Hi, Mom,
it’s me. I won’t be home for a little while…I have to go to the
police station…Just to give them some evidence…Don’t worry, I’m
going with Tony. He’s a lot older, but he’s pretty strong. He’ll
keep us safe…I’ll see you later…Bye.”
    “Do I have to show her my muscles and my
AARP card?” Tony asked.
    “It’s okay. I may have exaggerated a little,
but she trusts me.”

    CHAPTER 10
    The guard who walked out with them was a middle-aged
nonentity. Tony wondered whether he had been the one on duty the
night Joy was killed but decided not to ask him because he didn’t
want to get trapped into a long discussion about what had happened
to her.
    There was one slight deviation to the plan. Tony had
Shahla drive her car home, and he followed her. It