Detective Croyden sat down hard on the swivel chair in his small cubicle and said, “Okay, Tony Schmidt, what have you got for me?”
Tony seated himself just outside the cubicle-there wasn’t room inside-on the folding chair that Croyden had carried over and wondered how strong Croyden’s chair was. Croyden was no lightweight. In fact, he had probably played football at sometime in his life-perhaps linebacker.
Tony realized that despite the fact that he had had most of the day-or at least snippets here and there between talking to clients on the phone-to think about what he was going to say, he still hadn’t come up with anything good. But he had to get out of this mess before he got himself in any deeper.
He gave a head-fake and dove in. “One of the callers to the Hotline has been talking about Joy in such a way that we think it’s possible he might be Joy’s killer.”
Croyden picked up a spiral notebook and started writing with what Tony thought was a Mont Blanc pen. He said, “Who’s we?”
“Shahla Lawton, one of the other listeners, and me.” He wondered how Croyden could afford a Mont Blanc pen.
When Tony hesitated, in order to let Croyden ask more questions, the detective said, “Go on. Tell me the story.” He leaned back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee. A thick and hairy leg showed above a white sock. The chair creaked. He had his jacket off, and Tony could see the gun in a holster on his left side. Tony pictured Croyden drawing the gun. He must be right-handed.
And Tony did tell him the story. In fact, he told Croyden more than he intended to. Croyden didn’t need a class in active listening. He was so good at using silence and occasional probing questions that Tony knew he was talking himself into trouble. About the only thing he didn’t tell about was the gun he had borrowed from Josh. And he made it sound as if going to meet the Chameleon was his idea, not Shahla’s.
When Croyden was apparently satisfied that Tony had nothing more to tell, he planted both feet firmly on the ground. He leaned forward and looked Tony in the eye, the way a linebacker looks at a quarterback he is about to sack. The broken nose in the middle of his tanned face enhanced the image. He spoke, his words coming slowly. “Have you been trained as a police officer, Tony?”
“No…sir.” The ‘sir” came out involuntarily.
“Were you in the Marine Corps, by any chance?”
“No.”
Croyden spoke faster. “How about the Green Berets?”
“No.”
“The Navy Seals?”
“No.”
“Then what the hell were you doing risking your life trying to impersonate somebody who knows what they’re doing?”
“It was a stupid thing to do.”
“Actually, I wouldn’t care so much if you lost your life through your own stupidity. But in this case, you spooked a possible suspect. Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t slap the cuffs on you for trying to play the hero?”
Tony couldn’t think of any.
Croyden took his eyes off Tony’s and lowered his voice. “I’m going to tell you something that I don’t want to go beyond this room. We subpoenaed the records of the Hotline’s incoming calls from the phone company for the last month. We found the numbers for all the obscene callers by comparing the times of the calls to the times listed on the call reports. We are in the process of checking out each of these perverts. I’m telling you this so that you know we’re actually doing something and not just sitting on our butts.”
“What about confidentiality?”
“That’s why I don’t want you to say anything. Your boss, Nancy, is afraid that if this leaks out, the Hotline will lose its status as a confidential service. Mind you, we’re only checking on the callers you call masturbators, and I don’t believe they deserve confidentiality.”
“So you’ve already got a line on the Chameleon.” Tony felt redundant.
Croyden still wasn’t looking at Tony. “Well, we’ve had a problem with that guy. He calls from a cell phone. We checked it out, and the number belongs to a woman who couldn’t be the Chameleon. She says she lost her phone and doesn’t know who’s using it. She may be stonewalling, but we haven’t been able to convince her to tell us anything more.”
“So the number he gave Shahla…”
“Even if he gave her the number he is using it may not do us any good.” Croyden looked at Tony and said, “What were you doing the night Joy was killed?’’
The change of subject was so abrupt that Tony was taken aback. He stared at Detective Croyden.
“Routine question,” Croyden said. “For the record.”
“I-I went to a movie. Alone. But I kept the ticket stub.” That demanded an explanation. “I keep all my ticket stubs.”
“What time was that?”
“About eight to 10:30.”
“Don’t lose the stub,” Croyden said, making a note. He didn’t even say anything about how Tony could have purchased the ticket to provide himself with an alibi.
CHAPTER 8
When Tony arrived at the Hotline office for his Friday evening shift, he found the door unlocked. He entered the office, wondering about this breach of the rules, and saw that there were two people in the listening room, both males. Apparently, they weren’t worried about outsiders getting in.
As he entered his hours in the book, one of them came out of the listening room. He was a teenager, tall, blond and a little bit gawky, wearing a Bonita Beach High School T-shirt. At the same time, Tony heard a voice behind him say, “Hey, Kevin, we need to talk to you for a minute.”
Tony turned and saw Shahla coming out of the snack room carrying a plate of chips. What was she doing here? He had been convinced that she would never speak to him again. Maybe she had worked the four-to-seven shift with these guys and was just finishing up. And who were “we”?
Shahla continued, “Kevin, this is Tony.”
They said hi and shook hands.
“Kevin is a senior at Bonita Beach,” Shahla said to Tony. “Tony is new here.”
At least she was speaking to him.
“What we need to know,” Shahla said to Kevin, “is what you were doing the night Joy was killed.”
“Aren’t you going to read me my rights?” Kevin asked with mock indignation.
“Your rights just went down the toilet,” Shahla said. “Answer the question.”
Tony had hoped Shahla was off this kick. At least she had waited until he showed up. But she was being awfully blunt about it.
“All right, officer,” Kevin said, “I know when I’m defeated. I was at lacrosse practice.”
“Sure you were,” Shahla said. “At night and before school started? A likely story. What were you really doing?”
“It happens to be true,” Kevin said. “We had preseason practice. And since we have to share the field with the football team and the soccer team and some of our players had summer jobs, we practiced at night. It’s a good thing we got lights on the field last year. The coach and all the other players can vouch for me.”
“What time did practice end?”
“It was almost ten. And then we took showers. We’ve got the same practice schedule tomorrow night. I’ll tell you what, why don’t you come into our shower room at ten tomorrow evening. We’re a friendly group. Then you can see for yourself.”
“No thanks.”
“Watch out for these guys,” Kevin said to the man who was just coming out of the listening room. “They’ll try to pin Joy’s murder on you.”
“Maybe they’re trying to cover up for themselves,” the man, who Tony recognized as Nathan, said, with a half-smile.
Nathan was wearing the same sweatshirt he had worn at his last Hotline session on Monday.
“What we want to know,” Shahla said, without smiling, “is what you were doing and where you were the night of Joy’s murder.”
Nathan said, “You don’t want much, do you? But by the way, I’ve already told this story to Detective Croyden.”