Chasing Darkness (21 page)

SPEAKING WITH
Levy left me conflicted. Alan was trying to help, but I had given Marx my word and understood his need for secrecy, so I did not tell Levy that Wilts was a suspect. I told him about Ivy Casik instead.

“I spoke with Bastilla again. She told me Ivy made up the story about the reporter.”

“Where did Bastilla find her?”

“She didn't. Ivy called her to complain about me.”

I related what Bastilla told me.

Alan made grunting noises as he listened, then sounded doubtful.

“She claimed you threatened her?”

“She was surprised when I approached her, but I didn't threaten her or do anything to scare her. She told Bastilla she made it up to get rid of me.”

“Does Bastilla believe her?”

“It sounded that way. Ivy called Bastilla, not the other way around. She wanted to file a complaint.”

“Did she tell them anything new about Byrd?”

“I don't think so. Bastilla didn't say that she did.”

Alan fell silent for a moment.

“We should speak with this woman. I went over there again today and she still wasn't home.”

“Pike and I were leaving for her apartment when you called.”

“Good. If you find her, let me know. I think this girl knows more than she's telling.”

“I do, too, Alan.”

“Let me give you my cell number. You won't have to go through Jacob.”

He gave me the number, then Pike and I locked up the house. We took both cars in case we had to split up, driving in a loose caravan down through the canyon and east to Ivy Casik's apartment.

The modest apartment house held the same watchful silence it had on my earlier visits, as if the building and people within it were sleeping. The afternoon stillness trapped the scent of the gardenias in the courtyard, reminding me of the cloying smell of a funeral parlor.

Pike and I knocked on Ivy's door, but, like before, she did not answer.

Pike said, “Creepy place.”

“Pod people live here.”

“Maybe she's at work.”

“She's a website designer. She works at home.”

Pike reached past me and knocked again. Loud.

I pressed my ear to the door, listening for movement inside her apartment. A large window was to the left of the door, but Ivy had pulled her drapes. I cupped my face to the window, trying to see through a thin gap in the drapes, but couldn't see much. The lights were off, but my view was only a thin slice of the interior. The memory of Angel Tomaso's body was fresh, and I suddenly feared I might find Ivy the same way.

“You with the noise again.”

We turned, and saw the pear-shaped manager in his door. He blinked at me, then saw Pike and blinked again.

He said, “Oh, my.”

The little pug waddled out between his feet and stood in the courtyard, panting.

I said, “Sorry. The sound really echoes in here, doesn't it?”

“Is this about the police again?”

He wore the same thin cotton shirt and baggy shorts, and still held a cocktail glass. It might have been the same glass. His legs were lumpy with cellulite and very white.

I said, “That's right. We need to see her.”

“You and everyone else. Someone was here earlier, too, banging away at the door.”

That would have been Levy.

“Was she home?”

“She travels a lot, you know. I don't think she saw the note you left in her box.”

He tinkled the ice again, pissed off I had left the note in her mailbox instead of with him, and frowned at the dog.

“Go make piddle.”

The little dog's round face curled into a smile, then it waddled back into his apartment.

“She doesn't tell me when she's coming and going. If you'd like to leave a note with me this time, I'll make sure she gets it.”

I glanced back at her apartment, wondering what was behind the door.

Pike gestured at the surrounding apartments.

“She friendly with any of these people? Maybe they know where she is.”

He sized Pike up and down, and tinkled the ice again. He put out his hand.

“I'm Darbin Langer. Yours?”

“Pike.”

Langer hadn't bothered to introduce himself to me.

He shook his head, answering Pike's question.

“I doubt it. She isn't the friendliest person, and we like our privacy here. We like a quiet home without all this coming and going and knocking. They're all at work anyway, and I'd ask you not to pound on their doors.”

“How about I slip a note under her door. Maybe that would work better than leaving it in her box.”

He frowned, pissy again, then turned back into his apartment.

“Whatever. Just stop with the noise.”

Pike and I returned to her apartment but I had no intention of leaving a note. I left Pike by her door, then circled behind the building, trying to see inside.

Climbing roses trellised the walls, bracketing a tall hedge that formed a narrow path leading around the sides of the building. The rose vines drooped over the path, brushing my face like delicate fingers. The stillness and silence felt eerie. I followed the path around the building, peeping in Ivy's windows like a neighborhood pervert, with the creeped-out feeling I was about to see something I didn't want to see, like Ivy with a slashed throat.

The back and side windows were off her bedroom, and here she hadn't been as careful when pulling the drapes. The first window was completely covered, but the drapes covering the second window hung apart with a gap as wide as my hand. The room inside was dim, but revealed a double bed and a doorway to the hall leading out to the living room. The room was bare except for the bed, with no other furniture, nothing on the walls, and no bodies in evidence. Ivy might have been hiding under the bed, but probably wasn't.

The bathroom was next, with one of those high windows so neighbors can't see you doing your business. I gripped the ledge and chinned myself. Being high the way it was, drapes weren't necessary, so nothing covered the window. Ivy wasn't crouching in the bathroom, either. I let myself down, went on to the living room, then returned to the bathroom. I chinned again, and squinted inside. The bathroom was old like the rest of the building, with a postwar tub and cracked tiles seamed by darkened grout. The floor was a dingy vinyl that had probably been yellowing since the sixties. Something about the bathroom bothered me, and it took a moment to realize what.

I let myself down and returned to the courtyard.

Pike said, “Clear?”

“She told me she rented the room on Anson because they found mold in her bathroom, but this bathroom hasn't been touched in years.”

We went back to Langer's apartment. He opened the door wide. Still with the glass in his hand.

“Oh. Back so soon?”

“Did you have a mold problem in Ivy's apartment?”

He squinted as if we were trying to trick him.

“Mold?”

“Did you remodel her bathroom to get rid of mold?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Ivy told me mold was found in her apartment a couple of months ago. She had to move out for a few weeks while it was remodeled.”

“We've never had mold. I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Did she move out?”

“Well, she was gone for a while, but she didn't move out. She was working.”

“I thought she worked at home.”

He wiggled the glass again, only now the ice was melted. The wiggle was silent.

“No, she works with the films. A makeup artist, I think, or doing their hair. That's why she's gone so much. The location work.”

Pike grunted.

“Websites, huh.”

I looked back at her closed apartment door. The little courtyard grew stifling hot and the gardenias smelled like ant poison.

“Mr. Langer, how long has Ivy lived here?”

He looked from me to Pike, then back to me, and now his bald head wrinkled. He was getting nervous.

“About four months now. Why do you want to know that?”

Pike said, “We'd like to see her apartment, please.”

Langer's eyes flickered to Pike, and he shifted from foot to foot.

“Just let you in? That wouldn't be right. I don't think I can let you in.”

He wiggled the silent glass nervously.

I said, “The police and I were here to question Ivy about a man involved in a multiple homicide—”

“A murder?”

“That's why all these people have been coming around, only now it looks like Ivy's been lying about some things. We can't wait for her to come back.”

I glanced back at her apartment.

“She might already be back. She might be in there right now.”

He glanced at her apartment, too, and Pike stepped very close to him.

“Let us in, Mr. Langer.”

Langer hurried away for his key.

THE DAY
I questioned Ivy Casik about Lionel Byrd, her apartment had seemed efficiently minimalist and neat, but now it felt empty, as if it were not a place where someone had ever lived. The couch, chair, and cheap dinette set were lifeless and anonymous like rental castoffs. The kitchen drawers held only three forks, three spoons, and a can opener. The double bed was as absent of life as an abandoned car, and the closet was empty. If there had been a hard-line phone, she had taken it.

Langer let us in, then clenched his hands as we searched.

Pike said, “She's gone. Nothing here to come back to.”

Ivy Casik had lied to me and the kid at the store and Langer and Bastilla. She had lied well and thoroughly, and I wondered if she had also lied about her name.

I asked Langer if she paid the rent by check, hoping he might have one for the banking information, but he shook his head.

“Cash. First, last, and the security deposit. She paid six months in advance.”

“What about a rental agreement?”

Pike and I were still looking through her apartment when Langer returned with the agreement. He was so nervous now, his jowls were shaking.

“It has her cell phone number, but I called and it wasn't her. I got somebody named Rami.”

Pike said, “She gave you a false number. Like everything else.”

Langer held out the rental agreement, as if we would understand just by seeing the number.

The contract was a form document you could buy in any stationery store, obligating the tenant to pay a certain amount every month and to be responsible for any damages. Spaces were provided for background information, prior residences, and references.

“Is this your handwriting, or hers?”

“Hers. It's so much easier if you let them fill it in themselves. We sat at the table, talking.”

Her handwriting was slanted to the right and had been made with a blue ballpoint pen. An address in Silver Lake was the only former residence listed, and was probably false. Spaces for her driver's license and Social Security numbers were filled in, but they, like the cell phone number, were probably false. I copied the numbers anyway. I planned to call Bastilla, and then Mr. Langer would have more people knocking on doors and filling his courtyard with noise.

The spaces for banking and credit information were blank.

“You didn't require any of this?”

“She was paying with cash. She seemed so nice.”

The dog waddled in through the open door and wandered between us. Pike petted the little round head. The dog licked his hand.

Everything was written in blue ink, except for the make and model of her car. The information about her car was written in a cramped hand using black ink.

“Did you write this?”

“Uh-huh, that's me. People never remember their license. I saw her getting into her car one day, so I went out later and copied it.”

Her car was a white Ford Neon with a California plate, and was likely the only true information we had unless she had stolen the car. I remembered seeing the Neon on the day we met.

“Are the police coming back?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I didn't do anything wrong, did I?”

“You were lied to like everyone else.”

We thanked him for the help, then went to our cars to phone Bastilla. She didn't seem particularly impressed.

“We talk to you about this a half hour ago, and you're back on the case?”

“I told you I wouldn't sit it out, Bastilla. Are you interested in this or not?”

“So she's a liar, Cole. People lie all the time.”

“She's the only person we've found with a confirmed relationship to Byrd, and she's been lying to everyone, which means maybe she lied about Byrd, too. Doesn't that bother you?”

“Yes, it bothers me, but right now it doesn't mean much one way or another. This guy you spoke with, the manager, is he still on the premises?”

“Yeah. In his apartment.”

“Okay. Tell him to stay put. I'll see what the DMV has on her before we roll out.”

I closed my phone, then looked at Pike.

“They're coming out to see Langer.”

“Cool. Let's kick back and wait.”

I laughed, then opened the phone again and called a friend at the DMV. I read off the Neon's plate, asked for the registration information, and had it in less than a minute. The Neon was registered to a Sara K. Hill with an address in a small community called Sylmar at the top of the San Fernando Valley.

“Does the vehicle show stolen?”

“Nope. No wants, warrants, or unpaid citations. Registration is in order and up-to-date.”

I put down the phone and told Pike.

He said, “Maybe that's her real name.”

Sara K. Hill was listed with Sylmar Information. I copied her number, then dialed. A woman answered on the sixth ring, her voice sounding older and coarse.

I said, “May I speak with Ivy, please.”

“You have the wrong number.”

She hung up.

I called her again, and this time she answered after only two rings.

“Me, again. Is this Sara Hill?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry to bother you, but I'm trying to find Ivy Casik.”

“Well, good luck to you. I don't know anyone by that name.”

She sounded more irritated than anything else.

“I think maybe you might. She's driving your car.”

Sara Hill's voice grew careful.

“Are you from the credit card?”

“No, ma'am. I'm not from the credit card.”

Her voice was still careful.

“Who did you want?”

“A tall girl, straight hair, in her mid-twenties—”

Sara Hill cut me off.

“I don't know anyone like that! Don't call here again!”

The line went dead again, but this time we didn't call back. Pike went to his Jeep, I climbed into my car, and we drove north through the Cahuenga Pass toward Sylmar.