The Concrete Blonde (51 page)

“Five weeks,” Kay answered.

“I didn't see a for rent sign down there.”

Bosch looked down at the cul-de-sac and saw the two patrol officers waiting for Forensics and the flatbed from the police garage. They were on opposite sides of their cruiser, leaning on the hood with their backs to each other. It didn't look like a thriving partnership.

“I never need to put up signs,” Kay said. “The word that we have a vacancy usually gets out. A lot of people want to live in this place. It's a Hollywood original. Besides, I've been in the process of getting it ready, repainting and small repairs. I haven't been in any hurry.”

“What's the rent?” Edgar asked.

“A thousand a month.”

Edgar whistled. It seemed high to Bosch, too. But the view told him there would be somebody who would pay it.

“Who would have known that that garage down there was empty?” he asked, getting back on track.

“Quite a few people. The residents here, of course, and in the last five weeks I've shown the place to several interested parties. I usually point out the garage to them. When I go on vacation there's a tenant here who sort of watches things for me. He showed the apartment, too.”

“The garage is left unlocked?”

“It's left unlocked. There's nothing in it to steal. When the new tenant comes in they can choose to put a padlock on it if they want to. I leave it up to them but I always recommend it.”

“Did you keep any kind of records on who you showed the apartment to?”

“Not really. I might have a few call-back numbers but there is no use in keeping anybody's name unless they rent it. And as you can see, I haven't.”

Bosch nodded. It was going to be a tough angle to follow. Many people knew the garage was empty, unlocked and available.

“What about the former tenant?” he asked. “What happened to him?”

“It was a woman, actually,” Kay said. “She lived here five years, trying to make it as an actress. She finally gave up and went back home.”

“It's a tough town. Where was home?”

“I sent her deposit back to Austin, Texas.”

Bosch nodded.

“She live here alone?”

“She had a boyfriend who visited and stayed a lot but I think that ended before she moved out.”

“We'll need that address in Texas from you.”

Kay nodded.

“The officers, they said the car belonged to a missing girl,” he said.

“A young woman,” Bosch said.

He reached into an inside pocket of his jacket and pulled out a photograph of Marie Gesto. He showed it to Kay and asked if he recognized her as someone who might have looked at the apartment. He said he didn't recognize her.

“Not even from TV?” Edgar asked. “She's been missing ten days and it's been in the news.”

“I don't have a TV, Detective,” Kay said.

No television. In this town that qualified him as a free thinker, Bosch thought.

“She was in the newspapers, too,” Edgar tried.

“I read the papers from time to time,” Kay said. “I get them out of the recycle bins downstairs. They're usually old by the time I see them. But I didn't see any story about her.”

“She went missing ten days ago,” Bosch said. “That would have been Thursday the ninth. You remember anything from back then? Anything unusual around here?”

Kay shook his head.

“I wasn't here. I was on vacation in Italy.”

Bosch smiled.

“I love Italy. Where'd you go?”

Kay's face brightened.

“I went up to Lake Como and then over to a small hill town called Asolo. It's where Robert Browning lived.”

Bosch nodded like he knew the places and knew who Robert Browning was.

“We've got company,” Edgar said.

Bosch followed his partner's gaze down to the cul-de-sac. A television truck with a satellite dish on top and a big number 9 painted on the side had pulled up to the yellow tape. One of the patrol officers was walking toward it.

Harry looked back at the landlord.

“Mr. Kay, we'll need to talk more later. If you can, see what numbers or names you can find of people who looked at or called about the apartment. We'll also need to talk to the person who handled things while you were in Italy and get the name and forwarding address of the former tenant who moved back to Texas.”

“No problem.”

“And we're going to need to talk to the rest of the tenants to see if anybody saw that car being dropped off in the garage. We will try not to be too intrusive.”

“No problem with any of that. I'll see what I can dig up on the numbers.”

They left the apartment and walked with Kay back to the elevator. They said good-bye to the manager and went down, the steel cube lurching again before smoothing out on the descent.

“Harry, I didn't know you love Italy,” Edgar said.

“I've never been.”

Edgar nodded, realizing it had been a tactic to draw Kay out, to put more alibi information on record.

“You thinking about him?” he asked.

“Not really. Just covering the bases. Besides, if it was him, why put the car in his place's own garage? Why call it in?”

“Yeah. But then, maybe he's smart enough to know we'd think he'd be too smart to do that. See what I mean? Maybe he's outsmarting us, Harry. Maybe the girl came to look at the place and things went wrong. He hides the body but knows he can't move that car because he might get pulled over by the cops. So he waits ten days and calls it in like he thinks it might be stolen.”

“Then maybe you should run his Italian alibi down, Watson.”

“Why am I Watson? Why can't I be Holmes?”

“Because Watson is the one who talks too much. But if you want, I'll start calling you ‘Homes.’ Maybe that would be better.”

“What's bothering you, Harry?”

Bosch thought of the clothing neatly folded on the front seat of the Honda. He felt that pressure on his insides again. Like his body was wrapped in wire being tightened from behind.

“What's bothering me is that I've got a bad feeling about this one.”

“What kind of bad feeling?”

“The kind that tells me we're never going to find her. And if we never find her, then we never find him.”

“The killer?”

The elevator jerked to a hard stop, bounced once and came to a rest. Bosch pulled open the doors. At the end of the short tunnel that led to the cul-de-sac and the garages, he saw a woman holding a microphone and a man holding a television camera waiting for them.

“Yeah,” he said. “The killer.”

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