Robert Crais - Chasing Darkness

She arched her eyebrows, and it was as cool a move as anything I had ever seen.

“How nice for you, Cole.”

We listened to them drive away, then I went to the phone and called Alan Levy. Jacob answered again.

“Sorry, Mr. Cole, he isn’t in. Would you like to leave another message?”

“This would be easier if you gave me his cell.”

Jacob wouldn’t give me the cell, but he promised to page Alan and then hung up.

I put down the phone and turned to Pike.

“Let’s go see Ivy. If I scared her, wait ’til she sees you.”

“You don’t think she lied?”

“I think she’s lying to someone. The question is who.”

We were moving for the door when Alan Levy returned my call. Jacob had come through with the 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?”