Chasing Darkness (23 page)

PIKE TIED
her wrists with an extension cord. I put her cell phones in a paper grocery bag I found in the kitchen, but we left everything else as we found it. Marx would want the scene as undisturbed as possible for his detectives and criminalists. It was Marx's play and I should have left it to him, but didn't.

When Pike brought Jonna out to his Jeep, I called Bastilla. The only number I had was her cell, but she didn't answer. She was probably still angry, but she might have been working. Either way, I was glad she didn't answer. I left a message.

“Ivy Casik's real name is Jonna Hill. She is Yvonne Bennett's half sister. Call Pike. She'll be with him.”

I left Pike's number, then locked Jonna's house and joined them at the Jeep. I gave him the keys.

“The police will need these. I left word for Bastilla and gave her your number. They'll be calling.”

Pike was going to hold Jonna and her mother at a safe location until we reached Marx.

Pike said, “You sure you don't want me along?”

“I'm good. I'll see you in a bit.”

I watched them drive away, then glanced at Jonna's house. I studied it for a while, then considered the sky. The canopy overhead was empty of clouds or birds. I wanted something to be there, but the sky was a milky blue desert. I slipped into my car, studied the cell number Alan Levy had given to me, but I didn't want to speak to him over the phone. I called his office instead.

“Hi, Jacob. Is Alan there?”

“I'm sorry, no. Did he ever get back to you? I gave him your messages.”

“Yeah, we spoke, but I need to find him again. He isn't in court, is he?”

“Oh, no. He cleared his calendar when all this started about Mr. Byrd. He hasn't been in for days.”

“Ah, okay.”

“I could page him again.”

“No need. Listen, is he working at home?”

“I don't know, Mr. Cole. You know Alan. He might be writing a brief or doing research. He's hard to keep up with when he gets like this.”

I hung up, then called a real estate agent I know who has access to the property tax rolls. Six minutes later I had Alan Levy's home address and was heading toward Santa Monica. It was afternoon when I arrived. I shouldn't have gone, but I did. I should have waited for the police, but I didn't.

The address brought me to a large two-story Cape Cod home three blocks from the beach in a lovely residential area. It was a family neighborhood with curbed sidewalks, kids on skateboards, and a hybrid in every drive, but it was also near the beach in Santa Monica, which meant the families were rich. I parked across the street. Two kids roared past on skateboards and a woman who was probably someone's housekeeper stood on a nearby corner. Gardeners worked at several of the houses, but the Levy residence was still. A gate across the drive hid the garage, so I couldn't see if Alan's car was at home or not. This time of the summer his kids would be out of school, but I couldn't tell if anyone was home. Maybe they were away at camp, but maybe they were splashing and grab-assing in their pool, and Alan was splashing with them. Or maybe he was crouched inside the house, watching the street through a gap in the shades.

I took my gun from beneath the seat, wedged it under my shirt, then strolled up the sidewalk. My phone vibrated as I reached the curb, but it was Bastilla. I ignored her.

The front door was large and heavy as a coffin lid. I knocked politely, then rang the bell. No one came, so I climbed over the driveway gate into a spacious backyard featuring a beautiful pool with used-brick decking and a lovely rose garden. No kids were splashing. Levy's family wasn't enjoying the breathtaking summer day. A single leaf floated in the pool. The water was so clean it might have been floating on air.

I walked along the back of the house, rapping on glass sliders and French doors, but nothing and no one moved.

“Hey, Alan, it's Elvis Cole. Anyone home?”

Not even a housekeeper.

I went to the garage. The garage door was down and the side door was locked. I didn't want to waste time picking the lock, so I returned to the French doors. I broke a pane, reached inside, and let myself in. I should have been holding my gun, but I put it away. I didn't want to scare his children. They might be inside, sleeping. Maybe all of them were sleeping.

“Is anyone here?”

I stood just inside the door, listening, but the house remained quiet. I called out still louder.

“Mrs. Levy? I work with Alan. Jacob told me he might be home.”

My voice echoed as if their home was a cave. No magazines or DVDs littered the coffee table; no toys or video games cluttered the floor. The rooms were large and beautifully furnished, but lifeless in a way that made my scalp prickle.

“Hello?”

I crossed through the family room into the living room, then crept through a formal dining room as cold as a mausoleum. The table was lovely, the chairs lining its sides perfectly placed as if they had not been moved in years.

The dining room led into the kitchen, then the pantry. You have kids, you have food, but there was no cereal, no Pop-Tarts, no snack bars. The shelves were lined with cans of Dinty Moore beef stew. Only the stew. Empty vodka bottles lined the floor. The cans and bottles had been placed in perfect rows with their labels out, each label perfectly aligned. My underarms grew damp as I backed out of the pantry.

The refrigerator was loaded with take-out containers, soft drinks, and more vodka, but no juice or milk, no peanut butter or eggs. I took out my gun and held it along my leg, but knew I wasn't going to find anyone. Not Alan or anyone else. Not anyone alive.

My cell phone hummed again, as loud as a swarm of wasps. I didn't check. I muffled it with my hand, trying to hear past the swarm into the hidden reaches of the house. My breath grew shallow, and I wanted to crash through the door or dive out the window. I wanted to get out of this terrible house and into the light like a boy running from bees, but I didn't.

I trotted the length of the house. I had moved quietly before, but now I moved faster, hitting each door with the gun up and ready. I checked the master bedroom, then Alan's home office, where the walls bristled with citations and plaques. I jerked open doors, checked closets and bathrooms, then ran up the stairs three at a time. I was terrified by what I expected to find, but pushed harder to find it.

The children's bedrooms were on the second floor—everything perfect and neat, but somehow even more frightening than the rest of the house. Posters of fading celebrities and forgotten bands decorated their walls. Computers several generations behind the current models sat on their desks. The toothbrushes in their bathroom hadn't been used in years.

I almost fell as I ran down the stairs, racing back to the master bedroom. The master bath told the same story. The men's products had been recently used, but the women's products were dry and out-of-date, and no soiled female garments were waiting to be cleaned.

My heart punched hard in my chest as the silence roared like the ocean. It roared even louder as I ran. I ran back through the house and out the French doors and all the way back to my car. It roared until I realized my cell phone was vibrating again. Bastilla was trying again. This time I answered.

JONNA HILL
sat in a pleasant beige room in the Mission Area Police Station at the top of the San Fernando Valley. She was as far from the eyes and ears downtown as Marx could hide her. It was a comfortable room with patterned wallpaper, where rape and abuse victims were interviewed. The feminine surroundings supposedly made it easier for victims to talk. We were watching her through a two-way mirror. She was alone now, toying with the cap from a water bottle. Jonna knew we were watching. Bastilla and Munson had spent almost two hours questioning her, but the pleasant surroundings hadn't helped. Jonna admitted nothing and refused to implicate Levy.

Munson rubbed his eyes, then leaned against the wall, frowning at me.

“Are you sure it was Levy?”

“Yes.”

“Maybe it only sounded like Levy.”

I said, “It was Levy, Munson. I know Levy's voice.”

Our side of the glass didn't have patterned wallpaper or comforting decor. The observation room was battleship-grey with a work desk butting the glass, metal chairs, and recording equipment. Pike and I stayed with Munson when Bastilla left to pick up the original death album pictures. Marx was in and out, phoning his contacts at Barshop, Barshop. They were doing everything themselves in order to stay under the radar.

Marx returned a few minutes later, holding his cell phone as if it were hot. He glanced at Munson as he entered.

“She open up?”

“She's tough, man. Nothing.”

Pike said, “She believes him.”

Munson rolled his eyes.

“Oh, please, Pike. She's crazy.”

I said, “She might be crazy, but she believes Levy helped her punish the man who murdered her sister. She thinks they're on the same side.”

Yvonne Bennett's police record and files were spread across the worktable. The psychiatric evaluation ordered at the time of her first arrest described a pattern of sexual abuse by the men her mother brought home. If those men had felt free to abuse Yvonne, they had probably tried to abuse her younger sister. I wondered if Yvonne had protected Jonna by offering herself to them. I stared at the broken heart on Jonna's forearm and thought it might be true.

She was always bad, and her bad ways caught up. Wasn't no better than a cat in heat from when she was little. I wouldn't even keep her picture up there if it wasn't for Jonna. She gets mad when I put it away.

Munson didn't buy it.

“Well, it would be nice if she said something for the record. I still don't believe it. Wilts is our guy.”

Marx jiggled the cell phone as if he was nervous, then crossed his arms.

“Maybe not. On or about the time Frostokovich was murdered, a partner at Barshop was raising money for Wilts's campaign. That's one. The hooker party Wilts threw a few years later was also attended by a couple of Barshop partners. The man I spoke with believes Levy attended. That's two. So it looks like Levy had access to these women through his firm.”

I said, “Was Levy at the dinner for Wilts when Repko was murdered?”

“Someone is looking into it. He's going to call back.”

Munson threw up his hands. The room was so small he almost hit Pike.

“So what the hell? Were we wrong about Wilts or is he still a suspect?”

“We'll know when she talks.”

“Jesus. Could Levy be acting as an agent for Wilts?”

I shook my head.

“You don't share something like this. You do it yourself. If the pictures came from Levy, then Levy took the pictures.”

Marx looked at Jonna, still spinning the cap.

“What's the last contact you had with him?”

“We spoke earlier this afternoon. He was pushing me to find her.”

“Okay. Before that?”

“Yesterday. He came to my house. He was feeling me out about what you guys were doing and asking about the girl.”

Munson grunted.

“Using you.”

“Yeah, Munson, how about that?”

“I wasn't criticizing.”

I turned back to Marx.

“My guess, he's looking to kill her. She hasn't been returning his calls, so she's probably thinking the same thing. That's probably why she went back to Sylmar.”

Munson sighed.

“We should bag this guy, Tommy. Let's get him off the street.”

“How? He could be halfway to China by now.”

Pike shifted in the corner.

“No. He wants her. She's the loose end.”

Marx didn't look convinced.

“If we make a play for him before she talks, all we'll do is warn him. We don't have anything. Even if this girl tells us everything she knows, unless she has something hard, it's her word against his. You know what Alan Levy would do with that.”

Munson crossed his arms, looking sullen.

“He'll say she's harassing him because he defended the man who murdered her sister.”

“That's it.”

“That could be what we're looking at, anyway. We have her for forty-eight hours, then we arraign her or cut her loose. Either way, that's when Levy gets the word. We pick him up now, at least we catch him off guard.”

“Pick him up where? He's not at the office. Cole says he isn't home. You think he's going to come in, we call him and ask?”

“Have Barshop, Barshop call him. Maybe someone at the firm.”

Pike said, “He'll read it. He'll walk away from the phone, and you'll never see him again.”

I was watching Jonna. On the other side of the glass, she was spinning the cap. The water bottle was empty, which meant pretty soon she would have to pee, but for now she spun the cap. I was watching the cap when she looked up as if she had felt the pressure of my gaze. She smiled as if she saw me, and I smiled back.

I said, “Levy thinks I'm looking for her. He wants me to find her and he's hoping I'll call. Let me call him.”

“Where does that get us?”

“I can tell him I found her. I tell him where she is, he's going to show up.”

“So we bag him. We still don't have a case.”

“If she cooperated, we might be able to get him to incriminate himself. We get him on tape, you'll have the case.”

Munson laughed, and swung his hands again. Pike stepped to the side.

“Wake up, Cole. Look at her. That girl is cold.”

“Right now, she believes Byrd killed her sister. If we convince her it was Levy, she might change her mind.”

Marx considered me for a moment, then looked at Jonna. She spun the cap. It skittered across the table, then arced into space.

Marx turned back to me.

“Let's figure this out.”