Let us in, Mr. Langer.

Langer hurried away for his key.

Chapter 37

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?