Trunk Music

they drove into a middle-class neighborhood in North Las Vegas and found the house where Goshen had once dropped Layla off. It was a small bungalow-style house with an aluminum awning over each window. There was a Mazda RX7 parked in the carport.
    An older woman answered the door. She was mid-sixties and well preserved. Bosch thought he could see some of the photo of Layla in her face. Bosch held his badge up so she could see it.
    “Ma’am, my name is Harry Bosch and this is Jerry Edgar. We’re over from Los Angeles and we are looking for a young woman we need to talk to. She’s a dancer and goes by the name Layla. Is she here?”
    “She doesn’t live here. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
    “I think you do, ma’am, and I’d appreciate it if you’d help us out.”
    “I told you, she’s not here.”
    “Well, we heard she’s staying here with you. Is that right? Are you her mother? She’s tried to contact me. There’s no reason for her to be afraid or to not want to talk to us.”
    “I’ll tell her that if I see her.”
    “Can we come in?”
    Bosch put his hand on the door and firmly but slowly started to push it open before she could reply.
    “You can’t just…”
    She didn’t finish. She knew what she was going to say would be meaningless. In a perfect world the cops couldn’t just push their way in. She knew it wasn’t a perfect world.
    Bosch looked around after he entered. The furnishings were old, having to last a few more years than they were intended to and she probably thought they would have to when she bought them. It was the standard couch and matching chair setup. There were patterned throws on each, probably to cover the wear. There was an old TV, the kind with a dial to change the channels. There were gossip magazines spread on a coffee table.
    “You live here alone?” he asked.
    “Yes, I do,” she said indignantly, as if his question was an insult.
    “When was the last time you saw Layla?”
    “Her name’s not Layla.”
    “That was my next question. What is her name?”
    “Her name’s Gretchen Alexander.”
    “And you are?”
    “Dorothy Alexander.”
    “Where is she, Dorothy?”
    “I don’t know and I didn’t ask.”
    “When’d she leave?”
    “Yesterday morning.”
    Bosch nodded to Edgar and he took a step back, turned and headed down a hallway leading to the rear of the house.
    “Where’s he going?” the woman asked.
    “He’s just going to take a look around, that’s all,” Bosch said. “Sit down here and talk to me, Dorothy. Faster we get this over with, the faster we’re out of here.”
    He pointed to the chair and remained standing until she finally sat. He then moved around the coffee table and sat on the couch. Its springs were shot. He sank so low in it that he had to lean forward and even then it felt like his knees were halfway up to his chest. He got out his notebook.
    “I don’t like him messing around in my things,” Dorothy said, looking back over her shoulder toward the hallway.
    “He’ll be careful.” Bosch took out his notebook. “You seemed to know we were coming. How’d you know that?”
    “I know what she told me, is all. She said the police might come. She didn’t say anything about them coming all the way from Los Angeles.”
    She said Angeles with a hard G.
    “And you know why we’re here?”
    “Because of Tony. She said he went and got himself killed over there.”
    “Where did Gretchen go, Dorothy?”
    “She did not tell me. You can ask me all the times you like but my answer’s always going to be the same. I don’t know.”
    “Is that her sports car in the carport?”
    “Sure is. She bought it with her own money.”
    “Stripping?”
    “I always said money was the same whether it was made one way or the next.”
    Edgar came in then and looked at Bosch. Harry nodded for him to report.
    “Looks like she was here. There’s a second bedroom. Ashtray on the nightstand’s full. There’s a space on the rod in the closet where it looks like somebody had hung up some clothes. They’re gone now. She left this.”
    He held his hand out and cradled in his palm was a small oval picture frame with a photograph of Tony Aliso and Gretchen Alexander. They had their arms around each other and were smiling at the camera. Bosch nodded and looked back at Dorothy Alexander.
    “If she left, why’d she leave her car here?”
    “Don’t know. A taxi came for her.”
    “Did she fly?”
    “How could I know