“No, it was dark,” I said. “Maybe.”
Michelle Salazar lived in a two-story, peach-colored sixplex on a twisting street one block east of Micheltorena and two blocks north of Sunset. A brown sky hung low over the potholes, boxy hieroglyphics sang gang sagas, small children played in the dust. Two doors up a cluster of shaved-head young men in white tank tops and baggy pants crowded an old white van, sharing cigarettes and beer and lean looks.
As we got out of the unmarked, some of the beer drinkers watched us. Milo’s gun hand was relaxed but in the right place as he threw them a salute. Big group effort not to respond. We were in Ramparts Division, where a police scandal had broken a couple of years ago—CRASH officers forming their own criminal gang. LAPD claimed the bad cops had been weeded out. LAPD had denied the existence of bad cops for too long to have any credibility.
The lock on the building’s front door was missing. Inside, a dark central hall was ripe with the gamy perfume of too-old menudo. Mailboxes set into the right-hand wall were padlocked and unmarked. Milo knocked on the first door, got no answer, tried the next unit and received a shouted “Si?” in response.
“Policia.” Reciting the word quietly, but there was no way to make it inviting.
Long pause, then a woman said, “Eh?”
“Policia.”
“Policia par que?”
“Senora, donde esta Michelle Salazar, par favor?”
Nothing.
“Senora?”
“Numero seis.” A radio was turned up loud enough to block out further discourse. We made our way to the stairs.
Different smells up on the second floor: sour laundry, urine, orange soda.
Milo rapped on number 6. Another female voice said, “Yeah?” and the door opened six inches before he could respond. Held in place by a loose chain, bisecting a woman’s face. One watery brown eye, half a parched lip, sallow skin.
“Michelle Salazar? Detective Sturgis—” The door began to close, and he blocked it with his foot, reached around, undid the chain.
I didn’t recognize her, but somehow I knew it was her.
Last time I’d seen her, she’d had two arms.
She wore a green nylon robe with moth holes on the lapels. Thirty pounds heavier than when I’d watched her dance with Lauren. A once-pretty face had puffed in all the wrong places, and sprays of pimples crusted her forehead and chin. The same luxuriant mop of jet black hair. One hand held a cigarette with a gravity-defying ash. Her left sleeve was tied back at elbow length. Empty space from the shoulder down.
“Oh, shit,” she said. “I didn’t do anything—please leave me alone.”
“I’m not here to hassle you, Michelle.”
“Yeah, right.” The room behind her was squalid with dirty clothes and old food and clumps of what looked like dog waste on gray linoleum. As if confirming that, a small, hairless thing with a white-fringed head pranced across my field of vision. Seconds later a high-pitched yelp sounded.
“It’s okay, baby,” said Michelle. The dog mewed a few more times before withdrawing to tremulous silence.
“What is that, a Mexican hairless?” said Milo.
“Like you give a shit. Peruvian Inca Orchid.” Her voice slurred, and her breath was sharp with alcohol. A blue bruise smeared the left side of her neck.
Milo pointed to the mark. “Someone get rough with you?”
“Nah,” she said. “Just playing around. I’m tired, man—go hassle someone else. Every time you guys got free time, it’s always here.”
“Police harassment, huh.”
“Nazi tactics.”
“How foolish to waste time here,” said Milo. “Place like this, a veritable church.”
Michelle rubbed her single arm against the front of her robe. “Just leave me alone.”
“Ramparts guys visit a lot, huh?”
“Like you don’t know.”
“I don’t. I’m West L.A.”
“Then you got lost.”
“This isn’t about you, Michelle. It’s about Lauren Teapie.”
Two rapid blinks. “What?”
“West L.A. Homicide.” He showed her his card. “Lauren Teague got killed.” Yet another recitation of the details. I hadn’t gotten used to it, and my gut clenched.
Michelle began to shake. “Oh, God, oh, Jesus—you’re not lying?”
“Wish I was, Michelle. Can we come in?”
“It’s a shitpile—”