Free Chasing the Dime by Michael Connelly

was a line between them. But he wasn’t sure where it was.

8
    There was something wrong about the address, something that didn’t fit. But Pierce couldn’t place it. He worried over it as he drove into Venice but it didn’t open up to him. It was like something hidden behind a shower curtain. It was blurred but it was there.
    The address Lilly Quinlan had given as a contact address to All American Mail was a bungalow on Altair Place, a block off the stretch of stylish antiques stores and restaurants on Abbot Kinney Boulevard. It was a small white house with gray trim that somehow made Pierce think of a seagull. There was a fat royal palm squatting in the front yard. Pierce parked across the street and for several minutes sat in his car, studying the house for signs of recent life.
    The yard and ornamentation were neatly trimmed. But if it was a rental, that could have been taken care of by a landlord. There was no car in the driveway or in the open garage in back and no newspapers piling up near the curb. Nothing seemed outwardly amiss.
    Pierce finally decided on the direct approach. He got out of the BMW, crossed the street and followed the walkway to the front door. There was a button for a doorbell. He pushed it and heard an innocuous chime sound from somewhere inside. He waited.
    Nothing.
    He pushed the bell again, then knocked on the door.
    He waited.
    And nothing.
    He looked around. The Venetian blinds behind the front windows were closed. He turned and nonchalantly surveyed the homes across the street while he reached a hand behind his back and tried the doorknob. It was locked.
    Not wanting the day’s journey to end without his getting some piece of new information or revelation, he stepped away from the door and walked over to the driveway, which went down the left side of the house to a single stand-alone garage in the rear yard. A huge Monterey pine that dwarfed the house was buckling the driveway with its roots. They were headed for the house and Pierce guessed that in another five years there would be structural damage and the question would be whether to save the tree or the house.
    The garage door was open. It was made of wood that had been bowed by time and its own weight. It looked like it was permanently fixed in the open position. The garage was empty except for a collection of paint cans lined against the rear wall.
    To the right of the garage was a postage-stamp-sized yard that offered privacy because of a tall hedge that ran along the borders. Two lounge chairs sat in the grass. There was a birdbath with no water in it. Pierce looked at the lounge chairs and thought about the tan lines he had seen on Lilly’s body in the web page photo.
    After hesitating for a moment in the yard, Pierce went to the rear door and knocked again. The door had a window cut into its upper half. Without waiting to see if someone answered, he cupped his hands against the glass and looked in. It was the kitchen. It appeared neat and clean. There was nothing on the small table pushed against the wall to the left. A newspaper was neatly folded on one of the two chairs.
    On the counter next to the toaster was a large bowl filled with dark shapes that Pierce realized were rotten pieces of fruit.
    Now he had something. Something that didn’t fit, something that showed something wasn’t right. He knocked sharply on the door’s window, even though he knew no one was inside who could answer. He turned and looked around the yard for something to maybe break the window with. He instinctively grabbed the knob and turned it while he was pivoting.
    The door was unlocked.
    Pierce wheeled back around. The knob still in his hand, he pushed and the door opened six inches. He waited for an alarm to sound but his intrusion was greeted with only silence. And almost immediately he could smell the sickly sweet stench of the rotten fruit. Or maybe, he thought, it was something else. He took his hand off the knob and