Dating Is Murder

“What’s that got to do with-” I said, but he cut me off, sitting forward.

“What do you think happens when these sheltered young things get turned loose in L.A.?”

“I imagine that depends on the sheltered young thing in question.”

“Right. Type One gets homesick, fat, runs up the phone bill. Type Two? She gets drunk, she gets a tattoo, she gets knocked up. That’s the type to take off and leave us holding the bag, finding a replacement for the host family.”

“And what if A

“I don’t have to.” He patted a stack of documents. “We’ve had complaints. Discrepancies on her application, for starters. Go to the police? Police aren’t going to care about some German girl skipping out on her job a month early.”

I had an urge to reach out and grab the papers off his desk. “Can I see the application?”

“Our files are confidential.”

“Isn’t that handy?” Joey said. She’d been leaning so far back in her folding chair, I worried she’d tip over. Now she straightened up, the front of her chair hitting the floor sharply. She smiled. “Smart guy, Marty. Why search for a girl who could turn up dead, which would be bad for business, when with no effort she can stay missing and no one will care?”

Marty walked to the door and held it open. “Excuse me, ladies. I have work to do.”

“Nice business license.” I went to inspect the document on the wall behind his desk. “Cheap frame. Is this something you’re fond of? Because I wouldn’t take it for granted.”

Marty left his post at the doorway to join me behind the desk, perhaps feeling he’d made a tactical error in leaving it. He was shorter than me, and there was a subtle smell emanating from his shirt, the kind that comes from ironing clothes that aren’t quite clean, trying to get another day’s wear out of them.

“Get out of here,” he said. “This is private property and you’re trespassing.”

“Okay,” I said. “Call 911.”

Joey strolled to Marty’s other side, so that he was now pi

“You media people are sick,” he said. “What do you want from me?”

“What’s the discrepancy on her application you referred to?” I said.

“This isn’t for publication. I’m not giving you permission to print this.”

“I guarantee it won’t make it into print.”

“There was an incident with the police back in Germany that she didn’t tell us about.”

“What kind of incident?”

“All I know is, she lied about it. You want specifics, ask the German police.”

“Marty,” Joey said. “We came to San Pedro. That’s our limit. Why not just tell us?”

“I’m telling you. There’s a police report on her. Unspecified.”

“How’d you find out about it?” I asked.

“I got a phone call, I don’t know who from. They said, Take a closer look at her application. I put in a call overseas, and sure enough, they got something on her.”

“But it could be something minor?” I said. “Unpaid parking tickets?”

“Doesn’t matter. Any run-in with the law is a no-no. She lied about it, that’s fraud, that gets her deported.”

“So you were getting ready to deport her?” I asked.

I saw his mind working, trying to figure out which answer would sound best. “We were considering our options.”

“Let me get this straight,” I said. “A

A mulish look came over his face. “We had the matter under investigation. Things of this nature take time.”

“Yes, we can certainly see how swamped you are,” Joey said.

“Go to hell.”

We’d pushed him into a corner. I took a conciliatory tone. “What else? You said there were complaints, plural.”

“I don’t have another word to say to any goddamn reporters,” he said. “And I’m calling the Times.”

I smiled. “Oh, did you think we work for the L.A. Times? I’m sorry, you misunderstood. We read the L.A. Times. Joey even subscribes. Me too, but only on Sundays.”

“Sometimes we write letters to the editor,” Joey added.

Marty turned red, then pushed past me with some force and marched over to the receptionist’s station. “Get out.”

“Gladly,” I said, moving to the door. “By the way, A

“Bye, Marty,” Joey said. “Enjoy the job while you have it.” She joined me out in the sunshine and aimed her keys at the BMW, which beeped in response. “Just when you think a used car salesman is as bad as it’s going to get,” she said, “you meet Marty. Where to now?”

“Where nobody else wants to go,” I said. “To the cops.”

6

The West Valley Community Police Station was on Vanowen Street just west of Wilbur, in a neighborhood that hadn’t changed its socks since the 1950s. Cramped bungalows occupied tiny lots, tract houses in need of paint jobs, the kind I might one day afford. Yards were area rugs of patchy grass, a far cry from the lawns of the Qui

If I hadn’t been obsessed heading to San Pedro, I was edging toward it now. The encounter with Marty Otis had intrigued Joey, but it disturbed me; I hoped that laying it out for the police would quiet my anxiety.

The cops were housed in a series of trailers behind a green public library. Next to the library was the future police station, surrounded by a construction fence, a municipal project that might or might not reach completion during anyone’s lifetime. Joey and I circled the block twice before we found the interim parking lot, on a side street called Vanalden.

The main trailer was packed, which was to say there were six other citizens in there. At the head of the line, a woman wept as an officer across the counter took notes. Across the room another officer struggled to find English simple enough to be understood by the carjack victim she was interviewing. Near some vending machines a third officer advised a middle-aged couple in matching leather jackets about their elderly parent who liked to help herself to periodicals at a newsstand. A fourth officer canvassed the line, directing people the way they do at LAX, expediting things on a busy day.

“We’re here to file a missing person’s report,” I said when he reached us.

“For a child?” he asked.

“No, she’s nineteen. No one’s seen her for several days.”

The officer looked up at me. “Mentally ill?”

“No.”

“Any indication she was the victim of a crime?”

Thoughts of blackmail crossed my mind, anonymous calls to her au pair agency, threats of deportation. “Not yet,” I said. “But she wouldn’t just walk away from her job and her friends.” And her computer.

“Not much we can do. People do wander off. With nothing to go on… got a photo?”

“We can get one,” I said.

“Well, bring it in,” the officer said, “but it may not help much.”

“Can we file a report?” Joey asked.

“Yes, you could do that.” His tone indicated that this would be a waste of everyone’s time, but he pointed us to the officer across the room.

This woman was crisp but friendly, probably happy to be hearing her native tongue. She asked questions and wrote down answers on the requisite form, a single sheet of white paper. It depressed me, the things we didn’t know about A