The can was filled with towels, bedding, old clothes, and plastic grocery bags bulging with discarded food and kitchen supplies. Gladstone had tossed things that would spoil-apples and oranges, a cantaloupe, hamburger patties and chicken, and all the usual things that accumulate in a refrigerator. I was probably the fifth or sixth person to go through these things, so I didn’t expect to find anything useful.

I squeezed past the garbage can, climbed to the door, let myself in, and walked through the house. Not much was left.

A few small pieces of furniture remained in the living room, but the couch, the television, and the suicide chair were missing. The bathroom was even worse. Nothing remained on or around the vanity, in the medicine cabinet, on in the cabinet under the sink. So much for checking prescriptions. The bedroom and bedroom closet had been emptied. The bed, Byrd’s clothes, and everything else was gone. All that remained was a single cardboard box filled with shoes, belts, and personal possessions like old cigarette lighters, pens, and a broken watch. I went through it, but found nothing. A note would have been nice: For free home delivery, call Friendly Neighborhood Dope Dealer.

I walked through the house again, searching for a telephone. I found three phone jacks, but the phones were gone. The police would have taken them to check their memory chips.

I ended up back in the kitchen, finding a jack above the counter beside a small corkboard. Business cards and take-out menus were pinned to the board. Alan Levy’s card was pinned at the top for easy reference. It looked greasy and dark, as if it had been there a while. The rest of the board was cluttered with discount coupons and flyers.

Even with everything Gladstone had discarded, the kitchen counters were crowded with cartons and cans and other food waiting to be tossed. It was a lot of food for someone who hadn’t been able to leave his house, and much of it looked pretty fresh.

I went back downstairs to the garbage, and dumped the fruit and other things out of the grocery bags. They were the thin plastic bags that people keep to line their wastebaskets. Most people get home from the market, they take out their groceries but leave the receipt in the bag.

Byrd had kept plenty of the bags, and Gladstone had used them when he cleaned out the house. I dumped fourteen bags and found five receipts. The receipts were all from the Laurel Market at the bottom of the canyon, and all showed the date of purchase. Lionel Byrd’s body was discovered eight days ago, and the M.E. determined his death had occurred five days earlier. I did the math. The date of the most recent receipt was two days before Lionel Byrd died. If he was in too much pain to drive, I wondered how he had gone shopping.

I put the bags and the trash back into the can, then headed down to find out. Tina Isbecki watched me go. I waved. She waved back. We were getting to be friends.

13

THE RURAL vibe of Laurel Canyon set the sixties stage for crossover folk-rockers like David Crosby, Graham Nash, and Joni Mitchell to write about peaceful easy feelings, cocaine cowboys, and very nice houses with two cats in the yard. The high, tight trails wrapped through the ridges were only a few blocks from Sunset Boulevard, but, separated from the city by steep canyon walls, felt as if they were miles in the country. That rural sensibility was preserved and sustained by a small encampment of shops, markets, and restaurants at the base of the canyon.

I pulled into the tiny parking lot, then ambled into the market. You get a peaceful easy feeling, amblin’ is how you walk.

The market was larger than it looked from the outside, with a high ceiling and narrow aisles jammed with goods, supplies, and candy. A pretty young woman was seated behind the register. An older man wearing a Lakers cap was behind a nearby deli counter, mixing a large bowl of tuna salad.

I took out a picture of Lionel Byrd I had clipped from the paper and showed it to the woman.

“Could you tell me if you recognize this man? His name was Lionel Byrd. He was a regular customer here.”

She blinked at the picture with wide, curious eyes.

“Are you a policeman?”

“Nope. Elvis Cole. I’m a private investigator.”

She smiled, the smile making her even prettier.

“Is that really your name?”

“What, Cole?”

“No, silly, Elvis. I’m Cass, like Mama Cass Elliot. She used to live right up the hill. A dude comes here, his name is Jagger, and a dude named Morris who says he was named after Jim Morrison, but that’s kinda sketchy.”

The sixties live.

Cass called over her shoulder.

“Phil, can you come see this, please?”

Phil put down the bowl of tuna and came up behind her, wiping his hands on a towel. Cass showed him the picture.

“Was this guy a customer?”

Phil considered the image.

“He’s the one they found in the fire. You didn’t see the news?”

Cass didn’t know what we were talking about.

Phil said, “Yeah, he used to get the curry chicken. It was always the same. The curry chicken on a sesame roll. He had a bad foot.”

Phil was a score. They might have shot the bull while Phil made Byrd’s sandwich, and Phil might remember something useful.

“That’s right. He was here about two weeks ago, just before he died. Do you remember what you talked about?”

Phil handed back the picture, shaking his head.

“Sorry, bro. He hasn’t been in for a couple of months, something like that. It’s been a while.”

“He was here exactly fifteen days ago, and two days before that. I found these at his house.”

I showed him the two most recent receipts. Phil squinted at them as if they were an incomprehensible mystery, then shook his head.

“I don’t know what to tell you. We get busy, I wouldn’t have seen him if he didn’t buy a sandwich.”

The tingle faded, but Cass brightened and spoke up.

“We might have delivered. Let’s see if Charles remembers.”

Phil was still squinting at the receipts.

“There’s no delivery charge, see? We didn’t deliver. There would be a charge if we delivered.”

Cass said, “Oh, don’t be a gob.”

She went to the end of the counter and shouted for someone named Charles. A stock clerk in a green apron ambled out from between the aisles. It wasn’t just me.

Phil took the picture, and showed him.

“You deliver for this guy? The name was Byrd.”

Phil glanced at me again.

“Where’d he live?”

“ Anson Lane. Off Lookout, up past the school.”

Charles took his turn with the picture, then shook his finger as if the finger was helping him fish up the thought.

“The dude with the foot.”

“That’s the one.”

“Yeah, man, I saw it in the paper. That stuff was crazy.”

“You delivered groceries to him two weeks ago?”

“Nope, I never delivered to him. I know him from the register, but he hasn’t been down in a while. Ivy came for his things.”

Cass laughed.

“Oh, that chick!”

I said, “A girl named Ivy picked up his groceries?”

“He’d phone the order, and she’d pick it up. He had to stop driving.”

Cass was making a big loopy grin.

“Charles was so totally into that chick.”

Charles flushed.

“Stop it, dude. Discretion.”

“Who’s Ivy?”

Cass touched the midpoint of her left forearm.

“She had a broken heart here on her arm. The wreckage of Charles’s love.”

“Dude!”

Cass was pleased with Charles’s mortification and crossed her arms smugly.

“She lived up there in the big redwood house. A total hippie throwback to the commune age.”

Charles shot a sulky glance at Cass.

“It’s not a commune. Dude rents out his rooms, is all. Ivy crashed there for a few weeks.”

Cass mouthed her words with exaggerated volume.