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Appendix III. THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

 
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Joined: 13 Sep 2002
Posts: 9273
Location: Jacksonville, FL

PostPosted: Mon Apr 18, 2005 6:22 am    Post subject: Appendix III. THE GIRL NEXT DOOR Reply with quote

Washington City Paper
COVER STORY
By Laura Lang
July 20-26, 2001


THE GIRL NEXT DOOR

Chandra Levy was my neighbor. Then John Walsh moved in.


I never knew Chandra Levy. I can't say for sure that I ever saw her face-before, of course, it was plastered on fliers in businesses and apartment buildings all over the city, including mine.

My building, as it happens, is the Newport, where Levy most recently lived-and where I still do. Since early May, when Levy's parents first notified D.C. police that their daughter was missing, the building's façade has become backdrop to countless newscasts, and this stretch of 21st Street NW is now a parking lot for every media organization from here to Asia.

Take one recent Thursday morning, for instance. Still bleary-eyed from sleep after a late night of work, I head out of my place a little after 9 a.m. to move my car before the street cleaners come.

I've been gone no more than 45 minutes, but by the time I return to my building, I can hardly recognize it. Two Winnebagos and a couple of smaller trucks occupy most of the street space. Beefy guys in shorts string cords and cables across the road to a generator parked on the other side. A woman wearing a cute knee-length dress and holding a clipboard leads a gaggle of interns up and down the street, past a truck dedicated to doling out snacks, such as fruit cups and Dunkin' Munchkins. I've seen plenty of media feeding frenzies, but this is truly remarkable.

"I thought maybe it was a movie crew and they just happened to pick this building," agrees Mike Lague, a 31-year-old postdoctoral researcher at George Washington University, who also lives in the Newport. We stand on the driveway to watch the spectacle.

It's not a movie crew, as it turns out, but something close: a shoot for America's Most Wanted, which will air a segment on Levy's disappearance in its next broadcast. I find this out when I ask one of the beefiest guys. I think he assumes I'm some sort of TV-crew groupie, and he tries to impress me, explaining that John Walsh will be on the "set" soon.

He's referring to the sidewalk, and it does look transformed. Cameras stand next to folding directors' chairs; crew members whiz around readying the spot. They act as if they owned the place, and they nearly have passers-by persuaded they do, having successfully gotten them to to walk on the other sidewalk.

Preparations are interrupted briefly when a caravan of cars drives by: a couple of black Suburbans flanking a sleek black sedan. Some of the crew members look up excitedly, weighing whether they should get some footage of the approaching vehicles.

"Oh, it's just a guy in a turban," someone finally says, disappointed.

A little after 11 a.m., Walsh arrives, wearing a gray suit that matches his silver hair. Pancake makeup covers his face-so much of it that I wonder how it's not visible on TV. Crew members gather around. A camera crew from Entertainment Tonight and another from somewhere in Japan circle Walsh, getting interviews and pictures.

I finally grow bored 30 minutes later, after several takes of Walsh's theorizing about a serial killer in the area and his brief interview with police spokesperson Sgt. Joe Gentile. The filming apparently goes on for hours. Not that it surprises many in the building.

"I knew there was going to be trouble when I saw the snack truck," says one Newport employee.

Had Levy's parents not notified authorities of Chandra's disappearance, few in the Newport might have realized she was missing.

Residents and building employees say they didn't see her around much anyway. The Newport-like many large buildings in D.C.-is a place where it's easy to keep to yourself. Made up of 156 condos, the 10-floor building is home to about 200 people, more than half of whom rent their apartments. Age and ethnicity vary, but to judge from my own morning and evening trips in and out of the building, there's a heavy proportion of young, working singles-men and women in their 20s and 30s who work or go to school and have busy lives.

A condo association meets regularly in the office of the building manager, located on the top floor. There are few other communal activities, even fewer rooms in which to hold them. A pool sits on the roof of the building, where some take quick dips after work or lounge on the weekend. And there's a lobby on the main floor, right next to a check-in desk staffed 24 hours a day, but most people just pass through.

Not even laundry is the social activity that it is in many buildings. The Newport has small laundry rooms located on each floor, rather than one big one-which limits interaction significantly. The building is staffed by friendly, efficient people who often strike up conversations with residents, but it's the sort of place where you could disappear if you wanted to-and maybe even if you didn't want to-and escape notice.

The neighborhood isn't much different. Located adjacent to Dupont Circle and only blocks away from the office buildings of Farragut North, the building stands in a sort of netherworld that's not quite downtown but not really residential, either. During the day, people swarm the area on their way to and from work. On weekend nights, groups of young people bounce through as they head to Lulu's or Soho Tea & Coffee. Things quiet down considerably on weekday evenings, once most people have made it to their homes.

"Me and my friends call this the Bermuda Triangle," says one resident.

I live on the eighth floor of the Newport, five floors above Levy's place. On a weekday evening, I decide to take a trip downstairs, just to check out the door to Levy's infamous apartment. I've been told it's covered with police tape and the leftover traces of fingerprinting dust.

When I step off the elevator, I see the door right away, but it's covered with nothing and shows no evidence of barred entry. In fact, the door stands unlatched and slightly ajar. I can hear music and voices coming from inside.

I stand motionless for a few seconds, not quite sure what to do. As far as I know, Levy's apartment is still vacant, its only visitors the landlord and returning police. But clearly, there are people inside, and from the sound of it, they aren't there to investigate a missing-person case.

I finally knock, and I half-expect Levy to come to the door and have some perfectly reasonable explanation as to why she's been gone for weeks. Perhaps she'll giggle and pass off the media frenzy as a product of her worrisome parents.

Instead, a tall, thin guy in his 20s opens the door. I explain who I am and what I'm doing, but he's distracted by a female voice that calls from inside. "Now is a really bad time," he says, shrugging sheepishly and suggesting I come back later.

The next night, I return. He seems less than excited to see me, but he invites me inside for a beer. He's a newcomer to the area, so his eagerness to meet people momentarily outweighs his resistance to talk about the apartment. He does not want me to use his name, but he offers a few comments about his situation.

In town for a summer job, he says he rented the apartment at the last minute. He didn't know it was Levy's former place until he showed up to move in.

"[My landlords] said, 'We have something to tell you,'" he recalls. "'The air conditioner's not working.' I said, 'Whatever.' And then they said, 'Oh yeah, that's Chandra Levy's apartment.'"

He shakes his head as he says this. We're seated at the breakfast bar in his studio apartment. It's a bright unit with cream-colored carpet and newish gray kitchen cabinets. The place is nicely decorated-albeit a bit feminine-with a matching cream-colored futon, a white stereo cabinet, and a glass-topped coffee table. A mattress is nestled in an alcove on the back wall of the apartment. It's the same stuff that was there when he moved in, presumably the same furniture and dishes and bed used by Levy-which disturbs the new tenant.

"Like, it's kinda creepy to open the cabinet and see this," he says, pulling out a mug and setting it in front of me. "Know Your Odds Chart," it reads on one side. Below that, it says:


Odds of meeting a single man
1 in 23
Odds of meeting a cute, single man
1 in 529
Odds of meeting a cute, single, smart man
1 in 3,245,873
Odds of meeting the above when you look your best
1 in 9,729,528
It's the sort of mug a young, single woman-like Levy-might find amusing. It's also the sort of thing one female friend might give to another, as some sort of cheesy joke. It's just a mug, but as it sits there in the middle of the breakfast bar, it seems such a sad sign of a lonely young woman's yearning.

Although, given the revelations about Levy's relationship with Rep. Gary Condit, she might not have been so concerned about hunting out eligible bachelors. "Yeah, that's ironic," says the apartment's new tenant.

He can't shed much more light on Levy's life. He would just like to get on with his own. He figures he'll stay at the Newport, at least through the summer.

"Aside from sleepless nights, it's a nice apartment," he shrugs.
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