My Dark Places

21

Ward Hallinen was 83. I saw him and remembered him immediately.

He gave me a candy bar at the El Monte Station. He always sat to the left of his partner. My father admired his suits.

His blue eyes took me back. I remembered his eyes and nothing else about him. He was frail now. His skin was covered with red-and-pink lesions. He was 46 or 47 in 1958.

He met us outside his house. It was a faux-ranch job enclosed by shade trees. A nice stretch of land adjoined it. I saw a barn and two horses grazing.

Stoner introduced me. We shook hands. I said something like, “How are you, Mr. Hallinen?” My memory was running at warp speed. I wanted to ignite his memory. Stoner said he might be senile. He might not remember the Jean Ellroy case.

We walked inside and sat down in the kitchen. Stoner placed our file on a free chair. I looked at Hallinen. He looked at me. I mentioned the candy bar moment. He said he didn’t recall it.

He apologized for his bad memory. Stoner made a crack about his own advanced age and failing faculties. Hallinen asked him how old he was. Bill said, “Fifty-four.” Hallinen laughed and slapped his knees.

Stoner mentioned some old Sheriff’s Homicide men. Hallinen said Jack Lawton, Harry Andre and Claude Everley were dead. Blackie McGowan was dead. Captain Etzel and Ray Hopkinson were dead. Ned Lovretovich was still up and about. He retired a long time ago himself. He wasn’t sure of the date. He did some private security work and started breeding race horses. He’d notched a lot of pension time. He’d milked LA. County for a nice piece of change.

Stoner laughed. I laughed. Hallinen’s wife walked in. Stoner and I stood up. Frances Traeger Hallinen told us to sit down.

She looked fit and alert. She was old Sheriff Traeger’s daughter. She sat down and tossed out some names.

Stoner tossed out some names. Hallinen tossed out a few. The names sparked little stories. I took a little cop nostalgia tour.

I recognized a few names. A hundred deputies dropped notes in the Ellroy and Long files. I tried to picture Jim Wahlke and Blackie McGowan.

Frances Hallinen brought up the Finch-Tregoff case. I said I followed it as a youngster. Ward Hallinen said it was his biggest case ever. I mentioned a few details. He didn’t recall them.

Frances Hallinen excused herself and walked outside. Bill opened up the file. I pointed to the horses outside and segued to the Bobbie Long case and Santa Anita. Hallinen shut his eyes. I saw him fighting to bring it all back. He said he remembered going out to the track. He couldn’t dredge up anything more specific.

Bill showed him the Arroyo High photos. I ran a concurrent crime scene narration. Hallinen stared at the pictures. He screwed up his face and fought. He said he thought he remembered the case. He said he thought he had a very good suspect.

I mentioned Jim Boss Bennett and the ’62 lineup. Bill got out a stack of Jim Boss Bennett mug shots. Hallinen said he didn’t recall the lineup. He stared at the mug shots for a good three minutes.

His face contorted. He held the pictures and clamped one hand down on the kitchen table. He dug his feet into the floor. He was fighting his incapacity full-bore.

He smiled and said he couldn’t place the man. Bill handed him the Ellroy Blue Book and asked him to flip through the reports.

Hallinen read the dead body report and the autopsy report. He read the transcribed witness statements. He read slowly. He said he remembered a few other cases he worked with Jack Lawton. He said the stenographer’s name was familiar. He said he remembered the old El Monte police chief.

He stared at the crime scene photos. He said he knew he was there. He gave me a look that said, That’s your mother—how can you look at these pictures?

Bill asked him if he kept his old case notebooks. Hallinen said he tossed them out a few years ago. He said he was sorry. He wanted to help. His mind wouldn’t let him.

I gave Bill the cutoff sign. We packed up the file and said our goodbyes. Hallinen apologized again. I laid out a time-gets-us-all rap. It sounded patronizing.

Hallinen said he was sorry he didn’t nail the bastard. I said he was up against a very cunning victim. I thanked him for his hard work and kindness.

Bill and I drove back to Orange County. We discussed our future plans all the way. Bill said we’d be fighting a failed-memory onslaught. We’d be talking to people who were middle-aged in 1958. We’d be sifting through memory gaps and chronologically skewed recollections. Old people concocted things unconsciously. They wanted to please and impress. They wanted to prove their mental solvency.

I mentioned Hallinen’s notebooks. Bill said our file was short on supplemental reports. Hallinen and Lawton worked the case all summer. They probably filled up six notebooks. We had to reconstruct their initial investigation. They could have interviewed the Swarthy Man and never snapped to him as a suspect. I asked Bill if Jack Lawton was married. Bill said he was. Two of his sons worked as deputies for a while. Jack used to work with his old partner Billy Farrington. Billy would know if Jack’s wife was still alive. He could contact her and see if she kept Jack’s notebooks.

I called the notebooks a long shot. Bill agreed. I said it all came back to the Blonde. She knew the Swarthy Man. She knew he killed Jean Ellroy. She never came forward. She was afraid of reprisals or she had something to hide. I said she probably shot her mouth off anyway. She told people what happened. She bragged about her closeness to murder or phrased the story as a cautionary lesson. Time passed. Her fear abated. She told people. Two people or six people or a dozen people knew the story or elements of the story.

Bill said we had to take our case public. I said the Blonde told people who told people who told people. Bill said I was the fucking publicity scrounger supreme. I said we should install a toll-free tip line at my pad. Bill said he’d call the phone company and set it up.

We discussed the Long case. Bill said we had to call the Coroner’s Office and see if they kept the semen samples they took from Bobbie Long and my mother. He knew a lab that ran DNA tests for $2,000. They could conclusively determine if Bobbie Long and my mother had sex with the same man.

I asked Bill to prioritize the Long case. He said it rated low. A random pickup killed Bobbie Long. My mother probably knew the Blonde and the Swarthy Man. She probably knew at least one of them before that night.

I mentioned the Swarthy Man’s car and the IBM punch cards in the file. It looked like the cops only checked car registrations for the San Gabriel Valley. Lavonne Chambers pinpointed a ’55 or ’56 Olds. I figured the cops would check registrations for the whole fucking state. Bill said the punch-card run was confusing. Homicide jobs were full of weird inconsistencies.

I said it all came back to the Blonde. Bill said, “Cherchez la femme.” We flew up to Sacramento the next morning. We flew up behind some bad news.

Bill called the Coroner’s Office. They said they tossed our semen slides. They tossed out old evidence routinely. They needed space to store new evidence.

We rented a car and drove to Charlie Guenther’s house. Bill called Guenther last night and told him we were coming. He asked him some preliminary questions. Guenther said the case was vaguely familiar. He said the file might revive his memory.

We brought the file. I brought 50 potential questions.

Guenther was friendly. He came across 65 going on 40. He looked good. He had gray-white hair and blue eyes like Ward Hallinen. He ran an O. J. Simpson hate riff in place of standard hellos. He jumped to our case fast.

Bill ran the key points by him. Guenther said he remembered it now. He got called in with his partner Duane Rasure. Some woman snitched off her ex-husband. They checked the guy out. They didn’t confirm or refute his guilt.

We sat down at a coffee table. I emptied the Will Lenard Miller envelope. It contained three photographs of Will Lenard Miller; reports from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department; copies of Will Lenard Miller’s 1957, 1958 and 1959 income tax returns; income tax withholding statements from 1957, 1958 and 1959; a finance company bill dated 5/17/65; an Orange County Sheriff’s Department to El Monte PD teletype dated 9/4/70; a house escrow agreement signed by Will and Shirley Miller— dated 1/9/57; an investigatory checklist in Charlie Guenther’s handwriting; a note sheet detailing Will Lenard Miller’s criminal record—with two bad check charges in ’67 and ’69 and a credit card forgery in ’70; a lawyer’s letter dated 11/3/64—detailing alleged injuries that Will Lenard Miller suffered while working at the C. K. Adams Machine Shop on 3/26/62; an Orange County Municipal Court Probation Order dated 11/22/67; and polygraph report on Will Lenard Miller—dated 9/15/70.

We looked at the paperwork. We put the income tax forms aside. We looked at the pictures of Will Lenard Miller.

He was dark-haired and heavyset. He had blunt facial characteristics. He did not look like the Swarthy Man.

Guenther examined his checklist. He said the notations pertained to standard procedure. He always did the same thing when he picked up old cases. Nothing juked his memory. The list was just a personal reminder.

We read the lawyer’s letter. It itemized Will Lenard Miller’s workplace grievances.

Miller took a spill and fucked up his left knee. He started having dizzy spells and blackouts. He fell down and fucked up his head. His physical injuries fucked up his psychological balance.

I mentioned a Blue Book report. Shirley Miller said my mother refused to process an injury claim her husband submitted. She said it sent him “off the deep end.”

Guenther said Miller was a goddamn crybaby. Bill said he sure didn’t look Latin.

We checked out the probation order. Will Lenard Miller bounced a few checks. He got a $25 fine and two years probation. He had to make restitution. He had to see a financial counselor. He had to get permission to make purchases above $50.

We all agreed.

Will Lenard Miller was one sorry sack of shit.

We checked his tax statements. They confirmed our appraisal.

Will Lenard Miller went through jobs quick. He worked at nine different machine shops in three calendar years.

We read the Orange County Sheriff’s reports. We put the basic story in perspective.

It was late August ’70. The Orange County cops went looking for Will Lenard Miller. They wanted to pop him on a probation warrant. Deputy J. A. Sidebotham talked to Shirley Ann Miller. She said she broke up with Will Lenard Miller one year ago. She said he burned down a furniture warehouse in 1968. She said he murdered a nurse named Jean Hilliker in 1958.

Jean worked at Airtek Dynamics. She used to date Will Lenard Miller. She rejected a medical claim that Will Lenard Miller submitted. This enraged Will Lenard Miller. Jean Hilliker was murdered two weeks later. Shirley Miller read about it. Will Lenard Miller looked like a picture of the suspect. The papers said the suspect drove a Buick. Will Lenard Miller drove a ’52 or ’53 Buick. He painted it a few days after the murder. The McMahon Furniture Company repossessed some furniture that Will Lenard Miller bought. Somebody torched their warehouse a few weeks later. Shirley Miller read about it. She showed the article to Will Lenard Miller. Will Lenard Miller said, “I did it.” Will Lenard Miller was mentally ill and a “psycho.”

Sidebotham called the El Monte PD. They told him Jean Hilliker was Jean Hilliker Ellroy. The L.A. Sheriff’s handled the case. The El Monte PD assisted.

Sidebotham arrested Will Lenard Miller. He booked him on the probation warrant and locked him down in the Orange County Jail. The El Monte PD contacted Sheriffs Homicide. Deputy Charlie Guenther and Sergeant Duane Rasure were told to reopen the Jean Ellroy case.

Guenther and Rasure interviewed Shirley Ann Miller. She told them the same story she told Deputy Sidebotham. Guenther and Rasure interviewed several Airtek people. The El Monte PD assigned two cops to assist them. Sergeant Marv Martin and Detective D. A. Ness interviewed more Airtek people. Guenther and Rasure and Martin and Ness interviewed Will Lenard Miller. Will Lenard Miller said he did not kill Jean Hilliker. Will Lenard Miller took a polygraph test and passed it.

Guenther said it was all coming back. He remembered Will Lenard Miller. They grilled him at the Orange County Jail. He was popping pills for some kind of heart condition. He looked like shit. They wanted to take him up to L.A. for his polygraph test. The DA refused to release him. Guenther said he didn’t trust the Orange County polygrapher. He said he thought the test came back inconclusive.

We checked the polygraph transcript.

RE: WILL LENARD MILLER

Allegation: Involvement In Death of JEAN ELLROY During

June, 1958, El Monte.

Subject: Polygraph Examination of WILL LENARD MILLER

By: FREDERICK C. MARTIN, Polygraph Examiner

District Attorney’s Office

September 15, 1970

During pre-test interview after discussing with MILLER the circumstances surrounding the demise of JEAN ELLROY, and after showing him a picture consisting of four males and four females grouped around a table, he stated he did not recognize any of the persons in the picture—especially that of ELLROY. In addition he stated he had never personally met or seen her in his life. He stated he was familiar with her only because his wife worked at the plant where ELLROY was a nurse, and that ELLROY would dispense medication to his wife. He stated in conversations between him and his wife he became aware of this, as well as observing her name on the medication bottle.

A series of physical and psychological test patterns was conducted on MILLER, and it was determined from these tests that MILLER was a capable subject for examination.

The following relevant questions, and verbal answers thereto, were utilized during the examination:

1. Did you ever meet in person any of the females in the picture I have shown you? ANSWER: No.

2. Did you kill JEAN ELLROY during June, 1958? ANSWER: No.

3. Did you dispose of JEAN ELLROY’s body in a field in El Monte during June, 1958? ANSWER: No.

4. Did you shoot JEAN ELLROY to death? ANSWER: No.

There were no reactions indicative of deception shown to any of the above relevant questions. Question No. 4 is a control question—no such act occurring or alleged.

FREDERICK C. MARTIN, Polygraph Examiner

District Attorney’s Office

pc

Dictated 9-16-70

Bill said it looked like an incomplete test. Guenther said Miller was never a hard suspect. I said Shirley Miller got her facts wrong.

She worked at Airtek. Will Lenard didn’t. There were no tax statements from Airtek. My mother drove a Buick. The Swarthy Man didn’t. Miller’s paint job meant nothing.

Bill said he’d call Duane Rasure and the two El Monte cops. They might have more information. Guenther said we had to find the Blonde. We were stone fucked without her.

We flew back to Orange County. Bill called me the next morning.

He said he’d talked to Rasure and the El Monte cops. Rasure remembered the case. He said he talked to four or five Airtek employees. The people said Will Lenard Miller worked at Airtek for real. They couldn’t connect him to Jean Ellroy in any context. Rasure called the Miller deal a washout.

Marv Martin remembered the case. He said he discussed it with Ward Hallinen—back in that ’70 time frame. Ward came out to the El Monte Station. They talked about Will Lenard Miller. Hallinen did not know that Miller existed. Martin threw out one bomb. He said he thought Will Lenard Miller hung himself in his cell right after they questioned him. D. A. Ness said Marv had it all wrong. He said Miller had a heart attack and died in his cell.

The suicide rumor shocked me. Bill said he didn’t believe it. Somebody would have dropped a note in my mother’s file. He said he just called Louie Danoff at the Bureau. Louie said he’d call the Orange County Sheriff’s. Police agencies kept files on their in-custody deaths.

I called Will Lenard Miller an intergalactic long shot. Bill said I was being optimistic. He said we should go to the Bureau and run some witnesses.

I brought a list. Bill showed me three computer terminals.

One fed into the California State Department of Justice. It supplied personal statistics, aliases and CII numbers indicating criminal records. One fed into the California State DMV It supplied driving records, personal statistics, previous addresses and your subject’s current address. The “reverse book” computer stored statistics from eight western states. You fed in your subject’s name. You got an address and phone number back.

I met Louie Danoff and John Yarbrough. They were working the Unsolved Unit. Danoff said Will Lenard Miller did not kill himself in the Orange County Jail. He just talked to his Orange County contact. The man checked around and said no go. Bill asked Yarbrough to trace Lavonne Chambers. She was 29 in 1958. She was employed by a Nevada casino in 1962.

I checked my witness list.

Mr. and Mrs. George Krycki, Margie Trawick, Jim Boss Bennett, Michael Whittaker, Shirley Miller, Will Lenard Miller, Peter Tubiolo. Margie Trawick’s DOB was 6/14/22. Jim Boss Bennett’s DOB was 12/17/17. Michael Whittaker was 24 in 1958. I knew the age stats would narrow down our search.

Bill ran the Kryckis first. He got no hit on the DMV and State DOJ. He got a reverse book hit. George and Anna May Krycki lived in Kanab, Utah. The computer printed out their address and phone number.

Bill ran Jim Boss Bennett. He got a State DOJ hit. The printout stated that Jim Boss Bennett’s CII record was purged. Bill said Jim Boss Bennett was probably dead. The DOJ wiped dead people out of their main computer. He wanted to confirm Bennett’s death. He said he knew a guy who could check Social Security records.

We ran Peter Tubiolo. We got a DMV hit. Tubiolo was 72 now. He lived in Covina.

We ran Shirley Miller. We got a DMV hit. Her address matched an address in the Will Lenard Miller file. An asterisk and the word “deceased” were printed below it.

We ran Will Lenard Miller. We got a DOJ hit and a purge listing. Bill said the fucker was dead.

We ran Margie Trawick. We got three negative hits. I remembered that Margie was married and divorced or widowed. Her maiden name was Phillips. Bill ran Margie Phillips and our established DOB. He got no DMV and DOJ hits. The reverse book supplied a long printout. Margie Phillips was a common name.

We ran Michael Whittaker. We got a DMV hit and a DOJ hit for a Michael John Whittaker. We got a 1986 address in San Francisco. The DOJ printout listed a CII number and a 1/1/34 date of birth.

I opened up my briefcase and checked the Ellroy Blue Book. Whittaker’s middle name was John.

Bill wrote down the CII number and gave it to a clerk. She said she’d order a copy of Whittaker’s rap sheet and his current address statistics.

John Yarbrough walked up. He handed Bill a memo slip. He said he called a guy on the Vegas PD. The guy called a guy on the Nevada Gaming Commission. They found Lavonne Chambers’ casino employment record. They called the Nevada State DMV and got the whole ball of wax.

Lavonne Chambers was now Lavonne Parga. She just renewed her driver’s license. She lived in Reno, Nevada.