My Dark Places

24

We worked the case. We probed defective memory vaults. We logged information. We excavated names.

We dug up first names and last names and nicknames and full names and matching and nonmatching descriptions. We got names from the file. We got names from old cops. We got names from elderly barflies and El Monte lifers. We worked the case for eight months. We cultivated names and harvested names. We did not create an incrementally expanding concentric circle of names. We were up against a large place and a large block of time lost.

We kept going.

We found former deputy Bill Vickers. He remembered the two canvass jobs. They thought they had a two-time killer. They figured the same guy choked the nurse and the racetrack lady We asked him for names. He didn’t have any.

We found Al Manganiello. He gave us the same names Roy Dunn and Jana Outlaw gave us. He told us about an old carhop in Pico Rivera. We found her. She was senile. She didn’t remember the late 1950s.

We found Jack Lawton’s sons. They said they’d look for Jack’s notebooks. They looked. They didn’t find them. They figured their dad threw them out.

We found former LASD captain Vic Cavallero. He remembered the Jean Ellroy crime scene. He did not remember the investigation or the Bobbie Long snuff. He said he popped a guy in the late ’50s. The guy was on the LAPD. He was bombing down Garvey double-fast. He had a woman with him. She hopped cars at Stan’s Drive-in. She said the cop beat her up. She refused to file a complaint. The cop was fat and blond. Cavallero said he was one choice prick. He didn’t remember his name.

We found ex-El Monte cop Dave Wire. We asked him for names. He said he had a suspect. His name was Bert Beria. He was dead now. He was an ex-El Monte reserve cop. Bert was a drunk. Bert was nuts. Bert beat up his wife and raced his police car on the San Berdoo Freeway. Bert looked like those old Identi-Kit pix. Bert drank at the Desert Inn. Bert would rape your pet turtle. Wire said we should check Bert out. Wire said we should talk to Keith Tedrow’s ex-wife, Sherry. Sherry knew the El Monte bar scene.

We found Sherry Tedrow. She gave us three names. We looked up two Desert Inn barmaids and a fat cat named Joe Candy. Joe bankrolled Doug Schoenberger. Joe lent him the money to buy the Desert Inn.

We ran some computer checks. Joe Candy and Barmaid #1 came up dead. We found Barmaid #2. She worked at The Place—not the Desert Inn. She knew zilch about late-’5os El Monte.

We talked to El Monte police chief Wayne Clayton. He showed us a 1960 snapshot of Bert Beria. He didn’t look like the Swarthy Man. He was too old and too bald. Clayton said he’d assigned two detectives to check old Bert out. He introduced us to Sergeant Tom Armstrong and Agent John Eckler. We ran our case by them and gave them a Xerox copy of the Blue Book. They checked their in-station files. They thought they might find a separate Jean Ellroy file built up by El Monte PD.

They found a file number. They found out the file was destroyed 20 years ago.

Armstrong and Eckler interviewed Bert Beria’s widow and brother. They pegged Bert as a misanthrope and an all-purpose shit. They didn’t think he killed Jean Ellroy.

We found Margie Trawick’s daughter. She remembered the case. She was 14. We asked her for names. She didn’t have any.

We found a deputy who knew computers backwards. His home system featured a 50-state reverse book. He ran Ruth Schienle through it. He got a long printout. Bill and I called 19 Ruth Schienles. None of them were our Ruth Schienle. None of them knew our Ruth Schienle. Women were hard to find. They got married and divorced. They got lost behind name changes.

We went back to the Ellroy Blue Book. We extracted four names. We wrote down “Tom Baker,” “Tom Downey” and “Salvador Quiroz Serena.” They were all exonerated. Serena worked at Airtek. He said he “could have had” my mother. We found the name “Grant Surface.” He took polygraph tests on 6/25 and 7/1/59. The results were “inconclusive.” “Psychological difficulties” fucked up the tests. We ran Baker, Downey, Serena and Surface through the 50-state reverse book and the state DMV and DOJ computers. We got no hits on Surface and Serena. We got a shitload for Baker and Downey. We called all the Bakers and Downeys. We did not find our Baker and Downey.

Bill called Rick Jackson at LAPD Homicide. Jackson checked rape-and-choke and bludgeon-choke murders from the Ellroy/Long time span. He found two LAPD cases. They were solved and successfully adjudicated.

Victim #1 was named Edith Lucille O’Brien. She was snuffed on 2/18/59. She was 43 years old. She was bludgeoned and dumped on a hilltop in Tujunga. Her slacks were turned inside out. Her bra was pushed up. It looked like a sex frenzy job.

Edith O’Brien prowled bars in Burbank and Glendale. She picked up men for sex. She was last seen at the Bamboo Hut on San Fernando Road. She left with a man. The man had a ’53 Olds. The man came back to the Bamboo Hut alone. The man talked to another man. He said Edith was out in his car. She spilled spaghetti on the front seat. The men put their heads together and whispered. The car man stayed at the bar. The other man walked out.

The coroner said the killer lashed the victim’s wrists tight. He probably wailed on her with a lug wrench. The LAPD popped a guy named Walter Edward Briley. He was tried and convicted. He was 21. He was tall and heavyset. He was sentenced to life in prison. He was paroled in 1978.

A man named Donald Kinman raped and strangled two women. The victims were named Ferne Wessel and Mary Louise Tardy. The DODs were 4/6/58 and 11/22/59. Kinman met Victim #1 in a bar. He rented a hotel room and killed her there. He met Victim #2 in a bar. He killed her in a trailer at his father’s trailer park. He left fingerprints at both scenes. He turned himself in and confessed. Kinman was stocky and curly-haired. Kinman fell behind two counts of murder. Kinman went to prison for 21 years.

Kinman jazzed me. He played like a two-time-only killer. He was more volatile than the Swarthy Man. He was purely self-destructive. I saw alcohol as his trigger. The perfect booze intake and the perfect woman came his way twice. He said, “I don’t know what came over me, but it just felt like something I had to do.”

Bill and I debated the Swarthy Man as serial killer. Bill was pro. I was con. We kicked the ball back and forth a hundred dozen times. Bill said we should contact a psychological profiler.

Carlos Avila worked for the State DOJ. He taught profile procedures. He gave seminars. He worked Sheriff’s Homicide for nine years and knew our geographical backdrop. We should commission a profile on the Ellroy and Long cases.

Bill called Carlos Avila. We lent him our files. He studied them and wrote up an opinion.

UNKNOWN SUBJECT;

GENEVA “JEAN” HILLIKER ELLROY; VICTIM (DECEASED);

AKA JEAN ELLROY;

JUNE 22, 1958;

ELSPETH “BOBBIE” LONG; VICTIM (DECEASED);

JANUARY 23, 1959;

LOS ANGELES COUNTY SHERIFF’S DEPARTMENT;

LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA;

HOMICIDE (CRIMINAL INVESTIGATIVE ANALYSIS).

The following Criminal Investigative Analysis was prepared by Criminal Investigative Profiler Carlos Avila, Private Consultant in conjunction with Special Agent Sharon Pagaling, California Department of Justice, Bureau of Investigation. This analysis is based upon a thorough review of the case materials submitted by Retired Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant William Stoner and James Ellroy, son of victim Jean Ellroy. The conclusions are the results of the knowledge drawn from the personal investigative experience, educational background and research conducted by these crime analysts.

It is not a substitute for a thorough, well planned investigation, and should not be considered all inclusive. The information provided is based upon reviewing, analyzing, and researching criminal cases similar to the cases submitted by Sergeant Stoner, Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department (Retired).

Two separate offenses were reviewed for this analysis. Due to analysis of submitted data and discussion of the two cases reported, this analysis will reflect a description of a singular personality type believed responsible for the deaths of victims Ellroy and Long.

VICTIMOLOGY

Examination of the victim’s background is a significant aspect of the analysis process. Their vulnerability of becoming victims of a violent crime was examined in conjunction with a review of their lifestyles, behaviors, personal histories, and social/sexual habits. Specifically, at what risk were they to becoming victims of a violent crime.

Victim Jean Ellroy was a forty-three year old white female, five feet five and one-half inches in height; weighed approximately one hundred thirty-one pounds and had red hair. She was divorced and had moved with her minor son to a well kept rental home in El Monte, California in 1958. She had been employed as an industrial nurse in Los Angeles since 1956. Victim Ellroy was physically attractive and enjoyed frequenting nearby nightclubs during the weekends while her son visited his father. Ellroy’s landlords described her as a quiet tenant who seemed to enjoy being alone with her son. She was described as being closed mouthed about her personal life and as having few close friends. After her death her landlords reported finding empty liquor bottles in the shrubbery near the victim’s home and in the trash container.

Ellroy’s landlords reported seeing her drive away from her residence at approximately 2000 hours on Saturday, June 21, 1958. Witnesses reported seeing Ellroy later that evening in the company of an unidentified adult male at a drive-in restaurant at approximately 2200 hours; at a nightclub dancing at approximately 2245 hours; and lastly, back at the drive-in restaurant at approximately 0215 hours the following morning. Her body was discovered at a nearby high school on June 22, 1958, at approximately 1000 hours. The area where the victim was last seen was described as having a “low crime rate” with no previous abductions, sexual assaults or similar crimes reported.

Ellroy’s risk level of becoming a victim of a violent crime was elevated by her habit of frequenting nightclubs, socializing with persons she did not know well, and drinking alcoholic beverages. On the date of her death her risk level was further elevated by her personal circumstances: a woman alone in a car with a man.

Victim Bobbie Elspeth Long was a fifty-two year old white female, five feet five inches tall, weighed approximately one hundred thirty-two pounds and had dishwater blond hair. She was divorced and lived alone in a well kept two-room apartment in Los Angeles, which she had rented for the preceding four years. Long was employed as a waitress at a nearby restaurant where she worked the evening shift. Various persons familiar with Long said she enjoyed gambling at the race tracks and was in debt to a bookmaker. She was described as secretive regarding her personal life and family history. Long routinely lied about her age and after her death was determined to be eight years older than she had often claimed. Long reportedly enjoyed being escorted socially by various men, but was described as unlikely to become sexually involved unless she had believed the contact would somehow be financially lucrative for her. A search of Long’s apartment after her death revealed hidden liquor bottles. Long was described as having an outgoing assertive personality.

Long’s body was discovered at approximately 0230 hours on Friday, January 23, 1959, lying near the side of a road in the city of La Puente. The previous day Long had taken a bus to the Santa Anita Race Track where witnesses reported seeing her betting on various races throughout the day. Persons familiar with Long believed it quite possible she would have accepted an offer of a ride home from a stranger she met at the race track if she found him acceptable.

The area in which Long was last seen was described as having a “low crime rate” with no previous abductions, sexual assaults, or similar crimes reported.

Long’s risk level of becoming a victim of a violent crime was elevated by her assertive personality, involvement with gambling and subsequent indebtedness, and willingness to accept rides from strangers.

Overall, based upon the above circumstances in both cases, we believe the offender was socially acquainted with the victims to some degree, and that for some undefined initial period of time, the victims were willing to be in his company.

MEDICAL EXAMINER’S REPORT

The Medical Examiner’s Reports provided an evaluation of the injuries sustained by the victims and there is no need to reiterate those findings. However, a few points will be addressed and should be considered in the overall analysis of these crimes.

The pathologist listed victim Ellroy’s death as asphyxia due to ligature strangulation. She also had deep lacerations to the scalp, a minor abrasion to the upper lid of her right eye and her vaginal smear was positive for spermatozoa. The victim was noted to be in a late menstrual phase. The toxicological tests performed showed she had a blood alcohol level of .08 percent.

Victim Long’s cause of death was also asphyxia due to ligature strangulation. However, victim Long had a skull fracture with cerebral contusions as a result of distinct incision lacerations caused by blunt force trauma. These lacerations had a somewhat crescent shape with fairly incised like borders. The victim also had a fracture separation of the 6th cervical inter-vertebrate space.

Both victims were strangled with nylon stockings. In addition to the nylon stocking, victim Ellroy had a “clothes line” type cord tied tightly around her neck. Victim Long’s vagina also contained spermatozoa. Her blood alcohol content was zero percent.

CRIME SCENE ANALYSIS

Although no attempts will be made to construct precise chronological scenarios of these crimes, certain observations about the crime scenes and their significance as they relate to the offender will be described. When examined individually, the two crime scenes do not provide an abundance of forensic evidence. However, when analyzed, the behavior exhibited by the offender at the crime scenes becomes more significant.

Victim Ellroy was last seen alive at approximately 0215-0230 hours on June 22, 1958, in the company of a male she had been with earlier in the evening.

She was later discovered at 1000 hours the same day lying on the ivy covered parkway of a high school in the city of El Monte. The victim was dressed, however her underpants were missing and her brassiere was unfastened and pulled up around her neck. The stocking on her left leg was pulled down around her ankle and the other was tied around her neck along with a length of cord. The victim’s coat had been placed over the lower portion of her body.

It appears that the victim had engaged in consensual intercourse even though she was menstruating. A tampon was found in the victim’s vagina at the time of the autopsy.

Shortly after intercourse was completed the offender struck the victim with a blunt force object, which was readily accessible, after which he applied the cord and finally the victim’s stocking. Due to an obvious lack of defense wounds, it is unlikely that any struggle occurred initially. From witness reports the victim appeared at ease with the offender and she most likely never perceived the offender as posing a physical threat.

After leaving Stan’s Drive-In the offender most likely drove directly to the location where the victim was found. The offender was familiar with the location and selected it for its isolation from public view and because it had been used as a “lovers lane” and his vehicle would not necessarily stand out.

The sex act would have occurred inside the offender’s vehicle, hence the victim’s underpants remained in the vehicle because the victim never had the opportunity to put them back on. Whatever circumstances triggered the offender’s anger occurred after the victim had reinserted the tampon.

After the victim was strangled, the offender removed her from the vehicle and dumped her body on the ivy. In the process, the victim’s pearl necklace broke and fell in the street. The offender’s last act was to place the victim’s coat over the lower portion of her body.

In respect to the death of victim Bobbie Long, and in the absence of any witness information, the specific chronology of events leading to the death of this victim cannot be recounted with any degree of specificity and/or detail; therefore, no attempt will be made to reconstruct the crime. There are however certain factors that are relative to the crime scene that suggest specific activities.

A return bus ticket found in the victim’s purse supports witnesses’ statements that the victim had planned to attend the horse races at Santa Anita Race Track on January 22, 1959.

Assuming the victim went to the horse races, she may have met the offender at the races that day or even been previously acquainted with him and accepted a ride. Since the victim had accepted rides from men she did not know well in the past, she did not apparently worry about her personal safety.

The victim was secretive about her personal life, but what little was known about her indicates that she was willing to take whatever a man had to offer.

The victim appeared to have consumed a Mexican dinner sometime in the early evening as evidenced by the autopsy report. The victim appeared to have participated in consensual sex with the offender. She was fully dressed, with the exception of her stockings, and her clothing was intact and not torn.

The victim was found lying on the grass shoulder of a dirt access road one-tenth of a mile off of a main road in the city of La Puente. She was lying on her back and the lower portion of her body was covered with her coat (similar to victim Ellroy). It appears she too was dumped on the ground after her death had occurred.

Victim Long’s death occurred in very much the same manner as victim Ellroy’s. After consensual sex, which may have also taken place in the offender’s vehicle, she was unexpectedly struck with a blunt force object to the head numerous times, with an object the offender had readily accessible. After sustaining the blows, the offender applied what may have been one of the victim’s stockings, placed it around her neck, and strangled the victim.

The offender then removed the victim from his vehicle and dumped her on the grass shoulder along with her purse. Again, the offender’s last act was to place the victim’s coat over the lower portion of her body, very similar to what had occurred to victim Ellroy.

The distance between the location of where victim Ellroy’s body was found to that of victim Long’s is approximately four and one-half miles. Victim Ellroy’s body was found approximately one and one-half miles from the area where she was seen dancing and eating prior to her death. This area was less than a mile away from where victim Long’s body was discovered.

In both deaths robbery did not appear to be the motive. We believe that in victim Ellroy’s case, the offender simply forgot to discard the victim’s purse prior to leaving. The sex acts, blunt force trauma followed by strangulation with the victims’ nylons, and the covering of their lower bodies, appear to be the offender’s signature or calling card.

OFFENDER CHARACTERISTICS AND TRAITS

Statistically, crimes of violence are intraracial in nature, white on white, black on black. Therefore, without any physical evidence to the contrary, we would expect this offender to be a white male.

In consideration of the offender’s age, a number of facts pertinent to the crime are examined. The victim’s age, amount of control or lack of control exhibited by the offender, the degree of trauma inflicted, evidence taken or left behind, as well as sexual interaction, if any, with the victim, all become important factors. Based upon these factors we would anticipate this offender to have been in his late thirties. Age, however, is one of the most difficult categories to evaluate, as chronological and emotional age are frequently quite different. As we are evaluating age on the basis of behavior, which is a direct result of emotional and mental maturity, no suspect should be eliminated based upon age alone.

The offender in all probability is capable of having relationships with women. We would expect him to be single, however, and if he was married it was a troubled relationship and possibly marred by outbursts which may have included domestic violence. The offender could have been living with a woman in a common-law type relationship, but he would have continued to have sexual encounters with other women.

We would expect the offender to be of average to above average intelligence, to have completed high school, and been capable of college level work. He is more than likely employed and his employment history will be consistent with his academic background.

The offender in all likelihood is sufficiently familiar with the area where the victims’ bodies were found to know they would be “reasonably safe” places to dispose of the bodies. It has been our experience in analyzing similar cases that offenders such as these dispose of bodies where they have some degree of association and/or knowledge. Therefore, the offender lived, worked or frequently visited the area where the victims were found. If seen, he would be able to provide a reasonable explanation for being in the area.

The offender will be conscious of his appearance and clothing and be in good physical condition. Since crime scenes generally reflect the offender’s personality and life-style, we would expect the offender to be methodical and neat in his appearance. He has few close friends, but numerous acquaintances. He is frequently impulsive and seeks immediate self-gratification. He is a “lone wolf” rather than a loner.

The offender will appear to be confident but not overly “macho” to his peers. In his dealings with women, he will seek dominance and appear to be a very controlling individual. The offender might attempt to portray himself as being passive. He would avoid the appearance of having an explosive temper or being assaultive in nature. Episodes of explosive temper are intermingled with an indifference towards others. He will have shown aggressiveness in his dealings with people.

The offender will drink alcoholic beverages and may use drugs, but not to the point of total impairment. There is no indication of excessive use of alcohol or drugs at the time of the crimes, although he may have used one or both of these substances to lower his inhibitions.

The offender probably has a well-maintained vehicle which is consistent with the economic status of the individuals the victims previously dated. The offender enjoys driving and would be willing to travel outside the immediate area in which he resides to seek entertainment.

We don’t believe the offender has an extensive criminal history. However, he may have been arrested for domestic disturbances or assault.

The offender’s weapons of choice are believed to be items already on hand: a crescent shaped tool he most likely stored in his automobile; a piece of rope; and the victims’ nylon hosiery. This, considered along with the fact that the offender struck each victim repeatedly in the head as a means of control, shows that the murders were probably not planned for a significant period of time before they were actually committed.

POST OFFENSE BEHAVIOR

In view of the time lapse since the commission of these crimes, post offense behavior, which is often the most enlightening aspect of the analysis, will take on a lesser significance in this case. The specifics of this section will be to analyze that behavior which would have occurred immediately following the commission of these crimes.

The offender would have gone directly home or to some other safe place following these crimes. He most likely soiled his clothing and vehicle from the blunt force trauma delivered to both victims and the menstrual blood of victim Ellroy.

Having committed what he considered to be an unwitnessed murder on each occasion, the offender would not have been overly concerned or stressed for any length of time. He may have briefly feigned illness in an attempt to isolate himself and he may have called in sick the following day if he was scheduled to work. Other than this initial withdrawal, your offender’s daily routine would not have been altered significantly.

He would have avoided places he had been seen with either victim just prior to their death. These places include the Desert Inn, Stan’s Drive-ln and the Mexican restaurant he and victim Long may have gone to the night of her death.

He may have exhibited interest in television news accounts of the killings but would not have interjected himself into the police investigations. It is unlikely that he would volunteer theories about what happened. He would claim to have only vicarious knowledge of the crimes, gained through friends or the media.

Once the investigations began to wane, the offender would have been reassured that he was not seen with the victims and that he was not a suspect. He would not have felt any guilt or remorse for what he had done. These women were seen as “throw aways” and he had justified it in his mind that they were somehow to blame for making him do it. His only concern would be for himself and what effect the crimes could have on his life. By this time, he had probably forgotten most of the details of these incidents.

Unless the offender was arrested and incarcerated for some extended period of time, we would expect the offender to have continued killing, if not in this state, in others.

Carlos Avila

Criminal Investigative Profiler/Consultant

Avila thought we had a serial killer. He thought my mother fucked the Swarthy Man willingly. He hedged to a slight degree:

“It appears that the victim had engaged in consensual intercourse.”

“Whatever circumstances triggered the offender’s anger occurred after the victim had reinserted the tampon.”

Bill and I discussed the profile in general and the consensual-sex-versus-rape point in specific. We agreed with Avila’s take on the killer’s psychology. Bill went along with his serial killer conclusion. I disputed it. I conceded one point only. My mother might have been the first victim in a serial killer chain. Carlos Avila was an established criminological expert. I wasn’t. I distrusted his conclusion because it was based on an aggregate knowledge of similar criminal cases and their common pathological underpinnings. I distrusted the logical strictures and the encapsulated knowledge that prompted him to the conclusion. The conclusion undermined my basic law of murder: Criminal passion derived from long-suppressed fears brought to momentary consciousness by the unique alchemy of killer and victim. Two unconscious states dovetail and create an explicative flashpoint. The killer knows. The killer goes ahead—“It just felt like something I had to do.” The victim feeds the killer the knowledge. Female victims tap out signals in sex semaphore. Look at that chipped nail polish. Look at how sordid lovemaking is two seconds after you come. Sex semaphore is all misogynist subtext. All men hate all women for tried-and-true reasons they share in jokes and banter every day. Now you know. You know that half the world will condone what you are just about to do. Look at the bags under the redhead’s eyes. Look at her stretch marks. She’s putting that cunt rag back in. She’s getting blood all over your seat covers—

He killed her that night. He could not have killed any other woman. He did not seek out a woman to kill that night. She could not have prompted any other man to that explicative flashpoint. Their alchemy was binding and mutually exclusive.

Bill thought it was rape. I thought it was rape. Bill said we had to keep an open mind. I embraced the serial killer theory momentarily. I asked Bill if we could run a statewide or nationwide records check and catalog choke murders back to our time frame. He said most of the records weren’t computerized. A lot of hand-filed records had already been destroyed. There was no systematic way to access the information. The big FBI computer did not store data that old. Publicity was still our best shot. The LA. Weekly piece was coming out in mid-February. Day One was set to air in April. Some old cops might read the piece or see the program. They might call us and say, “I had a case like that….”

We put the profile aside. We chased more names.

We found an old doctor. He had an office near the Desert Inn. He gave us the name Harry7 Bullard. Harry owned the Coconino. He mentioned the Pitkin brothers. They owned a couple of gas stations near Five Points.

We found the Pitkin brothers. They didn’t give us any names. They told us Harry Bullard was dead.

We wanted to spark a name landslide. We were name-deprived and intractably determined to grab more names. The investigation was now three and a half months old.

Helen came out for Christmas. We spent Christmas Eve with Bill and Ann Stoner. Bill and I discussed the case by the Christmas tree. I ignored all the holiday chitchat. Helen knew the case inside out. We’d talked every night for three-plus months. She sent me out to chase a redheaded ghost. She didn’t treat the ghost as a rival or a threat. She monitored her evolution through my thoughts and talked murder theory as precisely as Bill and I did. Helen was Geneva’s deconstructor. She warned me not to judge her or glamorize her. Helen satirized Geneva’s appetites. Helen fixed Geneva up with skeevy politicians and got some righteous laughs. Bill Clinton left Hillary for Geneva and blew the ’96 election. Hillary moved to El Monte and started fucking Jim Boss Bennett. The Swarthy Man was big in the Right to Life movement. The Blonde had Newt Gingrich’s love child.

Bill spent a week with his family. I spent a week with Helen. We put the case on temporary hold. I went into murder withdrawal. I talked to the boss at Sheriff’s Homicide and went out on some active calls.

I carried a beeper. I got beeped and directed out to two crime scenes. I caught two gang killings. I saw bloodstains and bullet holes and grieving families. I wanted to write a magazine essay. I wanted to slam this new mechanistic horror up against my old sex horror. My thoughts didn’t jell. I caught two male victims. I looked at spattered brain fluids and saw my mother on King’s Row. I looked at a dead gangbanger’s brother and saw my father poised and pleased at the El Monte Station. The old Sheriff’s Homicide squad fielded 14 men. The current squad was a full-fledged division. L.A. County had 43 homicides in 1958. L.A. County had 500 this year. Sheriff’s Homicide was a class-A unit. They called themselves the Bulldogs. The Sheriff’s Homicide squad room was a fucking Bulldog pen. Bulldog regalia reigned. The place was submerged in desk clutter marked with Bulldog emblems. A plaque covered the front wall. It listed every detective who ever worked the unit.

The new Bulldogs were multiracial and bi-gender. They were up against high-tech murder and public accountability and racial polarization and overpopulation and a jurisdiction in gradual decline. The old Bulldogs were white men with bottles in their desks. The odds were stacked in their favor. They were up against low-tech murder in a stratified and segregated society. Everybody respected them or feared them. They could employ coercive methods with impunity. They could work a dual-world scheme without the fear of dual-world overlap. They could work murders in Niggertown or wetback El Monte and go home to the safe world where they stashed their families. They were bright men and driven men and men susceptible to the fleshpot temptations of their on-duty world. They were bright men. They weren’t prescient thinkers or dystopian futurists. They couldn’t predict that their on-duty world would swallow their safe world one day. There were 14 Bulldogs in 1958. There were 140 today. The increased number said there was no place to hide. The increased number contextualized my old horror. It implied that my old horror still packed some clout. My old horror lived in pre-tech memories. The Blonde told people. Barstool talk was still floating around. Memories meant names.

The holidays ended. Helen went home. Bill and I went back to work.

Chief Clayton gave us some names. The El Monte Museum director gave us some names. We checked them out. They went nowhere. We hit the two El Monte bars still in operation since 1958. They were redneck joints then. They were Latin joints now. They’d changed hands a dozen times. We tried to trace the ownerships back to ’58. We ran into missing records. We ran into missing names.

We chased names around the San Gabriel Valley. People moved to the San Gabriel Valley and rarely moved out. Sometimes they moved to skunk towns like Colton and Fontana. Bill made me drive every day. Freeway driving made him retire. I made him unretire. This meant I had to play chauffeur. This meant I had to stand abuse for my poor driving skills.

We drove. We talked. We spun off our case and encapsulated the whole criminal world. We drove freeways and surface streets. Bill pointed out body dump locales and riffed on his old cases. I described my pathetic crime exploits. Bill described his patrol years with picaresque zeal. We both worshipped testosterone overload. We both reveled in tales of male energy displaced. We both saw through it. We both knew it killed my mother. Bill saw my mother’s death in full-blown context. I loved him for it.

It rained like a motherfucker all through January. We sat out rush-hour traffic and freeway floods. We hit the Pacific Dining Car and ate big steak dinners. We talked. I started to see how much we both hated sloth and disorder. I lived it for 20 years solid. Bill lived it once-removed as a cop. Sloth and disorder could be sensual and seductive. We both knew it. We both understood the rush. It came back to testosterone. You had to control. You had to assert. It got crazy and forced you to capitulate and surrender. Cheap pleasure was a damnable temptation. Booze and dope and random sex gave you back a cheap version of the power you set out to relinquish. They destroyed your will to live a decent life. They sparked crime. They destroyed social contracts. The time-lost/time-regained dynamic taught me that. Pundits blamed crime on poverty and racism. They were right. I saw crime as a concurrent moral plague with entirely empathetic origins. Crime was male energy displaced. Crime was a mass yearning for ecstatic surrender. Crime was romantic yearning gone bad. Crime was the sloth and disorder of individual default on an epidemic scale. Free will existed. Human beings were better than lab rats reacting to stimuli. The world was a fucked-up place. We were all accountable anyway.

I knew it. Bill knew it. He tempered his knowledge with a greater sense of charity than I did. I judged myself harshly and passed the standards of my self-judgment on to other people. Bill believed in mitigation more than I did. He wanted me to extend a sense of mitigation to my mother.

He thought I was too hard on her. He liked my partner-to-partner candor and disliked my lack of son-to-mother sentimentality. I said I was trying to contain her presence. I was running a dialogue on her. It was mostly internal. My external mode was all critique and mock-objective appraisal. She took full flight inside me. She vexed me and vamped me. I put on a white smock and addressed her publicly as a clinician. I voiced blunt comments to provoke blunt responses. We had a two-faced relationship. We were like illicit lovers living in two worlds.

I knew Bill was falling for her. It wasn’t a hard spill like the one he took for Phyllis “Bunny” Krauch. It wasn’t a resurrection fantasy. It didn’t play like his longing to see Tracy Stewart and Karen Reilly exhumed beyond victimhood. He was falling into the redhead’s blank spaces. He wanted to solve the riddle of her character as much as he wanted to find her killer.

We drove. We talked. We chased names. We went off on anthropological tangents. We hit the car lot across the street from the Desert Inn site. We took some names and traced the ownership back to ’58. The old owner’s son owned a Toyota franchise. He gave us four names. We traced two to the morgue and two to car lots in Azusa and Covina. Bill had a hunch that the Swarthy Man was a car salesman. We worked that hunch for ten days straight. We talked to a shitload of old car salesmen. They were all fossilized locals.

None of them remembered our case. None of them remembered the rockin’ Desert Inn. None of them ever noshed at Stan’s Drive-ln. They did not look like clean-living men. Most of them looked downright sodden. They all denied knowledge of the freewheeling El Monte bar scene.

We drove. We talked. We chased names. We rarely strayed out of the San Gabriel Valley. Every new lead and tangent brought us straight back. I learned all the freeway routes from Duarte to Rosemead to Covina and up to Glendora. I learned surface street routes in and out of El Monte. We always passed through El Monte. It was the shortest route to the 10 freeway east and the 605 freeway south. El Monte became dead familiar. The Desert Inn became Valenzuela’s. The food was bad. The service was indifferent. It was a slop chute with a mariachi band. Repetition killed the joint for me. It lost its shock value and charm. It did not exist to chaperone me on mental dates with my mother. There was only one magnetic force field left in El Monte. It was King’s Row by night.

They shut me out sometimes. I’d drive up around midnight and find the gate locked. King’s Row was a high-school access road. It did not exist to reinject me with horror.

I’d find the gate open sometimes. I’d drive in and park with my lights out. I’d sit there. I’d get scared. I’d imagine all sorts of 1995 horror and sit still waiting for it. I wanted to put myself at physical risk in her name. I wanted to feel her fear in this place. I wanted her fear to meld with mine and transmogrify. I wanted to scare myself into a heightened awareness and come away with lucid new perceptions.

My fear always peaked and diminished. I never quite scared myself all the way back to that night.

The L.A. Weekly came out. The Ellroy-Stoner piece was beautifully executed. It laid out the Ellroy and Long cases in significant detail. It emphasized the Blonde. It omitted the fact that my mother was strangled with two ligatures. It stated that she was strangled with a silk stocking only. The omission was crucial. It would help us eliminate false confessions and confirm legitimate ones. The true facts were already published in GQ and in old newspaper accounts. The LA. Weekly omission was a stopgap measure.

They printed our tip-line number in bold black type.

Calls came in. I kept my answering machine on 24 hours a day. I played my messages periodically and logged in the precise time that each call hit the line. Bill said 1-800 phone bills identified all incoming phone numbers. We could log in the time suspicious calls arrived and trace the callers through our monthly bills.

Forty-two people called and hung up the first day. Two psychics called and solicited business. A man called and said he could throw a seance and summon up my mother’s spirit for a nominal fee. A movie-biz fuckhead called and said he saw my life as a big-budget feature. A woman called and said her father killed my mother. Four people called and said O. J. Simpson did it. An old buddy called and hit me up for a loan.

Twenty-nine people called and hung up the next day. Four psychics called. Two people called and snitched off O.J. Nine people called and wished me good luck. A woman called and said my books were sexy and let’s get together. A man called and said my books were racist and homophobic. Three women called and said their fathers might have killed my mother. Two of them said their fathers molested them.

The calls continued.

We got more hang-ups and more O.J. calls. We got more psychic calls and more good-luck calls. We got two calls from women with repressed memory syndrome. They said their fathers abused them. They said their fathers might have killed my mother. We got three calls from one woman. She said her father killed my mother and the Black Dahlia.

Nobody called and said they knew the Blonde. Nobody called and said they knew my mother. No old cops called and said, I popped that swarthy motherfucker.

The call count dropped day by day. I cut down our callback list. I crossed off the nuts and the psychics and the Black Dahlia lady. Bill called the other women who snitched off their fathers and asked them some make-or-break questions.

Their answers cleared their fathers. Their fathers were too young. Their fathers were in prison in 1958. Their fathers did not look like the Swarthy Man.

The women wanted to talk. Bill said he’d listen. Six women told the same story. Their fathers beat up their mothers. Their fathers molested them. Their fathers blew the rent money. Their fathers skeeved on underaged females. Their fathers were dead or atrociously booze-impaired.

The fathers ran to a type. The women ran to a type. They were middle-aged and in therapy. They defined themselves in therapeutic terms. They lived therapy and talked therapy and used therapeutic jargon to express their sincere belief that their fathers really could have killed my mother. Bill taped three interviews. I listened to them. I believed every specific sex-abuse indictment. The women were betrayed and abused. They knew their fathers were rapists and killers at heart. They thought that therapy gave them preternatural insights. They were victims. They saw the world in victim-predator terms. They saw me as a victim. They wanted to create victim-predator families. They wanted to claim me as a brother and anoint my mother and their fathers as our dysfunctional parents. They thought the traumatic force that shaped their insights superseded plain logic. It didn’t matter that their fathers did not look like the Swarthy Man. The Swarthy Man could have dropped my mother off at the Desert Inn. Their fathers could have snatched her in the parking lot. Their grief was all-inclusive. They wanted to take it public. They were writing the oral history of ravaged kids in our time. They wanted to include my story. They were evangelical recruiters.

They moved me and scared me. I replayed the tapes and nailed the source of my fear. The women sounded smug. They were entrenched and content in their victimhood.

The tip-line calls died out. The Day One producer called me. He said they couldn’t run our 1-800 number. It violated their Standards and Practices Code. The on-camera host would drop a few words at the end of our segment. He’d tell potential tipsters to call Sheriff’s Homicide. He would not include the Sheriff’s Homicide phone number.

I was pissed. Bill was pissed. The code restriction fucked up our access to nationwide information. Sheriff’s Homicide was not a toll-free number. Hinky people would call a 1-800 line. Hinky people would not call the fuzz. Poor people and cheap people would call a 1-800 line. Poor people and cheap people would not call long-distance.

Bill predicted 500 tip-line calls. He predicted 10 calls to Sheriffs Homicide.

I spent a week alone with the Jean Ellroy file. I read all the reports and note slips 14 dozen times. I zeroed in on one little detail.

Airtek Dynamics belonged to the Pachmyer Group. Pachmyer and Packard-Bell were phonetically similar. I thought my mother worked at Packard-Bell up to June ’58. The Blue Book said no. I might have dreamed up Packard-Bell 40 years ago. It might be a dyslexic memory glitch.

Bill and I discussed the point. He said we should contact my relatives in Wisconsin. Uncle Ed and Aunt Leoda might still be alive. They could settle the Packard-Bell point. They might have some names. They might have my mother’s funeral book. It might have some names in it. I said I talked to the Wagners in ’78. I called Leoda and apologized for all the times I scammed her. We argued. She said my cousins Jeannie and Janet were married and why wasn’t I? She patronized me. She said caddy work didn’t sound very challenging.

I blew the Wagners off right then. I blew them off permanently. I told Bill I didn’t want to contact them now. He said, You’re scared. You don’t want to revive Lee Ellroy for even two seconds. I said, You’re right.

We chased names. We found a 90-year-old woman. She was spry and lucid. She knew El Monte. She gave us some names. We traced them back to the morgue.

I spent two weeks alone with the Ellroy and Long files. I inventoried every note on every slip of paper. My inventory ran 61 pages. I Xeroxed a copy and gave it to Bill.

I found another crumpled note we both overlooked. It was a canvassing note. I recognized Bill Vickers’ handwriting. Vickers talked to a waitress at the Mama Mia Restaurant. She saw my mother at the restaurant “about 8:00 p.m.” Saturday night. She was alone. She stood in the doorway and checked the place out “like she was looking for someone.”

I went over my inventory. I found a companion note. It said that Vickers called the Mama Mia waitress. She mentioned a redheaded woman. Vickers said he’d bring a photo of the victim in. The note I just found was the follow-up note. The waitress looked at the photo. She said the redheaded woman was my mother.

It was a major reconstructive lead.

My mother was “looking for someone.” Bill and I extrapolated that “someone.” She was looking for the Blonde and/or the Swarthy Man. At least one relationship existed prior to that night.

The Day One show aired. The Ellroy-Stoner segment was punchy and straight to the point. The director squeezed the story into ten minutes’ screen time. He got the Blonde in. He showed the Identi-Kit portraits of the Swarthy Man. Diane Sawyer told potential tipsters to call Sheriffs Homicide.

The Black Dahlia lady called. Four more women called and said their fathers could have killed my mother. A man called and snitched off his father. A man called and snitched off his father-in-law. We called the callers. Their information played out 100% bogus.

I spent another week with the Ellroy and Long files. I forged no new connections. Bill cleared out his desk at the Bureau. He found an envelope marked Z-483-362.

It contained:

A name-and-address calling card for John Howell of Van Nuys, California.

Jean Ellroy’s car payment book. She sent her last payment in on 6/5/58. Her payments ran $85.58 a month.

A canceled check for $15. The check was dated 4/15/58. Jean Ellroy signed the check on her 43rd birthday A man named Charles Bellavia endorsed it.

A sheet of paper with a gummed scratch-pad border and a note on one side. The note read: “Nikola Zaha. Vic’s boyfriend? Whittier.”

We ran the new names through the DMV and DOJ computers. We got no DOJ hits. We got no DMV hit on Zaha. We got DMV hits on John Howell and Charles Bellavia. They were old men now. Bellavia lived in West L.A. Howell lived in Van Nuys. Bellavia was a rare name. We figured we had the right guy. We knew we had the right John Howell. His current address was a few digits off his calling card address.

We checked the reverse book for Zahas. We found two in Whittier. Zaha was a rare name. Whittier adjoined the San Gabriel Valley. The two Zahas were probably related to our Zaha.

I remembered my mother’s old boyfriend Hank Hart. I found them in bed together. Hank Hart had one thumb. I found my mother in bed with another man. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know the name Nikola Zaha.

Nikola Zaha might be a crucial witness. He might explain my mother’s precipitous move to El Monte.

Bill and I drove out to Van Nuys. We found John Howell’s house. The door was wide open. We found Howell and his wife in the kitchen. A nurse was preparing their lunch.

Mr. Howell was hooked up to a respirator. Mrs. Howell was sitting in a wheelchair. They were old and frail. They looked like they wouldn’t live much longer.

We talked to them gently. The nurse ignored us. We explained our situation and asked them to think back a ways. Mrs. Howell made the first connection. She said her mother was my old babysitter. Her mother died fifteen years ago. She was 88. I fought for the woman’s name and snagged it.

Ethel Ings. Married to Tom Ings. Welsh immigrants. Ethel worshipped my mother. Ethel and Tom were in Europe in June ’58. My mother drove them to the Queen Mary, My father called Ethel and told her my mother was dead. Ethel was distraught.

Mr. Howell said he remembered me. My name was Lee— not James. The cops found his calling card at my mother’s house. They questioned him. They got pretty raw.

The nurse pointed to her wristwatch and held up two fingers. Bill leaned toward me. He said, “Names.”

I saw an address book on the kitchen table. I asked Mr. Howell if I could look through it. He nodded yes. I looked through the book. I recognized one name.

Eula Lee Lloyd. Our next-door neighbor—circa ’54. Eula Lee was married to a man named Harry Lloyd. She lived in North Hollywood now. I memorized her address and phone number.

The nurse tapped her watch. Mrs. Howell was shaking. Mr. Howell was gasping for breath. Bill and I said goodbye. The nurse showed us out and slammed the door behind us.

I got a glimpse of my own flawed memory. I didn’t remember Eula Lee Lloyd. I didn’t remember Ethel and Tom Ings. The investigation was nine months old. My memory gaps might be impeding our progress. I retrieved a memory. I went to the boat with Ethel and Tom and my mother. It was late May or early June ’58. I thought I had that time microscopically framed. I thought I had every detail culled for analysis. The Howells taught me otherwise. My mother could have said things. My mother could have done things. She could have mentioned people. The cops questioned me and requestioned me. They wanted to trap my recent memories. I had to trap my old memories. I had to split myself in two. The 47-year-old man had to interrogate the 10-year-old boy. She lived in my purview. I had to live with her again. I had to exert extreme mental pressure and go at our shared past. I had to place my mother in fictional settings and try to mine real memories through symbolic expression. I had to relive my incestuous fantasies and contextualize them and embellish them past the shame and the sense of boundary that always restricted them. I had to shack up with my mother. I had to lie down in the dark with her and go—

I wasn’t ready yet. I had to clear a block of time first. I had to track down Lloyd, Bellavia and Zaha and see where they took me. I wanted to go at my mother with a full load of recollective ammo. The Beckett trial was coming up. Bill would be at the prosecution table all day every day. I wanted to see the trial. I wanted to look at Daddy Beckett and put a hex on his worthless soul. I wanted to see Tracy Stewart get her altogether too late and unsatisfactory vengeance. Bill said the trial would probably last two weeks. It would probably conclude in late July or August. I could shack with the redhead then.

We had three hot names. We chased them full-time.

We called Eula Lee Lloyd and got no answer. We knocked on her door and got no answer. We called her and knocked on her door for three days straight and got no answers. We talked to the landlady. She said Eula Lee was holed up with a sick sister somewhere. We explained our situation. She said she’d talk to Eula Lee sooner or later. She’d tell her we wanted to chat. Bill gave her his home number. She said she’d be in touch.

We knocked on Charles Bellavia’s door. His wife answered. She said Charles went to the store. Charles had a heart condition. He took a little walk every day. Bill showed her the canceled check. He said the woman who wrote the check was murdered two months later. He asked her why Charles Bellavia endorsed the check. She said it wasn’t Charles’ signature. I didn’t believe her. Bill didn’t believe her.

She told us to go away. We tried to sweet-talk her. She didn’t buy our act. Bill touched my arm to say back-off-now.

We backed off. Bill said he’d shoot the check to the El Monte PD. Tom Armstrong and John Eckler could brace Old Man Bellavia.

We chased Nikola Zaha.

We drove out to Whittier and hit our first Zaha address. A teenaged girl was home alone. She said Nikola was her grandfather. He died a long time ago. The other local Zaha was her uncle’s divorced wife.

We drove to the other Zaha address and knocked on the door. Nobody answered. We drove to the El Monte Station and dropped the check off with Armstrong and Eckler.

We drove back to Orange County and broke it off for the day. I drove to a Home Depot store and bought another cork-board. I mounted it on my bedroom wall.

I drew a Saturday night/Sunday morning time graph. It started at 756 Maple at 8:00 p.m. It ended at Arroyo High at 10:10 a.m. I placed my mother around Five Points hour by hour. I drew question marks to note her blocks of unaccountable time. I set her death at 3:15 a.m. I pinned the graph to the board. I tacked up a graphic crime scene shot at 3:20 a.m.

I stared at the graph for a good two hours. Bill called. He said he’d talked to Nikola Zaha’s son and ex-daughter-in-law. They said Zaha died in ’63. He was in his early 40s. He had a heart attack. He was a big drunk and a big pussy hound. He was an engineer. He worked at a bunch of manufacturing plants near downtown L.A. He might have worked at Airtek Dynamics. The son and his ex did not know the name Jean Ellroy. The son said his dad was a discreet pussy hound. Bill got two descriptions of Zaha. He looked antithetical to the Swarthy Man.

Bill said goodnight. I hung up and stared at my graph.

Armstrong and Eckler reported. They said they talked to Charles Bellavia. He said the signature on the check was not his signature. He was not convincing. He said he owned a lunch truck biz back in ’58. His trucks serviced factories in downtown L.A. Armstrong had a theory. He figured Jean Ellroy bought some chow. She gave the lunch truck man a check and got ten or twelve bucks back in cash. Bellavia said he did not know Jean Ellroy. He was convincing. The lunch truck man gave Bellavia the check. He endorsed it and deposited it in his business account.

Eula Lee Lloyd’s landlady reported. She said she’d talked to Eula Lee. Eula Lee remembered Jean Ellroy and her murder. She said she had nothing to tell us. Her sister was sick. She had to care for her. She had no time to talk about old homicides.

Bill began pretrial work with the Beckett prosecutor. I holed up with the Jean Ellroy file. The 1-800 line buzzed sporadically. I got O.J. calls and psychic calls. Four journalists called within a two-week period. They wanted to write up the Ellroy-Stoner quest. They all promised to include our 1-800 number. I scheduled time with reporters from the L.A. Times, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, Orange Coast magazine and La Opinion.

We got a hot tip. A woman read the LA. Weekly belatedly and called us. Her name was Peggy Forrest. She moved to El Monte in 1956. She wasn’t a psychic. She didn’t think her father killed my mother. She lived a mile from Bryant and Maple—then and now.

She left a provocative message. Bill called her and set up an interview. We drove out to her house. She lived on Embree Drive off Peck Road. It was due north of my old house.

Peggy Forrest was rangy and in her late 60s. She sat us down in her backyard and told us her story.

They found the nurse on a Sunday morning. It was on the radio. Willie Stopplemoor knocked on her door. She wanted to talk about it. “Willie” was short for “Wilma.” Willie was married to Ernie Stopplemoor. They had two sons named Gailard and Jerry. Gailard went to Arroyo High. Ernie and Wilma were 35 to 40. They came from Iowa. They lived on Elrovia. Elrovia was near Peck Road.

Willie was agitated. She said the cops were looking for Clyde “Stubby” Green. They found Stubby’s overcoat on the nurse’s body. The nurse was selling Stubby dope.

Stubby Green lived across the street from Peggy Forrest. He worked at a machine shop with Ernie Stopplemoor. Stubby was 5′11″ and stocky. He had a butch haircut. He was about 30 then. Stubby was married to Rita Green. They came from Vermont or New Hampshire. Rita was blond. She wore a ponytail. Stubby and Rita were barhoppers. Stubby was an “El Monte legend” and a “well-known bad boy.” Stubby and Rita had a son named Gary and a daughter named Candy. They went to Cherrylee Elementary School. They were about six or seven years old in 1958. Peggy saw Stubby sneak home one morning. He was carrying some suits and sports jackets. It just didn’t look right. Willie Stopplemoor did not mention Stubby or the nurse again. Peggy forgot about the whole thing. The kicker to the whole thing was this:

The Greens split for parts unknown a few weeks after the murder. They pulled their kids out of school. They blew off their mortgage and their house. They never returned to El Monte. The Stopplemoors did the same thing. They split unexpectedly. They did not tell a soul that they intended to move. They just up and vanished.

I asked Peggy to describe Ernie Stopplemoor. She said he was very tall and gangly. Willie Stopplemoor was chunky and plain-featured. Bill mentioned the machine shop. Peggy said she didn’t know the name. It was somewhere in the San Gabriel Valley.

I asked her for names. I asked her to link some names to the Green incident. She said her father told her something. He said Bill Young and Margaret McGaughey knew the dead nurse.

Bill ran Peggy Forrest through her story again. She told it in the same precise manner. I wrote down all the names and ages and physical descriptions. I wrote out a priority list and underlined four things:

El Monte Museum—check ’58 directories.

Check ’59s—see if Greens & Stopplemoors really left El Monte.

Check school records—Green & Stopplemoor kids.

Run Greens & Stopplemoors nationwide and attempt to locate.

It felt like something. I liked the tight local vibe.

I showed Bill my list. He said it was good. We discussed the Green/Stopplemoor story. I said the coat bit was bullshit. The cops found my mother’s coat on her body. Bill said the dope bit was bullshit. Jean probably had no access to salable narcotics. I said I dug the geographical angle. Elrovia was one block from Maple. I started to theorize. Bill told me to stop. We had to get more facts first.

We hit the El Monte Museum. We checked the directories. We found a Clyde Greene on Embree in 1958. His wife was listed as Lorraine, not Rita. We checked the ’59, ’60 and ’61 books. There were no Clyde or Lorraine Greenes listed. We found the Stopplemoors on Elrovia for all four years.

Bill called Tom Armstrong. He ran the story by him and gave him the names and approximate ages of the four Greene and Stopplemoor kids. The Stopplemoors probably stuck around El Monte. The Greenes might have booked out quicksville. Armstrong said he’d check the appropriate school records. He’d try to determine if the Greenes and Stopplemoors yanked their kids.

Bill called Chief Clayton and Dave Wire. He dropped the names Ernie Stopplemoor and Clyde “Stubby” Greene—the “El Monte legend.” The names didn’t ring any bells. Clayton and Wire promised to call some old cops and report back.

They called some old cops. They reported back. Nobody recalled Ernie Stopplemoor or Clyde “Stubby” Greene.

We ran the Greenes, the Stopplemoors and their kids through the state DMV and DOJ computers and the 50-state reverse book. We ran the name Rita Greene and the name Lorraine Greene. We got precious few Greenes altogether. We called all of them. None of them acted suspicious. None of them said they used to live in El Monte. None of the Clydes copped to the nickname “Stubby.” None of the Garys and Candys copped to daddies named Clyde or mamas named Lorraine or Rita.

We tagged three Stopplemoors in Iowa. They were blood kin to old Ernie. They said Ernie and Wilma were dead. Their son Jerry was dead. Their son Gailard was living in Northern California.

Bill got Gailard’s number and called him. Gailard did not recall the Greene family or the Jean Ellroy snuff or anything but hot rods and chicks in El Monte. He did not come off suspicious. He came off somnambulant.

Armstrong got us the school records. They proved that the Stopplemoors stayed in El Monte. They proved that the Greenes pulled their kids out of school in October ’58. Stubby did not rabbit in July. Peggy Forrest had that wrong.

We tried to find Bill Young and Margaret McGaughey. We failed. We kissed the whole tangent off.

We met the LA. Times reporter. We showed her the file. We showed her El Monte. We took her to Valenzuela’s and Arroyo High and 756 Maple. She said she was backlogged. She might not get her piece out before Labor Day.

Bill resumed his trial preparations. I went back to the file. The file was an access road to my mother. I was going into hiding with her soon. The file was preparing me. I wanted to meet her with established facts and rumors synced to my imagination. The file smelled like old paper. I could turn that smell to spilled perfume and sex and her.

I holed up with the file. My apartment was un-air-conditioned and summertime hot. I stared at my corkboard displays. I had my meals delivered. I talked to Helen and Bill on the phone every night and nobody else. I kept the answering machine on. A string of psychics and soul channelers called and said they could help me. I erased the messages. I cooked up some crazy-ass measures and called them in to Bill. I said we could take out a big newspaper ad and request information on the Blonde and Swarthy Man. Bill said it would just attract more freaks and geeks and mystics. I said we could offer a big reward for the same information. It would galvanize the barflies who heard the Blonde’s story. Bill said it would galvanize every greedy cocksucker in Los Angeles County. I said we could go through all the ’58 phone books. We could check the El Monte, Baldwin Park, Rosemead, Duarte, La Puente, Arcadia, Temple City and San Gabriel books and write down every Greek and Italian and Latin-Caucasian sounding male name and run DOJ and DMV checks and take it from there. Bill said it was a screwy idea. It would take a year and result in nothing but bullshit and catastrophic aggravation.

He said I should read the file. He said I should think about my mother. I said I was doing it. I didn’t say some part of me was running like she used to run. I didn’t say my crazy suggestions were some kind of last-ditch effort to avoid her.

The Jean Ellroy reinvestigation was ten months old.