My Dark Places - James Ellroy [137]
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