My Dark Places - James Ellroy [141]
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.