My Dark Places - James Ellroy [145]
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.
25
Daddy Beckett looked like Santa Claus. He was a hard-charging bad-ass in 1981. He was your white-bearded granddad now. He had a heart condition. He was a born-again Christian.
He went to trial at Division 107, L.A. County Superior Court. Judge Michael Cowles presided. Deputy DA Dale Davidson represented the county. A lawyer named Dale Rubin represented Daddy. The courtroom was wood-paneled and nicely air-conditioned. The acoustics were good. The spectator benches were hard and uncomfortable.
O. J. Simpson was on trial four doors down. The hallway was packed from 8:00 a.m. to closing time every day. We were nine floors up. Every elevator ride ran full capacity. The Criminal Courts Building was a multiplex entertainment center. It featured one hot attraction and some courtroom lounge acts. Media crews, picketers and T-shirt vendors circled the building. The pro-O.J. pickets were black. The anti-O.J. pickets were white. The T-shirt guys were biracial.