My Dark Places - James Ellroy [169]
My father said he went home. He called my mother. He asked her if she had no shame. Jean said she would do as she pleased. He didn’t browbeat Jean at Ralph’s Market. He brought his son home a few days after Thanksgiving. Jean wasn’t there. His son showed him how to enter the apartment. He opened some French windows. He entered the apartment. He did not look through Jean’s clothes or open her bureau drawers. He never called Jean filthy names. She phoned him and called him filthy names.
The investigator talked to Ethel Ings. She said Jean was an excellent mother. Jean paid her 75 cents an hour. She looked after Jean’s son. Jean never left her son home alone. He went to a Lutheran church every Sunday. Jean never raised her voice to him. She never used foul language.
The investigator talked to the principal of Children’s Paradise School. She said Jean was an excellent mother. The father pampered the boy and did not make him study. The father used the boy. He used him to get back at his mother. He called him every night and asked him questions about his mother. He told him to answer “yes” or “no” when his mother was nearby.
The investigator talked to Eula Lee Lloyd. She said Jean was an excellent mother. Mr. Ellroy was not a good father. She saw Mr. Ellroy several times recently. He was crouched outside Jean’s apartment. He was looking in the windows.
The investigator talked to my mother. She contradicted my father’s account of her actions. She denied his charges of sex mania and dipsomaniacal behavior. She said her ex-husband lied to her son repeatedly. He told him he owned a retail store in Norwalk. He told him he was buying a house with a swimming pool. He wanted to possess the boy entirely. Her ex-husband called her vile names. He did it in front of her son. Her ex-husband was a latent homosexual. She had medical proof.
The investigator sided with my mother. She cited my mother’s salutary work record. She said my mother seemed to possess a sound character. She did not act like a drunk or a slattern. The judge sided with my mother. He issued a formal decree. He told the plaintiff and the defendant not to annoy or harass each other. He told my father not to break into my mother’s apartment. He told him not to lurk and loiter outside it. He told him to pick me up and drop me off and stay the fuck away.
The decree was dated 2/29/56. My mother was two years and four months away from Saturday Night. The notes and records catalogued her life in misalliance. I could label the investigation successful. I knew one thing past all doubt. I did not know who killed my mother. I knew how she came to King’s Row.
31
It wasn’t enough. It was a momentary pause and a spark point. I had to know more. I had to honor my debt and pursue my claim. My will to look and learn was still strong and still perversely attuned. I was my father crouched outside my mother’s bedroom window.
I didn’t want it to end. I wouldn’t let it end. I didn’t want to lose her again.
King’s Row was just a window facing backward. The Swarthy Man was just a witness with a few memories. I was a detective with no official sanction and no evidential rules to restrict me. I could take implication and rumor and hold them as fact. I could travel her life at my own mental speed. I could linger at Tunnel City and El Monte and all points in between. I could grow old in my search. I could fear my own death. I could relive her Sundays at that church by the railroad tracks. They preached heavenly reunions there. I could learn to believe. I could write off my search with a godly dispensation and await the time we lock eyes on a cloud.