My Dark Places - James Ellroy [81]
He dumped her in a church parking lot. He stole her credit cards and bought a pair of size-10 Kinney boots. The Riverside County Sheriff’s chased him down on an old parole warrant. He heard the knock on the door. He hid out in bed underneath his 300-pound girlfriend.
The Riverside cops popped him two days later. He told them he had the goods on an L.A. County murder. A biker told him he whacked an old broad and dumped her behind a church. He could find the biker for them—if they let him out.
The Riverside cops called Stoner and relayed the man’s story. Stoner asked them if the man was wearing size-10 Kinney boots. The cops said he was. Stoner said he’d be right over with a murder warrant.
The man confessed. Sheriff’s Robbery made him for some holdups. His girlfriend was his driver. The man refused to snitch her off. Men killed women and got gooey over women in a heartbeat.
A Cambodian man moved to Hawaiian Gardens. He had two kids from a previous marriage. His first wife died in the war. He had two kids with his new wife. They were hardworking Cambodian-Americans.
The man learned his wife was cheating on him. He stabbed their two kids to death and stabbed himself to death. Stoner learned that men killed women by proxy.
An angel dust addict went prowling in his bathrobe. He broke into a trailer and stabbed an old man in the eyes. Deputies followed blood spots back to his pad. The kid was trying to flush his bathrobe down the toilet. He said he didn’t know why he went out prowling.
Stoner figured he was looking for a woman.
Karen Reilly was a body dump. A guy got a flat tire on the 126 freeway and saw his hubcap fly off into a field. He looked for it. He smelled something dead and almost tripped over Karen.
She was badly decomposed and chewed up by animals. Critters got her hyoid bone. There was no way to determine strangulation. There was no way to run serology or toxicology tests. There was no way to attribute cause of death.
Stoner and Farrington worked the crime scene. The temperature was pushing three digits. They found some jewelry on the body and tagged it.
Stoner checked missing-persons reports. He found a two-week-old LAPD case and contacted the assigned detectives. They told him his decomp sounded like their girl. They picked up the jewelry found on the body and showed it to Karen Reilly’s parents. Her parents ID’d it.
Two private detectives were working the case already. Karen’s parents hired them a few days after Karen disappeared. They met with Stoner and Farrington and gave them a progress report.
Karen Reilly was 19. She liked liquor and unsavory young dudes. She lived with her parents in upscale Porter Ranch.
She signed up at a temp agency. She met a young male Latin named John Soto. Soto worked at the agency. He lived with his common-law wife and kid and his brother Augie and Augie’s 16-year-old girlfriend. Karen was fucking John Soto. Her parents disapproved.
Karen was home right before she vanished. She was drinking jellybeans with a girlfriend. She got zorched. She ranted against John Soto and his “wife.” She said they were crummy parents. She said she wanted to rescue their kid.
Karen left the house alone. Her mom and dad never saw her again.
The Soto brothers furnished the rest of the story.
Karen walked to a main drag and started hitchhiking. Two guys picked her up. The driver asked her for her phone number. Karen gave it to him. The guys dropped her outside the Soto brothers’ building.
The Soto guys let her in. Karen verbally attacked John’s common-law wife and ran out of the apartment. The wife chased her. They traded insults on the sidewalk at 2:00 in the morning. John Soto ran down. He made his wife go upstairs. Augie Soto and his girlfriend walked outside and talked to Karen. Karen said she was going to hitchhike home or hitch to Los Banos Lake.
Augie and his girlfriend walked upstairs. John gave them the keys