27

The jury delivered. Daddy Beckett fell for Tracy Stewart. Bill said he’d get life without. Gloria Stewart confronted him. She pled for her daughter’s body and called Daddy terrible names. I said there was no body and no closure. Daddy got life. Gloria got life with Daddy and Robbie.

Bill threw a backyard party. He called it a pre-Labor Day bash. It was really a goodbye party aimed at Daddy Beckett.

I attended. Dale Davidson and his wife attended. Vivian Davidson was a deputy DA. She knew the Beckett case intimately. Some other DAs came down. Gary White and his girlfriend came down. Bill’s father showed up. Bill’s neighbors walked over. Everybody ate hot dogs and burgers and talked murder. The cops and DAs were relieved that the Beckett mess was over. The non-cops and non-DAs thought that meant closure. I wanted to find the fool who invented closure and shove a big closure plaque up his ass. Everybody talked about OJ. Everybody riffed on the potential verdict and its potential ramifications. I didn’t talk much. I was at my own party with the redhead. She was playful. She was snagging potato chips off my plate. We were sharing our own private jokes.

I watched Bill toss burgers and talk to his friends. I knew he was relieved. I knew his relief dated back to Daddy Beckett’s arrest. He circumvented Daddy’s shot at killing other women. That was a hypothetically sound resolution. The guilty verdict was more ambiguous. Daddy was old and infirm. His rape-and-kill days were gone. Robbie was still in his rape-and-kill and beat-up-women prime. He just turned in a stunning performance. It facilitated justice in the matter of L.A. County vs. Robert Wayne Beckett Sr. It made him friends in law enforcement. He committed patricide in their name. It looked good on his prison record. It might serve to influence a premature parole.

Bill was still on the Drop Zone Expressway. He was serving out his own life sentence. He chose murder. Murder chose me. He came to murder as a moral duty. I came to murder as a voyeur. He became a voyeur. He had to look. He had to know. He succumbed to repeated seductions. My seductions started and stopped with my mother. Bill and I were indictable co-defendants. We were on trial in the Court of Murder Victim Preference. We favored female victims. Why sublimate your lust when you can use it as a tool of perception? Most women were killed for sex. That was our voyeuristic justification. Bill was a professional detective. He knew how to look and sift and stand back from his findings and retain his professional composure. I could eschew those restraints. I did not have to build courtroom evidence. I did not have to establish coherent and explainable motives. I could wallow in my mother’s sex and the sex of other dead women. I could categorize them and revere them as sisters in horror. I could look and sift and compare and analyze and build my own set of sexual and nonsexual links. I could call them valid on a gender-wide basis and attribute a broad range of detail to my mother’s life and death. I wasn’t chasing active suspects. I wasn’t chasing facts to conform to any prestructured thesis. I was chasing knowledge. I was chasing my mother as truth. She taught me some truths in a dark bedroom. I wanted to reciprocate. I wanted to honor murdered women in her name. It sounded wholly grandiose and egotistical. It said I was looking at life on the Drop Zone Expressway. It brought that moment at the food court back in perfect reprise. It pointed me one way right now.

I had to know her life the way I knew her death.

I held the notion. I harbored it privately. We went back to work.

We met the reporters from La Opinión, Orange Coast and the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. We showed them around El Monte. The L.A. Times came out. We got 60 calls total. We got hang-ups and psychic calls and O.J. gag calls and good-luck calls. Two women called and said their fathers could have killed my mother. We answered those calls. We heard more child-abuse stories. We cleared the two fathers.

A young woman called. She snitched off an old woman. She said the old woman lived in El Monte. The old woman worked at Packard-Bell circa 1950. She was blond. She wore a ponytail.

We found the old woman. She did not act suspicious. She did not remember my mother. She could not place my mother at Packard-Bell Electronics.

La Opinión came out. We got zero calls. La Opinión was printed in Spanish. La Opinión was a long shot.

The San Gabriel Valley Tribune came out. We got 41 calls total. We got hang-ups and psychic calls. We got OJ. gag calls. A man called. He said he was an old El Monte cat. He knew a swarthy cat back in the late ’50s. The swarthy cat hung out at a gas station on Peck Road. He didn’t remember the swarthy cat’s name. The gas station was long gone. He knew lots of cats from ’58 El Monte.

We met the cat. He gave us some names. We ran them by Dave Wire and Chief Clayton. They remembered a few of the cats. They did not look like the Swarthy Cat. We ran the cats through our three computers. We got no statewide or nationwide hits.

An Associated Press reporter called me. He wanted to write a piece on the Ellroy-Stoner quest. It would run nationwide. He’d include our 1-800 number. I said, Let’s do it.

We took him to El Monte. He wrote his piece. It appeared in numerous newspapers. Editors butchered it. Most of them cut the 1-800 number. We got very few calls.

Three psychics called. The Black Dahlia lady called. Nobody called and said they knew the Blonde. Nobody called and said they knew my mother.

We ran our key names again. We wanted to cover our bets. We thought we might hit some new data-bank listings. We didn’t. Ruth Schienle and Stubby Greene were dead or effectively elusive. Salvador Quiroz Serena might be back in Mexico. We couldn’t find Grant Surface. He took two lie detector tests in 1959. He didn’t pass them or fail them. We wanted to challenge the inconclusive results.

Bill played a hunch and called Duane Rasure. Rasure found his Will Lenard Miller notes and FedExed them down. We read the notes. We found six Airtek names. We found two of the people alive. They remembered my mother. They said she worked at Packard-Bell before she came to Airtek. They didn’t know the name Nikola Zaha. They couldn’t ID my mother’s old boyfriends. They gave us more Airtek names. They said Ruth Schienle divorced her husband and married a man named Rolf Wire. Rolf Wire was allegedly dead. We ran Rolf and Ruth Wire through our three computers and got no hits. We ran the new Airtek names. We got no hits. We drove out to the Pachmyer Group’s corporate office. Bill said they wouldn’t let us see their personnel files. I said, Let’s ask. I wasn’t chasing leads on the Swarthy Man. I was chasing leads on my mother.

The Pachmyer people were gracious. They said the Airtek division bellied up in ’59 or ’60. All the Airtek files were destroyed.

I took the loss unprofessionally hard. My mother worked at Airtek from 9/56 on. I wanted to know her then.

The Jean Ellroy reinvestigation was 13 months old.

O. J. Simpson was acquitted. L.A. waxed apocalyptic. The media went nuts behind the words “potential ramifications.” All murders ramified. Ask Gloria Stewart or Irv Kupcinet. The Simpson case would cripple the immediate survivors. L.A. would get over it. A more celebrated man would snuff a more beautiful woman sooner or later. The case would microcosmically expose an even sexier and more ludicrous lifestyle. The media would build off O.J. and make the case an even bigger event.

I wanted to go home. I wanted to see Helen. I wanted to write this memoir. Dead women were holding me back. They died in L.A. and told me to stick around for a while. I was burned out on detective work. I was fried to the eyeballs on negative computer runs and misinformation. I had the redhead inside me. I could carry her away. Bill could chase leads and stalk the facts of her life in my absence. I stuck around for a shot at some brand-new ghosts.

I made four solo trips to the Bureau. I pulled old Blue Books. I read adjudicated cases cover to cover. I had no crime scene photos. I brain-cammed my own. I read dead body reports and autopsy reports and background reports and brain-screened my own history of vivisected women. I looked. I sifted. I wallowed. I didn’t compare and analyze the way I thought I would. The women stood out as individuals. They didn’t bring me back to my mother. They didn’t teach me. I couldn’t protect them. I couldn’t avenge their deaths. I couldn’t honor them in my mother’s name because I didn’t really know who they were. I didn’t know who she was. I had inklings and a big fucking hunger to know more.

I started to feel like a grave robber. I knew I was burned out on death altogether. I wanted to score some leads on the redhead. I wanted to snag more information and hoard it and take it home with me. I thought up some last-ditch measures to keep me in L.A. I thought up newspaper ads and infomercials and on-line computer broadsides. Bill said it was all crazy shit. He said we should brace the Wagners in Wisconsin. He said I was scared. He didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have to. He knew my mother made me unique. He knew I embraced her selfishly. The Wagners had their own claim. They might dispute mine. They might welcome me back and try to turn me into a docile stiff with an extended family. They had a claim on my mother. I didn’t want to share my claim. I didn’t want to break the spell of her and me and what she made me.

Bill was right. I knew it was time to go home.

I packed up my corkboards and graphs and shipped them east. Bill transferred our tip-line number to an answering service. I took the file home with me.

Bill stayed on the case. He lost a partner and gained one back. Joe Walker was a crime analyst. He was on the L.A. Sheriff’s Department. He knew the law enforcement computer network intimately. He was hopped up on the Karen Reilly case. He thought a black serial killer snuffed Karen Reilly. He wanted to work the Jean Ellroy case. Bill told him he could.

I missed Bill. He’d become my closest friend. He chaperoned me for 14 months. He cut me loose at the perfect moment of impasse. He sent me away with my mother and my unresolved claim.

I didn’t nail up my corkboards at home. I didn’t need to. She was always there with me.

Orange Coast came out. Orange Coast was an Orange County rag. The piece was good. They ran our 1-800 number. We got five calls. Two psychics called. Three people called and wished us good luck.

The holidays ended. A TV producer called me. She worked for the Unsolved Mysteries show. She knew all about the Ellroy-Stoner quest. She wanted to do a segment on the Jean Ellroy case. They would dramatize that Saturday night and include a plea for specific information. The show solved crimes. Old people watched the show. Old cops watched the show. They had their own tip-line number and operators on duty 24 hours a day. They reran their episodes in the summer. They FedExed all their tips to the victim’s next-of-kin and the lead investigating detective.

I said yes. The producer said they wanted to shoot the actual locations. I said I’d fly out. I called Bill and told him the news. He said it was a fabulous break. I said we had to densify our segment. We had to saturate it with details on my mother’s life. I wanted people to call in and say, “I knew that woman.”

The Wagners might see the show. They might assail the portrait of my mother. She sent her son to church. Her son cashed in on her death. He turned her into a cheap femme fatale. He was a boyhood con artist. He was a character assassin now. He defamed his mother. He totaled up the balance sheet of her life incorrectly and gave the world a faulty accounting. He staked his claim of ownership on skewed memories and his worthless father’s lies. He egregiously misrepresented his mother for all fucking time.

I went back to that dark bedroom and the food court epiphany. The new memory balance. Bill’s implication. The exclusive bond that I would not sever. The Wagners might see the show. They never saw or never reacted to the book I dedicated to my mother. They were midwestern stiffs. They weren’t media hip. They might have sailed past me in newspapers and magazines. Leoda underestimated me. I hated her for it. I wanted to rub my real-life mother in her face and say, See how she was and see how I revere her anyway. She could cut me down with a few stern words. She could say, You didn’t talk to us. You didn’t trace your mother back to Tunnel City, Wisconsin. You based your portrait on insufficient data.

I didn’t want to go back yet. I didn’t want to break the bond. I did not want to disturb the core of sex that still defined it. Dead people belong to the live people who claim them most obsessively. She was all mine.

They filmed our segment in four days. They shot Bill and me at the El Monte Station. I re-enacted the moment at the evidence vault. I opened a plastic bag and pulled out a silk stocking.

It wasn’t the stocking. Somebody twisted up an old stocking and knotted it. I didn’t pick up a simulated sash cord. We omitted the two-ligature detail.

The director praised my performance. We shot the scene fast.

The crew was great. They were up for some laughs. The shoot played like a party in Jean Ellroy’s honor.

I met the actor who portrayed the Swarthy Man. He called me Little Jimmy. I called him Shitbird. He was lean and mean. He looked like the Identi-Kit portraits. I met the actress who portrayed my mother. I called her Mom. She called me Son. She had red hair. She looked more Hollywood than rural Wisconsin. I kidded her. I said, “Don’t go out chasing men while I’m gone this weekend.” She said, “Buzz off, Jimmy—I need some action!” Mom and Swarthy came to laugh. We got some good shtick going. Bill showed up every day. He had a total blast.

They shot the Desert Inn sequence at a sleazy cocktail lounge in Downey. The set looked anachronistic. I met the actress who portrayed the Blonde. She was skanky bar bait personified. The Swarthy Man was dressed to kill. He wore a nubby silk-jacket-and-slacks combo. My mother wore a mock-up of the dress they found her in.

They filmed the three-way dynamic. The Swarthy Man looked evil. My mother looked too healthy. The Blonde hit the right skank chord. I wanted a noir vignette. They shot a faithful expository scene.

We moved down the street to Harvey’s Broiler. I saw 20 vintage cars lined up. Harvey’s Broiler was Stan’s Drive-in. A bit actress was set to sling trays and portray Lavonne Chambers.

The Swarthy Man and my mother got in a ’55 Olds. Lavonne brought them menus. They were miked up and ready to act. The producer gave me headphones. I listened to their dialogue and some random chitchat. Swarthy made a real-life play for my mom.

They shot the murder at the real location. The crew commandeered Arroyo High School. They brought in camera trucks, sound trucks, a catering truck and a wardrobe van. Some locals strolled by. I counted 32 people at one point.

They set up arc lights. King’s Row went hallucinogenic. The ’55 Olds pulled up. A chaste murder prelude and a simulated murder occurred. I watched the prelude and the murder and the body dump 25 times. It wasn’t painful. I was a murder pro now. I was more than a victim’s son and less than a homicide detective.

They shot two scenes at my old house. They paid Geno Guevara a site fee. I met the actor who played me as a kid. He looked like me at age ten. He wore clothes like I wore on 6/22/58.

The El Monte PD blocked off Bryant and Maple. The crew dressed the street with three vintage cars. Chief Clayton showed up. Spectators gathered. A 1950s cab materialized. The director rehearsed the Ellroy kid and the cop who gave him the news.

They blocked out the arrival scene. The cab pulled up. The boy got out. The cop told him his mother was dead. Thirty or forty people watched.

They shot and reshot the scene. The word went around. I was the kid in the cab half a lifetime ago. People pointed to me. People waved.

They shot a domestic scene in my old kitchen. The kitchen was dressed up ’50s style. My mother wore a white uniform. I wore my arrival outfit. My mother called me into the kitchen and told me to eat my dinner. I crashed into a chair and ignored my food. It was wholesome TV fare. Bill said they should have shot me looking down my mother’s dress.

We broke for lunch. A catering truck arrived. A grip set up service for 20 on Geno Guevara’s front lawn. The buffet line stretched out to the street. Some local yokels grabbed plates and crashed the party.

I sat down beside a total stranger. I sent a prayer out to the redhead. I said, This is for you.