Scales described the night of 1/29 unsolicited. His eyes flicked on and off Bill’s gun. His account tallied with his taped account of 2/1/73. He ran it down deadpan. Bill interposed questions. Scales answered them and jumped back to his basic narrative. He rolled over for authority figures. I knew it was a long-term practice.
I said, “Tell us about BettyJean.”
Scales said she was a dingbat. She was mousy, easygoing, and submissive. She talked a mile a minute like a true nutcase. Simple tasks flummoxed her. She didn’t know how to do things.
He said “dingbat” dead cold. I used to call my mother a drunk and a whore the same way.
I didn’t say, Why did you marry her then? Scales gave us the narrative version.
He met Betty in late ’67. He was living in Bell Gardens. She was living in Downey. Her father set her up in a pad. He found Betty in bed with a boy and cut off his support abruptly.
Betty was going to high school then. Bill Scales moved in with her. He got her pregnant and married her. Their daughter, Leah, was born in October ’68. They moved to El Monte in ’71. He raced motorcycles and hung insulation. Betty worked on the assembly line at Avon cosmetics and quit to be a full-time mother. They had a son. He was 3 months old when Betty died. Leah married a guy named Baker. They had two kids. Leah was fat. She blamed her obesity on her father and her mother’s death. He had a second family and raised Leah and her brother with them. Leah did not appreciate it. Betty’s parents hated him and encouraged her to hate him.
Scales said that second marriage folded. He gave us a quick rundown on the details.
His candor was praiseworthy and appalling. He impressed me as a control freak with a dark self-knowledge learned the hard way. He cut his losses and lived inside rigid boundaries. His subtext was all male pride and self-pity.
He gave us his daughter’s phone number. He said he’d give us a cell scrape. He said he didn’t remember the last time he had sex with Betty. She was on the Pill. He didn’t wear rubbers. The sperm on her panties might turn out to be his.
He looked like an Okie transplant and employed perfect grammar. He set out to refute his roots every time he opened his mouth.
He said Bud Bedford sicced a P.I. on him back in ’73. The guy tailed him to a siding job in Temecula.
Bill said, “How did Bud and Betty get on?”
Scales said, “Not well.” Her brother said they were feuding right before Betty died.
Bill said, “Where’s the brother now?”
Scales said, “He died of AIDS.”
We door-knocked Leah Scales Baker. She let us in and sat on a couch between us.
The apartment was small and overfurnished. I heard kids back in the bedrooms. The husband sat on the living-room floor and observed the interview.
Leah Baker was prepared. Bill called ahead and stated our purpose.
He introduced me. I smiled. He said my mother was a murder victim. It fell flat. Leah Baker looked right through me. She said her mother’s death destroyed her life.
Bill asked her if she remembered her mother. Leah said hardly at all. Bill laid out a riff on DNA and said we had a promising suspect. Leah started in on her father.
He was mean. He was nasty. He belittled her in front of his family. She locked herself in closets and gobbled cookies to spite him.
Bill said he was cleared back in ’73 and was not a suspect now. Leah said she had dreams. Her father was hitting a faceless figure. She watched him. She was wearing a white nightgown. Her grandfather said she used to wear a nightgown like that as a child.
Bill said, “Did your father beat you?” Leah said, “Maybe.” She had these memory gaps. She could not recall large blocks of her childhood.
Bill tried to ask a string of questions. Leah talked over him.
Her father ridiculed her. Her stepmother and stepbrother teased her. They tried to tease her out of being fat–but she stayed fat anyway.