I knew I was stalling. I knew I was postponing my first look at the pictures.
Stoner read my mind. He said he’d pull the worst of the shots if I wanted him to.
I said no.
The file was a mishmash: envelopes, Teletype slips, handwritten notes and two copies of the Detective Division Blue Book, an accumulation of reports and verbatim interviews. My first impression: This was the chaos of Jean Ellroy’s life.
I put the photograph envelope aside. Penal-code numbers and birth dates jumped off the Teletypes.
The DOBs ran from 1912 to 1919. The codes designated arrests for aggravated assault and rape.
My mother left the bar with a “fortyish” man. The Teletypes deciphered: requests for information on men with sex-crime priors.
I read some odd notes. Minutiae grabbed me.
The Desert Inn bar: 11721 East Valley Boulevard. My mother’s ’57 Buick: license KFE 778. Our old house: 756 Maple Avenue.
I read the names on the front of the Blue Book. The investigating officers: sergeants John Lawton and Ward Hallinen.
The squad room lapsed into slow motion. I heard Stoner telling people that Bill McComas had aced his surgery. I spotted two full-size sheets of stationery with memo slips attached.
Early in 1970, two women wrote Homicide and informed “To Whom It May Concern” that they believed their respective exhusbands murdered Geneva Hilliker Ellroy. Woman Number One stated that her ex worked at Packard Bell and had had affairs with my mother and two other women there. The man “behaved in a suspicious fashion” in the weeks following the killing and hit her when she pressed him about his whereabouts on the night of June 2 1. Woman Number Two said that her ex-husband harbored a “long-standing grudge” against Jean Eliroy. My mother refused to process a workers’ compensation claim that the man had proffered, and his resentment sent him “off the deep end.”
Woman Number Two included a postscript: Her ex-husband torched a furniture warehouse in 1968 to avenge a dinette-set repossession.
Both letters read vindictively sincere. Both were respectful of police authority. Memorandums indicated that the leads were checked out.
One detective interviewed both ex-husbands. He concluded that the allegations were groundless and that the women did not know each other and thus could not have colluded.
A relatively obscure homicide. Two disturbingly similar accusations–unrelated accusations–eleven and a half years after the crime.
I examined the Blue Book. The reports and interview transcripts lacked a continuous narrative line. I scanned a few pages and realized that my basic knowledge of the case was sufficient to make odd bits of data cohere.
The crime-scene report was logged in mid-book. The first El Monte cop to respond reported that “the victim was lying on her back at the side of the road. There was dry blood on her lips and nose. The lower part of the victim’s body was covered with a woman’s coat. The victim was wearing a multi-colored (blue and black) dress. A brassiere appeared to be around the victim’s neck.”
Further examination reveals:
The brassiere is really a stocking.
A necklace strand rests under the body.
Forty-seven individual pearls are scattered nearby.
The coroner arrives. He views the body and points out bruises on the neck. He thinks the woman was strangled with a windowsash cord or clothesline. Drag marks on the woman’s hips indicate that she was killed elsewhere and brought to this location.
The investigation commenced. My memory filled in Blue Book continuity gaps.
No identification was found on the body. The El Monte Police Department called in the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Detective Bureau.
Radio bulletins went out. The dead woman’s description was flashed Valley-wide.
Our neighbor Mrs. Kryzcki responded. She was brought to the county morgue and identified the body. She said Jean Ellroy was a fine lady, who did not drink or date men.
My mother’s car was discovered parked behind the Desert Inn. Bar employees were detained at El Monte police headquarters.
They identified my mother from a snapshot that Mrs. Kryzcki provided. Yes, the woman came in last night. She arrived alone about eight o’clock and later joined a man and a woman. Said man and woman were not regular patrons. None of the staff had ever seen them before.