Crime Wave

The box is on the floor. The clothes are stacked beside it.

Koury and Meyers look under the seat. They find the matching shoe. A key ring is tucked inside. They note a blood spot on the canvas.

On the seat: a red-pink sweater. Distinct bloodstains. A toolbox on the step by the passenger door. Blood spotted.

More bloodwork:

Smears on the seat back. Spatters on the inside of the passenger door. Drops on the step near the toolbox.

Koury called the crime lab and told them to send out a crew. Meyers opened the purse. He found cosmetic items, three checks made out to William D. Scales, Betty Jean Scales’s ID, and a checkbook. The last check logged in: $9.71, to Durfee Drugs, 1/29/73. Meyers checked the box on the floor. He found a cashregister receipt for $9.71. Koury called the EL Monte PD and told them to contact the husband.

The lab crew arrived. A print man dusted the truck inside and out. He found no latent prints. He found wipe marks on the steering wheel and dashboard. A man scraped blood samples and cut a swatch out of the seat back. He found a long brown hair congealed in a blood smear.

1:30 P.M., 2/1/73:

Koury and Meyers meet Bill Scales at the El Monte PD. Scales recounts his wife’s Monday-night plans. He runs down his own actions and describes his marriage as stable.

3:30 P.M., 2/1/73:

Koury and Meyers drive to Durfee Drugs. They interview a clerk named Gloria Terrazas. Mrs. Terrazas ID’s a photo of the probable victim and says she came in about 8:30 Monday night. She purchased some baby formula and paid by check. She came in and left alone. She behaved in a normal fashion.

4:00 P.M., 2/1/73:

Koury and Meyers drive to Crawford’s Market. They grill the people working Monday night. They flash a photo of the probable victim. They say, “When was the last time you saw her?” They get a straight consensus: She did not come in Monday night.

It looks tight and local. The probable victim leaves her pad and drives to Durfee Drugs. She never gets to Crawford’s or the bank. Her deposit-ready checks are still in her purse. It looks like a snatch. The guy grabs her outside Durfee Drugs or en route to the bank and Crawford’s. He hijacks the truck. He dumps her and dumps the truck at Vons Market. The truck was in the lot from 4:00 A.M. Tuesday on.

Or it’s the husband.

6:oo P.M., 2/1/73:

Koury and Meyers meet Bill Scales at the tow yard. Scales ID’s his truck and the items in the bed. He points to the empty box. He says his staple-bat is missing. It’s very heavy. Maybe the guy beat his wife to death with it.

Koury and Meyers look at Scales real close.

Scales looks in the cab. He spots some gravel on the floor. He extrapolates.

Some clown kidnapped his wife. He beat her to death with his staple-bat and dumped her in the Irwindale pits.

It’s a good theory.

Koury and Meyers make Bill Scales as one cold motherfucker.

The Irwindale gravel pits ran northeast of El Monte. They bordered the 6o5 Freeway. They covered twenty-four square miles. They fused with flood-control basins and brushland.

The pits ran fifteen to 150 feet deep. Paved roads connected them. Street access was cake. You could pull off east-west thoroughfares and drive right in.

The pits looked psychedelic. Scoop cranes hung over them all day and all night. Rainfall turned the pits into tide pools. Water collected and receded at a very slow rate.

Heavy rain hit L.A. that winter. The pit floors were submerged. The pit line began 1 .5 miles east of Vons Market.

The Scales thing vibed body dump. The cops figured she was down in the pits.

Friday, 2/2/73:

A search team goes in. Deployed: one Sheriff’s helicopter, ten deputies, three El Monte PD men, and three Sheriff’s Homicide men. The chopper flies low. The cops kick through wet gravel all day.

Saturday, 2/3/73:

The search resumes. Deployed: one chopper, seven deputies, two El Monte PD men, four Sheriff’s Homicide men and 103 horsemen from the Sheriff’s Mounted Posse. The search area is greatly expanded. It covers El Monte, Baldwin Park, Irwindale, Azusa, Arcadia, and unincorporated parts of L.A. County,

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