by James Ellroy
Of course, it won't go down that simply. This is one gigantic L.A.set Russian novel that exceeds the most extreme visions of Los Angeles as a bottomless black hole of depravity. This is a bottomless meditation on celebrity that will not eclipse until someone more famous than Oj. Simpson is accused of murdering two people sexier than Nicole Brown Simpson and Ron Goldman in a considerably more outré manner. This is a story told in a thousand voices--one of those microcosmic, kaleidoscopic, multiviewpoint jobs that sum up a time and place with interlocking subplots that go on forever.
This novel teems with grotesque characters and roils with unhinged incidents. The multimedia creators of this novel are grateful for the opportunity to regroup in the wake of a major disappointment: The Michael Jackson scandal diminuendoed before they got the chance to exploit its full sleaze potential and work up a hypocritical load of bile over the plight of butt-flicked children. They've got their teeth in the Oj. case now--they're pit bulls with a standing order for more, more, more--and verisimilitude and dramatic viability outgun outright veracity as the criteria for determining the thrust of their reportage. Thus a longtime informant who says he heard two White men do the snuffs gets screaming national coverage before being dismissed with footnotelike shrugs; thus A.C. Cowlings cavorting at a porno-industry wingding militates against Oj. with an inference of "check this lowlife jungle bunny out"; thus Valley-girl model Tiffany Starr pitching a boo-hoo number about her two-date relationship with Ron Goldman implies that any man who'd pour the pork to this bimbo deserved to get whacked.
Thus freedom of speech has given us a hybrid extravaganza that rests somewhere between haphazardly proffered obfuscation and willfully evolved fiction. The exploitability of the case intersected with the ascendance of tabloid television and created a phenomenon of great magnitude, and to censor it or attempt to curtail it in any manner would be unconscionable. The Oj. Simpson case is a collective work of performance art that has to play itself out before it can be assessed, structured, deconstructed, and dissected for moral meaning.
It may boil down to issues of public disclosure and legal ethics. It may boil down to an outcry for journalistic circumspection and objectivity at all costs.
The art of fiction hinges on subjective thinking. Novelists must assume the perspectives of many different characters. Some months ago, the Simpson defense team assumed Oj.'s perspective and realized that their client was flubbing his performance as an innocent man unjustly accused. Oj. never screamed, "Let's nail the shitbird who killed my wife!"
The defense team worked up some belated damage control. They took their strand of this gigantic Russian novel interactive via a toll-free tip hot line. Oj. offered a fat reward for information leading to the apprehension of the real snuff artists--cash he might or might not have after his lawyers bleed him dry. The Los Angeles Police Department canvassed the area surrounding Nicole Simpson's town house in a search for witnesses to confirm or refute Oj.'s guilt, and got nowhere. The defense team, eager to cast the LAPD as both incompetent and racist, put out their public appeal--in case potential witnesses missed the canvassing cops and the media coverage attending the most publicized crime of all time. This was a move of epic disingenuousness--specious in its logical structuring and wholly cynical in its application.
The post--Rodney King LAPD would prefer not to hassle highprofile Blacks. Popping a low-profile White killer for the job would vibrate their vindaloos no end. The Simpson defense team understands the tortured history of the LAPD and Los Angeles Blacks--both its historical validity and the level of justified and irrational paranoia that it has produced. They put out a magnet to attract misinformation, fear, and outright madness--and some of the more presentable bits they receive may show up in court as fodder to further confuse an already informationally swamped jury.
And the LAPD will be exhorted to check out "leads" that they know will lead nowhere, or risk a barrage of courtroom recriminations that will further obscure the facts of the case, serve to excite racial tension, and contribute to the cause of general divisive bad juju.
The defense team's probably thinking they can sell the hot-line tapes for big bucks. The LAPD's probably wishing they framed some random pervert for the job.
If Oj. is guilty, he should cop a plea behind exhaustion. His 2,033 yards in one season rate bupkis when compared to his postfootball sprint.
Second-rate acclaim and the pursuit of empty pleasures wear a guy out. Beating up women is a young man's game. Attrition narrows your choices down to changing your life or ending it.
Change takes time. It's not as instantaneous as a few lines of coke or some fresh pussy.
Suicide takes imagination. You've got to be able to conjure up an afterlife or visions of rest--or be in such unbreachable pain that anything is preferable to your suffering.
Oj. went out behind a chickenshit end run. He didn't have the soul or the balls to utilize his first two options.
December 1994
THE TOOTH OF CRIME
Captain Dan Burt looks and talks like an enlightened fast-track Republican. He's midsized, tan, and groomed. If he wasn't running the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Homicide Bureau he'd be saving America from both Bill Clinton and right-wing yahoos within his own party. He knows how to talk, inspire loyalty, and wear a dark-blue suit.
Today he's riffing on the Simpson case and its lessons for homicide detectives. Six team heads and two administrative aides pack his office SRO.
Burt says: "We can cop an attitude behind the Oj. thing or we can learn from it. I'm glad it wasn't our case, but I want to make damn sure we all go to school on it."
He's got seven lieutenants and one sergeant by the short hairs. He lays out a dizzying spiel on crime-scene containment, evidence chains, and the need to recognize the media magnitude of celebrity murders at the outset, think them through from an adversarial attorney's perspective, and evaluate and define every investigatory aspect as they progress. The pitch is tight and inside, with a slow-breaking kicker: The LAPD took the grief on this one, and we reaped the benefit.
A handsomely crafted ceramic bulldog sits on a table beside the captain's desk, replete with a Sheriff's Homicide baseball cap and a rubber turd behind its ass. Burt pats the beast and wraps up the briefing.
"This unit has flourished because we've made an effort to stay open-minded and learn from our mistakes. We've never let our reputation turn us arrogant. If we continue to assess the Simpson case and incorporate what we learn into our procedures, we'll make something good out of one big goddamn mess."
Murder is a big, continuous twenty-four-hour-a-day mess. Murder spawns a numbingly protracted investigatory process that is rarely direct and linear--chiefly because it overlaps with more and more murder, taxing the resources of the investigative agencies involved and inundating detectives with interviews, courtroom appearances, reports to be written, and next-of-kin to be mollified and cajoled into intimate revelations. Murder seldom slows down and never stops; murder stays true to its Motivational Trinity: dope/sex/money.
The L.A. Sheriff's Department investigates all murders, suicides, industrial-accident fatalities, and miscellaneous sudden deaths within the confines of Los Angeles County--the vast, unincorporated area in and around the L.A. city limits. The LAPD's jurisdiction snakes inside, outside, and through the LASD's turf-- city/county borders are sometimes hard to distinguish. The county consists mainly of lower-middle-class suburbs and rat's ass towns stretching out ninety-odd miles. This is the big bad sprawl visible from low-flying airplanes: cheap stucco, smog, and freeway grids going on forever.
The LASD Homicide Bureau is housed in a courtyard industrial park in the city of Commerce--six miles from downtown L.A. Sheriff's Homicide is individually subcontracted by numerous police departments inside the county--if you get whacked in Norwalk or Rosemead, the LASD will work your case.
Sheriff's Homicide investigates about 500 snuffs a year. The L.A. District Attorney's office has publicly acknowledged its investigators
as the best in southern California. Police departments nationwide send their prospective homicide dicks to the LASD for two-week training programs. LASD detectives teach well because theirs is regarded as the pinnacle assignment--one bestowed after a minimum of ten years in jail work, patrol, and other Detective Division jobs. The mid-forties median age says it all: These people have put the rowdier aspects of police work behind them and have matured behind the gravity of murder.
Former sheriff Peter Pitchess dubbed his homicide crew "the Bulldogs"--a nod to their tenacity and salutary solved-case rate. In truth, bulldogs are lazy creatures prone to breathing disorders and hip dysplasia. The vulture should replace the bulldog as Homicide's mascot.
Vultures wait for people to die. So do homicide cops. Vultures swoop down on the recently dead and guard the surrounding area with sharp claws and beaks. Homicide cops seal crime scenes and kick off their investigations with the evidence culled within.
Sheriff's Homicide is a centralized division. Its basic makeup is six teams of fourteen detectives apiece, bossed by lieutenants Derry Benedict, Don Bear, Joe Brown, Dave Dietrich, Ray Peavy, and Bill Sieber. Two adjunct units--Unsolved and Missing Persons--work out of the same facility. The teams handle incoming murders on a rotating, forty-eight-hour on-call basis.
On-call detectives carry beepers and sleep very poorly, if at all. Beeper chirps signify death and additions to their already strained caseloads. Late-night beeps are only marginally preferable to what the old-timers called "trash runs": call-outs for obvious suicides and pro forma viewings of the poor fucker who got decapitated by an exploding boiler.
The bureau is furnished in the white-walled, metal-desked, policework moderne style. All incoming calls originate in the "Barrel," a desk counter rigged with telephones, memo baskets, and boards for charting murders and assigned personnel. The Barrel adjoins the main squad room--ninety desks arranged in lengthwise rows. The team lieutenants' desks sit crosswise at the far end, next to a shelf jammed with Sergeant Don Garcia's bulldog trinkets.
You can purchase bulldog watches and T-shirts at Sergeant Garcia's cost. A bulldog wall clock will set you back $39.95. Dig the bulldog lapel pin--the giant tongue and spiked collar detailing are worthy of Walt Disney on angel dust. Don's been running the concession for years. He buys the stuff bulk from various manufacturers. He's just acquired a new item: a bulldog neon sign to light up your wet bar!
The Unsolved and Missing Persons units reside in separate rooms off the squad bay. The sign on Unsolved's door reads "UNLOVED." Unsolved is charged with periodically reviewing cold cases and investigating any new leads pertaining to them. The crew--Dale Christiansen, Rey Verdugo, Louie "the Hat" Danoff, John Yarbrough, and Freddy Castro--is the faculty of the College of Unresolved justice. Their curriculum is the file library that Louie the Hat has lovingly preserved. Louie says the files talk to him. He's on a spiritual trip and runs his "no body" cases by psychics once in a while.
A corridor links Unsolved to a room lined with computers. A dozen screens glow green all day every day--dig the dozen clerks running record checks on permanent overdrive. The clerks-- mostly women--hog the lunchroom from noon to 2 P.M. daily. They watch soap operas and pine for the candy-ass male stars-- right down the hall from the ugly bulldog wall plaque.
Note to Sheriff Sherman Block: Vultures are more charismatic than bulldogs.
It's early December. Deputies Gil Carrillo and Frank Gonzales have tickets for the annual Sheriff's/LAPD fistfest. They're primed for an evening of charity boxing--until Lieutenant Brown tells them they're the first on-call team up.
It's a given: Some geek will get murdered tonight and fuck up their fun.
Carrillo and Gonzales decide to stay home and rest. Gil lays some comedy on the deskman, Sergeant Mike Lee: I want a good night's sleep and an indoor crime scene near my pad about io A.M. tomorrow. Joe Brown says he'll place the order, ha! ha! ha!
Gil and Frank retire to their cribs. Gil's about six foot three and massively broad. The earth shakes whenever he walks. He cobossed the LASD's end of the Richard Ramirez "Night Stalker" serial killer task force back in the eighties, ran against Sherman Block in the last sheriff's election, and glommed 17 percent of the vote. Frank's picture should appear in every dictionary on earth, next to the words "Latin lover." He is one handsome motherfucker. Carrillo and Gonzales bring vulture charisma to every case they work--but they're pissed that they blew the fights off for nothing.
Because Gil's wish comes true. His beeper beeps at 10 A.M.--it's an indoor crime scene ten minutes from his pad.
The victim is Donna Lee Meyers, female Caucasian, age 37. She's dead at her house in Valinda, a downscale San Gabriel Valley town.
She's facedown on a green shag rug in the bathroom. She's nude. She's been stabbed between twenty and forty times. Defensive wounds on her hands and arms indicate an extended struggle with her killer.
Patrol deputies responded to the 911 call. The informant was Donna Lee Meyers's father. He came to pick up his 3-year-old grandson and found the back door unlocked and the house filled with gas fumes.
The boy coughed and led him to the body. Every gas burner in the kitchen had been turned on and left unignited.
Carrillo and Gonzales arrive at the scene and get a rundown from the deputies. Their first collective hypothesis: The killer didn't have the stones to ice a little child up front, so he juiced up the gas before he split. Their first collective instinct: The murder was unpremeditated, with a sharp instrument used as a weapon of opportunity. Their first collective decision: Stay outside and let the criminalists do their work first--don't risk contaminating the crime scene.
The serologist takes blood samples off the rug and the surrounding area. The print man dusts and comes up with smudges and smears. A technician prowls with an Electrostatic Dust Lifter--a vacuum sealer--like device that transfers the outline of footprints to a cellophane dust-catching sheet. The coroner remains on hold--to remove the body when Carillo and Gonzales give the word.
Carillo and Gonzales canvass the neighborhood. The word on the street: Donna Lee Meyers did cocaine--and used to deal small quantities of it. Carillo and Gonzales take notes, write down names for backup interviews and compile a list of Donna Lee Meyers's known associates. A friend of the victim's shows up at the house--and appears to be genuinely shocked that Donna Lee is dead. Carillo and Gonzales take the man to a nearby sheriff's substation and question him.
He tells them that he dropped by to pay Donna Lee back some coin, and cops to being a casual coke user. The man vibes totally innocent. Carillo and Gonzales let him go and hotfoot it back to the crime scene.
They view the body. A deputy tells them that the killer left the TV on for the kid. Coroner's assistants take Donna Lee Meyers to the L.A. County Morgue.
The follow-up begins.
Carillo and Gonzales attend the autopsy and hear the cause of death confirmed. They locate the father of Donna Lee Meyers's son and dismiss him as a suspect. A psychologist assists them in their dealings with Donna Lee's little boy. The boy's memories of that day are hellishly distorted. Gentle questioning elicits ambiguous responses.
Early December becomes mid-December. Carrillo and Gonzales interview Donna Lee Meyers's known associates and come up short on hard suspects. It's becoming a long, hard one--the kind you solve or don't solve while other cases accumulate.
It's creeping up on Christmastime. The bureau lunchroom is draped with red and green banners and packed with an assortment of sugar-soaked treats.
Bulldog-vultures swoop by and chow down--pecan pies and toffee clusters hook you on the first bite.
Talk flows. Food disappears. Nineteen ninety-four is winding down in a swirl of rapid-fire conversation.
Bill Sieber's midway through his standard epic pitch: how a friend's daughter was murdered in Olympia, Washington, and boy did the cops screw up the case! Bill's a primo monologuist. He's got his audience hooked--even though every detective has heard the story six dozen times. Lie
utenant Frank Merriman's interjecting punch lines, smiling his standard shit-eating grin. Frank grins 96 percent of the time. Somebody should transpose his brain waves to TV so the whole world could cut in on the laughs.
Cheryl Lyons zips by. She's got electric turquoise eyes--or she's wearing electric turquoise contact lenses. The late jack Hoffenberg bootjacked Cheryl's persona for the female lead in his novel The Desperate Adversaries. Cheryl the 1973 narc became Cheryl of the Paperback Pantheon. Cheryl's pensive today--will the county notch in eight more murders and top its all-time yearly high of 537?
Ike Sabean thinks it's a lock. Ike works juvenile Missing Persons--and must be considered a certified genius.
You've seen his work on milk cartons--the photos of missing kids and the number to call if you spot them. Ike developed the idea in cahoots with a Chicago dairyman. He got a total of sixtyseven dairies and industrial firms to display the pix--and ran up a 70 percent local found rate until the public became inured to the photos. Ike's also a board-licensed mortician. He explains the allure of his moonlighting job thusly: "I like to work with people."
Jerome Beck lingers by the chocolate-chip-cookie plate. Beck was the technical adviser on the flick Dead Bang. He also wrote the story. Guess what? The director of that movie named the Don Johnson--portrayed lead character "Jerry Beck."
Big Gil Carrillo walks in. The floor shakes; a serving bowl full of Jell-O jiggles. Gil buttonholes Louie the Hat and runs the Donna Lee Meyers crime-scene pix by him.
