by James Ellroy
The dispatcher called Sheriffs Homicide and explained the situation. Stoner rolled to the crime scene and confronted the woman. She admitted that she shot her husband before she made the first call. She said he’d been beating her up. She showed off her bruises to prove it. Stoner arrested her and ran her husband’s name by the Lennox detective squad. The guys were glad she offed the fucker. They were getting ready to pop him for a string of robberies.
Stoner talked to the woman’s neighbors. They said the heist man beat his wife up regularly. He lazed around the crib while she worked. He spent her money on liquor and dope.
The woman remained in custody. Stoner went to the DA and talked mitigation. The DA agreed to plea-bargain her beef down.
The woman got probation. She called Stoner and thanked him for his kindness. He learned that women killed men when that last blow to the head tipped them just a bit off-center.
Homicide was a learn-as-you-go proposition. The Dora Boldt job was a big education.
He caught it with Billy Farrington. Billy split on another vacation and let him run crazy with it. The job was a two-week tornado.
Dora and Henry Boldt lived in Lennox Division. They were white holdouts in a black neighborhood. They were frail and almost 80 years old.
Their son found them.
Dora was dead in the living-room hallway. A pillowcase was wrapped around her head. It was soaked with blood and brain fluids.
Henry was alive in the bedroom. Somebody beat him and kicked him unconscious.
The house had been ransacked. The phone lines were cut. The son ran next door and called 911.
Patrol units arrived. An ambulance arrived. Henry Boldt regained consciousness. A deputy asked him to hold up one finger if the killer or killers were white and two fingers if they were black. Henry held up two fingers. The ambulance took him away.
Stoner and Farrington arrived. A lab crew showed up. Everybody thought the same thing.
It was two guys. They beat the old lady to death. They did it with their fists, their feet and flashlights.
The lab guys dusted for prints. They found glove marks all over the house. Stoner found a half-eaten piece of cheese on the kitchen floor. A photo man stepped on it and destroyed the teethmarks.
Stoner talked to Dora Boldt’s family. They inventoried the house and helped him compile a list of stolen items. They gave him serial numbers for a missing crockpot and TV set.
Billy Farrington went on vacation. Stoner went to the Lennox detective squad, the Inglewood PD squad and the LAPD’s West L.A. Bureau. He talked to a dozen burglary cops. He talked to some guys at LAPD Homicide. He told them about his case. They described 40 similar B&Es with three murders attached.
The victims were old white women. They were beaten to death. The perpetrators always cut the phone lines and ate food out of the icebox. They bludgeoned their victims. They ransacked their houses and stole their cars 30% of the time. All the victims were elderly whites. All the cars were abandoned within a small radius out in West L.A. All the beatings were savage. One woman lost an eye. The perpetrators were going out every third or fourth night.
Stoner categorized the crimes and wrote up a detailed report. He put out an urgent county-wide bulletin. He went back to the Lennox, Inglewood and West L.A. squads and laid out his information. Everybody thought the same thing: They had to go proactive immediately.
The Beverly Hills PD called Stoner. They saw his bulletin. They had two suspects for him.
Their names were Jeffrey Langford and Roy Benny Wimberly. They were male blacks in their mid-20s. The BHPD got them for two burglaries. They were sentenced to three years state time. They might be out of prison now.
Stoner called the State Parole Bureau and the State DMV. He learned that Wimberly and Langford were paroled a month before the burglaries started. Langford lived in West L.A.— near the spot where the stolen cars were abandoned.
Stoner called in a Metro team and put them under surveillance. Wimberly and Langford cruised in Langford’s jeep three days running. They cruised by two houses in West L.A. and a house in Beverly Hills. Old white people lived in the houses.
Stoner called in the LAPD. A burglary cop named Varner put surveillance teams on the two West L.A. houses. Stoner called in the BHPD. They put a team on the house in their jurisdiction and moved the old people out.
Varner covered two houses. He moved the people out of House #1. The people in House #2 refused to leave. Varner boarded up the living room and planted two cops with shotguns there. The people agreed to hide out under 24-hour guard.
Wimberly and Langford started cruising House #2 exclusively.
Stoner knew they’d hit soon. He set up a helicopter and two street surveillance teams and distributed walkie-talkies. Langford’s house was covered. House #2 was covered. The chopper was set to tail the suspects from a safe distance. Stoner set up a command post at Lennox Station. He was directly linked to House #2 and all mobile units.
The suspects left Langford’s house at 1:00 a.m., 7/3/81.
They drove to the alley behind House #2. The chopper pinned down every move they made.
They parked their jeep. They walked to House #2 and jumped the back fence. They cut the outside phone wires. They started prying at the back bedroom windows.
The windows were boarded shut. The old folks did it as an added precaution. They forgot to tell the cops.
Wimberly and Langford kept prying. The walkie-talkie lines inside House #2 went dead. Stoner contacted his mobile units. They were parked a block from House #2.
Wimberly and Langford kept prying. They kept making big fucking noise. They were bold and stupid. The Big Picture eluded them.
A firecracker went off somewhere down the block. The mobile units thought it was a shot. They hit their lights and sirens and swooped down on Wimberly and Langford.
Wimberly and Langford ran. The mobile units closed the alley off and apprehended them.
Stoner interviewed them at Lennox Station. They wouldn’t cop out to the burglaries or murders. Stoner told them Henry Boldt died. They didn’t react. Stoner told them he made them for five murders total. They played the whole interrogation sullen.
Billy Farrington got back from vacation. He helped Stoner interview the suspects. Langford called Billy a nigger. Stoner got between them and kept things from escalating.
Wimberly and Langford refused to cop out. Stoner searched their houses. Cargo trucks hauled off stolen merchandise. Stoner executed a search warrant on Wimberly’s parents’ house. He recovered lawn mowers, beauty supplies and a gold-plated mirror. He found Dora Boldt’s crockpot. There were no fingerprints on it. The number on the bottom was not a serial number. The crockpot had no evidentiary value.
The stolen merchandise was stored at Parker Center. Victims identified it. Wimberly and Langford were indicted on 18 counts of first-degree burglary. No verifiable items stolen from the Boldt house or the houses of the other murdered women were recovered. Stoner couldn’t file murder charges on Wimberly and Langford. He wanted to kill the fucking photo man who squashed that piece of cheese.
Wimberly and Langford were tried and convicted. Langford got 17 years. Wimberly got 20 to 25. Langford got paroled early. The Feds popped him with two kilos of cocaine. Langford got life with no-parole stipulated.
Stoner went for multiple homicides and settled for burglary one. The Wimberly-Langford job left him pent up and afraid for his parents. Wimberly and Langford grew up middle-class. They were not abused at home. Stoner learned that men killed women for lawn mowers and crockpots.
A man kidnapped a 60-year-old woman. He tried to force her to get cash at some ATMs. The woman kept punching in the wrong code numbers. The man got frustrated and shot her to death.
He dumped her in a church parking lot. He stole her credit cards and bought a pair of size-10 Kinney boots. The Riverside County Sheriff’s chased him down on an old parole warrant. He heard the knock on the door. He hid out in bed underneath his 300-pound gir
lfriend.
The Riverside cops popped him two days later. He told them he had the goods on an L.A. County murder. A biker told him he whacked an old broad and dumped her behind a church. He could find the biker for them—if they let him out.
The Riverside cops called Stoner and relayed the man’s story. Stoner asked them if the man was wearing size-10 Kinney boots. The cops said he was. Stoner said he’d be right over with a murder warrant.
The man confessed. Sheriff’s Robbery made him for some holdups. His girlfriend was his driver. The man refused to snitch her off. Men killed women and got gooey over women in a heartbeat.
A Cambodian man moved to Hawaiian Gardens. He had two kids from a previous marriage. His first wife died in the war. He had two kids with his new wife. They were hardworking Cambodian-Americans.
The man learned his wife was cheating on him. He stabbed their two kids to death and stabbed himself to death. Stoner learned that men killed women by proxy.
An angel dust addict went prowling in his bathrobe. He broke into a trailer and stabbed an old man in the eyes. Deputies followed blood spots back to his pad. The kid was trying to flush his bathrobe down the toilet. He said he didn’t know why he went out prowling.
Stoner figured he was looking for a woman.
Karen Reilly was a body dump. A guy got a flat tire on the 126 freeway and saw his hubcap fly off into a field. He looked for it. He smelled something dead and almost tripped over Karen.
She was badly decomposed and chewed up by animals. Critters got her hyoid bone. There was no way to determine strangulation. There was no way to run serology or toxicology tests. There was no way to attribute cause of death.
Stoner and Farrington worked the crime scene. The temperature was pushing three digits. They found some jewelry on the body and tagged it.
Stoner checked missing-persons reports. He found a two-week-old LAPD case and contacted the assigned detectives. They told him his decomp sounded like their girl. They picked up the jewelry found on the body and showed it to Karen Reilly’s parents. Her parents ID’d it.
Two private detectives were working the case already. Karen’s parents hired them a few days after Karen disappeared. They met with Stoner and Farrington and gave them a progress report.
Karen Reilly was 19. She liked liquor and unsavory young dudes. She lived with her parents in upscale Porter Ranch.
She signed up at a temp agency. She met a young male Latin named John Soto. Soto worked at the agency. He lived with his common-law wife and kid and his brother Augie and Augie’s 16-year-old girlfriend. Karen was fucking John Soto. Her parents disapproved.
Karen was home right before she vanished. She was drinking jellybeans with a girlfriend. She got zorched. She ranted against John Soto and his “wife.” She said they were crummy parents. She said she wanted to rescue their kid.
Karen left the house alone. Her mom and dad never saw her again.
The Soto brothers furnished the rest of the story.
Karen walked to a main drag and started hitchhiking. Two guys picked her up. The driver asked her for her phone number. Karen gave it to him. The guys dropped her outside the Soto brothers’ building.
The Soto guys let her in. Karen verbally attacked John’s common-law wife and ran out of the apartment. The wife chased her. They traded insults on the sidewalk at 2:00 in the morning. John Soto ran down. He made his wife go upstairs. Augie Soto and his girlfriend walked outside and talked to Karen. Karen said she was going to hitchhike home or hitch to Los Banos Lake.
Augie and his girlfriend walked upstairs. John gave them the keys to his car and told them to go find Karen. It was 2:30 a.m.
Augie and his girlfriend cruised around. They didn’t spot Karen. They drove over to the local 7-Eleven. They bullshitted with a clerk there. They stayed until dawn. They never saw Karen again.
Karen’s parents called the Sotos repeatedly. John Soto told them the same story he told the detectives. Karen’s brother kicked the Sotos’ door in and slapped John and Augie around. They stuck to the story they told the detectives. The Reilly family thought the Soto brothers killed Karen. The detectives disagreed. They figured Karen went hitchhiking and met some fuckhead freak.
Stoner interviewed Karen Reilly’s parents and brother. They condemned the Soto boys. Stoner interviewed John and Augie and their women. They all stuck to their story. Stoner interviewed the 7-Eleven clerk. He disputed Augie’s account of their late-night bullshit session.
Augie said they dropped in around 3:00 a.m. The clerk said they showed up at 5:00. Stoner went back to John and Augie and asked them to take polygraph tests. The brothers agreed.
John passed his test. Augie’s test came back inconclusive. John’s wife and Augie’s girlfriend refused to be tested.
Karen Reilly’s mother called Stoner. She said Karen’s high-school boyfriend tried to kidnap her daughter a few months ago. He grabbed Karen at the house and forced her into his car. Karen’s mother interceded. The boy drove away.
Stoner interviewed the ex-boyfriend. He said he was still in love with Karen. He didn’t want her hanging out with low-rent beaners. He forced Karen into his car to talk some sense to her. The kid agreed to take a polygraph test. His mother intervened and refused to allow it.
Stoner went back to the 7-Eleven. He found out the clerk moved to Vegas and got snuffed in a drug contretemps.
Other homicides occurred. They demanded fast attention. The Karen Reilly case was rife with unindictable suspects. There was no conclusive cause of death.
Say the Soto boys beat the polygraph. Say the old boyfriend killed her. Say a man picked her up hitching. They share some bad dope and Karen ODs. The man strips the body and dumps it. A pervert picks Karen up. He rapes her in his car and offs her to cover a rape bust. A serial killer was out strangling female hitchhikers. Say he ran into Karen.
Stoner worked his fresh cases. He worked the Reilly case in his dreams.
He saw Karen alive and Karen shriveled red-black from heat and decomposition. He saw the ways she might have died. He always woke up trying to pinpoint the moment she crossed that line.
The 7-Eleven guy saw her fucking John Soto in the backseat of his car. The car was bouncing on its rocker beams right there in the parking lot. John’s wife caught the show and created a big ruckus.
Karen invited Augie Soto out to Los Banos Lake. Augie showed up with some buddies. Karen’s aunt and uncle wouldn’t let them in their cabin. Karen camped out with her Mexican friends.
Karen was drinking too much. Karen loved to shock her friends and her uptight parents. Karen was living out a predictably rebellious pattern.
She left her house drunk. She’d just announced her new career goal to a drunken girlfriend. She wanted to be a hooker. She left her house to rouse some unfit parents and rescue their neglected child.
She was confused and stupidly guileless. She was 19. She could have pulled out of her tailspin as easily as she crossed that line.
Stoner couldn’t let her go.
Stupid rebellious girls had limited options. Life favored stupid rebellious boys. Stupid rebellious girls repulsed and titillated. Their act was aimed at this big world out to ignore them. Sometimes the wrong man caught their act in a too-perfect incarnation.
Stoner learned that men killed women because the world ignored and condoned it.
He worked dozens of homicides. He maintained a salutary solve rate. He spent time with his victims’ families. He neglected his own family. His sons grew up fast. He spent half their birthdays at crime scenes. The Los Angeles County murder rate kept escalating. He hacked at his paperwork backlog and sat in stalled freeway traffic. He picked up fresh murders and juggled old murders and went on suicide and industrial-accident calls. He solved nineteen out of twenty-one cases in one calendar year. He worked with good partners and did half the work. He worked with bad partners and did all the work. Some cases jazzed him. Some cases bored him. He worked a million mom-kills-pop and pop-kills-mom murders. He
worked two million Mexican bar killings where all 40 eyewitnesses were in the bathroom and claimed they didn’t see nothing. Some cases got him musing on some wild fucking topics. Some cases put him to sleep like a big meal and a bad movie. He chased leads on the “Night Stalker” case. He solved the “Mini-Manson” case and took down some fiends killing fag hustlers. Murders accumulated. It sent him into Murder Commitment Exhaustion. He went on vacation and suffered Murder Commitment Withdrawal. He worked all his cases with the same commitment and discriminated in his head and heart. Court dates accumulated. They circumscribed a wide array of murders. Some were recent. Some were old. He juggled a wide array of facts and rarely fucked up on the witness stand.
He spent eight years on the Drop Zone Expressway. He had no desire to exit. His one dream was simple and altogether silly.
He wanted to limit his murders to a meaningful few.
He got his dream. He got it because Bob Grimm got this wild bug up his ass. Grimm wanted to clear the Cotton Club case. He moved Stoner into the Unsolved Unit early in ’87.
Stoner protested the transfer. Unsolved was an old man’s job. He was only forty-six. He wanted to work fresh cases. Grimm told him to shut up and do as he was told.
The Cotton Club job was famous. The victim was a show-biz sleazebag named Roy Radin. He was killed in ’83. His death purportedly derived from dope intrigue and Hollywood flimflam. It all connected to a shitty flick called The Cotton Club.
Grimm told Stoner he’d be working with Charlie Guenther. It was good news. Guenther was the man who really broke the Charles Manson case. He worked the Gary Hinman job for Sheriff’s Homicide and busted two freaks named Mary Brunner and Bobby Beausoleil. They wrote “Pig” and “Political Piggy” on Hinman’s walls after they killed him. Similar slogans were scrawled at the Tate-LaBianca crime scenes. Guenther went to the LAPD and laid out the Hinman murder. Brunner and Beausoleil were in custody during the Tate-LaBianca time frame. Guenther told the LAPD to check out their pals at the Spahn Movie Ranch. The LAPD ignored Guenther’s advice. They solved Tate-LaBianca by fluke luck several months later.
