My Dark Places

by James Ellroy

  The woman’s name was Helen Knode. She wrote for a lefty rag called the LA. Weekly. We met. We coupled. We wed. It was extravagant love. It was two-way recognition running at 6,000 RPM.

  We flourished. It got better and better. Helen was hyper-brilliant. Helen was high rectitude and profane laughter. Our imaginations melded and collided.

  Helen was obsessed with the whole perplexing man-woman question. She dissected it and satirized it and de- and reconstructed it. She played it for laughs and lampooned my melodramatic take on the subject.

  She zoomed in on my mother. She called her “Geneva.” We concocted scenarios featuring my mother and some celebrated men of her era. We laughed our tails off. We put Geneva in bed with Porfirio Rubirosa and critiqued misogynist America. Geneva turned Rock Hudson straight. Geneva pussy-whipped JFK and turned him monogamous. We riffed on Geneva and my dad’s monolithic whanger. We wondered why the fuck I didn’t marry a redhaired woman.

  Helen found that picture. Helen urged me to study it. She was my mother’s advocate and agent provocateur.

  She knew me. She quoted a dead playwright and called me a bullet with nothing but a future. She understood my lack of self-pity. She knew why I despised everything that might restrict my forward momentum. She knew that bullets have no conscience. They speed past things and miss their marks as often as they hit them.

  She wanted me to know my mother. She wanted me to find out who she was and why she died.

  15

  I parked outside the Homicide Bureau. I drank some coffee in my car and stalled a little. I thought about the crime scene photos.

  I’d see her dead. I’d see her for the first time since I saw her alive. I kept no pictures of her. All I had were mental portraits of her clothed and nude.

  She was tall. I was tall. I had her features and my father’s coloring. I was going gray and bald. She died with a full head of brilliant red hair.

  I walked up and rang the bell. A speaker above the door crackled. I asked for Sergeant Stoner.

  The door clicked open. Bill Stoner walked up and introduced himself.

  He ran about 6’ and 180. He had thin brown hair and a big mustache. He was wearing a dark suit and a striped shirt-and-tie ensemble.

  We shook hands and walked back to Unsolved. Stoner flashed a copy of my book White Jazz. He asked me why all the cops were extortionists and perverts. I said good cops made for bad fiction. He pointed to the dust jacket photo. My bull terrier was sprawled across my lap.

  He said the dog looked like a bleached pig. I said his name was Barko. He was a smart motherfucker. I missed him. My ex-wife got custody.

  Stoner laughed. We sat down at adjoining desks. He passed me a brown accordion folder.

  He said the crime scene shots were graphic. He asked me if I wanted to see them.

  I said yes.

  We were alone in the office. We started talking.

  I said I did some county time in the ’60s and ’70s. We discussed the merits and drawbacks of Biscailuz Center and Wayside Honor Rancho. I said I loved the stuffed bell peppers on the county lunch menu. Stoner said he ate them when he worked Wayside.

  He had a soft inquisitor’s voice. He laced his monologues with brief pauses. He never interrupted. He held steady eye contact.

  He knew how to draw people out. He knew how to extract intimacies. I felt him leading me. I didn’t resist. I knew he’d nailed my exhibitionist side.

  I was stalling. The brown folder scared me. I knew Stoner was leading me up to it.

  We talked. We traded L A. crime tales. Stoner’s perceptions were sharply lucid and devoid of commonly held police ideology. He called the LAPD a racist institution and spun stories with a vivid sense of drama and theme. He said “fuck” as routinely as I did and used profane language to peak effect. He described the Beckett case and took me straight into Tracy Stewart’s terror.

  We talked for two hours. We stopped almost on cue.

  Stoner left the room. I quit stalling.

  The file contained envelopes and teletype sheets and odd notes scrawled on odd slips of paper. It contained a Sheriff’s Homicide “Blue Book.” The book ran fifty pages. It contained typed reports in chronological order.

  The dead body report. The coroner’s report. Reports on exonerated suspects. Three interviews transcribed verbatim.

  The Blue Book was flimsy and musty. Two names were typed on the cover. I didn’t recognize them. Sergeants John G. Lawton and Ward E. Hallinen.

  The men who asked me who my mother was fucking. One of them bought me a candy bar a million years ago.

  The file was badly maintained. It was bulging with loose note slips dropped in and forgotten. The sloppy look offended me and hit me as symbolic. This was my mother’s lost soul.

  I imposed order on it. I formed a line of neat paper stacks. I put the envelope marked “Crime Scene Picts.” off to one side. I skimmed the first set of Blue Book reports and noted odd details.

  My El Monte address was 756 Maple. Two witnesses saw my mother at the Desert Inn bar. The name stunned me. The papers said she went to a local cocktail lounge. They never got more specific.

  I skimmed a few reports. A Desert Inn witness called my mother’s male companion a Mexican. The fact surprised me. Jean Ellroy was right-wing and obsessed with appearances. I couldn’t see her out in public with a cholo.

  I skimmed the back section and saw two handwritten letters. Two women snitched off their ex-husbands. They wrote to John Lawton and detailed their rationales.

  Woman #1 wrote in 1968. She said her ex worked with Jean at the Packard-Bell plant. He had affairs with Jean and two other Packard-Bell women. He acted suspicious after the killing. Woman #1 asked him where he was that night. He hit her and told her to shut up.

  Woman #2 wrote in 1970. She said her ex had a grudge against Jean Ellroy. Jean refused to process an injury claim he submitted. It sent him “off the deep end.” Woman #2 included a postscript: Her ex torched a furniture store. They repossessed a dinette set he bought and sent him “off the deep end” again.

  Both letters read vindictive. John Lawton attached a memo slip to letter #2. It said both tips were checked out and judged invalid.

  I zigzagged through the book. I caught little blips of data.

  Harvey Glatman was questioned and cleared as a suspect. I remembered the day he went to the gas chamber. A Desert Inn witness disputed the Mexican bit. She said the guy with the blonde and the redhead was a “Swarthy White Man.” My mother worked at Airtek Dynamics from 9/56 on. I thought she was still at Packard-Bell then. The autopsy report noted semen in my mother’s vagina. There was no mention of internal bruising or vaginal abrasions. There was no speculation on rape versus consensual sex. My mother was menstruating. The autopsy surgeon found a tampon in her vagina.

  Facts hit me rapid-fire. I knew I had to contain the barrage. I got out my pen and notebook and flipped to the transcribed statements. The first one blew me out the fucking door.

  Lavonne Chambers hopped cars at Stan’s Drive-In—five blocks from the Desert Inn. She served my mother and her male companion twice that Saturday night and Sunday morning.

  She said the man was Greek or Italian. He was driving a two-tone ’55 or ’56 Olds. He brought my mother in around 10:20 p.m. They ate in the car. They talked. They left and returned at 2:15 a.m.

  The man was quiet and sullen. My mother was “quite high.” She “chatted gaily.” The top of her dress was down and one breast was half-exposed. She looked “slightly disheveled.” The man “acted bored with her.”

  It was hot new information. It blew my old theory to hell.

  I thought my mother left the bar with the Swarthy Man and the Blonde. They tried to force her into a three-way. She resisted. It went way bad.

  He was “bored.” She was “disheveled.” He probably fucked her and wanted to dump her. She wanted more of his time.

  I used to frequent the Stan’s Drive-in across from Hollywood High. The carhops wore red-and-gold
outfits. The “Krazy Dog” was great. The burgers and fried chicken were famous.

  I read the statement three times. I wrote down the key facts. I braced myself and opened the first envelope.

  It contained three snapshots. I saw Ed and Leoda Wagner, circa 1950. I saw my father at age 45 or 46. The photos were marked “Vic’s sist. & husb.” and “Vic’s ex-husb.” My father looked fit and handsome.

  The third photo was marked “Vic, August ’57.”

  She was wearing a white dress. I remembered it. She was holding a drink and a cigarette. Her hair was up—the way she always wore it. People were frolicking behind her. It looked like a company picnic.

  She looked bad. Her face was haggard and puffy. She looked older than 42 years and 4 months. She looked like a drunk putting up a losing front. The picture was inimical to the picture I held in my mind.

  That picture was all wish fulfillment. I freeze-framed my mother at a lusty 40. The lines on her face displayed strength— not dissipation. That picture was all buried yearning. I succumbed to that picture and made love to her those few precious fantasy times.

  I opened the second envelope. I saw two Identi-Kit portraits of the Swarthy Man. Portrait #1 showed a skinny Joe Blow. Portrait #2 showed a sadist with similar features.

  I opened the third envelope. It contained 32 male mug shots. The men were registered sex offenders. Some were white and some were Latin. They all resembled the Identi-Kit portraits.

  They were questioned and cleared. They all had that flashbulb-blind sleazy pervert look. They wore neckboards from previous sex rousts. The boards listed their arrest dates and various penal code numbers. The dates covered ’39 to ’57. The numbers covered rape and sex mayhem and a half-dozen passive offenses. Most of the men were unkempt. A few of them were wincing like they just got hit with a phone book. Their collective vibe was repellent. They looked like a venereal smear or a come stain on a shithouse wall.

  I opened the last envelope. I saw my mother dead at Arroyo High School.

  Her cheeks were bloated. Her features had thickened. She looked like a sick woman sleeping.

  I saw the sash cord and stocking cinched around her neck. I saw the insect bites on her arms. I saw the dress she had on. I remembered it. I looked at the black & white photos and remembered that the dress was light and dark blue.

  The dress was below-the-knee length. Someone pulled it above her hips. I saw her pubic hair. I looked away fast and made it a blur.

  The last picture was an autopsy shot. My mother was prone on a morgue slab. Her head was propped up on a black rubber block.

  I saw her deformed nipple and the dry blood on her lips. I saw a sutured abdominal incision. They probably cut her open at the crime scene. They probably took a liver reading before she turned dead cold.

  I examined all the crime scene pictures. I memorized details. I felt perfectly calm. I put everything back in the folder and handed it to Stoner.

  He walked me out to my car. We shook hands and said goodbye. Stoner was subdued. He knew I was someplace far off.

  I went to bed early that night. I woke up way before dawn. I saw the pictures before I opened my eyes.

  I felt a little gear click in place. It was like saying “Oh” to acknowledge a big revelation.

  Now you know.

  You thought you knew. You were wrong. Now you know for real. Now you go where she leads you.

  They went back to Stan’s Drive-in. It was 2:15 a.m. He was bored. They just had sex. He wanted to ditch this desperate woman and get on with his life. The combustion occurred because she wanted MORE. More sex or more male attention. The promise of a next time with flowers and a ritzier venue.

  I trusted my new theory. It made me feel this big wave of love for my mother.

  I was her son. I was hooked on MORE as bad as she was. Gender bias and my time favored me. I got to drink and fuck with a sanction she never dreamed of. Luck and a coward’s circumspection saved me. I saw the road she went down. She force-fed me the survivor’s instinct she never developed herself. Her pain was greater than mine. It defined the gap between us.

  I went back to Connecticut and wrote my piece for GQ. It wasn’t cathartic. It didn’t click that little gear off. She was always right there with me.

  It was a clumsy embrace and a reunion. It was a reckless pass. It was a blind date that Helen and Bill Stoner set me up on.

  Now you go where she leads you.

  The concept confused me. I pledged my devotion on blind faith.

  16

  She pointed me toward her secrets. Her lead was a taunt and a dare. She challenged me to discover how she lived and died.

  I decided to expand my GQ piece 50-fold and turn it into a book. My publisher bought the idea. Bill Stoner retired in April. I contacted him and made him an offer. I said I wanted to reinvestigate my mother’s homicide. I’d pay him a percentage of my book advance and cover all expenses. We would team up and attempt to find the Swarthy Man—dead or alive. I knew we were bucking stratospheric odds. I didn’t care. The redhead was my primary target.

  Stoner said yes.

  The GQ piece was published in August. It emphasized my mother and me and our shared lust for MORE. I turned in my novel and rented an apartment in Newport Beach, California. Stoner said our job could run a year or more.

  I flew out on Labor Day. The people on my flight were talking O. J. Simpson nonstop.

  The case was three months old. It was the premier woman killing of all time already. The Black Dahlia case was big and quintessentially L.A. The Simpson case eclipsed it fast. It was huge. It was epic performance art. It was a disingenuously staged multimedia circus based on the shaky premise of a botched hack-and-run job. Everybody knew OJ. did it. Pundits riffed off that consensus and went nuts looking for hidden truth and empirical precedents. Media hacks hit the truth harder. They saw the OJ. job as a crass microcosm. It was cocaine and tit jobs. It was health club narcissism and the two-way bondage of five-figure monthly alimony payments. The bottom-level audience defined the crime. They wanted O.J.’s meretricious lifestyle. They couldn’t have it. They settled for a skanky morality play that told them that lifestyle was venal.

  OJ. and the Swarthy Man. Nicole and Geneva.

  My mother was a very private woman. I was a showboat and a seasoned opportunist. I always craved attention. My instincts said she never did. I wanted to give her to the world. You could call me a memory rapist and point to my previous exploits to prove it.

  You’d be right. You’d be wrong. I’d cop a plea behind my newfound passion.

  She was dead. She was insensate. It was ridiculous to wonder if she’d understand or not. I had a crass show-and-tell side. She was the heart of my story.

  The issue troubled me. I respected her privacy and was setting out to destroy it. I saw only one way out.

  I had to submit to her spirit. If I hurt her, I’d feel her censure.

  Stoner met me at the airport. We drove straight to Arroyo High School.

  It was my second visit. A film crew shot me here once. I breezed through the interview. I hadn’t seen the pictures. I couldn’t point to the exact spot and place my mother there.

  Stoner parked near the spot. It was hot and humid. He turned on the air conditioning and rolled up the windows.

  He said we had to talk about my mother. We had to talk truthfully and bluntly. I told him I could handle it. He said he wanted to reconstruct the crime the way he thought it happened.

  I mentioned my new theory. Stoner said he didn’t buy it.

  He said the Swarthy Man wanted some pussy. Jean was menstruating and refused to give it up. They were necking and fondling. The Swarthy Man wanted more. Jean wanted to cool him down. She said, Let’s go back to Stan’s Drive-in.

  They drove back to Stan’s. Lavonne Chambers served them again. Jean was half-drunk and lighthearted. The Swarthy Man was horny and pissed off at her. He knew this secluded road by Arroyo High School.

  They finished their snack. T
he Swarthy Man suggested a drive. Jean said okay. The Swarthy Man drove her straight here and demanded some cunt.

  Jean said no. A verbal fight ensued. The Swarthy Man hit Jean in the head five or six times. He used his fists or a small metal tool he had in the car.

  Jean went unconscious. The Swarthy Man raped her. Lubrication explained the absence of vaginal abrasions. They necked and fondled a while back. Jean got turned on. She was still wet. The Swarthy Man made a smooth penetration. The rape itself was clumsy and frenzied. The coroner found a tampon at the rear of Jean’s vagina. The Swarthy Man’s penis jammed it down there.

  Jean remained unconscious. The Swarthy Man got his rocks off and panicked. He was stuck in his car with an unconscious woman. She could ID him and nail him on a rape charge. He decided to kill her.

  He had a sash cord in his car. He wrapped it around Jean’s neck and strangled her. The cord broke. He pulled off Jean’s left stocking and strangled her with it. He hauled her body out of the car and dumped it in the ivy. He got out of the area fast.

  I shut my eyes and replayed the whole reconstruction. I ran some graphic close-ups.

  I started shaking. Stoner turned the air conditioning off.

  17

  My apartment came furnished. The chairs and couch were dipped in synthetic stain-repellent. The rental agency supplied bedding and cooking utensils. The previous tenant left me some bug spray and Old Spice cologne.

  The rental folks installed a telephone. I hooked up an answering machine. The pad was low-class by my current standards. The living room and bedroom were small. The walls were blank white. I rented the place on a month-to-month open-end lease. I could cut out at a moment’s notice.

  I moved in. I started missing Helen fast.

  The place looked like a good obsession chamber. It was tightly contained and cavelike. I could close the curtains. I could turn off the lights and chase the redhead in darkness. I could buy a CD player and some music. I could listen to Rachmaninoff and Prokofiev and spin off that point where lyrical flights go discordant.