by James Ellroy
They found Eddie Vince’s partner and cleared him. They traced Bobbie Long back to New Orleans and Miami and got no concrete answers. The Long case sputtered out and went inactive.
They got a tip on 3/15/60. Two creeps kidnapped a teenage girl. They forced her into their truck and drove her out to the boonies. They raped her, went down on her and forced her to blow them. They released her. She told her parents what happened. They called the San Dimas Station. The girl talked to two squad detectives. She described her assailants. One of the guys sounded like a local jerk named Robert Elton Van Gaasbeck. The detectives took the girl by Van Gaasbeck’s pad. She identified Van Gaasbeck and his ’59 Ford pickup. Van Gaasbeck snitched off his pal Max Gaylord Stout.
Harry Andre grilled Van Gaasbeck and Stout pro forma. He cleared them on Bobbie Long and Jean Ellroy.
They got a tip on 6/29/60. A male Mexican tried to rape a woman at a trailer park in Azusa. The victim’s name was Clarisse Pearl Heggesvold.
The male Mexican entered her trailer and pulled her outside. He dragged her behind the trailer and pulled off her dress and slip. He stated, “I’m going to get some.” The victim started yelling. Her neighbor Sue Sepchenko ran over. She started hitting the male Mexican with a broom handle. The male Mexican released Clarisse Pearl Heggesvold and ran toward Sue Sepchenko. Clarisse Pearl Heggesvold picked up several four-by-six masonry blocks and threw them at the male Mexican’s car—a ’55 red-and-white Buick two-door, license number MAG-780. She broke the windshield and two side windows. The male Mexican ran to his car and escaped. Sue Sepchenko called the San Dimas Sheriff’s Station. She reported the incident and the suspect’s license number. Patrol deputies traced the number and arrested the vehicle’s owner: Charles Acosta Linares, AKA Rex.
Al Sholund handled the tip. He grilled Linares and cleared him fast. Linares was fat and overtly psychotic.
They got a tip on 7/27/60. A guy named Raymond Todd Lentz broke into a house in La Puente stark nude. He saw Donna Mae Hazleton and Richard Lambert Olearts asleep on the living room couch. Donna Mae and Richard woke up. Lentz ran outside. Richard called the San Dimas Station. Patrol deputies found Lentz and arrested him. Lentz said he’d been drinking with Donna Mae’s ex-husband. He knew Donna Mae was a hot divorcee. He thought he could walk into the house and have sex with her. His own wife was pregnant and could not give him satisfaction.
Claude Everley interviewed Lentz. He cleared him in record time.
A woman was strangled in Baldwin Park in May ’62. The case went unsolved. It was a manual strangulation. It looked like a quickie choke-and-run job. It didn’t look like the Jean Ellroy and Bobbie Long murders.
An attempt rape occurred on 7/29/62. The victim was named Margaret Jane Telsted. The rape-o was named Jim Boss Bennett. They connected at the Torch Bar in Glendora.
Bennett and Miss Telsted drank some beer together. Bennett invited Miss Telsted to his pad in La Puente. They drove over in her car. They had a beer in the kitchen. Bennett maneuvered Miss Telsted into the bedroom and threw her down on the bed. He stated, “Come on now, you know what I want. You’ve been married.” Miss Telsted said, “I am not a tramp.” Bennett slugged her in the chest and tore off her Capri pants, blouse and underpants. He disrobed himself and exposed his private parts. He said he wanted intercourse. He threw Miss Telsted down on the floor. He forced her legs apart and achieved a minor penetration. Miss Telsted struggled. Bennett banged her head on the floor. He failed to achieve a complete penetration.
Miss Telsted ran into a back bedroom and saw a man asleep on the bed. She ran to the kitchen. Bennett stopped her. She said she’d submit to sex if he let her get dressed and move her car. She said her ex-husband might be out lurking. She wanted to cover her tracks.
Bennett said okay. Miss Telsted put her clothes on and walked outside. Bennett followed her. Miss Telsted jumped in her car. Bennett tried to grab her. His dog ran out of the house and growled at him. Bennett backed off. The dog jumped into the car and sat down beside Miss Telsted. Miss Telsted drove to the West Covina Police Station and reported the incident. She took the dog home with her.
The West Covina cops called the San Dimas Sheriff’s and relayed the complaint. Two detectives popped Jim Boss Bennett. They brought him to the San Dimas Station and grilled him. He disputed Miss Telsted’s story. He said he never really got inside her. The detectives booked him. The detectives checked him out real good. They thought he looked like an old Identi-Kit portrait. They called Sheriff’s Homicide and gave him up as a murder suspect.
Ward Hallinen drove out to the San Dimas Station. He stood behind a one-way mirror and observed Jim Boss Bennett. Bennett looked like the suspect in the Jean Ellroy murder. He ran Bennett through the DMV and CII.
He got two fast replies.
Bennett had no registered vehicles. Bennett had a two-page rap sheet.
He was 44. He was born in Norman, Oklahoma. He had assault convictions dating back to 1942. He got popped for drunk driving on 3/16/57 and 7/7/57. The second bust occurred in nearby Baldwin Park.
Bennett was driving a ’47 Merc. He almost plowed six pedestrians outside the Jubilee Ballroom. A patrol unit chased him. He ran his car up on a dirt embankment. He stopped the car, stumbled out of it and almost fell to the ground. Two deputies grabbed him. He resisted arrest and was forcibly restrained.
Bennett got popped for battery on 2/22/58. The bust occurred at the VFW Hall in nearby Baldwin Park.
Bennett was dancing with a woman named Lola Reinhardt. He started yelling at Miss Reinhardt for no apparent reason. He told her he wanted to leave now. Miss Reinhardt refused to leave. Bennett dragged her outside and shoved her into his car.
He slapped her and yelled at her. He said, “I’ll kill you or you’ll kill me.” A man named Lester Kendall approached the car. Bennett wrapped an arm around Miss Reinhardt’s neck and tried to choke her. Kendall grabbed Bennett. Miss Reinhardt broke free. Someone called the Temple City Sheriff’s. A patrol unit arrived. A deputy arrested Jim Boss Bennett.
Hallinen ran a public utilities check. He turned up six prior addresses for Jim Boss Bennett.
He lived in Baldwin Park, El Monte and La Puente. His employment record showed big gaps between jobs. He worked at Hallfield’s Ceramics. He worked at United Electrodynamics. He was a laborer and a tractor driver and an electrical assembler. He was married to a woman named Jessie Stewart Bennett. They lived together on and off.
Hallinen interviewed Bennett. He never mentioned Bobbie Long or Jean Ellroy. He brought up the VFW caper. Bennett contradicted Lola Reinhardt’s statement. He said a crazy guy smashed his car with a Coke bottle. Another guy smashed the windshield with his fist. Bennett’s story made no sense.
Hallinen decided to run a five-man lineup.
He called Margie Trawick and told her to stand by. He located Lavonne Chambers in Reno, Nevada. She was dealing cards in a casino. She agreed to fly in. Hallinen told her the Sheriff’s Department would cover all her expenses.
He found four county inmates who resembled the Identi-Kit portrait. They agreed to stand in a lineup.
Lavonne flew in. Hallinen picked her up and drove her to the Temple City Station. Margie Trawick arrived.
Five men were standing in an interview room. Jim Boss Bennett was standing in the #2 position.
Margie and Lavonne stood behind a one-way glass wall. They observed the five men separately.
Margie said, “Number 2 is the image of him. Face looks like the face I saw that night. Hair looks like the man’s, and his hairline and face looks a little thinner. He looks familiar, like the man I saw that night.”
Lavonne pointed to Man #2. She said, “To me, that is the man I saw with the redheaded woman.”
Hallinen talked to Lavonne and Margie individually. He asked them if they were absolutely sure. They hedged and equivocated and hemmed-and-hawed and said not absolutely.
Hallinen thanked them for their candor. Bennett was a good suspect/longshot hybrid. He looked lik
e the Identi-Kit portrait. He did not look Greek or Italian or in any way Latin. He looked like skinny white trash.
They couldn’t hold him any longer. They couldn’t file a murder charge on him. The attempt rape case was flimsy. The complainant was a barfly. They had to cut Jim Boss Bennett loose.
They released him. Hallinen still tagged him as a viable suspect.
He talked to Bennett’s wife and his known associates. They said Jim was bad—but not awful. He never told them Jim was a sex-murder suspect.
He had no proof. He had two shaky IDs. He ran Bennett in on an assault charge. He wanted to sweat him and lean on him.
Bennett bailed out. Hallinen decided to drop the whole thing. Nuisance tactics backfired routinely. Harassment was harassment. Hard-core suspects deserved it. Bennett missed that mark. Lavonne and Margie were solid. Lavonne and Margie weren’t quite sure.
It was 9/1/62. The Long case stood inactive. The Ellroy case was four years, two months and ten days old.
20
The Bobbie Long digression stunned me. I spent four days alone with the file.
I put three crime scene photos up on my corkboard. I placed a shot of Bobbie Long alive beside a shot of my mother. I tacked up a Jim Boss Bennett mug shot. I centered the collage around three shots of Jean Ellroy dead.
The effect was more blunt than shocking. I wanted to undermine my mother’s victimhood and objectify her death. There’s the blood on her lips. There’s her pubic hair. There’s the cord and stocking on her neck.
I stared at the corkboard. I bought another board and placed the two together. I tacked up all the Long and Ellroy crime scene shots in contrasting order. I memorized the points of resemblance and the points of departure.
Two ligatures on Jean. One ligature on Bobbie. The purse by the barbed-wire fence. The ivy thicket and the dirt road by the water-pump station. The two overcoats identically discarded.
My mother looked her age and then some. Bobbie Long looked younger than hers. Jim Boss Bennett looked too countrified to be the Swarthy Man.
I studied the Long file. I studied the Ellroy file. I read the Long and Ellroy Blue Books and all the reports and note slips in both folders. I stared at my wall display. I wanted to de-eroticize my mother and get used to seeing her dead. I put the two cases together and built chronologies and narrative lines from odd bits of data.
My mother left the house between 8:00 and 8:30. She was seen at the Manger Bar “between 8:00 and 9:00.” She was alone. The Manger Bar was near the Desert Inn and Stan’s Drive-in. My mother and the Swarthy Man arrived at Stan’s some time after 10:00. Lavonne Chambers served them. They left Stan’s. They arrived at the Desert Inn some time after 10:30. The Blonde Woman arrived with them. Michael Whittaker crashed the party. Margie Trawick observed the group. She left the Desert Inn at 11:30. My mother, the Swarthy Man, the Blonde and Mike Whittaker were still seated together. My mother, the Swarthy Man and the Blonde left around midnight. A waitress named Myrtle Mawby saw my mother and the Swarthy Man at the Desert Inn around 2:00 a.m. They left. They arrived at Stan’s Drive-in around 2:15. Lavonne Chambers served them again. They drove off around 2:40. My mother’s body was discovered at 10:10 a.m. Her car was found behind the Desert Inn.
That was all witness-verified gospel. The chronological gaps formed theoretical vacuums. The Bobbie Long chronology was simple. Bobbie went to Santa Anita Racetrack. Her body was found in La Puente—eight miles southeast.
She met a man at the track. He fed her, fucked her and killed her. It was non-witness-verified gospel. I believed it. Stoner believed it. We couldn’t prove it. The cops operated on that premise back in ’59. It was indisputable today. My mother’s last night alive defied strict interpretation.
She left the house in her car. She was at the Manger Bar alone. She met the Swarthy Man somewhere. She dropped her car off somewhere and got into his car. Lavonne Chambers served them in his car. They left Stan’s Drive-in. They went to the Desert Inn. They picked up the Blonde en route. They went back to Stan’s in his car. Her car was found behind the Desert Inn.
She could have met the Swarthy Man at his pad. She could have met him at a cocktail lounge. She could have left her car at either location. They went to Stan’s in his car. She could have picked up her car right after. He could have picked up the Blonde. She could have picked up the Blonde. They could have met the Blonde outside the Desert Inn. They parried at the Desert Inn. They left together. They could have gone somewhere as a group. The Blonde could have gone off alone. My mother and the Swarthy Man could have kissed and fondled in his car or her car behind the Desert Inn. They could have gone to his pad. They could have kissed and fondled in the Desert Inn parking lot before that 2:00 a.m. nightcap. She could have turned off the sex in his car or her car. She could have shut him down at his pad. They could have gone to the Blonde’s pad. She could have shut him down there. They went back to the Desert Inn. They could have gone back from the Blonde’s place or the Swarthy Man’s place or another cocktail lounge or any dark street in the San Gabriel Valley. My mother could have left her car at the Blonde’s place or the Swarthy Man’s place. She could have left it at either location during any one of the reconstructive time gaps in the evening. The Swarthy Man could have retrieved the car after he killed her. He could have dumped it in the Desert Inn parking lot at 3:00 or 4:00 a.m. The Blonde could have dumped it. They could have run a two-car convoy. They could have split the scene in the Blonde’s car or the Swarthy Man’s car.
It’s 2:40 a.m. My mother and the Swarthy Man split Stan’s Drive-in. Her car is parked behind the Desert Inn or parked somewhere else. He’s bored and sullen. She’s half-drunk and chatty. They go to his place or the Blonde’s place or Arroyo High School or someplace. She shuts him down again or says the wrong thing or looks at him the wrong way or enrages him with a barely perceptible gesture.
Maybe it’s rape. Maybe it’s sex by consent. Maybe Stoner’s reconstruction was valid. Maybe my MORE theory hit some factual chords. Maybe my mother balked at a three-way at some point in the evening. Maybe the Swarthy Man decided to coerce some solo action. Maybe Lavonne Chambers and Margie Trawick got their times wrong and fucked up the means to establish any kind of accurate time line. Maybe Myrtle Mawby got her time wrong. Maybe my mother and the Swarthy Man left the Desert Inn with the Blonde and did not return for that 2:00 a.m. nightcap. You had a killer and a victim. You had an unidentified woman. You had three female witnesses and a drunken male witness. You had a seven-hour time span and a geographically localized series of prosaic events that resulted in murder. You could extrapolate off the established facts and interpret the prelude in an infinite number of ways.
She might have met the Swarthy Man and the Blonde that night. She might have met them on some previous honky-tonk jaunt. She might have met them separately. The Blonde might have set her up with the Swarthy Man. The Blonde might be an old friend. The Blonde might have urged her to move out to El Monte. The Swarthy Man might be an old lover back for more.
He might be a former Packard-Bell or Airtek employee. He might be an old barroom flame passing through. He might have killed Bobbie Long seven months after he killed my mother.
There was no telephone at 756 Maple. The cops couldn’t check my mother’s toll calls. She might have called the Blonde or the Swarthy Man that evening or some time in the four months she lived in El Monte. Every call outside El Monte proper would register on her phone bills. The Blonde might have lived in Baldwin Park or West Covina. The Swarthy Man might have lived in Temple City. The cops never found my mother’s purse. The cops didn’t find an address book at 756 Maple. It was probably in my mother’s purse. She carried her purse that night. The Swarthy Man got rid of the purse. His name might have been in the address book. The Blonde’s name might have been in it.
It was 1958. Most people had telephones. My mother didn’t. She was hiding out in El Monte.
I studied my mother’s file. I studied the Long file. I picked up strange fact
s and a wrenching omission.
My mother left an unfinished drink in the kitchen. Maybe the Blonde called her up and suggested some fun. Maybe our cramped little house closed in on her and forced her to bolt. Bobbie Long might have been a closet juicer. A cop found two bottles in her kitchen. I always thought my mother fought the man who killed her. I always thought the cops found bloody skin under her nails. The autopsy report stated nothing of the kind. It was my heroic embellishment. I cast my mother as a redheaded tigress and carried the image for 36 years.
Jean and Bobbie. Bobbie and Jean.
Two murder victims. Near-identical crime scenes a few miles apart. A strong consensus at Sheriff’s Homicide.
The guys thought one man killed both women.
Stoner leaned that way. I leaned that way with one reservation. I did not see the Swarthy Man as a serial killer.
I forced myself to stand back from the judgment. I knew my grounds for rejection were partially aesthetic. Serial killers bored me and vexed me. They were a real-life statistical rarity and a media plague. Novels, films and TV shows celebrated them as monsters and exploited their potential to spark simple suspense plots. Serial killers were self-contained evil units. They were perfect foils for clichéd cops on the edge. Most of them suffered horrific childhood trauma. The details made for good pop-psych drama and gave them a certain victimized panache. Serial killers were hopped-up eyeball fuckers and ravaged inner children. They were scary in the moment and as dismissible as an empty box of popcorn. Their hyperbolic drives sucked in readers and viewers and distanced them within their own ghoulish rapture. Serial killers were very unprosaic. They were hip, slick and cool. They talked wild Nietzschean rebop. They were sexier than the one twisted fuck who killed two women out of lust and panic and perfectly applied pressure on a two-time-only trigger.
