by James Ellroy
Magruder poured himself another drink and knocked it back. “The Vice 160
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Squad doesn’t come on duty until nightwatch,” he said, “but I’ve already checked their files. There’s nothing on Craigie.”
Lloyd felt widening connections breathing down his neck. “The Tropicana Motel?” he asked.
“Yes.” Magruder said. “How did you know?”
“Body removed? Premises sealed?”
“Yes.”
“I’m going over. You’ve got officers stationed there?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Call the motel and tell them I’m coming.”
Lloyd stilled his mental tremors and ran out of Magruder’s office. He drove the three blocks to the Tropicana Motel, expecting rare glimpses of hell and his own destiny.
He found an upholstered slaughterhouse, reeking of blood and shattered flesh. The young deputy who guarded the door contributed gory details.
“You think this is bad, Sergeant? You shoulda been here earlier. The guy’s brains were all over that dresser over there. The coroner had to scoop them into a plastic bag. They couldn’t even mark the outline of the stiff with chalk, they had to use tape. Jesus.”
Lloyd walked over to the dresser. The light blue carpet next to it was still sopping wet with blood. In the middle of the dark red expanse was the metallic tape outline of a spread-eagled dead man. He ran his eyes over the rest of the room: a large bed with purple velour coverlet, muscle boy statuettes, a cardboard box filled with chains, whips, and dildos. Surveying the room again, Lloyd noticed that a large part of the wall above the bed had been covered with brown wrapping paper. He called to the deputy, “What’s with this paper on the wall?”
The deputy said, “Oh, I forgot to tell you. There’s some writing underneath. In blood. The dicks covered it up so the TV and newspaper guys wouldn’t see it. They think maybe it’s a clue.”
Lloyd grabbed a corner of the wrapping paper and pulled it free. “I Am Not Kathy’s Klown” stared down at him in bold, blood-formed letters. For one brief second, his computer jammed, whirled, and screeched. Then all the fuses blew out and the words blurred and metamorphosed into noise, followed by perfect silence.
Kathleen McCarthy and her court—“We had a following of equally bookish, lonely boys. Kathy’s Klowns they were called.” Dead women who
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resembled wholesome early sixties high school girls. A dead fruit hustler and his perverse, corrupt cop buddy and . . . and . . . Lloyd felt the young deputy tugging at his sleeve. His silence became pure Satanic noise. He grabbed the deputy by the shoulders and pushed him into the wall. “Tell me about Haines,” he whispered.
The young officer quaked and stammered out, “Wh-what?”
“Deputy Haines,” Lloyd repeated slowly. “Tell me about him.”
“Whitey Haines? He’s a loner. He sticks to himself. I’ve heard talk that he takes dope. Th-that’s all I know.”
Lloyd released the deputy’s shoulders. “Don’t look so scared, son,” he said.
The deputy swallowed and straightened his tie. “I’m not scared,” he said.
“Good. You keep quiet about our conversation.”
“Yes . . . Sir.”
The telephone rang. The deputy picked it up, then handed it to Lloyd.
“Sergeant, this is Officer Nagler from S.I.D.,” a frenzied voice blurted out.
“I’ve been trying to get you for hours. The switchboard at the Center tol—”
Lloyd cut him off. “What is it, Nagler?”
“Sergeant, it’s a match. The index and pinky on the Niemeyer teletype match perfectly with the index and pinky I got off the tape recorder.”
Lloyd dropped the receiver and walked out onto the balcony. He looked down at the parking lot filled with rubber-necking ghouls and sad curiosity seekers, then shifted his gaze to the street scene. Everything he saw was as awesome as a baby’s first glimpse of life out of the womb and into the breach.
14
Propelled by a whirlwind of interlocking fates, Lloyd drove to Kathleen McCarthy’s house. There was a note on the front door: “Buying books—
Will return at noon—U.P.S. leave packages on steps.”
Lloyd snapped the lock on the door with a short, flat kick. The door burst open, and he closed it behind him and headed straight for the bedroom. He 162
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went through the dresser first; intimate apparel, scented candles, and a bag of marijuana were revealed. He checked the walk-in closet. Boxes of books and record albums covered every inch of rack and floor space. There was a shelf at the back, partially hidden by an ironing board and rolled-up carpet. Lloyd ran a hand across it and hit smoothly finished wood that shifted at his touch. He reached up with both hands and pulled the object out. It was a large box of beautifully varnished oak with a brass hinged top. It was heavy; Lloyd strained as he lowered it first to his shoulders, then to the bedroom floor. He pulled the box over to the bed and knelt beside it, wedging the ornamental gold lock off with his handcuff holder. The box contained narrow, gold-bordered picture frames, arranged lengthwise on their edges. Lloyd pulled one out. Encased behind glass were shriveled red rose petals pressed on parchment. There was minute writing beneath the petals. He carried the frame over to a floor lamp and switched on the light and squinted to read it. Under the first petal on the left was written:
“12/13/68: Does he know that I broke up with Fritz? Does he hate me for my short interludes? Was he that tall man browsing through the Farmer’s Market? Does he know how much I need him?”
Lloyd followed the floral tributes across the picture frame and across time: “11/24/69: O dearest, can you read my mind? Do you know how I return your homage in my diary? How it is all for you? How I would forever eschew fame to continue the growth our anonymous rapport gives me?”
“2/15/71: I write this in the nude, darling, as I know you pick the flowers you send me. Do you feel my telepathic poetry? It comes from my body.”
Lloyd put the frame down, knowing something was wrong—he should be more moved by Kathleen’s words. He stood very still, knowing that if he forced it, it would never come. He closed his eyes to increase the depth of the silence, and then . . .
Even as it hit him, he started to shake his head in denial. It couldn’t be, it was too incredible.
Lloyd emptied the oak box onto the bed. One by one, he held the picture frames to the light and read the dates beneath the withered petals. The dates corresponded with the murder dates of the women in his computer printouts, either exact matches or with a variance factor of two days at the most. But there were more than sixteen rose petals—there were twentythree, going back to the summer of 1964.
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Lloyd recalled Kathleen’s words at the power plant. “The first time there was a poem, the second time just the flowers. And they kept coming for over eighteen years.” He went through the glass cases again. The oldest rose fragments were dated 6/10/64—over eighteen years ago. The next oldest were dated 8/29/67, over three years later. What had the monster been doing during those three years? How many more had he killed, and Why?
Why? Why?
Lloyd read over Kathleen’s words and recalled the dead faces that matched them. Jeanette Willkie, D.O.D. 4/15/73, caustic poisoning; flowers dated 4/16/73, “Darling, have you kept yourself chaste for me? I have now been celibate four months for you.” Mary Wardell, D.O.D. 1/6/74, strangled to death; flowers dated 1/8/74, “Thank you for my flowers, dearest. Did you see me last night by my window? I was nude for you.” And on and on through Julia Niemeyer, D.O.D. 1/2/83, heroin overdose, butchered after death; flowers dated 1/3/83, “My tears stain this parchment, my love. I need you inside me so much.”
Lloyd sat down on the bed, willing his raging mind silent. Innocent, romantic Kathleen, a mass murderer’s obsessive love object. “We had a following of equally lon
ely, bookish boys.”
Lloyd’s mind jerked his body upright. Yearbooks—the Marshall Bariston- ian. He tore through drawers, shelves, closets and bookcases until he found them, wedged behind a disused TV set. 1962, 1963, 1964; pastel Naugahyde bound. He flipped through ’62 and ’63—no Kathleen, Kathy Kourt, or Kathy Klowns.
He was halfway through 1964 when he hit pay dirt —Delbert “Whitey”
Haines, caught for posterity giving the raspberry sign. On the same page was a skinny, acne-faced boy named Lawrence “Birdman” Craigie, wittily denoted as “Bad news for L.B.J.’s Great Society.” Lloyd flipped through a dozen more pages of blasted innocence before he found the Kathy Kourt: four plain-pretty girls in tweed skirts and cardigan sweaters looking up in awe at a similarly attired, heartbreakingly young Kathleen McCarthy. When he saw what it all meant, Lloyd started to tremble. The dead women were all variations of the girls in Kathy’s Kourt. The same wholesome features, the same fatuous innocence, the same incipient acceptance of defeat. Lloyd’s tremors became full-out body shudders. Whispering “rabbit down the hole,” he dug the list of tape recorder purchasers from his pocket and turned to the index of the 1964 Baristonian. Seconds later the final connection sprung to life: Verplanck, Theodore J., member of the Marshall 164
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High School Class of 1964; Verplanck, Theodore, 1976 purchaser of a Watanabe A.F.Z. 999 recorder.
Lloyd studied the photograph of the genius killer as a smiling teenager. Intelligence formed the face; a terrible arrogance rendered the smile icecold. Theodore Verplanck had looked like a boy who had lived within himself, who had created his own world and armed it to the teeth with highly developed adolescent conceits. Shuddering, Lloyd pictured the coldness in the young eyes magnified by almost twenty years of murder. The thought filled him with awe.
Lloyd found the phone and dialed the California Department of Motor Vehicles Office in Sacramento, requesting a complete make on Theodore J. Verplanck. It took the switchboard operator five minutes to come back with the information: Theodore John Verplanck, D.O.B. 4/21/46, Los Angeles. Brown hair, blue eyes. 6', 155 lbs. No criminal record, no outstanding traffic warrants, no record of traffic violations. Two vehicles: 1978 Dodge Fiesta Van, P-O-E-T, 1980 Datsun 280Z, DLX-191. Address, res. and bus.—Teddy’s Silverlake Camera, 1893 North Alvarado, L.A. 90048. (213) 663-2819.
Lloyd slammed down the receiver and finished writing the information in his notepad. His awe moved into a sense of irony: The poet-killer still lived in the old neighborhood. Taking a deep breath, he dialed 663-2819. After three rings, a recorded message came on. “Hi, this is Teddy Verplanck, welcoming your call to Teddy’s Silverlake Camera. I’m out right now, but if you’d like to talk about camera supplies, photo-finishing or my super-highquality portrait photography and candid group shootings, leave a message at the beep. Bye!”
After hanging up, Lloyd sat down on the bed, savoring the killer’s voice, then clearing his mind for the final decision: Take Verplanck himself or call Parker Center and request a back-up team. He wavered for long minutes, then dialed his private office number. If he let it ring long enough, someone would pick it up and he could get a fix on what trustworthy officers were available.
The phone was picked up on the first ring. Lloyd grimaced. Something was wrong; he hadn’t plugged in his answering machine. An unfamiliar voice came on the line. “This is Lieutenant Whelan, Internal Affairs. Sergeant Hopkins, this message was recorded to inform you that you are suspended from duty pending an I.A.D. investigation. Your regular office line is open. Call in and an I.A.D. officer will arrange for your initial interview.
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You may have an attorney present and you will receive full pay until our investigation is settled.”
Lloyd dropped the phone to the bed. So it ends, he thought. The final decision: They couldn’t and wouldn’t believe him, so they had to silence him. The final irony: They didn’t love him the way he had loved them. The fulfillment of his Irish Protestant ethos would cost him his badge. Noticing a small backyard through the bedroom window, Lloyd walked outside. Rows of daisies growing out of loosely packed dirt and a makeshift clothesline greeted him. He knelt down and plucked a daisy, then smelled it and ground it under his heel. Teddy Verplanck would probably not give up without a fight. He would have to kill him, which would mean never knowing why. Some sort of explanation from Whitey Haines had to be his first step, and if Verplanck took it into his mind to kill or flee while he was drumming a confession out of Haines he—
The sound of weeping interrupted Lloyd’s thoughts. He walked back into the bedroom. Kathleen was standing over her bed, replacing the glass encased flowers in the oakwood box. She brushed tears out of her eyes as she worked, not even noticing his presence. Lloyd stared at her face; it was the most grief-stricken visage he had ever seen.
He walked to her side. Kathleen shrieked when his shadow eclipsed her. Her hands flew to her face and she started to back away; then recognition hit and she threw herself into Lloyd’s arms. “There was a burglar,” she whimpered. “He wanted to hurt my special things.”
Lloyd held Kathleen tightly; it felt like grasping the loose ends of a trance. He rocked her head back and forth until she murmured, “My Baris- tonians,” and shook herself free of his embrace and reached for the yearbooks scattered on the floor. Her desperate ruffling of pages angered Lloyd, and he said, “You could have gotten duplicates. It wouldn’t have been much trouble. But you’re going to have to rid yourself of them. They’re killing you. Can’t you see that?”
Kathleen came all the way out of her trance. “What are you talking about?” she said, looking up at Lloyd. “Are . . . Are you the one who broke in and hurt my things? My flowers? Are you?” Lloyd reached for her hands, but she yanked them away. “Tell me, goddamnit!”
“Yes,” Lloyd said.
Kathleen looked at her yearbooks, then back at Lloyd. “You animal,” she hissed. “You want to hurt me through my precious things.” She clenched her hands into fists and hurled them at him. Lloyd let the ineffectual blows 166
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glance off his chest and shoulders. When she saw that she was inflicting no damage, Kathleen grabbed a brick bookend and flung it at his head. The edge caught Lloyd’s neck. Kathleen gasped and recoiled from the act. Lloyd wiped off a trickle of blood and held it up for her to see. “I’m proud of you,” he said. “Do you want to be with me?”
Kathleen looked into his eyes and saw madness and power and harrowing need. Not knowing what to say, she took his hand. He cradled her to him and closed the door and turned off the light.
They undressed in the semidarkness. Kathleen kept her back to Lloyd. She pulled off her dress and stepped out of her pantyhose, afraid that another look at his eyes would prevent her from consummating this rite of passage. When they were nude they fell onto the bed and into each other’s arms. They embraced fiercely, joined at odd places, her chin locked in his breastbone, his feet twisted into her ankles, her wrists bearing into his bloody neck. Soon they were coiled into one force and the pressure of their interlocking limbs forced them to separate as they began to go numb and lightheaded. In perfect synchronization they created a space between themselves, offering the most tentative of overtures to close that gap, a stroking of arms and shoulder blades and stomachs; caresses so light that soon they ceased to touch flesh and the space between them became the object of their love.
Lloyd began to see pure white light in the space, growing in and around and out of Kathleen. He drifted into the permutations of that light, and all the forms that came to him spoke of joy and kindness. He was still adrift when he felt Kathleen’s hand between his legs, urging him to grow hard and fill the light-hallowed void between their bodies. Brief panic set in, but when she whispered, “Please, I need you,” he followed her lead and violated the light and entered her and moved inside her until the light dissipated and they coiled and peaked together and he knew tha
t it was blood he expelled; and then awful noise wrenched him from her, and she said very softly as he twisted into the bedcovers, “Hush, darling. Hush. It’s just the stereo next door. It’s not here. I’m here.”
Lloyd dug into the pillows until he found silence. He felt Kathleen’s hands stroking his back and turned around to face her. Her head was surrounded by floating amber halos. He reached up and stroked her hair, and the halos scattered into light. He watched them disappear and said, “I . . . I think I came blood.”
Kathleen laughed. “No, it’s just my period. Do you mind?”
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Unconvinced, Lloyd said, “No,” and shifted over to the middle of the bed. He took a quick inventory of his body, touching odd parts of himself, probing for wounds and disconnected tissue. Finding nothing but Kathleen’s internal flow, he said, “I guess I’m all right. I think I am.”
Kathleen laughed. “You think you are? Well, I’m wonderful. Because now I know that after all these years it was you. Eighteen long years, and now I know. Oh, darling!” She bent down and kissed his chest, running her fingers over his ribs, counting them. When her hands dropped to his groin, Lloyd pushed her away. “I’m not your dream lover,” he said, “but I know who he is. He’s the murderer, Kathleen. I’m certain that he kills out of some twisted kind of love for you. He’s killed twenty-odd women, going back to the middle sixties. Young women who looked like the girls in your court. He sends you flowers after each murder. I know it sounds incredible, but it’s true.”
Kathleen heard every word, nodding along in cadence. When Lloyd finished she reached over and switched on the lamp next to the bed. She saw that he was perfectly serious and therefore perfectly insane, terrified at violating his anonymity after close to two decades of courtship. She decided to bring him out very slowly, as a mother would a brilliant but disturbed child. She put her head on his chest and pretended to need comfort while her mind ran in circles, looking for a wedge to break through his fear and give her access to his innermost heart. She thought of opposites: yin-yang, dark-light, truth-illusion. After a moment, she hit it: fantasy-reality. He must think that I believe his story, and so I must barter for his real story, the story that will let me break through fantasy and make our consummation real. He hates and fears music. If I am going to be his music, I must find out why.
