believed every specific sex-abuse indictment. The women were betrayed and abused. They knew their fathers were rapists and killers at heart. They thought that therapy gave them preternatural insights. They were victims. They saw the world in victim-predator terms. They saw me as a victim. They wanted to create victim-predator families. They wanted to claim me as a brother and anoint my mother and their fathers as our dysfunctional parents. They thought the traumatic force that shaped their insights superseded plain logic. It didn’t matter that their fathers did not look like the Swarthy Man. The Swarthy Man could have dropped my mother off at the Desert Inn. Their fathers could have snatched her in the parking lot. Their grief was all-inclusive. They wanted to take it public. They were writing the oral history of ravaged kids in our time. They wanted to include my story. They were evangelical recruiters.
They moved me and scared me. I replayed the tapes and nailed the source of my fear. The women sounded smug. They were entrenched and content in their victimhood.
The tip-line calls died out. The
I was pissed. Bill was pissed. The code restriction fucked up our access to nationwide information. Sheriff’s Homicide was not a toll-free number. Hinky people would call a 1-800 line. Hinky people would not call the fuzz. Poor people and cheap people would call a 1-800 line. Poor people and cheap people would not call long- distance.
Bill predicted 500 tip-line calls. He predicted 10 calls to Sheriffs Homicide.
I spent a week alone with the Jean Ellroy file. I read all the reports and note slips 14 dozen times. I zeroed in on one little detail.
Airtek Dynamics belonged to the Pachmyer Group. Pachmyer and Packard-Bell were phonetically similar. I thought my mother worked at Packard-Bell up to June ’58. The Blue Book said no. I might have dreamed up Packard-Bell 40 years ago. It might be a dyslexic memory glitch.
Bill and I discussed the point. He said we should contact my relatives in Wisconsin. Uncle Ed and Aunt Leoda might still be alive. They could settle the Packard-Bell point. They might have some names. They might have my mother’s funeral book. It might have some names in it. I said I talked to the Wagners in ’78. I called Leoda and apologized for all the times I scammed her. We argued. She said my cousins Jeannie and Janet were married and why wasn’t I? She patronized me. She said caddy work didn’t sound very challenging.
I blew the Wagners off right then. I blew them off permanently. I told Bill I didn’t want to contact them now. He said, You’re scared. You don’t want to revive Lee Ellroy for even two seconds. I said, You’re right.
We chased names. We found a 90-year-old woman. She was spry and lucid. She knew El Monte. She gave us some names. We traced them back to the morgue.
I spent two weeks alone with the Ellroy and Long files. I inventoried every note on every slip of paper. My inventory ran 61 pages. I Xeroxed a copy and gave it to Bill.
I found another crumpled note we both overlooked. It was a canvassing note. I recognized Bill Vickers’ handwriting. Vickers talked to a waitress at the Mama Mia Restaurant. She saw my mother at the restaurant “about 8:00 p.m.” Saturday night. She was alone. She stood in the doorway and checked the place out “like she was looking for someone.”
I went over my inventory. I found a companion note. It said that Vickers called the Mama Mia waitress. She mentioned a redheaded woman. Vickers said he’d bring a photo of the victim in. The note I just found was the follow-up note. The waitress looked at the photo. She said the redheaded woman was my mother.
It was a major reconstructive lead.
My mother was “looking for someone.” Bill and I extrapolated that “someone.” She was looking for the Blonde and/or the Swarthy Man. At least one relationship existed prior to that night.
The
The Black Dahlia lady called. Four more women called and said their fathers could have killed my mother. A man called and snitched off his father. A man called and snitched off his father-in-law. We called the callers. Their information played out 100% bogus.
I spent another week with the Ellroy and Long files. I forged no new connections. Bill cleared out his desk at the Bureau. He found an envelope marked Z-483-362.
It contained:
A name-and-address calling card for John Howell of Van Nuys, California.
Jean Ellroy’s car payment book. She sent her last payment in on 6/5/58. Her payments ran $85.58 a month.
A canceled check for $15. The check was dated 4/15/58. Jean Ellroy signed the check on her 43rd birthday A man named Charles Bellavia endorsed it.
A sheet of paper with a gummed scratch-pad border and a note on one side. The note read: “Nikola Zaha. Vic’s boyfriend? Whittier.”
We ran the new names through the DMV and DOJ computers. We got no DOJ hits. We got no DMV hit on Zaha. We got DMV hits on John Howell and Charles Bellavia. They were old men now. Bellavia lived in West L.A. Howell lived in Van Nuys. Bellavia was a rare name. We figured we had the right guy. We knew we had the right John Howell. His current address was a few digits off his calling card address.
We checked the reverse book for Zahas. We found two in Whittier. Zaha was a rare name. Whittier adjoined the San Gabriel Valley. The two Zahas were probably related to our Zaha.
I remembered my mother’s old boyfriend Hank Hart. I found them in bed together. Hank Hart had one thumb. I found my mother in bed with another man. I didn’t know his name. I didn’t know the name Nikola Zaha.
Nikola Zaha might be a crucial witness. He might explain my mother’s precipitous move to El Monte.
Bill and I drove out to Van Nuys. We found John Howell’s house. The door was wide open. We found Howell and
