Beckett testified. He pointed to Daddy in open court and called him a “piece of shit.” Dale Rubin cross-examined David. He said, Aren’t you a convicted child molester? David said he was. He pointed to Daddy and said he learned it from him. He didn’t elaborate. Debbie Beckett could not testify. She was dead of AIDS attributed to intravenous drug use.
Paul Serio testified. He described his part in the Susan Hamway murder. He laid all the blame on Daddy. He didn’t know it was a hit. He thought it was a debt shakedown. Daddy iced Sue Hamway solo. Daddy whipped out a dildo and said, Let’s make it look like a sex snuff.
Serio pitched some regret for Sue Hamway’s baby. The baby starved to death while Sue Hamway decomposed.
Bill Stoner testified. He described the Beckett investigation from day one on. He was calm and authoritative. He counterbalanced Robbie’s histrionics. He was an independent auditor called in to itemize and total up the cost. Dale Rubin tried to ruffle him. Dale Rubin failed.
The defense called three witnesses. Two of Robbie’s old pals testified. They said Robbie used to pound on total strangers for no reason. Rubin controlled his witnesses. They sketched a nice picture. The pre-Tracy Robbie was impetuous and unpredictably violent. The revelation lacked punch. Robbie’s preemptive strike nullified it. Robbie drew the same picture. He drew it more dramatically and in the first person.
Rubin called his last witness. Another old pal testified. He said Robbie said he raped Tracy Stewart. I believed him. I couldn’t read the jury. I figured their response was, So what? Robbie’s in prison already. You can’t discredit Robbie. He upstaged you with his self-immolation. We’re tired. We want to go home. Thanks for the ride. We’ve got jury box whiplash. It was fun. It was groovier and less protracted than the Simpson mess. We got sex and family discord. We bypassed the scientific shit and the specious rants on race. The lounge act blitzed the Main Room show.
The trial was almost over. Bill predicted a fast guilty verdict. Gloria Stewart could stand up in court and confront Daddy Beckett. She could abuse him. She could beg for Tracy’s body. The Victim Confrontation was new legal stuff. It promoted victim’s rights and psychological cleansing. I told Bill I didn’t want to see the closing arguments and the Stewart confrontation. Daddy would yawn. Gloria would say her piece and go on grieving. The confrontation law was passed by morons hooked on daytime TV I didn’t want to see Gloria’s audition. I didn’t want to see her as a professional victim. Bill never introduced us. He never told her who I was or who I lost in June ’58. He knew we’d have nothing to say to each other. He knew I never hurt like she did.
The Beckett trial lasted two weeks. Bill and I drove up in separate cars every day. Bill went out with Dale Davidson and Charlie Guenther most nights. They’d hook up with Phil Vanatter sometimes. Vanatter was famous now. He worked the murder case of the century. The Beckett crew went out to celebrate the end of the trial. Vanatter went with them. Bill invited me. I took a pass. I wasn’t a cop or a deputy district attorney. I didn’t want to talk shop with pros. I didn’t want to commiserate or discuss the farcical aspects of the Simpson case. I was running low on white man’s outrage. The LAPD kicked indiscriminate black ass for 50-plus years. Mark Fuhrman was Jack Webb with fangs. DNA was unassailably precise and confusing. Racist conspiracies carried more dramatic weight. Bill knew it. He was too gracious to rub it in Phil Vanatter’s face. Marcia Clark needed a black Robbie Beckett. A black Robbie could indict OJ. with home-grown soul. Justice was politics and theater. O. J. Simpson wasn’t Emmett Till or the Scottsboro Boys. Victimhood was exploitable. I wasn’t Gloria Stewart.
I drove out to West L.A. I wanted to find a private pay phone and call Helen. I wanted to talk about Tracy and Geneva.
I remembered the phone bank at the Mondrian Hotel. It was rush hour. Sunset Boulevard was probably jammed. I turned north on Sweetzer. I crossed Santa Monica Boulevard and saw where I was.
I was driving through a murder zone.
Karyn Kupcinet died at 12-something North Sweetzer. It was late 11/63. Jack Kennedy was four or five days dead. Somebody strangled Karyn in her apartment. She was nude. Her living room was a mess. She was facedown on the sofa. Sheriff’s Homicide handled the case. Ward Hallinen worked it. They looked at Karyn’s actor boyfriend and one of Karyn’s freaky neighbors. Karyn’s father was Irv Kupcinet. He was a big talk-show host and columnist in Chicago. Karyn moved to L.A. to score as an actress. Her dad was floating her. She wasn’t making it. Her boyfriend and his friends were. Karyn ran a few pounds over svelte. She took diet pills to control her weight and fly. Charlie Guenther thought she died accidentally. They found a book on the coffee table near her body. It was all about nude dancing. You could dance like a wood nymph and free your inhibitions. Guenther figured she was bombed. She was dancing stark nude. She fell down and broke her hyoid bone on the coffee table. She crawled up on the couch and died. Bill thought she was murdered. It could have been the boyfriend or the freaky neighbor or some geek she picked up at a bar. They got a lot of tips in ’63. They still got tips. An FBI guy called in a tip recently. He said he got it off a wiretap recording. A mob guy said he had the real goods. Karyn was giving a guy some skull and choked to death on his dick.
I turned west at Sweetzer and Fountain. I saw the El Mirador building. Judy Dull lived there. She was 19. She had an estranged husband and a kid already. She posed for cheesecake pix. Harvey Glatman found her. Glatman was a Jean Ellroy suspect. Jack Lawton cleared him on Ellroy and nailed him on Dull.
I turned north on La Cienega. Georgette Bauerdorf’s apartment house stood right there. Georgette Bauerdorf was murdered on 10/12/44. A man broke into her pad. He stuffed a bandage roll in her mouth and raped her. She choked to death on the roll. They never found the killer. Ray Hopkinson worked the case. Georgette was 19—like Judy Dull. Georgette had money—like Karyn Kupcinet. Georgette volunteered at the USO Canteen. Her family was back in New York. Her friends said she was nervous and smoked too much. She lived all by herself. She drove around L.A. impulsively.
Karyn was running on dope and hiding out behind her father’s money. Judy was running from too much life too fast. Georgette got cabin fever and ran to the boys at the USO Canteen. Tracy hid out at home. Robbie picked her up there. Jean picked the wrong town to hide in.
I saw their faces. I formed them into a group shot. I made my mother their mother. I placed her in the middle of the frame.
Tell me why.
Tell me why it was you and not somebody else.
Take me back and show me how you got there.
26
My mother said she saw the Feds gun down John Dillinger. She was a nursing school
