My Dark Places

She was confused and stupidly guileless. She was 19. She could have pulled out of her tailspin as easily as she crossed that line.

Stoner couldn’t let her go.

Stupid rebellious girls had limited options. Life favored stupid rebellious boys. Stupid rebellious girls repulsed and titillated. Their act was aimed at this big world out to ignore them. Sometimes the wrong man caught their act in a too-perfect incarnation.

Stoner learned that men killed women because the world ignored and condoned it.

He worked dozens of homicides. He maintained a salutary solve rate. He spent time with his victims’ families. He neglected his own family. His sons grew up fast. He spent half their birthdays at crime scenes. The Los Angeles County murder rate kept escalating. He hacked at his paperwork backlog and sat in stalled freeway traffic. He picked up fresh murders and juggled old murders and went on suicide and industrial-accident calls. He solved nineteen out of twenty-one cases in one calendar year. He worked with good partners and did half the work. He worked with bad partners and did all the work. Some cases jazzed him. Some cases bored him. He worked a million mom-kills-pop and pop-kills-mom murders. He worked two million Mexican bar killings where all 40 eyewitnesses were in the bathroom and claimed they didn’t see nothing. Some cases got him musing on some wild fucking topics. Some cases put him to sleep like a big meal and a bad movie. He chased leads on the “Night Stalker” case. He solved the “Mini-Manson” case and took down some fiends killing fag hustlers. Murders accumulated. It sent him into Murder Commitment Exhaustion. He went on vacation and suffered Murder Commitment Withdrawal. He worked all his cases with the same commitment and discriminated in his head and heart. Court dates accumulated. They circumscribed a wide array of murders. Some were recent. Some were old. He juggled a wide array of facts and rarely fucked up on the witness stand.

He spent eight years on the Drop Zone Expressway. He had no desire to exit. His one dream was simple and altogether silly.

He wanted to limit his murders to a meaningful few.

He got his dream. He got it because Bob Grimm got this wild bug up his ass. Grimm wanted to clear the Cotton Club case. He moved Stoner into the Unsolved Unit early in ’87.

Stoner protested the transfer. Unsolved was an old man’s job. He was only forty-six. He wanted to work fresh cases. Grimm told him to shut up and do as he was told.

The Cotton Club job was famous. The victim was a show-biz sleazebag named Roy Radin. He was killed in ’83. His death purportedly derived from dope intrigue and Hollywood flimflam. It all connected to a shitty flick called The Cotton Club.

Grimm told Stoner he’d be working with Charlie Guenther. It was good news. Guenther was the man who really broke the Charles Manson case. He worked the Gary Hinman job for Sheriff’s Homicide and busted two freaks named Mary Brunner and Bobby Beausoleil. They wrote “Pig” and “Political Piggy” on Hinman’s walls after they killed him. Similar slogans were scrawled at the Tate-LaBianca crime scenes. Guenther went to the LAPD and laid out the Hinman murder. Brunner and Beausoleil were in custody during the Tate- LaBianca time frame. Guenther told the LAPD to check out their pals at the Spahn Movie Ranch. The LAPD ignored Guenther’s advice. They solved Tate-LaBianca by fluke luck several months later.

Guenther was on vacation now. Grimm told Stoner to get acclimated at Unsolved and study the initial Cotton Club file. Stoner browsed old files to get the Unsolved gestalt. Something led him to Phyllis (Bunny) Krauch—DOD 7/12/71.

The case was semi-famous. A reporter ran it by him years back. The Bunny Krauch job caused havoc at Sheriffs Homicide.

Bunny West grew up rich in Pasadena. She married a man named Robert Krauch in the late ’50s and had four kids by him. Krauch was a reporter for the LA, Herald, His father was a big cheese with the paper.

Bunny Krauch was beautiful. She was kindhearted and pathologically cheerful. Robert Krauch was possessive and ill-tempered. Everybody liked Bunny. Nobody liked Robert.

The Krauches moved to Playa del Rey in the early ’60s. They bought a beautiful beachfront home. Robert developed a bad reputation. People considered him eccentric. He rode his bicycle around Playa del Rey and put out hostile vibes.

Marina del Rey was the new hip enclave. It was just a mile north of Playa. It featured boat slips and yachts and lots of groovy bars and restaurants.

Charlie Brown’s opened up in ’68. It was a freewheeling bar and steakhouse with a swinging clientele. The waitresses were all stone foxes. They wore lowcut tops and short dresses. The manager dug the L.A. Lakers. He sucked up to the players and got his girls dates with them. Charlie Brown’s became a big sports hangout.

Bunny Krauch got a waitress job there. She worked the late shift and quit around midnight. She started living a separate life a mile away from her family.

Charlie Brown’s swung hard. The waitresses were always dodging passes. Bunny Krauch got pawed and groped every night.

This Don guy was the King of the Gropers. He worked as a bug exterminator. He was unattractive and well into his ’50s. The waitresses loathed him. He became Bunny Krauch’s lover. Nobody could figure them out.

Don was 20 years older than Bunny. Don was disgusting. Don was a flagrant ass-pincher and a drunk.

The affair went on for three years. Don and Bunny met at a motel on Admiralty Way. They met at Charlie Brown’s and other restaurants in the Marina. They were not discreet. Bunny’s friends knew the score. Robert Krauch did not.

Robert got a vasectomy. Bunny said she wanted to stay on the pill. The pill regulated her period.

Robert did not get the picture.

Bunny died in her car. It was parked in a cul-de-sac near Charlie Brown’s. Somebody strangled her. They tied two Charlie Brown’s napkins around her neck and pulled. Somebody raped her and sodomized her. Her dress was pushed up and her blouse was ripped open. She left Charlie Brown’s at midnight and died soon after. She died in her Charlie Brown’s outfit.

A private patrol guard found her. Sheriff’s Homicide took over.