Avila caught some fresh murders. He ran the Radin case by the DAs Office every so often. Nobody wanted to file. Two years and some months passed.
Stoner knew they could break it. They had to make the right people talk.
It was all there.
Radin vanished in a limo. Mentzer and Lowe drove limos part-time. Mentzer worked for Laney Jacobs. Laney hated Roy Radin. Mentzer was an amateur hit man.
Stoner wanted to move. Guenther wanted him to study another case first. The Tracy Lea Stewart job was Guenther’s bete noir. He knew the killers. He wanted to pop the main guy before he retired. He wanted to get Stoner hooked on Tracy.
Stoner read the file. He got hooked instantly.
Tracy Stewart was 18. She lived with her parents and kid brother in Carson. She was quiet and shy and easily frightened.
She disappeared 8/9/81. She met a boy named Bob at Redondo Beach that day. Bob was about 21. He was nice-looking. He asked Tracy out. Tracy told him to call her.
Bob called at 6:00 p.m. He suggested a drive and a few games of pool at a nice bowling alley. Tracy said sure. Bob said he’d be right over. Tracy told her mother she was going out on a date. Her mother told her to call home at least once.
Bob picked Tracy up. Tracy called her mother one hour later. She called from a bowling alley in Palos Verdes. She said she’d be home by midnight or 1:00 a.m.
She didn’t come home. Her parents waited up. They called the Carson Sheriff’s Station in the morning.
A deputy went by the bowling alley. He talked to some people on duty last night. They recalled Tracy and Bob. They didn’t know who Bob was.
The case was bounced to Sheriff’s Missing Persons. Sergeant Cissy Kienest talked to Tracy’s friends and dozens of beach habitues. Nobody knew Bob. Nobody saw Tracy or Bob the night of 8/9/81.
Tracy’s parents distributed flyers and ran newspaper ads. Tracy remained missing. The case lay dormant for four years.
A man named Robbie Beckett assaulted his girlfriend in 1985. He was arrested in Aspen, Colorado. He was sentenced to two years in the Colorado State Penitentiary. Sergeant Gary White handled the case for the Aspen PD.
White and Beckett had a cordial relationship. Robbie told White he wanted to buy some time off his sentence. He knew about a murder in L.A. The date was August ’81. The victim was a girl he picked up. Her first name or middle name was Lee. He forgot her last name.
White said he couldn’t promise any deals. Robbie laid out his story anyway.
His father was named Bob Beckett Sr. He used to live with him in Torrance—down by Redondo Beach and Palos Verdes. His father was an artist. He ran a rinky-dink art school and made extra cash as a strongarm enforcer. He collected money for some mob-connected guys in San Pedro. His father was 6?4?, 270. His father knew karate. His father was in the Society for Creative Anachronisms—this group where people acted out this weird medieval shit. His father hung out with a faggy guy named Paul Serio. Paul Serio was a big shot in that weird society. His father was 45 years old now. His father was a baaad son-of-a-bitch.
His father had a girlfriend named Sharon Hatch. She broke off their relationship in May ’81. Bob Beckett Sr. went crazy. He stalked Sharon and threatened her. He told Robbie to round up some bikers to gang-rape her.
Robbie loved and feared his dad. Robbie hated to see him hurt and angry. He rounded up some guys to rape Sharon. He called it off at the last moment. Robbie liked Sharon. He didn’t want to hurt her. He figured his dad would outgrow this whole vengeance thing.
Bob Beckett Sr. stayed hurt and angry. He dropped his Sharon fixation and developed a new one. He told Robbie to find him a young girl. He could rough up the girl and get back at Sharon that way.
Robbie stalled him. He figured his father would outgrow the young-girl fixation. Bob Beckett Sr. persisted. Robbie gave in.
He met that girl Lee at the beach. He got her number. He called her and asked her out. He took her to a bowling alley and shot some pool with her. They necked and drank some beer. He told her he had to stop someplace before he took her home.
The girl said okay. Robbie took her to his father’s apartment. The lights were off. Bob Beckett Sr. was waiting in the bedroom. Robbie left the girl in the living room and walked in. His father said, “Did you bring me something?” Robbie delivered the girl.
Bob Beckett Sr. pawed her and raped her. Robbie got blind drunk in the living room. Bob Beckett Sr. spent two or three hours alone with the girl.
He told her he’d drive her home. He told her to take a shower first. He locked her in the bathroom. He told Robbie they had to kill her.
Robbie didn’t want to kill her. Bob Beckett Sr. grabbed a homemade sap and insisted. Robbie gave in.
Bob Beckett Sr. unlocked the bathroom and told the girl to get dressed. She did it. Robbie and Bob Beckett Sr. walked her down to their van. It was 2:00 or 2:30 a.m.
Robbie swung the sap. It caught on a tree branch. The blow stunned the girl and ripped her face. Robbie couldn’t dredge up the guts to hit her again.
Bob Beckett Sr. hit her and threw her in the back of the van. He got in and pinned her down with his knees. He strangled her bare-handed and wrapped a plastic garbage bag over her head.
They drove the body south on the 405 freeway. They took some weird roads out to the boonies. They dumped the girl in some bushes near a fence.
They drove home and sweated out exposure. The papers ran some missing-girl stories. Bob Beckett Sr. told Robbie to gut the van. Robbie replaced the paneling and bought a new set of tires. No cops came around. Robbie
