Free My Dark Places by James Ellroy Page A

features from the two previous versions. Lavonne and Margie agreed: He’s the guy we saw.
    The sketch man mimeographed copies of the picture and gave them to Hallinen and Lawton. They routed them to the Information Bureau—to be included in a press release on the Ellroy homicide.
    A deputy drove Lavonne and Margie home. Hallinen and Lawton arranged to interview the victim’s co-workers and search her house again.
    The case was four days old.
    Thursday afternoon.
    Jim Bruton called a contact at the El Monte Unified School District. The man gave him Peter Tubiolo’s home number.
    Bruton called Tubiolo and asked him to come to the station—for the purpose of answering a few questions. The matter to be discussed was the Jean Ellroy murder.
    Tubiolo agreed to come in that afternoon. He stressed that he hardly knew the woman. Bruton told him it was just routine and assured him that the interview would remain confidential.
    A time was set. Bruton called Hallinen and Lawton and told them to drive out. They said they’d bring Margie Trawick and let her take a look at the man.
    Peter Tubiolo was prompt. Bruton, Hallinen and Lawton talked to him in a mirrored interview room. Tubiolo was heavyset and round-faced. He did not resemble the dark man in any way, shape, manner or form.
    He was the vice-principal of Anne LeGore Elementary School. The victim’s son just completed the fifth grade there. He was a frightened and rather volatile child.
    Tubiolo said he met Jean Ellroy on only one occasion. She came to his school to discuss her son’s poor scholastic progress and inability to get along with other children. He did not “date” or “socialize” with the late Mrs. Ellroy. Such actions were against school district policy.
    The cops told him the kid said otherwise. Tubiolo stuck to his story. All he knew about the Ellroys’ private life was that the parents were divorced and the boy wasn’t allowed to see his father during the week. Mrs. Ellroy was a fine woman—but there was nothing personal between them.
    Margie Trawick observed Tubiolo. She got a good close look through the mirror.
    She told the cops he wasn’t the guy. They cut Tubiolo loose with apologies.
    Ward Hallinen got a tip Thursday night. The West Covina PD had a suspect: a local foul ball named Steve Anthony Carbone.
    Hallinen had Frank Godfrey check it out. Godfrey ran a make on Carbone and came back enthusiastic.
    Carbone was a white male American of Italian descent. His DOB was 2/19/15. He was 5′10″ and 140 pounds, with hazel eyes, straight black hair and a high forehead. He owned a ’55 Olds two-door sedan, polar white over green, license MMT 879.
    He hailed from Detroit, Michigan. He was popped three times for indecent exposure: 10/41, 11/41, 8/53. He moved to West Covina in ’57. He ran up a string of three drunk drivings and two assault-with-a-deadly-weapon beefs. His last ADW was notable. He pulled a 30.30 carbine on a cop.
    Carbone was foul-tempered and belligerent. Carbone was a well-known cop hater and a sex offender.
    Hallinen and Lawton jumped on him.
    They had the West Covina PD haul him in. They had his Oldsmobile impounded and photographed in the PD parkinglot. A Sheriff’s lab man dusted it, checked it for bloodstains and vacuumed it for fibers resembling the white ones found on the victim.
    The lab man came up empty.
    Hallinen and Lawton leaned on Carbone. He gave them a vague account of his actions Saturday night. Jim Bruton brought Margie Trawick and Lavonne Chambers in for a show-up.
    They both said he wasn’t the guy they saw with the redhead.
    Hallinen and Lawton worked straight through the weekend.
    They talked to the victim’s co-workers and failed to turn up any leads. They walked through the victim’s house again. They spent hours at the Desert Inn and talked to dozens of patrons. Nobody could put a handle on the blonde or the dark man.
    Metro got a tip on a guy named Robert John Mellon—a former mental patient from North