Free My Dark Places by James Ellroy Page B

Dakota. A deputy checked Mellon out and wrote the tip off as worthless.
    A man named Archie G. Rogers called in a tip to the El Monte PD.
    He said a guy named Bill Owen had a girlfriend named Dorothy. They sort of matched the description of those people in the paper—the folks seen with the dead nurse.
    Owen was a painter and a mechanic. He used to live with Mr. Rogers’ sister. Dorothy frequented the Manger and the Wee Nipee bar. She slept in Mr. Rogers’ car Saturday night, June 21st.
    Dorothy’s phone number was ED4-6881. Dorothy said she had a new friend named Jean. Dorothy planned to bring Jean by Mr. Rogers’ sister’s house that Saturday night.
    Mr. Rogers found the whole thing suspicious.
    The El Monte PD forwarded the tip to Sheriff’s Metro. Deputy Howie Haussner—Jack Lawton’s brother-in-law— handled it.
    He got Rogers’ sister’s address and matched Dorothy’s phone number to a Harold T. Hotchkiss in Azusa. He attached the two addresses to the names William Owen and Dorothy Hotchkiss and teletyped them to the Criminal Records Bureau in Sacramento.
    The kickback was inconclusive.
    The name Dorothy Hotchkiss came back blank: no record, no wants, no warrants, no listing at the Azusa address. “William Owen” came back six times over—various Owens with criminal records dating back to ’39. None of the Owens lived in the San Gabriel Valley.
    The Owen-Hotchkiss paperwork was stuffed in an accordion file. The file was marked Z-483-362.
    Jean Ellroy was buried on Tuesday, July 1st, 1958.
    A rent-a-preacher performed a Protestant service. She was placed in the ground at Inglewood Cemetery—out in southwest L.A.
    Jean’s sister and brother-in-law were there. Some Airtek people showed up. Armand Ellroy and a few of Jean’s old friends attended.
    Jack Lawton and Ward Hallinen were there.
    Jean’s son copped a plea and stayed away. He spent the day watching TV with some friends of his dad’s.
    The headstone was marked “Geneva Hilliker Ellroy. 1915-1958.”
    The plot was on the west edge of the cemetery. It was inches from a busy street and a stretch of chain-link fence.

4

    T he L.A. Sheriff’s Office hailed from the Wild West days. It was a modern police agency suffused with 19th-century nostalgia. The LASO embraced Wild West motifs wholesale. It made for brilliant PR.
    The Sheriff’s manned county lockups and patrolled county turf out of twelve substations. Said turf ran through the city of Los Angeles and out into the north-, south- and eastbound boonies. Deputies worked the desert, the mountains and a swanky stretch of beach. Their jurisdiction took in hundreds of square miles.
    Malibu was plum duty. West Hollywood was good—the Sunset Strip was always percolating. East L.A. was full of rowdy Mexicans. Firestone was wall-to-wall colored. Temple City and San Dimas were out in the San Gabriel Valley. Deputies could drive up into the foothills and shoot coyotes for kicks.
    The Sheriff’s Detective Bureau investigated criminal actions county-wide. Sheriff’s Homicide handled murders for numerous Mickey Mouse police departments. The Sheriff’s Aero Bureau flew county skies and supplanted rescue operations.
    The Sheriffs Office was expanding full-tilt. 1958 L.A. was a boomtown.
    Los Angeles was always rough-and-ready. The place was built from land grabs and racial grief. The L.A. Sheriff’s Office was chartered in 1850. It was meant to bring rule to an unruly slice of land.
    The first string of County Sheriffs were elected to one-year terms. They dealt with marauding Indians, Mexican bandits and Chinese tong wars. Vigilantes were a significant threat. Drunken white men loved to lynch redskins and dusky bandidos.
    L.A. County grew. Elected Sheriffs came and went. The sworn deputy force grew, concurrent with county expansion. Civilian help was often required. The Sheriff would deputize men and form them into mounted posses.
    The L.A. Sheriff’s Office modernized. Cars replaced horses. Larger