Nonfiction
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MY DARK PLACES
By James Ellroy
Alfred A. Knopf, 355 pages
The Redhead
Some kids found her.
They were Babe Ruth League players, out to hit a few shag balls. Three adult coaches were walking behind them.
The boys saw a shape in the ivy strip just off the curb. The men saw loose pearls on the pavement. A little telepathic jolt went around.
Clyde Warner and Dick Ginnold shooed the kids back a ways — to keep them from looking too close. Kendall Nungesser ran across Tyler and spotted a pay phone by the dairy stand.
He called the Temple City Sheriff's Office and told the desk sergeant he'd discovered a body. It was right there on that road beside the playing field at Arroyo High School. The sergeant said stay there and don't touch anything.
The radio call went out: 10:10 a.m., Sunday, 6/22/58. Dead body at King's Row and Tyler Avenue, El Monte.
A Sheriff's prowl car made it in under five minutes. An El Monte PD unit arrived a few seconds later.
Deputy Vic Cavallero huddled up the coaches and the kids. Officer Dave Wire checked out the body.
It was a female Caucasian. She was fair-skinned and redheaded. She was approximately 40 years of age. She was lying flat on her back — in an ivy patch a few inches from the King's Row curb line.
Her right arm was bent upward. Her right hand was resting a few inches above her head. Her left arm was bent at the elbow and draped across her midriff. Her left hand was clenched. Her legs were outstretched.
She was wearing a scoop-front, sleeveless, light and dark blue dress. A dark blue overcoat with a matching lining was spread over her lower body.
Her feet and ankles were visible. Her right foot was bare. A nylon stocking was bunched up around her left ankle.
Her dress was disheveled. Insect bites covered her arms. Her face was bruised and her tongue was protruding. Her brassiere was unfastened and hiked above her breasts. A nylon stocking and a cotton cord were lashed around her neck. Both ligatures were tightly knotted.
Dave Wire radioed the El Monte PD dispatcher. Vic Cavallero called the Temple office. The body-dump alert went out:
Get the L.A. County Coroner. Get the Sheriff's Crime Lab and the photo car. Call the Sheriff's Homicide Bureau and tell them to send a team out.
Cavallero stood by the body. Dave Wire ran over to the dairy and commandeered a length of rope. Cavallero helped him string up a crime scene perimeter.
They discussed the odd position of the body. It looked haphazard and fastiduous.
Spectators drifted by. Cavallero pushed them back to the Tyler Avenue sidewalk. Wire noticed some pearls on the road and circled each and every one in chalk.
Officials pulled up to the cordon. Uniformed cops and plainclothesmen ducked under the rope.
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