BLOOD ON THE MOON
101
Four hours later, his mind clear from a dozen brisk circuits of the Civic Center area, Lloyd returned to Parker Center and jogged up to his office. He could see that the door to his cubicle was open and that someone had turned on the light. A lieutenant in uniform passed him in the hallway and hastily explained, “Your paperwork arrived, Lloyd. It’s in your office.”
Lloyd nodded and peered in his doorway. His desk and both his chairs were covered with thick manila folders filled with papers still reeking of the photostatic process. He counted them, then moved his chairs, wastebasket, and filing cabinet out into the hallway, arraying the files on the floor in a circle and sitting down in the middle of them.
Each folder was marked on the front with the victim’s last name, first name, and date of death. Lloyd divided them first into region, then into year, never looking at the photographs that he knew were clipped to the first page. Starting with Fullmer, Elaine D.; D.O.D. 3/9/68, Pasadena P.D., and ending with Deverson, Linda Holly; D.O.D. 6/14/82, Santa Monica P.D., he selected all the paperwork outside the L.A.P.D. and placed it to one side. This accounted for eighteen files. He looked at the thirteen L.A.P.D. files. Their front markings were slightly more detailed than those of the other departments; each victim’s age and race were listed immediately below her name. Of the thirteen murdered women, seven were listed as black and Hispanic. Lloyd put these folders aside and double-checked his first instincts, letting his mind go blank for a full minute before returning to conscious thought. He decided he was right; his killer preferred white women. This left six L.A.P.D. files and eighteen from other agencies, twenty-four in total. Averting his eyes from the front page photos, Lloyd scanned the interagency files for mention of race. Eight of the victims were listed as being non-Caucasian.
Which left sixteen folders.
Lloyd decided to make a collage of photographs before reading the complete files. Again willing a blank mind, he slipped the snapshots out of their folders face down in chronological order. “Talk to me,” he said aloud, turning the photographs over. When six of the snapshots smiled up at him he felt his mind begin to lurch forward convulsively, grasping at the horrific knowledge that he was assimilating. He flipped over the remaining photos and felt the logic of terror grip him like a blood-spattered vice. The dead women were all of a kind, almost kinlike in the Anglo-Saxon planes of their faces; all possessed demure, feminine hairstyles; all were 102
L.A. NOIR
wholesome-looking in the spirit of more traditional times. Lloyd whispered the single word that summed up his constituency of the dead, “Innocent, innocent, innocent.” He surveyed the photographs a dozen more times, picking up details—strands of pearls and high school rings on chains, the absence of makeup, shoulders and necks clad in sweaters and anachronistic formal wear. That the women had been killed by one monster for the destruction of the innocence they heralded so splendidly was beyond question. With trembling hands Lloyd read through the folders, partaking of death’s communion served up by strangulation, gunshot, decapitation, forced ingestion of caustic fluids, bludgeoning, gas, drug overdose, poisoning, and suicide. Disparate methods that would eliminate police awareness of mass murder. The one common denominator: no clues. No physical evidence. Women chosen for slaughter because of the way they looked. Julia Niemeyer killed sixteen times over, and how many more in different places?
Innocence was the epidemic of youth.
Lloyd read through the folders again, coming out of his trance with the realization that he had been sitting on the floor for three hours and that he was drenched in sweat. As he got to his feet and stretched his painfully cramped legs, he felt the big horror overtake him: The killer’s genius was unfathomable. There were no clues. The Niemeyer trail was dead cold. The other trails were colder. There was nothing he could do. There was always something he could do.
Lloyd got a roll of masking tape from his desk and began taping the photographs along the walls of his office. When the smiling faces of dead women stared down at him from all directions he said to himself, “Finis. Morte. Cold City. Muerto. Dead.”
Then he closed his eyes and read the vital statistics page in each folder, forcing himself to think only region. This accomplished, he got out his notebook and pen and wrote: Central Los Angeles:
1. Elaine Marburg, D.O.D. 11/24/69
2. Patricia Petrelli, D.O.D. 5/20/75
3. Karlen La Pelley, D.O.D. 2/14/71
4. Caroline Werner, D.O.D. 11/9/79
5. Cynthia Gilroy, D.O.D. 12/5/71