Destination by James Ellroy Page B

A or O blood. Stephanie was type O. There were no foreign fluid types in her rectum or vagina.
    1/7/66: The lab tests the bloody towels. They get a type-O reaction. It’s probably Stephanie’s blood. Stephanie
might
have wounded the killer.
    The detectives worked. The lab confiscated new crime-scene guns. They examined them. They test-fired them. They got nil results.
    2/22/66: SID tests the Gorman hair samples. Most test out to Stephanie and Cheryl. One doesn’t. This hair is coarser. It’s not a Negro, Mexican, or Oriental hair. It’s assuredly Caucasian.
    2/22/66: The lab tests Stephanie’s fingernail clippings. They find no scraped flesh. They find blood traces. They’re too small to type. They can’t tell if she scratched her assailant.
    2/28/66: LAPD pops the Remorseful Rapist.
    It’s a traffic stop—2nd and Serrano. It’s a male Mexican. His name: Edward David Apodaca.
    He’s packing tape and a toy gun. He stands in a show-up. Thirty-eight victims ID him. The Gorman cops grill him. He’s gun-checked, print-checked, poly’d, and cleared.
    3/8/66: A neighbor lady rats off a loiterer. He’s standing at Pico and Roxbury. He matches the police sketch. Patrolmen haul him in. The detectives grill him.
    His name is Mr. K. He’s an alien. He hails from Gyula, Hungary. He’s a schizo and a nut-bin habitué. He’s got a nationwide rap sheet: vag/disorderly conduct/wienie wagger beefs.
    He won’t cooperate. He won’t take a poly. They book him for Murder One. They put him in a show-up. George Iwasaki views him. He says maybe, maybe not.
    Mr. K. talked a little. He said he escaped Patton State Hospital. The detectives called Patton. They learned: Mr. K. escaped 8/5/65—the Gorman snuff date.
    But:
    Mr. K. split late in the day. The time glitch cleared him.
    Mr. K. got unbooked. Murder One
—nyet.
Patton sent a crew down to shag him.
    3/24/66–3/31/66: Two Metro cops hit Georgia Street Juvenile.
    They run record checks. They check current and recent Hami kids. They check the boys for juvie beefs. They check the girls as sex-beef complainants. The girls shoplift clothes and cosmetics. The girls run from titty pinchers and whip-out men. The boys run the fucking alphabet.
    Lots of sex shit. 288PC—forced oral cop. 288—voluntary. 288—mutual suck. Voyeur busts, malicious mischief. Some kid molests a prepubescent girl. The cops pop him. Said kid gets popped at a fruit bar later. A 14-year-old boy attacks two 11-year-old girls. He slides on it. He gets popped for Peeping Tom later. Lots of GTA, some grand-theft merch, some parked-car sodomy. Wienie waggers galore. Glue sniffers, grasshoppers, juiceheads galore. Fruit rollers, fruit teasers, high-school fruitettes. Firebugs, chronic runaways. A doozie right after the Gorman job—8/13/65. Venice Boulevard and Ocean Front Walk. There’s a public rest-room. There’s a Mex kid pulling his pud. The kid states: “I was thinking of a Hami Hi girl.”
    They went through 5000-plus names. They turned up 201 rap sheets. They weeded out unlikelies. They grilled the pure freaks. They print-checked them and gun-checked them. They got diddly-shit.
    4/4/66: The L.A. Police Commission gets a mailed note and poem. Said note and poem read thus:
    Did they ever find who snuffed out Stephanie Gorman? Was he of Lago Vista Dr., Beverly Hills? Used to frequent the pool hall in Westwood?
    And her name was Stephanie.
She came from Hills Beverly.
A quick roach was he around the house.
I declare, look here, you may find out
(An idea to a mystery)
    The detectives worked it. Lago Vista Drive/men named “Roach”/Westwood poolhalls. It wasted man hours. It went nowhere. A cryptographer read the poem. She said it was gobbledygook.
    6/20/66: LAPD gets hip to Dave S. Remember—he called West L.A. Station. It was 8/6/65. He said he went by the Gorman pad on 8/5. He looked for Bob Gelff. Bob