My Dark Places by James Ellroy Page A

her.
    He drove back to L.A. He developed the Shirley pictures. He put them in a metal box beside his Judy shots.
    He got the itch again in July. He saw a cheesecake-model ad in the paper and called the number. Angela Rojas invited him over to her studio/pad on Pico.
    Glatman showed up. Angela said she wasn’t feeling good and asked him to take a raincheck. Glatman agreed. He came back the following night, uninvited.
    Angela let him in. Glatman pulled his gun and forced her into her bedroom. He tied her feet and ankles and fondled her. He untied her and raped her. He held his gun to her back and marched her out to his car.
    He drove her straight to the desert. He found a nesting spot around dawn.
    He camped out with her all day. He raped her and photographed her. He drove her to a more isolated spot after dark.
    He told her he wanted to take some more pictures. He walked her out into the toolies and set up his camera and flash gear.
    He tied her up and gagged her and shot some film. He placed her facedown on a blanket and noosed her up neck-to-ankles. She kicked and thrashed and strangled herself to death. Glatman tossed some shrubs on the body and drove back to LA.
    Lawton mentioned the Jean Ellroy murder. Glatman said he didn’t do it. He didn’t know where El Monte was. He only killed the three women he just copped to. He didn’t kill any redheaded nurse.
    Glatman was booked on three counts of murder one. The cops and the Orange County DA discussed filing logistics.
    Judy Ann Dull was murdered in Riverside County. Shirley Ann Bridgeford and Angela Rojas were murdered in San Diego County. Glatman assaulted Lorraine Vigil down in Orange. Harvey was fucked—his trial priority wasn’t essential.
    Glatman had two sex-assault priors. He spent five years in Sing Sing and two years in the Colorado State Pen. He was 30 years old and worked as a TV repairman. He was skinny. He looked like an undernourished little putz.
    Lawton, Brooks and Jackson took a Harvey Glatman murder-site tour. Photographers, DAs and various deputy sheriffs went with them. Glatman led them straight to the bones of victim Bridgeford and victim Rojas.
    Judy Dull’s remains were found in December ’57. They were Jane Doe-tagged at the Riverside County Coroner’s Office.
    The tour ended at Glatman’s apartment. The cops examined his photograph collection.
    He had dozens of mail-order smut pictures. They all featured bound-and-gagged women. He had pictures of bound-and-gagged women shot off his own TV screen. Glatman said he always watched TV with his camera in his lap. You got some good bonus shots that way.
    He had pictures of girls he photographed in Denver. They were bound and gagged in their panties and bras. He said the girls were all alive and well.
    He kept his special pictures in a metal box. The cops went through them one by one.
    Judy Dull’s brassiere was stretched below her breasts. Her gag flattened out her cheeks and distorted her whole face. Her legs-apart poses were fatuous and obscene.
    She didn’t look scared. She looked like a jaded adolescent. Maybe she thought she could outsmart this nebbish. Maybe she thought compliance equaled poise. Maybe she possessed a skewed pinup-girl bravado: All men are weak and easily moved with the right combination of flattery and pussy.
    Angela Rojas looked dazed. Her desert backdrop was beautifully lit.
    Shirley Ann Bridgeford knew her life was over. Glatman’s camera caught her tears and contortions and the scream the gag in her mouth was holding mute.
    The pictures shocked Jack Lawton. Glatman sickened him. He knew he didn’t kill Jean Ellroy.
    Hallinen and Lawton caught a case together on November 8th. A man named Woodrow Harley raped his 13-year-old stepdaughter and smothered her with a chloroform-soaked pillow.
    They spent a week wrapping it up. They visited Armand Ellroy and his son right before Thanksgiving.
    The boy had grown a bit. He was very tall for a kid his age.
    Hallinen and Lawton