Ellroy, James - Crim..

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Bill and I drove to Sheriff's Homicide. Bill ran a DMV check on William David Scales. He hit. Scales
was fifty-one years old now. He lived in Rancho Cucamonga.
Close. A straight shot through the San Gabriel Valley.
Bill said Valley folks never strayed far. I said the Valley was a fucking life sentence. Bill said, "For you it
is."
The evidence vault adjoined the Sheriff's Academy. Evidence bags were stored on shelves stacked
twenty-five feet high. The vault looked like an airplane hangar. Two dozen shelves ate up most of the
floor space. Technicians accessed them with forklifts.
It was my second visit. I viewed the evidence from my mother's case the first time.
I'd touched the stocking and the cotton cord that killed her. I put the dress she died in to my face and
caught a trace of her perfume.
Bill requisitioned the Scales bag. A technician found it. We examined it in a small room next to the vault.
The red-pink sweater, the panties, the bra. Separate items in separate envelopes.
Bill filled out a routing form and placed the items in a cardboard box. I didn't touch them. They looked
like cheap stuff purchased at Sears or JC Penney. They smelled like dust and old synthetics.
We dropped the items off at the Sheriff's Crime Lab. A serologist named Valorie Scherr logged them in.
She explained DNA in a wholly precise and stupefyingly soporific manner.
Scherr said the prescreen would take ten days. They had to identify semen or other fluids first. The
amount did not matter. DNA could be successfully typed off a single cell. Dissipation might factor in. The
event occurred twenty-four years ago. The stains might have eroded during storage.
Scherr gave Bill eight swab sticks and containers. She said he should tell the husband to scrape the
inside of his mouth vigorously,
She advised a backup procedure.
They might not have a valid victim sample. He should try to locate the victim's parents or a sibling and
take scrapings from them. This would help identify the victim's DNA.
Bill grabbed Scherr's phone and called Sheriff's Homicide. A colleague tapped the DMV computer. He
got a hit on Bud Bedford. His last known address: a trailer park in Fresno.
Bill got his number from Fresno information. He called him and stated his business. Bedford agreed to
be interviewed. He said he'd submit a cell sample. He said his ex-wife was still in Fresno. He gave Bill
her number.
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