Ellroy, James - Crim..

The church and Crawford's Market. Polete's market-snatch MO. Subsequent assaults at the Food King
and Lucky Market. The alibi that played like an admission.
Bill said it hit him hard. He told me a story to dramatize the impact.
He worked a case years back. A body dump in Torrance. A white male victim.
They ID'd him. His roommate was a carpet layer.
They took him to lunch. The man was not a suspect.
They took him to his apartment. They wanted to talk some more. They needed his take on the victim.
They walked in the door. Bill saw a brand-new carpet on the living-room floor.
And:
Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
He knew that the man killed the victim right there. He knew that he'd find washed-out blood spots under
the carpeting.
He found them. He confronted the man. The man confessed.
That was a fresh case. This was an old case. Instinctive knowledge never equals provability.
Circumstantial confirmation buttresses instinctive knowledge and increases its evidentiary value.
12/15/97:
Bill Stoner calls the church pastor's daughter. She says she never dated Robby Polete. She never saw
him with other girls. She saw him at school. She saw him at church youth groups.
12/16/97:
Bill Stoner calls the former youth-group leader. She does not recall Robby Polete. Youth-group
meetings were held at the church on Sundays, Mondays, and Thursdays. They ran from 7:30 P.M. to
9:30 P.M.
1/29/73 was a Monday. Betty Jean Scales was last seen at 8:30 P.M.
Bill checked out C&R Printing. The 1973 owner still owned the shop.
He remembered Robby Polete. Polete's dad owned a shop in Baldwin Park. Robby worked at C&R
sporadically. He did his dad's loan-out jobs.
Bill went through old work sheets and time cards. He had to see if Robby worked on 1/29/73.
The work sheets and time cards only went back to 1979. The man tossed his older records to save shelf
space.
The dead-end metaphysic.
Bill found Lori Polete. He interviewed her. He interviewed Robby's mother and brother.
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