Ellroy, James - Crim..

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chasing women outright.
Joe Guzman finds numerous toys in a sealed-off bedroom at the Guevara house. It is a striking anomaly.
The Guevaras were childless and had often told friends they did not intend to have children. The motive
takes circumstantial shape.
Two killings. Vengeance perpetrated by a cuckolded lover or the parents of an abused child.
Ray Peavy wraps his account up. Anderson and Guzman, Burks and Sears are still on the case--which
remains one baffling whodunit.
Sergeant Jacque Franco pokes her head in the door and eavesdrops. Deputy Rick Graves sidles by for
a listen; Dan Burt shoots him an attaboy for his work on that drowning case off Catalina Island.
Ray Peavy says, "It never ends."
Jacque Franco says, "We're still six short of breaking the record."
Dan Burt pats his fat ceramic bulldog.
Sergeant Bob Perry and Deputy Ruben "Bj." Bejarano get called out on Christmas Eve. It's cold, dark,
and rainy--good indoor mayhem conditions.
They roll to a video store near the Century Sheriff's Station. A Taiwanese woman named Li Mei Wu lies
dead on the floor behind the counter.
The weather has kept rubberneckers to a minimum. Patrol deputies have rounded up eyewitnesses and
sequestered them at the station. A sergeant lays things out for Bejarano and Perry.
Three black teenagers entered the store around closing time. They gave the victim some verbal grief,
split, and returned a few minutes later. One of them shot Li Mei Wu with a rifle. They ran outside and
disappeared on foot.
The victim is positioned faceup. There's a live .22-caliber round and a .22 ejected casing behind the
counter. A coroner's assistant lifts the body, notes the exit wound, and points to a projectile tangled up in
Li Mei Wu's clothes. He says the shot probably tore out the woman's aorta.
The assistant finds $300 in Li Mei Wu's pockets. Perry and Bejarano note the untouched money and the
full cash register and tentatively scratch robbery as a motive. The patrol sergeant tells them what eyeball
witnesses told him: The perpetrators bopped to a coin laundry a few doors down before they bopped
back and bopped Li Mei Wu.
The body is hustled off to the county morgue. Bj. diagrams the video store in his notebook, zooms down
to the laundry, and quick-sketches the floor plan. A deputy from the crime lab arrives. He begins
snapping crime-scene shots and dusting both the video store and the coin laundry.
Bob and Bj. secure the location and drive to Century Station. Two witnesses are waiting; three have
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