by Neal Arbic
WHITE
Neal Arbic
Saturday, August 9th, 1969, 1:45 AM
Black. No moon. The three week old smog smothering LA hid the stars. A police strobe flashed red across the large gate. The Bel Air mansion’s grounds seemed abandoned, only an empty patrol car at the end of its long sloping driveway on Cielo Drive. Then, emerging from the shadows: Officer José Delgado, his service revolver drawn down with both hands. His black boots cautiously climbed the asphalt drive, his eyes locked on what lay before him.
A white Rambler appeared to be parked haphazardly, but as he neared, it became clear the car had rear-ended a large oak. Its engine choked on its last drops of gas. The interior light was on, the driver’s door - wide open.
Rivulets of blood met Delgado’s boots. On only his third day of active duty, he raised his revolver. Eyes wide, he scanned the dark as he moved steadily toward the car door. Something hung from it.
He froze. It was the body of a teenage boy, short blond hair, glasses, short sleeve shirt, his head and arms sprawled on the asphalt. Delgado drew near, leaning over the body, squinting. The poor light from inside the car revealed a small piece of skull missing just below the hairline. Blood trickled from the back of his head. Officer Delgado was about to squat by the victim when he saw her. Pivoting towards the front door of the mansion, his eyes were drawn to her body. The bright porch light made the scene pale and ghostly, a distant vision in the absolute dark. She lay halfway out of the doorway. His gun rose to chest level.
Sidestepping the young man’s body, he made his way across the lawn. His eyes flickered nervously from window to window, watching for any movement inside, sporadically surveying the young woman with long blond hair, her yellow summer dress drenched in blood. A worried mantra filled his head – first officer on scene, first officer on scene – summoning his academy classes: As initial patrolman on a crime scene - render immediate assistance to any living victims, preserve the evidence. He took his first step onto the stone path leading to the front door and stopped again. Slowly turning his head he saw another body a few feet away: a man, medium height, facedown on the lawn, a large knife sticking out the back of his neck. The blade gleamed.
Keeping his eyes on the windows, the officer slowly made his way towards the man. His pulse drummed in his ears. He tried to remain calm, but could not help notice his pistol trembling in his hands. Squatting to feel for a pulse on the facedown man, he accidentally touched the large carving knife. His hand jumped back. A strong wind came up, breaking one of LA’s longest heat waves. It swung the front door. The girl’s body blocked it from closing. And now the officer could see it.
Written on the mansion’s door, in blood, was the word
PIG.
10:45 AM
In the morning sunlight, a black 1941 Packard Formal navigated the narrow canyon street of Cielo Drive and came to its dead end. Vehicles choked the cul-de-sac: a dozen patrol cars, deputy photo cars, Crime Lab, LA County Coroner and news vans.
The press was held at bay by a line of police sawhorses and patrolmen. Bleary-eyed officer Delgado paced the mansion’s gate nervously, smoking a cigarette, waiting for a ride back to the station. He wearily tipped his hat back to view the vintage vehicle pulling up to the gates - a popular high-end car in the 40s, a rare sight in ‘69. “Now that’s a jalopy.”
A nearby officer gave a knowing smile. “Yeah? Well, wait to you see the fossil who’s driving it.”
Jack Middleton edged out of the car looking like a retired boxer gone to seed: big, squashed nose broken in places, ruddy complexion from a lifetime of booze, pockmarked skin, deep mean wrinkles around his eyes. The dog tags under his shirt and all-gray crew cut were homage to buddies lost in World War II.
His hard pale blue eyes squinted in the sunlight, quickly counting the number of cut telephone wires that hung around the gate.
Young patrolmen leaned against the gate smoking and giving Jack skeptical looks. Closing in like a bouncer on underage drinkers, he grimaced and pointed to the gate’s electronic opener. Decades of cigar smoke and hangovers had left his throat a deep rasp, “There’s a bloody fingerprint on that button.”
The officers turned and stared. Jack picked a patrolman. “You! Don’t just stand there like an idiot with your jaw hanging. Fetch someone from Forensics, will ya!”
The patrolman disappeared up the drive.
Up the long oak-lined driveway Jack’s legs loosened, his back straightened, revealing the vigor of a much younger man. The estate grounds were eerily quiet: no bird calls, squirrels, not even a cricket. His eyes roved the perfectly manicured lawn, well-trimmed shrubs and a distant in-ground pool.
Jack spied the white Rambler rear-ended into an oak. Six technicians from Scientific Investigation Division swarmed the car scraping goo, measuring trajectories and blood spatter. Jack hated the SID crew. He still carried his own evidence kit from when detectives lifted their own prints. SID guys could mess up, miss evidence or misplace it. And the more men on a crime scene, the better chances important clues will be trampled.
He passed the body of the teenage boy hanging from the car door with a glance.
Jack called to an older tech, “Lloyd!”
A bald man dusting for fingerprints on the car’s door handle looked up.
Jack grinned. “Hey, make sure you don’t get your own prints on there, or I’ll have to arrest you.” Jack whispered to himself, “You dumb fuck.”
Lloyd shook his head and went back to work.
He left the SID team with a dismissive wave. “You’re wasting your time, Lloyd. That windshield says the shots came from outside the car.”
Jack’s eyes shifted to the lawn, the body with the steak knife in its neck, now being covered with a white coroner’s tarp. He made his way up to the mansion, negotiating pools of blood on the flagstone path.
It was a French country style mansion, the second floor a large sloping roof with dormer windows extending out of it. The ground floor had large wide windows and beautiful stone walls. A patrolman hunched over just outside the porch, vomit on the ground and bushes. Another patrolman, hand on the crouched man’s shoulder, offered moral support. It was a safe bet there were more bodies inside.
He stepped over the young woman’s corpse in the doorway as if merely avoiding a garden hose. But then he paused and stepped back over her. He stood over the corpse, his head bowed, not at her, but at the door.
Jack read the bloody letters under his breath, “Pig.”
Inside the house, a young photographer appeared, tripod in hand, hair down over his ears. He yelled at Jack. “Hey, man! You’re standing on my crime scene!”
Jack looked up, and stepped over the body into the hall. Passing the young photographer, he gruffly advised, “Get a haircut.”
In a high beamed living room, bodies lay everywhere. It was ramshackle and grisly: blood matted into the white plush carpet, streaked across the French doors, splash marks on huge bookcases and elegant chairs, streams soaked into frilled drapes and pillows, sprayed couches, a smudged handprint across a toppled lamp shade. Messages were scrawled in blood across the white walls: Rise, Piggies, Helter Skelter. A twisted corpse laid at Jack’s feet, a young woman, her abdomen chopped up: deep, raw and open. An equally bloodied woman had been hacked a few feet away, another by the stone fireplace. Jack counted seven fatalities. A group of officers and techs had gathered behind a long couch draped in an American flag. They stared down at something.
Jack made his way over. There she lay in a blood-drenched bikini. She was beautiful. She was young. She was a bulging eight months pregnant. And dead.
A young tech and two patrolmen spoke in hushed voices, “Who would stab a woman when she’s pregnant?”
“Who would stab her in the belly...with a fork?”
“The same guy who stabbed the guy out on the lawn…107 times.”
Even Jack, after decades of murder, felt like he had just been punched in the back of the head. The way the light fell on her face, her naked protruding belly, the way it had been mutilated.
An orderly from the Coroner’s Office smoked a cigarette. “Why do I know her?”
A patrolman squatted beside the body. “It’s Sharon Tate.”
A young tech squatted. “The actress?”
The patrolman nodded. “Hollywood party - all these people were sort of famous.”
Jack’s grim eyes surveyed her for a moment, not as a detective, but as a man looking at a crime. His teeth clenched behind tight lips, his fists tightened.
When the anger passed, he took a deep silent breath and began to notice the room again. There were too many people in it, mixed in with the techs and photographers were patrolmen walking about disturbing evidence; one had stepped in a pool of blood and was tracking it out the back door onto the patio.
Jack yelled, “I want every sumbitch patrolman outta my crime scene!”
***
While younger detectives studied the bodies, Jack’s practiced eyes kept returning to bloodied walls, studying the messages scrawled in blood: Helter Skelter, Piggies, Rise.
The young photographer with hair over his ears squatted, adjusting his tripod over the punctured corpse of a handsome man in a tux. He kept glancing at Jack’s perplexed face. Finally, he could no longer resist the urge to enlighten him. Brushing back his hair, he called across the room, “The Beatles!”
Jack turned his head, irritated. “What?”
The photographer came up from his squat and repeated, “The Beatles.” He made his way through the bodies; a large lens compact swung at his neck with every step.
They met halfway, facing each other. Scrawled behind them in blood along the white wall was Helter Skelter. The young man pointed to the bloody letters, “The words. They’re lyrics.”
3:15 PM
The Spiral Staircase on the Sunset Strip was LA’s most notorious record store. Pot deals were done in the back room, hippies congregated out front. Sarah Wilkinson, known as Sister Sunshine to friends, worked the afternoon shift. Jack’s black Packard pulled up front. Sarah smiled at the vintage car through the plate glass. She expected to see some far out rock star step into the bright sunlight, but her smile evaporated when Jack emerged. His grim face and drab suit said it all. Her eyes widened. Running to lower the volume on the store’s stereo, she yelled, “Cop!”
Customers made for the back door. A commotion broke out in the backroom: tables skidded, chairs fell over, swearing and then the scuttling of feet, the metal door opening, more feet, and then the heavy clack of the door falling shut - as Jack opened the front door.
Sarah’s head turned towards him and she smiled. Jack acknowledged her with an impassive nod.
He stood scanning the store: the walls painted in swirling colors; incense curled through the air and multi-color psychedelic posters covered the ceiling, hanging beads where doors should be. The music seemed like liquid, ever morphing: She’s like a Rainbow by The Rolling Stones.
Sarah approached him. “Can I help you?”
He paused as he looked her over. She was a medieval princess: straight golden hair hung down to her waist, a flowery gown of colors. Her blue eyes shone from over-mascaraed lashes. A small golden heart hung from her black velvet choker.
Jack dug into his jacket pocket, pulled out a tiny notebook. “I’m looking for The Beatles’...” He deciphered his notes, reading in a halting manner, “The…White…Album?”
She tried not to laugh at the old man. “It’s our biggest selling record, for a year now.”
She led him through a maze of racks displaying endless rows of brightly colored psychedelic albums and pointed at a blank, all-white album cover. “This is it.”
Jack stood stunned, thinking she was joking. Noticing his pause, she lifted the 12x12 inch album from the rack and handed it to him.
Jack stared at its blankness like it was beyond his comprehension. “Why is there nothing on this thing?”
He flipped it over, the back was also blank. White. No title, no song listings, no picture.
“What is this?”
“Cool, huh?” She pointed to the front cover. Jack flipped it back. “See. It’s embossed on the front.”
Jack squinted. In the lower right corner, raised on the surface of the jacket, without any ink: The Beatles.
Sarah’s curiosity won out. “You buying this for your kids, I mean, grandkids?”
Jack handed her the album, dug out his notes again. “I’m looking for a song.” He found his page. “A song called…Helter Skelter.”
Sarah’s face lit up, lifting her heels in excitement. “That’s a great song. It’s on the record.”
She bounced back to the counter, pulled out the store’s copy of The White Album and slid out a black vinyl disc. As she placed it on the turntable, she thought of the badge under Jack’s jacket. “Look, can I ask you favor? My boyfriend was busted last night for a little grass - only a couple joints. I don’t get paid till next Friday, so I can’t bail him out. Could you help me? Since I’m helping you, maybe you could get the charges dropped?”
Jack’s eyes went blank like he didn’t see or hear her. Jack looked away with a perfect not-my-job expression.
She got the message. Her face dropped; eyes watered. She turned to put the record on. Placing the turntable’s arm over the spinning disc, she carefully dropped the needle. The scratchy hiss of the needle riding the empty groove filled the store. In a moment of anger, Sarah cranked the powerful stereo’s volume to full. She would blast the old man’s ears off.
A distorted electric guitar stabbed the air. Breathless vocals broke in screaming, then burst into psychotic laughter. The drums boomed, the beat thudding like bodies hitting the floor. The music flayed madly, the sound of the world falling apart. Grating, out-of-tune guitars swirled from speaker to speaker. The girl spoke, but Jack could not hear over the din. The last record the old man bought was an old 78rpm in 1953: Hank William’s Your Cheating Heart. The satanic screams, frantic guitars, relentless smashing cymbals made his skin crawl.
Suddenly, he saw the murder scene: the blood soaked carpet, the blood spattered furniture, the massacred bodies, the butchered pregnant woman.
The bloody words dripping from the white walls were the very lyrics screaming at him now: HELTER SKELTER! To Jack, the song sounded like one thing, and one thing only: Murder.
Monday, August 11th, 1969, 9:02 AM
The sun crept up on East LA and a faded, blue bungalow. Stepping out onto his porch, unshaven and in pajamas, Jack gazed along the narrow rundown street of former working-class houses. His tattered slippers whispered against the pavement that led to his morning paper. A picket fence leaned in and out, its white paint peeling. With a groan, he bent for the newspaper. The headline, if Jack had bothered to read it:
POLICE SHOOTING SCANDAL
Fourth Unarmed Black Man Killed This Year
LAPD Claims Shooting Justified
Jack turned and smiled at the crabgrass and the home he had mortgaged with the GI Bill. He sighed and squinted in the warm sun. Enjoying the feel of the Los Angeles Times in his hand; he closed his eyes and slipped into bliss.
The sun on his face reminded him of desert horseback rides with his father – a ten-year-old Jack pretending to be an Old West sheriff on the lookout for bad guys. Jack smiled. One memory led to another: his first patrol in ’38 and a pair of brass knuckles. He punched a pimp so hard the guy’s eye popped out.
His sergeant told him brass knuckles were not standard issue, took them away, yet hung them high on the precinct’s wall like a trophy. Crime on Jack’s beat dropped to almost nothing.
The incident earned him the nickname ‘Knuckles.’
An old Plymouth Convertible passed Jack’s house. A blackbird landed on his roof. But Jack was
somewhere else: the 40s, where the violent side of his nature made him the go-to interrogation man when confessions needed to be expedited. The Department soon discovered his hidden talents, an ability to hunt and to smell a lie. This combination of cruelty and cunning made him a valued asset in the LAPD.
Jack’s shoulders relaxed, remembering his favorite part: rubbing elbows with senators, congressmen and movie starlets in the 50s. They often needed hard-to-get information quickly and problems disposed of quietly. Jack’s violence occasionally spilled over to uncooperative witnesses and even fellow officers, but grateful ‘friends’ squashed mentions of these in official reports.
In the press, Jack became LA’s poster boy for law and order - taking down major headlining cases, on the QT, Jack’s less-than-admirable talents were utilized by the powers that be.