From the GQ vaults–and thanks to Long Form Reads for pointing it out–here’s James Ellroy’s disturbing piece on researching his mother’s killer:

The police reconstructed the crime.

My mother went out drinking Saturday night. She was seen at the Desert Inn bar in El Monte with a dark-haired white man and a blonde woman. My mother and the man left the bar around 10 P.M.

A group of Little Leaguers discovered the body. My mother had been strangled at an unknown location and dumped into some bushes next to the athletic field at Arroyo High School, a mile and a half from the Desert Inn.

She clawed her assailant’s face bloody. The killer had pulled off one of her stockings and tied it loosely around her neck portmortem.

I went to live with my father. I forced some tears out that Sunday—and none since.

[Photo Credit: xd360]