September

September gives the opening account of Eldon Mate’s murder a specific calendar setting and an oppressive Los Angeles atmosphere. The month frames both the city’s dreary weather and the short-lived public attention paid to the killing, while its gray morning light sharpens the portrait of Milo Sturgis.

The Murder and Its Brief News Cycle

Eldon Mate was murdered in the very early hours of a Monday in September. The killing became lead-story news that evening; Tuesday brought headlines in the Times and the Daily News, and Wednesday papers carried recaps. Television dropped the story within twenty-four hours. The account totals the attention at four days, a measure of how quickly Los Angeles turns from a murder unless the victim is a princess or the killer can afford lawyers seeking Oscars.

The brief coverage stands against the investigators’ lack of progress: there was no easy solution and no break in the case. September thus marks not a clean turning point but the start of a difficult investigation whose public visibility faded faster than the work itself.

Los Angeles Weather in September

The month is described as capable of bringing either constricting heat or clammy cold. A grimy marine layer can make Los Angeles seem like a heap of soiled laundry; when September mornings begin drearily, the gloom seems to ooze into sooty afternoons and sickly nights. Blue sky may appear only momentarily, while drizzle can glaze windshields.

Residents have blamed the weather on El Niño, but the narrator doubts that the pattern is new. The description makes September less a reliable seasonal transition than an oppressive, changeable condition: the city may sweat or chill, yet its light remains persistently poor.

September Light and Milo Sturgis

That gray morning light is said to worsen complexions, and the description turns the weather onto Milo Sturgis’s body. The light deepens the pallor of his face and emphasizes the pockmarks across his cheeks and down his neck. White sideburns against still-thick black hair stripe his temples; after returning to moderate drinking, his weight has stabilized at an estimated 240 pounds, much of it around his middle.

The physical portrait continues in specific contrasts: Sturgis’s legs remain thin beneath his seventy-five-inch frame, while his monumental jowls have begun to soften at the edges. The narrator notes that they are nearly the same age, with Sturgis nine months older, and allows that his own jawline may also have yielded to time. September’s weak light therefore does more than establish atmosphere: it makes age, fatigue, and bodily change visible in the same scene as the investigation.