The Ticket Out

by Helen Knode

  The older woman said, “I’m Karen. Who are you?”

  She was a track-worn thirty, with a breathy, fakey voice. I told her who I was and how I’d gotten her name. I said, “I’d like to talk to you about Douglas Lockwood.”

  That brought on a big giggle fit. The Latinas nudged each other and Karen flipped her hair over her shoulder. She said, “Doug Lockwood is one of our favorite subjects, isn’t he, ladies?”

  The Latinas giggled and nodded. I sat down in the booth and pulled the tape recorder out of my bag.

  “I’d like to know what you know about his career.”

  I set the tape recorder on the table. Karen wrapped her hand over the microphone. She said, “You know what we don’t understand about you women in the media?”

  I said, “‘We’ being who?”

  She pointed to the Latinas. “‘We’ being friends of law enforcement—‘we’ being the wives and girlfriends of police officers.”

  I checked for a wedding ring on her finger. She saw what I was doing, and giggled. “Not at the moment—I just divorced my second one.”

  For sleeping with groupies? I wondered, but didn’t ask. I said, “What is it you don’t get about us women in the media?”

  “I’ll show you, watch.”

  She pinched the skin on her neck and down her arm. She squeezed her own thigh, then she took one of the Latinas’ hands and held it.

  She said, “See this? See this?”

  I didn’t see, and my expression told her so.

  She dropped the Latina’s hand. “Bodies, get it? Everyone has a body, and you women act like cops don’t have bodies because you don’t like them. But law enforcement isn’t just a political issue or something to criticize on television, it’s men’s live bodies standing between us and harm, and we love those bodies and worry about them being killed, and you women in the media act like they don’t mean anything.”

  She looked to the little Latinas for backup; they both nodded. To me, she said, “Do you think Doug Lockwood is a handsome guy?”

  “I’d rather talk about his police—”

  “Come on, woman. Is Doug a hunk or what?”

  “I don’t—”

  Karen rolled her eyes. “Jeepers, see what I mean?”

  She reached into her windbreaker and pulled a newspaper article out of the pocket. Unfolding it carefully, she laid it on the table in front of me. The two Latinas slid around the booth and crowded Karen for a look. The four of us looked at it together.

  It was a full-color Times photograph that hadn’t made it into Barry’s Burger King file.

  The caption read, “Hero of siege receives medical attention after ordeal.” Lockwood was lying on his back in a patch of grass. His eyes were closed, and his face was so pale he looked unconscious. The paramedics had removed his jacket and shirt, and stretched his left arm over his head. The gunshot wound ran horizontal under one nipple: a long, thin gash that spilled blood across his stomach. One paramedic knelt on the grass beside Lockwood. He was staunching the flow of blood with gauze.

  Karen took her fingertip and traced the outline of Lockwood’s torso. His body was lean and mature. She caressed the newsprint with the kind of feeling, I assumed, that she wanted to spend on him. The Latinas followed the path of her finger and looked ready to swoon.

  Karen’s tracing stopped at Lockwood’s waist. Blood from the wound had soaked his belt and the top half of his jeans. She stroked his waist with a dreamy finger. Her voice was dreamy: “Everyone eats at Burger King. Any of us might have been there that day, and it was only by luck that we weren’t. But if you had been, or I had been”—she nodded at the two Latinas—“or Vicenta or Rosa had been, he would have stopped that bullet to save our lives. He put his own body between us and a crazy with a gun. Doug is bleeding for us.”

  The Latinas chimed in, “For us.”

  IT TOOK awhile, but Karen finally gave me the information I wanted.

  She’d waited a long time to lay her cops-bleed-for-us speech on one of us women from the media. Once she’d made her point, and I didn’t argue, she was willing to talk about other things besides Lockwood’s looks.

  But she wouldn’t let me tape or take notes. She didn’t trust me, and she was afraid of being misquoted. I said she could talk anonymously; she wouldn’t relent. I explained how proof works in journalism, that her testimony alone wouldn’t be enough to base a piece on, and I’d use other people for corroboration. I didn’t think she understood, but she refused anyway: no tape recorder, no notes. So I bought a pitcher of margaritas for the table, and she talked for two hours. Two solid hours—I was amazed by what she knew. She knew so much that I started feeling sorry for Lockwood, who, in Karen’s own words, was a “very private man.”

  Afterward, I raced home and jammed it all into the computer. I started with the chronology of his police career. I couldn’t remember all the jargon she’d used, the Pis and P2s, but I did the best I could.

  1976—joined LAPD.

  1977—1982 —worked patrol out of Central and Wilshire Divisions; also loaned to Detectives during that time (loan to Detectives at this stage the sign of a talented officer).

  Early-mid ’80s—earned law degree from Southwestern U. going to night classes—passed CA bar.

  1983—1984—eighteen-month tour in Wilshire Vice.

  1984—1986 —on loan to Wilshire Detectives.

  1987—promoted to detective. Assigned to Hollywood Division. Moved around the various desks (Burglary, Vice, Auto Theft) but mostly worked the “big” desks, Robbery and Homicide.

  1995—became D3, the highest grade of detective. Assigned to Major Crimes Unit at Robbery-Homicide downtown (RHD). Working as lead detective.

  1996—twenty years on Department.

  2000 (Dec.)—Burger King siege.

  2001 (May, June, July)—leave in Mexico.

  2001 (August)—assigned to Homicide desk at Northeast Division. Given duties of a Detective 2 (D2). Demotion perceived as politically motivated, and temporary.

  I typed on.

  Karen had seen the contents of Lockwood’s personnel file; she wouldn’t tell me how. His record was spotless. The file was full of letters of commendation and A-l rating reports. He’d never been accused of excessive force or had any contact with Internal Affairs. Until he shot Juan Pablo Marquez, he’d never even fired a gun in the line of duty.

  Karen didn’t know why Lockwood hadn’t pursued the law. She had two theories about it: police work was more exciting, and Lockwood was a natural-born detective. According to her he had an 82 percent solve rate, which was exceptional. He’d cracked the Turner-Matusek case; he’d cracked the Bronson Caves murder. He’d worked LAPD strands of the Cotton Club case, and the Night Stalker killings, and a lot of the city’s toughest homicides of the past ten years. One case had taken him into Rampart territory, but he was not involved in the mess there. He’d been scheduled to take the lieutenant’s exam in late 2000. Then the Burger King siege happened. Before that, there was no telling how far he’d rise in the Department; but Burger King had postponed or derailed his advancement.

  Which was totally not fair, Karen had said. Not fair, not fair.

  An Officer-Involved-Shooting team investigated the siege. The shooting team submitted their report to a review board. The board cleared Lockwood of any wrongdoing in the death of Marquez. But the Department was afraid to release the findings. They were afraid of the media and public opinion. They thought they’d be accused, yet again, of protecting their own. They didn’t want that while Rampart was still open.

  I’d asked what Lockwood did right at the siege. I remembered the answer, and the way Karen gushed police language. I tried to capture it verbatim:

  “There are rules in police work, you know, there’s a Department manual, and training bulletins, shooting policies, rules. Under what conditions is an officer justified in the use of deadly force? That’s the question you have to ask with Burger King, but none of you media people asked it. When d
anger is imminent is one condition, and defense of self and others is one. In extreme cases, an officer isn’t required to identify himself or warn anybody that he’s going to shoot. That whole time Doug was inside with the hostages, he was weighing the different variables of his chances of taking the guy alive, but the guy was psycho, and Doug had to take him down. That hostage lied who said Doug shot the guy when he was surrendering, and the media just listened to him because they hate cops. The review board heard all the evidence, and even commended Doug for resolving the situation with so little loss of life. If SWAT had gone in, a whole lot of people might have died, a whole lot.”

  She’d finished on an escalating note:

  “Doug’s the very best police officer there is, and his life is ruined, and the Department won’t help! They’re just covering their butts because of Rampart!”

  I had used Lockwood’s ruined life to turn the conversation. I said that I’d heard he came back from Mexico a changed man. Did he talk to Karen about it?

  The three women had burst out giggling. When Karen could control herself, she said she’d never talked to Lockwood personally. He wasn’t your standard cop. He didn’t hang around The Short Stop drinking, or date the girls who did. His thing was brainy lawyers; brainy lawyers were what turned him on.

  I’d mentioned his wife, the senior deputy DA for Orange County. Karen said she was the latest in a short line of legal women. They’d only been married five years, and it was his first. He waited so late to marry because he’d had a long affair with a federal judge, starting when he was a rookie detective. Karen wouldn’t name the judge, but she was older and went back to her estranged husband in the end. There’d also been two other affairs that Karen knew of—with a famous crusading attorney, and a prosecutor in the DA’s office downtown.

  Lockwood was no “horn dog”: Karen had wanted to make that clear. He wasn’t like a lot of cops; he didn’t sleep with witnesses or bereaved relatives, and he didn’t participate in the orgiastic local courts scene. Those three affairs were serious, monogamous deals. Again, Karen wouldn’t name any names. As if I’d call up Lockwood’s ex-lovers for a quote.

  I would, however, try the current wife. But Karen confirmed Vivian’s gossip: the current wife was history. The Burger King scandal wrecked the marriage. Lockwood had moved back from Orange County and now lived in bachelor digs in Hollywood. If Lockwood was innocent, I’d asked, why was his marriage wrecked? Karen didn’t know and couldn’t guess. But she was happy to blame the media for it.

  I’d pressed again on the subject of Lockwood’s post-Mexico change.

  Karen told me to put myself in his position. Publicly labeled racist and killer; a fine career in limbo, maybe destroyed for good; a marriage on the rocks. Wouldn’t that change somebody?

  I’d agreed that it could. She’d launched into the details of his latest case: a woman murdered in a Los Feliz mansion. She must have talked to someone who saw the crime scene—all her information came from the day I’d found Greta. I played dumb and asked a few questions, but she hadn’t known anything I didn’t.

  I stopped typing. My head and wrist were aching. I’d switched from Percodan to aspirin to keep my mind sharp. I was determined not to switch back.

  I scrolled to the top of the file and reread my notes.

  Was Karen reliable? How could I verify what she’d said? If the journalists wouldn’t talk, where could I find someone who was critical of Lockwood and knew the insider police facts? Ranking cops had come out against Perez, and other Rampart figures. But the LAPD hierarchy had never condemned Lockwood that way.

  I thought about phoning Hollywood Station. Lockwood had spent a lot of years there; maybe I could rustle up a former colleague or ex-partner. Then I remembered my treatment today and decided, Forget it. No cop was going to talk to me; it would just be more wasted time. Unless Lockwood had enemies—and how was I going to locate an enemy?

  Another problem:

  I felt confused.

  Barry didn’t want just a profile of Lockwood—he wanted a hatchet job. But so far I didn’t have the material for a hatchet job. And my feelings were starting to get in the way. Jesus, that picture of him in the Times, half-naked and covered with his own blood. I shouldn’t satirize the groupies’ swoon; that picture had gone through me like electricity. I was a big girl, though, and I could resist raw sexual attraction when I had to. It was only a fever and it would break. In the meantime I worried that it was skewing my judgment. Even without Karen’s information, Lockwood didn’t seem like a dirty cop to me.

  I’d seen for myself that he was smart and good at his work—I’d seen it, and paid for it. I hadn’t witnessed any thuggery or racism; I hadn’t heard any lunatic notions about law and order. All our fights had been fair fights: when I pushed him, he pushed back.

  And when he was a jerk, he'd always made up for it. He left me alone after I got jumped at the pool house, but he baby-sat me the entire next day just because Dale Denney tailed me to Beverly Hills. He wouldn’t return the Colt, but he let me keep the sap, brass knuckles, handcuffs, and Mace. One minute he wouldn’t say how they identified Denney. Next minute I watched them search Denney’s apartment.

  As a journalist I’d seen no evidence that Lockwood was the cocksucker Barry wanted him to be. At the same time, as a journalist, I had to admit that Lockwood wasn’t the type of subject I was used to.

  I’d only done profiles of movie people, and I knew the shallow requirements of the genre. You spent a few hours with your subject in a hotel room or production office. If it was for the cover, you might get two sessions and a treat: artist at home, artist on the set. A few hours was enough time to get a feel for the personality you were dealing with. Correction: to get a feel for as much of the personality as anyone sensible would expose to strangers. It helped that the artist wanted you to get a feel. It helped that press attention sold movie tickets.

  I counted the number of hours I’d spent with Lockwood since Tuesday. Seven plus three plus eight: eighteen altogether. We’d spent eighteen hours in different settings under intense circumstances. I’d even seen him lose it once, when he grabbed me and shook me: “Why can’t you do what I say?” The Burger King file provided facts; Karen had maybe provided facts. Despite all that, I couldn’t begin to say who Lockwood was. He’d shown me nothing of himself. Nothing that would make his story more than a description of the official man. Nothing to give me an emotional entrée, however shallow, to the piece.

  It was a variation on the movie-star problem. Movie stars were an elaborate facade; Lockwood was a wall. My job was to go over, under, or through that wall. But how?

  I sat at the computer thinking.

  I could try to provoke a personal moment with him. I’d done that before in interviews. If I thought I was boring, or getting someone’s predigested spiel, I’d try to jolt us both. I’d exert my nonjournalist self to see what it would spark in the other person’s nonpublic self. I’d used all sorts of strategies to do it—a joke or silly remark, a leap off the topic to current events or jungle animals. Sometimes it worked and sometimes it didn’t. Some interviews were just doomed to formula.

  I had a flash: I’d already tried for a personal moment with Lockwood. When I offered myself as bait to Dale Denney, I was reaching for something extreme to thaw Lockwood’s ice.

  But the strategy hadn’t worked. It only put me in the hospital.

  Lockwood was a bigger challenge than a jet-lagged movie director. He was a controversial figure. He had no incentive to talk to me, and there was more at stake in murder—

  Right then, I knew what I should do.

  I jumped off my chair and ran down the hall. The guy watching the backyard was camped in a corner bedroom. I knocked and found him on the floor doing leg lifts. I asked if he’d escort me to the pool house. He said sure, a change of scenery would be nice. I hurried him outside and waited on the porch while he went in, turned on lights, and checked around. Then he motioned me to come in.

 
The front room was empty except for the rug and the daybed. And the kitchen stool. My kitchen stool was standing in the middle of the room, directly underneath the attic fan.

  The Metro guy posted himself in the doorway. I climbed on the stool and examined the slats. There was a trick to the attic fan, which was why I’d picked it as a hiding place. Most attic fans were electric; the interior vent opened automatically when you turned on the fan. But this fan dated from the ’20s and the vent was manual. At some point someone had broken the lever that opened the vent. To open it now, you had to hit the fourth slat at one end. Only one end of one slat would do it; otherwise the slats seemed to be stuck shut.

  I hit the fourth slat. The vent opened. I reached up and felt around for the money.

  It was gone.

  No, it wasn’t. It was there: someone had moved it.

  I pulled out the money and wiped the dust off. There was only a part of one bundle left—six hundred dollars out of Greta Stenholm’s twenty-thousand-dollar blackmail payoff. Lockwood had the rest. All except the nine hundred dollars I spent on my sister’s rent and the weapons from Gun Galaxy.

  The Metro guy was watching me. I asked him who’d been up there, and got the answer I expected: Detective Lockwood. Lockwood had supervised the moving of my furniture, noticed the attic fan at last—

  And left the money there to test me.

  I jumped off the stool and dragged the Metro guy back to the main house. I asked if he knew where Lockwood was. As it happened, he did. Lockwood had called in thirty minutes ago for a progress report; he was at the station.

  I gathered up my things and drove out to Glassell Park in a rush. But I just missed Lockwood. Detective Smith said he’d gone home for a few hours of sleep. Smith looked like he needed sleep himself. He had black circles under his eyes, and his shirt was stained with chicken grease. An empty take-out box sat on his desk among the paperwork and files.