The Ticket Out

by Helen Knode

  Lockwood nodded. “O-negative. Miss Pavich’s type.”

  “See! And when you get a warrant for Mrs. May’s you’ll find those khakis and tennis shoes aren’t a plant. I’m sure it’s Scott Dolgin’s clothes and Greta’s blood, and everything ties back to Georgette Bauerdorf! It could be that Mrs. May told Greta about the orgy in 1944. That’s why she’s disappeared!”

  Lockwood was thinking. I sat back, light-headed. I was too tired for much effort.

  Lockwood said, “What makes you think Miss Stenholm found corroboration on Silverman at the Casa de Amor?”

  I repeated my talk with Catherine Kerr and Penny Proft. I used both hands to show how Kerr shoved ashtrays at us. Lockwood frowned at my right hand and said, “You need ice.”

  He got up, poured out the melted ice, went to the fridge, and broke more ice into the bowl. He came back with the bowl and a dish towel. He dried my hand and examined the swelling.

  “Bend your fingers.”

  I bent them as far as they’d go. I felt a sharp pain in two knuckles. Lockwood saw me flinch. He said, “You’re going to need X rays. Do you want more aspirin?”

  I shook my head. He tossed the dish towel, refilled our coffee cups, and sat back down. He looked me straight in the face; he was studying me.

  I said, “What?”

  He said, “From the first you’ve acted like a lightning rod. It was you who exposed the blackmail for us. Where would we be if you hadn’t ignored me that first night and gone to Miss Stenholm’s apartment?”

  I pointed at my hand in ice. “Yd be in better shape.”

  Lockwood didn’t smile. He wasn’t in great shape either. Fatigue showed in his face and around his eyes. He’d been cut wrestling Dale Denney, but the cuts were healing.

  “You’re also a capable burglar.” Lockwood ticked off a list. “Mr. Phillips’s garage, Miss Silverman’s premises, Mrs. May’s premises, Mr. Silverman’s property.”

  I said, “I try not to do anything halfway.”

  “I believe it. You dived into the Bauerdorf case with your usual abandon.”

  “Do you like my theory?”

  “If it’s true, you shouldn’t be broadcasting it at the Casa de Amor. And true or not, you have no proof.”

  I repeated again what Penny Proft had said.

  Lockwood sipped his coffee. “That’s interesting, but Miss Proft was wise to mistrust Miss Stenholm’s mental state at the time. If we theorize Miss Bauerdorf as the motive in our two crimes, we have the problem of establishing that Edward Abadi knew of the Bauerdorf murder, knew for a fact that Jules Silverman was guilty, and threatened to use it against Mr. Silverman for a reason yet to be determined.”

  Lockwood held up two fingers. “Second, who pulled the trigger on Abadi? There’s no evidence it was Silverman, but it’s more likely that he’d use a gun at his age than that he’d drive from Malibu to Los Feliz, hope he found Miss Stenholm alone, knock her out with a heavy object, and slit her wrists.”

  I said, “Scott Dolgin did it for him.”

  “Why would Dolgin do that?”

  I shrugged. “For a reason yet to be determined? Maybe he did it for his movie career. Silverman’s a sure ticket into the business, to quote Penny Proft.”

  Lockwood stared at his coffee cup; he was taking that idea seriously. I nudged his leg. “You know things about Dolgin and Silverman that I don’t.”

  Lockwood held up two fingers again. “We have two sets of phone records—Dolgin’s residence, and your main house from the night of Melling’s party. Dolgin called Silverman’s unlisted number at least once a day for the past month, and someone called Silverman several times from the party.”

  Barry: it had to be. He was back and forth to the telephone all night. Lockwood said, “Our guess was Melling, based on your account of the proceedings.”

  “And Barry knows that Greta knew about Jules and Georgette—for whatever that’s worth.”

  Lockwood nodded. “I’m not saying you’re wrong about Silverman, it’s just that we have no proof. And there are other factors you aren’t aware of. You haven’t read the Abadi file, for example.”

  “Not for lack of trying.”

  “Your next plan was to go to the original investigating officers, correct?”

  “It hadn’t crossed my mind.”

  “I’ll save you the trouble. Sergeant McManus and Deputy Gadtke are handling the case now, and most of our players were questioned for Abadi. Not just the major people—Dolgin, Miss Stenholm, and the Silvermans—but others such as Leonard Ziskind, Jack Nevenson, Neil Phillips, and Steven Lampley.”

  “Penny Proft or Catherine Kerr?”

  Lockwood shook his head.

  “In the month before he died, Mr. Abadi had appointments with Dolgin, Melling, and Lampley. All of them were looking for work in films. But try this for size—Scott Dolgin murdered both Abadi and Stenholm out of sexual jealousy. It’s the simplest solution. If Dolgin’s our guy, the disappearances at the Casa de Amor make sense logically and logistically. Neil Phillips was Dolgin’s alibi for the night of the Abadi murder. Only Phillips’s testimony stands between Dolgin and serious police scrutiny. Dolgin might have coerced that alibi—”

  I broke in. “Maybe in exchange for career help. I told you how Phillips was blackballed.”

  “Possibly. At the moment it’s moot, since we can’t locate Phillips.”

  I said, “I thought you had more on Scott Dolgin. How’d you get a search warrant for his place?”

  Lockwood frowned. “It was an anonymous tip through RHD. An unidentified caller said we’d find Miss Stenholm’s belongings and the murder clothes at Dolgin’s place. I hope it doesn’t bite us in the ass in court.”

  “Why would it?”

  “Anonymous tips are shaky. How does the court know we didn’t engineer it ourselves just for a look around Dolgin’s?”

  “But a judge signs the warrant.”

  “Search warrants can be challenged in court. They can be thrown out.”

  I flashed back to the groupie, Karen. She’d told me about the downtown courts scene and how everybody slept with everybody. She’d told me about “friendly” judges who’d sign borderline warrants because they were doing a detective involved. She’d also told me something I forgot to write down. Lockwood avoided that kind of collusion; he liked to win too much. He’d almost never had a warrant overturned at trial.

  I changed direction. “What about what Mrs. May said about a fight and ‘They found it’? ‘It’ could be proof of Silverman’s guilt.”

  Lockwood shook his head. “‘It’ could be anything—the fight could be anything. If Dolgin’s our guy, he’s running scared, and so are the people around him. Maybe Phillips was threatening to go to the police, or maybe Miss Stenholm was. Maybe she found proof that Dolgin snuffed Abadi, or Miss Pavich did, or—”

  He rubbed his temples. “There are too many suspects and too many motives. At least your father’s alibi checked—that took your family out of the equation.”

  I said, “They shouldn’t have been there to begin with. Did the Sheriff’s look into Silverman’s orgy story in 1944?”

  Lockwood nodded.

  “So the file must list witnesses from the Casa de Amor.”

  He nodded.

  “Who were they? Is it Mrs. May? At least one of them lives there now.”

  “McManus and Gadtke are on it.”

  “Greta—”

  Lockwood leaned across the table. He said, “I noticed you started calling her ‘Greta.’ You’re wasting your sentiment. Miss Stenholm was not only a blackmailer, she was a liar.”

  He covered my hand. “You should know that her address and appointment books are more or less complete fabrications.”

  I HAD WALKED out of the kitchen and gone to stand at the picture window. It was still night. I could see the skyscrapers of Westwood and Century City, and the lighted flatlands in between. I pressed my forehead against the glass. I almost didn’t need his evidence. The
minute he’d said it, I knew absolutely it was true.

  Lockwood came and stood beside me. "At the party you noticed Miss Stenholm going through the office Rolodex. It’s common to steal the private numbers and addresses of famous film people—there’s a black market in that kind of information.”

  Who’s Who of Hollywood 2001: the sheer quantity of big names should have tipped me off.

  Lockwood said, “We spoke to the film people she allegedly saw in the weeks preceding her death. All of them have denied knowing her except Mr. Ziskind. He admits to knowing her but denies having seen her on the three occasions mentioned in her book. His story checked out.”

  I closed my eyes and filled in the blank days in Greta’s calendar.

  Thursday, August 23. She leaves Lynnda-Ellen’s house. Jules Silverman receives two-part extortion demand. She moves into her car and visits the Academy Library to relive her student success.

  Friday, August 24. An argument at the Casa de Amor. She sees five movies on Hollywood Boulevard. Her car is vandalized, her suitcases are stolen.

  Saturday, August 25. She eats breakfast with Catherine Kerr and Penny Proft. They fight over me, and Kerr’s ambitions. She steals change out of the candy machines in her old apartment building.

  Sunday, August 26. The cops roust her in Griffith Park for sleeping in her car.

  Monday, August 27. She eats a free dinner at the pizza place. She sees Jurassic Park III for free at the Vine Theater. She goes to Barry Melling’s party.

  More squalor than stellar. No wonder the last week of her calendar was blank: fantasy and reality had split too far apart.

  Lockwood put his hand on my arm. I opened my eyes. “I’m fine—I believe you.”

  He said, “You understand she was mentally unstable in the latter months of her life.”

  “I talked to her. I understand.”

  “And you know her film script doesn’t exist.”

  That hit me in the stomach.

  “You do know it.”

  I couldn’t think—I just stood staring. I must have looked funny, because Lockwood took my arm and led me over to the couch. He sat down and made me sit next to him.

  He said quietly, “Don’t be upset.”

  I laid my head back. I had no idea I’d attached such importance to GB Dreams Big.

  Lockwood said, still quiet, “Add up the facts. We can’t locate a copy of this supposed script. Nobody seems to have seen it, and the Hollywood trade papers never reported a sale. The people at Progressive Properties and Artists thought Scott Dolgin had it, while Dolgin thought PPA had it. Her book mentions meetings at studios, but never which studio or with what individuals. She claimed to various people that you two were best friends, and she wanted to take you to Hollywood. And yet when you met at Melling’s party, she didn’t mention anything of that nature.”

  I lay there, feeling like a jerk. He didn’t want to upset me even though he thought I’d sold him out to Barry behind his back.

  Lockwood pressed my arm. “Are you listening?”

  I rolled my head sideways and looked at him. He said, “I’m sorry.”

  I said, “I haven’t told Barry I’m not doing the piece on you. I haven’t told him about our conversation at the Thalberg the other night. I’m in some trouble at the paper and I can’t piss him off right now, so I’m letting it slide until the deadline.”

  Lockwood said, “What kind of trouble?”

  I said, “The script exists.”

  Lockwood reached for my hand. “What kind of trouble?”

  I held on to his hand and shifted around to face him. I had to make him see what I saw.

  “Everything else might be a lie, but she wrote that script. I know she did. You forget that Neil Phillips worked on it—he told Hamilton Ashburn so.”

  Lockwood looked skeptical.

  “Phillips stinks, I know.” I counted off five fingers. “He lied to me about who he was, he skipped out on his Fairfax place with those boxes, he’s talking to Jack Nevenson on the Sony lot, he lives at the Casa de Amor under a fake name—and where the hell is he? But why would he lie to Ashburn about GB Dreams Big? I can’t think of a reason, can you?”

  Lockwood thought about that. “If he wanted to juke his career, it’s the last lie he’d tell. If the script didn’t exist, then Miss Stenholm’s Hollywood hopes wouldn’t exist, which means she couldn’t help Phillips. You might be right.”

  I got excited.

  “She wrote it because she had to write it, and I know why. I understand what Greta wanted—I know who she was. Look, we were born on the very same day two years apart. We were both raised on a prairie. We both craved movies and the big, wide world—we both fell out with our fathers, partly because of that. I started at the Millennium the same year she graduated from film school. We did go to Hollywood together, only I didn’t know it.”

  Lockwood was looking out the picture window. He said, “You aren’t the same type. I think she was cold, and more mercenary than you’d like.”

  “Maybe. Was Edward Abadi a real emotion or part of her career plan? I don’t know.”

  Lockwood shrugged.

  “Penny Proft calls her ‘Little Miss I-Live-For-My-Art.’ Steve Lampley said she only had one idea in her head. Making movies—that’s all she wanted, that’s all she cared about. But she wasn’t realistic about how to get it. I haven’t done the research yet, so I don’t know details. But I think she thought she could succeed on her own terms, the way talented men can. I think her looks hurt her. Five years after film school she’s a wreck, living in her car, delusional, a blackmailer, and a liar, raging about the condition of women.”

  Lockwood said, “She couldn’t write a film script in that state.”

  I shook my head. “She wrote it before she was too far gone. She started months ago when she read about Georgette Bauerdorf. I think Georgette focused Greta’s whole life. She could avenge Georgette and Edward Abadi, write a woman’s adventure story, and salvage her career all at once. I think that script will tell us what Greta Stenholm thought and felt. I think it will tell us about her five years in Hollywood. I also think it’s a message to me. In the script, Georgette’s best friend finds the killer. In real life, Greta cast me as her best friend. It’s my job to help find the killer, hers and Georgette’s.”

  Lockwood said, “If Jules Silverman is so powerful, how would it help her career to expose him?”

  “The script exists, Detective. I will bet you the nine hundred dollars I owe the blackmail fund that GB Dreams Big exists.”

  Lockwood smiled at me. “I’ll take that bet. If you win, I’ll replace the nine hundred dollars myself.” He checked his watch.

  I dropped his hand and stood up. “Don’t tell me the time—I don’t want to know.”

  Lockwood pulled me back down beside him. He loosened his tie and unbuttoned the top button of his shirt.

  I didn’t understand what he was doing. I said, “Aren’t you going to work?”

  Lockwood leaned forward and kissed me.

  I couldn’t believe it; I leaped up off the couch. Lockwood tried to hold on to me, but I was headed for the door.

  He jumped up and followed me across the room.

  I broke into a run. I opened the front door, stopped dead, did a complete turn, shut the door, and stood facing it like a fool.

  Lockwood walked up behind me, but didn’t touch me. He said, “What’s wrong?”

  Like a dope, I said the first thing that came to me. “I thought you went for lawyers.”

  I hid my face against the door. Lockwood pulled me around and kissed me again. He kissed me until I gave in and kissed him back.

  BUT I JUST couldn’t do it.

  I had wanted him for the longest time—it was a relief to finally let my feelings go. The real experience of his mouth and his hands was a strange and intense pleasure—more intense than anything I could’ve imagined, if I’d allowed myself to imagine. But I found I couldn’t respond with everything I had. My mind
wouldn’t give in. It was running wild with counterthoughts, and disbelief. Was this me, making love to Douglas Lockwood? Between my desire for him and my resistance against him, I felt like I was going to implode.

  He started walking us toward the bedroom. He was taking off his tie. Suddenly I couldn’t stand it anymore. I pulled free of him and backed away. He tossed his tie on the chair. If I’d thought he was handsome before, it was nothing like he looked with his mouth wet and his hair mussed up.

  I said, “Could we talk?”

  It sounded so lame; I knew I was destroying the mood. He nudged me toward the bedroom.

  I said, “I can’t!”

  He saw that I was serious, and his face changed. I took hold of his sleeve and led him to the couch. He was willing to be led, but he wouldn’t sit. He lay down on his back, put out his arm, and made me lie down next to him. I lay down on my side. There was just room for both of us. The whole front of my body pressed into his left side, but I was stiff from tension. He took my arm and draped it across him. Reaching up, he switched off the lamp.

  He said, “It’s because I’m a cop.”

  I said, “Until tonight I didn’t think you’d noticed me.”

  Lockwood laughed; it was quiet. I had never seen him laugh before. He said, “Your Colt first caught my attention.” He paused. “No, I believe it goes back further than that.”

  And so he told me the story of the Burger King siege.

  His account was more detailed than what I’d read, but the gist was the same. Juan Pablo Marquez had terrorized a restaurant full of people for two hours, until he lost it and fired into the kitchen where his former girlfriend worked. The customers panicked and Lockwood couldn’t get off the shots he wanted. He was sorry for Marquez’s death but it didn’t trouble his conscience. Marquez played by the rules of crime and punishment, and Lockwood might have died himself.

  It wasn’t the shooting and killing that changed his life: it was the controversy that followed. Not because of his treatment in the media, although that had made his professional life more difficult. A grand jury was after him even though he’d only passed through Rampart Division on a case. Trash like Dale Denney lipped him off, something that didn’t happen before the publicity. The controversy hadn’t derailed his career, however—I’d been misinformed about that. He could have taken the lieutenant’s exam years ago; he just didn’t want to be a lieutenant. He didn’t want to push paper or run a division: he wanted to solve murders.