The Ticket Out (17 page)

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.”

 

I
T 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 danger 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.