The Ticket Out (15 page)

He shook me. I struggled, trying to pull away.
“Don't touch me like this! I hate it!”

Immediately he let go and stepped back. I leaned against my car, feeling woozy. Lockwood told the other cops to take off. The black-and-white pulled out of the parking lot and booted it down Beverly.

I shut my eyes and willed the wooziness to pass. I heard paper rustle and opened them again. Lockwood had searched my bag and found the xeroxes and crime-scene notes. His expression was back to normal.

He said, “I'll leave these. I assume you have more copies.”

He dropped the papers on my front seat. He examined the row of weapons, opened my wallet, pulled out the wad of money, and counted the bills. All that was done with theatrical slowness. Looking at me, he put the money in the pocket of his sport coat. He was daring me to argue.

I didn't intend to argue: he'd run me down and nailed me again.

He said, “What happened after we were cut off this morning?”

I pulled out my notes on Dale Denney and passed them over. I said, “He's a Hollywood bottom-feeder with a criminal record that includes burglary and knifing.”

Lockwood gave the notes back without reading them. I said, “You mean you already identified the guy.”

Lockwood nodded.

“How? From my description?”

Lockwood shook his head.

“Were there fingerprints on the money envelope?”

Lockwood shook his head again.

“Does that mean no, or that you're not going to tell me?”

Lockwood said, “Yes.”

I looked at him. Was he actually being funny? Somehow I got the wild idea that he was.

W
E LEFT
my car at the minimall and drove out to Northeast Station in Lockwood's. I didn't know what he wanted because I hadn't asked and he hadn't said.

I sat staring out of the window. What
was
the matter with me, in fact? I felt all edgy and emotional. Why
couldn't
I do what Lockwood said to do? I knew he knew better than I did how to catch a killer. I hated to think I was so prejudiced against cops that I couldn't admit their expertise. If that was it, I was a bigot, and just as wrong as the cops I called bigots.

Something else hit me.

It wasn't only politics with Lockwood. I thought back to the day we met. It hit me that since the first day, I'd wanted to resist him. I'd wanted to smart-mouth him, to puncture his official reserve and make him
see
me—

Oh Jesus, no...

I groaned and bent forward, hiding my head between my knees. My face had flushed painfully hot.

Lockwood said, “Are you all right?”

I nodded but didn't lift my head.

That was the answer.
That was why I acted so volatile around him. I would've realized sooner, except he was a cop. How awful—how truly mortifying. A cop—Jesus. A
cop.

I covered my head and burst out laughing.

Lockwood did not comment. I sat hunched over covering my head until I heard the car engine stop and him say, “We're here.”

The police station was a cut-stone bunker in a tough section of Glassell Park. Lockwood walked me inside and found his tubby partner Detective Smith. I asked for a drink of water. Lockwood brought a mugful, and left me on a hall bench while they made notes for a telephonic search warrant. I watched them through a glass partition, trying to read their lips. I didn't succeed. But I took it that a regular search warrant wouldn't happen fast enough, and that they didn't want me to hear the extent of their case.

A couple of times I laughed out loud.

Lockwood came and got me after an hour. A judge had granted the warrant, he said, and they were headed to Dale Denney's. I asked if he was stranding me there without a car. He said that I would go with them. He wasn't letting me out of his sight until further notice.

Whatever the reason, I was happy to go.

Rosemead was four suburbs east of downtown. It looked hot and nasty from the freeway, like the towns on either side of it. Smith used his cell phone to call the Temple City Sheriff's for jurisdictional clearance. They gave him a green light and even offered to help; the local cops knew Dale Denney and hated him.

Denney lived in a scuzzy apartment building that stood between a topless bar and a check-cashing place.

Smith circled the block looking for the Trans Am, then parked in an alley behind the building. Lockwood grabbed a set of lock picks and told me to stay close. We took an outside stairwell to the second floor. There was nobody around. The second floor had an open walkway like a motel; Denney's apartment faced the topless bar. Lockwood and Smith unbuttoned their jackets and kept one hand near their guns. They approached apartment number eight quietly. I stuck close behind them and realized I was nervous.

They took up positions flanking the door. Lockwood knocked. We waited. He knocked again: nothing stirred in Denney's place. I tried to look through a window. The glass was filthy and the curtains were drawn tight.

Lockwood examined the doorknob. Even I could tell it was shoddy hardware. He jammed two picks into the hole and jimmied the lock with no trouble. Smith pulled me into the apartment after him. Lockwood shut the door and locked it again. Smith told me to stand by the window and keep track of activity outside.

I cracked the curtain. Lockwood turned on a light and dropped a copy of the search warrant in a chair.

I glanced around the living room. It was a lowlife's place. It reeked of Denney's cologne. The walls were stained with tobacco smoke; all the upholstery was synthetic plaid. Gun and skin magazines were piled on the coffee table, and a crappy pair of loafers sat on the floor underneath it.

Smith walked into the bedroom. He came back holding a framed picture. It was a glossy eight-by-ten head shot of a fake-platinum blond. A gushy dedication was scrawled at the bottom: “To Dale, my biggest fan! XXXXXOOOOO Shelly!”

Smith showed it to Lockwood, then to me. I recognized the blond right away. She was the actress who played Helga. Helga, the Gestapo size-queen in the video at Hannah Silverman's house.

I said so to Smith and Lockwood. Lockwood frowned, but Smith laughed, clicked his heels, and mimicked a
“Sieg Heil”
salute. Lockwood had obviously filled him in.

Still frowning, Lockwood pulled up a chair. Smith propped “Shelly” against the magazines and sat down on the coffee table. They started to debate their next move—right in front of me. I couldn't believe it. I asked if I should leave but Lockwood shook his head. They needed me to watch for Denney.

The problem was they couldn't take the photograph. My break-in at Hannah Silverman's wasn't lawful; any seizure they based on an illegal search would be thrown out in court. There was no way around it.

They'd talked to Silverman two days ago, I learned. She had an alibi for the night of Stenholm's murder. It was the same alibi she'd had for Edward Abadi's murder: she spent the night with her father. She still accused Stenholm of killing Abadi. Her big theory now was that Arnold Tolback murdered Stenholm. A lover's quarrel, Silverman told the cops.

But Lockwood had talked to Tolback at the Chateau Marmont last night. Tolback could prove his whereabouts during the time of the murder. He also denied Silverman's claim that he was having sex with Greta Stenholm. He denied it categorically, and Lockwood couldn't budge him.

I spoke up.

Tolback moved out of Silverman's house just five days before Stenholm died. There had to be a connection. I'd heard Silverman call him a faithless son of a bitch. And according to Penny Proft's gossip, Tolback and Stenholm were sleeping together. Either Tolback was lying or Silverman was imagining things.

I'd asked Lockwood once before: why would Greta Stenholm want to mess with Hannah Silverman? I'd since learned the answer. Because she thought that Silverman murdered Edward Abadi. Reason enough to seduce Arnold Tolback, I argued.

Lockwood nodded his head. He said the point was logical but not necessarily reflective of actual events. They had yet to discover evidence of a Tolback-Stenholm affair. Smith said they were still looking.

I shut my mouth and they went back to the Dale Denney problem.

It'd be premature to brace Hannah Silverman about Denney; they agreed on that. But he was a link to Greta Stenholm and the blackmail, and he had a history of violent crime: they needed to find him
now
. They thought he was probably hiding out, and they'd have to start “doorknocking” his known associates.
Doorknock
was a police verb, I guessed. They said that doorknocking Denney's KAs would take time and manpower.

I listened to their talk while I watched the walkway outside. Listening to them, a crazy plan popped into my head. It was not only crazy, it was dangerous. But it seemed like an effective shortcut to Dale Denney. I thought it over, weighing the pros against the cons. The pros won. At a break in conversation I spoke up again and offered myself as bait.

Lockwood and Smith just looked at me. I explained what I had in mind.

Dale Denney was a desperate man. Whoever hired him for the blackmail drop wanted their money back. His reputation, maybe even his life, hinged on getting it back. He'd followed me from home that morning, and he'd stake me out again, maybe as early as tonight. He'd come after me for sure—if it seemed safe.

Here was the deal, I said. I'd go home to the pool house. I'd leave the driveway gates open, my car out, the yard lights off. Unmarked surveillance cars could cover the street. Lockwood could come through the vacant lot and climb the back wall; we'd time it to arrive at the pool house together. Lockwood could hide in the kitchen, or somewhere, while I puttered around the front room. I'd open the doors and windows and light all the lights. I'd be a superbly vulnerable target.

Lockwood and Smith didn't even think it over: they vetoed the plan flat. Lockwood cited my injuries from last night and asked if I wanted to risk another attempt on my life. I said I didn't see the risk if he was right there. They remained adamant, so I tried a bluff. I said I would do it with or without their help. I didn't give a damn who I flushed out. I was tired of being jumped, chased, punched, and almost drowned. And I had nonlethal weapons to defend myself.

Lockwood shook his head N-O—emphatic. Smith gave me a patronizing smile, like I was some plucky young chick, too cute for brains.

I reminded them that the doorknock approach took time and manpower. I reminded them—

They ignored me, stood up together, and went to search the rest of the apartment.

I could hear them talking. They found garish clothes and more skin magazines in the bedroom; condoms and drugstore cologne in the medicine cabinet; eight cans of malt liquor and a carton of cigarettes in the fridge. They didn't find an address book, or any letters or bills. There was nothing to tie Denney to anyone or anyone to Denney—except the picture of “Shelly.”

I argued for my plan on the ride downtown. It was a one-sided argument: neither Lockwood or Smith would discuss it. They filed the results of their search at the county courthouse, drove me to the minimal], and dropped me at my car.

I climbed out of the backseat. I was thinking that my bluff had been called and I was on my own. Screw them, was my next thought; I'd prove I had the chops to trap Dale Denney myself.

I started to slam the door. Lockwood looked at his watch and said, “Meet me by your back wall at nine o'clock.”

 

L
OCKWOOD APPEARED
at 9:00
P.M.
sharp. I'd stopped to eat, swung by the office to check in, and was only a few minutes ahead of him. I heard a low whistle from behind the wall. I whistled back, and he came up and over. The hanging ivy made too good a ladder—I'd have to get it trimmed. Or sprinkle broken glass along the top of the wall.

I waved. Lockwood crossed the lawn to meet me, looking around the whole time. It was dark; but he scanned side to side as if he had the yard gridded in his head. He spent longest on the trees and bushes. The shadows there were the darkest.

He said low, “We checked Denney's prints against the latents in the pool house and the back office. No match.”

“I didn't think there would be.” I pointed to the street. “What about extra help?”

“I have three unmarked units in the area—yours, plus two more. Nobody's seen Denney's car. You still want to do this?”

He reached for my hand and held it a second. His hand was warm; mine was clammy. He said, “You're sure?”

I started to walk away. He took my arm and walked along with me. I was waiting for final comments or instructions, but he didn't say a word.

I went into the pool house first. He let go of me and headed for the bathroom. He had his bearings, I noticed; he didn't trip over anything in the dark. I heard the bathroom louver squeak. He'd set up to watch the front drive.

I dumped my bag, turned on all the lights, started coffee, and played my messages.

Sis had called to ask if she and Father could come by. She also wanted to talk about her interview with Lockwood; she wanted to know how I'd gotten involved in a murder case. I pressed fastforward before she finished. Barry called four consecutive times, demanding to know where the
fuck
I was and what the
fuck
I was doing. He was in a twist. He'd never nagged me about a piece before.

Barry's messages were the last. The reporters had given up, for one day at least. There was no return call from Scott Dolgin, and no calls from Isabelle Pavich. I was surprised by that. I thought for sure I'd hear from her by now; she'd struck me as the pest type.

I poured some coffee and took a few sips. It wasn't what I wanted; I wanted to lie down. I kicked off my shoes and stretched out on the daybed. The minute I was horizontal, a dizzy spell hit. I was getting used to the spells—I'd felt dizzy off and on since last night. After it passed, I wedged the can of Mace under my leg and took deep breaths to relax. A night breeze blew in the screen door. I stared out into the dark. My eyelids got heavy and my mind began to drift....