The Ticket Out Read online

  I knew what Lockwood was trying to do. He was trying to grind me down with petty mechanics. Because I knew that, I made myself be calm. I didn’t get irritated, or worry about the stakes if I cracked. He wasn’t going to get to me.

  We walked from the back office to the front hall five times—and he never mentioned the Xerox machine. When we were done, and he walked me outside, and the Xerox machine still hadn’t been mentioned, I knew what the next strategy was: suspense. He was going to let me stew and see what happened. I already felt wrung out and unnerved, but I told myself I was doing fine. What could he prove without the xeroxes themselves?

  A coroner’s guy was wheeling Greta Stenholm toward the driveway. She was strapped in and covered with a sheet. I stopped to let the gurney pass. Without planning to, I reached out and touched her. I couldn’t feel anything except the starched cotton of the sheet. I saw Lockwood watching, but I didn’t care. He would think what he wanted.

  A tubby cop in latex gloves waved at us from the pool house. Lockwood walked over to him, and they disappeared inside. I had no orders, so I tagged along and stood in the doorway.

  The pool house was really a glorified changing room made livable by a kitchenette. It had hardwood floors, the original fixtures, and came furnished with movie-set leftovers. The cops had turned off the lights and radio, and removed the dead woman’s things. But they’d left my clothes closet open and some of my stuff sitting out. The attic fan had not been noticed.

  The tubby cop pointed to my word processor. It made a distinct humming noise in the silence. Damn. I’d closed the Stenholm files, and in my rush, forgotten to shut off the machine. DAMN.

  Lockwood and his partner looked at me. I kept my face blank, but I was holding my breath.

  Lockwood went to the computer, grabbed the mouse, and opened the hard drive to search my files. He clicked the mouse twice. My crime-scene notes flashed onto the screen. He scrolled through the pages, reading every word. I leaned against the doorjamb and stuck my hands in my jeans.

  The tubby cop read over Lockwood’s shoulder a minute, then shook his head, went to my closet, and started pawing around in it. I heard him drop things and bang things together. It was loud, pricky behavior, and I knew he was doing it on purpose.

  He dragged one of my boxes into the middle of the room. It was a box where I kept old press kits. Press kits and...

  I was screwed.

  Lockwood turned around to see what was going on. The tubby cop reached into the box and pulled out my Colt revolver. He held it up by the tip of the barrel.

  Lockwood looked at me. He said, “We have to have a talk, Miss Whitehead. Not here—somewhere else.”

  “Do I need a lawyer?”

  “No, I just want to talk to you.”

  “Can I make a phone call?”

  “Make as many as you like as long as you don’t discuss the case with potential witnesses.”

  I ran to the mansion and called Barry. His lawyer had already notified him about the death. I explained the situation in more detail and said that Douglas Lockwood was one of the detectives.

  That’s all Barry had to hear: Douglas Lockwood. He was ecstatic. He kept saying, “We can nail that cocksucker! We can nail that cocksucker now!”

  He didn’t seem to care about the crime, or the trouble I might be in; he only wanted another chance to ream the LAPD. He said that Lockwood needed a real reporter and started naming names off the staff. I’d been thinking of Lockwood as an obstacle. Now he occurred to me as material. I interrupted Barry in mid-list.

  I told him that the story was mine—Lockwood and the dead woman were mine. I only wanted his help if they arrested me.

  Barry got mad and said a truly ridiculous thing: “Did you kill her?”

  I gasped—I couldn’t believe it.

  “Well, did you, Ann?”

  I banged the phone down without answering. He really was out of his mind lately.

  And I was so tense, I couldn’t even laugh about it. He’d reminded me of something I hadn’t thought of in years. In my entire life I’d only dreamed of killing one person. But the fantasy was all rage and heat and splattered gore—not the neat, cold-blooded job that someone did on Greta Stenholm.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  LOCKWOOD SAID, “Tell me about the gun.”

  “Why? She was killed with a knife.”

  “Your knife.”

  We were sitting in a back booth at the House of Pies on Vermont. I’d ordered breakfast to prove I wasn’t cowed. Lockwood ordered coffee and asked the waiter not to bother us.

  He said, “Tell me about the gun.”

  “It’s part of a set that my grandfather bought to protect himself from Bonnie and Clyde. According to family legend he drove the oil fields of east Texas with one gun strapped to the steering wheel and the other one on the seat beside him. They’re both hair-trigger—he had them customized.”

  “Why does a movie critic need a customized Colt .41?”

  I shrugged. “My father gave it to me.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks L.A. is a dangerous place, and he knows I wouldn’t buy a gun myself.”

  “It’s too much weapon for a smaller woman.”

  “I agree, and besides I don’t like handguns—I’m better with shotguns and rifles.”

  Lockwood stirred his coffee, obviously waiting for an explanation. I said, “I was raised in western Canada. I fired my first .22 when I was ten.”

  “How did your people end up in Canada?”

  “They’re in the oil business.”

  “And now you write about movies in Los Angeles.”

  I felt myself smile. “Have gun, will travel.”

  The joke fell flat. I flushed red as Lockwood just looked at me. The official mask was working on my nerves. I said, for something to say, “It took awhile to get used to the Colt.”

  “Do you mean you target practice?”

  I showed him the calluses on the webbing of my thumbs. I always practiced with both hands, like Father taught me.

  Lockwood said, “Why wouldn’t you purchase your own firearm?”

  “Because I don’t like them. I’ve seen what they do.”

  Lockwood picked up on the phrasing. He said, “ ‘Seen’?”

  With my own two eyes, I thought. I didn’t ever talk about the family tragedy, but if he really suspected me, he’d check my background and get the story anyway.

  I cleared my throat. “Thirteen years ago my mother shot herself in front of all of us. My father was throwing my sister around, and Mother took one of the Colts and threatened to kill herself if he didn’t stop. I arrived in time to see the gun go off.”

  Lockwood sipped his coffee. “What did they rule it?”

  “Accidental death.”

  “Is that accurate?”

  “As accurate as any single label could be. I personally think it was murder, suicide, and an accident combined.”

  “And the Colt we found—”

  “—is the Colt that killed her.”

  “And you practice with it.”

  “Because it’s tricky and I don’t want to be afraid of it. Mother hated guns. She refused to come shooting or listen to Father’s lectures. If she’d listened, she wouldn’t have been so cavalier about a loaded gun with a hair trigger—”

  I realized I was babbling. I broke off, and Lockwood let the sentence hang. He said, “You mentioned two guns. Where’s the other one?”

  “My sister has it.”

  He got out his notebook and pen. “I’d like to speak to your family.”

  I gave him my sister’s phone number in Venice, and told him that Father was staying at the Biltmore downtown. He asked when Father had arrived in L.A. I told him, yesterday morning. Lockwood wrote notes and drew linking arrows in the margin.

  What had Vivian said at the party? Lockwood was a mystery; he’d hardly talked to the media, and it’d be a coup to get him on record.

  That’s what I remembered from the sie
ge: his stone-faced silence. He hadn’t talked at the press conferences I saw, and he’d looked to me like the intellectual version of an unrepentant thug. I wanted to believe it, but seeing him in person, I couldn’t tell if that were true. He was smart—but there was no clue about the personality or character behind the brains. He held himself straight, the lines of his face were austere, and he had a stern, self-contained manner.

  Lockwood dropped his pen and leaned forward. “How did the victim know the pool house would be empty?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How did she know what you looked like?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Why didn’t you ask her to leave the rear office?”

  “Because I’m not Barry’s bouncer at these parties. I just look after the house, and she wasn’t hurting anything.”

  “What were you doing in the back hall at that point of the party?”

  “I told you before.”

  “Tell me again.”

  “I was going to bed because I was tired, and I wanted to avoid more conversation with Barry and his movie boys.”

  Lockwood repeated, “ ‘Movie boys.’ ” It was the same thing he’d done with “She was very beautiful.”

  I said, “Critics shouldn’t hang around with Industry people. It messes with your objectivity—”

  Lockwood wasn’t listening; he was off on a different track. “What kinds of parties are held at the house?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Who rents the house? For what occasions?”

  I gave him a rundown of the activity in the past six months. The people and occasions were so different that there was no short answer.

  He said, “Are there ever all-women parties?”

  “All women?”

  I saw right then where he was leading. I said, “You think I’m a dyke, don’t you? You think this is some kind of lesbian love-nest killing?”

  Lockwood gave me his standard look.

  I said, “I’m heterosexual, a fact you can easily check. Just because I called her ‘beautiful’ doesn’t mean I desired her.”

  “There are other indications.”

  “Did ‘movie boys’ sound antimale?”

  “The victim wore no makeup, brassiere, or jewelry, and neither do you. Her way of dressing was masculine, like yours. And she owned a man’s watch.”

  I laughed, and for one second didn’t feel tense. “Detective, you have quaint notions about the modern woman.”

  Lockwood closed his notebook. “You made Xerox copies of Miss Stenholm's personal papers, didn’t you?”

  The question caught me off guard. I hesitated—and knew instantly I’d lost. So I said, “Yes.”

  “Where are they?”

  I was silent.

  He said, “Where are they?”

  “At the house.”

  “Where at the house?”

  He’d take everything if I didn’t make a last stand. I swallowed and said, “You’ll have to find them yourself.”

  THE YELLOW tape had been removed, and the crime-scene technicians were gone. A single patrol car was still parked in the driveway. Two uniformed cops were standing sentry—one at the mansion, one back at the pool house.

  The front sentry let us into the mansion. Lockwood asked to see the bedroom where I’d slept the night before. I led him upstairs to show him, and he pulled out a stopwatch. “I’m going to time you from the minute you woke up. Go.”

  He pressed the stem in. I said, “This isn’t necessary.”

  “Go.”

  I just stood there. Lockwood clicked off the stopwatch. “Maybe you gave the xeroxes to someone in the vicinity, or maybe you took time to remove other evidence.”

  I said, “I want Greta Stenholm’s story.”

  Lockwood reset the stopwatch. “I assumed that you did.”

  “If I give you those copies, my last resource is gone! You’ll confiscate them like you confiscated my notes and my gun!”

  I was pleading for the piece now. I’d forgotten to worry about obstructing justice, evidence tampering, and jail. But the way Lockwood paused, I thought he was finally going to threaten me.

  He said, “Here’s how this works. I have no legal way to stop you from conducting your own investigation.”

  “...You don’t?”

  He shook his head. “You’re a journalist. Because you’re a journalist, all I can do is ask for your voluntary cooperation. If you agree, I’ll guarantee you first shot at our information once my partner and I put a case together and make an arrest. In exchange for that, you’ll do exactly as I say.”

  It took no time to see the hole in that deal. “If ‘cooperation’ means sitting around doing nothing, I don’t want to cooperate.”

  “We’d prefer that you do nothing.”

  “That’s not going to happen, so tell me specifically what you don’t want me to do.”

  Lockwood ticked off his fingers. “Don’t talk to anybody who attended the party in any capacity. Don’t talk to anyone whose name you found in the victim’s address book or appointment calendar. Don’t act on any information or evidence you found among the victim’s effects.”

  “What if I research her background? Won’t you talk to the party guests first?”

  Lockwood nodded, but it was an effort for him.

  “Journalists often do a better job on background than we do. I’ve had reporters provide critical information that came out of left field as far as our investigation was concerned—”

  I smiled and started to say something. He stopped me.

  “—but I’d prefer that you didn’t. I’ll keep you apprised of our progress as long as you don’t print anything without my permission.”

  “I promise not to print anything, but that’s all. I can’t not act.”

  He nodded, and it was another effort.

  “Then if nothing else, don’t bother the Hollywood people. They’ll cause trouble if they aren’t handled correctly. And I’ll need to know where you can be reached.”

  I said, “What do you mean? You know where I live.”

  Lockwood gave me a look. “Has it occurred to you that you might have been the intended victim?”

  “It did. But all the lights were on, and Stenholm and I aren’t twins.”

  “What if it was dark at the time? Maybe the killer made a mistake, then tried to cover it with the lights and simulated suicide.”

  I felt a wave of fear—much stronger than anything I’d felt that morning. I sat down on the bed.

  I whispered, “But there’s no reason to kill me.”

  “Just tell us where you decide to stay, and don’t leave town under any circumstances.”

  “How can I be a suspect and the intended victim?”

  Lockwood held up his stopwatch. “When I say go, I want you to show me everything you did from the time you woke up. Go.”

  He pressed the stem in.

  “But-”

  “Go.”

  I leaned over and pretended to get my clothes off the floor. I pretended to put them on, wondering if this was payback for the way the Millennium had savaged him. But Lockwood’s face told me zero.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I DROVE INTO the office at dinnertime thinking about a cartoon. It was an animated short I saw at a festival once called “Bambi Meets Godzilla.” A giant prehistoric claw comes down from the sky and squashes a doe grazing at the bottom of the frame. It lasted less than a minute. Splat! The End. And you laughed.

  My encounter with Lockwood was just as lopsided. I had braced myself for a hero’s resistance and he broke me down so fast, it was pathetic. The Xerox machine, my computer, my family, the Colt: he’d gotten everything there was to get almost. He didn’t even give me a chance to struggle; I never saw the claw coming.

  But I wasn’t squashed flat. He didn’t find my copies of Greta Stenholm’s Filofax. He hadn’t threatened legal action, or warned me in graphic terms not to get involved. I’d expected him to play the p
rehistoric heavy, and he hadn’t. But he did make one mistake. I discovered it after he left. When he erased my notes on the crime scene, he didn’t think to look for a backup file. I always put an extra backup file on disk.

  So I had the xeroxes, and I still had my notes. All I needed now was Barry’s permission to go ahead. I was determined to fight him for it, but I also had to be diplomatic. I remembered what Mark said about Barry’s schizy mood—and I remembered our last conversation. It wasn’t smart to hang up on him.

  Barry’s assistant had gone for the night. I knocked on Barry’s door and walked in unannounced. He looked up from what he was reading.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I didn’t know you were expecting me.”

  “We have to discuss your piece. Where’ve you been?”

  “With Lockwood.”

  “All this time? What for?”

  I sat down on the edge of his desk. “Like you, Lockwood thinks I did it.”

  “I was kidding, Ann. You can’t take a joke anymore.”

  “I can when it’s funny. Have you talked to the cops?”

  “Some guy named Smith came by a few hours ago.”

  “He’s Lockwood’s partner. What did you say?”

  “Tell the pigs as little as possible, that’s always been my rule.”

  “Barry, Jesus, a woman was murdered!”

  “And I’m sorry for it, believe me.” He pushed a folder across the desk. “I’ve put together the clips on the Burger King siege.”

  I leaned my elbow on the folder so he couldn’t take it back. I said, “I think your friend Scott Dolgin knew her. I saw him try and talk to her.”

  “Yes, he told me, but he was just being a good host. As far as we can tell, she crashed the party. She wasn’t on my list or Scott’s, and nobody I’ve called knew who she was.”

  “But she knew about In-Casa Productions. I heard her say it was a farce.”

  Barry tapped the folder. “I want twelve hundred words on Lockwood by next week. Let’s concentrate on that.”