Wendy Hornsby: Bad Intent

He laughed some more. I said, “How come you’re stooping to a district attorney race? Last I heard, you were humping for a big-time governor somewhere in the East.”

His smile grew hard at the edges. “In my game, you’re only as good as your last campaign. You can’t always pick a winner.”

“Excuse me.” I cupped my hand behind my ear. “Did you say can’t always pimp a winner?”

He threw back his head and laughed until his cheeks glowed from tears as well as sweat. Trust me, I’m not that funny. When he was finished, he snuffled and snorted and caught his breath.

“God, I’ve missed ya, MacGee.”

“MacGowen,” I repeated. “And I’ve been around. You just have to know where to look. I saw your candidate making a jackass of himself in front of Parker Center this morning. What was that all about?”

“Case of police harassment, wrongful imprisonment. It’s a good issue.”

“May be a good issue, but do you have a good case?”

“Does it matter?” Roddy belched a little puff of whiskey-laden air. In politics, his kind was going the way of the dinosaur, pushed out by Bright Young Men, and now and then, by women. I wondered how desperate he might be for this win, how many campaigns he might have in his future if he lost another one.

“Better be careful, Roddy,” I said, nudging his elbow out of my open window. “Tug on Superman’s cape, you’ll find out if it matters.”

November 6, 1979. Los Angeles (UPI).

Police Officer Wyatt Johnson, age 25, was shot and killed by a thug just after midnight this morning in a Southeast Los Angeles gas station.

Authorities said the off-duty officer, a four-year veteran with the department, was shot five or six times in the head and chest in the station’s restroom.

A witness told authorities that Johnson, who was not in uniform at the time, made a telephone call just before going into the restroom. Moments later, shots were heard and one or two gunmen quickly ran from the station, disappearing into the darkness. Johnson’s wallet was not missing and authorities say they have no motive for the killing.

That was very nearly all the papers had to say about the killing that was at the center of Mike’s new problems. For all the fuss it had stirred, I confess I was disappointed it had been such a low-wattage caper.

I scanned the microfilm and found one follow-up story printed two days later recapping the first story, adding more details about the six wounds Officer Johnson had received, some family background, funeral arrangements, and a reward offer of five thousand dollars from the L.A. County Professional Peace Officers Association for the arrest and conviction of the killer or killers. The police had no leads. The obituary appeared on the third day after the death, listing his wife, Beth, one child, Wyatt, Jr., his mother, and a sister as survivors. And that was all.

I went through the Times microfilm index again, searching through the end of 1979, all of 1980 and 1981. I found no arrest reported, no summation of the trial or announcement of the verdict. Not a single further listing for the dead cop. Nothing.

I had looked up Johnson only because I am nosy and because I was in the microfilm files anyway. My original goal had been finding background information on the father of Etta’s grandson, a convicted murderer named Charles Conklin. It would have been nice if point A, the killing that had set a particular course for the child’s life, had been a recognizable case, something for the viewer to hang his time perspective to, as in, the day Kennedy was shot, where were you? I knew the date he was sentenced, February 1982, but there had been no news stories about Conklin, either. Because I didn’t have Kennedy, or anything even close, I would have to provide the narrative framework myself.

I was in the Encino branch of the county library, alone except for a few old men reading newspapers or dozing by the front windows. The quiet made me feel sleepy.

I went out to the circulation desk to buy a roll of quarters and went back to my microfilm reader and ran copies of the Johnson items. Then I blew the rest of the change on background stories for my project: the Three Mile Island nuclear disaster, American hostages seized in Iran, Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, double-digit inflation.

Globally, the late seventies had been one disaster after another. As always. Locally, there was a comforting consistency: Bradley was mayor, Gates was police chief, Baron Marovich was running for office.

Because I had seen Marovich twice already that very day, I turned back to the November 6, 1979, Metro section story about developments in the primary for city attorney. Marovich had been the third man in the race, the play maker. His opponents were charging him with improper fundraising and condemning him for turning a traditionally gentlemanly political exercise into a vile brawl.

Plus ca change my French grandfather would have said: the more things change, the more they stay the same.

Marovich’s current campaign had been tagged by the morning paper as a record-breaker in character assassination. His opponent challenged his financial disclosure statements. Same old stuff. Marovich even looked about the same now as he had in the old news photo accompanying the 1979 story, except that his helmet of hair had grown gray and a few new lines marked the corners of his eyes.

I made some notes on the margins of the slick photocopies and filed them away in my bag. I returned the spools of microfilm, stopped for a drink of water, and went back out into the heat.

I was at least two weeks behind on my filming schedule, and with the workload I faced, I knew I was going to fall back another week or two before I finished. I needed help. My knight, as far as work goes, is Guido Patrini, associate professor of film, UCLA.

It was just past three o’clock when I finally found Guido on campus-in a computer lab, begging time from a techno-nerd who had a plastic pocket protector pinned to his tee shirt.

“You’re early,” Guido said to me.

“I was supposed to be here yesterday,” I said.

“So.” He pointed an accusing finger at me. “You did remember.”

I sighed and Guido put his arm around me. It felt so good to have someone hold me up that I let my head rest on his bony shoulder. Guido is about my height, maybe five-seven, a spare frame of a man strung together with sinew. Even his curly black hair seems to have muscle. I think he may be my best friend in the world.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m feeling overwhelmed.”

“Not working out with Mike?” I heard some eagerness in his tone.

“We’re fine, Guido. There is just too much going on in my life right now to keep track of everything.”

“Bet he’s a handful.”

“So are you. Show me what you have.”

We shambled arm in arm across the quiet, shady campus back to his trailer behind the fine arts building where special film projects had been relegated after the last earthquake.

As he opened the trailer door, he said, “It’s a good thing you didn’t come yesterday, because I didn’t have anything for you except a lame excuse. I recut Mrs. Ruiz this morning, dumped all that footage from the visitor room at the jail. I like it now.”

The trailer was cool inside. The fall quarter had not yet begun so the usual mass of puppy-eager film students Guido normally has en train were blessedly absent. It was nice to have Guido all to myself for a change.

I took a bottle of mineral water from the film refrigerator and sat down next to him on a saggy reject of a sofa. He punched a TV monitor remote and Serafina Ruiz’s profile filled the screen: broad nose, high cheekbones, straight black hair pulled into a ponytail.