I asked Kidder how accurately the show represented her work and experience as a homicide detective at the Los Angeles Police Department.

“Not at all,” she said. “They were rough talking New Yorkers who cut corners and did lots of other things my partner and I would never do, or never be allowed to do.”

Not that Kidder didn’t break a lot of “glass ceilings,” opening the path to career advancements for other women.

She was the first LAPD female allowed to attend the FBI National Academy. “This is a training provided by the Bureau for civilian law enforcement officers from departments nationwide. Very prestigious and felt to be a career builder,” she said. “I was grateful to be able to do that.”

In 1990, she was also the first female at the LAPD to attend the Redstone Arsenal Hazardous Devices School (bomb technician training).

“It took a while for a female to be assigned to the bomb squad as a technician. I did not work the bomb squad. However, as a lieutenant, I was in charge of a unit that did bombing investigations, among other things.”

Kidder’s performance assessments had always been outstanding. I asked her the secrets to her success.

“No secret. Work 10 times harder than the men. Put up with a lot of stuff. Do your job, and do it well. Be smart. Be nice. Be professional. Guard your reputation. Lose your sense of hearing when comments are made by men about women officers. Study, study, study. Have a mentor, or more than one. Move around to different assignments. Be in the right place at the right time.”

She must have been because old issues of the Los Angeles Times are full of reports describing her criminal investigation accomplishments. She is quick to correct the impression that she was the first woman detective on LAPD.

“They have had them since the early 1900s. But until the mid-1960s, they worked mainly juvenile and sex crimes, with a few in specialized assignments with their very own typewriters. In other words, they were clerks. Not allowed to do much, except during World War II when they did everything until the men came back.”

After so many years of exciting but hard work at the LAPD, Kidder said in an interview with the Lake Placid News and the Virginia Gazette, “I wanted to get out of the city. The crime, traffic, air quality, congestion, gangs, dope, and the porn industry was just too much. It made me feel it was time for me to leave. When I was at the FBI Academy I drove regularly to Virginia Beach where my brother, a Navy officer, was stationed. The 64 did not exist, and I drove right through Williamsburg on 60. I found it a charming, beautiful, a university town, nice lifestyle and reasonably priced real estate.”

She right away found her niche.

“I had a wonderful job at the farmers’ market, working for Amy Hicks, of Amy’s Organic Garden, making bouquets and selling flowers. The best job I ever had.”

She also was a master gardener and had a long-term project working with Minouche Robinson at Merrimac Detention Center, giving juveniles a background in horticulture to enable them to get a job in that sector when they were released.

What made Kidder leave Williamsburg and go back to live in California was the toll that Hurricane Isabelle took on her property in 2003 and Hurricane Irene in 2011.

“I will rather take my chances with earthquakes,” she said with a shrug.

Looking back at her career at the Los Angeles Police Department, she said, “I do admit that there were times when $10,000 a day was not adequate compensation and on other days, I should have been paying the city.”

Frank Shatz lives in Williamsburg, Va. and Lake Placid. His column was reprinted with permission from the Virginia Gazette. He is the author of “Reports from a Distant Place,” the compilation of his selected columns.