by Rick Copp
The car rolled to a stop, and I heard the driver’s side door open. Theodore was walking back towards the trunk. He inserted a key and unlocked it. I knew if he saw the phone, he would snatch it away from me, so I quickly jammed it back into my pocket making sure it was upside down so Charlie’s voice would be muted but he would still be able to hear most of what was happening. I made a silent prayer that the phone wouldn’t die before he could figure out where we were.
The trunk lid rose up, but it wasn’t Teddy Phelan there to greet me. It was Terry Duran, her harsh, angry face illuminated in the moonlight.
“Get out,” she said.
I sat up and tried to make out where we were. I noticed a long chain link fence that followed the side of the road before disappearing into the darkness. There were lots of trees blowing in the night breeze. At first I thought we had to be far outside the city limits, but then I saw a posted sign that read “Welcome to Lake Hollywood,” along with a list of rules for the hiking trail around the scenic reservoir.
Lake Hollywood is a picturesque body of water nestled in the Hollywood hills high above the city. During the day, residents of the area hike around it, passing over a dam bridge. It’s a breathtaking view. And nature lovers resigned to city life flock to it as an escape from clogged traffic and smoggy air. But at night it’s desolate and quiet, with no streetlights and only the coyotes, squirrels, and lizards to inhabit the trails. If you don’t know the area, you might think you were lost in the wilds of Montana, or somewhere far removed from a metropolitan city. But I knew Lake Hollywood like I knew my own backyard. Terry Duran didn’t know I lived just over the hill, and that Charlie could swoop in and save the day in a matter of minutes. That is, if the cell phone had enough juice left for him to find out where I was.
“I said GET OUT!” Terry whipped a gun out of the back of her shorts and waved it menacingly at me. I immediately complied with her orders. I could hear Charlie’s faint voice emanating from my pants pocket, but luckily the soft wind, the sound of crickets, and other night noises prevented Terry from catching on to what I was trying to do.
“So why did you bring me all the way out here to Lake Hollywood, Terry?” Charlie stopped talking. Either he was listening to what we were saying or the phone had just died. I was afraid I wouldn’t live long enough to find out which one was true.
She cocked the gun and flashed a crooked smile. “Why do you think? You should have left it alone.”
Leave it alone. Leave it alone. Those were the same words Theodore Phelan had whispered in my ear the night he attacked me in my home.
“You should’ve listened to me. Goddammit, why didn’t you listen to me? Why didn’t you stop poking around when I told you to?” She spit the words out with a fury that made my heart skip a beat. She was unbalanced and not thinking clearly, and that couldn’t be good for me.
But she had never warned me to leave it alone. It had been Theodore. Or had it? That’s when I noticed that she was wearing the same gold ring with an emerald center as the one Theodore Phelan wore in the picture I found at his grandmother’s house. The same ring my attacker wore.
It finally hit me, all of it, and I gasped with shock, more from my stupidity than the actual revelation. Theodore and Terry didn’t just look alike because they were siblings or cousins. They looked alike because they were the same person.
“You’re Theodore,” I said quietly.
“No,” she barked. “I’m Terry!”
“You used to be Theodore, didn’t you?”
She wavered, not sure whether she should admit anything to me. But then her face relaxed. Why not cop to it? It wasn’t like I was ever going to leave these woods to tell anybody.
Terry nodded. “Yes, I was. Now turn around.”
I did as she ordered. And I winced. Waiting for the pop of a gun. Waiting to feel the force of a bullet blast through me.
“Let’s go for a walk,” she said.
The fence leading into the path around the lake was secured with a bolted lock. But the chain tying the two separate fences that came together to make a barrier was loose enough to form a small opening. She pushed it back and motioned for me to slip through. You had to be Houdini to make it unscathed, but she wanted me to go, so I went. The wires on the fence cut into my flesh as I squeezed through. I bit my tongue as each movement ripped another gash in my skin.
Once I was through, I debated running. After all, she had to follow, and it would take some effort. Maybe I could make it. But I quickly dismissed that idea as she kept the gun trained on me and didn’t even flinch as the sharp iron chains did a number on her legs. Once she was on the other side, her eyes narrowed.
“Move,” she said.
I turned around and started walking.
“What’s the plan? Are we going to do a few laps around the lake?” I said.
If by some miracle the phone was still working, I knew Charlie would now be able to pinpoint my exact location. But there were a lot of “ifs” in that theory, so I wasn’t counting on my Superman to show up any time soon.
“So I take it your grandmother Gladys hasn’t seen the new you?”
“Nope,” she said flatly. “Hasn’t seen me since I was Theodore. Must be close to a year now. She goes to the grocery store the same time every day. I wait until she leaves, and then I go over to her house and use her computer.”
“So it was you who sent Willard that threatening birthday card?”
She didn’t answer my question. She didn’t have to answer it. I had it all figured out.
“You wanted him to die. He had to die. If he didn’t, you’d never get your hands on Willard’s big fat life insurance policy that your grandparents bought all those years ago. Your grandmother didn’t need the money. Not the way she lived. And she had her husband’s life insurance to live off. But you needed it. You needed it desperately. And I’m betting it has to do with the big change from Teddy to Terry. You look real. You got the hormone injections, the breasts look perky, everything’s rolling along, but you’re out of money. I’m guessing you still need a jockstrap when you play Squash.”
“It’s the last procedure, but I ran out of cash.”
“You’re not a real woman yet. You’re just a chick with a dick. And it was driving you crazy.”
“Yes,” she said, trying to put a lid on her emotions but failing. “If my grandmother knew why I really needed the money, she’d never agree. So I kept my distance from her, and wrote her letters as Theodore so she wouldn’t suspect. She already promised me a good chunk of the money from that life insurance policy. I was so close to getting my hands on it. I knew that Willard was going to die soon from AIDS, and I’d finally be able to afford the rest of my sex change. But he didn’t die. He kept hanging on. And then he started taking that cocktail of pills the doctors came up with and his symptoms all but disappeared. They said he was going to live a long, long time, and I thought it was hopeless. I was never going to be able to live as who I really am.”
“So you killed him to speed up the process.”
I glanced back at Terry. She was looking off at the stars, contemplating. I knew, however, if I made any sudden movements, the gun would go off and I would be left lying on the path in a pool of blood. The scenario unfolded in my mind and I started thinking aloud.
“When you found out who he was, you started following him, working out at the same gym, befriending him, and then eventually you became his trainer. He had no clue that you used to be a man. On the night Willard was supposed to come to my house for a birthday party, you showed up for your scheduled session. You worked out for an hour, toasted his birthday with a glass of wine, and then when Willard went upstairs to take a bath, you pretended to leave. But you didn’t. You snuck back, and you surprised him in the tub, yanked his legs up, and he slipped under the water and drowned. That’s why there were traces of soap found in his lungs. You had been planning to do it like this for weeks because you knew Willard always took a bath after your sessions. T
hen, knowing Willard was a big drinker, you poured tequila down his throat to get his blood alcohol level up, dragged him to the pool in his backyard and tossed him in it face first so the police would assume it was a drunken accident. If it worked, they would close the case quickly, and you could expect that tidy check from the insurance company in no time.”
“Kudos to you, Magnum pee wee,” she said, not wanting to hear anymore. But I was on a roll. I had been trying to unravel this scam for weeks, and nobody, not even a cold-blooded transsexual killer was going to prevent me from living out my well-deserved Columbo moment.
“You just sat back and waited for the mail to arrive with your check. That is, until I started showing up asking questions. And then, to make matters worse, your therapist, who Willard recommended to you, started talking to me. You had already told him too much, not that it was you who murdered Willard, but enough that eventually he might have started to suspect you. You were already following me around terrified I might figure it out, and then you saw me at Vito’s office. When you saw us meet at the Rawhide Bar, you started to panic. You were afraid Vito would expose you, so you surprised him in the men’s room and slashed his throat.”
“I waited so long. Worked so hard. He was going to ruin everything talking to you.”
“Funny thing is,” I said as I stared Terry squarely in the eye. “He didn’t suspect a thing. In fact, he thought Spiro was the killer, not you. You never even came up.”
There was a flicker of regret on Terry’s face. I could tell it bothered her. She never wanted to kill Vito Wilde, but she was insane with worry and paranoia, and had managed to convince herself that the two of us were conspiring against her. Of course, the sad irony was Vito Wilde probably would’ve been able to help her. And as for her grandmother Gladys, she had been so protective of him I was certain she would have loved whoever he was, Teddy or Terry.
But none of that mattered now. What mattered was that I was standing at the edge of the lake amongst a cluster of trees. It was late at night. There was nobody around for miles. I had worked so hard to get here and solve this puzzle, and now I was about to die for it. Terry Duran was ready to pull the trigger and snuff out my life just as she had done to Willard Ray Hornsby and Vito Wilde.
Chapter Thirty-Five
As unbelievable as it may sound, given the fact Terry Duran was about to unload a cartridge of bullets into my chest, I felt sorry for her. After two and a half decades of hiding her real self, she was so close to finally being able to live and breathe as the woman she always knew she was. It must have been maddening to be a woman trapped inside a man’s body. If just a few snips here and a couple of implants there could finally give her the freedom to live happily ever after, then I could have applaudded her for her determination and effort.
But Terry was an altogether different case. She let her desire for a complete sex change grow into a dangerous obsession. And each frustrating setback she suffered began to slowly, methodically eat away at her sanity until she was willing to commit murder in order to turn her dream into a reality. And after one premeditated killing, another one didn’t seem so extraordinary.
Vito Wilde failed to see the psychosis brewing inside Terry. Maybe he would have if he hadn’t gotten his bogus degree through the mail. In any event, that fatal mistake cost him his life. And with two dead bodies left in her path, a third, namely me, didn’t seem like that big of a deal.
I had run out of stalling tactics. Terry was working up the courage to finally pull the trigger and end it right there. Thoughts of Willard flashed through my mind. He wasn’t just a gay kid like myself who I kissed at the rodeo when I was sixteen. Despite the years of separation, he was one of the defining people in my life. I thought I let go of my romantic feelings for him, but I simply buried them. And despite my happy relationship with Charlie, Willard’s abrupt and unexpected death awakened a passion in me I never knew still lingered. And that, coupled with the fear of winding up just like him and a long line of other former child stars, was what drove me so hard to unlock the mystery of his demise. I always loved Willard Ray Hornsby. I loved him deeply despite how we drifted apart over the years. And because I was unable to let him go, I was now locked in a final showdown with his killer.
“I’m sorry, Jarrod,” Terry said softly. “I’m sorry.”
She raised the gun. Her eyes squinted as she started to pull the trigger. But then a pair of headlights cut through the darkness, momentarily distracting her. I didn’t wait around to see who it was. I dove into the bushes out of the line of fire.
Terry snapped back, and losing all control, fired the pistol three times. One of the bullets pierced the edge of a tree trunk I was hiding behind. It passed so close to my cheek I felt a hot burning sensation as it whizzed past me.
And then I was up on my feet running. I threw my arms up in front of my face to protect it from the branches that I recklessly plunged through in an effort to put distance between me and Terry’s gun.
Did the headlights mean the cell phone had stayed on long enough for Charlie to hear where we were? I was afraid to call out to him for fear of Terry finding me before he did. Terry was in a manic state now, left only with the single-minded mission of spraying me yet again with an unrelenting hail of bullets.
I stopped behind a tree and tried to control my asthmatic heaving. I could hear twigs snapping and an intense, disturbed voice muttering obscenities only a few feet away. Terry knew I was close and it was frustrating her that she couldn’t find me. It was like a child’s game of hide and seek. I quietly lowered myself to the ground and rolled into some bushes.
I held my breath and waited. After a few moments, I saw a pair of shoes rustle through the leaves on the ground. They moved up and stopped about five inches from my face. Terry was so close I could see the scuff marks on her shoes. I was lying with my hand underneath my face, and I started to feel a tingling sensation. Damn it, my hand was falling asleep! Four years of yoga and I couldn’t control my stupid hand from falling asleep? I shut my eyes and kept holding my breath, terrified that the smallest sound, the slightest movement would give me away. I tried meditating to forget about the tingling, which was growing in intensity.
“Jarrod!” It was Charlie. He was close, but not close enough. Terry froze, and considered what to do next. She quietly moved away from Charlie’s voice and trudged off through the woods.
I slowly exhaled and stayed face down on my belly for another two minutes. I hoped Terry would keep walking away from my hiding place, and it would be Charlie who found me.
When I thought Terry was far enough away, I shook my hand violently to wake it up and get rid of that annoying, numbing, tingling feeling. That’s when I heard the hissing start. I thought it was a sprinkler system turning on and I braced myself to get soaked. But after a few seconds, I was still dry and almost certain it wasn’t sprinklers. What could it be? Please, God, don’t tell me it’s . . .
The arched back of a rattler sprung up from the leaves in front of me, coiled for attack. I must have settled into his bed when I hid in the bushes, and he was definitely ticked off that I awoke him from a deep sleep.
I couldn’t make a sudden move or the snake would strike. They can jump about three feet. I was trapped, face to face with its sharp fangs dripping with venom. If ever I wanted to scream like a nellie queen, this was the time. I hated snakes. Charlie hated snakes. And whenever we hiked in the hills with Snickers, we always stayed keenly aware of any that might be lurking in the bushes. The Hollywood hills were infested with them, though I rarely saw any. Until tonight, that is. It’s scales were course and its colors dull and muted. But when you can stir up so much fear, you don’t have to be a looker.
I heard footsteps pounding through the brush. They stopped in a clearing just a few feet away from me. Was it Charlie or had Terry come back? I was afraid it was Charlie, and he was going to get a shot of venom in his leg if he took another step. If I cried out a warning, the snake would strike at me, probably si
nking his fangs right in the middle of my forehead. Seconds passed like hours as I waited for the snake to act. He was up and ready, so he was going to attack somebody. The question now was who.
I knew I couldn’t let the snake get Charlie, so the only option left was to lure it towards me. I rustled a bush with my fingers to get the snake’s attention, but it was too late. I saw a shoe land directly in front of its face. I opened my mouth to yell a warning, but before any words escaped, I saw the snake’s mouth close over the leg.
A blood-curdling scream pierced the air. It wasn’t Charlie. It was Terry. She had circled around, hoping to surprise me. But now the surprise was on her. She reached down and ripped the snake off her, and hurled it into the woods. In a state of delirium and fear, she crashed through the trees and disappeared into the night.
I rolled out of the bushes and slammed into someone’s legs. It was Charlie. He reached for his gun, but I grabbed his belt buckle and lifted myself up off the ground so he could see my dirt-and-sweat-smeared face in the moonlight.
“Charlie, it’s me!”
His face, so full of worry and tension, finally melted into enormous relief, and he grabbed me into a hug, squeezing with all his might. Then I realized the snake could be winding its way back home, so I grabbed his hand and we hoofed it out of the woods and back onto the graveled walking path.
“I was so worried,” Charlie said as he showed me the cell phone clenched in his hand. “I never thought I’d get here in time.”
“You almost didn’t.”
“I love you, babe,” he said as he clutched my shoulders with his big hands and kissed me on the lips.
“I love you,” I said and meant it.
I reached into my back pocket and pulled out my cell phone and looked at it. “I know you’re controversial and cause a lot of traffic accidents, but I love you too.” And I kissed it. The “LOW BATTERY” warning was still flashing, so I shut it off to give it a much needed and well-deserved rest.
“Where’s Terry?”
