The Actor's Guide To Murder

by Rick Copp

  I shrugged. Charlie had his other hand wrapped around his police-issued revolver, and spun around. Terry could spring out at any moment, full of poisonous snake venom but still armed and dangerous. But she didn’t. The lake was quiet again except for the sounds of a few police sirens in the distance. Charlie called for back up when he was racing to the lake.

  Terry was nowhere to be found. And she wouldn’t be found for another week, when a crew of parks and recreation workers accidentally speared her lifeless body while dredging Lake Hollywood. Investigators concluded that once the hopelessness of her situation finally registered, with the venom coursing through her veins further fueling her anxiety and panic, and with Charlie and the cops closing in, she finally gave up the struggle to cover her tracks. She relinquished her dream to complete the transformation to Terry Duran, and jumped headfirst off the bridge.

  Once famous for its prominent role in the disaster film Earthquake, the bridge would be known from this day forward as the landmark where the transsexual killer Teddy/Terry took a swan dive, thus climaxing her murderous rampage. That’s what the tabloids would scream, and yes, I would be permanently attached to the whole sordid story. I got more press coverage from this piece of Hollywood Babylon lore than I did from my whole notorious career. It was awful. But I knew the details weren’t so sensational, so ready made for public consumption. Terry Duran wasn’t a marauding maniac, neatly wrapped up for the nightly news. She was far more complex. Yes, she was desperate and disturbed. Yes, her obsessions led to the tragic deaths of two vibrant men in their prime. But she was human and sad and not an excuse for the right wing to go on television and denounce “her kind” and call her “the result of sexual perversion.”

  It angered me that her story would provoke such debate, because it only made it difficult for those who are still struggling with their sexual identities, still trying to live on the outside as they live on the inside. Terry Duran could have been a shining beacon for those still struggling, if only she hadn’t chosen a dark and deadly path as a means to an end.

  I spent the ensuing weeks following the end of my ordeal reconnecting with my boyfriend and avoiding the harsh glare of the media spotlight. I knew the attention would eventually die down and my life would resume with some modicum of normalcy. Charlie and I had not gone hiking in the neighborhood since that fateful night because I hadn’t been able to get over my close brush with that irate rattlesnake. But finally, on a gorgeous sunny Sunday afternoon, we set out with Snickers on a three-mile trek up to the Hollywood sign and back.

  I found some closure once Terry’s body was found, and I was finally able to cry for Willard. It hadn’t occurred to me that from the moment I found his body floating in the pool to the moment I unmasked his killer, I had been so focused, so obsessed in uncovering the facts, that I never had time to properly mourn the loss, to shed some hearty, gut-twisting tears. And when Charlie’s captain called with the news that Terry’s body had been recovered, a grief swept over me that was so strong and overpowering, I wept for two days. Charlie gave me plenty of space, because in so many respects, he is the perfect boyfriend.

  Charlie had been right all along about my lingering feelings for Willard. He knew it the night when we fought over Laurette and I breaking into Willard’s Brentwood home. We both knew at the time our conflict had nothing to do with my trespassing charge. It was about me refusing to be honest about why I was so persistent. Had I told him from the get-go, he may not have been happy about it, but he would have understood. Instead, I stormed out of the house rather than confront the issue head on. In some ways, Charlie knew me better than I knew myself.

  We gripped hands as we climbed the hill towards the Hollywood sign.

  “I think I’m going to give up acting,” I said matter-of-factly.

  Charlie arched an eyebrow. He had heard this before. “Really?”

  “I want to be like Dominick Dunne.”

  “Who?”

  Charlie didn’t read Vanity Fair with the fervor and rabid passion that I did, so I had to fill in a few blanks. “Famous writer. He lost a daughter in the eighties. Her boyfriend murdered her. Dunne became a seeker of justice, a purveyor of truth. He was a fixture at the O.J. trial.”

  “You want to be a spectator in the courtroom?”

  “No. He does a lot more than that. He investigates all sorts of high profile crimes where he believes justice isn’t being served.”

  “Oh. Okay. Whatever you want to do, I support you.”

  Charlie wasn’t quite getting it. He was a cop. Every day he was inundated with human pain and suffering, such horrifying acts of violence and chilling stories of betrayal and perversion. He could never understand why I would actively seek out such misery.

  But Willard Ray Hornsby’s murder had had a profound effect on me, and I needed to channel that experience into a new endeavor. I was going to expose the underbelly of Hollywood, the smarmy, self-satisfied element that thought they were smart enough to hurt other people and get away with it. Yes, I thought, this was my new calling. Acting was no longer a priority.

  Charlie and I, both sweating, our legs aching from the steep uphill climb, reached the top of the mountain. We were above the massive letters that stretched across the hillside, forming the world famous Hollywood sign. The city was nestled in a basin before us. The sky was free of smog and a few clouds wafted through the crystal blue horizon. I put my arm around Charlie and we stood there, gazing out at the magnificent view, while Snickers took a dump in the brush a few feet away. Oh well. No scene is perfect.

  The cell phone in my fanny pack rang, and I reached in to answer it. Charlie smirked. He knew I hated lugging my cell phone around, but ever since it saved my life, I felt obligated to include it in my life more.

  I flipped it open. “Hello?”

  “Jarrod, it’s Laurette.” She sounded out of breath, excited.

  “Hi. What’s up?”

  “You got it.”

  “What?”

  “The NBC pilot. Without an audition. Can you believe it?”

  “That was weeks ago. I thought the whole show would’ve been shot by now.”

  “When you refused to come in, they hired another actor. Some cast off from this weird cult soap Passions. Anyway, it didn’t work out. They wanted someone funny and he thought he was doing Saving Private Ryan.”

  “But I told you, Laurette, I’m giving up acting. We had a whole lunch at the Cheesecake Factory about this.”

  “I know, and I thought it was a good idea. But that’s when you couldn’t get arrested. This is a network pilot.”

  Charlie folded his arms and smiled at me. He knew exactly what was transpiring and he loved every minute of it.

  Laurette was practically having an orgasm on the other end of the phone. “Your call is tomorrow morning at nine a.m. You’d be an idiot to say no. What do I tell them?

  I turned away from Charlie and whispered frantically into the phone, “Tell them I’ll be there.” Then I nonchalantly closed the phone and popped it back inside my fanny pack.

  “So what was that all about?” Charlie said, grinning from ear to ear.

  “Oh. They want me for a pilot. On NBC. Thursday nights.”

  “Uh huh. And what did you tell them?”

  He was enjoying this far too much. I whipped around and said, “It’s a pilot, Charlie. Of course I said I’d take it.”

  He nodded. “I just thought your career wasn’t a priority anymore. That helping those in need was your new calling.”

  “Ever hear of multi-tasking?” I said. “Who says I can’t seek justice for the disenfranchised while starring in my own network prime time TV series?”

  Charlie hooked an arm around my neck and pulled me close. With his free hand he rubbed the top of my head with his knuckles in a playful gesture. “Sounds like a plan, babe.”

  And then together we headed back down the mountain towards home, Snickers scampering behind at our heels.

  Please turn the page f
or a sneak peek of

  Rick Copp’s next Jarrod Jarvis mystery

  THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO ADULTERY

  coming next month in hardcover!

  Chapter 1

  “I believe this man poses a serious threat to me and society in general, and I strongly urge you to keep him locked up behind bars where he belongs.” I paused for dramatic effect. There was a chill in the air. I was nailing this. Why couldn’t I have been this persuasive last week when I auditioned for the role of a powerhouse prosecuting attorney on Law & Order: Special Victims Unit? Maybe it was because today the stakes were much higher. The guest-starring gig was fifteen grand and another year of guaranteed SAG insurance, but this performance would decide whether or not I would spend the rest of my life living in fear, looking over my shoulder, expecting to find a knife-wielding madman bearing down on me. Today I was delivering testimony at the parole hearing of Wendell Butterworth, a forty-four-year-old mentally unstable career criminal, who when he was in his early twenties, tried kidnapping me three times.

  When Wendell saw me make my acting debut on an Oscar Meyer bologna commercial just shy of my fifth birthday, he became convinced that I was his long-lost soul mate from another lifetime. He kept watching TV, hoping to see me, and he did on a slew of commercials for Juicy Fruit gum, GI Joe action figures, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. When I landed my hit series a few years later and became a big star, Wendell decided it was time for a long-overdue reunion in this lifetime.

  My first encounter with him was during our first season of Go to Your Room! He had conned his way past the security gate at the studio posing as a messenger, and found me hiding from my tutor, who was on the warpath because she found out I’d lied when I told her I had a photo shoot for TV Guide. It was just a ruse to get out of one of her annoying little pop math quizzes. Wendell pretended to be a production assistant sent to retrieve me for a network run-through rehearsal. We were halfway to Barstow before a quick-thinking cashier at a Mobil Station recognized me from the special “Missing Child Star” news bulletins on TV and dialed 911. I never even knew what was happening. The whole time I thought I was on my way to a promotional appearance at the network’s Las Vegas affiliate station.

  The second time, Wendell bought one of those “Maps to the Stars’ Homes,” and drove out to our Pacific Palisades house, where he locked our maid Gilda in the pantry and jumped out to grab me while I was pouring a bowl of Lucky Charms cereal. Believe me, I didn’t feel so lucky that day. But fortunately, my parents arrived home just as Wendell was hustling me into his Dodge pickup. My father wrestled him to the pavement while my mother called the police from the car phone.

  Finally, with his frustration growing to dangerous levels, Wendell got his hands on a Smith & Wesson and decided that if the Devil’s Disciples (namely my parents) were going to keep us apart in this world, then he had no choice but to escape with me into the other world. His plan was to shoot me dead, and then take his own life. We could finally be together for eternity.

  This was still a few years before the haunting and brutal murder of another sitcom child star, Rebecca Schaffer, in 1989. That’s when people finally started taking celebrity stalkers seriously. Rebecca was dressing for an audition for The Godfather 3 when a whacked-out fan rang her bell, and fired a gun at her as she stood right in her own doorway. She died at the scene. And Hollywood was finally jolted awake.

  But my nightmare ended on a sweltering hot summer day in August. And as fate would have it, Wendell Butterworth would not succeed with his insidious plot. As my mother and I pulled out of the studio gate and stopped for a red light at the intersection of Melrose and Gower next to Paramount Pictures, Wendell ran up to the passenger’s side window, which was open, and pressed his newly registered gun to my temple. Before either my mother or I could even react, Wendell pulled the trigger. There was a loud click. And then silence. Wendell had forgotten to load his gun. As he fumbled in his pockets for the bullets, my mother grabbed my shirt collar and dragged me out of the car, both of us screaming and running into the street, bringing traffic to a screeching halt. A quick-thinking motorist saw Wendell stuffing bullets into the chamber of his gun, and slammed on his accelerator, plowing into Wendell and knocking him to the ground unconscious.

  For weeks reporters and TV journalists besieged us with requests for interviews. I almost had an exclusive sit-down with Barbara Walters until she found out I made fun of the way she talked. Hell, I was only twelve. How did I know she was so sensitive?

  More disturbing details bubbled to the surface about Wendell as the press dug deeper into his past. He was initially portrayed as a wayward orphan whose parents were brutally murdered by intruders in the summer of 1971 while he slept peacefully upstairs in his room. The killers were never caught. Well, a 20/20 investigation after his attack on me revealed that there was no home invasion by unknown intruders at all. It turned out his parents had refused to allow eleven-year-old Wendell to watch the series premiere of The Sonny and Cher Comedy Hour, so he took matters into his own hands by butchering both of them with a meat cleaver, watching the show, then going upstairs and turning in. After all, it was past his bedtime.

  After a battery of psychological tests following his arrest, Wendell was found to be deeply disturbed (let me put on my big surprise face), and once convicted (his lawyer’s “innocence by reason of insanity” ploy failed), he was committed to a special psychiatric ward at Angola State Prison, where he managed to escape once and tried to find me again during our show’s second season. Luckily he was quickly recaptured and transferred to an even more secure facility at Vacaville State Prison in Northern California, where he has remained ever since.

  It was tough making the six-hour drive up to Vacaville to speak at Wendell’s parole hearing. I hadn’t seen him since that terrifying day at the traffic light outside Paramount. When I entered the sparse, stuffy room where he was seated at a table, flanked by two beefy prison guards, I almost didn’t recognize him. Almost. Eighteen years had passed, and he was much older. In his twenties, he had only just started losing his fine blond hair, and he was muscled and compact. Now he was much paunchier, with only a few wisps of dull yellow hair combed over his forehead. His complexion was pale from years of incarceration, and more than a few wrinkles creased his face. But one thing was the same as I remembered. His eyes. They were still a dull gray and they still had the wild look of a sociopath. He stared at me, and appeared to be fighting back a smile. I half expected him to jump up and grab me in a bear hug, as if he still believed we were separated soul mates. And that’s why I’d made the long trip up north. Because in my heart I knew Wendell Butterworth wasn’t cured. He wasn’t ready to reenter society a well-adjusted, law-abiding citizen. And I wasn’t ready for him to get out either.

  Wendell sat quietly watching me as I delivered my speech. My hands were shaking and the paper made a loud ruffling sound in my grip.

  “I do not believe that Wendell Butterworth has made enough progress, and I fear that if you release him, he will continue his campaign of terror against me, as well as others.”

  The sound of the paper was so thunderous, I was sure the parole board couldn’t hear a word I was saying. I glanced up at them to gauge some kind of reaction to my presentation. There were three of them. A corpulent man in his fifties who was bursting out of a cheap brown suit. A prim-and-proper frail gray-haired woman with a stern gaze over a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. And a handsome doctor with curly, unkempt hair and soft, caring eyes. I made eye contact with him, because, after all, he was the cutest one on the panel. He smiled at me and I immediately lost my place. I had to consult my stack of pages again. More ruffling. I kept reminding myself I was in a loving, fulfilling relationship with an LAPD detective named Charlie Peters. Damn, where was I?

  “I’m sorry . . . Let’s see . . . campaign of terror against me . . . Oh, right. Here we go. I simply don’t believe Wendell Butterworth is a changed man. And I beg you . . . for my own peace of mind, and for my fami
ly’s, please do not let this man out of prison because I know it will only be a matter of time before he strikes again.”

  There was a moment of silence as the parole board digested my words. Then the gray-haired lady spoke first.

  “Mr. Jarvis, we all appreciate you coming here today to speak with us. You make a very convincing argument.”

  “Thank you.”

  “I’m curious though. Did you read the psychiatric evaluations we sent you in the mail?”

  “Yes, ma’am. I did.”

  “Five reputable doctors believe Mr. Butterworth has made remarkable progress, and in order for him to continue in a positive direction, he should be able to reconnect with a life on the outside.”

  “I don’t believe that to be the case.”

  The cute doctor leaned forward. “Why not?”

  “Look at his eyes,” I said. “They haven’t changed one bit. They still scare the hell out of me.”

  Wendell averted his eyes from me, and fixed them on the floor. He didn’t want me blowing his chances of getting out of here. Not with something as inconsequential as the look in his eyes.

  The gray-haired lady broke out into a smile dripping with condescension. “Mr. Jarvis, are you disputing the findings of five doctors based on the mere fact you don’t like Mr. Butterworth’s eyes?”

  “That’s right,” I said.

  She stifled a chuckle, and then flashed her two colleagues a look that said, “How long are we going to indulge this idiot?”

  The corpulent member of the board checked his notes before addressing me. “What about Cappy Whitaker?”

  “What about him?” I said.

  “He was a child actor just like you. He had a rather notable career in his own right, though admittedly not nearly as successful as yours, and he, too, was a target of Mr. Butterworth’s obsessions.”

  “I’m very familiar with Cappy’s ordeal. It was very similar to mine.”

  “And yet, we’ve received a notarized letter from Mr. Whitaker supporting a decision to release Mr. Butterworth at our discretion.”