“Calm down,” Joss replied. “Just calm down. Thinking about a setup is, it’s just silly and time-consuming. Don’t worry. Just call the police first thing in the morning and tell them about the car. They deal with stressed people all the time.”
“Listen. I gotta go,” Twitchell said. “Jess is calling.”
Joss fell back asleep, the sunrise still an hour away or more. When he awoke later, his thoughts returned to Twitchell. He was worried there could be a connection between the car parked in his parents’ driveway and this police investigation. If the car was stolen, Joss wanted it off his parents’ property immediately. He dialled Twitchell’s number. “Any news?” he asked over the phone.
Twitchell sounded groggy. “Nah, I just woke up. I haven’t called them yet.”
Joss checked the clock – it was around noon – and became frustrated with the delay. “You better call them about the car right away,” he warned. “If you don’t call them, I will.”
CRASHING
THE ROAR OF A homicide investigation thundered in Twitchell’s ears as detectives picked apart his life, one piece at a time. Within twenty-four hours, his car and house had been seized, his garage film studio wrapped in crime scene tape, and a defence lawyer consulted. Twitchell had nowhere to go but his parents’ bungalow, so he retreated to the cover of his childhood home, nestled in the suburbs north of the city centre.
His wife found him quickly, beating a police surveillance team that was still trying to locate him. On Monday, October 20, Jess stormed into her in-laws’ basement, hours after losing her own home, to find her husband hiding from the world. A futon with one pillow was pulled out as his makeshift bed. Among the wood-panelled walls and discarded furniture, she demanded answers after months of suspicion. He easily crumbled in his weakened state, but used no tact in these cleansing efforts, dumping the truth on her lap like a shovel to the face.
As she listened in disbelief, Twitchell admitted to his secret life of unemployment.
His film career was in shambles.
And they were broke. All his money was gone.
The disclosure drew tears and screams. She demanded to know why the police were rummaging through their lives, but on that point, he refused to talk. Jess could not accept it.
Devastated by his startling admissions, she turned to ask one final question, as if grasping for something, anything, to salvage from the ruins of their marriage.
“Is Phil Porter real?” she pleaded.
“No,” he finally admitted coldly. “He’s not.”
Jess stared at her husband, stunned by what he had just said. Her voice started to crack and waver. “Well then, who was that man?”
“An actor I hired.”
Twitchell watched as his wife’s face lost all its vibrancy. The light dimmed in her eyes, a look of despair contorting her face in a way he had never seen before. Her tears flowed, her throat closing in as she heaved in wailing sobs that echoed through the house. Her weeping came crashing in waves, each one more overwhelming than the last.
She had been deceived in every possible way. Her husband was a liar. He had been cheating on her. Worse still, he was now a murder suspect.
Jess fled the home that night with an ache that would not leave her, racing to be freed of a terror that had gripped her so tightly.
Alone in the basement, Twitchell fell to the carpet. “I’ve destroyed us,” he mumbled, curling in a fetal position, as if a level of insight had finally come to pass.
IN THE FOLLOWING WEEK, while under siege, Twitchell found comfort in building a suit of armour, an effort that gave meaning to days that were now clicking by with little significance. Upon completion, the make-work costume could be strapped around his entire body, from head to toe. Like many of his previous designs, it also had the potential to earn him some money. He certainly needed it. Despite his mounting problems, he was still dreaming of his future, thinking of the Halloween Howler again and believing he could win the grand prize as he did the year before. This was no Transformers outfit. The same techniques of foam board and spray paint were being used, but, this year, he would be stepping into the main hall as the billionaire playboy and superhero Iron Man. He set to work in his father’s garage workshop, hoping to finish a spectacular creation.
Much had changed since last Halloween. Back then he wasn’t a father, he still had a day job, and he had kept his dabbling in darker fiction to a minimum. He was heavier now too and had recently started growing a little goatee. A posting to his Dexter Morgan account read: “Dexter is looking forward to increasing the strength of his disguise.”
He rarely left the house, but he took up residence at his parents’ computer, set on a desk in a converted dining room beside the kitchen. The Internet gave him full access to his friends. On Thursday, October 23, just past 10:00 p.m., he was browsing Facebook again when he noticed that his wedding photographer had sent him a message, asking how things were. He had to confess that his marriage was falling apart. “I don’t know how to explain this,” he typed. “I rarely think about long-term consequences before I act.”
He was emotional. Thinking of the police, his marriage, the film shoot, and the past few weeks, he became desperate. He typed out a long angry email to his film crew that evening, furious at the detectives who were taking everything away. The message was sent from one of his secret email accounts, with the username “Tyler Durden’s Hero,” a reference to the disturbed main character in the film Fight Club. He sent his email to Joss, Mike, and Jay, his cameraman David, and set builder Scott. His email urged them to distrust the police:
You all have a right to silence and you should exercise that right.… I’ve been screwed around with and I don’t appreciate it, so it’s time to stop this and make them do their own jobs. I’m serious. The time for dry sarcastic humour and flaky jokes is over and this is no prank. Sometimes what we see on TV is in fact a true representation of how they work. Sometimes they do lie and make things up in order to get people to say things they otherwise would not.… If they ask you questions, just tell them you don’t know anything.
The email worried his crew. Scott had called Twitchell earlier in the week to ask if it was okay to accept a job offer. He was concerned that by doing so he would give up his chance to work full-time on Day Players. Now cops were circling and Twitchell was furious. The bigger issue remained that his demands had come far too late. Everyone had already been interviewed by detectives or given statements. The noose was tightening around his neck.
That evening, while Twitchell was sitting at his parents’ computer and sending out these messages, someone logged in to Johnny’s Facebook account and added a friend. The activity came just after one of his friends had posted a message on Johnny’s Facebook wall stating that the police department’s homicide unit was for looking for him. For the police, who did not believe the missing man was behind such activity, the suspicious timing said everything.
RENEE HAD IGNORED TWITCHELL’S attempts to call her. Although she had given him her number, she told him she didn’t pick up because she thought it was a U.S. election campaigner. But the truth was that, while she wanted to know how he had “crossed the line,” she simply wasn’t ready to find out. She realized her communication with him had drastically altered. He was no longer the hotshot filmmaker who had offered her a chance to break into the industry, but a man in crisis. She prodded for information in emails and saw he clearly wanted to hide something. “I can’t even begin to go into the details,” he wrote. “So don’t ask.” Instead, he was cleaning out his Facebook account, getting rid of messages: “Me and my manic deleting.” Renee wondered what was so important that he had to delete it. A tiny alarm bell started ringing in her head.
Twitchell asked if she’d be willing to go away to a tropical island with him. While the fantasy seemed amazing, in reality, she told him she would have to politely decline. “Just the fact that you actually gave my offer any thought of actual consideration makes me smile,” he repl
ied. He then confessed to lying to his wife for months, offering Renee a brief glimpse into what was transpiring in his life. “The impounding of my car and the searching of my house brought everything out in the open and my own House of Cards came crashing down. I can certainly appreciate the irony of that title now more than ever.”
As Halloween drew closer, his mood soured. He was “blah” on Facebook and coming up with ominous and sinister messages on his Dexter Morgan page again. “Dexter feels the dark passenger getting restless again,” he wrote.
THEN, HOPE ARRIVED. A potential new investor had seen Twitchell’s website and emailed him, asking about his Star Wars fan film and how he could help. Twitchell directed him toward Day Players and explained in great detail how he was raising money for the comedy film and how investing came with virtually “no risk” and a profitable windfall.
“You certainly got my attention,” the businessman wrote back. “I have a busy week coming up but I might be able to open up a slot for a meeting.”
Twitchell started thinking he really could get his project off the ground. House of Cards actor Chris Heward had already called to say he was still interested in investing and wanted to find out more. His crew was thinking about investing. And then John Pinsent from Venture Alberta had finally sent him a cheque. When it arrived in the mail, Twitchell’s dad gave him a lift to the bank to deposit it. Twitchell then headed to the mall and spent some of the newly acquired funds that were meant to be “held in trust.”
A day later, his potential new investor emailed again with good news: he wanted to meet with Twitchell and would be bringing an interested friend. Twitchell suggested they meet quickly, even on the weekend if possible. “I’m free all day Saturday and Sunday,” he wrote. “Just let me know.”
He was pushing everyone hard. Other investors at Venture Alberta were receiving emails as Twitchell talked of having just secured a home-video distribution deal through Warner Bros. and a U.S. financier who was backing his movie’s entire budget. All he needed was to sell ten units, or points, of $35,000 investments to unlock the funds. “To give you a feeling for the landscape,” Twitchell wrote to one potential investor, “my co-producer has one investor ready to drop on three units at once and has almost done his due diligence with no hiccups.”
The truth was, however, that these pitches were, at best, the exaggerated vernacular of extreme salesmanship and, at worst, a string of blatant lies. His co-producer was quite surprised to discover his track record was being used as leverage with investors because he had none. The Producers Guild of America, an agency representing the vast majority of film producers, had never heard of him. He had never even worked on a Hollywood production, as Twitchell had claimed. The Californian was actually a friend of a friend, a man who had dabbled in low-budget independent film for years and shared Twitchell’s dream of striking it big. His only connection to Warner Bros. was a contact who could possibly get a script read by a studio executive – if they had a major star attached. There was no distribution deal, no studio lot access, and certainly no U.S. investors lined up and ready to sign. The man had not yet sent Twitchell’s proposal to his own lawyer for a review of its legitimacy.
The talent agency representing Alec Baldwin was also surprised to hear the star had been linked to Mark Twitchell’s project. His agent had received a letter from the unknown Canadian director, but with no secured money attached, it was just another proposal gathering dust on the desk of a big star.
But of course, Twitchell’s potential new investor – and anyone else who had given him money for the project – would not have known any of this. On paper, the project looked quite promising. Twitchell could write anything he wanted as he crafted his proposal, twisting reality until it transformed into a viable business opportunity. A part of him honestly believed he was going to make it, that stardom was only a cheque or two away. With so many people ready to hand over their money, he saw no reason to doubt his ability to get the film off the ground and into production.
Twitchell suggested meeting on Saturday, at a coffee shop in the north end, not far from his parents’ house. The investor was busy on the weekend, but told him he could meet the day before for a brief meeting. His friend would be coming too. “I think that once he sees the data in black and white he will be just as excited as I am,” the businessman wrote.
They confirmed their plans to meet on Friday, October 31, 2008.
Twitchell could not wait.
THE MEETING
TWITCHELL ROSE EARLY FOR his favourite day of the year. Carved pumpkins decorated front doorsteps. Children had their spooky costumes ready for trick-or-treating after school. Twitchell was checking his email at his parents’ computer desk, seeing that the novelty of the day wasn’t forgotten by someone his own age. “Happy Halloween,” Renee had written in an ecard. “And hope everything is going better for you!” Her card included a picture of Dexter Morgan with a simple caption: “Thinking of you.” He was touched. “You’re so sweet you’re giving me cavities,” he wrote. “Thank you for this.”
He headed for the kitchen, grabbed a notepad, and started scribbling down his list of things to do for the day. He still had to put the final touches on his Iron Man suit. He spent the rest of the morning spray-painting a red coat over the chest plate and helmet. All of the body armour would need another coat and he still had to make the neck guard and glue Velcro to the skin-tight black body suit he would wear underneath. But seeing the time, he knew it would have to wait until later that afternoon. He went back to the computer, dropped the names of his new business associates into his investment contracts, and printed them off. He slipped on his sneakers and zipped up his fleece jacket, two tickets to the evening’s Halloween Howler tucked into one of the pockets, his keys in another.
He had a brisk twenty-minute walk ahead of him to reach the coffee shop on time. He hurried along his street, passing the park where he played basketball as a kid, his shoulders up high to shield him from the chilly weather. Thick clouds were covering the afternoon sun. At the end of his street he turned north and noticed a white van racing at an incredible speed, looking like it was out of control. The tires were screeching as it tore around the corner and skidded to a stop not far from where Twitchell was walking. The driver honked, just once, catching his eye.
An army of police officers in tactical gear spilled out from all sides of the van. Black helmets bobbed in a march, then scattered as their assault rifles were held at the ready. The squad was shouting, their voices blending overtop of one another.
Twitchell stood in amazement at the drama unfolding around him, not comprehending at first what was being yelled in his direction.
“Get on the ground! Get on the ground!”
The police demands finally registered and he dropped to his knees. The tactical team swarmed. He lay on his belly in the dry grass of a neighbour’s front lawn. His arms were pulled back and he felt the cold click of handcuffs closing in around his wrists.
A detective with glasses appeared and leaned over, his badge dangling from his neck. The man confirmed the team had caught the right suspect. Then he inched closer so Twitchell could hear him: “You’re under arrest for first-degree murder.”
Twitchell was yanked up to his feet, hands cuffed behind him. Feeling wobbly, he nearly fell as one leg collapsed under his weight, twisting to the side. The cop steadied him and he was paraded over to an unmarked police car. The tactical team watched closely.
Standing there in disbelief that this was really happening, Twitchell kept his head low as the detective emptied his pockets, finding a handcuff key that appeared to match the cuffs used in the failed attack on Gilles Tetreault.
Twitchell had fallen for their trap. The excited investors he was supposed to be meeting were a con job, but he wouldn’t be told for months that it was an officer in the hate crimes unit who had orchestrated the entire week-long conversation with him. Getting Twitchell to leave his parents’ house on his own had prevented a potential
standoff and eliminated the chance that any remaining evidence inside could be destroyed. And there was something simply satisfying for the investigators in having lured a suspect through the Internet when he had done the same. When they realized the timing of the arrest had also denied Twitchell his chance at winning the Halloween Howler costume competition, their satisfaction deepened.
Twitchell was tossed into the back of the police car, where he stewed as the detective climbed in the front, joining another detective, and read him his rights.
The cops were confident they knew what had happened, where his life had morphed into real-life crime. But Twitchell saw things entirely differently: they didn’t know the real story and there was so much more to tell. He furrowed his brow, hiding what was really on his mind.
As the car rolled toward police headquarters, Twitchell could only stare out the window, convinced deep inside that despite his sudden predicament, he still held the upper hand.
PART THREE
THE PRESTIGE
COSTUMES UNRAVELLED
IN A HOLDING TANK in the homicide section of police headquarters, Twitchell stuck his hands in his pockets and stared straight ahead. The shutter on a camera clicked. Constable Gary Short from the police forensics team took photos of Twitchell’s face, his hands, his little goatee. Twitchell slipped off his T-shirt, exposing his hairy belly and a jagged appendix scar. He had a Star Wars tattoo on his shoulder of the rebel alliance’s insignia. More photos were taken. He turned around, revealing his naked back, another tattoo, and a cluster of pimples. He removed his jeans and stood on the cold and freckled linoleum, wearing nothing but his striped jockey underwear. The man was a spectacle. Constable Short had him turn again so he could take a picture from each angle and complete his routine booking and arrest photographs. One of the last photos captured a solid black tattoo burned into Twitchell’s right ankle – the helmet of Achilles. He barely said a word as he was photographed, the camera flash flooding his skin with bursts of white light.
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