by The Killing of the Unicorn- Dorothy Stratten, 1960-1980 (epub)
Louise couldn’t decide whether she wanted to go along with Dorothy to her appointments or stay with Antonia and Alexandra. Dorothy had told her sister that she was going to see her business manager, and then to see Paul, and then to a Playboy sitting, but Louise wasn’t to tell anyone about the meeting with Paul—especially not Peter, she emphasized, and Louise nodded.
Dorothy knew Louise had been bored at yesterday’s meetings, so the business manager wouldn’t sound very interesting, nor would the Playboy visit. And since Louise had never liked Paul, a rendezvous with him would hold little hope of fun. D.R. knew her sister too well to forbid her to go to Paul’s— Louise was bound to be worried or suspicious: Why shouldn’t she go? Better simply to paint a bleak and boring picture of the prospects of accompanying Dorothy, and highlight some of the virtues of staying here. Dorothy said she would be back before 2:30; Louise asked her to promise to return by then, and Dorothy promised. Louise said she would stay home.
In Vancouver that morning, Nelly awakened with a premonition about Dorothy. She felt more than a little frustrated at her inability to reach either of her daughters in Los Angeles. Her new husband didn’t seem very interested in her worries. When the phone rang and it was Louise, Nelly was relieved. Where was Dorothy? She was out swimming, Louise said. Her mother asked for the number. Louise lied and said it wasn’t written on the phone, and when her mother pressed her to find someone who knew it, Louise said there was no one else around. Dorothy had instructed her not to give out the number, or to mention Peter. They were staying at a friend’s until Dorothy’s new apartment was ready. Nelly told Louise to ask Dorothy please to call her back as soon as she could, and Louise said she would. When she hung up, Nelly felt anxious again. She stayed home a good part of the day waiting for Dorothy’s call. Louise reported the conversation to Dorothy, who said she would call back that afternoon, as soon as she returned.
Dorothy hoped that by the time she got back, her mind and heart would be a good deal lighter because she would have finished dealing with Paul. Or she would not come back. That thought echoed in her mind every so often, and she felt her knees weaken and her heart tighten. She would talk to herself then, to get back her courage, tell herself to be brave and remember the hardships and troubles with men that her mother had survived, and that her maternal grandmother had survived. She would make it too. Yet, as she looked at the children and Peter, she realized she might never see any of them again. She had to fight back the tears, fight back even the thought of tears—because if she cried to Peter now, he could make her reveal everything. By the time she said good-bye to him in the kitchen, she had steeled herself against her worst fears. She would simply close off her eyes and mask her feelings. Wasn’t that a practice at which she had come to excel?
When Dorothy came in to say good-bye that morning, I had just fixed myself cottage cheese with yogurt. We spoke for a moment or two, and D.R. told me quite coolly not to talk with my mouth full; it wasn’t very attractive. She was right, of course, but the force with which she spoke and the darkness in her eyes shocked me. She was sitting on the high stool where seven months earlier I had first kissed her. I reacted as though she had slapped my face: 'OK,' I said and turned away to get a napkin. I had been planning things to do with the kids when she came back in the afternoon, and walked over to her as she stood to go, held her arms, and said everything would be all right. I was sorry to have been grumpy. I understood it was difficult for both of us, but when she returned in the afternoon, we could sit down and talk out the problem, anything that was bothering her. I loved her, I said. Everything really would be all right.
The expression on Dorothy’s face didn’t change, however, nor did her eyes brighten even slightly. Her teeth seemed to be clenched. This was so uncharacteristic of her that it baffled and frightened me.
I moved closer, still holding her arms, and tried to look deeply into her eyes. 'Baby,' I said, 'what’s the matter?' Dorothy just shook her head and said nothing was the matter, she would talk to me later. The severity of her manner, together with the deep tan she had acquired, made her look much older than her twenty-and-a-half years. There was a strain in her face. I shrugged slightly and said OK, and then for a third time I said that everything would be all right—I emphasized each word and Dorothy nodded again. We kissed one more time briefly, and she turned and walked quickly out of the kitchen toward the front door. I never again saw Dorothy alive.
She left the kitchen fighting not to show emotion and knew she still had to say good-bye to the kids. They were playing by the fountain with Blaine and his girlfriend, and Dorothy threw a quick kiss and said she would see everybody soon. Louise, however, followed her to the door and asked again what time she would be back, and made Dorothy promise once more that she would not be home later than 2:30. They hugged each other tightly Louise wondered why Dorothy had almost pushed her from their embrace. As D.R. stopped her Cougar by the gate to check traffic before turning left toward Sunset, Louise noticed that her sister was crying. It was the last view Louise had of Dorothy alive.
Linda was late for work that morning. She had stopped by at Spalding first and picked up the two urgent messages for Dorothy from Playboy. By the time she arrived at my house, Dorothy had been gone less than fifteen minutes. Linda was told that D.R. had several appointments and was expected back around 2:30. Linda put the two notes on her desk along with a couple of other things for Dorothy.
In business manager Bob Houston’s office, the phone rang while Dorothy was there: It was Snider. Houston took the call in the next room. Yes, Dorothy was there with him now. Snider asked if she had told Houston about the house yet. What house? Houston asked, and would remember thinking how especially cheerful Snider sounded. It smelled phony to Houston. Eventually Snider asked to speak to Dorothy. Houston brought her to the phone and went back to his office. The call lasted barely three minutes, and when she returned, Houston told her that she didn’t have to put up with those calls and that she most certainly didn’t need to go down and see him. No, it was all right, Dorothy said, they had an understanding now. He had been upset. Houston shook his head. All Snider wanted was money and the green work card, Bob said. Dorothy nodded. Houston asked if there was something about a new house, and D.R. said she didn’t know of one.
Houston told her again that he really didn’t think she had to see Paul. Bob Houston believed that Dorothy owed Snider exactly zero, since every idea he had ever heard Snider express had been terrible. When he first met both of them nine months ago, Houston had known the marriage was crumbling. Everybody did—including Paul. Houston also knew Dorothy was going with Bogdanovich, though she never mentioned it. He and the rest of the firm had known since late spring. All the more reason why, Bob felt, Dorothy’s husband was now solely a business and legal problem, and certainly should not concern her emotionally. It was costing her enough financially. Smiling sadly, Dorothy kissed Bob on the cheek when she left.
All day, whenever he thought of Dorothy, Houston felt strange. He did not realize he would be the last friend to warn her about Paul Snider. When she left Houston’s office that morning, Dorothy had less than ninety minutes to live, less time than the length of an average movie.
At nearly the same moment, Playboy put out another urgent call for Dorothy Stratten. The two messages at Spalding had been picked up, but Dorothy still had not returned the call to the head of Playboy’s model agency. Linda was out of the office when Playboy phoned, and our new accountant, who knew nothing of the politics involved, answered the phone. When the Playboy secretary asked for Dorothy Stratten, the young accountant told the truth: Dorothy had gone out about an hour and a half ago and wasn’t expected back until midafternoon. Did anyone know where Dorothy was at the moment? No. Did Playboy care to leave a specific message? Yes. Please ask Dorothy to call Valerie Cragin at Playboy Models as soon as possible—it was extremely important— mark it urgent. When Linda was told of the call, she became uneasy: Playboy calling here for Dorothy? She kne
w that both D.R. and I were officially denying our relationship, as well as Dorothy’s living at my house. What could be so important that it would make Playboy obviously blow our cover? Late that afternoon, on the call sheet Linda left for D.R., she made special note of the Playboy messages and the call. She put quote marks around the word: 'Urgent.'
By the time Playboy had finally phoned Copa de Oro, Dorothy was already on her way to Clarkson.
She stopped at her bank on the way and cashed a check for one thousand dollars. Maybe Paul would be happy with not only the gesture but the cash, since he was usually broke.
At Clarkson, Snider was waiting impatiently for Dorothy’s arrival. She had said 11:30 but by 11:45 she still wasn’t there. Patti and Snider’s main girlfriend, Lynn, had cleaned up the place in the morning, vacuumed and tidied up in readiness for the grand confrontation Snider had been planning. Dr. Cushner had gone to his office at the usual time, leaving his dog penned in the back. At around 11:00, Patti and Lynn had gone out shopping. Snider said that if he didn’t meet them downtown by 2:30, they should call—he would certainly be finished by then.
Goldstein might have been following Dorothy since she had left Copa de Oro, but he would later admit only to having seen her park her car and walk into the house. She wore slacks and shirt and flats and carried a large zippered purse. Once she was inside, Goldstein claimed to have driven off and called the house at 12:30, at which time Snider told him breathlessly that everything was going well. Goldstein then drove by at 2:00 and, seeing the cars still there, drove off again and didn’t return until much later.
At the Playboy studio, Mario Casilli and the staff were waiting impatiently for Dorothy’s arrival. She was already a half hour overdue and had never been late for a session before. Well, Mario said, maybe Dorothy had finally gone Hollywood.
***
Dorothy would certainly have been frightened walking up to the house on Clarkson, the last place in the world she could have wanted to be. But there was nothing to be done now. Though her heart would have been beating hard, she would have taken a deep breath, and gone up to the bell and rung it. Whatever would happen, she could handle it—but she wasn’t going to give in to his bullying and his tantrums. She had a right to her own life. They could be friends, and he could have half her money, and she would help get him a green card, and do whatever she could about Playboy. But she wasn’t about to ask Hefner for a favor, and Paul knew why only too well. Didn’t her presence, after all his threats, show him how much she cared for him? Why couldn’t he trust her? They didn’t have to sleep with each other to be friends.
What exactly happened between the time Dorothy Stratten entered the house at noon on August 14 and the time, hours later, when she and Paul Snider were found, both naked, both of their faces blasted by a shotgun? The cause and times of their deaths would turn out to be among the few facts that could be definitely established: Dorothy was dead by 1:00 p.m., and her killer was dead by 2:00.
What occurred in that last hour of Dorothy’s life— and the last two hours of Snider’s? There was enough evidence to prove without doubt that Snider used the bondage machine to strap down his estranged wife and rape her, and that he also sodomized her so forcibly and with such brutality that it literally tore her body apart. The pain that the sodomy caused her would have been the most excruciating torture. After shooting away the left side of her face, Snider apparently moved the body a number of times, holding her head up by the hair. He had rear-entry intercourse to orgasm with the corpse before scrawling a terse note that blamed Mike Kelly and Lynn for not keeping a better eye on him. Then he turned the shotgun on himself and blew his face away.
Outside, the only sound the neighbors recalled was the doctor’s German shepherd. He barked and howled and whined throughout the afternoon.
VI - Tower Struck by Lightning
As you lie sleeping
So innocent and content,
The world around you doesn’t stop,
But keeps turning, and time doesn’t wait,
And has no mercy . . .
And as you lie sleeping,
Another, at the same moment, is crying,
And still another is laughing:
Time has no pattern.
Some are worried and try
To save time for a later date,
But then realize time cannot be saved,
And all the while they are living
They are also dying . . .
—Dorothy Stratten
Vancouver, 1977
Louise was the first to tell us Dorothy had gone over to see Paul that morning. She let it slip around six in the evening. We were sitting in the kitchen and she must have read the worry in my eyes. She could not hold it back any longer. I was trying to be casual, but when I heard the words, an icy chill went through me.
'She said she was going over to Paul’s, but I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone.' And then Louise was afraid her sister would be angry with her, she said, for telling. She had been especially insistent that Louise not say anything to me.
The first thing I thought was that I had lost her to Paul. The second thought was that the first thought was ridiculous. Dorothy may have been irritated with me this morning, but there was too much between us for her to believe I had changed my mind. I had once or twice been slightly apprehensive that she might go to Snider out of compassion. She had a self-sacrificing nature. But in recent months she had certainly seen what kind of man he was.
I didn’t want Louise to worry. Dorothy hadn’t told her yet that she and I were lovers. I asked Louise to tell me what D.R. had said exactly, and she repeated go over and see Paul for a while,' but would return by 2:00 in the afternoon, 2:30 at the latest. 'Don’t say anything about the meeting with Paul,' especially, she said it a couple of times, to Peter.
That whole day I had a nagging, sickly feeling. The hours inched past, one second at a time, no call, no call, no call. Every minute the thought was there: Where was Dorothy? Was she all right? Was she unhappy? Why didn’t she call? There were phones everywhere—it wasn’t like D.R. not to call. Every minute the only thing I wanted in the world was for the phone to ring and to hear Dorothy’s voice. I heard it several times, in the back of my head: She was sorry, she had got stuck and couldn’t call—she’d be right home.
At the pool table I worried out loud. Blaine Novak was playing a round of eight ball with the girls. Our friendship had cooled since I had met Dorothy, but both of us were on our best behavior, hoping to have a pleasant summer. Novak was staying at the house with his new girlfriend, and his buddy Doug Dilge had moved to Los Angeles with his wife and child. He was usually at Copa de Oro too. It was before Louise had let her secret out that Blaine looked up from a pool shot, grinning: 'What’s the matter,' he said, 'you worried you’re never gonna see her again?'
Antonia picked up quickly on his note, 'Yeah, Dad—she’s not dead. I nodded quickly. I didn’t like her saying that, though I behaved as casually as I could. By then, Dorothy had been dead for more than four hours.
Later, at the kitchen sink, I asked Dilge if he had any idea where Dorothy might be. Doug had worked on the movie too, and although that morning he had surprised Dorothy on the kitchen phone, he would not tell me about it for another couple of hours. He figured she was talking to Snider. But, at the sink, he leaned over and the only thing he said was: 'Any girl I ever knew that didn’t show up when she said she would was out getting laid.'
I nodded vaguely and moved away. I had begun to think Dorothy had been so upset by our minor argument in the morning that perhaps she had had an accident in her car, or maybe she was driving around reconsidering her decision to live with me.
When Louise first told me about Dorothy’s secret appointment, I asked Linda to call Paul’s house, and if he answered, just politely give her name and say she was looking for Dorothy.
There was no answer at Snider’s. I thought at first they were out driving around, talking late at a restaurant—I had been
through enough emotional scenes to know they were sometimes difficult to cut short. But then Dorothy had been to see him less than a week earlier—and she had told me about that appointment long before she went. She had felt sorry for him. Maybe that was it—she felt sorrier for him now. Was she leaving me? The question was in Novak’s eye, and Dilge’s. Had she gone back? It didn’t make sense.
At around 7:00 in the evening, Novak offered to drive over to Snider’s house with Dilge to check out the situation. No, I said, that might make it more difficult for her at the moment. I saw the three girls to bed around 9:30. For the first time, my kids asked Louise to sleep with them in their room, and Toni even volunteered to take the floor. Perhaps everyone thought that if they behaved properly, Dorothy would be back by the time they woke up. Louise said she was really angry at Dorothy. She had promised to be home by 2:30 and she didn’t break her promises. She should have called. I kissed each of them several times—it was a nightly ritual—but I held on a little longer tonight.
Novak, Dilge, and I went to the other side of the house and watched television, trying to pretend nothing was wrong. I kept telling myself we would
hear from her any minute, but the phone didn’t ring. Sometime after 11:30, it finally did. My heart jumped and I smirked, reaching for the receiver. Novak nodded smugly, while Duge grinned and turned the TV down. But it was a man’s voice on the phone— Hefner’s. I recognized it immediately. When they heard he was calling, Novak and Dilge looked at each other.
I was still grinning. My tone was light when I asked how he was. His voice stayed quiet: 'Haven’t you heard?'
'No—heard what?'