The Actor's Guide To Murder

by Rick Copp

  “I don’t want to be a novelty act. I want to get hired because I’m a good actor.”

  “We’ve got heat, Jarrod. Let’s not waste it. Prove to the world you can act later. Now we won’t get a West Wing or Will and Grace off this, but I did hear from Mysteries and Scandals and TV Guide: The Truth Behind the Rumors. They both want to do pieces. I called Ricki’s people, and though she loved watching you when she was a kid, she doesn’t feel it would be appropriate to have you on the show.”

  “Why not?”

  “She’s got kids now. She’s worried about role models. Doesn’t want to glamorize your crimes by putting you on her show.”

  “Crimes? When did I commit more than one?”

  “The Globe is coming out with a story about some incident when you were eighteen and cracked up your car in a drunk driving accident.”

  “Yes. But it was the other driver who was drunk, not me.”

  “Like that matters. They’re a tabloid, for god’s sakes. I know this is tough, getting arrested and all . . .”

  “Yes. I’m sure you understand. You were arrested too!”

  “But I’m not a former child star. Nobody cares that I was there. They just said you were with ‘a platonic gal pal’. Nothing more.”

  I poured a third vodka. Laurette was usually more sensitive and supportive than this, but she was seeing an upswing in business, so there was no reasoning with her.

  “I really think we need to strategize,” Laurette said. “Go through the offers. See which ones make the most sense.”

  “None of them. I’m not going out on the talk shows as a circus sideshow. When you get a legitimate offer, call me.”

  “Jerry Springer isn’t legitimate?”

  “Listen, Laurette, I don’t want to talk about this anymore. I’ve had a tough day all around. It started with a hustler trying to drown me in a lap pool.”

  There was a long pause on the other end. I could actually hear Laurette processing this latest information.

  “Okay, got the headline. Now I want to hear the story.”

  “I called the guy in the ad.”

  “What ad? What are you talking about?”

  “The ad we found in Willard’s bedroom . . .”

  I heard the garage door open. Snickers began running in circles. Charlie was home.

  “Laurette, I have to go.”

  “Wait, you can’t just hang up.”

  I hung up just in time. Charlie walked in, gave me a careful, considered smile, then bent down as Snickers rolled over and spread her legs. He scratched her belly, and she closed her eyes, in complete ecstasy. I was jealous. I wanted my belly scratched, but I wasn’t sure where I stood with Charlie at the moment.

  He reached into his back pocket and pulled out some folded pages that had been stapled. We sized each other up for an awkward moment, both of us too stubborn to make the first move. Then, he stepped forward, took me in his arms, and whispered in my ear, “I love you.”

  That was all it took. I hugged him as tight as I could, so relieved we weren’t fighting anymore. There was a trust between us. No matter how bad things got, no matter how mad we left the other, there was enough love there to get us over the hurdles. And I knew I would be testing that love and trust again and again in the days to come. But right now, it was about my favorite part of being in a relationship. Making up. Damn. Why did I have to run out of the store without those baked ziti ingredients? Now I had nothing to show him how much I cared.

  “I brought a peace offering,” he said.

  He handed me the folded pages. I opened them to see an official looking document from police headquarters. It was Willard Ray Hornsby’s autopsy report.

  Chapter Ten

  There was only one person from whom Charlie could have gotten his hands on an autopsy report. And that was Susie Chan, his ex-wife. Susie worked in the L.A. Coroner’s Office, and was on a meteoric rise. I kept seeing her name pop up in the Times, as she seemed to be the first stop for the media whenever they needed a quote. A couple of high profile murder cases had thrust her into the spotlight, and Susie, ambitious by nature, basked in the attention.

  I tried to mask my jealousy of Susie. After all, Charlie had long proclaimed his preference for men. But still, they had dated for almost ten years and been married for two. There was a lot of history between them. And they had long put aside any hurt feelings and grudges, and occasionally met for dinner to discuss police work and their respective personal lives.

  I was never invited.

  It just about drove me mad. In Charlie’s mind, he believed it would make me feel uncomfortable. So I tried not to make an issue out of it. But I’m an actor; we make issues out of everything.

  “I didn’t know you were going to see Susie.”

  Charlie knew where I was going, and put an immediate stop to it. “I called her to get a copy of the report. For you. As a peace offering. End of story.”

  “I wasn’t making an issue out of it.”

  “Oh no. Not you.” I always enjoyed a little well-timed sarcasm, but never from my boyfriend. And the cross look on my face encouraged Charlie to choose another tack.

  He took my hands in his, looked me straight in the eye, and said, “I was just trying to do something nice. Because I love you and I’m sorry for what I said last night. So please, just take a look.”

  I opened the report and scanned the contents. Despite my beloved boyfriend’s claims he had secured a copy of Willard’s autopsy out of his blind devotion to me, this was clearly a maneuver designed to give himself the upper hand. Because as I perused the pages, Charlie was anxious for me to get to the report’s conclusion where at the bottom of the page, in bold black letters, blared the words, “Cause of Death: Drowning by accident.”

  When I started reading other parts of the report, he leaned over and pointed to it just in case I had missed it.

  “Look at that. According to Susie’s conclusions, Willard’s death was an accident after all.”

  “What does she know? She believed you were straight for twelve years.”

  Charlie didn’t like that one. But he decided to ignore it for the sake of the truce.

  He shrugged. “It was an accident, Jarrod. End of story.”

  Charlie always wanted to get to the end of the story. He made a habit of flipping to the last page of a mystery novel first to see who committed the crime. I preferred to prolong the drama, which again, speaks to my life as an actor. I always pored over every word, searching for any key detail that might shed some light on the characters and situation.

  There certainly were no bruises or contusions on Willard’s body, nothing to suggest a struggle of any kind. Maybe I was going overboard in my quest to turn his death into an Agatha Christie potboiler. Maybe he just did a Dick Van Dyke pratfall over a piece of lawn furniture and fell into the pool. But if he didn’t hit his head on the bottom, why did he drown? If he were conscious, he wouldn’t have just given up and swallowed all that water. And if he were suicidal, couldn’t he have just gulped a fist full of sleeping pills and chased it down with a Diet Coke?

  And what about Spiro and Eli? Both men were so determined for me to drop my inquiries, to be on my way, docile and satisfied by the police and coroner’s findings.

  Something in the report caught my eye. A small detail near the end of Susie’s findings. I looked up at Charlie.

  “It says here there were traces of soap found in Willard’s lungs.”

  “So?”

  “If he drowned in the pool, why would there be soap in his lungs?”

  “I don’t know, Jarrod. Maybe he washed his face earlier, and accidentally swallowed a few Irish Spring suds. Susie has to put everything she finds in the report. If she thought it was significant, she would have said so.”

  “Okay, you win.” I closed the report and handed it back to Charlie. He looked enormously relieved. I was finally giving up my career as a detective.

  By now, you know me well enough to surmise that I
was simply appeasing him for the moment.

  Charlie decided to take full advantage of the truce and backed me up against the kitchen counter. He pressed his body into mine. Then he kissed me sweetly on the lips.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “Uh huh.” Man, he was good when he tried.

  I grabbed the back of Charlie’s head and pulled him towards me. Our lips devoured each other, and he tore open the buttons on my shirt, and slipped his hand inside. He caressed my chest, and the nipples grew hard. Our hips clasped together like two magnets, and both of us could feel the other’s bulging excitement. I wrapped my arms around his neck as he worked my belt, unhooking it finally, and thrusting open my pants.

  He stopped long enough to pull off his t-shirt and I slid my hands down his back and stroked it with my fingers. This always drove him mad. No lovemaking session ever went by without him begging for me to scratch his back. All I could think about at the moment, however, was how I had clipped my nails that morning, so I didn’t have much traction. Still, he didn’t seem to notice as he lifted me up on the counter, yanked down my Joe Boxer undershorts, and took a pause before lunging down and burying his head in my lap. I threw my head back, banging it hard against the cupboards. It stung like hell, but the euphoric sensation down south dulled the pain.

  I opened my eyes long enough to see Snickers, lying a few feet away on her stomach, looking up at us with an innocent, sweet face. She never seemed to like watching her two daddies engage in such physical, animalistic behavior, but then again, she could never bring herself to leave the room either.

  I was getting close to climax. I clutched a fist full of Charlie’s hair as his head bobbed up and down, now at a frantic pace. Small, intense breaths escaped from my mouth.

  Yes. Yes. Yes.

  The phone rang. Neither of us stopped. We had both long put our priorities in order. Nothing could ever be more important than late-afternoon oral sex.

  The machine picked up. I heard my cheery voice say, “Hi, Jarrod and Charlie aren’t in right now . . .” Charlie’s voice took over. “So leave your name and number and we’ll call you back.” Right before the beep, Snickers barked on the tape. I remember wanting the whole family involved in the making of the outgoing message. Sometimes I scared myself with just how gay we could be.

  Charlie kept pumping right through the beep, and my short breaths had turned into glorious gratified moans. I was close. So close. Any second now I would explode with a flurry of fanfare.

  That was when Laurette’s sharp voice pierced the air. “It’s me. I can’t stand the suspense anymore. Why did the hustler try drowning you in a pool today? Call me.”

  Click.

  Charlie stopped, stood up, and wiped his mouth with his forearm. I leaned back, and banged my head against the cupboard again.

  Charlie’s eyes betrayed no sympathy. “What’s she talking about? What hustler?”

  “Oh, didn’t I mention that when you came in?”

  Charlie was in no mood for games. And I was so worked up from our spur-of-the-moment lovemaking session, I could scarcely catch my breath.

  I finally gave up and explained what had happened today at the house in Laurel Canyon. Charlie instantly scooped up the phone, called the station, and ordered a patrol car to pick up Eli. He was going to haul this kid’s ass downtown and shake him up a bit for trying to do away with his boyfriend. Charlie slammed down the phone, and headed for the garage.

  I still sat on the kitchen counter, my pants down around my knees, a numb expression on my face. “Aren’t we going to finish what we started?”

  Charlie turned and looked back at me. His face said it all, and it was a big fat no.

  I figured now that he was in a foul mood, it might be a good idea to share everything about my day. Pile it all on now and save potential grief later. “By the way, I’m on the cover of at least two tabloids today.”

  “I know. Two of the dispatchers were reading copies at lunch. It was hard to miss you.” It must have been embarrassing for Charlie. I couldn’t imagine the ribbing he took, but he never complained about it before, and he wasn’t about to start now.

  He opened the door to the garage, and stood there for a moment. “You coming?”

  I hopped down from the kitchen counter, and, frustrated, pulled my pants up and zipped the fly as I followed him out the door.

  Chapter Eleven

  By the time Charlie and I reached the station, Eli had already been apprehended, dragged downtown, and tossed inside an interrogation room with a two-way mirror. Say what you want about television’s portrayal of cops, but some of the details they never fail to get right. Charlie told me to wait outside as he charged into the room to confront my attacker.

  I stood there, feeling alone and vulnerable, pretending that the cops and desk sergeants and dispatchers weren’t stealing glances my way. A few smiled, recognition in their faces, either from watching me on TV or having just read about me in the tabloids. A few more looked, but there was no fondness or sense of nostalgia in their eyes. It was pure contempt. I was a living, breathing reminder that their fellow detective Charlie Peters was a “faggot.” The legacy of a Chief of Police during the eighties and early nineties, who was a notorious racist and homophobe, and whose militaristic, unfeeling approach to law enforcement had led to the riots of ’92 was still strong after all these years inside the L.A.P.D.

  I wandered over to the two-way mirror that looked into the interrogation room to hear the conversation between Charlie and Eli the tattooed hustler. There was a small, rusty speaker just below the glass that allowed me to listen in.

  I heard Charlie’s deep, commanding voice. “So you deny trying to drown Jarrod Jarvis?”

  “He was trespassing. I thought he was a burglar or something.”

  “He says you attacked him after he started asking questions about Willard Ray Hornsby.”

  “Look, I told him and I’ll tell you, I don’t know who that is.”

  “So when you thought Mr. Jarvis was a burglar, you still took the time to answer a few of his questions?”

  Eli paused. He wasn’t the brightest bulb in the chandelier by any stretch of the imagination.

  Charlie, in full Sipowicz mode now, yanked a photo out of his shirt pocket, and slapped it down on the table in front of Eli.

  “You sure you don’t recognize him? This may be your last chance to come clean.”

  It was obvious Eli hadn’t read even one of those acting books I saw on his coffee table. His performance was awful. “Oh, yeah, I remember him now. I’m not good with names, but faces, faces I know.”

  Charlie sat down, pulled his chair up close to Eli. “How do you know him?”

  “He was a client. I give massages.”

  “Just massages?”

  “Yes.”

  Charlie’s steely hazel eyes ripped into Eli, forcing him to shift in his chair and start to fidget. He looked away, and I could tell he was desperately trying to get his story in order. Charlie didn’t speak. He waited. And he would wait all night until Eli broke.

  “Sometimes I give a little more. It depends on what they’re willing to pay.”

  “And was Willard willing to pay for more?”

  Eli nodded. He knew he had just admitted to being a prostitute, and wanted to be careful not to completely incriminate himself, but again, this was no brain surgeon, and the longer he sat there, the more inclined he was to talk.

  Charlie could see that Eli was nervous, getting more restless, and just wanted to get the hell out of there. So he changed his demeanor, decided to play the good cop for a few minutes.

  “Can I get you something to drink, Eli? Water? Soda?”

  “No. Are you going to charge me with something?”

  “Well, if we wanted to, we sure could. You just confessed to receiving money for sexual favors, and then there’s the alleged attempted murder on Mr. Jarvis, but if you level with me, we might be able to work something out.”

  “I
wasn’t going to kill Mr. Jarvis, I just freaked out. He thought I had something to do with his friend’s murder.”

  “If you’re innocent, why would you go crazy like that?”

  “Because I know the cops. And they look at someone like me, and they figure, yeah, he’s the guy. The hustler was over at his house a couple of times. He had to have done it.”

  “Did you?”

  “No!”

  “But you did go over to his house?”

  “Yeah, sometimes he’d call . . . for a massage. I’d go over, give him what he wanted, and leave.”

  “What else can you tell me?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Are you into water sports, Eli?”

  Eli’s body tensed up. “No. Why would you ask me something like that?”

  “It just seems like an awfully big coincidence that Willard died face down in his lap pool, and you tried drowning Mr. Jarvis in your landlord’s pool just today.”

  “I didn’t kill Willard!”

  “When was the last time Willard called you?”

  “A week ago, maybe two. I don’t remember.”

  “Was it Friday, April 26?”

  “I said I don’t remember.”

  “Do you remember where you were that night?”

  Eli stopped. He wiped his runny nose with a bare forearm, and thought hard. Then a smile crept across his face and his eyes lit up.

  “Yeah, yeah, I remember where I was.”

  “Where?”

  “San Francisco. I have a friend up there. He’s got a bar in the Castro, and sometimes I go up there to dance.”

  “Dance?”

  “Yeah, on top of the bar, in front of a bunch of guys. They stuff dollar bills in my jockstrap if I shimmy a lot in front of them.”

  “Charming.”

  “Pays the bills. And I bet if you go up there, you’ll find plenty of old farts who were there that night. They’ll definitely remember me.”

  Charlie stood up, wandered over to the two-way mirror and stared out at me. He knew I was there, and the expression on his face told me he was tired. Tired of pursuing a murder case that for all we knew wasn’t even a murder. I had been with him long enough to know what was going through his mind.