The Actor's Guide To Murder

by Rick Copp

  “Fine. We bought the policy. My husband’s retirement pension wasn’t covering our monthly expenses, so we decided to find a way to make some quick and easy investments. Our agent at Grand Future suggested buying Mr. Hornsby’s policy. We didn’t see anything wrong with it. He needed the money and we wanted to earn more on what little we had.”

  She reached down and picked up the crackers off the floor and put them back on her plate.

  “It was awful,” she said. “Mr. Hornsby got better, and we were broke. The agent assured us he wasn’t going to live to see Christmas. But he did, and several more after that. We had no way to pay the taxes on the house or any of our bills. The stress got to be so much it finally killed Harry. Sad thing is, my situation improved once I got Harry’s life insurance. I didn’t need Mr. Hornsby’s policy anymore.”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t send him the on-line greeting card?”

  She shook her head. “Frankly, I forgot all about him.”

  “Mrs. Phelan, the fact is the card came from your computer. Sooner or later, you’re going to have to explain that, and I’m afraid it might have to be to the police.”

  This shook her up a bit. She didn’t want to go to jail. There would be no guarantee of a television set. She’d miss Jerry and Judge Judy and Montel and all her beloved friends. “I’m seventy-six years old. And I have a heart condition. How could I hurt anybody?”

  “You could’ve had somebody do it for you.”

  “But I told you, I didn’t need the money anymore. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “Then who did need the money?”

  She was pleading with me now. Her aggressive attitude melted away as I continued to back her into a corner. I was afraid to push her too hard now that she had mentioned a heart condition, but I wasn’t leaving without her giving me something.

  “I don’t know,” she wailed. “Please, just leave me alone.”

  “If not you, then who else would benefit from that policy?”

  She froze. Something dawned on her. “No. He’s a good boy. He would never . . .”

  “Who, Mrs. Phelan?”

  “Nobody. He’s not involved.”

  “Would you rather tell the cops? I have enough evidence already for them to haul you downtown for questioning. It could take hours. You’ll never get back in time for the rest of your talk shows.”

  She heaved another sigh. The plate shook as her hand trembled. “Theodore. He’s my only grandchild. His parents are gone. So when I go, he gets everything, including the policy. But I’m telling you, Teddy had nothing to do with whatever happened to Mr. Hornsby.”

  “When was the last time he was here for a visit?”

  “It’s been weeks. He’s very busy, always working.”

  “How many weeks?”

  “I’m not sure. He hardly ever comes around anymore. He was here once about five or six weeks ago, but I was at the grocery store. He left a note.”

  “Six weeks. Right around the time Willard got that greeting card.”

  “It’s not him. I promise.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “I don’t know where he lives.”

  “You don’t have your only grandson’s address?”

  “No. He lives somewhere in Hollywood. I told you, I rarely see him anymore. He calls every once and a while to check up on me, but he’s stopped coming around.”

  She was shutting down on me. She had shifted into protection mode. Her own suspicions of Theodore were rising, and she wasn’t going to exacerbate his situation by telling me too much.

  She was back to playing the frail old lady. “Please, I haven’t taken my medicine. I’m feeling very weak. Could you just go?”

  “All right, Mrs. Phelan, I’ll leave now. But if Theodore does get in touch with you, I’d appreciate it if you called me.” I knew she wouldn’t. I just had to say it.

  “I will,” she lied and closed the door. I heard three bolts snap into place. I had startled her to the point where she would probably never answer the door for anybody again.

  As I walked back to the Beamer, I knew I had it. My body pumped with adrenaline. After weeks of pounding the pavement, asking questions, alienating strangers and friends, there was finally an end in sight. Theodore wanted that money, and he wanted it bad enough to kill for it. All I needed now was for Charlie to pick him up, and squeeze a confession out of him. The only problem was, I had no idea where to find Mrs. Phelan’s grandson. I wasn’t even sure if Phelan was his last name. And there was no way in hell Gladys Phelan was going to tell me what it was.

  I drove up Beachwood Canyon towards home, and was surprised as I turned the last corner to see Isis, my trusty Egyptian psychic, sitting on the stone steps leading up to my front door. She looked pensive, a floral print shawl wrapped tightly around her shoulders. She waved when she saw me, but there was no smile on her face. I swung the car to the curb, and jumped out to greet her.

  “Isis, how did you get up here? You don’t have a car.”

  “I took the bus.”

  “Must be important for you to endure public transportation.”

  “It is. Can we go inside?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Snickers was jumping up and down inside, trying to get a good look out the window at who was with me. I opened the door and escorted Isis inside. Snickers, excited over my arrival and a new visitor, wasted no time sniffing us both up and down.

  Isis made a beeline for the couch, and sunk into it. She folded her arms and stared straight ahead.

  “Can I get you something to drink?” I said.

  “No, I’m fine.”

  I could have used a stiff drink. Isis was making me very nervous. I picked up Snickers in my arms and sat down beside her. She stared off into space for a few more moments, and then shifted her body so she could look at me.

  “I had to come,” Isis said. “I had a dream last night. A very disturbing dream.”

  “What? What? Am I going to get hit by a bus?”

  “No. Of course not.”

  I chuckled, a little relieved.

  “But you are in extreme danger,” she said.

  The smile was gone from my face in an instant. I figured if Isis was making a house call and even took a bus to get here, it had to be bad.

  “What kind of danger?” I said.

  She took a deep breath, and held my hand. “Someone is going to attack you. Someone desperately wants you to hurry up and cross over . . .”

  “Cross over? You mean . . . ?”

  “Dead. Someone wants you gone from this world already. Buried. A memory. There’s no putting it delicately.”

  “In my last reading you said someone I knew was going to be murdered. Is it me? After all, I know myself pretty well.”

  “No. That prediction has already come to pass.”

  Willard.

  “This is different,” she said as she rocked back and forth, eyes shut tight.

  “Did you see who it was?”

  “No.”

  “Well, can you tell me if it a man or a woman?”

  “I don’t see gender. Just spirits. And this is a spirit you don’t want to mess with, believe me.”

  “Someone’s already attacked me right here in my own home. Is it the same person?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Do you know when this person plans on doing it? Or how?”

  Isis solemnly shook her head. “There’s a dark energy around you, Jarrod. You must proceed with caution.”

  I stopped breathing. Even Snickers stopped breathing. We just took this grave news in. I wasn’t sure how to process it. I already knew there was someone out there who tried to kill me. But when you have a psychic sitting in your living room saying this person is going to keep trying until he gets it right, it’s downright chilling.

  “You have to tell me more, Isis,” I said urgently. “What else do you see?”

  Psychic visions are never black and white. Isis was trying hard
to describe what she was seeing, but other than a vague warning, she couldn’t muster many specifics.

  “Is it Teddy?”

  “No,” she answered. “I’m sure it isn’t someone named Teddy.”

  If Gladys Phelan’s grandson didn’t yet know I was close to exposing him, then it would explain why he wasn’t concerned with bumping me off yet. But that was little consolation at this point. Isis was a good psychic, and she saw I had an enemy who wanted me dead today. There was only one other person whose name popped into my head.

  “What about Spiro?”

  Isis convulsed. Her whole body shook, and she gripped the arm of the couch to keep herself upright. Snickers leapt off my lap, and scampered across the room, taking cover underneath the piano bench.

  I grasped Isis’s hand and held it tight. “It’s Spiro, isn’t it?”

  “It could be him. He has a very dark energy.”

  “But Spiro has an alibi the night I was attacked.”

  “I know. But he wishes you weren’t around. And it is possible that he could take dramatic steps to insure that you won’t be.”

  “But if it’s not him, then who?”

  “I’m not sure. But you’re fighting for your life. I wish I knew the outcome . . . Just be careful, please, my friend, be very careful.”

  I wish I could say Isis’s batting average wasn’t very good. But with me, she was usually dead on, which absolutely scared the living hell out of me.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  I knew in order to find Gladys Phelan’s grandson, I had to get a hold of a picture. And to do that would mean breaking into her house and stealing one. I had already been arrested once for breaking and entering in the last month. If I tried it again, not only would it mean another splash on the front page of the tabloids, but also the certain end of my relationship with Charlie. He had put up with a lot from me in the weeks following Willard’s death and his tolerance was waning faster than Pat Robertson at a Gay Pride March.

  Still, when Charlie arrived home amidst much fanfare from Snickers and me, I filled him in on my day’s activities and the progress of my ongoing investigation, hoping he might volunteer to secure a search warrant and get a picture from the old lady himself. He didn’t volunteer anything. After a hard day of tracking a gang of gun toting bank robbers, Charlie simply wanted to go to sleep.

  I followed him down to the bedroom, and watched him toss off his shirt, wriggle out of his pants, and collapse on the bed in his underwear. He was on his stomach. I crawled on the bed, and gently lowered myself on top of him, nuzzling the back of his neck.

  I whispered in his ear, “I love you.”

  He grunted a reply. I couldn’t make out what it was, so I just assumed it was “I love you too.”

  I debated telling him about Isis’s visit. I knew that would get him up on his feet and on the phone to his cohorts downtown, but I decided against it. He was exhausted, and it was time I stopped relying on his patience, his job, his ex-wife, and most importantly, his love for me to see this through. My life as a child star encouraged me to count on others to do everything for me. For the five years I was on a weekly prime time sitcom, adults ran around catering to my every whim—a soda, a sandwich, a script draft, a puzzle, a back rub, a new toy—whatever little Jarrod Jarvis wanted. Even when the fame had faded, I surrounded myself with people willing to indulge me. And Charlie, my beloved Charlie, despite his protests to the contrary, was there to make me happy as well. And he did a damn fine job of it. Like nobody else could.

  No, I was not going to ask him for a search warrant, nor was I going to worry him by spilling the sordid details of Isis’s prediction. This was my problem, not his. And whatever fallout came from it was mine and mine alone to handle. I wasn’t going to just sit here waiting for Spiro or Theodore or whoever to try and take me out again. I was going to go on the offensive. Spiro seemed to have an alibi every time something bad happened. So if I wanted to prove he was involved in Willard’s death, the attack on me, or even the JFK assassination, then I had to tail him, every moment of every day. That would be the only way I could prove he was a lying scoundrel.

  I slowly lifted myself off Charlie and padded out of the room, leaving him to snore softly into the pillow.

  I staked out Tamara and Spiro’s Bel Air home for six hours before a neighborhood patrol car stopped to ask what I was doing there. I never understood these guys. They’re not trained in crime fighting, they’re allowed to carry a gun, and they honestly believe they’re entitled to intimidate non-residents. I’ve always thought they were much more of a menace than the thieves they’re supposed to protect the rich folks from, and this dirt bag was no different. He pulled up behind my car in his white patrol car, his headlights on high beam, presumably to confuse and disorient me enough for him to gain control of the situation. He swaggered up to my window, which I dutifully opened with the press of a button.

  He was young, probably twenty-eight, with a cropped haircut and bulging muscles. He looked good in his dull gray patrol uniform and knew it. I would have bet he had the shirt custom cut to fit his sculpted frame.

  “Mind telling me why you’re parked here?” he said in a flat Southern California laid-back voice.

  I had already grabbed my trusty Thomas Guide, and was flipping through the pages of local maps as I feigned annoyance. “Am I anywhere near the La Brea Tar Pits?”

  “Nope. This is Bel Air. You’re north west of the Tar Pits. ’Bout a twenty minute drive.”

  “Seems everything in L.A. is a twenty minute drive.”

  He didn’t crack a smile. What a surprise. “It’s five-thirty in the morning. What are you doing sight-seeing so early?”

  He had a point. It never dawned on me that he would come out with an intelligent thought. I wasn’t prepared for it.

  “I want to beat the crowds.” It was lame and we both knew it.

  “Is this a rental?” he said as he inspected the Beamer.

  “No. I’m visiting a friend. Out from Alabama.” I added a twinge of a Southern accent at this point to add credence to my cover. He didn’t seem to notice that I had no accent before I said I was from Alabama.

  “What’s your friend’s name?”

  “Charlie. Detective Charlie Peters. Works downtown. We’re old college buddies.”

  I may not have been willing to ask Charlie for any more help, but I certainly wasn’t above using his name if the situation warranted it.

  “Got his number right here if you want to call,” I offered.

  He stared a long time, sizing me up. I looked harmless enough. And he knew he could take me in a fight, which gave him peace of mind.

  “No. That’s okay. I believe you.” He had no idea who I was. He probably never watched Go To Your Room! Too busy pumping iron. I was relieved and hated him for it at the same time.

  “What you want to do is go back down to Sunset, make a left, take Sunset east, all the way to West Hollywood . . .”

  He couldn’t have picked a worse time to be helpful. It was at that moment the gate separating the world from Tamara’s Bel Air mansion swung open, and a snappy red Jaguar sped out. I caught a glimpse of a yawning Spiro behind the wheel as he zipped past me and the droning neighborhood patrol watchman.

  “Then you’ll want to make a right on Fairfax, which is just past the Virgin Megastore, take that down to Wilshire . . .”

  “Thanks,” I chirped as I jammed the car into gear and roared away. He wasn’t finished but there was no time for pleasantries. Spiro was already half-way down the hill towards Sunset Boulevard.

  I jerked the wheel to loop around the bends of Bel Air in a desperate effort to catch up with the Jaguar. The tires on the Beamer squealed as if I were in the opening credits sequence of Starsky and Hutch.

  Luckily it was early enough that there were very few cars on the road. Once I hit the traffic light at Sunset, I sighed with relief as I saw the Jaguar turn left towards Beverly Hills.

  I jerked the wheel again and
kept it steady as the Beamer screeched around the grass divider in the middle of the boulevard and tore off after the Jaguar. I tailed it for a few more miles past the Beverly Hills Hotel and finally into West Hollywood.

  You always know you’re leaving Beverly Hills when the immaculate floral foliage abruptly vanishes in favor of an urban enclave of nightclubs and oversized billboards trumpeting the latest Hollywood movie releases. It was going on six a.m. I pulled over to the curb as Spiro turned the Jaguar into a Starbuck’s and got out.

  He was wearing a tight green tank top and shorts. He disappeared inside and emerged a few minutes later with a container of piping hot coffee.

  He hopped back into the Jaguar, and drove further east, pulling into the large Virgin Megastore complex, which housed not only the massive two level record shop, but also a Wolfgang Puck restaurant, clothing store, day spa, and the always busy Crunch Fitness Center. I knew from Spiro’s attire that he was bound for the gym.

  I parked one level down from him to avoid being spotted, and then took the elevator to the top level of the complex and the entrance to Crunch.

  I wasn’t a member of the gym, so I gave Althea, the stunning African-American female receptionist with her perky smile and even perkier breasts, a song and dance about how much all my friends just adored Crunch, and it was high time I considered switching from Gold’s. Gold’s was their chief competitor, so I knew she would be more than happy to accommodate me.

  After signing over a guest pass, she gave me a quick rundown of the facilities. She was so chatty and thorough, I started to fear Spiro would finish and head back to Bel Air before I even had a chance to find him. I heard about the Yoga classes, the hip-hop classes, the personal trainer programs, the state-of-the-art machines, and the steam room. She was a walking brochure. I could never tell if people in Los Angeles really loved their jobs or were just programmed to always be enthusiastic and helpful.

  When she finally reached the conclusion of her memorized presentation, she offered to hook me up with one of their on staff trainers. I politely declined, explaining how I was a pro at using all the machines and would just check out the place on my own. Althea flashed me one more winning smile, and then retreated back behind the counter to greet more newcomers.