The Actor's Guide To Adultery Read online

  Books by Rick Copp

  THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO MURDER

  THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO ADULTERY

  THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO GREED

  Published by Kensington Publishing Corporation

  THE ACTOR’S GUIDE TO ADULTERY

  Rick Copp

  KENSINGTON BOOKS

  www.kensingtonbooks.com

  All copyrighted material within is Attributor Protected.

  Table of Contents

  Books by Rick Copp

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Teaser chapter

  Copyright Page

  For Holly:

  Thank you for a lifetime of love and laughter.

  Acknowledgments

  Once again, without the unflagging support of my editor and friend John Scognamiglio, the adventures of Jarrod Jarvis would be stuffed in a drawer somewhere.

  I’d also like to thank my Writers’ Group for their keen eye to detail during the writing of this book: Dana Baratta, Melissa Rosenberg, Dan Greenberger, Rob Wright, Allison Gibson, Alexandra Cunningham, and of course Greg Stancl, who is a major fan of the genre.

  Thanks to Rob Simmons, Laurice and Chris Molinari, Joel Fields, Liz Friedman, Robert Waldron, Bennett Yellin, Marilyn Webber, Mark Greenhalgh, Lori Alley, Woody and Tuesdi Woodworth, Joe Dietl, Ben Zook, David A. Goodman, Patricia Hyland, Craig Thornton, Sharon Killoran, Laura Simandl, Susan Lally, Dara Boland, Liz Newman, Brian O’Keefe, Michael Byrne and Vincent Barra. I am blessed to have you all in my life.

  Thank you Yvette Abatte for your wonderful friendship and for your bang up job on the website. And thank you Todd Ransom for your tireless efforts to get the word out.

  My deepest gratitude to my parents Fred and Joan Clement and to Jessica, Megan, and Justin Simason for showing me how lucky I am each and every day. Also thank you to fellow mystery lover Nancy Schroeder for challenging me to come up with a better ending.

  Also to my crack team of William Morris agents—Jonathan Pecarsky, Ken Freimann, Lanny Noveck, Cori Wellins and Jim Engelhardt—to whom I am forever grateful.

  To Milan Rakic, thank you for bringing such joy to my life.

  And finally, Linda Steiner, you are a constant inspiration and I would be lost without you.

  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 Mayer 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 “innocent 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 ruddy and 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 rustling 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 rustling. 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 family’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 eye. 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.”

  This floored me. It downright knocked the wind out of me. Cappy Whitaker was an adorable moppet who hit the audition scene right about the same time I did. He had this cherubic face dotted with freckles, big twinkling brown eyes, and bright orange hair, and he made a lasting impression on the American public in a Disney adaptation of The Prince and the Pauper, which led to a situation comedy as Debbie Reynolds’s grandson. The show lasted six episodes, but Cappy’s TV Q rating was high enough to win him a memorable series of Kraft commercials, where he stood next to a ten-foot box of macaroni and cheese and wailed, “Hey, I’m supposed to be the big cheese!” The catch phrase caught on for a bit, and made the front of a few million T-shirts. It was bigger than that cute old lady screaming, “Where’s the Beef?!” for Wendy’s Hamburgers, but didn’t have the lasting impact of my very own “Baby, don’t even go there!” It did, however, become an instant footnote in eighties pop culture, and further endeared Cappy to the viewing public as well as Wendell Butterworth. He decided that Cappy, like me, was also his soul mate, and it was grossly unfair that they be kept apart. He staked out the apartment complex where Cappy lived with his grandmother, who was raising him after his alcoholic mother died in a drunken traffic accident. He made one botched attempt to snatch Cappy when his grandmother took him to the beach in Santa Monica one gloriously sunny Sunday afternoon, but he failed miserably when a gaggle of buff lifeguards beat him to a pulp when Cappy screamed for help. It caused quite a stir, landing the wholesome heroic hunks on the cover of People in their tight red swim trunks and holding life preservers. Some believe this story was the inspiration for the popular waves and babes show Baywatch. Days later, Wendell was quietly released for lack of evidence. He convinced authorities he was simply asking Cappy for directions to the Santa Monica Pier. That’s when Wendell turned his attention back toward me.

  I cleared my throat, gathered my thoughts, and addressed the three members of the parole board. “I can understand why Cappy Whitaker no longer believes this man poses a serious threat to society. He wasn’t attacked in his home while eating breakfast. Mr. Butterworth didn’t press a gun to his head at a traffic light and pull the trigger. I don’t mean to compare emotional scars here, but I believe my experience with Wendell Butterworth was far more harrowing and has haunted me a lot longer. I respect Mr. Whitaker’s opinion, but where is he? Why isn’t he here? Because he didn’t care enough to make the trip. I did.” I pointed a finger right at Wendell’s face. “Because this man is with me in my nightmares every time I go to sleep!”

  Finally I had gotten to them. The parole board
members sat in stunned silence. The corpulent one started making notes. The gray-haired lady stared at the floor. And the cute one, well, he looked at me with sympathetic eyes, and gave me an understanding nod. He opened his mouth to speak when suddenly a chirping sound pierced the air. Everybody sat up and looked around. Where was it coming from?

  I frowned, annoyed. It was obviously someone’s cell phone, and I was offended it had interrupted the impact of my speech.

  The gray-haired lady looked up at me. “Mr. Jarvis?”

  “Yes?”

  “I think it might be yours.”

  She was right. The aggravating chirping sound was coming from my back pants pocket. I had planned on leaving my cell phone in the car, but I was expecting a very important call from my manager/best friend Laurette Taylor. I had been cast in one of the lead roles in an NBC comedy pilot some months ago that insiders predicted would be sandwiched in between the network’s two biggest hits on Must-See Thursday. I played a lascivious massage therapist with designs on all the girls in a hip twenty-something apartment house. As a proud gay man in his early thirties, I had to congratulate myself on my ability to stretch as an actor. And the suits loved me. The networks were in the process of selecting their new series for the fall TV season. Laurette had promised to call me the minute she heard something. I checked the small screen on my cell phone. Sure enough, it was Laurette. I had to take the call. This could be one of those life-altering moments that could shift the entire trajectory of my career as an actor.

  I sheepishly looked up at the bemused parole board. Even the cute doctor wasn’t smiling anymore. “I’m sorry. I really have to take this.” There was an audible huff from the gray-haired lady as I hastily slipped out of the room.