Shooting for the Stars (7 page)

Chapter
11

T
HE
police said it happened this way: Abbie Kincaid was found shot to death in a room on the ninth floor of the New York Regent Hotel. That was the same hotel where Laura Marlowe had died some thirty years earlier. Abbie had checked into the hotel at about 7:15 p.m. on the night before her body was found. She appeared to have gone directly there after leaving the TV studio, since people there said they'd seen her until a little after 6:30 p.m. They said she told them she was going to do more research for the story. They assumed she'd gone to the Regent—the place where the actress had been murdered—to get the feel of the story.

She had made a series of phone calls from the hotel room. Most of them were to producers and other people at her show, talking about things she wanted to do the next day. One was to room service for a Caesar salad and a plate of fruit that was made at 8:46. That was the last time anyone heard from her.

Abbie's body was discovered the next morning when the maid let herself in to clean the room. The maid, who spoke very little English, had knocked on the door several times earlier, but had been reluctant to go in because she knew there was a celebrity staying there. When she finally did use her pass key to unlock the door, she discovered Abbie lying on the floor next to the bed in what the papers the next day described as “a pool of blood.”

The police said she had been shot three times, twice in the chest and once in the head, in what appeared to be a coup de grace to make sure she was dead. Nothing had been taken from the room, so police quickly ruled out robbery as a motive. They also said there was no evidence of any kind of forced entry. Abbie seemed to have let her killer into the room. The person was either was someone she knew or at least someone she felt wasn't dangerous.

The ballistics report on the gun said it was a .45. It appeared from the trajectory and other evidence in the room that the shooter had been standing only a few feet from her when the gun was fired, another indication that Abbie was probably unaware she was in any danger until it was too late. There were at least a dozen sets of fingerprints in the room, but they proved to be of no help. The ones that had been tracked so far belonged to hotel staff and the others were probably from previous guests. A preliminary medical examiner's report indicated that Abbie had died sometime between 10 p.m. and midnight. But no one heard any shots and no one saw anyone going into or leaving her room.

It turned into a media circus, of course. There were Page One headlines about Abbie's murder. Speculation about a connection to the story she'd just done about Laura Marlowe's death thirty years earlier. Biographies of her life and career. TV reenactments of her death, or at least the likeliest theories on how it happened. And lots of discussion about the price of fame for someone like Abbie Kincaid or Laura Marlowe in our society.

I was part of all this, of course. I did the first news story on the discovery of the body, covered all the press conferences on the status of the investigation, and attended the star-studded funeral they held for Abbie. I also wrote a bylined first-person piece about the time I had spent with her. Everyone told me it was one of the best things I've ever done. But I was doing it all on autopilot. The days were all a blur to me as I tried to deal with Abbie's sudden death.

The most traumatic moment happened when Stacy came up with the idea of me doing a live webcast on the
Daily News
website about my personal relationship with Abbie in the days before her death.

The paper's online audience would email or text or tweet me questions, I'd answer them onscreen for the website, and our internet traffic would soar, Stacy proclaimed proudly.

It didn't seem like that good an idea to me, just crass and sensationalistic. I wanted to be a real journalist, not some gimmick to boost net traffic or newspaper sales by exploiting my relationship with Abbie. But Stacy was insistent. She might not know much about journalism—but she sure as hell knew how to draw a big audience. And I was her star attraction, whether I liked it or not.

The webcast lasted for thirty minutes. I held up pretty well through most of it. I answered questions about Abbie's career, the murder investigation, and how I'd gotten to know her after the interview in her office—as well as a lot of other, straightforward material. But then, just before the end, someone asked me this question: “What will you remember most about Abbie Kincaid?” And all I could think of was that last night at my apartment when she'd come to me in tears, buried her head against my chest, and said, “I just want to feel safe with someone.” I teared up as I tried to give an answer; my voice broke with emotion, and I dabbed at my eyes on camera as I tried to regain my composure. Somehow I made it to the end of the webcast.

Afterward, Stacy was ecstatic.

“That was terrific, Gil. We set all kinds of new traffic records with it. Maybe we should do another webcast with you tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow?”

“Hell, we can keep doing them all week if there's that much interest out there in the Abbie Kincaid murder.”

“I'm sorry about that bit at the end,” I said.

“What do you mean?”

“Stacy, I almost cried on camera.”

“That was the best part.”

“I thought you'd be upset.”

“Upset? That video with you wiping tears out of your eyes is already going viral on social media. It was incredibly compelling. You showed real emotion to them. You opened up your heart, you opened up your feelings, and they loved it all.”

“Uh, well, I'm glad I was able to put on a good show.”

“I just have one request if we do another webcast tomorrow.”

“What's that, Stacy?”

“Do you think you can cry on camera like that again?”

One night, not long after Abbie was killed, I went back to the coffee shop in Greenwich Village where we'd eaten dinner together that first night. I sat there for a long time, looking at the waitresses and wondering if any of them would ever wind up like Abbie. I tried to imagine Abbie waiting on tables and dreaming of becoming a big star someday. I wondered what would have happened if she hadn't made it big. What if she'd just kept working as a waitress? What if she'd gone back to Wisconsin? What if she'd stayed married to her husband back there? She probably wouldn't be too happy, but she might still be alive.

At some point, I came up with a wild theory that maybe Abbie wasn't really dead. That it could all be a publicity stunt. I mean I thought about what a great ratings bonanza it would be if she had faked her own death. Then Abbie would show up a week or a month later—and say it was all a case of mistaken identity. Claim she had amnesia or was working undercover on a big story or was out of the country—and the girl in the hotel room was really somebody that just looked like her. I actually convinced myself it might be true for a few minutes.

But, of course, it wasn't.

Abbie was dead. There was no doubt about that. She'd been identified by the people she worked with, the medical examiner's office had matched her fingerprints and dental records, and I'd even seen the autopsy photos. They showed Abbie's body, lying on a metal slab in the New York City morgue, with her eyes staring blankly out at me.

I wondered what she thought about during those last few seconds before she was murdered. Was she scared? Was she surprised? Did her life flash before her eyes? Did she think about her television career or working at a Dairy Queen in Wisconsin or maybe even eating pizza with me at my apartment that one night?

I didn't know the answers to any of these questions, and I never would. What I did know about Abbie was this: she'd dug up long-buried secrets about a thirty-year-old celebrity murder case. She'd dumped a boyfriend who was the son of a top underworld boss. And she'd revealed things about her ex-husband on national television that cost him his job, his family, and his reputation.

Abbie Kincaid had done a lot of things to get a lot of people mad at her. Mad enough that she carried a gun for protection. And one of those had gotten her killed.

Chapter
12

I
WANT
to do the story,” I said to Stacy Albright.

“Of course you do. The search for Abbie Kincaid's killer.”

I shook my head no.

“The police are all over that. So is every other reporter in town. I'm not sure how much I could do that everybody else isn't already doing. There are plenty of reporters at this paper who can cover the day-to-day investigation story on the Abbie Kincaid murder. It doesn't have to be me.”

“Then what story are you talking about?”

“Laura Marlowe,” I said.

She didn't understand at first what I meant.

“There was a lot of stuff going on in Laura Marlowe's life before she died,” I said. “I'm not sure if any of it had anything to do with Abbie's murder, but Abbie seemed obsessed with the story. She also told me there was stuff she'd found out she hadn't told anybody yet. Maybe this had something to do with her death, maybe it didn't. But I want to find out the truth about Laura Marlowe.”

Stacy still wasn't convinced. But I had come prepared to make my argument with the kind of ammunition I knew would work on her.

“Since the day Abbie Kincaid first broke the news about the real Laura Marlowe killer never being caught, ‘Laura Marlowe'
has become the highest trending item on social media. Along with ‘
Lucky Lady
,' ‘
The Langley Caper
,' and ‘
Once Upon a Time Forever
'—her three movie titles. My article about
The Prime Time Files
disclosures—plus the speculation about what might come next—produced enough traffic to nearly double our web audience in the days right after Abbie's broadcast. Laura Marlowe became a hot item again. And she still is. Maybe more than ever if I can somehow solve the thirty-year-old unsolved murder of one of Hollywood's most legendary and tragic young stars.”

“And if it turns out to be related to the Abbie Kincaid murder . . .”

“Then it's an even better story.”

She nodded. I had her now. I figured the traffic numbers would do it.

“I like it, Gil. I like it a lot. I just assumed you'd want to be the lead reporter on the Abbie story since you had a personal relationship with her at the end . . .”

“I can't do anything to bring Abbie back. What I can do is honor her memory in the best way I know how. I'm going to finish the Laura Marlowe story for her.”

PART TWO

TRUTH OR MYTH?

THE LAURA MARLOWE STORY

Chapter
13

I
CALLED
Susan, my ex-wife, at the DA's office. This time she picked up.

“We need to talk,” I said.

“There's nothing more to say, Gil.”

“This isn't about us or the guy in your apartment.”

“What do you want to discuss then?”

“I need your help on a story.”

“The Abbie Kincaid murder?”

“For one.”

“What else?”

“The Laura Marlowe case.”

There was a silence at the other end.

“Even if I could help you, why should I?”

“For old times' sake,” I said. “For all the love we used to have for each other . . . one last thing you can do for me in honor of the marriage vows we once said . . .”

“Jeez, you'll do anything to get a story, won't you?”

“Have we met?”

An hour later, I was in her office at Foley Square. She was the deputy district attorney for Manhattan now. She'd moved up when
the previous DA resigned and was being touted as possibly the next DA.

It was a corner office with a nice view, the kind of office someone got who was on the way up. She had given me a perfunctory hug as I walked in, then sat behind her big desk and looked at me impassively. As if I was just another appointment on her schedule.

She looked good. Her hair was pulled up in back, and she wore a snug-fitting power suit that hugged her body and must have had guys in the office sneaking peeks every time she walked by. That had all been mine once. And then I let her get away. So being there, sitting in front of her desk, and seeing how great her life was without me was the last thing in the world I wanted to do. But like she said on the phone, I'll do anything for a story.

“So who was the guy in your apartment?” I asked.

“Gil, I thought we weren't going to do this.”

“I figured we'd get it out of the way first and then move on to business.”

“His name is Michael Garrison.”

“What does he do?”

“He's a lawyer.”

“Gee, that's original.”

She sighed.

“What kind of lawyer?” I asked.

“An estate lawyer.”

“Is it serious?”

“What do you mean by serious?”

“How much time do you spend with him?”

“Well, Michael and I are living together.”

“That's serious,” I said.

There was an awkward silence.

“Do you know the difference between an estate lawyer and a prostitute?” I said.

“Gil . . .”

“A prostitute stops screwing you after you're dead.”

Susan didn't laugh. Instead, she just started telling me what the DA's office knew about the Abbie Kincaid murder investigation. No nonsense, all business. Probably why she got the corner office.

“They're looking at Tommy Rizzo. Also at the ex-husband, who showed up from Wisconsin and started harassing her recently. He apparently was still really upset about all the things she said about him on television. He barged into the studio one day and made a big scene. The security people had to kick him out. They're also still checking out all the threatening notes she got to see if it could have been some kind of obsessed fan.”

“What about Vincent, the big security guard, and the executive producer, Gary Lang? Are they suspects?”

“Now why would either of them want to kill her?”

“I don't know. I just don't like them. So I hoped they might be suspects.”

Eventually we got around to Laura Marlowe. Susan said the cops had technically reopened the case based on Abbie's new evidence, but they were focusing mostly on Abbie's murder. Of course, they were also pursuing the possibility that the two crimes were somehow linked. But the most prevalent theory was that the thirty-year-old Laura Marlowe murder case had nothing to do with Abbie's death. The cops were looking at Abbie as a crime of passion.

“Do you think anyone will ever figure out who killed Laura Marlowe?” I asked.

“Doubtful.”

“Why?”

“Because it happened thirty friggin' years ago.”

“There's no statute of limitations on murder,” I reminded her.

“Let me tell you something,” she said. “Most murders are
solved within the first week after they happen. By the second week, that percentage goes down dramatically. By the third week, even more. Once a murder case has been worked on for much longer than that, it goes to the back burner. No law enforcement agency ever officially closes a murder case without an arrest, but the odds of solving it becoming pretty astronomical at that point. When we do catch someone for a decades-old murder, it's generally because the killer screwed up somehow and gave themselves away. And a celebrity cold case like this is even worse because you have the public spotlight on you. You have to be very careful what you say and who you talk to. Take my word for it—it's almost impossible to ever solve a celebrity cold case.”

“So do you guys ever catch anyone?” I asked.

Susan made a face. I could tell there was something bothering her about the Laura Marlowe case. I asked her what it was.

“Well, it's not just that the Laura Marlowe case is so old and that she was so famous,” she said. “There's something else about it that just doesn't feel right.”

“What do you mean?”

“It seems sloppy. The guy gets a traffic ticket on Long Island at the same time she was killed. How come somebody didn't figure that out back then? I know they didn't have all the high-tech systems we do now, but they still checked things out. Everyone seemed to be in such a rush to wrap up this case in a hurry. That bothers me.”

“Do you think somebody was trying to cover something up?”

“Maybe not deliberately.”

“Then what?”

“It was a high-profile case. Those cops were under a lot of pressure and public scrutiny. Everyone wanted a quick arrest. So I think when this guy Janson, who looked like the killer, turned up dead in the hotel, well . . . they didn't ask a lot of the questions
they should have. They went with the flow. They took the easiest route. Everybody talked themselves into believing Janson really did it. So they declared the case solved, closed the books on it, and everybody was happy. I mean they thought they had the right guy. We all did. Until now.”

“Did you ever talk to any of the cops who were involved in the investigation?”

“No, most of them are either dead or retired.”

“How about Erlich, the one who went on TV to talk about it?”

“I heard he's got an agent now. They're negotiating a book deal about Erlich's role in the case. He's going to make big money off this. Can you believe that? It's like hitting the lottery for him.”

I nodded.

“I need a favor,” I told her.

“What a surprise.”

“I want to see the Laura Marlowe murder file.”

“You're kidding, right? That's an official police document. It's not available to the press or the public.”

“I understand.”

“It's against the rules for me to let anyone show it to you.”

“That's why it's called a favor,” I smiled.

Nothing is ever what it seems to be.

For thirty years, the legend of what happened to Laura Marlowe on the night she died had endured and grown until it achieved nearly mythical proportions.

Everyone thought they knew what happened. Only twenty-two years old and already one of the biggest stars in America, Laura Marlowe stopped to sign an autograph for a fan outside of the Regent Hotel on Fifth Avenue in New York City. The fan shot and killed her in front of a horrified group of people—including her
husband, then fled down the street with witnesses yelling for someone to stop him. He was identified afterward as Ray Janson, who had been stalking the actress for days around the Regent—trying to get a glimpse of her and talk to her and give her presents. A few days later, in an apparent fit of despondency over what he'd done, Janson killed himself in a Times Square hotel after writing a final love note which ended with the phrase: “Tell Laura I love her.”

It was a great story. It had everything. Glamour. Drama. Tragedy. Unrequited love. The only problem was that a lot of it wasn't true.

The official police file that I eventually convinced Susan to let me read said it happened like this:

On the night of the murder, Laura Marlowe dined at the Four Seasons restaurant with her husband from 6:15 to 8 p.m. Then they went to the party for
Once Upon a Time Forever
. The details got a bit sketchy after that. According to the story I'd always heard, she left the party about ten with her husband, returned to the Regent, and was shot when she stopped to sign an autograph for her killer. But that wasn't what the report said. According to this version, Laura disappeared from the party sometime around nine. Which meant her husband spent at least an hour there without her. Edward Holloway eventually returned to the hotel to look for Laura, where he discovered she'd just been shot. The story of Holloway looking on in horror as his wife was gunned down in front of him appeared to be one of those urban legends that people just began to accept as fact after hearing it enough times.

The shooting scene was confusing too. Despite many subsequent claims from people that they had seen Ray Janson shoot Laura, the police were able to find no actual witnesses to the crime. Various stories about the killer saying “I love you, Laura” or kissing her or leaving flowers by her body all seemed to be bunk too. All anyone knew is that people heard a gunshot at about 10:15 p.m.
Lots of people started converging on the scene then, and witnesses told of the heartbreaking sight of Edward Holloway cradling his wife in his arms and crying as he tried to talk to her. The first ambulance arrived shortly afterward. The medical people worked feverishly on her, thought at first she might survive, and took her to Roosevelt Hospital—where she was pronounced dead on arrival at 11:15 p.m. The cause of death was a gunshot wound to the head.

Even the location of the shooting was different. I'd always assumed she'd been shot right in front of the Regent. But the body was found in an alley alongside the hotel. There was no explanation of why she was in the alley. Did the killer force her there? Or did she know her killer and go with him willingly? No matter how you looked at it, it didn't make sense that she'd died in an alley.

There was another interesting detail. The report noted that neither Laura's mother nor husband were at the hospital where she died. The mother was on a cruise ship with fans promoting a line of Laura Marlowe fashions. She couldn't be reached right away at the time of the tragedy. The husband had collapsed at the shooting scene and was apparently still back at the Regent Hotel. One of the people at the hospital was David Valentine, who identified himself as Laura's father. Also at the hospital that night was Sherry DeConde, Laura's first agent. I remembered Abbie telling me about her and how big a role she'd played in Laura's early life before she became a big star. Laura's mother had fired her just as Laura's career was breaking wide open. According to the report, Valentine and DeConde had both shown up at the scene around the time of the shooting. I wrote David Valentine and Sherry ­DeConde's names down in my notebook.

Laura's body was quickly cremated after her death, and there was no public burial service. This helped fuel the rumors that maybe she wasn't really dead and somebody was trying to hide something. But this appears to have all been based on speculation,
not fact. Laura's mother was quoted in one article as saying that the family thought it was best to avoid the spectacle of a public funeral—that Laura “had been enough of a public spectacle in her life; we simply wanted her death to be marked with some privacy and dignity.” The investigation itself seemed to have been conducted by the Manhattan North homicide squad. The lead investigator was Lt. Jack McPhee. The other two cops were Detectives Luther Wiggins and Bill Erlich, the one from Abbie's TV show. Their conclusion was a simple one. Ray Janson had shot and killed Laura Marlowe because of some sort of deluded love obsession he had about her, then committed suicide a few days later over what he'd done. According to people who knew him, Janson had slipped into some sort of fantasy world about Laura Marlowe, telling people she was his girlfriend, they were going to get married, and that she would have his babies. At first, everyone thought it was just a joke. Then they began to realize how obsessed he'd become over the actress. He told them he'd prove how much Laura loved him. He said they'd read about it in the paper someday soon. So it was an easy leap for the cops to conclude he'd been the shooter. I wrote the cops' names down too.

At least a half-dozen witnesses had seen Janson hanging around the Regent Hotel lobby waiting for the actress during the days leading up to the shooting. He was positively identified at various times by the bellhop, the desk clerk, and a hotel detective. There was no question he was stalking her. But no one could ever definitely put him at the hotel at the time of the murder.

His suicide seemed pretty clear cut too, at least back then. Two days after Laura's murder, Janson checked into the Armitage Hotel, a cheap place in Times Square. He went up to his room, locked the door, and—as near as anyone can figure—hung himself in despair over Laura's death.

The cops put it together pretty quickly, especially after finding
the suicide note at the scene he'd written to Laura Marlowe. It did not say “Tell Laura I love her.” That phrase—from the tear-jerker song of the early '60s—seemed to have been the product of the imagination of an overzealous reporter trying for a big scoop. But it talked about his undying love for her and concluded by saying: “Laura, we were meant to be together . . . now we will be together forever.”

It all seemed so simple to the cops back then. Now, of course, there was a whole different story—and a lot more questions.