Crime Wave

12/7/63:

A “Script Supervisor” calls Sheriff’s Homicide. An actress friend got a weird phone call. A guy said, “You know what happened to Karyn, and you are going to be next.”

The actress used to date Andy Prine. Her current squeeze knew Andy and Karyn.

Chapman and Wahike braced the squeeze. He said he met Karyn in ’61. He said he got popped for shoplifting once.

He stole some Ex-Lax at a Thrifty Drugstore. He didn’t mean to steal it. He didn’t want to buy the shit from a lady clerk. Chapman and Wahike wrote him off as a nut.

Hallinen and Collins got a tip. A snitch snitched off an actor named Rick Bache.

Bache killed himself on 11/30. Dig it. It might tie in to the Kupcinet snuff.

They checked it out. It was straight out of Lolita.

Rick Bache was hot for a 15-year-old-girl. He wanted to marry her. Her mother disapproved. Bache offed himself. Hallinen and Collins braced his friends. They all said he never knew Karyn. Hallinen and Collins wrote him off as a perv.

Tips came in. It was 99.9 percent freak stuff. Everybody was a would-be actor or part-time actor and full-time shitbird. They printed everybody. They ran their prints against the unknown prints at the crime scene. Nothing matched.

They braced Andy Prine repeatedly. He cooperated. He stuck to his story.

They checked the weirdo file at West Hollywood Station. They zeroed in on a well-known peeper. They checked him out and wrote him off. He only peeped the gash in his own building.

Chapman and Wahike talked to Glenn Ford. He liked Andy Prine. Andy was a righteous dude.

They talked to Andy Prine’s ex-girifriends. They logged in a consensus.

Andy was tender. Andy was sensitive. Andy got more ass than a toilet seat.

More tips. More bulishit. A gang rape or a gang bang at Karyn’s old apartment. The date: 4/19/64.

It began at the Raincheck Room. The alleged victim was a movie extra.

She got bombed at the Raincheck. The new guy in Karyn’s pad got bombed. They went back to the pad. Six or seven cats joined them. The new guy said, “This is where Kupcinet was murdered and every time I think of it, I get sick to my stomach.”

The woman said six or seven guys raped her. The guys said she put out. Chapman and Wahlke reviewed the occurrence. They leaned toward the gang-bang scenario. They braced the new tenant guy. They wrote him off as a homicide suspect. They wrote him off as a rape-o and gang-bang participant.

More bugs blew into the light. Walter Winchell crashed the case and tried to hoist his career out of the toilet.

He showed up at Sheriff’s Homicide on 6/25/64. He told a wild story.

It featured Andy Prine’s ex-wife and her cat, “Calhoun.” It involved Vince Edwards on the Ben Casey show. It involved J. Edgar Hoover and the “Syndicate.” The cat was the star. Andy’s ex said Andy offed the motherfucker. The backup cast: a female private eye, an armed robber, and two guys on death row at Big Q.

Eight detectives probed Winchell’s story. The old cocksucker hounded them and made them dance to his tune.

He set up interviews and hosted dinners at Chasen’s. He laid on the meager remnants of his charm. He choreographed a freak show and made the cops join in interactive.

He wasted hundreds of police man-hours. The final report ran 8,ooo words. The narrative line was incomprehensible.

The case dragged on. It retained a priority status. The Kupcinet family applied pressure.

Essee Kupcinet believed in psychics. She urged the cops to employ them. They accommodated her.

1/23/65:

A psychic named Hans Holzer jumps in. He hypnotizes a woman named Maxine Bell. Mrs. Bell assumes the soul of Karyn Kupcinet. She zooms back to her last night on earth.

Karyn’s guests split. Andy comes over. He gets mad at Karyn. He hits her. He bombs out of the apartment.

Karyn takes a shower. She towels herself off. A white male sneaks into her pad. He calls Karyn a bitch. He chokes her and places her on the couch.

The man was years old. He stood five-six to five-eight. He had silver-gray hair and blue eyes.