Part 9 (1/2)

A psychic named Hans Holzer jumps in. He hypnotizes a woman named Maxine Bell. Mrs. Bell a.s.sumes 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 b.i.t.c.h. 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.

1/26/66:.

Boss psychic Peter Hurkos weighs in. He groks Andy Prine as the killer. He groks David Lange as the backup suspect. Hurkos met Prine and Lange at Glenn Ford's house. Karyn said she'd flick up Andy's career if he left her. Hurkos calls that the murder motive.

1/31/66:.

A female psychic fondles Karyn's jewelry. She gets a brainstorm.

It was a contract hit out of Chicago. The killer looked Jewish or Italian. He had dark hair and a broad forehead.

The psychic s.h.i.+t went nowhere. They discontinued it. They reinterviewed most of the key witnesses. They pressed the case all the way through '66.

They went at Andy Prine. They braced him on 11/2/66. Bobby Chapman and Lieutenant Norm Hamilton went at him hard.

Prine stuck to his story. Chapman tried to shoot it down. He pressed one theory--hard.

It's 11/27/63. Andy drops off the actress chick. He doesn't try to flick the actress chick. He wants to break it off with Karyn--for keeps. He goes to her pad. Things escalate. Karyn dies in the process.

Prine stuck to his story. He didn't try to f.u.c.k the actress chick. He wasn't that hard up for cooze. He didn't want to cut off Karyn. He dug her as a sometime thing. She never said she'd f.u.c.k up his career. The bad publicity f.u.c.ked him. That was the only way he got f.u.c.ked.

11/14/66:.

Edward Rubin calls Sheriff's Homicide. He changes his story substantially.

It's 11/27/63. He leaves Karyn's place. He's with Bob Hathaway.

They go to the Raincheck Room. Bob takes off alone. Rubin meets two chicks. He can't remember their names. They drive him home. They've got a '57 Austin-Healey. He asks one chick for a date. She turns him down. She's leaving for New Mexico U in the morning.

Bobby Chapman tried to verify the story. He couldn't get a line on the chicks.

Strange: Rubin did not recall the chicks three days after the crime. He recalled them three years later.

12/7/66:.

Chapman braces Bob Hathaway. He refutes Rubin's revised statement. He revises his own statement substantially.

He said the big bull session was a big non sequitur. Andy never dropped by and stayed that long.

12/14/66:.

Chapman braces Edward Rubin. He dittoes Hathaway. It did seem strange that Andy stayed that long.

The case dragged on. A lot of the cops thought it wasn't even a murder. Bobby Chapman transferred out. Bobby Morck and Vince Bogdanich got the case. Morck thought it wasn't a murder. Bogdanich wasn't sure. They checked out leads anyway.

Bogdanich braced David Lange on 7/2 3/68. Lange stuck by his '63 story. He refused to take a second polygraph test--on advice of legal counsel. Bogdanich thought he was a viable suspect.

The leads trickled out. They worked other jobs. They worked the Kupcinet job as tips materialized. They braced David Lange on 9/I 7/69.

Lange had a gig at Paramount. Morck and Bogdanich braced him at his office. He cooperated. They asked him if he'd take another polygraph. Lange said he'd talk to his lawyer.

His lawyer called the boss at Sheriff's Homicide. He said: Mr. Lange would not take another polygraph test.

The Karyn Kupcinet case was five years, nine months, and twenty-three days old. It was a freak show and a heartache. A woman got lost in the uproar.

2.

The Victim It was Kup's town. The funeral was Kup's Show.

The heavies turned out. Governor Kerner, aldermen, Mayor Richard J. Daley. They rode at the front of the car-line. Karyn's friends rode at the back.

12/4/63:.

Temple Sholom on the Gold Coast. Adios, Karyn--it was too d.a.m.n brief.

Fifteen hundred people. Major coverage. A big egalitarian spin.

Ward heelers weep. Hoodlums hurl tears into their hankies. Hipsters hobn.o.b with hackles and schvartze waiters from the Pump Room.

It's a mob scene. It's a mitzvah for a media man and his moviemad daughter. It plays nine days after the JFK entombment.

Andy Prine did not attend the service. Rabbi Louis Binstock emceed. He praised Karyn. He said she was ”high above the stage, with her warmth of manner and a glow in her eyes.”

An all-star lineup lugged the casket out to the hea.r.s.e. Among them: ex-Chicago Bears quarterback Sid Luckman.

Karyn closed strong. She would have dug the show.

She was Irv and Essee K.'s first child. They named her Roberta Lynn and called her ”Cookie.” Their son, Jerry, was born three years later.

Essee came from money. Try came from zilch. He played pro football. He called Bears games on radio and TV. He wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times. He hosted Kup's Show--a gabfest with real legs.

Kup lobbed softb.a.l.l.s in his column. People loved him. He loved the Joe Blow Chicagoan impersonally. He loved celebs for real.

Essee loved celebs and culture. She took Cookie and Jerry to ballets and stage shows. She doted on Cookie. She said she should be an actress. She pushed her that way. Cookie bought the program.

Essee stressed beauty and thinness. She got Cookie some childmodel gigs.

Cookie loved drama. She loved to act. She loved Kup's World.

It was glamorous. It was who you knew and who blew who. It was ringside seats and a special guest for dinner every night. Cookie dropped names like most kids dropped vowels.

She went to the Francis Parker School. She excelled at kid theatrics. She got summer-stock gigs in and around Chicago. She played the tomboy role in a boffo rendition of Picnic.

She finished high school. She went to Pine Manor College for a year and a half. She played leads and second leads in school shows. She put on a little weight. She took it off and put it on again. She moved to New York City in '6o.