You'll never guess who I'm visiting. It's Mattie Jensen, that one soap star from "Light Of Our Love". She's renting Aunt Eloise's apartment in New York. Which is strange, because Mattie is a rich and famous actress and Eloise is a public school librarian who lives in Florida. How the hell the latter is rich enough to own an apartment 3 blocks away from Central Park, I will never know. After hearing about what happened back at Paseo Del Mar High School last year, Mattie invited me to the Big Apple. According to her, Rick Arlen, her co-star, is getting death threats but isn't going to the police. She wants me to investigate. Can you imagine anyone not liking Rick Arlen? No, I can't either.
Well, I'm here. 7226 Lexington Avenue. "Come on in, the door's open!" invited a voice, presumably Mattie's, from inside. I walked inside and down a hallway to the living room, where Mattie was sat in a chair. Dear God, she appears to have gone so far overboard with plastic surgery that it looks like her entire body is made of plastic.
As I observed, she noticed me. "Welcome to New York! I'm so glad you could come out here on such short notice!" she peeped. "Wow, this place is nice," I said. It really was, given that it was supposedly a studio apartment. "Not only that, but I'm staying with a soap opera star. How very droll." I continued. "Believe me, it's not. 5 AM shoots, millions of lines to learn, and uptight people who yell all the time. Not to mention the death threats," she retorted.
"Tell me about the death threats," I ordered, deciding to serve my purpose of coming here, to begin with as immediately as possible. "Well, for the past month, Rick has been getting these awful death threats. At first, we all shrugged it off, since you do get the occasional odd letter in this business. But then they started to get weird," Mattie recounted. "Weird?" I asked, thinking that descriptor was much too mild to describe death threats. "They're totally bizarre. Not only did he get letters, but somebody sent him a box of poisoned chocolates, a broken watch, and then there's the teleprompter thing," Mattie continued.
"What teleprompter thing," I inquired. "I was reading the teleprompter during a scene with Rick. All of a sudden, my lines read 'You're going to die a horrible death, Rick!' At the time, we all thought it was a sick joke, but nobody admitted to doing it," Mattie explained.
"Thank you. Now, tell me about the letters," I commanded. "Well, the first ones had letters cut out of magazines, you know, like on a ransom note. They were all signed by someone called BT Kaisuur. Somehow, the news leaked out, and the press totally jumped on them. Then they started getting ugly and twisted," Mattie responded obediently.
"Thank you. Now, what about the poisoned chocolates?" I queried. "Rick's a major chocoholic. His fans and friends are always sending him boxes of chocolates. But these chocolates were so nasty, Rick spits them out. I've never seen Rick say no to chocolate before," Mattie explained, clearly distressed by all that has happened.
"Thank you for your help, Mattie. However, you really should go to the police with this," I stated. "That's the problem," Mattie said, her distress now more apparent, "No one is taking this seriously, especially not Rick. He thinks nothing can hurt him." "It does explain a lot. People aren't infallible, you know. I know that better than most," I sympathized. Mattie nodded in agreement, then looked at her watch.
"I'm running late. I need to get to the studio. Hey, why don't you come over and visit? I'll leave a visitor's pass for you at the security desk. Oh, and before I forget, here's a copy of my apartment keys. I'm always losing my keys, so I have plenty of copies. The studio is at 1999 Broadway. Just catch a taxi outside. They'll know how to get you there," Mattie exclaimed hurriedly, before leaving in a rush.
I didn't have a timetable to keep to, unlike your generic soap star, so I decided to have a look around the apartment. As I looked, I found numerous magazines about Mattie. She really is quite vain underneath that lovely plasticine exterior, isn't she? Also, these photographs look so bad that I couldn't help but chuckle. I then decided to have a look at one of the few magazines in this apartment that isn't about Mattie. I turned the pages and found a spread of Rick's face. I'll admit, this spread was terrifying. I quickly closed the magazine and looked at the script that Mattie had been reading earlier.
I was quite surprised to find that the episode had a name, as last I checked, daily soaps don't have titles for episodes. Also, it's November 13, 1999, and we're only in episode 139? I guess the season cycles for "Light Of Our Love" begin on June 27 of each year. You'd think they'd begin on New Years Day, wouldn't you? Because I definitely would. Anyways, I also found some letters that Rick and Mattie had exchanged, as well as numerous other trinkets. At last, I decided to make my way down to the studio.