Poppy Harmon and the Pillow Talk Killer

Poppy sat on her couch, which was still wrapped in the movers’ plastic, cradling her laptop, staring at the names of the three victims of the notorious Pillow Talk Killer. She knew when she had returned home from the office she should have got cracking unpacking boxes and setting up her new home, but she couldn’t help herself. She fired up her computer and started googling old articles from the 1980s detailing the horrific exploits of the Pillow Talk Killer. The haunting memories of that tense and frightening time came flooding back in Poppy’s mind as she scrolled down through the vintage news coverage of the panic sweeping Hollywood, the pressure on the police to find the killer, the added security at all the studios in order to protect their stars.

Poppy’s eyes pooled with tears as she came across photos of the three victims: Sherie from the Bronx, a warm smile, gorgeous afro, and smooth chocolate skin; Theresa from Port St. Lucie, Florida—freckled face, long brown hair, a twinkle in her eye; and then there was Linda, the only one Poppy ever had any personal contact with, a beautiful blonde with a fluffy haircut popularized by Heather Locklear, who had the envious distinction at the time of starring in not one but two hit TV shows on ABC, Dynasty and TJ Hooker. Poppy could not help but think, If they had been lucky enough to survive, where would they be today? It was such a travesty that their lives had been so cruelly snuffed out.

Another fact kept insidiously creeping into Poppy’s mind, and she simply could not shake it. She had for years buried the “what if” scenario, refusing to tell anyone how close she had been to becoming victim number three of the Pillow Talk Killer instead of Linda Appleton.

It had so disturbed her, so rocked her to her core, that just the idea of revisiting the sequence of events had always been too traumatic for her. But now, unfortunately, having been the one who had found Danika dead in her trailer, Poppy could no longer ignore it.

Staring at those pictures, those three young, beautiful women in their prime on her computer screen, Poppy seemed to slowly drift away and slip back in time to that specific moment in her life, arguably a high point. She was single, on top of the world, banking fifteen grand a week on a top twenty–rated network TV show, featured on the cover of TV Guide magazine during that month of July with her impossibly handsome co-star Rod Harper, playfully chewing on his necktie and beaming into the camera while he smiled lovingly at her. Her life was far from perfect. When was anyone’s life ever really perfect? But it was a heady time, and she was enjoying a dizzying height of success. Which was why what unexpectedly happened one steaming hot night a week after the Fourth of July in the City of Angels would suddenly change everything.

Hollywood, California
July 11, 1985

Poppy casually thumbed through her dog-eared script as she sat in the makeup chair while Dolly, a perky, blond zaftig woman fond of bright pink lipstick and a matching bow in her hair finished adding a little blush to her cheeks. It had been a long day and she was relieved they only had one more scene to shoot before the company wrapped for the day.

“I hear Linda and Joan are fighting again,” Dolly announced breathlessly.

“Oh, yeah?” Poppy said, half-interested. The rumors of feuding between two of TV’s top stars, Linda Evans and Joan Collins of the megahit prime time soap Dynasty had become old news, but Poppy didn’t want to appear rude and not engage with the excitable, gossipy Dolly. “What’s got them going this time?”

“Well, my girlfriend Connie works over there in the wardrobe department and apparently yesterday they were shooting another one of those catfight scenes. Seriously, how many of those can they do? A pillow fight, thrashing around in the lily pond, it’s getting old. Anyway, yesterday during rehearsal Linda jabbed Joan in the eye and she finally put her foot down and stormed off the set and threatened to quit the show if Linda wasn’t fired, as if that would ever happen. Joan stewed in her dressing room the whole afternoon and they had to rewrite the entire scene. Aaron Spelling even had to come down to the set to play peacemaker.”

“I’m glad we don’t have that kind of drama on this set,” Poppy said.

Rod could be a handful sometimes, showing up hungover on occasion after partying too hard the night before and sometimes feeling the need to assert his masculinity by demanding he be allowed to perform his own stunts even after he tore a ligament by insisting he do a jump off a moving car himself, but other than that there were no misbehaving divas to contend with on Jack Colt. For Poppy’s part, she was just happy to have a regular acting gig and had no desire to cause any trouble. When she was on the set she was in her happy place. But they did work her hard, and today she was anxious to go home and sink into a luxurious bubble bath in the Hollywood Hills guest house she was renting.

“Eyes up,” Dolly instructed.

Poppy looked toward the ceiling as Dolly applied some mascara while humming her favorite song of the moment, Madonna’s big hit “Material Girl.” Dolly stepped back and inspected her work, then moved aside so Poppy could get a good look at herself in the mirror.

Dolly tapped her chin with the eyeliner as she placed her other hand on her hip. “Well, hello, gorgeous.”

“I look tired,” Poppy moaned.

“They’ll fix it in post,” Dolly cracked.

“Wouldn’t it be wonderful if one day they could actually do that?” Poppy said, laughing.

The door opened, and another blonde breezed into the trailer. Tinseltown was teeming with blondes, a few even natural, but this girl had very dark roots so she was probably not among the minority. This girl, Pam, was jaw-droppingly beautiful and seemed very sweet even though she was playing the guest role of a hardened, heartless criminal by the name of Bloody Mary, who had shot two guards while breaking her murderous boyfriend out of prison.

“Are you ready for me yet?” Pam asked.

“Perfect timing, I’m just about done with Poppy,” Dolly said. “Come on in and take a seat.”

“Thank you,” Pam said, smiling as she sat down in the chair next to Poppy. “Have you all seen the new James Bond movie yet?”

“No, I haven’t had time,” Poppy answered. “What’s it called?”

Pam began fluffing her own hair. “A View to a Kill.”

“I saw it,” Dolly sighed. “It was long. But Grace Jones was good in it. Frankly, I like the song better than the movie.”

“Tanya Roberts was the Bond girl,” Pam said dismissively. “I would have been so much better.”

Poppy suddenly remembered that Pam had made a splash her first week moving to Hollywood from Boise, Idaho, when she was literally plucked off a movie line and screen-tested for Charlie’s Angels to replace Shelley Hack, who had been unceremoniously fired after the fourth season. Although she came close to snagging the coveted role, the producers ultimately had gone with another actress—Tanya Roberts. Poppy was certain that Pam’s career disappointment was coloring her opinion. Ms. Roberts could have delivered a performance on the scale of Sissy Spacek, Jessica Lange, or Meryl Streep, and Pam still would have thought she was lackluster.

There was a knock at the door of the trailer and a chubby, scruffy-faced, curly-haired, eager kid in his early twenties pushed his way inside. “Ms. Harmon, they’re ready for you on set.”

Poppy stood up. “Thank you, Dolly. See you out there, Pam.”

Dolly gave her a friendly wave as she got to work on primping Pam for the scene.

The rotund young production assistant held the door open for her and then hustled alongside Poppy as they hurried toward the set in silence.

Finally the kid seemed to work up the nerve to speak. “You were very good in that last scene, Ms. Harmon.”

“Oh, thank you . . .”

Poppy stopped midsentence. She could never remember the kid’s name. Was it Henry? Hank? She felt terrible. He had been working on the show for a couple of weeks already and she was usually good at memorizing everyone’s names on the crew. He was waiting for her to say it so she just took a stab in the dark. “. . . Hank.”

“Harold,” the kid corrected her with a grin. “Harold Lawson.”

At least he did not appear to be insulted by her memory lapse.

Searching for another topic to discuss, Harold asked Poppy if she had read the paper this morning to which she replied she hadn’t. Harold then went on breathlessly about how the police were still frantically searching for the man known as the Pillow Talk Killer, how he smothered his two victims, at least so far, and how he had probably seen both of them on television.

“There hasn’t been a crime that’s gripped LA so much since the Manson murders back in 1969,” Harold said. “It’s all anyone is talking about.”

Harold continued his dissertation, recounting to Poppy his disconcerting knowledge of the crime scenes and how the killer had so far left no clues that might lead to his capture.

“He’s a cunning SOB,” Harold remarked.

Poppy tensed, then smiled, and said gently, “Harold, I’m sorry, can we talk about something else?”

“Of course,” he said, chastised. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

She felt bad cutting him off. But she also found the entire conversation utterly distasteful, and it was souring her mood, and she needed to focus on her performance in the upcoming scene.

Mercifully, Harold switched topics to the weather and the impending heatwave that was going to melt Los Angeles by the weekend.

They arrived on the set of a remote cabin in the woods where Poppy’s character, Daphne, was being held hostage by two escaped convicts, Butch and Smitty, and Butch’s girlfriend, the aforementioned Bloody Mary played by Pam. The well-known character actor Norman Alden was in the Butch role and a young up-and-coming newcomer fresh from New York and Stella Adler’s acting workshops, Kevin, was playing Smitty. Kevin was a heartbreaker, handsome face, playful brown eyes, a boyish grin and a gym-toned body. He had been shamelessly flirting with Poppy all week, which she admittedly enjoyed but did not take too seriously. As hard as Kevin tried, Poppy chose not to give him the time of day. Mostly because as much as she tried to deny it, her heart was elsewhere, specifically her co-star Rod Harper. During the audition process for Jack Colt, she had had a mild crush, figuring every girl auditioning probably developed one on Rod. When she got cast in the part and they began shooting the show, the crush morphed into full-blown romantic feelings. And now, as they entered their second season of the show, Poppy just did her best to keep her feelings under wraps. Rod, after all, was an infamous man about town, found most weekends cavorting with the Playboy bunnies at Hugh Hefner’s mansion. He certainly was not relationship material, and Poppy had long made peace with that.

Still, when they were posing for that TV Guide cover, he had been so focused on her, so interested. A small part of her could not help but suspect the feeling might, just might, be mutual. Of course, she would never be brave enough to come out and ask him. If she was wrong, it could harm the chemistry they shared and alter the dynamic of their working relationship. She just could not take that chance.

Pam soon appeared and they all waited for Jack to finally burst out of his dressing room. After a ten-minute wait with Poppy yawning and checking her watch, fearing Jack’s tardiness would lead to them shooting the scene late into the night, Jack finally sauntered onto the set, ready to shoot. He was in military-style cargo pants, shirtless, and brandishing an intimidating prop knife. The scene they were about to shoot was the typical “Jack rescues Daphne” scene, she in peril, he flying in at the last second to save her. They had done this scene in a number of variations about a dozen times already, but the viewers loved it. As a self-avowed feminist, Poppy cringed at the sexism of her role, but today, at least she got to fight back, according to the script, by slinging hot coffee in Bloody Mary’s face when Jack blows through the door in a surprise attack.

A couple of crew members hosed Jack down since in the previous scene, shot a few days earlier on location in Big Bear, Jack emerged from the lake near the cabin like a Navy Seal, the knife between his teeth, muscles flexing, ready for action. He crawled on the ground so as not to be seen, taking point outside the cabin’s kitchen window, where an eagle-eyed Daphne spotted him. He signaled her to be ready while she was preparing a pot of hot coffee for her captors and now was the time for the final confrontation.

The director didn’t bother to discuss the scene with the principals since they had done it so many times. He just dropped down in his director’s chair waiting for camera speed and lethargically called, “Action!”

Pam, determined to win an Emmy for her bold turn as a malevolent bad girl, stormed over to Poppy and grabbed her by the arm, snarling, “What’s taking so long with that coffee, sweet cakes? Are you harvesting the beans yourself, or what?”

Poppy shook her arm free. “I think we’d all be a lot happier if you tried a little decaf, sweet cakes.”

Butch and Smitty snickered at the joke, which infuriated Pam/Bloody Mary.

Pam glared at Poppy, grabbing her arm again and squeezing it tight. “Get cute with me, and you can get hurt, got it?”

There was a knocking sound outside the cabin.

Smitty, alarmed, jumped out of his chair. “What was that?”

“What?” Butch growled.

“That noise. Somebody’s out there!” Smitty cried.

“Relax, will ya? Nobody knows we’re here,” Butch sighed.

“I’m tellin’ ya, Butch, I heard something,” Smitty insisted.

“Fine, if you think there’s somebody out there, go check it out for yourself then,” Butch said, tossing him a gun, which Smitty fumbled on the catch.

“Careful,” Smitty whined. “I nearly shot my toe off.”

Butch ignored him.

Smitty huffily marched over to the door and swung it open. Standing there in all his Rambo glory was Jack, who struck with a punch in the face. Smitty doubled over and Jack kneed him in the groin. Smitty flopped down to the floor, writhing.

Butch, now alerted, struggled to stand up as Jack dove at him and they rolled around on the floor. Pam started for the gun Smitty had dropped and that was Poppy’s cue to hurl the scalding pot of hot coffee at Bloody Mary, drenching her. Pam covered her face with her hands, spasming and screaming, like a true Method actress. After a brief scuffle, Jack managed to finish off Butch so the only two left standing were Jack and Daphne.

“Oh, Jack!” Poppy exclaimed, like she had so many times before, and ran to Jack where he embraced her, holding her tightly against his bare chest, muscles glistening.

“It’s okay, Daph, I’m here . . .”

“And cut!” the director said listlessly. “Great. Moving on to coverage.”

Now they would repeat the scene multiple times for different angles and close-ups, at least another two or three hours of work.

Jack still held Poppy tightly against his chest.

“He said cut, Rod, you can let go now,” Poppy said.

“Do I have to?”

Poppy giggled, then wanted to kick herself. Really? Did she have to giggle like a high school cheerleader in the arms of the star quarterback? It was downright embarrassing.

“When are we finally going to go for that drink, Poppy, just the two of us?” Rod asked, grinning.

“Oh, please, you are such a tease,” Poppy scolded as she tried to extricate herself from his embrace, which caused him to just hold on tighter.

“Haven’t you made me wait long enough?” Rod asked, fake pouting. “Come on, don’t you find the scent of my manly sweat irresistible?”

Poppy scrunched up her nose, laughing.

He finally let go when the stunt coordinator approached him with a note on the choreographed fight scene with Butch.

Poppy tried not to stare at him.

Bloody Mary suddenly appeared at her right shoulder. “He’s dreamy, isn’t he?”

The question didn’t surprise Poppy. She was very well aware of the fact that millions of women found Rod Harper to be breathtakingly sexy, but she was not about to let on that she was one of them. “Who, Rod? I think of him like a brother.”

“You’re kidding,” Pam said, a disbelieving look on her face. “You two have never hit the sack?”

“No, absolutely not,” Poppy said.

“Well, I’ll be sure to let you know what you’re missing.”

“What do you mean?”

“He asked me out this morning. We’re getting together at his place later after we wrap. I’m so excited to see his house. I hear Humphrey Bogart used to own it before he married Lauren Bacall.”

Pam pranced off excitedly, leaving Poppy behind, standing on the set alone. She kept a firm smile on her face, but she was devastated, and after the director announced a fifteen-minute break while they reset the scene, she slinked back to her dressing room, hoping that until she was finally alone, she would not cry.