When I moved to West Hollywood, I often told the story, along with the story of my meeting with Mark Percy in 1977. But then something weird happened.
Kenilworth, Illinois, September 17th, 1966
Charles H. Percy, wealthy industrialist, president of Bell and Howell Electronics, was running for the U.S. Senate. On the night of September 17th, he and his wife and three of his six children went to a campaign fundraiser. His daughter Valerie, age 21, a recent graduate of Cornell University, refused dates with two boys and stayed home. Everyone was in bed by midnight.
Winward, their sprawling mansion in the Chicago suburb of Kenilworth, was silent and peaceful for the next five hours. But about 5:00 am, the family, including ten-year old Mark, awakened to the sound of muffled screams. They ran into Valerie's bedroom to see a stranger bent over her. He fled, leaving nothing behind but a bloody palm print and a glove.
Valerie had been stabbed 14 times.
Was it a burglary attempt? A mob intimidation that went wrong? A jilted lover seeking revenge?
The killer used a glass cutter to get in through a downstairs window and went directly to Valerie's room. He was targeting Valerie, not Charles. AND he knew his way around the house.He walked past a room where two dogs were sleeping. They didn't bark. It was someone they knew.
The FBI interviewed 10,000 people, including 1,226 suspects, but the killer was never apprehended, and no motive was ever discovered.
Charles Percy won the election and served as senator from Illinois from 1967 to 1985. He was named a presidential possibility in 1968 and 1972.
Chicago, May 1977
During my junior year in high school, I was applying to West Point, and needed recommendations from a U.S. Senator or Representative. I had already contacted Representative Tom Railsback, but just to be on the safe side, I called Charles Percy's office in Chicago.
He wasn't there, but his son Mark offered to meet with Dad and me. He even took us out to lunch at an Italian restaurant.
22 years old, a tall redhead with a broad, open face, Mark had just graduated from Stanford, and was on his way to Yale for a M.B.A.
I was very nervous, both because I was trying not to think about the murder, and because Mark was incredibly cute. I couldn't take my eyes off him.
We chatted about Star Wars and my interest in Arabic, and, I think, shared a cruising moment. He promised that he would ask his dad for the recommendation.
When I told the story in West Hollywood later, I turned it into a full hookup at Winward, with a tour of the murder room, and gave Mark an enormous Mortadella+.
After getting his MBA, Mark became president of his father's compay, Charles Percy and Associates. He now lives in Newport Beach, California.
Here's where it gets weird.
I'm visiting my friend David in San Francisco. He brings in one of his friends to share: James, mid-twenties, slim, black haired, a short beard, who graduated from Stanford with degrees in Computer Science and Arabic, with the idea of working for the Department of Homeland Security, but then came out and is working in a library.
"That sounds like my life!" I exclaim. I tell him about applying to West Point, and my interviews with Tom Railsback and Mark Percy, son of the U.S. Senator, who had an enormous Mortadella+ and now lived in California.
"Percy?" he repeats. "I dated a guy with the last name Percy when I was at Stanford. A cute redhead with an enormous Mortadella+, just like Mark."
"Weird coincidence. I wonder if it's his son?"
We do a quick google. James' Percy turns out to be Mark's nephew, a 2007 Stanford graduate now working for Microsoft.
So a guy I hooked up with in San Francisco in 2013 dated the nephew of a guy I cruised in Chicago in 1977, who was a witness to an unsolved murder that I heard about all the time in the 1960s.
Sooner or later, everyone you know will hook up with everyone else you know.
See also: Arabic and Class Rings; Zack Hooks Up with the King of Sweden
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