When a young conniving journalist trespasses to interview a multi-millionaire recluse at his Lake Tahoe fortress, she is shot, imprisoned, and unwaveringly determined to get her story, before one of them dies. This is a fictional “exit interview” with a real-life Lake Tahoe multi-millionaire George Whittell Jr., 86 years old in 1968.

SYNOPSIS:

In May 1968, Samantha (SAM) Eriksson (25), a conniving journalist on her first assignment for the Reno Examiner, is sent to write a “fluff piece” on multi-millionaire playboy, (CAPTAIN) George Whittell Jr. (86). She has no idea that the Captain is bunkered down in his impenetrable rock fortress on the shores of Lake Tahoe, confined to a wheelchair, and armed with a shotgun. The Captain welcomes the trespassing reporter with buckshot that sends her crashing into the stone stairway, knocking her unconscious. She wakes hours later in an opium den at the end of a six-hundred-foot tunnel with a bloody bandage on her head. Her troubles are just beginning.

Sam is brought to the Captain at gunpoint by the cook, HENRI, where she claims to be the Captain’s long-lost daughter from a Cal-Neva showgirl. The Captain is suspicious and naturally curious about Sam, but unremorseful about shooting her. The Captain brags that he never worked a day in his life, owns most of the east side of Lake Tahoe, has no apologies for past indiscretions, and never plans to tell his life story to anyone!

Ugly truths begin to emerge about the Captain’s past relationships with women and staff. His current nurse, RUTH, fearlessly protects his privacy. But Sam is determined to capture the Captain’s wild stories, and she snoops around until his honest reflections emerge. The glorified poker games he had with Howard Hughes and Ty Cobb were not as reported. Injuries leave a proud man wheelchair bound and dependent on others. State officials and real estate developers are continually after his land. And the Captain learns that a deadly form of cancer, melanoma, is devouring his body. While the Captain ponders his past and current life, Sam learns that two other famous people she interviewed died within a year. She is the Black Widow Journalist, and the Captain is trapped in her web.

Sam gives the Captain an opportunity to set the record straight before dying, despite everyone learning she lied about being his daughter. Amid the overly protective staff, a land-grabbing lawyer, Nevada’s Governor, and the Captain’s failing health, Sam pieces together the telling biography of a complex, sometimes well-intentioned human being. She makes her new friend a promise not to publish the story for fifty years. On one level, the “Black Widow Journalist” is a fictional story of a reporter’s last interview of the real-life multi-millionaire recluse, George Whittell Jr., and his legacy in helping to protect Lake Tahoe. On a deeper level, people like Sam are badly needed to awaken our conscience, forcing us to come clean in our “exit interviews,” so that the world can learn from our triumphs and mistakes as human beings.

BLACK WIDOW JOURNALIST