In
1984, Cricket Blair, before she grew into a creepy bug, was a teen model for Jabot
Cosmetics. One day while arriving for work she was given a large envelope in the parking
lot and asked to deliver it to Jack Abbott. At the same time, old maid Mamie Johnson was
picking up a similar envelope left on the Abbott's doorstep.
Each envelope contained identical photographs of two pair of naked thighs. The next day
another photo arrived and then another and another until the photos clearly showed Jack
and Jill Abbott in an indecent writhing sexual pose.
The next day Jack received all the photos and a warning of bad things to come.
Coincidentally, Lindsey Wells was hired on at Jabot the next day. Jack, his mind always
fuzzy - like it was when he said he couldn't remember Phyllis Summers - said he couldn't
remember ever meeting Ms Wells. But the more he thought about it, the more he recalled
having seen her on the day of the blizzard. Finally, it all clicked for Jack. Lindsey was
the one who was blackmailing him. Her motive? A fast climb up the corporate ladder.
Meantime, Jill was thinking it was Katherine Sterling who was behind the blackmail
attempt. Katherine denied it, but she was intrigued by it all.
Then, because old man Abbott had called the police when Jack got into a scuffle with the
photo deliveryman dropping off the final package, detective Carl Williams began poking
around. Williams didn't like Jill and hated Jack worse. As a counter measure, Jack hired a
PI named "Jazz" to find the negatives.
Because Jack was ignoring her, Lindsey threatened she'd tell his old man what was going on
if he didn't promote her. He did. And then there was a break-in at Lindsey's apartment.
Someone was looking for the negatives.
To make things more complicated, Jack got Jazz to write Jill an anonymous obscene letter.
Jill cried and sobbed to John that somebody was doing terrible things to her, followed by
Lindsey offering to sell the negatives to Jill for $150,000. When Jack found out he took
Lindsey to bed only to be told the next day by Diane Jenkins that since she had dumped
Andy Richards she wanted Jack all to herself.
Thinking he had the solution to both his and Jill's problem, Jack married Lindsey. She
gave him the negatives and the morning following their wedding, Lindsey awoke to find Jack
gone and a note from him saying that the wedding was fake. Lindsey wasn't as dumb as Jack
thought. She had duplicate copies of the negatives and sold a set to Katherine for
$150,000.
Katherine told Jack she had the negatives and knew what was going on. She didn't want to
hurt John, but she didn't care what happened to Jill because she still blamed Jill for
ruining her marriage to Phillip Chancellor. Jill found out and begged Katherine not to
tell John and then hatched a plan to get Katherine back on the bottle.
As 1985 rolled around Jill was making nice with Katherine. But it wasn't working.
Katherine had every intention of letting John know what a slut he had married. Jill also
tried to bribe Katherine's personal slave, Ether Valentine, into turning over the
negatives but Katherine foiled that plot. She arranged to have John and Jill for dinner at
the mausoleum. When Jill caught on, she pretended to be ill. John took her home before
Katherine could show him the photos.
It turned out that Jill had hocked some of Katherine's jewelry to pay the maid and told
John she had taken it by accident when she moved out. Since then the jewels must have been
stolen since Jill couldn't find them. This caused John to call the police again and again
Carl Williams got in on the act only to have Jill say that she had since found the jewels.
Totally confused by it all, John ran into Lindsey and took her to lunch. Because Lindsey
was troubled, John let her cry on his shoulder and got a kiss in return which Jill saw.
When things became stagnant, Katherine had the maid cut up one of the photos into a jigsaw
puzzle and sent the pieces one by one to John. The last piece - of Jill and Jack's faces -
was altered so that it showed only Jill's.
What Katherine hadn't planned on was that John thought the puzzle was some sick porno joke
and threw it out without seeing Jill's face. Outraged, Katherine summoned John to the
mausoleum and showed him point blank. Upset, his bad ticker pounding rapidly, John went
home to confront Jill, but before he could the grim reaper paid him a visit. John was
admitted to the hospital having suffered a stroke.
Katherine told Jill what she had done and Jill told Jack. What Jill didn't know was that
Jack's face had been removed from the incriminating photo. But Dina knew and she told Jack
not to sweat the small stuff.
When Jill and John came face to face she told him that the photos had been taken before
they were married. The more John thought about it the more he wondered who was the man in
the photo?
Upon
his release from the hospital John told Jill she had 30-days to get out of his home and
that he wanted a divorce.
By 1986 Jill was trying everything under the sun to save the marriage to no avail. On the
night before the divorce hearing, Jill told John that if he insisted on using the photos
against her she would have to tell him who the man in the photo was. John said he didn't
care - it could have been the Devil himself. Even when Jill said it was Jack, John refused
to believe it.
The next day John got to thinking again. Could his son be such a creep? On his way to
work, John passed by Jack's bedroom and saw him naked. He looked and looked and looked.
Then it dawned on him. Those thighs were the same as the ones in the photo!
By now Jill was out of control. She called a press conference at which she harped that she
had some juicy stuff to tell the world about her husband. Before all the gory details
could come out John took Jill aside. He would give her 20-percent of Jabot if she kept her
mouth shut. Plus, she got a seat on the board of directors and a cushy executive position
at Jabot which would pay her - ironically - $150,000 per year.
Next, John tossed Jack out of the company and the Abbott home. Later, Jill's attorney,
Michael Crawford would find Jill shot.
But
that's another story for another time. The one just told should be quite an eye-opener for
Jill's newly found father, not that Arthur Hendricks cares. "Whatever she did to get
her foot in the door, it paid off," he said on March 5, 2004.
FOOTNOTE:
Rather than leave readers hanging, here's the deal on who shot Jill.
Jack
was arrested. Jill fingered him even though she didn't see him do it. Jack confessed
because he didn't want the case to go to court and have his affair with Jill come out.
Jack was sentenced to five years probation. One year was spent in a work-release program.
Jack worked at a soup kitchen during the day under the supervision of a woman named, Ellen
Winters. (No relation to the Winters clan)
When
Jack figured out that Jill's masseuse, Sven, was the one who shot Jill he went on the lam.
Sven meantime, had stuffed Jill in a meat locker in his kitchen, tuned it on extreme cold
and was last seen getting off a plane in Mexico. Sven was never captured. Jack was
credited with saving Jill and was vindicated.
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