This piece appeared in Soap Opera Weekly on June 2, 1998.

THE NEWS: DEATH, DRUGS, AND A POIGNANT FAREWELL ROCK GH
Stefan arrested for Katherine's murder
by Linda Susman

LUKE AND ALEXIS' PLAN TO MURDER Helena at the Bacchanalia Ball goes awry and claims Katherine as the victim on General Hospital. Just before falling to her death, Katherine had confronted Stefan about his obsession with Laura and realized Nikolas is Stefan's son. Stefan is overwhelmed with guilt and grief; he suspects Luke tampered with the parapet and caused the accident, but at week's end, it is Stefan who is arrested for her murder.

Nikolas, who finds Katherine's body on the ground, sees Stefan on the parapet. He doesn't see that Laura is there, too, and Stefan wants to make sure he doesn't. Laura, whose presence on the island was known only to Stefan and Katherine, wants to stay to help, but he convinces her to leave immediately. "My first priority is always Nikolas," Stephen Nichols (Stefan) says, in character. "The thing that wakes me up is the fact that if she's seen, she'll have to explain her presence there, and eventually it will come out that he's our son. That's why I snap out of it initially." Stefan immediately spots the damage to the parapet, realizes it was sabotaged and suspects Luke, because he had threatened Nikolas awhile back. "I am certain the intended victim was either myself or Nikolas."

While Stefan deals with Laura, Luke is hustling Alexis off the island; only later does he tell her their plan misfired. He doesn't tell her, however, that he's framed Stefan by planting at Wyndemere the letter opener used to loosen the stone.

"She is totally freaked out," Nancy Lee Grahn (Alexis) says. "She can't act on any of her impulses. She just has to find the best attack, the place where everyone is going to come out the best. That's why she doesn't step in and take the blame for it, because that would break Stefan's heart. It would allow her to be a sitting duck. Helena would kill her. Stefan might kill her. Nikolas would kill her."

Stefan's heart is already broken. "I am not guilty of pushing Katherine, but I take responsibility for her death," Nichols says. "I'm trying to make things good for my son and for myself in my life, and things are going wrong again. I should never have brought Katherine to the island. I should never have tried to make our relationship work. It was only out of my obsession with Laura that I started this relationship up again in such a serious way, asking Katherine to marry me and be a surrogate mother to Nikolas. I've destroyed another life because of where I come from and who I am. I am convinced that once again I just can't be happy, because I was born into this world that will not allow it."

Later, Laura surprises Luke at the house, telling him only that she thinks it's time for her to come home--and not mentioning having been at Wyndemere to warn Stefan about Nikolas' suspicions that she and Stefan had feelings for each other. With Luke's blessing, Laura goes back to North Carolina to get Lesley Lu.

While she's gone, Luke finds himself smack in the middle of the murder investigation. Nikolas is champing at the bit to get revenge against Luke, but Stefan advises him to cool it. "I tell him to wait, that revenge is a dish best served cold," Nichols says. Stefan orders Mac to search the Spencer home for the tool used to loosen the parapet stone; Luke agrees to the search, provided Mac also searches Wyndemere. The police come up empty-handed at Luke's, but--as Luke planned--they hit pay dirt at Wyndemere and arrest a shocked Stefan for Katherine's murder.

"Why would I leave the implement that was used to carve out the railing from the mortar in my desk drawer, with the mortar dust on it?" Nichols says. "Obviously, that is a setup, but I have no proof. All I can say to Mac is to look at our family history and look at how many people Luke Spencer has killed in my family, or has had some hand in killing. Who else would be capable of such hideousness?"

Alexis is with Stefan when he is arrested. She immediately realizes that Luke framed him, and she's furious.

"She had no idea he was going to do this," Grahn says. "She hates his guts for what he did." Stefan initially turns down Alexis' offer to be his lawyer, wanting her instead to take care of Nikolas; Luke convinces her that by defending him she will be able to save herself. "She's really just finding her best alternative, and they all suck. But she knows she can get him off. She has created a horrible, horrible situation for everybody."

Nikolas (above) confronts Laura with his suspicion that she and Stefan share a romantic past. Alexis and Luke think that they are responsible for Katherine's death, although by mistake. Stefan (near left) may pay the price for it.