Copyright 1992 The Washington Post   The Washington Post View Related Topics  November 22, 1992, Sunday, Final Edition SECTION: TV TAB; PAGE Y6 LENGTH: 2436 words HEADLINE: 'Deadly Matrimony'; Till Death Did Them Part SERIES: Occasional BYLINE: Patricia Brennan, Washington Post Staff Writer BODY: "There are certain people who start by breaking the law just a little bit," observed Treat Williams. "For some, it remains just a little bit. But for him, it was like opening a floodgate." Thus did Alan Masters, a powerful, mob-connected lawyer who was known as the fixer of south-suburban Chicago, graduate from doing favors for friends to the murder of his own wife. Masters had so many police pals, in fact, that for eight years he was able to divert attention from himself. Not until an honest cop became the force behind the investigation of Dianne Masters' murder did the truth emerge, and with it information about rampant, long-time corruption in Chicago-area law agencies. Treat Williams plays Masters in NBC's two-part movie, "Deadly Matrimony," Sunday and Monday at 9 each night. South African-born Embeth Davidtz is Dianne Masters, who grew up in a Polish neighborhood and became entranced by him. Brian Dennehy plays Sgt. Jack Reed, an honest cop and a family man, and Susan Ruttan is his wife, Arlene. Reed, assigned to head the investigation in 1986, spent more than two years gathering evidence and interviewing key witnesses along with investigators Robert Colby and Paul Sabin. He did his job so well that after a month-long trial, the Masters jury took only 3 1/2 hours to convict Masters on charges of conspiracy, bribery and racketeering. Although tales of real-life corruption in Chicago-area law enforcement agencies would make a series of movies in themselves, "Deadly Matrimony" focuses on Masters, the men who helped him cover up his wife's murder, and Reed. Williams said the movie should be viewed as "inspired by a true story. I would not say that all these events actually occurred. I think an audience is intelligent enough to realize that this is a fictionalized account." In the movie, Dianne Masters grows tired of the vacuous life of "wife-of" and wary of her husband's violent streak. She decides to carve out her own interests, founding a center for abused women. She also meets a professor at a local college, played by Terry Kinney, with whom she begins an affair. Eventually, she begins to consider divorcing Alan Masters. As Masters loses control over Dianne, his violence against her increases. She fears him but hesitates to leave because he threatens to prevent her from ever seeing their young daughter. "Her growth as a person enraged him," said Williams. "It was a real character flaw." Then, in 1982, Dianne Masters, 35, disappeared. It wasn't until nine months later that her body was found in the trunk of her Cadillac, submerged in a Chicago canal and recovered during the federal investigation of an unrelated insurance scam. Her skull had been bashed, and she had been shot twice through the brain. Eight years later, Masters, then 56, was convicted of bribing police and planning Dianne Masters' murder. After his lawyer appealed his original sentencing on technical grounds, he was resentenced in August 1991 to an even harsher term: 40 years in prison, to serve at least 24 years and no more than 30 years. James Keating, once a lieutenant in the Cook County Sheriff's office, and Michael Corbitt, ex-police chief of suburban Willow Spring, were convicted of racketeering in connection with the murder. No one has been convicted of the actual murder. Prosecutors believe Masters bludgeoned his wife and Corbitt shot her in the head and dumped the body into the canal, and that is the film's scenario. What may not be so clear is the time that passed after Dianne Masters' body was found. Keating, managing a well-organized cover-up, kept his officers busy with a sham investigation for years. He is not represented by name in the film. It wasn't until crucial information was provided by several frightened wives, girlfriends and coworkers of men who worked in several Chicago-area police departments that the case was reopened in 1986. Speaking anonymously, the women described a pattern of intimidation that included threats made to them as well as jokes about Dianne Masters' fate. In the film, the women are represented by lounge chanteuse Nina Sloane (Lisa Eilbacher), Corbitt's girlfriend and Dianne Masters' loyal friend. She is the only one of several women portrayed who is brave enough to testify. In reality, none of the women testified in court. Their fear is understandable enough. While Corbitt was police chief in Willow Springs, prosecutors said, he had set fire to a nightclub there in an insurance scam. He also had inherited a speedboat and money from a reputed mobster murdered in Florida. Corbitt served time in federal prison for extortion and racketeering before the Masters case came to trial. Keating was convicted in 1986 for taking protection money and bribes after a federal crackdown on suburban prostitution and gambling. Federal investigators considered Keating organized crime's link to the Cook County sheriff's department. Dianne Masters' killing was not the only murder case in which he became involved. Six of the men who investigated Dianne Masters' disappearance in 1982 were later convicted or implicated in prostitution or car theft rings. Court documents revealed that Masters himself co-owned a brothel with two former Cook County Sheriff's Police officers who were investigators in his wife's case. In 1989, the Chicago Tribune began a series of articles reporting that Cook County cops with ties to organized crime and drug dealers had engaged in a variety of illegal actions. They included sabotaging investigations of execution-style murders, covering up evidence of crimes by law enforcement officials and judges, concealing evidence, thwarting efforts to interview witnesses, and hiding their own relationships with suspects and victims in murder investigations. The Tribune called the sheriff's office "backwaters of corruption where high-ranking officers have routinely placed protection of friends above pursuit of murderers, drug dealers and corrupt public officials." Dianne Turner did not know any of that when she met lawyer Alan Masters, who handled her divorce in 1972. What probably attracted her to Masters was his power, said Williams. "I think power is extremely attractive," he said. "He had an enormous group of friends, so one wonders whether, before he was considered scum, he had some degree of manipulative powers. I had heard from Reed that when Alan Masters walked into a room, he was the only person for whom judges would stand." At least one of them, according to the film, was involved in the cover-up. Unlike the fit Williams, Alan Masters was a hefty man who, Williams said, "apparently was physically very lethargic. For instance, he would go on vacation, and when others were out engaged in activities, he would sit and sweat -- that was his sport, to sweat. He was apparently quite obese." Williams said he did not try to portray Masters "as a likeness -- this is a sense of the character." In the film, Dianne accepts an invitation to a party in Masters' honor and meets several of his close friends, including reputed underworld crime boss Vic Scalisi (George Morfogen), Corbitt (John M. Jackson), and Nina Sloane. Impressed with the high life, and not realizing that he is still married, a naive Dianne falls for him. When she later tells him she is pregnant, he divorces his first wife and marries her, to the amazement of their friends. According to The Tribune, the pair did not marry until 1980, after their daughter, Anndra, was born. The girl -- called Kim in the film -- now lives with her stepmother, the family's former housekeeper, whom Masters married in 1988 shortly after his indictment. As to whether Alan Masters will watch the film from prison, Williams said: "I'm sure that he'll have a response. Most people who have that sort of ego would." Williams and Davidtz paired up last year for another NBC movie, "Till Death Us Do Part." They played a couple whose relationship, he said, was "not terribly different from this one, an abusive relationship." In January, Williams will star with Kelly McGillis in a CBS movie he also executive-produced, "Bonds of Love." It's the story of a mentally retarded man in Kansas who married despite his family's objections to the woman he chose. Also upcoming is his mid-season series for CBS, "Good Advice," with Shelley Long. He's a lawyer and she's a marriage counselor. "It's a combative relationship," he said, "warmly combative, two people who seem to gravitate toward one another but can't seem to get along."