Dolce Vita, Rivo Alto Style

Jack and Elaine Kirschke were nothing if not adult about adultery. He liked women and she liked men, and neither was a spoilsport. There was only one house rule for their not-quite-home on vogueish Rivo Alto Canal in Naples, California: when one party had the pad, the other stayed away.

The Kirschkes deliberately sought wider horizons for their 24-year marriage. With their son and daughter grown, they moved four years ago into a modern apartment in Naples, near the Long Beach Yacht Club, where for a time they kept a 33-ft. sloop. Both found the club a good place to meet new friends, and some of them may have wound up berthing at Rivo Alto.

Latest & Last. She was a successful fashion designer under her maiden name, Elaine Terry. He was an $18,000-a-year chief prosecutor for the Los Angeles district attorney, in charge of the D.A.'s suburban Downey office. Between them, they were earning $40,000 a year. They were a good-looking, high-style couple. Elaine, with her hazel eyes, red hair and trim, 114-lb. figure, was still, at 43, a woman woman-watchers watched. Jack, 6 ft. 1 in. and handsome, with a lively, inquiring mind, was a 45-year-old social lion.

Elaine's latest lover was a 41-year-old flying instructor named Orville Drankhan. He was also her last. When police, alerted by a curious neighbor, entered the apartment one evening last April, they found Orville and Elaine in the bedroom. She was lying on the bed, wearing only an unbuttoned black and white kimono jacket. Drankhan was on the floor, fully clothed. Each had a .38 slug in the head. They had been dead 43 hours. Investigators speculated that the killer had not meant to shoot Elaine, but that the first bullet caromed off Orville's forehead and tore into her temple. The prime suspect: Jack Kirschke.

Hermetic Alibi. An all-points bulletin snared the prosecutor less than an hour later in Victorville, 100 miles east of Naples, in a car headed home. He explained that he had driven his son's Volkswagen 300 miles to Las Vegas the night of the murders. At the time of the killings, Kirschke said, he had been en route to Las Vegas to address a Rotary convention. Witnesses backed his story. The only odd aspect to the case was that his own Karmann-Ghia had been found in running condition at the Los Angeles airport. That, said Kirschke, only solved another mystery. He had given the car to a mechanic to fix weeks before, and the mechanic had disappeared with it.

Through three days of questioning, Jack remained confident. "I'm an officer of the court," he said. "I trust in God, and I have faith in our American system of criminal justice." The police released him, after the interrogation, but the investigation went on. Last week, after 31 days of testimony from 36 witnesses, California Assistant Attorney General Al Harris persuaded a grand jury that he had punctured Jack Kirschke's hermetic alibi. The erstwhile prosecutor was indicted on two counts of murder, arraigned, and given until June 23 to formulate his plea.

Until then, Kirschke will have to stay in the Los Angeles County jail, where visiting privileges are less liberal than they were on Rivo Alto.

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