gentleman, thanks for all the help and advice. i will certainly follow up, just busy. and frankly, today was so nice and sunny i couldn't work on the car
the key fob does not actuate the door locks. but it did work before this issue, BTW i recently replaced the button battery the fob.
also something else I didn't mention(again, sorry)- right before the car went no-crank, it would start, but was stuck in park. used the skeleton key to shift into gear but tranny was in failsafe so it hung up in a single gear.
i will get back on this and hopefully get it going with all the good help I've got so far. I'm not the type to get info from a forum, fix my problem and never report back or offer thanks. i really despise that.