Q: What is the point of your story?
A: The point is that in the novel the woman is about to get pushed off the roof, and in real life a woman actually fell off the roof with a copy of the novel in her hand and it made headlines all over the country. So Charlie said, “Wouldn’t it be terrific if something like that happened to Winter’s Chill?” and I said, “No such luck,” and Charlie said, “Why does it have to be luck?” and that’s how the whole thing came about.
Q: What whole thing?
A: Hiring Rodriguez. Who was Charlie’s crack dealer and who Charlie thought would know where to find a dead body.
Q: And did he find one?
A: Yes.
Q: Julian Rainey’s body, isn’t that so?
A: I have no idea whose body it was. Mama supplied the body.
Q: And you supplied the identification to put on the body.
A: Well, that was the whole idea.
Q: Tell us what the whole idea was.
A: To make it appear that someone had murdered me. And then for me to show up alive, contradicting the fact. And to have the mystery continue through the opening of the film on the second. To generate publicity for the film, you see.
Q: But, of course, Mr. Rodriguez didn’t simply find a corpse, did he?
A: I have no idea where he …
Q: He caused a corpse, didn’t he?
A: I don’t know where you got that idea.
Q: We got it from a woman named Alice Chaffee whom we found in a red fox coat tied up with the cord from a General Electric steam iron in a warehouse downtown.
A: Oh.
Q: Where there was something close to a million dollars’ worth of crack in an open Mosler safe.
A: Oh.
Q: And something like five hundred thousand dollars’ worth of stolen goods elsewhere on the floor.
A: I see.
Q: She told us that Mr. Rodriguez hired her to kill Julian Rainey.
A: Well, that’s not what I hired him to do.
Q: I thought Charlie Nichols hired him.
A: Well, yes. I meant indirectly. All I asked him to do was find a dead body.
Q: Where? On the street? In the park …”
A: Wherever dead bodies are.
Q: In the trees? In a garbage can behind McDonald’s?
A: I’m glad you find this so amusing, Ms. Moscowitz.
Q: Mrs. Moscowitz. And I find it quite serious. Whose idea was it to blame the murder on Michael Barnes?
A: Mine. But there was no harm in that. It was just a way to keep it going. To keep the headlines rolling. When he went to the police with his story about having been robbed—and showed them my card, no less—there’d be headlines all over again. And then while he was being investigated, there’d be more headlines. And when he was cleared, there’d be headlines again. And meanwhile the picture would have opened and it wouldn’t matter what the critics said about it.
Q: So you chose Mr. Barnes as your fall guy …
A: Oh, it didn’t have to be him. It could have been anyone. He simply presented himself.
Q: Popped up, so to speak.
A: Well, yes.
Q: And refused to lie down again.
A: Well.
Q: Which is why Mr. Rodriguez ordered his murder as well.
A: I don’t know anything about that.
Q: Alice Chaffee does.
A: That’s her problem. And Mama’s, I would suppose.
Q: Your problem is that you ordered the first murder, Mr. Crandall. You’re the one who set the whole thing in …
A: I did not order a murder. I ordered a corpse! And anyway, it was Charlie’s idea. He was the one who contacted Mama. I had nothing to do with it.
Q: Alice Chaffee says Mama paid her four thousand dollars for the job. Who gave Mama that money?
A: I have no idea.
Q: Did Charlie Nichols give him that money?
A: He must have.
Q: Why? It was your movie, why would Charlie …”
A: I don’t know anything about any of this. Charlie came up with a good idea. And he followed through on it. If someone got killed because of what Charlie did, I certainly am not re—
Q: All Charlie’s idea, huh?
A: Yes. I had nothing to do with anyone getting killed! I was trying to save my movie. If Charlie was alive, he’d—
Q: Yes?
A: Nothing.
Q: He’d what?
A: Nothing. Q: Is Charlie dead, Mr. Crandall?
A: I don’t know what Charlie is.
Q: Well, as a matter of fact, he is dead, Mr. Crandall. But how did you know that?
A: I don’t know anything at all about Charlie’s condition, dead or alive.
Q: Then you don’t know he was killed with a P-38 Walther nine-millimeter Parabellum automatic pistol.
A: I have nothing more to say.
Q: Ballistics will have something more to say, I’m sure.
A: It was all Charlie’s idea. If Charlie’s dead, that’s too bad, but …
Q: I thought you had nothing more to say.
A: All I have to say is that it was Charlie’s idea.
Q: Except for pinning the murder on Michael Barnes. That was your idea.
A: Yes.
Q: Why’d you change the script, Mr. Crandall?
A: Why?
Q: Please tell us.
A: Because I’m a director!
Q: Oh.
A: Yes.
Michael sensed her presence before he looked up.
Knew she’d be there.
Standing in the doorway.
Her right wrist was bandaged where Mama had cut her. There was a smile on her face. She stepped into the room. Into a bar of sunshine lying in a crooked rectangle on the floor. The sunlight touched her hair, touched her face.
“They have you listed as dead,” she said. “But Detective Orso told me you weren’t.”
“I’m glad I’m not,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said, and came to the bed.
He would have to call his mother, let her know he was still alive. Tell her he’d met a wonderful Chinese girl he wanted to marry. Mom? Are you there, Mom? Please take your head out of the oven, Mom.
“Let me see your cute little face,” Connie said, and sat on the edge of the bed, and cupped his face between her hands, and turned it this way and that, searching it. “I was so afraid he’d cut your face,” she said. “But you look beautiful. Could I kiss you?”
“We’ll have to ask the nurse,” he said.
“No, I don’t think we have to,” she said.
Mom? he would say. I’m alive, Mom. I’m alive again.
THE END