no bodies around

{Manhattan Murder Mystery}


MARCIA
(voice over)
She has a heart attack.  She drops dead spontaneously.  They had no thought of killing her.  Maybe they wished she was dead.

TED
(voice over)
Why?

MARCIA
I don't know.  Maybe they stood to gain if she died.  They see a golden opportunity.

                    (In the imagined Flashback, Lillian House, wearing a pink bathrobe, is dressing the dead woman in her own clothes.)

MARCIA
Mrs. House dresses her up in her clothes.  She hides.

LARRY
This is my theory.  Exactly my theory.

MARCIA
That's right.  She checks into a hotel.

INT.  Vincent's Restaurant - Night

CAROL
Yeah, well, we got that far, with the exception of the actual spontaneous heart attack.

MARCIA
Okay, you know the husband's planning to go to Paris with this pretty young woman.

TED
Yeah.

LARRY
Yeah.

MARCIA
He's cheating on his wife.

TED
Yeah.

MARCIA
So, instead of finishing the scheme they planned, he double-crosses her and kills her, taking her share of the profits.

TED
Well, you think, you think Helen Moss is in on this, too, huh?

MARCIA
Yeah, a good chance she's aware.

CAROL
Okay, but what about Mrs. Dalton?  He claims he took her to the movies.

MARCIA
She's his alibi.  She covered for him when he strangled his wife.  She said he was at work all day.


LARRY
That's right, because he introduced her as a colleague.

                              Marcia lights a cigarette.

TED
Wait, why...  Why would she...

MARCIA
She's a colleague who maybe loves him.

TED
Oh, wait, wait.  He's cheating on her, too.

LARRY
Cheating on two women?

TED
Yeah, yeah, yeah.  It's perfect.  Just -- it all fits.

LARRY
The guy doesn't look the part.

MARCIA
The point is, he's gotten away with the perfect murder.  There are no bodies around to prove anything.  And all the paperwork is strictly aboveboard.  He's home free.

______________________________

-30-