- for a whole year!
Note: A few words about 'free' - all these monologues are protected under copyright law and are free to read, free to perform and video as long as no money is charged. Once you charge admission or a donation, or include my work in an anthology, you need to contact me for royalty info.
If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: A few words about 'free' - all these monologues are protected under copyright law and are free to read, free to perform and video as long as no money is charged. Once you charge admission or a donation, or include my work in an anthology, you need to contact me for royalty info.
If you just started this blog and want to read the earlier monologues, please
scroll down for the previous days or go to http://www.monologuestore.com/ -click on the Monologue Mania button please scroll down.
To start at the beginning - Feb. 13, - click here.
For a list of the blurbs from each day, click here
Help a playwright and get more great award-winning monologues - MonologueZone.com
Thank you for your comments - and for liking and sharing this site
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Monologue Mania Day # 222 by Janet S. Tiger Last Scene (Crime) Sept. 22, 2014
Last Scene (from Crime)
Last Scene (from Crime)
( see Day # 219,
220, 221)
A monologue by Janet S. Tiger © all rights reserved
tigerteam1@gmail.com
(Lights up on the Detective)
Some cases stay with you. Maybe you feel that you
could have done more to solve them. Or sometimes......maybe you got the
wrong person. It doesn't happen often.
On TV, the wrong person is convicted half the time.
But the sad fact is that most people convicted did the crime......not on TV of
course, but in real life.
Sometimes......there is a doubt. I've had a few cases
that left that doubt in my head.....not a lot ....less than the fingers on one
hand. In three of those four cases, it turns out my doubt was
wrong. They had done it....in two of the three, others had
helped.
The third, well that was weird - the person who was supposed
to be dead, was actually alive, and had tried to collect the insurance using
another name. The supposed murderer was supposed to get half the money,
but when the dead guy wouldn't pay up, the murderer spilled the beans. It
was an oddity, but kind of funny, which can only happen when the dead person
turns up alive.
(He turns serious)
It was the fourth case......
(He clicks on the slide
show)
I guess, I guess I just never believed this guy Clark was a
killer. After awhile you get gut instincts about people, and some people
you can't see killing anyone.
But he was a drunk and the blood was all over him. And
he had the knife in his hand, and all he could remember was....nothing.
There was no real motive, but drunks don't need a motive.
He was truly remorseful, cried at the sentencing, said he
liked the old guy, didn't want to kill him, was sorry.
I remember, he had a wife, and he had a little girl, maybe
seven, eight years old, and the mother would bring the kid to the trial, and I
thought it stunk. But then, one day, I heard her tell the kid that she
didn't believe the father did it, and she was gonna stick by him, even though
he was a drunk. (Imitates woman) Baby. your Daddy may be a
drunk, God knows he is a drunk!..... but he's no killer, he just gets sad
when he's drunk......we'll visit him whenever we can.....'
Never forgot that. Stayed in touch with them.
The little girl grew up into a nice young lady, and then, I get a call from my
friend......I'd told her about my case, and she told me about Bertha
Johnston. And then she told me the rest.
You see, the man who killed Bertha was implicated in five
other deaths. His fingerprints were there.
Now in the TV shows, there's a lot of car chases and scary
arrests and policemen and women getting kidnapped and their friend and family
threatened - all kinds of stuff that rarely happens in this country, thank God.
In real life, the arrest is often.....what's a good
word...anti-climactic. That's how it was with Bertha's killer. He
was stopped for a routine automobile issue - tail light out. And the
driver's license was out of state, and had expired, they took the guy in, and
he thought he'd been caught on something, and the detective ran his
fingerprints, got the same hits the Sheriff in Bertha's town did, and now, he's
in custody.
And the Detective decides to go fishing and asks, out of
left field really, 'So, why'd you kill that man in Nebraska? ' And the
guy goes, 'Which one?'
(He
shakes his head, still can't believe it)
So the detective gets the guy talking, and he confesses to
not one or two, but six murders to start!
And then they ran the prints again, and suddenly, it was
like Christmas...well, maybe that's a bad analogy, it was like not winning, but
solving a lottery.....because this guy had been killing people for over 25
years!
When they told him he was gonna fry, the guy just
laughed. He told them he would give details for over ...(hard to
say)....over 100 hundred unsolved cases......amazing.....
But only if they didn't kill him....if he fried, the dead
people...and their families, would never know.
So......in exchange for the names and the
information.....they let the bastard live....I guess it just proves what they
say....knowledge is power.
It took literally months to unlock the
mysteries.......eventually, there were over 123 confirmed murders. The
reason he had never been caught? He never stayed around long. No
one ever got to know him......one day, two at most, and he'd be gone......and
the dead person, gone, too. He never left the murder weapon, never was
seen with the dead people.
He would say, ' Some people like movies, some people like
pizza, I like to kill people.'
But Bertha was different. She was nice to him, made
him apple pie like his mother used to do. And nagged him to wash his
hands, which he never did unless she caught him! Bertha .....was
the only time he stayed.....and he stayed for a month before he killed
her. A month in which he helped her on the farm, and when she had a cold,
he went into town and shopped for her, and paid her bills.....including the one
at the brand new County Water office.
Because Bertha was nice, and my friend here is very smart, and
very thorough, and has a little OCD ...and some weird dreams......we caught
someone who without doubt would have killed again, until the day he died, or
was stopped.
There were 123 murders attributed to this guy, all unsolved,
except for one. The one I wondered about....the one where the drunk had
gotten sent away for a crime he was too drunk to remember, too drunk to
remember because he never committed it. A guy who had been in jail for
over 12 years, for someone else's murder.
When I went to see his daughter, to let her know what was
happening, because releases take time, I found out that his wife had died.
And his daughter said to me, 'Mom always thought he was
innocent, but I knew better.'
But he was innocent! I told her.
'No he wasn't' she said to me- 'he was guilty- guilty of
being a drunk. If he hadn't been drunk, he would have remembered what
happened.....or even, he would never have been there with other drunks.
So, he may be innocent of the murder, but to me, he'll always be guilty.'
He got out of jail, and I still consider him to be one of
that guys victims.
Like the families and friends of the dead people....But at
least, at least this one time, we could help a little, solve a mystery….. let
people know…… who done it.
(He takes a
book from his pocket, opens it and reads)
And the LORD
said to Cain, Where is Abel thy brother? And he said, I know not: Am I my
brother's keeper?
And the Lord
said, "What have you done? The voice of thy brother's blood is crying to
Me from the ground.…
(He turns to go,
stops, looks back)
And that, my friends, is why I became a detective. I am my brother’s keeper.
(Lights down. The end)
--------------------------------------
Janet S. Tiger 858-736-6315
Member Dramatists Guild since 1983
Playwright-in-Residence
Swedenborg Hall 2006-8
--------------------------------------------------------
No comments:
Post a Comment