forecast calls for destruction tonight, death tomorrow, and Armageddon by the weekend. In fact, this could be the end of life as we know it.
63 INTERIOR: LINOGE.
LINOGE
Seems unlikely . . . but we can always hope.
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He takes another bite of cookie.
FADE OUT. THIS ENDS ACT 2.
Act 3
64 EXTERIOR: ROBBIE’S LINCOLN, WITH ROBBIE--DAY.
He claws at the driver’s side door. Down the street, a number of TOWNSFOLK are watching him curiously.
GEORGE KIRBY
Everything all right up there, Beals?
ROBBIE doesn’t answer the old guy. He gets his car door open and dives inside. He has a CB radio under the dash, and now he yanks the mike off its prong. He punches the power button, punches in channel 19, and speaks. All during this, he keeps casting panicky glances at the open door of the CLARENDON house, in terror that MARTHA’S killer will show up.
ROBBIE
This is Robbie Beals for Constable Anderson! Come back, Anderson! This is an emergency!
65 INTERIOR. ANDERSON’S MARKET--DAY.
The market is as crowded as ever. CAT and TESS MARCHANT, a motherly looking woman in her mid-to late-forties, have been checking folks out just as fast as they can, but now everyone freezes as the radio spews out its EXCITED BABBLE.
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ROBBIE (voice)
Come back, dammit! Anderson! We’ve got a murder over here! Martha Clarendon’s been beaten to death!
A DISMAYED, DISBELIEVING MURMUR goes through the shoppers at that. Their eyes get big.
ROBBIE (voice)
The guy who did it is still in the house! Anderson! Anderson! You come back, do you hear me? You’re always around when it comes to unwanted advice, where are you when-TESS MARCHANT takes the microphone from the radio like a woman in a dream.
TESS
Robbie? This is Tess Marchant. Mike’s not-ROBBIE (voice)
I don’t want you! I want Anderson! I can’t do his job and mine, too!
CAT
(takes the mike)
He had an emergency at home. Alton went with him. It was his little g-Just then, MIKE and HATCH come in through the door. CAT and TESS look incredibly relieved. A LOW MURMUR runs through the crowd. MIKE makes about three steps into the room, then stops, realizing something very much out of the ordinary is going on here.
MIKE
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What? What is it?
Nobody in the market will answer him. Meantime, the RADIO continues to SQUAWK.
ROBBIE (voice)
What do you mean, an emergency at home? There’s an emergency right here! An old woman murdered!
A lunatic in Martha Clarendon’s living room! I want the town constable!
MIKE walks quickly to the counter. CAT gives him the mike as if glad to be rid of it.
MIKE
What’s he talking about? Who’s murdered?
TESS
Martha. He says.
ANOTHER, LOUDER MURMUR this time.
MIKE
(pushes TRANSMIT button)
I’m here, Robbie. Just a minute-ROBBIE (voice)
Never mind just a minute, dammit! I could be in a life-threatening situation here!
MIKE ignores the man for the moment, holding the mike against his chest and talking to the two dozen or so islanders who have clumped together at the heads of the aisles, staring at him, stunned. There hasn’t Generated by ABC Amber LIT Conv erter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
been a murder on this island for almost seventy years . . . unless you count Dolores Claiborne’s husband, Joe, and that was never proved.
MIKE
You folks back off, now, and give me a little privacy. I get six thousand a year to be constable; let me do the job you pay me for.
They back off, but are still listening; how can they help it? MIKE, meanwhile, turns so his back is to them and he’s facing the radio and the lottery ticket dispensers.
MIKE
Where are you, Robbie? Come back.
66 INTERIOR: ROBBIE, IN HIS CAR.
Behind him, we can see TOWNSPEOPLE--probably a dozen of them--standing in the
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