Episode 56: The Inverted Pyramid

Monday, September 12, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. Barely twelve hours have passed since Carolyn Stoddard and I had thought the tragic legend of Collinwood had become a reality and we had seen a dead body, lying at the foot of Widow’s Hill. Twelve hours that have brought no answers, either to me or to her.

Liz gives Carolyn her watch. 

Carolyn apologizes for being such an idiot as to think she saw a dead body last night. Liz tells Carolyn she and Miss Winters were right. There was a dead man at the foot of the cliff.

The phone rings and someone from the sheriff’s office tells Carolyn they just found Bill Malloy’s body. Liz and Carolyn are both griefstricken. Liz tells her how Matthew pushed the body back into the water.

Liz tells Carolyn to get dressed and she calls Roger, who isn’t there.

Roger comes into the Blue Whale to find Sam—who is there. He finds the Blue Whale very comforting now. An oasis in a world of horror. Roger says he should have been a poet.

“I should have been many things other than what I am.”

They discuss Bill Malloy’s presumed death. Roger says no one knows for sure it’s Bill until the body’s found again.

Sam says he has news for Roger.

Carolyn helps Vicki make her bed—or starts to. 

She tells Vicki about Bill, “the nicest, sweetest man” she’s ever known, and how much she hates this world.

Roger calls the sheriff’s office and reports back to Sam that there is going to be an autopsy. Roger says he will do everything to see justice done if Bill was murdered. He tells Sam he told the sheriff about the meeting the night before. Sam wants to know what he’s supposed to say.

“Precisely what I tell you to say.”

Carolyn says there’s so much we want to do in life, but it can suddenly be cut short. Bill always wanted to have a month on a tropical island. Carolyn thinks if you have a dream, you have to go after it.

Liz comes in and tells Carolyn to get dressed. Carolyn hugs her.

Liz tells Vicki that David should play outside and Vicki can do whatever she would like today. 

Vicki says she has been putting off doing something that has to do with a man called Evans.

Sam thinks the lies are piling up like an inverted pyramid that will topple over of its own weight.

“Not if we stand together,” Roger says. He tells Sam that he would be arrested as an accessory after the fact if Bill had had his meeting. And now that Bill is dead, Sam has a motive.

“No more than you.”

“That’s why we must stand together.”

It’s their word against Burke’s now that Bill is dead.

Carolyn wonders if Liz will put Bill’s name in the family book. Vicki notes that’s just for Collinses. (They should put Bill’s name in the book.)

Vicki asks Carolyn about Sam Evans. She says Roger tried to discourage her from having dinner with Sam and Maggie. 

She wonders if Sam knows something about Vicki that Roger doesn’t want her to know. Carolyn thinks this unlikely.

Roger returns home. Liz asks if he’s heard about Bill. 

He says it’s very sad. He’d been hoping that Matthew had made a mistake. He thinks they should close the plant for the rest of the day, and Liz agrees.

Carolyn lends Vicki her car.

Roger asks where Vicki is off to. Some nonsense about Sam Evans, Carolyn tells him. Does he care?

Of course not. He hardly knows the man.

That’s just what Carolyn told Vicki.

 

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

Victoria Winters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Alexandra Moltke

Carolyn Stoddard . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Nancy Barrett

Elizabeth Collins Stoddard. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Joan Bennett

Sam Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Ford

Roger Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Louis Edmonds