Episode 32: Nine Years

Tuesday, August 9, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. Here in Collinwood, there is a moment of quiet. Even the wind has subsided, and the threat of a storm is a thing of the past. But there are other storms. The unending chill of fear that sweeps through the silent corridors, always reminding a man of how close he has come to death.

Liz comes home and Roger tells her that David tries to kill him and is now where all criminals belong, under lock and key. Liz is not happy about this.

Roger wants to know why Liz didn’t tell him why David was missing when she called him earlier. He shows her the bleeder valve. Liz wonders how he could have tried to kill Roger.

“All he needed was a wrench.”

Bill Malloy comes to see the sheriff.

He wants to tell him about Burke’s hiring a private detective. Jonas already knows about that. He wants to talk about David.

Roger tells Liz he thinks David might be Burke’s son. He was born almost eight months after Roger and Laura married. They married right after Burke’s trial. Roger always looked at David and saw Burke. And he hated David.

Liz says she’s sure David is Roger’s son.

“Why? Because he’s deceitful, vicious, unpredictable? Because he tried to kill his own father?” (Is that something Roger did? Hmm.) He tells Liz he knows David better than she does. She’s known him two months, and he’s been with David nine years. “And do you know what they add up to, those nine years? This.” Roger holds up the bleeder valve.

Bill admits David has said he wished Roger dead. He admits David doesn’t like Roger. Jonas wants to know if there was an argument. Bill says he was upset about being sent away, to boarding school, he supposes. How upset?

Bill can’t believe what Jonas is suggesting.

Jonas tells him about David picking up the wrench after Burke did. But David’s fingerprint is under Burke’s, not on top of it. Bill says that doesn’t prove David tampered with the brakes.

“No,” Jonas admits, “but it raises a suspicion.”

Bill wants to know what Jonas is going to do about it.

Jonas doesn’t know.

Liz comes down from going to see David. David wouldn’t acknowledge her.

Roger thinks David should be sent away to a special school so he can get some help. What if he tries again? A loose rock, rat poison in his coffee. Liz says David has been surrounded by hate his whole life. She wants to help David.

She admits nothing excuses what David did, but he’s had to live his life with Roger’s guilt. Roger denies having any guilt.

Liz says their family has always stuck together and they’re going to do it this time too. Roger will not treat David like a criminal. He’ll leave him alone and let Miss Winters and her give him the love and attention he deserves.

Before Roger can reply, Jonas is at the door.

He wants to talk about the accident.

Liz tells Jonas that it turned out the valve fell off by itself. It was loose. It had been loose several times in the past. Their caretaker just told her.

“What you mean is you want me to drop the case.”

So he does. He’s going to go home and take his wife to a movie. Before he goes, he adds, “Oh, Mr. Collins, give your son my regards, will you?”

After Jonas leaves, Liz tells Roger she had no choice.

“We all have a choice, Liz. It’s what we do with it.”

She had to protect David.

“You protected a monster, Liz.” And someday, he says, she will regret it.

 

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

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

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

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

Bill Malloy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Frank Schofield

Jonas Carter. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Michael Currie

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by John Sedwick

Story created and written by Art Wallace

Episode 28: Spells and Incantations

Wednesday, August 3, 1966

My name is Victoria Winters. A nine-year-old boy, driven by fear and desperation, has disappeared from Collinwood. A boy who holds the key to an attempted murder, a crime that involves the interest and concern of many people.

Burke storms into the sheriff’s office. Jonas tells him that people usually knock before they come in there. (Really? People usually knock before they come in the sheriff’s office?) Burke asks if Jonas knocked before coming into Burke’s hotel room.

“Why are you so worried about my searching your room? What do you have to hide, Burke?”

Burke says he has nothing to hide but Jonas had no right to do it without a search warrant. Jonas tells Burke he had one, and Burke asks if he found anything interesting. He wants to know who’s behind this—Roger Collins?

The phone rings and Jonas testily answers it. He says he’s not ready yet. He tells Burke that nobody tells him how to do his job, not Roger Collins or anybody else. Burke says that family railroaded him into prison ten years ago and he hasn’t forgotten it. Jonas notes he thought that was all bygones now.

Jonas says if Burke didn’t tamper with Roger’s brakes, then somebody else did, and he has to find out who.

Maggie brings a wandering David into the restaurant and makes him a sundae. His father comes in there quite often. Did he know that? No. Maggie was hoping Roger would come in tonight, as she’d like to talk with him. David says he’ll be along . . . pretty soon.

Maggie goes to the pay phone, ostensibly to call her father.

Burke kills time at the sheriff’s office by looking at wanted posters. Jonas comes back in and asks him if he sees anyone he knows.

“I graduated from that class five years ago.”

“Has it been that long since you got out of prison?”

Burke says he got out early for good behavior.

Jonas gets another phone call, and he mentions New York. Burke wants to know if the phone call is about him. He flies off the handle again. Jonas says he seems like someone with a guilty conscience. (How did Burke ever get through five years in prison without clocking anybody?)

Maggie lets David make a sundae. She asks him about going in Burke’s room and he denies doing anything wrong. He tries to go wait in the lobby, saying he doesn’t want the sundae. Maggie smooths it over and talks him into making a sundae for her.

Roger arrives. David disappears while Maggie lets his father in. He was just there, she insists.

“Spells and incantations, Maggie.” If David rematerializes, he could make his own way home.

Maggie notes it’s getting dark soon and Roger weakens. If she sees David again, at least let him know he’s in for a good solid lecture.

She asks about Burke and her father. She tells Roger that Sam is going to do a portrait of Burke.

 









 











Burke walks in. Seeing how intense Maggie and Roger look, he asks, “I’m not breaking up the great romance, am I?” 
(A romance between Roger and Maggie would be kind of interesting.)

Maggie leaves Roger and Burke alone to go through their usual round of bickering over the brakes and prison. Roger says Burke will be going back there, and then leaves.

Maggie and Burke talk about David, then Burke wants to know if Roger and Sam saw much of each other while Burke was away.

Not until the night Burke came home. Although Roger had been at the house when Maggie was a kid, about the time of the trial.

Roger goes to the sheriff again, who wonders what Roger is hiding. The report on Burke from New York is clean. He runs an investment firm, buys into outfits and sells them for a profit. But he did hire a private detective to come up there and investigate the Collins family. Again, does Roger have anything to hide?

Maggie still can’t find David. Burke says maybe he got into Burke’s room. Maggie says he didn’t even have time to get out of the restaurant.

He’s in the phone booth. (Nobody looked in the phone booth! Are you kidding me?)

        Cast, In Order of Appearance

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

Jonas Carter . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Michael Currie

Burke Devlin. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .  Mitchell Ryan

Maggie Evans . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Kathryn Leigh Scott

David Collins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . David Henesy

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

Fashion by Ohrbach’s

Directed by Lela Swift

Story created and written by Art Wallace