Murder, She Wrote: A Story to Die For

[flashback:
Jessica walks through the garden and swimming pool area]

Jessica Fletcher:
[voice only] After you were shot I went out to examine the area where the shooter would've been standing. On inspection I found a bullet hole in a tree that was on a direct line to my window, meaning a bullet had not been fired *in* from the garden it had been fired *out* from the room. Then when the Police found the bullet in the wall of my room and it matched the one that killed Yuri, I knew. I was hoping that somehow, some way it wasn't you. That perhaps I'd misread the clues or you were being set up to take the blame. One thing finally changed that, and I feel confident that when forensics checks the powder burns on your shirt, they'll realise only you could've fired that gun. Everything about the murder pointed to premeditation, which meant that the murder must have had something to do with the contents of his previous novel. Yuri killed your song didn't he?

Warren Pierce:
[downcast] Jess do you know what it's like to go through life... wondering why your son was murdered? Who killed him? And then one day, I opened a book.

[holds up the book titled COLD WARRIOR]

Warren Pierce:
[downcast] This book. My Publisher said that he wanted me to review it. It was Yuri's book. Can you believe it? As I read... bit by bit I realised I was... I was reading the end of the details of my own son's... murder. Information that no one else could've known but the man who did it. The man who killed him. Yuri must've thought nobody put it together, he must've thought he was immune from prosecution, but it's all here Jess. It's all in the book! All the facts! I wasn't going to let him get away with it. Yuri Malenkovich killed my son! Shot him... shot him. He dumped his body in a ditch... and he just... left it there.

Jessica Fletcher:
[walking towards Warren] For as long as I've known you, I felt that a part of you has been in terrible pain. Now I know why. And I am so sorry Warren. I truly am.

Warren Pierce:
[downcast] Are you sorry enough, or you understand enough, not to go to the Police?

Jessica Fletcher:
Warren?

Warren Pierce:
[downcast] What else did you tell them?

Jessica Fletcher:
Well nothing significant. I didn't name you. I didn't need to.

Warren Pierce:
Why not?

Jessica Fletcher:
Because you are going to turn yourself in to the Police and you are going to confess. And you will tell your story in front of a jury.

Warren Pierce:
Jessica you're the only one who knows I'm involved in this.

[takes the silenced gun from the top of the wardrobe]

Warren Pierce:
What's to keep me from killing you?

Jessica Fletcher:
Because I still believe that you're an honourable man.

Warren Pierce:
[walks towards Jessica with the gun] I've already killed once.

Jessica Fletcher:
That was because you believed you were avenging your son's death. There's a big difference between that and... and this. You could've let Patricia take the blame for the murder. And you could've gotten away before any of this unravelled but you *didn't*. And that *proves* that you can't hurt an innocent... or a friend.

[Warren gives the gun to Jessica]

Warren Pierce:
You'll always be my friend.

Warren Pierce:
[into the tape recorder] Officially for the record I'm giving you this confession. But Patricia here has first rights of publication of the story. Told you I'd get you that big break. Always keep my promises.

Lt. Det. Bob Mankowski:
I'm surprised Mrs. Fletcher isn't to tell the story. And she has every right to.

Warren Pierce:
I think she understands. Well, here we go. My son Brad was a correspondent for the...

[in the conference room]

Woman:
I don't understand how you could do it. I mean you said yourself he was your friend. The guy he murdered was probably a killer several times over, a lot worse than your friend. So why do it?

Jessica Fletcher:
Yes, well uh, it was, it, it was the hardest thing that I've ever done. But, popular culture not withstanding there is such a thing as right and wrong. The taking of a human life for any reason is wrong. You can never nudge the moral compass far from its true North without losing something vital. A compass is essential for everyone, writers in particular. Yuri Malenkovich asked why I investigate murders. He said that I had to have a personal agenda. Well he was quite right. It's important to me to pursue those who cross the line, and take another human life. In my investigating murders, I've seen some terrible things. So many of them it would take the wind out of anybody's sails.

[last lines]

Jessica Fletcher:
But because I'm a romantic I still believe that we have the potential to be nobler than we know and better than we think. That the darkness I've seen is only a shadow on the *potential* of the human heart. Warren, in his own way a romantic, made hard by the world around him until he finally made a tragic mistake. He walked away from his own moral compass. So I urge you to keep your hearts' compass on the true North of your dreams. Be free to be romantics, to reject sinisism, to believe that good will prevail, and that those who do wrong will be punished. Because, when the hour of the wolf comes, as it comes to all of us, sooner or later. Those are the things that sustain us. Thank you and goodnight.

[everyone in the conference room stands up and applauds]