The Soap in the Water

THE SOAP IN THE WATER A One-Act Play By Stephen Richards

CONTENTS CHARACTERS …………………………………………..……..

2 PLOT SYNOPSIS …………………………………………......

2 SCENE ………………………………………………….…….….

2 SCRIPT …………………………………………………..………

4

Copyright ©2014 Stephen Michael Richards, Anvil Panow Creations Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 1

CHARACTERS Mr. Hollinger, a slender, average-height middle-aged man, the subject of a murder investigation.

Detective Mearcy, a husky, tall middle-aged man, the detective investigating a murder.

Police Officer, an average weight-and-height middle-aged man in a police-officer’s uniform.

PLOT SYNOPSIS Detective Mearcy investigates the murder of Mr. Hollinger's fiancĂŠe, who apparently died ten days after her birthday, the day on which Mr. Hollinger had given her a new bar of soap of a brand foamier and slipperier than her own brand she had gotten from Europe.

SCENE In a large mansion's living room, a tall, thin grandfather clock sets the stage in the back and center as the main attraction. The entire room, darkened, is mostly wooden and dusty, with cob webs, high ceilings, and sheets draped over furniture, all suggesting it's never been lived in for decades. A large door leads to an open hallway on stage right. Placed on either side of the grandfather clock is one each of two undraped, stuffed, upholstered old-fashioned arm chairs, rather large, but small enough to be picked up and put back Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 2

down. On stage left, a brick fireplace with a mantle of concrete remains cold and lifeless. Two old-fashioned lamps, one floorstanding and another one, an end-table lamp, light up the stage rather dimly. On an end table is a large old-fashioned porcelain plate, and, on that plate are two large bars of hand soap, one white and the other, gold. On stage right, between the grandfather clock and the doorway, is a small old-fashioned four-legged wooden desk, on top of which is a high stack of large white paper, on top of the stack of which is a large black calligraphy pen, and nowhere in the room, any desk chair. Behind and to stage left of the grandfather clock is a large circuit breaker at stage rear in the mansion's back wall behind the grandfather clock. Attached to the circuit breaker is a long, large exposed wire with frayed ends.

Attached to the back of the grandfather clock is also a long, large exposed wire, with a frayed end, extendable and attachable, with a twist of the frayed wires, to the end of the other wire attached to the circuit breaker. On stage right, on a table next to the grandfather clock, is a large, tall, completely untouched wedding cake.

SCRIPT (Mr. Hollinger and Detective Mearcy are standing, speaking to each other.)

Mr. Hollinger: (Trying to convince Detective Mearcy.) There were suds in the water! She blacked out! She thought she had already washed out the suds from the sponge. Then she realized otherwise.

She got back into the shower to rinse out the sponge, leaving suds in the bath water afterwards. In that split second during which she Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 3

blacked out, anything could have happened! In fact, that's when the phone rang.

Detective Mearcy: (Objectively.) How do you know there were suds in the water? Didn't all the suds drain with the water?

Mr. Hollinger: The phone rang. She went to the phone and answered it, all of a sudden, while water was still in the tub. There was a trail of suds from the tub to the phone.

Detective Mearcy: How do you know there were suds on the floor?

Mr. Hollinger: When she answered the phone, she fell on the suds.

Detective Mearcy: How do you know she fell on the suds?

Mr. Hollinger: I heard her fall. She was in the kitchen when she answered the phone. Her kitchen floor gets slippery.

Detective Mearcy: How did you hear her fall?

Mr. Hollinger: I was the one who had called her.

Detective Mearcy: Why did you call her right then, when she had just taken a shower?

Mr. Hollinger: We had planned to make love for our next time together only after her new bar of soap had just run out. On her birthday, ten days prior to that night, I had given her a new bar of soap of a different brand than her own. She had informed me that she had always run out of every bar of soap exactly at the end of ten days of using any of her own bars of soap. That brand I had given her would be no exception, she told me. That night had fallen on the tenth day.

Detective Mearcy: How did you know she had finished taking her shower? You said you called her after she had finished her shower.

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 4

Mr. Hollinger: I did call her after she had already finished her shower because someone else had called her just a minute or two before I myself had called her to ask her if everything was all right.

Detective Mearcy: Why did such a phone call startle you?

Mr. Hollinger: She had not answered the phone.

Detective Mearcy: How do you know she didn't answer the phone?

Mr. Hollinger: I didn't hear her water running. I always hear her water running. I live right there beneath her. Her phone rang while she had stopped showering.

Detective Mearcy: What did she do when the phone rang?

Mr. Hollinger: She turned her water on again.

Detective Mearcy: Then what did she do?

Mr. Hollinger: She answered my phone call. And then... (Sobbing, he breaks down. Detective Mearcy offers him a chair, in which he sits down.) She screamed so loud! I've never heard her scream so loud before! (Still crying, he covers his face with his hands.

Detective Mearcy hands him a tissue.)

Detective Mearcy: I understand how traumatic this situation must be for you, Mr. Hollinger. Please bear with me. I'm trying to gather all of the facts of this case. Can you answer one more question for me, please?

Mr. Hollinger: Yes. (Stopping his crying, he holds his nose with the tissue and looks down at the floor.)

Detective Mearcy: Okay. Good. You're a strong man, Mr. Hollinger. Now, where were we? Let’s see…Oh…Do you remember what I was asking you before you broke down?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 5

Mr. Hollinger: No...I don't think so. Something about the phone call...and...Oh, yes...she fell!

Detective Mearcy: Yes, your fiancée, what was her name? Do you remember your fiancée’s name?

Mr. Hollinger: Yes, of course I do. Moslie...that was her name...Moslie.

Detective Mearcy: Which soap did Moslie like more than any other kind?

Mr. Hollinger: She loved a certain perfumed variety she had ordered especially from Europe. She went all the way to Europe and after finding it, just had to have it all over her body all of the time. She fell in love with that soap's scent as soon as it made its way to her own nostrils from the display-table in a boutique, and, ever since then, she’s never been able to part with it.

Detective Mearcy: I suppose it made her apartment smell good, didn't it?

Mr. Hollinger: Yes, it did, and it made her own body smell even better, especially when she was naked with me in bed. I couldn't resist her body, making that delicious-smelling perfume waft all over my face and neck and down to my groin. She smelled just as beautiful as she truly was inside. Oh... (He groans, remembering the experience of making love with his fiancée. Detective Mearcy clears his throat and pulls up his own chair, sitting down himself.)

Detective Mearcy: Let's see...where were we? Do I remember what we were talking about? What was the last question I asked you before we got off on the smell of your fiancée? Oh, yes...the brand of soap...and the suds on the floor. You said there were suds on the floor, didn't you?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 6

Mr. Hollinger: Yes, I did. Those were suds of my own brand of soap, not hers. How else would the tenth day had arrived by then?

Detective Mearcy: Could she not have fallen on her own brand of soap suds?

Mr. Hollinger: No. Her brand of soap isn't as slippery as mine. In fact, her European soap hardly foams at all. A soap as dry as hers certainly wouldn’t make anyone slip on a floor…or anything else, for that matter.

Detective Mearcy: You seem intent upon urging me to understand you, or, in other words, your own soap, as being the culprit in your fiancée’s accident. Why do you boast such a great responsibility?

Mr. Hollinger: I know it's not great to be held so highly responsible for such an undertaking as heinous as murder.

Detective Mearcy: Murder? I didn't mention the word, "murder," at all at any time whatsoever within this entire conversation since having just met you only a few hours ago today, Mr. Hollinger.

Why do you refer to the serious matter of murder itself so casually?

Mr. Hollinger: Why are you so surprised? You're a detective, aren't you?

Detective Mearcy: I'm just an amateur detective, not a real one. I just think like an investigator, you know? It's just how I talk to people.

Mr. Hollinger: (Sarcastically.) Yeah, right, and I'm just an amateur investor. I just think like a stock broker. It's just how I make millions of dollars on Wall Street. If you act like a detective, you're a detective, and that's that. If you say you make no money at it, Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 7

you're just talking like everybody else does, anyway. But you don't say you make no money at it, do you? Detectives never say anything about making no money at anything, do they? Uh…what did you say your name was, Detective…what?

Detective Mearcy: Mearcy! Detective or not, I'm just trying to be nice to you to help you through your new hardships related to your fiancée’s death.

Mr. Hollinger: I might as well tell you right now, Detective Mearcy, my fiancée was murdered, plain and simple. There's no way to hide the truth about this matter any longer. That other caller…he did it. I know that other caller did it. When she thought she had rinsed out the soap from her sponge, she didn't even know anything had happened in that split second of time between the time she turned her water off and the time she turned her water back on again.

Detective Mearcy: But if all she did was turn her water off for a second, how do you know she forgot to rinse out her sponge?

Mr. Hollinger: I heard her step out of the tub.

Detective Mearcy: How did you hear her step out of the tub?

Mr. Hollinger: When her phone rang, I heard her crying out things like "hold on, honey, I'll be right there, and don't hang up," and other cries for mercy, sounding worried that she and I wouldn't meet again, you know, to make love. Then her phone stopped ringing, and she stepped back into her shower.

Detective Mearcy: You said you heard your fiancée’s water running when the phone rang. Yet, if the water had been running when the phone had rung, why would you remember not hearing the water running during any other time? Don't you mean that after Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 8

the phone had started ringing, the water was still running, and then your fiancée turned off the water to answer the phone?

Mr. Hollinger: No, it's like this... (He gestures with his hands.)

Faucet down...then phone rings...then faucet up...then phone rings again, but this time it's me calling.

Detective Mearcy: No, I don't think so. I think it's more like faucet up...then phone rings...then faucet down...then phone rings again.

Then she ran to the phone while the water was still running up into her tub, filling it up, higher and higher, shortly overflowing it over the top, until it...

Mr. Hollinger: Now, wait a minute! She was right there on the kitchen floor! You know she was! She wasn't stuck in the tub when you found her!

Detective Mearcy: Examining the apartment, we found no evidence of any suds anywhere in the apartment.

Mr. Hollinger: There were suds! There were lots of suds! Suds, suds, suds and more suds! You think I'm lying?! That soap of mine makes suds. You better believe it makes suds, and I don’t mean just a little bit of suds, I mean lots of suds, a whole lot of suds! (Makes big circles in the air with his arms.)

Detective Mearcy: I have no doubt that your soap makes suds, but that's not the issue. The issue is whether or not any suds at all were really on your fiancée’s apartment floor at that specific time at which you called her. At what approximate time did you call her?

Mr. Hollinger: At exactly five o'clock in the evening. I remember that exact time very well because that specific time at which I called her was closing time, at which time I had been ending a Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 9

certain deal between another investor and my own company, involving my own soap versus his.

Detective Mearcy: What did that other caller do to cause you to think of any man as a cold-blooded murderer?

Mr. Hollinger: He called right away when my very own fiancée could have remembered that she had not yet rinsed out her sponge.

Detective Mearcy: How would he have known your fiancée’s activities so well as to have known exactly when she was going to rinse out her sponge, right at a certain moment when he had deviously planned to call her on the phone and confuse her to the point of blackout?

Mr. Hollinger: I don't know how he knew anything about my fiancée or how he knew a thing about me either, for that matter.

Somehow he knew she and I had planned to make love that night.

How he knew is beyond me.

Detective Mearcy: Had you already worked out a deal by the time he called your fiancée?

Mr. Hollinger: I said I closed the deal at five o'clock...five o'clock sharp.

Detective Mearcy: Yes, you closed the deal at five o'clock, but had you completed the paperwork by, say, just a few minutes before five o'clock?

Mr. Hollinger: You do know that there has to have been signatures, don't you?

Detective Mearcy: Can you show me the signed documents?

Mr. Hollinger: If I show you those signatures, I will prove something that I've been avoiding telling you. One of those Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 10

signatures is of the one who called my fiancée. He agreed to the deal. I won that night after thirty years of fighting him for the right to make my brand of soap even foamier than it already was. I was so excited about having won finally, I told him all about my plans to make love to my fiancée based on my special gift to her, my own soap, foamy it was, foamy enough to...well…to...

Detective Mearcy: To cause an accident?

Mr. Hollinger: No, I didn't tell him that. I just said that I was going to use it make love to her, you know, in a special way of lubricating certain key places of the human body...you know what I mean?

Detective Mearcy: What did he think of that?

Mr. Hollinger: He became furious. He almost killed me, it seemed to me, for he was so angry, he swung his fist to his phone and dialed a number before striking me with his own hands. He was so upset, he certainly didn't seem to know what he was doing.

Strangely, he apparently had dialed my fiancée’s number, for after I had heard her crying out, I knew those calling rings on her phone had stopped right at the moment that that man had hung up my own phone right beneath her in my own office.

Detective Mearcy: Then what did that man do?

Mr. Hollinger: He couldn't do anything more to me after that, for I had spotted him calling my own fiancée. With that much power over him, I shoved him away from my phone and called her myself.

Detective Mearcy: Did she really answer the phone? When you heard her screaming, was she really on the phone?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 11

Mr. Hollinger: (Startled with new realization.) No...No...It can't be true...I am not the reason she stepped out of the tub, am I? She wasn't so worried about not making love to me that night, was she, that she rushed so fast to get to the phone that she fell in the tub?

She didn't drown in the tub water, did she? It's just too painful to admit that I had anything to do with her death!

Detective Mearcy: (Probing.) How did the tub hold the water? You said she had been showering, didn't you? If she had been showering, why would she have covered her own drainpipe?

Mr. Hollinger: She rinsed off her sponge in the drainpipe. In that way, she used her sponge, not only for cleaning herself, but also for filling up her tub after every shower with enough water for something everyone does, I imagine…exercising the goldfish while cleaning the aquarium.

Detective Mearcy: Okay, but, there's still something bothering me about something you said to me today. How did she both drown in the tub and fall on the kitchen floor all in a matter of minutes in one night?

Mr. Hollinger: She fell on another occasion at which time I had called her on that other night well before that night of her death.

That's when I found out how slippery my own brand of soap is.

That's also when I decided to arrange a deal with that other company's investors. The problem was about how I was going to make my soap foamier.

Detective Mearcy: Can you reveal that much information or risk losing it all for the sake of a serious investigation, you know, delving into the nature of your fiancée’s death?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 12

Mr. Hollinger: I understand that these unusual circumstances warrant my upmost care and concern in the pressing moments of our upcoming significance, sure to be gained very soon. I must combine his own brand of soap's formulation with my own brand of soap's special extra-foaming formula in order to actually reduce its combined foaminess, not exacerbate it, by any means.

Detective Mearcy: But, your fiancée didn't die from the slipperiness of your soap, rather, from a fear of losing a human's loving touch. Your fiancée’s death, therefore, cannot finance your soap company's investment strategies.

Mr. Hollinger: Can you please help me out? I can't go on with nothing to live for! I've spent my whole life waiting for this great moment in life to make it big, really big, so big I won't have to lift a finger for the rest of my life. Please...please...tell the whole world that my deceased fiancée slipped on my soap...please...please...for me...your trusted friend and, now, my soon-to-be-partner in all of my investment strategies from here on out. All it takes is your very own signature right now, right here, on this very dotted line. Here...

(From the bottom of the stack of papers on the desk, he pulls out a document, jutting the document in front of Detective Mearcy's face.)

Detective Mearcy: Mr. Hollinger, were you going to do away with your own fiancée in order to finance a redesigning of your own brand of soap?

Mr. Hollinger: You know…foam is dangerous! Reducing foam is a good cause! By reducing foam, we can enjoy fewer accidents in the kitchen or anywhere throughout the house! And outdoors, too!

And the rivers and streams...less mess…plus…

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 13

Detective Mearcy: What about phosphates? Phosphates reduce that extra foaminess already, don't they?

Mr. Hollinger: Not in my own brand of soap, they don't, because my brand is different.

Detective Mearcy: You mean to say that...

Mr. Hollinger: (Quickly.) Okay, you get the picture. I need phosphates. Yes, I do.

Detective Mearcy: What is so hard about getting phosphates?

Mr. Hollinger: My plant doesn't have any way of utilizing that method of soap production, not without that other man's soap company added to my own.

Detective Mearcy: But, Mr. Hollinger, your fiancée is dead!

Doesn't your fiancée’s death matter to you so much that you can't stop imagining continuing your soap-investment plan even for just one second longer to sell just one more bar of soap ever again for the rest of your life?!

Mr. Hollinger: Life goes on, Detective Mearcy, no matter what.

Now that you know what I need, do you care about me? I'm still alive, that's for sure, and I, therefore, must surely continue in life, whether you want to help me or not. You might as well help me, or else I'll have to find some other way of making a living.

Detective Mearcy: Murder is a very serious matter, Mr. Hollinger.

Murder always takes precedence over everything, including your own business affairs.

Mr. Hollinger: Why are you just questioning me? Why aren't you all over that other man who called? Why am I the only butt of your relentless interrogations?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 14

Detective Mearcy: You’re not the only subject in these matters.

He's on my list, too, along with several other suspects. I haven't left anyone out of the investigation.

Mr. Hollinger: (Upset.) You think someone murdered my fiancée?!

(He looks at the grandfather-clock face.) In the meantime, I'm losing my company. I must inform you that it's now five o'clock exactly, and I didn't close the final deal. (Sarcastically, still looking at the grandfather clock-face.) Well, congratulations, Detective, you just solved the crime! (The grandfather clock loudly strikes out four deep chimes, while, at the exact same time, a woman's loud shriek, long and blood-curdling, is heard off-stage. The stage abruptly blacks out. There is a pause of utter silence. Mr. Hollinger is disgusted.) See? You just think you know everything, don't you?

Now my fiancée really is dead!

Detective Mearcy: (Excited.) There wasn't a fifth chime! You still have time to close the deal!

Mr. Hollinger: (Sarcastic.) Oh, and, in the meantime, that man, you know who I mean, can just burn up my fiancée with yet another intense bout of even more electricity. She was just electrocuted, dummy, because you didn't agree to our deal, and that man who electrocuted her was listening to our entire conversation that whole time, waiting to see if you were going to help me out or not!

Detective Mearcy: (Upset.) Why didn't you tell me she was going to get hurt? I could have prevented her death!

Mr. Hollinger: I had no other way out of my mess! I was never going to have any other chances in life but that very one at that very moment in life!

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 15

Detective Mearcy: Now you don't even have a fiancée! You could have at least had a fiancée!

Mr. Hollinger: You might as well also electrocute me as well as my fiancée. I have nothing to live for any longer at this time in my life.

Detective Mearcy: How would I do that? I don't know how to electrocute anybody!

Mr. Hollinger: You know that man I was referring to? He's you!

You are that man who electrocuted my fiancée, and you don't even know how you did it! And you're also that man who called my fiancée on that night she was murdered! This is that night she was murdered, and you're the one who murdered her! You called her just before you got here. This is her house. Her apartment is upstairs. If you go up there right now and walk into her bathroom, you'll see her burnt to a crisp in her own bathtub full of water!

Detective Mearcy: How would I have done that?!

Mr. Hollinger: You made her take her phone to her bathtub! You made her drop her phone in her own bath water! You made her get electrocuted in her own bath water!

Detective Mearcy: I think you are mistaken.

Mr. Hollinger: Go up there right now and see for yourself! The steps are all the way down the hall and to the right through the doorway.

Detective Mearcy: (Worried.) Come with me.

Mr. Hollinger: No. Detective Mearcy: I'm not leaving this room unless you go there with me.

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 16

Mr. Hollinger: (Grinning from the prospect of love.) Hmmm...Is that a promise? (He quickly closes the door to the hallway.)

Detective Mearcy: (Surprised.) Uh, oh. You aren't hot for me, are you?

Mr. Hollinger: (Proclaiming exuberantly.) Yes, I am!

Detective Mearcy: Now wait a minute. I'm getting out of here. I'm going upstairs. Where is she? (Quickly leaves the room through the doorway to the hallway.)

Mr. Hollinger: (Wickedly.) There! Got you, you sick, gross, stupid fool! Just five chimes at six o'clock and you'll be dead, too! (He rushes to the wall behind the grandfather clock, opens the circuit breaker, and attaches, by twisting together, the end of one exposed wire attached to and leading away from the grandfather clock together with the end of another exposed wire attached to and leading away from the circuit breaker. He then looks at the grandfather-clock face, sits on the floor in front of the grandfather clock, and stares at the moving hands on the grandfather clock.

Detective Mearcy comes back.)

Detective Mearcy: There's no one upstairs.

Mr. Hollinger: (Still staring at the grandfather clock's moving hands, is sarcastic.) Oh, I just happen to know how to remove one of the chimes from a big standing clock for no reason.

Detective Mearcy: (Puzzled.) That clock has always been like that, hasn't it?

Mr. Hollinger: Like what?

Detective Mearcy: It's the hands, not the chimes, or is it the chimes and not the hands?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 17

Mr. Hollinger: I don't know. (Remembering suddenly.) Wait a minute…what time is it? If it's not really five o'clock yet, I can close that deal! What do you say? Do you want to help me or not?

Detective Mearcy: (Giving in.) Oh, all right. I'll buy phosphates for you.

Mr. Hollinger: (Elated, jumps up off the floor and up and down for joy.) Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Oh, I'm so happy! I can't believe how wonderful this moment is in my own life, so bad it has been until now! You are so nice, I can't even believe how nice you are! (Runs up to Detective Mearcy and hugs him and starts to kiss him, but Detective Mearcy pushes Mr. Hollinger away.)

Detective Mearcy: None of that! We've got business. First, hand me the document I am to sign. (Holds out his right hand, palm up.)

Mr. Hollinger: Then what? I just need the money, you know? I'll call you later. Let’s see…when is your birthday? Oh, yes, I'll send you a bar of soap. The plan will include ten days, then making love, but what happens is...well...I can't disclose any of that...

Detective Mearcy: (Shocked, with his eyes widened and a look of horror on his face, gasps.) You already have! I'm a dead man!

Mr. Hollinger: (Defensively.) You’re a dead man?! Didn’t you want my fiancé gone from our lives? You’re the only reason she’s dead!

Detective Mearcy: I don’t love you!

Mr. Hollinger: I saw you looking at me and not her at our investment meetings.

Detective Mearcy: (Defensively.) I was simply investigating, perfectly natural for me in any situation, crime or no crime.

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 18

Mr. Hollinger: Investigating what, the size of my…

Detective Mearcy: Now hold on, Mr. Hollinger, I know how big that is already! You don’t even have to say it!

Mr. Hollinger: Of course you know how big it is! I’m not surprised at all to find that out! How big is it?

Detective Mearcy: It’s average, just like you! IQ and size are the same thing! You’re just a measly 4 and a half inches long, aren’t you?

Mr. Hollinger: I could show you a thing or two right now to settle that score, which is a lot bigger than you realize!

Detective Mearcy: I’m not singing, Mr. Hollinger. I’m telling you the truth about what I know about your average ways about you.

You don’t know how small you really are.

Mr. Hollinger: But you probably aren’t aware enough of how big I really can get, are you?

Detective Mearcy: I don’t care about that. That’s just temporary.

Mr. Hollinger: Not if you’re talking with your mouth open!

Detective Mearcy: Mr. Hollinger, I’m here to solve a crime. You’re suggesting perversions. I am not the man who had anything to do with your wife’s death.

Mr. Hollinger: Why don’t you stop trying to make such a wretched thing happen and tell me the truth about how you really feel about me, not my wife, for a change?

Detective Mearcy: She can’t really be alive, can she? I… Mr. Hollinger: You what?

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 19

Detective Mearcy: I think I’m not fooling you anymore.

Mr. Hollinger: You’re right. Actually, you never were fooling me.

I’ve always known what it is you’re really seeking. You want me, all for yourself, to love, don’t you?

Detective Mearcy: Why do you let me even talk to you? You don’t even love me, yet, I cannot leave you alone if you don’t keep me away from you. I do love you. You know I do.

Mr. Hollinger: Now she really is dead. You’re the one who kept talking about her death. It’s your fault she’s dead.

Detective Mearcy: But for how long has she been dead? For as long as I have been talking about her death?! I did not talk her into dying. She’s already been dead for many years now, ever since that day you and I made love.

Mr. Hollinger: I did not kill her by my actions! We…you and I… we did nothing wrong together, did we?

Detective Mearcy: What we did is not wrong if you don’t believe it to be wrong. Do you believe in love…between you and me, I mean?

Mr. Hollinger: Love does not kill anyone, does it? Why did my wife die right after you and I had just experienced being together for the first time?

Detective Mearcy: That wasn’t very long ago. It seems like just a few hours ago.

Mr. Hollinger: It just seems that way?! I haven’t even washed the sheets yet!

Detective Mearcy: But…your wife…she screamed…and…

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 20

Mr. Hollinger: She’s gone, right? You took care of the body, didn’t you?

Police officer: (A loud, quick rapping is heard off-stage. From offstage is heard a man’s voice, shouting.) This is the police! Open up! We have a warrant for your arrest in the murder of Mrs. James Hollinger! (Detective Mearcy quickly leaves the stage through the doorway into the hallway. Momentarily, a front door is heard opening.) Detective Mearcy?

Detective Mearcy: (Still off-stage.) Yes. Mr. Hollinger is in the living room down the hall.

Police Officer: (Still off-stage.) Where is the dead body? (Scuffling off-stage is heard as the Police Officer is heard entering the house and walking upstairs. Detective Mearcy returns to the stage.)

Detective Mearcy: (Worried, talking again to Mr. Hollinger.) Um… we’re in trouble. The police must have heard everything we’ve been saying to each other this whole time. They’re upstairs right now looking for the dead body. Where is it? I didn’t see it up there.

Is it really upstairs? How do the police know where it is?

Mr. Hollinger: Oh…where it is? You didn’t see it up there?!

Detective Mearcy: I mean…is it still where you thought it was?

Mr. Hollinger: You’re the one who electrocuted her, not me!

Detective Mearcy: You’re still intact, but she…well…she…is in pieces. She couldn’t tell the time. How did you hear her screaming?

Police Officer: (Heard off-stage loudly identifying the body.) That is Mrs. Hollinger.

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 21

Mr. Hollinger: The police officer just found her. I just heard him find her.

Detective Mearcy: So did I. Mr. Hollinger: You mean, all this time you’ve been hearing the same things I have? I thought you thought I was psychic!

Detective Mearcy: If I had just thought that you were psychic, how would it have mattered if you alone had heard her scream?

Mr. Hollinger: There are wires! See? (He points to the wires attached to each other behind the grandfather clock.) Those are the wires! Wires do it! I don’t! I’m not capable of such a feat!

Detective Mearcy: What wires? (Looks at the space behind the grandfather clock.) Over there? (Walks slowly and cautiously to the space behind the grandfather clock. Talks, not visibly, in that space.) What is here, Mr. Hollinger?

Mr. Hollinger: I wouldn’t touch those wires, if I were you. That police officer is liable to get electrocuted…next…after my wife.

(The grandfather clock strikes seven chimes. Mr. Hollinger looks at the grandfather-clock face.) Seven chimes at seven! I’m going to jail! You always were one to listen to reason, you old devil, you!

(Falls into chair in despair. Detective Mearcy comes back out from behind the grandfather clock. He stands next to Mr. Hollinger, holding his hand, comforting him.)

Detective Mearcy: (Coldly.) I’m so sorry, Mr. Hollinger. We could have been very close to each other. But now I must take you to jail.

(Mr. Hollinger stays seated in the chair. The Police Officer enters and handcuffs Mr. Hollinger and takes him off the stage through the door leading into the hallway and then is heard off-stage taking him down the hall and through the front door. A cool breeze Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 22

blowing onto the stage through the doorway leading from the hallway into the living room makes Detective Mearcy shutter. He tightens his shirt collar around his neck and leaves the stage through the doorway leading from the living room into the hallway. The front door is heard off-stage closing with a bang.)

THE END The Soap in the Water A One-Act Play by Stephen Richards Copyright Š 2014 Stephen Michael Richards, Anvil Panow Creations 5401 Norris Road, Apt. 12 Bakersfield, California 93308-2182 (661) 331-4945 First Recorded: February 9, 2014 Updated: February 26, 2014 23:39:32 a2/p2

Stephen Richards The Soap in the Water pg. 23