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by Elizabeth Sanchez (night_angel32@hotmail.com)

Rated: PG-13

Genre: Drama User Review:

Detective Kelly must solve a past crime in order to solve his most recent case of murder.

FADE IN:

EXT. GRAVEYARD - DAY

Storm clouds are slowly moving in from the south as everyone
gathers around the casket of eighteen year old Samantha. All
of her friends and family gather to pay their last respects.
As the preacher finishes the sermon and everyone departs,
Sam’s mother walks over to her daughters’ casket and lays a
single tea colored rose on top in remembrance.

            SUSAN MANNING
      (Turning to face
       the detective)
I should have put the green dress
on her. Green is her favorite
color you know.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Looks into the
       grieving mothers
       eyes,feeling her
       pain)
I will find the one responsible
for this Mrs. Manning. I promise
you that. He will not get away
with this. I will not rest until
he is found.

Mrs. Manning nods wearily and turns her attention back to
the casket.

Kelly turns and heads for the parking lot to his blue
thunderbird. It was parked in the last row next to the iron
fence overgrown with weeds.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Kelly looks up as
       he gets into his
       car)
Looks like rain.

Its getting late, but Kelly doesn't feel much like going
home so he decides to head back to the station to see if
there are any leads on the suspect.

Thoughts of the young woman sends chills down his spine.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (As he pulls into
       the parking lot
       of the police
            (MORE)

DETECTIVE KELLY (cont'd)
station)
How could someone do that to her?

INT. POLICE STATION - DAY

Detective Kelly barely makes it through the police station
door before he hears the captain yelling for him to get into
his office.

CAPTAIN BRODIE
(Agitated)
Do you have any leads on this
maniac yet? We need to find him
now before he strikes again! It's
been two weeks now with no leads.

DETECTIVE KELLY
I just came from the funeral.
Hoping that the family might have
an idea who would want to hurt
their daughter, but no one knew of
anyone. She was just getting ready
to go off to college next week.
She was so happy her mother told
me. They just don’t understand.
She had her whole life ahead of
her.

CAPTAIN BRODIE
(A little calmer)
Just find him Kelly.

With that Detective Kelly walks out of the office and heads
for his desk piled high with unfinished paper work from last
week. He is so frustrated and deep in thought when suddely
his phone startles him out of his reverie. It rings several
times before he reaches over and picks it up.

DETECTIVE KELLY
(Answering phone)
Detective Kelly

VOICE ON PHONE
(Man's voice)
She was a beauty wasn’t she? Just
like the others.

DETECTIVE KELLY
Who is this?

VOICE ON PHONE
(Man's Voice)
Now why would I tell you that? You
have to find that out for
yourself. I have given you a clue
and you still don’t get it. (The
voice on the other end becomes
very quiet).

DETECTIVE KELLY
What clue? Where? (He tries to
keep the man on the phone long
enough to get an answer).

VOICE ON PHONE
(Loud and angry)
It won’t stop!

The aggravated voice on the other end hangs up.

DETECTIVE KELLY
No! Wait!

It was to late. Kelly stares down at the phone listening to
the buzzing noise. As he reaches over to hang the phone up
he notices that the office is to quiet; he looks up and sees
everyone looking in his direction. He was to wrapped up in
the conversation to notice before.

Everyone slowly goes back to what they were doing. He had no
clue who the other man on the other end of the phone was.
After about thirty minutes of pondering this he decides to
go check out the crime scene again to see if he might have
missed something the first time around. He stands up,
stretches and heads for the door.

EXT. POLICE STATION - DAY

Outside Kelly looks up and realizes that it's getting dark.
He decides to give the crime scene a once over quickly and
go back first thing in the morning. He doesn't want the
coming storm to wash any evidence away. If there is any.

He gets into his car.

EXT. CRIME SCENE - NIGHT

Kelly pulls up next to the railroad tracks where the body
was found almost two weeks earlier. He gets out and begins

scoping the place. After about thirty-five minutes of
looking in the dark with only a flashlight to guide him he
is about to give up when he spots something white lying
between the tracks.

He picks it up and at first it appears to be just an old
discarded piece of paper, but at closer examination it is a
typed out note made from one of those old typewriters. It
reads,

5991 - I'M BACK

Detective Kelly thinks hard about the numbers and words that
are typed on the paper, but he has no clue what it could
mean.

DETECTIVE KELLY
Could this be the clue that the
man on the phone was referring
too?

Still thinking about the piece of paper he had just found,
Kelly gets into his car and heads home for the night.

INT. DETECTIVE KELLY'S HOME - NIGHT

As Kelly enters his apartment all he wants to thinks about
is a hot shower, then bed. He heads for the bathroom to
start the shower. He steps out of the bathroom long enough
to grab a fresh towel from the hallway closet and hears the
rain hitting the bedroom window. He quickly looks out the
window before heading back into the bathroom.

After his shower he jumps into bed letting the noise of the
rain sing him to sleep.

INT. DETECTIVE KELLY'S HOME - DAY

The next morning Kelly stumbles out of bed and the numbers
from the note comes rushing back at him full force. Like
someone pounding them into his head.

DETECTIVE KELLY
5991… could it be? Could he be
back after ten years of
hiding?!The man on the phone
yesterday said, “ Samantha was
beautiful just like the others.
The only difference between
Samantha and the others from ten
years ago was that her heart was
cut out with precision. Not
(MORE)

DETECTIVE KELLY (cont'd)
sloppy. How could I have not seen
this before?

Kelly looks over at the clock on his nightstand and realizes
that he is running late. He almost runs out the door without
his pants on. He catches a glimpse of himself in the hall
mirror as he runs for the front door.

He getting fully dressed then makes his way to his car
parked out back. The drive to work is a slow one due to
early morning traffic.

EXT. POLICE STATION - DAY

As he pulls into the parking lot as close to the police
station as he can get, he notices that the captain's car
isn't parked in it's usual spot. It isn't anywhere to be
seen.

DETECTIVE KELLY
Good, he says to himself. I will
have time to look through the old
unsolved files before he arrives.

First thing Detective Kelly notices as he enters the station
is how hot it is. He can already feel the stickiness of the
humidity in the room.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Addressing the
       man next to the
       front door as he
       enters.)
The heat must be on the fritz
again huh?

He makes his way to his desk and discards his tan over coat.
Making one last stop before going to the basement file room
he decides to grab a cup of coffee.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Tastes the
       coffee.)
I have got to bring my own coffee.
Can’t take too much more of this
mud. (Gives a little chuckle)

Kelly heads down stairs, he flips on the lights and stands
there in the doorway of the room for a minute until his eyes
adjusted to the dim light.

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Talking out loud
       to himself)
Where to start. How far back
should I go?

Reaching into the file cabinet marked nineteen ninety-five
he starts flipping through each unsolved murder.

Nothing seems to fit the M.O. of the current case. Feeling a
bit frustrated he looks over to the clock next to the
bookshelf and it read nine-thirty. He reaches for the last
file in the drawer and reads aloud.

DETECTIVE KELLY
Reason for death… victims heart
cut out with a jagged edged
object. Messy job. Never found
heart.

Realizing that he has been down here in the file room for
over an hour he hurries up and replaces the files and heads
back upstairs.

CAPTAIN BRODIE
Has anyone seen detective Kelly
this morning?

Everyone moans a no and goes back to what they are doing.

As Kelly makes his way upstairs he hopes to himself that the
captain would be happy with what he has to say this morning.

Closer now to a lead then he has been in the past two weeks.
He thinks that he might even have an idea where to look
first.
Slowly He makes his way to the captain’s small-enclosed
office. After knocking he opens the door and enters,
expecting the worst.

CAPTAIN BRODIE
Ah… Detective Kelly. Please take a
seat. What do you have for me this
morning?

            DETECTIVE KELLY
      (Hands a note to
       the captain
       sealed in a clear
       plastic bag)
Well Sir… Last night I went back
to the crime scene and found this.

Kelly waits for the captain to look over the note before
speaking.

When the captain looks up, he adds...

DETECTIVE KELLY
I think we might have a suspect
resurfaced. Do you remember the
murders of 95? The case we are
working on now has the same M.O.,
but with one slight difference.
The heart of the young girl
Samantha was cut out with
precision as if done by a surgeon.
The others as if done by an
amateur.

CAPTAIN BRODIE
Do you have any ideas on who this
person might be Kelly? Where we
should look?

DETECTIVE KELLY
I have my theories, but not a
definite. I think we need to check
out the most recent graduates of
the med school and hospitals. What
do you think?

CAPTAIN BRODIE
It’s worth a shot. Get to work
looking up the recent graduates
Kelly and I will have someone call
the local hospitals and get the
names of recent hires for
surgeons.

Detective Kelly stands up and heads for his desk.

After three hours of calls and internet searches he has only
one possible suspect.

A thirty-five year old man working at the Johnson Memorial
Hospital three blocks away. He is the only recent hire in
the city within the past six months.

The captain quickly orders the SWAT team to close in and
within the hour the man gives himself up.

Kelly phones the family of the recent victim to inform them
of the capture. After hanging up he leans back in his chair
and sighs,

DETECTIVE KELLY
Two cases solved in one day. Not
bad at all,..... Not bad at all.

FADE OUT.

Feedback

From Larry Boodry	Date 10/1/2005
Good story, however some of your dialogue does seem canned, and your ending is too rushed...you need to SHOW the suspect, and the SWAT team moving in, not just tell us about it in the scene descriptions...Needs work, but there's potential.

From Robert Hyland	Date 1/26/2005
This started really well, got me interested right away in what was happening. There was a good varied pace. However, as the script progressed, I felt the script became a little more cliched - the dialogue seemed canny, the script started to lose the sense of intrigue that I felt near the beginning. I dunno - just seemed like I'd seen it all before. Maybe if you developed the ideas further - maybe introduce another suspect or another cop as a partner. It's got a lot of potential, keep going with it.

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