Walking on Water

Drama

About the book

It’s 1999. Fifty years ago, Lee Kwan, chauffeur to the town’s newspaper publisher, was found murdered under his employer’s Packard. But who did it? The crime has never been solved. An engaging and theatrical murder mystery, Walking on Water is a moving and panoramic return to a place and time of moral clarity, good guys and bad guys, tough broads and daring dames.

About the author

Dave Carley is the author of a number of works for stage, including Writing With Our Feet, After You, A View From The Roof, Taking Liberties and, most recently, a dramatization of Margaret Atwood's novel The Edible Woman. He has been nominated for the Governor General's Award for Drama and is a three-time Chalmers Award finalist. He received the 2000 Arthur Miller Playwriting Award from the University of Michigan and has been the playwright-in-residence at Ontario's Stratford Festival and Barrington Stage Company in Massachusetts. Dave was born and raised in Peterborough, Ontario, and currently lives in Toronto.

Excerpt

Neil: Sir! I have reason to believe Lee was murdered! I also believe he was operating some kind of gambling den at Bloom's store!

Heck: Your point?

Neil: Christine found a box in Bloom's basement. Hidden behind some bricks. There was $42,000 in it.

Heck: What!

Neil: In bills of all denominations.

Heck: How much?

Neil: Forty-two grand!

Heck: No slang, Kid. What'd she do with it?

Neil: She took it. Finders keepers.

Heck: Finders keepers is for when you find a quarter on the sidewalk.

Neil: That's how I felt. I told her we could go see a lawyer, but first she should put it back.

Heck: Has she?

Neil: She tried yesterday, but Bloom sent her home before she had a chance. I'm going with her tonight to return it. Sir—doesn't all this seem odd to you?

Heck: I don't pay you to play detective. But I do pay you. And right now I want a follow-up on the purse thing which includes Mrs Gillespie's full embrace of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and the twelve disciples. Get lost.

Heck turns to talk to someone on the phone.

Forty-two thousand! Be a nice story if it wasn't such a can of worms. I told the Kid to put it back. Imagine his girlfriend finding that kind of money in someone's basement and thinking she can just waltz home with it. Now give your sugar poppa a big phone kiss.

Betty: (Turning to tell someone.) The silly git finds the money; turns out Bloom's been hiding it behind a rock or something in his basement! So what does she do? She walks outa there at midnight and takes it home!

Terry appears on other phone.

Terry: So that's where it is! How much did you say? Forty-two thousand! Where does she live? Oh—her boyfriend's returning it to the store—tonight?

Terry turns to someone in shadow.

I've located the money. But my share's two-thirds now.