THE CASE OF THE GREATER GATSBY EPISODE 20 - BITTERSWEET SYMPHONY TRANSCRIPT

[The Case of the Greater Gatsby opening credits music plays]

Announcer: Now presenting Fig and Ford in The Case of the Greater Gatsby. Episode 20: Bittersweet Symphony. Written and created by Sean Persaud and Sinéad Persaud.

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): I woke up in the office as the sun was rising. I'd fallen asleep with the morbid photos of F. Scott Fitzgerald splayed out on my desk. They say that if you put a textbook under your pillow at night, you can absorb all its knowledge. Wondered what you’d learn if you fell asleep on top of a bunch of crime scene photos. Was it too late to give up on everything? I thought of Vivian writing us a check when this was all over. The bread that would keep the lights on in this brand new office. It's a bittersweet symphony, life. Trying to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die. I shrugged off this morning's melancholy marine layer and went to fix myself a mug of murk in the fancy percolator Wilhelmina had bought for the office when Fig walked in.

[Fig enters.]

Fig Wineshine: Have you had enough time to pout on your own? Good, because I have The Greater Gatsby script and I stayed up all night reading it. My eyes are dryer than an Amish wedding.

[Fig DROPS the script on the desk.]

Ford Phillips: You have the script? And you didn't tell me?

Fig Wineshine: I tried. You wouldn't listen.

Ford Phillips: You should have tried harder.

Fig Wineshine: I'll get 'em next time. Now would you like to hear the deets or would you rather huff and puff some more?

Ford Phillips: The deets. Ugh. Never let me say 'deets' again. Is there really stuff about me in there?

Fig Wineshine: Hoo boy there is. A whole scene. I can't believe you managed to them all in-

Ford Phillips: I don't need to hear what it is. Just wanted to see if Vivian was bluffing this whole time.

Fig Wineshine: Nope. Now sure, there's gossip in this thing. But all the names are changed. Since we're in the know, we'd be able to connect all the dots, but I don't think the general public would. For instance, the affair between a lounge singer named Belinda Ravensworth and the protagonist is as generic as it gets. Also there's some alarming scenes involving a trio of showbiz triplets. The implication is that two of them killed the third so they could get bigger slices of the proverbial pie.

Ford Phillips: Doesn't ring any bells for me.

Fig Wineshine: The Punchwhistle Triplets?!

Ford Phillips: Don't think I've met them.

Fig Wineshine: They helped us figure out that the threats were targeting movie adaptations? Rex Punchwhistle played Bosch Groban when we- never mind. But it's pretty damning. Anyhow, we found the script in Willy's purse.

Ford Phillips: A frame job?

Fig Wineshine: Willy's the Mona Lisa and the script is her smile.

Ford Phillips: Pardon?

Fig Wineshine: Well, the Mona Lisa is framed in the Louvre... If I have to explain it it's not really-

Ford Phillips: -All right then, we track her movements over the past few days. Figure out where she went and who had opportunity to plant it on her.

Fig Wineshine: She's back on set at 9 this morning. I'm ready when you are.

Ford Phillips: Let's go.

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): We headed out into the hallways of our decidedly nicer office building. I noticed the mail box outside our door was brimming with junk.

[Fig rifles through the mail.]

Fig Wineshine: Hey, coupon for the bean store. I'll keep that one.

Ford Phillips: It's probably all garbage, just toss it.

Fig Wineshine: Wait...

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): Amid the stack of fliers for new sandwich shops and invitations to view properties in the up and coming neighborhood of Eagle Rock, my eyes fell upon a familiar set of letters. All cut out from some magazine or newspaper and arranged in an aggressive manner.

Ford Phillips: Is that?

Fig Wineshine: Looks like I've finally joined the Hollywood elite. A threatening note just for me.

Ford Phillips: (reading) "F. Scott Fitzgerald's murder was just the beginning for us. Quit The Grapes of Wrath or we'll make Wineshine out of you. That is to say, we'll squish you like grapes are squished to make wine."

Fig Wineshine: These really need a punch up.

Ford Phillips: "Quit the Grapes picture or feel our wrath" would have been better? No?

Fig Wineshine: Much.

Ford Phillips: Wait a minute...

Fig Wineshine: What?

Ford Phillips: This is the first time the letters have ever mentioned F. Scott Fitzgerald. That the threats and the murder are linked.

Fig Wineshine: The person sending these letters is the killer? Which means whoever stole this script-

Ford Phillips: -Could be our murderer and criminal correspondent.

Fig Wineshine: Lotta work for one outfit.

[Fig and Ford sit down in Willy's dressing room.]

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): Fig and I made our way to Hammermeister Studios and settled into Willy's dressing room.

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: I've got plenty of time. Whitley said he's planning on getting artful closeups of all the extra's feet before we shoot my monologue.

Fig Wineshine: This movie really is going to be something ain't it?

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: It's going to be a movie! I thought you knew!

Ford Phillips: Willy, when did you start using that Hermes bag of yours?

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: I use a different bag every week! I have so many I don't want to hurt their feelings. So I try to wear them each an equal amount. Yesterday was day one for this bag.

Ford Phillips: Was the bag empty when you picked it out?

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: Sure was! I remember putting my character shoes in there, my copy of The Beautiful and Damned, a lipstick, and a Chinese finger trap!

Fig Wineshine: What's the reasoning behind the last thing?

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: Fun!

Fig Wineshine: I should have known.

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: From there I came to set and saw Penny for a fitting. After that, I got an early lunch with Juniper.

Ford Phillips: Let's start at Penny's, then keep retracing your steps from there. Hopefully we can narrow down who you saw and when they might have had an opportunity to plant the script in your bag.

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: I love retracing my steps! It's like going back in time!

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): We made our way to Penny's office, where Willy told us she was being fitted for a new sequined Grape costume, for a dream sequence in which she gets turned into a grape. Hambones and Hickory, what the heck is going on in this movie?

Penny Nickelpenny: I'll get it to you when I get it to you, TD! Outta my office!

TD Hammermeister: But it's been weeks!

Ford Phillips: What's going on in here?

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): As we entered, we saw TD Hammermeister lording over Penny's desk like an anxious hamster. Sorry, it's late in the audio drama and my similes and metaphors are getting wacky.

Fig Wineshine: Everything hunky dory, Pennsylvania 6-5000?

TD Hammermeister: Yes! Everything is fine and running smoothly!

Penny Nickelpenny: Oh, great, Wineflaps, you're here. I need you to try on these chaps.

Fig Wineshine: I thought we were cutting the chaps ballet?

Penny Nickelpenny: Whitley wants to have it just in case he can sneak it in during the edit.

Fig Wineshine: Alright, one second.

[Fig starts trying on clothes.]

Fig Wineshine: Hey Penn State, guess what? I finally got a death threat! Feels like I've joined some rarified air.

Penny Nickelpenny: You did?! Scrambled eggs on toast, this is gettin' to be too much for ol' Penny Nickelpenny!

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): To say I was impatient as Fig and Penny gabbed would be an understatement. I'd had enough of Fig shirking her PI duties for this film. Not the best look to air our dirty laundry in public, but I'd just about had it.

Ford Phillips: Look, Fig, if you can't take this seriously... hey. What's this?

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): My eyes fell upon a silken handkerchief draped over a sewing machine on Penny Nickelpenny's desk. The color, the fabric, the size of the hole... all very familiar.

Fig Wineshine: Hey have you two met? It's been such a flaming hot imbroglio of a month I can't remember who you know or not.

Penny Nickelpenny: I know Ford Phillips. I was a PA when he was a little tyke at the top of the call sheet. Now look at you! All grown up with that dead eyed stare of a donkey that's been put out to pasture.

Ford Phillips: That's very mean. And again... What is this?

[Ford picks up the maroon handkerchief.]

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): Ford picked up a maroon handkerchief from Penny's desk.

TD Hammermeister: Looks like a scrap from a costume. You guys should probably be going, right?

Penny Nickelpenny: It's TD's damn hanky he needs me to mend. Man with a hanky? Disgusting. If you can't sneeze in private, what business do you have being around other people?

Ford Phillips: How'd you tear it?

TD Hammermeister: (anxious) Just snagged it on a piece of wood from set.

Ford Phillips: Then how did a piece of it end up among F. Scott Fitzgerald's secret tapes? Tapes he kept in the same place as his missing script.

TD Hammermeister: I don't know what you're talking about!

Fig Wineshine: Yeah, me neither!

Ford Phillips: Claudette spotted a piece of this maroon fabric stuck to F. Scott's tape reels, like it got stuck there and ripped off. A piece that would match this little hole exactly.

[He waves the hanky around.]

Fig Wineshine: What? You didn't tell me that!

Ford Phillips: Well, maybe you just should have been there.

Fig Wineshine: Maybe I was doing my job, you need to focus!

Ford Phillips: I'm plenty focused. On solving mysteries. While you're off making jazz hands on your twinkle toes.

Penny Nickelpenny: Oh shit! This is getting good! I can't believe I get to be here for all this drama!

TD Hammermeister: That scrap could belong to anyone!

Ford Phillips: Cliff Calloway remembers Sheilah not being able to find her house keys the night of the Hammermeister holiday party. Cliff AND Willy both recall losing track of you at the party. Were you really locked in the wine cellar of your own house? Or did you see F. Scott Fitzgerald arrive at the party and realize you could break into his house and steal the script before he got home since no one would be there to stop you?

TD Hammermeister: Preposterous! I need my lawyer!

Penny Nickelpenny: I'm your lawyer, TD. Keep going guys! Juicy stuff!

Fig Wineshine: (hopping onboard) It's all coming together. You wanted to be a part of Fitzgerald's social club. He denied you that. You figured you'd steal the script and it could be your ticket in. None of the Brigade members wanted this script to get out or heaven forbid, produced. It skewed too close to their real lives. Their real secrets. You'd be a hero to them.

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: That all makes so much sense! Especially since I saw TD slip keys back into Sheilah's purse when he returned to the party.

[A SILENT BEAT.]

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): I don't know if you picked up on that. But it was a long silent beat as everyone in the room turned to stare daggers at Wilhelmina Vanderjetski. Her skin was dewier than my favorite decimal system and her eyes glowed with the innocence of youth... I couldn't even be mad. I was just disappointed.

Fig Wineshine: Willy...

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: I know. I know. But it didn't seem suspicious to me until right now! You have to understand I am not a detective like you two.

Penny Nickelpenny: She makes a good point. Now you gonna arrest him or what?

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): TD fell to his knees and wept. I'd have expected nothing less.

TD Hammermeister: (crying) PLEASE don't arrest me! My wrists are too fragile for handcuffs! And I can't go to jail! Do you know what they do to guys like me in jail? They ask me to read their screenplays and pass them along to my wife! I'll never know peace!

Ford Phillips: TD, we don't work for the law, we work for Mel Hammermeister as far as you're concerned.

TD Hammermeister: Don't we all…

Fig Wineshine: Stop groveling and sit down.

Ford Phillips (Voice Over): Fig finagled the sniveling TD into one of Penny's office chairs.

Fig Wineshine: Mind giving us the room Pentatonix?

Penny Nickelpenny: Sure. I guess the dramatic part is over. (yelling) LEERY! Come back here, I need your chaps measurements!

[Penny leaves, running after Leery.]

Fig Wineshine: You're off the hook too, Willy.

Wilhelmina Vanderjetski: Great. But if you don't mind, I might still try retracing my steps. It just sounded so fun and I got excited about it.

Fig Wineshine: Knock yourself out, hun.

[Willy exits.]

TD Hammermeister: What are you going to do to me?

Ford Phillips: First, you're going to tell us the how and the why.

[TD sighs.]

TD Hammermeister: When I went to Sheilah and Mr. Fitzgerald apartment, I saw the hiding place where he kept the script behind a painting.

Ford Phillips: That's right. We heard that on the tapes, when you went to ask Fitzgerald if you could be in the Brigade.

TD Hammermeister: I knew I could get the script while the two of them were at the party. So when they arrived, I stole the key from Sheilah's purse and went back to their apartment and filched it. Had a sneezing fit when I went in and must have blown my nose, getting part of my hanky caught on the box of tapes.

Fig Wineshine: Mmm. You're allergic to chamomile. Sheilah's practically made of the stuff.

TD Hammermeister: I came back to the party and hid the script in the wine room. I returned the key and partied the rest of the night as though it were normal. Mel and Sheilah wanted their girl talk time after the party so I went to sleep in the guest room. I was going to retrieve the script the next day when I found out that Mr. Fitzgerald had been killed.

Ford Phillips: Why didn't you hand over the script when you found out Mel was looking for it?

TD Hammermeister: Because I'd be the number one suspect in his murder! BUT I DIDN'T KILL HIM!! When the Brigade rejected me I realized I had to take matters into my own hands. I knew that they all hated The Greater Gatsby, it had all of their secrets in it. And when I presented it to them, I’d be in. They’d be so thankful that they’d welcome me with open arms, into a group of like minded friends who would love and support me. I thought stealing Fitzgerald’s script would be my ticket to the big leagues. Instead it's gonna my ticket to the clank.

Fig Wineshine: It's clink. And I don't think you killed him.

TD Hammermeister: You don't?

Ford Phillips: How do you know? The guy's strong. We've seen him carry a door on his back.

[Fig slams her fist on Penny's desk.]

Fig Wineshine: Arm wrestle. You. Me. Right now.

TD Hammermeister: OK...

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): I grabbed TD's clammy hand and looked to Ford to referee.

Ford Phillips: Uh, go? I guess?

[SLAM. Fig slams TD's hand to the desk immediately.]

Ford Phillips: And Fig wins.

Fig Wineshine: As I thought. Strong legs from running errands, weak arms of a gofer.

TD Hammermeister: These arms are noodlier than the ramen at Formosa Cafe, I assure you.

Ford Phillips: It's true. My god, there’s not even a hard bend at the elbow, it's just a wiggly line like a cartoon. God, they’re basically see thru. You couldn't have strangled Fitzgerald. I'd be shocked if you could even shake his hand.

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): Sweating after our athletic arm wrestle, TD took a napkin from his pocket and wiped his brow. He tossed it in Penny's trash can but missed, apparently trying to further prove that he was incapable of strangulation or really anything.

TD Hammermeister: See, I could really use my mended hanky right about now.

Ford Phillips: One question still remains. Why'd you plant the script on Willy?

TD Hammermeister: Umm... It seemed like a good idea? Everyone likes her.

Fig Wineshine: You're lying. You don't try to frame one of the biggest stars in Hollywood without a plan.

TD Hammermeister: I... can't tell you!

Fig Wineshine: Why?

TD Hammermeister: My lips are sealed!

Ford Phillips: Jesus. If we can't clear Willy's name, she could go to jail for theft. Possibly murder! Is that what you want?

TD Hammermeister: (horrified) Of COURSE not but I-

[A BEAT. THEN TD RUNS OFF CRYING.]

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): TD did the bravest thing I'd ever seen him do. He ran for it. And I went to clean up his mess, picking up his crumpled napkin off the floor. I was about to toss it in the trashcan when the picture embossed on it caught my eye.

Fig Wineshine: Creme de la Cremé? This is one of the napkins Roger Haircremé was handing out in jail.

Ford Phillips: TD was there talking to Roger in his cell when we came in. Aha. I think we've figured this one out.

Fig Wineshine (Voice Over): That would have been a good enough cliffhanger for this episode but just then... Penny came careening back into her office.

[Penny careens back into the office.]

Penny Nickelpenny: (out of breath) The Grapes of Wrath movie has just been shut down! I repeat: The movie is TOAST! I'm sorry Winegulp, I ran into Mel and told her about your death threat. Apparently it was the final straw! Oh lordy, Whitley's gonna have a heart attack! Again!

Fig Wineshine: Well. I guess I won't be needing those chaps after all.

[The Case of the Greater Gatsby ending theme music plays]

Mary Kate Wiles: Shipwrecked Comedy Presents: The Case of the Greater Gatsby

Written and directed by Sean Persaud and Sinead Persaud

Featuring: Sean Persaud as Ford Phillips Sinead Persaud as Fig Wineshine Sarah Grace Hart as Wilhelmina Vanderjetski Lauren Lopez as Penny Nickelpenny And Blake Silver as TD Hammermeister

Original music by Dylan Glatthorn

Audio recording by Noah Hunt Audio

Mixing and Sound Design by Lizzie Goldsmith

Executive Producers Paul Komoroski & Michael Walsh

Produced by Sarah Grace Hart, Sean Persaud, Sinead Persaud, and Mary Kate Wiles

Special thanks to Kickstarter backers Katie Adamczyk, Ally Brown, Zainab Khan, Shao Chih Kuo, Jane Leach, Avalee Long, Lisel Perrine, Halsea Root, The Rude Mechanicals, Heather Tennant, and Justin Waterman.

Please rate and review the show wherever you listen. Join us on Patreon at patreon.com/shipwreckedcomedy to receive early access to new episodes and other bonus content, and to support us making this show.

Visit Shipwrecked Comedy on YouTube to view the prequel film for this series, The Case of the Gilded Lily, or many of our other projects, like A Tell Tale Vlog, a short vlog series that follows Edgar Allan Poe as he struggles to write The Raven.