Free Night Night, Sleep Tight by Hallie Ephron

found herself barely able to follow. She strained to see over the bushes at the edge of the patio. The ground vibrated as the police investigators dropped item after item onto a plastic tarp spread out in the driveway. Crowbar. Tire iron. Shovel. Hedge clippers. Long-handled branch lopper. A candlestick lamp. All of them heavy blunt objects. Obviously they didn’t think Arthur Unger’s death had been an accident. He hadn’t been taken ill. They were looking for a murder weapon.
    Deirdre tried to make sense of it. Maybe Arthur had surprised an intruder. He hadn’t turned on any lights, so the intruder didn’t realize he was out there. Arthur could be impulsive, belligerent, especially after a few drinks. Maybe he’d confronted the person. Thrown a punch, even. The intruder would have fended him off. Picked up something readily at hand. Something heavy. Swung it at Arthur and knocked him into the pool.
    “Deirdre?” Sy was saying. “Do you understand what that means?”
    “I’m sorry. I zoned out.”
    “I said, your father named you his literary executor. You’ll need to go through his personal effects. His papers, letters, memos, photographs, keepsakes. Who knows what you will find. Early drafts of movie scripts. Unpublished manuscripts. He entrusted you with deciding what to preserve.”
    Deirdre thought of Arthur’s memoir, sitting in the drawer in her bedside table. She was having fun reading it, but did it have historical or literary merit? “I’m hardly qualified—”
    “Your father thought otherwise. Just take it item by item, one step at a time. First sort and cull. Then inventory what is worthy of preserving. If you are not sure, I can help. Try to imagine someone coming along a hundred years from now, trying to understand your father’s Hollywood. What you are doing: conserving his piece of it. His legacy.”
    “Legacy.” Henry snorted a laugh.
    “Okay,” Sy said, “your parents were not Comden and Green. But they were not hacks, either. Their films, and even some of the projects your father worked on later alone? Among the best of a certain breed. His collected works are emblematic of an era.”
    “Still, Mom would make a much better judge—” Deirdre started.
    “You do not get to decide. Your father selected you.”
    It would be no small task, going through Arthur’s papers. Deirdre hadn’t been in his office on the second floor of the garage in ages, but she remembered it was lined with bookshelves and file cabinets. Then there was everything in the den. More probably in his bedroom. Maybe there were storage boxes. Her mother would know where all to look. It would be a huge chore, but secretly Deirdre was pleased. Flattered that her father had entrusted her with the task. “Of course I’ll want your advice—” she started.
    Henry interrupted. “So there are no other assets? No life insurance?”
    “No life insurance.”
    “What about their movies?” Henry again. “Aren’t there residuals?”
    “There were none back then. Who knew television would be hungry for old movies?”
    Henry hunched over the table, absorbing this news.
    B efore the police left, a technician took Henry’s and Deirdre’s fingerprints. Martinez explained it was to eliminate theirs from others that they lifted. Soon after that, Deirdre and Henry walked Sy out to his car.
    Henry glanced up and down the street. “So Sy, is that it? Will they be back?”
    “Always, they can come back. But they will need a new warrant.” Sy stopped and turned to face them. “Listen to me, both of you. If the police do come back, you call me right away.” He took out a business card and wrote a phone number on the back. “In case I am not in my office or in my car, here is my home phone. Anytime.”
    He handed the card to Henry and winked at Deirdre. Then he got into his car and rolled down the window. “I know you, Deirdre. You are a Girl Scout. You will want to help them with their investigation. But the police are