Episode 8 - Truth Will Out, Part 2

Episode 8: “Truth Will Out, Part 2”
Sara pieces together the truth of what happened to Petra twenty years ago, but the risk in getting to it may cost her everything.

SOMEBODY KNOWS episode eight: “Truth Will Out, Part Two”

Was written by: Patrick Dorsey

And starred:

Sarah Collette Campbell

Natalie Lynch

Zak Farmer

Clayton Bury

and

Alex Fuegner

Directed by: Patrick Dorsey and Barron Smith

Executive Producers: Scott Crosby and Erin Goodenough

Producer: Patrick Pelham

Music by: Albert Sanchez

Audio Engineer: Daniel Williams

SOMEBODY KNOWS Created by: Patrick Dorsey

If you loved this episode, be sure to visit our website, www.somebodyknowspodcast.com, for more episodes and information.

Support the Show.

SFX: RUNNING FOOTFALLS ON PAVEMENT

SARA: All right, which way? Which way? Come on! White car, white car, come on . . . He said it would be -- there! There! Under the streetlight!

SFX: Running footfalls on pavement

SARA: Never thought I’d be this happy to see an old station wagon!

SFX: Running footfalls on pavement

SFX: Running footfalls on GRASS

SARA: Passenger side --

SFX: Car door openS

SARA: You?

SFX: Car ENGINE REVS TO LIFE

PETRA: Get in!

SARA: Petra!

PETRA: Get in! Close the door!

SFX: Car door SLAMS

SARA: Why are you --

PETRA: I’m trying to save your life!

SFX: Car TEARS DOWN THE STREET

SARA: I don’t understand.

PETRA: You will.

SFX: Car, ROAD SOUNDS

SARA: Never would have pegged you as the station wagon type, Petra.

PETRA: I need something I can haul the discarded things I find or buy to create my upcycled pieces.

SARA: Yeah, but a beater like this --

PETRA: This is a 1986 Mercedes-Benz S123 Wagon --

SARA: A Mercedes. That explains it.

PETRA: It’s one of the most durable cars in the world -- people put half a million miles on these without any major --

SARA: I’m not in the market, Petra.

PETRA: Whatever.

SARA: Look . . . thank you. I-I don’t know what was going to happen to me.

PETRA: I don’t either.

SARA: What do you mean you don’t know? You’re not . . . ?

PETRA: Not what?

SARA: Why were you waiting there for me, then?

PETRA: I got a phone call --

SARA: A phone call.

PETRA: The day after I talked to you, I started getting phone calls. Someone hiding their voice, like a crappy stalker movie. Hinting at things about me, about my past --

SARA: -- about Rufus Knobbe.

PETRA: What do you know about it?

SARA: About as much as you do. I’ve been getting the same calls.

PETRA: Who is it?

SARA: When I got in this car, I thought it was you.

PETRA: Me? Why in God’s name would I want to make anonymous phone calls and talk about . . .

SARA: Talk about Rufus Knobbe?

PETRA: This all started because you came back to Etta.

SARA: The calls brought me back to Etta. But this . . . when this all started was twenty years ago. Well?!?

PETRA: What do you want to hear?

SARA: I want to hear whatever it is someone just tried to kill me for!

PETRA: Kill you?

SARA: Why do you think I came running out of some stranger’s yard and jumped in a car I had no idea who was driving?

PETRA: The call I got this afternoon, telling me to go there tonight and wait for you --

SARA: This afternoon?

PETRA: I was told that you spoke with Rufus. That I’d want to talk to you afterward. And then another, about ten minutes ago, saying you were in danger and I had to get you away.

SARA: How does he know . . . ?

PETRA: So did you?

SARA: Did I what?

PETRA: Did you talk to Rufus?

SARA: I did.

PETRA: How . . . is he?

SARA: He’s probably safer in there. And I don’t mean just from whatever’s going on here tonight.

PETRA: I guess that’s good.

SARA: What . . . what is it Rufus might say that somebody is this afraid of?

PETRA: I don’t know.

SARA: They tried to kill me over what they were afraid Rufus might say! C.J. Fischer may already be dead because of it!

PETRA: C.J.?!?

SARA: One of the neighbors called the police, reported a disturbance. C.J. came to the house, and somebody was there. They broke in, and . . . whoever it was shot him, Petra.

PETRA: Is he all right?

SARA: I don’t know. C.J. shouted at me to go, and I ran. Found you and your car.

PETRA: C.J. doesn’t deserve -- not because . . .

SARA: Because what?

PETRA: Because of what I did -- Because of what I said!

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating

SARA: I know you lied, Petra. Back in high school, and today still.

PETRA: You don’t know.

SARA: Not all of it. I know the lies have made you just as much prisoner as they have Rufus. You might consider slowing down a little. It’s dark, and these roads --

PETRA: I’ve lived with this long enough.

SARA: With what?

PETRA: (Indiscriminate emotional sounds)

SARA: Whoever’s behind this, we’ve got ’em on the ropes. They’re only taking these big, reckless swipes because they’re afraid of how close everything is to coming out!

PETRA: You don’t think I know that?

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating

SFX: TIRES SQUEAL IN TURN

SARA: Why don’t you find a place to pull over?

SFX: TIRES SQUEAL IN TURN

SARA: Or let me drive for a little bit. I’ve never driven a Mercedes --

PETRA: Not now.

SARA: Okay, but before -- Uh-oh. We’ve got red lights behind us.

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating More

SARA: You can’t run from them --

PETRA: What are they going to do? Shoot the daughter of Etta’s retired police chief for speeding?

SFX: TIRES SQUEAL TURNING

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating

SARA: I don’t really want to find out.

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating

PETRA: At this point, I don’t care.

SFX: CAR ENGINE accelerating

SARA: You’re not losing him. Just stop.

SFX: PETRA’S PHONE RINGTONE

SARA: Promise me you’ll pull over before you answer that.

SFX: PETRA’S PHONE RINGTONE

SFX: TIRES SQUEAL TURNING

SARA: Better yet, let it go to voicemail.

SFX: PETRA’S PHONE RINGTONE

PETRA: I know who it is.

SFX: Phone Answer Beep

PETRA: Hello.

TOM NOVAK: Petra, sweetheart, it’s me.

SARA: Is that your dad . . .

PETRA: What is it?

TOM NOVAK: You and I need to talk.

PETRA: So talk.

TOM NOVAK: I’m in the car behind you. Pull over.

SARA: Are you kidding me?

TOM NOVAK: There’s a rest stop at the next exit. We don’t need to do this at the side of the road. Pull over there and we’ll get out of the cars and talk.

PETRA: Fine.

SARA: He’s retired -- how’s he driving a police cruiser?

PETRA: Perks of the job.

SFX: Phone HANGUP Beep

SARA: Petra, I’m not so sure --

PETRA: I am.

SFX: Engine guns

SFX: Tires Screech

SFX: Engine Slowing

SARA: The sign says this rest stop’s closed.

PETRA: Of course. We’ll keep this private --

SFX: Car COming to a Stop

SFX: Parking Brake on

PETRA: -- Keep it in the family.

SFX: Seatbelt Releases, retracts

SFX: Car Door Opens

SARA: Wait --

SFX: Car Door Slams CLosed

SARA: For anybody listening, start connecting all the pieces with me. An unstable drifter framed for the abduction of a high school girl . . . A scandal in the police department . . . a traffic cop killed in a hit-and-run. And everybody lying about it for twenty years.

TOM NOVAK: Petra --

PETRA: Just stay away from me!

SARA: Somebody knows. Somebody who called me, who brought me home to uncover the answers. I still have gaps in the picture I’ve put together . . . Time to fill them in.

SFX: Car Door Opens

SCENE 2 – EXT. REST STOP

TOM NOVAK: Petra, who did you bring with you?

SARA: Chief Novak.

TOM NOVAK: I don’t believe I’ve had the privilege, Miss -- ?

SARA: Not for lack of trying at my brother’s house a little while ago.

TOM NOVAK: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

PETRA: Don’t you?

TOM NOVAK: Petra, you’re upset. I understand.

PETRA: You can’t possibly understand! What you asked of me -- You should never have asked!

TOM NOVAK: You didn’t have to.

PETRA: Didn’t have to?!? What choice did I have? You told me it was the only way out for all of us! I was seventeen! You’re my father! What did you think I would do?

TOM NOVAK: All you had to do was drive to that field.

SARA: But she improvised. Your overachieving, full-ride scholarship daughter -- desperate to save her family -- knew that she needed more than a story to be believed unquestioningly. You were smart enough not to use a pair of scissors from home . . . what did you do, Petra, shoplift them someplace?

PETRA: I stole them from the counter at Closet Catch.

TOM NOVAK: Petra, not here. Don’t --

PETRA: When you picked me up at the farmhouse, the first thing you asked me, the first moment we got alone, was if I thought they believed me! I stabbed myself to sell your story!

TOM NOVAK: All you had to do was find someone and tell it the way we’d rehearsed, with the details I gave you!

SARA: If it makes you feel any better, she still tells it the way you two rehearsed it, with all the details you gave her. But back then, she didn’t adjust them to match the facts. Your dramatic “eyes in the rearview mirror” moment -- a great detail, for print media -- didn’t match the fact that her boyfriend had knocked the mirror off the night before. That part of the story got crossed up with the truth in your memory, Petra.

PETRA: I knew, I knew eventually this would --

TOM NOVAK: Not now, Petra. Not here, with --

PETRA: With what? Someone else you’ll have to kill?

TOM NOVAK: Stop!

PETRA: It’s what you did to Charlie Fischer! You made me your accomplice on that, too!

SARA: Charlie was in on it at the start, wasn’t he? Somebody loyal. Somebody you could trust to bring in Rufus and say all the right things. He had his doubts, but you were able to smooth those over. It took him, what, six or nine months before his conscience gnawing at him made him start asking you more questions? You were able to lean on Eddie Dial, and if he wouldn’t go along, quitting the case was just as good. But if he started talking with Charlie Fischer -- two men of conscience -- it would blow the case. And reveal all the rot underlying it. How long had you been embezzling money from the department?

TOM NOVAK: We burned all our savings in just the first year of taking care of my wife. I asked for help, but --

SFX: Fist slams on Car Hood

TOM NOVAK: People think you’re just provided for when you’re a public employee. Maybe Federal. Maybe in big cities. Little town like Etta, they only shake their heads and pat you on the shoulder.

SARA: You needed a distraction. And something you could start logging hours to. Hundreds if not thousands of investigative hours.

TOM NOVAK: I needed time to move things around, construct documents --

SARA: Forge documents, you mean. But Charlie Fischer noticed -- you probably signed him in and out a number of times. Getting Rufus off the streets was one thing -- he could be dangerous. Probably didn’t take too much convincing. But Charlie began noticing the suspect paperwork, the questionable orders . . .

TOM NOVAK: I never meant for -- That was an accident.

PETRA: I wanted to believe that. “Just have to scare him,” you told me. “A near miss at a traffic stop.” Instead you --

TOM NOVAK: You think it was easy? I’d known Charlie -- worked with him -- for fifteen years. He was my friend, our kids went to school together --

PETRA: And you tried to kill his son, too!

TOM NOVAK: Not me. Her.

PETRA: Dad, put away the gun!

SARA: You can’t be serious. You came to the house, cut the power, took a shot at me through the window. If C.J. hadn’t shown up when he did . . .

TOM NOVAK: You shot him and fled. In a stolen car.

PETRA: No . . .

TOM NOVAK: I heard there was an officer down -- never lost the habit of listening to the police scanner. I caught up with you at a closed rest stop. A woman who’d been obsessing over my daughter and her abduction since they were both kids.

PETRA: No! Not again!

TOM NOVAK: Petra, this is to protect us -- you as much as me!

PETRA: I’ve lived more than half my life under this! No more! No more!

SARA: You’ve got one thing you need to consider before you do anything more, Chief.

TOM NOVAK: What’s that?

SARA: I’ve been livestreaming everything since my call with Rufus.

TOM NOVAK: You’re bluffing.

SARA: Here’s my phone.

SFX: Phone Tossed and Caught

SARA: You can see the streaming app’s running. Look at the elapsed time.

TOM NOVAK: But now I have the phone.

SARA: And you clearly don’t understand “livestreaming.” Everything that’s happened, every word I’ve said and that has been said anywhere near that phone, has been sent to a secure server. Break the phone in half right now -- it doesn’t matter. It’s all saved elsewhere.

TOM NOVAK: Petra, what have you done?

SARA: What has she done?

PETRA: Not any more, Dad . . .

SARA: No matter what happens to me, that recording of everything gets released.

TOM NOVAK: What have I done?

SARA: It’s all going to come out, Chief. Don’t make it any worse. Keep the phone or don’t, it doesn’t matter. Petra and I are going back to her car.

TOM NOVAK: I won’t make it any worse.

SARA: Petra, let’s go.

PETRA: I can’t.

TOM NOVAK: Go. All I did . . . They’ll need someone to blame --

SARA: Petra --

TOM NOVAK: I love you, sweetheart, never doubt that.

PETRA: No!

SARA: Chief Novak -- Don’t --!

SFX: GUNSHOT

SFX: PETRA Low, quiet moan, grows to sobbing

SARA: Petra -- ?

PETRA: He -- he’s --

SARA: I’m, I’m sorry . . .

SFX: PETRA WEEPING

SARA: Are you all right?

PETRA: I don’t know.

SCENE 2 – INT. LINDY’S HOUSE

SARA: And so knowers, we see everybody has secrets, and holding on to them can corrode your very . . .
No, that’s not it.

SFX: Recording End Beep

SARA: Lindy!

LINDY What?

SARA: Come here and help me up!

SFX: FOOTSTEPS

LINDY I told you to get that knee looked at.

SARA: I did. The doctor said it’s badly bruised. I just have to suffer it for a while.

LINDY Then maybe you should just keep it up and iced.

SARA: I want to get up. I’ve been sitting here all morning. You hear anything on C.J.?

LINDY Couple of cracked ribs. His vest stopped both rounds. Lucky.

SARA: Damn lucky.

LINDY You tell Mom all about this, yet?

SARA: No . . . I figured I’d let her hear it on the podcast next week.

LINDY Next week?

SARA: I need time to edit the show together. There’s so much here, this could be a multi-parter.

LINDY You think she won’t ask you what’s going on for a week?

SARA: Not if I don’t go home for another week . . .

LINDY Oh, and where do you think you’re staying?

SARA: All my stuff’s still unpacked in my old room.

LINDY Great way to ask.

SARA: Thanks! Now, help me up. Reach down here and give me your hand --

LINDY “Come with me if you want to live!”

SARA: You’re funny.

LINDY Like in the Schwarzenegger movie --

SARA: Yeah, I get it -- Oof --– wait . . . You --

LINDY What?

SARA: You son of a bitch -- it was you! The whole time, it was you!

LINDY Sara.

SARA: That! You were Mr. X -- How did I miss that?!? Why didn’t you just ask? Why the character and all the drama? Why the big mystery?

LINDY If your brother Lindy asked you to come back to Etta after all these years to look into the open-and-shut Rufus Knobbe case, would you have?

SARA: I mean, if you showed me evidence . . . outlined a reasonable theory . . .

LINDY Right. But if you got dragged into it, prodded on by a mysterious caller trickling clues to you while you investigated . . .

SARA: But you didn’t need me. You knew it all.

LINDY I had some of it figured out. The holes in Petra’s story. And the audit. It just wasn’t right Rufus Knobbe was in prison for someone else’s lie . . . You figured out all the rest.

SARA: Wait a minute -- you were in the room one of the times Mr. X called.

LINDY I was in the room when I had a scheduled robocall ring your phone and play a recording for you.

SARA: Wow. Now I need to go amend the episode.

LINDY Don’t.

SARA: Why not?

LINDY First, I don’t want the attention. That’s another reason I put you on this -- you’re the podcast detective. I’m a tech guy in Etta, Indiana.

SARA: And second?

LINDY And second, isn’t it a better story with something left unsolved? A little mystery to ponder at the end?

SARA: Yeah . . .

SCENE 3 – INT. STUDIO

SARA: So, knowers, once again, among all the secrets we find there are no villains, no bad guys. Yes, people do bad things. But everybody is the hero in their own story. The evil they do, they excuse of themselves for the good they’re trying to accomplish. Tom Novak was trying to take care of his family -- his wife and daughter. But each misdeed led to another, a chain of sins he found himself bound up in. The investigation now seems focused on pointing all of it at the retired Etta police chief, with your host’s recordings in evidence. Speaking of the Etta PD, I still owe Officer C.J. Fisher a dinner out for all he did -- not to mention the two rounds he took for me. Eddie Dial’s taken on getting Rufus Knobbe released and having his conviction overturned. I don’t envy him that. Prosecutors are loathe to allow a reversal for any reason. And courts don’t like to admit they’re wrong, no matter the evidence. Remember, it was a judge that once said, “Proof of innocence is no impediment to serving a legally convicted sentence.” I’m not sure what kind of life Rufus will be released to. Maybe it doesn’t even matter to him. He is, as he expressed to me, already free -- in his mind. Petra Novak Van Damme . . . Petra’s missing. She seems to have left town. Nobody’s seen her for weeks, and so far nobody can find or contact her. The only thing apparently missing from Petra’s home is her white Mercedes station wagon. Petra was as much a prisoner of all the lies as Rufus. Relieved of those bonds now, I genuinely hope she’s all right. That only leaves the question of which of you knowers is Mr. X. To the one who nudged me -- well, it was more than a nudge, wasn’t it? -- into looking into a case that tied directly to me and my past, let me say I had an adventure worthy at least of a good, cheap paperback novel. Thank you. I have no idea if you intend on doing this again. But, if you do, I’m sure it will be over something important enough to make certain that somebody knows.

THE END

Somebody Knows

Episode 8 - Truth Will Out, Part 2

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