I would now like to take a crack at the death of Burke Dennings. Burke fell down and broke his crown…

 …ok, not exactly Burke…but the idea holds true.

That can’t be good…I think I know how that one comes out.

We know that what happened to Burke happened while Chris was at the doctor’s office, talking about Regan. It was decided that a psychiatrist be consulted…a shrink…to quote Chris. We also learn two important pieces of information. The first is that Chris has been building a new home in California, which confirms that Prospect Street was a prospect that was soon about to end. The other is more important…she was going to take Regan to Europe. Any young girl would love to see Europe! There’s only one problem…Daddy is in Europe. Surely they would see Howard, something that I believe would displease Regan very much. Mom and dad should stay married, but apart. Who knows whether Mom and Dad will patch things up and start living together again? As it works out, it may be that Chris and Regan do not go to Europe. But Burke met his fate not too long before Chris returned home…

Chris has just driven past the scene of Burke’s death. It happened not very long before, but certainly more than a few moments ago. It happened long enough ago that the ambulance and some cops are on the scene, but soon enough that ghoulish spectators are still running up to take a look. It’s not clear just how long it took Chris to drive up to the house, but just as she is pulling up to the house, her phone begins ringing. When Chris enters the house, the lights are flickering, this time…

…the lights in the whole house are effected, although there is a small ceiling light that is on. The light is hitting the metal coffee pot, causing the glint in the center-right of the shot. It would also seem that the dining room lights are on. Previously, the upstairs hall lights, and during the exorcism…the light in Regan’s room, flickered. But…

 the window is open. She covers Regan with a blanket, looks for Sharon in her bedroom, then we hear the front door open and close. Chris angrily confronts Sharon for leaving Regan alone in the house…and in a cold room to boot. That is when the story of Burke’s death is spun, and in a very unconvincing way.

What the hell do you mean going off and leaving Regan by herself…are you crazy? Her window’s wide open…the whole room’s freezing...

At this point, the door-bell starts ringing. This is the first indication that something’s amiss.

Didn’t he tell you?
Didn’t who tell me?
Burke! Isn’t…
What’s Burke got to do with it?
Look, there wasn’t anybody here so when I went to get the Thorazine I had him stay with her and…I should have known better.
I guess you should have.

So Sharon has to get the Thorazine. Chris isn’t home. So she arranges for Burke to babysit. Makes a lot of sense…except there are problems. First…if Sharon is telling the truth, then when she walked in the door, she would naturally have been expecting to find Burke. Then she was confronted by Grumpy Chris. She says…I should have known better. Better than what? Leave him watching Kiddo. However, even though Chris is home, Sharon, if she were telling the truth…which you’re supposed to do…then she would be puzzled to find him not in the house. But she glosses right over his absence indicating that Sharon is not as good an actress as Chris. She shows no confusion about him not being there…betraying the fact that she knows he isn’t there. Chris knows he’s not there, but the house was empty when she arrived, so there is no point in engaging Sharon about the supposed presence of Burke. The second problem is one of timing. Sharon knows nothing of Burke’s Helluva Fall. However, it becomes clear that Chuck does. Wherein lies the problem? Chuck manages to ring the doorbell only moments after Sharon walked into the house. This would imply that either we have a tremendous coincidence in that Chuck just happened to be a few moments behind Sharon, or Sharon and Chuck were in the same place at the same time and had worked out a plan. Yet, a plan which lacked appropriate timing. In other words, Sharon and Chuck had been together shortly before Chris arrived home, and for some reason, staggered their arrival at the house with too short of an interval in between.

I suppose you heard.
Heard what?
You haven’t heard.
Burke’s dead?
He must have been drunk. He fell down from the top of the steps right outside. By the time he hit M street he broke his neck.

Ok, so now we have the story that will be accepted until Detective Kindermann arrives at the house. And Sharon, being a Bad Actress and Terrible Babysitter, when it’s time to react to news that she’s not supposed to already know…

…can only muster a reaction that even I could do better. But Chuck’s story is a bit odd…if Burke was at Chris’s house, how did Chuck know that Burke is dead? It would seem that more time should have passed for him to have learned this. And he even knows about his breaking his neck…meaning he spoke to the coroner, ambulance guy, cop, or Dr. Darla. And that would require more time. Of course, Chris doesn’t know the timing involved, which means that she doesn’t know as much as I do! There is a clear and unmistakable indicator that Chuck is not being honest…

Yes, Chuck is wearing two coats, and pants that are too short…and perhaps Chuck thinks that Prospect street is about to flood. Two coats suggest his coat…and somebody else’s coat too. And pants that are too short implies somebody else’s pants. That is a strange thing.

Now apparently, Sharon talked to Kindermann, or talked to someone who talked to Kindermann. Why? He knew that the amount of time Sharon was gone to get the Thorazine was ten minutes and that Burke took his Helluva Tumble before Sharon had returned. Ten minutes isn’t enough time to pick up a prescription unless Chris had a pharmacy in her basement. And Kindermann is right…there is nothing to suggest that Burke, having been hitting off Chris’s good booze, would suddenly, prior to Sharon’s return, walk out the front door…for no reason, then walk to the stone stairs…for no reason, and then fall…for no reason. Burke is very fond of Chris, and it is highly improbable that, arriving at the house to watch Regan, he would simply, ten minutes later, leave…on foot. And! I’ll bet Chris has plenty of gin in her wet bar, so why wouldn’t Burke hang out knocking it back as long as he could? Both Sharon and Chuck know things they shouldn’t know…or…to put it better…know things they shouldn’t know…yet.

But! They do know. How do they know? It’s time to double-back…

Right! Chris is driving home, and passes the grizzly scene. And if you look to the center right of the shot, you’ll see a cop standing on the steps. And if you look behind him, you’ll see…

There are people coming down the stairs. One wears what appears to be a yellow colored shirt, with dark pants and some kind of dark coat…unbuttoned. This person is a woman. Then there is a man wearing a white shirt, tan pants, and a tan coat…unbuttoned. If both people have their coats unbuttoned, then it can’t be too cold that evening. That’s two people, but I know there’s three…

You have no idea how hard it was to finally get a definitive shot. There is the third person! That makes a trio. Is there a Diabolical Trio, which doesn’t sound as good as a Diabolical Duo? The other person is a woman with dark, somewhat short hair, and appears to be rather slender.

The male figure on the stairs has a white turtleneck on, a brownish or tan colored coat, and tan pants. And Chuck is wearing a tan coat, a white turtleneck, but he also has another coat under his tan coat, and is wearing dark pants. But who wears two coats…and why wear pants that are too short? The answer is obvious…he has made a rather pathetic attempt to disguise himself. The woman with the dark coat is definitely…Sharon. And so now we know how Chuck and Sharon know things they shouldn’t know yet. They know about the stone stairway, they know that Burke is dead, and that he broke his neck. They have obviously decided to go down the steps to see if Burke is actually dead. But…

…the cop sees them…and will no doubt turn them back. Cops don’t like it when you walk through a possible crime scene. And Sharon knows when Chris intended to be home…and her return was only minutes away. But what about the third person…the other woman?

She had to bust out!

Mary Jo Perrin appears, otherwise, only during the party scene, where it is implied that she is Sharon’s friend…

Upon Mary Jo’s arrival, the two gal-pals head for the stairs. The only thing upstairs are Chris’s bedroom, Sharon’s bedroom, Regan’s bedroom, and the little bathroom at the end of the hall, well…that part of the hall if you turn right just before you reach the door to Stinker’s room. And I find it very interesting that, from behind, Mary Jo looks like she’s wearing a cape.

The yellow stars are Mary Jo and Sharon as they begin their trek…up there. So after spending some time in the living room with Chris and Regan, Mary Jo Perrin and Sharon make their way upstairs. The makers of the film made a point to show us the two gals heading upstairs together. And! If Mary Jo Perrin is a vampiress, then maybe she popped upstairs for a quick snack! In the novel, Mary Jo Perrin appears briefly as a woman with an affinity for witchcraft and the occult. She is the one who warns Chris about the Ouija board, and, most significantly, brings a library book on her favorite subjects over to Chris’s house. The most significant part of this is that Regan found the book in the study and then took the book upstairs where it was later found in her room. And! When it was found, pages had been carefully removed from the book. This is a fascinating element, but it creates tension with the supernatural explanation for what happens in the novel. Why? Because if Regan found the book and took it upstairs, and removed pages from it, knowing that the book would be found and returned, then there was something in the book she wanted to imitate. I suggested in an essay I wrote about the book, that the pages removed from the book may have been the story about the exorcism of Anna Eklund, which, as memorialized by the totally ludicrous book called Begone Satan, shows some dramatic parallels with The Exorcist, particularly the emphasis on copious amounts of vomit. Other party shots include…

And…

And with Father Dyer, from the front…

Now I will show this graphic, not intending to, in any way, poke fun at someone…

…but I find it difficult to believe that this happened simply by chance. Mr. The Face is usually shown surrounded in black and I would show another shot of Mr. The Face that further makes the point…

Mary Jo Perrin is given black hair, and wears a black outfit that goes up to the neck. This essentially matches the general presentation of The Face who, as I just noted, is usually surrounded in black. Perrin also has a rather pale complexion…

Of course, Mary Jo has better teeth. It seems to me that the makers of the film intentionally made Mary Jo Perrin to resemble a vampiress, and then gave her points of contact with the presentation of The Face. In the juxtaposed shot shown above, the blackness around The Face’s eyes is matched in Perrin by the dark eye make-up. Vampiress? Note this…

Nice dark, blood-red wine.

It seems odd that nobody drinks Chardonnay or Sauvignon blanc or Riesling or Pinot blanc or any other variety of white wine, when they are around the Vampiress Face Lady. I also noted the candle burning by her side, and we all know that vampiresses light their castles with candles.

Please excuse the candles…someone opened the hatch to the attic before I could get down. My candles are Chris-Like Candles, and the sudden gust of wind blew them out. Alas.

It is actually the case that although the credits at the end of the movie name the actress, they do not mention the name…Mary Jo Perrin. And it might seem as though she appears only at the party and seemingly has no other significance in the film. That, or so I believe, is not the case. Still, in two scenes during the party, she is shown in the company of Sharon, as well as Chris. Below we have all three together…

So number 1 is Chris, number 2 is Sharon, and number 3 is Mary Jo Perrin. I believe that Regan is just out of view, as it seems that people are looking down as they speak…speaking to Regan. And while black is the absence of color or the complete absorption of visible light, and white involves the inclusion of all colors, the film offers a very fascinating play on two popular colors…red and white.

The white and red flowers are also interesting, seeing how red and white roses figure in the novel as well.

So here we see Perrin the two-fisted drinker. It comes as no surprise that Mary Jo’s favorite type of wine is…red. She will appear again with Sharon…just before Carl and Burke get into it with each other…

Now to have just a little bit of fun…

Adrasta made that for me…isn’t it clever? No? Fair enough. Mary Jo will appear at Father Dyer’s Sing-along…

And…

So Perrin seems to be singing her heart out. She’s an attractive lady, but one must admit that she looks a little like a vampiress….although not…Vampira.

Oh, you heard that one.

So just who is Sharon’s friend Mary Jo Perrin? In the novel, she is the Keeper of Spooky Books. Present at the party is Chris’s neighbor. The novel does not say that the two people are one. In the film, I think they are.

Behold the house! This is a real shot of the real house, so the façade that protrudes out of the right part of the house, built to get Regan’s bedroom close enough to the stone stairs to allow people to fly out the window and tumble to their deaths, isn’t present. Looking at the house, there is…of course…no neighbor on the left. There is, however, a neighbor to the right…that small house there that shares a wall with 3600.

In the film, you never see the small house. You only see the larger building to the right of it…

Still, Mary Jo Perrin does appear in the film. We know that Chris is renting 3600 SW Prospect. I would offer this suggestion…Mary Jo Perrin is the owner of the house that Chris is renting. She lives in the small house in between Chris’s abode and the larger building. After Chris, Regan, and Sharon moved into the larger part of the house, Mary Jo Perrin and Sharon became friends, as we see in the party scene. If Mary Jo was the intended recipient of Captain Howdy’s Magical Scottish Highlander Blowing His Bagpipes box, and it was delivered to the larger part of the house, rather than the smaller one, then that might explain how Regan got her treasure horde. Mary Jo and Sharon were the ones responsible for the noises in the attic as they attempt to find where Kiddo hid the goods. That means that the third person in the following shot…

…is Mary Jo Perrin who, in the film, is simply Chris’s neighbor, Sharon’s friend, and the woman who rents the big house to Chris while she lives in the smaller one…there is no Spooky Book in the film. And this explains where Chuck got his second coat and dark pants, which I think he put on over his tan pants. They knew about Burke’s tumble out of Regan’s window. Sharon and Mary Jo had been searching the attic, when they heard a terrible commotion and heard Burke lose his Mortal Coil. What was there to do? You’re shocked of course, but you regain your composure and…call Chuck. So Chuck arrives at the house, and Sharon and Mary Jo explain what happened. They think and think and not knowing what else to do…they think some more. Hey, wait a second! Maybe he’s not dead! People fall down the stairs all the time and don’t die…right? So the three of them head out of the house, down the stone stairs, to see if Burke is dead or not. But the cop is there…and he turns them back. Ok, what do you do next? What are two girls and a guy to do? They know that Burke was murdered. That creates a big problem…not just for Burke. So here’s what you do. Even though you don’t need an alibi…because you didn’t do anything wrong…still, you need an alibi! Because you were in the house at the time and will make a great suspect. Chuck? Too bad…someone may have noticed him with Sharon and Mary Jo. But first! Chuck is nervous about the whole thing…so he wants…a disguise. He’s just not good at it. So they go back up the stairs, and go to Mary Jo’s place. She gives Chuck a man’s coat and pants…maybe Mary Jo is divorced or widowed and has some men’s clothes in a closet. But! Her former husband was a short guy…shorter than Chuck…so he has Waiting-For-A-Flood pants. What next? I’m glad I asked. Sharon knows that Chris will be home any minute. But she wants an alibi, and she can’t think of a better alibi than…Chris! So here’s what a girl is to do. Use Mary Jo’s phone and dial the phone in Chris’s side of the house. Let it ring and ring…and ring some more. Wait for Chris to answer it, establishing definitely that Chris is home. Then you run out Mary Jo’s front door, then walk over to Chris’s front door, and, carrying the Thorazine you got earlier that evening, you walk in the front door with it. Now…Chris is your alibi. But Sharon will pretend that she didn’t know that Burke wasn’t in the house. So she tells Chuck that, after a minute or so, to come around and ring the doorbell. Although he seems to be taking more risk by being the one who knows about Burke’s death, he has the advantage of two alibis! Sharon and Chris.

So, Miss Spencer…your alibi is?
Oh, Chris.
Mrs. MacNeil…is that true?
Yes. I got home from the doctor. No one was home. Sharon arrived a few minutes after me.
I see. What about you Mr. Chuck…do you have an alibi?
I have two.
Two alibis? That’s very fortunate. Who are they?
Miss Spencer and Mrs. MacNeil.
Is this true?
Why, yes. I got home, then Sharon. After I bitched at Sharon, Chuck rang the doorbell.
That’s that for Chuck and Sharon. What about you, Mrs. MacNeil?
Oh, I was at the doctor…I’m sure he’ll confirm that.
What about between the time you left the doctor and Miss Spencer walked in the door…do you have an alibi for that specific period of time?
Yes…I…well…I suppose I don’t!
Is that so?

That is only fanciful, as it were. So Sharon’s in the clear, Chuck’s in the clear, and there’s nothing to tie Mary Jo to any of it…she was home reading a good book…

Go, Dog. Go!

But mom! Someone should tell Mary Jo that dogs can’t drive.

Go, Dog. Go!

Still, the story cooked up by chefs Sharon, Chuck, and Mary Jo is not the best plan, but they’ve never had to cook up an alibi to avoid a murder charge before, and they had only a couple of minutes to learn the recipe. So now we understand why the lights were flickering…and why the phone rang and rang until Chris answered and the caller hung up…we know why Sharon knows that Burke isn’t in the house, and we know why Chuck knows that Burke is dead, and…most important…we know why Chuck is wearing two coats and pants that are too short. And we can account for three people rushing down the stone stairs…and…brave heart! There was no way that viewers of the film could ever have seen three people headed down the stairs until they were stopped by a patrolman…let alone know that these people were Sharon, Chuck, and Mary Jo Perrin. I can’t tell you just how long it took Darla to see those people on the stairs…and then tell me. And it is Chris’s lack of an alibi that will figure in what Detective Kindermann is thinking when he drinks coffee with her, the conversation being overheard by Regan who has come downstairs when she heard voices, listened for a minute, heard her mother’s treachery, found her crucifix on the little table, took it back upstairs, fell asleep, was awakened by the Noises in the Attic, and…showtime! Right! Chris has no alibi. But she didn’t know that she needed one. And as long as the story created by Sharon, Mary Jo, and Chuck held…it didn’t matter since Burke’s death was an accident. But for some reason, Detective Kindermann believed something else altogether. And how did he come to believe something else altogether? I’ve pointed out in a previous essay that Kindermann had phenomenal timing…he really did. He could have sung in Father Dyer’s Old Time Sing-along Troupe! Regan had been hospitalized at Berringer for an unspecified amount of time. Somehow Kindermann managed to knock on Chris’s door the very day Regan was brought home. Not the day before…not the day after. The very day. How did he pull that off?

I really hate to ask you this.
What?
For my daughter…could you please give an autograph?
Of course…where’s a pencil?
Right here! Oh, she’d love it.
And what’s her name?

 I lied…it’s for me.

The spelling is on the back…Kindermann.

Chris, be careful! This cop is engaging in a little attempted entrapment and obtaining evidence under false pretenses. He was truthful about one thing…

What has happened? Well, we now know how Kindermann knew exactly when Regan would be coming home, enabling him to be a very good timer. He was tipped. Really? Yes, he received a written tip that said…Burke Dennings was really murdered…in Regan’s bedroom…BY REGAN! And she will be coming home from the hospital in time for the Crucifix Scene. Now Kindermann does not believe that Regan killed Burke. But he does believe that Burke was murdered. So! He would very much like to speak to the author of that note. He has alibied Sharon…he has alibied Carl. Only one person was left…the lady with no alibi…Chris. So now he fakes wanting an autograph for his daughter, but really for him…even instructing her as to how to spell…Kindermann. Yes! He wants a handwriting sample to compare to that in the anonymous letter he received. That requires consent, or a court order. But this isn’t the only dishonest thing he does in this scene. Kindermann will compare Chris’s handwriting to that in the letter which will show that the author was not Chris. It was either Sharon…or Mary Jo Perrin. And so our Beloved Detective doesn’t know who wrote the letter, and is left watching the house until something happens…something like a unanimous phone call on the night of the exorcism allowing Kindermann to knock on Chris’s door moments before the Great Saga Upstairs reaches its climax. Now there are other key elements involved in the Story of Burke’s Shedding Of His Mortal Coil. What are those? Well, there’s…hold on! I suppose that’s something to discuss in part 2.