Sisters Page #4

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- You have supper with us on Friday.

- Fine.

I'll be there.

Well, can I

drop you somewhere?

No. It's okay.

I'll walk.

Well, it's not the way

we planned it, but...

A white woman kills

her black lover,

and those racist cops

couldn't care less.

I saw it happen,

and they won't investigate.

Well, if you're not

interested,

I'm sure I can find

someone else who'd print it.

Lots of people would.

Good. You're interested.

I'll do my own investigation.

Why not?

I know more

than those idiot police.

I know karate...

A private detective. Waste of money.

I...

All right.

All right, what's his name?

"Joseph Larch."

- Now, I think the best thing for us to do...

- This is what we do.

You go up to your apartment, call

Danielle, and see if anybody's home.

If someone answers, wave once.

If no one is there, wave twice.

- Well, you're going up there if no one's there?

- Sure.

All I have to do is know

the situation in advance.

- I can play it either way.

- Well, in that case, I can pretend...

- to be making an informal telephone survey...

- You just do hand signals.

If there's no one

up there,

I can charm the superintendent

into giving me a passkey.

- No, you've got to make a wax impression.

- No one does that.

Go up to your apartment,

watch the front while I'm up there,

and if you see someone coming,

telephone the apartment.

- One ring. One ring and hang up.

- Well, what if...

- Does that answer your question?

- Yeah.

- But suppose that...

- Hey, have you ever been a detective?

- No.

- Have you?

No, but simple logic suggests

a way of doing things.

- I don't see that it can be all that mysterious.

- Grace, this is a craft.

I wouldn't try to teach you how

to write magazine articles.

Listen, I went to school

to learn this...

The Brooklyn Institute

of Modern Investigation. Okay?

- Okay.

- Okay.

Now, you go on up to your apartment

and do what I told you. Go ahead.

I'll be here.

Larch?

The boxes.

- What?

- Meet me in the truck.

My God.

Get out of there, Larch.

We got to get

out of here.

- What was that you were waving?

- I don't know,

but they had it hidden in the bedroom,

so it might be something important.

Take a look in it

while I tell you...

about the real evidence

I found in the living room.

I got up there

without any trouble.

I did the usual search...

nothing.

I began to think that cop was right about

you until I tried to move that couch.

- I couldn't. It was too heavy.

- The couch.

- Yeah. He's in the couch.

- What?

- The body.

- What about the body?

What I went up there

to look for, remember?

The body

is in the couch!

Terrific!

And the murderess is in here!

- What?

- Do you know what you've found?

A complete file

on the Blanchion Twins.

- Now what are you talking about?

- Do you remember...

about a year ago, "Life" magazine

ran a whole story on them.

- The only Siamese twins...

- Look, I was up there, Grace,

and I know what I know and saw,

and I didn't see no Siamese twins.

I do know that you have to have

a dead body before you have a murder.

I gotta get going.

We gotta catch this ferry.

You mean that's all you're gonna do...

locate the body and then split?

- Yes, for Quebec.

- Quebec?

That's where Breton

told them to take it.

Now, wherever that couch goes, I follow,

because somebody's gonna be waiting for it...

at the other end,

and I want to know who.

- That makes sense.

- Hey, lend me a dollar, will ya?

When we get to Manhattan,

I'm gonna go see this writer,

- and then...

- Then you go back to your apartment,

lock the door, and wait

for me to call. Period.

Where's Arthur McLennen's

office?

Uh, end of the hall,

to your right.

- Uh, Miss, uh, Miss Collier?

- Yes.

Ah, yes.

Well, I'm, uh, I'm Arthur McLennen.

- How do you do?

- Hello.

I, uh, I'm afraid

I'm a little disorganized today.

Are, uh, are you here

about, uh...

- Well. That's the Blanchion Twins file.

- Yes, it is.

Now, I know you did the story

over a year ago,

but I was hoping you might remember

enough about it to help me.

Oh, those poor girls.

You know, this looks like the file

I saw at the Loisel Institute.

- Oh, it "is" the original, isn't it?

- Yes, I believe it is.

How'd you get it?

Are you going to do a follow-up?

We never did. The managing editor

would never assign it.

Well, they've asked me to find out

as much as I can about it.

We're not quite sure

what kind of a piece we'd do.

Oh, well, come on in

and we'll talk about it, huh?

The subject

is a curious one.

After we ran this story,

we got about 500 letters.

No matter what else they said, they all

had that same tone of morbid fascination.

I don't excuse myself,

either.

Though I actually met the Blanchion

girls, I was the same way.

Hey. You know,

if you're going to do that piece,

I've got something

I'd like to show you.

- Oh, I'd appreciate anything that...

- You do have some time now?

- Of course!

- Sometimes I forget myself when I get going on a subject,

but actually, if you have the time,

I'd like to show you a videotape.

The more I learned,

the more interested I became.

You see, to me at any rate, the

psychological and philosophical elements...

are of extreme importance.

Yes. Fine.

Well, there.

About to begin.

Conjoined twins,

called Siamese,

challenge life

at their first breath.

History had them

as the stuff of myth and symbol.

Some tried to achieve

such normality as they could.

The famous Chang and Eng,

the twins of Siamese birth...

who gave this congenital

abnormality its popular name,

married and fathered families.

Other twins lived by hiring

themselves out to sideshows...

or running

small town souvenir shops.

With the sophisticated surgical

techniques developed in this century,

some twins have been separated

and lead normal lives.

Others never can.

Born on March 27, 1948,

in Quebec, the Blanchions...

were Canada's

first Siamese twins.

Their parents died in an automobile accident

only days before their first birthday.

Dominique and Danielle

were to grow up...

from then on within the pale walls

of the Loisel Institute,

where surgeons, reluctant to risk an

operation on their delicate spinal conjoinment,

decided to let

them live as one.

- But whether as twins through life...

- That's Danielle's husband.

- Who told you that?

- I want to hear this.

There is always

a price to pay.

It seems the older

they become,

the more precarious

is their psychological balance,

both within themselves

and between one another.

In this, I am in agreement

with my colleagues.

Although, they tend

to think that Dominique...

is the truly disturbed one,

I think they will find that

Danielle, who is so sweet,

so responsive, so normal,

as opposed to her sister,

can only be so

because of her sister.

- Bonjour, Dominique.

This was the last interview

the conjoined twins would ever give.

That night, the doctors

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