Anne Simmons’s murder

Anne Simmons’s killing is the unresolved center of Roy Freeman’s confrontation with Derek Simmons: Derek insists he found her bleeding and did not kill her, while Roy argues that Derek’s own actions and recovered memories point toward guilt. The scene supplies no definitive proof of who killed Anne. Instead, it sets Derek’s denial against a troubling timeline and the possibility that the betrayals he believed in were inventions of his own mind.

The Call Before the Emergency Call

Roy focuses first on what Derek did after finding Anne. Derek had called Joseph Wieder from his home number, then waited eight minutes before calling 911. Roy treats the order and delay as suspicious: in his account, Derek contacted the man he believed to be Anne’s lover before summoning help. He presses Derek on why he called Joseph Wieder and whether the two men discussed the killing face to face. The question makes the call more than a detail in a phone record; it becomes the clearest surviving link between Anne’s death and the relationship Derek suspected.

The call had not led the police to Joseph Wieder at the time. The number was still associated with the former homeowner, Jesse E. Banks, who had died, and the house had been sold through an estate agency. Investigators reached a dead end and dropped the lead; even if they had identified Joseph Wieder, Roy notes, his name then appeared irrelevant to the case. The failed inquiry explains how an apparently significant contact could escape attention, without proving what was said or why Derek made it.

Derek offers a practical explanation for using his home phone: he did not want to leave the house because he feared being seen, and he wanted to reach Joseph Wieder quickly. He also says he did not know whether the patrol would arrest him as soon as it arrived. Those details place the call in a moment of fear and urgency, but they do not settle whether he was trying to get help, protect himself, or both.

Denial and Suspicion

When Roy asks directly whether Derek killed his wife, Derek shakes his head. He maintains that he found Anne in a pool of blood and says that, although she would have deserved to die, he did not kill her. The distinction is stark: he expresses hostility toward Anne while denying that hostility became action. His statement is an account from a man whose recollections are under scrutiny, not independent confirmation of what happened in the house.

Roy challenges the denial by returning to the sequence of events. He contrasts Anne’s position as the love of Derek’s life with Derek’s decision to call her supposed lover first, and emphasizes the eight-minute gap before the 911 call. Derek acknowledges that he never learned who killed Anne. Asked whether that uncertainty bothered him, he gives no clear resolution: perhaps it did, he says, but so what? His response leaves the question of the killer open while making his apparent acceptance of the unanswered death another source of suspicion.

The Story Derek Believed

Derek says he knew Anne had been cheating on him. Roy counters that the detectives’ report described a different past: before meeting Derek, Anne had worked for about two years as a barmaid at Ruby’s Cafe in Atlantic City, where people remembered her as nice, decent, and intelligent. Roy argues that Derek may have imagined the men who supposedly demanded money from him, Anne’s criminal past, her many affairs, and her laughter at his expense. These are Roy’s interpretations, not established facts about Derek’s memories; he is arguing that the story Derek built around Anne may have been false.

The alleged affair with Joseph Wieder is similarly unsettled. Roy says he is not sure Anne was involved with the professor at all and raises the possibility that she had simply asked him for help. That possibility changes the meaning of the call without resolving it: Joseph Wieder might have been Anne’s lover, or a person she turned to, while Derek’s conviction about betrayal may have shaped his understanding of both the call and the murder.

Roy connects Derek’s recovered memories with the return of his nightmares, asking whether the two came back together. Derek does not answer that question in the exchange. The scene therefore places memory at the heart of the case without treating recovered recollection as a reliable verdict. What Derek remembers—or believes he remembers—may explain his suspicions, but Roy’s challenge leaves open whether it reveals Anne’s life, Derek’s fears, or the circumstances of her death.

An Unresolved Death

The confrontation ends without a confession or a confirmed account of the killing. Roy tells Derek that he believes Derek murdered Anne, while acknowledging that he would not repeat the accusation to a real police officer. Derek asks whether Roy thinks he killed her; Roy answers yes. Derek then tells him to leave and returns to packing. His refusal to continue the conversation does not establish guilt, and Roy’s conviction does not replace evidence the exchange never supplies.

Anne’s death consequently remains both a crime and a problem of interpretation. The call to Joseph Wieder, the delayed emergency call, Derek’s admission of resentment, and the disputed memories all make his denial difficult for Roy to accept. Yet the possibility that Anne sought help rather than having an affair prevents the suspicion from becoming certainty. The scene leaves the decisive fact—the identity of Anne’s killer—unsettled.