Martin Vargas interview #4

Sunday, October 31, 2021 – 11:58 a.m.

Martin Vargas is the actor representative on the Yoknapatawpha Players' board and a lead actor in the "Zombie Escape" production.

Detectives Beckwith and Magee spoke with him again at the Yoknapatawpha County Sheriff's Department.

Participants

• Detective P. Beckwith
• Detective J. Magee
• Martin Vargas

Detective Beckwith: Mr. Vargas, are you ready to answer a few more questions? 

Martin Vargas: Are you going to let me out of here if I don't?

Detective Beckwith: Nope.

Martin Vargas: Then ask away because I didn't kill anyone.

Detective Magee: We're still waiting on that autopsy report, but we have the evidence that Scott's blood was all over the club.

Martin Vargas: Again with the club.

Detective Magee: We know that you used it.

Martin Vargas: Sure, because I already told you all about it. You're rehashing old news. If you weren't, I'd have a court date by now.

Detective Beckwith: You don't know all the evidence we have.

Martin Vargas: I know it's not enough. Think hard on it, Detective Beckwith, arresting the most popular actor in Oxford on little to no evidence. The PR blowback on your department will be huge. You don't have the brass cojones it would take to charge someone like me.

Detective Beckwith: Is that a challenge?

Martin Vargas: It's a truism. 

Detective Magee: Let's bring the temperature and the testosterone down in here. The plain evidence we have on you, Mr. Vargas, is that you were holding the murder weapon in the right place at the right time.

Martin Vargas: Yeah, I get it: Colonel Mustard Vargas, backstage, with the club. Only you have a bunch of people in that same place at that same time that could have set me up.

Detective Beckwith: But only you have a motive to do it.

Martin Vargas: Bull.

Detective Magee: You've already said you and Scott had "creative differences."

Martin Vargas: Wow. If I killed over creative differences, no one would be left in the troupe.

Detective Beckwith: Is that a backhanded admission?

Martin Vargas: You think you're someone special, Beckwith? You're not. Think you're going to get me to admit to something I didn't do? You're not. But keep trying because watching you try it is entertaining as hell.

Detective Beckwith: Ah, Mr. Vargas, it seems I tripped a nerve somewhere. Is this anger one of your common traits? Or do you save it for those you don't like?

Martin Vargas: It's not going to work. I didn't kill Scott Bryant.

Detective Magee: There weren't people backstage with you, Mr. Vargas.

Martin Vargas: I told you Denis hated Scott.

Detective Beckwith: Did you see Denis backstage?

Martin Vargas: No, but that doesn't mean he wasn't back there.

Detective Magee: Denis's prints weren't all over the club like yours were.

Martin Vargas: What about Heath? You know he was back there.

Detective Magee: He was out of it, tripping on psychedelics. 

Martin Vargas: You made that excuse for him before. He was sober enough to be an audience member in the play. That makes him sober enough to kill Scott.

Detective Beckwith: Sounds to me like you're just implicating other people to get yourself out of this bind you've put yourself in.

Martin Vargas: And you won't investigate anyone else because you want to pin this on me and close your case. How are you going to scapegoat me when you know Heath's clothes were all bloody?

Detective Magee: He was in a zombie play where he ripped an arm off a fake corpse. We'd expect him to be bloody.

Martin Vargas: There you go, Detective, making excuses for him again. Just so you know, he was bloody when I saw him backstage before the big battle with the zombies. How do you know he wasn't just faking that he was high?

Detective Magee: If Heath was inside the quarantine room when the wall fell on Scott, how would he have beaten him with a club when Scott was underneath the wall?

Martin Vargas: I don't know. Maybe he beat Scott and stuffed him under the wall.

Detective Beckwith: It took four guys to lift that wall off of Scott's body.

Martin Vargas: Maybe he had help.

Detective Magee: From who?

Martin Vargas: Janet was the one who put Heath in the quarantine room in the first place. I never saw where she went after we left the mobile lab. 

Detective Magee: What reason would Janet and Heath have to kill Scott?

Martin Vargas: What reason do I? None. Maybe Janet didn't like the way Scott did the scheduling or thought Woody ought to have Scott's job, or maybe she didn't like him, period. How should I know? Maybe she was hoping someone else other than Scott was under the wall.

Detective Beckwith: What do you mean?

Martin Vargas: Well, Scott was dressed like a zombie. There were a bunch of others in zombie costumes—Cammy Stargell, Essie Joplin. Maybe Janet was worried that she was going to get replaced. Everyone in the troupe knows Joplin is a better actress.

Detective Magee: Everyone?

Martin Vargas: Sure, ask around.

Detective Beckwith: I think you're tossing out names, hoping we'll go in another direction.

Martin Vargas: You would. Then don't investigate them or anything because obviously you have tunnel vision here, and I'm at the end of the tunnel.

Detective Beckwith: As always, you've given yourself far too much credit. Get comfortable because we'll be back with more questions.

Interview ended – 12:12 p.m.