“Norma Jean” hadn’t had to use The Plan yet. She was still out there among the living, although I’d bet there wasn’t much of a heart beating behind her left foam-covered saline breast implant.

I had no guilty feelings about turning her personal drama into an episode of the show; I’d decided it was karma paying me back for all of the clean urine samples I personally provided for “Norma Jean’s” court ordered maintenance tests. I turned to my computer screen:

NORMA JEAN

You don’t have any idea what it’s like to be famous.They’re going to hunt me down just like they did Diana.

ASST. #2

I know, it’s terrible. It’s like you’re a caged animal.

NORMA JEAN

That’s why we have The Plan. The Plan will give me the dignity in death that I deserve. No one is going to defile me!

I scrolled ahead to when Norma was nice and dead, and the show’s detective was on the scene.

Interior of a holding cell. Day. A uniformed policeman enters, accompanied by MAGGIE BLACK. They pull out two chairs and seat themselves next to the interrogating officer, then focus on Asst. #2.

MAGGIE BLACK

So was she afraid for her life? Did Norma Jean have reason to believe that someone was trying to kill her?

ASST. #2

She did have enemies . . . I mean, you don’t get to be that successful without . . . trampling on some people with your stilettos. But it didn’t seem like anyone would want to KILL her.

MAGGIE BLACK

But she talked about her own death frequently. Would you say she had a fixation about death?

ASST. #2

Yes, she did seem fixated on death. She was terrified at the thought of what they did to Marilyn—after she died. She was very concerned about someone trying to do anything to her body after she passed on.

One of the first rules of police work and case investigation that I’d learned by shadowing the real investigators was that random acts of violence were actually pretty rare. If someone got murdered, the murderer was likely someone the victim knew. So the investigators would concentrate on the immediate family of a victim, then move on to the boyfriend or coworkers. They think of it as a circle and work their way outward.

For this episode, the cops would put pressure on Assistant Number Two and she would eventually crack, spilling out her hatred for Norma Jean and admitting she murdered her.

Assistant Number Two wouldn’t have sex with the dead Norma Jean—that would be over the line. We’d just throw in Norma Jean’s obsession with necrophilia and that she needed The Plan.