Chap­ter 36 of We Solve Mur­ders presents Max High­field in an amus­ing yet odd sce­nario, dressed as a Roman cen­tu­ri­on and locked inside a mod­est Win­neba­go. The atmos­phere is a blend of both humor and ten­sion as Max pre­pares for his scene, try­ing to embody the grav­i­ty of the char­ac­ter he is por­tray­ing. The cramped quar­ters of the Win­neba­go stand in stark con­trast to the grandiose set, where tow­er­ing columns and gold­en stat­ues evoke the splen­dor of ancient Rome. Max stands in front of a bam­boo-framed mir­ror, run­ning through his lines with a tone that reflects the emo­tion­al weight of his character’s rejec­tion of Cae­sar. His refusal to praise the emper­or, despite the pres­sure and dan­ger sur­round­ing him, hints at a deep­er, more per­son­al inter­nal con­flict. The direc­tor, seat­ed near­by in a director’s chair, cri­tiques Max’s per­for­mance with intense focus, occa­sion­al­ly scrib­bling in her notes. Max, ever the per­fec­tion­ist, con­tem­plates tweak­ing his deliv­ery, wish­ing to infuse the lines with more authen­tic­i­ty, as though the words are born not from a script, but from raw, unfil­tered emo­tions.

The still­ness of the set is bro­ken by a knock on the Winnebago’s door, and a run­ner enters with an unex­pect­ed deliv­ery: a bou­quet of vibrant flow­ers. The ges­ture feels odd­ly out of place in the con­text of the film’s seri­ous tone, but Max’s light­heart­ed nature takes over as he inter­acts with the run­ner. The assis­tant, sur­prised by the sight of Max in full cos­tume, hands him the flow­ers, trig­ger­ing a brief, play­ful exchange between them. Max, main­tain­ing his char­ac­ter’s air of author­i­ty, insists on stay­ing in char­ac­ter, jok­ing about Roman cen­tu­ri­ons and their myth­i­cal love for cof­fee, despite the odd­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion. The assis­tant, bemused, looks con­fused as Max orders a soy milk lat­te, blend­ing his real-world per­son­al­i­ty with the char­ac­ter he’s meant to por­tray. The direc­tor, who has over­heard the con­ver­sa­tion, briefly inter­jects, quip­ping that cof­fee has exist­ed for thou­sands of years, even before the time of the Romans. Max, unde­terred, main­tains his act, prov­ing his abil­i­ty to remain in char­ac­ter despite the dis­trac­tions.

After the run­ner exits, Max shifts his focus to the accom­pa­ny­ing card that came with the flow­ers. He expects a typ­i­cal note of admi­ra­tion or a small ges­ture of good­will, but the mes­sage he reads is far more dis­turb­ing. “You’re Dead” is writ­ten in bold, stark let­ters, send­ing a wave of unease through Max. At first, he won­ders whether it’s some sort of joke or a prank intend­ed to light­en the mood on set, but the more he thinks about it, the more trou­bling it becomes. The omi­nous mes­sage seems to hint at some­thing deeper—a threat not just to his char­ac­ter, but per­haps to him per­son­al­ly. Max feels a chill run down his spine as he con­tem­plates the mean­ing of the note. Could this mes­sage be con­nect­ed to the script, or does it hold a more sin­is­ter impli­ca­tion that he hasn’t yet grasped? As Max stares at the card, he sens­es the loom­ing pres­ence of dan­ger, real­iz­ing that this cryp­tic warn­ing could sig­nal a new lev­el of intrigue or risk for him in both his pro­fes­sion­al and per­son­al life.

Max tries to dis­miss the thoughts rac­ing through his mind, know­ing he can­not allow the mes­sage to dis­tract him from his work. How­ev­er, the eerie words con­tin­ue to echo in his thoughts, ampli­fy­ing the ten­sion he feels. In the mid­dle of his prepa­ra­tions for the next scene, he won­ders whether some­one out there has a per­son­al vendet­ta against him, or if it’s sim­ply a ran­dom threat meant to unset­tle him. As the real­i­ty of the sit­u­a­tion sinks in, Max’s thoughts return to the nature of his role in the film and whether his char­ac­ter’s inter­nal strug­gle mir­rors his own. This sub­tle par­al­lel between fic­tion and real­i­ty begins to shape his per­for­mance, and he starts to real­ize that the lines between his char­ac­ter and his per­son­al life might blur in ways he hadn’t antic­i­pat­ed. The mys­tery sur­round­ing the mes­sage builds sus­pense, leav­ing read­ers curi­ous to know who is behind this omi­nous note and whether it’s just the begin­ning of some­thing far more dan­ger­ous that Max has yet to uncov­er.