The Dead Room

Twin sisters Lauramay and Bernadine Fasker run the family funeral home in the Tacony section of Philadelphia. Financial problems cause them to take in a go-getting partner, handsome Roger Malkus, who, unknown to the sisters, has a past. When Bernadine is shot and killed in the office of the funeral home, Philadelphia Homicide detectives Gus Ferrotta and Max Gaffney believe Malkus killed Bernadine for a quarter million dollars in partners insurance. Nonetheless, there is no evidence whatever connecting Roger Malkus to the murder. Ferrotta and Gaffney work their case, the trail eventually leading them to a twenty year old murder in Atlanta. In the meantime, Harry Ramp, the rich father of a woman about to marry Roger Malkus, engages Phil Lavallette, a private investigator, to look into the background of Malkus. That investigation takes Lavallette to funeral homes in Tennessee, Georgia and Mississippi, where he finds Malkus is not who he says he is.