context: In the opening scene (shot in black and white), a man staggers into the police station to report a murder. When the desk sergeant asks who was murdered, he answers: "I was." The man is Professor Dexter Cornell (Dennis Quaid), who then sits down to video-tape his account.36 hours previously.Cornell, is on campus. He is a college professor, was once a promising writer, made his name and is secure in his tenure, but he has spent the last four years going though the motions and playing it safe. "Publish or perish" is the contrasting rule of university politics and Cornell helps his friend Hal Petersham (Daniel Stern) with his first book.While he is in his office, a promising student, Nick Lang (Robert Knepper), jumps off a building right outside his office in an apparent suicide. This, coupled with the depressing Christmas season, unseasonably hot weather and the divorce papers given to him by his wife Gail (Jane Kaczmarek) leads Cornell to seek out the local bars for a night of drinking. There he meets admiring student Sydney Fuller (Meg Ryan) and they proceed to get drunk.The next morning, Cornell, feeling his sickness is more than just a hangover, stops by the campus medical clinic for a checkup. After running some tests, they discover that he has been poisoned and has 36 hours to live. An incredulous Cornell staggers out to try to make sense of it all.Aided by Fuller, whom he kidnaps by super-gluing himself to her arm, he attempts to recreate the events of the previous night hoping to discover who could have murdered him. The list of suspects includes his wife, who is also becomes a murder victim, which the police make half-hearted efforts to pin on Cornell.It is learned that Lang was not a suicide but was also murdered. Cornell also suspects Lang's mentor Mrs. Fitzwaring (Charlotte Rampling), Bernard (Christopher Neame) the Fitzwarings' chauffeur and Graham Corey (Jay Patterson), a jealous co-worker.It is revealed that Dexter Cornell's own friend Hal had poisoned him because of the copywright issues with Hal's first book, in which he decided to kill anyone who has remote knowledge of the book's true origins. Cornell kills Hal in self defense.In the end, back at the police station (in black-and-white), Cornell concludes his story to the investigating detectives. The final shot shows Cornell walking out of the police station along a long hallway to meet his fate.(Another interpretation is that he might have died right there at the station and is walking down the station hallway to the light of Heaven.)
question: What did the man answer when the desk sergeant ask who was murdered?
answer: My murder