S06E13 – If the Shoe Fits

It’s a beautiful day in the Cove Fletcherfans, and JB is hard at work in her garden with the assistance of local boy Kevin.

Jonathan Brandis. God it still makes me sad to think about it. 

JB tells Kevin he’s the best worker she’s ever had and he’s right chuffed. It’s just him and his Mum at home and he’s got to earn a living.

Sidenote: this actually happened:

Please see Murder, She Blogged on Facebook for an accurate representation of my reaction to this line.

Over at the shoe factory where Kevin’s mother Marla works Stuff is Going Down. The owner of the shoe factory is freaking out after his landlord, Jack Franzen increases his rent (and hits on his workers, this time Patsy aka Liza Minelli’s half sister). In a helpful coincidence, Jack Franzen is also Marla and Kevin’s landlord and he’s keen to collect if you know what I mean. Marla tells him that she hasn’t got the money on her and he says he’ll come around later but Marla says not in front of her son. Jack is fine with that – if she’s short he can find a way she can make up the difference.

EW.

(Sidenote part the second: Jack Franzen is being played by Crispin Glover’s father which is kind of totes appropes considering it was Back to the Future Day the other day).

Back at Casa Fletcher JB has returned with Seth Hazlitt and a load of garden supplies so they can crack on with the gardening on Monday. Jess gives Kevin his weeks wages and Seth offers to give him a ride home considering how dark it has become. Kevin tells them he’ll be fine – he’s got errands to run and he has an excellent headlight. On his way home, however, he’s nearly run off the road by a swerving car. His bike damaged, Kevin walks the rest of the way.

A couple of days later JB is on a mission to get a whole heap of packages sent of to various family members (because as we know, The Family is huge), ably assisted by Seth.

Heehee

On the way to the post office they spot Kevin appearing to wait for a bus to arrive, but as it leaves he does too, telling Jess he will go and get started on her garden. While getting the mail sorted Seth and Jess run into Jack Franzen’s wife Gloria, picking up some fancy lingerie she ordered. Seth asks after Jack, saying he hadn’t seen him for awhile but she says likewise. Outside the post office they run into Jess’s former colleague and Kevin’s history teacher Lydia Johansesen who tells JB to tell Kevin she hopes he’s feeling better, since he wasn’t in school today.

Jess finds Kevin hard at work in her garden and offers a banana bread and milk break, which Kevin gratefully accepts, saying that his Mum wasn’t feeling well and didn’t make him lunch. Jess tells him his teacher will be glad to hear that he’s okay since he wasn’t in school today. Kevin tells her that he had to stay home and look after her, but refuses any offers of help or seeing Doctor Hazlitt. Instead he asks JB for his wages for the day just in case he needs to pick something up for his mother. Jess sends him on his way, but is concerned and starts rummaging through her fridge for leftovers.

To the Fletch-mobile!

 

The Hero Cabot Cove Deserves

JB knocks on the door and hears Kevin say “Mom?” but when he answers the door and realises it’s JB he tells her she can’t come in, his mum is asleep. When JB presses Kevin comes clean – when he got home on Friday there was a note from his mother saying she’d gone to Portland and that she’d be back that night, but she’s been gone for three days.

Jess is in shock and asks him why he didn’t call the sheriff and he tells her about the time in Chicago he got placed in foster care – he swears he will never go back. JB tells him she understands, but that his mother is probably worried sick about him too and convinces him to go see Sheriff Metzger, saying she thinks she can convince Mort to holdoff on calling the authorities for a little while.

Down at the Sheriff’s office Mort hears the story and tells Kevin he will call around the hospitals in Portland to see what he can find out. Privately he tells Jess that he should call child services but Jess asks him to hold off until he’s made his calls. Mort agrees and tells her to get Kevin to check his statement. While they do that, Gloria Franzen wanders in to make an official report – not that she cares but her husband has been missing since Friday. Jess tells her she’s sorry to hear it, and wonders if she knows Marla Bryce. Gloria tells her that it wouldn’t surprise her if they’d run off together – Jack charged Marla 200 bucks a month rent but the place is worth triple that. Presumably (Gloria tells them) Marla makes up for it with services rendered.

 

So gross.

Leaving the Sheriff’s office, JB asks Kevin if he recognised Gloria Franzen which he did, as the wife of their landlord. Kevin tells JB that Jack Franzen would come around all the time chasing rent, but that his mother didn’t like him at all and said they would be free of him soon enough. Jess suggests they go out to his place, leave a note in case his mother turns up, and get some of his things so he can spend the night at House Fletcher. On the way they take a short cut and find a crashed car down a ravine – with the body of Jack Franzen in it.

Well I think we all saw that coming.

While Seth, the sheriff and his men go about their business, Kevin confides in JB that he used to think it would be cool to find a dead body.

“Well it isn’t,” says JB. And let’s face it guys, SHE WOULD KNOW.

Mort reports in that Jack Franzen had been dead about 3-4 days, meaning he was killed on Friday. It was no accident either, Seth tells them. Jack was hit over the head, probably with a two-by-four – or the Bryce’s missing shovel. While Seth gets Kevin to help him put the bikes in the back of Seth’s truck, JB follows the Sheriff, who’s just found some broken tail light pieces on the ground. They’re interrupted by Deputy Floyd arriving with the news that Marla Bryce has been located in a Portland hospital.

Marla is relieved to see Kevin but doesn’t really remember what happened. She came down to Portland for a job interview, got lost heading back to the bus station and was mugged when she asked for directions. Mort asks her if she saw Jack on Friday, and Marla says she thinks so but is shocked when they tell her he’s been murdered. Mort tells her he will have to take her in for questioning.

Mort is convinced Marla is guilty but JB isn’t so sure. Back in the Cove though, Jess has more pressing concerns. She invites former student Lee McAdam around who is conveniently also a social worker. Kevin is suspicious when she suggests foster care, but is delighted when she tells him that the foster carer would be JB – as long as Jessica is a responsible adult.

“I try!” says JB. NAWWWWWWWW.

That night, JB checks in on Kevin all tucked up in bed and asks him if he remembers anything else about Friday that might help his mother. Kevin remembers the car, and tells JB it only had one taillight. A clue! Kevin is all set to start looking right away but Jess tells him they will go chat to the Sheriff in the morning.

The next morning, Jess goes to wake Kevin with the promise of blueberry pancakes but he’s gone. In a panic she calls Seth and they set out to look for him and sure enough they find him down the street in town, checking all the parked cars for a broken taillight. On the way back to Jess’s for pancakes (which Seth has conveniently wrangled an invitation to), they spot Marla’s boss at the shoe factory getting into the car of Gloria Franzen.

After breakfast, and a brief speech about how horrible that such things like the case of Marla and Kevin Bryce are happening in their little town, Seth drives JB to see Marla to try and jog her memory about where she went on that fateful Friday. JB shows Marla the job advertisements from the paper that day and Marla remembers where she she had the interview. She tells JB she’s terrified of losing Kevin but Jess is on the case. Marla also mentions that her boss, Owen might have had a reason to kill Jack, on account of the rent raising.

On a mission, JB heads down to the shoe factory where she bumps into one of Marla’s co-workers, Danny Snow (JD from Hill Street Blues for those who are playing along at home), who offers to help pay for Marla’s legal fees. Jess mentions she heard the funeral was going to be on Friday but Danny tells her not to expect a crowd. Jess is surprised to hear this, she remembers Danny and Jack were the best of friends back in high school but Danny tells her Jack just liked having people around who made him feel better about himself.

Inside, while JB orders a pair of moccasins from Patsy she notices Gloria Franzen and Owen the factory owner busy talking up in the managers office. She goes to investigate – Owen tells her that Gloria has found a way for Owen to buy the building outright, paving the way for a joint business selling shoes via catalog. He’s excited, she’s excited, JB’s suspicious and even more so when she learns that Owen got rid of his car last Saturday morning. As she leaves the factory with her new slippers, she runs into Sheriff Metzger who has bad news – the company Marla says she interviewed at has never heard of her.

JB won’t stand for this and so calls the company herself, speaking to the man who actually interviewed Marla and forgot to write it in his calendar. This doesn’t clinch it for Mort, although his new focus is the busted tail light pieces he found. Jess tells him that if they belong to a twelve-year-old Chevy to check with Owen the factory owner. Floyd gets an anonymous tip placing Jack Franzen at Patsy’s place at 3pm that Friday afternoon so Mort troops over to suss it out, since if Jack was at Patsy’s after Marla left for the interview she will be completely off the hook. Patsy confirms the timeline, and with a quick look at her taillight for good measure Mort returns to the sheriff’s office one suspect less than what he had to begin with.

Meanwhile Seth is raiding JB’s brownies at her place when he and JB have a seemingly pointless conversation about red lights on coffee makers that leads to a JB epiphany.

*if epiphany persists, please see a doctor*

While JB gets Mort to start checking for people who might have bought new taillight covers, Kevin is out doing his own investigating – and finds a fresh new taillight and the person who did it.

Oh dear.

JB and Mort arrive just in time to avert disaster. Danny confesses to killing Jack Franzen but says it was in self-defence.  Something about a lifetime of bullying. Poor bloke.

Guys this episode was just depressing. I recommend you scroll down and look at Bill Maher’s hair until we all feel better.

So until next time.

Later gang!

S06E12 – Goodbye Charlie

We have apparently broken into JB’s house this week Fletcherfans, and found her hard at work on her newest book. Would you like to hear about it?

I feel a story coming on.

Once upon a time, in a magical faraway kingdom called Hollywood, there lived a private detective (naturally) called Frank Albertson. He wasn’t very good at his job but he was convinced that fortune was just around the corner.

MAJESTIC MULLET IS MAJESTIC

After returning home from a failed attempt at catching a cheating husband, Frank finds his wife in their bedroom with a lawyer, Raymond Fleischer but the good news is it’s nothing suss – Raymond represents the estate of Elizabeth Flack, who has left all her worldly possessions to Frank’s uncle Charlie. Raymond is looking to find Charlie to tell him the good news but Frank and his wife Sunny haven’t seen him for over 2 years, when Frank finally got sick of old uncle Charlie eating his food, drinking his beer and stealing his shirts. The last they heard he was in Reno although the last Christmas card Sunny sent him came back ‘not known at this address’.

Raymond tells them it’s a shame – if the old guy has passed away then the fortune would go to Frank. And there are a lot of zero’s in fortune. Frank’s pupils turn into dollar signs and he asks Raymond how to go about proving Charlie is dead but Raymond tells them it takes 7 years for someone to be declared legally dead. He gives them his card and bids them good day.

While back out on his quest to catch his client’s husband cheating, Frank spots a story in the newspaper about an unidentified body found on some railway tracks outside of Huckabee, Nevada and constructs a Genius Plot. The body is too badly damaged to be properly identified, and one dead body is as good as another someone once said probably.

Sunny is horrified – poor Uncle Charlie!

(Frank explains that it’s not actually Uncle Charlie).

Sunny is on board and they set to work bombarding the coroner’s office in Huckabee, Nevada to work out the winning combination of identifying features that “Uncle Charlie” needs (and let’s not dwell on the fact that Huckabee is literally a 1 horse town but it has a coroner’s office). Through a cunning montage of elimination, they work out that John Doe is old, tubby, brown-eyed and doesn’t have a wooden leg. Sunny nails the guessing game, making Frank wonder if she’s got some sort of second sight happening but she says she’s just describing Uncle Charlie.

I don’t think she understands what’s happening you guys.

Word.

Frank and Grady Sunny drive to Huckabee to claim the remains of “Uncle Charlie” and meet the local Sheriff who according to IMDB is called Ed Ten Eyck which frankly sounds suspicious but then if you look closely…

I want a numerical middle name. Briony Forty Two Williamson. That rolls right off the tongue.

The sheriff is mighty understanding, and tells them that John Doe died quick – was knocked clean out of his shoes, which they found beside the body, but weirdly no ID. Frank and Sunny take it in turns to tell a complicated story about Uncle Charlie’s life as a hobo, but as much as the Sheriff would love to help them bury their uncle and be on their way, there’s a catch – they aren’t the first people to lay claim to the body. In fact, they’re 3rd.

Cut to some noises that I never wanted to hear come out of Bill Maher, and then an explanation.

The classic lolsome innuendo.

Frank decides his next move is to pay a visit to a guy whose name he saw written upside down on the Sheriff’s desk, whom he finds down at the local bar doing some lip sync battling.

This is 100% not as funny as I think it is.

Bart Mahoney, local lawyer and Rick Astley afficionado, is representing Marcia Mae Bailey whose father apparently lies in the morgue. Bart informs Frank that since the warning light was out, and old Roper Bailey was deaf, the railroad company as good as murdered him – and what jury is going to argue with a grieving child?

The bartender snorts at this. It would seem the grieving child might not be all that grieving.

Back at the hotel room, Frank is “resting” with Sunny (I would say get a room, but they did) when he gets a call from the Tenner, unhappy about his recent meeting with Bart Mahoney and requesting his presence down at the sheriff’s office. He’d like to introduce Frank to contestant number 2 in Who Wants To Be A Corpse Claimer – Tilly Bascombe, who is claiming the dead man is her husband Mort. They compare pictures just in case, but Mort isn’t Uncle Charlie. Tillie tells them that Mort liked to take long walks due to his insomnia, and it was entirely probable that the reason why they didn’t find any ID was because the velocity of the train whipped it out of his pockets.

Science bitch!

This gives Frank an idea, and he asks the Sheriff to recruit the local little league team to search around the tracks the next day. That night, he and Sunny go down to the railway line and throw some of Uncle Charlie’s belongings into the bushes.

The next day (JB tells us, madly searching for more whiskey) Frank wakes up feeling confident the belongings will be found. Because guys, you can’t just hide things in the desert. Someone will find them.

Unfortunately for Frank, his enthusiasm is shortlived. The local little league team is not too crash hot at finding things, leaving Frank to stew and Sunny to wonder why Tilly doesn’t sweat.

They are soon joined by Tilly’s cousin Jerry Wilber, who has some desert experience.

LONG LIVE THE KING.

Jerry, it turns out, has been running Mort’s laundromat microchip company ever since Meth Mort disappeared. But honestly who cares because

I CAN’T GO ON

The search for meth missing possessions continues, and they are soon joined by Bart Mahoney, complaining about an illegal search, the death of his client’s father etcetera etcetera. They are also joined by his client’s legs, and after a while, the rest of her.

I CAN’T EVEN

While Bart banishes his client back to the car to contain her chest grief, the little league kids hit gold. It’s bad news for Tilly and Jerry, good news for Frank and Sunny – they’ve found Uncle Charlie’s possessions. The sheriff takes them back to his office for a closer look but begrudgingly admits he can’t find any reason not to turn over the body – even if he is clearly suspicious. He gives Frank and Sunny a form and tells them to go see the coroner, Jack Yamamoto. When they arrive they meet his assistant, Lon Ainsley, whose voice Sunny recognises from their constant calls to the coroners office, and who you might recognise from such episodes as these. (Side note – I wish they had put the actor, Robin Bach, in more episodes; he was hilarious. Unfortunately he passed away in 1991 but he he was one of the unexpectedly best bits I’ve discovered watching this show).

Lon ushers Frank and Sunny into Jack Yamoto’s office. While Frank fills out paperwork, Sunny reads Autopsy magazine (oh MSW writers, you’re so funny!) and Jack offers to get them a deal on a plot at the local cemetery. But when the last form is filled out, and Frank and Sunny are just leaving the office, Frank gets a tap on the shoulder. It’s the Big Ten. He’s just had a call from his counterpart in the next town – they’ve just arrested a hobo with a wallet, with close to 200 bucks in it. The wallet itself has plenty of ID in it – it belongs to Mort Bascomb. So what Big Ten wants to know, is just how Uncle Charlie’s belongings ended up all over the railway track?

Needless to say, Frank is under arrest. The sheriff throws him in the slammer with a friendly hobo who is busy stuffing his rather fancy looking shoes with newspaper, since they don’t fit him. This gives Frank an idea and he hollers for the judge.

I MEAN JUST LOOK AT THIS DAMN PICTURE.

The sheriff listens while Frank pitches his theory – if the shoes were knocked off John Doe, they wouldn’t be sitting next to him. Someone killed John Doe, realised John Doe wasn’t wearing shoes, tried to jam his own shoes onto the body, realised the shoes were too small and so waited for the train to do it’s business and left the shoes next to the body afterwards. Big Ten and Frank go to see Yamoto, who tests said theory and it’s confirmed. John Doe was murdered. Because, y’know, MURDER she wrote and all.

Frank, now apparently free, goes to see that bartender from the beginning of the episode to see what he can find out about Bart Mahoney and the grieving Marcia Mae. Turns out, Marcia Mae has been taking care of herself since she was 16, with Bart Mahoney footing the bills, including the grocery bill Marcia Mae racks up at the bartender’s other job, the grocery store. She buys chewing gum and soda for herself and Mexican beer and chewing tobacco for her father – and despite the fact that her father’s been missing for 5 days, guess what she bought in the grocery store just that day?

Frank and Sunny report their findings to the Sheriff, who agrees that Bart had no motive for killing John Doe. That leaves the Widow Bascombe, who comes into her husband’s fortune as provided by the company – “with her cousin Jerry the hunk in charge.” Sunny points out.

They decide to pay Tillie a visit and, well…

Well this has taken a turn.

After a 5 second attempt at bluffing, Jerry falters and Tillie throws him under a bus. Jerry killed Mort and what’s more he buried him in the backyard.

YOU GUYS.

GODDAMN RIGHT.

Tillie convinced her (it turns out) second cousin Jerry to kill Mort so she could get his money. They only decided to get married after.

The Sheriff, conceeding defeat, lets Frank and Sunny claim the body on the proviso they get out of town double quick. They arrive home exhausted, but excited about their newfound wealth.

Until they hear someone in the bedroom. It’s Uncle Charlie, just popping in to pick up his things before heading to Vegas with his new girlfriend. You aren’t going to believe this, Charlie tells Frank and Sunny, but some old girlfriend left me a boatload of money!

But let’s face it. Noone cares.

See you next week Fletcherfans!

 

 

 

 

 

S06E11 – Town Father

Welcome to another sunny day in Cabot Cove Fletcherfans where the sky is blue, the trees are green Seth Hazlitt is feeling hearty and JB is doing a bit of reno.

 

I would watch reno shows if all the contestants had to sing while renovating. Get on to that, The Block.

JB is on her way to Loretta’s to get her hair did when she gets a phone call from a New York attorney, Jason Vernon, begging her to sell her house. Jess isn’t budging even if the money involved is more than she bargained for.

Clearly not Australian dollars then *shakes fist at exchange rate*

It’s a familiar business and Seth has a bee in his sweatband about it. Those damned city folk coming in and weekend-ising the place, driving up property values and making it impossible to get a table at the cafe in Morgan’s Bay. Not only that, but it’s mayoral election time and Seth has a bee in his bonnet about Mayor Sam Booth disappearing every July when it’s peak tourist season.

This year’s election is going to be a little different. Already another candidate Milton Overguard has thrown his hat into the ring, promising to do something about the ‘do-nothing’ mayor. Jess thinks it will be an interesting race, given that Sam usually runs unopposed but Seth thinks that Sam will be returned by the voters – or more to the point the 86% of people who stay home.

Down at Loretta’s and it’s business as usual:

You guys, this is the last episode for this gang :(((((

While Ideal begs JB to write a nice magazine article instead of a creepy book (pfft) and Eve begs JB to sell her house (double pfft) they are soon joined by local snob Winifred Thayer – one of those uppity weekenders Seth enjoys so much. Eve is very put out that JB has been invited to Winifred’s party and she has not, and tries to wrangle an invitation by offering to drop off some business cards – she’s been helping a fancy New York attorney find a home, she’s sure she could do the same for some of Winifred’s friends.

Winifred suddenly remembers her parking meter and hightails it out. JB asks if the attorney happens to be Bill Vernon and Eve is horrified to discover that he’s been chasing her clients behind her back.

The conversation soon turns to the upcoming election, and while Eve is all for booting Sam out, none of them really want to vote for Milton Overguard except Ideal – after all his late wife’s cherry turnovers were amazing.

Democracy is tasty.

While Eve can’t argue against cherry turnovers, she does have Ideas – she thinks the next mayor should be a woman! JB tells her the sex of the mayor shouldn’t matter, to which Phyllis says “no but it helps to have some.”

:O

As Jess departs a young lady wanders in asking for directions to the mayor’s office, and introduces herself as Annie May Chapman. She also asks Loretta for an appointment for the next day, saying that there’s someone she wants to dress up for. Naturally this comment goes unnoticed.

See? No opinion.

That night Seth and Jess attend the party at the home of Winifred and Horton Thayer, which turns out to be a fundraiser for the conservation society. Both Horton and his moustache are delighted to see them, Winifred not so much.

Dat stache though.

Horton disappears to chat to the man who donated a ferrari to the raffle, while Winifred deals with some errant canapes, leading to this exchange that 100% happened I couldn’t make this up if I tried:

WHAT IS HAPPENING

A short time later they bump into Eve Simpson, who is in a buoyant mood and has 3 people interested in buying Jess’s house.

This can only end well

Eve wanders off to hit on Horton Thayer, leaving Seth and JB to booze on until a woman approaches JB…

shots fired.

Later, when Seth is (impatiently) waiting for JB outside the party, candidate Milton Overguard bails him up to ask if Seth will support Milton’s proposals for an airport for Cabot Cove. Seth tells him that the weekenders might be able to donate funds to his campaign, but they can’t vote for him. Milton storms off in a huff, leaving Seth to deal with a very worried Mayor Booth who wants reassurance that Seth won’t be voting for Milton in the next election. Seth tells Sam that his biggest asset is that he is a do-nothing mayor.

The next day…

*insert eleventy billion Tony Abbott jokes here*

Sam is halfway though his “I’m just a humble country mayor” routine when an invitation for people to say why he shouldn’t for mayor again goes awry. A voice pipes up from the back of the crowd, saying that Sam promised to retire after this term. And go back to Wyoming. And marry her.

It’s Annie May Chapman, that girl who was asking for directions to the mayors office the day before. When Sam suggests she’d just escaped from the Portland mental institution, she runs off crying. Loretta goes to console her while Eve cackles and Ideal thinks about cherry turnovers, probably. Loretta wants to know if Annie May has the right Sam Booth, but Annie May is sure – and she’s got the pictures of the kids to prove it.

You guys this episode is amazing.

The next day, Jess is out and about when she runs into the news about Sam. Everyone knows Annie May now, it turns out Loretta’s shop wasn’t the only place she asked for directions to Sam’s office.

To be fair, things tend to escalate quickly in Cabot Cove.

Later that night, Jess and Seth are discussing the love life of Sam Booth (ew) when Jess gets a knock at the door. It’s two of the locals, Howard and Ebeneezer. They are concerned by recent developments making Sam unelectable, and are worried that Milton will get elected, meaning that zoning will change and CHAOS BEDLAM AND MURDER oh wait.

But it’s okay! They have a plan! They just need someone to run for mayor. Someone…like JB.

 

 

Words are meaningless.

They think she’s the perfect candidate, she knows when to keep quiet and she’s got no history of philandering, to which Seth makes a noise into his apron WHAT EVEN IS THIS EPISODE.

Jess is flattered but declines. She’s just finished 2 books and just wants to rest/paint her house.

Howard and Ebeneezer understand. They turn to Seth. Would he be interested in running?

Sidenote: I can’t believe it’s been 6 season and I haven’t got Liam Neeson’s monologue from Taken into an episode yet,.

The next day Eve finds Milton campaigning with potholders, and bemoans his paternalistic attitudes (cue Loretta cracking a line about Sam’s paternalistic attitudes). Phyllis wanders in to report that she’s checked her records at the travel agency and  Sam has taken a trip to Casper Wyoming every year for the last 10 years. Eve thinks it’s time a woman should run and she’s just the one to do it.

Phyllis and Ideal half agree, but they have a different candidate in mind.

Pretty sure that this is the same way Vladimir Putin got into politics.

Jess is still not running, and thinks they should all let Sam defend himself before they pillory him but Phyllis’s mind is made up. Sam has been avoiding Annie May all over town, which wouldn’t be hard considering Phyllis had to give Annie May directions to the mayors office to start with.

Well that rings a bell.

That night Eve launches her campaign for mayor, while JB decides to suss out this Annie May Chapman person. While they chat away in the kitchen JB asks her why she came to Cabot Cove and Annie May just says it’s to remind Sam of his promise to come back to Wyoming. She shows JB pictures of her kids when a gaggle of housewives come in, desperate for gossip. JB is taken by one photo, of Sam’s twin boys, which seems familiar but it’s decided that it’s because they look just like Sam. Loretta comes in to tell Annie May that Eve is looking for her and they all troop out again, leaving Loretta and JB in the kitchen. JB thinks Annie May can handle herself remarkably well, to which Loretta tells her that she might be from Wyoming, but her hair cut came from New York. Now that is an episode of CSI I would watch.

Later than night Jess returns home to find Sam luring in the bushes. He was all set to beg her to support him publicly but is convinced that her presence at Eve Simpson’s “suffragette rally” (ugh) means she’ll be supporting Eve. When JB assures him she’s not supporting anyone he flips and accuses her of running against him. Meanwhile, across town, a shadowy figure has just climbed through the window into Annie May’s hotel room and shot her, because it’s Murder She WROTE not Murder She ELECTED.

JB is woken with the news of Annie May’s death by Howard and Ebeneezer who see it as proof she should run. JB tells them to cool their jets and goes to see Sam to try and get to the bottom of it all. Sam swears up and down he had never seen Annie May before or the kids and tells the sheriff the same thing when he pops around. Outside, the Sheriff tells JB that they found an envelope with two grand in it on the nightstand, which JB thinks is ridiculous. Surely with that kind of money she would have locked the window.

The sheriff says that everyone who’s stayed at that hotel knows the windows don’t lock.

 

heh heh heh

Jess still has a funny feeling about that photo and after awhile it comes to her – it’s from a clothes catalog. Mort is now even more confused – there’s no Annie May Chapman in Wyoming, Casper or otherwise. JB suggests the modelling agency behind the catalog might have more information. Meanwhile Milton comes into the sheriff’s office demanding the killer be caught immediately – this sort of thing might bring down a congressional candidate but it’s only making Sam look interesting.

Leaving the Sheriff to mull it all over, Jess goes update Seth on recent developments but he’s way ahead of her – Corinne from Loretta’s Beauty Parlour has a) sprained her ankle and b)news/gossip about the killer. They take her down to see Mort, where she confesses she’s only heard the news second hand, but word is a man was seen going into Annie May’s room the night she died. And it wasn’t Sam. She’s reluctant to admit where she heard the gossup but finally admits she overheard Ideal Malloy talking about it in the grocers.

This is not good news for Mort, who is convinced Ideal is in love with him, so he takes Jessica along for support. Ideal tells them she actually heard it from Eve, but when they catch up with her on the campaign trail she tells them she actually heard about it from Loretta. They go to see Loretta, busy styling Phyllis’s hair and she tells them Phyllis told her that morning, but Phyllis says she only heard it from Ideal. Ideal looks up from her magazine and says that that hotel was the last place you’d expect to see Horton Thayer.

“But why didn’t you just tell us earlier?” Asks JB.

“I didn’t want you to think I was a gossip.” Says Ideal.

I am going to miss Ideal

Jess and the Sheriff go to visit Horton Thayer at home, where he confesses to hiring Annie May aka his former mistress Anne Mitchell to pose as Sam’s mistress to swing the election Milton’s way thereby making it easier to buy up the land (with his attorney the mysterious Bill Vernon) and start paving paradise. He went to the hotel that night to give Annie/Anne more money but he swears he didn’t kill her.

Mort doesn’t care and arrests him anyway, but Jess is unconvinced especially when Winifred comes banging into the Sheriff’s office demanding to know what Horton’s motive was since he never even knew Anne Mitchell.

Busted.

Well that’s not a surprise.

What also isn’t a surprise is the election results, which Loretta delivers to JB and Seth while they’re out on their morning constitutional the next day:

Eve Simpson: 6 votes.

Milton Overguard: 19 votes

Which can only mean one thing…

Later Fletcherfans!