Murder, She Wrote Season 3, Episode 12
“The Corpse Flew First Class”
Original Airdate: January 18, 1987
Writer: Donald Ross
Director: Walter Grauman
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Mary Jo Catlett, Robin Dearden, Pat Harrington Jr., David Hemmings, Kate Mulgrew, Gene Nelson, Andrew Parks, John S. Ragin, Chris Robinson, James Shigeta, Robert Walker Jr., Mark Venturini, Charles Hoyes, Lia Sargent, Vince Howard, Charles Davis
We’ve got a pretty classic Agatha Christie style caper this week. Our luxury vessel setting is not a train, but a commercial airliner bound for London. When the bodyguard of a glamorous starlet is murdered and her $2 million dollar necklace goes missing, Jessica assists a veteran Scotland Yard detective in an investigation. Given the nature of the man’s death, it’s clear the killer is still amongst the passengers and flight crew. Even with such a limited suspect pool, Jessica (and anyone keeping an eye on the time remaining in the episode) suspects the swift resolution to the mystery is a little too tidy.
But that’s getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s meet the passengers in first class.
Leon, There’s Coffee in That Nebula!
Who doesn’t love Kate Mulgrew? Before Throw Momma From the Train and hot off the heels of her three-episode turn as Sam’s haughty love interest Janet Eldridge on Cheers, she’s got the Katharine Hepburn slider dialed all the way up as movie star Sonny Grier. Adorned in arctic ermine, this Mid-Atlantic ice queen looks ready to corrupt war orphans into her service with the promise of Turkish delight. By her side is a corn-fed himbo answering to the name Leon (Mark Venturini of Friday the 13th: The New Beginning and The Return of the Living Dead). We learn the big lug was originally her chauffeur, but graduated to bodyguard when she took him as her lover.
Prior to the flight, Sonny takes an extravagant necklace out of a safety deposit box for a London gala. Leon is charged with safeguarding it in the meantime. Paparazzi dog her every movement, right up to the exclusive lounge at Boston’s Logan Airport. We get a Madonna name-drop to establish the height of Sonny’s star status. Leon disembowels a camera to punish a photographer for getting too aggressive.
Here we’re introduced to charming and punny Police Inspector Errol Pogson (Hemmings of Blowup), who makes fast friends with Jessica. He actually remembers her helping out on a case at Scotland Yard from three years prior, referencing another inspector by the name of Crimmins. This is actually an allusion to a season one episode, “Sing a Song of Murder.” He dashes off to fetch a pair of sherries for them.
Less of a delight? Her seatmate, a sleazy Brett Ratner type named Gunnar Globle, played by the inimitable Pat Harrington Jr. (best known as even sleazier building superintendent Schneider on One Day at a Time). Once he hears she’s a famous author he’s eager to enlist Jessica for rewrites for his latest Hollywood schlockbuster.
We also observe an old married couple, the Metcalfs (Catlett and Nelson), guiltily skulking through the episode, ever cagey about their bags getting checked. It turns out Mrs. Metcalf is trying to smuggle her lapdog through security concealed in her knitting. When you consider how strict (and prolonged) pet quarantines can be going into the UK, I kinda get it?
Even more suspicious is a solo flier identified as Otto Hardwick, played by Robert Walker Jr. in the first of two MSW appearances. If he looks familiar, it could be down to a number of TV roles from the period, OR because he’s the spitting image of his old man and namesake, who starred in Hitchcock’s Strangers on a Train. Anyway, this Hardwick character is acting pretty shifty.
Fear of Flying
If I had a $2 million necklace in my breast pocket, I’d be plenty nervous. Leon looks terrified though. Turns out, the big man’s terrified of flying. Sonny tries to reassure him with the old line about commercial flying being safer than driving, but he’s not convinced. Worse, his Walkman is dead, meaning he can’t find solace in his clinically prescribed meditation tape. My heart genuinely goes out to the guy. If humans were meant to fly we’d have been born with propellers.
At some point during the in-flight entertainment — which is possibly a screening of Blues Brothers, judging by a car chase Gunnar really gets into — dear Leon breathes his last. He doesn’t respond when the flight attendant (Dearden) directs him to fasten his seatbelt, doubling over when she, quite brazenly, reaches for it herself. Curiously, Sonny is upstairs, last seen turning down a gentle offer for the necklace from Dr. Clint Strayhorn (Ragin), a surgeon to the stars. Some time has passed though, because Strayhorn is already back in his seat in the row ahead of Leon when they discover the body. The doc determines he’s been dead for roughly an hour, likely from a heart attack or stroke.
Returning to the compartment, Sonny is visibly distraught. She confides to Jessica about the true nature of their relationship. As Strayhorn and the crew prepare to wheel the body out of sight on a gurney, Sonny remembers the necklace. But it’s missing from his pocket. It’s not in any of her bags either. She concludes that the jewelry was stolen and that someone on the plane killed Leon for it. This draws the attention of Pogson as well as a gentleman in the front row, who turns out to be a jeweler named Sugahara (Shigeta). These two should be handy in this very unlikely turn-of-events.
Gunnar bristles at the idea of his very American belongings being searched by some limey detective, but Pogson reminds him they’re over international waters and, with the blessing of the captain, he has authority to launch an investigation. With the first class passengers sequestered and the promise of Scotland Yard detaining them upon arrival, Jessica is deputized and volunteers her bags to be searched first. I should mention that Pogson’s “The fact is, I’m a bit up in the air at the moment,” draws one of Jessica’s more iconic reaction gifs.
The inspector confides that solving a case like this could lift him to the position of chief inspector after an otherwise unremarkable 25 years on the job.
Case Closed?
Sugahara volunteers to be searched next, volunteering his theory for how the killer would likely try to sell the individual diamonds from the necklace on the black marker. Pogson’s like “What is this? IF I Did It, by OJ Simpson?" Meanwhile, Jessica goes upstairs to ask for a look at Leon’s body. Telltale blue discoloration under the fingernails confirm her suspicion; he was poisoned. Upon consulting the seating chart and ticket records, she determines they may be able to narrow the suspect pool to just those passengers — and crew — who booked their flight today, just as Sonny and Leon did. It stands to reason that the killer wouldn’t have known to take Flight 111 until learning of Sonny’s travel plan. Most passengers purchased their tickets weeks ago, but Sugahara only got his today. But he’s already been searched.
This is curious. Flight attendant Kay Davis switched shifts with another girl at the last minute for the flight as well. At first it looks perfectly innocent. She explains she made the switch in order to rendezvous with a pilot she’s been seeing from another airline. When she identifies him as Bernard Hollings, another flight attendant’s eyes go wide. She’s been seeing Bernie, too, it seems. That’s when Pogson finds a gleaming diamond necklace in Kay’s bag. “Every gift begins with Kay,” he clearly wants to admonish. She’s just as shocked as anyone else. The captain lightly scolds the young woman for endangering the passengers, expressed as if she’s left a snack trolley blocking an aisle rather than botched a murder heist. And then Sugahara swoops in with his loupe to inspect the necklace. A fake. Sonny takes a closer look and agrees.
Pogson is visibly uncomfortable. As we’ll soon find, it’s not just because that promotion slipped through his fingers.
This is about the time where Mrs. Metcalf’s dog smuggling scheme unravels like so much yarn. Looks like Pogson made his big bust after all, in the form of Bert the Lhasa Apso. Jessica apologizes to the Metcalfs for spoiling things. They decide they’ll just have to turn around and take the next flight back home rather than surrendering Bert for their month-long holiday. Again, I sympathize with these crazy kids.
Pogson is back to the drawing board with additional ticket records. They realize Otto Hardwick may have bought his ticket for Flight 111 a while ago, but he also booked tickets for several other flights headed for London. Covering his bases? A second inspection of his belongings turns up a can of shaving cream with a false bottom. Taking notes, Michael Crichton? They find the real necklace inside. Hardwick begrudgingly confesses to the theft and the murder. This doesn’t sit right with Jessica, who calls ahead to Scotland Yard.
Duplicate Diamonds and Imitation Inspectors
Pogson is intercepted by Scotland Yard as he ushers Hardwick through the airport. Jessica’s waiting for him when they pull the pair inside a conference room for a little questioning. Pogson may have been with the Yard at one time, says Jessica, but not currently. He and Hardwick might’ve gotten away with the theft of the necklace if not for Leon’s murder. This part’s a little shaky, but Jessica somehow deduced that a gifted pickpocket like Hardwick wouldn’t have needed to kill Leon, whose murder actually drew attention to the theft. Pretty counterintuitive if you’re trying to be stealthy, it’s true. Pogson was only there in the event something went wrong, and boy did it ever. Hardwick only confessed to the murder so Pogson could fake-arrest him and carry out their escape. Charitably, this feels like something Jessica would’ve only realized well after the fact, maybe that night as she retired for bed in her hotel.
In classic fashion, Pogson is actually pretty charmed that Jessica figured it out.
As for the murder, that was Sonny. She tampered with his tape player, making him desperate for tranquilizers to get through the flight. She’d slipped him a fatal poison instead. Sonny bucks at the very suggestion, but Jessica points out that detectives will likely find her fingerprints on the necklace she planted in the flight attendant’s bag. Of course Sonny was unaware it was the fake that Hardwick had already put in Leon’s pocket in place of the original. She could continue to deny it, but Sonny wants her soliloquy. She’d discovered Leon was getting ready to dump her for another woman, the daughter of a prominent board member at her father’s firm. She was just a means to advancement for him. Kronk had to go.
You’re probably concerned about Bert and the Metcalfs. Jessica stops them at the gate to suggest they re-route to France, where dogs aren’t subject to quarantine. A Paris vacation? The Metcalfs light up like the Eiffel Tower.
“Who knows,” says Jessica, “He might meet a cute poodle!”
Next time, join me for one of my favorites. Not only is it a sendup of Rear Window, but Grady gets absolutely raked through the coals for being such a worthless failure of a nephew. Basically the only way I can stomach a Grady episode.
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