Murder, She Wrote Season 3, Episode 13
“Crossed Up”
Original Airdate: February 1, 1987
Writer: Steven Long Mitchell & Craig W. Van Sickle
Director: David Hemmings
Cast: Angela Lansbury, William Windom, Tom Bosley, Michael Horton, Colleen Camp, Tony Dow, Stephanie Dunnam, James Carroll Jordan, Gisele Mackenzie, Sandy McPeak, Henry Brandon, James McIntire
An unabashed sendup of Hitchcock’s Rear Window, this season three classic has long been a favorite of mine, even with Grady Fletcher underfoot. Fortunately the writing team of Mitchell and Van Sickle understand Jessica’s nephew represents all of Peter Parker’s worst qualities with none of the charm. The kid is hardly Grace Kelly, so he essentially plays the Thelma Ritter role here, serving as his aunt’s overbearing nursemaid while she convalesces from a back injury. Of course, Jessica’s stark white Victorian doesn’t overlook an urban apartment block, so she won’t be observing any murders through binoculars or a telephoto lens. That’s where the episode’s title comes in. She actually overhears the planning of the murder over the phone when some wires get crossed during a storm. A clever contrivance for a small town in the late '80s with a ramshackle infrastructure and a telephone operator everyone knows by name.
Also worth noting, this one’s actually directed by David Hemmings, who played the crooked inspector from last week’s episode. Neat!
Stir Crazy
Jessica’s been stuck in bed for a week now, having injured her back attempting to install storm windows. This is the part where my mother would invariably interject that she should’ve put up some flower boxes while she was out there. It’s true; the exterior of Blair House sure could use some color. Jessica is desperate to get back on her feet, primarily to get out from under Grady’s care. The lout’s been force-feeding her every canned tuna recipe in Bumble Bee’s Seafaring Favorites. A visiting Seth offers little solace, suggesting she’ll remain confined to bedrest for at least another week. Jessica balks at the “Med Alert” device he asks her to wear around her neck in the event of a fall. They were really on the cutting edge with this one, as the Life Alert service actually launched this very year. Doc Hazlitt’s version only has a two mile range and triggers a beacon in his coat pocket like his table is ready at Red Lobster. It also supposedly summons local paramedics. A Chekhov’s tchotchke if ever there was one.
Later, a sullen Jessica attempts to place a phone call only to overhear a heated conversation between two men. Now, if you grew up watching Nick at Nite like I did, you’ll likely recognize one of the voices straight away. They’re affecting a raspiness, but it’s still identifiable. What’s most concerning is the content of the conversation: murder. The raspy-voiced man wants an old man killed tonight, but the would-be hitman wants more money. The call gets disconnected before Jess can summon Grady to listen-in. She scrambles to jot down the details so she can alert Amos to prevent the murder. Unfortunately there’s no service, so the boys will have to go out and find him. Grady and Seth play the patriarchy card rather than heed the words of a famously unflappable woman with over 50 murders solved, chalking it up to cabin fever. Fellas, have we really forgotten Dame Angela’s first Academy Award nomination? Don’t try to Gaslight the original girlboss!
Dutiful but dubious, Grady pedals out on his bicycle to pass along the information to the sheriff. He’s almost flattened by a white van with New York plates as it speeds away from Mona’s Diner. This is probably the fifth or sixth Cabot Cove diner we’ve encountered in the series thus far and it’s here where we find Amos riding out the storm. He and Grady return to Jessica’s so all three men in her life can patronize her about this very real murder plot. Little do they know, the crusty old seaman who dashed out of the diner’s side exit when he saw Amos pull in — the man who nearly ran over Grady in the parking lot— is on his way to enact the killing.
At Loggerheads
Just as Jessica warned, a wealthy old man is murdered with .45 at his estate just outside Cabot Cove. The victim is lumber magnate Jedediah Rogers, whose three adult sons, Gordon, Adam, and Morgan, turn up to the crime scene and take turns offering alibis and checking a particular drawer in Pop’s study. It’s notably empty. Gordon is played by Tony Dow, best known as Wally Cleaver on Leave it to Beaver. Gordon’s wife Dody is careful to mention her prized Persian cat in every line of dialogue.
Jedediah’s live-in granddaughter Leslie Cameron (Dunnam) was the only other relative known to be on the premises at the time of the murder, but exterior photography of the enormous estate makes it pretty believable she could’ve slept through the whole thing. Naturally, Grady develops a thing for the young woman, a former schoolmate, while snooping for Jessica. He actually takes a drawing pad and sketches out the crime scene while Amos and the boys putter around the place.
Seth’s ready to admit Jess was right about the whole thing, but Amos clings to a burglary-gone-wrong theory.
Meanwhile, Jessica remains at home on the phone with local operator Lettitia navigating the vagaries of telecom privacy laws.
Cat Got Your Tongue?
As they walk the moors outside the Rogers estate, Leslie confides in Grady that her grandfather was preparing to alter his will to exclude his three sons in favor of her. She read as much in his journal. Ah, so that’s what they were looking for in his desk drawer. Adorably, Leslie hid the book in the hollow of a tree to keep it safe. She gives it to Grady to pass along to his aunt. Leslie knows how shit gets done in the Cove.
Jessica is able to connect the dots to the runaway van when she learns a former mill employee named Abel Gorcey (Brandon) recently got out of prison for stealing from Rogers while on the job. The prolonged prison stay could explain why, during the pivotal phone call, he wasn’t aware of a local road’s name being changed some years back. Amos tracks the van to a secluded cabin where they find the man murdered. Seth ultimately determines that Gorcey actually died hours before Rogers’s murder. Rather than sending Amos into a spiral, it actually inspires some honest-to-goodness detective work.
When he reports his findings to the Rogers boys, Amos arrives at the mill fully wired for sound. He repeatedly and hilariously invades each man’s personal space to capture their voices on a concealed tape recorder. When he plays the tape back for Jessica, she’s sure none of them are the man she heard talking to Gorcey. Fortunately the local news breaks in with an interview with the surviving Rogers family about their push for a special investigator. They watch as Dody hands off her stately white cat to doting Gordon, triggering an immediate allergic reaction. He struggles through the rest of the interview, his voice now raspy AF.
Jessica excitedly points to the screen like the Leo gif. “That’s him!”
Amos hurries off to arrest Gordon back at the estate. In the process, everyone learns the journal is at Jessica’s.
That night, disguised as the killer from I Know What You Did Last Summer, Dody invades Jessica’s home to kill her and take the journal. Luckily, Jessica’s got her trusty Med Alert, which she triggers to summon hitherto unseen forces of Cabot Cove police and fire just in the nick of time. A bit of redemption for Seth.
Later, Jessica explains to Amos, Seth, and Grady that she’d already realized Dody must’ve been involved because she was present during the phone call with the cat and was without a solid alibi when Gorcey and Jedediah were killed. Everyone is suitably impressed and remorseful they didn’t believe her in the first place. Grady makes a devilish face when he learns he may bump into Leslie on the outgoing train. Gross.
Next time, Jessica breaks the fourth wall to relate one of her own homespun mysteries to us!
If you haven't already, consider supporting worker-owned media by subscribing to Pop Heist. We are ad-free and operating outside the algorithm, so all dollars go directly to paying the staff members and writers who make articles like this one possible.
