Murder, She Wrote Season 2, Episode 7
"A Lady in the Lake"
Original airdate: Nov. 10, 1985
Writer: Robert Von Scoyk
Director: Walter Grauman
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Tom Bosley, John Astin, William Windom, Susan Blanchard, William Christopher, Charles Frank, Laurence Luckinbill, Lee Meriwether, Lee Purcell, Charles Taylor, Lauren Tewes, Johnny Crawford
This week, Jessica heads to a tranquil lakeside inn just north of Cabot Cove. Harry Pierce (a returning John Astin) boasts that Edgar Allan Poe once summered beneath these very eaves. Or similar eaves; there was a fire. Total gut job. It's the perfect setting for Jessica to start work on her next novel. The slippery real estate broker has ulterior motives of course. He hopes Jessica's star power will help him convince the current lease holder, Grace Overholtz (Lee Meriwether), to finally purchase the property outright.
Unfortunately for Harry's commission and Jessica's word count, a water-logged corpse is going to throw a wrench in the works.
The Players
Astin and Meriwether make for a pretty interesting pairing if you enjoy playing six degrees of separation. Back in the '60s, they sneered at Adam West's Batman as Riddler and Catwoman respectively, though neither is probably the first actor you'd think of in those roles. Of course Astin is best known as that pallid patriarch Gomez Addams (snap snap). Though Meriwether never played Morticia, she would go on to play the Hydrox to her Oreo, Lily Munster, in The Munsters Today from 1988 to 1991. And she's not the only Lily Munster we'll see this season.
Grace, a cagey widow, runs the Stone Lake Inn with cool detachment. Much of her time is spent absently fluffing pillows, absently rearranging flowers, and peering at her guests through sheer curtains like a Victorian ghost.
She's in no hurry to sign on Harry's dotted line, nor is she especially enthused about attracting more guests. Grace's main concern seems to be monitoring resident hunk Jack (Taylor), a real Heathcliff type (the Byronic anti-hero, not the cat). Jack is supposed to be maintaining the rowboats, but he mostly guides lonely housewives through dubious stretching routines. Later we'll learn he's actually Grace's womanizing baby brother and maybe also a killer fugitive? Oh dear.
As for the guests, you already know Jessica. As does meek birdwatcher Burton Hollis, who claims to have met J.B. at a teachers conference some years ago. Hollis is played by William Christopher, one of many M*A*S*H stars to cycle through over the years. The little nerd latches on early, introducing Jessica to the other guests as they pass through the common area. Loudest of these is loudmouth millionaire Howard Crane (Luckinbill), bullying his wife, Carolyn (Blanchard), over a weirdly heated game of gin rummy. This dude sucks and has no situational awareness about it, so he's either going to be dead soon, or the primary suspect.
We've also got a free-spirited young woman named Joanna Benson (Purcell), who likes to jog through nature in the nude each morning. It turns out she's Crane's former secretary and affair partner; she decided to tag along uninvited when he asked her to book a trip for him and his wife. Yikes.
Lest we forget the Jordans, Kyle (Frank) and Betty (Tewes). Betty's the one canoodling in the canoe room with Jack.
I'm going to be honest; I think they're all just rowboats, not canoes. But I couldn't pass it up. Betty's pretty brazen about it, even after Jessica catches them in the act. She explains that Kyle only cares about fishing before smooching Jack again. He'd prefer Jessica not share what she's seen though. In typical Jessica fashion, she says she has no interest in spreading hot goss.
The Murder (But Not Really)
Hollis cajoles Jessica into joining him for some early morning bird-watching. He's especially interested in photographing the yellow-bellied flycatcher, which I've always assumed was an invention of the writer. Turns out Von Scoyk, an Edgar Allan Poe Award winner for his work on Columbo, really did his research. The pair clock Joanna jogging stark naked through the brush before they reach the lake.
Jessica hears a woman shouting for help. Out on the water, Howard and Carolyn Crane grapple violently with each other in a teetering rowboat. Carolyn ends up falling overboard. Hollis rushes off for help while a frantic Jessica calls out, watching helplessly through her binoculars. Howard is in the lake now, clinging to the side of the boat with one hand and groping into the water with the other. Carolyn never resurfaces.
Convinced she's witnessed a murder, Jessica summons Amos Tupper (Tom Bosley), who arrives with Dr. Hazlitt and a strangely cheerful deputy — he's not a suspect, the actor's just making odd choices. Amos is pretty convinced this is an open-and-shut case. Odd, since divers — oh yeah, they brought a dive team! — have yet to locate Carolyn's body.
This is all very exciting to Harry, who believes this will draw attention to the inn. Grace is not so enthused. Remember, she's markedly disinterested in anyone scrutinizing the place.
Meanwhile, Seth observes a very distressed Howard back at the inn. He administers a sedative, leaving Amos little time to question the man. He claims that Carolyn had been waiting for him in the boat when he arrived at the pier and that all had gone normally until she stood up in a panic and started thrashing. She'd thrown herself over the side. A poor swimmer, Howard struggled to find her in the water before nearly drowning himself. Amos doesn't buy it, but his one and only suspect murmurs incoherently for his wife before lapsing into unconsciousness.
Jessica, the only actual witness to the presumed murder, begins second-guessing herself. After all, where's the body?
The Murder (For Real This Time)
Soon enough — perhaps too soon — Carolyn's body turns up on the far shore of the lake. Jessica doubts that the body could've surfaced so far from the location where the woman disappeared. Amos can hardly account for the discrepancy. Seth accompanies the body back to Cabot Cove, promising a swift autopsy.
Jessica continues to investigate while Amos waits for Howard to emerge from his stupor. She learns that Carolyn was a decorated swimmer. Seth reports that she was wearing a bathing suit under her clothes. She drowned, but she'd also suffered blunt force trauma with fragments of glass in the wound. There is also mud in her lungs, suggesting she died in the shallows, not in open water. Then there's the small hook and twine on the underside of the boat — unfamiliar to Jack, who's responsible for cleaning them.
Naturally, none of this information sways Amos from arresting Howard upon his regaining consciousness. Jessica joins them for the ride to Cabot Cove, keen to get more of Howard's side of the story. The man is understandably upset, all the more so since the confined vehicle agitates his claustrophobia. We learn that his estranged cousin Arthur once locked him in a closet when they were children, a trauma he rarely discloses. Jessica realizes that Arthur, who Howard believes to have died some years ago, was the millionaire's last remaining relative.
So Whodunnit?
Jack, outed as Grace's brother, draws Amos's suspicion for Carolyn's murder. But his M.O. is actually blackmailing housewives for quick pay-offs, not drowning them. The cuckolded Kyle Jordan corners Jack in the boat house, but Jessica and company arrive just in time to talk him down. The womanizer may be guilty of many things — including an unrelated murder (?!) — but Jessica explains he had nothing to do with the Crane killing. No, only one man stood to gain from Carolyn's death and her husband's ruination.
Unlike the episode's writer, Hollis did not do enough research on the yellow-bellied flycatcher. Jessica knew something wasn't right when he claimed to have spotted the bird's nest up in a tree. She confirms it upon borrowing a birding book from the inn's collection. Even Harry Pierce can tell you: the flycatcher nests at ground level. Hollis also knew a little too much about Howard's claustrophobia, alluding to his fear of confined spaces.
That's because Hollis is actually Howard's cousin Arthur. Their fathers fell out over a business deal and Arthur found himself cut out from a considerable windfall. He colluded with Carolyn herself to fake her death — if only temporarily — to cast Howard as a monster. She'd waited for a witness to appear at the lake, feigned a physical altercation, and intentionally fell overboard. She collected SCUBA gear fastened to the underside of the boat and made her way to the north edge of the lake to meet with Arthur. She did not expect her lover to strike her with his heavy binoculars and hold her down in the mud, killing her.
Hollis — Arthur — ultimately admits to the conspiracy, though he offers no remorse. Carolyn had to die, he insists. That money is rightly his.
In the end, Grace decides to abandon the business. It's tragic; this was meant to be a new chapter following her husband's death. Jessica can relate to that. But it all crumbled when her brother's past came to light. She simply wanted to protect him.
Harry collects Jessica's luggage to return to Cabot Cove. Not the best working holiday afterall. The Stone Lake Inn will find a new buyer. He marvels at her deductions, recalling the bit about the flycatcher's nest from his childhood. She's far and away the best mystery writer to have rested her head beneath these beams, Harry muses. At this, the portrait of Edgar Allan Poe falls from over the fireplace. We freeze on Jessica's dismayed expression.
Should we be alarmed, too, that the fire in the hearth is still burning? It sounded like these two were the last to leave the property. Ah well. It's been rebuilt before.
Next week, how's about a prison riot? We can check in on another Lily Munster.
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