Murder, She Wrote Season 2, Episode 17
"One Good Bid Deserves a Murder"
Original airdate: Feb. 3, 1986
Writers: J. Miyoko Hensley & Steve Hensley
Director: Seymour Robbie
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, Karen Black, Ray Girardin, Nancy Lee Grahn, Robert Gray, Hurd Hatfield, Edward Mulhare, Cotter Smith, Vic Tayback, Rebecca Street, Jean Vander Pyl, Lyle Howry
I highlight this episode for a few reasons. It showcases Jessica in something close to her final form: a trusted, worldly author with wealthy friends everywhere. Though her Yankee ingenuity remains, the writers have dialed back some of the eccentricity. She's less likely to insult a stranger by commenting on their pallor (as in the pilot episode), Such brutal honesty is now dispensed by characters like Seth, or, come season four, Eve Simpson. Jessica is almost always the straight woman, save for those increasingly rare occasions when she puts on a batty character to go undercover. This week her foil is that lovable loser, Harry McGraw (Orbach).
This is the second appearance of our pugnacious P.I. chum. He'll be back again for another caper in season three ("Death Takes a Drive") before landing his own series, The Law & Harry McGraw. That doesn't last a full season before getting the axe, but Harry actually returns to Murder, She Wrote for three additional guest spots. We'll hopefully cover all of them since he's such a swell guy. Orbach and Lansbury always shine together. Harry feels like a scrappy little brother, defending Jessica at every turn.
This is also just a gem of an episode with a compelling premise. We're working with a Marilyn Monroe allegory here. We can probably also see shades of Anna Nicole Smith in retrospect. In any case, the young starlet Evangeline has died in a presumed suicide. One of her past lovers, beloved actor Richard Bennet (Mulhare), learns that the young woman's diary is going up for auction in a matter of days. The contents? Almost certainly juicy. The demand? High. Evangeline was romantically involved with other celebrities and politicians. The tabloids will be frothing at their mouths.
To further complicate things, Bennet is due in Barcelona for a film shoot, so he summons Jessica to Boston to secure the diary for him. Considering all the details, this friendship may preexist Jessica's publishing career. I say this because Bennet hands her a check with Jessica's name on it made out for one million dollars (yes, I'm holding a pinky to the corner of my mouth). He also gives her a handwritten letter to assist in verifying the diary's authenticity. Jessica is the only person he trusts with this kind of favor. She puts up a little resistance before realizing he's deadly serious.
Bennet knows how sensitive Evangeline's diary is likely to be. He doesn't want her name and memory dragged any further through the mud. When Jessica asks what's to be done with the diary, he begs that she destroy it.
Meanwhile, word of the auction reaches others in Evangeline's social and professional circles, including Robert Rhine (Smith), fixer for an ambassador with presidential ambitions; Sal Domino (Tayback), a sleazy director with powerful mob connections; ruthless producer Sheila Saxon (Grahn); and Dr. Sylvia Dunn, who treated Evangeline (and other troubled stars) with voluminous prescriptions. They all have their own respective reason to want the diary, whether to keep its contents out of the headlines, or to capitalize on those secrets. Critically, some of these people know the others, and in the days leading up to the auction, they attempt to form alliances to secure the book.
Poor Evangeline. Though we never meet her, we get a pretty good picture of a young life beset on all sides by false friends and callous caretakers.
Four-Dimensional Chess
Jessica meets William Readford (Hatfield) at his storied auction house. Hatfield, himself a collector of antiques and real life friend of Lansbury's, is a great choice for this role. He played the title character in the 1945 film adaptation of The Picture of Dorian Gray. The guy just looks like he rubs elbows with old money and all the stars of the stage and screen. Prepared to receive her as Bennet's surrogate, Readford permits Jessica to authenticate the diary. He's a little put off that the actor couldn't attend. That pushes this story a little further down on the society page.
Dr. Dunn attempts to pay off a worker named Bert (Gray) to steal the diary for her, but he reports her. Dunn seizes the opportunity to look at the pages, drawing more of Readford's ire. It's evident he read the whole thing for himself. He promises Dunn her name indeed appears. Jessica confirms the handwriting to be a match. Readford is not forthcoming when asked the identity of the owner.
Later, prospective buyers pace the holding area for the items up for auction. Jessica pauses to inspect an armoire. Girl, you don't need any more furniture. Your house looks like a Home Goods. Bert stops her, saying the piece isn't included in today's sale. He gestures to a blue tag. Jessica moves on to an ornate chess set. A consummate lurker, Readford appears to ask if she's interested in it. A consummate G, she of course sees Seth's name all over it. Readford wants her to have it free of charge, but she only agrees to take it for the $300 he expected it would earn at auction. As he exits, he notes the blue tag on the armoire and promptly pulls it off, visibly annoyed.
The auction finally begins and workers wheel the armoire to the front for final inspection. When they open the doors, the body of Richard Bennet falls lifeless to the floor to the horror of the assembled bidders. This warrants one of Dame Angela's funnier reaction shots as she leans forward in her chair to see what's going on. Really more of an "Oh geez" than anything else.
Lt. Casey (Girardin) of the Boston P.D. arrives to investigate. Readford reports that the diary is also missing. Upon learning about the million dollar check in her purse, Readford quickly hauls Jessica back to the station. Fortunately Harry is there nursing a hangover and a black eye, having just been scraped out of some back alley by a kind patrolman. When he overhears Jessica's name spoken, he strongarms his way into the situation and convinces Casey to release her. Now they just have to figure out who really did it.
Later, Harry escorts Jessica back to her hotel suite, which someone has ransacked in her absence. They must've been searching for the missing diary. On a hunch, she inspects that chess set. Recalling an anecdote about such items doubling as hiding places during the Spanish Inquisition (fucking rad), she presses down on both kings' squares, opening a compartment in the base (hell yeah). Inside that drawer she finds Evangeline's diary. She and Harry agree they don't need to turn it into the police just yet. She calls room service for tea and sandwiches and settles in for a night of reading.
Around midnight, someone we'll later learn to be Harry takes the diary from Jessica's hands as she sleeps. He slipped her a mickey, the little so-and-so! He makes a photocopy of the book's contents before placing the diary back in her grasp. While it's no The Corpse Danced at Midnight, Evangeline's account of her final days makes for a real page-turner. Nothing good for the key players or a dangerous mystery beau called "Al." Jessica decides she needs to confront Readford about the anonymous owner of the book and take the information to the authorities.
Two problems: When Jessica returns to the auction house, Readford is dead, the knife still buried in his chest. Oh — and Lt. Casey just arrived to see Jessica standing over the body with the stolen diary in hand. Not ideal.
Meanwhile, Harry tracks down Rhine, the ambassador's fixer. He floats the existence of the copy, stirring the pot a little.
Lt. Casey is exasperated by Jessica's omnipresence in his case, but ultimately agrees to let her loose. Jessica crosses swords with a lot of police detectives in her travels. Thankfully this is one of the more competent ones. He doesn't even have a manuscript he wants her to read.
Harry and Jessica decide to have a word with Bert, the worker from the auction house. They find him at the low-rent hotel where he's living — Royal Tenenbaum he is not. At this point you may be thinking, hey, isn't "Bert" often short for "Albert," a name commonly abbreviated to "Al"? And you'd be correct to make that connection.
Our heroes split up again to question the rest of the suspects. Harry actually takes Sheila the producer on a movie date where she offers him the lead role in his own biopic in return for that photocopy. This is some fun Damon Runyon patter, with both actors really hamming it up. Jessica's encounter with Dr. Dunn is a little more E! True Hollywood Stories. The psychiatrist balks at the implication she victimizes patients like Evangeline through drug dependency. Jessica knows what's up though. Having demolished the woman with her withering stare, Jessica heads out, only to be abducted by Rhine. Dude is so fearful of his boss, he actually confronts Jessica with a gun hidden under his jacket. In the middle of a crowded lobby!
Once again, Harry arrives in the knick of time to punch the fixer's lights out, breaking his hand in the process.
So it was Bert/Albert/Al, right?
It takes Lt. Casey invoking the full name of Harlan A. McGraw for things to click for Jessica. She did figure out the chess board on her own though, credit where it's due.
If only Jessica and Harry had actually entered Bert's room at the hotel before rather than talking to him in the hall, they might've wrapped this one up a few hours earlier. Well. Truth be told, they may not have survived. Yeah, that's a whole wall papered with photos of Evangeline. Turns out Bert and Evangeline were lovers before all the Hollywood producers and tabloids knew her name. He never let go. Not only did he kill Bennet when the guy changed his mind and tried to get his hands on the diary before the auction could even start, he also stabbed Readford in a rage when he couldn't find the book at Jessica's suite. It goes even further than that. He murdered Evangeline to put her suffering, as he saw it, to an end.
Perhaps a bit of a stretch Bert managed to find employment at the auction house in time for the diary to come into Readford's care. It was director Sal Domino who claimed ownership of it and arranged for it to be sold, free publicity for whatever tawdry big screen biopic he wants to helm. It's all pretty gross and exceptionally sad.
At least the executor of Evangeline's estate decides to relinquish the diary to Jessica, who casts it into the fireplace. You can practically hear the moths in Harry's wallet scream.
Next week, it's back to Cabot Cove for a funeral. Hopefully they have the right body in the casket …
