Murder, She Wrote Season 1, Episode 16
"Tough Guys Don’t Die"
Original airdate: February 24, 1985
Writer: Peter S. Fischer
Director: Seymour Robbie
Cast: Angela Lansbury, Jerry Orbach, John Furey, Nancy Lee Grahn, Barbara Babcock, John McMartin, Gerald S. O'Loughlin, Alex Rocco, Fritz Weaver, Paul Winfield, Floyd Levine, Tina Gifford
This week we meet one of Jessica's most colorful recurring characters, Jerry Orbach's hardboiled Harry McGraw. The character, a hard-luck Phillip Marlowe type, would go on to appear in five more episodes as well as his own short-lived spinoff, The Law & Harry McGraw. Barbara Babcock would co-star as his foil, attorney Ellie Maginnis. As for today's episode, she features as a wholly unrelated character, magazine editor Priscilla Daniels.
Of course, Orbach and Dame Angela would also go on to play Mrs. Potts and Lumiere in Disney's Beauty and the Beast. They have dynamite chemistry, but as we'll soon see, it didn't start off so rosy.
We meet Boston P.I. Archie Miles, played by Floyd Levine, a mainstay of '70s and '80s crime shows. Archie's working three cases these days, and one of them is about to get him killed. On this particular night, he's on the phone with Jessica Fletcher to deliver a progress report. She's hired him to track down information on the "Danbury scalpel murder" for a book she's researching. Unfortunately, most of the players from the 25-year-old case are dead, including the doctor acquitted of committing the murder. Archie has just one lead: a nurse who was on duty the night of the crime. Jessica urges him to make the trip out to Vermont to speak with the woman. He agrees.
Archie hits record on a tape deck and starts recounting the details of the call. Keys jingle and someone enters the office. He assumes it's just the receptionist, Alma, returning to grab something. He's too shocked to name his killer, who fires twice with a .45 automatic.
In the days following the murder, word reaches the subjects of Archie's two other cases. The first is a developer named Santini, who we'll learn is under investigation for infidelity. The other is Priscilla Daniels, editor of Femininity magazine, newly returned from France. She's surprised when she sees her ex-husband, Gavin (McMartin), took time out from his university job to meet her at the airport. He's alarmed by the news of Archie's death; the man was nosing around campus the previous week asking about their marriage.
Up in Cabot Cove, Jessica notices a man casing her house from a sedan parked across the street. She decides to pedal down the road on her bicycle, coasting brazenly past him. He takes the bait, helping himself inside — she rarely locks that back door — to rifle through her papers. Jessica wastes little time before doubling back and confronting him in her dining room. The intruder is Harry McGraw. She recognizes the name; Lord knows how big a check she must've cut to Miles & McGraw for all these weekend investigations. Harry gives her the bad news. He was out in Tulsa when it happened. His dead partner's case notes led him here. She insists she would've helped had he just asked — she liked Archie very much — but that's not Harry's style. Anyway, he's not convinced Jessica or the Danbury case ultimately have anything to do with Archie's murder. He turns down her offer of assistance and takes off before the sheriff can arrive.
Harry regroups with Ray Kravitz (O'Loughlin), an assistant investigator monitoring Santini outside one of his job sites. The two have been burning the candle at both ends since the murder. Harry sends him off to check in on Priscilla Daniels and he begrudgingly complies. Santini soon takes off for the night and Harry tails him, documenting his observations into a tape recorder. If he'd listen to himself he'd realize it's a trap. A few construction workers box Harry in and Santini proffers a smug wave before riding away. Frankly, Harry's lucky to escape with a single black eye.
When he returns to the office, Jessica is there waiting for him, having gathered up the Danbury case files. Harry insists that he'll find the killer embroiled in one of the other two cases. Angela argues that if Santini were involved, his men would've killed Harry outright rather than roughing him up. It's a good point. So how about the Daniels case? Harry brings her up to speed. Jessica is familiar with Priscilla; the woman's been hounding her for two years to write something for her magazine. Which suggests Jessica has been published for at least as long, meaning more time has elapsed between episodes. So that's interesting.
Jessica meets with Lt. Warren Starkey (Winfield) and listens to Archie's final recording. She asks why there isn't much movement on the investigation given the department's affection for the former police academy instructor. Starkey closes the door and explains that they've seen too many cop-killers get off on a technicality. Their plan is to stay out of loose cannon Harry's way so he can track down whoever's responsible and kill them.
Hardly a fan of vigilante justice, Jessica makes the "expressionless" emoji face.
Later, Jessica and Harry arrive at the offices of Femininity with their own respective plans. Harry's involves disguising himself as Wade Tyler, Texas bikini magnate, for no real reason. Jessica simply pretends to be interested in Daniels's offer to publish a personal essay. Now, this could be a genuine pitch, but I'm guessing Jessica knows enough about the magazine to guess they'd have little regard for a remembrance of her marriage to Frank. Priscilla attempts to hide her revulsion. What matters is Jessica ends up with an invitation to the magazine's fifth anniversary party without having to write the article.
That night, Harry's waiting in her hotel room when Jessica returns. He's not happy she's messing with his case. She wants to bring Archie's killer to justice without Harry intervening. He knows he's more than met his match, so he asks her to join him at the office the next day to go over the evidence. She's visibly delighted to have gained the trust of a real life Raymond Chandler character.
The next day, they look over the case files. No one knows who actually solicited the Daniels investigation, or why. Jessica suspects it may have something to do with her rumored political ambitions. A haggard Ray reports that Santini's made cash withdrawals totaling $85,000 in recent months. If they want to identify his supposed mistress, they'll need to hire another man. Jessica wants to have Archie's final recording analyzed by professional engineers, but Harry refuses. Too science-y.
At the Femininity party — elegant, plenty of pink columns and fake ferns—Jessica meets Priscila's ex-husband, Gavin and, wouldn't ya know it, Judge Carter Lambert, the defense attorney on the Danbury case. He's played by Creepshow's Fritz Weaver, who once starred as Sherlock Holmes in the 1965 musical Baker Street. Lambert has been ducking Jessica's requests for an interview. Despite the good it did his career, he doesn't seem very proud of it, alluding to rumors of perjured testimony and manufactured evidence. Ah, so that's why Jessica's so eager to reopen the case. He cautions her to leave it be. Priscilla overhears the end of the tense exchange and prods Jessica for details. Jessica deftly pivots to Priscilla's own connection to Archie, but she denies any political ambition or knowledge of the murdered detective. Ah, but Jessica never said he was "murdered," merely that he'd died.
Jessica again regroups with Harry. She's convinced that it was actually Priscila Daniels herself who hired Archie to look into her past to preempt any opposition research. That means there must be damaging information to be found. But what exactly is she hiding? With Harry pursuing that question to her old campus town, Jessica heads to Vermont to talk to that former nurse. Archie's notes lead her to a young woman named Leora Cargill at Sudberry Insurance. The bus drops her off directly outside her workplace. We're talking yards.
When Jessica asks Leora about Martha Clay, she first feigns ignorance. Pressed, she hurries off screaming. The young lady's employer, Milt Sudberry, apologizes for her; she just lost both of her parents a month earlier. Martha and her husband, Tom Cargill, opened a nursing home just outside town 25 years ago. They died attempting to save their patients from a fire. Jessica thanks him for the information and exits to find Judge Lambert waiting for her. He followed her in his car. He offers her a ride back to Boston and the rest of the harrowing story. As it turns out, Tom Cargill was the true killer.
Trigger warning for … just about everything. I'm serious; this next bit is A LOT for a "cozy" mid 80s mystery show.
On the night of the Danbury scalpel murder, Tom Cargill was visiting his then girlfriend, floor nurse Martha Clay, at the hospital. He recognized a man who'd sexually assaulted his sister the year before. His sister died by suicide after the man was acquitted on a technicality. Cargill snapped and killed the man with a scalpel. Circumstantial evidence led to the arrest of an innocent doctor. Plagued with guilt, Cargill confessed to his old war buddy, Lambert, who fought to serve on the doctor's defense team and ultimately saw him acquitted. Did I mention Tom saved Lambert's life in combat?
I know. I know.
Lambert drops Jessica off outside Harry's office and asks if she'll still write her book. Given the Herculean heavy-lifting Peter S. Fischer did to position Tom Cargill for sainthood and his nameless victim as a loathsome heel, Jessica concedes that there's little point in making the story public. The judge squeezes her hand in gratitude.
"You're quite a lady."
She really is. And he'd better hope she can't connect him to that extremely convenient nursing home fire.
Jessica does share the truth with Harry though. He points out that Jessica is operating on a double standard. It's seemingly OK for Cargill to murder the rapist, but not for Harry to eliminate Archie's killer? Jessica says she doesn't condone murder, but Cargill is dead, beyond punishment. Archie's killer is still alive and entitled to a trial. Even if he can get a fancy lawyer like Lambert? Harry wants to know. This gives Jessica pause. They're interrupted by a phone call. Someone shot at Ray while he was monitoring Santini.
I'll get this part out of the way. Santini hasn't been cheating on his wife. All those nights away he's been down at the marina rebuilding their old sailboat as an anniversary present. We've got ourselves an O. Henry original over here!
Gang, I don't think Harry or Ray are especially good investigators.
On a hunch, Jessica heads to … is this seriously Priscilla Daniels's apartment? It looks like Plato's Retreat! Marble statues. Pink backlit sconces. Is that chain link fence wrapped around the staircase? And here comes Gavin in a matching robe. Looks like the stress of the past week has brought the exes back together.
If the Danbury scalpel murder wasn't heavy enough, here's the truth behind the Daniels case. Gavin explains that seventeen years ago, Priscilla became pregnant with his child when she was a grad student and he was a professor, married to another woman. Priscilla chose to terminate the pregnancy. Years later, after Gavin divorced, they got married. Unfortunately, complications from the abortion made it impossible for Priscilla to carry another child. Their marriage ended. Ahead of declaring herself for an open Senate seat, Priscilla hired Archie to determine whether anyone could discover her secrets. Turns out he did. Just this morning she received blackmail threats from someone claiming to have the out-of-state hospital records. Together with Gavin, she decided to drop out of the race and open up about their past.
Now, if these threats only started this morning, someone other than Archie is behind them. And Jessica thinks it's the same person who murdered the detective.
Later, Jessica waits in the darkened office of Miles & McGraw as Ray Kravitz searches through his keyring and finally lets himself in. It's a trap of course. She lays it out for him. He fired into his own windshield to draw suspicion on Santini. He also shot Archie when he refused to use the hospital records as blackmail. Ray says she must be smoking "funny cigarettes." She goes to Archie's tape deck and plays a recording from moments before. The jangling of his keys. She then plays Archie's last recording from the time of the murder. The same jangling of keys.
"You're a clever lady," Ray mumbles, reaching for his .45. "But you're also pretty dumb."
Fortunately Harry, off in the shadows, has his own gun drawn. "Go ahead. Just twitch."
Ray sets his gun down.
If you're concerned that this all sounds very circumstantial, just know that Ray used the same gun to kill Archie and fire into his own car. Good grief.
Later, Harry helps Jessica carry her luggage from the hotel. She insists he doesn't need to take her to the bus depot. Nope, Harry intends to drive her all the way to Cabot Cove.
"Listen, Jessica, it's time you stopped screwin' around with all these stupid books and got to work."
Is he trying to offer her a job?
"McGraw & Fletcher," Harry muses. "Your brains, my knuckles."
She politely declines. But he points out it's 124 miles to Cabot Cove and he can be very persuasive. They laugh and head into the elevator.
Next week, we dredge up some skeletons from Cabot Cove's past!
