Murder, She Wrote (season 7)

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Murder, She Wrote (1984–1996) is an American television show, airing on CBS, about mystery writer and amateur detective Jessica Fletcher.

Beatrice Vitello: [after Jessica reveals the true circumstances of her husband's death] When I came in, he was slumped over in the chair. The note and the envelope were on the table. The syringe was on the floor there. As soon as I read the note, I knew what he had done. He lied about you, Mrs. Fletcher, but he couldn't live with it. That's why he did what he did. He felt so sick and ashamed. So frightened for his soul.

Jessica Fletcher: Is that why you took the note and hid the money?

Beatrice Vitello: Suicide is a mortal sin. The priest would never have held a mass. He could never have been buried in consecrated ground. In almost sixty years, he lived a Christian life. I couldn't let it end like that. I only wanted Angelo to be buried the way he lived. In a state of grace.

Rita Garrison: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] Ralph phoned me that night. He wanted to get back together. Drew was in bed with one of his silly colds. Ralph was wet, dirty. He'd been drinking. He thought he could just snap his fingers and everything would be the same as it was. Then he told me he'd been with Trudy, and she'd turned him down. Suddenly, I saw him for what he was. I felt unclean. And then he put those filthy hands on me and ... I don't even remember when I grabbed the scissors!

Dep. Police Comm. Bradley Folkes: [after Jessica exposes the murderer] For five years, my boy was a good cop. But you can't ask anybody to go through what he did without cracking. Day after day, week after week, living at the edge, part of the whole dirty scene, trying to keep his sanity and do his job. They expected too much of him. It was all so easy. The money, the cars, the women, all there for the taking. And in the end, he just couldn't fight it.

Jessica Fletcher: So he became part of the mess that he was trying to clean up.

Dep. Police Comm. Bradley Folkes: Yeah. And when Eric wouldn't pay, Eddie went to see Lydia Thurlow. In fact, they were arguing about the money when her husband came home. Eddie hid in the next room. Thurlow was drunk and nasty. I guess Lydia must've figured if she'd given Eddie away, her husband would only take it out on her brother, so she didn't say anything. Eddie came to see me next day, scared to death. Swore it had all been an accident. Well, by that time, I knew he'd gone bad, but if Dorothy had learned the truth, it would have killed her. I had a choice to make and I made it. When Bert Kravitz got transferred, I volunteered to take over the case. And it wasn't hard to hang a conviction on Thurlow. He was my son. What was I supposed to do? What are you gonna do?

Jessica Fletcher: Tell the truth.

Dep. Police Comm. Bradley Folkes: To who? Who's going to believe you?

Jessica Fletcher: Maybe Richard Thompson Grant. Maybe no one. I can't help that.

Dep. Police Comm. Bradley Folkes: Mrs. Fletcher, I can't let you do this to my wife. Not after all this time.

Jessica Fletcher: A man has been unjustly imprisoned for sixteen years because of you. Doesn't that count for anything?

Dep. Police Comm. Bradley Folkes: Not enough!

Sheila Kowalski Finley: Look, Jessica, I can't get past page thirty of War and Peace, but people I read like a Dick and Jane book.

Eve Simpson: I got a prospective buyer coming up from Boston to look at the old Sullivan farm.

Renee Finster: Are you still stuck with that eyesore?

Eve Simpson: Believe it. At night, not even the Sullivan's cows want to come home.

Clarence La Rue: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] I never was much of a liar. Ain't much of a killer either, hiding in the shadows. I had too much to drink that night, like Nancy said. I was pitifully drunk and feeling sorry for myself. All I could think about was losing Nancy. And then it hit me. I remembered Wayne would be at Eve's. So I grabbed my shotgun. All I could think about was that damn city fella and his line of gab and his hands on every woman in town. And us husbands paying for the privilege. I came up the side of her house, looked in the window. It was dark, but I saw him. I figured I'd be doing myself and every man in town a favor. I fired, and he dropped. Then I didn't hear a sound. I knew I'd got him. Soon as I got home, I hit the couch and passed out. When I woke up the next morning and saw my gun, what I did all came back to me.

Nancy La Rue: Clarence...

Clarence La Rue: Wasn't till later that day I found out I shot the wrong man. I love you, honey. Always have. I'm sorry. It just come out all wrong.

Jessica Fletcher: [after exposing the murderer] You must be carrying a terrible burden. Don't you think perhaps you should get rid of it now?

Patti Sue Diamond: That letter Bobby wrote said our marriage was over, that he'd found some girl who made him feel young again. He didn't have the guts to tell me to my face. I couldn't believe it. I kept reading that letter over and over again. And then, I realized that the second page was just like one of Bobby's cornball song lyrics and a perfect suicide note. Damn it, Jessica, I'd given too many years to that ornery man. I wasn't gonna let him throw me away like yesterday's newspaper.

Jessica Fletcher: And that's when you decided to kill him.

Patti Sue Diamond: Bobby had to have his nightly glass of what made "the South the South" no matter where he was. So I loaded up a bottle of bourbon with some strychnine and took it out to the farmhouse that morning. I knew he'd stop by later like he did every day. I guess it was their place. When he poured himself a drink that night, it was loaded with poison. I called him from the hotel to make sure he hadn't forgotten to have his drink. When he didn't answer, I knew he was already dead. I even asked you the time just to make certain I'd have a real good alibi.

Jessica Fletcher: 10:30.

Patti Sue Diamond: Then we went back to the party, and I went home at 11:30. Only I made one stop on the way, at the farmhouse, to put everything in order. I put the bottle of poison on the table beside the bourbon and the suicide note next to the poison. I was just about to leave when I noticed Bobby's tape recorder was still on. I didn't want Bobby's death agony to be his last recording. So I took the tape with me and tossed it in the creek on the way home. I was sure I'd done a good job of making it look like suicide. And along came Alice and made it look like murder again. It's almost funny, ain't it?

Jessica Fletcher: I am so sorry.

Patti Sue Diamond: Hey, cut that out. Singing the blues is my thing and I do it real good. I guess I forgot that you do your thing real good, too. I made a terrible mess of things, didn't I?

Jessica Fletcher: I got a blow-by-blow description of the whole thing. Including a lot that never got into the newspapers.

Ben Devlin: Not another tape from that Stanton guy! Is he involved in every crime that takes place west of the Mississippi?

Jessica Fletcher: Sometimes it seems that way.

Rosa Abruzzi: [after Jessica accuses her of committing the murders] It wasn't fair of Carmine to take me away from my children. I would have missed everything. The wedding, the birth of my first grandchild. I couldn't bear that. I remembered hearing Carmine tell Andrew about a gunman named Johnny Carr. His number was in my husband's phone book. I paid him half the money, and I said I'd give him the other half afterwards. I wanted Carmine to die quickly, but this man, he botched it. I took the vial and the syringe when I put the instruments back in the medical bag after the surgery.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Carmine must have had a heart condition, or the digitoxin wouldn't have worked so quickly.

Rosa Abruzzi: He didn't want nobody to know. The doctor said never give him too much. When I was alone with Carmine, I said goodbye, and I kissed him, and I killed him.

Lt. Jerry Marino: And then you killed the hit man.

Rosa Abruzzi: He didn't do it right. He hurt my Carmine.

Jessica Fletcher: Rosa, how did you decide that murder was the solution to the problem?

Rosa Abruzzi: It was easy. I just asked myself, "What would Carmine do?"

Jessica Fletcher: All afternoon, I've been fighting the war of the roses with some Japanese beetles. So far, the beetles have been winning, but all of that is going to come to a screeching halt. I hope.

Meredith Hellman: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] I didn't marry Chandler Hellman to watch his screwed-up son ruin our career. The little brat was a dangerous liability. One scandalous episode after the other. And then I realized fate had handed me a wonderful opportunity to put an end to the problem permanently. When he was released on bail, I took him for a drive. Talk some sense into him, or so he thought. You know, he had no shame for all the trouble that he'd caused everybody, no idea how much I despised him. And no inkling of the solution that I had in mind. He fell backwards into a ditch. I drove back to the hotel, had a hot bath and a double martini. Chandler, as usual, had no idea that, once again, I'd saved his career.

Richard Wellstood: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] Only J.K. and I knew the real Spencer Prinz, who was about to transfer from Chicago to St. Louis one year ago. A week before he was due to arrive, he died of a heart attack. That's when J.K. and I hatched the scheme to steal the tax deposits by keeping Spencer alive. When the fiscal year was up, Spencer would disappear without a trace, taking with him all the blame and two million dollars.

Lt. Phillips: Okay, but why did you have to kill Nolan Hayes?

Richard Wellstood: J.K. got greedy. He forged a $200,000 payroll check to Nolan and cashed it to himself. He figured it would take the IRS forever to catch up with the tax problems it would cause Nolan. It didn't. Nolan was desperate for answers. So, after getting the run-around from Spencer Prinz by phone, he came to our office to see Spencer in person. One of the secretaries must have told him Prinz just left. Nolan tried to catch up to him. J.K. was taking his turn as Spencer. As he was getting into the rental car to pretend to drive back to St. Louis, his wig was accidentally knocked loose. And as he replaced it, he didn't see Nolan staring in at him, observing the metamorphosis. Nolan turned and ran back inside. That's when he made his fatal mistake. He came directly to me and said, "No wonder Edna was having problems. Never mind two sets of books; her company had two sets of employees." J.K. and I had to act quickly.

Jessica Fletcher: Of course. And since Nolan was making waves for Edna, why not frame her for the murder?

Richard Wellstood: We set up the bogus telephone message, leaving Edna without an alibi. I went to her house, entered through a rear window, and took the gun we all knew she kept in her bed table drawer. I drove out to Nolan's farm. I called into him. He came out, surprised to see me. I shot him, put his body in the car, drove to the tracks, and took out the jack and made it all look like a flat tire and robbery. [to Edna Hayes] I returned the gun to your house while you were with the police late that night. Once Mrs. Fletcher got you off the hot seat and became suspicious of Spencer Prinz, we shifted the blame for embezzlement and murder to the perfect fall guy, the man who didn't exist. [to Jessica and Lt. Phillips] The IRS has billions. Edna has millions. J.K. and me? We just wanted a piece of the pie.

Dennis Stanton: It's me.

Jessica Fletcher: It's not you.

Dennis Stanton: But of course it is. Damian Sinclair is dashing, intelligent, witty, compassionate. All my best traits. What I take issue with is this tailless dummy some hack illustrator's come up with. Really, now, I look like an aging gigolo.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, yes, there may be one or two minor similarities...

Dennis Stanton: Minor? Is that what you call them? The man is a reformed jewel thief, who works as an investigator for an insurance company.

Jessica Fletcher: All right, all right, I admit you may have inspired the character. But the resemblance stops right there.

Cynthia Olston: [after Jessica accuses her of committing the murder] With Ben, there was always some woman. I just had enough. It was my family's money that set him up in business. I came back early. I thought maybe I'd catch them together. What I didn't expect was Mrs. Landon showing up. Instead of Dawn Bickford, there was Mrs. Landon at the door. Then the phone rang. It was Dawn Bickford calling. She said she couldn't come that night. That was enough for me. I wasn't going to take it from Ben anymore. I'd had enough! So when Mrs. Landon left I went downstairs and confronted him with it. He didn't even bother to deny it! Then he hit me! He hit me! Suddenly the gun was in my hand. Then it all seemed so easy. Nancy Landon was my way out. I typed up the appointment slip, so the police would know that she'd been here, and then just drove over and left the gun in her station wagon.

Jessica Fletcher: And what about the report that Mrs. Landon left?

Cynthia Olston: I burned that. After all, it was my company now. There was still plenty of time to drive out of town, pretend the car had broken down, come back with the taxi driver to discover Ben's body.

Sarah Lapp: [after confessing to the murder] I didn't mean to kill him. It was an accident. I know I should have gone to the police, but I didn't think anyone would have believed me.

Jessica Fletcher: I do, Sarah. And I believe the Sheriff will do, too.

Laura Corman: [after Jessica accuses her of committing the murder] Do you think I wanted to work for Doc Logan? I had to. Ross spent every cent he made on stupid women that didn't give a damn about him. But Ellen was the one that he pined for. I'd already made up my mind to kill him. When I saw her give him the wine, I knew just how I'd do it. I waited in a sexy nightgown to grab his attention. I'd already poisoned a bottle of his favorite wine. It was no trouble at all to get him to drink it. I went up to bed and waited. When I heard him call my name, I knew the poison was working. After he was dead, I poured wine on his shirt and made a trail that led the Sheriff straight to Ellen. I knew he'd be so anxious to get Ellen in his jail, he wouldn't concern himself with proof.

Harry McGraw: [after Jessica explains how she deduced the murderer's identity] And that, as they say, all she wrote.