Episode 15: Papa’s Cabin
This one starts with Veronica in criminology class, feeling a little awkward because her dad (who’s now acting Sheriff since Lamb’s death last episode) suspects Professor Landry of being involved in Dean O’Dell’s death. Landry assures Veronica he’s innocent and her father’s suspicions don’t alter Landry’s respect for her as a shining star in his class. At the police station, Keith grills Mindy O’Dell about her husband’s death,
laying out all the inconsistencies in the case: two men were overheard arguing in the hotel room shared by her and Landry; her car was checked out for about an hour not long before the murder; and her husband had Xanax in his system, even though he’d run out earlier and she picked up a prescription from the drugstore. Mindy finally admits that her husband showed up at the hotel room wasted with a gun and threatened to end Landry’s career.
Mindy says she checked the house and finally found Cyrus at his office, where she gave him the Xanax and tried to talk him out of screwing Landry 
over, but Cyrus was too pissed off so she left. She knew Cyrus probably hadn’t killed himself, so she hired Keith to find the truth, even if it led to Landry. Mindy agrees to testify to all this in court and Keith lets her go. In criminology class, Keith shows up to arrest Landry, but lets him dismiss the class to avoid humiliating him. At the station, Keith lays out his case against Landry, including everything Mindy said. Landry mentions that Cyrus was going to dump Mindy and since they had a pre-nup, she’d get nothing. When Keith mentions Landry’s bloody shirt and gloves being found in the furnace, Landry says Mindy must be setting him up.
Landry claims he went home that night before Mindy came back and stopped at a convenience store for cigarettes. The only person who saw him was a woman outside, who bummed a couple smokes from him, but he has no idea what her name is. Later, Tim (Landry’s TA) comes to see him in jail
and Landry says he needs Tim’s help. He wants to find out who bugged his phone, and he needs Tim to find the woman from the convenience store who can alibi him. That night, Veronica is working late at the office when she hears a prowler. She hides and catches Tim snooping through the desk. He says he was looking for the bug Landry left with her father and tells her what Landry asked of him. Tim believes Mindy is framing Landry and asks Veronica to help find the mystery witness. She reluctantly agrees.
They go to the convenience store, but the clerk is clueless and the surveillance cameras are fake. The clerk does mention that the strip club cross the street changes shift at 3:00 AM … right when Landry supposedly 
met his alibi witness. None of the girls she runs into remember Landry, but they mention a girl named Tori who’s working tomorrow, and who’s a smoker. At Hearst, Wallace sees Logan and Parker getting friendly in the cafeteria. He tells Veronica about Logan and Parker, which she already knew (or strongly suspected at least). Meanwhile, Mindy O’Dell redeems her husband’s life insurance policy and buys a big-ass boat. At the police station, Veronica checks Landry’s file, hoping to get a clue to the witness, but Keith tells her it doesn’t look good for Landry, so she shouldn’t get her hopes up. Keith gets a call that Mindy O’Dell is missing.
Outside the convenience store, Veronica and Tim compare notes and Tim says Mindy taking off makes her look pretty guilty. Mindy has an alibi for the time of the murder, but Veronica points out that she could’ve set her husband up for a hired killer by giving him the Xanax to mellow him out.
Keith calls to let Veronica know Mindy is still missing and that she sent her kids to live with relatives in England. Veronica and Tim question the strippers who come to the store and Veronica finds the woman who bummed a smoke from Landry. She tells Keith about seeing Landry around the time of the murder and Keith lets Landry out. Tim and Veronica tell Landry about Mindy skipping town and their theory about her hiring someone (possibly her meth-head ex Steve) to kill her husband. Landry tells them not to worry about Mindy anymore, but we all know Veronica doesn’t give up that easily.
Veronica and Tim figure Steve might’ve planted the bug in Landry’s phone, so she gets the keys to Steve’s house from the police station and she and 
Tim search the place. They find a bunch of recordings of Landry’s phone on a DVD and listen to the call Landry made to Mindy that night. Mindy had taken off and was freaked out about her husband’s threats, so Landry told her to come back and he’d take care of things. Another recording from that day is of Landry bad-mouthing Tim when another university called about a job reference. Veronica takes the DVD to her dad and Keith tells her that Landry has now disappeared too.
We find out where Landry went … he figured out Mindy’s plan and found her boat, piloting it out of the harbour. Mindy isn’t too happy when she wakes up to find Landry at the helm. Veronica listens to more of the recordings
and hears Landry mention he and Mindy going to “Papa’s Cabin”. She calls Tim to ask if he knows what that means, like maybe Landry’s father had a cabin someplace. Tim doesn’t know, but says they can check Landry’s house, since Tim still has a key. Parker tries to tell Veronica that she and Logan are getting closer, but Veronica says she has to leave and takes off. Later, Parker tells Logan they probably shouldn’t get any friendlier, for Veronica’s sake.
At Landry’s place, Veronica finds a photo of Landry’s grandpa in front of a cabin and Tim finds another photo of Landry and Mindy in front of a fancy-
looking bar. Tim also shows Veronica a burner phone he found in the garbage and she uses redial (and a fake radio giveaway) to figure out who Landry called last. When she and Tim track the guy down, he turns out to be a juvenile delinquent Landry supervised … and the son of Landry’s alibi witness. Yeah, Landry threatened to screw up her son’s probation if she didn’t alibi him. Veronica and Tim tell Keith what they found and try to narrow down where Papa’s Cabin might be. Keith spots a photo of Ernest Hemingway behind the bar and figures out Papa’s Cabin is a writer’s retreat in Mexico.
Keith heads down to Mexico and contacts the local authorities. Someone at the retreat recognizes Landry’s photo and points out the boat anchored offshore. Keith and the Mexican cops go aboard and find Landry hammered.
He swears he didn’t kill O’Dell, he just tried to cover up for Mindy afterward. Mindy isn’t on the boat and Landry claims she attacked him and he “accidentally” knocked her overboard. Her body washes up on the beach later that day. At Hearst, Logan asks Veronica if it’s okay for him to ask Parker out and Veronica says it’s fine, although I’m not sure I believe her. Since Landry’s been arrested, Tim asks Veronica to be his TA while he takes over Landry’s class.
In class, the students only want to talk about Landry’s arrest. Tim starts lecturing about Landry’s affair and why Landry killed O’Dell. Tim goes on a long spiel, showing how clever he is at teaching and putting all the pieces together, but Veronica realizes Landry had no time to make the call to set up 
his phony alibi; Tim says Mindy might’ve arranged it if they were in it together and mentions her sending her kids off to England. That really gets Veronica’s attention, since she never told Tim about that. She busts her phone open and finds a bug inside. Realizing the truth, Veronica confronts Tim in front of the whole class. Veronica mentions Landry’s sabotage of Tim’s dream job and points out that Tim must’ve bugged her phone … and Landry’s. Tim was pissed off at Landry for using him and then betraying him, so he killed O’Dell and set Landry up for it. Tim is arrested (and confesses) and Landry is arrested for Mindy’s death, but Veronica realizes that catching the killer doesn’t bring the Dean back. So, that’s that mystery solved, with a few more episodes to go before the end of the season. We’ll see how they start wrapping things up next week.