Frankie Drake Mysteries Reviews: Season 1, Episode 3

Summer in the City – Director: Norma Bailey/Writer: Carol Hay

This one starts with Frankie at a gym watching a boxer (Moses Page) train. Hemingway shows up and she gives him shit for his half-assed reporting on previous bouts. Later, Frankie and Moses are out for a walk and it’s pretty obvious that they’re attracted to each other. They’re interrupted by a young guy named Eric Morrison, who says he’s the son of Captain Morrison, who Frankie worked for during the Great War. Eric says he has a problem with his car (which he “acquired” somewhere) and shows her a steamer trunk in the back of the car that has a dead body in it.

Eric says the trunk has been in the car since he got it and claims he won the car in a poker game. Frankie decides to make an anonymous call to the cops and goes to the morgue later to ask Flo if she’ll let her know what she finds about the mystery corpse before she tells the police. At the office, Frankie tells Trudy she doesn’t think Eric is the killer because she trusts his father so much. Eric shows up and agrees to show them where he got the car. He takes them out to Toronto Island, where he’s been living in a tent with a local guy named Archie. (Apparently, Captain Morrison didn’t like Eric’s theatrical aspirations, so he gave him a one-way ticket to Canada and told him to “become a man”.) Archie is the guy Eric won the car from and Archie admits he stole the car. Later, Mary tells them the car belongs to John Russell, Treasurer of the Yacht Club (which isn’t far from the tent city on Toronto Island). Russell hasn’t reported the car stolen, so Frankie figures they should nose around the Yacht Club. They decide to crash an engagement party in hopes that Russell will be there. They go in with Trudy as a singer (which she apparently was at one time) and Frankie pretends to be a photographer for a local paper. Russell isn’t there, but Frankie does run into Hemingway.

Hemingway’s pissed off about such a boring assignment (and finds Toronto boring in general), so he extorts a promise from Frankie that she’ll give him an exclusive about whatever she’s working on. She asks about Russell, who Hemingway knows quite well. He says Russell is in Havana, gambling, drinking, and carousing while supposedly looking for investment opportunities. Trudy sees Archie getting slipped cash by a guest and follows him to the shore, where he and Eric are unloading cases of whiskey (which is illegal, since Prohibition is still in force). Frankie still thinks Eric is innocent, but admits to Trudy that she and Captain Morrison had an affair during the War. Speaking of which, Moses shows up and Frankie tells him how she used to run messages for Captain Morrison during the War. He tells her about his background and how he became a boxer. The attraction between them definitely seems to be getting deeper. The next day, Frankie and Trudy visit the morgue, where Flo tells them the victim died from a blow to the head and gives them his name (which she got by tracking down his suit): Buddy Steele. Flo also mentions that the steamer trunk came from the Mauretania, which is the ship Eric came over on … so it won’t be long before the cops come looking for him). Later, Mary tells them Buddy Steele was a private detective, so Frankie and Trudy break into his office to snoop around. They find blood on the carpet, so Steele was obviously killed there and put in the trunk afterwards. They go through Steele’s case files and find photos he took of Eric screwing around with Rose Adams.

Eric admits he and Rose having been having an affair (and she’s his alibi for the night of the murder). Eric says it just started as a fling because Rose was bored, but it kept going. Frankie arranges to meet Rose, who says her father hired Steele to spy on her. She says her father is marrying her off to Bennett to gain capital from his family for some big project in Ashbridge’s Bay. Rose isn’t sure why her father needs Bennett’s money, since he’s supposed to be filthy rich. Frankie and Trudy wonder if Adams is really as flush as Rose thinks, so Trudy asks a friend (Bill Peters) for a favour. Bill (who’s obviously very attracted to Trudy, although she seems oblivious) is a janitor at City Hall and sneaks some files out so she can see them. The files say that Adams is in partnership with John Russell on his big Ashbridge Bay project, but Frankie wonders why Adams is so desperate to marry his daughter into money if he has a backer with pockets as deep as Russell’s. Frankie asks Hemingway to get a message to Russell in Havana. She and Trudy get Archie to show them exactly where he “borrowed” the car from … which just happens to be Ashbridge’s Bay. They spot a survey crew and tell Archie to let Hemingway know where they are. When he arrives, Hemingway tells them Russell was moving all his capital to Havana to invest in casinos, but that he never actually arrived there. Frankie and Trudy tell him about Russell’s partnership with Adams and speculate about what might’ve happened: when Russell told Adams he was pulling out of their deal, Adams freaked and accidentally killed him. They show Hemingway Russell’s body, which is hidden in the underbrush.

Trudy speculates that Steele probably figured out what happened, so Adams killed him too and put him in Eric’s trunk to frame Eric. Since he was banging Rose, Eric would be the perfect suspect. Frankie decides to go after Adams, using Eric’s acting skills to trap him. Eric blackmails Adams, saying he knows what happened with Russell and hinting that Adams might’ve accidentally left a cuff link on the body. Adams goes to check the body and Eric confronts him. They trade blows, but Frankie ends up decking Adams. Hemingway is there as a witness and writes the exclusive story.

Rose is impressed at how Eric stood up to her father, but she has no interest in continuing their fling. With her father in jail, she’s free to do whatever she likes, much to Eric’s chagrin (who was obviously more invested than her). Eric tells Frankie he’ll pay her back someday, but asks her not to mention anything to his father. Hemingway seems intrigued by Frankie despite their abrasive relationship and Trudy warns him getting involved with Frankie can be very complicated. Frankie and Moses say their farewells, but before he leaves they go to her place to bang.

This is a pretty good episode that gives us a bit more info on Frankie’s background, running messages by motorcycle during the War. We also learn that Trudy has a musical background (and Chantel Riley has a really good voice) and get a bit more on Hemingway, although he’s obviously meant to be an antagonist for Frankie. It’s interesting that Frankie had an affair with Captain Morrison during the War and is now banging Moses Page. She’s obviously comfortable with her sexuality and isn’t shy about expressing it (although her relationship with Moses has to stay behind closed doors, since he’s black). We also meet Eric Morrison and Bill Peters, two characters we’ll be seeing again.

Noticeable Things:

• Frankie’s motorbike is a Janus, but that company only began production in 2011. Frankie’s model is a Halcyon 50, which does have a very 1920s style to it, so I guess they got the motorbike from Janus and left the name on for advertising. (Maybe they got the bike for free?) This is the same motorbike Frankie rode during the War and she doesn’t let anyone else touch it.
• While looking around Frankie’s office, Mary finds her still in a cupboard but pretends not to have seen anything.
• The Mauretania was a real ship that ran the Atlantic from 1906 to 1935.
• The big project Adams is developing on Ashbridge Bay is a sewage treatment plant and there really is a huge treatment plant on Ashbridge Bay.

Favourite Quotes:

• “Only slightly.” Frankie’s reply when Trudy asks if she’s bothered by the irony of breaking into Steele’s office.
• “First rule of being a private detective … no one needs to know anything.” Frankie’s advice to Eric.