The Guilty Party – Director: R.T. Thorne/Writer: Carol Hay
This one starts with Frankie, Trudy, and Mary outside the courthouse, where a man (Ernie Logan) convicted of murdering his girlfriend (Christine Mayfield) three years ago has just been released because of a witness recanting their testimony. According to Stephen Reid (left-wing reporter and now officially Mary’s boyfriend), the cops bungled the entire investigation, either through incompetence or on purpose Logan thinks the cops railroaded him and wants them to pay for it, but a man (Derek Walston) shows up and tells Frankie and Trudy he knows Logan really did kill Christine (who was is niece) and wants them to prove it. Frankie accepts the case immediately.
Trudy isn’t sure about investigating someone who may be innocent, but Frankie convinces her to look into it. Frankie gives her the facts of the case: Christine left work at Eaton’s with her friend Connie Reynolds, then took a
shortcut through the park. She was found in a pond the next day, strangled and drowned, with boot prints on the shore and a beer bottle with Logan’s fingerprints on it. Connie is the witness who identified Logan, but she recently recanted (which is why Logan was released), so Frankie asks Trudy to talk to her. Connie admits she’s not certain she saw Logan that night and Trudy soon realizes Connie is very nearsighted … and didn’t have her glasses the night Christine was killed. At the morgue, Flo shows Frankie photos of Christine’s body, which show she was strangled (and bound at some point) with something thin that cut into her skin. She also had quite a bit of gin in her stomach. At the police station, the file on Christine’s murder is missing and Mary soon learns it was taken 
out by Detective Lyle, the lead investigator on the case. Detective McIntosh takes the file away from Lyle and tells Mary the boot prints found at the scene matched Logan’s, and the beer bottle was from a place called Bridley’s, where Logan moonlighted as a driver. Frankie goes to talk to Logan’s old boss (Albert Thistlewood, who runs a dry-cleaning service), who’s sure Logan is innocent. So sure that he immediately gives Logan his old job back when he comes in to ask for it. Logan hits on a girl who works there (Stella Ohanian), which doesn’t seem to bother Thistlewood. Frankie tells them she’s working for Logan’s lawyer, but he knows she’s bullshitting because he fired his lawyer already. At the office, Mary tells them what she learned and Trudy points out that Logan’s fingerprints could’ve been on the bottle because he worked at Bridley’s. Frankie asks Mary to get inside the evidence locker for a peek and she agrees, but Frankie’s car won’t start. Sebastian West offers them a ride, but Mary turns him down (although she seems quite impressed by him). Mary checks the case evidence and accidentally knocks some dirt off of Logan’s
boots, so she pockets it. She shows it to Flo, who suggests they try to match the dirt at the scene. But the dirt from the boots turns out to have manure in it and the groundskeeper tells them he only manures once a year … and it was after Christine was killed, which means the cops planted the mud on Logan’s boots. And Trudy learns from the eyewitness Connie that she identified Logan in the line-up because of a checkered scarf he was wearing … and she’d already told the cops she saw the guy in the park wearing a checkered scarf.
They tell Walston that Logan is probably innocent and he freaks out, insisting Logan is the killer. Frankie figures they’ll have to find the real 
killer to convince Walston. Alessandro is fixing Frankie’s car … by taking it apart and souping it up, which means Frankie can’t use it right now. Sebastian and Alessandro argue about cars and Frankie accepts his offer of a ride across town. Alessandro warns Sebastian not to try anything with Frankie. Mary tells Frankie and Trudy she looked at the case file and the cops were investigating a jealous ex-boyfriend (Dan Harper) but dropped that angle once evidence started turning up against Logan. Frankie wonders why Walston didn’t talk to the cops about Christine and decides to go ask him. Mary meets with Reid, who wants to prove Detective Lyle framed Logan and wants Mary to check the police log book. She’s reluctant, but he is her boyfriend so she says she’ll
try. Trudy talks to Harper, who admits he was jealous and resented Christine putting on airs after she got the job at Eaton’s, even sending her clothes out to be cleaned. He denies killing her and when Trudy’s says she’s working for Christine’s uncle, he informs her that Christine didn’t have an uncle. She and Frankie spy on Walston and notice he keeps his garden shed tightly locked. Frankie prepares to break into the shed, while Trudy heads out to check Harper’s alibi. Mary gets into the evidence room and Lyle catches her. She mentions some of the suspicious evidence and Lyle wonders why, so she takes off. When Walston and his wife go out, Frankie breaks into the shed and finds some newspaper clippings about Christine’s murder … and some about another girl (Maude Vickers), who drowned in the same pond as Christine, although Maude’s death was ruled a suicide. Frankie talks to Ai Lin (since Maude used to work 
at the café) and she says Maude was nervous, always looking over her shoulder. She also mentions an older guy who used to hang around waiting for Maude and identifies a photo of Walston as that man. Frankie talks to Flo about Maude’s death and Flo points out that the water in Maude’s lungs had no bacteria in it, which means she didn’t drown in the pond and so didn’t commit suicide. When they check Christine’s autopsy report, they find that the water in her lungs had no bacteria either. Maude and Christine looked a lot alike, so Frankie figures the same guy killed them both.
Frankie figures Walston is the number one suspect because of his lies, but Trudy thinks Harper could be the killer, even though he doesn’t have any connection to Maude. Flo tells them Christine was tied up with piano wire, which both Walston and Harper had access to. Trudy confronts Harper, who 
still denies killing Christine, mentioning how she got the Eaton’s job by winning some contest. Mary talks to Flo about her misgivings over spying for Reid. Flo says Mary doesn’t necessarily have to share what she finds, but she might feel better if she has the info. She checks the logs and finds something strange, but runs into McIntosh, who seems suspicious. Frankie accuses Walston of killing the two women and he insists Logan killed both women. He admits he and Maude were lovers, which explains why he wants Logan to pay so much. He says Maude told him some laundry guy was following her, but he dismissed it and she ended up dead. When Christine died the same way, Walston knew it was the same killer and told a cop from his church about his suspicions.
Evidence against Logan suddenly showed up (because the cop planted it), but Walston won’t tell her the cop’s name. Walston is willing to tell the cops about Maude, even if it wrecks his marriage. Frankie tells him to come clean with his wife and meet her tomorrow at 11:00 AM, when she’ll go to the police station with him. She fills Trudy in and they now both think Logan is the killer, but they know Walston’s statement to the cops is probably the most damning evidence against him. Unfortunately, somebody knocks Walston out on his way home.
At the station, Mary confronts McIntosh (since he’s the one who logged the evidence) over his fakery, telling him about the manure in the dirt and 
suggesting she might turn him in. Trudy talks to Connie again, helping her remember she saw a laundry truck by the park the night Christine was killed. At Thistlewood’s laundry, Stella lets Frankie look in Logan’s locker, where she finds wire in a tackle box. Stella mentions that Logan and Thistlewood used to go fishing together and when Frankie finds a gin bottle in the locker, she says Logan didn’t drink gin. Frankie and Trudy compare notes and wonder where
Walston is, deciding to go look for him. They find him in a warehouse, where Logan is holding him at gunpoint, still insisting he never killed any women. Frankie and Trudy disarm Logan, but Walston gets the gun and is ready to kill Logan, who tells them he never even met Christine and only saw Maude once, at Quon’s Café. Frankie and Trudy realize Logan isn’t the killer and take the gun from him. Frankie goes to the laundry, where she finds Thistlewood hitting on 
Stella. She confronts him with all the evidence and he tries to run, but Stella knocks him out with a steam iron. Later, Mary lies to Reid about what she found in the log book. He’s disappointed but it doesn’t seem to change the way he feels about her. Detective Lyle comes in and tells Mary that McIntosh is off the force, although he’s not sure if he resigned or was fired. McIntosh also says Lyle told him about Mary’s threats to expose him. Frankie takes Trudy for a ride in Alessandro’s race car.
This is a pretty good episode, although it gets a bit convoluted at times with so many suspects and red herrings. Mary’s crooked superiors seem to be getting suspicious of her and Reid is putting pressure on her to feed him
info for his stories. Mary is my favourite character, so I hope she doesn’t get in over her head and get in trouble. I get the feeling McIntosh wouldn’t hesitate to kill her to save his own ass. It was cool to see someone else take out the bad guy this time, especially since Thistlewood seems to have marked Stella as his next victim. I get the feeling that the love triangle between Frankie, Alessandro, and Sebastian is going to get more intense. If you’re wondering what happened with Walston and his wife, she apparently wasn’t as understanding as Frankie thought … she filed for divorce.
Favourite Quotes:
- “It’s just such a delicious name to say … Alessandro Contento.” Mary showing she has a bit of a thing for Frankie’s boyfriend.
- “Talk about delicious.” Mary’s opinion of Sebastian, which seems to show her crush on Alessandro wasn’t all that serious after all.
- “That’s one way to press charges.” Frankie’s remark to Stella after seeing her deck Thistlewood with an iron.