Murder, She Wrote (season 8)

Seasons: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 | Main

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

Bite the Big Apple [8.1]

Jessica Fletcher: I'm going to be teaching at Manhattan University. And I'll also be going into the inner-city schools from time to time. But altogether, I'll only be in Manhattan probably three or four days a week.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Then why do you have to rent an apartment?

Jessica Fletcher: Oh, Seth, I'm sick and tired of living in hotels. I do so much of that on those book tours. And I can't keep landing on poor Grady all the time.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Why not? He lands on you whenever it suits him.

Unauthorized Obituary [8.3]

Beth Dawson: I don't even like Steve. In fact, I can't imagine why you ever married him.

Jane Dawson: It's not that complicated, honey. Steve is tall, he looks great in a tuxedo, and he's terrific in bed.

---

Jane Dawson: Everybody loves Ellen Lombard. That's why I'll have a dynamite best-seller. When people find out that America's sweetheart is now a lush and a pill addict, they'll be standing in line to buy the book. Why do you think people buy your books? Because somebody gets killed and somebody takes a fall. We're in the same racket.

Jessica Fletcher: My books are fiction, yours are only half fiction. I believe there's a difference.

Thicker Than Water [8.4]

Zach Franklin: [to Elaine Franklin, after Jessica exposes the murderer] I had no choice. When Terry and I became partners, he never said anything about smuggling. By the time I found out, it was too late. Your mother was sick. You needed college money. Fishing was the worst it had been in years. So I went along, figuring as soon as I could pay him off for my share of the boat, it'd be over. You know what happened? He laughed in my face. He said if I tried to quit, something would happen to you.

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

Zach Franklin: That's exactly when, Mrs. Fletcher.

Jessica Fletcher: But you knew you'd be the prime suspect. Unless you were dead, too.

Sheriff Mort Metzger: So you cooked up your little plan. All you needed was the right fall guy, and who could be more perfect than Wayne, an ex-convict?

Elaine Franklin: Oh, Dad...

Zach Franklin: Elaine, with Terry dead, the Gretchen, the whole business, it'd be all yours. I even took out extra life insurance to make sure you'd be okay.

Jessica Fletcher: And then what, Zach? Were you going to hide for the rest of your life?

Zach Franklin: Not as hard as you might think, Mrs. Fletcher. I know places in Mexico where the fishing is good and nobody cares who you are or where you came from.

Judge Not [8.6]

Detective John Coop Jr.: You are going to catch a plane and you are going to go home. You've been a great help to my mother. Thank you. But you're no longer needed here. Understood?

Jessica Fletcher: Well, I believe I'll let Melinda tell me if she needs me. And I like to make my own arrangements as to when and where I travel. Is that understood?

Terminal Connection [8.7]

Allison Franklin: You were playing a little rough this afternoon.

Clark Blanchard: Some fillies like being ridden hard.

---

Ginny Blanchard: I just can't help feeling that I did something wrong.

Jessica Fletcher: It's not your fault, Ginny. It's a sickness. It's Clark's sickness. Your only fault is in allowing it to continue. I'm not going to try and tell you what to do because I'm not an expert on wife battery, and there are people who are trained in these matters, but I'm going to tell you something very plainly. There are only two things you can do: seek professional advice or leave the relationship.

---

Allison Franklin: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] He was drunk, abusive. I'd never seen him like that before. He called me a slut, said that I was using him to advance my husband in the firm. I slapped him. He went crazy. He grabbed me around the throat, and I managed to push him off. But he came after me again, and somehow the poker was in my hand. He just lay there, bleeding. I was so frightened. I wanted to call an ambulance or...

Jessica Fletcher: But the phone was torn out.

Allison Franklin: Yes. And then he came to. He wanted me to take him to the hospital. He got the car keys out of Ginny's purse. And I got him up on his feet and helped him to the car. But when I got him into the car, he passed out again, and he wasn't breathing anymore. I ran all the way home along the beach. I threw the poker into the ocean.

Lt. Paul Stratton: Well, Allison, we better get you a lawyer. It looks like you've got a pretty good case for self-defense.

The Committee [8.9]

Gerald Innsmouth: I don't know how you can stand it, Theo. If I had a younger brother like that, I'd have drowned him in the bathtub when he was two.

The List of Yuri Lermentov [8.10]

Jessica Fletcher: All those people trafficking in human lives.

Michael Hagarty: Yeah. You try not to think of it, and when you do, you kind of rationalize the fact that a great many more lives are potentially at stake. Civilians, millions of them. Except, every so often, I get this sneaky thought. Maybe we're just doing a number on ourselves to justify playing Cowboys and Indians.

Danse Diabolique [8.11]

Claudia Cameron: Jessica was my friend long before you even met her.

Geoffrey Presser: Possession, darling, is nine-tenths of the law.

---

Jessica Fletcher: I wasn't exactly a teenager when I started writing. Try not to accept defeat so easily. I mean, you must have other options.

Claudia Cameron: But I don't know how to do anything else but dance. And apparently, I'm too old for that.

Jessica Fletcher: Listen, maturity and experience are benefits. They're not disadvantages. Your talent, your dedication are priceless resources.

---

Edward Hale: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] This show was my last chance! If word got out that I was on pills again, I'd be finished!

Lt. Martin Kinicki: And nobody knew. Except Lily.

Edward Hale: She started pushing me to get Claudia's role. And I did it! And then, when I saw her with Geoffrey, I figured she was going to dump me just like she dumped Barry. I couldn't let that happen. I just wanted one thing in my life to go right.

The Witch's Curse [8.12]

Eve Simpson: I don't suppose I could play with this a little? You know, make it mine, update it a bit? It's just that, well, I'm much better at modern drama. I could do a Blanche DuBois that'll curl your hair.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Of that, I have every confidence.

Incident in Lot 7 [8.13]

Willy Montego: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] It was an accident. I never meant to ... I stuck with him through all the years he couldn't get a job, putting off my own retirement, waiting for the big break. And when it came, he was ready to throw me away. Why should he pay me, or any agent, ten percent of what he had coming when he can hire a lawyer to do the paperwork for a fraction of that amount? A man pays his dues and sticks with a client through good days and bad, he deserves more than a kick in the pants. It wasn't fair, Mrs. Fletcher. Damn it, it just wasn't fair.

Jessica Fletcher: No. No, Willy, it wasn't.

Willy Montego: Ever since it happened, I can't eat, can't sleep, waiting for a knock on the door, terrified of being caught, frightened by every sound. I can't live that way.

Jessica Fletcher: You don't have to, Willy. Not anymore. It's over.

Tinker, Tailor, Liar, Thief [8.15]

Daisy Collins: [after being exposed as the murderer] That money was gonna get me out of here. It was gonna set me up in a better flat. Better class of clientele, you know what I mean? How else was I gonna get that money away from him without him going to the police?

Ever After [8.16]

Devon Lane: [after Jessica reveals how the murder was committed] All right. I took the gun out of the closet. But I didn't set it up. His loving wife did that.

Sheriff Beals: Why did she put the shotgun in her closet and not his?

Jessica Fletcher: Because Walter might have opened his closet any time. She wanted it to happen during the period when they both had their carefully planned alibis, so she set it up in her closet. When she called him from my apartment, she must have asked him to get something for her.

Devon Lane: A credit card she said she left in the pocket of a jacket.

Joanna Rollins: No. This whole sick plan was his idea! He said he'd be a decoy so no one would suspect me! Really! He's mentally deranged! He's violently ill! I've taken the abuse. I've taken it day after day and month after month. But he said to me ... He said if I didn't cooperate, he'd kill me! And I knew he would; I did! I knew he would! I knew it.

Devon Lane: Bravo, darling. How about trying it again? Only this time, with conviction.

To the Last Will I Grapple with Thee [8.17]

Ian O'Connor: [after Jessica exposes the murderer] I don't believe it. That doesn't make any sense.

Jessica Fletcher: I'm afraid it makes perfect sense. Michael O'Connor blamed Sean for all of his problems, and hated him for taking the woman that he loved. When Michael left Ireland, he was in such a hurry that he sold his property for a fraction of its value. Something extraordinary must have happened to make him cash in everything and leave like that.

Lt. Parnell: It's as if he knew he wouldn't be coming back. It's the kind of thing you do when you know you're gonna die. Close everything out, put your affairs in order, make sure the money goes to your next of kin.

Jessica Fletcher: Which hardly fits the picture of a man who never thought ahead.

Ian O'Connor: But why? Why would he do all this?

Jessica Fletcher: Because he was already dying, Ian. This evening, I spoke to his doctor in Ireland. A few months ago, Michael was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor and given six months to live. I noticed when he spoke, he sometimes stammered, and he repeated his words at unnatural intervals, both indicators of a possible tumor. It must have come as a double blow to know his own life was ending just as Sean was beginning a new life in the United States.

Lt. Parnell: So, he decided a quick death was preferable over a slow and painful one.

Jessica Fletcher: And why not take Sean with him? It would be his final revenge. To frame Sean for his own death. Michael went out of his way to provoke Sean into threatening him to start a paper trail with the police. Taunted him so that Sean would get his fingerprints on the card you would later find beside the body, establishing his presence. He was carefully building a body of circumstantial evidence, knowing that the word of a dead man is admissible in court. And, of course, the videotape was the final touch.

Lt. Parnell: What about the gun?

Jessica Fletcher: Well, that was the ingenious part. But it was also the part that betrayed him. He cut into a high wall, ostensibly for a window, but mainly to get access to the hollow space within the wall. He then slipped a heavy steel weight into the gap and attached the other end of the long rope to the gun, knowing that as soon as he released the gun, it would be yanked up into the wall. But when he released the gun, it was pulled back with enough force to cause this scrape and the rope itself to cut into the wall at the edge of the opening.

Lt. Parnell: "To the last will I grapple with thee."

Ian O'Connor: What's that?

Jessica Fletcher: Melville. Captain Ahab lashing out at the great whale even as he died. "For hate's sake, I spit my last breath at thee." Yes. Obsession has always extracted a terrible price, Lieutenant. A terrible price indeed.

Programmed for Murder [8.18]

Sheriff Mort Metzger: I'm telling you, Doc, I feel like I've had this cough about half my life. I mean, shouldn't I be taking some kind of a pill or a shot or test or something?

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Pills or tests or something cost money. I don't figure you're all that anxious to spend unnecessarily. Not on what you get paid and, frankly, I don't think you need them, anyway. Sheriff, if I could help you, I would. As I said, chances are you're tired. Your resistance is down. Nothing that a week in the Bahamas wouldn't fix just fine.

Sheriff Mort Metzger: That's just wonderful! If I can't afford medical care, how can I afford a trip to the tropics?

---

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: [after Jessica exposes the murderers] All this so that you and this woman could be involved?

Allan Wooster: That, and because I was sick-and-tired of playing second banana to that damned computer nonsense. The day Harriet started that business was the day our marriage ended. And then, Doug introduced me to Gretchen on one of my trips into Boston, and it was like the clouds parted. I was being offered a new life.

Day of the Dead [8.19]

Cyrus Ramsey: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] Jason died two days before his 21st birthday. He had so much energy. He was interested in everything. He had his whole life in front of him until he met Enrico Montejano. That man corrupted him. He was a cancer. He had to be cut out before he infected one more innocent person. You understand that, Jessica, don't you?

Badge of Honor [8.21]

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: [to Lawrence Jarvis, after Jessica reveals he framed Ben Oliver] For a while I was disappointed that Ben didn't let you roast. But now it sounds as if you're going to spend quite a long time in prison. Every night, just before I go to sleep, I'm gonna remember that and smile.

Murder on Madison Avenue [8.22]

Sylvia Moffett: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] Mr. Greenstreet thinks I did it for him. But I did it for myself. Boss Lady had teeth and claws, and I didn't. She worked nights and made keys to all the offices. She copied people's ideas and claimed them as her own. She made love to the men who could help her. And when she couldn't use them anymore, she fired them. The day she became more powerful than you could handle, Mr. Greenstreet, that's the day you came to me, and I became your mole. I've got to thank you. It's the only thing that made it bearable over the years. That, and knowing that someday, I'd have my own kind of revenge.

Edgar Greenstreet: Moffett, I don't know what to say.

Sylvia Moffett: Then stop calling me Moffett. My name is Sylvia.