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Post by topbilled on Dec 31, 2022 15:50:32 GMT
021 Right by Rita
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2022
Rita Tucci has professionally killed a thousand people in her long career. She recently turned 60, and her husband Paolo has been clueless about Rita’s crimes all these years. He thinks she’s a seventh grade teacher at the Holy Name Catholic School. She is, but she is also a killer who takes over when her brother Bernardo is contracted to do hits but loses his nerve.
We learn that Paolo Tucci is a friend of Jude’s from the days they grew up in the intercity. Paolo has all kinds of maladies, most of them imagined, and he hasn’t been able to hold a job in a long time. As a result, Rita has been the breadwinner and the money she splits with Bernardo from the killings is what pays the mortgage on the house she and Paolo share. Her teacher’s salary would not be able to cut it.
One day when Rita is at school teaching, Paolo looks for tranquilizers in a desk drawer and accidentally comes across papers that implicate Rita and Bernardo in an unsolved murder. Paolo meets with Bernardo about this at Sonja’s coffee shop. Bernardo discretely confirms to Paolo that he and Rita are paid killers. Paolo suspected something was awry, but he never guessed it was this.
On the way home, Paolo, still in shock, stops at Holy Name Cathedral and says some extra special prayers. He also goes to visit his old friend Jude at the precinct. Jude is busy on other cases, and Paolo is unable to bring himself to reveal the extent of Rita’s apparent crimes to Jude. In fact, he still can’t believe what Bernardo had told him.
As Paolo leaves the precinct, Nenita O’Reilly comes in to see her husband with exciting news. The captain thinks this is about one of her relatives from Manila coming to live with him. But she says that didn’t pan out. And it’s a good thing too, because they’ll need to turn the guest bedroom into a nursery. The captain needs to sit down and fast.
In the next scene we learn the captain actually fainted. Marty helps Nenita get her husband back on on his feet. Marty realizes the captain and his wife need privacy, so he excuses himself. As Marty exits, closing the door behind him, the captain tells his wife they agreed not to have children. Nenita says the universe had other plans and she is sure he will love being a father.
He tells her that he already is a father; he has a grown daughter who lives in Boston. Nenita forgot about that, probably because she’s never been introduced to Heidi. The captain tells Nenita they can’t afford a baby. She says nonsense, he makes good money, and he can always ask the mayor to okay a raise. He reacts.
We cut to Paolo Tucci. He has gone home to wait for his wife Rita to return from teaching school. She comes in and barely has her coat off, when he confronts her and says he knows she is more than a teacher, she is a killer. He says Bernardo told him what's been going on this whole time. Rita tries to explain. She reminds him that he can’t hold a job and that he hasn’t worked in years. They needed money, or they were going to lose the house. What else was she supposed to do?
Paolo listens to Rita’s side of things, but thinks she could have told him what she was up to. He gets emotional. He knows that god will strike them both down because of what she's done. She says he’s in the clear, and she’s the one that will be punished for all this wrongdoing. He says he is responsible for her and a good husband should help his wife. He demands that she and Bernardo give up killing. But she says she was paid to do another job tonight. Besides, killing is now in her blood, and she can’t stop. Paolo is deeply worried for Rita’s soul. As their argument escalates, he begins to have what seems like a stroke.
We go back to the precinct. The captain is still pale after fainting earlier and thinks maybe he had a small stroke. Nenita says nonsense. He is fit as a fiddle. She is on her way to tell her cousin Kokoy about the pregnancy. She expects the captain to be home early tonight so they can discuss plans for the nursery. As she leaves with a bounce in her step, Marty pokes his head in the door and asks the captain if everything’s alright. The captain says his wife dropped a bombshell. Marty reacts.
Back at the Tuccis, Paolo’s nephew Carmine has arrived. He's a medical student and is checking on Paolo. Paolo is in bed, and Rita leaves him in Carmine's care. She is running late to meet Bernardo and carry out the next hit. When she comes back an hour later, she learns from Carmine that Paolo may have a short time to live. She goes up to see her husband.
In a very exaggerated and overplayed scene, Paolo begs Rita to turn herself in to Jude, before he dies. Rita absolutely refuses to do this. Paolo cannot stand to watch Rita continue her criminal activities, no matter how much he loves her and no matter how long they’ve been married. Unable to get through to Paolo that these killings have given them a nice home and a comfortable life, Rita becomes frustrated and steps out.
We then see Rita talking to Bernardo at the school playground. Bernardo can tell that she is severely depressed, but he tells her a lot more money can still be made if they keep taking contract jobs. Suddenly Rita gets a call on her phone from Carmine. Supposedly Paolo has had another stroke and probably won’t make it through the night.
Rita then notices the church door is open and goes inside to pray. She tries to justify why she has to kill dumb people that deserve to be killed. She is all caught up in this, talking out loud to her invisible lord. At the same time, Birdie is sitting up in the choir loft. She hears Rita down below and can’t believe her ears. Birdie found a half empty bottle of booze earlier, and it must have been stronger than she thought.
As Rita finishes and leaves (without seeing Birdie), she dials a number on her phone. We cut to Carmine answering Paolo's phone and handing it over to him as he rests in bed. Rita promises she will turn herself into Jude, but she wants to see Paolo one last time.
In the next scene, Rita returns to the house, and Carmine allows her to see Paolo who is said to be minutes away from meeting his maker.
Paolo and Rita talk about the old days. They remember the recent wedding of their daughter Romina who is in Europe with her new husband. The doorbell rings downstairs. Rita figures it must be Father Delacruz, to give Paolo last rites. But we see the person who has arrived downstairs is actually Jude. Paolo called Jude and Carmine lets him in.
Rita goes down and sees Jude. As she reaches him, she hands him a long sheet of paper. She asks Jude to arrest her for the murders listed on it. There are 1,000 names, all people she murdered during her years as a teacher at Holy Name. She forgot the last one, and she adds it to the list. It’s a case that didn’t have any leads. Jude appreciates that and admires how forthcoming and cooperative Rita Tucci is.
Rita says she is doing right by Paolo and their marriage. Jude handcuffs her then reads Rita her rights. In the next shot, we see Jude place Rita in the backseat of the squad car and drive off. As they go, the camera turns to show that Paolo has come downstairs. He is in perfect health.
Paolo staged this whole thing, and he thanks Carmine for helping. He hopes Jude will get Bernardo, too. As he pours Carmine a drink, he triumphantly claims that Rita may be going to jail, but she is not going to hell. During a recent conversation with god he promised he would get his wife to turn herself over to the Jude Anthony. He has saved her soul. Now he just has to figure out how he’s going to make money to continue this comfortable life he’s enjoyed for years without working.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 1, 2023 16:48:38 GMT
022 The Day Ida Driscoll Had a Barbecue
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
The episode starts with three women at a health spa on the north side of the city. While they are having mud baths and facials, they discuss what they’re going to do about someone named Kevin Huber. They blame Kevin for the death of a man they all loved.
During these opening scenes at the spa, we find out what happened to Malcolm Driscoll, and who these women are. The leader of the group is Malcolm’s first wife Leah. She is on ‘hard times’ and had to hock some jewels given to her in the divorce settlement. This is because she needed money to purchase a new sports car for Serge, a guy half her age. Serge will leave her if she does not keep buying the things he requires.
The second woman is Malcolm’s second wife and widow Ida. She is dealing with back taxes that are due on the estate. She recently spoke to an attractive lawyer who wanted to help her, but he was no use to her when it turned out he owed the I.R.S. even more than she does. If Malcolm were still around, he’d take care of the tax situation and she wouldn’t be in such a mess.
The third woman is ditzy Charmaine Calvert, Malcolm’s long-time secretary. According to Charmaine, she was Malcolm’s favorite mistress and she had a good chance of becoming the next Mrs. Driscoll without even getting a boob job. She can’t really afford the spa, and she is here as a guest of the other two women.
While all three gals have vastly different attitudes about life, they all agree on one thing: how much they hate Kevin Huber. Supposedly, Malcolm died in an accident at his factory in the garment district, and the women blame his business partner Kevin for unsafe conditions that led to Malcolm’s death. Without Malcolm around, they are floundering.
Before they leave the spa, they reach an agreement about how to carry out their own form of justice. Ida will invite Kevin to the home Malcolm built, and tomorrow when he shows up to go over the sale of the business, they are going to do something awful to him.
The next day Jude Anthony and Marty arrive at Malcolm’s factory. After much investigating, it is determined there were no signs of foul play, and Malcolm Driscoll’s death in a chemical explosion a few days ago was a freak accident.
But before the case is officially closed, Jude has to ask Kevin Huber just one or two more things. Kevin fidgets with a ring on his finger and gives answers he thinks the police are looking for. A short time later, when they drive back to the precinct, Jude tells Marty in the car that he doesn’t feel Kevin has been totally honest.
That evening Kevin goes to the Driscoll estate. He is surprised to see Ida joined by Leah and Charmaine. He was unaware they were friends. They accuse him of taking Malcolm away from them, and start screaming at him. He can see how they’re feeding off each other and becoming increasingly overwrought. He refuses to hear any more of this. But they manage to subdue him with the help of a man named Curly.
Curly is a body builder and Charmaine’s neighbor. He’s sweet on her and does anything she says. She has him tie Kevin up in the bedroom upstairs and keep him secure while she and the other ladies take turns making Kevin’s life miserable.
When Jude calls Kevin’s office the next day to follow up on something, he is told by an associate named Sutherland that Kevin has gone missing and is not returning calls or messages. Meanwhile, another person, someone who refuses to leave his name, is calling Kevin’s office from the Caribbean and also wants to know where Kevin is. The anonymous caller is quite concerned.
Back at the estate, Curly has gone too far in restraining Kevin and accidentally kills him. The women just wanted to scare Kevin, not kill him. Afraid the women will call the police, Curly gets frightened and takes off. He runs across the backyard and tries to climb a fence to get away, but it’s an electric fence, and he’s electrocuted. Now the women have to deal with two dead bodies. They sit down to watch their favorite movie, Fried Green Tomatoes, and try to figure out what to do.
A few days later, Jude gets a visit at the precinct from the mystery person in the Caiman Islands that recently called Kevin’s office. It is Malcolm Driscoll, who did not die. He reveals to Jude he staged his death so he could avoid tax evasion. He was also waiting down in the Caribbean for Kevin to bring money from the sale of the factory. But when Kevin never showed up, he feared foul play.
Malcolm tells Jude he thinks his wives and secretary had a hand in Kevin’s disappearance. He has a feeling Kevin was murdered. Jude reacts.
A short time later, Jude and Marty go out to the estate to speak to Ida Driscoll. When Jude tells Ida that her husband is alive and he’s spoken to Malcolm, she turns pale. Jude goes into the backyard where Marty is walking around, and they notice that the electric fence has dried blood on it. Ida insists it was an animal that tried to hop the fence and unfortunately didn’t survive. After Jude and Marty go, Ida picks up the phone and makes a call.
The next day, Ida is at the spa meeting up with Lean and Charmaine again. She’s telling the other two women about Jude’s visit to the house and that Malcolm is supposedly alive. Leah feels it might be a trick by the police. But Charmaine is listening to the radio news and hears that Malcolm has shown up alive and has been arrested for tax evasion.
From behind bars, Malcolm tells a reporter that three women were responsible for the death of his business partner and best friend Kevin Huber. He wants them brought to justice. Captain O’Reilly and Jude assure the media that any guilty parties will be apprehended.
We then cut to the backyard of the Driscoll estate two days later. The women are having a party with some of Ida’s neighbors. Jude and Marty arrive to check out a noise complaint from a person across the street that wasn’t invited.
Ida tells Leah and Charmaine to serve the police a barbecued meat sandwich and a beer. Jude says they can’t drink while on duty. Just then, a kid comes up and says he found something in his sandwich. It’s a piece of a ring. Jude realizes it looks similar to the one Kevin Huber was wearing when they spoke several days ago.
A short time later, the three women are brought into the precinct to be booked, and they see Malcom in a cell waiting to be transported to the county jail. They want to know why he faked his death, and why it had to lead to all this. He says it’s because they were driving him crazy, and going to prison will be better than life with them.
In the last scene, Jude finishes his shift and stops by Sonja’s coffee shop on his way home. Sonja asks if he’d like a sandwich to go with his coffee. He asks what kind she has, and she hollers back to her assistant Dewey, "what's left?' Dewey looks in the cooler, then says 'barbecued beef.' No thanks, Jude says. He’ll just have coffee.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 2, 2023 16:09:16 GMT
023 Nightmare Maker Part 1
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Detective Marty Fredericks is doing rounds one afternoon when he notices two cars stopped in a driveway that leads to an underground parking area. Both vehicles have been abandoned, one with a door left open; and the cars are preventing other vehicles from coming or going. Marty pulls up in the squad car and gets out. He goes down into the underground area which his gun out to investigate.
At first he doesn’t see anything. But then he hears a noise coming from a broom closet a hundred yards away that has its door slightly ajar. He quickly and quietly hurries up to the door and and prepares to enter. Inside the closet we see Cary Stivers, a tall dude age 39 with an east coast accent pointing a gun at another guy named Ondray age 60, who has no weapon, or so it seems. But Ondray did have a gun, and it’s on the floor, indicating Cary had overpowered him and made him to drop it on the ground.
A tense conversation is occurring between the men. Cary asks Ondray if he remembers him from years ago. Ondray realizes that Cary’s face sort of looks familiar. He struggles to recall how they know each other, then all of a sudden a memory comes back to him. “Oh yeah,” Ondray says. “You were the one who wouldn’t cry. You were too tough.”
To which Cary says he may not have cried, but he has been haunted by what Ondray did to him. Cary is ready to fire a shot into Ondray, but this is where Marty enters and tells him to drop his gun. Cary is stunned that this moment has been interrupted. Marty shouts at him again to drop his weapon. As Cary does this, Ondray starts to make a move.
Ondray knocks a cabinet over on Marty, then picks up his gun and fires a shot at Cary and runs off. A short time later, Marty has been able to get out from under the fallen cabinet, and is up on his feet again. He sees Cary unconscious on the ground, having been shot in the chest, bleeding out. Marty uses his phone to call for help.
In the next scene it is the following morning. Cary has undergone surgery and is waking up at the hospital. Jude and Marty are there, and have been waiting to speak to Cary. Cary is still in a lot of pain. He remembers what happened that led to his being shot. He sits up in the hospital bed and tells Marty he’s a dumb cop who ruined everything.
Jude wants to know what this is all about. Cary reveals he’s a private investigator from New Jersey who has a personal history with Ondray Forbes, the man he had cornered in the underground parking area that got away thanks to Marty. Cary says Ondray was responsible for kidnapping him 30 years ago when he was only nine years old. His rich father paid a hefty ransom to get him back, but Ondray got away with the crime and went into hiding.
Cary was tormented for years, had terrible nightmares about the weeks he spent with Ondray, and it is one of the things that made him become a P.I., since his goal is to bring people like Ondray Forbes, who elude capture, to justice. They must pay for their crimes against society.
Jude and Marty are sorry about the demons that Cary has been dealing with all these years, but Jude doesn’t like private investigators interfering with police business. He warns Cary, who plans to go after Ondray again as soon as he’s recovered, to back off and let him and his officers handle things. But Cary doesn’t seem willing to do that since he has a personal vendetta against his childhood tormentor.
In the next scene, Jude and Marty are at the precinct bringing Captain O’Reilly and Amanda up to speed. Information comes in on Ondray Forbes, which verifies what Cary said at the hospital earlier. O’Reilly doesn’t like the idea that a man as dangerous as Forbes is on the loose in their city.
Meanwhile, a call comes in from an upset wealthy man named Cranston who says he and his wife received a text demanding a ransom, when their son did not make it home from school. Jude will head over there with Amanda, while Marty returns to the hospital to see what else Cary can tell him about how Ondray operates.
A short time later Jude and Amanda are at the Cranston home. Mr. Cranston shows them the text he and his wife received, which Jude re-reads. It demands $500,000 in unmarked bills to be delivered to a spot along a hilly area outside of the city at 10 p.m.
We cut to the hospital and Marty is informed by a doctor that Cary Stivers learned from a reporter about the Cranston kidnapping and believing it to be Ondray’s work, tried to check himself out of the hospital. But on his way out, Cary collapsed. He died just a few minutes ago. Marty reacts.
The next part of the story takes place towards evening. Marty still feels guilty for what happened to Cary Stivers. Jude tells him he was not responsible for that, he was doing his job when he stopped Cary from killing Ondray. It is now 9:30 p.m. and they are driving out of the city to the place where Mr. Cranston is taking the money. The Cranstons’ SUV is in front of the unmarked cop car. When they arrive at the hilly area mentioned in the text, they see some other cars there. Jude gets out and thinks it’s the media. But it’s the feds.
Jude calls the captain, who’s back at the precinct. He says the FBI found out about the latest kidnapping and are needing their cooperation. Jude hangs up and is introduced to an FBI agent named Sheila Hendrix. She heard about Cary Stivers’ death and says Cary was a good P.I. that cared about victims who went through what he went through.
Sheila wants to nab Ondray Forbes and rid the world of him for good. It seems personal to her. Jude says the Cranstons could be dealing with another kidnapper. Sheila says no, in her gut, she knows Ondray is behind this. Jude reacts.
A little while later a 29 year old man on a four wheeler shows up to get the ransom money that Mr. Cranston just placed in a predetermined spot. It is dark and hard to see the biker who is wearing a helmet. Sheila and an assistant move in on the biker, but he gets away, up a steep hillside which is almost impossible for the FBI agents’ truck or Jude’s unmarked car to drive up and follow.
Mr. Cranston is on the phone with his wife who has reporters standing beside her back at their home. He tells his wife that the money was just collected and all they can do is pray that their son Brody will returned safely to them. Jude isn’t sure there is a guarantee the boy will be returned alive. But Sheila says Ondray always returns his victims to the parents, after he gets what he wants— some time to torment them, then a bunch of money, before disappearing and going off the radar until he strikes again. And sometimes there are several years between these kidnappings that he orchestrates.
Marty thinks the biker looked rather young, and that it couldn’t possibly be Ondray since Cary had been abducted by Ondray 30 years ago, which would make Ondray around 60. Sheila says she and her agents believe Ondray has a young accomplice, whom she thinks is the person that came for the ransom on the bike.
In the next part of the story, it is a few days later. Brody Cranston has been returned to his parents. He is at the hospital under observation. But Brody seems too scared to open up about what happened to him.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 3, 2023 15:22:53 GMT
024 Nightmare Maker Part 2
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Part two begins at the hospital. Brody still doesn’t seem to be able to talk about what happened to him while he was with Ondray. Sheila wants to try speaking to him again, despite the parents’ reluctance. Jude and Marty are now there, and they help convince the Cranstons to let Sheila try again with Brody. After speaking to a psychologist, they agree.
In the next scene Sheila shows Brody a picture that Cary had drawn and given to her of his abductor. She asks Brody to look at it very carefully and tell her if this was the same man who held him captive.
Mrs. Cranston fears this is too much for her son, but Sheila persists. Brody grabs a pencil and adds wrinkles to the forehead on the picture, as well as a mustache and says yes, it is the same guy. This confirms that Ondray Forbes was the one who had kidnapped Brody.
After they step out in the hall to give Brody time with his parents, Sheila tells Jude and Marty it is only a matter of time before Ondray strikes again. Jude doesn’t like the sound of that. Marty, still feeling guilty, says he will do whatever it takes to help bring Ondray to justice before another boy can be abducted by Ondray.
Back inside the hospital room, Brody tells his parents he’s afraid of falling to sleep because he will have scary dreams and see that bad man again. The Cranstons try to convince him he’s safe and the nightmare is over. But can Brody truly believe this?
The following day Jude is filling the captain and Amanda in on what happened at the hospital with Brody Cranston. It is said Marty took a day off. News has gotten out that the captain and his wife are expecting a child. Jude and Amanda are happy for him. The captain admits he has been estranged from his daughter Heidi since he and his first wife Bernice divorced, and he’s not sure if he will be a better father the second time around. But Jude thinks he will do just fine.
The captain references the Ondray case and says that with psychos like that on the loose, how do parents keep their kids safe these days. He feels for the Cranston family. This is interrupted when Nenita shows up with a flamboyant interior designer, to discuss color schemes for the new nursery. The captain really doesn’t have time for this, but he obliges his wife since it’s the kind thing to do.
We then cut to Marty. He is still obsessing about how he inadvertently helped Ondray to get away. He drives back out to the hilly area with a truck that has a four wheeler loaded onto the back. He lifts the bike down, straps on a helmet and heads up the steep hill and follows the tracks of the four wheeler that Ondray’s accomplice left. It eventually leads him to a remote farm house about ten miles away.
Inside the farm house we see the young man that picked up the ransom money. He hears another four wheeler outside and grabs a rifle and steps on to the porch. He asks Marty what he wants. Marty says he is here to see Ondray. The young man says Ondray is no longer around. Marty sets his gun down on the ground as a show of good faith, saying he just wants to talk about things, about something important that involves an innocent boy.
In the next part the young man has let Marty come inside the house but he still has a rifle trained on him. The young man calls himself Angel. He says he and Ondray spent years together until Ondray left him this morning. Marty asks if Ondray left with the ransom money. Angel says Ondray didn’t take the money because he couldn’t use it where he went. He then shows Marty the duffel bag that Mr. Cranston dropped off at the ransom site, and it contains all the unmarked bills that were put inside by Cranston and his wife.
Marty then notices someone on the bed in the other room. Angel realizes what Marty has seen and leads him in there. Marty glimpses an old motionless man, Ondray on the bed. He’s dead. Angel says he still has to dig a grave but couldn’t bring himself to do it just yet. He thinks maybe Marty can help him. But Marty says the body needs to be examined by a coroner.
Angel insists he didn’t kill Ondray, he loved him. He would never harm Ondray. And Ondray would never harm him, not really. According to Angel, Ondray died peacefully in his sleep. Marty says a coroner will be able to verify if it was natural causes. Angel knows he’s right. Angel had planned to fire the rifle at Marty, which he learned how to use by Ondray…but he realizes Marty is a good man who has listened to him when he needed someone to listen. He doesn’t see the point in any of this anymore. He looks around the room, then down at Ondray’s dead body, and surrenders the rifle to Marty.
We then cut to the following day. Angel is at the hospital under observation. His room is down the hall from Brody Cranston’s. Angel has agreed to talk to Sheila. Sheila brings Brody in with her, to make a positive ID of Angel as Ondray’s accomplice. Brody says it was the bad guy who would lock him in the closet. Angel was the good guy who let him out. Brody is holding the picture that Sheila had given to him, which Cary drew. He asks if she needs it back. Angel wants to see it. With Sheila’s okay, Brody lets him take a look at the drawing, before giving it to Sheila. Angel says it’s not a great likeness and should be burned.
After Brody is taken back to his parents, who are checking him out of the hospital, Angel tells Sheila and Marty that he’s a photographer. And he has made many good pics of Ondray, which are at the farm house. Most are of Ondray with the boys. There is one of Ondray and Brody. Sheila makes a note of this and tells her assistant to get a warrant and confiscate what is in the farm house for evidence.
After the assistant leaves, Sheila steps forward and looks Angel in the eye. She wants to know what his real name is, because she says he might have fooled Brody, but he’s no Angel. He refuses to tell her.
In the next scene Sheila and Marty have exited the room. They are in the hallway. Sheila says Angel will be taken to Oak Haven, the city’s mental institution. He is not fit to stand trial in his condition. Marty asks if she has an idea of Angel’s real name. She nods her head yes.
Sheila says Ondray always returned the boys after he was done with them. But there were two boys that were not returned. One was a kid that Ondray took 20 years ago— the parents did not pay the ransom and the child was never returned. There was no reason to believe he died. Sheila suspects that is Angel and he was raised by Ondray and might be capable of the same acts Ondray committed.
As they get into the elevator, Marty asks about the other boy. Sheila says it was a child that had been abducted five years ago in Los Angeles that she and her agents believe was murdered, because partial evidence of the murder was sent to them anonymously. However, that had become a cold case. Sheila is hoping when her assistant goes through the farm house there will be more concrete proof that Ondray murdered the child from L.A. Marty reacts. The elevator has now reached the ground floor.
As Marty and Sheila get off the elevator and walk into the main lobby area, they see Brody leaving with his parents. He seems like a normal well-adjusted boy again.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 4, 2023 7:06:31 GMT
(c) 2022-2023 Jarrod McDonald
Season 2 Index
Murder with Benefits
The Devil Knows
Halfway to Redemption
The Reality of Murder
Jerry from Mr. Harper’s Corner Market
Smart People and Dumb People
Marty’s Engagement
Love and Marriage
Family Relations
A Holiday to Remember
Security
Requiem for a Lost Soul
Alien Conspiracies and Cover-ups
Sugar and Arnie
Blackmailer’s Amnesia
Caught in a Storm
The Wife Who Didn’t Pay Her Husband’s Ransom
The Price of Silence, Part 1
The Price of Silence, Part 2
Killers Are Like Dominoes
Cassie
What’s Around the Bend When the Road Comes to an End?
Recriminations
Ryan
The Grim Reaper’s Appointment Has Been Rescheduled
Amanda’s Place
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Post by topbilled on Jan 5, 2023 15:33:41 GMT
025 Murder with Benefits
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
We start with scenes of Lloyd Monroe, an accountant at a prestigious downtown firm. He and another guy from his office, Kirk Redding, usually head to a nearby gym to work out together. Today, after they’re finished, they go to the locker room like they usually do and shower together. Kirk is good looking and he’s a discrete homosexual. Lloyd is also good looking. He’s married and doesn’t play around much with guys. After leaving the gym, Lloyd drives home to his wife Sheryl in the suburbs and their two kids.
That night as Lloyd watches TV with his wife, he gets a text on his phone from Kirk. Kirk sends a photo he took of Lloyd naked in the locker room. Lloyd immediately erases the message and photo.
Meanwhile, there are scenes of a dinner party finishing at the Drake Hotel in downtown Chicago. Steel magnate Warren Hollister announces the engagement of his only son Ian to socialite Buffy Carlisle. Buffy and her folks are happy. But when the camera pans over to Ian, the look on his face shows marriage is not his idea and he’s being pressured into it.
The next morning, Jude stops at the coffee shop. Sonja is not in yet. While Dewey makes an espresso for him, Jude asks if Sonja’s happy being married to that jerk Marek. Dewey laughs and asks how Jude knows about Marek being a jerk. Jude says he detects these things when Sonja talks about her marriage. Dewey will make sure not to talk about his marriage. Jude smiles, pays for his drink and leaves.
We then cut to Jude arriving at the precinct. He looks over at Captain O’Reilly’s office. The captain is meeting with a young man. It’s Ian Hollister. We learn Ian is a godson of O’Reilly and his ex-wife Bernice. Ian says he had a fight with his father Warren about his upcoming marriage to Buffy Carlisle. He says he doesn’t love Buffy and he’s going to call it off. But his father is intimating Ian will be disinherited if he does.
Captain O’Reilly admits that Ian has a problem. But if he doesn’t love Buffy, then he shouldn’t go through with the marriage. A voice near near the door says she is glad to hear the captain say that. It’s Bernice. She was hoping the captain might speak to Ian’s father on Ian’s behalf. The captain doesn’t want to get directly involved. He’s surprised that high-class Bernice lowered herself to come down to the precinct, since she stayed away from the place as much as possible during their marriage.
Ian has to go and thanks ‘Uncle’ Colm in advance for anything he might be able to say to his father. As Ian exits, Bernice sees a photo of the captain and his wife Nenita on his desk. She asks if he’s still married to that silly woman. He says yes, and they’re expecting a child. That’s right, she did hear some rumor to that effect.
The captain says he has a lot of police business and urges Bernice to go to the Hollister home to talk to Warren herself, since she and the Hollisters speak the same snooty language. Bernice always did despise his prejudices about the ‘right’ type of people.
Bernice then tells the captain that she heard from their daughter Heidi who is still in Boston and asked about him. Of course, Heidi is distressed about the idea of a new half-sibling. Since the captain wants to smooth over some of the difficulties he has with his daughter, he agrees to talk to Warren Hollister for Ian, if Bernice will talk to Heidi on his behalf. They have a deal. Bernice leaves triumphantly, and knew if she played the Heidi card, that she’d get her ex-husband to help Ian.
We then cut to lunch at an exclusive club. Captain O’Reilly is meeting with Warren Hollister as he promised, and Ian is also sitting at the table. It’s clear to O’Reilly and Ian that Warren has a lot riding on Ian’s proposed marriage to Buffy Carlisle, probably some business merger. Ian has never worked a day in his life and he has to do what his father wants or else be cut off from all his money.
The captain knows he is in no place to tell Warren Hollister what to do. But he did make a deal with Bernice and wants to help Ian. So he brings up a bit of unclassified information that maybe Buffy Carlisle’s father is connected with the mob, and surely Warren wouldn’t want to get involved with any of that through marriage. But Warren seems to know all about that and he needs the wedding to go ahead as planned. The captain glances across the table and gives Ian a look that implies ‘I tried but there’s nothing more I can do.’ Ian understands.
In the next scene, the captain has gone back to the precinct. Ian is watching his father get into a limo outside the club. Warren is off to meet with Buffy’s parents, to discuss details about the marriage. Warren would prefer Ian go with him to the Carlisle suite at the Drake Hotel. But Ian doesn’t want to. He will see his father later and takes a long walk.
A short time later, Ian’s walk has led him to a bench at Grant Park. A man finishing a sandwich is sitting next to him and feeding crusts of bread to the pigeons. It’s Lloyd Monroe. He and Ian wind up talking. Nobody is within earshot. Ian says, half-joking, it would be easier if Buffy magically died. Just then, Lloyd gets another text from Kirk Redding. This is a problem for Lloyd who regrets his friendship with Kirk.
Looking at the text on his phone, Lloyd says there’s a guy at the office who’s pestering him; Kirk could drop off the face of the earth, and he wouldn’t care.
In the next part, two homicides occur. Ian "runs in" to Kirk at the gym and follows him into the locker room. A short time later, Kirk’s body is found stabbed in the shower. At the same time Lloyd meets Buffy on the beach near the Drake Hotel. He asks her for a cigarette and makes small talk. She goes into the water, and he follows her. She feels uneasy he’s so close to her. She tries to swim away from him. He lets her get a distance from him, then when he’s sure nobody is looking, he dives under.
He swims to where she is and pulls her legs down. We see her struggle to get free of him, but she eventually is drowned. He manages to swim off and is on the other end of the shore when another swimmer sees her lifeless body floating on top of the water.
We cut to Jude investigating Kirk Redding’s stabbing. He and Marty try to figure out what happened and search for clues at the gym about who may have done it. Jude then gets a call from Amanda that another death has been reported. Jude drives to the beach to help Amanda, while Marty stays at the gym to finish collecting evidence.
At this point, Jude has no idea the deaths are related and that Lloyd and Ian decided to swap murders. The men think they can’t be tied to the killings since they’re strangers and wouldn’t have discernible motives for wanting each other’s victims to die.
The next afternoon Jude gets the coroner’s report on Buffy and learns there were bruises on her legs and she did not drown on her own. He tells the captain, Marty and Amanda. The captain wants them to explore all leads in the two murders. The captain thinks back to his recent chats with Ian about Buffy.
At the same time, Lloyd is on his way home from work. He pulls up in the driveway of his suburban home and sees Ian visiting with Lloyd’s wife Sheryl. They’re having lemonade on the porch. Ian hasn't said anything he knows about Lloyd. He gave a fake name and reason for being there.
The wife goes inside to make dinner, and Lloyd tells Ian to leave. Ian asks if Lloyd has seen the news. Lieutenant Jude Anthony has no idea who was responsible for the murders they committed. Lloyd wants it to stay that way and convinces Ian to go. As Ian drives off, Lloyd realizes Ian may become a problem like Kirk was, and he doesn’t want problems.
Back at the precinct, Jude and Captain O’Reilly receive a visit from Warren Hollister who fears his son killed Buffy. But a description from someone who saw Lloyd leave the beach does not match the description of Ian Hollister.
We follow Warren to the Hollister mansion. Ian is just getting back from his visit at Lloyd’s house. Warren tells Ian he believes his son is responsible for Buffy Carlisle’s death, and that this will cause new problems since Buffy’s father is connected with dangerous underworld people. Ian laughs in his father’s face and goes to his room.
A call comes in on the house phone from Lloyd who wants to speak to Ian. Ian picks up in his room, while Warren listens on the line downstairs. Warren’s suspicions about Ian’s involvement in Buffy’s death are confirmed, and Warren also hears Ian planning to meet with Lloyd the next day. Lloyd is pretending to be interested in Ian and would like to get together somewhere private. Ian suggests the Hollister boat on Lake Michigan that his father doesn’t use much.
The following afternoon, Jude comes in to the precinct after having lunch at Sonja’s. He goes into his office as the phone rings. It’s Warren Hollister who says the killers are meeting on his boat. Jude asks how Mr. Hollister knows this, but there isn’t time to explain. Warren tells Jude to get down to Navy Pier, and he hangs up. Jude then fills the captain in on the latest developments. Amanda and Marty are out on rounds, but the captain will call them to meet Jude and to provide backup.
We cut to the Hollister boat on Lake Michigan. Warren is on the boat. He puts his cell phone in his pocket and watches from the shadows as his son Ian spends time with Lloyd on the deck. Lloyd suddenly kisses Ian. Ian’s never been kissed by a man before. Lloyd tells Ian he likes it and does it again. But it’s an excuse to get closer and use a rope in his hands to strangle Ian. Meanwhile, Jude and the captain are heading to Navy Pier in a squad car.
We return to the action on the boat. Ian is not sure about Lloyd. He tries to back away, but Lloyd won’t let go. Lloyd is trying to kill him. Just when it looks like Lloyd is successful and Ian is about to die, Warren comes out of the shadows with a gun and shoots Lloyd. Lloyd's body then falls overboard and we see him drop into the swirling water below.
Warren advances as a stunned Ian stands up, in shock at what all has just happened. At the same time, Jude and Captain O’Reilly have arrived at the docks, and are soon joined by Marty and Amanda. The captain observes what happened across the water. He hands some binoculars he is using, to Jude to take a look.
A short time later, the Hollister yacht finishes docking. Warren walks Ian off the boat, and Captain O’Reilly arrests Warren Hollister who is giving himself up for murdering Lloyd Monroe. Ian also confesses to killing Kirk Redding and conspiring with Lloyd to have Buffy murdered. Jude arrests Ian.
All four of them head to the precinct for booking. As the squad car drives off, the camera pulls back and we see Marty and Amanda fishing Lloyd's body out of the water with help from others cops that have arrived.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 6, 2023 15:48:51 GMT
026 The Devil Knows
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Despite her close relationship with Father Adrian Delacruz at the church (she is his former stepmother), Birdie Conwell dabbles in witchcraft. She has been hovering around the precinct for the past five days. She claims she has information that Detective Amanda Fallon and the department could find useful. Amanda is too busy to take her seriously.
The next day a married city politician, Assemblyman Yanni Davalos, is implicated in the murder of a magazine writer. It turns out the writer, Elaine Irving, was someone last seen by Birdie. Now Amanda and Jude are interested in talking to her. Birdie says Miss Irving was writing an article about the occult and interviewed her on the day of the murder.
Amanda goes to the magazine office to investigate. She meets the editor, Paulina Hudson, who takes her to Elaine Irving’s cubicle. Amanda soon finds notes for the article on Elaine’s computer, which was to be called ‘The Devil Knows.’ However, Amanda realizes that it was not about the occult, but about inner city corruption.
When Amanda returns to the precinct, she shows Jude what she found. They both agree Birdie probably has knowledge of the assemblyman’s comings and goings, and that is why Miss Irving used Birdie as a source. It had nothing to do with Birdie’s interest in witchcraft.
Jude and Amanda go into the captain’s office to tell him what’s going on. The captain is exercising on a new treadmill, since he promised Nenita he’d get himself in better shape before the baby is born. As the sweat pours off him, he listens to what Jude and Amanda tell him. He says he met Davalos at some civic leaders meeting and didn’t like the guy.
While Jude and Amanda go off to make some calls, Bernice shows up. She is still trying to wrap her brain about what happened to Warren and Ian. She offered to get them the best lawyer money could buy, but both are not interested in her help. The captain is getting off the treadmill and drinking some water. He interrupts Bernice and asks if she spoke to their daughter. She nods yes but says Heidi still doesn’t want anything to do with him. Just then, Nenita has shown up and overheard this.
The captain officially introduces Bernice and Nenita to each other, who have never met before this moment. Bernice notices how far along Nenita is and says she will keep trying with Heidi, then leaves. Nenita asks O’Reilly how much time he spent on the treadmill. He says about 15 minutes. She thinks he needs to do another 15 minutes and gets him back on the machine. He continues with more exercise.
We dissolve to the next day at the magazine office. Jude and Amanda show up with more questions for Paulina Hudson, the editor, but learn she has been killed. As Jude and Amanda quickly discover, there were pages missing from the file Amanda found that contained Elaine Irving’s article. Paulina Hudson had copied those pages on to a thumb drive, then deleted them from the original file. She was using the pages on the thumb drive to blackmail Assemblyman Davalos.
Next, we see Jude arrange a leak that gets confidential information to the assemblyman. Davalos realizes due to the anonymous source, that Birdie witnessed his recent killing of Elaine Irving. More importantly, the coroner reports Miss Irving was over four months pregnant at the time of death. Jude and Amanda guess that Davolos was the father of the unborn baby. He killed Paulina Hudson, because it was mentioned on those missing pages that the editor was using to blackmail Davalos. And now he’ll plan to kill Birdie, whom Jude & Amanda are using as bait.
In the following scene, we watch the assemblyman driving downtown in his Cadillac. A short time later, he picks Birdie up outside her rundown section eight apartment under the pretense of taking her for coffee, so they can have a nice talk. But instead, he takes her to a storage shed where Bobo the bum happens to be sleeping off some booze. Jude and Amanda are following at a safe distance. Birdie is rambling in the front seat and doesn’t realize she’s in danger, until they arrive at the shed.
Meanwhile Bobo has woken up and sees the car pull into the shed. Birdie figures out that Davalos is about to kill her. She hops out of the car and tries to get away. She is shouting a weird voodoo spell, asking that a great spirit strike Davalos dead where he stands.
Just then, as he moves closer to her in order to finish her off, Bobo appears out of nowhere and tackles him. This is followed by Jude and Amanda pulling up outside. They burst in. They are forced to shoot Davalos when he gets the upper hand with Bobo and is about to kill Bobo. Soon Davalos is dead, and Bobo is free. Birdie runs over to make sure Bobo is okay. She tells him his bravery saved her life.
In the next scene paramedics arrive to take Davalos’ body away. Jude and Amanda give Birdie and Bobo a ride back to Birdie’s place. On the way there, Birdie tells Bobo that the devil knows she was frightened for her life. But fortunately, god came through at the end.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 7, 2023 19:45:13 GMT
027 Halfway to Redemption
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Mitch Kellogg is a 35 year-old man that was convicted almost a year ago for child molestation. As the episode begins, his conviction is overturned thanks to a shrewd lawyer named Natalie Lenox, and he is soon on the streets. Jude and Marty are handling crowd control when there is a huge public backlash outside the district attorney’s office.
At the same time we see a group of feminists angrily confront Miss Lenox near her apartment. They tell her that she has helped a dangerous man go free that will continue to hurt young girls. Channel 2 news reporter Ashley Clark and her cameraman try to get Natalie to make a comment. But Natalie just goes up the steps and into her apartment without making any comment. Inside, she is reunited with Mitch. We see that she loves Mitch, and she believes in his innocence, no matter what anyone else thinks or says.
The next morning, we cut to a Chicago area public elementary school. Dean Webster pulls up in a minivan. He’s a 30 year old shoe store salesman dropping his 7 year-old daughter, Hannah, off at school. Hannah’s mother died a few weeks ago, and Hannah is all he has in the world. He reminds Hannah that her Aunt Nora will pick her up after school, and she will have a sleepover with her cousin. After Hannah goes into the school, Dean calls his boss and says he’s not feeling well and will be staying at home today. But he doesn’t exactly go back home.
In the next scene, we see Mitch Kellogg at Natalie Lenox’s apartment. Natalie has headed off to court on another case, and Mitch decides to go for a run and enjoy being a free man again. As he jogs through a nearby park, he realizes someone is following him in a car. That someone is Dean Webster.
Soon the two men have a confrontation in the park, and Mitch accuses Dean of stalking him. Dean says that Mitch belongs behind bars, and he is going to make sure Mitch gets what is coming to him. We learn in this exchange that Dean’s daughter Hannah was apparently Mitch’s victim last year. Dean and his late wife were having marital problems, and she was involved with Mitch. Dean believes that during an evening when his wife left Hannah alone with Mitch, that is when she was molested.
Mitch says he doesn’t dispute that Hannah was harmed, but he claims he did not do it. He is innocent, and Natalie Lenox believes in him. But Dean insists that Mitch is guilty. He cannot let go of the fact that Mitch was released from prison. The confrontation ends when Natalie drives up. She finished with court early and was on her way home. She tells Dean to stay away from her client. She takes Mitch back to her place, and they discuss how to avoid Dean and the media.
That evening, while Natalie is making dinner, she sends Dean to Harper’s corner market to get a bottle of wine. Mr. Harper refuses to sell anything to Mitch. Everyone in the area seems to disagree with Natalie and think the same way Dean Webster does, that Mitch is guilty. Mitch’s phone rings; it’s Natalie. She would also like Mitch to get some candles.
Mitch says he’s being refused service at the store. Natalie wants to speak to Mr. Harper. She explains she has just finished a nice meal and she needs the wine and candles. The sooner he sells those items to Mitch the sooner he will leave Harper’s store. Against his better judgment, Mr. Harper agrees to the sale.
As Mitch walks back to the apartment, we see Natalie getting wine glasses out of the cabinet. She has finished setting the table. The buzzer sounds, and it’s Mitch down front. He forgot his key. She goes to ring him in, and just as she does that, Mitch is gunned down. The assailant is someone in a car who quickly speeds away.
In the next part of the story, Jude gets directly involved in the case. He has come to the apartment building with Marty to find evidence as to who shot and killed Mitch Kellogg. Jude asks Miss Lenox some questions, though she is almost too distraught to speak. Natalie knows in her gut that Dean Webster killed Mitch. She tells Jude about a recent confrontation she came across at the neighborhood park that involved Dean threatening Mitch.
In the following scenes, Marty speaks to several of Natalie Lenox’s neighbors. It turns out there were two witnesses. The witnesses are teenagers who were making out on some steps outside; they saw the man in the car who killed Mitch. He fits Dean’s description. Based on their eyewitness testimony Jude has Marty go to the Webster home and arrest Dean.
When Dean is brought into the precinct to be booked, he doesn’t deny murdering Mitch Kellogg. He feels he was right to take a child molester’s life. The captain has Jude lock Dean up, while Ashley Clark tries to get in and interview Dean. We see how much Ashley hates the police in these scenes, and when Jude denies her the chance to see Dean, she makes a vicious remark about it to her cameraman.
Later, as Ashley’s piece airs on the evening news without her interviewing Dean, she makes it seem like Jude and the detectives at the precinct are the bad guys, not Dean. Captain O’Reilly is not happy about this but he tells the mayor that he backs Jude’s decision in not allowing Miss Clark to speak to Dean.
The following morning, Jude and the captain are dealing with a new development. A woman has come into the precinct to speak to them. We learn that she is Dean’s sister, Nora. She is looking after little Hannah. She says that her ex-husband Owen is the one who molested Hannah. That is why she divorced him.
In the next scene, Natalie Lenox has arrived at the precinct. She hears the rest of Nora’s story in Jude’s office. Apparently, when Mitch Kellogg watched Hannah one night a year ago the girl was not harmed. But early the next morning, when Hannah went to stay with Nora because there was no school in session, that is when she and her cousin Maizie were molested.
In a flashback we see Nora had gone to the next-door apartment for coffee and left Hannah and Maizie with her then-husband Owen, who was unemployed and home all day. He is the one who harmed the girls. Nora was afraid to say anything, and now that Mitch Kellogg is dead, she had to come forward and speak up.
Natalie is numbed by Nora’s version of events. She knew Mitch was innocent. On her way out of the precinct she stops by the cell where Dean is being held for murdering Mitch. She cannot say anything because her grief is too enormous. She then exits the precinct and walks to Sonja’s coffee shop. As Dewey takes Natalie’s order, she looks up at the TV on the wall. Ashley Clark is on the screen.
Ashley has just learned from her sources that Mitch Kellogg was not guilty, and that Dean Webster killed an innocent man. Ashley is now at the door of an apartment where the real child molester lives. She knocks and a man named answers. It is Owen.
Ashley shoves a microphone in his face. He says his ex-wife is making up stories, that Mitch Kellogg was the culprit. Their interview is interrupted as Jude and Marty pull up. They get out of the squad car and push past Ashley and her cameraman to arrest Owen. Back at the coffee shop, Natalie sits down with her drink. Dewey asks if she will defend that man on TV, the actual molester. Natalie says no.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 8, 2023 15:26:00 GMT
028 The Reality of Murder
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Gloria Dawson is Jude’s ex-girlfriend, the actress we first saw in ‘One Way Ticket to Freedom.’ Since her daughter Becky killed a producer, Gloria became fodder for the tabloids and movie offers dried up. A few months ago, she bounced back with a reality television series. She is in town filming a special episode for the show. On camera, she recalls her daughter’s arrest a year ago and how that involved Jude Anthony, whom she coyly suggests could be Becky’s father.
During a break in filming, she meets a man named Guy Trudeau in her hotel room and they make love. We learn that he is a model she met in Los Angeles. He is the same age as Gloria’s daughter. Gloria’s agent feels it would help gain even more ratings if she asked Guy to appear on the show and reveal their relationship, to play up the cougar angle. She is afraid that Guy could outshine her and become the star instead of her.
The next day, we see Jude and Marty handling crowd control during filming outside the precinct. Gloria is doing a dramatic re-enactment of the time Jude arrested Becky and brought her in for booking. There is a very bad actress playing the part of Becky and someone who keeps flubbing his lines playing Jude.
When Amanda arrives to help, she wants to know who will be playing her; after all, she was part of Becky’s arrest, too. Gloria overhears this and apologizes. She says that due to budgetary reasons, they eliminated Amanda from the re-enactment. And no offense, but Gloria and her agent just didn’t feel Amanda was an interesting enough character. They will give her a pass to the wrap party at the end of the season to prevent any hard feelings. Amanda vows never to watch the show or support it in any way.
We then cut to a scene with Gloria’s boy-toy lover, Guy. He is on his way to meet a woman who happens to be his estranged wife. But at a stoplight, he discovers someone else is in the back of his rental car. The person holds him at gunpoint and tells him to keep driving. The guy with the gun is named Oscar, and he forces Guy to drive to south of the city to a remote hideout. At the hideout, Guy is tied up and told to phone Gloria. Terms of ransom are explained, and Gloria has 24 hours to get the money together, or else Guy will not be back in her arms anytime soon.
In the next part of the story, we see Gloria trying to get the funds together. Her agent knows what has happened, and he’s arranged for the crew to shoot scenes without Gloria, while she goes to the bank. When she returns to the hotel with the cash and waits for more instructions from the kidnapper, she gets a visitor. It’s Guy’s wife Michelle Trudeau.
Michelle wants her husband back. We learn that Gloria and Michelle have been through this before, and Gloria has no intention of giving up Guy. Michelle doesn’t even relent when Gloria admits Guy has been abducted and she’s doing everything in her power to get him back safely.
The kidnapper makes contact again and Gloria’s allowed to speak briefly to Guy, so she knows he’s still alive. Oscar says he will kill Guy if the money is not at the drop off point at the designated time. He hangs up.
Meanwhile, we see that the agent has told Jude about what’s going on. Jude and Marty show up at Gloria’s hotel suite just after Michelle leaves. They tell Gloria that their team will be close by when she makes the drop with the ransom money. Jude assures Gloria that nothing will go wrong. As soon as she has placed the money and walks off, they will move in on the man who comes forward to take it.
We then cut back to the hideout, as Michelle pulls up. We learn she is actually in cahoots with Oscar. They are lovers, and she masterminded this whole thing. She knew Gloria would never give her husband up. Since Michelle doesn’t need Guy anymore, and since his life is worth a huge amount to Gloria, this is all going to work in Michelle and Oscar’s favor. When Gloria makes the ransom drop, they will have more than enough to live on for the rest of their lives.
As they talk, Guy has started to regain consciousness after being chloroformed by Oscar. He witnesses the end of their conversation and he tells Michelle that he knows deep down she still wants to reconcile with him—that she loves him and not Oscar. He says if she gets rid of Oscar, he will give up Gloria to go away with her and the money. Michelle has to think it over. What if it’s a trick and she can’t trust him?
Oscar definitely thinks it’s a trick. He tells Michelle that the minute she unties Guy, he will go back to Gloria. But Michelle is desperate to believe Guy still wants her. She decides to kill Oscar to prove to Guy that she will do anything for him. She doesn’t untie Guy, but she does loosen the ropes a bit so he can get some feeling and circulation back into his hands. Then she puts on a wig and goes to the ransom drop to get the money that Gloria is delivering.
At the drop site, Jude and his team move in on Michelle when she makes a play for the money. She quickly realizes she’s cornered and pulls out a gun. She starts shooting, and she is fired upon. When her disguise is removed, Gloria verifies that it’s Michelle Trudeau. The reality TV show crew is filming all of it with their cameras. Gloria asks where Guy is, but Michelle refuses to say anything as she dies. Jude has Marty look for clues in Michelle’s car as to where the hideout might be.
Back at the hideout, Guy manages to get free and hurries along the roadside to hitch a ride. Soon a woman named Corabell comes along in a truck and takes him to her nearby farm. She hasn’t had a man since her boyfriend Zeke went to Chicago and never came back. She instantly likes Guy and sees he has potential. She decides to keep Guy on her property because she really needs a man. When Guy tries to escape from her, she stops him with a shotgun. He tells her that he’s the lover of Gloria Dawson, but she doesn’t believe him. He convinces her to let him call Gloria, and she realizes he’s right when she hears Gloria’s voice on the phone—that it’s the same woman in the movies and on TV.
Meanwhile, Jude and Marty have found the hideout and are tracking Guy to Corabell’s farm. There is a standoff, and Corabell says she will not give Guy back unless they can find Zeke in Chicago and convince him to come back to her. Gloria hears about this and goes before the cameras and makes a desperate plea for a man with Zeke’s description to come forward. It turns out that Corabell’s boyfriend Zeke is the same guy who was playing Jude in the re-enactment earlier with Gloria. Of course he’s using a stage name now. He realizes that he has no real talent as an actor, and that he misses farm life. He decides to go back to Corabell, and that will enable Guy to come back to Gloria.
We cut to the farm. Jude refuses to make a deal with Corabell, and he tells her they’re going to smoke her out with tear gas if she doesn’t surrender and turn over Guy. But it doesn’t get to that, because suddenly Zeke and Gloria drive up. Zeke goes inside to be reunited with Corabell, while Guy comes out and is reunited with Gloria.
Gloria says her career doesn’t mean as much to her as Guy does. She informs her agent that she is going to give up her reality show at the end of the season. The agent throws his hands up in the air then turns to Jude. He asks Jude if he ever considered doing a cop show. Jude laughs and says they couldn’t pay him enough to star in his own show.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 9, 2023 15:25:26 GMT
029 Jerry from Mr. Harper's Corner Market
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
As this episode begins we see Jude playing basketball with some inner city guys. They are in their late teens and early 20s. Most of them have had past arrests, but they were minor offenses and these guys are trying to stay legit now. Father Adrian Delacruz from Holy Name has recently joined Jude and the guys in their weekly games, and he counsels some of them.
This story mainly involves one of the young men, who would be about 20. He is a bit different than the others. His name is Jerry Wilczek, and he is somewhat slow mentally. He was never diagnosed as being learning disabled, but chances are he might be.
Jerry had a shoplifting incident not long ago, and as Jude explains to Delacruz, it was more a case of accidentally forgetting to pay for something. The owner of the corner grocery store, Lewis Harper (first seen in season 1’s ‘Birdie and Bobo’ and most recently in ‘Halfway to Redemption’) ended up letting Jerry pay for the item and Jerry now does odd jobs at Harper’s business.
Jerry is a pretty good ball player, so the other guys tolerate him, though he says immature things sometimes. After today’s game, we see Jude drop Jerry off on the way home. We follow Jerry up the steps into the apartment building where he lives with his Aunt Vera, who is in her late 40s. As she serves Jerry some dinner, we learn that it would have been the birthday of Jerry’s mother who died eight months ago. Jerry sure misses his mother.
In a flashback, we depict Jerry witnessing his mom’s death. She was an innocent bystander who got in the way of a robbery at a gas station. Jerry went to get the police, and by the time he got back, his mother was dead. Another short scene shows Aunt Vera taking Jerry in and telling him not to let Jude or anyone know he witnessed his mother’s death, since the killer might track him to her place.
We then have another short flashback scene, of the time Jerry was accused of shoplifting. During the altercation he wanted to tell Jude he saw who killed his mother, but Aunt Vera stepped in and prevented it.
Out of the flashback, Jerry has just finished his food and Aunt Vera washes his plate. She asks Jerry about the basketball game, and what he has planned for tomorrow. He says he’s got another small job to do for Mr. Harper at the corner grocery. Since Mrs. Wilczek’s death and the shoplifting incident, Jerry has been taking jobs with Mr. Harper and with other business owners in the neighborhood to save money.
In the next scene, Jerry is in his bedroom counting the money he has saved up so far. It is close to one thousand dollars. Aunt Vera advises he put it into a savings account at the bank where she works. But he is going to spend it. She asks what he plans to spend it on, but he won’t say.
The next day, after Jerry finishes at Mr. Harper’s store, we see him meet a friend named Len Stanton. Len is one of the guys on the basketball team, and Jude has been keeping a close eye on him, because word reached Jude at the precinct that Len is up to no good again. As Jerry and Len talk on the sidewalk, Jude pulls up to get some gum at the store. He reminds the guys they are going to have a special game on Saturday at the church school playground. Jerry says he can’t wait.
As Jude buys the gum inside, he bumps into Birdie who is checking lottery numbers and getting more tickets. She says the most she ever won was $100 but she spent it on more chances to win. She just knows she’s going to hit that million-dollar jackpot some day. She gets a bit testy, when she thinks Lewis Harper has cheated her on the change owed to her. But with Jude’s help, she realizes Mr. Harper didn’t cheat her and she apologizes. She says a lady must apologize when she is wrong. We then see her tuck the new tickets into her bra. Jude reacts, and Birdie exits.
After Birdie goes, Jude asks Mr. Harper how Jerry is doing with various odd jobs at the store. Mr. Harper says Jerry has been very diligent and he is considering keeping him on full time. Jude is glad to hear that. Mr. Harper says he’s going to close the store for an hour on Saturday, so he can go over to watch the basketball game. He will bring some thirst quenchers. Jude appreciates that. Jude then returns to his car, and as he gets in and drives off, he sees Len walking with Jerry down the next block. He doesn’t exactly like the idea of Jerry hanging out with Len.
A few minutes later, Jerry and Len have arrived in front of the building where Jerry lives with Aunt Vera. We learn in their conversation, that Len is going to do a job for Jerry. It will cost a thousand dollars. Jerry says he only has $988 and he won’t have the other twelve bucks until Mr. Harper pays him tomorrow. But Len says he’ll take the 988. He waits outside on the front steps while Jerry goes inside to get the cash he saved up. Aunt Vera sees him take the wad of bills and asks what he’s doing. He says he is buying what he’s been saving up for.
Outside, when Jerry returns to the front steps, he hands the wad to Len. Len counts it, and we find out that Len is going to eliminate the guy that killed Mrs. Wilczek eight months ago. Based on the description Jerry gave him, it could be anyone. Some random guy walks by them on the sidewalk. Len asks Jerry if he’s the one, and Jerry is a bit confused, but then Len convinces him that’s the man. Len will follow him and take care of it. Jerry tells him not to hurt the man too much. But Len laughs and says murder is going to hurt no matter how it’s done.
We see Jerry go upstairs for dinner but he can’t eat anything. Aunt Vera asks what is wrong and Jerry’s conscience gets the best of him. He tells his aunt what he’s just done. He doesn’t want some innocent man to get killed. Vera calls the precinct and Jude comes over. Jerry gets in the squad car with Jude and they drive around looking for Len. Soon they find Len practicing basketball at the church school playground. Jude asks Len if what Jerry has said is true. Len says he didn’t kill anyone. He pulls the money out of his pocket and hands it over. He was going to give it back to Jerry tomorrow.
While this conversation occurs, Jerry is staring at Len. He is very upset. But it’s not because Len didn’t kill that man on the street. It’s because he is having a flashback to the robbery where his mother was shot. He now remembers who killed her. Mrs. Wilczek’s murderer was actually—Len! Jerry suddenly blurts this out, and Len tells Jude that Jerry is mentally disturbed. Everyone knows that about him. Jude doesn’t think so.
Jerry is remembering clearly what happened to his mother eight months ago. Len pushes Jerry down and then tries to run off. But he doesn’t get too far, because Jude takes off after Len. He reaches him and tackles Len to the ground. Soon Len is being handcuffed, read his rights and placed inside the squad car. Jerry thinks it all is very exciting. It’s like The Files of Steve Cade, a TV cop show Jerry watches each week with Aunt Vera.
In the next scene, Jerry has finished making an official statement at the precinct and Len has been booked by Amanda. Aunt Vera comes by to pick up Jerry; that is if he’s free to go. Yes, Jude says, Jerry is free. Before Jerry goes, he asks if he will get his $988 back. Amanda says the money will be held for evidence against Len, but eventually it will be returned.
Jerry says he figured out how he will spend it. He is going to use some of it on flowers for his mother’s grave; he’s also going to buy a new basketball; then he’s going to have Aunt Vera put the rest into a savings account for him at the bank. Amanda and Jude agree that sounds smart. As Vera takes Jerry home, Jude says will pick Jerry up on Saturday for the game. They are going to beat Father Delacruz and the other team.
The last scene is the ball game on Saturday afternoon. Aunt Vera is sitting in the bleachers. She is next to Sister Agnes and Mr. Harper. They are watching the guys on the court. Jude and Father Delacruz are fiercely competitive and so are the boys. The final image is Jerry making a three-point shot.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 10, 2023 16:13:29 GMT
030 Smart People and Dumb People
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
In this story, we learn what Sugar has been up to since Tiger died and she bought the motel from Mr. Thakker. Most noticeably, she has remodeled it with the help of a pudgy banker named Arnie Harris who seems to be more than a bit smitten with her.
She has also hired some new girls since Misty and Tiffany were killed. These gals are bit more high class, or at least they think so, and when Jude stops by one day he sees that Sugar’s business is no longer cheap hookers, but pricy escorts. This new angle puts her in a league with wealthier men, like Arnie Harris. And the businessmen who now stay at the motel are more powerful and more dangerous.
The reason Jude has visited on this particular day is because he needs Sugar’s help in nabbing a very high-powered contractor named Flavio. For weeks Flavio has been stringing Sugar along, using her and her girls and not paying what he owes. He claims he has a big deal in the works and the money will be rolling in anytime now. Jude tells Sugar that Flavio does have a deal in the works, but it involves the smuggling of nuclear weapons.
After some persuasion, Sugar agrees to help Jude by turning state’s evidence on Flavio. But soon an attempt is made on her life, and Jude realizes Flavio or one of his cohorts must have found out from one of the other girls at the motel that Sugar had talked to the police about Flavio’s business. But if Flavio Nero did want Sugar killed, it cannot be proved, because he has an airtight alibi. Flavio was nowhere near Sugar’s motel room the night the attempt was made to take her out.
Meanwhile, Sugar’s loyalties are divided between Jude and Flavio, when Flavio insists he loves her. He says he wants her to become his wife. But Sugar is not sure he’s sincere and she can’t totally trust him.
As this is going on, we see Flavio’s younger brother Rolando around town. He drives a Porsche given to him by his brother. Flavio has been raising Rolando since their parents were killed several years earlier in a plane crash.
Rolando is an angry young man in his early 20s, and for kicks while Flavio is negotiating deals, Rolando steals. His crimes are mostly petty thefts. But he’s too smart for the cops; usually street crooks with rap sheets take the fall for what he does. Marty has had several dealings with Rolando, and he knows the kid is guilty as sin.
One day while speaking to Birdie, Marty learns that Rolando was seen at the motel when shots were fired at Sugar. Marty tells Jude, and they figure they have found the culprit, but they have no motive to pin on Rolando. Flavio seems to be the one with everything to lose, if Sugar turns state’s evidence.
At the same time, Flavio learns what Rolando has done and that Rolando plans to try murdering Sugar again. Flavio is deeply in love with Sugar and warns Rolando to stay clear of Sugar. He tells Rolando there are smart people and there are dumb people. And if Rolando kills Sugar, that will be very dumb, because then Flavio will have to kill Rolando.
But Rolando is not listening. He wants Sugar to die for turning his brother’s attention away from him. In the next part of the story, Rolando shows back up at the motel to kill Sugar. But it’s really Amanda undercover, disguised as Sugar. Flavio doesn’t know this, and before Jude can go in and nab Rolando, Flavio bursts on to the scene and kills his brother before he has a chance to harm Sugar (Amanda). Flavio is hauled away, and Sugar follows him to the precinct.
As Flavio is booked, Sugar promises she will visit him in jail. Flavio would like that but he doesn’t believe her. He hears a voice over of himself telling Rolando about smart people and dumb people. He realizes as he looks over at Sugar, he was pretty dumb about her. In his opinion, all women are trouble.
In the next scene, Sugar is back at the motel. Arnie Harris has shown up to see her. Arnie says his mother is not happy about all the publicity surrounding the Neros. Sugar wants to know why she should care what Mabel Harris thinks.
Arnie tells Sugar that the loan he gave her for improvements on the motel, those were approved by his mother. She’s the one who controls the bank, since Arnie’s father, the chairman of the board, is in a coma. Arnie says his mother is going to call in Sugar’s loan and if she doesn’t pay it off, she will lose the motel.
Sugar has always known that Arnie fancies her and she realizes that if she seduces him, he might speak to his mother and get an extension on the loan. And that is exactly what happens. When Arnie leaves the motel the next morning, he realizes like Flavio Nero that women are trouble, but he sure does like Sugar.
After he drives off, one of the girls comes in and asks Sugar how Arnie was last night. And we see by Sugar’s reaction, that in a strange way, she finds him kind of sweet. Soon another client is on the phone, and Sugar must get back to work. It’s business as usual.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 11, 2023 15:08:43 GMT
031 Marty's Engagement
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Since he was shot last spring, Marty Fredericks has seen life more clearly. He may have less experience than the other cops at the precinct, but he makes up for it in determination. Jude mentors Marty to some extent, the way he has mentored Amanda since she joined the department. But Amanda is more established and needs less guidance. Captain O’Reilly encourages these strong professional relationships.
Marty and Amanda have moved beyond their short-term affair last year, and she has become like a sister to him. But in this episode, she still has some romantic feelings for him. Especially when Marty comes into work one morning and announces he’s getting married to a gal he met two months earlier at a Cubs game. His fiancée's name is Pamela Vickers, and in a flashback, we see how they had a whirlwind courtship after meeting at Wrigley Field.
Out of the flashback, Marty is still being congratulated about his getting married. Amanda stands off to the side, taking in the news.
Meanwhile the captain’s ex-wife Bernice has just stopped by to tell him that she spoke to their daughter Heidi. Heidi will be visiting at Christmastime. Bernice convinced their daughter to spend the holidays with her. The captain is pleased to hear this. The conversation is interrupted when the captain’s wife Nenita shows up. She is due to give birth very soon. Amanda can see that Bernice is having trouble adjusting to how the captain is starting a new family.
In the next scene, Amanda takes Bernice to get coffee at Sonja’s so they can talk during Amanda's break. Bernice says she regrets no longer being with the captain, but she has to live with the choices she made. She tells Amanda not to make the same mistakes she made, if Amanda is afraid of losing Marty. Amanda reacts.
We cut back to the precinct. Marty’s fiancée has just called him. We learn that Pamela lives outside Chicago, and she will be visiting again. She is quite eager to see him again and will be driving up late tonight.
Later, while having drinks with coworkers at Biggie’s bar and grill, Marty gets defensive when it is pointed out by Amanda that he doesn’t know much about Pamela or where she comes from. But he claims he loves her and that’s all that counts. Besides, Marty thinks Amanda is jealous of his newfound happiness. While this goes on, Jude heads out to answer a call about a domestic disturbance.
When Jude arrives at the site of the disturbance, the parties have suddenly made up. Since everyone is now getting along, no charges are being pressed. Jude goes to get in the squad car and he sees a vehicle that pulled in front of him while he was handling the disturbance. It has a broken taillight. He writes a ticket and puts it on the windshield as the driver comes out of a nearby store and asks what the ticket is for.
Jude explains to the man that he has a broken taillight. The man gets upset and mumbles something under his breath about cops as he gets into the car. Jude then asks to see the man’s ID.
Again, the man mumbles under his breath and hands the ID over. As Jude looks at it, he is surprised to see the name on the card is Marek Dembrowski. Your wife’s name Sonja?, Jude asks. Marek says yeah, why does he want to know that? Jude doesn’t answer, but he gets a good look at the man and his car then hands the ID back and tells him to make sure he pays the fine. Yeah, yeah, Marek says and drives off. Jude gets into the squad car. So that’s who Sonja married, he says to himself.
We dissolve to the next morning. At the precinct, Amanda has done some checking and learned that Marty’s fiancée Pamela is from a farm family in Kankakee. Pamela was engaged before, and her dead fiancé was a cop who died under strange circumstances. At the same time Marty is at his apartment with Pamela, who drove up last night. They are having breakfast and being very lovey dovey. He would like to spend the day in bed with her, but needs to get to work.
Back at the precinct, Amanda steps into the captain’s office, since he just arrived. She tells him what she learned about Marty’s fiancée. Jude comes in and hears part of this. Amanda continues voicing her concerns about Pamela Vickers to Jude and to Captain O’Reilly. They look over the reports and agree that Pamela’s previous boyfriend died mysteriously, and they wonder if Marty knows anything about it. We cut back to Marty finishing breakfast with Pamela. He kisses her and heads to work.
Dissolve to a short time later at the precinct Jude calls down to Kankakee and speaks to Sheriff Hank Vickers (first seen in ‘Tiger’s Out’). Hank happens to be Pamela’s uncle. He confirms that Pamela’s previous fiancé was a cop named Harold Bailey. Hank says Harold was killed in a freak accident, and that Pamela had a hard time dealing with it.
In the next scene Jude and the captain have gone off to handle other cases. Amanda is looking through the files. She is convinced that there is more to it than Hank Vickers told Jude. Marty shows up and he asks what all the files are for. Amanda tells him what she’s found out about Pamela.
Amanda believes Pamela was somehow responsible for the death of her first fiancé, Harold Bailey. Marty is upset by all of this info and thinks Amanda isn’t giving Pamela a fair chance.. But Amanda won’t drop any of it, as she has a feeling in her gut that Pamela Vickers may be a cop killer and if so, Marty is next on the list. Marty reacts.
After thinking about what Amanda told him, Marty is still unhappy about her suspicions regarding Pamela. He goes into the captain’s office to complain, but the captain is hurrying out. He just got a call that Nenita went into labor, and he is heading to St. Joseph’s hospital.
In the next part, the captain arrives at the hospital. Some of Nenita’s friends are there. They speak mostly Tagalog. Her cousin Kokoy, who speaks broken English, says something may be wrong with the baby.
Back at the precinct, Amanda has clocked out and left. Since the captain had to leave, Marty complains about Amanda to Jude. But Jude feels that Amanda may be right to look into more of Pamela’s background.
Meanwhile Amanda spends her off-duty time monitoring Pamela’s activities. As she follows Pamela around town, we see Marek’s car again. He pulls up in front of the coffee shop and goes inside. This is the first time Sonja and Marek have been in a scene together. She gives him a kiss and a free coffee. She is glad he’s not on the road so much now and she can see him more often. She senses that he is not in a good mood. He shows her the ticket a cop gave him yesterday for a broken taillight. She notices Jude’s name on the ticket.
We then cut back to Amanda doing surveillance on Marty’s fiancée. At first, Amanda does not seem to uncover anything strange. Maybe Marty is right, that she’s obsessing about Pamela, because she still has a thing for Marty. She decides to stop tailing Pamela and go home. But after Amanda drives off, we see Pamela at Grant Park. She is waiting to meet someone.
At the precinct Sonja comes in to talk to Jude about the ticket he wrote Marek. But Marty says Jude is not here. He went to the hospital to offer emotional support to the captain.
We go to the hospital where Jude has arrived and finds Captain O’Reilly. The captain has just gotten news from the doctor that his and Nenita’s baby was stillborn. Off to the side, Kokoy helps the doctor relay this news to Nenita’s friends. Jude consoles the captain who dreads having to go into Nenita’s room and see her, since he doesn’t know what to say. Jude tells him he'll find the right words.
We follow the captain into his wife’s room. Nenita is visibly upset, having just found out the baby died. The captain sits beside her and she sobs gently, as he tells her that he loves her.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 12, 2023 14:09:46 GMT
032 Love and Marriage
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
We start at the precinct. Jude has just returned from the hospital. He tells Marty and the secretaries that the captain and his wife lost their baby, and the captain is taking the rest of the day off. Bernice has just called to ask the captain about something, and Jude takes the call. He asks if he can meet her later. She realizes it sounds serious.
In the next scene Jude is meeting Bernice at Sonja’s coffee shop. He tells her that the captain and Nenita lost the baby, and that he’s afraid the captain may start drinking again. Bernice realizes Jude may be right, and she knows where she can probably find him. As she thanks Jude and leaves, Dewey tells Jude that Sonja’s been wanting to speak to him. He goes to get Sonja who is in the storage room.
A few moments later Sonja steps out and figures her hair must be a mess. But Jude thinks she looks as beautiful as ever. Sonja says she went by the precinct earlier to talk to him. She wants to ask why he gave her husband a ticket. Jude smiles and says Marek got a ticket for a broken taillight and anyone with a broken light would have gotten a ticket. He reminds Sonja that she never introduced him to her husband, and he had no idea who Marek was until Marek showed him his ID.
Sonja thinks Jude could have given Marek a warning, not an actual citation. Jude senses how miffed she is, but he was just doing his duty. Marek comes in, and he learns his wife was going to bat for him. He kisses Sonja and says he already sent in the money for the fine. He is not going to contest it, though it’s clear he doesn’t really like Jude. It is equally clear that Jude doesn’t like Marek.
In the next scene Jude has left the coffee shop and he’s gone to catch up with Amanda at her place. She tells Jude that she tailed Pamela Vickers but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. At the same time we see Pamela at Grant Park meeting up with a questionable looking man. His name is Wayne Popkins.
Back at Amanda’s, Jude tells Amanda about the captain’s baby. Amanda feels bad for their boss and Nenita. We then cut to Biggie’s bar and grill where the captain is demanding that Biggie serve him a drink. Biggie knows the captain is a recovering alcoholic and doesn’t want to help him fall off the wagon. Biggie gives the captain an iced tea on the house.
As the captain grumbles, Bernice comes in and sits beside him. She said Jude told her what happened. She is here as a friend. Tears well up in the captain’s eyes. In an uncharacteristic show of emotion in this usually stoic man, he tells Bernice that at first he didn’t like Nenita getting pregnant but once he got used to the idea, it became something he was looking forward to very much. The baby that died was a boy. Bernice knows what it means to lose a son.
In the next scene Bernice is walking the captain to his car. He is not drunk, but she still wants him to call her when he gets home, so she knows he went home and not back to work to forget his troubles. He affectionately touches her hand and is thankful they are still friends. She reminds him that he will see Heidi at Christmastime. He is looking forward to it. They both get into their cars and drive off as the sun sets.
Dissolve to a sunrise. The next day is Saturday, and a wedding rehearsal is held for Marty and Pamela at Holy Name Cathedral. Pamela’s uncle Hank and Pamela’s mother Deirdre are in attendance. So is Jude, since he’s agreed to be Marty’s best man.
After the rehearsal, everyone goes to Biggie’s for some food. They do not realize an unknown assailant is following Marty. It’s Wayne Popkins, and he fires a few shots at Marty. Marty is not hit, but Popkins gets away before anyone can see him. Except Pamela, who sees him clearly. She tells her Uncle Hank she knows what Wayne is up to, and she’s scared.
Amanda suspects that Pamela Vickers knows who shot at Marty. But when Marty and Jude talk to Pamela, they have no reason to believe she’s lying when she says she doesn’t know anything. Amanda is frustrated and she is not going to watch Marty’s life put in danger. She is not going to stand idly by and do nothing.
We cut to Sonja at the coffee shop. She just came by to check something, though today is Dewey’s day in charge. It is said she has plans with Marek who is meeting her after she gets a manicure. She will take an order over to the precinct on her way.
We then go with Sonja to the precinct. She brings a coffee in to the captain. He says he agrees with Jude that her coffee is better than anyone’s. She thanks him and starts to leave. She bumps into Jude who is just coming in. He wants a word with her. She has an appointment at the manicurist’s and is running late. He says it won’t take long.
Sonja follows Jude into his office as he takes his coat off. He asks her if she’s truly happy being married to that guy. She says that guy’s name is Marek, and yes she is happy in her marriage to Marek Dembrowski. She realizes Jude and Marek did not meet under ideal circumstances, but she insists her husband is a good guy.
We then cut to Marek along the waterfront. He is waiting to meet with his boss, mobster Antonio Salerno. A car pulls up and one of Salerno’s guys, a kid named Joey Sheridan, walks over. He says something came up with Salerno’s family and the meeting is rescheduled for later. But he hands Marek a paper. These are the things Salerno wants them to do today. Marek stares at the list. Some of it is abbreviated and written in code, especially item number 3, which is a murder. Item 2 involves something with Salerno’s rival Ernie D’Amico.
We have a quick flashback of the scene from ‘The Long and Deadly Night’ where a shadowy figure was meeting Ernie at a warehouse. We add a few more seconds of new footage to that scene to reveal the shadowy figure was Marek, who appeared to be working for D’Amico. But it’s a double-cross because Marek is working for Salerno with Joey.
Back in the present, Marek gets a call from Sonja who is leaving the precinct. It’s clear she did not enjoy her recent chat with Jude. She is on her way to the manicurist. She can’t wait to spend the day with Marek. But he says plans have changed. His boss just gave him some important stuff to do. Sonja is disappointed. The call ends and as she gets into her car, she looks at the precinct. She is not going to let Jude or Marek ruin her day and she goes to the manicurist anyway.
Inside the precinct Jude is telling the captain that someone took a shot at Marty earlier, but he’s okay. Amanda is somewhere following a lead, and Marty is with her. The captain doesn’t like finding out this happened well after the fact. Jude says everyone thought he was still grieving the loss of his son. The captain reacts.
We go back to Sonja, who arrives at the manicurist’s shop. As she steps inside and removes her coat, we see Marty’s fiancée Pamela is also there at one of the stations getting her nails done. Pamela pays and leaves.
In the next scene as Pamela exits the manicurist’s shop and gets into her car, Amanda is once again following her around town. Only this time Marty is also in the car with Amanda, because he has now begun to suspect Pamela.
A short time later Amanda and Marty observe Pamela stopping along the waterfront to meet Wayne Popkins. They are not close enough to hear what is being discussed. During the encounter, Pamela tells Wayne she knows he shot at Marty, and she wants him to leave town. She will not protect him this time if something goes wrong.
Meanwhile, back at the precinct, Jude and the captain try to reach Amanda and Marty. The captain wants them to return to the precinct.
Awhile later, Amanda and Marty have returned to the precinct. They fill the captain and Jude in on the man Pamela was meeting. Jude had gotten a glimpse of the guy when Marty was shot at. Something about the guy rings a bell for Amanda who goes to find all those files she looked at.
She finds the right file and returns with it. The captain, Jude and Marty learn the man Pamela met, the shooter, is Wayne Popkins. He is another one of Pamela’s old boyfriends. Amanda’s theory is that Wayne never got Pamela out of his system. Anytime she marries someone (she gravitates towards cops for protection), Wayne decides to murder them so he can have Pamela all to himself. Marty then dials Pamela and asks her to come down to the precinct.
In the next scene, Pamela is in the captain’s office and she confirms that Amanda’s theory is correct. Wayne is a menace and something has to be done about him. She says that her Uncle Hank usually keeps tabs on Wayne. Marty is hurt that Pamela never told him any of this before. Pamela was hoping Wayne had changed but after a shot was taken at Marty, she knew that was never going to be possible. Pamela agrees to cooperate in order to lure Wayne out into the open.
A short time later Pamela has set up a meeting with Wayne at the waterfront again. She lies to him that she loves him and wants to be with him. He says he will get rid of Marty so they can be together. He is clearly deranged. He sees Marty approaching, and he takes out a gun to kill Marty. But then Jude comes up behind and tells him to drop it. Wayne fires at Marty anyway, and Marty barely dodges the bullet. Jude is forced to kill Wayne, and a very shaken Pamela is comforted in Marty’s arms. He assures her it is all over now.
The following day Pamela leaves to go back to Kankakee. She believes she’s hurt Marty enough. He’s heartbroken when he sees her off at the train station. He says that he will still marry her if she ever changes her mind. As she boards the train and takes her seat, we see that she is seriously contemplating changing her mind and running back to him. But then she realizes this is the right thing to do, at least for now. Marty watches the train leave in the final shot.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 13, 2023 15:39:56 GMT
033 Family Relations
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
Marty is still trying to get over breaking up with his fiancee Pamela, and he’s been playing pool at Biggie’s after one of his shifts. Amanda comes in and sees him. Marty has had a few beers and shouldn’t drive. Amanda drives him home They end up having sex. But the following morning they realize it was a mistake.
Marty decides he just needs to focus on work again. He and Amanda try to avoid each other around the precinct since it’s awkward, but Jude wants them both to work together on a case with the FBI. This means getting in touch with FBI agent Sheila Hendrix again. Marty recalls when he worked with her on the Ondray Forbes case last spring. He brings Amanda up to speed on some of it as they drive to a building on State Street where Sheila has an office.
Meanwhile back at the precinct, Jude receives a call from his Uncle Jim. Jim is on his boat in San Diego, where he lives. He mentions the upcoming holidays. It would be nice if Jude went to Oak Haven to visit Kathryn. Jude feels uncomfortable discussing his mother but agrees for Jim’s sake to go see Kathryn if he has time. In the next scene Jude is out on rounds and he stops at Holy Name Cathedral to speak to Sister Agnes.
Jude asks if it’s a good idea to visit his mother, and Sister Agnes says yes. It will be good not only for Kathryn but for Jude as well. Again Jude doesn’t fully commit to the idea and says he will go to Oak Haven if he has time. Agnes believes he will make time because it’s important.
We go to Sheila Hendrix’s office at the State Street location. She is telling Marty and Amanda about what was found when some of her people went through the farm house that Ondray Forbes owned outside of the city. Marty recalls what Sheila told her before (a flashback from the end of ‘Nightmare Maker, Part 2’) about how there were two boys that were never returned by Ondray. One that Sheila suspected was Angel, whom Ondray raised, and another one, named Rudy, that was murdered.
Sheila says they did find more clues about what happened to Rudy, who was forcibly choked to death. There were pictures in the farm house that were probably taken by Angel but some of them were too blurry, and it looked like Ondray was doing stuff to Rudy with the help of another man about the same age.
Amanda asks Sheila if they know who the other man was. Sheila says they do not have definite proof but she suspects it is a man who owns a pornography empire on the west coast. His name is Melvin Wexler. Sheila says Wexler has been under her team’s surveillance for years because it has been thought that part of his business involves child pornography. But she says Wexler is smart and stays one step ahead of the feds. Also Wexler keeps tabs on her agents. However, Wexler would not know Marty and Amanda and they might be successful undercover.
In the next part Marty and Amanda are back at the precinct. They tell Jude and Captain O’Reilly about the job they will be doing with Sheila. It is said that Melvin Wexler has a branch of offices here in the city and will be arriving in Chicago tomorrow. The captain advises them to be careful since he’s heard Wexler is dangerous. As Marty and Amanda are about to leave, Jude asks if Sheila ever found out what Angel’s real name is. Marty says they asked Sheila but she side-stepped the subject. Jude reacts.
The next day Marty and Amanda are undercover as a couple eager to sell children to Melvin. He says he does not use children for his legal adult pornography business. But they don’t believe him. They continue to try to set up a deal with him, but Melvin is too suspicious. He then grabs Amanda’s blouse and feels a wire in her bra. He tells them both to get out. We cut to Sheila in her office listening to the conversation. She is frustrated that Melvin is wise to them.
Later Sheila meets up with Marty and Amanda at Grant Park. She says their sting operation may have failed but she has another idea. She believes there is someone else that can flush Melvin Wexler out. She will tell them more about it the next time they meet.
In the next part of the story it is Sunday. Jude speaks to Sonja who convinces him to go see his mother, since he has the day off and no other plans. He says he wanted to stay home and watch football. But she says his mother is more important. He gives in, mostly because this will get her, Uncle Jim, Sister Agnes and God off his back.
We then cut to Jude arriving at Oak Haven to see Kathryn. They have a strained but civil talk. She seems to be doing better now and indicates she may not have to stay here longer. He wasn’t expecting to hear that. During their visit she gets a call from Jim who is happy to learn Jude is there. Jude says he needs to go.
As Jude exits the room, he sees Sheila Hendrix in the hallway. She is heading into another room to meet with Angel. Jude is not able to hear what they are discussing but watches through a large window. It looks intense. On the other side of the window Sheila tells Angel that she knows who he is. He is Johnny Hendrix, her brother.
It is revealed that Sheila’s parents were the ones that did not pay the ransom. They thought they could call Ondray’s bluff. It backfired when Ondray kept Johnny and went off the radar with him. He renamed the boy Angel and raised him. For years the Hendrix family had to live with what happened.
Angel doesn’t deny his real name is Johnny. But he insists to Sheila that he had a good life. Ondray loved him and he loved Ondray, except for the time that Ondray hurt the other boy. Sheila reacts.
She knows Angel is referencing Rudy, the boy who died. She believes Angel is the one who sent partial evidence, with plans to incriminate Ondray but then changed his mind. She says Ondray is dead and there is no need to protect his memory. She then reminds Angel he did the right thing by letting Brody Cranston out of the closet. Brody said Angel was a good guy not a bad guy like Ondray. She wants Angel to help them solve Rudy’s murder. Will he do that?
At this point Angel is becoming very agitated and needs to be medicated. Sheila is asked by a doctor and nurse to leave. She returns to the hallway and finds Jude standing there, having observed everything. He figures Sheila needs to talk. He offers to take her somewhere for a nice dinner.
In the next part Jude and Sheila are at Jude’s place. They eat some frozen TV dinners that Jude popped into the oven. He admits he’s no good as a cook, but he’s a good listener. Sheila opens up to him about Angel and her family connection to Johnny/Angel. Sheila’s parents are now deceased but she wants to strengthen her bond with Angel and believes that when Angel calms down he will help go after Wexler. But Jude isn’t sure Angel will trust Sheila enough to do that.
Jude remembers Marty had a close blond with Angel. Sheila has already thought about that. And she is going to ask Marty to go undercover again, this time without Amanda, as a patient inside Oak Haven.
The following morning Jude and Sheila meet at the precinct with Marty and Amanda. They discuss the plan to get Marty committed and close to Angel. Amanda thinks this is funny, but Marty realizes it may work. The captain is brought up to speed and he gives his approval.
We then cut to the scenes where Marty has been committed at Oak Haven. He has a brief interaction with Kathryn but doesn’t tell her that he works with her son. He is able to start getting close to Angel and says he’s here because of Ondray, which gets Angel’s attention. It doesn’t take much for Marty to convince Angel they need to break out and get Melvin Wexler to admit to killing Rudy, so ] Ondray’s “good” name is cleared.
This is followed by a series of short scenes in which they manage to break out together, with help from a doctor that is in on it after talking to Sheila and Jude. Marty and Angel flee the city and head to the remote farm house that Ondray owned. Angel realizes the place was sold.
The new owner is Melvin Wexler. Melvin is there, overseeing a bit of new construction before he heads back to Los Angeles. He is surprised to see Angel since he knows Angel was committed to a mental institution.
Angel says he wants Melvin to admit to killing Rudy. Melvin insists he didn’t do any such thing and that Ondray went too far and is the one responsible for the boy’s strangulation. Angel recalls that a video was made. The blurry photos he took were of shots from the video.
Melvin says there was no video and Angel’s making things up. But Marty believes Angel. He helps Angel overpower Melvin. They tie up Melvin and search for the video. Angel recalls a safe in one of the other rooms but Melvin says he’s tried to open the safe and only Ondray knew the combination. Marty thinks Angel may know the combination, or can figure it out.
In the next scene Angel is trying to remember numbers that would have been important to Ondray, to open the safe. He tries several different combinations and finally the door to the safe opens. Marty asks which numbers worked. Angels says it was his own birthday, since Ondray liked celebrating his birthday.
Inside the safe they find a phone and Marty grabs hold of it. He asks Angel what his birthday is, and uses those numbers to unlock the phone. He looks and finds a video on the phone, the one that shows how Rudy died. One man in the video was circumcised (Ondray) and the other one was not (Melvin). The uncircumcised man is the one who choked Rudy to death. After pausing the video, Marty calls Sheila, who is at Jude’s office, and tells them what he and Angel found.
In the last part Sheila is visiting Angel again. He has returned to Oak Haven. She says he did the right thing coming back here. Even more importantly he did the right thing helping Marty get proof as to how Rudy died. Melvin Wexler was the one that killed Rudy, not Ondray. And Wexler is going to prison for a long time. Angel tells Sheila he is glad Wexler is getting what he deserves. He is also glad she realizes Ondray was no killer. But Sheila reminds Angel that Ondray still did evil things.
Angel tells her what it was like the day he learned their parents did not pay the ransom and that he’d never go home. Sheila says their father was haunted about the decision he made, until the day he died. Sheila then gets a call and has to go. She promises she will be back to visit. As she exits, Angel watches her leave.
In the next shot Kathryn comes up to Angel and says she never got his name. He says it’s not important. Kathryn still wants to know. Sheila is getting into the elevator in the background. Angel turns from watching the elevator doors close, back to Kathryn. “Call me Ondray,” he says.
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Post by topbilled on Jan 14, 2023 18:03:33 GMT
034 A Holiday to Remember
Outline written by Jarrod McDonald, c) 2023
We start at the precinct. The captain is telling one of the secretaries that his daughter Heidi is flying in today from Boston. She is arriving at O’Hare this morning. As soon as Bernice picks Heidi up, they will call him. He’s excited. Amanda is off to the side and has overheard some of this. She asks how Nenita feels about all of it. The captain doesn’t want to talk about Nenita. Amanda and the secretary let that drop for now.
Off to the side Jude is enjoying his morning coffee. We learn he had a rough night and couldn’t sleep. The captain thinks Jude should take a day off. Just then, they are interrupted by the arrival of Uncle Jim. Jim still knows some of the long-time coppers in the department, so he says hi to a few of the guys. He also says hi to the captain, his old partner, before he follows Jude into Jude’s office. As the door closes, Jim says he’s been to see Jude’s mother at Oak Haven mental institution. They need to talk. Jude reacts.
Jude wasn’t aware Jim was coming to Chicago for Christmas. Jim had frequent flyer miles and got a special deal on a last-minute flight. He thought they could spend the holidays together, like old times. Jude smiles and decides not to say anything negative. Anyway, Jim already dropped off his luggage; the landlady Mrs. Lee said she’d call Jude and put it into his apartment. Jude sees a message from Sylvia Lee on his desk. Yeah, yeah, Jude says. What about Oak Haven?
Jim says Kathryn has been talking about the days when Jude was a boy. Jude is uncomfortable about the past and fails to see what is so urgent about this. Jim says that Kathryn hasn’t been so lucid in a long time. He believes she is almost fully recovered and that if Jude were to go out and see her, he’d agree that Oak Haven is no longer the place for her. Jim thinks they should try to bring her home on Christmas Day.
Jude tells Jim to slow down. He would need to talk to Spencer Hobbes the director of Oak Haven, and some of his mother’s doctors. But he does agree with Jim that he should visit Oak Haven tomorrow, and when the captain comes in to ask about a recently closed case, Jude says he’s going to take the captain up on the offer of a day off.
As Jude and Jim leave, Amanda follows the captain into his office. She notices he’s not wearing his wedding ring. He says Nenita left him after the baby died. Amanda is sorry to hear this. This is interrupted when the captain gets a call from Bernice that she just picked up Heidi, but Heidi is tired. Instead of meeting for lunch, the captain will join them for dinner, after Heidi’s had time to rest.
We stay with Bernice and Heidi in the limo after the call. We reveal that Heidi has cerebral palsy. Back at the precinct, the captain is visited by his estranged wife's cousin, Kokoy. Kokay speaks broken English but still gets his points across. Kokoy says Nenita will come back and urges the captain to just give her time. The captain reacts.
We cut to later that morning, as Jude arrives at Oak Haven. He meets Spencer Hobbes, whom we first saw in ‘Jim’s Girl’ back in season 1. Hobbes leads Jude into a solarium where Kathryn is sitting. After Hobbes exits, Jude speaks to his mother. During their visit, Jude realizes Jim was right; Jude’s mother is much more coherent now and making sense. She doesn’t remember killing Jim’s old hooker girlfriend Lana, though. The conversation seems normal, until Kathryn, knowing Jude is a cop, tells her son that her life is in danger here. She says she overheard a conversation that a fellow patient was going to kill a doctor and escape.
On the way out, Jude goes to Hobbes’ office and questions the director, to see if what his mother mentioned has any remote possibility of coming true. Hobbes assures Jude that Ms. Anthony’s new medication is causing her to ramble and fabricate things. It is certainly not advisable that she leaves Oak Haven, not even on a special day pass for Christmas. Jude understands and will defer to Hobbes’ judgment. Of course, he knows Uncle Jim will be disappointed about it.
Jude leaves, and as he drives back into downtown, he hears a voice-over of what his mother said in the solarium. He feels she was making sense, despite what Hobbes claims, so he is a bit unsure about everything. He pulls up outside the apartment building where he lives. In the next shot, he goes down the front hall to his door, and he can smell some food that was cooked.
He then goes inside and sees Uncle Jim has taken over the apartment. Jim has cleaned out the spare bedroom Jude uses for an office and put some gaudy wall hangings up. Jim says it’s to give the room a homier touch. Again Jude tries not to say anything negative.
Jim invited the widowed landlady Sylvia Lee for dinner, and they just finished enjoying a nice meal he prepared. It’s a new recipe Jim tried. Mrs. Lee says it was delicious, but Jude thinks she’s lying because Uncle Jim’s stuff is never delicious. She probably only said that because she liked having someone to spend time with. Mrs. Lee remembers she has a tenant to check on. Before she goes, she gives Jimbo a peck on the cheek.
After Mrs. Lee exits, Jim wants to know what happened at Oak Haven. Jude tells Jim that Kathryn is apparently on new meds and that she said there is going to be a murder at Oak Haven. Jim asks Jude if he believes it, and Jude says that he can’t shake the feeling his mother’s life might be in danger. Jim thinks the dishes can wait and they need to get to Oak Haven pronto and bust Kathryn out of there. Jude says this is not some caper movie, and they need to proceed with caution.
While they are arguing about this, Jude’s cell phone rings. It’s a call from Spencer Hobbes that Kathryn was just found dead at Oak Haven. Jude and Jim quickly leave and hurry to Oak Haven.
In the next scene, Jude learns that his mother had an allergic reaction to the new medicine. But Jim suspects foul play. Again, Jude says they need to proceed with caution, and with a thorough investigation, they will be able to obtain all the facts.
When Jude’s investigation does not turn up anything concrete that foul play occurred, Jim is still not satisfied and Jude is inclined to agree with him. Spencer Hobbes is acting a bit strange, and there is possibly a cover-up.
Later, that afternoon when they are back at the precinct discussing these points with the captain and Marty, Marty recalls when he recently went undercover at Oak Haven. He realizes Spencer Hobbes’ behavior was a bit suspect. Since they can’t put Marty back there, they recruit Amanda to go there and pose as a highfalutin woman who wants to tour the place and see if she should send a mentally unbalanced relative there.
While Amanda gets ready to head to Oak Haven, the captain leaves to meet Bernice and Heidi. We stay with him as he arrives a short time later at Bernice’s townhome in Schaumburg. He has a very poignant reunion with Heidi. She says she is sorry she got mad at him after he married Nenita, and she’s sorry about the baby. They go into the dining room and have a nice meal. Bernice notices the captain is no longer wearing his ring but doesn’t say anything.
We then cut back to Amanda who has now arrived at Oak Haven and is meeting with Spencer Hobbes. She is going on about a make-believe relative who is crazy as a bedbug and really needs to be committed. Money is no object, etc., and Hobbes has dollar signs in his eyes as he walks her through the facility. At the same time, Jim and Jude are posing as a cleaning crew and they sneak into Hobbes’ office. They try to find something, anything incriminating.
Back at Bernice’s townhome, the captain is enjoying a cigar by the fireplace. Heidi has gone upstairs, and Bernice brings a coffee into the captain. She says it feels like how it did when they were married. He kisses her, then apologizes for it. But she isn’t sorry and kisses him back.
Meanwhile, at Oak Haven, Jude and Jim have just found security footage that Hobbes had allowed another patient (the one Kathryn mentioned earlier to Jude) to kill Dr. Burke Ramsay. It seems Ramsay was getting in the way of the Hobbes’ plans for the institution. Kathryn Anthony also got in the way, when she saw Dr. Ramsay get murdered, Hobbes had to do something about her.
Amanda manages to get a text to Jude, that Hobbes is now bringing her back to the office. In the next part Jude and Jim get out of there in time, but Jim left his cap on Hobbes desk. He goes back in to retrieve the cap but is caught by Hobbes. Hobbes approaches with a syringe he keeps in his sport coat pocket. We see him try to inject Jim, as Amanda and Jude burst in with guns drawn. Jim is out cold on the floor, and Jude rushes over to him as Amanda cuffs Hobbes. Jude thinks Jim was injected, but he only just fainted.
The last scene occurs the following day at Jude’s place. Jim is bragging to Mrs. Lee about his exploits in bringing down Hobbes, conveniently leaving out the part where he fainted. Jude goes into the kitchen and glances at the stovetop. Jim is making another one of his famous meals.
Jim calls Jude back into the living room. He’s just given Mrs. Lee a glass of eggnog, and pours one for himself and Jude. Jim wants to toast to the spirit of the holiday and to the memory of Kathryn Anthony. Jude looks at her picture on the mantle. It’s an old photograph of him as a boy sitting on her lap. Next to it is a religious painting of a Madonna and child. A tear rolls down Jude’s cheek.
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