Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. What, then, of those who must hide from the world?
This episode deals with secrets—from the identity of the title character, who shields her face from public scorn but yearns to be with her long-lost love, to our two detectives and their
real opinions of one another, ranging from fear to disgust to hope at any given moment. When you think you have the answer, you only run into more questions.
A woman takes a shower, and cuts herself shaving. She uses a towel, dons shoes and a black dress and caps it with a black veil. Then she stares at us with intense dark eyes.
From this startling vignette, we cut to the world of Blue Moon, where anything that can go wrong will turn into an utter nightmare. Not for these people the drab scenarios of ‘paying for things’ or ‘doing things on time.’
Maddie walks in to see two of the employees having a fight. Mr. Lewis and Mr. Simmons punch the daylights out of each other and throw each other over desks and chairs. “I’m sorry you had to see this, Ms. Hayes,” Agnes apologizes. “It’s been brewing for a while!” The secretary gamely steps in to corral the offenders. Maddie slumps off to Mr. Addison’s office.
“Do you realize what a morale problem we have on our hands?” she asks Dave.
“You’re kidding? I thought for sure the big fight would take care of that!”
Do
what now? “I don’t believe this,” Hayes grumbles. Two minutes in and the day is already shot.
“You’ve gotta believe! I’ve got ten bucks on Lewis!” Addison’s standards are low as it is. This sets a new cellar.
“I’m not here,” Maddie wishes, “this is a dream.” She ruminates that the problem comes from the workers feeling “lack of self-esteem, no sense of accomplishment.” David jokes again, but Maddie is in no mood to be cheered up. “We give them a title, we give them a paycheck, but they don’t do anything to
earn it! There’s a part of me that thinks we’d be doing these people a
favor by firing them—if you need me, I’ll be out in reception, making sure that the inmates have no sharp objects with them.”
Then Agnes calls with good news. There’s a client! A real one! Who wants to pay! “A client? If she tries to leave, shoot her,” Maddie orders.
The woman in the black dress walks in. She gives her name as Barbara Wylie. She shakes Maddie’s hand, but picks up David’s weakly. He frowns a bit as he walks around the desk.
“You’re wondering about the veil,” Wylie says.
Maddie: No!
David: Yes!
Maddie: Unless it’s germane to the case!
Barbara: It
is the case.
Wylie explains that twelve years ago, one Frank Harbert, jealous of her plans to marry another man, threw acid in her face. Though badly scarred, Barbara went ahead with her wedding to Benjamin Wylie. Sadly, that’s about as good as the marriage ever got. Her attacker is on parole, and Barbara wants them to find him.
Maddie at first refuses, thinking the woman likely wants revenge. Wylie says no—she still wants to marry him! “And be discreet,” the client says, “my husband is with me.” She gives them a picture of her former unblemished appearance, and leaves.
David is eager to get going. “Miss Dipesto, give me the number of the state parole board.”
“Right away,” Agnes chimes in.
“Cancel that,” Maddie directs.
“Right away,” Agnes complies.
Maddie says she does not want to stoop to solve the money problems by putting a “tortured woman” back together with the man who attacked her and destroyed her marriage. David says they can’t pass judgement on people. Lawyers all the time help people they know are guilty; doctors help people who are bound to die; and teachers work with kids who couldn’t outwit the desks at which they sit.
“I feel an obligation here!” David says, pointing to his heart.
“That’s your breakfast,” Maddie jeers. “Where’s your humanity?”
“
I had to hock it to pay my rent.” David suggests they get the man’s address from the parole board. Maddie says no. They walk outside. The office is empty but for Agnes. She says the rest of the staff went on lunch break. Almost two hours early.
David reminds Maddie all they are expected to do is track down the man. Once that’s done, Maddie can refuse the fee if she wants.
“No arguments?” Hayes asks.
“Lady, you’re the boss,” David says. “I work for you. You pick the tune, I do the dance. No income, fine with me. You want to sleep on benches with newspapers for blankets, I’ll give you all the magazine sections.” It can be a tough job winning her over—and it’s not quite done. “We’re a team. We’re partners. Now.
Forever. Come on—that first clump of dirt on my coffin, I want it to be thrown by
you.”
“You’re doing some pretty mean throwing yourself,” Maddie jabs, but as usual, caves in anyway. “Come on, let’s go.”
They get the address from the parole board and head out through the desert. Maddie is glum and silent. David tries to lighten the mood with jokes. No go.
Maddie wonders why Barbara would want to see this man ever again. David says that’s what love will do to you.
“I know
that,” Maddie asserts, “I’ve had a Frank Harbert or two in my life.” She tells the story of an upperclassman who went out with her a few times just after she arrived at college. She broke it off, but the young man didn’t see it that way. He continued to send her letters and flowers, then one night snuck into her room. Security escorted him out. Maddie at first felt sorry for him; the man didn’t even steal anything, and everyone would find out about his disturbing behavior. Then her pity was reversed, as she’d already told him clearly to leave her alone. “He took away my ‘no.’ The man who took away Barbara Wylie’s face took away her ‘no,’ too.”
There is an uneasy quiet for a moment. “Look, if you don’t want to do this, we don’t really have to,” David offers.
“Are you kidding? I love driving through Mars,” a hangdog Maddie says. “Besides, there’s no one I’d rather see die of thirst than you.”
“I’m so touched.”
At last they find the destination, a historic mission church. A little girl selling admission tickets hands Maddie a head covering. They walk in. The man they seek is leading a tour of the building. David approaches him when the speech is over. Maddie gives him a business card. He manages to suss out why they’re here. “She’s not dead, is she?” Frank says.
“How much would that matter to you?” Maddie asks, suspicious.
Harbert stares at the photo of Barbara. “I took this,” he says. “Bought that ribbon for her hair.”
“She
was very pretty,” Maddie tells him, with just a pause before the qualifier.
Frank says he is glad she's alive. David informs him of Barbara’s wish to meet again. Harbert is stunned. “Is she married?” Frank states. David says yes, but she said she’d get a divorce to be with her former admirer.
Maddie says although it’s hard to believe, that’s what Wylie really said. “She hired us to find you.
She said she’d always loved you.”
“Did she tell you what I did to her?” Frank tells the story of the attack. He waited in the bushes for Barbara to walk by, and when she did, he jumped out. “’I’ll love you forever,’” the man recalls shouting. “Not a day goes by that I don’t see her face. Not a night goes by that I don’t hear her screaming.” When the detectives confirm that Wylie still wants to marry him, Frank asks them to “do her a favor. You never found me.” He walks away.
“Sounds like love to me,” David jests.
David wonders if they should tell Barbara the news just to get the money. They still need that, by the way. Maddie thinks the unlucky ‘couple’ looked so unhappy and wracked with guilt in their present state. David counters they were probably just as bad off before the detectives ever met them.
A little bit of good luck goes a short way. “Why isn’t this more fun?” Maddie laments. “Our first legitimate case, and we
solve it, we
find the guy—I still feel so
empty inside!”
“Cashing that $5,000 check would help fill you up.” It’s not just the money—he’s hinting that she’s done her job well enough. His confidence in her and his attempts to raise her self-esteem will, tellingly, turn out to be the
opposite of the way she regards him.
“That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it.” There’s no question mark at the end of that sentence. She is as disappointed in the state of her life and career as she is in the attitude of her partner. David’s implied compliment sails right over her head, and all she sees is the pretend cynicism of the joke.
“Welcome to the real world, Maddie Hayes.”
Like a lot of David's ‘bad’ attitudes, it’s not really what it seems—there’s far more to him than meets the eye. In a motif we’ll see for the next few years, she thinks he’s being rude—while he is really trying to help or protect her. Not so much sheltering her, as keeping an eye out for Maddie’s safety when she might be hurt by her too-trusting nature. Maddie is from different circles, and Dave views himself as more acquainted with the truth of life.
Maddie finally agrees to give Barbara a ring as soon as they spot a place to pull over. “Good call, partner, good call,” David congratulates her. It is as if she passed some test.
Later, they are back in the city, walking together down a busy block. David tries his rude joke again from the earlier failure on the car trip. Maddie chuckles, not unkindly this time. She is overjoyed that they did get the case over with. “We’re liquid!”
“Yeah, but we’re on a budget,” David reminds her, bringing her back to Earth.
Maddie compares the success to the feeling of being on a magazine cover. “It doesn’t have to have a name. All it has to have is a headline and a picture. ‘Madolyn Hayes, More Than a Pretty Face—Solves Case. Has Nice Dinner.”
“Yeah, I heard of that magazine,” Dave smiles, “can’t get a copy—sold out. I had a nice dinner too.”
They stroll up the sidewalk.
“You’re unusually giddy tonight,” Maddie notes.
“The night, the stars, the wine…”
“We didn’t have any wine.”
“The
tab…”
“Look, I know I’m not good at apologies and thank you’s, but I’d like to thank you for making me take this case,” Maddie confesses. “I know sometimes it seems like I say ‘No’ more than I say ‘Yes’ professionally, but what I’m trying to say is, I appreciate what you bring to the agency, and I’m really glad you’re my partner.” Maddie halts this incredible speech when she realizes David is no longer standing next to her. He dropped back to watch the tv’s in the front window of a store. They’re all tuned to the local news. Frank Harbert was found murdered.
Maddie is immediately terrified that they lead the killer to him. David comforts her. “It’s okay, it’s okay,” he says as he throws an arm around her and leads her away.
They go to where the Wylies are staying. Ben isn’t happy to see them. He won’t let them in, but they push past anyway. Barbara is hiding behind a screen.
“You double-crossed us, lady, you killed him,” David accuses her.
“Why would I do that?” Barbara claims she’s never seen them.
Maddie pipes up that she was in the office and commissioned them to find Mr. Harbert. Barbara again states she has no idea what they mean. David erupts.
“We’re not going to stop until we have enough evidence to convict you of murder!” he bellows. “Every minute of every hour, every day—whatever you do, we’re going to be there, waiting for you to slip up!” He storms out, with Maddie in tow.
Hayes again says she can’t stand the feeling they played a part in the debacle. She feels incompetent. “Maybe there’s a market for that,” David jokes.
Suddenly Maddie goes back on her earlier gratitude. “Frank Harbert would be alive today if you hadn’t insisted we take this case!”
Huh?
“You’re hanging this on me?” David yelps.
“’Five thousand dollars,’” Maddie echoes, mocking his enthusiasm for the big commission fee. Maddie wants to call the police. David warns that they don’t have any proof. Although he thinks Barbara is guilty as sin, they can’t go to the police without more substantive information. He predicts, however, Barbara will mess up, as most criminals eventually do, and all they have to do is follow and catch her.
Which is what they set out to do.
They wait at the Wylies’ building. At last Barbara gets a cab. They take one to pursue. Maddie admits she believed what Barbara said at the room. David says he didn’t.
Wylie switches cars. David says he knows she must be lying.
Barbara takes a long walk down a pathway and some stairs, into a park. The detectives follow. They watch from the other side of a lake as Barbara drops a gun in the water. Uh-oh!
Back to the building again. They wait in the cab so the woman can’t see them. Maddie says she must be guilty. “Looks that way,” Dave concurs. “Think she’ll pay us anyway?”
Hayes repeats her grief over the failure of their first case. Then she turns to see Barbara coming back out of the door. David notices her walk looks different.
So he suggests what any normal person would: why not spy on her from the roof?
They’ll “watch Barbara get undressed.” Maddie isn’t exactly thrilled, but David declares, “It’s here, it’s free, it’s under the stars! Pretend you’re at a concert.”
Then they notice Barbara isn’t in the right room. And the ‘woman’ takes off her wig. And doesn’t seem to be Barbara. It’s her husband, and he helps himself to a beer. Now it’s David’s turn to be let down. “I feel so
used!”
Back at the agency office, Maddie paces, still steamed over the state of the case. David reassures her they did as well as they could. But Maddie won’t perk up, feeling it’s now Mr. Wylie who used them for chumps. She hates this case. Once again, she bellyaches that she regrets “keeping this damn agency open!”
David insists they need to look to the next step. He wants to go to Ben Wylie’s room and take the costume and wig. Maddie will have to dress up to pass for Barbara.
“Some partnership!” she pouts. “You have stupid ideas, and then I have to dress up to carry them out. I’d be better off in business by myself.”
David sits up, all of a sudden alert, and sore. “Oh, really?” he says, on the defensive.
“No, not really, just forget I said it,” Maddie retreats.
“You were serious!”
“If I were serious, I wouldn’t have said it,” Maddie blusters, screwing it up. “I mean, I wouldn’t have said to forget it.” She can’t look him in the eye.
“You
really don’t want to be partners with me, do you,” he hisses.
“I need a partner. You’re a partner. If I could pick any partner, would I pick you?...I don’t know.”
The conversation doesn’t really get better from there. “Know what your problem is?” David seethes. “It makes you so crazy to think that you
need me!”
“I don’t need you,” Maddie heckles.
“You need me, honey, I’m your lifeline,” David thunders. “Without me, you’d—“
“Without you, I wouldn’t be here at two in the morning, trying to figure out how a woman who seems to have killed a man didn’t, and a man who seems not to have, did! Without you, I wouldn’t be
involved in this stupid case! Without you—"
The last phrase is especially strained. Maddie stops short.
“What?” David presses.
“Never mind.”
“No, I want to hear it!”
“No, you don’t.”
“
You think you can do a better job without me?” Addison yells.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Nah, but you were thinking it!”
“How can you be so smart about this case and so stupid about everything else?”
Oh. My word. Illegal use of the hands.
David recommends they split up and solve the case their different ways. How’s that?
“Good,” Maddie spits.
“Good!”
“Fine.”
“Fine! Okay!”
The game is afoot. Off to the Wylies’ hideout again.
Maddie does her part. She is dressed identically to the mysterious Barbara/Not Barbara figure. She rings the front bell and asks for a room key.
A little later, guess who follows up?
David walks toward the lobby. A man comes up and makes a lewd remark. David turns and clobbers him. A lady’s got to keep her dignity.
Onward to the desk. David must communicate without speaking. He hits the bell to sound out the room number. He gets a key.
Once in the room, he hides in the clothes closet. He’s got company. It’s none other than his (reluctant) partner. Shame when you wind up wearing the same dress as your best friend…
Barbara herself shows up. They jump out of hiding and hurriedly explain that her husband framed her. Seconds later, they have yet another guest. The man of the hour.
Ben says he set up Barbara because no court would convict her. She could plead insanity. “Frank Harbert deserved to die, we both knew it!” He’s got a gun, and keeps it trained on the detectives and his wife. “Twelve years of marriage to a woman who
wouldn’t let me see her! I couldn’t do it. I can’t do it!”
He
really can’t. He runs for it. Flipping down their veils—Dave first—the rest of them follow.
They chase Ben, all yelling, “Stop that man!” On the way, they demolish the kitchen and dining hall—it’s the worst day of one young waiter’s life—and go flying on a river of suds in the laundry. The cops arrive to stop them.
Everybody is thoroughly soaked. “Anybody want to play Twister?” Dave crows.
Day saved, the team winds up at the office. Both of them start to cross their rooms, most likely to apologize. But pride, or exhaustion, gets the best of them and they slump on the couches. David calls for Agnes. “Take a letter.”
On the other side, Maddie writes her own. “Last night, I may have said and done some things that I regret,” Maddie begins.
“Dear Maddie,” David recites, “these are the times that try men’s souls.” Agnes shakes her head.
Maddie tears up her letter and slouches, head in hands.
Dipesto, as always, zeroes in on the truth. “Are you and Mom having a fight?” David nods. “Are you going to leave us?”
“I hope not,” says Maddie, walking in. “Why don’t you go in my office and watch television?” she recommends to Agnes. The secretary leaves.
“What are we going to do?” Maddie sighs.
“About what?” David must be keen to get on with things. This case had become a cloud over their heads, and it’d be a thrill to see the sun again.
“The first clump of dirt on your coffin—I want to be the one to throw it.” Maddie walks toward him. “I’m sorry, all the things I did, all the things I said.” Wow. Write that one down on your calendar. A genuine Hayes apology is rarely spotted in the wild. “I’ve never had a man put on a dress for me before!”
“And you say you’ve been around!” ;D
“I’m sorry, partner.”
“Yeah, partner.”
She leans forward. “I’m glad you’re my partner…” She bestows a kiss. “Partner.”
He’s going to remember this one for a while.
I voted 8.
