Oh, what people won’t do for the love of money. Or power. Or giant laser guns.
We open in an industrial lab, where engineers are setting up a demonstration of a laser gun with test dummies as the targets. Military officials watch from a seating gallery.
The older head of the company is not so enthused about the elaborate project. He expresses doubts over the efficacy of the system. A young executive is all hot and bothered about it, sure that the new arsenal will be tops in its class. The woman with him says her doubts are reserved for the company leader himself.
Time for the younger man to address the military brass. He declares that SRT Industries’ new portable laser weapon will be “the future of modern warfare.” The test is run—and the gun backfires, injuring the operator. A bad omen indeed.
Cut to the Blue Moon office, where Agnes Dipesto cheerfully rattles off an introductory poem to the caller. Apparently, he’s not a fan.
Over to Maddie, who is on the phone with the client, Brian Baker, the younger man from the scene at SRT. He wants to see her at the company headquarters. David was already sent ahead, to do “psychological research.”
Uh-huh. If there’s any mental health research going on, Dave should probably not be the one
doing the examining.
Cut to the tech company’s offices, where David is conducting said experiment—a poker game, in which he skins one of the workers blind. He succeeds in talking the man into telling him he was bluffing! Not only that, but he somehow turns it around so that the victim wants to apologize. David ushers him out. This is not the last time we will see the crafty side of David Addison. Or the man’s strange luck with cards.
In walks Maddie. She isn’t too pleased he’s wasting his time with poker when he should be scouring the landscape for clues. They need this case to bolster the agency’s reputation. David, on the other hand, says being a security consultant isn’t all that hard. He kicks back in the chair and for a moment it’s not too difficult to see why Ms. Hayes lacks a certain blazing confidence in the man. Maddie says Vivian Baker, the woman who was at Brian’s side during the test, is one of her best friends. David says not to worry, he is doing a great job.
Then it’s time to meet with Brian. Seems rival firm Holt Aerospace got a patent using information pilfered from SRT projects. Now, how could that happen if the sharp eyes of Blue Moon were covering all the security leaks?
They’re off the case. Brian wants nothing more to do with the people he now sees as incompetent.
At least one of the detectives is trying to see the bright side of events. David goes to retrieve some property from a side room. He shuts the lights and heads out the door. Maddie just sits there, staring into the dark.
David notices he’s walked out alone, and steps back. He flips the lights back on. He reaches for her hand and tries to cheer her up. There is almost a ‘moment’ here between them. Then she gives him a good old flying kung-fu heel to the ankle.
David hops in pain down the hall. When he recovers, he tells her he tried his best, having talked to every employee and scanned the facilities for bugs. Hayes blasts him for not thinking he should talk to Mr. Holt, head of SRT’s top challenger. Maddie wants to go do that now. David says it’s a bad idea. They can use Maddie’s name to get more clients, but
he should do the “actual detective work.”
Ouch! Better watch what you say, buddy, words can come back to, well, kick you in the shins.
Maddie says she can catch more flies with dinner than he can with vinegar. Tonight she will see if Preston Holt wants to talk. David warns Holt has a reputation as a scoundrel and certainly won’t help her—in fact, he may be a danger. Hayes, not believing one bit, gets in the car and presses the gas. Dave leans on the front end of the car and holds it back. It only works for a few seconds; then he gets out of the way.
“Call me afterwards, will you?…Thanks,” he says, sadly, as he watches Maddie drive off.
Maddie does manage to get Mr. Holt to agree to dinner. To her pleasant surprise, he is charming and funny. She tells him the story of her first magazine cover, when she was seventeen. For her, this was a joyful shock; to the rest of the world, life was much the same.
“When the bottom fell out,” Maddie says, in a rare moment of illumination of her personal motives, “I thought about going back. But I don’t believe in going back to
anything.”
Hayes is reluctant to tell why she really called. At first she flatters him, a tactic she considers so gauche and beneath her when coming from her partner…then she ‘fesses up and tells him the real story. Holt will not tell if her theories about the SRT matter are true.
They head back to her house. There’s no goodbye at the front gate. He walks with her to the door. Along the way, he makes some fairly crude hints as to how they should wind up the night. Maddie says sharply that she thought this was a business meal. Holt pretends he did too.
Then the door opens. Maddie already has a guest: none other than David, having thrown on an apron and oven mitts, looking for all the world like a househusband fixing dinner. “I’m Papa Bear, she’s Sweetcakes!” Maddie, thunderstruck, has a few seconds to play along. And she does, kissing David on the cheek and waxing all happy-home-like in front of the visitor. Holt gets the picture, and backs off.
Now for the real confrontation. Hayes, once inside, is not too happy about David’s little fit of breaking and entering. Addison in turn implies that he saved her from the rich bounder’s more sleazy purposes. He guessed long ago that Preston would not be happy with some food and a conversation.
Yes—he was worried about her.
Maddie, however, thinks David is jealous that she was the one who was making progress on the case. She says Holt told her about psychic Omar Gauss, who is supposedly having visions of SRT’s design secrets. (It is later revealed that Maddie is an atheist, thus it’s not likely she would lend credence to fortunetellers. However, at this point, we don’t know that about her, and the episode proceeds with this as her mindset instead.) Hayes wants to tell the Bakers. David says that’s ridiculous.
For once, David is the careful thinker, while Maddie is going with something whimsical and esoteric. It is a reversal of the thinking styles we will come to see for each of them later on.
Some people just have to learn the hard way.
Before they head to Omar’s house, Maddie tells him, “You were right, you did a good job!” This is a very rare compliment from her to him. “No one at that company is selling secrets!” Optimist though she is for the moment, Maddie refuses to give up on her plans.
At Omar’s house, David begins to snoop around in the desk. Maddie tells him to stop, but David discovers a log book that will become important later on.
“What are you doing?” she asks.
“Straightening Omar Gauss’ drawers. Be good and I’ll do the same for you.”
They head upstairs, to an elaborate parlor. The lights dim and the curtains shake. Spooked, the detectives turn to see Omar himself emerge from the shadows. He asks their forgiveness—the special effects were actually intended for comfort. They sit down.
Maddie rushes to explain that Holt said Gauss was stealing SRT secrets.
“Were you
prone when Holt told you that?” Omar says.
Maddie, flabbergasted, stops in her tracks. “
I beg your pardon?”
“Wait a second, answer the question!” a gleeful David insists.
She doesn’t.
Omar proceeds to tell them he has visions, of missing persons and the like, until recently when he started seeing electronic designs. Holt paid him, even though the information later turned out to be worthless. Gauss suggests Holt just lied in order to “get what he needed” from Maddie.
“He didn’t
get anything,” says an indignant Maddie. David is enjoying every minute of this.
They leave Gauss’ home with nothing further accomplished. Maddie laments the failure, but David compliments her for doing her best. (
That is also an unusual turn of events. He has faith in her, sometimes more than she’ll have in herself.)
A little dishonesty, however, goes a long way. David reveals that he has stolen the appointment book from Gauss. That should have all the details of his recent activities. Lo and behold, Brian Baker’s name appears many times.
What now?
David suggests they do some surveillance. The novice Maddie has no idea how to go about this. David says he’ll show her. “It’s fun!”
The next night, all is ready. Maddie and David crouch in the bushes and watch as the elder Baker arrives at the house and is assisted out of the car. His son is with him. Almost spotted, the detectives quickly duck back into the shrubbery.
“You said this was going to be fun!” Maddie protests.
“Boy, was I wrong,” David sulks.
Inside the house, Brian tells Omar he needs funding for his projects, as he is due to run out soon. Brian is irate that his sister has succeeded in winning his father’s ear. He also thinks Gauss is ratting him out.
At the side of the house, the detectives are now trying to find a way to get to the roof. David has brought along a grappling hook. He chucks it high, but it fails to catch on anything.
“Couldn’t we just use the pipe?” Maddie suggests, pointing to the drain duct in the corner, which as it so happens comes with bars up and down its length.
Oh. That.
And away she goes. Her partner follows.
Brian’s father, Carl, thinks the industry secrets are coming from the spirit of his late wife, Betty. Gauss tells Baker they should have a special election to put Brian in charge of the company. “If that’s what you want, Elizabeth,” Carl calls out.
Omar also warns him not to listen to Vivian. Prescient indeed.
The detectives, meanwhile, have been working on getting within earshot of the conversation. David decides he should be lowered from the ledge over the window. And who’s going to do the lowering? You guessed it.
Maddie, however, does not have such luck with her hands. She loses her grip on David’s ankles, sending him flying into the bushes below. Although unhurt, he isn’t exactly pleased. He still makes his way up to the ledge again, and this time he grabs on to her feet, for her part of the operation.
The plan is almost a success. David starts to have the same trouble balancing his grasp on Ms. Hayes. He wobbles, causing her head to dip into the view of the men in the room. Gauss pulls a gun and fires. David hauls Maddie to safety just in time.
They scurry for a safe angle by which to climb back to the ground. The house is surrounded by security, however. They are blocked at every turn. Nothing for it, then. David tells her it’s time to strip down to your unmentionables and go for a swim. From roof-level. Maddie is at first dead set on ‘no,’ but David points out that at least they have a soft landing, and it’s either that or face a security guard’s rifle. Time for a dip it is…And
away they go!
The two hurtle off the top of the house and down into the water. Then it’s a mad dash for the sportscar parked nearby. “For future reference,” David says, ever the gentleman
, “wet becomes you.”
Once back in the ‘normal’ world, the detectives have time to meet with Vivian again. They tell her it was Carl Baker who was giving away the secrets, in his séances with Mr. Gauss. Vivian is angry her father wants to run her out of the business. He’s not too keen on the ability of women to ascend the corporate ladder.
Baker departs, and Maddie is relieved they have solved another case. David says he only told her to give up in order to “spur her on.” Whether you believe him or not (I don’t), it’s an interesting idea that he would
knowingly play on her defiant attitude in order to get her to do something unorthodox. Poke a hornet’s nest too many times…and you get to meet the hornets.
As usual, they may fight, but they always get back together.
“Thanks for beating that horse,” David says, in a rare moment of acknowledging she may have had a point.
“Thanks for spurring me on.” She grins.
“You’re all right, kid.”
“You’re not bad yourself, kid. Not bad at all.” Maddie turns to leave. “We solved a mystery!”
All is well, right?
All is not well.
Later that night, David gives Maddie a call. “Who sabotaged the gun?” he asks, from the depths of a bar.
This is too important to leave to a mere quick announcement. He shows up at her house. While they are talking it over, Maddie gets another call, this time from Vivian, who says she was telling Carl the truth when Brian ran in. It’s off to the SRT facility once more.
Maddie runs through the list of all the suspects. David doubts each and every one of them. Not Omar, Carl or Brian—who’s left?
They find out pretty soon. Vivian greets them in the demonstration room. She’s brought along the laser cannon, and she’s not afraid to use it.
Vivian opens fire. The detectives scramble for safety. They jump behind a barrier and David shelters Maddie on the floor. The spot doesn’t provide cover for long, however, and they must dash off again.
Vivian says she told Holt about her brother’s research. She keeps firing. The gumshoes jump off a platform; Vivian aims and demolishes the viewing section where the military men had been before.
She isn’t the only one losing her temper. Brian arrives, to tell them Vivian has designs to take over as head of the company—which she can’t do while he is still in the way.
David jumps and tackles Vivian. They fall to the floor. Vivian continues to press the trigger, and the laser beam pans everywhere as they struggle. The ray cuts a panel out of the ceiling. It falls. David sneaks out of the way just before impact.
That’s more than we can say for Vivian.
…Yes, they did solve a mystery, after all. It is one of the stranger cases they will ever see, but they worked together, didn’t give up, and lived to see the end of it. Home to Blue Moon once again.
Continuing on the theme of David ‘teaching’ Maddie from his oh-so-vast realm of deductive experience, he sets up Maddie to take a lie detector test. He starts off innocently enough. “Is your name Maddie Hayes?”
“Yes,” she answers. Maybe this guy won’t be so bad.
“Were both your feet on the floor when Preston Holt told you Omar was giving him Baker’s secrets?”
Do
what now?!
Irate, she gets up to leave. David follows.
“I thought you said you were having fun! I know
I’m having a good time!”
Maybe he should be grateful he didn’t get to finish the test. It wouldn’t do to know
all of her secrets…not just yet.