Sergeant Joe Friday and Officer Bill Gannon are working in the Homicide Division. Lillie Birnam, a real estate broker, has gone missing. As Friday and Gannon start to investigate, they check each house that Birnam had listed for sale. When arriving at a vacant house, they discover her dead in the back room. Now Friday and Gannon have to start investigating who murdered Lillie Birnam.
Just the Tropes, ma'am:
- Artistic License – Biology: Lillie was killed almost a week before her body was discovered. Friday and Gannon would have been able to smell her decaying body as soon as they were at the front door and she appears to be sleeping when they discover her. However, this is somewhat downplayed as standards and practices at the time wouldn't allow the show to depict a realistic dead body.
- Lie Detector: Lillie's boyfriend, Terry Williams, undergoes a test when Friday and Gannon suspect him of murdering her. However, his results are inconclusive.
- Never the Obvious Suspect: Friday and Gannon suspect Terry Williams, Lillie's boyfriend. He lied about when he last saw her, he wasn't surprised that she was found dead and he had the beads from the broken necklace on his night stand. After getting a tip from Sgt. Williams in Fraud, they start to suspect Carl Keegan, a felon who jumped bail for fraud, as he had been targeting real estate brokers and Lillie's credit cards had gone missing but were still being used.
- Red Herring: The Broken Necklace. Terry is considered a suspect due to finding her necklace beads in his house. While this was not unusual as they were dating, the fact that her necklace was broken when her body was discovered was suspicious. Turns out the necklace broke earlier in the week & some of the beads were found in his couch after he repaired it.
- Seeking the Missing, Finding the Dead: Friday and Gannon start looking for her after getting a report she was missing when she did not show up to her real estate office over the weekend. Friday and Gannon start going to each house she was giving tours for and find her body at a vacant house for sale.
