Lt. Kale, an honored policeman who has returned after two previous retirements, vows to close one last case before he settles down — the death of his friend Lowell Dixon in Juniper Lake. Unfortunately, Dr. Hazlitt turns out to have some connections to the case, and shortly after hearing this, he goes missing. When Jessica talks Sheriff Tupper into going to check on him, she finds herself taking on a ten-year-old murder case and the fresh one created when an unknown assailant kills a young stranger in a local cabin.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Blackmail Backfire: Roberts the victim. Seth even uses the expression "backfired" about his blackmail scheme.
- Clear My Name: Dr. Hazlitt falls under suspicion, given that he was one of the suspects in the original murder case and that he was up near Juniper Lake when the new murder occurred. Naturally, Jessica believes he couldn't do such a thing and sets out to find the real killer.
- Detective Mole: The killer turns out to be Lt. Kale, who killed Lowell Dixon because he was about to expose him for some favors he did for the wrong people and Mr. Roberts because he was blackmailing him.
- Dirty Cop: Lt. Kale did a few favors for some shady people, and when his partner found out Kale killed him.
- The Fundamentalist: Dixon was evidently quite a devout Christian. Kale makes a crack about having sent him to Heaven a little early.
- Hidden Agenda Villain: Why exactly Lt. Kale decides to make it clear he's investigating the death of his partner and even invites the old suspects to one place is unclear, as he's the killer. One might assume that his original plan was to frame an old suspect so as to throw off any trace of suspicion against him, though there's no evidence that there even was any to begin with.
- Hidden Disdain Reveal: For most of the episode Kale acts as if Dixon was his close friend and ally in fighting crime but once the evidence that he killed him is presented and Kale decides to confess, the first words out of his mouth about Dixon are "sanctimonious do-gooder."
- Lonely at the Top: Cynthia's made it big in the last ten years, but she's miserable.
- Make It Look Like an Accident: Law enforcement called Dixon's death accidental drowning.
- Murder by Mistake: Subverted; originally, Jessica believes whoever killed Mr. Roberts mistook him for Lt. Kale in the darkness. However, then she demonstrates that the lamp in the cabin had been on at the time, meaning Roberts was the real target. Lt. Kale set it up to look like Roberts had been killed by someone trying to murder him.
- One Last Job: At his third retirement party, Lt. Kale tells all present that he resolves to find the man who killed his partner. One assumes he took all the mirrors out of his house before giving that speech.
- Red Baron: Kale gets the nickname "Supercop" for his exploits.
- Retirony: A variation; Lt. Kale has reached what the city intends to be his last retirement, but he decides he's going to re-open one more case before he goes on the retirement trip they planned for him. He doesn't die. However, given that Jessica figures out he committed the murders, he presumably never got to retire comfortably either.
- Self-Poisoning Gambit: Kale sneaks some arsenic into his and Doc Hazlitt's drinks, in order to keep up the illusion that someone was out to get him.
- Spanner in the Works: Whatever Kale's plan was in dragging all the old suspects back to Dixon's murder location, it was screwed up by Roberts recognizing and trying to blackmail him. Although he tried to get his plan back on track, his murder of Roberts eventually leads to him being exposed.
- Too Dumb to Live: Roberts learns the hard way that blackmailing an unrepentant killer who already covered up one murder ain't the best idea.
