Jessica flies in for a visit to her college friend Edna Hayes, the CEO of Aunt Edna's Pies, just around the time she is getting badgered by the IRS for two million dollars that has gone missing. Matters quickly worsen when the police find Edna's ex-husband, a potential government witness, dead of a gunshot wound. Jessica, as always, digs into the case, which seems to be wound up with a mysterious out-of-town employee who no one ever sees.
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Amicable Exes: Nolan and Edna, sort of. Nolan is probably still in love with Edna, but bears her no animosity for the divorce and warns her that the IRS are trying to get to her through him. And Edna clearly finds Nolan exasperating and would rather not deal with him that often, but doesn't seem to dislike him as such, either.
- Appeal to Flattery: While asking for help tracking down Spencer Prinz, Jessica refers to how taxmen helped bust the notorious Al Capone. The taxman, who's used to being the villain, is all too pleased to play the hero.
- Benevolent Boss: When on the phone begging someone to loan her some money, Edna snaps that jobs are on the line, and she's not putting that many people out of work.
- "Blackmail" Is Such an Ugly Word: The taxman uses the threat of reposession to intimidate both Nolan and Lt. Phillips into doing what he wants, but is prissily offended when Nolan calls it blackmail.
- Collective Identity: Spencer Prinz is really two different employees, J.K. Davern and Richard Wellstood. They borrowed the name of a dead colleague and switched the identity between the two of them whenever he needed to appear. It's not until very late in the case that Jessica puts together the pieces.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Both the villains overreach. The tax scam probably wouldn't have unravelled if J.K. hadn't decided to also embezzle in Nolan's name, bringing him to the IRS's attention, and setting off the whole plot. And Richard might have got away with the murders if he hadn't decided J.K. was a liability, and that a dead suspect would close the case better than a vanished one. But with "Prinz" dead and exposed as Davern, Jessica quickly realises that his story of self-defence doesn't hold up, and that, as the only other person who claimed to actually work with Prinz, he had to be at least aware of the deception. And Davern had an alibi for Nolan's murder and pointed Prinz out to her at one point, so there must be someone else who used the identity.
- Identifying the Body: When the police find a company car in Edna's name and a male corpse with no ID, they ask her to identify the body. She quickly identifies it as her ex-husband, Nolan.
- Intimidating Revenue Service: Everyone finds the IRS somewhat intimidating, even Jessica. Lt. Phillips practically trips over himself to be nice to the agent once threatened and Edna, while more aggressive, is all too aware that the agency stands on the brink of destroying her company.
- Morton's Fork: Either the company can pay off an outstanding loan, and fail to pay the IRS, or they can pay the IRS and fail to pay the loan. Either way, they're sunk.
- O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The taxman notes that Spencer Prinz paid his taxes early every year, yet this year he hasn't. He comments that it makes sense in light of Jessica believing he embezzled two million.
- Pull the Thread: Lt. Phillips initially thinks that Nolan was murdered when he got a flat in a bad neighborhood and got out to change the tire. Jessica asks why if (according to his ex-wife) he couldn't. The lieutenant suggests maybe it was necessary, but Jessica points out that it wasn't — he had a car phone and could have stayed safely inside while calling for help. This leads to the theory that he was killed elsewhere.
- Punch-Clock Villain: Lt. Phillips hounds Edna and at one point arrests her, but he's reasonable when Jessica digs up exonerating evidence. Jessica herself points out that he was just doing his job.
- The Real Remington Steele: There actually was a real Spencer Prinz at one point, a colleague of Davern and Wellstood's. Right before he was due to come to Edna's company, he suffered a fatal heart attack. The opportunistic pair used his name to create a third employee who could help in their embezzling scheme.
- Shout-Out: The title is a reference to the play The Iceman Cometh.
- Suspiciously Clean Criminal Record: Even before the taxman learns Spencer Prinz didn't pay his taxes this year, he finds the fact he previously paid early and in full to be suspicious behaviour.
