Directed by: Robert M. Williams Jr.
Written by: Chris Manheim
Sibella Stone is a best-selling novelist, just like Jessica Fletcher. But, one night, her personal assistant winds up dead. Could it have been a case of mistaken identity? That's for Jessica to find out.
Tropes:
- Big Bad Friend: Sibella Stone turns out to be the architect of the accident that trapped her earlier as well as the notes and threatening letters, the murder, and two attempted murders.
- Blackmail: Sibella used Monroe's criminal record to force him into helping with her plot.
- Chekhov's Gun:
- While in the diner discussing the murder, Jessica, Sheriff Metzger and Dr. Hazlitt notice Monroe Shepard breaking the chalk while writing the specials on the diner's menu board. They and the camera immediately focus on the words he was writing when the chalk broke, and in the background, the misspelled word "mince", the same misspelling as in the threatening note supposedly sent by Sibella's ex.
- Also, there is a somewhat innocuous chart in the background in Sibella Stone's house that also proves vital later. Sheriff Metzger points out that most people in Cabot Cove have a tide chart, but Jessica points out it was unusual for a person who claimed the bluff was as close as she got to the water. She used it to figure out the optimal time to stage the scene at the boathouse so she wouldn't actually drown.
- A Deadly Affair: Subverted. Sibella's husband Derek was cheating on her with her assistant Marian, and Sibella makes it clear that she knew about it after being arrested. However, her real motive was to get them both out of the way so she could have it all as both author and publisher.
- Drowning Pit: Sibella falls through the floorboards at the boathouse and gets her foot trapped, nearly drowning before the guests and her husband arrive to pull her out. It turns out she sabotaged the boards herself to make it look like she was a target, though she didn't anticipate trapping her ankle.
- Murder by Mistake: Subverted; Marian was wearing Sibella's distinctive cloak when she was murdered, so Sheriff Metzger originally thinks that Sibella herself was the target...just as Sibella planned.
- Not so Dire: In the middle of a dramatic reading, a young woman bursts into the room, yelling "Dead! Absolutely dead!" When Jessica tries to calm her down and asks who's dead, she says that her car died.
- Red Herring:
- Invoked by Sibella herself. She orchestrated her accident, her assistant Marian "mistakenly" being murdered all so she could enact her endgame later and avoid suspicion.
- The carpenter and smuggler Phil Coile was also set up as one. Sheriff Metzger thinks he killed Marian when she saw the illegal items he was bringing in, but all he's guilty of is the smuggling.
- Worthy Opponent: Sibella is calmly and gracefully impressed by Jessica after she figures everything out.
