Jessica breaks her schedule to comfort recently widowed friend Linda Stevens, only to discover that the dead man's father, Harry, suspects Jim's death had more to do with the corruption in the town legal staff than mere accident. Jessica digs into the rot infesting the town's ruling infrastructure, but with red tape and secret keeping hindering her investigation, how can she obtain the evidence to take down the corrupt politicians?
This episode includes examples of the following tropes:
- Bludgeoned to Death: Harry is killed by having an ashtray smashed into his head.
- Crusading Widow: Linda takes up Jim's sword at the end, planning to run for mayor and continue her husband's anti-corruption plans if she wins.
- Deliberate Injury Gambit: Carroll has Deputy Beeler ram a car and run it off the road while he and Jessica are in it. When Carroll asks why he would have done that when he could have been hurt, Jessica answers that it was exactly that — if he were "attacked", nobody would suspect him of being involved.
- Determinator: Both father Harry and son Jim Stevens are described as iron-willed to the point of bullheadedness. Jessica brings it up as a reason Linda shouldn't blame herself for talking Jim into the position; she couldn't have talked him into anything without his consent. The episode also deconstructs it in that Harry keeps raising unwanted questions about his son's death and being very blatant about it. He dies for it.
- Dirty Cop: Yates and Beeler are on the take, looking the other way while Gunnerson's illegal gambling is going on in town.
- Even Evil Has Standards: As corrupt as Yates is, he seems uneasy about making his sadistic deputy Beeler the next sheriff. He also isn't very happy about Gunnerson arranging for Beeler to try and run Jessica and David off the road, though that may be because it's risky.
- Feed the Mole: Jessica suspects Carroll of being the mole in Jim's office who tipped off the gambling ring before the last raid. To confirm this, she tells him about a planned raid in two hours. After she leaves the room, he makes a call to Mrs. Gunnerson, who helps run it — and gets Caught on Tape by the state police.
- Give Me a Reason: When Carroll tries to make a break for it, one of the other staff members steps in his path and tells him he'd enjoy the opportunity to knock him flat if he'd like to try running.
- I Did What I Had to Do: When caught giving info about a raid to the gambling den, David tries to explain that his association with Gunnerson and the gambling crowd are only a temporary necessity in order to get the vote.
- Illegal Gambling Den: Mrs. Gunnerson and others run a gambling ring, which the local officials tend to ignore.
- I Never Said It Was Poison: Jessica figures out David Caroll's involvement by remembering he demanded the ring among Harry's other personal effects. By his own statement, Harry hadn't worn a ring in years. He tries to weasel out of it by claiming Linda told him, but Linda says she wasn't in the room when he put on the ring.
- It's All My Fault: Linda doesn't want to believe Jim's death was murder because she talked him into running for office, thinking of the glamor of a political career. She says she couldn't forgive herself if he died for doing the job that she nudged him towards in the first place. Jessica reassures her the stubborn Jim couldn't have been coaxed into something he didn't want. He decided to take the office and to fight the corruption.
- Morality Chain Beyond the Grave: Jim, Linda's late husband, took the mayoral office to do some good and ran with it until one of his corrupt staff murdered him. At the end, Linda tells Jessica several of the locals think she should run for mayor. When Jessica asks if she'll do it, Linda answers that she's a Stevens.
- Vehicular Sabotage: Jim was killed when the killer tampered with the brakes on his car.
- Vote Early, Vote Often: The episode centers around a corrupt sheriff who was rumored to have carried 'the cemetery vote' (in other words, picked up fraud votes from people who were dead prior to the election).
