Episode 80: A Tête-à-Tête Rendezvous at the Mortuary with the Secret Blackmail Society

TONIGHT ON MURDER, SHE WROTE, there's TROUBLE IN EDEN—Eden naturally being a charming hotel in idyllic suburban Oregon that also happens to serve gentlemen with the companionship of ladies for a short while. Yes, this cozy mystery enters the brothel life where the lingerie is questionable, the rooms are quaintly tacky, and the floorboards contain the blackmailed secrets of powerful men!  Jessica Fletcher (Angela Lansbury) is undercover as friend Mary Rose (Joan Canfield) to discover the true circumstances of the madam's sudden death and subsequent coverup.  Oh, and Mary Rose is the madam's sister and the new inheritor.  Allied with a cutie lawyer (Tom Fitzsimmons), a nervous housekeeper (Betty Garrett), and the local sheriff (Roy Thinnes) who doesn't know who she really is yet, Jessica gets immediate attention from some dangerous townspeople.  The men in town (among them: Mills Watson, Stuart Whitman, Thom Christopher, Macdonald Carey) are quick to weigh their options when it appears Mary Rose may become the new de facto extortioner.  Add in the fabulous Tricia O'Neill as Lila Benson, the front desk clerk and bawd in absentia, and you know Viktor and Petra are, appropriately, hooked.