Fri, Oct 26, 1962
Kookie and Jeff pretend to accuse each other of treachery and shoot it out in the office at 77, but it's just a prank on J.R. That night, en route to a case in a remote California town, Kookie is attacked by a hitchhiker he unwisely picked up. The rapist hijacks Kookie's wheels and gun, and makes him switch clothes, so the sheriff has good reason to suspect the young PI. Kookie is mistakenly arrested for assault (really a euphemism for attempted rape). After insisting on his right to a phone call (the small town yokels don't seem aware of the right to a phone call), the first of which fails to go through, he then calls J.R., who is throwing a wild party. J.R. thinks he is being (what we now call) "punked" yet again. J.R. tells the sheriff to "lock him [Kookie] up and throw away the key". The sheriff then allows Kookie to see his accuser but the traumatized woman mistakenly claims Kookie IS the man who attacked her in the dark. The townsfolk, led by the woman's husband, are increasingly inflamed. Kookie may not even make it to trial, in a plot very similar to that of the Spencer Tracy-Sylvia Sidney classic Fury (1936) including the well-acted role of the conflicted and very morally ambiguous sheriff.