- The wife of a prominent physician is arrested for drugging her husband, causing him to crash his private plane. But then he turns up alive, living in Mexico with a beautiful nurse after the dead man's identity is revealed.
- Janet Morris knows her husband, a doctor, is having an affair with his nurse Gladys Strome but up to now has refused to agree to a divorce. She has the police track and arrest a close friend of her husband who is trying to help the doctor move some money but the husband clears the man. He's about to fly off in his own airplane when Janet meets him at the airport to tell him she will give him the divorce he wants. She also gives him a thermos of coffee for his trip. When the plane crashes, there is little left but the autopsy on the remains shows Morris had been drugged. Janet is charged with her husband's death and Perry defends her. After a more detailed inspection of the crash site reveals the dead pilot is not the doctor but his friend. Then Dr. Morris is found alive in Mexico living with Gladys, the case takes a sudden twist.—garykmcd
- Dave Kirby (Dabbs Greer) leaves an apartment, takes a swig from a flask, and is arrested. Janet Morris (Bethel Leslie) accuses him of stealing from her husband. He says he'd never do anything against Dr. Morris, but he is carrying a wad of bills - $92,000! He says he's delivering it to Morris. At the police station, Morris (Shepperd Strudwick) confirms Dave's story, but isn't very forthcoming about why he's been renting that apartment under the name "M. Morris". The Robbery Division lieutenant (Arthur Hanson) returns the cash to Morris, but says he'll inform the Treasury Department about the suspicious amount of cash. Morris accuses Janet of spying on him, but she denies it, and says she didn't know Dave was his friend.
In Perry's office, Janet admits that her marriage is an unhappy one, and that her husband has turned to his nurse, Gladys Strome (Maxine Cooper) for the affection lacking at home. Now that there may be trouble with the government over the $92,000, she wants Perry to defend her community property interest in the cash. Meanwhile, Dr. Morris decides the time has come to act and calls Dave, who is now back home in Loganville CA, where his wife (Jeanette Nolan) runs a diner. He agrees to come back to L.A., and after hanging up takes another drink from his flask.
At a tiny airport, Morris is preparing for a flight in his private plane when Janet arrives. She has a thermos of coffee for him and says she's now ready to give him a divorce. Morris says he thinks that's just some scheme that will cost him more money. Airport manager Phil Reese (Woodrow Chambliss) has been observing this exchange. Later, we see the doctor's plane flying erratically and crashing, then a newspaper with the headlines "Prominent physician in plane crash. Cause of fatal accident unknown." Lt. Tragg visits Reese, who tells him that a radio operator heard the pilot report being very tired, then mumbling unintelligibly. He gives Tragg the thermos that Janet put in the plane and was found in the wreckage. The lieutenant goes to Janet and tells her that even though all that was left in the plane was an almost completely destroyed corpse, the coroner was able to detect morphine sulfate in the stomach.He tells her that she better get a good lawyer because the D.A. wants to talk to her. She doesn't know Perry's number, but Tragg tells it to her. Later, he tells Perry that in addition to community property, Janet is the sole beneficiary of a $125,000 life insurance policy Morris took out. "Guys have been murdered for less," he says.
Paul reports that Gladys is the sole support of her mother and younger brother, but has left on vacation. Morris left her $50,000 in his will. Also, the $92,000 in cash is missing. Perry goes to the diner in Loganville, where he finds Mrs. Kirby castigating a workman for dropping screws, which she assumes she'd end up being charged for. She tells Perry that as far as she knows, Dave has hit the bottle again and is on skid row in L.A. The last she saw of him was when he got the call from Morris. He vanished, along with $154 in sales tax money. She interrupts the interview to tell the cook to use halves of pickles instead of whole pickles as a garnish on sandwiches, to save money. Then she tells Perry that the two of them are wasting each other's time.
Later, Mrs. Kirby comes to L.A. and reports her husband as a missing person. She's brought to the D.A.'s office, where Burger and Tragg insinuate that the $92,000 might have been a motive for Dave to kill Morris. Mrs. Kirby angrily denies the possibility, saying that Dave has loved Morris since they were pilots together in World War 2. After she leaves, Burger says that the fact that Dave was also a pilot was news to him. He sends Tragg and a team to comb the plane crash site. When they arrive, they find Paul and his men, who have just found a good luck medallion inscribed with the name Dave Kirby. Perry had the same idea as Burger, but sooner. Tragg points out that this only served to save him a lot of work, as he makes Paul hand over the medallion.
Janet is on trial for murdering Dave while attempting to murder her husband. Phil Reese testifies about what he observed, and is amazingly specific about times, the number of people at the airport, even the license plate numbers of Janet's car and the car she parked next to. On Perry's cross-examination, he explains that he has a "photographic memory" and illustrates it with a detailed description of Burger's dress, down to a loose button on one sleeve of his jacket. However, he was elsewhere when the plane took off and didn't observe that.
During a weekend recess, Perry visits Gladys' whiny mother (Helen Brown) and oafish brother Arthur (Al Lettieri). For a $100 bribe, Arthur reveals that Gladys is living in Boca de Oro, Mexico under an alias. Perry flies there and finds her with Morris. He admits changing plans at the last minute, having Dave fly the plane to Salt Lake City in order to throw Janet off the scent while he and Gladys went south. They took the $92,000 in cash, on which Morris had already paid the tax. He got a divorce in Mexico and married Gladys. He has no intention of returning, but after some goading by Perry, he says that the next day they'll take the first plane out of Boca de Oro. After Perry leaves, Gladys doesn't understand until Morris points out that he didn't tell Perry what direction that plane would be taking.
Back in court, Perry is cross-examining Lt. Tragg and asks why the police, with all their facilities, couldn't find Morris. The lieutenant answers is "We have", as the doctor and nurse enter the courtroom, looking unhappy. When Burger calls Morris to the stand, Perry objects, arguing that California law doesn't recognize Morris' Mexican divorce, so he's legally married to Janet and therefore can't testify against her. The judge (Owen Cunningham) agrees, so Burger calls Gladys. She testifies that Janet once told her that only death would set Morris free from her. Perry asks her if Morris ever prescribed morphine for Dave, to deal with the aftermath of his alcoholic binges. She doesn't remember.
Burger's next witness is Mrs. Kirby, who identifies the medallion as one she bought as a gift for Dave. She knew nothing about Dave flying the plane in place of Morris until the D.A. informed her. On cross-examination, she testifies that Morris did in fact prescribe morphine sulfate for Dave. She admits that she has filed life insurance claims totaling $15,000. Perry has jeweler's records showing that the medallion (platinum, so it wouldn't be consumed by a fire) was only delivered to her the morning of the crash, so she must have taken it to him at the airport that day. He says she also brought him a bottle of whiskey loaded with morphine. She tries to deny having gone to the airport, but Perry points out that the license number Reese mentioned as parked next to Janet's is for her car. He asks if Reese is in the courtroom, but Mrs. Kirby shouts "Don't bother!" and confesses. Dave was no good to her alive, so she thought maybe he'd be worth something dead.
Later, Paul asks what tipped Perry off. He mentions that it was very out of character for the penny-pinching Mrs. Kirby to buy her husband an expensive present. She must have had an ulterior motive. Della enters with bread and cold cuts to make sandwiches, since she's been losing weight from always working late on cases. Perry and Paul dig in, and Della seems resigned to going hungry again.
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