Dr. Aaron Stuart, headmaster of a private school, has been hoping to receive an endowment, but has been frustrated by repeated problems, such as complaints from students' parents, missing materials, employees not being paid, and top students failing tests because they never received the necessary materials. He learns that his assistant dean, Tobin Wade, has been responsible for the sabotage. Stuart also learns Wade came to his house, got his wife to start drinking again, after a year of sobriety, and drove her out to a resort. Stuart confronts Wade by a cliff at the resort and, in a struggle, Wade falls over into the ocean. Stuart goes to the police and signs a confession to manslaughter. But Perry challenges the confession at the preliminary hearing on the grounds that there is no body and no proof that Wade was killed. Then, after one of his teachers calls him and tells him she saw Wade alive, Stuart is arrested for murder, standing over Wade's body.
—rbecker28