Howard Duff
A one season half-hour syndicated anthology series hosted by different stars including Henry Fonda and Peter Lawford.
January 28,1956 episode “Payment In Kind” w/Howard Duff, Beverly Garland, Dabbs Greer and Hal March. Howard Duff introduces this bland episode and stars as Police Lt.Tom Peterson. Tom’s wife Amy (Beverly Garland) is in the hospital. In the room is Dr.Carlson (Dabbs Greer). He tells Tom that Amy is fine following an operation by Dr.Karl Linden. He was the only one on the whole planet that could perform the life saving surgery.
Outside the hospital room Dr.Linden tells Tom he killed a woman named Violet Matthews who was blackmailing him over some letters. Tom doesn’t believe him. Back at the station Ken Loomis (Hal March) is once again skating by on a robbery charge. Tom is determined to nail him.
Tom heads to Viola’s apartment and finds her body. He phones it in to his Captain saying it’s a case he just happened to run into. He wipes his prints from the phone and the door before leaving. He drops back later while the investigation is going on. He finds an address book with the initials K.L. and a tie clasp with the same initials.
He has Ken Loomis brought in on a charge of murder. Loomis admits he knew her and the tie clasp is his but says he didn’t kill her. Ken is carrying a roll of bills on him. It doesn’t look good.
Tom goes to the hospital and tells Amy what’s going on. She thinks Linden is the only one who can look out for her and she doesn’t want Tom arresting him. Linden says she’ll be fine and he’s ready to be taken in.
One huge plot hole….it’s never revealed what’s in the letters that caused the murder. This episode is just bad all the way around.
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