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A Nero Wolfe Mystery Season 2 Episodes
Season 2 Episode Guide
16 Episodes 2002 - 2002
Episode 1
Death of a Doxy: Part 1
Sun, Apr 14, 2002
Orrie Cather, a private investigator employed by Wolfe, is engaged to be married but is cheating on his fiancee with a sexy ex-showgirl who is the "doxy," or kept mistress, of a rich man. After she steals his P.I. license and uses it to blackmail him, Cather asks Archie to help him out by getting it back. Entering her apartment, he discovers that she has been bludgeoned to death with an ashtray. Archie, Saul, Fred, and Nero all agree to work without compensation to try to clear their associate of the inevitable murder charges. When it is revealed that the dead girl kept a diary, involved parties are desperate to keep their names out of court. Archie then teams up with vivacious showgirl Julie Jaquette, a friend of the murdered girl, to ferret out the real killer.
Episode 2
Death of a Doxy: Part 2
Sun, Apr 14, 2002
With associate Orrie Cather on the hook for the murder of an ex-showgirl, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin must ally themselves with an eccentric showgirl to quash a blackmail plot and reveal the real killer.
Episode 3
The Next Witness
Sun, Apr 21, 2002
Wolfe and Archie are subpoenaed to testify in the murder trial of businessman Leonard Ashe, accused of strangling a phone operator whom he had asked to spy on his wife. Wolfe resents having to give testimony against a man he believes to be innocent as well as being uncomfortable having to sit next to a heavily perfumed woman in court. He suddenly bolts out of the courtroom in order to find the evidence necessary to cast reasonable doubt on the prosecution's case. His suspicions are confirmed when he discovers that one of the dead woman's co-workers is able to afford an original Van Gogh on her $80 a week salary.
Episode 4
Die Like a Dog
Sun, Apr 28, 2002
Photographer Richard Meegan angrily storms out of Wolfe's brownstone when the investigator declines to look for his runaway wife and mistakenly puts on Archie's raincoat when he leaves. When the gumshoe goes to his apartment to retrieve the outergarment, he finds the apartment house surrounded by reporters and passersby and learns that one of the tenants has been murdered. The dead man's black Labrador retriever attaches himself to Archie and follows him back to the residence. Surprisingly, Wolfe allows him to stay, naming his new pet "Jet" over the objections of Archie, who prefers the name, "Inkie." The animal and artist's model Jewel Jones, Meegan's ex-wife, help the detectives expose the killer.
Episode 5
Murder Is Corny
Sun, May 5, 2002
When a farm delivery man is found bludgeoned to death with a pipe near a local restaurant, a box of the specially grown corn grown and picked to Wolfe's specification is brought to the detective's brownstone by Inspector Cramer. He considers Archie the prime suspect because both he and the delivery man were rivals for the affections of the corn farmer's daughter now turned fashion model. Although Wolfe initially tells Goodwin that he is on his own in clearing himself, the inconvenience of doing without his indispensable assistant causes him to get involved.
Episode 6
Motherhunt: Part 1
Sun, May 12, 2002
When rich, beautiful widow Lucy Valdon finds an abandoned baby on her doorstep, she is led to believe that her late promiscuous husband, a successful novelist who died in an accident, is the father. She hires Nero Wolfe to discover the identity of the the infant's mother and during the course of the investigation she and Archie find themselves increasingly attracted to each other. One of the clues he finds is an unusual handmade horsehair button, but when he tracks down the craftswoman who made it, she is uncooperative and soon after is found strangled. When Wolfe orders his operatives to set up a sting in Washington Square Park using the baby as bait, the operation finally bears fruit.
Episode 7
Motherhunt: Part 2
Sun, May 19, 2002
Two murders seem to be linked to the efforts put forth by Wolfe and Goodwin to find the mother of a baby left abandoned on the doorstep of a wealthy female socialite.
Episode 8
Poison à la Carte
Sun, May 26, 2002
The gourmet group, Ten for Aristology, meets for its annual celebration of haute cuisine prepared by Fritz and two chefs from Rusterman's. When one of the members, a lecherous Broaway producer, becomes ill at the table, his symptoms lead Wolfe to suspect arsenic poisoning. He narrows the suspects down to five of the twelve showgirls who have been hired for the evening as seductively-clad servers but needs the help of Rusterman chef Zoltan Mahany to identify the culprit.
Episode 9
Too Many Clients: Part 1
Sun, Jun 2, 2002
Archie agrees to help corporate executive Thomas Yaeger find out who's been following him to a certain address in one of the seedier area of town but later finds that his new client's dead body has been found in an alley near that address. After seeing Yaeger's picture, he realizes that the man who hired him was an impostor. Archie investigates the address and discovers a lavish penthouse apartment atop the otherwise run-down building. He quickly learns that the real Yaeger was a philandering womanizer who held virtually nonstop liaisons with a parade of beautiful women in this garish love nest decorated with erotic art. Wolfe is hired by Yaeger's employer, the Puerto Rican family that superintends the building, and the dead man's materialistic widow, all of whom have separate agendas and are all viewed as suspects by the detective.
Episode 10
Too Many Clients: Part 2
Sun, Jun 9, 2002
Clients and suspects come out of the woodwork, after a womanizing business man, who kept a full time love nest, is found murdered.
Episode 11
Before I Die
Sun, Jun 16, 200245 mins
Wartime food shortages leave Wolfe desperate for red meat in his meals, so when notorious criminal Dazy Perrit, the so-called King of the Black Market, wants to hire Wolfe, the detective accepts a case he would have turned down under normal circumstances. Perrit's real daughter is an altruistic medical student studying medicine at Columbia and doesn't know who her father is. As a diversion in order to protect her from his enemies, Perrit hires a petty criminal to pose as his daughter, but she has been blackmailing him. When both the bogus daughter and Perrit are murdered, suspicion falls on Archie.
Episode 12
Help Wanted, Male
Sun, Jun 23, 200245 mins
Wolfe turns away a frightened prospective client who desperately wants Wolfe to defend him after receiving a threatening letter. When the man is murdered hours thereafter, Wolfe fears for his own life after he receives an identical letter. He hires a lookalike to impersonate him at $100 per diem and waits for the murderer to reveal him or herself.
Episode 13
The Silent Speaker: Part 1
Sun, Jul 14, 2002
In 1946 post-War America, shortages and price controls are in the hands of the the controversial Bureau of Price Regulations (BPR). The organization is very much at odds with the National Industrial Association (NIA), which opposes its policies. When Cheney Boone, the leader of the BPR, is bludgeoned to death by a monkey wrench just prior to a speech addressing the organizations, NIA members are suspected. A broke and nearly bankrupt Wolfe is forced to take the case out of financial necessity, so he feigns a mental breakdown in order to but himself the time that he needs. After Boone's secretary, Phoebe Gunther, is also murdered, Wolfe is convinced that a stolen Dictaphone cylinder holds the key to solving the homicides.
Episode 14
The Silent Speaker: Part 2
Sun, Jul 21, 2002
Suspects abound during post WWII America, as Wolfe and Goodwin are busy sifting through the mess known as The Bureau of Price Regulations because its leader was found murdered. No one, not even the FBI, nor the NIA, is above suspicion.
Episode 15
Cop Killer
Sun, Aug 11, 200244 mins
After a deadly hit-and-run accident, a police officer questions two barber shop employees about the crime. Because Carl and Tina Vardas are illegal immigrants fleeing Communist oppression with a conditioned fear of police, they panic and run. When the policeman is later found stabbed to death with scissors in the shop, they become wanted fugitives. Archie grants them temporary asylum in the brownstone and finds to his surprise that Wolfe, himself an emigrant from Eastern European tyranny, makes them feel welcome long enough for he and Archie go about exposing the real killer.
Episode 16
Immune to Murder
Sun, Aug 18, 200245 mins
The State Department asks Wolfe to help them out at the Adirondack lodge of oil magnate O. V. Bragan, hosting a trout-fishing weekend for South American diplomat Theodore Kelefy, who has requested Wolfe be on hand to prepare his famous gourmet trout recipe. Other oil tycoons are also in attendance in hope of securing coveted oil leases from the ambassador. Although Wolfe characteristically takes no part in the fishing component of the excursion, Archie is only too happy to try his hand at landing a prize brook trout. He is distracted by the beautiful and overly flirtatious Mrs. Kelefy, who is not shy about using her considerable charms on men other than her husband. Initially excited when he thinks he's landed a big one, Archie hooks the lifeless body of the Assistant Secretary of State on his line. Wolfe had hoped to exit the lodge immediately after preparing the fish but now finds himself with a more daunting task - hooking and landing the murderer.
