The Case of the Potted Planter

The richest man in town has a nursery business. He also has a trophy wife, a former actress. They no longer get along. He's quite the curmudgeon. His wife, Andrea, seems pretty down-to-earth and amiable. Her husband sold one of his properties, a radio station, to a friend of Andrea's. The friend has a teenage daughter.

Dad: Who brought you home?
Daughter: Andrea Walden.
Dad: The both of you on a motor scooter?
"The both of you." That sounds like a regionalism to me. I don't say it. I don't say "of an evening" either. I agree with Dad about one thing. The image of a grown woman and a teenage girl on a motor scooter does give one pause. The daughter had gone out on her boyfriend's motor scooter and his uncle (the rich man with the nursery) had confiscated it when he saw it lying on his property. Get off my lawn! The nursery was seven miles out of town and Daughter was walking home in the dark alone when Andrea, who was in her car, saw her and offered her a ride home.

The next day Andrea and her husband are having a fight. He says something hateful about the community.

Andrea: You’ll make a lot of friends that way.
Mr. Andrea: That’s one thing I don’t worry about. My wife has all the friends.
Andrea: And away we go.

"And away we go." I love it that she says that, instead of "Here we go again." Of an evening, he was murdered. With a potted plant to the head. The potted planter.