Jessica Fletcher assists the sheriff of an old Western town in New Mexico solve a the murder of a museum owner. In the process, she discovers that the modern mystery may be connected to another mystery of the past: the lost location of a stagecoach robber’s treasure.
By season nine of Murder, She Wrote, the show was well established, well loved, and well watched. Ratings were good, and the show’s location-hopping was keeping the mysteries fresh and interesting. Jessica Fletcher’s travels were taking her all over the world to keep the casualty count of Cabot Cove down somewhat, and as such, in season nine, episode six’s Night of the Coyote, she found herself in New Mexico for what was considered one of the best episodes of the series.
Today, on Episode Spotlight, we’re going to be taking a closer look at the episode in question, analyzing it as both an episode of Murder, She Wrote, and as an episode of television in general.
Without further ado, let’s take a look at the mystery of the Night of the Coyote. Spoilers below!
The episode opens in a town in New Mexico, where mystery writer Jessica Fletcher is visiting an artist friend of hers by the name of Susan Lindsay. Susan has taken Jessica to see a reenactment of the town’s famous legend of a stagecoach robber, Cutter McGee, who was caught by Navajo and killed. Once the reenactment is over, Susan takes Jessica to meet the man responsible for the reenactment, and the revival of the town in general: Max Teller.
Max Teller, as it turns out, owns a museum about the history of the old West town, and encourages Jessica to see it during her stay. Max’s secretary cuts the discussion short, pulling Max away to inform him that he has a meeting with a man called Ben Judson.
Judson, as it happens, wants to buy the town of Silverville from Max Teller, claiming that it’s a fairer deal than the bank (who Judson works for) would give him. Unsurprisingly, Max isn’t selling.
Later, Jessica and Susan are at Susan’s house, where she is showing off her artwork. Also admiring Susan’s work is another writer by the name of Mark Strickland, who is in town researching the silver strike for his book. Max Teller hopes that the book will do extremely well, as it will attract tourism for the small town. Jess mentions that Cutter McGee, the stagecoach robber, was a sea-faring man, as evidenced by the sextant and other nautical navigational equipment that he kept in good condition until he died. Strickland agrees, and points out that the sextant was probably also used while McGee navigated the desert. He also warns Jess not to get Max started on the legend of McGee, or more specifically, the lost treasure that he stole from the stagecoach.
After Max and Strickland leave, Jessica and Susan discuss the fact that Susan is fairly obviously interested in Max. Susan admits that this wasn’t really expected, as she’d sworn off romance since her divorce.
The next morning, Max Teller goes in to work and finds a surprise: an old friend of his, Tony, who demands his portion of an off-shore bank account. Max doesn’t want any part of this, but Tony just says that Max just needs more time. Tony also mentions that Max needn’t call the cops, as Max is ‘clean’ now. On the other hand, the police might be interested to know how Max got the money to buy Silverville in the first place.
The plot thickens.
Meanwhile, Jessica explores the desert while Susan paints. Jess, curious about the landscape and mourning the loss of her favorite pen, wanders off a little ways and hears coyotes howling. Slightly spooked at the noise, further spooking her is the apparently mysterious appearance of a Native American man behind her, sitting on a rock. He tells her that the echoes further up are confusing, and at night, it is easy to see why the shamans believe that the spirit of Coyote brings evil. He says his name is Sam Keeyani, and warns Jessica that the trail becomes treacherous, with loose rocks and skinwalkers rolling around further up. Although Sam says he does not believe in skinwalkers, he does admit that odd movements in shadows do bring their legends to mind. Jessica looks back towards the trail, and when she turns back around, Sam is gone, leaving behind Jessica’s missing pen.
In Silverville, Max goes to confront Earl, one of his employees, as he has learned that Earl has been shortchanging Max on hay deliveries, keeping some for his own profit. Max fires him, which doesn’t bother Earl too much until he learns he is being let go without pay. Upon hearing this, Earl flips.
That night, someone burns down Max’s museum.
The next morning, Jessica and Susan come to make sure that Max is alright, meeting the man Jessica saw in the desert the previous night. Apparently, Sam Keeyani is the sheriff of the town, and is here to investigate the fire. The sheriff proceeds to pick up some dust and watch it trickle away, and examines the sky for a few moments while otherworldly music plays. After he’s finished, he proceeds to ask Max if he has any enemies. Max tells him about firing Earl, but Sheriff Sam discards that theory, asking if there are any other enemies.
Max insists that it was Earl, and Sheriff Sam relents, agreeing to look into it, but he still wants a list of Max’s enemies. Max and Susan head to Max’s office, where Susan offers to help Max rebuild his museum. Max turns her down, shutting her out pretty effectively. Disgusted, Susan leaves, cutting him out of her life.
Meanwhile, Jess and Sheriff Sam enjoy coffee at the police station, where Jessica asks Sheriff Sam what the performance outside the burnt museum was all about. Sam admits that in reality, he was smelling the air for gasoline and examining which way the wind was blowing. He also explains that someone turned in Jessica’s pen, and he quickly figured that only a famous writer would carry a fancy pen like that.
In other words, nothing ‘mystical’ about it, just good deductive skills. However, the unusual way that he does deduce lulls suspects into a false sense of security, and then they slip up.
Sam also tells Jess that he found sneaker tracks outside the burnt museum. He explains that this is what rules Earl out as a suspect, as Earl always wears boots. Charles Strickland shows up with a list of items in the museum that have been presumably lost, admitting that there were items in storage that he never had a chance to document. He then offers Jessica a ride back to Susan’s house while Sam investigates Earl, who’s biggest crime from last night was punching a guy at a bar. Earl was at the bar all night, and has witnesses to back him up. In other words, he’s no longer a suspect.
The next morning, Max’s secretary finds Max dead on his office floor, shot in the chest. Sheriff Sam breaks the news to Susan, who seems surprisingly calm about it, stating that they only went out a few times and that she had no idea about his whereabouts the previous evening. Later, she admits to Jess in private that Susan had wanted to kill Max last night, after his refusal of her help. It turns out that Susan had gone back to apologize to him later that night, and found him with his secretary. She left before they spotted her, and was too upset to talk about it until now.
Jessica informs Sam about this development, and the pair go to question the secretary, who reluctantly tells them that she had some drinks with Max, and listened to him declare that he was about to be rich. She left around 8:30, after Max said he was meeting someone, who, she doesn’t know, but she does mention Ben Judson’s intentions to buy Silverville.
Just then, Sam’s deputies find Max’s old friend Tony driving Max’s car, and bring him in for questioning. Tony explains that he and Max used to own a mail order business, until Tony started getting a bit too greedy. Max turned the state on him, and Tony went to jail. The police never found out about Max’s offshore bank account, and so Max got off scot free. When Tony got out of jail, the money was gone. Tony hadn’t seen Max since the previous afternoon, before long before Max was shot.
Jessica points out that Max was sure telling a lot of people about how rich he was about to become. Sam thinks that Max was going to cave and sell Silverville, but Jess disagrees. Her theory is that it had something to do with the stolen stagecoach treasure. Before she sets off to investigate, Sam tells her that his uncle Ashie says that he has met Jessica Fletcher in his dreams, and asks her if she believes that’s possible. Jessica says that she doesn’t recall meeting Sam’s uncle, but, curiosity piqued, agrees to meet his uncle soon.
Jessica heads to the library, where she discovers that the archive’s newspapers are missing from right around the time that Cutter McGee robbed the stagecoach. The librarian informs her that Strickland had already reported the missing articles, and tells Jessica that the only information left from the time period were some bills, a postcard, and a bond from a company that went out of business in 1905, now utterly worthless.
Jess prepares to leave, bumping into Strickland himself in the process. She tells him why she is at the library, and Strickland pulls out some of his research material to help. In his copy of a book about celestial navigation, Strickland reveals the only known picture of Cutter McGee. Jessica asks Strickland if he knows what exactly McGee stole, but Strickland says that no one knows for sure, and guesses range from gold bullion to bags of silver dollars. Either way, he’s sure it’s worth a fortune by now.
Meanwhile, Sheriff Sam goes to visit Ben Judson, who apologizes for campaigning against Sam as mayor. He informs Sam that the sheriff’s department has never been operating better, and asks what he can do to help. Sam asks for information about his offer to Max for Silverville.
Judson says that he did offer to buy water rights for his herd, and thought it was a fair deal. Max would have gotten his money, and the bank, which Judson is the president of, would have gotten the land without a foreclosure. He tells Sam that he had no motive for murder, however, as the bank had frozen all of Max’s assetts before he was murdered.
That night, Sam takes Jessica to see his uncle Ashie. Jessica asks him if he knows the story of Cutter McGee, and Ashie obliges.
As it turns out, Cutter McGee hid in the desert for a few days before leaving for water. Once he was in the open, the Navajo found him and took his horse, leaving him unharmed. A few days later, McGee’s own people killed him. Jess thanks him, and asks if there’s anything she can do for him.
Uncle Ashie’s only request is for her to sign a copy of her book, as he is quite familiar with the author’s work, hence her appearances in his dreams.
Jess returns to Susan’s house, where she finds her hostess lamenting Max’s death. Jess tells her that she misses her own deceased husband very much, and after all of the things she’s done since his death, her only regret is that he was not there to share it with her. Still, she has made many good friends along the way.
At the sheriff’s office the following day, Sam shows Jessica the autopsy’s results: there was sand in the bullet wound in Max’s chest and his hair. Jessica deduces that the body must have been moved, originally shot somewhere else. Sam has also gotten his hands on Max’s safety deposit box. Inside the box, as it turns out, is Cutter McGee’s diary. Jessica is surprised that such an item would not have been on display in the museum, then figures out why it wasn’t: Max must have thought there were directions to the treasure inside.
Sure enough, letters on the inside of the diary turn out to be longitude and latitude directions, and a map from the library gives Jessica a general idea of where to look, but the area is too big to cover quickly. Remembering Uncle Ashie’s story, Jess recalls that the Navajo only found McGee because they were out looking for rabbitbrush, which only grows in one spot: Coyote Canyon, the place Jessica first met Sheriff Sam.
With a firm destination in hand, the pair set off, finding traces of blood in the canyon and sneaker tracks, just like the ones outside the museum. Sam points out a cave near the top of the hill that the Anasazi used to bury their dead in, and Jess gets an idea for how to catch the murderer.
Jess calls Charles Strickland, telling him that she’s found the treasure. She offers to meet him at the location of the hiding spot so they can open it together, and he agrees. Later, Jess waits in the cave while Strickland arrives. They open the chest, to reveal stacks and stacks of utterly worthless bonds from the business that went bankrupt at the beginning of the century.
Yes, Strickland murdered Max Teller for some worthless paper.
Jessica points out that the fire was started by Strickland, a disguise for the theft of the sextant so that he could use it with his constellation book to find the treasure. She also explains that his interest in the treasure passed academic when he went from discounting the treasure to speculating it’s worth.
Strickland, now surrounded by the cops, admits his guilt.
He explains that shooting Max was an accident. Max was upset that Strickland was looking for the treasure without him, and when Max snuck up on him while he was searching the canyon, Strickland shot him in the ensuing struggle.
Murderer caught, the case is closed, and another day is saved.
So what?
Like most episodes of Murder, She Wrote, Night of the Coyote is on the formulaic side. There is a murder, with plenty of suspects and motives to go around, there are clues that all come back in the end, and it ends with Jess and the local law enforcement celebrating another criminal caught.
So what makes this a good example of Murder, She Wrote, or television in general?
Consistency.
Night of the Coyote has enough red-herrings to keep the audience guessing about motives and killers, but the clues end up pointing in one direction. It’s concise without being too easy, the motive makes sense, and it all adds up in the end.
The suspects are easy to tell apart, with separate motives and connections, making them easier to remember, and allowing the audience to figure out who might have done what, and why. Jessica herself is on point throughout the episode, sharp as a tack and working together with the local law enforcement.
Sheriff Sam is another point in the episode’s favor. It’s always good to see the law working with Jess instead of against her, and here, Sam’s playing up of perceptions of Native Americans is a memorable enough quirk, as well as making a good point. Both he and his uncle are respectful depictions of Native American characters on the show, an improvement over a previous attempt seasons before. He’s competent, intelligent, and human, with enough personality that plays well off of Jessica herself.
Most of the characters within this episode feel a tad more fleshed out than typical Murder, She Wrote, (not surprisingly, as 45 minutes is not a long time for development) and Jessica herself is given a few moments of introspection. Her shared scenes with Susan, reminiscing about her own marriage and her life following her husband’s death are rare gems, windows into Jessica Fletcher’s deeper thoughts and personality.
In other words, Night of the Coyote is an example of the best of Murder, She Wrote.
It’s Jessica’s personality, a good mystery, and memorable characters all wrapped up in a neat package. It’s easy to see why this one became a fan-favorite, standing out among twelve years of episodes, with an interesting mystery linked to the past, and a mystery that’s just tricky enough to keep the audience guessing.
It is these elements that also make it an example of the best of television. It’s engaging, makes you think, and entertains you at the same time. Relatively timeless, the episode manages to maintain a level of intrigue as well as enjoyment throughout the entire episode. Full of distinct characters, scenes, and settings, Night of the Coyote is an excellent showing for Jessica Fletcher, and a must-see for cozy mystery fans, or avid television watchers in general.
Don’t forget that the ask box is always open for anything from suggestions and discussion ideas to questions and conversations! Thank you guys so much for reading, and I hope to see you guys in the next article.
Twentieth Century Fun With Film 