How to Solve Your Own Murder

Annie realizes she sent Frances the dry bones part of the fortune prediction when Crane asks Annie why her name is on the shipping invoice on the trunk. Annie explains they were cleaning out the basement and simply sent things to Frances without going through them. She is disturbed that she spent her childhood playing around a dead body. Detective Crane knows she has the file about his family. He confirms that he did like Frances but she caused trouble. Frances could get things wrong. His parent’s marriage broke up not because of infidelity but because his father is gay. He sent the Cease and Desist letter because his father wasn’t ready to come out. When they cleared the air, Frances was supportive. Crane speculates that Frances killed Emily but Annie thinks not. She thinks that when the body was delivered, Frances solved who the killer was. Annie tells Crane she thinks she knows what the murder weapon was. She shows him the diary. He says the incident with the gun is in the file, though the information that Emily was pregnant is new to Crane along with the idea that the baby was John’s. This makes Frances seem like a good suspect. Both agree someone killed Frances because she had new information. Crane is going to monitor the house but he also needs the diary. He says he will make copies and give it back. Annie is angry but knows she has no choice. When he says he expects he’ll have to get her out of more trouble, she says she’ll take care of herself, like Frances did, only later realizing Frances didn’t.

Someone has cleaned up Annie’s room and it makes her paranoid. There is a threatening note under her pillow that reminds her of a comment Frances made in her diary. It feels less like a direct threat to Annie and more like something from the past. She worries that Frances killed Emily. She asks Crane if she can see the diary again and offers to trade him for the threat she got. He isn’t happy about the note but hands her the diary. She rereads the part about Peter and Tansy, Frances’s brother and sister-in-law, and a baby. It doesn’t specify that Tansy gave birth to the child. Crane offers to take her to the local pub where they can both work and eat and not bother each other. Annie realizes he is getting her out of the house to question everyone about the threat she received, but he also says he wants to see what she can do with the right tools.

In 1966, Emily appears at Frances’s window after midnight, and Frances lets her in. When Frances asks why Emily wants to take everything including John, Emily confesses she thinks Walt is falling out of love with her, and she wanted someone to love her like John loves Frances. She’s angry everyone gets love except her. She begs Frances to help her and tells her she doesn’t want to be a mother yet. She has a plan to give the baby to Frances’s brother and sister-in-law who have had disappointments trying to adopt. Emily thinks she can hide at the Gravesdown Estate until the baby is born. She will lie to her parents and say that she’s going to a secretarial school in London.

In the present, Annie gets clothes from the local Oxfam and reflects her evening with Crane was one of the most relaxing she’s had in a man’s presence in years, as they simply worked and ate in silence. She tells her mother about what’s happening and that Emily may be her real mother. Annie asks Archie if the Rolls-Royce will start so she can get a ride into town. Annie asks about the car not working the morning of the murder, and he says he was puzzled Frances had the hood open. He finds the battery isn’t connected and gets it to start. He makes Annie drive the old car and she enjoys it. He doesn’t want to go to his own farm, though Annie wants to see it. She drives there anyway to ask Miyuki, Beth’s wife, about her veterinary medication. She sees lots of roses like the ones that had the needles in Frances’s house. Miyuki knows who she is and says both Detective Crane and Saxon have already asked about the medication. She had a break-in over a week ago and lots of injections were stolen. As Annie walks back, she looks in a hothouse and finds a large marijuana crop. Annie asks Archie about it over tea, and he says Frances wasn’t happy about it but only gave him warnings. She promises not to tell the police and asks for a ride into town, where she sees an ambulance heading.

In the past timeline, Frances finds another threat in her coat pocket. She goes with Ford, Emily, Rose, Saxon, Peter, and Tansy to Ford’s house in Chelsea. The housekeeper agrees to look after Emily, who walks around like she is moving in permanently. Frances feels a moment of happiness when she hears Peter thanking Ford, and he says he’s doing it for Frances, not for them or Emily. After, however, he doesn’t contact her at all, so she gets annoyed and goes to the hall. She asks if the baby is his, and he says he doesn’t know. He and Emily had a one-time fling but he’d used protection. Emily didn’t like that it was only one time. He tells Frances she is too decent for him but she manages to draw him out. Frances is caught coming home late more than once, and so is punished by being assigned yardwork for her neighbors under close supervision.

In the present, it is revealed that the ambulance is for Rose, who panicked when she pricked her finger on a rose Frances gave her, and her son, paramedic Joe Leroy, is looking after her. Magda shows up and reveals they have two ambulances for the area though they often work as a team. Rose makes Joe give Annie a scrapbook of photos even though it’s clearly hard for her to let it go. The first photos start in June 1966 and one is of a very pregnant Emily at the Chelsea house. Annie realizes she’s looking at a picture of her mother before she was born.

In the past timeline, Rose helps Frances manage her punishments by creating games. They are enjoying their time without Emily’s drama, but eventually Rose reports Emily is back, having had the baby, but then dashed back to Chelsea, saying she left something at the house. Rose knows because she is dating Ford’s driver. John, who Frances still hasn’t forgiven, thinks Emily needed to get pregnant to trap Ford but had imitated Frances and slept with John because she is obsessed with Frances. He thinks Ford and Saxon have been visiting her on the weekends, and Frances is crushed. They also suspect she doesn’t intend to give the baby to Peter and Tansy after all but wants to use it to keep Ford. Frances is outraged about Emily and Ford but even more for her brother, thinking that losing the baby will crush him and his wife. John says he and Walt are going to Chelsea to stop Emily from ruining more lives. Rose covers for Frances, dressing her in clothes to fool Frances’s mother while she leaves. As they go, Frances makes them stop at her brother’s house as the car is unexpectedly there instead of in Chelsea. John and Walt continue on, determined to get even with Emily, but Frances cares more about her brother’s well-being. He comes to the door with baby Laura. When Frances says she was worried Emily changed her mind, he says she did, but he took care of it.

In the present, Detective Crane is worried about Annie because someone took a crowbar to Frances’s locked drawer. Envelopes of cash are found on Emily’s body, and Annie realizes they are Peter’s payment to her for the baby. This explains the new-looking black line through Peter and Tansy’s names on the murder investigation board. Annie and Crane reason that if Frances killed Emily, she wouldn’t have gone through her pockets and put the money back. Crane warns her to lock her door.

There is another old, threatening note on her bed calling the person a “whore and liar,” which reminds Annie of Walt’s words (252). She wonders if Oliver and Walt are working together. Annie writes ideas in her notebook and looks at the fortune. Oliver ominously blocks her when she tries to go down the stairs, but Detective Crane appears. Annie goes to the locked drawer and shows how words in the fortune give the combination. They open the lock and find a file on Saxon and Magda. They are tricking Dr. Owusu, saying they are ordering drugs for the ambulance but are actually selling them to townspeople out of the ambulance. Crane takes the evidence and goes. Annie goes to her room and finds it trashed and her laptop smashed. She locks the door only to hear someone in her wardrobe.

Saxon comes out of the wardrobe saying he won’t hurt her and isn’t responsible for the mess. He was looking for something in the false bottom of the wardrobe. He thinks Walt or Oliver is responsible and tells Annie he doesn’t know who killed Emily or his Aunt Frances. He suggests they team up against Walt and Oliver. He says he wasn’t on the ferry because he was at the bank checking up on odd payments from Frances’s account. Saxon suspects Walt and his accountant were scamming Frances. Annie understands he needs her because he is going to get in trouble for the drug business. He has written false prescriptions and stole the drugs from the vet. He says if he and Emily split the winnings, his life won’t be over after he loses his license. Annie doesn’t commit totally but implies she’ll consider it. Saxon shares that Walt is one of Magda’s customers and would have access to her stash when being delivered to in the ambulance. He needs Annie to help him set up Walt.

Annie calls Jenny, who helps her think through who had access to the murder weapon, who might want revenge, and who might kill for self-preservation. All signs seem to point to Walt, but Annie doesn’t know how to prove it.

Saxon and Annie meet in the pub to plan. He wants Annie to pretend to buy drugs from Magda and steal her stash to see if the drugs she has match the kind used to kill Frances. Saxon says he will call the police, alerting them a drug deal is going on so Magda will get distracted. Annie knows this won’t help prove anyone is the killer and that she’s being set up to be arrested for buying drugs and eliminated from the competition. She makes Saxon show her the printouts of the bank records with the suspicious transactions. Annie thinks Walt’s violent behavior in Frances’s notebooks seems more impulsive and the plan and medical knowledge of the killer don’t fit. Annie decides to pretend to go along with Saxon but makes her own plan.

Annie asks Detective Crane if he was invited to Frances’s original meeting where she planned to reveal the new terms of the will. When he says no, Annie eliminates Walter, since exposing him as Emily’s killer at that meeting would have required the police. The next morning, she finds Crane has returned Frances’s notebook.