Telly Savalas and the Manhattan South Squad get sent in a wrong direction by a former detective now a private eye played by Martin Balsam. He fakes the suicide of Richard Eastham to look like murder so he can get a payoff from widow Susan Brown and her late husband's business partner John Lehne.
Why they're doing this is so that they can collect a real big insurance policy because they get not a nickel if it goes in the books as suicide. But Balsam gets egged on by his greedy wife who does fortune telling on the side. She's played by Dimitra Arliss and she is some piece of work.
Balsam starts adding new twists to the scam he's pulling, adding a little blackmail to Brown and Lehne. Just the fact he's in any way associated with the case gets Kojak's antenna up. He got bounced from the force for taking payoffs.
Nicely done episode with both Balsam and Arliss standing out.
Why they're doing this is so that they can collect a real big insurance policy because they get not a nickel if it goes in the books as suicide. But Balsam gets egged on by his greedy wife who does fortune telling on the side. She's played by Dimitra Arliss and she is some piece of work.
Balsam starts adding new twists to the scam he's pulling, adding a little blackmail to Brown and Lehne. Just the fact he's in any way associated with the case gets Kojak's antenna up. He got bounced from the force for taking payoffs.
Nicely done episode with both Balsam and Arliss standing out.