A Substantial Gift (The Broken Promise) - Plot

Plot

The episode starts inside the office of the Acme Credit Union. A young credit union teller named Sally Decker (played by Kathryn Leigh Scott) is arguing with her boss, Jim Johnson, over a loan of money. Sally needs the money to pay a debt to her orthodontist. Johnson declines, saying that due to an upcoming audit, he has to balance the credit union's books and cannot loan her any more money. The argument ends as customer Ralph Twice, recently laid off from the Lorman Tire Company, arrives to cash his last payroll check. During the extended and ridiculous identification process, Sally devises a scheme to solve her money problems: she shoots her boss and Mr. Twice, making it look like Twice was trying to rob the credit union by planting a gun on him. She pilfers the cash drawer and then begins screaming to attract attention.

We then see Frank park his car in front of the credit union, avoiding an absurdly long stretcher removing a body of one of the victims as he enters. He inquires of his boss, Ed Hocken, about the case. Ed tells Frank that the alleged robber, Ralph Twice, is a good family man with no prior record. They both question Sally, who makes a really complicated statement (in the manner of Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?" routine) in which she makes clear that Twice shot Jim Johnson twice, and then she shot Twice once. As Frank and Ed depart, Sally continues sobbing falsely, believing that they have bought her story.

Frank leaves to go see scientist Ted Olson at the Police Squad crime lab. Ted tells Frank that if the shooter stood where Sally said, the bullet which killed Johnson should have penetrated deeper. Ted demonstrates this by shooting into a shelf of videotapes containing Barbara Walters interviews. Ed and Frank then go a neighborhood in the city called Little Italy to question Ralph Twice's widow ("We're sorry to bother you at a time like this, Mrs. Twice. We would have come earlier, but your husband wasn't dead then"). She tells them that Ralph didn't have any enemies, although the Democrats didn't like him. Mrs. Twice claims that Ralph was a good man and laments how she is going to break the news of his death to her daughter. Frank and Ed suggest preposterous lies such as: "he was killed by left-wing insurgents from Paraguay", or that "he threw himself on a grenade and saved a battalion", and ultimately that "he was traded to the Yankees for Reggie Jackson". They leave Mrs. Twice in more grief than when they found her. No further progress is made in the next ten hours, so the following morning Frank reports back to Police Squad. While Sally is giving a "formal" statement (dressed in an evening gown with a stenographer wearing a tuxedo), Ed and Frank receive the lab reports, brought to them by Al. The lab reports contradict Sally's version of the events, suggesting that the shooter was really much further away from the victims than she claimed.