“Unfinished Business” quotes from Criminal Minds

Agt. Fred Keller: A man must be pretty special to have people willing to stand up before an agent of the United States Department of Justice and each one willing to risk charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and harboring a fugitive. Not many men have friends like that.

Lt. Antonelli: Mrs. Fletcher, let me be frank. Your kind of writing is not my kind of reading.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, Lieutenant, let me be even franker. Anyone who is capable of imagining that my niece can commit murder is being grossly overpaid for taking up valuable space in this office.

Beryl Hayward: Jessica, I am so looking forward to hearing your commencement address.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, I'm still rewriting. Books are easy compared to speeches.

Daphne Clover: I hear Picasso is really hot.

Jessica Fletcher: Well, his pictures may be hot, but I hear that Picasso is dead.

Oliver Trumbull: A bloke never gets in trouble chasing women. It's after they're caught the trouble begins.

Emma McGill: Television can't compare with the sort of live entertainment that we provide.

Bridget O'Hara: Well, you're right about that. But nothing goes on forever. Even ol' Queen Victoria found that out, she did.

Oliver Trumbull: [after Jessica exposes the murderer] Emma never harmed you.

Kitty Trumbull: But she was destroying you, Dad. Or couldn't you see it? You were so magnificent with a God-given gift that you prostituted to become a second-rate music hall comic. You couldn't break away. Every year, you got weaker and more dependent while I stood there and watched. You couldn't help yourself, Dad. But I could. Don't you see? I had to kill her for you.

Francesca Lodge: Jess, I don't know what they've told you, but I'm just a little bit tired. You know, nerves.

Cheryl Lodge: Mom, it wasn't just nerves last night. You called the sheriff.

Francesca Lodge: I thought I was alone. I heard noises. I guess I overreacted.

Jessica Fletcher: That's enough to frighten anyone. Believe me, I'm an expert on the subject. In my books, of course.

Sheriff Amos Tupper: This is going to look real good to the grand jury. The prosecution's star witness trying to prove that the accused is innocent of the crime that she saw him commit!

Burton Hollis: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] Howard's father cheated mine out of the family company. He accused him of embezzling funds. The scandal was too much, and Father died of a stroke. Then Howard's father died, and he inherited everything. He sold that company for a fortune. Half of that should have been mine! It wasn't fair!

Jessica Fletcher: And what you did to Carolyn Crane, was that fair?

Burton Hollis: I had nothing against Carolyn. I was fond of her. But she had to die. Surely, you can understand. To inherit, I had to eliminate them both.

Vicky Gallegos: [after Jessica exposes her as the murderer] When Carlos was still riding in Panama, he got into some trouble and had to have some money. So he agreed to bump another horse during a race. Only something went wrong, and the other horse went down, and the other jockey got badly hurt; he almost died.

Carlos Gallegos: That's when I met Jack Bowen. I changed my name. I come to this country to ride for him. And then, when he came up with these horses, these ringers, what could I do? He threatened to send me back to Panama.

Jessica Fletcher: And you drugged Carlos so that he would have a legitimate excuse not to ride.

Vicky Gallegos: I put chloral hydrate in his coffee. Only Bowen wouldn't believe that Carlos was really sick. And so he threatened to get even by turning him over to Immigration. Well, what could I do? I couldn't let that happen.

Jessica Fletcher: And later you planted the drug in Tracy's locker.

Vicky Gallegos: Mrs. Fletcher, I love Tracy. But I had to protect my husband.

Jessica Fletcher: I particularly liked the way the gas station bandit was caught, having the getaway car shift into reverse by mistake and crash into the police car. Now, that showed a great deal of imagination.

Nicole Tug: Not exactly. That's the way it happened. Hey, I didn't know it had a stick shift, or I wouldn't have stole it!

Sheriff Harry Pierce: [after Jessica exposes him as the murderer] Let me tell ya somethin' about Beverly. She was stupid and greedy. I did all the work. I torched the building. I found the buyers! I even greased the way for the zoning variance! She paid me all right, but what she didn't tell me was that she'd recorded our conversations. She tried to bleed me out of my cut. A lot wasn't enough for her. She wanted it all. Sorry about Elvira. I always liked her. Just as I've always liked you, Jessica.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Jess, when I suggested that you write a book called Murder at the Digs, I never dreamed you'd come meandering out to a place like this.

Jessica Fletcher: Suggested? Well, as I recall, it was more like a dare.

Dr. Seth Hazlitt: Was it? I don't recall. In any case, when you leave here, you'll have one hell of a book or one hell of a suntan. Maybe even both.

Gideon Armstrong: [after Jessica exposes the murderer] I gave you everything you wanted.

Cynthia Armstrong: You gave me exactly what you wanted to give me – thanks a lot, Gideon – and exactly when you wanted to give it. And what I really wanted was out of this rotten marriage and your miserable face out of my sight. Yes, I bought the land secretly. And it was Stan, he found Raymond.

Dr. Stan Garfield: That's a lie! It's a lie!

Cynthia Armstrong: Yes, you did. You found Raymond and you got him to steal the gold artifacts from the university museum. And then he made sure that there were gonna be all inexperienced people working at this dig, people who could be fooled. And as for you, Benton, you were easy.

Jessica Fletcher: But why kill Raymond?

Cynthia Armstrong: Because he got so greedy. We could've made millions on this. But he came at me, and he made all these crazy threats to me. He threatened he would tell my husband the truth. I had to stop him. I had to get rid of him. I picked up this rock, you see, and I killed him.

Karen Parks: Why did you throw the body off the cliff?

Jessica Fletcher: To hide the real cause of death. You see, they couldn't leave the body in the cave because, once he was discovered missing, there'd be a search, and we might've found him there. Actually, the fall would have hidden the real cause of death if he had died from the blow on the head. What you hadn't realized was that he died of drowning.

Gideon Armstrong: If you just had come to me, we could have talked it out.

Cynthia Armstrong: And you would've listened to me, wouldn't you have, Gideon?