The Author

**The Author** is the thirteenth episode of the first season of *Matlock*.

## Plot

A woman, Mary Ann Newton (Audra Lindley), writes a book whose characters are actual people in the small town she lives in. When it becomes a best seller, the press converge on the town to interview them, and some of them threaten the woman. When the local reverend De Luca (John O'Leary) goes to visit her, someone takes a shot at her, but kills the reverend. The police investigate and it leads them to one of the town's doctors, Dr. Phillip Eagen, who was depicted in the book as being a druggie, which he denies, and threatened the woman. Ben comes to defend him, and starts by checking some of the other people depicted in the book, but learns none of them have reason to kill her. Later, Ben discovers a different motive and suspect for the killing.

## Cast

### Main

* Andy Griffith as Ben Matlock
* Linda Purl as Charlene Matlock
* and Kene Holiday as Tyler Hudson

### Guest Stars

* Parker Stevenson as Dr. Phillip Eagen
* Michael Durrell as Lloyd Burgess
* Louise Caire Clark as Jessie Peters
* Guy Stockwell as Chief Johnson
* Stanley Kamel as Mark Douglas
* Brion James as Glock
* John Schuck as Carl Burke
* Elizabeth Savage as Barbara Gleason
* John O'Leary as Kevin DeLuca

*and*

* Audra Lindley as Mary Ann Newton

### Co-Starring

* Kay Freeman as Margery Sawyer
* Richard Newton as Judge Richard Cooksey
* Eddie Quillan as David Sears
* Charles C. Stevenson Jr. as Jury Foreperson

## Quotes

**Mary Ann Newton:** Cliff.

**Chief Cliff Johnson:** Mary Ann.

**Mary Ann:** There are eggs all over my car again.

**Cliff:** I will fill out a report.

**Mary Ann:** This is the third time.

**Cliff:** Well, let’s hope it’s the **last**. Say, the waitress in here, the one with the: *Bedroom eyes that always say yes, no matter what the utterance.* Is that Rosemary Sawyer?

**Mary Ann:** I wanna know if you’re gonna provide me with protection.

**Cliff:** Oh, Mary Ann, it’s hard to believe anybody means you any real harm.

**Mary Ann:** I saw that Phillip Eagen on TV this morning. He was practically threatening.

**Cliff:** Well, if and when at such time as person or persons, known or unknown, attempt to cause you bodily harm, I will personally conduct a full-scale investigation. Till then, I can’t do anything. So you go on home, and don’t write any more dirty books.

**Reverend DeLuca:** Mary Ann? It’s Reverend DeLuca. Good evening.

**Mary Ann Newton:** Oh, Reverend, come in.

**Reverend DeLuca:** Thank you. Are you all right?

**Mary Ann:** Oh, well, the nerves are a little frayed, I suppose. Perhaps that book should never have been written.

**Reverend DeLuca:** I’m worried about you, Mary Ann.

**Mary Ann:** Yeah. Everything will calm down eventually. How about a nice cup of tea?

**Reverend DeLuca:** That'd be **lovely**.

**Ben Matlock:** *(to Mary Ann)* Miss Newton, Reverend DeLuca was a very frustrated writer. He wrote one mystery after another, and nobody would buy them. Then he wrote this novel, but he knew if he sent it in with his name on it, it probably wouldn’t get published. Just like the others didn’t get published. Besides, it was pretty seamy stuff for a preacher. And so you and he came up with the idea: What if it were written by a little spinster lady in a small town? Might get published. People might find it titillating, and, in fact, they did. Now, isn’t that why the two of you put your name on it?

**Mary Ann Newton:** I wrote it.

**Ben:** You know, Miss Newton, we all have secrets, and I think yours is that you came from being a little spinster lady in a little town in Georgia to becoming a big spinster lady in a little town in Georgia in a big way. Gee, you’re on television, on radio. People are writing about you. People recognize you on the street, and you kind of like that. Some of them got mad, but... And you know, I think it got away from you. I think somewhere in here it got away from you to the point that you never wanted anybody to know your secret. The thing that made you so big, the reason why we’re here.

**Ben:** *(to Mary Ann)* Let me... Let me show it to you like it was a chapter in your book. You asked Reverend DeLuca to come over to your house a few minutes before 11:00. Isn’t that right?

**Mary Ann:** Well, yes, but—

**Ben:** And you knew that David Sears walks his dog every night a few minutes after 11:00. So you waited till you heard the other dogs in the block barking, and you asked Reverend DeLuca if he’d like some tea. He would. You went outside, around the house, to the side window, where you shot Reverend DeLuca.

**Mary Ann:** I did not!

**Ben:** You know Mr. Sears is elderly and can’t walk fast, so you had plenty of time to go back into the house, pick up the tea tray, walk in, drop it and look shocked when Mr. Sears came up and looked through your window.

**Mary Ann:** That’s not true.

**Ben:** I think it is. I think after you shot Reverend DeLuca and before the police started their full-scale investigation, you planted the gun in Phillip Eagen’s car perfectly. You knew he was mad about the book anyway. Phillip Eagen wears a size 12 shoe. You found that out, got a size 12 shoe, made the footprint. And in an effort to be truly convincing, you dropped the tea tray when you saw Mr. Sears looking through the window. But you know, last night when I was over there, there was something missing. It was missing from before, but I hadn’t put it together. You know what was missing? Tea stains. There were no tea stains on the rug. You know why? You didn’t make any tea. You didn’t have time. You didn’t even have time to boil water.

**Mary Ann:** That’s not true. You can’t prove any of it.

**Ben:** I don't have to. All I have to do is show this jury there is reasonable doubt that Phillip Eagen shot Reverend DeLuca.

**Mary Ann:** It’s my book. I wrote it.

**Ben:** I'm sorry, Miss Newton.

## Trivia

* This episode marks the last appearance of Eddie Quillan.
* The computer Mary Ann Newton used is a Commodore 128.