"A beach house?" Mad Dog asked when their new location was revealed.
"Face managed to scam this place for us as a hiding spot a couple times before," Hannibal explained as they piled out of the van, "So far it's worked like a charm, nobody's found us here yet."
"Well it's the off season around here," Face explained.
"I thought it was always beach season in California," Frankie said.
"That's because you live inland," Face told her, "If you actually lived near the beach you'd know the difference."
"Well it looks alright to me," Mad Dog said, "Is it unlocked?"
"Allow me," Face said as he took a lock pick out of his pocket and went up the stairs to the front door.
"Does it have the electricity turned on?" Frankie asked.
"Of course it does, we keep the utilities paid up," Hannibal told her.
"What about food?" Mad Dog asked.
"That's one thing we'll have to look into."
Face got the door open and everybody stepped in.
"Looks like the place could use a good dusting, or a bulldozer," Frankie said as she took a look around at the walls and furniture.
"Who cares? Let's see if there's anything to eat," Mad Dog replied.
He and Frankie ran towards the kitchen, and a few seconds later the A-Team heard two people screaming, and Mad Dog and Frankie doubled back and jumped onto the coffee table in the living room.
"What's the matter?" Hannibal asked in a deadpan tone.
"There's a spider in there!" Frankie said.
"Oh you ought to be ashamed of yourself," Face said condescendingly as he came up to her, "A big strong thing like you scared of a little spider."
"Oh yeah, Tarzan?" Frankie asked and pointed, "Then you go kill it."
"I will," Face said and went into the kitchen.
"I have to say, cous, I'm surprised at you," Murdock said, "Scared of a teeny tiny little…"
Face quickly doubled back from the kitchen and said, "That's it, we're moving," before joining the other two on the coffee table.
"Hmm, must be a big spider," Hannibal observed.
"And no food in the icebox either," Frankie added.
"Alright," Hannibal said, "Murdock, you take them to the store and pick up some food, and we'll see about getting rid of the spider."
Murdock saluted and remarked, "Right-o, Colonel."
"Wait a minute, how're we going to do that? They know what the van looks like," Frankie said.
"Right, but you already cleared up the matter of Face's 'Vette, and we've got that out in the garage behind the house," Murdock explained.
"You guys think of everything, don't you?" Mad Dog observed.
Hannibal gave a three fingered salute and replied humorously, "Scout's dishonor."
Hannibal had counted on Murdock keeping Frankie and Mad Dog out at the supermarket for longer than they had; there was a pressing issue that he wanted to bring up with Face and B.A., but he quickly found a particular monkey wrench thrown into that plan and had to think of something else. After lunch he suggested that Murdock take the others upstairs and lay low, "After all, if by some chance Decker would be able to track us here, he'd only find B.A., Face and myself, leaving you three free to come to our aid when needed."
"This is starting to get redundant," Frankie noted.
"Try it for ten years and tell me about it," Murdock said as he picked up a couple of large brown paper bags and started for the stairs.
"Hey Murdock, what've you got there?" Face asked.
"Oh, a couple six-packs of beer," he answered.
"Sounds good, save one for me."
"You got it, Faceguy," Murdock said with a nod as he, Frankie and Mad Dog went up the stairs.
"So what's up, Hannibal?" Face asked once they knew they wouldn't be overheard.
"We have to find a way to get to Masterson and get a confession out of him, he killed that woman and I know it but we can't prove it," he said, "We went all over that house, never found anything that could be presented as evidence in a court of law."
"Well I agree, but a confession alone isn't going to do too much," Face said, "He'd have to give the cops something that only the killer would know."
"If we play our cards right we can get that out of him too," Hannibal noted, "It's just a question of how? And how are we going to do it without Frankie and Mad Dog getting in the way? I'm certain if Frankie gets to him first, she's going to kill him, and tempting though that may be, and she may be well within her rights to do it, it's not going to help either of them, they'll never be able to prove what they've been trying to tell people for three years."
"So why don't we just let B.A. persuade him to give himself up?" Face suggested, "You know how convincing he can be."
B.A. growled at Face in response.
Hannibal shook his head, "Not good enough this time…we're going to have to hit him with something a lot harder than that."
"Well why don't we just knock out Frankie and M.D. and keep them here where they can't get in the way?" Face asked, "You know? Just give them each a shot of B.A.'s bedtime drink and…" he caught the murderous glare from B.A. and shook his head, "No, I guess not. Hannibal, Frankie's the root of this whole problem, isn't there a way we can use her in this plan?"
"If I thought she could be trusted, but she's out for blood and if we let her within 10 feet of Masterson she's going to go straight for the jugular."
Face started snapping his fingers as an idea hit him, "What about Murdock's Dr. Richter at the V.A.? He was able to help Murdock hypnotize Mad Dog, maybe they could hypnotize Frankie so she'd be sedate."
"Face, there aren't enough drugs in the world to make that sedate," Hannibal pointed out, "And I have doubts about any chance of hypnotizing her either."
"So what do we do, Hannibal?" B.A. asked.
"I'm thinking," Hannibal told them, "What did Frankie say happened to Murdock's house after he was arrested?"
"Why?" Face asked.
"If it's still standing, maybe we can find a way to lure Masterson back there and kind of reenact the night of the murder," Hannibal said.
"Ah," Face nodded, "Psychological warfare, Murdock would love it."
Frankie stood before a full length mirror in one of the upstairs bedrooms and held the white, long sleeved and decorated with as Murdock put it 'embellishments' on the bodice, wedding dress up to her. "Where in the world did you find this thing?" she asked Murdock.
"Believe me you don't want to know," he said.
"Just tell me you didn't steal it off a corpse," Frankie said as she tossed it on the bed.
"Okay, I didn't," Murdock told her, "See how easy that was?"
"What about the mask?" Mad Dog asked.
"Got that too," Murdock pulled a latex skull mask out from under the pillow on the bed, "The Dancing Skull."
"Look Murdock, do you really think this is going to work?" Frankie asked, "Do you really think we could scare Masterson to death with this stuff?"
"Well it might require a little fine tuning…we'll either drop him dead from fright or his little bird brain's gonna go bye-bye by the time we get done with him," Murdock told her, "I guarantee it."
Frankie's eyes lit up a little and she seemed to be filled with hope for this very thing, "Good," she said.
Murdock reached into the second bag he'd brought up and pulled out a six-pack of beer and opened one, "Come on, let's have a drink."
Frankie turned and saw the beers and said, "Why not? I missed the champagne for my birthday."
"Now it seems to me," Murdock said as they all cracked open a cold one, "What we need to do is find a time that we can corner Masterson when he is alone…now Frankie, you never answered the question, is Masterson married?"
"He used to be, but I don't think he is anymore," Frankie answered.
"So he'd have that house to himself, right?" Murdock asked.
"Should be," she said.
Murdock got a sinister look on his face as he chuckled ominously and responded, "Perfect."
"Why? What're you thinking?" Mad Dog wanted to know.
Murdock looked to him and said, "Oh, just leave the planning to me."
"Something tells me we're going to get killed either way," Frankie said.
"Think positive, cous," Murdock told her.
"Alright I'm positive we're gonna get killed," she said.
The three of them huddled together on the floor each with a beer in their hand, Murdock remained the voice of reasoning between them all as he said, "Nobody is going to get killed…now that's not to say nobody's going to die, but I'm pulling for that to be our guy Masterson, nobody else."
"What about Decker and the military cops?" Frankie asked, "What if they come into the picture again?"
"Then we shall deal with them as we have always done before," Murdock answered self assuredly.
"How long have these guys been chasing you?" Mad Dog asked.
"Off and on, about 10 years," Murdock told them.
"How long is it going to continue for?" Frankie asked.
"Either until we get a presidential pardon or one side dies, whichever comes first," Murdock answered matter-of-factly.
"How can you be so positive with that hanging over your head?" Frankie asked.
"It's easy, I'm crazy, remember?" Murdock pointed out.
Frankie got up and moved over to Murdock and grabbed him and said in a desperate tone, "Murdock, you've got to teach me how to be as insane as you are."
"Well, it'll be a pleasure," he grinned, "You know you're the first person to ever ask me that."
"Murdock you've got to do it," Frankie said as she dug her nails into his sleeves, "You've got to show me how to act like you."
Murdock peeled her fingers out of his jacket and said, "Well the first thing you have to do," his hands started talking for him as he gestured to his chest and said, "Relax…take a deep breath," she did, "Mm-hm, in, and out, and in, and out…the important thing is never panic, to be convincing you must be calm, cool, and totally unfazed by anything you see or hear."
"How do you do that?" Frankie asked.
"You focus on something else," Murdock told her, "I have found that in high pressure situations, it helps to sing."
"Sing?" Frankie asked cluelessly.
"That's right, it completely takes your mind off of whatever the matter at hand is, talking to yourself is a second best but I prefer to go for singing," Murdock explained, "If you can do it in a different language it's even better."
"I can't," Frankie shook her head.
"Oh well no matter," Murdock said, "Have you ever heard this one?" Without even taking in a breath, Murdock switched over to a heavy facsimile German accent and started belting out, "When der fuehrer says we is de master race, we heil! Heil! Right in der fuehrer's face. Not to love der fuehrer is a great disgrace so we heil! Heil! Right in der fuehrer's face!" And true to form he followed up every 'heil' with a razzberry.
Frankie looked at him like he was truly nuts and asked, "That's a song?"
"Sounds like a good way to get shot to me," Mad Dog said.
"That just shows what you don't know, that was a very popular song when I was a kid," Murdock told them.
"Makes sense," Frankie said, "If you're crazy then you have no sense of loyalty to anyone or anything, not the country, certainly not the government or any of their policies."
"Well that's not exactly true, Frankie, but it's not a bad idea to keep in mind either," Murdock replied.
Frankie laughed and told him, "I tell you something I'd like to be able to do, I'd like to take some of these army guys and bash their heads in. What I'd like to do is take that-that-that Colonel Decker or whoever, and steal somebody's uniform so he thinks I'm one of those poor sap MPs under him, somebody who has to answer to him, and when he's chewing me out for not saluting him, taking off the uniform and telling him 'if you want me at attention, you're gonna have to put me there', just to see the look on his face, I'd love to see that."
Either Murdock found that idea funny or the beer was starting to take effect, he laughed at what she said.
"You know you guys have gone through a lot of trouble to help us," Frankie said, "I just wish there was some way we could repay you guys for what you've done."
"Well, we'll hold off on that thought until it's actually over," he replied, "After which we can move on to bigger and better things."
"Like what?" they asked.
Murdock looked back and forth at them and repeated, "Like what? Like once we're done with this jerk we'll get your name cleared, get both of you out of the hospital and then the two of you can get married."
Mad Dog and Frankie looked at each other and repeated in unison, "Married?"
Now Murdock felt like he was the only sane one in the room. He noted the way they were both looking at him and he said, "Yeah, aren't you guys…"
Frankie slowly shook her head, and Murdock felt like he just fell through the looking glass at warp drive.
"Murdock," Frankie tried to get him to understand, "We've spent the last three years just trying to keep Mad Dog out of jail and then to bust him out of the hospital, we never had time to think about getting married."
Murdock took off his cap and scratched the top of his head, "Oh boy, do I feel like a…" he looked to each of them again and asked, "You mean to say in all the time you two were together it never occurred to either of you…"
"Don't you think if we did we would've done something about it?" Frankie asked, "Hell, if we'd thought of that, we could've gone somewhere to do it, Mexico, New York, I don't know where, but there had to be some place that would've taken us back then. I don't care that we didn't have any money and no place to really go, if I'd thought it would've helped us, we would've done it in a minute."
"Hoo boy, do I feel like an idiot," Murdock said, "I've spent all this time thinking that you two…" he looked back and forth at them again and another idea came to him, "You two wait here," he said as he got up, "I'll be back." But before he left, he turned around, grabbed Frankie and half pulled, half dragged her on the floor over to Mad Dog and set her down beside him and told her, "Stay here."
Murdock tore off down the stairs so fast he was hardly even touching the ground; B.A., Face and Hannibal practically saw a cloud of dust behind him as he zoomed out the front door, only to return a few seconds later and rush back up the stairs equally as fast.
"What do you think that's about?" Face asked.
"Don't ask," B.A. warned him, "We don't want to know whatever's going through that crazy fool's head."
"I got it I got it I got it!" Murdock yelped as he came rushing up the stairs, right before he crashed into the doorframe and got knocked back. "Oof!" he moaned as he grabbed his nose, but he quickly recovered and came into the room screaming, "I got it, I got it!"
"Got what?" Frankie and Mad Dog asked.
Murdock scampered over to them and all but fell on the floor, practically winding up in half of each of their laps, he reached into his pocket and took out a plastic ring with a tiny airplane on it and said as he all but shoved it onto Frankie's finger because it was a little small, "A ring a ring a ring, you wear this, Frankie, and if anybody asks, you two are engaged."
"Ouch!" Frankie screamed as the plastic band was forced onto her ring finger and scraped the sides, "Whatever for?"
"Well for one thing," Murdock said as if it was a basic fact, "If it was found out that you two was planning on getting hitched when this whole thing started, that's going to make you a lot more sympathetic in the press."
"Who said anything about the press?" Frankie asked.
"Well come on, Frankie, once the story breaks about what's been going on, you two are going to be plastered all over the 6 o' clock news, and the newspapers and maybe they'll even put you on "60 Minutes", you two are going to be famous when this is all over."
"Oh man, we never thought about that," Mad Dog said, "We never thought anybody would believe us."
"They will," Murdock told them, "Once we get done fixing Masterson's little red wagon and rearranging his face, you two are going to be celebrities."
"Hell of a way to do it," Frankie said, "Have to have your whole life, your private life, plastered all over the newspapers for the whole world to find out." She leaned forward to look past Murdock over to Mad Dog and told him, "We ain't ever gonna have a normal life, no matter what we do."
Murdock reached and wrapped an arm around each of them and pulled them towards him. "A normal life is vastly overrated, it's boring, but once we get past this point, things will get better, you'll see."
"I'd hate to think that they could possibly get worse than this," Frankie commented.
Murdock poked Frankie and asked her, "Just why is it that you two never discussed marriage? You two are perfect for each other, I can tell that."
"It just never came up," Frankie said.
"I don't buy that," he told her and jerked a thumb back in Mad Dog's direction, "I think you knew very well what was going on, you love this boy but you're not marrying him, you said yourself that you think he'd be better off if he'd never met you."
"He would, he wouldn't be in this mess now," Frankie reminded him.
"Well that's no excuse," Murdock told her, "I have never seen two people who belong together as much as you two do, you two are like a yin-yang symbol pulled apart, you need each other, but you refuse to admit it."
"Look at us, Murdock, our lives have already been ruined because we met in the first place," Frankie said.
Murdock turned to Mad Dog and asked him, "Do you agree with that, M.D.?"
He looked past Murdock and over to Frankie and said as he shook his head, "I don't know…I don't regret us meeting and I don't regret anything that I did, it's the things I didn't that I regret."
"Hmm, what things would those be?" Murdock asked, slipping once again into the role of mediator.
"You know what," Mad Dog told him, "When that louse Masterson first came around, I should've done something with him. I should've beaten the hell out of him, I should've done something to make sure he didn't come back, that he didn't try anything else with Frankie."
Murdock listened patiently and nodded to show he understood, but then he told the young man, "Masterson is a cold blooded killer, he has no heart, he has no conscience, he has no fear, short of killing him there's nothing you could've done to stop him. You did what you could, and he still has yet to get his hands on Frankie, you've done enough, you did all that anybody could've done."
"Until now," Frankie said.
Murdock turned back to her and nodded, "That's right, until now, now we are going to clean this guy's clock and leave him begging for mercy."
"After everything we've been through, it's weird to think that it's so close to being over now," Frankie told him.
And now that it was, Murdock noted, the fight was visibly going out of her, suddenly Frankie looked like she'd just aged 10 years the hard way, it reminded Murdock of a flower wilting in a massive drought. He leaned over and kissed her on her forehead, then placed his hands on her sides and pulled her over closer to Mad Dog and got her between the two of them and he moved over to where she'd been sitting.
"Frankie, I want you to tell me something, and I want you to be honest…do you love Mad Dog?"
"Of course I do," she told him.
"Alright," Murdock looked to M.D. and added, "And you, Mad Dog, you love Frankie, right?"
"Of course," he replied.
"Alright," Murdock shoved Frankie over so she practically fell on top of Mad Dog and he told them, "Then it's time that you told each other as much, go ahead."
They both looked at him like he was even crazier than he was, he pressed one hand against the wall to lean against and with the other shooed at them and persisted, "Go on!"
They looked at each other and now that they were faced with the situation they both looked like neither knew what to say. Frankie opened her mouth and started to say something, but looked like she was going to be sick instead. She fell against M.D. and burst into tears; he looked about as clueless as she did, but he put his arms around her and held her close to him.
Murdock watched this from the other side of the room and felt like two things. One, he felt like he was watching an old Charlie Chaplin film; while the man was known as a world renowned comedian, he had a tendency to take a detour through the tear ducts while en route to the funny bone. For that reason he knew a lot of people didn't care for his movies, they wanted only to laugh, not to cry, and for that reason there was a large bunch of people who preferred the comedies made by Buster Keaton or Harold Lloyd from the same time period. But also, it made Murdock feel like an intruder on this scene; he knew he didn't belong here right now so quietly, he got to his feet and left the room and pulled the door shut behind him.
As he stood out in the hall alone, Murdock felt like a ton of bricks had just fallen down on him, in a small amount of time he'd had a lot of new information to take in from this. He had spent this whole time just assuming that Mad Dog and Frankie had planned to get married once they could get M.D. cleared and released. But thinking back over the past few days, he realized that they had never once mentioned anything of the sort, it had all been in his own mind. But, given the circumstances he supposed it did make sense. Frankie had only been 17 when Mad Dog got arrested, while it wasn't uncommon for girls to marry at that age, especially not uncommon to marry older guys, it was entirely possible that just wasn't her thing. He knew from personal experience some girls wanted to at least finish high school before getting hitched. That could very well have been her mindset back then. But Murdock considered what else this all meant; she and M.D. hadn't known each other long when the murder occurred, probably only a few months. And it seemed that in whatever time they had had together, they had never reached this point of admitting that they were in love.
What a concept, Murdock thought as he took his cap off in one hand and scratched his head. These two had stuck together for three years out of pure necessity and survival, perhaps they hadn't even truly realized that they loved each other. Or…another thought occurred to him, they confused one for the other, and perhaps had Murdoch not been framed for murder and locked up for three years, perhaps they wouldn't have stayed together, would have gone different ways and moved on to other people. Perhaps that was why they had been so hesitant to spit it out now, because they really weren't in love. They'd been through too much together to just walk away now and forget about one another, but that didn't mean they'd necessarily stay together either. And yet…Murdock just couldn't see that happening either. He honestly believed that these two were in love with each other, and were going to stay together until a higher power said otherwise and ripped them apart from each other's grasp.
Through the door Murdock could still hear Frankie crying. He tilted his head back and looked up at the door behind him. This door was a mask, in a sense. Behind the mask, whatever was there was known only to the wearer, the mask shielded what was real from those who saw it. Well, here he was on the outside of this door, and on the inside of it was something that nobody else in the house would be witness to. It wasn't merely this single solitary outburst on Frankie's part; the whole brick wall she spent three years to build up around herself came crashing down. He knew now why he believed her when Hannibal didn't, Murdock knew that there was something not quite right with the picture, but he hadn't been able to put his finger on it until now.
The answer was in the question; how odd it had struck the others that here was M.D. Murdoch, a grown man who had been reduced to being scared of his own shadow, and here was Frankie, barely an adult, harder than petrified nails and ready to claw anybody's throat out that got in her way. They were the same person, the only difference was Frankie had assumed a gruffer disposition since she was still in a position to do something about the situation they'd both been thrown in. If she ever let that brick wall down it was somewhere between her visits to the hospital and her constant switch in manufactured personalities. Simply put, her suffering was silent and ignored, she was only held together when she showed her face in public because she forced herself to.
It hadn't all been an act since she woke up after her hasty liberation from Freemont, but it had been enough of one; somehow, somewhere, she had trained herself not to respond, not to show any obvious emotions, she didn't want anybody to be able to read her. And with a predator like Masterson always nosing around, he could understand that, and he could understand her doing the same thing here; she hadn't known any of them, she was a stranger in a strange land so to speak and refused to let anybody be able to read her and find her weakness. Except he'd been able to crack through her armor almost immediately, that first night in his bedroom; that however, Murdock just took as further proof that she was his family, the way he saw it only a family member would be able to see through that act, to discover that ugly little secret she'd tried to hide for so long.
Murdock realized that everything had suddenly become quiet on the other side of the door. He wasn't about to go in and intrude on them further…but, he turned and hunched down so he could look in the keyhole. As long as they didn't know that he could see them, he could take a quick peek to make sure everything was alright. He closed one eye and squinted through the other to actually be able to see inside the keyhole…oh ho, he felt simultaneously like Costello's baaaaaaaaad boy for snooping, and also as if he was glowing with satisfaction. M.D. and Frankie had hardly moved from the spot on the floor where he'd left them, but one of Cupid's magic lawn darts must've gone to work and done the trick because now the two of them were wrapped in each other's arms and they were kissing. Murdock quietly backed away from the door and tiptoed down the hall to leave them alone and give them the privacy they'd been stripped of for so long; he knew they'd come around sooner or later and for the moment, with this as his proof, and a large, contented grin on his face, he considered his work done for now.