by Hal Erickson
synopsis
In this pivotal episode (written directly for television, with no previous radio version) Friday (Jack Webb) and Smith (Ben Alexander) investigate a series of robbery-assaults committed by a husband-and-wife team of criminals. The couple has been checking into various hotels, whereupon the woman (Gloria Saunders) feigns illness. When a doctor is summoned, the couple rob him of his narcotics. Catching up with the crooks, Friday is forced to shoot it out with the male suspect--and in so doing he kills a man for the first time in his police career. The climax finds a shaken Joe Friday discussing the events of the day with his sympathetic girlfriend Ann Baker (Dorothy Abbott).
