Summary When politician Edward Littel's car is found bombed and dumped in a lake, a single fingerprint on the dashboard proves he was accompanied by an exotic dancer named Paris Palmer when the explosion occurred. Pepper dons a thong and the unlikely moniker of "Flaxy Dupree" and hits the go-go joint where the dead girl worked. Charming the establishment's owner, Andrew Simms, with her aloof, hard-to-get charms and hip-grinding employment audition, Pepper initiates an immediate rapport with him. Crowley questions Littel's wife, Christina, and Littel's in-laws, the powerful Van Dyke dynasty of California, and eventually learns from the Special Prosecutor's Office that the Van Dykes despised the son-in-law for his political desires to clean up corruption. Suspicious that widow Christina's grief may be disingenuous at best, Crowley leaks that Pepper is an agent with the police department. Startled at this revelation, Littel's wife shoots Simms to keep him quiet, with Simms confessing to Pepper in his last breath that Christina, having learned of her husband's affair with the dancer, hired Simms to kill them both, using Simms' criminal record from Tennessee and the possibility of extradition as blackmail. Pepper makes a poetic (though looped) comment about the weather, and she and Crowley get a great freeze frame in the sunset as it filters through the sidewalk foliage.

• Action
• Crime
• Drama