Mindy’s promise for testimony leads Keith and his deputies to arrest Landry at Hearst. He’s brought in for questioning and is told that Mindy flipped on him. Landry adds on to Mindy’s memories of the night which hold devastating consequences for her if he were to divorce her, as he threatened in Landry’s recounting of the events. When faced with the bloody clothes, Landry says that it must be Mindy who is trying to frame him because he was on his way home alone at the time of the murder. He has no alibi except for a mystery brunette who bummed cigarettes from him at a convenience store. Keith recommends that Landry get a good lawyer, because he has an impressive case against him. Later that day, Tim comes to see Landry and asks that he find who planted the bug on his phone and to find “that needle in the haystack.”

Tim tries to search the Mars Investigations office for the bug that was taken off of Landry’s phone, but he’s an incompetent burglar and is quickly caught by Veronica, who was at the office late. Tim asks for her help because he’s not good in the field and has no idea what to do about finding out if Mindy really framed him. At 3AM, Veronica and Tim head to the convenience store to question the clerk, but he doesn’t give any solid help and says that the surveillance camera is just for show. Just when all hope is thought to be lost, two strippers walk in, one of which fitting Landry’s description but neither of them smoke. They suggest that Tim and Veronica come back tomorrow because Tory smokes like a “big ol’ slutty chimney.”

The next day Mindy gets presumably a large life insurance check and uses it to purchase a yacht. Keith gets a call from the district attorney to tell him that she’s missing, presumably vanished in her large boat. That night, Veronica and Tim return to the convenience store to question Tory. one of the strippers who comes by the store recognizes Landry from his picture and says that he did give her a cigarette that night two months ago. She is enough to get Landry out of jail and the investigation refocuses on Mindy. Veronica and Tim search for and find a CD of burned phone calls off Landry’s phone. They discover the phone call from that night as well as Landry giving a poor reference to Pepperdine for Tim the next day. After bringing the CD to her father, she’s informed that Landry has skipped town as well. He surfaces on the boat which Mindy bought that night.

Now faced with the possibility of Landry being Mindy’s partner in the dean’s murder, Veronica has been thumbing through all of Landry’s calls until she finds one which refers to a place called “Papa’s Cabin.” Tim offers to get her into Landry’s house because he still has a key. Tim finds a disposable cell phone in his garbage and Veronica coerces the man on the end of the last dialed phone to give up his address. The two detectives follow the address to J.D. Sansone and his mother, the stripper with the brown hair who alibied Landry. She’s not actually a stripper, however, she was being blackmailed by Landry. If she didn’t show up at the store at 3AM, he would revoke her son’s probation using his powers on the juvenile court board. The two also bring Keith information on “Papa’s Cabin,” but while they’re trying to figure out what state Landry’s grandfather lives in, Keith makes a PlanetZowie search and finds a resort in Cabo San Lucas which was frequented by Ernest Hemingway.

In Mexico, Keith tracks down the resort and finds a boat off shore, which Keith and the Mexican federales board and find Landry babbling about how Mindy framed him. The two fought when he came about the boat and his hit her, causing her to fall overboard. He claims that he looked but couldn’t find her in the dark water. Somewhere in the distance, O’Dell’s corpse has washed up on the shore.

With Landry arrested, Hearst returns to somewhat normal. Tim asks Veronica to be his teaching assistant now that he’s been handed all of Landry’s classes. In class later, a student pushes Tim to talk about what happened with Landry, causing him to go off on the tangent about what happened. While he’s recollecting the events of the murder, Veronica realizes that something doesn’t add up. She asks Tim, in class, when Landry could have possibly called his blackmail subject if he was arrested and kept in jail without any time between class and the sheriff’s department. Veronica works out that Tim is the actual culprit in the crime when she discovers a bug in her own phone. Tim is arrested, he confesses to the murder and Landry will be tried for manslaughter in the death of Mindy O’Dell.

Watch Veronica Mars

• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 20: The Bitch is Back
• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 19: Weevils Wobble But They Dont Go Down
• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 18: I Know What Youll Do Next Summer
• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 16: Un-American Graffiti
• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 14: Mars, Bars

Watch Veronica Mars

• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 15: Papas Cabin
• Watch Veronica Mars Episode 15: Ruskie Business