Elsbeth Season 3 Episode 13: Murder Six Across

The Metropolitan Tribune's annual crossword championship gathers the puzzle world under the eye of its host, crossword editor Morris Long, with longtime top solver Simon Carroll back at the boards. Not everyone is happy: Morris's recent puzzles have taken on modern slang and internet language, and the changes have drawn resentment and even hate mail from the old guard. Simon has his own distraction — fellow solver Elaine McClusk — and it curdles when he hears that Morris has asked Elaine out to dinner, a date Elaine says she is open to.

Simon confronts Morris, who answers with a fifteen-second penalty and then a permanent disqualification that has Simon thrown out of the competition. In the altercation that follows, Simon grabs a National Crossword Tournament swag bag and smothers Morris with it, all while the tournament continues down the hall. He leaves the body in a hotel bathroom filled with ice to muddy the timeline, keeps Morris "alive" with messages sent from Morris's own devices, edits the weekend crossword himself, and finally packs the body into a large trunk and takes it to Stillford, New York.

When Morris's murder comes to light, Elsbeth hesitates — she once became so obsessed with crossword puzzles that she had to distance herself from them — but Captain Wagner believes her expertise will help. At the hotel she and the detectives find a paradise of puzzle culture, and the faked weekend puzzle stands out: it reads more old-fashioned than Morris's recent work, and nearly every competitor notices the mismatch except Simon. Along the way, competitor Trudy's casual affair with Morris during past championships surfaces before she is eliminated from suspicion.

In Stillford, Elsbeth and a deputy hunt for the trunk and come up empty. The turn comes at the Metro-North station: buying a newspaper from a box that requires exact change, Elsbeth connects Simon's habit of always carrying exact change to the coins bearing his fingerprints that he would have left inside.

Just as Simon prepares to solve the final puzzle, Elsbeth and Detective Samantha Edwards confront him with the assembled evidence and expose him as the murderer. Elaine takes his place in the final round and wins, noting that the modern references helped her solve the puzzles with her teenage kids.

Underneath the case runs the Alec thread: Winnie Crawford's attack ads hit his campaign, Elsbeth reminds Alec that she used to defend the governor of Illinois, and at a dinner with Teddy and Roy, Alec gushes about loving E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as a kid — though he had previously claimed his family was too poor to own a VCR and he had never seen it. Elsbeth advises Teddy to trust his intuition and says of Alec, "I think he's a liar."

The exposure rests on paper and small change. The weekend puzzle Simon faked reads more old-fashioned than Morris's recent work, and the other competitors all flag the mismatched style — everyone except Simon. Then the exact-change detail clicks: buying a paper at Stillford's Metro-North station from a box requiring exact change, Elsbeth remembers that Simon always carries exact change, and the coins he would have left inside carry his fingerprints. Confronted with the assembled evidence just as he prepares to solve the final puzzle, Simon is exposed as Morris's murderer.

Elaine McClusk takes Simon's place in the final round and wins the tournament, crediting the modern references that let her solve the puzzles with her teenage kids — and she does so having learned that Simon murdered Morris.

The personal thread ends on an unresolved note. At dinner, Alec gushes about loving E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial as a kid despite having claimed his family was too poor to own a VCR and he had never seen it, and Elsbeth tells Teddy, "I think he's a liar." Whether Alec loved the film or never saw it, one of his stories is false — and the episode does not resolve what that means for his relationship with Elsbeth.