- Ben takes on a most unusual client, the ghost of a man who wants Ben to save his wife from being falsely convicted for his murder. While the ghost knows his wife is innocent, he doesn't know who really murdered him.
- In the stable on their property, Mike Wilson and his wife have a minor argument over an anonymous letter. She pushes past him in leaving the barn, and he falls and hits his head. When he tries to get up he's struck by someone holding a shovel, and dies. His wife is accused of his death, and he appears as a friendly ghost to Ben Matlock to beg him to help his wife, who won't defend herself since she thinks it truly is her fault. Unfortunately for both Ben and Mike, Ben is the only one who can see and talk to Mike, and comic mayhem soon ensues as the two try to solve the case together.—Eebuchanan
- On a racehorse training farm outside of Atlanta, Co-owners Mike and Kieth are watching a new horse gallop around the yard. The trainer, Stuart, tells them the horse is coming along well and should win them some money. As Kieth goes back to his car to go see the attorney, Mike asks him why their last horse lost the most recent race, and Kieth reveals he caught a jockey cheating/fixing the race and fired him, to make sure it won't happen again. Thus reassured, Mike allows Kieth to drive off and goes to check the mail. He finds an anonymous letter stating his wife Janis had been sleeping around whenever he goes out of town, which upsets him badly.
Janis, who was out riding, comes in. She is indignant Mike believes the letter, which is only the latest in a string of such letters. He asks her where she was when he couldn't get hold of her at the time the letter mentions and she, annoyed, tells him not to be so jealous and that she was out buying his birthday present. He tries to apologize but she is still in a huff and pushes past him on her way out of the stables. Mike falls backwards, knocking his head against a toolbox and spilling some horse liniment. He starts to get up, looks up and spots a shovel coming down on his head but has no time to see who has the shovel before his skull is bashed in. The screen blacks just before the moment of impact.
Some weeks later, Ben Matlock is in the men's room of the Atlanta Courthouse, when Mike, still dressed the way he was in the stables, appears to him. He introduces himself to Ben and says he needs to talk to him about something, urgently. Ben asks him, as he is busy, to come see him in his office later. Mike agrees. However, two other lawyers enter the restroom and hear Ben talking to Mike, but see no one. When they ask Ben who he's speaking to, Ben points to Mike, only to discover that he has seemingly disappeared.
Later that evening, Ben is getting ready for bed when Mike appears to him again, in his house. Ben is furious at the intrusion, especially since his back and front doors are both locked and he can't figure out how Mike got in. Mike begs Ben to talk to his wife's lawyer, who he suspects of being incompetent and possibly crooked. Janis has been charged with murder and her lawyer, instead of defending her, is putting in an insanity plea. MIke wants her proved innocent. Ben agrees on the condition Mike leave immediately, which he does.
Ben catches up with Mrs. Wilson and her lawyer Mr. Ainsley the next day, and asks to speak to him in private. He starts to explain that he was asked by Mike to offer help but is shocked when Ainsley angrily demands to know what the joke is because Mike is the one Janis is accused of killing. Bewildered and embarrassed, Ben wanders out of the courthouse and sees Mike, still in the same clothes, standing on the curb. The two go for a walk down the street and Mike explains he is dead, but hasn't passed on from earth yet, and that he discovered Ben is the only person who he is allowed to be seen by/talk to, and that's why he's asking for help. Ben, of course, thinks he's insane and looks for a policeman to have him arrested. Mike, exasperated, decides to prove to Ben he's a ghost and marches out into the street, letting a truck run over him. The truck driver doesn't see him and drives right through him without leaving a mark. Ben, terrified, runs back into the courthouse, only to have Mike appear to him in the elevator and again beg for his help. Mike doesn't want Janis to go through life thinking she accidentally killed him because he knows it was someone else, just not who. Finally convinced that this is real and that Mike is a ghost, Ben unhappily agrees to see if there's anything he can do but can't promise anything.
Some time later, Ben goes to talk to Janis. Mike is with him and while Ben tries to make him stay behind Mike follows him into the house, sadly looking at Janis. Janis tells Ben she's sure she killed Mike because they were fighting over the anonymous letters. Ben is starting to ask Janis if she would mind him helping with the case when Keith comes in. He puts a comforting arm around Janis' shoulders and Mike for the second time flies into a jealous rage and starts screaming that Kieth must be his killer because he wanted Janis. Ben, forgetting only he can see and hear him, barks at him "Go back outside!" Which startles Kieth. Ben, realizing he's loused everything up, decides the best way to salvage his dignity is to leave. Mike tries to block his way, begging him to punch Kieth for him since he can't, and Janis and Kieth can only stare as Ben ducks and dodges around Mike (who they can't see) on the way out the door, saying he feels poorly and will come back when he feels better.
At home, Ben tells Mike he's changed his mind about helping him because he can't behave himself and is "The most annoying ghost I ever heard tell of." Mike tries to explain he can't leave Ben alone but Ben demands he leave. Mike vanishes, and Ben tries to read a book before bed, but all the pages say "I need your help, Ben". He throws the book down and turns the TV on, and Mike is on the screen, waving at him sadly. Ben demands Mike leave but Mike says he doesn't know how he's doing these things and that he can't leave Ben alone. He apologizes for lying about the anonymous letters and for being hot-tempered and jealous. Ben agrees to try to help him one more time but only on the condition that Mike let him sleep, and behave himself from here on out.
Ben sends Conrad to the stables to see what he can unearth. Mike goes with him but Conrad can't see him. Conrad discovers that the trainer, Stuart, is a somewhat morose and dry-humored fellow and that he's from Kentucky. He also learns that Kieth is in deep with the bookies. He is almost discovered spying on Kieth by one of the bookies' goons with a pistol, but Mike makes a horse sneeze to distract them and give Conrad a chance to get away. Conrad comes back home and he, Ben, and Leanne discuss what he found. When Ben reveals to them the reason they're investigating at all in the case, neither of them believe what he tells them about Mike asking him for help and being with them in the room.
Ben and Mike go to Mr. Ainsley's office and discover that he, as one of the financial advisers of the stables, is helping Kieth with his gambling debts by cooking the ledgers. Ben (with help from Mike, who tells him what to say) confronts Ainsley about his crookedness and accuses him and Kieth of either one or both having killed Mike after their initial scheme of throwing him off the scent with anonymous letters failed. They admit to sending the anonymous letters - however, they produce an alibi in the form of being with one of the bookies and his cronies the morning of the murder, leaving Ben and Mike at square one.
Ainsley is removed from the case, pending investigation of his defalcations. Ben goes again to Janis, and tells her he's been involved because he has a feeling something is just wrong about this whole business (not telling her the feeling is her dead husband's word) and, while she still thinks he's crazy, Janis reasons she has nothing to lose and agrees to let Ben represent her and change the plea to not guilty. She still thinks she killed her husband, however.
Ben goes out to the stables again with Mike to look around himself and notices a strong smell of horse liniment. Mike says if it wasn't his wife, Kieth, or Mr. Ainsley, he doesn't know who would want him dead. The only people who had a grudge against him were various people who lost to his horses in races, and an old man in Kentucky who got angry when a horse he sold him died of a rare disease, but none of these seem likely. As Ben continues sniffing, Mike points out he spilled a bottle when he fell, and that the smell is still in the air even after the place was cleaned. Immediately thereafter, Stuart demands to know what Ben is doing poking around and seems very tense. Mike points out that Stuart is not wearing his riding boots, and that up until now he has never seen him without them. Ben starts looking into Stuart's background and turns up something interesting.
In court, Ben changes Janis' plea, and then calls Stuart to the stand. He presents evidence and manipulates Stuart into all but confessing to having killed Mike. Stuart's stepfather (who he loved dearly, and also the previous owner of his favorite riding boots) was the old man in Kentucky. Mike had not known the horse was ill - there were no symptoms - when he sold it, and as the old man had no insurance on the horse since it didn't seem ill at the time of purchase, he lost all he had when the horse died. He had to sell his stables and almost everything he owned to pay the debt. Broken and ruined, he committed suicide. Stuart took the job down in Georgia for the sole purpose of waiting his chance to avenge his stepfather's death, which came when Janis and Mike argued. However, he stepped in the spilled liniment and it destroyed his favorite boots, staining them in white blotches. He couldn't wear them without proving he'd been in the stall at the time of the murder but he couldn't bring himself to throw them away either, and the police found them in his house. Mike watches the proceedings from a seat on the edge of the judge's desk, behaving himself as promised.
The assistant DA moves the case against Janis be dismissed, and the judge grants it and recommends proceedings be started against Stuart. Ben makes sure, because Mike tells him to, to inform Stuart that Mike had no idea the horse was sick, and that he was devastated to learn of his stepfather's suicide. After the case against Janis is dismissed, as others are filing out of the courtroom, Ben goes over to where Mike is and the two celebrate the win. Suddenly, Mike starts to slowly fade from view. Realizing he's finally being allowed to leave Earth now that his task is done, Mike bids Ben farewell and the two wave a bittersweet goodbye as Mike disappears completely.
Ben, now a bit saddened by Mike's disappearance, goes to talk to Leanne after the trial, and tells her Mike's been allowed to leave and won't be around anymore. She tries to convince Ben that he read the case in the paper and had such a strong instinct something was wrong that his subconscious invented the idea of Mike speaking to him to give him an excuse to get involved. She and Conrad don't believe Mike was real since they never saw him. However, Ben knows he was real, and the episode ends with him telling Leanne "Well, you could be right. But you're not."
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