MISSING LINKS - STATED "R"

'MURDER, SHE WROTE'

"SNOW WHITE, BOOD RED"

While investigating the murder of an Olympic skier at a snowed-in lodge, Jessica Fletcher called a phone number she found in the victim's room*.....

Man's Voice: Tartaglia residence.

Jessica Fletcher: Yes. Uh, may I speak to Vicki, please?

Man's Voice: Mrs. Tartaglia isn't here at the moment. Who's calling?

Jessica Fletcher: Could you tell me when she's expected?

Man's Voice:  I don't know! Who is this?

So close and yet so far!  For the want of a letter......

It turned out that the victim had been having an affair with the wife of a mobster in organized crime.  His name was Tartaglia and that letter "R" is purposefully accented whenever someone in the episode pronounces it.  

But if only that "R" had been a "T"......

From Wikipedia:

The Tattaglia family [is a] fictional Mafia family in Mario Puzo's 1969 novel "The Godfather" and its 1972 film adaptation. In theuniverse of the series, they are one of New York City's Five Families.

The family, founded as [the] Maranzano crime family, was founded by Salvatore Maranzano in 1920s. After his death in 1933, Philip Tattaglia took over the family, renaming it as Tattaglia crime family.

The Tattaglia family are known to be involved in prostitution run from the Tattaglia Hotel in Brooklyn. They are the first family to begin working with narcotics sometime in the 1930s. In the 1940s, the Tattaglias begin to gain power after being supported by drug kingpin Virgil Sollozzo, even managing to gain a vital toehold into Little Italy, Manhattan, crippling the Corleone family's empire. They are also behind the attempted assassination of Don Vito Corleone.

If only... then we could have made a definitive, if trivial, connection to a televersion of the Corleone Family....

BCnU!

* The picture is from a different episode.....