The Cases of Mystery Lane

The film opens with the discovery of the body of Orleans 'Lean' McGuiness, a mob boss missing for 30 years, at a construction site. Meanwhile, Alden Case is secretly enrolled in a Private Investigator course, hiding it from his wife Birdie, a high-powered lawyer, because of his history of failed career ventures like cryptocurrency mining. For a class assignment on surveillance, Alden follows Birdie's coworker Kyle to their law firm, only to discover the body of Tim Grant, a partner at the firm. Though the police rule Tim's death a suicide, Alden is convinced of foul play. Birdie is furious when she learns Alden has been lying about his whereabouts for four months, but she eventually gets drawn into the mystery when they realize Tim was in the process of evicting tenants from the Cecil Bay Apartments—the same place where Lean McGuiness had been hiding in plain sight as 'Frederick Gasko.' The couple investigates various suspects, including a blind woman with a gun and a yacht club rival, but Alden eventually uses company GPS step-tracking data to realize that Paula, the firm's unassuming assistant, was present at the office when Tim died. In a bizarre climax, Paula confronts Alden in his garage, revealing she killed Lean McGuiness to avenge her sister, Caroline, who was murdered by the mobster decades ago. She then killed Tim because he had deduced her involvement. Paula attempts to murder Alden by forcing him to drink a cocktail of household cleaners via a turkey baster, but Alden is saved by his PI classmate Rick and his own collection of hobbyist robots. The movie concludes with Alden and Birdie reconciling, receiving a $100,000 reward from Tim's widow, and officially opening their own private investigation agency.