Elise Vogelson (Mariette Hartley) is the main villainess of "Red Lacquer Nail Polish," episode 5.15 of The Mentalist (airdate March 3, 2013). She is an heiress who was believed to have been murdered before the beginning of the episode, with her ashes being found in the living room of her mansion.
In actuality, Elise had embezzled almost all of the money from the Vogelson Soldiers' Home charity that she funded, and then faked her death to avoid suspicion. As part of her plan, the devious villainess drugged Lissie Calhoun (a Women's Army Corps nurse who served during the Vietnam War and who Elise considered a friend) and then set her on fire, meaning that the latter was the one found burned to death. Afterwards, she convinced Cayce Robbins—the episode's hidden minor villainess—to hide her on the sailboat she gave her, which is where Patrick Jane found her after tossing a lit marine flare into said boat's lower deck. With nowhere else to go, Elise was pulled up while holding a small suitcase containing the stolen money, which was followed by her arrest.
At the California Bureau of Investigation's headquarters in Sacramento, Elise stated her motives: she felt the money was "hers" and that she could do what she wanted with it, along with not wanting her nephew Curtis Wiley to tell her how to spend said money (in her mind). She also claimed that she gave Lissie a "peaceful death" before mocking her kinship with Cayce—claiming that she thought of her as the "mother she never had." It was also unconvered during Cayce's interrogation (during which she showed remorse) that Elise had kept her criminal acts hidden from her during their alliance and was secretly planning to kill her after they successfully escaped.
Trivia[]
- Mariette Hartley also played Adele Manning in No Place to Hide and Hanna Lowell on NCIS.