Veronica Pennington (Tori Lysdahl) is an antagonist in the 1984 episode “Vickie’s Song” for the TV series “The New Mike Hammer”.
Vickie Cornell (Linda Leilani Brown), a young singer whom Mike Hammer (Stacy Keach) had previously helped get off heroin, turns up dead from an overdose. Mike believes that it was foulplay. Vickie was last seen with a rich young drug addict named Carl Pennington (Leigh McCloskey).
When Mike shows up looking for Carl, he finds his older siter Connie Pennington (Shawn Southwick) and their step-mother, Veronica Pennington. Veronica tells Hammer that Carl is not around. Not believing her, he finds Carl drugged out on a couch in the pool room. Carl tells Hammer that he had been with two ladies and Vickie, but that they were all fine when he went to bed.
While snooping around, Mike was roughed up by Bradley Snyder (Spencer Millican), who he learned was the Pennington family attorney.
Velda (Lindsay Bloom) researched the Pennington family, and discovered that Connie and Carl were in line to inherit 1/3 each of their father’s estate upon their 25th birthday. Connie was just weeks away from that milestone.
Veronica called and asked Mike Hammer to meet her for lunch at La Pettite Fleurette. She explained the reason she lied about Carl being at the pool house was that she was protecting him from publicity. He was a drug addict, and despite doing all she could to get him clean, nothing had worked. Hammer left her at the restaurant without eating, saying he lost his appetite.
Next he located the pimp that set Carl up with two bambette’s. He found out that they were now at the office of a Mr. Clark, who was an attorney. When Hammer busted into Mr. Clark’s office, he discovered the two hookers dressed in fantasy clothing behind his desk. Kim (Winnie Gardner) was dressed as a cheerleader and Dede (Dana Halsted) was dressed as Little Bo Peep. Hammer told Mr. Clark that he knew his wife was in the process of filing for divorce and having two hookers in his office was not going to look good. When Clark left, Hammer interrogated the girls for information about what they knew of Vickie and Carl the night of the murder. They claimed they knew nothing. Hammer told them that they had some bad guys looking for them with intentions to kill them to eliminate any loose ends. He paid them $500 to leave town. When Clark returned to the office, he promised not to mess with hookers again if Hammer didn’t tell his wife.
Returning home found Connie in his apartment with a pistol intending to kill him. After disarming her, she claimed she was only protecting Carl from someone who may want to do him harm. She said that Carl was all she had left in her life. When Hammer asked about Veronica, she said that she was just her father’s toy, and had no use for her. She then seduced Hammer and the two kissed. The scene faded to dark as she informed Hammer that she didn’t want to go home tonight.
Hammer did some digging thanks to secretary Georgette (Lynn Herring) who allowed him to look into the police files of Detective Harry Welch (Steven Keats). In the records he found that Welch originally worked VICE. One of his early prostitution busts for the police department had been that of Veronica Pennington. Each of her arrests resulted in no conviction. Veronica had made a giant leap from prostitute to high society marriage. Then a convenient auto accident in the Catskills had made her a rich widow. Now she was about to become even richer if she could get rid of her husband’s children before they reached 25 years of age.
Hammer convinced Veronica to meet him at the Lido Hotel, which is where she used to take her Johns during her prostitution days. Veronica attempted to seduce Hammer, telling him she knew how they could raise the noise level. However, Mike changed the subject about Carl’s drug problem. Hammer uncovered that she was injecting him herself. Vickie had seen her injecting Carl that night, and because of that she had become a liability. Veronica admitted it saying it was because of the trust money all along.
Just then, Bradley Snyder showed up pointing a pistol at Hammer. He revealed that Welch had killed Vickie for Veronica. Bradley had been the assistant district attorney at the time when Veronica had been a prostitute. It was Bradley who had cleaned up for Veronica when she got in trouble. He also said that he allowed Veronica to do all the dirty work in terms of seducing Mr. Pennington. He then insulted Veronica saying that “Clothes don’t make the lady”. With this, Veronica walked away, but then turned around with a pistol in her hand and was about to kill both Hammer and Snyder. However, before she had a chance, a shot was fired from the shadows killing Veronica. It turned out to be Connie, who then pointed the gun at Hammer.
Connie and Snyder were working together. Snyder ordered Hammer to put his gun on the floor and slide it over to him. However, Mike slid it past Snyder, and when he reached behind him, he punched Connie in the mouth. Hammer was able to knock out Snyder and push him down a shoot that led to a dumpster out back. Connie then fired shots attempting to kill Hammer. She followed Hammer up stairs and was tricked into opening a false door. Upon opening it, her momentum carried her to a fall to her death from three stories. Carl inherited the money and enrolled himself into a drug addiction program.
Trivia[]
- Tori Lysdahl appeared as Rita in the 1980 episode "Diamond Jack" for the TV series "Three's Company".
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