- [first lines]
- Lt. Rod Blake: Oh, hello. I'm Rod Blake, chief investigator for the Nevada state troopers. These are the blueprints for a new house out in the Bear Valley district - not mine... not a policeman's salary. This is a memento. Ordinarily, a blueprint is a blueprint, but this one had a built-in feature that I hope you never find in your new home. It was a design for murder - mine. You'll see it in a case called, "The Last Waltz".
- [Blake, working undercover as a carpenter, is ordered to assist the sheriff by moving a pile of bricks]
- Chauncey Potter: Look, if you're going to give him a hand, you better get started. I'm paying you three dollars an hour!
- Sheriff Andy Anderson: [to Rod] No kiddin'? They payin' you three dollars an hour?
- Lt. Rod Blake: Told you I was a good carpenter.
- Sheriff Andy Anderson: You think they could use another man? I made a broom closet for my wife once.
- [Ernie isn't happy over his wife Claire's flirting with other men]
- Ernie: I'm sure she's a good Potter and she'd be a good girl if you left her alone.
- Chauncey Potter: I've sent her to Sunday School every Sunday since she was five years old.
- Ernie: Will you quit telling me that! You sent her to Sunday School on Sundays - where did you send her on the other days?
- [Ernie, the only member of the Potter family without a criminal record, was just shot]
- Lt. Rod Blake: Make another call on your phone Andy. Put a guard on Ernie and no visitors.
- Sheriff Andy Anderson: He's not going to run away.
- Lt. Rod Blake: This is not to keep Ernie in... someone tries to make a vital statistic out of him.