Even with Joe Santos to run interference for him, the LAPD is determined to nail James Garner. This time it's Tom Atkins who thinks he has Rockford cold when the gun he keeps in the cookie jar matches up with the weapon that killed a filling station owner.
Now other than viewers and folks like Rocky and Dennis Becker, even Angel not too many people now that Jim Rockford keeps his registered handgun in the cookie jar. But Noah Beery has talked Sonny into hiring a maid for trailer. She has something to do with how his weapon got to the scene of a homicide. Although even Lt.Diehl must really not think that Rockford holds up filling stations, but he does have the weapon.
I won't say how or give the details lest I spoil it, but it all traces back to a paramilitary organization organized by some whack job woman played by Adrienne Marsden who has an idiot son who takes a little too much initiative. These people would be a joke if it weren't for the fact that they are responsible for two dead bodies in this episode.
But they're ready for the enemy whomever it turns out to be.