Plot

After work Joe Friday goes by a laundromat to buy cigarettes. He interrupts a burglar stealing from the coin box, and shots are fired. The burglar dies, and Friday is investigated by the shooting board to see if it is a justified shot.

Following an exhaustive day of work on varied homicide cases, Friday and Gannon go home for the night. Finding he is out of cigarettes, Joe goes to a nearby laundrette. Upon entering he notices a young man with a coathanger trying to pry open a coin changer. Friday identifies himself as a policeman and orders the man to stop; the man whips around and fires a shot that misses Joe. Joe shoots the man in the shoulder as his girlfriend runs in and hustles him to their car and speed off into the night. Friday phones headquarters and eventually a shooting team, Lieutenant Pierce Brooks and Lieutenant Dan Bowser, arrives to interview Joe. He describes the incident, but when they check the wall no bullet is found, just a wooden shelf. Friday becomes concerned as the next morning the investigation begins centering on him.

The young man he shot is soon found and identified as Arthur Ashton, a young reprobate, and his girlfriend is identified as Marianne Smith, but the gun they find has been drowned in oil and thus of no use as evidence. Ashton dies of his injury and Marianne Smith hysterically blames Friday.

A shooting board of inquiry is summoned and Friday makes his case, while Pierce Brooks and Dan Bowser cite their own investigation to the board. As no bullet can be found to corroborate Friday's story, Joe faces suspension from the force and possibly worse, until Brooks and Bowser, continuing to investigate the laundrette, make a startling discovery.