‘The Cases Of Mystery Lane’ Ending, Explained: Who Killed Tim? How Do Alden And Birdie Solve The Case?

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“The Cases of Mystery Lane” has been termed a comedic murder mystery. We don’t have much to say about the comedy or the mystery, but the movie was undoubtedly sweet and cute. However, we couldn’t help but feel that this story was better suited to be a series. A couple discovers that they have a knack for investigating cases and uses that to revamp their marriage. It would have walked on lines similar to “Mr. and Mrs. Smith,” but it still had scope. It should have seen better development. That would have given us more opinions. For now, all we are able to say is that the actors looked great, and Aimee Garcia’s hair was on point.

Spoilers Ahead


A Mystery For Alden Case

Alden and Birdie are a seemingly happily married couple living in the suburbs. Birdie is a successful lawyer who works at her mother’s firm and is constantly pushed by her to do better. After Alden’s bets on crypto leave the couple with a huge financial loss, he starts taking accounting classes for his new career, or at least that is what his wife thinks he is doing. Alden is, in fact, training to be a private detective, and he believes that he has finally found his passion in life. But he doesn’t get along with one of his classmates, Rick, who is in the force and doesn’t consider Alden’s experience on par with his. Rick is not wrong, and we don’t know why Alden has beef with him. However, their teacher, Tomblinski, believes that Alden has the makings of a great PI.

Alden’s class gets an assignment to follow someone, and Alden picks Kyle, his wife’s colleague, whom he is somewhat jealous of. However, things go rather wrong immediately. When following Kyle, Alden sees him go into the office and come out running within minutes. When Alden tries to follow him, his car doesn’t start, so he decides to go inside the building to check. While looking around, he finds some divorce papers on Birdie’s desk, and when he goes a bit further, he finds the body of Tim hanging in his cabin. Alden is horrified, and he is about to leave when the police come in. But seeing Alden throw up, they understand that he might be innocent. It is further corroborated by the fact that they think Tim has committed suicide.

When Birdie comes to the place and finds Alden, he tells her everything about his new classes and that he has been lying to her for four months. Birdie is extremely disappointed because not only did Alden break his promise, but he had potentially compromised their future once again. Alden claims that he meant to take up accounting, but when he passed by the notice for the PI classes, he knew it was his calling. Birdie is still disappointed and skeptical, but that changes the next day when Kyle tells her that he heard about Tim’s death from Paula. Birdie realizes that Alden is telling the truth. The two of them go to her office party in hopes of getting some more information. It turns out that Tim was gay and was having an affair with Kyle. Tim’s wife, Penelope, knew about it, and the couple figured that she was their next lead.


The Investigation At The Cecil Bay Apartments

When Alden and Birdie visit Penelope, she is open enough about her husband’s sexuality, and it is clear that she never had a problem with him or his affair. In fact, she was far richer than him and did not even need him for the money. But she gives them a lot of useful information regarding some of the conflicts Tim has had in the last few days. He was trying to get the tenants of Cecil Bay Apartments to evict their homes, and they had not been very helpful. Even Penelope’s housekeeper gives the duo a name or two to follow up on. However, all of them turn out to be duds. One is a man in a wheelchair, whereas another is a woman whose wheelchair was stolen. All of the leads at Cecil Bay are dead ends, except that they know that the mob boss, Lean McGuiness, was living in the apartments. They believe that he might have something to do with Tim’s death, except that he died two days before Tim did.

Meanwhile, Birdie is getting worried. She doesn’t believe that Alden’s new venture could mean anything. But Alden has a different perspective. He has tried and quit many things, and he is at a place where he doesn’t want to quit again. He brings up the divorce papers he saw in her drawer, and Birdie tells him that she typed them out in anger after his crypto debacle. But the hurt feelings are still there, and both of them take some space from each other.


‘The Cases Of Mystery Lane’ Ending Explained: How Do Alden & Birdie Solve Tim’s Murder?

Alden and Birdie seem to make up pretty quickly for the kinds of fights they keep having. Either way, Alden thinks that Kyle must have killed Lean and then Tim. He is basing his theory on the fact that Kyle was wearing a t-shirt with “Ado Corporation” written on it, the same company that is trying to redevelop Cecil Bay apartments. In fact, it is run by Kyle’s uncle, and Lean’s body was found at one of their construction sites. Alden is convinced of his theory, but Birdie is unable to join him on it as she has to get “her steps in” for the company’s wellness challenge. That gives Alden a clue, and he reaches out to Paula, Tim’s former assistant, and asks her if he can access the company’s tracking profiles of their employees. He believes that if he saw where Kyle was on the night of Tim’s murder, he would have the evidence to convict him. Paula agrees to bring the details to him later that evening.

When Paula reaches Alden’s place, Birdie is working late, so he is alone at home. Catching him off-guard, she uses her taser on him and ties him up after he becomes unconscious. She reveals that she is the one who killed Lean and then Tim. Lean had killed her sister more than thirty years ago, but the case had been covered up because he was an influential man. When her husband Tim had gone to the Cecil Bay apartments, and she had seen Lean there, she returned later and killed him. Tim, who knew about her sister, had figured out that she was the murderer and wanted to out her, which is when she was forced to kill him as well. Now that Alden has figured out the truth, she is going to kill him too.

Meanwhile, Birdie comes to the same conclusion as Alden when Kyle tells her that the number of steps per day can be manipulated by going to the profiles. She asks to check the location of the people on the night of Tim’s death and finds that Paula had been there, as she was now at her house. Birdie rushes home, only to find that Alden has been rescued by Rick, who had been following him for his assignment. The police take away Paula and Alden, and Birdie is credited with solving the murder. The next day, they are also thanked by Johnny D’Rossi, an influential member of the mob (we are guessing), for saving a lot of unnecessary bloodshed by solving the case. This is not the only thanks they receive. Since Tim’s death was a murder and not a suicide, his insurance payment has come through, and Penelope gives the amount to them, asking them to set up their own agency. Alden and Birdie get a case soon enough, and both of them are ready to embark on a new journey as private investigators.


Final Thoughts

“The Cases of Mystery Lane” is not without its loopholes, and the solving of the mystery itself is not that intriguing. As cute as this movie is, with the leads sharing some good and goofy chemistry, the singular flaw of “The Cases of Mystery Lane” remains that it did too much in too little time. This could have been a far better movie, but for now, it is just “cute” and for all the wrong reasons. However, we will certainly be more excited about it if they make a series out of it, preferably with the same actors.


“The Cases of Mystery Lane” is a 2023 Drama Thriller film directed by Mike Rohl.

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Divya Malladi
Divya Malladi
Divya spends way more time on Netflix and regrets most of what she watches. Hence she has too many opinions that she tries to put to productive spin through her writings. Her New Year resolution is to know that her opinions are validated.

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