The Ledger

In Memory Of

In this episode (2.7), Cerreta and Logan attempt to solve the 31-year-old murder of an 8-year-old boy found behind a brick wall in an apartment building undergoing renovation. After contacting one of the detectives who originally worked on the case, and who has a sharp recollection of the details, they focus their investigation on a gay couple who lived in the building where the boy was found. One of the men is still living, however, and when the detectives track him down in a convalescent home, he tells them to "go to hell," and is admanant that he had nothing to do with the death and that he is only a suspect because he is gay.

Using power and telephone company billing information, they track down other people who lived in the building, including an elderly couple whose (now adult) daughter was a playmate of the victim. When the detectives find the daughter and tell her they found the boy's body, she acts in an erratic fashion and promptly faints. When she wakes up, she tells Cerreta and Logan some things that makes them think she knows more than she is revealing. She says she remembers the colors red and blue, but doesn't know why. Shortly thereafter they visit her again at the flower shop where she works, but she is reluctant to talk.

Logan asks staff psychiatrist Elizabeth Olivet to contact her, but she refuses, saying it would inappropriate. At just that moment, however, the woman turns up at the police station, apparently motivated by guilt, and Logan introduces her to Olivet. The two speak at length (off camera) and Olivet is convinced she has additional information, but the woman refuses to meet again with Olivet. A visit to the woman's parents produces no more information, and neither does the detectives' request that the parents ask her to speak with Olivet again. Nonetheless, the woman eventually agrees to talk to Olivet again, and the two of them and the detectives take a walk around the neighborhood where the crime occurred, ultimately arriving back in the apartment where the woman was the day of the murder. As she steps into where the bathroom used to be, she is overwhelmed by the sudden memory of something she saw: her father washing blood out of his sweater.

So now the woman's father becomes the suspect, but neither the detectives not Stone and Robinette have any physical evidence tying the father to the crime. All they have is the daughter's memory. The research the man's background, and eventually learn that he was fired from his job as a VP at an insurance company because he drank too much. They contact one of his old drinking buddies, who tells Robinette that the suspect was once charged with assaulting a teenage boy in Stamford, CT, while on a business trip. The records are sealed, but they track down the boy, who tells them what happened. This establishes a pattern, but Schiff is convinced the information will never be admissible. They are still left with just the daughter's testimony.

Meanwhile, the suspect himself is outraged and keeps threatening lawsuits against the city because he feels wrongfully accused. This particular plot thread is a bit too heavily overplayed, but it serves to establish the man's state of mind. The daughter's state of mind is also at issue, however, as it turns out she has had a rocky life filled with divorce, bad decisions, and psychiatric incidents, including a stay at a psych hospital.

Despite all this, and the efforts of her father to convince her not to testify, she shows up to testify at the trial, and manages to get through her testimony, recalling the time she saw her father wash the blood off his hands. The defense attorney verbally attacks her, but she withstands his attack, and gets a look of acknowledgement from Stone as she leaves the stand. Stone then meets with the defense attorney in his office, and offer a plea to Man I. The defense accepts, and the next day, the defendant pleads guilty and allocutes to the crime, saying he hit the boy with a lug wrench, cracking his skull.

It's not entirely believable, since it seems unlikely that the jury would have had no reasonable doubt about the man's guilt, or that he wouldn't offer any alternative explanation for the blood that was on his sweater. Nonetheless, the episode is emotionally compelling, and even a bit anxiety-inducing because of the edgy performance of the daughter.

The episode's title refers both to the detectives efforts to find justice for the boy, and to the cloudy "memory" of the daughter who must send her own father to prison.

Posted by adm at February 26, 2004 12:39 AM

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