The Ledger

4.22 Old Friends: Ben Stone's Last Episode

In this episode (4.22), an executive at a baby food company is apparently killed by being pushed into the path of an oncoming truck by a homeless man, but Briscoe and Logan eventually learn his connections to the Russian mob may be to blame. The episode also marks the final appearance of Michael Moriarty as Ben Stone.

The episode begins with a homeless man shouting abuse at people waiting at a bus stop because they won't give him money. We then see a businessman stumble in front of an oncoming truck and get run over. Briscoe and Logan track down the homeless man (by a coffee cup he was carrying), but it's clear he didn't actually push the man. Fibers found under the victim's fingernails do not match the homeless guy's coat, and no one actually saw him push the victim. They begin to focus on the victim's private and business life to find another motive. They learn that although he was perceived as a boring and conservative man, he had an affair with a female bookkeeper who had been fired the previous year. It turns out his wife knew about it, but the detectives don't suspect either of them for long.

Eventually, however, they learn that the baby food company was having financial difficulty, and a large loan had been called in by their bank. The DA's auditors can't determine where the money to pay off the loan came from, and the detectives become increasingly suspicious when the "venture capital" firm said to have paid off the loan is a cramped office occupied only by an elderly Russian woman who speaks broken English. Looks like the Russian mob is involved. They also learn that the victim didn't die from being run over by the truck after all: he was shot in the heart first, with a .32 caliber pistol, and then fell or was pushed into the path of the truck.

So what's the connection to the mob? It turns out that the new "partner" at the baby food company, Steven Green, was actually born in Russia under another name, and his family is prominent in the Russian mob. It begins to look like the baby food company took out a large loan from Russian loan sharks (at 25%!), the victim discovered the source of the income and the fact that the baby food was made from cheap, moldy, Russian ingredients, and threatened to tell the government. Via a fingerprint on a shell casing, Briscoe and Logan track down the hitman, search his apartment, and find a .32 caliber gun that is apparently the murder weapon. The hitman comes home in the middle of the search, and Logan has to chase him up to the roof of the apartment building before he tackles him.

Schiff wants McCoy to connect the hitman to Green, and get him to roll on him, but apparently Russian mobsters are reluctant to roll on one another. Stone eventually gets the hitman to roll on Green by moving another Russian hitman to the prison, and telling the original hitman about this.

Meanwhile, the victim's original business partner in the baby food company, tells investigators that she saw the hitman visiting Green in the office the night before the murder. But when she learns he's a Russian mobster, she is reluctant to testify. But this is the evidence Stone needs to connect Green to the mob, so he pressures her. Nonetheless, she changes her story at trial, and says she never saw the hitman before. Stone is furious, and threatens her with felony perjury. She refuses to testify. Eventually, though, she agrees, accepting Stone's promise that he'll get her into witness protection. She testifies, and Green is found guilty of orchestrating the murder.

Shortly thereafter, though, Stone calls Kincaid into his office and tells her what you knew was coming: the witness was killed, shot dead as the marshalls were moving her out of her home. It seems highly unlikely that she would be killed while surrounded by officers, but whatever. It's clear Stone blames himself, since he pressured her so much into testifying, though Kincaid tells him he did what he had to do.

Regardless, a much bigger surprise comes in the closing moments of the show: Stone tells Schiff he's resigning. They share a moment. Stone's last words: "I'm clear as a bell." He affectionately puts his hand up around Schiff's ear -- an odd gesture, but it feels real -- and then exits. Schiff stands in his office doorway and watches him leave.

The episode is obviously notable because it is Stone's last. The episode's title refers both to the Russian mob's inter-connections, and, of course, to Schiff and Stone.

Posted by adm at March 4, 2004 10:20 PM

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