The Ledger

11.24 Deep Vote: Abbie Carmichael's Last Episode

In this episode (11.24), the finale of season 11 and Abbie Carmichael/Angie Harmon's last episode, a state senator seems to be connected to the murder of a woman, but the relationship between the two is unclear. Briscoe and Green investigate.

The episode begins with a kid and his grandfather discussing the old days vs. the modern era of baseball. Suddenly, there's a loud car accident between a woman in a Volvo and a pick-up truck. Briscoe and Green are called to the scene because the woman is found with small-caliber bullet hole in her skull. A bag lady says she saw an SUV leave a spot, and then the two other cars crashed. The immediate theory of the crime was that it was a dispute over a parking spot.

The plot deepens when the driver of the SUV comes in to the precinctly voluntarily and says he had nothing to do with what happened, and he didn't get a good look at a fourth vehicle involved, although he says it was a mid-sized green sedan. Coincidentally (or maybe not) this is the same kind of car driven by the victim's husband. They lean on him, but nothing comes of it. They also learn of a business dispute between the victim and her cousin -- some kind of educational internet company that didn't pan out, but the cousin is clean, too. He tells the detectives about a meeting the victim had downtown that day, right near where she was killed. They head down there, and review the security tape of the parking garage in the building where she had the meeting. The find a Volvo entering the garage around the time she would have been there, and the woman driving matches the description of the victim. But guess what? It's another similar-looking lady driving a similar-looking car. This raises the possibility that the killer killed the wrong person! This looks like even more of a possibility when they learn that the other woman is an investigative reporter who covered the mob, among other things.

The reporter is reluctant to reveal much about the stories she was working on, but she does share some notes, which she has partially censored. Somehow, they track down the green car used in the shooting. It got stopped after the driver ran a red light. Turns it was stolen from a rabbi, used in the crime, brought to a chop shop in the Bronx, and then sold to the kid who got stopped at the light. From the prints in the car, they track down the apparent hitman, an oldish con named Martin Black. Briscoe to Black: "You did the wrong broad, Jack." The case against him gets stronger when a search team finds hollowpoint bullets hidden in his VCR, the same kind of bullets used in the killing. They suspect a certain mob family put him up to it, but he says it was some other guy, a wiseguy unconnected to this specific mobster. So what's the motive?

It turns out one of the other stories the reporter was working on involved some irregularities in a state senator's recent election. The DA's office uncovers a conspiracy to disable a bunch of voting machines in her local precinct (where she was expected to lose), substitute paper ballots, and then discard those paper ballets. They find the voting machine tech who was paid by the mobster to break the machines, and they trace it back to the state senator.

They confront her in her office, but she blithely denies any involvement. Her assertive chief of staff looks on, and ends the meeting quickly. But in order to prove anything, the McCoy and Carmichael need a witness who can testify to a solid connection between the senator and the mobster. The reporter seems to have had a source who could do this, but she won't reveal the source's identity.

After a big flap over whether the paper ballots (which the hitman turned over in exchange for leniency) should be counted (they are, but then -- just like real life! -- an injunction is issued to stop the counting), McCoy feels like his case against the senator is falling apart. In desperation, he visits the reporter, and urges her to name the source, or get him to identify himself. He reasons that her work indirectly led to the death of an innocent woman, and she owed it to the woman's family to see the killers come to justice.

Cut to the courtroom, where the visual set-up and off camera dialogue imply that the source is about to testify. Surprise, it's the chief of staff! Well, not much of a surprise, really, but still fun.

But before all this, in the middle of the investigation, Carmichael tells McCoy she's gotten an offer to work in the office of the US Attorney for the Southern District. She's going to work for "the taskforce for major crimes." McCoy is happy for her, and they leave the courthouse arm-in-arm. This is indeed her last episode.

The credits dedicate this episode to Fred Chalfy and Anthony Monteforte. Chalfy was a set dresser on the show, and Monteforte apparently worked in craft services. SUNY Binghamton offered this obituary for Chalfy:

Fred Chalfy '69 died March 10, 2001. He was 53. A set dresser for TV shows and films in New York City, Fred worked on Blood Simple, Eddie and the Cruisers and 84 Charing Cross Road. He also acted as translator and screenwriter on several projects for an Italian film-production company. Fred was with TV's Law and Order from the show's inception, working as head set dresser and then prop master. Memorial celebrations were held on the Law and Order set and at the home of Fred's sister, Roberta Chalfy Miller '66, in Sarasota, Fla. "Fred's wit, intellect and generous, loving spirit are sorely missed by family and friends," wrote Roberta.

Posted by adm at March 28, 2004 12:18 AM

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