Trade (Season 9, Episode 18)
Premise: A pregnant woman’s murder entangles a wealthy coffee trader, his son and the son’s lawyer in a web of money, jealousy and a bribed juror.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 18
- Starring
- Det. Olivia Benson (Mariska Hargitay), Det. Elliot Stabler (Christopher Meloni), Sgt. John Munch (Richard Belzer), Det. Odafin “Fin” Tutuola (Ice-T), Det. Chester Lake (Adam Beach), Capt. Donald Cragen (Dann Florek), ADA Casey Novak (Diane Neal), ME Dr. Melinda Warner (Tamara Tunie), CSU Ryan O’Halloran (Mike Doyle), Defense Attorney Trevor Langan (Peter Hermann)
- Guest stars
- Stephen Collins as Pierson Bartlett, Matthew Davis as P.J. Bartlett, Michelle Borth as Avery Hemmings, Brandi Burkhardt as Jenna Ludlow, Clea Lewis as Heaven Moscowitz
- Director
- Peter Leto
- Writers
- Jonathan Greene
Summary
“Trade” begins with firefighters carrying stylist Jenna Ludlow, 25, out of her burning apartment, her clothing torn as if she had been raped. She died from a blow to the head before the fire, she was pregnant, and Fire Marshal Eddie Brancato finds the drapes were lit with Sterno from under her sink. Jenna’s account has been receiving $10,000 a month from Liechtenstein, and her angel-healing therapist, Heaven Moscowitz, names a man called Pierson. He proves to be coffee trader Pierson Bartlett, who says Jenna was engaged to his son, P.J., away in Brazil.
A refueling stop in Aruba gives the plan away: P.J.’s passport shows he was never in Rio, and his father sent him off after learning of the death. Jenna moved from job to job among wealthy men and once sued a surgeon who broke off their engagement. P.J.’s DNA matches the semen, and a charred page restored by CSU turns out to be a prenuptial agreement. P.J. says Jenna threw him out, alive, after he raised it, before his lawyer and college friend Avery Hemmings arrives. Told the fetus is his father’s, P.J. lunges at Pierson, who throws him through a glass pane.
Another recovered page, an email about the Bartletts’ secret deal for a coffee plantation in El Salvador, leads Novak to charge both men with conspiracy to murder. At trial she shows that Jenna was not yet pregnant when P.J. began paying her and that his sperm are immotile. Eleven jurors vote to convict, and a mistrial follows. The holdout, single mother Debra Jackson, admits taking $50,000 through private investigator Roger Fromm, Pierson’s former security chief, who has fled to the Dominican Republic. Fromm’s computer holds years of photos of P.J. with women. P.J. accuses his father of the murder, and Pierson, in turn, blames P.J.
Spoiler, the ending: Rewatching Jenna’s promotional video, the squad realizes it was shot in her bedroom, and a camera hidden in the wall still holds a memory card. Played for the Bartletts and Avery, it shows Avery arguing with Jenna after P.J. left. Avery runs to the roof, says Jenna would not give P.J. up, and admits she had him followed and bribed the juror. P.J. nearly talks her down, but when Pierson comes near, she goes over the edge with P.J. still holding on, and both fall to their deaths as his father cries out.
Why it stands out
- Stephen Collins and Matthew Davis play the coffee-trading Bartletts, father and son.
- Michelle Borth plays P.J.’s lawyer, Avery Hemmings, whose own part in the case comes out only in the final scenes.