Mushrooms (Season 1, Episode 17)
Premise: Gunfire through an apartment door kills a baby, and the investigation leads from a teenage shooter to the man who sent him.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 17
- Detectives
- Sgt. Max Greevey (George Dzundza), Det. Mike Logan (Chris Noth)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Ben Stone (Michael Moriarty), ADA Paul Robinette (Richard Brooks), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- S. Epatha Merkerson as Denise Winters, James McDaniel as Michael Ingrams, Michael Mantell as Edward Kay, Brad Sullivan as defense attorney Joe Anson
- Director
- Daniel Sackheim
- Writers
- Robert Palm
Summary
The Investigation
“Mushrooms” opens with shots fired through the door of an apartment, killing 11-month-old Andrew Winters and wounding his 12-year-old brother, Gregory. The detectives first assume a drug connection, but the boys and their mother, Denise, have nothing to do with the trade. Greevey and Logan follow the murder weapon through a chain of young people who borrowed and passed it along. Gregory turns out to be a choirboy and his team’s point guard, and a young neighbor remembers a stranger waiting on the stoop before the shooting.
The trail ends at Franklin “T-Ball” Howard, a 14-year-old who was paid to do the shooting. In exchange for a plea to manslaughter, he names the man who hired him: Michael Ingrams, a drug dealer. T-Ball says he was sent after someone else entirely and went to the wrong address.
The Trial
The intended target was Edward Kay, a real-estate broker who had been laundering Ingrams’s money and lost about $300,000 of it on a failed investment, which is why Ingrams wanted him dead. Kay’s testimony is the key to connecting Ingrams to the shooting, but he refuses to cooperate, fearing for his life. Stone brings in the IRS and uses Kay’s exposure on tax charges as leverage, offering relief in exchange for his testimony.
At trial, the defense attacks Kay’s credibility over his drug history and past conviction. T-Ball’s testimony reveals why he went to the wrong door: he can’t read. Stone argues that Ingrams is responsible for the death his hired gunman caused. Stone’s closing frames the teenager as a tool: Ingrams recruited a child to do his killing, and the law holds the man who sends the bullet responsible for where it lands.
Spoiler, the ending: The jury convicts Ingrams. The victory feels hollow to Denise Winters, who points out that the teenager who fired the gun will be out of prison in seven years.
Why it stands out
- S. Epatha Merkerson plays the grieving mother, Denise Winters; the role led to her casting as Lt. Anita Van Buren from Season 4.
- The jury convicts the man who ordered the shooting rather than only the teenager who fired the gun.