Happily Ever After (Season 1, Episode 5)
Premise: A well-off couple is ambushed in a garage near their home, and the surviving wife’s account starts to look too tidy.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 1, Episode 5
- 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
- Roxanne Hart as Janet Ralston, Gregory Chase as Alan Ralston, Bob Gunton as Gil Himes, Kelly Neal as Willie Tivnan
- Director
- Vern Gillum
- Writers
- Story: Dick Wolf & David Black; Teleplay: David Black & Robert Stuart Nathan
Summary
The Investigation
“Happily Ever After” opens with Alan Ralston shot dead and his wife, Janet, wounded in a parking garage a block from their home. Prints on a crack pipe in the stairwell point to a street criminal, Willie Tivnan, though Janet wavers when shown police photos. Tivnan has a long record of robberies, and the case looks closed. With a wealthy victim, a wounded widow and a suspect with a record, the press and the department are eager to call the case solved.
Greevey has doubts. Tivnan admits to other muggings but insists he never carried a gun, and small details at the scene don’t fit a random robbery. The detectives turn up evidence connecting Gil Himes, a business associate of the Ralstons, to the garage, and then catch Janet and Himes meeting in private. Janet says she had an affair with Himes and that he shot them both out of jealousy. The detectives begin to wonder whether the garage shooting was staged to look like a street crime.
The Trial
Stone charges Himes, but the evidence points to a plan rather than a crime of passion. Alan’s death leaves Janet as beneficiary of life-insurance policies worth about $9 million, and the timeline suggests the first shot was fired before Himes came through the stairwell door. Stone begins to suspect that Janet’s wound was part of the plan. If that is true, the attack on the couple was planned from the start, with both the killing and the wounding deliberate.
With two suspects who each need the other to stay quiet, Stone tries to persuade one of them to testify against the other. Each of the two lovers has a reason to blame the other, and Stone works the plea talks to find out which one will break first.
Spoiler, the ending: Himes takes a plea deal and testifies that Janet planned the killing, shot her husband herself and had Himes wound her to make the attack look real. Janet is convicted.
Why it stands out
- An early instance of the series’ recurring “the surviving spouse did it” structure.
- The case turns when Stone plays two co-conspirators against each other in plea talks.
- Its first suspect, a homeless man with a record, shows how quickly a convenient explanation can take hold.