Brother's Keeper (Season 11, Episode 21)
Premise: A medical-supply executive is shot at a Manhattan driving range, and the obvious suspect, a veteran Irish mobster, has two FBI agents vouching for his whereabouts.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 11, Episode 21
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Nora Lewin (Dianne Wiest)
- Guest stars
- Michael O’Keefe as Cally Lonegan / Professor Donald Lonegan, Robert John Burke as FBI agent Ron Innes, Leland Gantt as FBI agent Jeff Washington, Bryan Scott Johnson as Scott Tobias, Teagle F. Bougere as Sebastian Waziri
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- René Balcer & Joe Gannon
Summary
The Investigation
“Brother’s Keeper” opens with the murder of James Malloy, 38, president of the medical-supply firm Medi-One, shot once in the back of the head at a Hudson River driving range while the night manager slept. His apartment holds cocaine, photos of many girlfriends and pictures of Malloy with Cally Lonegan, an aging Westies gangster who became his silent partner, after which customers were bullied into paying for shoddy goods. An accountant finds Malloy had been skimming. Cab driver Sebastian Waziri, who works double shifts to bring his family out of Sierra Leone, remembers a bloodied fare and picks Lonegan’s mug shot.
FBI agents Ron Innes and Jeff Washington insist they tailed Lonegan around Queens all evening, and their supervisor, Scott Tobias, refuses to say why. Briscoe and Green learn that Malloy’s girlfriend Margaret Sikorsky, who died of an overdose days earlier, was Lonegan’s niece. Then Waziri is found shot dead. The bullet matches one taken from a member of Lonegan’s crew kneecapped six years before, and records show the FBI has taken over every felony case against Lonegan since then.
A credit-card charge and a Brooklyn waitress place Innes, Washington and Lonegan at dinner together on the night of Malloy’s killing, and Innes turns out to be Lonegan’s childhood friend. Confronted, Tobias admits Lonegan is the Bureau’s best informant. A new witness places Lonegan near the Waziri shooting, and the detectives arrest him at the Oneida home of his younger brother Donald, a math professor and Margaret’s father, who looks almost exactly like him.
The Trial
Charged with killing Waziri, Cally offers to plead guilty to both murders, and McCoy suspects he is shielding Donald. A lineup witness picks Cally for the cab driver’s death, but Donald’s story of a cabin weekend falls apart, a dry cleaner removed a stain from his parka, and a hotel clerk near Penn Station recalls him paying cash under a false name. Innes, facing the end of his career, admits he ate with Lonegan that night and warned him the police were interested in him.
In a meeting with prosecutors, Cally claims both killings and pushes his silent brother to walk away, reminding him how he sheltered him from their father. Because the agents’ testimony gives Cally an airtight alibi for Malloy, McCoy refuses the double plea, charges Cally only with Waziri’s murder and keeps the Malloy case open against Donald.
Spoiler, the ending: No trial takes place. Before his arraignment, Cally Lonegan is found stabbed to death in his Rikers cell after turning down protective custody, and the killing is blamed on mobster Benny Gambese, whom his informing helped imprison. Donald returns home uncharged.
Why it stands out
- Michael O’Keefe plays both Cally Lonegan and his brother, Professor Donald Lonegan.
- The FBI agents’ alibi, meant to protect their informant, ends up blocking him from pleading guilty to Malloy’s murder.
- The case closes without a verdict: the main suspect is killed in jail and the brother prosecutors suspect remains free.