C.O.D. (Season 14, Episode 24)
Premise: A delivery driver is shot after dropping off an empty envelope, and Lennie Briscoe’s last case uncovers two women who agreed to kill each other’s husbands.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 14, Episode 24
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Serena Southerlyn (Elisabeth Röhm), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Elizabeth Hanly Rice as Adele Byrne, Victoria Dillard as Belinda Gardner, John Benjamin Hickey as defense attorney Aaron Solomon, Glynnis O’Connor as defense attorney Anne Paulsen
- Director
- Matthew Penn
- Writers
- Richard Sweren & Marc Guggenheim
Summary
The Investigation
“C.O.D.” begins with the shooting of RME Express driver John Byrne outside a brownstone moments after he delivers an envelope with nothing inside. The sender paid cash and gave a fake name and address, pointing to a setup. His widow, Adele, describes a happy marriage, but a coworker reveals Byrne’s affair with Gloria Regelson, a secretary on his route, who ended it when she found he had another lover. Motel security video leads to that woman, shoe-store clerk Blair, who says Adele phoned her with threats.
Adele worked alone in Riverside Park that morning. Her charge records lead to a gun shop in Vermont, where owner Murray Gunderczak admits buying a .38 Smith & Wesson in his own name for her. Adele claims the gun was stolen with her purse, but police using underwater metal detectors pull it from the Hudson, and she is arrested. Between leads, Briscoe tells Green he is putting in his papers.
Ballistics then shows Adele’s gun did not kill Byrne. Instead it matches the bullet that killed Randall Gardner, a wealthy real estate investor shot while jogging in Central Park the same week. His widow, Belinda, had a solid alibi and runs the cafe where Adele eats three times a week. Gardner’s sister says Belinda married him for his money and resented the allowance he imposed, and Belinda stands to inherit $13 million. The prosecutors conclude the strangers swapped murders, and Belinda is arrested.
The Trial
The judge refuses to join the cases, so the two women are tried separately but at the same time: Southerlyn prosecutes Adele for Gardner’s murder while McCoy prosecutes Belinda for Byrne’s. Southerlyn catches Adele in lie after lie about the gun and her husband’s affairs. Belinda’s lawyer, Aaron Solomon, calls the director of Gloria’s employer, the Kent Foundation, who reports a gun found in an office trash can the day after Byrne died. Ballistics confirms it is the weapon that killed Byrne, and nothing ties it to Belinda.
Adele is convicted of second-degree murder, and Belinda is acquitted. McCoy then indicts Belinda for her own husband’s killing as first-degree murder for hire, arguing that killing John Byrne was a service with monetary value and that double jeopardy covers only Byrne’s death. The judge sides with McCoy.
Spoiler, the ending: After Adele agrees to tell McCoy how the scheme worked, Belinda accepts a plea of 20 years to life, the same term the prosecution will recommend for Adele. With the case won, Briscoe bids the squad farewell.
Why it stands out
- This is Jerry Orbach’s final episode as Det. Lennie Briscoe on the original series; the character moved to the spin-off Law & Order: Trial by Jury, where Orbach appeared in two episodes before his death in December 2004.
- In the DA’s office, the swapped-murders scheme is likened to an Alfred Hitchcock plot.
- After an acquittal, McCoy gets a second shot by charging the wife with murder for hire in her own husband’s death, with the killing she committed serving as the payment.