Tombstone (Season 15, Episode 20)
Premise: A junior lawyer is killed with a deal trophy inside a powerful Manhattan firm, and the case against a newly minted partner is tangled up with a securities fraud probe and the shooting of Det. Ed Green.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 15, Episode 20
- Detectives
- Det. Joe Fontana (Dennis Farina), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Alexandra Borgia (Annie Parisse), DA Arthur Branch (Fred Dalton Thompson)
- Guest stars
- Paul Fitzgerald as Ron Drexler, Fritz Weaver as Nathan Fogg, Linda Emond as defense attorney Rosalie Helton, Robert Clohessy as Kenny Peluso
- Director
- Eric Stoltz
- Writers
- Rick Eid
Summary
The Investigation
“Tombstone” opens with a law firm murder at Cromwell Moore, where two associates find colleague Jackie Ogden, 28, dead in a 40th-floor conference room, struck with a “tombstone,” one of the trophies lawyers get when a deal closes. Her sister calls senior partner Nathan Fogg her mentor. Lawyer Stuart Arlen admits a single fling with her, security guard and retired cop Kenny Peluso admits an affair, and her cocaine supplier, Quinn, says she was seeing a CEO at Unicorn. That executive, Will Anders, admits sex with her in that room hours earlier but had flown to London.
DNA shows Anders did not father her four-week pregnancy. Van Buren wins the DA’s office’s backing for a voluntary DNA canvass of every man in the building that night, despite Fourth Amendment worries, and most of the lawyers refuse. The fetus matches Peluso, who says Ogden planned a sexual harassment suit against a senior associate, Ron Drexler, who had given her a poor review. Fogg supports Drexler’s alibi until 11:40, but Drexler’s DNA on the envelope of an overwrought love letter signed with an initial leads to a warrant and her blood on his trousers. He is arrested moments after being made partner.
The Trial
Fogg posts Drexler’s $1 million bail, and defense attorney Rosalie Helton smears the victim publicly. The judge rules that Drexler consented to the swab only to settle paternity and suppresses the trousers. McCoy, who once interviewed with Fogg, learns the SEC is investigating Fogg over securities fraud at Unicorn. Over dinner Branch pressures Fogg, who says Drexler admitted the killing, but Drexler reaches the U.S. Attorney first and offers to testify against Fogg. The DA’s office refuses a federal request to give Drexler ten years, and Fogg vows to take the Fifth.
Helton floats a plea in which Drexler claims Ogden baited him into writing the letter to build her suit, but McCoy offers only murder two with a minimum sentence. Before Peluso can testify that Ogden vowed to ruin Drexler, Green is with him outside his home when a gunman shoots them both; Peluso dies, and Green is left on life support. With motive hard to prove, McCoy warns Fogg that an acquitted Drexler would be a stronger witness against him. Testifying under immunity, Fogg says Drexler came to him shaking, with blood on his hand, saying he might have killed Ogden.
Spoiler, the ending: The verdict is not shown, but Branch later congratulates McCoy on convicting Drexler, crediting Fogg. Green’s shooting is unsolved; McCoy urges Fontana to be careful, and Fontana tells him to stick to his own side of the street. The story continues in “Skeleton,” an episode of Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
Why it stands out
- Det. Ed Green is shot in this episode, a turn that let Jesse L. Martin take a hiatus for the rest of the season to film Rent.
- This is the first half of a crossover completed in “Skeleton,” on Law & Order: Trial by Jury.
- Drexler’s bloody trousers are suppressed because his DNA consent covered only the paternity test, not a comparison with the love letter’s envelope.