Cost of Capital (Season 16, Episode 16)
Premise: A junior investment banker’s body is dumped far from where he died, the trail leads to the boss he was secretly sleeping with, and the murder case ends up depending on what her teenage daughter overheard on a late-night call.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 16, Episode 16
- 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
- Lisa Zane as Sophia Keener, Martin Donovan as Robert White, Sarah Steele as Katie White, Keir Dullea as Andrew Keener, Roma Maffia as defense attorney Vanessa Galiano
- Director
- Michael Watkins
- Writers
- Story: Rick Eid; Teleplay: Tom Smuts
Summary
The Investigation
“Cost of Capital” opens with the murder of Derek Miller, a 25-year-old associate at the investment bank Morgan Keener, whose body was moved after death. A blow from what looks like a wine bottle probably set off a seizure, and, full of cocaine and alcohol, he choked on his own vomit. A pay stub shows a $300,000 bonus marked as a secret from “S.K.”: managing partner Sophia Keener, the chairman’s daughter, who paid him double what his peers got.
Coworker Lucas Brody, cleared by bartenders, says he saw Miller leaving Keener’s hotel room in Hong Kong. Keener and her estranged husband, Robert White, have fought for a year over their 14-year-old, Katie. White claims he was at their country house, yet he just traded in a white SUV like one seen near the dump site, and the lab finds Miller’s blood and hair inside. His girlfriend admits Keener phoned around 2 a.m. and White drove into the city. Two days after the death, Keener gave him $10 million and sole custody.
Her father, Andrew Keener, swears she slept at his townhouse, but the 2 a.m. call came from a nearby pay phone. She has replaced her rug, and a cleaner has scrubbed the stained old one. Detectives tell White the lab matched the stain to Miller, and he gives in: his wife said that Miller, paranoid from cocaine, tried to dial 911, so she struck him with a bottle, then bought White’s help with money and custody. Keener is charged with second-degree murder.
The Trial
Defense attorney Vanessa Galiano blames a drug-induced seizure and moves to suppress the spouses’ conversations as privileged. White then reveals that Katie heard the call on another phone, and that she was sexually abused three years earlier, which the family never reported. Judge Shaw upholds the privilege but lets Katie testify. Keener rejects ten years for first-degree manslaughter, sure Katie will never turn on her.
Katie recounts the confession, but Galiano uses her past lies and anger at her mother to undercut her. Afterward Katie says her grandfather raped her and her mother knows. Andrew Keener handed Sophia the firm five days later, and the family doctor, Sheldon Saperstein, never reported his findings. When her father repeats the alibi, McCoy accuses him of the rape and produces 1982 records: Sophia, also 12, was brought to the same doctor after a rape, and DNA from that exam matches her father. The judge admits it to impeach the alibi.
Spoiler, the ending: Keener now wants the ten-year deal and offers to testify against her father; McCoy refuses. The jury convicts her of second-degree murder. McCoy moves to indict Andrew Keener for raping Katie, and rejects his bid for a plea deal.
Why it stands out
- Spousal privilege blocks Keener’s confession to her husband, so the prosecution must rely on the teenage daughter who listened in on an extension.
- Detectives break the husband by claiming the lab matched a rug stain to the victim, though they are unsure enough blood survived the cleaning to test.
- McCoy destroys the chairman’s alibi with a 1982 DNA sample proving he abused his own daughter, decades before the granddaughter’s rape.