Bottomless (Season 18, Episode 4)
Premise: The killing of a young lawyer defending her parents’ dry-cleaning shop in a lost-pants lawsuit uncovers a retail executive’s affair and a company cover-up of poisoned toothpaste.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 18, Episode 4
- Detectives
- Det. Cyrus Lupo (Jeremy Sisto), Det. Ed Green (Jesse L. Martin), Lt. Anita Van Buren (S. Epatha Merkerson)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Michael Cutter (Linus Roache), ADA Connie Rubirosa (Alana de la Garza), DA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston)
- Guest stars
- Will Chase as Derek Cahill, Ron Canada as Mr. Fuller, Roxanna Hope as Rachel Munroe, David Drake as Herbert Wiggins, Kaitlin Hopkins as Cahill’s attorney
- Ripped from the headlines
- The story draws on Roy Pearson’s $54 million pants lawsuit, quality-control failures in goods made in China, and ethics enforcement at Wal-Mart.
- Director
- Alex Chapple
- Writers
- Ed Zuckerman
Summary
The Investigation
“Bottomless” begins as a murder over missing pants. Lily Yee, six months out of NYU Law, is found dead in her office with a head wound and blood on the corner of a nearby chest. She was defending her parents’ dry-cleaning shop against Herbert Wiggins, who wants $20 million over a lost suit, and the pants the cleaners say are his have vanished from her office. Two men had earlier tried to collect them at the shop, and Wiggins insists the pants were never his.
Matching claim tickets, the detectives find the pants were dropped off by Rachel Munroe, a buyer for the discount chain SavingsMart. Two men tailing her prove to be company security staff under Fuller, a retired inspector who was Van Buren’s captain in Vice, investigating a hotline tip that Rachel is sleeping with a colleague. The tipster, a coworker resentful of Rachel’s promotion, leads them to purchasing executive Derek Cahill, a married man who spent three weeks with Rachel in China. His phone records show he dialed her number with other area codes, reaching Wiggins, who told him a lawyer had the pants.
Rachel admits the affair and says she took his pants to the cleaners to hide a lipstick stain. Fuller then arrives with gray wool pants bearing a bloodstain, taken without a warrant from Cahill’s company-owned apartment, and Cahill is arrested for murder.
The Trial
A private citizen’s find is admissible if the police played no part, but Fuller testifies that Van Buren asked him to get the pants, and Judge Arlene Brewer suppresses them. The prosecutors learn Cahill called SavingsMart from Rikers just before company executives visited him. Rubirosa traces his Chinese supplier to a shuttered plant whose toothpaste, thickened with antifreeze, was linked to deaths abroad. Cahill bought three million tubes, and SavingsMart sold off the shipment, which was resold to a distributor serving hospitals, prisons and nursing homes.
A resale order bearing Rachel’s forged signature turns her against Cahill, and she reveals the company had asked her about the toothpaste. McCoy threatens two executives with obstruction charges, then promises no charges if they help recover every tube and Fuller corrects his testimony. Fuller recants, the pants go back into evidence, and Cahill’s bail is revoked. Pressed further by Cutter, Fuller admits Cahill was blackmailing the company, then quits.
Spoiler, the ending: No verdict for Cahill is shown. Fuller hands his records of the toothpaste, the cover-up and the perjury to the U.S. Attorney, and McCoy points out that his own deal with SavingsMart bound only the District Attorney’s office.
Why it stands out
- The suppression fight turns on the private-search rule: evidence seized by a civilian can be used unless the police were involved, so Fuller’s false claim that Van Buren asked for the search gets it excluded.
- Ron Canada plays Van Buren’s former Vice captain, whose perjury puts her own honesty on trial before he recants.
- McCoy trades a promise of no charges against SavingsMart executives for their help recovering the toxic toothpaste, a bargain Cutter openly opposes.