Refuge, Part 1 (Season 9, Episode 23)
Premise: A traffic stop ends with a dead gunman and a mutilated body in the trunk, and the case leads through a traumatized 10-year-old witness to the Russian mob and a Moscow bank.
- Air date
- Season/Episode
- Season 9, Episode 23
- Detectives
- Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach), Det. Rey Curtis (Benjamin Bratt)
- ADAs/DA
- Exec. ADA Jack McCoy (Sam Waterston), ADA Abbie Carmichael (Angie Harmon), DA Adam Schiff (Steven Hill)
- Guest stars
- Jenna Stern as ADA Toni Ricci, Cameron Bowen as Billy Woodson, Bernie Sheredy as Georgy Maletkov, Olek Krupa as Constantin Volsky, J. K. Simmons as Dr. Emil Skoda, Carolyn McCormick as Dr. Elizabeth Olivet
- Director
- Constantine Makris
- Writers
- René Balcer
Summary
The Investigation
“Refuge, Part 1” opens with a Russian mob murder uncovered by accident: a stop over mismatched plates turns into a shootout, police kill the driver, and the trunk holds a man whose hands have been cut off and whose bullets have been dug out. ADA Toni Ricci of the Rackets Bureau reads the gunman’s Russian prison tattoos and traces his prints to Andrei Rogatin, a Moscow convict. An ear photo held by immigration identifies the victim as Vasily Chuikov, a gray-market watch dealer who went to meet a new supplier.
A diner waitress, Josette Dobbs, saw Rogatin and another man at Chuikov’s meeting spot, and plaster dust leads Briscoe and Curtis to a stalled condo site where Chuikov was shot and cut up. A boy, Billy Woodson, was hiding there and saw it, but he is too traumatized to speak about it. Customs cards lead to a Brooklyn motel and a man calling himself Boris Kira, later identified as Mikhail Tolstonog, whose gun probably matches a bullet fragment. A clinic card he carries points to Georgy Maletkov, an immigrant with a record of insurance fraud schemes, and an electrician’s wife, threatened with deportation, says her husband gave Maletkov a key to the site. Maletkov is arrested trying to throw away a gun.
The Trial
Before the grand jury, the witnesses recant or stay away, and a list of their names that defense lawyer Nick Margolis received turns up in the car of a man who confronted the waitress; the judge removes Margolis. Skoda refers Billy to Dr. Elizabeth Olivet, who gets him to describe the killing as a dream he had beforehand, and he picks out the shooter and the man who severed the hands in lineups. A medical specimen shipment to Moscow from Maletkov’s clinic the day after the murder leads to Chuikov’s nephew, Kuzmin, a bank president.
Brought to New York with protection promised for 14 relatives, Kuzmin testifies that a man named Gordov pressed him to open an account for $30 million a month in oil proceeds, and that he gave in after receiving his uncle’s hands in a box. Billy identifies the defendants in court, but under cross-examination by defense lawyer Manning he says other witnesses were too scared to help, and the judge declares a mistrial. Billy’s mother refuses to let him testify again.
Spoiler, the ending: There is no verdict. Reputed mob boss Constantin Volsky is seen in court, Ricci then goes missing, and the episode ends with Schiff ordering someone to check the boy’s safe house.
Why it stands out
- Both of the series’ psychiatrists appear: Skoda, who says he lacks the expertise to treat a child, recommends Dr. Olivet.
- Olivet explains “omen formation,” in which a child who saw a crime comes to believe he dreamed it first and blames himself for not warning anyone.
- The episode ends on a cliffhanger, with Ricci missing; the story concludes in “Refuge, Part 2,” the season finale.