In an attorney's office, it's the owners of a dry-cleaning place on one side of the table and a wronged customer on the other, and everyone's shouting about a pair of pants hanging on the back of a chair. The plaintiff insists that that pair isn't his, the dry-cleaners protest that it is too, and their attorney wonders if the plaintiff's claim isn't "a little excessive." "We have laws in this country for a reason," he snarls -- the pants were part of an expensive suit. He's offered a new pair of pants, then free dry-cleaning, but he refuses and marches out.
Cut to the dry-cleaners' attorney, Lily Yee (or "Yi," but IMDb offers no wisdom on this point, so "Yee" it is), dead on the ground in her office from blunt-force trauma to the back of the head. It appears the killer bounced her off a chest of drawers. She's also a recent graduate of NYU Law. The man who rents her the office space wanders in, distraught at the scene before him, and Green and Lupo question him; he reports that Lily was a lovely girl, was working late the night before, and didn't have anything expensive in her office besides a laptop, which wasn't stolen. Then he trails off to ask, "Where are the pants?" Green: "Pants?" Oh, Green. If you only knew how many times you're going to say that word in the 42 minutes. The landlord explains that "some imbecile" was suing his dry-cleaners, who were in fact Lily's parents, and clarifies off Green's question that the plaintiff wanted twenty million dollars; the pants were evidence in his lawsuit. After Lupo and Green exchange raised eyebrows, we cut to the credits.
Lupo and Green talk to the parents. After an odd back-and-forth in which Mr. Yee may be implying that Lily brought shame on herself by getting murdered (and during which Lupo looks nauseated...although Lupo looks nauseated for most of the episode), Mr. Yee explains that the plaintiff brought in his pants; the Yees lost them; the Yees then found them; the plaintiff denied that they were his pants, and sued them anyway. Mr. Yee also mentions that two men came in last week, looking for the pants -- not the plaintiff or his attorney, but two different guys, one black and one white. "They are smiling, but they want those pants very strong!" That's why Lily took the men to her office.
On the street, Green's like, yeah, a white guy and a black guy together in New York -- no problem tracking that down. "Well...there's us," Lupo observes mildly. Green ignores this to speculate that maybe the plaintiff sent the heavies to get the pants, while Lupo makes "has this country gone nuts" noises about the size of the jury award the plaintiff is expecting.
The plaintiff, one Herbert Wiggins, explains his reasoning to the detectives while imperiously affixing a cufflink: "Consumer fraud carries punitive damages, to deter future wrongdoing." Green's like, like what, they lose your socks ? Unsurprisingly, Wiggins doesn't see the humor, referring to the cleaners' sign that promised one-day service and continuing to claim that the pants the Yees returned aren't the right pair. When it's pointed out to him that the pants in question have gone missing, which is pretty convenient to Wiggins's case, he explains snottily that "those pants were Chilean wool, not Italian. They have cuffs, which I'm too short to wear, and pleats, which I'm too thin to wear," and he gives Green a dismissive once-over on the word "thin." Jeez.
Cop shop. The detectives explain to Van Buren about the pants. Lupo's sister-in-law comes in, wearing her usual maybe-just-a-little-vavoom-for-the-office outfit, and hands a file to Green. Lupo leaps out of his chair at her approach; as she's leaving, he invites himself over on Friday night, and she's like, "Super, I could use a babysitter." He's like, "...'Great,' 'no' 'problem.'" Green watches this with interest. Van Buren pointedly asks Lupo how she's doing "since your brother's death, which was relatively recent, and also she's your sister-in-law, come on." She only says the first part out loud, though, and Lupo shrugs all hangdog that she's doing fine. Then Van Buren does that thing where she suggests the obvious investigative step like it's an innovative new angle the detectives shouldn't have thought of themselves, telling them to find out who the pants do belong to, if they aren't Wiggins's.
At the Yees' store, Green, Lupo, and Mr. Yee try to match up pants with receipts, Lupo complaining that after four years overseas busting terrorist heads, now he's "the pants police." Hey, he can police my pants anytime...provided he gets some sunlight and a little more sleep. Dude is looking like the newscasters in Batman after everyone finds out the Joker has poisoned the makeup supply. Which is sort of ironic, given where this episode ends up going, but anyway, Mr. Yee reports that some guy came in the week before to get his pants, but they weren't there, so the guy said he must have picked them up already and forgotten about it, and then the guy left. This sounds about as fascinating and relevant to Green and Lupo as it sounds to us, so Lupo changes the subject: they have 96 pairs of pants, and 97 tickets.
The owner of the 97th ticket, Rachel Monroe, explains that she hasn't picked up her pants because she's been in China, traveling for work -- she's a purchasing agent for Savings Mart. (I think it's actually "Saving$mart," but I ain't typing that shit out a hundred times.) She claims not to know Lily Yee, or anything about the pants, and is overly breezy and fake-regretfully "sorry I can't be more helpful." She's about to take her leave of them when Lupo asks why she hasn't picked the pants up yet, now that she's back in town; she claims it's an old pair she doesn't need. Green confirms that it's her pair, then, not a husband's or boyfriend's, because they're looking for men's pants, not women's. Lupo leaves her his card.
Out on the street, Lupo and Green speculate that Rachel is going to call whomever the pants do belong to to tell him he's busted. I'm not sure I follow their logic there, but whatever the reasoning, they've concluded that she's lying. Lupo doesn't plan to wait for a subpoena of Rachel's phone records, so he calls her up and makes clicking noises into the phone to make her think the line is bugged, which presumably will send her outside to call from a payphone or meet the pants-owner in person. Green rightly calls this ridiculous, saying that phone taps don't make any noise at all, but Lupo's like, "They do in movies," and Green humors him: "I'll give you 15 minutes." Lupo passes the time by asking clumsily what's going on with Green and his sister-in-law, and Green humors him on this also, explaining that they're just friends, and the sister-in-law's date on Friday is with her mother, to go to a show. Green also confirms that SIL was with Lupo before she was with his brother. The rest of us got there three episodes ago, but thanks for the confirmation. Rachel appears just then, and the detectives, about to tail her, spot a white guy and a black guy also tailing her. They manage to stop the guys, but lose track of Rachel.
At the cop shop, the tailers have made one phone call each and then clammed up. Van Buren is annoyed, but her expression changes when she gets a visitor -- her mentor, former Inspector Fuller, who's now retired from the NYPD and heading up security for Savings Mart. Lupo eavesdrops as Van Buren asks why Fuller had a tail on Rachel Monroe, and Fuller bullshits that it's "internal corporate stuff, nothing very interesting." Van Buren invites him into her office, and Lupo lurches over to ask who he is. "One of the best officers I ever worked for," Van Buren grins, "and everything he does is interesting." Lupo pulls a face all, "Great -- not only is she not going to challenge this guy because he's her sensei, but we've seen that storyline a hundred times before to boot."
Fuller explains that the guys in custody didn't talk because it's Savings Mart corporate policy not to speak without authorization from a superior. Lupo's like, that's you, so how about you spill it; Fuller says Savings Mart is investigating an allegation that Rachel was "fraternizing" with a fellow employee. The detectives think this is a bit much, but Fuller says it's the company culture, per the founder, "a very moral man." A very nosy and controlling man, more like, but whatever. Van Buren throws in that Fuller was her captain when she got to Vice, and there's some weird reminiscing about how worrying about morals is the job of the private sector nowadays or whatever, and then Fuller says that Rachel was spotted dropping off the pair of pants, but when his guys tried to get said pants, the dry-cleaner blew them off. They don't know who the pants belong to, and Fuller hasn't heard the name Lily Yee before.
Lupo and Green head to Savings Mart security HQ to listen to the tip that came in on the company's "integrity hotline," a set-up that gets another raised brow from Green. Fuller says it's for reporting employee theft, harassment, so on and so forth, and goes on to say that, if the owner of the pants is found, he's fired for boinking a fellow employee, end of story. Lupo wonders how they would have matched the pants to the owner, and Fuller says they'd have used the DNA they have on file for each employee. So, in case you haven't gotten it by now, Savings Mart is Orwellian in its overreach. Lupo figures out that the call was made from a Savings Mart store, by someone who knows Rachel, and Gorens that they need a list of employees recently transferred from Rachel's office to a store.
Sure enough, they find the tipster, and sure enough, she's more paranoid about talking out of turn about Savings Mart than about stiff-arming the police. They have to threaten her with a voice-print match, but finally she gives it up: Rachel told the woman she was sleeping her way to the top, and succeeded in scoring the job opening in purchasing that the woman had wanted as a result. The woman gives up the guy's name, too...
...so we head over to the home of one Derek Cahill, the foyer of which is naturally strewn with toddler toys, the better to emphasize that he's an asshole for cheating on his wife. I'm sure the makers of Thomas the Tank Engine appreciated the product placement, but...come on, guys. We went to college. Cahill makes puzzled faces when the police explain why they're there, and denies having an affair with Rachel, even when the detectives note his pleated, cuffed pants.
Back at the precinct, the detectives try to work out what it is Cahill and Rachel were doing on their business trip to China -- well, besides the Posturepedic polka. Rachel's credit-card statement doesn't have anything incriminating, and while Cahill's phone records show phone calls to Rachel "both day and night," Van Buren says they could have been discussing work stuff. Fuller appears just then, having gotten past the desk sergeant unannounced, to say that he "heard" they were sniffing around Cahill. "You...you 'heard'?" Lupo skeptics. Fuller produces photos of Cahill in a grey suit from the company newsletter, and Van Buren says with some impatience that they can't make a match from an old photo to a pair of pants they don't have. "What do you have?" Fuller wants to know, and Van Buren has to take him aside to explain that obviously she can't tell him what they have, as he well knows, or should. "Aren't I allowed to help out if I can?" he smarms, and she says as if to a child, "Up to a point," and puts him off with an invitation to have dinner and catch up. He leaves, and Van Buren's like, "...Jesus H.," and rejoins the detectives. Lupo has spotted something in the phone records -- Cahill called not only Rachel's number in the 212, but the same number in the 917 and 646 as well. The somewhat-needlessly complex upshot is that Cahill went in to the dry-cleaners, the pants weren't there, and he figured the dry-cleaners gave the pants to someone with the same phone number but a different area code by mistake, so he started calling around to track the pants down. As it happens, the guy who has the same phone number as Rachel, but in the 917, is...The Litigious Horror Of Herbert Wiggins.
Wiggins confirms that he got a call; he thought it was an investigator hired by the dry-cleaners, trying to trick him, and he denied having the pants and told the guy he knew damn well where the pants were: "They're with the Chinese lawyer." Which means he sent inadvertently sent Cahill straight to Lily Yee.
In an interrogation room, Lupo is yelling at Cahill for making me type the word "pants" so many times that it doesn't look like a real word anymore. Oh, wait. Lupo actually yells that Cahill had motive, means, et cetera. Green backs Lupo's play while, out in the observation room, Rachel says Cahill would never hurt anyone. Van Buren's out of patience and tells her she doesn't care what Rachel does or with whom, but it's a murder case and Rachel needs to fess up. Rachel bites her lip, then admits to the affair, saying they were so careful, to the point of wearing disguises and whatnot. Van Buren still isn't clear on why Rachel even had Cahill's pants, and Rachel is forced to explain that she'd gotten lipstick on them. Van Buren: "[Blank stare.]" Really, Anita? You really think she just...fumbled a tube of Rum Raisin, and it randomly fell on Cahill's leg or something? Blow job, Lieutenant. Keep up. Rachel prompts, "On the fly?" Yeah, we got it. Gah, show. Savings Mart security came around, and Rachel lied that the pants were hers to save their jobs. She warned Cahill, and he took the ticket to get the pants back, but she insists that he wouldn't kill anyone.
Fuller appears just then, holding a shopping bag aloft. Van Buren rolls her eyes all, "Get a hobby, old man, damn," and isn't appeased when it turns out that Fuller has brought them the pants. He proudly points to a spot of blood on one of the cuffs, saying it's probably Lily Yee's. He also admits that he found the pants in a closet in Cahill's apartment, which he searched sans warrant, on the grounds that technically it's Savings Mart corporate property. Green says that it's still Cahill's home and he therefore has the expectation of privacy, so Fuller disingenuously offers to take the pants back. After a beat, Van Buren says she thinks she sees some lipstick on the fly. Fuller: "You want them? Or not?" Lupo and Green answer by going in to arrest Cahill.
Bail hearing. Cahill pleads not guilty; bail is set at a million dollars, and Cahill's lawyer hands Connie a motion to suppress before they've even left the courtroom.
In McCoy's office, Connie and Cutter discuss the problem with the legality of the search for the pants -- Fuller isn't representing the government, but, McCoy says, he's acting on behalf of a giant corporation that behaves like the government. Which isn't really the point, because the standard is whether Fuller can reasonably claim that he was acting as a private citizen and not on behalf of the police, not whether his employers are Stalinist wingnuts, but if McCoy doesn't make that comment, we can't "enjoy" the ensuing thinly veiled and rather tired rant on the likes of Wal-Mart and how they'll stop at nothing to keep prices down. Done preaching to the choir, McCoy then tells us that, without the pants, the DA's office really has no case.
Cutter and Connie go over to the cop shop to make sure they didn't tell Fuller to get the pants, and didn't know that he planned to. They all deny knowing anything about it in advance; Lupo adds that they were just about to apply for a search warrant when Fuller shows up with pants in hand. Cutter mentions that Fuller is Van Buren's mentor, and she's like, true, but he taught her "to do police work, not outsource it to rent-a-cops." Zing?
At the suppression motion hearing, Fuller lies that he brought in the pants "at the request of Lieutenant Van Buren." Cutter and Connie exchange an oh-shit look, and Cutter gets up to remind Fuller that the three police officers swore they knew nothing about the pants ahead of time. Fuller's like, what do you expect them to say, and continues to assert that Van Buren "authorized" his search. The judge has heard enough; Cutter protests inevitable discovery, but it doesn't work. The pants are excluded. As you may have read in the men's room.
Outside the courtroom, reproachful looks are exchanged all around as Fuller files out.
Cutter tells McCoy he knows Fuller is lying, but he doesn't know why. Connie appears with Rikers Island phone records, and reports that Cahill got a visit in jail from two Savings Mart executives...and Fuller.
Cutter and Connie go to Savings Mart HQ to meet with a corporate attorney, a PR exec, and Fuller. The attorney doesn't represent Cahill personally, so Connie doesn't understand why he went to see Cahill in jail, much less why the PR flack had to go too; Cutter accuses Fuller of lying again; Fuller says nothing. The Savings Mart guys get up to leave, and Cutter throws around the phrase "criminal conspiracy" but that doesn't get any results either. On the way out, Connie and Cutter wonder why everyone's rallying around a mid-level purchasing executive.
Cut to Rachel's apartment, where Connie is doorstopping Rachel, who doesn't want to talk. Connie informs her that it's illegal for Savings Mart to threaten her, then notices through the two inches of door Rachel has consented to open that her apartment is full of moving boxes. Savings Mart transferred her to Singapore. She protests that it's a promotion. Connie calls it a bribe, and asks what else Rachel knows about what Cahill does. He buys mouthwash and shampoo, Rachel whines before slamming the door in Connie's face.
At the office, Connie has tracked down a company in China that makes both mouthwash and shampoo -- Brightday Manufacturing. Cutter is sputtering about how Cahill's about to get away with murder while they research oral hygiene products, but reading Brightday's website, Connie finds out that the plant manager of Brightday killed himself...right after the Chinese government had shut the plant down. Coincidence? Cutter thinks not.
Neither does the Chinese consulate, where a government rep is happy to tell them that 1) Cahill and Rachel were licensed buyers of Chinese products; 2) Brightday got shut down for "quality control issues," specifically impurities in toothpaste that may have caused some deaths in Belize and the Dominican Republic; 3) Cahill bought three million tubes of the Death Crest for export to the U.S.
Back from the final break, Cutter and Connie report to McCoy that Brightday thickened their toothpaste with antifreeze in order to save a penny a tube -- and also that Cahill couldn't have known that when he bought the toothpaste, but probably knew about it afterwards and used it to blackmail Savings Mart. He keeps quiet about the toothpaste, they help him out with the murder charge. You know, ordinarily I'd complain about the kind of spoon-fed exposition we're getting in this scene, but in this case I'm grateful for it; I love Law & Order and I like the new cast this season, but every case is so Eliot-Spitzer-ishly convoluted, I'm lost by the 26-minute mark. I'm all for complexity in the storytelling, but there's complexity, and then there's the kind of excessively overplotted narrative I used to write in fifth grade. Sadly, this one does not contain a weaponized unicorn like mine did.
Anyway: the toothpaste. It doesn't seem to have made it onto Savings Mart store shelves; where did it go?
At a Savings Mart warehouse, the foreman tries to stonewall, but eventually opens the files for Connie and Cutter -- the toothpaste got pulled off the distro list and rerouted to a company called M&M Novelties. Savings Mart sold the toothpaste to M&M at a discount, and then M&M in turn dumped the toothpaste on another distributor (...see what I'm saying?) that serves prisons, hospitals, and old-age homes. These are places, Cutter points out acidly, where "people die all the time," so who's going to notice if a few of them drop dead of toothpaste poisoning? Connie has alerted the local authorities. Cutter doesn't understand why a company as big as Savings Mart would pull this just to save a few bucks; why didn't they just send the toothpaste to a landfill? Connie, staring at the file, notices that the fax telling the warehouse to reroute the toothpaste came from procurement...and was signed by Rachel Monroe.
Cut to Rachel wailing that that isn't her signature. Connie agrees that it's not a match to other handwriting samples they have on file. Rachel doesn't know why she's there, then, and Cutter brings in Cahill and his attorney. Rachel confronts him, saying he told her the company destroyed the toothpaste. Cahill confirms that, but Cutter says he's lying; he dumped the toothpaste on institutions so he wouldn't get a bad quarterly review. Cahill continues to deny that he had anything to do with it, and sleazes at Rachel that she can't believe Cutter. Rachel is crying, and whispers that maybe he did kill that girl. Cahill snaps at her. Rachel, glaring at Cahill, says Savings Mart asked her about the toothpaste, and she didn't know why; Cahill "tried to hide it, but they found out anyway." Cahill's attorney isn't worried, and escorts him out; he smiles smugly. Rachel sobs.
Connie has to agree with Cahill's attorney that they still have nothing vis-à-vis the murder charge, but Cutter's like, not so fast. Cut to McCoy basically threatening to bring a bad-press storm down on the heads of the Savings Mart execs, then offering to let them off the hook legally if they'll order Fuller to tell the truth. After the execs leave, Cutter is pissed that McCoy let them go on a public-health threat to catch one murderer. McCoy reminds him that catching said murderer is in fact Cutter's job, not playing attorney general with product recalls. "You're settling," Cutter grunts, as Connie fidgets in the back of the shot. "Call the judge," McCoy repeats. Cutter stalks out. Connie and McCoy exchange a look, and I think a "he's right, you know" / "I know" conversation got cut here, because instead, we head over to...
...the courthouse steps, where Van Buren gives Fuller some shit for selling out, and delivers a stagey speech about the PD not appreciating him and he takes Savings Mart's money and shades the truth and blah blah blah. He looks ashamed, the student has become the master, et cetera, and then a weaponized unicorn lands on the steps behind them and cuts them both down in a hail of clichés. Er, "machine-gun fire."
Inside, Fuller is "amending" his testimony: "I regret to say that I...misplaced my emphasis." He admits that the detectives had no idea he planned to snag the pants; he was trying to protect the reputation of Savings Mart. As Fuller goes on in this vein, there's a foreground close-up of Van Buren whispering in Cutter's ear. After the judge snaps at Fuller to get a lawyer for those pesky perjury charges and reverses her prior ruling on the suppression of the pants (which is the name of my third album), Cutter gets up to question Fuller some more. The judge is confused by this -- "game over, Mr. Cutter; you won" -- but allows Cutter to query Fuller on why Fuller really lied. It's unclear exactly what's motivating this; I guess Van Buren asked Cutter to press Fuller so that he would have a chance to defend his honor under oath. It's highly unlikely from a courtroom-procedure standpoint, and even less likely that Fuller would decide, just based on a little pressure from Cutter, to abandon his carefully-worded "amendment" and take a stand against corporate corruption right there on the spot -- but that's exactly what happens. Cue The L&O Cellos Of Last-Minute Revelation as Fuller grunts that his original testimony was part of a deal to keep Cahill quiet about the toothpaste: "And by the way. I quit." Cutter turns to look at Van Buren, who nods, satisfied. That is some weak drama-club sauce right there. At least get Corny The Magikal Sharpshooter up in here, God.
Aftermath. As Cutter and McCoy pick up the obligatory this-episode's-case-headlined tabloid outside the courthouse, McCoy exposits that "Fuller had it all documented" -- the cover-up, the distribution, everything, and he turned it all over to the U.S. Attorney. Which is convenient, because Savings Mart will be prosecuted, and we won't have to dislike McCoy for letting them skate. McCoy then says pointedly that he made said deal on behalf of the D.A.'s office, a deal which is now broken because...Cutter talked to the press? They said they wouldn't make a statement, and Fuller's testimony voided that? I'm not sure. Anyway, Cutter's like, "It's okay -- you don't have to thank me," so I assume we're to believe that McCoy approves of Cutter tanking the deal because McCoy didn't want to make it, or plan to honor it, anyway? I...don't know. Whatever, they got the guy.