So, the moral of this episode comes early: Kids, don't go to school in New York because it's scary and you will DIE, which is what happens to a nice girl from Iowa and her mother. Her parents were moving her into an apartment (and her dad was nervous about her living in a "dirty" neighborhood and not a dorm) but he was momentarily seduced by a guitar shop in the dirty neighborhood. While he's looking in the window, there's a thud and a scream, and a white sedan goes careening down the street, having just run over his wife and his daughter. Of course our boys are there to investigate; they learn the car was a Dodge, which is later found abandoned. The car was stolen, and had a bundle of cash in the glove compartment.
I really like Anita, but it does seem a little bit weird that her whole purpose seems to be giving Green and Lupo fairly various suggestions of how to proceed. There's no prints on the car, no witnesses with any specifics, and no banks have been robbed, but the money did have a stamp from a particular bank. She tells them to go see who made the withdrawal. Really, could they not have gotten to that step themselves? Regardless, they go to visit a guy and his wife who are in the process of moving. He's rather cagey with the details, but his wife finally gets him to admit that they bought a house from a company that sells houses in foreclosure. The guy said if they paid $50K in cash, he'd knock that off the price when he reported the sale, so then they'd pay fewer taxes. Yeah, that doesn’t sound sketchy at all -- way to go, dude. He gives them the name of the agent, Dennis Langdon, and the company, Home Relief Corporation.
And, sure enough, the office address for Dennis Langdon is an empty office full of unopened mail. While Green makes himself useful opening drawers, Lupo looks through the mail and finds all sorts of notices that appear to be receipts from deed transfer filings. So it's off to the County Recorder's office, where they learn that he set up this company to flip a ton of houses, all of which he bought on Quit Claim deeds. Green guesses that the people couldn't make payments, so they walked away. Tell that to the woman who owns the home that couple just bought. She thinks she signed her home away to help clear up her credit, and Lupo has the thankless task of telling her it's actually been sold to someone else, made a bit more sticky by the fact that both he and Green are clearly having to make an effort to not express just how dumb they find this poor lady.
Back at the office, they explain the whole thing to Anita and Connie; Anita comments that flipping 40 houses in two months is "Nice work if you can get it." This police thing must pay really badly if she is sounding wistful about a con -- especially one that they've uncovered. They think Dennis or someone he knew was driving the car that mowed down the poor naïve Iowans. The one other name besides his that keeps recurring in the paperwork is Kim Brody from the title company.
Kim is blonde, soft-spoken, and played by January Jones, so probably is going to be a bit of a key to this whole case, I'd imagine. She plays dumb and stunned when they tell her everything Dennis did, but she's able to provide his driver's license. Back at the office, Lupo tells Greene that through facial recognition software they were able to ID Dennis Langdon as Phil Newsome. In addition to having a nice rap sheet, he's got known ties to the "Fatone crew" (Anita helps us out -- they're a Mob family), and Nicky Fatone has a cigar shop five blocks from the accident site. She has them get a search warrant.
Warrant in hand, they go into the bar with a lot of police backup and find Nicky with a nice bruise on his forehead. They also find a bunch of fresh gunshots and a ransacked safe -- it looks like someone ripped off all the cash, and may have been coming from the robbery when they snuffed out Mom and Daughter.
Back from the break, Connie explains just that theory. Green and Lupo think it's an inside job, Nicky's not talking, so they want to do a sting on Fatone and Langdon. Connie points out that they don't know where Langdon is, but they explain that they have a person who might know, and they need her to put on some "prosecutorial pressure" to get them to cooperate. A delighted Connie is happy to oblige, and puts the screws to Kim Brody. They'll turn a blind eye to the extremely generous tips she was getting and the fact that she never once questioned his operation, if she helps get a meeting with him.
Clearly it worked, because Langdon meets with a hard-luck couple -- none other than Lupo and Connie. Even in a hoodie and tank she looks too polished and gorgeous for the role, but with his stubble and slight puffiness he sells the whole thing. They get Langdon to walk through his whole spiel, convincing them that he's just helping them improve their credit and keep their home just by signing it over to him. Let's hope this serves as a cautionary tale for some poor joe out there who can't afford his house, because this is so shady, it's hard not to judge anyone dumb enough to fall for it, and I do feel a little bit bad judging someone who is about to lose his home. , Langdon meets with the buyer, Green, and Kim to do the paperwork and make the giant cash handover. Nothing says "legitimate transaction" like a crumpled manila envelope with fifty thousand dollars inside.
Anita and the rest of the crew have been listening to everything in a van outside, but their happiness is short-lived; Kim comes out of the building without Langdon. Lupo picks her up, and she tells him she thinks Langdon suspects something, and said he'd meet her in Brooklyn. She also drops that someone named Nicky will be there too, then blandly says she wants to go home and forget everything, and lets herself out of the car. The boys head over and find nothing, then get a phone call that shots were fired at the cigar club.
It's a dead man's party over there, with Langdon and Nicky both having died of gunshot wounds and the cash from Green gone. Outside there's another victim, but this is one of the robbers who has himself been robbed, and he's got lipstick on his face. They figure it's Kim, and head over to her place to arrest her. She's just been washing her hair, or blood off her hands, or whatever, and though she acts confused, she doesn’t actually deny anything and her whole demeanor is a bit weird as they arrest her and lead her away in her bathrobe.
She's in court for obstruction of justice, and plays the dumb innocent to the hilt, pleading "not guilty" before the judge can finish the question. Her court-appointed lawyer is a guy named Burbitoff, and she starts whispering requests and instructions in his ear. He and Connie argue over her bail, expositing that she's only had any sort of traceable history for about six months. Connie requests a material witness warrant regarding the real estate scam, and it's granted; to counter, Kim requests protective custody.
She's at the hotel unpacking and bitching while Connie and Cutter question her. Cutter says the robber who was killed was Bobby Sinclair, who escaped from prison four years earlier. Cutter vows to get her; she plays wide-eyed innocent, still with a touch of apathy, and her lawyer tells them he'll try to get the material witness thing dismissed. This freaks Connie out since she knows Kim will disappear if she gets out on bail, and she goes to the cops for help. They find a Kim Brody who grew up in an orphanage and disappeared, and a woman named Claire Tomlin who helped Bobby Sinclair escape from prison. Claire's picture looks nothing like Kim, but they will run it through facial recognition software, and will have results in 48 hours as to if it could be her. (Dude, I've watched Las Vegas and facial recognition software totally works in a few seconds. Do you not have a program as good as the Montecito Casino's?) The motion hearing is that afternoon, but Connie cryptically says to print Claire's picture and she'll try to "poke the judge in the eye." I certainly hope that's figurative.
The Supreme Court judge is about to dismiss the warrant when Connie asks to show him Claire's picture. She does; Burbitoff looks at it and scoffs, but then the eye-poking comes into play. Connie shows them a picture of herself from high school when she looked nothing like she does now, and because he doesn't want to seem like a superficial asshole, the judge then upholds the warrant until they get the facial recognition results back. When Burbitoff sits down, Connie notices he's got a woman's sock on one foot, and they decide to search Kim's hotel room.
While they search, Lupo makes conversation with Green by asking if he's a "'socks on' guy or a 'socks off' guy." This is a bulletin to men everywhere -- "socks OFF" is the only right answer. Green seems both amused and appalled as Lupo says he's socks on, but won't be baited into admitting his own sexual footwear preferences. He's saved by the discovery of a man's sock. When Cutter and Connie get there, Cutter remarks on what Kim did to her last boyfriend (supposedly Sinclair, but they never entirely connect those dots; everyone just goes with it) and thinks she's got plans for Burbitoff; he should be tailed.
Sure enough, she had plans. Lupo and Green catch him opening up the trunk to a car whose keys he found in the wheel well. He pulls out a duffel bag and that's when the cops announce themselves. While he sputters, they open the bag to show piles and piles of cash. In the interview room, he continues to sputter that he can't say anything because of attorney-client privilege, but he eventually cracks to try and save his own hide, when Cutter assures him that he'll end up just like Bobby Sinclair. They offer to let him plead to a misdemeanor. He asks about his license, and Cutter tells him that's between him and the bar association. It seems to be good enough for him, because he calls Kim to get his instructions. She asks where he was, and he said he was taking his mom to the doctor; this seems to do it, so she gives him the steps to take. When they all hang up, Cutter tells Green to arrest her for murder.
There's a little hitch in the plan, though, because when they arrive, there's a slew of FBI agents and a rep from the U.S. Attorney's office already collecting her, saying she's a material witness in an anti-terror investigation. Lupo protests that she's conning them, which of course does nothing other than make him look like a little kid having a tantrum, and they lead her away.
In court, an aghast and pissed-off Cutter is getting nowhere. The U.S. Attorney guy tells him and the judge that Kim contacted them four days ago about "a money-laundering scheme run by Arab nationals." He shuts down every question Cutter has, saying basically that any other info is secret, but does let Kim explain her suspiciously convenient story that she called about some men buying lots of properties and sending the money to Kuwait and Dubai. Over Cutter's protests that she's using this to get out of a murder charge, the judge tells Cutter that waiting won't make any difference to his case, and rules that she stay in the U.S. Marshals' custody.
Cutter and Connie go back and explain to Jack all that happened in court, as well as their theory that this was Kim's backup plan in case anything went wrong. Jack takes down the names of the two agents they dealt with, saying, "I'm taking prisoners." Okay, well, Green is really the one taking prisoners. He and Lupo walk up to the two agents on the street and arrest them for kidnapping.
In the judge's office, they bicker for a while and Jack accuses them of being "blinded by zealotry" so they can't see they're being played by a psycho killer. The U.S. Attorney questions the use of the word "killer" since there are no murder charges, which Cutter points out they would have filed if they had been able to arraign and charge her. After more blustering, they agree to a trade: the agents with all charges dropped for Kim.
That done, Kim is charged with eight counts of second-degree murder. She's got a new young lawyer and whispers advice in his ear -- here's where I get confused, knowing to nothing about actual law, but basically if the time she's held is calculated from her first arrest date four days earlier, that gives the city less than two days to get an indictment. Cutter freaks out a bit, but there's nothing he can do since it's the law, so less than two days it is.
Back at the office, he manically tells Jack his plans to file an appeal, but Jack just tells him to focus on the Friday noon deadline and his case. Unfortunately, he has no case unless they can prove that Kim is Claire and got Bobby out of jail. Connie comes in as if on cue to tell them the facial recognition software picked up nothing, but that she did get a partial fingerprint of Claire's and it's a four-point match to Kim's. I also know nothing about fingerprints, but Jack seems to think that's crap and will never convince a grand jury of anything, and announces that he's out and Cutter can just do whatever he likes. Cutter is clearly going to forge ahead, and Connie says she's with him.
Bum bum! Cutter tells the grand jury what's what, and when he's asked just what he means by a "partial match," he actually answers by saying it's enough to convince him it's the same person. But like the desperate homeowners at the beginning of the hour, these jurors don’t question anything. Connie sneaks quietly in the door, so Cutter breaks for lunch. She's got bad news that Kim wants to testify -- it turns out she's got a new story, and she plays the innocent as she tells the jury all about how Bobby abducted her four years previously but that she grew to care for him over time. She's able to weave a whole story painting herself as a naïve victim whose boyfriend/abductor was killed in a robbery, and the jury eats it all up like a gourmet dinner. She also is able to spin everything with her lawyer like he pressured her into sex. Cutter tries to nail her, but she manages to weave everything into her victim scenario, and the jury falls for it and lets her off.
As if he's not having a bad enough day, Burbitoff stops Cutter in the street and in a sweaty, nervous way offers to somehow help nail Kim. Cutter's suspicious but also intrigued, and Burbitoff offers to testify that Kim admitted to shooting Bobby. Cutter asks if that is true, and he'll only answer that they both know that's what happened. And in the running theme of the hour, Cutter's desperation wins out over good sense and he goes back to run the idea past Connie. She's still got her Rational Pants on and tells him what an awful idea that would be, but it's too late -- he already filed the motion to present new evidence. That's enough for her, and like Jack she washes her hands of the whole thing.
But while his boss walking out didn't make an impression, Connie walking out does. Cutter stutters a moment, and then withdraws the application. Given that, the judge dismisses the charges and hands Kim over to the U.S. Attorney. Cutter watches her go with his best pouty face, but his snit is interrupted by Connie. She brings him information that just came in: Kim Brody the orphan and Claire Tomlin were both just found. Cutter declares Kim to not be their problem any more, and we cut to Dick Wolf's credit to end the hour. And while Dick rolls around in his piles and piles of money for having created a show that you can find on TV approximately 20 of every 24 hours each day, we can chew on the fact that Connie's moral compass helped save Cutter the embarrassment of his tenuous evidence getting pulled out from under him during the trial.