Throng

Friday 10th July 10.00pm

Continuing this week is the sixth season of the ‘Law & Order’ spin-off following New York’s Major Case Squad. In this episode, Goren and Eames probe the disappearance of a police chief’s daughter. The army officer, on leave from Iraq, vanishes after a night out, and evidence suggests that fellow soldiers may be involved.

Thanksgiving festivities are rudely interrupted for Goren and Eames when they are called to investigate the disappearance of Amanda Dockerty. The army specialist, who was on leave from Iraq, is the daughter of Deputy Commissioner Leland Dockerty (Michael Biehn, ‘Aliens’, ‘The Terminator’). Her parents believe she spent the evening at a friend’s house, but the detectives disprove that story when they find Amanda’s car parked near woodland. Her clothes are scattered through the trees, but there is no sign of a body.

Amanda’s friend, Trisha, admits that the pair of them in fact went to a club in Manhattan. “Amanda said she needed to cut loose,” she says. The two girls met an army colleague of Amanda’s named Ashton Rorick before heading into town. Trisha ended up spending the night with Ashton, while Amanda was last seen dancing with a man with shaggy hair.

Despite the clothes thrown on the ground, there is no other sign that Amanda was ever in the wood, prompting Goren to suspect the scene was set up. “She could have staged this and gone AWOL,” he says. Commissioner Dockerty reacts angrily to the suggestion that his daughter could be a deserter, but the theory gains credence when his wife discovers that Amanda threw away her coveted bronze star medal.

Goren believes the ‘shaggy-haired’ man from the club may have been a former army colleague. He studies a list of soldiers from Amanda’s squad who have recently returned to the States and finds one living in Queens. When questioned, Wesley Burkhartz admits he was in the club with Amanda, but insists he did not leave with her. “Amanda told me to get lost,” he says.

Goren and Eames soon doubt Wesley’s story when they track the movements of Amanda’s cellphone on the night she vanished. The cellphone signal is traced to a junkyard in Queens, where it was abruptly switched off. The detectives search the site and make the grisly discovery of Amanda’s body dumped in a barrel of oil. A single bullet through the neck suggests the killing was planned in advance. “She was executed,” says Goren. It is clear the killer dumped the body in Queens then scattered her clothes in the woods to throw police off the scent.

When the detectives learn that Wesley Burkhartz has fled, they quickly establish that Ashton Rorick must have been his accomplice. Ashton lured the girls to the club then separated them, so that Wesley could make off with Amanda. Ashton is promptly arrested, but refuses to talk.

Goren and Eames struggle to understand why two US soldiers would conspire to kill another, until they learn that Amanda’s squad was recently involved in a massacre of Iraqi troops. It would appear that Wesley and his men executed a group of Iraqis in retaliation for being led into a deadly ambush. “Whatever happened over there, they must have been afraid Amanda would talk about it when she came back home,” says Eames. Was Amanda killed because she was about to break an oath of silence?

Also this week, Goren struggles to stay focused on the case as he deals with his sick mother. But when his short temper leads him into a heated confrontation with Commissioner Dockerty, he risks destroying his career. “What the hell was that, Bobby?” Eames demands. “You want to throw it all away?” Can Goren hold it together?