The long-running crime drama continues its 14th
series. This week, prosecutors attempt to convict

a wealthy cross-dresser of killing and
dismembering his lover. When the defendant is
acquitted, McCoy digs up new evidence to try
and convict him of the murder of his wife, who
disappeared ten years before.

When a young boy discovers a severed hand in the garbage, Detectives Briscoe and Green are left to pick up the pieces. They recover assorted body parts from rubbish bins around the neighbourhood, but are unable to locate the victim’s head or heart. The ME report suggests the dead man was about 50 years old, suffered from arthritis and walked with a cane – enough information for the detectives to identify him as Roger Barry, a cantankerous former boxer who was loathed by his neighbours.

The cops are especially interested to learn Barry had a deaf girlfriend by the name of Jennifer Shelby, who lived in the apartment opposite. Inspecting her home, they discover a sharp knife with blood residue on the handle. Probing further, they are astonished to learn that the woman is an impostor, and that the real Jennifer Shelby is the wife of a real-estate mogul. They track the fake Jennifer to a nearby art studio and arrest her when she attempts to flee. In the scuffle, the suspect’s wig falls off and she is revealed to be a man.

It emerges that the man posing as deaf Jennifer Shelby is in fact wealthy Eli Madison, equipped with perfect hearing and notorious in New York for having been accused of the murder of his wife, Carolyn, ten years before. “He claimed she just walked out on him one day,” says McCoy. “She’s never been seen since.” Eli never faced charges because of a lack of evidence, and he managed to win a six-year civil case brought against him by his wife’s family.

Since the furore surrounding his wife’s disappearance, Eli has apparently been living as a woman and was involved with Barry. McCoy now hopes to convict him of Barry’s murder, but Branch points out that without the missing body parts, the ME cannot prove his death was murder. “We’ll have to trust the jury to draw the obvious conclusion,” McCoy says.

In court, Eli maintains that Barry died of a heart attack and says that he only resorted to cutting up and disposing of the body because he was afraid that –with his notorious past – the police would instantly assume he killed him. Despite this incredible story, the defence casts enough doubt to win a not-guilty verdict – but McCoy refuses to be beaten. “I’m not done with Eli Madison yet,” he says, vowing to reopen the case of Eli’s wife.

Southerlyn conducts a little detective work and soon becomes interested in the accidental death of Eli’s friend, Dwayne Evans – the only person who could provide Eli with an alibi for the time of his wife’s disappearance. Evans was found dead in New Mexico shortly before he was due to testify in Eli’s civil case, and Southerlyn thinks Eli could be involved. “Why would he kill his alibi witness?” McCoy asks.

Southerlyn provides the answer when she reveals that Evans was a neurotic, deeply unstable character who was capable of changing his story at any time. “Maybe Eli was worried about how he’d hold up in the civil trial,” she says. Southerlyn is able to bolster her theory when she learns that Eli travelled to New Mexico as ‘Jennifer Shelby’ days before Evans died. All the evidence suggests that Eli did indeed kill his friend, but will it be enough to convince a jury that he also murdered his wife? And can McCoy achieve the rare feat of winning a homicide case where there is no body?