law & order
genius (17/24)

The veteran crime drama continues its 13th season. In tonight’s episode, a taxi driver is murdered and suspicion falls upon a novelist who is hailed as a genius.

A man is found stabbed to death and left under the wheels of a taxi. The blade went straight into his heart and killed him instantly. By the body, the cops find an expensive cigar and a brand-new copy of a Rimbaud book. As the cab door has been left unlocked, Briscoe is sure that the victim must have been the driver. However, the cab is registed to a Korean driver who is alive and well, but admits he allowed the victim, John Chertof, to moonlight as a cabbie while he attended AA meetings.

Briscoe and Green learn that Chertof is a former KKK member now living under an alias. His real name is Bobby Redburn, who was accused of burning down a black church in Mississippi, as well as being linked to child porn. Although it appears Redburn was the type to have lots of enemies, his murder seems quite random.

However, Green notices from a search of Redburn’s apartment that he does not appear to be the literary type, and wonders if the Rimbaud tome belonged to someone else. The price sticker is still on the book’s cover, and they discover that the store last sold a copy to famous novelist Nelson Lambert. As the detectives pay him a visit, he immediately offers them the same cigar that was found by the body. He claims he was drunk and does not remember what he did the night of the murder. He invites Green –a fan of his work –to have a couple of drinks with him. Green obliges, in the hope that he can extract the truth from him in a more informal way. Lambert rhapsodises about the true nature of murder, and leaves Green certain he was the perpetrator.

Meanwhile, Briscoe visits a restaurant where Lambert said he had spent the early part of the evening of the murder. Its owner says Lambert was drinking there all night until he passed out and was put in a taxi –a good two hours before the murder. He was drinking with fellow novelist Clay Warner, who was hailed by the older Lambert as a genius. Warner was his protégé, but now regards Lambert as a delusional drunk who has created an exotic and dangerous image of himself in the interests of self-publicity. “Nelson is 50 per cent imagination and 50 per cent mouth,” Warner laughs. It becomes clear that Lambert wanted the detectives to think he was the kind of man who might commit murder. It seems far more likely that Warner killed Redburn –his prints are on the book and on the cigar that was found at the murder scene. He had taken both from Lambert while at the restaurant. He also spent time in Sing Sing prison for a college marijuana bust. While Warner was inside, Lambert discovered his work and campaigned incessantly for his release.

Southerlyn finds the murder weapon at Warner’s office and it now seems there is nothing Warner’s hotshot lawyer can do to save him. Warner then throws McCoy a curveball: “I’ll confess to whatever you want me to confess to,” he says. “I have one condition. I want the death penalty. I want you to have me killed.” He also shows no remorse for the murder and claims it was purely random: “I murdered a man for no reason,” he says. “He pissed me off and he deserved to die.”

McCoy is forced to have Warner assessed by Dr Skoda: surely he must be insane to choose death over imprisonment? Lambert, meanwhile, lobbies for his former wunderkind to escape severe punishment. “True genius should be coddled and forgiven,” he says. McCoy passionately disagrees –but does he want to be the man who sends Warner to his death?