The veteran crime drama continues its 14th
series. This week, the death of a woman who fell

from a hotel balcony leads detectives to a custody
battle between the victim and her lesbian expartner.
McCoy finds himself embroiled in a battle
over gay rights as he struggles to prove the death
was murder.
Detectives Briscoe and Green probe the death of
Lisa Winslow, a successful motivational speaker
who plunged to her death from a hotel balcony.
The trajectory of her fall suggests she was pushed,
and the only clue from the scene is a discarded
contact lens. The cops visit Lisa’s house and meet
Renee Bishop (Lucinda Jenney, ‘The Shield’, ‘24’),
who claims to be Lisa’s sister. A distraught Renee
wonders how she can break the tragic news to
Lisa’s seven-year-old daughter, Sophie.
Meanwhile, forensics report that the DNA on the
contact lens does not belong to Lisa and may be
that of her killer. Bruising on the victim’s body
suggests she was grabbed during a struggle.
However, Van Buren has bad news for the
detectives when she learns that Lisa had no sister,
and that the woman at the house was an
impostor. “Whoever she is, she’s gone, and she
took the girl with her,” she says.
As police launch a manhunt, enquiries reveal
that Renee and Lisa were once lovers who lived
together in Florida, where they adopted Sophie.
Because Floridian law does not recognise gay
couples’ right to share custody, Lisa adopted
Sophie as a single woman. This left Renee with no
parental rights when the couple later split up and
Lisa moved to New York with Sophie. Renee was
effectively banned from Sophie’s life, as Lisa no
longer allowed her to see or speak to her
daughter. “Woman raises a kid for five years and
gets cut out of her life,” Briscoe says. “Sounds like
motive to me.”
Briscoe and Green eventually track down the
fugitives on a bus in upstate New York. Renee is
arrested and Sophie is taken in by social services.
McCoy manages to hold Renee in custody on a
kidnapping charge while he builds a case against
her for Lisa’s murder. Damning evidence soon
arrives when the DNA on the contact lens is
matched to Renee – proving that she was in the
hotel room.
Faced with this evidence, Renee changes her
story and claims that she pushed Lisa off the
balcony in self-defence. She refuses to accept a
plea bargain and even launches an ambitious legal challenge to change Florida’s laws on gay
parents. Her hope is that she can beat the murder
charge, overturn the law on gay adoptions and
win custody of Sophie – but an incredulous
McCoy urges her to reconsider. “You’re being
given dangerous advice, Miss Bishop,” he says.
“You’ll lose both cases. You’ll lose everything.”
As the trial gets underway, McCoy finds he has
to fight the defence’s efforts to put the issue of
gay rights on the stand. The debate even spills
over into chambers, where Branch and
Southerlyn question the pros and cons of
allowing gay couples to marry and adopt.
In court, meanwhile, Renee’s lawyer attempts to
paint his client as Sophie’s primary care-giver and
loving mother, regardless of her standing in the
eyes of the law. He gains an advantage when the
judge allows his request to put Sophie on the
stand. McCoy feels the tactic could damage
Sophie as well as sway the court’s sympathy. Can
he put aside the notion of Lisa Winslow’s death as
the tragic outcome of a family dispute and make
the jury see it as a straightforward case of murder?