"I want the kind with the stars." "We only have noodles." "Do I have to go to school tomorrow if I'm still sick?" "No, they'll just send you home." "I'm going to see if Daddy read my e-mail." "Check your mail." " Who's sending Daddy mail?" " "SexyRita."" " Who's that?" " Don't open it." "Go wash up." "I'll get lunch ready." "Okay." "Go wash up now." "I'll be home by 6:30." "Why?" "What's wrong?" " Nothing." " I can hear it in your voice." "Just make sure you're home on time." "These are the pension fund files for the Mancuso meeting." "Everything okay?" "It's just Mandy." "She's on a tear about something." "So you know, she called while you were out." "She wanted the "who-what-where" of your lunch hours the last couple of weeks." " I hope you told her." " I told her what you tell me." "And I didn't mention the woman who calls and never leaves her name." "Next time Mandy calls, tell her." "Tell her I told you to tell her." "Okay." "We can't be bulls in the old china shop here." "One individual has already resigned." "I pulled the records, Mr. Mancuso." "You still have nearly a dozen people whose status is questionable." "I'm not signing off on the audit until this is rectified." "I understand you have a job to do." "Just do your damn job." "There's no need for that kind of language." "You prefer some other language?" "How about "kickbacks"?" "If you don't clean it up, Mancuso," "I'll bring in people who will." "There's nobody, Mandy." "I swear." "Do I look like a stupid person?" "I found your personal ad on a web site." "You've had it there at least a month." "That's not true." "That's not mine." "I printed it out." "Tell me that's not you." "Mandy, I did not post this." "I called the bank." "That ad was paid by electronic check from our account, Ron." "Er..." "Sarah's finished her bath." "Come on, Billy, it's time for bed." "Power Company, for the meter." "Oh, jeez!" "The couple's name is Sherwood, Ron and Mandy." "He works in the City Comptroller's office." "She's a part-time nurse." "Two kids in grammar school-- William and Sarah." " Any domestic violence calls?" " No, never." "So he chased her down here and into the kitchen." "We got what appears to be defensive wounds on her arms." "One of the first swings knocks her down." "Looks like she tries to duck under the table, but he caught her in the back of the head." "The leuco brought up blood spatters clear across the room." "There's a knife missing out of the knife block." "You'll find it upstairs." "You guys mind stepping off the carpet?" "I want lots of photos of the carpet-- different angles, heights, okay?" "They're over here." "This was the son." "Nine years old." "Suffocated with a pillow." "The little girl, six years old." "Put the knife against his chest and fell on it." "Suicide by stabbing." "Was there a note?" "This whole house is a note." "This was in his back pocket-- a personal ad from a web site." "Sounds like it could be Sherwood's." "Could be what started the argument." "He kills his wife in a rage..." "But the kids?" "No sir, they haven't made a determination yet." "If it turns out it's a domestic squabble gone haywire, we'll kick it back to the 1-0." "Yes, sir." "I swear I could hear him breaking into a cold sweat." "With this budget crisis, last thing the mayor needs is a scandal with one of his accountants." "Sherwood seems ready-made for the part." "Last year he got a desk appearance ticket for cruising prostitutes on 26th Street." "Ron Sherwood's parents are dead." "He has no siblings." "But Mandy Sherwood has a mother and sister in Wisconsin, either of who, would've been fit guardians for the kids." "And...?" "Men who kill their wives usually kill their kids if there's nobody else left to look after them." "That just leaves not wanting your kids to grow up knowing their dad's a murdering scum ball." "And he cheated on their mom." "There were five e-mails from girlfriends on his Internet account." "Two of them mention play dates he had during his lunch hour over the last month." "Make sure Mr. Sherwood wasn't subsidizing his fun with our tax dollars." "Out of nowhere, Mrs. Sherwood just started giving me the third degree on where he spends his lunch hour." "All I know is he didn't spend it with me." "Is there any reason to believe he wasn't just..." "Having lunch?" "A few times, some woman called and wouldn't leave her name." " Did you tell Mrs. Sherwood about her?" " No." "Because Mr. Sherwood asked you not to?" "No." "He told me next time Mrs. Sherwood called, to tell her." "What projects was he working on?" "Audits." "He was under the gun to trim budgets in every department." "He had a lot on his mind." "Mr. Sherwood have a problem with his back?" "With his neck." "Why?" "Well, the bookcases." "Oh, right." "He had me empty the top shelves because he said it hurt when he reached up." "Sherwood's doctor said he was still being treated for a pinched nerve in his neck and pain and weakness in his left arm." "The ME doesn't think Sherwood could've swung a bat with enough force." "Where's your partner?" "What are those lines?" "Marks left on the carpet by a vacuum cleaner." "They're all going toward the door." "Someone vacuumed this way, backing out towards the door and right out of the house." "The same pattern's on the carpet in the master bedroom." "To the door, and out to the hallway." "Any chance it was done before the killings?" "No." "There's no footprints on the carpet matching Sherwood, his wife, the kids." "The prints are from our personnel." "The prints that someone didn't want us to see belong to the people who killed the Sherwoods." "Something wrong with the order, Mr. Mancuso?" "I don't like fish." "I don't like seafood." "You ought to eat fish." "Salmon, sardines-- they're filled with omega-3." "Brain food." "That's why my girls eat fish." "Ms. Randolph, I have to tell you," "I am extremely disturbed about what happened." "It is disturbing-- how a man can lose touch with his own soul, kills the people who love him." "If there are any repercussions" "The only repercussion is if you lose touch with yourself, Mr. Mancuso." "I have to be home." "Hold up." "Your "doggie bag"?" "The vacuuming marks on the carpets didn't match the Sherwood's vacuum cleaner." "The one that was used was larger, possibly an industrial model." " What about fingerprints?" " Fingerprints in the house belonged to the family." "If anybody else was here besides them, they didn't leave anything behind." "You have Sherwood's shirt?" "Yeah." "We found his blood on it, of course, and his wife's." "The bat?" "Mandy Sherwood was down-- she was crawling under the table." "If Sherwood had killed her, he'd be standing somewhere..." "Right about here." "Ready for his next swing, He swings at her like this, her blood splashes back toward him." "He'd have blood spatter on the right inside sleeve, the lower front of his shirt and the lower part of his left sleeve." "The table would have blocked the blood from going any higher up on the left sleeve." "So..." "Why is there blood splatter up on his left shoulder?" "There shouldn't be." "The blood was applied to Sherwood's shirt after Mandy Sherwood was killed." "They knew enough to know there'd be blood spatter and they got the general angle right, everything except for up on the left shoulder." "A staged murder scene." "Staged by somebody who knows forensics, who knows procedure." "Cops?" "Cops." "I'm not witch-hunting cops over a couple of blood spatters." "It's not just that." "The ticket Sherwood got for cruising hookers?" "The officer who wrote it conveniently passed away six months ago of a heart attack." "People die." "Nobody's been able to find the paperwork, and nobody can locate a copy of the affidavit." "Then there's Sherwood's pen-pals from the personals web site-- they're all dummy accounts paid for with cribbed credit cards." "We're being gas lighted by professionals." "They needed to get rid of Sherwood, they invented a cover story." ""The sex-obsessed milk-toast who slaughters his family and suicides himself in an orgy of shame and guilt."" "But cops killing a whole family?" "Planting a summons on our system is a tall order for a civilian." "Cops it is." "Somewhere along the line," "Sherwood got on their bad side." "None of Sherwood's audits touched on the police department." "The biggest fish he was frying was the tax assessor's office." "Sherwood probably wasn't killed by a bunch of tax assessors." "What about this memo to the city pension department?" "That was in connection with an audit he was doing of the City School Security Division." "Some of their security officers are retired city workers." "And some of the city workers in this memo are retired cops." "I know what Sherwood was looking for" ""Double dippers." My old man got in trouble for doing it." "When he retired from the force, he got a job with the City Parks working with kids." "He was drawing a pension from the city while working full-time for the city." "It's a no-no." "It's cops and money." "I had two meetings with Mr. Sherwood." "I like to keep things agreeable, but he was "fists up" right from the start." "Right-- what's so disagreeable about ex-cops taking the city for a ride?" " I'm sorry?" " The double-dipping, Mr. Mancuso." "We got that all sorted out." "I asked the individual involved for his resignation." "Any fines or restitution?" "No." "I made a determination it was unnecessarily punitive." "That's awfully agreeable of you." "What about the other dozen security officers whose pension records Sherwood was examining?" "Those were just clerical errors, forms that hadn't been properly filled out." "Well, you must be a very..." "Agreeable guy to work for, Mr. Mancuso." "I like to think of myself as fair." "These are brave men who put their lives on the line for the city." "They deserve the benefit of the doubt." "If you don't mind, we'd like the name of the "brave man" who resigned." "Those pension rules are a bunch of crap." "My partner's with you on that." " My old man got caught in the same bind." " No kidding?" "Except he had to pay back nearly $50 grand to the city." "How'd you get away clean?" ""Clean" nothing." "I gave up a good job." "All I got now is the pension." "Hasn't kept you from living large, Phil." "What have you got in here?" "Prime rib." "Wow!" "Is that a lobster wiggling around down there?" " It's" " Get out of my stuff!" "What is this?" "It's a $50 bottle of wine!" "Here's what we think, Mr. Legrand." "You and your double-dipping buddies were kicking back your wages to Mancuso, but when Sherwood started sniffing around," "Mancuso got nervous." "He needed to throw Sherwood a bone." "You guys drew straws." "You came up short and now your buddies are taking care of you." "But one resignation wasn't enough for Sherwood, right?" "So your buddy-boys did something about him." "You guys..." "I wanted to make dinner for my girlfriend, all right?" "I couldn't afford what she likes, so she gave me the money for these groceries." "That's who's taking care of me." "So now that I've humiliated myself, why don't you take your Mutt-and-Jeff act off my property?" "Gee, I need a hankie." "Don't feel too sorry for him." "Did you see this?" ""Sullivan River Homeowners Association"?" "Somebody's got himself a nice home in the country." "He's made more recent purchases." "Brand new trailer hitch..." "For a boat-- a big one." "The dealer's name's on it." "Phil isn't handling it well." "I heard it in his voice." "Those detectives rattled him." "Maybe he ought to take his boat out on the river, calm himself down." "I don't know, Terry." "CSU's still crawling all over the Sherwood's place" "I know all about that." "Now stop your worrying." "It's like what I tell my girls" ""Don't suffer future pain." "Take care of business here and now."" "Hola, here he comes." "Hold it!" "Hold up!" "Stay right there!" "Hold up!" "Hey, Officer Terry, chill!" "You chill, moron." "You're late." "Come on, I got detention." "You're going to be on permanent detention if you don't wise up." "You're a day late." "Now let's go." "I got it, I got it." "That's my working capital!" "That's a fine you pay for trying to duck me, amigo." "Damn, lady, you ain't even a real cop." "But you're a real dope dealer, and I am a badge." "And I have the authority to arrest you, pacify you and mess you up-- and that's before I turn you over to the real cops." "You and your colleagues live and breathe at my pleasure." "Remember that." "Stolen right out of his driveway?" "Well, I'm sorry to hear that." "Mr. Legrand took delivery just a couple of weeks ago." "Yeah, it's a shame." "We need a copy of the sales contract, for our report." "Sure." "He bought a 30-footer, all the amenities you can imagine." "How much?" "Just under a $100 grand." " How'd he pay?" " Oh, installments." " How many installments?" " I'd have to look at the contract." "Off the top of your head, Mel-- more than one installment?" "Yeah, of course." " Less than 10?" " Could be." "Was it check or cash, Mel?" "I don't really" "You don't really?" "He doesn't really" "We'll just assume it was cash." " When was the last payment made?" " Yesterday." "Has it been deposited yet?" "There's a chance it could be in the safe still." " Let's take a look." " Okay." "Our lab took a look at the cash you gave the boat dealer." "They found traces of Ecstasy and ketamine." "High school party drugs, Phil." "What were you doing?" "Selling drugs to kids you were getting paid to protect?" "I know the drill." "I don't have to say anything." "Forget about the drugs, forget about the cash, all you need to remember is the number four." "Four murders." "Four counts of conspiracy..." "Four bites at the death penalty." "I want my lawyer." " Who went in their house, Phil?" " I want to go back to my cell." "It wasn't him." "He doesn't have the front for it." "26 years on the force, you never got out of the back." "You took the sergeant's exam once, you never finished it." "Everything in your file says..." ""worker bee."" "So who gave you orders?" "I want to go back to my cell or I'm going to file a complaint." "Phil, do you see what's happening to you here?" "Don't you want to get out from under this?" "Just tell us you had nothing to do with this directly and we'll go with that." "Just talk to us." "I want to go back to my cell." "Guy's been around the dance floor too often." "The search team called from his place up in the Catskills." "They found another $100 grand in cash." "We've got a very enterprising crew of security guards." "We need an EMS team up here right away." "What the hell happened here?" "We just got the cuffs off, Captain." "He just grabbed my weapon out of the holster and blew himself away." "There was nothing I could do." "Okay, Johnston, just go out and sit in the squad room." "No, sir, I take full responsibility." "Things are going to get real pleasant around here, so if you have any good news, now is the time to share it." "We're looking for someone with an alpha personality-- with the organizational skills to plan the Sherwood murders and the ruthlessness to carry them out;" "the knowledge... to plant disinformation... about Sherwood." "Maybe it's someone with a military background." "There is a platoon dynamic here." "When they cut Legrand loose, they took care of him by giving him cash and a new boat." "Legrand repaid that loyalty by killing himself." "Death before dishonor?" "Come on, this guy was afraid of spending the rest of his life in jail." "You read his file." "As a cop, the guy was... average." "They'll probably all turn out to have average service records-- cops who feel they never got their due-- who feel they need to prove something." "They decided to be the best bad cops they could be." "Smoke the bastards out." "And this guy got forensic experience when he was in the force." "He goes here." "Here's a Desert Storm veteran." "This guy got suspended from the department for procedural mistakes." "A disaffected cop." "He's got potential." "So does this one: 3 years in the Marines" "12 years on the force, retired on a disability with the rank of Sergeant." "He took courses in computers." "He was attached at various times to 2 CSU teams." "Well." "Kept getting turned down for a spot on the Detective Bureau." "Terry Randolph." "He's been with the School Security almost two years." "He was Phil Legrand's supervisor." "Well, here's one reason why Randolph might've been denied for detective-- Terry Randolph's a woman." "Funny how that detail escaped your powers of observation." "Well, we need to talk to whoever was her rabbi on the force." "I haven't been in touch with Terry for many years." " How'd you hook up with her?" " I gave a class at the academy." "She was a recruit with more questions than I had answers." "A year later, she called me for a recommendation to a street crime unit." "I saw in her file she volunteered for a lot of overtime." "Did she have money pressures?" "She was a single mother with two kids." "What about on the job?" "You said she was in a hurry." "Did she like quick fixes?" "She was efficient, very territorial." "To get respect from the street, she would pick out the baddest homeboy on the corner, put the bracelets on him, then take him to a quiet place for a beat-down." "Why are you investigating her?" "The Sherwood family murders." "There's a connection to corruption in the School Security Division." "Well, I know she's a hothead, but I can't imagine" "Terry would be involved with anything like that." "Terry was a smart, driven young officer who was denied advancement, a promotion that would've brought her a raise." "That breeds bitterness, a sense of entitlement." "I know it does." "I always hoped that Terry wouldn't be defeated by it." "Excuse me." "Randolph's hitting all the marks." "Not to mention, she's territorial." "Let's go mark up her territory." "Listen, I don't know no Phil Legrand, okay?" "I don't even mess around with dope." "We just saw you hand off a blunt to one of your buddies." "That was a cigarette." "I swear." "A cigarette?" "You're in deep serious now, kid." " Those things will kill you." " Heads up." "You don't spit out a name in the next five seconds," "I'm going to play dodge ball with your head!" " What is going on here?" " Official business." "We're interviewing witnesses." "Nobody notified the security division you'd be interviewing" "Witnesses on school property." "Oh" " I didn't know we needed to check with the security guards." "Security officers." "The security officers." "A sergeant, no less." "Cluster Sergeant Terry Randolph." "You were Phil Legrand's supervisor." "Yes, ma'am." "Thanks for your help, kid." "You lay off the smokes." "Can we talk to you about Phil?" "All I can tell you is Legrand did his job well." "About his psychological problems, I can't say." "Actually..." "Randolph, he had other problems." "Detective, I prefer being addressed by my rank." "Cluster Sergeant?" "Sergeant Randolph, Legrand was involved in drug dealing." "I'm surprised to hear that." "Oh, it went on right under your nose." "Right." "Well, you talk to her." "Sergeant, we'd appreciate any guidance you can give us." "Hah-- guidance?" "!" "Could you tell your partner I'm a 12-year-veteran of the NYPD?" "That I attained the rank of Sergeant?" " Look at you now!" " Goren, knock it off." "Go ahead and laugh, but I got a record to stand on." "Since I took over, crime on school property in my district has dropped 50%." " It's just good timing." " It's respect, Detective." "I know how to earn it." "I earned it from these kids." "Nice talking to you, ma'am." "She "earned respect."" "I wonder which bad homeboy she beat down to earn it." "Rudy Suarez is still an open case." "You didn't mention it in your phone call, but I got you the autopsy anyway." "We like to kid the school security people around, but you got to admit, they've done a good job." "Especially Terry Randolph." "The crime statistics don't lie." "It doesn't hurt that Rudy Suarez-- the baddest dope dealer in her high schools-- was killed last year." "Yeah, right." "Shot in his bedroom with his girlfriend, execution-style." "That's the way the locals take each other out." "They see it in the movies." "The living room carpet was vacuumed." "And look..." "On the kitchen floor." "Somebody sprayed leuco on the floor looking for blood evidence." "Yeah, Well, CSU did that." "This report says that CSU sprayed leuco in the bedroom." "It says they sprayed it in the bathroom." "It doesn't say they sprayed it in the kitchen." "Randolph and her crew killed Suarez." "That's how she got a handle on the dope trade in her schools." "They killed Sherwood and his family because his investigation might've uncovered the dope dealing and the Suarez murders." "The only thing you've got in common between the murders is a vacuumed rug." "There's also leuco crystal violet." "Randolph might've sprayed it in the kitchen at the Suarez place when she was cleaning up the murder scene." "She also used it at the Sherwood home." "Forensics found leuco where it hadn't been sprayed by our people." "Leuco is made in batches." "Each batch has unique chemical characteristics." "If we find out which batch Randolph's leuco belongs to, we can trace it through the serial numbers on the cans." "We just need leuco samples from all the CSU teams she trained with." "I'll get a "49" up to the Chief of Detectives." "All it needs is your signature." "I'm not going to discuss it with you." "Until I say different, you are too young to wear lipstick." " But Nyeesha wears lipstick." " Nyeesha's a neighborhood girl." "If I wanted you to be a neighborhood girl," "I'd send you to a neighborhood school." "Your mother works hard to pay for your schooling." " You should be thankful." " I don't want gratitude." "I want them to have opportunities I didn't have." "Now, there's nothing special about a girl who wears lipstick." "And you and your sister are special girls who have claim on every special thing in this world." "Hmm?" "Now go wash up." "Yes?" "Yes, hello." "Repeat that again." "No, I'm sure it's just routine." "Thanks for telling me." "Oh, how's your granddaughter?" "That's good to hear." "Thank you." "Mom, I'm going to the store." "Which one of you is Arliss?" "I am." "We need to see your supply of leuco." "Sure." "I got cans in my kit here and in the van." "You ever work with Terry Randolph?" "She was a patrol officer." "I might, I don't know." "Her service record says you did a six-month training stint with her in '96." "Could be." "These cans are the wrong batch numbers." "Same here." "Just get these cans?" "Yeah, I ran out a couple of days ago." "The quartermaster's records say you should have at least eight cans left with this batch number." "Must be a clerical mistake." "Sorry." ""Clerical mistake," my ass." "She got to him." "According to the supply records," "Arliss got his new cans of leuco on Wednesday." "Which means he was tipped off Tuesday or Wednesday morning." "Which means the leaks are coming from somewhere in this building." "I checked who the requisition went to in the Chief of Detectives' office, besides, of course, the Chief of Detectives." "I can vouch for his assistant." "Denise?" "You dog." "I need tracking information on requisition number 2436-17, sent last Tuesday." "Who in your office handled that requisition?" "Spell that." "Thank you." "Randolph's file." "There." "Go for a walk?" "Meet Cecilia Wang, a.k.a. "Deep Throat."" "Randolph pinched her granddaughter in a drug sweep four years ago." "The charges were dismissed after Randolph didn't show up to testify at the grand jury." "Randolph did her a favor." "And Mrs. Wang's paying it back." "Bring Mrs. Wang in." "Threaten her with-- off the top of my head, I can think of a dozen statutes she's violated." "The most we'll get from her is that she tipped off Terry Randolph about the requisition for leuco samples." "Then put that CSU technician through the wringer." "Or the head of the School Security Division, Mancuso." "Besides the fact that we have no leverage against them," "I doubt they have any firsthand knowledge of the murders." "All they could offer is hearsay." "Then find Randolph's accomplices-- the other ex-cops." "Accomplice testimony with no corroboration?" "The drug dealers they've been shaking down?" "Witnesses credibility problems." "You'd make a hell of a defense attorney." "Randolph's the main domino." "We make her fall, they all fall." "The best way-- the most certain way-- is if she implicates herself." "And you have a plan?" "It speaks to your good character you have qualms about this scheme." "You already have a legitimate search warrant." "Why do you need me to phony up official documents?" "Lieutenant, I knew you'd have concerns about the legality of this plan." "I'm here to assure you we're on solid ground." "I have concerns that you're going after the wrong person for murder." "Well, this is one way to find out, isn't it?" "Be careful over there." "I'm sure he knows what he's doing." "No argument here." "Nice house." "How'd you swing it?" "That's none of your business." "It's just an innocent question." "There's nothing innocent about that baby face." "I had savings from my late husband, and Terry had savings." "That's how we paid for it." "We're done." "The place is clean." "I'm not done yet." "Your girls-- they go to Maryhill?" "That's $10,000-- $15,000 a year for each." "How do you afford it?" "If something's important enough, you find a way." "We're very frugal." "Oh." "Oh, my partner's a miser, I'm frugal-- and neither of us could afford a house, two kids in a private school" "You're not that frugal." "You buy nice clothes, pay full price, nothing in your size is ever on sale." "You buy good quality accessories, like that leather case." "You're not married, so you spend money on dates." "You like good food." "You have someone in to clean your apartment every week." "You're smart, have lots of interests and hobbies and you spend a fortune on them." "I don't wonder that you don't have money for a house." "I wonder how you make subway fare the way you spend money." "That's pretty good, Randolph..." "But you didn't answer my question." "How can she afford private school?" " Leave my mother alone." " Where does the money come from?" "She works hard." "She murders dope dealers and steals their-- their money." "She murdered a whole family" " That's enough!" " Where does she keep the cash?" "Just tell me where she keeps the cash!" "Goren!" "I need to talk to you." " You're out of line." " She's a disgrace to the uniform." "We're hitting dead ends." "Doesn't that tell you something?" "We're not wrong about her." "You heard what they said at the 2-7." "We're done here." "Okay?" "We're going." "I'm sorry for my partner." "There's no reason for animosity." "You know, I still have a lot of friends in the department." "Well, watch your back." ""To Ronald Carver, District Attorney's Office, in re:" "Sherwood family murders." "Per your request, I reviewed my files concerning Terry Randolph and discovered incriminating information pertinent to your investigation." "You can access this information on the department database, under archive number:" "7-4-7-7-2." "Signed, Lieutenant Anita Van Buren, 27th Precinct."" "Cover copy to the Chief of Detectives." "It's Cecilia." "You're asking about correspondence from the 27th Precinct?" "I found one." "Evening, Morris." "You got everything locked down?" "Yes, ma'am." "I just did my rounds." "All right, I have to check up on you now." "I'll be back in 15." "That's your virtual arrest." "And this is your actual one." "This is a mistake." "I didn't do anything." "You stole a confidential police file." "That's grand larceny." "An overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit murder." "You see, one of my hobbies is studying the laws you were once paid to enforce." "It's surprisingly cheap." "Please, don't take my girls away from me!" "I did it for them." "I sacrifice everything for them." "The Sherwood family sacrificed their lives." "Four innocent lives." "Two children you smothered with the same hands you tuck your daughters in bed with at night." "I don't know if it's a good thing or a bad thing that you won't be around as a role model for them anymore." "The best intentions."