Law & Order: Criminal Intent - First Season

She's everywhere. A whole article on her.

Like she's the only Mafia daughter in New York City!

Like I'm not still famous!

Ilana, "Daughter of a Russian Don"

was a terrific book-- five years ago.

Or haven't you noticed your royalty checks got smaller?

Noah, please,

can't you call one of your influential friends,

get me a little job?

Little jobs have little salaries.

You want the big money again, bring me another book.

Mr. Yushka,

you think a life sentence is fair?

Are you going to appeal this?

- Papa! - Look this way, sir!

You are not his daughter. Life in prison. Life in prison, because of you.

Because of you!

Oh, God, Kenny.

Ice. I need ice.

I couldn't go home. I don't want Martha to see me like this.

I have a broken rib.

I will take you to the hospital.

Don't be an idiot. You are so rude.

I was going to ask you how it went today, but if you're going to be a bitch--

I'm allowed to be a bitch today. My father will die in jail.

Your book had nothing to do with it.

It was the most liberating thing you've ever done.

I don't understand why you don't write another one.

I will take it.

Are you sure you can afford it?

I'm a writer, Sasha. When writers need money, they write.

And I will write a new book.

You tell his agent that for 15%

he can bloody well edit the book himself.

What's that? Shouldn't we have it x-rayed?

It's from Ilana Yushka. Feels like a manuscript.

What? If she's been holding out on me--

Oh, dear God! Call the police! Now!

Now give me a big close-up

of this smudge on her forehead.

I spoke with her yesterday afternoon.

She said she had an idea for her next book. A big idea.

- Which was? - She wanted to tell me in person

to see the look on my face. But what else could it be?

The Russian mob's all she knew.

The messenger service said they picked up the box at 319 Hudson.

- Is that her address? - Chinese restaurant next door.

Her building doesn't have a doorman. All pickups and deliveries go there.

I really need to speak to them-- they're with Legal.

You lose a contact lens?

I need long tweezers.

There's something in her mouth.

Take pictures.

What do you think this means?

Robbery wasn't the motive?

It's a receipt for a necklace from two days ago.

She was already spending her advance.

Ostrensky's in Brighton Beach. Nothing like rubbing it in their faces.

She's got legal pads filled with her handwriting. She still wrote in Russian.

If you tell me you can read Russian-- oh, brother.

The restaurant owner downstairs says

a blonde woman dropped the package off yesterday.

So someone who knew Ilana's routine-- maybe a friend?

Yeah. A friend...

Who was buzzed in with the killer.

Might explain why there was no forced entry.

Assuming she was killed here.

Not just killed.

That's lye. She went down the drain.

Only the bones would be left.

The decapitation, the disposal of the body,

it has all the characteristics of a Russian mob hit, Mr. Yushka.

This is what we're talking about.

The rest of your lovely daughter was turned into pudding

and washed down a sewer pipe.

We know that it's not what you wanted. We know you had no choice.

He doesn't know what you're talking about.

If you had said no, they would have done it anyway.

And the rest of your family would have been next.

In the long run, it makes no difference.

They know it's going to eat at you. They know you're going to want revenge.

They won't wait. They’ll come after you.

Make the first strike, Mr. Yushka.

Give us the names of the people who did this!

You have nothing better to do than harass an old man?

We can always harass you.

According to the visitor's log, you visited Mr. Yushka

one day before his daughter was killed.

You were accompanied by a Mr. Oleg Namirov?

He's a translator for Mr. Yushka.

You signed out at 2:40. Mr. Namirov didn't sign out until 2:50.

He spent 10 minutes alone with Mr. Yushka.

We're curious, what was he translating?

Oleg Namirov's a suspect in half a dozen mob hits.

Unfortunately, he always seems to be on an airplane the day of the murders.

What about Wednesday?

Well, let's see what the reports say.

The Bureau has him under surveillance.

Well, 24/7 is a little more than we can manage right now,

but we do bed checks.

Wednesday, 8:15, his car was parked outside

his mistress's apartment in Sheepshead Bay.

His mistress, she's blonde, right?

Oleg was here Wednesday. We stay in, we watch TV, we eat dinner.

When you stayed in, you mean you stayed in Ilana's Yushka's apartment?

- What are you talking about? - The time it took your boyfriend

to liquefy her body in the bathtub.

That is lie. Oleg was here, with me.

You just came back from a trip?

No.

I'll bet I can guess where you and Oleg went.

Oh! South. And you left Wednesday night.

You're wrong, smart guy.

We were leaving tonight-- to Hawaii.

That is west.

The airline confirms Oleg Namirov bought tickets for Hawaii

two hours after visiting Boris Yushka in prison. The tickets were for tonight.

If Mr. Namirov was true to form,

he was going to do the hit on Ilana tonight and then jump on a plane.

Well, we were right about one thing.

The Russian mob was planning to kill her.

Except somebody beat them to it.

Hey, gorgeous. You feeding the fishies?

You going to be feeding the fishies all night long?

Oh, jeez. My mistake.

Ilana had these photos on her desk.

Probably old friends from high school.

Maybe that was her next project: "I was a Russian Homecoming Queen."

This is her on her prom night.

“Ilana and Kenny, the Waldorf, 1982."

For what it's worth,

the feds aren't convinced this wasn't a mob hit.

Tell them to keep an open mind. That's what we do.

What are you opening your minds to here?

Translations of Ilana's writings.

Maybe her new book wasn't about the mob.

Maybe she found a whole new group of people to piss off.

Here, it looks like titles for a book.

"Academy of Horrors," "Unusual Punishment,"

"Tales Out of School."

All right, this looks like copies of Child Welfare cases filed in 1979.

All with the same respondent, the Chase Academy.

Ilana mentioned it in her first book.

It was a private school for troubled teenagers.

Rich, troubled teenagers. We've got Kennedy cousins,

we've got George Tate, publisher of "The Ledger,"

Arthur L. Korrigan Jr.

Child Welfare went after the school for beating the students.

I smell a bestseller.

I smell a motive for murder,

especially if there was more to it than just beatings.

Word must have gotten out she was writing a book.

Maybe she talked to one of the other students.

We can always ask the heir to the Strick real estate fortune...

Kenneth "Kenny" Strick.

Her prom date.

If any place deserved an expose, it was Chase.

That place was a horror.

That's one of the titles Ilana was working on.

"Academy of Horrors."

If she'd told me she was planning a book, I'd have warned her to be careful.

Some of the staff at Chase were sadists. Am I exaggerating?

No.

Is that where you two met?

Us? No.

We've known each other much longer than that.

Martha's my sister.

I went to Le Roset in Switzerland. It's Kenny who was a handful.

That's why our stepfather sent him to Chase.

I'm sorry for the confusion.

You were still in touch with Ilana?

Chase was a bonding experience.

We spoke now and then.

The last time was when her father was sent to prison.

She was very upset.

The book was the furthest thing from her mind.

Is there anyone else she might have talked to?

- Possible. I don't know. - What about George?

George?

You mean George Tate, the publisher of "The Ledger"?

He and Ilana had a thing

the summer after they graduated from Chase.

I thought that you were her prom date?

I had other plans.

Ilana found George hanging around the punch bowl.

And now, I'm going for my walk.

Ilana's death was shocking.

If there's anything else we can do, please call.

Well, she never talked to me about a book.

Frankly there wasn't enough going on at Chase to sustain one.

Physical abuse wasn't the tip of the iceberg?

No, it was the iceberg. Believe me, if there had been anything more,

my father, who owned several newspapers, would have been all over it.

Maybe Ilana's exposé wasn't about the staff at Chase.

Maybe it was about the students.

- What are you talking about? - A co-ed boarding school full of troubled teenagers--

I'm getting flushed just thinking about it.

Oh, get a grip, Detective. Ilana knew better.

She had her own indiscretions to worry about.

You can't mean indiscretions with the opposite sex?