Law & Order

In the criminal justice system,

the people are represented

by two separate yet equally important groups:

the police, who investigate crime,

and the district attorneys, who prosecute the offenders.

These are their stories.

Lori, I need more cash.

Hey, where's my free egg roll?

No egg roll.

It says over $25

you're supposed to get a free egg roll.

"No egg roll."

I told him not to put it in.

Fried dumplings and orange chicken,

you don't need any more grease.

Here you go. Keep the change.

But I like the egg rolls.

Stop being a baby.

Oh, my God.

Leah Glaser, 78.

She took a nasty tumble.

What makes it not an accident?

Security chains ripped off the doorjamb.

Oh, that would do it.

Looks like a push-in,

but the TV's still here and so is her purse.

And we're checking on her next of kin.

Brody, what do you got?

Lacerated forehead, massive head trauma.

You can tell from the fling.

She fell back, hit her head, fractured her skull.

So she opens the door with the chain on,

somebody kicks it in and boom.

Yeah, right between the eyes.

Time of death?

An hour before the body was found.

Hey, you make sure that CSU gets any lifts to latent.

After she fractured her skull, she was still alive.

How do you know that?

Petechial hemorrhages.

Smothered her. With his hand.

So hard, her dentures lacerated her gums.

Vicious son of a bitch.

Hey, Ed.

She paid for these groceries at 3:33 P.M.

There's a quart of milk in here

and pint of half melted ice cream.

Well, obviously she didn't have time

to put 'em away.

So the guy figured her for an easy mark,

followed her home from the store.

That's a lot of groceries for an old lady

to carry home by herself.

Maybe she had 'em delivered.

Well, whoever it was, I wonder what he took.

The only thing that mattered.

Mrs. Glaser's daughter is flying in from Israel

to I.D. the body.

We're hoping that maybe she can she some light.

Good news-bad news.

Latent's pulled a full set of prints off the doorjamb.

He must have grabbed her with both hands

when he kicked the door in.

Prints didn't set off any bells with BCI?

That's the bad news.

They're not in the system.

The M.E. on the scene

said she'd been dead about an hour, give or take.

According to the store, her groceries were delivered

around 4:00 P.M.

Delivery guy's a West African immigrant.

No record.

And the body was discovered?

6:00 by another delivery man; Chinese takeout.

Nice thing about New York--

you never have to leave your apartment.

So she was killed around 5:00.

We figured maybe the guy scoped her out at the store

then followed her groceries home.

Or maybe the guy who delivered the groceries

saw something that he liked

and decided to go back for it.

We'll talk to him first.

Well, I'll call Robbery

and see if there've been any other push-ins

in the neighborhood.

Every Wednesday. Yesterday, too?

No, not yesterday.

You didn't deliver her groceries yesterday?

She meet her friend Miss Lu at the store.

Miss Lu?

Chinese young lady. She take the groceries.

They walk home together.

How do you know Miss Lu?

Same building, down the hall.

I deliver her groceries, too, sometimes.

Got to know Leah

when she broke her hip last summer.

She was laid up at St. Andrews for a month.

I went to see her every day.

We'd talk about sewing.

She used to be a seamstress.

She offered to make me a cup of tea.

Maybe if I'd stayed...

It wasn't your fault.

Did you notice anybody in the store

that might have followed the two of you home?

I don't think so, no.

How about as you came in the building?

Anybody catch your eye?

I rode up with her,

helped her get her groceries inside

and went home.

What time was that?

Around 4:00.

You know, on the way home we stopped

at the ATM across the street

so Leah could get some cash.

When we found her all she had was

a few bucks in her purse.

She didn't have a purse. I remember.

She took her bank card out of her pocket.

How much did she withdraw?

A hundred dollars maybe.

An elderly woman with a wad of cash.

Let's call the Lieutenant.

Let's get a list of those push-in robbery victims.

Thank you, sweetheart.

Yeah, well, it happened

just inside here.

I had a bag full of groceries,

cat food and stuff like that.

I put the bag down, take out my key,

put it in the lock here, open the door

and bam, there I am kissing the floor.

Then the bastard had a gun to the back of my head.

Told me if I turned around he'd shoot me.

You told the police

that the guy that robbed you was Latino?

Yeah, yeah, he was Spanish.

Can you give us anything else?

Height, weight, color, age?

Yeah, 40 maybe, light skinned. Uh... I was too scared

to look him square in the face, you know?

You take photographs, Mr. Wallace.

Star gaze up on the roof.

That was a beauty of a telescope.

Punk went right for it.

Ten or 15 years ago I would have taken him out, you know?

No fun getting old, huh?

Beats the alternative.

Of course, when I'm lugging these old bones

over to St. Andrews,

I'm not too sure I'm beating it by much.

St. Andrews?

Yeah, that's where I get my dialysis.

Same hospital where Leah Glaser had her hip surgery.

Of the 12 names on this list

five were our patients.

And their home addresses are in your records, right?

Strictly confidential.

And access to computers and patient records

is tightly controlled.

Yeah, but you've got all kinds of folks

coming in and out of patient's rooms, right?

Nurses, orderlies, visitors.

Somebody takes a look in a purse,

peeks into a wallet.

You're talking about two stroke victims,

a kidney patient, a cardiac patient

and a woman who had hip surgery.

That's four separate floors.

Two different wings.

And only the broken hip spent any real time here.

What about the other ones?

Hospital policy.

As soon as their ambulatory, we send them home.

Man, that's cold.

Managed care.

Emphasis on managed.

We have excellent follow-up therapy.

Every patient gets a qualified caregiver

and a thorough home-therapy regimen.

You got a list of these qualified caregivers?

We contract all that to a private agency.

All of our employees are screened

and fingerprinted.

Okay, we're going to need their records

and the names of whoever took care of these five patients.

Leah Glaser.

Broken hip.

Sweet old lady.

Pauline Morris.

Pauline's a doll.

Been with us seven years. Never had any complaints.

Patients love her.

Okay, how about the other four?

Well, that's a coincidence.

Pauline was the caregiver for all five.

Some coincidence.