- Logan goes to war with an ambitious A.D.A. planning to run for Attorney General, after a deathbed confession to a priest reopens an investigation into a 16-year-old case where she may have prosecuted the wrong person for personal gain.
- A priest hears a hospitalized man's confession. His first in 16 years. He confesses to the death of three people. He murdered them.
Back in his office, the priest gets a call that the man has died. He was in prison.
At the station, Wheeler strolls in for a date with her fiance, looking hot. As she leaves, the priest comes in to talk to Logan.
Wheeler arrives at a fundraiser, getting out of a limo and an unseen someone snaps her picture from afar.
Logan asks the priest why he came to him about the murders. The priest invokes the name of Detective emeritus Lennie Briscoe, his friend. The priest won't say who told him or who's doing the time, or even what murder. But says they've got the wrong man. Flash to a couple in a car with a baby in a car seat in back. The crack of a gunshot.
Logan tells Capt. Ross about his impossible assignment, Wheeler has already pulled a possible case of a couple killed, the woman raped. The baby left alive. The third murder is because she was pregnant.
They arrested Randy Nichols who's only prior was a pot case. Ross sends them to cold case. The detective there has been getting a letter a week from the guy. Nichol's alibi is that he was breaking into a car nearby. He wants to see the DNA evidence, but it was compromised when the roof of the evidence building fell in.
Logan visits the original detective. A hooker saw Nichols dragging a body out of the car. The witness came to them from the ADA at the time, Terry Driver. Wheeler reminds him they already know Driver steamrollered a man into prison before.
Ross thinks it's personal with Logan. "It's not personal," he says, "I just can't stand the woman."
Driver tells Wheeler the case was rock solid. She says she drove around with a cop until she found a witness herself. "Randy Nichols doesn't get out, not if I can help it," she says.
Logan meets with the hooker, cleaned-up now. She says Driver found her already in jail on charges. She says the cops in the room when she ID'd Nichols were all men she knew, including one who was a regular customer. She says Driver said if she helped Driver, Driver would help her.
Back at the station, Alan Botter, the father of the victim, Peter Bottner is there, having gotten a call from Driver. He's upset that Logan wants to set Nichols free. He says he won't oppose parole if Nichols confesses.
They visit Nichols and tell him what the granddad said. He says he didn't do it. He says the police lost the report of his break in and the DNA evidence. "I didn't waste 16 years of my life to get out on a lie," he says.
Logan and Wheeler go to the scene.They're dubious that the hooker could have seen from as far away as she was. The first witness, a squeegee guy who disappeared before he testified, was also far away.
Driver said the squeegee guy was dead in Potter's Field, but they find him. He says Driver told him they were looking at him for the murders unless he gave them the real killer. He says he saw Nichols running after the shots. He's blind in one eye, too. Driver told him she wouldn't tell disability about his "side job" so he could keep his benefits, a nice bit of strong-arming someone who doesn't know better.
They meet with Rogers, who says the autopsy was botched. The bullet went in the opposite way they said. Peter Bottner was shot from behind.
Driver shows up, pissed. She demands info from Ross. She tells him Logan has a vendetta. She says Ross needs to think before he goes to war against her office. She storms out.
Ross talks to Logan and Wheeler, Logan accuses him of shying away because Driver is running for attorney general. He tells them to go see the priest again. If he won't tell them where he heard it, they're done.
They go to the prison and Wheeler cautions Logan about angering the captain and Driver. They can't go in because the prison is going into full lockdown. Just then, the priest is wheeled out, bloody, on a stretcher. The warden tells him the priest was attacked and stabbed 12 times at morning Mass. They don't think he's going to make it.
They go to the hospital. Logan asks Wheeler if she mentioned the priest to Driver. She did, but tells Logan he sounds paranoid, that an attorney general candidate wouldn't put a hit on a priest.
As Logan and Wheeler go visit the female victim's parents, Ross opens an envelope of photos - the ones of Wheeler, and her fiance with a man who knows mobsters.
Natalie, the baby from the backseat, talks to Wheeler at the station. Her grandparents didn't tell her anything. She found Wheeler's card. She learned the truth three years ago when she Googled her parents. Natalie tells Wheeler to ask her aunt.
The aunt is divorced from a man named Dylan who worked for Peter's father on Wall Street. She's not in touch with him anymore.
Wheeler check in with Ross. He shows her the photos of her, asking how much she knows about her fiance. She's not concerned.
The forensic accountant reports his findings on Peter Bottner and his dad Alan's investment company. Dylan became CFO after Peter was killed. He robbed it blind and disappeared six years later. The accountant says that as far as he can tell, Dylan only existed for eight years, but just popped up again at a bakery in Chelsea. They go to the bakery and meet Dylan - a woman.
She knows "Dylan" from a picture, though. An old boyfriend named Jared. She knows he was using her social security number, but wasn't concerned. She needed his cash because she used to sell weed to Yalies.
At the station, they find that "Jared" died in a car crash years ago. They visit Alan and tell him about Dylan/Jared. He says he and Peter met at Yale. Alan knew he stole, but says it's been repaid. They tell him the name was a fake and he never went to Yale.
Flashback to the car, Peter confronting the man in the backseat about something.
Mr. Bottner realizes that when his son called the day he died to say he had something important to talk about, he might not have been talking about the pregnancy. He gives them a baseball "Dylan" told him was signed by Mickey Mantle, from a place in San Fran called "Marty's Memories."
Logan and Wheeler recap the many lives of the man whose name turns out to be Martin Swenders. His story ends in prison, where he died of cancer the day the priest came to see Logan.
They talk to the aunt, who feels sick that she was with him for six years after the murders. They ask how he was when he gave her the news. She says she felt awful because she was yelling at him for letting the car get broken into...Logan smells evidence. He asks what kind of car it was.
Back in the prison with Nichols, who remembers the car and which window he broke. Logan tells Nichols they believe him. He breaks down crying.
They present the evidence to Driver, who dismisses it out of hand. Logan gets ramped up, telling her the car was Dylan's parked there as a getaway car. She tells him if she tries to take that crap to court she'll have his shield.
At the station, Ross confronts them because the paper has a front page story on the case, alleging Driver might have framed an innocent man. As Wheeler denies either of them did it, Logan's silence quickly indicates that's not the case. He doesn't care if she comes after him, she put a hit on a priest.
Cut to Driver on the news, invoking Martin Luther King Jr. and announcing she's asked to have Nichols released.
Ross tells Logan it isn't over. Wheeler drops her fiance off at the airport. She finishes telling him that Driver might be going after him because of what Logan pulled. He's not thrilled to just be hearing it, but doesn't have time to digest because the FBI pulls up and arrests him for money laundering, fraud and racketeering.
Cut to the priest, alive. Logan joins him and gives him the news. He also gives him crap for not doing something sooner. Logan wants an apology, for what happened to Wheeler, for his job being at risk. The priest tells Logan he sounds angry. He advises him to get out. "You've done your duty. You've served, you've protected. there's another world out there."
"Is there?" Logan says.
"You just haven't been able to see it."
Logan says thanks.
"Take care of yourself, detective, and may God watch over you.
"That oughta keep him busy," say Logan as he leaves the "Law & Order" universe forever - again.
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