Till Death Do Us Part II Recap
Shortly after leaving the courtroom, members of the PHD scatter to various bars and restaurants as well as their homes. They cannot escape the case, it is all over the news. Dominic Dunne and Larry King, other news celebrities as well as local politicians and Commander Taylor are all giving interviews, and their support of the LAPD, and Brenda in particular, is mixed. At home, Brenda asks Fritz to turn off the television as he watches Commander Taylor’s interview, as Fritz notes that Taylor has thrown Brenda to the wolves. Sensing something other than the sudden appearance of the missing alibi witness might be bothering Brenda, Fritz tries to coax Brenda into talking to him. When she does, it is to accuse him of lying to her. He is stunned, but she tells him she has learned of his two DUI’s while trying to get them a multi-driver discount. Fritz defends himself. He joined AA immediately after the second DUI and considers the matter handled. Brenda persists, he had lied when he told her he was allergic to alcohol rather than admitting he had a problem with alcohol. Fritz is bewildered, he looks at his alcoholism as an allergy. Brenda retorts this is information she should have been given if she were going to marry him. Keying on her use of the word ‘if’, Fritz is unsettled and wants to know what she means. Brenda is finished with the chat, and telling him she wants an explanation, leaves for work.
In Pope’s office, Kevin Garnett is ranting. He insists that unless they can disprove Eugene ‘Topper’ Barnes’ alibi, his case is dead in the water. He insists on interviewing the witness himself. “I’m the public face of this trial, and I’m sick and tired of getting black eyes because of her mistakes!” Brenda retorts angrily, and Will Pope knows he has to do something quickly. He points out to Garnett that if he himself does actually interview Barnes and learns anything useful to the case, he would then be subject to cross-examination by the defense. This would mean he might have to turn the case over to another prosecutor. Garnett relents, seeing the logic in Pope’s argument. Brenda attempts to pacify the DDA by suggesting he watch her interview from the electronics room. Pope takes things a step farther. Chief Johnson will wear an earpiece, giving Garnett the chance to ask any questions he thinks Brenda might have missed.
Before the interview, Brenda consults Tao for background on the man. Eugene Barnes has a few minor drug convictions and an assault charge on his record. She asks Buzz for an earpiece, explaining to the team that Mr. Garnett is going to ‘assist her’ in her interview. Flynn and Tao exchange glances. Brenda leaves for the interview room, instructing Garnett to ask any questions quietly. Gabriel is sitting with Topper Barnes, who asks if he is required to speak to her. She tells him he is not, and he gets up to leave, causing the waiting Garnett to nearly choke. Flynn and Tao chuckle and make themselves more comfortable. As Barnes reaches the door, Brenda opens his file and recites his drug convictions and mentions his open assault charge. Barnes isn’t impressed, he has done his time on the drug charges, and the assault charge had been dismissed. Brenda sees things differently, telling Barnes that the assault charge had not been dismissed, rather, the victim had refused to press charges. Now, however, the witness was in prison himself, and she was certain he would be happy to reinstate the charges if Brenda offered to make his prison time a bit more comfortable. Barnes, not wanting another felony conviction, tells her he will talk, but isn’t going to say anything he hasn’t already told Jonathan’s lawyer, Lucas Cordry. “As it turns out,” Brenda purrs, “that’s exactly what I want to know.” Garnett cannot resist firing off the first question, and Brenda ignores it to ask her own, wondering if Mr. Barnes was aware he’d been withholding information in a murder trial. He was not, he had been out of the country. “Where?” Garnett tries to yell, but before he can locate the microphone, Brenda asks that question herself. He has a place about 50 miles north of Cabo. Garnett demands that Buzz tell Brenda to ask why Barnes just happened to be in town now, and as Buzz relays Garnett’s third question in as many minutes, Brenda quietly excuses herself and removes the earpiece, to the great delight of Flynn and Tao. Garnett is furious, and Brenda continues, asking Barnes what he does in Cabo. He explains he has a charter service based there. Brenda asks about the famous boat, the Superplum. Barnes laughs at her, the boat is named the Sugarplum. Brenda notes that Schafer had the name wrong, explaining why they had been unable to locate it. The interview progresses; Barnes and Schafer had been fraternity buddies in college. Whenever Barnes decides to take a run up the coast, he always calls his old buddy to see if he was too rich and famous to come out and play. Barnes had been in town and had placed such a call, explaining how Schaefer had come to be on his boat. He stuns Brenda when he offers her a video made during the trip to Ensenada. She excuses herself to play it.
As she watches the video, Garnett can’t resist pointing out that she had entered the room to break Schafer’s alibi and had only ended up making it stronger. Brenda ignores him, focused on the video. He suggests they might have arrested the wrong person, but Brenda is certain she has the right man. Flynn and Provenza are ordered to check that Barnes was telling the truth about where he had been, to check him out completely now that they had a proper name, and Buzz and Tao are tasked with verifying the authenticity of the video. Sanchez is to check out the boats visible in the background of the video. Watching the footage of two men fishing, something odd strikes her and she returns to Barnes, demanding to know who had been holding the camera. Barnes tells her he picked up some kid on the docks and paid him cash. He cannot recall the name, perhaps it had been Carlos. She asks why Jonathan Schafer hadn’t mentioned the kid, since two alibi witnesses were better than one. Barnes suggests that Schafer simply hadn’t known the kid’s name.
Brenda returns home while her team works on their assigned tasks, walking right by Fritz without a word. He follows her, and the argument continues. She cannot believe he hid his drinking problem from her. He tries to explain to her why he didn’t mention it. To him, it was in the past; it happened years before they had even started dating. But he tells her what he thinks she needs to know. Both DUI’s had been gotten while he was off-duty and in his personal car. Immediately after the second one, he had informed the FBI and checked himself into rehab, which had allowed him to keep his job. She asks if that had been why Elaine had divorced him. Fritz is confused, he doesn’t know an Elaine, he had been married to a Cindy. Realizing her slip of the tongue, Brenda is momentarily silenced, giving Fritz the opportunity to go on the offensive. How dare she accuse him of lying, when she herself lied all the time? She lies to her parents, even to the point of installing a second phone line for over a year just so they wouldn’t know Fritz was living there with her, she lies to Pope about how she ran her investigations, she lied to Fritz himself about selling the house and looking for a new one, she is lying now by using ‘if’ to describe their impending marriage and still wearing her engagement ring. Brenda is stunned, she doesn’t see those things as lies. Fritz calms down, telling her that is the best he can do for an explanation right now, and leaves her.
Back at PHD, Brenda gets the list of bad news from her team. Barnes does indeed have a charter service, and has been out of the country as he’d said. The video is not a fake, in fact, one of the boats seen in the background nails the exact date as the day of the murder and even provides an exact time frame. Frustrated, Brenda mutters that it is almost as if Schafer had known he was going to need an alibi the day the video had been made. She looks at Daniels for some good news, but Daniels has only the FLARPL, and says that she can see no reason for Mr. Henry to have filed one in this case, since they are typically used when there is some doubt the lawyer is going to get paid, but Jonathan Schafer is a highly successful ophthalmologist. Brenda asks why his wife’s attorney would need to put a lien against their house. Daniels has no answer. She can’t see anything odd in Schafer’s finances, in fact, he seems to take little or no money from his business. Irene Daniels apologizes to Brenda, admitting that while she doesn’t feel she has done her best work on this case, she can’t explain why that is so. Brenda tells her it is ok, everyone makes mistakes, adding that Schafer himself is the only person who seems to have decent explanations for anything this particular week. Brenda asks for a copy of the FLARPL, but Daniels tells her it is a public document that she cannot access till Monday. This doesn’t help Brenda, and as she stares at Detective Daniels, it occurs to the young detective that they might be able to get a copy of the FLARPL from Mr. Henry’s widow, since billing wasn’t privileged information.
Brenda and Daniels sit in Valerie Henry’s house, or rather the house her husband had left her, since he had never changed his will to exclude her. Valerie has the billing records the detectives have requested. Irene Daniels points out the inconsistency of asking for a FLARPL in the Schafer divorce, since she has been through the Schafer’s finances and it appears to have been a simple matter of a judge ordering Jonathan Schafer to write a check. Valerie Henry agrees that this should have been the case, but tells them her husband had looked into the finances, and Schafer had little money in his accounts. Given that he had a mistress, Oliver Henry had began to look for the place Schafer might have hidden his funds, and had discovered that the ophthalmologist had sunk a great deal of money into a second home about two years ago. She adds that the second home is in LA, and is close to the primary residence. Dr. Schafer had hit the roof when he learned about the lien on the second residence. Valerie herself had been in the room when Schafer argued with her husband over the matter, so the information wasn’t privileged. Then Kristin Schafer had asked Mr. Henry to take her to the second house, which he had done. Valerie knows nothing after this, since she and her husband had a big fight over the dogs and they had never spoken again. Daniels pounces, she had never seen anything to indicate the Schafer’s owned a second home. Valerie looks through the paperwork in her lap, and agrees that Daniels would not have found it, the house was listed as a second clinic and was owned by Schafer’s practice, even though it was in a residential neighborhood. Brenda asks for the address.
As she and Daniels arrive at 2501 Partridge Lane, they see the front door is ajar. They pull out their weapons and quietly enter the house. Each door is draped in heavy plastic but a figure can be seen through one doorway. As they prepare to enter that room, Lt. Flynn surprises them by pulling open the plastic, his gun also at the ready. All three detectives take a deep breath and holster their guns. Flynn leads Brenda into the room, a big grin on his face. She is stunned to see a room filled with huge marijuana plants. Catching sight of Provenza, he gleefully tells her the entire house looks the same, estimating there are more then 4,000 plants worth over 12 million dollars under that roof. She asks them how following up on Topper Barnes had led them to this address, and is shown mail addressed to Eugene Barnes, mainly utility bills. Brenda is ecstatic, guessing aloud that she knows what Topper does with his boat during the off season.
She and her team gleefully serve a search warrant on an angry Kristin Schafer, and, finding her husband in the house with her, place him under arrest on possession with intent to distribute and the cultivation of marijuana. Schafer orders his wife to call Lucas Cordry, his lawyer. As they leave the Schafer home with Jonathan in handcuffs, Brenda addresses Flynn and Provenza, but Provenza beats her to it; they will be happy to arrest Mr. Eugene ‘Topper’ Barnes.
Buzz and Tao are still focused on the fishing trip video as the interview room holding Barnes, Schafer and Lucas Cordry is erupting, everyone talking over everyone else. The room falls silent for a moment as Brenda enters. Pope arrives in the electronics room, and after verifying the circumstances of the arrests, sends Gabriel to find DDA Garnett, thinking Brenda has at last nailed down the motive for murder. Meanwhile, in the interview room, Cordry attacks Brenda’s arrest of Barnes and Schafer. Brenda asks if he is unaware that his client owns a house holding several thousand marijuana plants. Cordry tries to speak, but he is interrupted by Barnes, who reminds Brenda that Schafer is an ophthalmologist and medical marijuana is legal in California, used for glaucoma and cataract treatment. Noting the amount of the drug on hand, Brenda tries to stop Barnes from defending Schafer by asking him if he’d ever thought Schafer had set him up by having him put the utility bills into his own name, adding that Schafer might even try to claim that Topper had been renting the house. Cordry tries once more to get control of the room by telling Brenda that none of this is admissible as evidence in the current trial. Brenda has a different opinion, telling the defense lawyer that she thinks “…the fact that the victim put a lien on your client’s house, a house that contained over 12 million dollars worth of marijuana just might be of interest to the judge.”
“Wait a minute.” Tao says aloud, “Take it back a few frames.” Buzz agrees he saw something too. Stopping the video, they see a person reflected in a glass surface on the boat in the fishing video. Enlarging and cleaning up the image, the person can be seen clearly. “That doesn’t look like a Carlos to me.” Sanchez observes aloud. Commander Taylor leans in to get a better look. “Do we know who this is?” he asks. Provenza does, it’s Jonathan Schafer’s not-so-ex-girlfriend, Michelle Edwards. A knock on the interview room door interrupts Cordry as he continues to shout at Brenda.
Michelle Edwards is led into Brenda’s office by Gabriel. She asks if she needs a lawyer, but Brenda assures her that lying to the police is not a crime, although she would like the truth this time around. Confronted by the photo of her reflection on the fishing boat, Michelle admits she had been there, but adds that she had known Jonathan was innocent, and he had promised her the LAPD would figure that out for themselves. Gabriel asks why she didn’t speak up as his alibi witness when they had been unable to find Topper Barnes. She had been asked by her lover to keep quiet about her presence on the boat, he was concerned that getting wrapped up in a murder trial would not have been good for her career. Brenda is sarcastic, “Huh. We all know how terrible scandal is for an aspiring actress’s career.” She points out that she doesn’t believe Schafer was protecting Michelle at all, but Michelle is insistent; Jonathan had been protecting her, besides, she knew he was innocent since she’d been with him at the time of the murder. Gabriel asks why Michelle didn’t appear in the video, other than the reflection. Michelle admits that Jonathan had asked her to just hold the camera and not speak, adding she would have done nearly anything to keep the relationship going. She confides that the entire trip had been a surprise, he had simply shown up at her house and told her to pack. Then they had driven to the marina. Brenda pounces, asking if they took Michelle’s car to the marina. Michelle is adamant, Schafer drove them in his own car to the marina. Brenda thanks her and tells the upset young woman she is free to go. A confused Gabriel holds the door open as the young blonde leaves Brenda’s office. As he turns to ask why she had let Michelle go, he sees only Brenda’s dazzling smile.
Sanchez is happy to tell her that her hunch checked out, and they have photographs taken from the surveillance video showing Schafer’s vehicle at the marina. In the hall, a woman can be heard arguing with Gabriel, and she goes to see what the uproar is. Kristin Schafer is furious that her husband has been denied bail. Brenda tells her she had been hoping to clear that up with Kristen, and asks Gabriel to escort her into the electronics room. As the angry wife walks away with Gabriel, Brenda sees Deputy District Attorney Garnett round the corner, and for once, this pleases her. He is furious, asking if it is true that she has placed Michelle Edwards on the boat with Schafer, meaning that she has not only confirmed the alibi of the defendant, but has also provided alibis for the two people most likely to have assisted in the murder. She agrees this is true. Garnett tells Brenda he has become convinced that she arrested the wrong man, and Brenda asks if he would like to hang around and hear a confession before he dismisses the charges against Schafer…besides, she needs him to make a deal. Garnett is incredulous; Cordry isn’t going to let Schafer talk to her, but she simply asks him if he wants to win his case or not, and invites him into the electronics room.
She approaches Kristin Schafer and offers the crying woman a tissue. Kristin isn’t interested, she only wants to take her husband home, admitting that she had left her daughter home alone as well. Turning on a monitor, Kristin is shocked to see her daughter, Beverly. Brenda tells her they had the child brought in to answer a few questions. She asks Kristin whether or not she ever drove her husband’s car. Kristin denies it, and Brenda tells her that Beverly has told them differently. In fact, she assures Kristin, Beverly clearly recalls that the weekend Mr. Henry died, Mommy had been driving Daddy’s car. Tao produces the photograph taken from the marina. Jonathan Schafer can be seen clearly pulling Kristin’s car into the parking lot, dated two days before the murder. There is a shot of the tag as well, Mrs. Schafer’s own vanity tag, MRSEYES. There are photos showing Jonathan Schafer leaving the marina parking lot two days after the murder as well. “So if Jonathan was driving your car, which car were you driving?” Brenda asks. Garnett interrupts her to ask what is going on, but Brenda shushes him quickly. She explains to Garnett that Kristin Schafer had hired an honest divorce attorney, an Eagle Scout. He had done his job and looked for Jonathan’s hidden assets. He had found a second residence. “And what did you find, Mrs. Schafer, at that second home?” Brneda asks. Crying, Kristen acknowledges that Brenda already knows what had been in the house. She sobs harder, telling them that she had thought they were doing well financially because her husband was such a good doctor. She had no idea their money ws coming from selling drugs. Brenda finishes for her, filling in what she imagined Mr. Henry had told his client; how finding the drugs was great, now Kristin would have full custody of her child, along with everything left over that the government didn’t confiscate.
“Oh, my God. They did it together!” Garnett has finally caught on, but Brenda hushes him once again. She nods to Gabriel, his cue to read Kristin Schafer her rights. Kristin says she doesn’t know whether she wants to talk or not and Brenda jumps in before she can ask for an attorney. She wants to make Kristin an offer, if Mr. Garnett will agree. She tells Kristin that without her testimony, her husband will go free, but Kristin herself will end up on death row. She offers Kristin a choice between life or death, offering her the possibility of someday holding her grandchildren in her arms.
Garnett is playing catch up, trying to fill in the details. “She killed Henry, she murdered her own attorney?” Brenda rushes to defend Kristin, telling Garnett it had been Jonathan Schafer’s idea. He had set up everything, right down to providing the Versed for Kristin to use. Garnett demands to know why this woman would do such a thing, but Brenda knows. When Kristin went to pay off her lawyer and get him to release the lien, Henry had told her he was obligated to call the police, and Kristin could see all the millions of dollars she had expected in her settlement drain away. There would be no alimony, no child support…
Kristin denies this is true. She simply reconciled with her husband and went to pay what she owed him. She tells Brenda that she cannot prove anything against Jonathan. Brenda is expecting this, and has a ready reply. “Without your testimony, that’s probably true, but I can prove you murdered Oliver Henry, and after your husband is acquitted, I fully expect him to testify against you.” Kristin doesn’t believe Jonathan will testify against her, and she reminds Brenda of the spousal privilege law. Kevin Garnett is only to happy to tell her of the exception to that law, conspiracy to commit felony murder. Kristin tells them she will plead the 5th, and assures them her husband will not say a word against her. Brneda has one final card to play, asking Kristin if she has seen her husband’s alibi video. Seating the woman at the console, Brenda cues up the video of the fishing trip. Kristin watches it, and Tao apologizes to her as he leans over to stop the tape and focus in on the reflection of Michelle Edwards. Brenda asks if the woman on the video looks familiar to her. Dazed by the proof her husband was still cheating on her, and the image of her child on the other monitor, Kristin Schafer asks Brenda what she needs her to say. Brenda knows what Garnett needs to hear first, so she quickly asks whose idea it had been to kill Oliver Henry. When Kristin admits it had been her husband’s idea, Garnett offers to let her plead to second degree murder, with the possibility of parole…if she will testify and tell the entire truth on Monday at her husband’s trial. Kristin asks if her husband will get the death penalty, and is assured by Garnett that he will definitely ask for it.
In court, the room is stunned by Kristin’s shocking testimony. She spins the sordid tale for the jury, vindicating nearly every hunch about the crime Brenda had during her investigation, right down to the way Oliver Henry had hit his head, and the way he had been dragged into the pool. “Why did you do this terrible thing?” Garnett asks her in court. “Because Jonathan said that I had to. My husband said that we’d lose everything and go to jail if I didn’t.” Garnett thanks her and turns the witness over to Lucas Cordry for cross examination. Cordry asks the court for a one hour recess to decide how to handle the witness. “Take two hours, Counselor.” the judge replies. Walking out of the courtroom, Brenda cannot resist shooting a knowing, triumphant smile at Kevin Garnett as she walks past a grinning Will Pope.
Brenda and her team celebrate the victory together at a restaurant. When the champagne is opened, Flynn is the first to decline a drink, sticking with cranberry juice and soda. He takes off his ring and passes it to Brenda, telling her of his ten years in AA. Sergeant Gabriel proposes a toast, in which he credits Brenda for being able to keep the team together, for trusting her instincts, and for always managing to get her man. As the toast is made, Brenda has difficulty expressing her emotions, but tells the team that she has come to look upon them as family. She finds herself the beneficiary of a knowing wink from Flynn, leading to a contemplative look on her face as the team salutes her.
Entering her house, she finds Fritz sitting on the sofa holding a flyer. “Gary-Doesn’t-Lie-Novak stopped by. Apparently, you put the house on the market.” Brenda is trying, in her own way, to apologize to Fritz for her outburst. He is sorry for not telling her about the drinking, sorry for the things he said about her. She admits that she doesn’t always know the right thing to say, leading her to say the thing she knows the other person wants to hear. Fritz graciously accepts Brenda’s awkward apology, and understands her meaning when she says “And I miss chocolate so much.” They kiss and the fight fades into an unpleasant memory. Brenda has indeed gotten her man, twice this day, as it turns out.
Source: TV.com
