Law & Order (TV Series)

Vendetta (2004)

Jerry Orbach: Detective Lennie Briscoe

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Quotes 

• Dr. Judy Waxman : You're telling me this guy got killed because he tried to catch a foul ball?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : And the suspect list is the greater New York phone book.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : So, what do we got?

  Dr. Judy Waxman : Depressed skull fracture, glass shards in the wound. Victim was struck with a blunt object.

  Ed Green : Yeah, a liquor bottle.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : [finding the vic's ID]  Brendan Donner.

  Ed Green : I thought he looked familiar!

  Dr. Judy Waxman : Not to me. I'm drawing a blank. Who is he?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Public enemy number one. At least in this city.

  Ed Green : League Championship Series, this dude goes for a foul ball, cost us the game and the pennant.

  Dr. Judy Waxman : We're talking about baseball?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Yeah. Instead of being the third out, the batter draws a walk. Next guy up hits a two-run homer and it's "wait 'till next year." Again.

  Ed Green : Looks like somebody was pissed off about waiting.

• Melissa Donner : I can't believe somebody killed him over a stupid game.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : We're not sure yet that that's why your husband was murdered, Mrs. Donner.

  Melissa Donner : But it's a pretty good bet, right? I mean, what other reason could there be? People treated Brendan like he was Osama bin Laden, as if any one of them wouldn't have tried to catch that damn ball.

  Ed Green : Did you take any of those threats more seriously than others? I mean, is there anyone in particular we should be looking at?

  Melissa Donner : Just half of New York. Poor Brendan. He was obsessed. He... read every letter, surfed the Internet, uh... watched all the talk shows. I'm telling you something, that game ruined our lives.

• Jeffrey Bowerman : Donner was getting death threats from all over the country; people mailing him dead rats, dog crap, you name it.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : When you care enough to send the very worst.

  Jeffrey Bowerman : The worst was the envelope full of white powder.

  Ed Green : Ahh. We were wondering why the FBI was involved in this.

  Jeffrey Bowerman : Standard procedure for all cases involving a suspected biological contaminant.

  Ed Green : Which this wasn't?

  Jeffrey Bowerman : Baking soda isn't lethal.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Well, you never met my ex-wife.

  Jeffrey Bowerman : Well, we went ahead and seized all the letters, cards, and packages, anyway. Catalogued 'em.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Wow. A lot of people with too much time on their hands, huh?

  Jeffrey Bowerman : We've got audio, too. I tapped Donner's phone just to be safe.

  Ed Green : For a case like this?

  Jeffrey Bowerman : I felt sorry for him. Wanted to go the extra mile, help the guy out.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : You bet the other team.

  Jeffrey Bowerman : Made out like a bandit. Donner may have been a schmuck to you guys, but he was a hero to us.

• Anita Van Buren : [Briscoe is reading the vic's hate mail]  What would you have done to him?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : [innocently]  Who, me?

  Anita Van Buren : Oh, please. I remember how mad you were after that game. And I don't recall any tears from "Who, me?" when the tabloids published Donner's address and phone number.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Okay, maybe that was a little bit over the line, but the idiot did earn himself a little grief.

  Anita Van Buren : He tried to catch a ball.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Which was still in play! Any real New York fan would have kept his hands in his pockets.

• Lisa Santoro : If I were you guys, I'd steet clear of Latent for a while.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Why, they don't see the challenge in lifting prints off a broken bottle?

  Lisa Santoro : Any prints shattered along with the glass, so they're fragmented like a jigsaw puzzle. You guys like jigsaw puzzles? I love jigsaw puzzles. Want to know how I solved this one?

  Ed Green : That is why we're here.

  Lisa Santoro : I bought a bottle the same brand of Scotch, filled it with plaster, then broke it, leaving a perfect mold. Then I took the glass from the crime scene and glued it on that mold, putting each piece in its proper place. Voila.

  Ed Green : Just like a jigsaw puzzle.

• Lisa Santoro : With the bottle now reconstituted...

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : You could lift the prints.

  Lisa Santoro : Two sets. I ran them through BCI. The first belong to a Rooney, James.

  Ed Green : The bartender.

  Lisa Santoro : And owner. His prints are on file from when he applied for a liquor license.

  Ed Green : What about the second set?

  Lisa Santoro : Uh, BCI kicked back a Grimes, Walter.

  Ed Green : Walter Grimes?

  Lisa Santoro : Mm. Here's the best part.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Yeah, convicted of murder, second degree in the killing of a young girl. Drew twenty-five to life at Green Haven.

  Lisa Santoro : Yeah. How'd you know?

  Ed Green : He reads the front page of the Times.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Walter Grimes was released from prison three months ago.

• Ed Green : Walter Grimes, born Poughkeepsie, 1964. Arrested '83, convicted '84, second degree murder. Victim was Leanne Testa, fifteen. Stabbed to death.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Uh, a year ago, when Grimes finally got a court order to test the DNA, it turned out the blood that the cops found on the knife in his apartment wasn't Leanne Testa's.

  Anita Van Buren : Property still had the evidence?

  Ed Green : M.E.'s office. This is pre-DNA. They tested it for sirology. After the trial, it went to the medical examiner's and never made it back to the police lab.

  Anita Van Buren : It's lucky for Grimes. Police lab would've destroyed it after he got convicted. So Grimes didn't kill Testa. Good for him. Question is did he kill Brendan Donner?

  Ed Green : Grimes' prints are a twelve-point match to the ones on that liquor bottle. There are eight people in that bar who IDed him from a photo array. They all saw him bash Donner's skull in.

• Rodney Fallon : So far, the New York Exoneration Project has gotten almost fifty innocent people released, and we're looking at hundreds of other cases.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : And I'll bet each and every one of them didn't do it.

  Rodney Fallon : Oh, well, obviously they're not all innocent. But even if a single one is, don't you think it's our obligation to see to it that they don't spend a minute longer in jail?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : I bet you can count the number of guys in jail who are genuniely innocent on one hand. You know how many felonies the average criminal commits before he gets caught, let alone convicted?

  Rodney Fallon : I'm well aware of the police statistics.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : It's about the same as the number of times you speed on the throughway without getting a ticket.

  Rodney Fallon : So what you're saying, detective, we shouldn't try to exonerate defendants who were wrongly convicted?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Yeah, sure we should try, but just don't tell me they're all innocent.

• Ed Green : Can we talk about Walter Grimes, please?

  Rodney Fallon : An outright travesty of justice. His lawyer was a twenty-five year old legal aid attorney trying his third case.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Well, he caught a bad break.

  Rodney Fallon : Oh, that alone should have got him a new trial. DNA proved he didn't kill Leanne Testa.

  Ed Green : Which won't happen this time. Look, we may not have DNA, but we got your client's fingerprints on the bottle he used to fracture Brendan Donner's skull.

  Rodney Fallon : Well, we don't what happened that night. Maybe Walter was defending himself.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Why don't we ask him ourselves?

  Ed Green : Yeah. Where can we find him? We got a warrant for his arrest.

  Rodney Fallon : I'd rather you didn't speak to Walter if I'm not present.

  Ed Green : What, are you still his lawyer?

  Rodney Fallon : If you have a warrant, I am.

  Ed Green : Then you should know that you have an obligation to surrender your client.

  Rodney Fallon : I know what my obligations are.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Then you won't mind giving us his address.

• Desk Clerk : Oh, yeah. I remember this guy. He was here.

  Ed Green : Uh, was?

  Desk Clerk : Checked out earlier today. About 4:00 this afternoon.

  Ed Green : Six hours ago. Now that's a hell of a coincidence.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : No wonder Fallon gave up Grimes' address so easy.

  Ed Green : Yeah, he knew Grimes wasn't gonna be home. And he drops a dime to his favorite client as soon as we're out the door. Lawyers.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : [deadpan]  This is me being surprised.

• Rodney Fallon : You asked me where Walter lived. I gave you his primary address.

  Ed Green : Hey, man, don't get smart with us!

  Rodney Fallon : Oh, I wouldn't dream of it. You couldn't keep up.

  Anita Van Buren : [entering]  All right, let's all just take it down a notch. Mr. Fallon, this is way past zealous representation here.

  Rodney Fallon : I can't tell you where he went. It's arguably privileged information.

  Anita Van Buren : Well, consider it negotiating a fugitive's peaceful surrender.

  Rodney Fallon : I'll get him to come in.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Not a chance.

  Rodney Fallon : I have no idea what he's capable of if he feels threatened. I... I can do this. He trusts me.

  Anita Van Buren : All right. You've got two hours. Either way, we're going to arrest him for murder or you for hindering prosecution.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : [finding Fallon bound and gagged in a motel room closet]  Mr. Fallon, it looks like you put up a hell of a fight.

  Ed Green : Where's your client? And the first words out of your mouth better not be "privileged".

  Rodney Fallon : [Green undoes his gag]  He's not here.

  Ed Green : I can see that. So where is he?

  Rodney Fallon : You said you weren't going to interfere.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : You said you were gonna bring Grimes in. Looks like we both failed on our promises.

  Rodney Fallon : Well, I tried to convince him to surrender himself to the authorities for his own good, but he was in no mood to go back to prison.

  Ed Green : How long has he been gone?

  Rodney Fallon : About ten minutes.

  Ed Green : Did he say where he was going?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : And don't forget what we said about that word "privilege".

  Rodney Fallon : He took my wallet. Said he needed to get to his cousin's in Providence.

• Detective Adams : Anyway, I went in with my partner and a team of five blues. We searched from ceiling to cellar.

  Ed Green : Yeah, you found the knife.

  Detective Adams : Wrapped in a dishrag. It was hidden under a loose floorboard in his closet.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : But the blood on the knife wasn't Leanne Testa's.

  Detective Adams : Hell of a thing. This Fallon guy...

  Ed Green : Yeah, the Exoneration Project.

  Detective Adams : Got a court order, did family DNA against the knife, proved it wasn't Testa's.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Grimes always said that the knife was planted.

  Detective Adams : Well, of course he'd say that. Who knows? He probably killed somebody else.

  Ed Green : Yeah, that's why we need to run that knife past forensics, see if it matches any open cases.

  Detective Adams : Well, after Fallon had it tested, it went back to the M.E.'s office. Ought to still be there.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : So, that day, when you found the knife in Grimes' apartment, anything strike you as fishy?

  Detective Adams : Well, I didn't actually find it. Some uniform, got his shield a few years back. Reynolds, Daniels, something like that.

  Ed Green : Not Kenny Daniels?

  Detective Adams : Yeah, Kenny Daniels. That's it. You know him?

  Ed Green : We were at the same for a while, the 29. I ain't seen him in years.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : He the kind of cop that would plant evidence?

  Ed Green : Not the Kenny Daniels I knew. He was a stickler. By the book. He drove me crazy. Thought I was a cowboy. He'd always say "Dot your 'I's, cross your 'T's."

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : People change.

• Anita Van Buren : Sketch artist came up with a composite of our suspect.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : [glancing at the sketch]  Could be anybody.

  Anita Van Buren : How are you doing?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : I'm reading Donner's hate mail. Ed's listening to it.

  Anita Van Buren : Anything interesting?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Ahh, they either want to dump him in the East River or throw him off a building or run him over with a car. Not much originality.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : How'd you get his phone number?

  Ted Enwright : I read it in the papers.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : No, his new number.

  Ted Enwright : On the 'net. Everything's on the 'net. Come on, it's all up that website. Www.getdonner.com.

  [cut to the precinct] 

  Anita Van Buren : You've got to be kidding me.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : We don't have that much imagination.

  Ed Green : Six months after the fact, this website still gets 30,000 hits a day. I mean, most of this stuff is harmless; you know, "stupid Donner" jokes and whatnot, but check it out. They have a message board.

  Anita Van Buren : "Hey, fellow Donner haters. Think I just saw Donner shoving his stuff in the back of a moving van. Guess his old lady hates him as much as the rest of us."

  Ed Green : Now, this entry started a landslide. People started writing in whenever they saw Donner on the street or in the subway. They call it DonnerWatch.

  Anita Van Buren : Which is how they knew where to keep sending all the hate mail.

  Ed Green : I never thought I'd hear myself say this, but I'm actually starting to feel real sorry this dude.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Hey, we were *one out* away from the World Series.

• Detective Lennie Briscoe : [in Grimes' apartment]  Hey, Ed, do you always leave your phonebook out?

  Ed Green : Only if I've been using it.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Yeah. There's an old PI trick. If you had it open to a certain page, it bends the spine. It'll open there.

  [he picks the phonebook up and drops it on the table] 

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Hotels. Some cheaper than others.

  Ed Green : Where do we start?

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : At the bottom and work our way up, I guess.

• Detective Adams : We got an anonymous tip about the Testa case. Judge signed the search warrant.

  Ed Green : Off an anonymous tip?

  Detective Adams : Back in '84, we had a couple political appointees, they let us take a few more procedural shortcuts than they do now.

  Detective Lennie Briscoe : Ah, the Regan years.