Directed by Lewis Gould
Written by Ed Zuckerman & Richard Sweren
After a party for impoverished students whose college tuition was being paid by the wealthy philanthropist Peter Triandos, he is found murdered in his home. Briscoe and Curtis question the victim's much younger trophy wife, and her mother Mrs. Darcy. The detectives soon find holes in Mrs. Triandos' alibi, and learn that she used to work at a strip club where Triandos' lawyer, Oliver Shane, was a regular patron. Shane introduced the couple and they married very shortly afterwards. Mrs. Triandos says that the whole thing was Shane's idea; they did not expect Triandos, who was elderly and in poor health, to live much longer. She is charged with Triandos' murder. However, Shane has a solid alibi and the DA's office will not be able to charge him with anything unless Mrs. Triandos implicates him.
In court, the defence convinces the jury that Triandos must have been murdered by his PA Robert Mallors. Mrs. Triandos is acquitted, and now McCoy wants to find a way to ensure that she and Shane do not profit from the murder. But Mallors decides to sue Mrs. Triandos for her share of the estate. Whilst providing evidence to help Mallors with his civil suit, McCoy and Ross discover Shane has been embezzling from the scholarship fund that Triandos established for the students. The principal of their school had noticed something was up, and reported it to Triandos two days before the murder. But a witness's testimony suggests Shane may actually have been conspiring with Mrs. Darcy - not her daughter.
McCoy and Ross convince Mrs. Triandos to wear a wire during a lunch conversation with her mother. Mrs. Triandos says she'll just settle with Mallors and give him the money, since she is young and can support herself financially. Mrs. Darcy gets enraged and says Shane told her Triandos planned to file for divorce - so she killed Triandos to secure her daughter's inheritance. Mrs. Darcy is charged with murder, and Shane as her accomplice. McCoy thinks that Mrs. Triandos always knew the truth about her mother, she just couldn't admit it.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abusive Parents: Investigating whether one of the students at the party might be a suspect, the detectives question why he has an injured hand. Turns out his father did it when the boy tried to stop him stealing from the house.
- The Alcoholic: Mallors is one and passed out drinking during the party, so he was totally oblivious to Triandos being murdered downstairs.
- Bittersweet Ending: Mallors drops his suit against Mrs. Triandos, so her future is secure. But she was falsely accused of murder, and her husband (whom Mrs. Triandos seems to have genuinely cared for to some extent) was murdered by her own mother.
- Black Comedy: The episode opens with Briscoe and Curtis betting over whether the woman in a photograph with Mr. Triandos is his wife or granddaughter. Briscoe bets a sandwich from Carnegie Deli that it's the former and tells Curtis that he wants it with extra mustard after Mrs. Triandos informs them that she was married to the deceased.
- Fourth-Date Marriage: Mr. and Mrs. Triandos got married only a month or so after they met.
- Inheritance Murder: Subverted. Everyone initially thinks Mrs. Triandos killed her husband to get her hands on an inheritance. It turns out her mother is the killer - even though she was not a beneficiary of the will, she knew her daughter would provide for her.
- I Was Quite a Looker: Mrs. Darcy, who insists she and her daughter are still often mistaken for sisters.
- May–December Romance: Mrs. Triandos is 52 years younger than her late husband. Even her mother is young enough that others mistake her for the trophy wife.
- My Beloved Smother: Mrs. Darcy was this and feared losing influence over her daughter's life.
- Properly Paranoid: Mrs. Triandos is initially suspected in part because she concealed the fact that she returned to her house without her driver's knowledge. She says this is because she thought her mother might be trying to seduce Triandos for herself, but McCoy thinks she always knew Mrs. Darcy had the potential to kill.
- Ripped from the Headlines: Inspired by the legal case surrounding Anna Nicole Smith's inheritance.
- Southern Belle: Mrs. Triandos and her mother both fit this trope.
- Trophy Wife: Mrs. Triandos is one.
- Vicariously Ambitious: Mrs. Darcy says she's the one who wanted to be a rich trophy wife, but getting pregnant ended that dream so she wanted to see her daughter succeed instead.
