Finkelman's Folly

Episode 315(049) - Feb 18 1998

While Simon Banks is at the bank trying to secure a mortgage, he becomes involved in a robbery. He intervenes when a guard attempts to be a hero and is wounded in the crossfire and rushed to hospital.

Back at the precinct, Jim and Blair are introduced to Bank's replacement, Captain Sarah Finkelman, who has already started laying down the law. Jim's first introduction to her is not a pleasant one. Not only is he allergic to all the flowers she's placed in the office, but her first edict is to pull Blair's ride-along status, which she says was only good for 90 days, and has been outdated for 19 months.

Blair is asked to wait outside and Jim is adamant that Blair will stay, telling Finkelman that he is an asset to the department and has the support of the whole division. Undaunted, Finkelman says that Taggart has recently transferred back to the detective squad and Jim will ride with him, or she will have no problem suspending Ellison. She also enforces a strict dress code amongst the detectives.

Simon's ex-wife Joan and son Darryl come to visit him in the hospital but he is so dazed he has no recollection, but his nurse Amy tries to reassure him before she leaves for her rounds. As Simon clutches at the nurse call button he activates an open connection to the deserted nurses' station where a couple of surgeons, Dr Julie Chaney and Dr Burt Phelps, are arguing about trying to buy off a pathologist's testimony before tomorrow's review board. They then agree to kill her instead. Simon tries to ring Jim on his cell phone but loses consciousness before he can complete the call.

The doctor notices the open line next to the name "Banks" and goes into Simon's room to question him on whether he was able to complete his call, but he is still too dopey. Before she can do anything further, Amy arrives and Chaney pretends she has accidentally wandered into the wrong room. Later that night when Amy checks Simon's chart she realizes he's been prescribed a deadly combination of medication and she races back to his bedside to discover him in the throws of a seizure. The intern attending Simon is called and they manage to get him stabilized, but when Amy accuses the intern of the mistake, he insists that he did not write out the drug order.

The next day at the station, Jim turns up sans Blair and wearing a nice suit, a clip-on tie and a baseball cap. Finkelman approves of all but the baseball cap and heads off his next query by restating that she will not change her mind about Blair. In a recalcitrant mood, Jim dumps the tie in the nearest trashcan and mischievously listens in on a cell phone call Finkelman receives, where he overhears her apparently setting up a meet that evening and agreeing to a $5000 payment.

That night Jim and Blair follow her to a meat packing plant where they see her accept the cash from a Joe and Rick Brock. They then follow her to a motel room where she pays the money to an Arthur Sabin, where Jim overhears her tell him her name is Trudy Marshall and she works for the Brocks. Then the deal turns bad when Sabin decides he doesn't want to deal with a woman and wants to teach her boss a lesson, pulling her weapon and threatening her with it. Just then Jim knocks on the door and introduces himself as Joe Brock, effectively saving Finkelman's bacon. They give Jim a sample of the "merchandise" in a gas cylinder and allow them to leave.

They reach a cul-de-sac and Sarah jumps out of her car and angrily begins to dress Jim down for barging in on an undercover operation without authorization and for bringing his little friend along to enjoy the show. Blair is undaunted, telling her that he's Jim's friend in Jim's car on Jim's personal time and she has no authority. Sarah screams at Blair that he's not a cop, and Jim tells her in turn that an undercover operation without backup violates departmental policy and he could report her to the authorities.

Back in the break room, Finkelman admits that she ran over the Brock brothers' plan to smuggle freon gas by accident. She says the profit margin is actually better than drug trafficking. The Brocks are attempting to purchase the gas for their 30-year-old meat packing plant to avoid the $350,000 cost of a retrofit. They then intend to unload the plant on an unsuspecting purchaser. Sarah has utilized Joe Brock's attraction to her to convince him to let her operate as a go-between, hoping to nail Sabin, a powerful local drug dealer. When Jim asks why she would attempt such an operation without back-up, she says she is trying to prove that she is worthy of being more than just a substitute captain in a male-dominated, macho enclave like the police department. Jim agrees to help her collar Sabin if she re-activates Blair's ride-along status. She agrees, but finally queries Jim's knowledge of her alias. Blair explains they have a listening device that is the latest technology.

The next day Sarah sets up another meet with Brock, and Jim arrives, again accompanied by Blair wearing her requisite necktie. But they are interrupted by Joel who reports that Simon was moved last night at the hospital and now he and his paperwork are missing.

At the hospital Jim is furious that they can lose a 6'4" 225 pound man, and an obviously distraught Amy admits that she last saw him at midnight the night before after the medication mix-up. Jim, Blair and Simon separate to check the hospital.

Jim scours the hospital with his hearing and finds Simon prepped and on an operating table, mistakenly about to be cut open for surgery on a brain tumor. When Simon awakes he finds Jim, Blair, Joel and Amy worriedly looking over him and assuring him that they are going to move him to another hospital. He tries to tell them what he overheard but goes under again.

Jim leaves him in Joel's capable hands as he and Blair race off for their rendezvous with Finkelman. When Simon awakes he brings Joel up-to-date and when Joel reveals the drug mix-up, with Amy's help they organize to transfer him out. But Simon refuses to leave until they can uncover the identity of the intended murder victim.

In the meantime Sarah has gone to the Brocks to take the call from Sabin. He wants to make the exchange on the car ferry to Bear Island. He also insists that he wants to make the deal with Brock in person. Sarah takes the cash but doesn't tell Brock about Sabin's demands. But after Sarah leaves, Sabin rings again to speak to Brock to make sure he got the message about meeting in person. He also says it was great to meet him. So the Brock brothers leave for the meet on the ferry.

On the ferry waiting for Sabin, Jim, Blair and Sarah catch sight of the Brocks. They agree that Jim will try to find Sabin and the freon while Sarah takes Blair to intercept the Brocks, telling Blair they are going to improvise and she hopes he learned something in his years with Ellison. When they run into the brothers, Sarah introduces Blair as Arthur Sabin and Blair immediately goes into his tough, laconic crook routine.

Elsewhere on deck, Sabin finds Jim and hails him as Brock, so Jim also has to quickly assume his secret identity. But Jim overhears Sabin telling his muscle to go find "Trudy". In the meantime, the Brock boys get nervous about the delay and head for their truck, followed by Blair, Sarah and Sabin's man. When he reports that he has found Trudy, Sabin pulls a gun on Jim and plans to hit Trudy for the money instead. Sabin gets away but Jim collars his accomplice.

Back at the hospital Simon and Joel, with Amy's help, realize that the board meets that afternoon and that the killers are probably waiting for an opportunity to make it look like an accident or a suicide. Joel goes off to question the hospital administrator for a list of attendees to the meeting. In another part of the building Doctors Chaney and Phelps confront their accomplice, pathologist Laura Quint, and she accuses them of planning to blame all their unnecessary surgical procedures on her faulty pathology reports. She threatens to expose them to the board.

When Joel comes back with the names of Chaney, Phelps and Quint, they head down to Quint's office and find her passed out on the floor with a hypodermic lying next to her. Simon and Joel locate Phelps and Chaney before they can leave the building and Simon has no trouble making the arrest, even if he has to do it from his wheelchair.