Sweet Science

Episode 316 (050) - Feb 25 1998

After a prize fight, Blair introduces Jim to the winning contender, an old friend of his, "Sweet" Roy Williams. Roy explains to Jim that they met when Blair saved his bacon in a street fight, by trying to talk down the thugs then throwing a brick through a store window and raising the alarm. Now that he is starting to have some success in the ring, he gives Blair back $200 to pay for his half of the window. He also invites them to a party that evening.

At the party, Blair goes over to reintroduce himself to Roy's brother Jamie, who is in tense conversation with his girlfriend Sharita. To Blair's surprise, Jamie seems almost hostile, dismissing Blair as a "rich white dude" and then walking away. In the meantime, Jim notices a strange sequence of signals pass between Roy and Sharita, which Sharita cuts short when Jamie comes to retrieve her. He also overhears an altercation with fight promoter Billy Atlas, who offers to sign Roy now that he is winning bouts. Two years previously when Williams signed with his current manager Rock Oldman instead of Atlas, Atlas spread rumors that Roy was no good, and Roy isn't about to forget it. Jim witnesses Atlas making veiled threats to Roy, while he waves his trademark ivory-tipped cane in the air. Entrepreneur and club owner Collins also notices the fight and sends in his men to break it up before it comes to blows. The next morning Jim and Blair get called out to the scene of an unidentified body found in a culvert. It is Roy Williams.

When they visit Jamie to question him, he is visibly distraught. Jamie says that everybody wanted a piece of his brother, but particularly fingers Billy Atlas as a prime candidate. Jamie dismisses Blair's further offers of help.

In the briefing with Simon, Jim reports that Williams was killed by a blow to the head and skull scrapings have revealed a fragment of ivory. Hurt and angered by the death of his friend and keen to see justice done, Blair is quick to point out Billy Atlas' cane and Jim mentions the fight he observed, but Blair becomes increasingly frustrated as Jim and Simon continue to nut out other possible suspects and alternatives, even bringing up Roy's petty juvenile record. Eventually Simon is forced to send Blair from the briefing, warning Jim that he may have to pull his credentials on this case.

During Atlas' questioning, he is typically glib and inconsiderate - maintaining however that he wouldn't want to kill someone with the potential to make him a lot of money, and even offers his girlfriend's name as an alibi. When asked, Atlas also reports that he lost his cane at the party. Atlas goes on to point the finger at Jamie, saying that he resented his brother's money and that there was a relationship between Roy and Sharita. Blair is furious and storms from the squad room, and Jim corners him in the elevator. Blair admits that he is furious that this has happened to Roy just as he was starting to make a career for himself, but Jim reinforces that if he lets his anger run away with him, he has no business being on the case.

Jim and Blair visit Jamie during a training session at the Jim, and reluctantly Blair asks Jamie about the situation with Roy and Sharita. To Blair's dismay, Jamie confirms that he noticed the looks that passed between them, and comments that whatever Roy wanted, he got. Jim also gets permission to search Jamie's vehicle, believing that the situation with Sharita provides a compelling motive for murder.

While Blair still refuses to believe that Jamie could murder his brother finds a blood spot in the trunk and bags it for analysis. Returning to the Loft, Jim has to break the news to Blair that the blood was Roy's and Blair says he has to get out and go for a walk. Later that night Blair rings Jim to explain that he's been detained at the Federal Building for passing counterfeit notes.

In Simon's office, the Fed explains that they are particularly interested in these notes, because although they are an average printing job, they are printed on 100% cotton rag, just like real notes. The only place it is produced is the Strand Paper Company in Michigan. When asked where he obtained them, Blair is vague and noncommittal, suggesting China Town or the mall.

Jim and Blair return to the gym and Jamie denies knowledge of his brother's involvement in counterfeit money or of the blood in his trunk. They also question Oldman about the counterfeit bills, and he confirms that Roy was straight. They ask him to keep his eyes open for the bills, and in an effort to bring the counterfeiters our in the open, tell him that the bills won't be difficult to spot because they aren't very good.

When later they attend a call to an explosion behind the gym, it is obvious that the plan worked. Jim finds traces of burnt money and observes Oldman nervously leaving the scene. Jamie corners Oldman at the gym, accusing him of his brother's murder, but Oldman pulls a gun on him and tells him to "keep it together".

Jim and Blair inform Simon that their further investigations revealed that Oldman owes the IRS half a million dollars in back taxes and is probably financing his debts with counterfeit money. Also, oxalic acid, a chemical used in printing, was found at the site of the fire. Simon sends them to bring Oldman in. But when they arrive at the gym they find Oldman's body and observe Jamie running from the scene.

Back in Simon's office, Jim and Simon are putting the evidence together. Oldman was killed with a .38 caliber weapon, and Jamie owned a .38 Smith and Wesson. In both murders Jamie Williams had motive and opportunity, and the blood evidence in the trunk seems to confirm their suspicions. Blair still believes Jamie is incapable of the crimes, and that it doesn't make sense that he would have killed his brother in a crime of passion, then killed Oldman as well. Blair tries again to argue the case for Billy Atlas with Jim and Simon calmly continuing to frame the evidence and ignore Blair's outbursts and Blair is furious at being ignored.

Finally Simon sends Jim from the room and reads Blair the riot act about objectivity. Blair is insistent that he has contributed as much to the department as any rookie in the squad and Simon reiterates again that Blair is not a cop. Blair however still needs to hear that his contribution is valued, and Simon apologizes if he has given the impression that he doesn't appreciate and value Blair's input. Blair leaves after having reached a new level of understanding with Simon. Blair and Jim race off in pursuit of Sharita who was spotted under surveillance withdrawing $300 from the ATM and is probably going to meet Jamie.

Jamie wants to use the money to escape because the cops suspect him of Roy's murder, but Sharita tries to convince him to turn himself in. He further tells her he saw the looks that passed between her and Roy and she finally admits that she was helping Roy who wanted to buy a house for Jamie. When Jim and Blair arrive and tell Jamie that he is surrounded, he pulls a gun on them at shouts at them to get back. They all plead with him to give himself up, and when Blair leaps in front of Jim and offers to demonstrate their trust by being Jamie's hostage, Jim has to yank him back out of the way. When Jamie makes a run for it, he is of course gunned down outside the building.

In the hospital, Jamie finally admits that he was Rock's bagman, and needed the money to gain some independence from his brother. Roy had no involvement with the counterfeit money. While Rock killed Roy, Jamie doesn't know who killed Rock. With further digging into Oldman's business associates Jim and Blair uncover evidence that in the seventies, Oldman's partner, Jeffrey Collins married into the Fowler pulp paper empire, which included the Strand Paper Company in Michigan. Collins then lost a fortune on junk binds in the eighties. They think Collins had Roy and Oldman killed to protect his counterfeit ring.

They head out to Westlake where Rafe has had Collins under surveillance and when Collins and his cronies realize they are being tailed, they break through a road block and make a run for it. The police corner them and a shoot-out ensues, and when their Mercedes is rendered inoperable, they escape in a prime mover, with Jim and Blair in hot pursuit in Jim's Ford.

Jim uses the Ford to try and run them off the road. When they spin out at the edge of an embankment and stall, Oldman try and run them off the cliff. Jim turns the engine over just in time, as the crooks plunge to their deaths.