Prime Suspect Episode 1.07 Wednesday's Child

Sweeney sits uncomfortably at his desk, talking to 70-year-old Molly O'Malley. Her son Brian has been in jail for 8,313 days, and he's getting his second shot at parole next week. Molly wants Sweeney to write a letter. Sweeney tells Jane about the case - Brian was stupid high, picked up a girl, killed her, said he blacked out. Jane figures that since Brian got life, he's where he's supposed to be (jail). Nevertheless, Sweeney's going to visit him. But right now he's looking for Calderon. When Jane presses - is this about a case? - Sweeney claims it's more up Calderon's alley. But if she really wants it so bad... 5-year-old Ben Martin was found dead, supposedly from a seizure, at his fancy pre-school yesterday. Now Jane's going to have to rule out all other possibilities. When Calderon shows up a second later, Jane can't believe she didn't wait, because the media frenzy - are our children safe? - is just heating up.

Jane and Calderon meet with Ruth Simon, the principal of Manhattan's elite Forward Steps preschool. She explains that her students are always under careful watch, and Ben was not usually clumsy, though he did have issues with impulse control and temper tantrums. They pushed hard to get him screened for ADHD, but his parents wouldn't hear of it. Nevertheless, things had been getting better lately. Ben was found in the school's only bathroom, and the EMTs didn't tell the school not to have other kids continue to use it. But Ben couldn't have slipped, since the floors are always dry. Suffice it to say, there's not a shred of evidence to be had.

Jane and Calderon proceed to the M.E.'s office, where Iris explains there's no evidence of seizure or spontaneous injury. Ben's brain injury is a case of coup and contrecoup, which she demonstrates on Calderon. It's basically a crushing blow, which accounts for Ben's black eyes, and the accumulation of blood in his forehead. Cause of death, blunt force trauma. It's not long before Jane's telling Ben's parents Josh and Allison that Ben was murdered, and she doesn't believe the injury could have been caused by another child. Allison is devastated; she slept all morning, so she didn't get to say goodbye. She immediately starts complaining that Ben hated his teacher, mean Mrs. Meinhoff. As Jane and Calderon turn to leave, Allison leaps after them. Could they be wrong? She doesn't think she can live with the idea that something happened to her baby when she wasn't there...

Duffy sits up when he sees Rivera enter the precinct, but she's not looking for him; she's looking for Jane. She leans over Duffy's desk to show him a file: Rivera thinks the guys who robbed Des' bar have a pattern going, and they're headed for a bar in the West Village as their next target. Duffy hopes she's right - for Rivera's sake, not Jane's. Rivera tells Duffy she's going to wait it out, and she'll be calling him. Meanwhile, Jane shows up at Des' bar, surprised to find her sister Oona already there. Oona rearranged her morning to take Des to his surgery - he's in the back cooking breakfast. Jane races to the kitchen to pull the pan out of Des' hands. Did it occur to either of them that Des isn't supposed to eat before surgery?

It's not long before the sisters start quibbling. Clearly, Jane doesn't like the fact that Oona is an unemployed vegan, and Oona doesn't like the fact that Jane's always late - which she better not be today, since she's picking up Des after his surgery. Jane advises Des to wait until the anesthesia wears off before proposing to random cute nurses and thanks him for the egg sandwich. Meanwhile, Sweeney meets with Brian in prison. Brian's been working on his masters in psychology and is a peer counselor - which could lead to a job on the outside - if... Brian claims he's been clean 19 years, and he doesn't want his mother to die alone. If Sweeney can't see his way clear to helping him out, Brian will understand. Meanwhile, Rivera calls Duffy, suggestively inviting him to join her on her stakeout. At least he thinks she's suggestive, so he jumps out of his chair into another cop, spilling coffee on his shirt. After surveying the damage, Duffy surreptitiously pulls a clean shirt out of Evrard's locker.

Calderon ribs Jane for chowing on her second order of fries while going over the file for Ben's teacher, Mrs. Meinhoff, who Jane remarks, seems like a real bitch. Quotes from complaining parents: "Mean, impatient and doesn't like children." Calderon's willing to bet his paycheck that Jane's file says the same thing - it doesn't make her a murderer. Iris calls with news. The toxicology report came back showing Ben tested positive for ADHD drugs - which his parents don't believe in using. So who was medicating Ben? Later, Jane questions Mrs. Meinhoff, who's attended by a lawyer the school insisted on sending. Mrs. Meinhoff doesn't know who could have been medicating Ben. On the morning in question, Ben's nanny Lucy dropped him off, but she didn't leave right away and stayed late to play with Ben, asking several times if he was okay. When the principal asked Lucy to leave, Ben told Mrs. Meinhoff he had a headache.

Duffy has a grand old time, hanging out with Rivera on her stakeout. She's really disappointed when she gets a call informing that her robbers just hit a bar four blocks over - she picked the wrong place. She disparages herself, but Duffy tells her to chin up and offers to check out the other bar with her. It's not over until it's over. The bartender positively IDs a photo of the thief, who shot him with his starter pistol. He missed, so the bartender knocked out two of the guy's teeth with a vodka bottle, and they're probably still on the floor. Duffy advises Rivera to proceed to the second-closest hospital to search for their guy, but he's gotta go. Rivera exerts a mere touch of her feminine wiles - and poof! Duffy's along for the ride. It doesn't take them long to spot their man. He refuses to open his mouth for Rivera, so Duffy pinches his nostrils together, until he does - spitting up blood all over Duffy's purloined shirt.

Meanwhile, Jane and Augie talk to Lucy's mother, who claims Lucy's working late or maybe at her boyfriend's house, and no, she doesn't know her cell phone number. Jane's suspicious that Lucy wouldn't return home to see her kids, so she continues to press for the phone number, while Augie hangs out with the kids. Pretending he needs to see the Yankees score, Augie asks to use the computer and quickly pulls up a one-way bus ticket from Chinatown to Boston. Augie wants to lurk in Chinatown and enjoy dim sum while waiting for the bus, but Jane promises to meet him later; she's got to pick up Des from surgery. She's surprised to find Oona hanging out in Des' bed, and the bickering begins. Still wonky from the anesthesia, Des asks Oona to lay off Jane; after all, Jane raised her. When he invokes the spirit of the girls' mother, watching over them from heaven, Jane makes a morose comment - there must be no booze in heaven.

Jane returns to Chinatown to board the bus to Boston with Augie. It doesn't take long for them to find Lucy and drag her back to the precinct. Calderon explains that they're homicide, not INS, and they don't care about her citizenship. His mom was a nanny too, live-in. It was hard on the family; it's a lot of work raising someone else's kids - the way they want you to raise them. Calderon's mother would cheat a little, giving her charges candy, letting them stay up late. Lucy admits Ben's teachers told her about his ADHD, and that medicine would help. She just hoped it would help him calm down. On the day he died, Ben wouldn't eat his breakfast, and she couldn't give him the medication until he did. The truth is, Ben never had a friend besides his little brother and Lucy, and his mother was very unhappy with him.

The next morning, an extremely disoriented Allison makes her way into the precinct, looking for her dead son. Jane tells Allison that she needs to sleep, eat and take care of herself. Weaving around, Allison backs away from Jane; now she only wants to go home. Jane returns to the morgue to visit Iris. Can they pinpoint the time of Ben's injury? Could he have been walking around for a couple of hours with a brain injury? Iris explains there is no certitude with traumatic brain injury - yes, he could have been injured before he got to school. Later, Jane and Calderon stop by Allison's apartment, and she seems much more cogent. Jane asks to use the bathroom and snoops around. Clearly, the guest bathroom is clean. On the way out, Jane bumps into Lucy, who directs her to the master bathroom...

...which is a disaster. Crap everywhere. Childhood habits die hard, and Jane knows just where to look for the hidden booze and pills. She asks Allison to take her through what happened before Ben went to school on the morning of his death - alone. Allison explains that she has insomnia. Since the mornings are too hard for her, Lucy watches the kids in the morning. Jane surmises that Lucy couldn't keep Ben quiet, so Allison woke up and laid hands on him. Jane pulls out the booze and pills - her mom used to hide her stuff in the same places. One night, her mom drove out in a storm, veered into traffic and was killed on the spot. Oona was four, so she doesn't remember; but Jane was 13, so she remembers everything. And part of her is really glad it happened that way. She's glad it happened that way, so that something worse didn't happen.

Allison tries to flee, so Jane chases her down the stairs, telling her she's not a good mother. How long until she convinces herself that what she remembers didn't happen? How long until she gets too mad at her other son? Allison tries to blame it on Lucy, who couldn't keep Ben quiet. Allison finally breaks down. When Ben woke her up, she asked Lucy to leave the room and told Ben to put on his shoes. Ben told Allison he hated her and spit in her face. So she just took his head and hit it against the wall, just once. Ben didn't cry; he didn't say anything. He just got really quiet and put on his shoes like a good boy. It's not long before the unis are packing Allison into a squad car. Jane doesn't want to ride along, preferring to walk the 40 blocks back to the precinct.

Rivera's thrilled to see Duffy when he drops by the robbery unit. She was just telling her fellow detectives about Duffy's heroics the other night at the hospital. He explains that he stopped by to see if Rivera wants to catch lunch. She does. In fact, she knows a great place that her boyfriend, Allen from Fugitive Squad, loves. Duffy's sorely disappointed by this news, but he keeps his upper lip stiff and proceeds to a lunch he doesn't really want to eat anymore. That night, Jane spies Molly O'Malley thanking Sweeney on her way out of the office. She's surprised to learn Sweeney wrote the letter for Brian, the guy who killed Angela Cook. Duffy can't believe Sweeney would do such a thing, and Sweeney can't believe Jane and Duffy are a united front for once; so he pulls out the whiskey.

Sweeney tries to explain that Brian wasn't that bad before and now he's good, like he was sick and got well. Duffy's thinking Sweeney's compassion might better serve someone who deserves it. Sweeney admits it's done now, and it's on him. All three toast to Duffy's hope that Brian keeps a lid on his homicidal tendencies. Jane downs her whiskey and takes off, so Sweeney informs Duffy that his buddy Rivera is up for the next open slot on their squad. Duffy admits Rivera's a good detective, but this ain't robbery. The stakes are different. When Sweeney asks what happened to the hard sell, Duffy allows that Rivera would drive Jane crazy. That's a plus. Evrard busts in the door holding his dry cleaning. How is it that he sent three shirts to the cleaners, and one came back with blood on it!? If this is someone's idea of a joke, it's on.

Jane's behind the bar drinking when Des comes in holding the newspaper and crowing that she made the front page, again. Jane thinks it feels pretty bad - did he even read the article? Allison even looks a little bit like Jane's mother, and her tale is pretty much the same too. Des claims it's not the same, and a disagreement ensues. Oona breaks up the fight, bringing in five more copies of the paper. When Jane asks why she would do that, Oona excuses herself for being proud - and the photo is great. She would kill for Jane's cheekbones. Jane asks if Oona wants a drink and is truly glad when she declines the offer.