The Firm Episode 1.03 ChapterThree

Mitch meets with Sarah Holt in the prison interview room to ask about the woman she's accused of killing, Margaret Whitaker. Sarah met Margaret in the waiting room of her new doctor's office. Clearly, Margaret was very sick, but Sarah didn't know she was terminal. Margaret was all alone and unhappy; her only son was a deputy sheriff living two hours away. A woman from hospice who was staying nights with her turned abusive, so Margaret asked Sarah to stay overnight. (Sarah explains her generosity by saying she's a Christian woman.) On the night in question, she got to the house at eight, watched some TV, worked on her laptop, then put Margaret to bed. Sarah spied a beautiful cross pendant, which she put on, even though she knew it was wrong. Just then, Margaret's son Eugene arrived. He told Sarah to stay outside the room while he checked on his mother. Feeling uncomfortable, Sarah left, then remembered the pendant. That's when Eugene ran outside with his gun drawn, saying he found his mother dead. The police can't honestly believe she killed Margaret for a necklace?!

That night, Mitch, Abby, Ray and Tammy convene in the McDeere's kitchen. By law, everything Brian said is protected by privilege; he has the right to confide in his lawyer. So Mitch or anyone who works in his office can't tell the cops or incriminate him in any way. Unable to sit and do nothing, Mitch asks Ray to find the boathouse and verify Brian's story. Meanwhile, Mitch will convince Brian to confess to police. The next morning, Claire is sitting in Abby's class taking a test when she spies a classmate, Heather, cheating with answers written on her arm. Across town, Alex meets with Martin Moxon on a park bench to reassure him that everything's under control. Mitch works for the firm now, and he has no idea they hired him because of the Holt case. For his part, Moxon has no idea how Sarah got herself arrested. But now there's another problem...

Mitch returns to the office to tell Ray and Tammy about the case. Right off the bat, Ray decides that Brian murdered Amy, but Mitch isn't interested in his theories and assigns Ray and Tammy to find her. Just then, Brian rushes through the door, upset and asking to speak with Mitch privately. His story is changing: that night it was raining; Amy forced Brian to stop the car and got out. He left, but then turned the car around and accidentally hit her. Brian put her in the car to take her to the hospital, but she was already dead. So instead, he stashed her body in a boathouse on a lake about two hours north, then sunk his car in the lake. Mitch advises Brian to go to police - now. Otherwise, they'll find the body and the car first, and then they'll never believe him. Furthermore, he has to tell his father and Amy's parents. Stating he can't go to prison, and he can't tell his father, Brian runs out of the office.

When Claire stops by her mother's classroom, Abby mentions grading Claire's test. She got a 92, second in the class behind Heather Gamble. Claire can't prevent her frustrated reaction, ultimately blurting out that Heather cheated - but she can't know Claire ratted her out. Unfortunately for Claire, Abby fully intends to do something. Meanwhile, Mitch calls Ray to tell him about Calvin. Ray's up at Echo Lake, where he found Amy's body, stashed just like Brian said - which means Calvin is innocent, albeit crazy. Mitch still wants Brian to tell the truth so Calvin can be released. Ray points out that Mitch already has a client in this case; he can't have two. Mitch goes straight to Russell to explain the Calvin situation, while refusing to confirm Brian's story. Russell admits Brian's gone missing and isn't answering his phone. Despite his pledge not to incriminate Brian, Mitch feels responsible for Calvin and plans to help him.

Five weeks earlier, Mitch is walking through the firm with Andrew on the way to a meeting, when he brings up the issue of boundaries. Mitch wants to be able to choose his cases; Andrew can't just summon him. Not only that, Mitch likes to do criminal work. Andrew opens the door to the office of senior partner and tax lawyer Russell Strickland, who's sitting with his 21-year-old son Brian. It seems Brian's girlfriend Amy Sackheim has gone missing, and the police want him to come in for questioning. Brian admits he was with Amy the night she disappeared. He proposed; she said no; they had a loud fight at the restaurant. When they were asked to leave, Amy took his keys and drove off. She's been missing for three days now, and Brian's car was never found. Mitch tells Brian to keep his appointment with the police for 11:00 tomorrow. If he's telling the truth, they need to get in front of this. Brian assures Mitch he loves Amy, and he's telling the truth.

After class, Heather buddies up to Claire - is she going to Ali's party on Saturday? Then the truth comes out: if Claire wants anyone at school to talk to her ever again, she didn't see anyone cheating. Later, Mitch strolls the courthouse corridor with prosecutor Diane Ruckeyser. The necklace Sarah took from Margaret was worth $50,000, and she was probably in the process of stealing a lot more. Mitch tries to defend Sarah, but Diane doesn't want to hear it. Besides, the medical examiner's report just came in. Margaret was smothered to death. Just then there's a commotion in the hall. Diane explains that the missing college student - Amy Sackheim - turned up dead, and the guy who killed her just walked into a precinct and confessed.

Shocked, Mitch rushes to the precinct to introduce himself to Detective Mike Doyle and explain his situation. Doyle claims he didn't interrogate anyone; the guy just walked in and started spilling his guts. Mitch invokes his client's right to counsel, so that anything he says from this point on is inadmissible. Doyle doesn't really care; Mitch is too late. With that, Doyle opens the door to an interrogation room. The guy who confessed isn't Brian, but the meticulous and strange Calvin Parker. Mitch goes with it and decides to question Calvin, quickly accusing him of lying. Why would he say he murdered Amy when they both know he didn't? Calvin claims he picked Amy up on the night in question, hitchhiking in the rain outside a restaurant. She quickly annoyed him so he pulled onto a side street and strangled her. When Mitch asks what he did with her body, Calvin claims he put it in the "red room" where she'd be safe, but he doesn't really know. He confessed because it's finally time for him to go to prison because he's done this many times before.

Andrew meets with Alex in her office. She wants an update on Mitch's meeting with Sarah Holt. Knee deep in the Strickland case, Mitch put Andrew off. Alex is satisfied to let the update wait since they have an emergency. Sarah had a company laptop, which contains sensitive information, and their client wants certain hidden information on it secured. Even though the laptop is in evidence lockup at the precinct, Andrew is to do whatever he must to neutralize it, since the information will incriminate them all. Meanwhile, Mitch and Ray proceed to Calvin's apartment, where Detective Doyle is just finishing up. An IRS tax adjustor, Calvin grew up in D.C. and was raised by his mother, who taught music at a posh private school. Calvin's apartment is meticulously clean; his furniture wrapped in plastic. In the bedroom is a wall of articles on 15 different girls. Doyle explains that some of the girls went missing then resurfaced, and the other half are dead. Doyle thinks Calvin's guilty of those murders.

That night, Tammy sneaks a cigarette out the kitchen door as Abby preps dinner. Abby's still unsure of how to pursue Heather's cheating; enough has happened in the last 10 years to guarantee Claire a lifetime of therapy, and she doesn't want to make things worse. Tammy has a story: when she was 19, she was in love with bad boy Jimmy Martucci, who wouldn't give her the time of day. One day, she bought a new Firebird, and suddenly Jimmy paid her some attention. For no particular reason, she told Jimmy she stole the car and quickly became the girl of his dreams - which turned out to be horrible because Jimmy and all his friends were jerks. The moral of the story? The problem with pretending you're someone you aren't is that you have to keep on pretending.

The next morning, Mitch appears in court to defend Calvin against prosecutor Bob Hoberman. Mitch insists Calvin's confession is false, then asks for a sidebar. He's got mileage records from the dealership where Calvin got his car serviced the day before Amy disappeared and the police impound that seized the car afterwards - Calvin couldn't have picked up Amy at the restaurant as he claimed. He lied. With no other evidence or witnesses, the judge dismisses the charge and releases Calvin, who pleads to be locked up. He's the killer, and he needs to be in prison!

On the way out, Mitch and Ray argue over what to do about Brian. Ray still wants to turn him in, claiming Mitch's insistence that he can't incriminate his client is a "technicality." Mitch points out that doing things Ray's way got him 15 years in prison. Ray's counterpoint - doing things Mitch's way put him in witness protection for 10. Later that night, Abby tells Mitch about Heather's cheating. In a way, she feels responsible and has decided to confront her. Mitch wonders if Abby can let this one go; the last thing Claire needs is a reputation as a rat. When Abby brings up the subject of rules, Mitch tells her a story about his father, who used to drive a deathtrap of a pickup truck, which their mother forbade her sons to ride in. One day Dad told the boys he'd take them to breakfast. Ray jumped in the truck, but Mitch refused. Later that day their father was killed. Thus, Ray got to spend a last day with his father, and Mitch didn't. The lesson for Mitch? You're either wired to follow the rules or not. Suddenly, he jumps up - mileage! This might just get Calvin off the hook...

We meet up with Mitch where we left him at the end of the last episode: standing in a hotel room at The Westin. Martin Moxon has just jumped out the window, as two men claiming to be hotel security break down the door. With nowhere else to go, Mitch jumps onto a neighboring balcony, then drops to a balcony on the floor below. He runs through the room, down the stairs, and into another room on the second floor, just above the lobby door. Spying a baggage cart, Mitch jumps onto it, rolls onto the ground, and sprints away. It's only then that both Mitch and his pursuers realize what he forgot... his briefcase. Clearly, it had some important stuff in it.That night, Ray finds Brian at a youth hostel downtown and drags him back to the office. Having decided he doesn't want to run, Brian tells Mitch that he wasn't lying; Amy's death was an accident. Mitch promises to stick with him every step of the way. The next morning, Mitch, Brian and Russell head into the precinct to talk to the police. Cut to five weeks later, Mitch makes a frantic call to Andrew, after narrowly escaping his pursuers at The Westin. Andrew runs to tell Alex - didn't they agree Mitch wouldn't get hurt? Furious, Alex orders Andrew to find out Mitch's location - now!

Late that night, the two couples gather again in the kitchen over stiff drinks. Ray knows it's finally time to go to the police; if they want to disbar Mitch, let 'em. Abby's sure they won't. Lawyers are allowed to disclose to save a life. Tammy calls 911, and it's not long before the police are pulling out the bodies and Calvin is re-arrested. Back at school, Claire's heart skips a beat when her mother asks to see Heather after class. Since Heather did so well on the test, Abby has decided to make Heather her assistant, to help out other needy students every Tuesday and Thursday after school. When Heather claims she might not be able to make it, Abby explains that she already cleared it with her mother.

After dinner, the two couples discuss Brain. Tammy suggests looking for him at the boathouse. Mitch is stuck on Calvin; something's not sitting right. What if the Stricklands knew Calvin? In reviewing Calvin's particulars, Abby perks up to learn that his mother taught at the Wardell Fieldhouse, which closed a few years ago. Abby pulls up a few online articles, one of which features a photograph of Calvin's mother standing in a red room - where Calvin said he put his victims. It's not long before Ray has payed a security guard $100 to let him and Mitch check out the music room at the school. When they uncover a putrid hole in the floor, Mitch runs out of the room, leaving Ray to find six women's bodies, encased in plastic with their personal effects. So Calvin wasn't lying - he is a serial killer, and Mitch just set him free.