Law & Order: Los Angeles Episode 1.12 Benedict Canyon

Celebrity stylist Lily Walker drives home from a dinner party while talking to her mother Molly on the phone. Molly wants Lily to join her at a jewelry show, but Lily's anxious to get home to her husband and daughter. She hangs up and looks around for a bicyclist who was in her rearview mirror, but he's gone. Suddenly, a bullet shatters her passenger window and she's shot dead. Morales and TJ investigate. A witness saw the biker, and SID tech Meacham lifts a handprint off the car window. TJ shows Morales a snapshot of Lily with her husband and daughter he found in the visor. Lily's not just a dead stylist, she's a mom. Meacham reports a hit on the print, which belongs to Harry Rice, a felon on parole with two strikes against him. This crime would make it strike three.

Morales and TJ corner Harry outside his Venice apartment. Declaring that he's not going back to jail, Harry shoots himself in the head with a .38. Morales notices fresh stitches under a bandage on Harry's left hand and a hospital bracelet, which indicates he got the stitches earlier that day. The stitches weren't on the handprint they found, so Harry couldn't have been the shooter. Someone's playing games. Morales checks out Harry's apartment to find a bicycle and some .38 rounds, just as TJ enters to confirm the print as Harry's, and the bullet as .38. But what about the stitches? Morales shows TJ fingerprint powder on the wall near the window, guessing someone lifted a handprint and transferred it to Lily's car - which means Harry was a patsy, and this was a professional hit.

Morales and TJ interview Lily's distraught husband, Douglas, who says Lily was on her way home from publicist Robbi Nathan's dinner party, which she didn't want to attend. Douglas stayed home with their daughter, Katie. The full-time nanny quit a few months ago and the new girl left at five. Morales and TJ think Lily may have been targeted - can Douglas think of a reason why? He can't, claiming that everyone adored Lily. Still, TJ and Morales want to know who knew Lily was going to the party. The detectives talk to A-List publicist Marci Bledsoe, the host of the dinner party. Marci claims she organized the dinner because a mutual client - Khloe Kardashian - was having an issue with Lily. Marci thought a dinner party would give them neutral ground to work out their differences.

Morales and TJ visit Khloe on the set, where she's in the middle of a boxing workout. Khloe loved Lily - at least until Lily dressed her in an Alexander Emery gown that made her ass look like a pancake on the Golden Globes. Skeptical, TJ asks why she waited until last night to bring it up. Apparently, Khloe heard a rumor that Emery paid Lily to put Khloe in his clothes. Lily used to dress her in Jill Jennings "like a peach," then suddenly switched to Emery out of nowhere. When confronted, Lily denied taking kickbacks. Morales remarks that Emery can't be happy Khloe stopped wearing his clothes - especially if he was paying to have her do so.

Morales and TJ visit Emery at his Beverly Hills store, where he admits to paying Lily's assistant Greta $10,000 to have Khloe wear one of his dresses on the red carpet. The detectives head to Lily's office to question Greta, who doesn't deny taking kickbacks from Emery. Lily was the only stylist she knew who didn't take money. Morales and TJ suspect Lily found out about the kickbacks and Greta feared being blacklisted or fired. Greta swears she didn't hurt Lily - she was just trying to put some money away because she feared Lily was going out of business. Although Lily used to live large, she recently downsized her lavish lifestyle and fired her live-in nanny. Greta refers them to Lily's business manager, Marty Fox.

Marty assures Morales and TJ that Lily's business was great. She was cutting back to spend more time with her daughter. About six months ago, Marty converted Lily's business from a partnership to a corporation, so all the shares are now solely in Lily's name. Marty claims Douglas didn't mind; as a commercial real estate broker, he does fine on his own. Marty made this assumption because Douglas waived his marital rights to Lily's assets. She put everything in her name at the same time as the corporate conversion. TJ thinks Lily was worried Douglas might divorce her. Douglas claimed the live-in nanny quit, but according to Greta, Lily fired her. TJ guesses Douglas had an affair with the nanny, so Lily made sure he'd get nothing in a divorce. Morales points out that Lily's death would mean Douglas gets everything.

TJ and Morales question Douglas, who claims they let the nanny go because Katie was getting too attached. When Morales claims the money issues give motive, Douglas explains that everything went into a trust for Katie, and Lily named her mother Molly as trustee - Douglas would get nothing in the event of Lily's death. Morales and TJ talk to Molly, who admits she wasn't always the best mom, so it meant the world that Lily trusted her to take care of Katie. She insists Lily and Douglas had a good marriage, and Douglas didn't have an affair with the nanny. TJ still thinks Douglas had an affair; no one circles the wagons for nothing. Morales suggest Douglas' indiscretion was a one-off, and the person it mattered to most was Douglas' jilted lover, who could've wanted Lily out of the way.

Morales checks phone records on the night Lily was killed, wondering whether she wanted to keep Douglas away from someone at the dinner party. TJ guesses it was Malina, since Lily switched designers at the exact time she shuffled her assets. An internet search reveals that Lily had a falling out with designer Jill Jennings, which caused sales at Jennings' showcase store in Beverly Hills to plummet. Morales and TJ visit Jill at her shop, now located in Los Feliz, a far cry from Beverly Hills. Jill claims the gossip about her fallout with Lily was overblown. When she asks if she's a suspect, Morales bluffs, claiming their suspect is Douglas. Realizing they think Douglas had an affair with her, Jill denies it, as her assistant announces her limo's running late. Apparently, Jill's still living the high life...

Morales tells TJ that he worked as a town car driver in college and was always amazed at how quickly passengers forgot they weren't alone. Whoever was driving Jill six months ago would know if she was screwing Douglas. The detectives visit the head of the car company Jill uses, who tells them Jill used to specifically request a driver named Terry Briggs. Recognizing the name of an old buddy, Morales tells TJ that Briggs used to be a cop and he knows where to find him - Pedro's bar - where they catch up over drinks. Morales was shocked to hear Briggs retired five years ago. Actually, it turns out Briggs retired only two years ago, after spending three years working undercover vice near Venice Beach.

Morales returns to the office to show TJ a file - Harry Rice was one of Terry Briggs' confidential informants when he worked undercover vice. Briggs killed Lily Walker. During interrogation, Briggs spits venom at Morales and denies knowing or killing Lily. TJ shows Briggs the powder they found in his apartment, used to lift Harry's prints. Morales reminds him that murder-for-hire makes this a death penalty case. Briggs crumbles, saying Jill didn't pay him in money per se. Back when Lily first married, Douglas had an affair with Jill, and Lily found out. Douglas blamed Jill, so Lily blackballed her all over town. Jill begged Briggs to do something about it and asked him to kill Lily. Briggs begs for leniency. Morales agrees but only if Briggs will do something for them first...

Morales and TJ listen with a tech as a wired Briggs has dinner with Jill, trying to get her to admit she hired him to kill Lily. But Jill catches on and creates a scene, loudly denying any involvement. When she tries to leave, TJ arrests her. As he's led away, Briggs swears he didn't tip her off. Morales thinks Jill played Briggs, but TJ counters - maybe Briggs played Morales. Later, Dekker and Rubirosa face off with Jill and her attorney, Max Steinberg. Steinberg declares they have no case against Jill. For her part, Jill suggests Briggs felt sorry for her. They broke up a few weeks ago - maybe he still has feelings for her - and Lily ruined her. She hated Lily, but she never asked Briggs to kill her. When Steinberg offers Jill's testimony in exchange for dropping the charges, Dekker says he'll see them at the preliminary hearing.

Briggs testifies that Jill asked him to kill Lily at the Preliminary Hearing. Steinberg cross-examines Briggs to expose the fact that he had drinks with Morales a few nights before wearing the wire to dinner with Jill - four hours worth of drinks with a tab of more than $100. Steinberg accuses Briggs of helping out an old cop buddy by cooking up a scheme to entrap and frame Jill. Briggs denies it, but the damage is done. Stating that Briggs' credibility is damaged and, without corroboration, doesn't give probably cause for trial, Judge Cohen dismisses the charges against Jill. Outside the courtroom, Dekker lays into Morales for not telling him about the pub crawl with Briggs - even if Morales thinks it was immaterial to the case.

Walking away, Rubirosa comments that Dekker was pretty hard on Morales. Dekker thinks he wasn't hard enough considering that Morales used to be a DDA - now they have to rebuild their entire case. Rubirosa isn't buying revenge as a motive, so Dekker suggests Douglas may be the motive. Maybe the affair meant more to Jill than they know. Later, Rubirosa talks to Douglas, who claims the affair was Jill's idea. Lily found out about it when she walked into a restaurant where he and Jill were eating. He recalls that Jill wasn't at all upset when Lily showed up. In fact, she was thrilled that Lily's client was wearing a Jill Jennings sweater. Jill chose the restaurant - maybe she knew Lily would be there.

Rubirosa recounts her conversation with Douglas to Dekker. She guesses Jill wanted to break up Lily and Douglas' marriage but miscalculated, not expecting Lily would forgive him. If Jill was on the outs with the in crowd, how'd she know about the dinner party in the first place? Rubirosa discovers both Lily and Jill wrote weekly checks to the same person, Barry Baitos. Rubirosa finds Baitos at his massage studio. Lily had a standing appointment every Monday because of her genetic spondylosis. Barry also works on Jill, who has similar problems, due to a teenaged car accident. It was Barry who told Jill about the dinner party.

Rubirosa interviews Molly. She was supposed to babysit Katie on the night of the dinner party; if she hadn't been so selfish, Douglas would've gone with Lily and none of this would've happened. Molly reveals that on the afternoon of the party, she got an unexpected invitation to a private showing at Van Cleef. She assumed Lily had arranged for the invitation, but Lily said it wasn't her.Rubirosa discovers that Jill begged Van Cleef's PR firm to put Molly on the guest list at the last minute, so Douglas had to stay home with Katie. That left Lily on her own, an easy target for Briggs. This evidence means the DA's office can file new charges, so TJ and Morales arrest Jill at her store.

TJ and Morales visit Briggs in jail. He's scared about being put in general population at Pelican Bay after the trial's over and begs Morales to pull strings. Ashamed he ever knew Briggs, Morales coldly advises him to "cowboy up." At the trial, Steinberg cross-examines Molly, who now controls Katie's trust, which pays her a substantial salary. Steinberg accuses Molly of conspiring with Douglas to kill Lily so they could plunder Katie's trust. Molly denies the accusation, declaring she would never hurt her daughter. This gives Steinberg an opening to ask about an incident of abuse when Lily was a child. Molly admits she had a drug problem a long time ago. She hurt Lily then, but she's been clean for 28 years. Nevertheless, the damage to Molly's credibility has been done.

When Dekker finishes questioning Briggs, Judge Cohen adjourns, telling Steinberg he can cross-examine Briggs the next day. Afterwards, Dekker and Rubirosa are discussing the case, when Rubirosa's cell phone rings - it's not good news. They proceed to the jail where TJ shows them Briggs' corpse. Apparently he was shanked after picking a fight with a gangbanger and didn't even try to defend himself. Morales sits silently nearby, regretting he didn't help Briggs when asked.

The next day, the lawyers gather in the judges' chambers. Steinberg cites Jill's Sixth Amendment right to confront all witnesses, which Briggs' death has rendered impossible - Steinberg never got to cross-examine him. Time for a mistrial. Dekker argues that Briggs committed what was tantamount to suicide, possibly in an effort to torpedo the case against Jill. Judge Cohen takes the matter under advisement.

Afterwards, Dekker wonders how Steinberg knew Lily's mother locked her in a closet. Could Lily and Jill have known each other as kids? And why haven't Jill's parents been attending her trial? Rubirosa visits David and Ellie Jennings, who explain that Jill's not their biological daughter, but a foster child who lived with them off and on for eight years and ran off when she was 17. Her real name is Gwen Coulter. They remember Gwen as trouble from day one, never bonding with the other kids. When she first came to live with the Jennings, she had a doll named "Sister." One day, Ellie saw Gwen sticking a knitting needle into Sister's eye. Whatever someone did to Gwen, the Jennings couldn't fix it.

Dekker offers Jill a plea deal of 50 years. Steinberg calls it a joke; without Briggs, there's no case. Rubirosa walks in with Molly, then asks Jill if she wants a pillow to ease her spondylosis. Jill insists she hurt her back in a car accident as a teenager, but the Jennings have said there was no car accident. What are the odds that Jill and Lily shared the same congenital defect? That's when Molly recognizes Jill as her daughter Gwen.

Rubirosa explains: Gwen and Lily were remanded to foster car when crack addict Molly lost custody of them 28 years ago. After a year, Molly was declared fit, but she only took Lily back because she couldn't take care of two kids. Dekker zeroes in on Jill's motive. Jill blamed Lily for her abandonment - she stole their mother! - so Jill cooked up a long-term plan to wreck Lily's life. Jill finally confesses, remembering the day Molly was supposed to pick both girls up from foster care, then left 9-year-old Jill behind. Lily took everything from her - and now that Jill's taken everything from Lily, she still has nothing.