Resolutions

Description

A drunken driver's hit-and-run confession leads the detectives to discover that foul play -- not an accident -- may have killed the victim.

Synopsis

The episode opens on New Years Eve 1999. Four friends are out celebrating the millennium at a local bar. Jill and Mel are out with Greg and Susan. They all make resolutions and toast. The next shot shows Greg stumbling outside on the street. As voices are heard counting down to the new year, a car approaches and appears to hit Greg. The next shot shows him dead in the street while the fireworks and celebrations go on in the distance. The case box is filed under ”Cardiff, Greg Jan ’00.”

Present day, Lilly meets Det. Sherman at an AA meeting. One of the members, Tammy, wants to tell Lilly something. She was out drinking on the millennium, and she hit someone with her car. She believes that it’s the man she heard so much about on the news - Greg Cardiff. Her car had a dent in it the next day. Lilly agrees to look into it for her. Lilly, Scotty, and Sherman pull the case box down in the vault. Everything seems to match Tammy’s story. According to the original report, none of the neighbors saw or heard anything and there were no witnesses. One neighbor, Russell Brinkley, never responded to police requests for statements. Tammy no longer has her car, but Sherman has a picture of the red Jeep Cherokee. Lilly and Scotty go talk to Greg’s widow Susan. They find out that she just got remarried. They show her the picture of Tammy’s Jeep, and she recognizes it from New Years Eve. Greg wasn’t feeling well that night, so she walked him out. He insisted that she stay at the bar. When she kissed him goodbye, she noticed a red Jeep parked outside the bar.

Vera and Jeffries knock on Russell Brinkley’s door - the one neighbor who police never spoke to. There is no answer, so Jeffries goes around back, and catches Brinkley trying to go out the back door to avoid them. He swears that he didn’t see anything. They bring him back to police headquarters. Lilly and Scotty find out that Brinkley has a fear of crowds, so Stillman tells them to crowd him. Lilly and Scotty go into the interrogation room with Vera and Jeffries while they interrogate Brinkley. It works, and Brinkley gets uncomfortable. He tells them that he saw a car speeding off and a man in the street that night. The problem is that the car belongs to John Butler - a nasty neighbor who killed his dog. He was afraid to come forward in the past because of Butler. Lilly and Scotty head out to talk to Butler. Lilly wants to know where Scotty was for the millennium. He tells her that he was at Elisa’s grandmother’s house. Lilly mentions that he must have been with her for a while, and he tells her that they were fourteen when they met.Lilly wonders why he never married Elisa, and Scotty tells her that Elisa is sick like Barry from the Richardson job (he had schizophrenia). Lilly comments that the meds they have now are suppose to help a lot, and Scotty tells her that she has her good days. After an awkward pause, Lilly thanks Scotty for sharing something so personal with her.

They find Butler at a meat plant. He refers to Lilly as ”a piece with a piece.” He asks her out for steak, but she says that she is a vegetarian. They tell him that his car was seen running Greg down the night of the murder. He also has two drunk driving convictions. Butler tells them that his car was stolen that New Years. He went to a gas station, and got into a fight with the attendant because the owner raised the price to $3 a gallon because of the millennium. While he was arguing, his car was stolen. He reported it that night, and the car was found stripped in New Jersey the next day. Lilly and Scotty go back to Greg’s widow. She knows Butler, and she tells him that everyone hates him. Mel walks in, and they explain that they are married now. Mel’s ex-wife, Jill left him for a cardiologist that year. Mel tells Lilly and Scotty that he and Greg ran into Butler on New Years day. They had run out for beer, and Butler got mad at Greg. He claimed that Greg scratched his car with his door. Greg apologized and they both left. Lilly and Scotty interrogate Butler back at the station. They tell him that they checked and he made the stolen car report an hour after Greg was hit. Lilly brings up all of the neighbors complaints about him including cutting down their trees, calling their children inappropriate things, and not taking no as an answer when he asked one neighbor out. Butler comes clean, and tells him that he paid someone to steal his car for the insurance money.

Lilly and Scotty find the guy, Trevor, in a neighborhood bar. He denies the hit and run at first, but then he breaks down. He tells them that the night he was driving Butler’s car, he ran over a body in the street. Lilly says it doesn’t make sense, but Trevor insists that Greg was lying in the street, not crossing it. Back at the police station, they decide to look into the angle that Greg was sick the night he died. Lilly suspects that he might have been drunk since it was the New Year. They send Vera down to the morgue to check for any of Greg’s tissue samples they might have kept. The medical examiner wouldn’t have done a full toxicology report because the case looked like a auto death. Lilly and Scotty go talk to Susan about her claim that Greg was sick the night of his death. She tells them that Greg wasn’t drunk that night. She says that he had a headache and nausea that day, and Lilly says that he must have collapsed from it on the street before the car hit him. Susan remembers that their son Gary was sick that day as well. They go talk to Gary, and he confirms that he was sick as well. He remembers having yellow tinted vision. They try to make a link between the two. Gary remembers that he took a sip of Greg’s margarita and Mel and his mom were quick to stop him.

Back at Stillman’s office, they point out that Susan and Mel could have slipped something into the margaritas to harm Greg. They look especially guilty because of their recent marriage. Stillman believes that it’s possible that Mel and Susan were having an affair. He asks Scotty to go talk to him man to man. Sherman brings Tammy from AA in to the police station. Lilly tells her that they found out that she didn’t kill Greg. She must have hit an animal or injured someone, but she is not guilty of murder. Instead of being relieved, Tammy is upset. She says that her only reason for quitting drinking was the accident. She’s afraid that she might start drinking again now. Scotty talks to Mel again. Mel seems shocked that Greg might have been poisoned. Scotty asks him off the record if he and Susan had an affair, and he swears that nothing happened until after Greg died. Mel tells Scotty that Susan made the margaritas, but he didn’t drink one because he had a bad experience with tequila in college. He doesn’t like the implication that Susan poisoned Greg. Scotty wants to talk to his ex-wife to verify that nothing was going on, but Mel doesn’t know where she is now.

Back at the station, Lilly finds Jill Davis’s answering machine. Jeffries and Vera couldn’t find any tissue samples at the morgue, but Greg was an organ donor. The transplant unit at a state hospital had some blood samples stored. They ran them, and they found lethal levels of digoxin - medicine used for an irregular heart beat. Overdose symptoms include headache, nausea, yellow tinted vision, and fainting. Stillman comes in and tells them that Mel is in the hospital with the same symptoms as Greg. Scotty interrogates Susan at the station. She tells him that she has never heard of digoxin. Scotty accuses her of being a black widow, but she says that she loves her husband and wouldn’t hurt him. Lilly interviews Mel at the hospital. He confirms the yellow tinted vision, and he tells her that he last ate at home. He insists that Susan wouldn’t hurt him or Greg. He says that Greg was plan A and he’s just the one she settled for. Lilly gets a call on her cell, and she finds out that Jill is at the station.

Back at the station, Jill tells Stillman that she left Mel because she knew that he loved Susan. She says that there was no affair because Susan was so loyal. A few days after Greg’s funeral, Mel drew up divorce papers. Stillman asks her if she’s familiar with digoxin since she married a cardiologist. She tells him that she takes it. She has an irregular heart beat, and that’s how she met her now husband. Lilly joins Scotty in the interrogation room with Susan. She tells them that the hospital confirmed that Mel was poisoned with digoxin and that Jill took it giving Mel easy access. Susan remembers that Mel was moving in on her even on the day of the funeral. At the time, she thought he was just being nice. Lilly tells her that Mel tried to set her up by poisoning himself. Stillman interrupts to tell them that the hospital called, and Mel just skipped out. Lilly and Scotty join Sherman and a flock of police cars under an overpass on a closed off street. Sherman tracked Mel through his cell phone. He is holed up in his truck. Lilly tries to get him to surrender, but nothing happens. They send a police dog to the truck. A gun shot is heard, and the next shot shows the police dog still alive outside the truck. The officers approach the truck, and Lilly takes the driver’s side. She finds Mel dead in the seat from a self-inflicted gun shot wound. He had been writing a note.

In the note he details what happened to Greg. He said that his New Years resolution was to have a family, and Susan and Greg were that family. But even after Susan married him, Greg was still her true love. He slipped digoxin into Greg’s margarita that day and his champagne glass at the bar that night while it was just the two of them at the bar. He told Greg that he didn’t think that he and Jill were going to make it. He told him that he was going to make some big changes in the new year. Greg left the bar that night sick. He stumbled through the street until he finally fell onto the road and Trevor’s car ran him over.

The closing scenes are to Jewel’s ”Hands.” Lilly, Scotty, and Sherman watch as the officers take Mel’s body away. Mel’s casket is put into the ground. Susan and Gary visit Greg’s grave. The neighbor, Brinkley, takes his new poodle puppy out for a walk. Trevor is released from jail. Sherman attends an AA meeting with Tammy. Lilly drives out of Greg’s driveway, and she ”sees” Greg. She reverses the car and goes out of frame. Fade to black.

Cast

Main Cast

Guest Cast

Stacy Edwards as Susan Cardiff
David Andriole as Greg Cardiff
Cameron Dye as Mel Davis
Noelle Evans as Jill Davis
John Kapelos as John Butler
Victor McCay as Russell Brinkley
Kevin McCorkle as Det. Gil Sherman
Ian Nelson as Gary Cardiff (2004)

Co-Starring

Leigh Kelly as Tami Franklin
Jeff Bowser as Trevor McKai
Gage Hanks as Gary Cardiff (1999)
Chuck Carter as Attendant
Tom Roach as K-9 Handler

Notes

Scotty mentions Barry Tepler and "the Richardson job" from "Hubris".

Music

Eagle-Eye Cherry "Save Tonight"
R.E.M. "It's the End of the World As We Know It (And I Feel Fine)"
Third Eye Blind "Never Let You Go"
TLC "No Scrubs"
Tal Bachman "She's So High"
LEN "Steal My Sunshine"
Closing Song: Jewel "Hands"