Close to Home Recap: Protege
Not long after Conlon leaves a close friend who is visiting for the weekend, it seems that he goes out for some extra-curricular activity of his own, and the next morning the prominent out-of-towner ends up dead.
The close ties to the prosecutor's office, along with the close ties to Conlon himself, means that this case is one that will be investigated closely. But that doesn't necessarily mean that it will be investigated fairly. Is Conlon doing his job, or is he just trying to get someone to take the fall for killing his long-time mentor?
Before long, the son of the deceased ends up in town, and he gets too close, arguably trying to help Annabeth to do her job. Understandably, he simply wants to catch the killer, and Conlon lets him do so for a while. He is, after all, a lawyer, and these public servants can use all the help they can get. But when he starts to get in the way of the actual investigation, it seems that perhaps the problem is going to be one of making the right call.
The judge, as it turns out, had a certain penchant for gay bars, and the first irregularity to surface is that Conlon is trying to protect that little tidbit from coming out. The prostitute that saw him get into the car with the murderers is on shaky ground to begin with, but if it comes out that the judge was seen outside of a gay bar, it will ruin his reputation. So is it more important to catch the killer, or save the man's pride?
In the end, Annabeth goes for the conviction, and they get the story, to some degree. But it's an ATM camera that helps the most. A pair of criminals apparently nabbed the judge and had him take them for a ride to get some money out of his account. The camera caught them as the judge took the money out of the automated teller.
It seems that one of the men is the one who actually pulled the trigger, and he even confesses to the police, but before long, there's another wrinkle. He's on the border of being mentally disabled, and that means that getting a death penalty may not be the easiest thing to do - or the right thing to do.
By the end of the episode, the truth comes out (as it just about always does). Our trigger man did indeed do the deed, but it was the actions of his partner who caused him to do so, and he was simply trying to protect his friend, since he said that he would do so.
