Gone for Goode
Steve Crosetti (Jon Polito): Mr. Becker ducked. But he didn’t duck good enough.
Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson): Lost art, ducking.
Crosetti: That’s the problem with this job. It’s got nothing to do with life.
Tim Bayliss ( Kyle Secor): Ah, excuse me. This is Homicide?
Kay Howard (Melissa Leo): Homicide? We work for God.
Al “Gee” Giardello (Yaphet Kotto) showing Bayliss around: The Box. Where we match wits against the city’s master criminals. There’s one of the masters. The Fishbowl. Wherein said criminals reflect on the error of their ways. The Board. Open cases are in red, closed cases are in black. You look up there, you know exactly where you stand. About how many things in life can you say that, huh?
Bernard: Okay, I was there. But I didn’t kill them.
John Munch (Richard Belzer): Who killed them?
Bernard: A Jamaican killed them.
Munch: A Jamaican? What’s his name?
Bernard: I don’t know. But he’s the one that cut me. Said he’d kill me too if I said anything.
Munch: When’d he tell you that?
Bernard: When he drove me to the hospital.
Munch: So this unnamed mystery Jay kills both Billard brothers, cuts your hand, drives you to Hopkins bleeding all over his car and swears you to secrecy along the way?
Bernard: That’s why I lied about the fence.
Munch: Okay, now I get it. You’re saving your really good lies for some smarter cop, is that it? I’m just a donut in the on-deck circle. Wait until the real guy gets here. Wait ’til that big guy comes back. I’m probably just the secretary. I’m just Montel Williams. You want to talk to Larry King!
Bernard: I’m telling the truth.
Munch: I’ve been a murder police for ten years. If you’re gonna lie to me you lie to me with respect. Now what is it? Is it my shoes? Is it my haircut. Got a problem with my haircut? Don’t you ever again lie to me like I am Montel Williams! I am not Montel Williams!
Bernard: Who’s Montel Williams?
Munch: I’m not Montel Williams. Do you hear me? I am not Montel Williams.
Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty): Is this Montel Williams someone from your neighborhood?
Bernard: I don’t know. There’s something wrong with this guy.
Mrs. Jempson: You think you guys wanna look around for some clues?
Howard: The body in the basement’s a big clue.
Beau Felton: We still have to find Jerry. {the phone rings and Kay picks up}
Howard: Hello? Detective Howard of the homicide unit. Who’s this? It’s Jerry.
Felton: You’re amazing.
Bolander: Jenny Goode was murdered, John. Someone has to speak for her.
Bernard: I’m telling the truth now. You don’t believe me?
Munch: Frankly, I liked the Jamaican story better. It had a kind of Elmore Leonard quality.
Gee: Frank Pembleton.
Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher): Oh hello, Gee.
Gee: This is a homicide office. What’d you do, get lost?
Pembleton: I hear you’ve become a Yenta.
Pembleton: Look Gee, a partner is the last thing I need, the way I work.
Gee: Maybe the way you work is why you need a partner.
Beau Felton: This must be a mistake. Am I actually going on a routine call with Frank Pembleton?
Pembleton: You’re right. It’s a mistake.
Beau Felton: Frank Pembleton only handles the big investigations. This is just some dead guy.
Pembleton: See what happens when I come into the office.
Beau Felton: Imagine handling a routine call with Frank Pembleton.
Pembleton: I’m slumming.
Stan Bolander (Ned Beatty): They all remember long blond hair.
Munch: Great. We can arrest Axl Rose.
Crosetti: Ah, Miss Withers, is your Aunt Calpernia the beneficiary on your life insurance?
Dollie Withers: She says you gotta prepare for the unexpected. She says, look at all the tragedy I got in my life with my husbands. Life is a veil of tears, is what she calls it.
Crosetti: How many husbands has she had?
Dollie Withers: Five.
Crosetti: Five husbands.
Dollie Withers: She’s had a lot of tragedy. A lot of tragedy.
Crosetti: And, ah, she’s had life insurance on all them?
Dollie Withers: Thank the Lord.
Crosetti: Praise God.
Lewis: Praise Him.
Lewis: That’s a pretty cheap looking casket, ain’t it?
Cemetery Manager: Styrofoam! Buried like a hamburger.
Lewis: He looks a little small. Like a prune or something. Don’t you think he looks heavier in the picture?
Cemetery Manager: Nobody stays fat down there.
Gee: I thought I put you with the new guy.
Howard: Pembleton’s with the new guy.
Gee: Is there a reason why I can’t control my own men?
Howard: It’s better to be feared then loved?
Bolander: What’s a lady like you doing in a place like this?
Dr. Carol Blythe: Looking for Mr. Right.
Munch: You cannot insult an ethnic group worse than the truth.
Howard: Lay off the Irish.
Munch: The Irish. A million people died in the potato famine. Ireland is an island. An island by definition is surrounded by fish. A million people died because they didn’t like fish.
Bayliss: Why do you think that this kid would be riding around in Berger’s white T-Bird when that was the easiest way to link him to the murder?
Pembleton: I don’t know, because crime makes you stupid.
Bayliss: Can I quote you on that?
Pembleton: What do you observe about the suspect, Detective?
Bayliss: Ah, let’s see. Approximately five ten, one fifty. He’s got, ah, scratches on his left chee—
Pembleton: No no no. The suspect is asleep.
Bayliss: Oh yeah. He’s been in the room for four hours.
Pembleton: Rule number four: a guilty man left in the box alone falls asleep.
Bayliss: Are there any other rules?
Pembleton: Yeah. Uncooperative. Too cooperative. Talks too much, talks too little. Blinks, stares, gets his story straight, messes his story up. There are no rules. It’s an expression.
Bayliss: So are you going to interrogate him?
Pembleton: Interrogate him?
Bayliss: Yeah, yeah. I’m just saying. You know, not a partner thing but when you interrogate him I’d like to sit in.
Pembleton: Then what you will be privileged to witness will not be an interrogation, but an act of salesmanship. As silver-tongued and thieving as ever moved used cars, Florida swamp land, or Bibles. But what I am selling is a long prison term to a client who has no genuine use for the product. {he heads for the box}
Bayliss: I guess that’s a yes.
Crosetti: It’s homicide. One thing this country’s still good at.
Munch to a would-be mugger: Hey we’re police! Go rob somebody else.
Howard: You want it? You ready? Take it.
Bayliss: Detective Bayliss.
A Ghost of a Chance
Munch: Release the body, Bayliss!
Al “Gee” Giardello (Yaphet Kotto): Tim. It’s time to move the body inside.
Tim Bayliss ( Kyle Secor): Release the body.
Crosetti: That’s the problem with damn sex offenders. They multiply like amoebas. Split in half—
Lewis: Look who just got released. Adison. Remember him? Career rapist.
Crosetti: Oh yeah. Didn’t he have a tattoo on his johnson?
Lewis: Yeah. “Mother.”
Griselda Battel: Is the death of Adena Keisha Watson the result of a serial killer? Five women have been killed in the Northwest vicinity over the last four months. That’s an unsolved slaying every three weeks.
Gee: We do not have a serial killer. Those deaths are totally unrelated.
Griselda Battel: We can only hope you’re right.
Gee: I am right.
Gee: Good old Practical Homicide, huh?
Bayliss: Yeah. I’m just… you know, to make sure I take all the steps.
Gee: Follow the book. Follow your gut.
Bolander: I’m on the plane and they serve lunch.
Munch: Lunch? Really? From Detroit to Baltimore?
Bolander: Yeah. I’m trying to eat my salad from my little plastic cup, and the lady sitting next to me says, “Some of the men I know think it’s perverse, but I like to make love iguana-style.”
Bolander: Chris, you’d better call the coroner.
Munch: I’d hold off.
Chris Thormann (Lee Tergesen): Why?
Munch: He’s not dead.
Pembleton: You got anything you want to add, Bayliss?
Bayliss: Face of an angel.
Crosetti: I think I know who did it.
Lewis: Who?
Crosetti: Jeff Davis.
Lewis: Who’s that?
Crosetti: Jefferson Davis. President of the Confederate States of America.
Lewis: You still trying to figure out who whacked Abe Lincoln?
Crosetti: I told you, we can solve this thing!
Lewis: You got a one-track mind, leads to an empty depot.
Crosetti: There is life beyond homicide, Meldrick.
Bolander: It’s unusual, twice in one day, to respond to a call from the same uniform.
Thormann: It’s probably even more unusual to respond twice in one day to the same murder.
Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher): Pardon me, my good lieutenant, but where indeed is all this extra help supposed to go?
Gee: This is a red-ball, Frank. First few hours, everyone’s around to take the credit. We have to make sure that they’re around to take the blame.
Ed Danvers (Zeljko Ivanek): As Assistant State’s Attorney I have every intention of maintaining a better-than-average conviction rate, so that one day in the not-too-distant future I can come to rest at a law firm. Preferably an L.A. law firm.
Kay Howard (Melissa Leo): Well we’ll miss you.
Howard: Danvers, don’t get me wrong. I’m fascinated by your career, but we got a red ball going on.
Pembleton: Bayliss, Bayliss, Bayliss. We’re here about death. Not life.
Beau Felton (Daniel Baldwin): Adena gets home from school at 3pm on Tuesday. She’s out of the house by 3:30. Adena tells her mom she’s heading to the library, which is four blocks away. So why does she need 45 minutes to get there?
Crosetti: I’ll tell you why. Because she stops next door. She stops to get her girlfriend to go with her to the library, but her mother nixes the idea. So she stays at the girlfriend’s house for like a half hour and then Adena goes to the library. That brings her there right on schedule.
Howard: Walks into the library, grabs a couple of books, checks ’em out. Walks into the daytime [?]
Pembleton: And disappears.
Munch: She was murdered and moved. That’s a gimme.
Bolander: Whoever grabbed her, was probably from the neighborhood. He got her off the street in midday. That means he knew her.
Gee: Can you or can you not handle the Adena Watson case?
Bayliss: I can handle the case, Gee.
Gee: Then show me some cajones!
Bayliss: What are you talking about?
Gee: Perception, Bayliss. Perception. You act like a wuss they’ll take you for a wuss. Every time you make a step I want to see lightning come out of your butt.
Bayliss: Look, I can do the job alright. I’m just sick and tired of everyone’s attitude here. An eleven-year-old girl is butchered, I’m expected to find the murderer and I don’t even have a desk!
Gee: A desk!? Is that all you can think about? {he walks over and sweeps everything off a nearby desk onto the floor}. There’s your desk. Now I want to see lightning.
Barnfather: Start by replacing that rookie.
Gee: That rookie, sir, is going to surprise us all.
Barnfather: And those sneakers, Lieutenant, are not part of the dress code.
Bolander: Detective Lewis says you tend to have crabs. {she looks at him} I mean at the restaurant. He said that was your favorite.
Dr. Carol Blythe: They remind me of Sydney.
Bolander: Your ex-husband?
Dr. Blythe: My hometown.
Munch: Crabs?
Bolander: Why doesn’t a woman like that ever come on to me?
Munch: She just did.
Beau Felton: Bayliss. Out of our seven perverts, four are in jail, two have alibis and one… {turns to Howard} is actually the perfect guy for you.
Pembleton about the Araber: I already checked him out. He’s nothing.
Bayliss: Well now Mrs. Watson told me that she had Adena stop working for this guy after school because this guy was getting a little too friendly with her daughter.
Pembleton: Would you believe me on this one, Bayliss. He’s harmless.
Bayliss: He’s got a record that goes back ten years. Assault, disorderly.
Bayliss: There’s no such thing as a stupid question. At least for right now we’re gonna pretend there isn’t.
Son of a Gun
A Shot in the Dark
Three Men and Adena
Crosetti: You got toilet paper over there?
Lewis: No.
Crosetti: You got… five ones for a five?
A Dog and Pony Show
And the Rockets Dead Glare
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes
Munch yelling out into squadroom: We’re gonna neutron this little bastard!
Cop: No wonder you guys can’t solve a murder.
Munch: Well I wouldn’t solve yours.
Night of the Dead Living
Felton: We’ve been on night shift for what, a week? Every night someone lights this candle by the board.
Gee: You’re a detective. You solve it.
Felton: A homicide detective. If the candle killed someone, I’d close the case.
Howard: Still wearing the same shirt?
Bolander: I’m divorced.
Munch to Bolander: Your partner Mitch? Makes love to goats.
Bolander: Dr. Blythe and my ex are as different as Saturn and Pluto.
Munch: Your head is in Uranus.
Gee: The city fathers can go to hell but they’re not taking us with them.
Bolander: When I was young, codependent relationship was a good marriage.