Blue Bloods

Okay, this is it.

The name of our live podcast is Justice Denied.

Our guest is Jeffrey Durning, distinguished heart surgeon, philanthropist,

and defendant in one of the most sensational murder trials of the decade.

Jeffrey, thanks for joining us.

Thank you for having me on, Kathy.

Oh, please, give me a break.

You know they can't hear you, right?

I must admit, I feel a little strange talking to you.

The last time we saw each other was a year ago in the courtroom

when I was prosecuting you for killing your wife Beth.

I'm glad you had the courage to re-examine

the evidence and come to a more honest conclusion,

which is more than I can say for some of your former colleagues.

Yeah, well, if he's so honest,

how come you're hiding from us,

and telling your story on the air instead of in a courtroom?

The first trial ended in a hung jury,

so tell me, why do you think

the Manhattan D.A.'s office is coming after you again?

Maybe because you killed your wife and you

dumped her body from a plane over the Atlantic?

Obviously, the office has had a series of high-profile disasters.

They're looking for a rich, white man's scalp to make up for them.

Of course, now we have my old friend Erin Reagan saying she has new evidence,

but like your wife's body, no one has seen it.

Police! Come on, out of the way.

Move! Get out of the way.

Oh, it looks like we have some surprise guests joining us.

We're gonna take a break.

Where is he?

Obviously not on the premises.

Oh, my God, I hate these things!

Aren't they supposed to shut off after three minutes?

It's an older model; I guess the guy didn't get the message

he needed to get it fixed.

Or that he needs to move the car for street cleaning.

How long has it been here?

A couple days at least, right?

Excuse me, ma'am!

You know whose car this is?

Hey, handsome.

What's it worth to you?

Well...

My tenant, Harry Clark.

I keep telling him he needs a new car.

I know he can afford it.

Would you have him come down?

I would, if I'd seen him lately.

Ma'am, do you notice that smell inside your apartment?

No.

But my nose stopped working years ago.

Too much fun in the '70s.

You know what I'm saying.

Come we come take a look?

Sure. Come on in.

Ugh.

Ma'am, can you please wait outside?

Eddie, he's in here.

Oh, he's ripe.

It's been a few days, huh?

Oh.

- Poor Harry. - Ma'am,

- I asked you to wait outside. - Aw.

- Is this Harry Clark, ma'am? - Yeah.

Although, come to think of it,

I'm not sure that's his real name.

- What do you mean? - I never saw

a bank check with his name on it.

Always paid the rent in cash.

And some of his mail came with different names on it.

Do you have a next of kin we can contact?

No. No one ever visited him.

Uh, Eddie, see if you can find some Vicks.

The smell's starting to get to me.

- I may have some. - Thank you, ma'am.

- We're all set, thank you. - Oh.

Well, if you need me for anything, just call me.

And, you, just call me.

Okay.

Good to see you, Nick. You're looking well.

Thank you. You, too.

- Thanks for this. - Yeah.

How's the family?

Good.

- Yours? - Grown up and out.

Your son, kind of a hothead, whatever happened to him?

- Detective, first grade. - Oh.

And the other one, going to Harvard?

On the job as well, and my daughter Erin works for the D.A.'s office.

It's nice having a family business, huh?

It is.

You know, Frank, when I heard that you got your father's job,

I was happy to hear that.

They gave it to the right man.

Thank you.

Tyrell Dawes, come on in.

Sit down.

You know why you're here?

My parole officer said I should come by here,

but I didn't have to by law.

This is your Offender Notification Forum.

We hold them for people who just got out of prison

with a high risk of going back.

Come on, man, what do you got, a crystal ball?

You're a gang member who just did three and a half

for committing a robbery with a handgun in New York City.

Come on, man. What do you got, an

extra eight-by-ten for my moms?

Turn it over.

What's "15" mean?

That's number of years you'll do if you commit another crime with a gun.

And that's a hard number; there won't be any pleading it down.

It's up to you, Tyrell.

None of y'all know me.

None of y'al know where I've been or where I'm going.

Yeah, we do.

You want to tell him or should I?

May I?

I am here for the same reason that you are,

because the commissioner asked me to be here,

and because I just finished a 20-year bid of my own in the state prison.

I could still be in that prison.

I killed someone who threatened my family.

Commissioner Reagan, who at that time was Detective Reagan,

could've buried me.

But he didn't.

He gave me a fair shake.

So I listened to him.

Man, is this real?

Every word.

Look at this.

They're all $100 bills. There's gotta be ten of thousand of dollars in here.

Eddie, I wouldn't be touching that.

"Dear Sandi, I am so sorry about everything.

Maybe the rest of this money will help."

What's he got to be sorry for?

Yeah, and who was he?

What do we got?

Four wounded. One serious and likely to die.

Shootout inside the diner.

One of the rounds went through the front window.

The likely is an Alex Kalamogdartis.

- Kala-what? - I don't know, it's Greek.

Okay, what about the other three vics?

Two of them were other customers, and the third was

a 12-year-old boy walking by outside with his family.

Don't ask me to pronounce his name.

Okay, so we got a gang war at a greasy spoon. Any witnesses?

Well, no one's talking about why it jumped off tonight.

We do know this Alex may have had a dispute with the management.

Any actual witnesses to the shooting?

Not so much.

- Everyone's saying how it - Hey, boss.

was too dark to see anything.

Too dark in a brightly lit diner?

Well, they've been renting it out as pop-up nightclub sometimes.

The current owner is over there, Stavros Constantine.

Hey, Stavros.

Hey! Want to tell us what this is about?

I mean, I have no idea.

We've never had any trouble on club nights before.

Oh, well, can't imagine people shooting your place up

before you're doing is serving moussaka.

Listen, I'm as confused as you are, okay?

One minute, I'm in the back making sure we got enough champagne for bottle

service, and the next, bang, bang, bang, it's all hell is breaking loose.

So you're trying to tell us you don't know anything about this

- Alex Kala-what? - ...mogdartis.

Kalamogdartis. Yeah, yeah, of course.

Of course I know Alex Kalamogdartis.

It's like the Trojan War with our families.

What's that mean?

He's been trying to take over our diner.

- Mm-hmm. - But he's been doing that

to a lot of local businesses; he's a thug.

And you have no idea who shot him.

I'm afraid I-I can't help you.

Can't or won't?

Okay, well, we're gonna assume that you don't have a cabaret license

for this little nightclub of yours, so here's what we're gonna do.

You're gonna get your hands out of your pocket,

and then you're gonna take a ride with us.

See if that jogs your memory. Come on.

So what?

Now that the supervisors have been and gone,

we just have to sit here,

safeguard the place until the public administrator

comes and starts to try to make inventory of all this?

Real-life police work, Eddie.

It's not all paperwork and donuts.

You know, we turned over a lot of money yesterday,

and there's still no next of kin.

Some of this junk lying around might be worth something.

Bosses just want us to keep an eye on it till things get settled.

Yeah, well, hey, can we open a window, please?

The guy's gone, but that stink is

very much still here.

You know,

Harry must have been hiding from something.