Homicide Life on the Street

Other Characters

1993.01.31    

Ami Babson  Bruce Campbell  Chris Rock  Daniel Baldwin  Dean Winters  Isabella Hofmann  J. K. Simmons  Jerry Orbach  Jill Hennessy  Jim True  Jon Polito  Kristin Rohde  Lee Tergesen  Ned Beatty  Sean Whitesell  Terry Kinney  Zeljko Ivanek

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Season One

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.

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.

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 Homicide. And who’s this? It’s Jerry.

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.

Beau Felton: This must be a mistake. Am I actually going on a 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.

Bolander: What’s a lady like you doing in a place like this?
Dr. Carol Blythe: Looking for Mr. Right.

Crosetti: It’s homicide. One thing this country’s still good at.

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

Crosetti: You got toilet paper over there?
Lewis: No.
Crosetti: You got… five ones for a five?

Cop: No wonder you guys can’t solve a murder.
Munch: Well I wouldn’t solve yours.

Felton: We’ve been on night shift for a week. Every night someone lights this candle by the board.
Gee: You’re a detective. You solve it.
Felton: A homicide detective. Someone kills the candle, I’ll close the case.

Bolander: When I was young, codependent relationship was a good marriage.

Season Two

Bolander: I am allergic to idiocies and foolishness.

Pembleton reading note in dead woman’s hand: Oh! Ed did it.
Police Woman: He did, did he?
Frank Pembleton (Andre Braugher): That’s what the note said. “Ed did it.”

Season Three

Emma Zoole: I would love to bronze your head.
Bayliss: I beg your pardon?

Season Four

Megan Russert (Isabella Hofmann): So, Mary’s pregnant?
Bayliss: Oh no. I didn’t say that.
Russert: Frank is your partner and I’m a detective and you’re a bad liar.

Munch: You’re either divorced or you hate who you’re married to.
Det. Lennie Briscoe (Jerry Orbach): Ah, divorced. You too?
Munch: Me three.

Pembleton: Sounds to me like someone’s trying to bully African Americans into a fight.
Col. Alexander Rausch (J.K. Simmons): There’s a thought.
Pembleton: Hm. Be an interesting fight.

Col. Rausch: You have a cancer, you cut it out. And make no mistake, these people are tumors. They will drag us down with them. And they will kill us. They have no sense of right and wrong. Of good and evil. And I do. You sleep safer at night because of me. And you don’t even know it. […]
Pembleton: This is what’s gonna happen. From this moment on, you belong to me. I’m gonna put you on display. You and I will be on prime time and the front page for months and months and months. And you’re gonna tell everyone exactly what it is you stand for, so that others can see how much they like you. Even if they don’t know it. Yet. And I’m not gonna stop until your execution. You will not make me a martyr, because I’m a Black American. You will be my martyr. For the truth.
Col. Rausch: I guess I do need a lawyer.
Pembleton: Oh yeah.

Claire Kincaid (Jill Hennessy): This is a court order allowing me to take Rausch back to New York.
Pembleton: Where’s the punchline on this?

Col. Rausch: You have no appreciation for what I’ve done? Not even on an intellectual level?
Pembleton to the officers: Clear the hallways. Check IDs.
Col. Rausch: Keeping liberty from becoming a euphemism at liberal cocktail parties takes sacrifice.
Pembleton: I’d also like to request a 4-hour suicide watch.
Col. Rausch: Because let me tell you something, my serious friend, the power of the vote is a romantic anachronism.
Pembleton: No sir. You are.

Kincaid: The doctors check Rausch?
Pembleton: Yeah, he’s fine. And in his cell where he will be staying.
Kincaid: If you win.
Pembleton: No, I’m sure of it. I bribed the judge. I told her Bayliss would have sex with her for a favorable ruling.
Kincaid: You two-timing pig.
Bayliss: Well, she was naked underneath those black robes.

John Munch (Richard Belzer): Finding a dead body in a cemetery is kind of redundant, don’t you think?
Megan Russert (Isabella Hofmann): I don’t like cemeteries.
Munch: Any particular reason?
Russert: I don’t wanna talk about it.

Jake Rodzinski (Bruce Campbell): Wait a second, you guys are homicide. Are you saying he was murdered?
Russert: I’m afraid so.

Rodzinski: Now Russert, she was double-demoted from Captain and what I hear about Munch he’s some kind of ex-hippie or something.
Meldrick Lewis (Clark Johnson): They’re good cops.
Rodzinski: That’s not what I’m saying.
Lewis: Then what are you saying?
Rodzinski: I want to find out who murdered my father and I don’t want this investigation to get hung up, you know? It’s gotta be done right.
Lewis: It’ll be done right.
Rodzinski: Will you make sure of that?
Lewis: Yeah, I’ll make sure of that.

Pembleton: You wanna know where Rodzinski’s gonna go? Into the ground like everyone else.
Russert: Thus speaks the Catholic.

Munch: I gotta ride around with you all day, you’re gonna make me feel guilty.
Russert: You’re going out of guilt?
Munch: Yes. Guilt is almost as good a motivator as fear.

Paula Schwanke: I’m really sorry to hear about Ed. That means they’re all dead.
Russert: I’m sorry?
Paula Schwanke: Every man I ever slept with. They’re all dead.

Rodzinski: Sleep with one eye open.

Kellerman: It was a Wisconsin wedding at its finest. I’m still waiting for my plumbing to defrost so I can take a decent leak again.

ME Diane: You ordered a crime scene, gentlemen.
Lewis: Crime scene. More like a dump job to me. No pun intended.

Kellerman speculating on the murder weapon: Who uses Derringers?
Coroner: River boat gamblers.

Carol Rodzinski: He did it, didn’t he. He killed that guy.
Lewis: I don’t know. {they leave}
Carol Rodzinski: Sure you do.

Russert: Why is it that people bare their souls to total strangers?

Lewis: Did Bayliss ever mention to you that he was thinking about maybe leaving homicide?
Russert: No.
Lewis: Nah. Hm. Me neither. I guess he only confides in Kay.
Russert: So that’s what’s going on.

George Buxton (Jim True): What happened to the black guy and the woman with wild hair?

Pembleton: Mrs. Prager, you’ve lived in this neighborhood a long time. Can you think of anybody that would do something like this?
Mrs. Prager: Yes I can. Too many.

Carver Dooley (Chris Rock): Why are you yelling at me!
Pembleton: What’s the matter, Carver, don’t you like to be yelled at?

Kellerman: You know, you remind me of someone.
Ramona Rostenkowski: I always remind men of someone.

Lonny Askew: Why do you think I stay here in this little room, Detective? It reminds me of my cell. The judge gave me ten years punishment. It wasn’t enough. I killed my best friend.

Lewis: I guess you didn’t happen to find a stray boot around here, did you?
Jennifer Wells: One thing I do remember about the man is that he liked to go around wearing just one boot. The man used to say, “Not every shoe has a mate.” He was weird. Even back then.

Bayliss: What makes you think he was murdered?
Richard Laumer (Terry Kinney): I told him I would kill him.

Laumer: I believe that Edward Clifford was my biological father. And now that he’s dead I need to know the truth.

Laumer: So if it’s determined that Edward Clifford was murdered I’m your only suspect.
Pembleton: Yep.
Laumer: Do you have to take me in now?
Pembleton: We should but frankly I feel nauseated by this friend of yours from the agency.
Laumer: This woman I’m telling you is no friend. I’ve never heard of her.

Bayliss: The Cold War is over. The world has changed.
Laumer: Oh yeah? Is that right? What, did a little birdie come up and tell you that? The War ain’t over. It’s only half-time.

Brodie: I have no idea what you’re talking about. Because what you’re not talking about is a VCR which doesn’t exist. So you’re not here and having this conversation with me, right? We’re not having a conversation about a VCR, right?
Munch: You wanna hear something frightening, Brodie? You and I, we’re starting to understand each other.

Sgt. Sally Rogers (Kristin Rohde): Meet the late Mr. Douglas Wrobel. And the equally late Mrs. Mary Rose Tabori.
Both dead from gunshot wounds to the chest.
Pembleton: Anybody else?
Rogers: The manager, in the back.
Pembleton: He got shot in the back?
Rogers: No, he’s sitting in the back.
Pembleton: Is it me or is everyone talking in code today?
Bayliss: No no. It’s you.

Russert: What’s to prevent them from pointing the cameras away from the streets and into your bedroom window?
Brodie: You mean some city employee’s gonna know what I’m doing at night.
Gee: [?] Big Brother is watching.
Brodie: That does it. I gotta get some curtains.

EMS: He’s having a CVA.
Bayliss: What the hell is a CVA?!
EMS: Stroke.

Bayliss: Frank! Frank?
EMS #2: He can’t hear you now, he’s in a coma.

Russert: Do you know where Elwah is now?
Ian McKenzie: Sure. Do you want me to write down the address where he’s hiding?
Munch: That would be nice.

Mary Pembleton (Ami Babson): Don’t hedge, Doctor. I need to know the truth. Will Frank recover.
Dr. Eli Devilbiss (Sean Whitesell): The truth is, I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.

Season Five

Ravens. Who names a football team after an Edgar Allan Poe story?

Cox: Don’t you even wonder why?
Munch: Why what?
Cox: Why he lied.
Munch: I’m a Homicide Detective. The only time I wonder why is when they tell me the truth.

Howard: What you got there, Brodie?
Brodie: It’s my documentary on the homicide unit. All you guys.
Lewis: You made a documentary about us?
Brodie: Yeah. I spent all year doing it.

Back Page News: LIfe and Homicide on the Mean Streets of Baltimore
Pembleton: Wait wait wait. That doesn’t make a whole hell of a lot of sense. What does life and homicide have to do with each other?
Brodie: I wanted to juxtapose life and death. You know, the yin and the yang. Homicide is so negative.
Pembleton: Yes it is. It doesn’t get much more negative than homicide.

Munch: Mean Streets? What, are you ripping off Scorsese?
Brodie: I wasn’t ripping him off. I respect the man, but he doesn’t hold a candle to the great documentary filmmakers like Robert Frank or Kenny Baker, Maysles Brothers, Ken Burns.
Munch: Oh yeah. Ken Burns. He’s the only guy ever to manage to make something more boring than a baseball game. A documentary about baseball.

Howard: Pretty tough room, Brodie. Are you sure you want to do this?
Brodie: An artist has to be fearless, Kay. There’s fearless and then there’s crazy.

Pembleton: Shame on you, Brodie. You are a sick and twisted soul.
Brodie: Not as twisted as Mr. Jackson.

Pembleton: Okay, we got multiple chest wounds, an open door… and a weapon halfway across the living room.
Cox: It’s going to be hell writing this one up as a suicide, I’ll tell you that much.

Season Six

Gaffney: If I was running his shift, I’d be offering you a transfer.
Lewis: Respectfully speaking sir, if you were running his shift, I’d be taking it.

Bayliss: So the lawyers are talking, right?
Munch: Yeah.
Bayliss: I got it.
Stivers: C’mon Munch. A gunfight, a couple car chases you’ve got a movie deal. But Ed Danvers and his pals waving their briefcases at each other.
Lewis: Yeah. And who’s gonna line up to pay theater prices for that? That ain’t a movie. That’s Court TV.

Season Seven