Pietro Grimaldi, an elderly retired insurance salesman, is found dead and stabbed in a taxi cab after he arrives at his final destination. The driver only noticed that Grimaldi was helped into the cab when he was picked up near a bank. When the medical examiner investigates, she finds that before Grimaldi was stabbed, he was also shot.
The detectives learn more about Grimaldi, and find out that he sold life insurance to European Jews during World War II. After the war, he refused to honor the policies of holocaust victims, claiming that there was no documentation for the claims. He then emigrated from Italy to the United States, where he worked for the American parent company (All-Atlantic Insurance) of his Italian firm.
Grimaldi had kept a handwritten log of all the policies he sold, in a safe deposit box at the bank, and took it with him when he was subpoenaed to testify about the scheme. Years before, he had shown his son Jordan the book, telling him that it was worth a large amount of money.
The prosecutors determine two different crimes occurred: when Grimaldi left the bank, he was shot by Jordan, to stop him from selling the book. Afterwards Grimaldi was stabbed by a man hired indirectly by All-Atlantic to steal the book.
The prosecutors charge the stabber and his accomplice with manslaughter, Jordan with murder, and Hamilton Stewart - the chief executive of All-Atlantic - with over one thousand counts of grand larceny, one count for each of the accounts purported to be in the book. The policies would, in total, be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
At first, the prosecutors have a difficult time making a case, but Alan Bresler - one of Stewart's assistants - fills in details of the case after feeling remorse during earlier testimony, as he witnessed Jordan destroy himself on the stand over what his father did; Bresler has children of his own and he doesn't want the same thing to happen to them. When McCoy suggests that Bresler consult an attorney, the man refuses, saying he is an attorney and knows what he's doing. Bresler tells the prosecutors that Stewart has the book and was the one who created the plan to steal it. In return for the book, Stewart agrees to plead guilty with a prison sentence of four to twelve years and a written waiver of extradition to Italy.
This episode provides:
- Asshole Victim: The victim sold life insurance policies during World War II and refused to pay out when the families of people killed in The Holocaust came to collect.
- Title Drop: The victim's son denies he was interested in the money by calling it blood money.
