A Japanese businessman staggers down hotel stairs and falls dead in the lobby. That puts Jerry Orbach and Chris Noth investigating the case and it turns out the Japanese businessman ran a nightclub in Tokyo where American singers are an attraction.
The suspect they turn up is Laura Linney who is a singer, but singing in Tokyo was only part of her job. She was expected to be nice to the customers and especially nice to her employer. When she got a pelvic infection and could no longer be nice, she went back after this employer gave her passport back.
To say she's sympathetic defendant is putting it mildly. But Sam Waterston's chance for conviction really goes south when his own psychiatrist Carolyn McCormick agrees that despite a time lapse Linney is truly a battered woman. Not to mention the anti-Japanese feeling that was raging and almost fashionable in the USA during the time this episode first aired.
I'm not in complete sympathy with Linney, she did have options both here and in Tokyo. Still she's an appealing perpetrator.