Night Heat

Tom Kirkwood, a journalist for the Eagle, writes a column recording the activities of Kevin O'Brien and Frank Giambone, two night-shift detectives who, along with their team under the direction of Lt. Jim Hogan.

While chasing some perps, Frank shoots one of them claiming he was holding a gun. But a search of the area turns up a flashlight. Frank tries to deal with his guilt if he was wrong.

A woman on the way home is attacked and raped in her own house. Kevin and Frank quickly nab a suspect and are convinced that he is also responsible for six other rapes. Now they must prove his guilt. In a side story, two unrelated murders.

Kevin and Frank investigate a serial killer. A woman is approached in a park and runs to the police fearing she was the next victim. The suspect is questioned but released when they find no reason to hold him. After leaving the police station, the woman is found murdered. The only witness is Whitey who may have taken a photo of the attacker. Kevin discusses the case with Tom and discovers some odd similarities with past attacks in other cities. Kevin contacts a national database operator regarding similar crimes and is startled by the results.

A woman is shot with a stolen automatic weapon. O'Brien knows the dealer but can he can get witness cooperation?

Kirkwood shoots a paperboy and a nun--in a simulation. Giambone and Brody arrest a robber...turns out the stickup man is also wanted for murder. A surprise party for Hogan is ruined by a desperate situation at the police station.

An IRA figurehead under police protection is targeted before he can testify at trial. Fingers point in all directions, Internal Affairs is involved, can Obie get to the bottom of it?

A cocaine-addicted singer dies suddenly in her dressing room. It looked like an O.D., but the white powder she snorted was 50% cyanide. At a show biz party, Giambone meets an old high school flame who is now an actress, and also a cokehead

O'Brien and Giambone investigate a murder staged as a suicide and a murder staged as a holdup; linking the two victims to their faked prison records results in the police cooperating with (or rather, colliding with) the CIA.

Acting on a tip, the team at Mid-South breaks up a drug deal on the metro. They arrest one of the dealers, but the other escapes by shooting Kevin and stealing his gun in the process. Despite Nikki's objections and doctor's orders, Kevin solicits the assistance of Jefferson to join the manhunt.

The detectives investigate a building owner, a retired fire fighter, who is accused of an aborted arson attempt in which his son is murdered. When it is determined that the man had no insurance and nothing to gain, the investigation shifts to a series of land deals in the area of the attempted arson. Meanwhile, in a continuation from the previous episode, a distracted and edgy Kevin deals with his split from Nikki.

While covering a violent confrontation at a dock strike, Tom witnesses the murder of a shipping-plant guard. The guard was not part of the confrontation and appeared to be targeted. When Frank and Stephanie go to the guard's house to inform his family of his death, they discover an empty lot and that the guard was using an alias. As the police investigate further, a clever plot unfolds involving toxic waste dumping.

Bobby Taylor, a "Cub" reporter comes to Tommy for help on an expose story he's written on corruption in the construction industry. Tommy feels that what he has is a good start, but Bobby needs to come up with more evidence than just one source and he needs to identify that person. Bobby upset with Tommy's constructive criticism, storms out of The Eagle and while crossing the street, he's killed when a car hits him. While visiting Bobby's widow to break the bad news, Kevin is going through the stolen vehicle reports to see if the car that hit Bobby will turn up. Tommy and Susan go to the funeral and when they return to her apartment, the place is ransacked. Tommy feels that the break in is not random, since Bobby's files on the story is missing. He lets Kevin and Frank in on Bobby's expose on Art Bruckner and his fraud and kickback schemes he's committed. When Kevin asks Tommy about the source's name, he says Bobby never gave him a name. Tommy receives a phone call from Michelle Parker, Bruckner's bookkeeper and Bobby's source. She wants to meet with Tommy at a diner. She gives him all the information she knows about Bruckner and insists that Tommy needs to keep her name out of it. Tommy goes to O'Brien and Giambone on what he's given. They meet in Elaine's office with Lieutenant Hogan. When they ask for the source's name, he refuses to give it to them citing journalist's rights. When Michelle Parker winds up dead, O'Brien takes Tommy to the crime scene and yells at him saying his journalist's rights did nothing to protect her. Tommy then storms out, so he has Colby and Stevie follow him. Tommy ends up at Nickie's. She pours him a glass of milk, but when he asks her for a Scotch on the rocks, she refuses to serve him, because of his drinking problem. Tommy goes back to the Eagle and opens the bottle of Scotch he has on his shelf to remind him not to take a drink. Later a very drunk Tommy runs into Colby and Stevie. They offer to take him home, he refuses, gets into a cab and says he's headed to Susan Taylor's apartment. When he arrives he gets into a scuffle with a police officer, who has guard duty and is arrested. Meanwhile, Frank and Kevin try to break into Bruckner's office trailer and are attacked by a couple of guard dogs. After being verbally reprimanded by Lieutenant Hogan, Tommy and Kevin go to Kevin's apartment, where Tommy will be staying there with someone until he "cleans" himself up. Nickie will be the first one there. Colby gets the next watch. When Tommy says he needs to go to the bathroom, he slips out of the apartment and decides to confront Bruckner.

When two children go missing in a neighborhood, frayed nerves lead to a mob of men with bats confronting a man eyeing a girl on a swing set. When he falls during the chase, he lands near the dead body of one of the children. The capture of the man and his presumed guilt creates a media frenzy, but he insists that while he has an obsession with young girls, he never could and never has harmed one. As Kevin and Frank pursue the investigation, facts come to light that suggest the two disappearances may not be connected.

Colby believes that his brother, Devo, may hold the key to a gem theft/murder case.

When the leading opposition candidate to head the nation's most powerful union is gunned down, the corrupt current president becomes the prime suspect.