Plot
Dempsey Cain is a top detective in San Sebastian, California. His brother, Nick, is also a cop but is generally viewed as a screw-up despite Dempsey's attempts to help him. Nick is having an affair with Dempsey's wife, Gail. Alan Rhinehart is another detective who thinks Dempsey is dirty and resents him for being the star on the force.
In part due to Nick's carelessness, Dempsey is shot during a night raid on a tenement building and his doctor says he is paralyzed from the waist down. Dempsey still covers for Nick's mistake. He is medically retired from the force.
Dempsey and Gail send their son, Damon, away to camp for the summer. Gail tells Nick that she dislikes being the wife of a disabled man. One night, Dempsey's neighbor, Iris, looks through her kitchen window and sees him pointing a gun at his head but she bangs on the door and seemingly stops him from committing suicide. Iris tells Gail about the attempt.
Dempsey informs Gail and Nick that he does not want to spend his life in a wheelchair and asks them to help him die. The pair agree to kill Dempsey and make it look like a botched home robbery. On the night it is set to happen, they sneak out of a movie theater after causing a commotion in order to create their alibi, go to the house, and start staging the scene. They take two pistols with silencers out of a dresser drawer. Nick puts his gun to Dempsey's head but cannot bring himself to shoot his brother. Gail aims her gun at her husband, pulls the trigger, and the gun clicks. Dempsey shoots Gail dead and informs Nick that he knew about the affair before rising from his wheelchair and fatally shooting him.
The police conclude that Dempsey killed Gail and Nick in self-defense. Alan, however, becomes suspicious that Dempsey murdered them and begins to investigate, over the objections of his captain and other officers. He finds some inconsistencies in Dempsey's account and locates a man who forged a driver's license for Nick which he used to rent the car with which he drove himself and Gail to the house on the night of the murders.
Alan leaks his investigation to the press but denies doing so after a story about it appears in the newspaper. His captain reluctantly agrees to have Dempsey charged as the police cannot be seen as covering up a possible crime committed by one of their own. During a pre-trial hearing, Dempsey's lawyer undermines much of the state's case. The judge rules that there is not sufficient evidence to proceed to trial and dismisses the matter.
Alan approaches Dempsey in the courtroom and tells him that he knows that he is a murderer and knows that he can walk. Alan then stabs Dempsey in the right thigh, expecting to elicit a physical reaction to prove that he actually can use his legs. Dempsey does not even wince and acts as if he did not feel the stabbing. Alan is arrested and loses his job. Dempsey begins dating Iris and starts a new life with her and Damon, while still pretending to be a paraplegic.
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