Nicole Wallace is a fictional character on the TV drama Law & Order: Criminal Intent, portrayed by Olivia d'Abo. She is the archnemesis of one of the show's main characters, Det. Robert Goren.
A sociopathic con artist and thief, Wallace has eighteen known murders to her name by the fifth season. She is an expert manipulator with a gift for rooting out every painful detail from a person's life and using it to control and/or destroy them.
Wallace's keen eye for detecting and exploiting weakness is borne of her own dysfunctional childhood. She was molested and raped by her father, and responded to the trauma by resenting her mother as a rival for his affection. The abuse molded her into a sociopath, unable to see other people as anything more than tools to be used for her own ends. Most people who fall into her machinations are discarded the moment they become a liability. The childhood abuse she suffered also bred in her an indifference to sex; She uses her lovers, both male and female, as pawns in her crimes, and either lets them take the fall or kills them herself once they outlive their usefulness.
Wallace was imprisoned in Thailand with her then-boyfriend, a Charles Manson-like criminal svengali named Bernard Fremont, for helping him rob and murder eight men. She and Fremont were caught when Hilary Marsden, another of his lovers who was insanely jealous of Wallace, planted two of their victims' passports on the pair. While in prison, she learned to speak "low class" Thai. Upon returning to her native Australia, she supported herself as a prostitute. She gave birth to a daughter, whom she may have drowned at age three, when she feared that the daughter was becoming a sexual rival. Wallace has internalized her father's excuse that she had been too attractive to resist, and so it seemed natural that her child's father would abuse the girl. The daughter's remains were eventually discovered.
In 2002, she came to the United States and got a job as a literature professor at Hudson University under the alias Elizabeth Hitchens. (Wallace killed the real Hitchens and assumed her identity as an Oxford University academic.)
"Anti-Thesis" (Season 2; Episode 3)
Wallace first crosses paths with Goren during the investigation of the murders of the president of Hudson University and his secretary. The president was about to appoint a new Dean of American Studies. Wallace had assumed the identity of a deceased woman named Elizabeth Hitchens, and had used it to get a position as a visiting Oxford literature professor within the American Studies Department.
Wallace manipulated a male graduate student, with whom she was having sex and whose time was running out to complete his Ph.D. thesis, into committing the murders. The student wanted to further the canidate for Dean who was most likely to grant him another extention on his thesis deadline. Wallace wanted to further the appointment of a different candidate — a female lover who would give her permanent employment, thus U.S. citizenship.
Wallace proved to be a formidable adversary for Goren. Goren's attempt to connect Wallace to the murders was thwarted by the death of the graduate student. She poisoned him by exploiting his severe allergic reaction to peanut oil. Goren was questioning the student when he died and just before he implicated Wallace in the murders.
Goren learned that Hitchens was really Wallace. (Wallace had murdered Hitchens before stealing her identity.) Goren arranged to have Wallace's female lover fire her. Wallace was then arrested for having an invalid work visa. However, during the interrogation, Wallace threw Goren off by confronting him with personal information. She had obtained his birthdate and social security number. Wallace then discovered his mother's schizophrenia and his father's abandonment of the family. During the battle of wits, Goren deduced that Wallace had been sexually abused, which she emphatically denied.
She was released when a lawyer secured a writ of Habeas Corpus. Seeking a pretext to detain Wallace, Goren secured an arrest warrant for an embezzlement committed by the real Elizabeth Hitchens several years earlier. When they arrived to arrest Wallace, she had emptied her apartment and vanished.
"A Person of Interest" (Season 2; Episode 22)
Wallace resurfaces, as Elizabeth Haynes (nee Hitchens), having gained citizenship by marrying Gavin Haynes, a wealthy businessman. In an attempt to destroy Goren's professional reputation, she "blindsides" Goren into hounding the wrong murder suspect.
Wallace murders a former Air Force nurse and frames Dr. Dan Croydon for the murder. Croydon, who had abandoned his sick wife and their son, was the perfect suspect to manipulate Goren's resentment of his father. After being pursued by Goren, Croydon is found hung — an apparent suicide. (Hints indicate he may also have been murdered, but it is not provable.) Goren's anger at his own father caused him to fall for the feint.
Goren apprehends Wallace by proving Nicole Wallace, and not Elizabeth, had received an anthrax booster. However, when exposed to anthrax spores, Wallace/Hitchens says she has been immunized and is not concerned for her health. Wallace pleads not guilty at her trial. Because of Haynes' money, and the legal counsel it could provide, Wallace was likely to be found innocent.
During "Pas de Deux" (3:12), in which Wallace did not appear, it is implied that Wallace was indeed found innocent.
"Great Barrier" (Season 4; Episode 4)
Wallace returns to plague Goren a year later as the brains behind a diamond theft ring. Wallace uses a new lover, a young Asian woman named Ella, to take the fall. Ella also made an attempt to kill Haynes, Wallace's now ex-husband. The attempt failed. Wallace asks Goren for a truce while belittled Eames for being a surrogate mother for her sister's baby. She taunts Eames for giving up the child.
Goren is deeply shaken by her reappearance, but does his own research this time. He discovers the existence of Wallace's murdered child. Goren confronted Wallace with her past during an interrogation session, and her cool, detached demeanor is finally shaken. Wallace vehemently denies the charges. Infuriated, she becomes bent on ridding herself of Goren once and for all, to prevent him from interfering with her new family and life.
Goren and Eames can not find evidence to connect Wallace directly to the diamond thefts, so Goren attempts to get to her through Ella. Goren warns Ella of Wallace's compulsion to use and destroy anyone close to her. Ella arranges to meet Wallace while wearing a wire. However, before police could intervene, Wallace finds the wire, crushes Ella's trachea, and apparently jumps out of a window into the river below. Because a quart of Wallace's blood was left behind, the medical examiner says Wallace couldn't have survived in the water. Goren, knowning Nicole's resourcefulness, has his doubts.
(In an alternate ending, Wallace is shot dead — onscreen — by Goren. East Coast viewers got the scene where Wallace lived, and West Coast viewers saw the one where she died. Both endings were made available on NBC's website. Viewers were given the chance to vote on which ending they preferred. The one where Wallace lives was chosen; thus, it is the only "official" ending.)
"Grow" (Season 5; Episode 1)
Wallace appears on Goren's radar yet again when the brother of a man she is dating is murdered. Goren discovers that the young daughter of Wallace's fiancé will inherit millions from a trust created by a lawsuit regarding an improper drug testing which left the daughter highly susceptible to cancer.
Goren theorizes that Wallace is planning to kill the girl by exposing her to doses of estrogen which will induce incurrable cancer. As a medical examiner, her fiancé would have the ability to hide the murder. Goren confronted Wallace, but she angrily insists that she is merely trying to get her life back together, with the family she always wanted.
Upon further investigation, Goren realizs that Wallace's fiancé was the one trying to kill the child to gain access to the trust fund. Wallace is actually attempting to protect the daughter. Realizing his mistake, Goren approachs Wallace and admits that he now knows the truth: that she is trying to atone for murdering her daughter. Goren tries one last time to reach his foe, reasoning with her that she can never completely control her homicidal compulsions, making her a serious danger to anyone who trusted her. Further, Goren reveals to Wallace that the boyfriend was aware of her past, something she had kept hidden from him and the daughter. Wallace then knows the fiancé was trying to set her up for his murder of his daughter.
Wallace incriminats her fiancé in the murder of his wife, the attempted murder of his daughter, and tacitly admits to murdering the man's brother. Further, she admitts responsiblity for her daughter's accidental death. She refuses the idea that she can not be a good mother, however.
After her boyfriend is arrested (based upon evidence Wallace planted), she kidnapped his daughter and fleeds the state. In an unprecedented attack of conscience, Wallace leaves the girl with an aunt in Arizona. She then leaves an eerie message on Goren's voice mail, cursing him for taking away her last chance at a real life. Wallace disappears.
"Slither" (Season 5; Episode 10)
Although she does not appear, Wallace is implicated in the murderer of Bernard Fremont. Goren and Eames were investigating Fremont, and his two lovers, for a string of robberies and murders in New York. Goren realizes that Fremont is the boyfriend that Wallace was arrested with in Thailand. Fremont and his lover Mala are ambushed as they emerged from a court room after being released on bail. Fremont is killed with a poisoned syringe.
The murder occurrs offscreen, so it is not clear that Wallace did indeed murder Fremont; however, Goren believes Wallace is responsible.
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My Bobby & I Trading Barbs
How Some Of You Would Like It To End
Who Dreams Up These Things???
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