Kay Howard

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Kay Howard is a fictional homicide detective from Homicide: Life on the Street. She was played by actress Melissa Leo.

Kay Howard is generally portrayed as a tough female detective. That being said she is not entirely hardened by her job and at times expressed disbelief that seemingly good people were murderers. She also has a softer side, shown in her concern for her siblings for example, and generally dislikes being deemed masculine or a "tomboy."

Although generally realistic, even cynical, she strongly adhered to magical thinking as she felt some things "transcended" logic. This included varied superstitions and the idea that the ghost of a victim aided her in solving a case.

In her personal life, she valued privacy and the idea that having secrets had value, but was less consistent on this in the first two seasons. She did keep an adulterous relationship she had with a Lieutenant Tyron, one that predated her joining Homicide, secret at first but later admitted it to Frank Pembleton as an investigation of Pembleton's concerned Tyron. Tyron would later be arrested for shooting C. C. Cox in the back while fleeing. However she later admitted to Pembleton her sexual involvement with the Assistant District Attorney Ed Danvers without much pressing and even commented on Danvers's "prowess." Although she indicated to Pembleton that she might have been kidding. Aside from the sex, and their shared desire to bring criminals to justice, she had little similarity to Danvers so the relationship ended at an unspecified point in the third season of the show. After this relationship she became far more reticent about personal matters to avoid being the subject of office gossip.

In the fourth season, the character became a Sergeant on passing the exam. Most of her fellow detectives had encouraged her becoming a sergeant, but on actually assuming the role she became alienated from them. This came in part because she seemed at first to "micromanage" them and in part simply because her position put her in a different relationship to them. Her friendship with Det. Meldrick Lewis, who had been strongly supportive of her desire to become a sergeant, grew especially stormy after her promotion. On the other hand it was after her promotion that Det. Mike Kellerman stated she was attractive "because of the hair" and that their crime-scene photographer J. H. Brodie expressed his infatuation with her.

Later the "rotation system" led her to become attached to the squad investigating fugitives. Her character's absence for this reason was given only a brief mention at the beginning of Season 6.

[edit] Trivia

• In the first two seasons of the show her character was the only female detective or member of the main cast. This was in keeping with the book and the actual Homicide unit in Baltimore of that time. However NBC felt that the lack of other female detectives was alienating the audience so this was later changed with the addition of the Megan Russert character.
• Kay Howard's "fun loving" sister, shown in the episode where Meldrick Lewis got married, was also played by actress Melissa Leo. The characters however were not twins.