Original subtitles

♪ Don't hurry ♪

♪ It's all right ♪

♪ Don't hurry ♪

( gasps)

( screaming)

Morning, Mac.

Victim's name's Stacie Avida.

She live here?

No, she worked here.

She was the doorman... woman.

The, uh, super said

everybody seemed to like her. ( sneezes)

Him more than most.

They dated for about a year and a half.

We don't have water towers

in Montana.

The water pressure in the city's

a little dismal, so every building over 16 floors has one.

Every tenant have access to the roof? Yeah.

It's like a, uh, extra rec room.

Do you know there have been

six suspicious deaths in this building

in the past ten years?

People say it's cursed.

I took the graveline tour.

You visit places

where unexplained deaths have occurred,

or famous people have died.

This was stop number eight.

Now it's death number seven.

♪ Out here in the fields ♪

♪ I fight for my meals ♪

♪ I get my back into my living ♪

♪ I don't need to fight ♪

♪ To prove I'm right ♪

♪ I don't need to be forgiven, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Yeah. ♪

( shutter clicks)

( shutter clicks)

( shutter clicks)

SID: Despite the amount of blood

you found at the scene, C.O.D. wasn't exsanguination.

I found a significant amount

of water in her lungs.

She drowned.

Which means she was alive

when she went inside the tower?

Mm-hmm.

Difficult to take a live woman

up the side of a water tank, unless she's unconscious.

My thought exactly.

An injection mark.

There's an endless number of substances

that could just knock her right out.

I sent blood to Tox.

Also found evidence of sexual activity.

The semen sample was diluted

from the water, but still a chance you can pull something.

"Here's the smell of the blood still.

"All the perfumes of Arabia

will not sweeten this little hand."

Macbeth.

Mm-hmm.

Radial and ulnar arteries

were both severed.

Superficial wounds to her knuckles

and the tops of her hands.

I pulled more glass fragments

from her wounds.

Directionality of the incisions

suggests movement

in both distal and proximal directions...

A sawing motion.

Significant arterial spray with this type of wound.

Crime scene must have been a mess.

No.

There was nothing to suggest

her wrist was sliced inside the tank.

No blood trail outside of it.

Not a drop.

How is that possible?

( sirens blaring)

I'd say a quick jab,

followed by a left hook and a straight right.

Never knew you were a boxing fan.

I'm a fan of all sciences, especially the sweet one.

Used to watch with my dad.

Lividity's not fixed.

He's been here less than six hours.

Killer used tremendous force.

Probably collapsed the cricoid cartilage.

I'd say C.O.D. is strangulation.

Hey.

Wallet and phone are still here.

Let's find out

who this guy is.

Ben Hatfield.

23 years old.

Got a business card.

Works for NHT Media

as a field consultant.

Must have been casual dress Wednesday.

What's he doing in Washington Heights?

Any witnesses?

No.

They're all suffering

from the same thing...

Temporary blindness.

Well, let's see what we can see.

All right.

( shutter clicking)

( gasping)

Fake tooth

knocked out.

( shutter clicks)

Sand in the eyes.

( shutter clicks)

I'd say this started out

as a good old-fashioned playground fight.

I've got blood.

They were fighting over here.

He was strangled no more than six hours ago,

but the color of the bruises on his face and hands...

are eight to 12 hours old.

This blood's still wet.

Means our vic wasn't in one fight.

He was in two.

That's not a handprint. That's a glove print.

( typing)

Hawkes says I missed some fun at the playground.

No worries.

We brought some back just for you.

These photos were taken

from our vic's camera phone.

He was quite the photographer.

I like the subject matter.

These girls are fine.

Girl, not girls.

Look at the eyes in all the photos.

MESSER: Right, right, I see.

These are all the same girl.

Different hairstyles, different clothes...

She's quite the chameleon.

These all look like candid shots to me.

She didn't even know she was being photographed.

Yeah, well, maybe our vic,

Ben Hatfield, was a stalker.

Yeah.

And if this guy here was her boyfriend,

maybe he wasn't too happy about that.

It looks like all these shots are taken on the same street.

Let me see.

Let me get that bus stop sign back there.

BONASERA: George Washington Bridge.

Washington Heights.

Good job.

What are these?

I was hoping you could tell me.

They're all of you.

Okay, somebody's following me?

Well, not anymore.

The person who took these pictures is dead.

His name is Ben Hatfield.

You know him? No.

And I don't like people I don't know taking pictures of me.

My guess is your boyfriend here doesn't, either.

What's his name? I don't know.

Just some guy who wanted to buy me a cup of coffee.

No need for names?

It was just coffee.

See, this guy here,

he could be a murderer,

so next time you see him, get a name

and then give me a call.

Hey. Hi.

Epithelial DNA from the swing's chain

came back as... everybody's in the world.

The blood came back as our vic's.

Imprint on the vic's shirt was left by tar

and New York City dirt.

And whoever grabbed the shirt

was wearing gloves at the time.

What about the blood we found in the sandbox?

Belongs to an unknown male.

I'm still waiting on news from Autopsy.

How'd you do?

Oh, I've got nothing

but what I think are lies

from our vic's object of affection,

but I did find the next hot thing.

Hmm?

Remember NHT Media?

It was on Ben Hatfield's business card.

Next Hot Thing.

He was a trend forecaster for Madison Avenue.

He wasn't stalking Jennifer Rodriguez.

He was working.

They call it "cool hunting."

I've read about that.

What's hot on the playground

is worth millions on Madison Avenue.

That must be why he had all those pictures.

And why he was in Washington Heights.

But why is he dead?

MONROE: Mac, this case is getting creepier by the minute.

All of the previous deaths in that building

had "mysterious circumstances"?

Sounds to me like you're starting

to believe in that curse?

Mac, I believe in the science.

Me, too.

What do you have?

This is what I found in Stacie Avida's apartment.

Blood on the door frame.

Flowers from the roof and a used condom.

The semen from the condom was a match

to what we found in the vic.

What about the blood on the frame of the door?

A male donor, but it's not a match to the semen.

But I found a substance on the flower

consistent with mucus.

That is a match to the blood.

But not a match to the semen.

There were two male donors

in their apartment.

Her boyfriend, the super,

didn't have a cold.

He's allergic to flowers.

Murder and romance... it's always about the little things.

We'd talked about getting married

or at least living together.

We were doing great.

Evidence from her apartment suggests

you weren't the only man in her life.

That doesn't sound so great.

I don't know what you're talking about.

I'm talking about you going to Stacie's

with flowers from the roof garden.

A romantic gesture.

What's not so romantic

is what you found in her trash.

This is a surprise.

You should've called first, Joe.

You seein' someone else, Stacie?

You got to go, Joe...

Is he here?! No!

Stacie... Ah!

I'll put up with a lot, but not that.

Was Stacie's daughter there at the time?

She doesn't have kids. That's not what

the evidence is telling us.

You didn't know Stacie was cheating on you.

You didn't know she had a daughter.

Sounds like there's a lot you don't know.

Yeah, okay, I was played.

Big deal.

It is a big deal.

Betrayal's the oldest motive for murder in the book.

( computer beeps) MESSER: All right, boy meets girl.

Boy impresses girl

with his pimped-out ride...

Right.

All right, we've talked to girl.

Where's boy?

I may be able to find him.

See the reflection in the window?

Can you clear it up, Danny?

Give me a sec.

Let me enhance the resolution.

BONASERA: Look at you.

MESSER: "ABO-429."

Boom.

Nice, Messer.

Let's see where that car takes us.

Tox came back.

Stacie Avida was injected

with ten times the therapeutic dose

of prescription-grade morphine.

I'm looking at the shards of glass...

Cathedral Water Glass, to be exact.

85% of it is found in stained glass windows.

And when we canvassed the building for witnesses,

there was stained glass on every floor.

♪ ♪

Look at this.

Panel's darker.

That's the only color

consistent with the glass

we found on the vic.

Looks like these windows are double-paned.

This one's patched on the inside.

Whose place is this?

"Craig Zimmer, MD."

He would definitely have access to morphine.

MAN: Escalade's my company car.

BONASERA: Who drives it?

Elliott Stanton. Works for me.

My best employee.

Trend spotting?

Yeah, so, uh, what's this all about, detectives?

It's about your competition... The Next Hot Thing.

One of their employees was murdered

and found in Washington Heights.

What does this have to do with my company?

I mean, Next Hot Thing is no threat to me.

I mean, I know what's hot long before they do.

I don't have to kill the competition.

I'm already doing it.

Would this be the next hot thing?

Guaranteed.

What makes you such an expert?

I'm just a poor Dominican boy made good.

I grew up five blocks from here.

You know, when people see Washington Heights,

they think urban decay.

See, I see the future.

And now all the big companies are coming to me.

Madison Avenue loves

that I still have one foot in the neighborhood.

They know that I'm connected

and that I operate at a street level.

What does Jenny Rodriguez get for all this?

The girl in your pictures.

I guess you just steal her fashion design...

You don't need to know her name.

( techno music playing)

MAN: See, my clients pay me for information.

And before you know it,

everybody walking down Times Square looks up

to see what I discovered.

The rest of America jumps on board.

I run a multimillion-dollar corporation.

I'm not in public relations.

I suppose if the competition, say,

The Next Hot Thing... Took a few photos of Jenny,

things would get complicated, huh?

I don't like what you're implying.

Now... I'm a very busy man, detectives.

You know the way out.

I have one more question.

Where's Elliott Stanton?

( Latin music playing)

Man, for half the kids in this neighborhood, this is it.

They never leave, never go anywhere else...

not even Jersey.

This is their whole world.

Well, they may never leave...

but their culture and styles travel everywhere.

What do you know?

Elliott Stanton's on Rico's payroll

and he gets to drive the company car.

BONASERA: You know this guy, Elliot?

Nope.

Imagine him alive.

Never seen him. Looks like you were

at the wrong end of a couple punches.

You landed a few, though, right?

Looks like that hurts.

You two paramedics?

MESSER: All right, look, we get it, Elliott.

Your boss told you we'd be swinging by,

so stop playing the coy boy,

do this the easy way and answer our questions.

Okay. I fell off my bike.

Before or after you slammed your fist

into Ben Hatfield's face?

Ben who?

MESSER: Ben "Hanging from a Swing

in the Park" Hatfield.

Yo, yo, what are you doing?

What do you think... Next new fad:

ligature marks instead of tattoos?

Hear you're really good at your job.

We're even better at ours.

You think about that.

You get it? I got it.

Good.

Probably my kids...

They're always breaking things.

My wife runs the apartment. I just pay for it.

And where's your wife?

They're in the Hamptons.

( quietly): Mm-hmm.

Look, now is not a good time for me.

I've been in surgery for 11 hours,

been on my feet for 36.

Doctor, if you keep impeding my investigation,

I'd be more than happy to take you someplace

where you can put your feet up for quite awhile.

♪ ♪

( glass shattering)

Well... looks like our doctor has a taste for painkillers.

Soil's consistent with what's on the roof.

I found blood on the glass from the window.

Drugs, glass, shoes... Looks like it's all adding up.

Except why he would kill a woman

who did nothing but open the door for him.

Right there's the vic's tooth.

He must've swallowed it in the fight.

Second fight, to be exact.

It's still in his stomach rather than his intestines.

I collected trace from the implant post

that remained in his mouth.

And?

And as soon as you analyze it,

it could lead you somewhere.

Hey, I was elbow-deep

in his stomach, and I walked it up here.

Mm-hmm. Can't do everything.

Thanks, Sid. Mm-hmm.

( echoing): ♪ Fashion, fashion, fashion ♪

♪ Fashion kills ♪

♪ Fashion kills ♪ ( overlapping voices)

( echoing): ♪ Fashion, fashion, fashion ♪

♪ Fashion kills... ♪

Reptile skin.

Elliott Stanton is our prime suspect,

and we don't have enough evidence

to hold up in court.

Hold up... don't throw in the towel just yet.

Exhibit A:

Elliott with his arm around Jenny, gloved.

Exhibit B: Our vic's shirt with grab marks...

A pattern left by gloved hands.

We don't know that it was Elliott's gloves

that made the impressions on the shirt.

Bruising and cuts from this picture I took

of Elliott's hands

are consistent with the wounds we found on our vic.

Well, that just proves that Ben Hatfield and Elliott Stanton

got in a fight, not necessarily with each other.

I mean, you don't need to be a pathologist

to see that Elliott's hand's infected.

Knocked out Ben's tooth; that's what opened the flesh.

What we see and what we can prove are two different things.

We need to connect Elliott Stanton with our victim,

prove that it was his gloves

that made the pattern on the shirt

and his fist

that knocked our victim's tooth out.

And, ultimately, that it was Elliot Stanton's blood

we found in the sandbox.

Safe to say we're skipping lunch.

Yeah.

( hip-hop music playing)

( grunting)

Got next.

( chuckling): Yo,

hey, why don't you and your little Blue Man Group here

go find a playground on the Upper East Side, okay?

Nah, we're good here.

In fact, we're gonna stay here for a while.

This is a murder scene.

A kid was killed here just this morning.

You know, funny how nobody saw anything.

So these guys are going to stick around, all right?

We'll see what we can see.

As long as it takes.

Unless you know something.

Can I get my ball back, man?

I'll tell you what. Why don't you play me?

You beat me, I'll get out of here,

I'll take these guys with me,

not to mention you get to tell everybody

you beat a cop.

And if you win?

You give me a little information.

You serve.

( crowd cheering)

Yo, check it out.

( crowd cheering)

( crowd cheers)

( crowd cheers)

Whoo!

( crowd cheers)

( crowd cheers)

Whoo! Whoo!

Is there anything we can get you, Doc?

I'm sick.

Oh, yeah, I can see that.

For a guy who works in the medical field,

you don't take very good care of yourself.

You recognize the symptoms, Detective Monroe,

in the junkies we get through here every day.

That building you live in

has quite a reputation.

Superstition. It's stupid.

Six deaths in the past ten years...

and, uh, your name is mentioned in three of the cases.

One of the murdered women was your nanny,

who you were having an affair with.

Stupid superstition starts looking

a lot like pattern, doesn't it?

I came down here voluntarily to, uh,

answer a few questions.

I'm wondering what they might be.

She was a doorwoman in your building.

Okay, and...?

And your phone records

say that you called her regularly

for the past three months.

No, no, I never spoke

to this woman in my life.

Semen found inside her body

matches the DNA from your reference sample.

That's impossible.

I certainly wouldn't sleep with her.

I didn't. The smashed stain glass

from the window in your apartment

is an identical match

to the glass we found embedded in her arms.

Phone call, the semen, stained glass.

The way I'm seeing this,

you did have a relationship with this woman.

She asked you

to leave your wife.

You said no.

There was a fight.

You pumped her full of the morphine

you happened to have lying around the apartment,

then dumped her in the water tank.

That's not true.

I do not know her. I don't.

I've been at the hospital

for a day and a half... I got 50, 100 people

can back me up.

We'll look into that.

You all right to hang tight for a bit?

Need anything?

A little chicken soup, maybe?

MONROE: I wouldn't want to be in Dr. Zimmer's shoes.

Something's off, Mac.

Zimmer's involved in this

up to his neck, but his behavior

doesn't make any sense.

Why didn't he toss the shoes?

And when Flack leaned on him,

he didn't call a lawyer?

Sophia Reza died in that building

three years ago, raped.

No semen found.

They never caught the guy who did it.

What does that have to do with this case?

She was Zimmer's nanny,

and they were having an affair.

And look at this.

Four years ago,

choking victim on the roof.

Zimmer's there,

tries to save her, but can't.

Meaning? Meaning he's everywhere

something bad happens.

Maybe he's cursed, not the building.

Lindsay, we can only deal with the science in front of us.

Forget everything else.

But I was taught

that instincts point you in a direction.

Science confirms a theory. ( phone rings)

Taylor.

Okay.

We'll see what we can do.

We need some science that puts Zimmer on the roof.

Otherwise, he's free to go.

The substance pulled from Ben Hatfield's mouth

was reptile skin.

Reptile skin? Yeah.

Treated like leather.

Means it came off a bag, boot, belt

or anything else reptile skin may be used for.

What about you?

I got a match.

It was this type of glove,

identical to the gloves

Elliot Stanton was wearing in the photo

that made the imprint on his shirt.

And the tar and dirt of the pattern

are a match to the handball court.

Okay.

But anybody who was playing handball in that court

and wearing that type of glove could have pushed Ben.

It doesn't necessarily single out Elliot, right?

No, but my three victories at handball gives us

something that does. How so?

An eyewitness who saw Elliot Stanton

going at it with Ben Hatfield.

Sounds like we got enough for a warrant.

You should have seen me whipping these kids' asses.

The material on the bottom of Dr. Zimmer's shoes

is identical to the earth from the roof garden.

But it could have gotten there any time.

( sighs)

We need something we know

connects him to Stacie Avida.

The hair on the picture frame in Zimmer's apartment

is consistent with hers.

TAYLOR: Do you have the lift of this print?

Over time, the amount of squalene,

one of the oils found in fingerprints,

deteriorates at a steady rate.

So we measure what's remaining...

Find out when Zimmer last handled this frame.

( computer beeping)

Print on the picture frame's over 28 days old.

It wasn't used in Stacie's murder.

So how did her hair get on the frame?

Who else has access to the doctor's apartment?

Joe Green.

He's the super. He'd have a master key.

Maybe he's trying to frame Zimmer

for the murder.

I need you in Dr. Zimmer's shoes

because the plaster casts

I got from the suspect's footprints

are about a half an inch deeper in the heel

than they were in the toe,

which is odd.

( grunts)

I weigh about the same as the victim.

You weigh about the same as Dr. Zimmer.

Thanks. Extra weight makes it exact.

Look, you promised me drinks for this,

but I think I'm gonna need some dinner, too.

I'm not going to give you anything

if you don't get going.

Make tracks, cowboy.

( beeping)

What do you have?

The initial tracks from the roof

are an inch shallower

than the ones Danny and I just made.

The curve of the track is lighter in the toe

and heavier in the heel.

I know, but what does that mean?

You said earlier

that you wouldn't want to be in Craig Zimmer's shoes.

He wasn't.

There's no question that these shoes made

the tracks on the roof.

Worn by who?

The victim was wearing aqua-colored socks

when we found her.

Why would Stacie Avida be wearing

Craig Zimmer's shoes?

Eikenella corrodens.

It's also called "fight bite" because it proves

that the cut on your hand came from someone's mouth.

Someone's mouth...

as in one person in a city of eight million.

Your gloves also match

the pattern we found on Ben's shirt.

Come on. Lots of gloves in this city

like that one, Detective.

You're right, Counselor.

I wasn't clear.

They microscopically match.

You hit him, didn't you?

I didn't kill him. Don't say anything,

Elliott, please.

That's all right.

I can tell you what happened.

See, Ben was honing in on your turf...

On Jenny, the newest "it" girl...

And you decided to do something about it.

Detective, my client agreed to come down here

and answer some questions.

Ask them, or we're done.

Ben was a little tougher than you thought, huh, Elliott?

After he beat you the first time,

you went back there, only this time,

you didn't play fair,

strangling him with a swing chain.

He was alive when I left him.

Enough, from both of you.

Come on, let's go.

Mr. Garlobo, I'm curious.

Why won't you let your client talk?

I mean, it's obvious he has something to say.

Mr. Cerda retained me to protect his employee,

and I intend on doing that.

Elliott does not know what's best for him.

BONASERA: That right, Elliott?

Let me give you a little hint.

The truth is always best.

Come on.

The answer is in here somewhere.

I grabbed all the case files

from the previous deaths in the building...

Autopsies, everything.

I also got everything on Stacie Avida...

Former residencies, work history.

Zimmer's name is mentioned

in three of the cases.

Everything's connected, right?

Through evidence, not intuition.

Wait. Hear me out.

Gina Williamson

is the girl who choked on the rooftop.

I had Hammerback pull Stacie's DNA

for reference.

Gina shares one allele with Stacie

at all 13 loci.

Gina was Stacie's daughter.

And she died four years ago on that roof.

Gina?! My daughter's choking!

Someone call 911! Somebody help us!

Dr. Zimmer had

two previous complaints filed against him

for practicing under the influence,

but nothing was ever proven.

Gina? Gina!

TAYLOR: He was using drugs the day he tried to save Gina,

overcompensated,

fracturing her rib, which punctured her heart,

and that killed her.

Stacie Avida was a natural brunette.

And she worked in publishing

until two months after her daughter's death...

When she left to become a doorwoman.

She wanted total access.

The building was haunted...

by a woman who died the day her child did.

We're not going to get anything out of Elliott

now that his lawyer's got him gagged.

What we do know is that the gloves

and bacteria put him at the beating.

Mm-hmm. We just need to tie him

to the strangulation.

You know, I was thinking, since there was sand

in the vic's eyes, the fight in the sandbox happened

at the same time as the strangulation.

Mm, and since the only thing we found

in the sand was blood...

If it's a match to Elliott's reference sample...

It means we're that much closer.

Yep.

No match.

No.

Hey, Hawkes, check this out.

The blood from the sand

has a 15.2 allele at D7.

That's a variant allele.

That falls outside of the range of common alleles.

It's indicative of a subpopulation.

Gets passed around through a small genetic pool

but never goes worldwide.

Which would make it ethnically specific.

Let's see if it's specific enough to catch a killer.

Found it.

A variant 15.2

at D7 locus.

Common to 90% of the people from one particular island.

Actually,

half of the island.

Dominican Republic.

You know anyone from there

who might like wearing reptile?

The very trendy Rico Cerda.

Purple one is supposed to make you smarter.

That true?

Or is it all in the packaging?

I know you didn't come all the way up here

to discuss energy drinks,

so... what's on your mind, detectives?

Couple of things:

the Yankees' pitching rotation,

you murdering Ben Hatfield in the playground.

That's ridiculous.

I didn't have any...

Let me tell you something about trends, Rico.

See, this is the part where you get indignant,

start to deny everything.

Maybe you're going to start crying,

try to convince us you didn't do it.

MESSER: Crocodile tears.

Crocodile like the watch band

you have on.

Piece of that skin was found on an implant post

in Ben Hatfield's mouth.

( grunting)

Torn watch band. Doesn't prove anything.

But your blood at the crime scene does.

See, you sent a boy to do a man's job.

When Elliot couldn't close the deal,

you went and finished it.

RICO: I told you to stay out of my neighborhood.

MESSER: It's not like it used to be, Rico.

You don't like that.

Couple of years ago, people were afraid

to come up to Harlem.

Right? Now they're walking the streets,

they're shopping, they're taking their kids to dinner.

Your neighborhood, Washington Heights,

is prime real estate.

It's attracting a yuppie crowd.

The outside world is closing in on you.

The urban divide is disappearing, man,

making guys like you obsolete.

This is my neighborhood,

my street.

My people!

I warned that kid.

I told him he didn't belong here...

Him and his big corporation

raking in millions

off the ingenuity and style of those poor kids?

He got what he deserved.

He was trying to take what belonged to me.

What belonged to you?

You and your $3,000 suit.

You talk a really good game, Rico,

but the truth is, you sold out your neighborhood

and your people.

She... planted the evidence?

Everything we needed to build a case

against Craig Zimmer.

Best way inside the building

was through you.

FLACK: And when the doorman job opened up,

she asked her boyfriend, the super,

to get it for her.

She wanted to do everything she could

to keep her eye on you and your family.

Once she had it,

she had total access to your life,

using his master key.

She used your phone,

she knew about your affairs, and over time,

she learned your habits, your secrets.

She studied you.

TAYLOR: She knew when the doctor's wife

would be out of town,

when he would be at the hospital.

Yesterday,

she put her plan into effect.

It must have taken weeks to set up her plan... months, even.

She was patient.

She knew Zimmer was a drug addict

and found the morphine.

She knew if the drugs

were in her system, it would lead back to him,

the only doctor in the building.

She did everything she could to set him up.

♪ ♪

TAYLOR: She couldn't live with the pain

of mourning her daughter anymore.

She killed herself.

And she made it look like murder.

To frame you.

Thank you for clearing me.

Don't thank me too much.

I put in a call to the medical board

about your obvious drug addiction.

Time to clean up.

It's ironic

she killed herself where she did.

The newspapers say that building is cursed.

Well, this time it wasn't the building's curse.

It was Stacie's.

You know what?

It doesn't matter that she used me.

I loved her.

Guess that makes me a chump, right?

No.