Original subtitles

♪ ♪

Look out! Get out of the way!

Move!

( ship horn blaring)

Hold on!

Here we go. Stop the boat! Hold on!

( ship horn blaring)

Son of a bitch!

MAN: Later, day trader!

Maybe next time!

Wear your water wings!

( ship horn blaring)

Oh, my God.

MESSER: I need a little more slack.

Give me a little more.

All right, that's good.

All right!

BONASERA: Mac, are you seeing this?

Yeah.

A mermaid, why not?

No throwing this one back.

This one's a keeper.

BONASERA: I thought the mermaid parade

wasn't for another month.

The what?

TAYLOR: Mermaid parade.

The annual whacko-fest

held every June down in Coney Island.

Kicks off the summer.

Got a homicide on 88th and Columbus.

Lindsay, you and Danny stay with the body.

Let us know if you need anything.

Montana.

You see a view like this?

Huh? Beats the wheat fields, no?

( ship horn blaring)

Have you ever even seen a wheat field?

What's to see?

It's just wheat.

( horn blaring)

( shutter clicking)

BONASERA: That's not pretty.

What do we got?

Single gunshot wound to the eye.

Stella?

How you holding up?

I'm okay.

This type of precision, I'm guessing close range.

Bottom of the stairs, maybe.

( gunshot)

I'd say the shooter was waiting for him.

But where?

As far as the neighbors know,

Mark Jeffries was a model citizen.

Normal job, normal guy,

helped old ladies with their packages.

I'll check to see if he was a Boy Scout, too.

Any witnesses?

Not a lot of pedestrian traffic up here, Mac.

That's my husband! That's Mark!

Oh, my God, it's Mark!

Slow down, ma'am. That's my husband.

Whoa, whoa, whoa! That man is my husband!

( sobbing) Oh, God.

I hate that part.

It's like being back in the morgue again.

Take a deep breath. ( sobbing): Oh, my God.

It's hard to walk up and see that.

WOMAN: No!

No! That's my husband!

What happened? Mark?!

( woman sobbing)

Let me through. Let me through.

What happened?!

It's okay, baby. Shh, it's okay.

It's okay.

Well, I think that answers the Boy Scout question.

♪ 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. ♪

MESSNER: There's no trace under her fingernails.

Doesn't look like she was in the water long.

Seaweed could have kept her from being completely submerged.

No obvious signs of blunt or sharp force trauma.

Petechial hemorrhaging.

She was strangled.

Yeah.

So whoever did this,

did it the old fashioned way...

With his bare hands.

I'm gonna go see if someone filed a missing persons.

You can handle the rest without me?

Yeah.

♪ You can't stop yourself ♪

♪ Now you're out there swimming ♪

♪ In the deep ♪

♪ In the deep ♪

♪ Life keeps tumbling ♪

♪ Your heart in circles ♪

♪ Till you let it go ♪

♪ Till you shed your pride ♪

♪ And you climb to heaven ♪

♪ And you throw yourself off ♪

♪ Now you're out there swimming ♪

♪ In the deep ♪

♪ In the deep ♪

♪ In the deep ♪

♪ In the deep. ♪

We're a committed threesome.

And how exactly does that work?

Well, you know how most couples are monogamous?

We're trinogamous.

Trinogamous?

Yeah. We act like a married couple,

only there's three of us.

So you all live here together?

And sleep together and have sex together.

All the normal things.

And how long have you been

in this committed threesome?

A year and a half, formally.

Formally?

We had a commitment ceremony.

I now pronounce you husband and wife... and wife.

( applause)

All right.

I, uh, I get the picture.

Um... Where were you coming from

when you arrived at home this morning?

I had breakfast with a friend...

Kevin Davis.

And where was Laura?

At the grocery store.

I was gone maybe 20 minutes.

Here's my card.

Contact you as soon as we know something.

Okay.

Come here, sweetheart.

Think we need to look a little

further into their arrangement.

I'm not sure I can take much more.

Were you able to rule out drowning as C.O.D.?

No water in the lungs, petechial hemorrhaging,

bruising around the neck.

Your mermaid was killed on dry land.

Can you estimate how long she was in the water?

Uh, usually with prolonged immersion, we'd see

extreme wrinkling of the epidermis or washerwoman skin.

The absence of any skin detachment suggests she wasn't

in the water more than eight hours,

give or take.

So, overnight.

Doesn't look like she traveled far either.

No drag marks,

scrapes, cuts.

No postmortem injuries consistent with

being at the mercy of the East River's current.

So she was dumped

close to where we found her.

Mm. I prepared a sexual assault kit,

just in case, but the water

likely diluted any evidence.

The only thing I did find...

was unique scarring and calluses on both of her hands.

They appear old,

difficult to tell where she got them.

Rawhide braiding.

I'm sorry?

Weaving together untanned hides

to make reins for horses

or lassos to herd cattle.

The friction and the pressure of the leather

cuts you up pretty good.

My dad taught me when I was ten.

You think Danny calls me Montana 'cause I'm a 49ers fan?

He calls you that 'cause he's got a crush on you.

So your victim traveled far after all.

Jane Doe's a country girl.

♪ ♪

FLACK: Who did you write that check to, sir?

Her name was Sara Butler.

She's dead?

Murdered.

What was the check for, Mr. White?

I, uh, I hired her to sing.

Last night was...

I-I'm sorry, she was murdered? How?

No, no, no.

"Last night was..."

My daughter's birthday.

She turned eight... I threw a party

for her on the corporate boat, a slumber party.

♪ Somewhere out there ♪

♪ Beneath the pale moonlight ♪

♪ Someone's thinking of me... ♪ ( children giggling)

Sara was part of the entertainment.

My daughter loves mermaids.

Why Sara? A friend gave me her number,

said that she'd be perfect.

We found $100 in her dress.

Her bag with all her clothes,

fell off the boat, sank like a rock.

I felt bad, I had already written the check,

so I just gave her an extra hundred.

And she walked home wearing mermaid clothes?

I offered her my coat, but she said she didn't live far

and she'd be fine.

Where do you keep the boat?

Just off the Fulton Ferry.

Can you tell me what happened to her?

I'll sum it up for you.

She was on your boat,

you gave her an extra $100 because you "felt bad,"

her bag is conveniently missing,

and she wound up dead in the river,

not far from where you were docked.

FLACK: Mr. White,

we're gonna need to take a look at your boat.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪

Looks like Paul White may have hired Sara

for more than just her singing.

SID: Normally, I would say that Mr. Jeffries

was the luckiest man on the planet,

but given the circumstances...

HAWKES: Wow. It's badly deformed.

That's odd, considering

the depth of penetration.

Yeah. I didn't have to dig very far.

The bullet didn't strike any hard tissue.

Which means it wasn't traveling

at a high velocity.

Probably shot from a great distance.

Your shooter had pretty good aim.

You ever have a threesome?

( chuckling): It's not as glorious as you might imagine.

It's complicated dealing with the different personalities.

And, hey, sometimes, you're just not in the mood,

if you know what I mean.

It's hard enough explaining that to one woman, let alone two.

And then there's... Sid... Sid.

Anything else?

Oh. Just some trace

on Don Juan's right fingers.

I'll send a sample to the lab.

Okay.

There were these two vivacious young ladies.

Of course, I was much younger than I am now.

Sid, I got to go.

I got to go.

Hey, what are you looking at?

The bullet retrieved from Mark Jeffries.

The sum of one land and groove impression is 0.165 inches.

Consistent with a .32 automatic.

Yeah. Good, so now we know what kind of gun

we're looking for. It shouldn't be that deformed.

Now, the bullet penetrated our vic's eye,

but didn't hit the bone.

Implies it hit an intermediary target.

But there was no evidence of that at the scene, Hawkes.

No. Then...

our bullet transformed

in mid-air.

For the last time, Paul, this was found in your bed,

on your boat, along with semen and vaginal fluid,

both of which are being tested while we speak.

Way I see it, the extra $100

wasn't because Sara lost her bag.

You were getting a little mermaid on the side.

Am I right? No.

I'm a married man.

Okay.

So we'll get a DNA sample from your wife.

All right, all right, all right... listen.

The semen in the bed is mine.

Your tests will prove that.

All right. But I wasn't with Sara.

Your tests should prove that, too.

Now is the part where you give me a name.

That girl was 19 years old.

I'm begging you not to tell my wife.

I was with Leslie Shields during the party.

She was one of the parents on the boat.

♪ Someone's thinking of me... ♪

FLACK: While your little girl is blowing out candles,

you're in the other room cheating on your wife?

Not one of my better moments, I agree.

No, and it still doesn't tell me

how Sara's sequin got in your bed.

I let her get dressed in the stateroom.

I don't know, it must have fallen off.

I never touched Sara Butler.

I swear.

Our lovely threesome didn't start out that way.

Mark Jeffries was legally married

to Elle Jeffries three years ago.

Laura was an add-on.

Okay, so our vic and Elle were married for about a year,

and the sex got routine.

They added Laura to spice things up.

Look at this.

I didn't think this case could get

more interesting, but it does.

Five years ago,

Laura shot her boyfriend in self-defense.

D.A. chose not to prosecute her.

She kill him?

Shot him right in the chest.

She pulled the trigger once before,

maybe the second time was easier.

Let's go see what Laura has to say.

Coming?

Yeah. Yeah.

( siren wailing)

Are you looking for Laura or Elle?

And you are?

Uh, Kevin Davis; I'm a friend of the family.

Kevin Davis.

Elle said she and you were having breakfast

yesterday morning when Mark was shot.

I make a mean eggs benedict.

Detectives.

Uh, we were just about to take off.

That's okay, you should take care of this.

I'll call you later.

Laura Jeffries.

It's actually

Laura Wise, isn't it?

You and Mark weren't legally married.

BONASERA: But Mark and Elle were.

When I met them,

they were married a year. So?

Did you ever pressure Mark to get a divorce?

What?

I'm sure he treated you differently.

You weren't his lawfully wedded wife,

and it's perfectly natural for him to pay more attention to Elle.

What are you implying?

That I killed my husband over a marriage license?

We're gonna need to test your hands

for gunshot residue.

You're out of your mind.

Both of you can go to hell.

Oh... Laura!

If you didn't do it,

you should have no problem with the test.

You're not doing anything to me.

I can't believe this.

That's why you're here, to accuse me of murder?

Wouldn't be the first time

you've been accused of murder.

What did you say?

Five years ago, you shot and killed your boyfriend.

It was self-defense... The district attorney

didn't go forward with the case.

Oh, even so, you pulled the trigger once.

I'll bet you had no trouble doing it again.

Whoa! Whoa! Hey! How dare you!

You know what you just did... You assaulted an officer, Laura.

You understand what that means?

It means we can take you and test your hands.

Now get her out of here.

Nice going, Mac.

How'd you know she was gonna slap you?

I didn't, I just thought she'd give me

a little punch in the arm.

He would have killed me.

My ex-boyfriend.

If I didn't shoot him, he would have killed me.

I believe you.

No, you don't.

It's all right, I don't expect you to understand.

Laura, trust me.

I know what people you love are capable of doing.

You probably think I'm crazy, don't you?

A committed threesome,

commitment ceremony...

Life can get monotonous,

so you add a little adventure, mix it up.

You're wasting your time, Detective.

No, Laura, I don't think I'm wasting my time.

You just tested positive

for gunshot residue.

This isn't happening.

So you got any idea who did this to my girl?

Not yet, no.

I always told her the city is no place for a Montana girl.

Did Sara have a boyfriend

or anybody she was having troubles with?

I wouldn't know.

When was the last time you spoke with her?

I haven't spoken to Sara in over a year.

Why?

I'm sorry.

Sara had this dream...

being in New York, being a singer.

You know, I told her it was a pipe dream.

One day, she comes to me, she says...

she says, "Daddy I'm doing it.

I'm going to New York."

You know what I said to her?

"You walk out that door, there's no coming home."

That's the last thing I said to my daughter.

( sniffles)

You didn't have any contact after that?

It was...

She'd call and talk to her mom.

At the end of every call,

my wife would say, "I will."

I-I knew she was saying...

"Tell Daddy I love him."

MESSER: Talk about regret.

Yeah.

What's the story with the DNA?

Turns out that Paul White told Flack the truth.

DNA from the boat doesn't match Sara.

And it's plausible that the sequins

we found in the bed fell off when she was changing, you know?

So what do we have left?

You're looking at it.

Where's the sequin you found in Paul's bed?

Sequins fell off this thread.

This was the only sequin we found on the bed, right?

That's it.

So all the sequins have fallen off this thread.

But the others are out there.

Maybe they can point us to where Sara was attacked.

♪ ♪

She was killed right here.

♪ ♪

Hello, James Vackner.

His palm print was on the hair comb.

Score.

Public intoxication, menacing, assault three,

on parole for assault two.

His violence keeps escalating.

Looks like he skipped assault one

and went straight to murder.

Let's check it out.

I got a rap sheet,

I'm on parole...

I got the perfect resume, am I right?

I fit the profile.

So what do you say we get this over with

and you just lock me up?

Why don't you tell me where you were

two nights ago. I was working.

Then I walked home.

Through the park?

Why do I get the feeling

if l answer that question, I'm gonna be in big trouble?

You know what? You're already in big trouble, okay?

Because we found your print on a hair comb, Mr. Vackner.

Yeah, okay, I was walking.

I see this thing,

it looks like a gold bracelet or something in the grass.

So I pick it up.

You know, maybe it's worth something.

Turns out to be nothing, so I drop it.

There's a problem with that story.

You see, it's a unique print, okay?

It's not your run-of-the-mill thumbprint.

Your palm touched that hair comb.

That doesn't happen just from picking it up, James.

Look, I picked the thing up.

Obviously, my palm touched it.

( glass breaking)

And the hits just keep on coming.

MAN: That's coming out of your pay, Vackner!

MESSNER: You wear those boots

to work every day?

Yeah, the whole getup.

Are we done?

Hey, Jose, I ain't paying for nothing!

It wasn't my fault.

Yeah.

We're done.

You think there's a large enough sample here from Vackner's boot?

It doesn't take much.

I found the tiniest bit of tree bark in the sample.

Tree DNA.

Insane, huh?

MONROE: Match the sample from his boots to the soil at the crime scene,

and we can put Vackner's boots

in the dirt impression.

MESSNER: And Vackner himself at the scene of the crime.

And we got him.

GSR pattern on Laura's hands was strange.

I've never seen anything like it before.

The only residue l found ran along her pinkie line,

and then down her wrist.

Same pattern, along the pinkie line of both hands.

I've never seen that before either.

But it's enough for a warrant.

Grab a .32 and see if you can reconstruct the pattern.

Hawkes and I will check out the vic's apartment.

Maybe Laura was stupid and hid the gun.

All right. I'll meet you back here. All right.

Detective Taylor.

Counselor.

You start returning phone calls?

( clears throat) I've been busy.

So I've heard.

My client, Mr. Pratt,

says he's being harassed by someone in your department.

DJ Pratt is a suspect in an ongoing criminal investigation,

but I don't have anyone assigned to surveillance at this time.

So you're saying my client's making this up?

Your client's a rapist, Counselor.

DJ Pratt.

Detective Burn, Crime Scene Investigator.

I know who you are.

You've turned this into a personal vendetta, haven't you?

It's not a vendetta, it's my job.

Let me remind you of something, Detective.

You've already gone down this road twice before.

Both times, you hit a dead end.

First case, your victim wouldn't testify.

Second, you had no evidence.

You know what they say about third times.

I'm filing a civilian complaint of malicious prosecution.

You do that. Are we done?

For now.

Good.

Get the hell out of my building.

( gunfire)

Welcome to the house of trinogamy.

Wow. I got to admit, this is not what I expected.

I'll bite.

What were you expecting?

I don't know.

Lava lamps, weird tapestries,

a robo-spanker, maybe a couple of big...

All right, all right. ( chuckles)

I'm sorry I asked.

Check the kitchen.

We're looking for a .32 automatic.

Hey, Mac, there's three of everything.

Except for the tub.

That's an odd chair for this room.

( women laughing)

I got nothing.

If Laura's the shooter, she didn't keep the gun.

I got something.

Apparently, Mark liked to watch.

Or possibly someone else.

Maybe this threesome wasn't all that committed.

BONASERA: Hey, Mac.

I tried to recreate the gunshot residue pattern

on Laura's hands, and it was impossible.

So it was secondary transfer.

She still must have handled the gun.

I thought so, too, and then I started thinking,

she hit your chest with a closed fist.

BONASERA: Whoa, whoa, hey! How dare you!

You want to test my shirt, don't you?

Swab away.

No GSR.

If there were residue along her pinkie lines,

it would have transferred to you.

So she didn't have GSR

on her hands when she hit me,

but when you tested her at the precinct, she did.

Where was she in between?

Positive for GSR.

Who was in this car before Laura Jeffries?

Only had one arrest.

Guy named Laurence Jackson.

What'd you pick him up on?

Shooting by the railway yard.

He was cuffed just like Laura was.

And that's when it transferred from his hands to the seat,

and the seat to her hands.

Laura isn't our shooter.

She never even handled the gun.

( cell phone ringing)

Thanks, Hendershot.

Hawkes.

What do you got?

All right, thanks.

Semen recovered from Mark Jeffries' bedroom... two donors.

One on the bed, which belongs to Mark Jeffries,

one next to the chair.

So our threesome is actually a foursome.

We found semen on the carpet in the bedroom

that doesn't belong to Mark Jeffries.

Who's the second donor?

It's the pinch hitter's.

Pinch hitter?

We thought we needed to add

another level to the relationship,

so we asked a friend to join us.

And you call him the pinch hitter because...

Because he doesn't get to play unless we call him to the plate.

He just sits there and watches.

We liked being watched.

Even we get bored in bed sometimes.

So Kevin Davis is the pinch hitter.

BONASERA: Okay, so he's not allowed to touch you,

but clearly the same rule doesn't apply to himself.

As long as he didn't cross the line.

Maybe Kevin got a little tired of watching.

All you got to do is press here.

Buzz him in.

( buzzer sounds)

All right, here we go.

Gun. Right hip.

TAYLOR: Mr. Davis?

Detective Taylor.

What can I do for you?

Is there a problem?

No. There's no problem, sir.

TAYLOR: We'd like to ask you some questions,

but we'd feel more comfortable if you weren't armed.

I have a license to carry this.

May I?

Yeah.

It's nine millimeter.

The vic was shot with a 32.

Is this the only gun you own, sir?

Wait a minute. You think I shot Mark?

We know your role in the happy threesome,

Kevin. Must be frustrating to sit on the sidelines

like that. If Mark's out of the picture,

you get called up from the minors, right?

I didn't want Mark out of the picture, okay?

I just... It was a matter of time

before one of the girls approached me.

It turned out to be Elle.

Elle was seeing you on the side? I wouldn't say seeing.

It happened once. Couple of days ago,

she knocked on my door,

said she couldn't stop thinking about me.

We did our thing, then again the next day, and that was that.

The others find out?

Elle made me promise

not to tell Mark or Laura, so I didn't.

Why ruin a good thing, right?

Right.

And for the record, that is the only gun I own.

Remind me to switch banks.

FLACK: The suspense is killing me.

What happened with, uh, James Vackner's clothes?

Pants... he washed 'em, the mutt.

You're kidding me.

So not even trace amounts of soil on the knees?

Nada, but I got something better.

Tell me. Oil.

Consistent with the oil that leaked from the water taxi.

FLACK: So we place him at the dump site.

MESSER: Found drop-sized stains in the cuff of his work pants.

So what's next?

Arrest James Vackner.

It's time for some answers.

Why Sara?

That's her name, Sara.

Why her?

Let me show you something.

See, these items...

right here, James?

What they do is,

they tell us a story.

Each one of them.

A story that ends with the death

of a beautiful young girl

at your hands.

MONROE: She was an easy

target, wasn't she?

♪ ♪

MONROE: She probably never knew you were behind her.

MESSER: And I bet you it didn't take much

to force that little girl to the ground, did it?

That look familiar?

( choking)

( breathing heavily)

( grunting)

( choking continuing)

MONROE: Then when it was all over,

you dumped her body in the river.

So it goes.

Why'd you do it, James?

Why Sara?

Hey, Mac, what does that look like to you?

Oh, it's the .32 slug pulled from the vic.

Yeah. I analyzed the lead.

It had trace amounts of copper.

It was jacketed?

The sum of one land and groove on a .32 slug is

0.165 inches.

Add a copper jacket... 0.17 inches.

Making it a nine-millimeter bullet,

consistent with Kevin Davis's firearm.

Exactly.

The round must have passed

through something, stripping the copper jacket

before entering the victim.

We need to find that copper jacket.

I don't see anything the bullet could have passed through.

We need to widen our scope.

Increase the number of possible obstructions.

All right, even if the shooter wasn't lined up

with the front door...

HAWKES: Hey, Mac! Stella!

Hey, you guys, you're gonna want to see this.

Looks like gunshot residue.

TAYLOR: And blood.

Shooter was right here.

Collect samples and get them to trace.

If the shooter was there,

what did the bullet pass through?

Well, bullets are more fragile than you think.

It doesn't take much

to strip the jacket.

Metal, wood.

Hawkes, you said that the, uh...

the vic had newspaper ink on his fingers?

Yeah.

All five fingers, right hand.

Even paper could do it.

( gunshot)

( gunshot)

Ripped from the headlines.

TAYLOR: Do you know what "limp wrist" is

in police jargon, Elle?

A totally different meaning

in your world, I'm sure.

Hmm. It's when a person

doesn't have the strength to keep a gun from kicking.

The blast

overpowers the wrist, causing it to move erratically.

You have a limp wrist, Elle.

( laughs)

That's it? That's what you've got?

Look. Well, we've got your blood.

On the wall where you fired the gun.

It's over.

Your only access to a gun

was Kevin Davis, so you went to his apartment, seduced him,

and stole his gun.

Next morning you waited

across the street until Mark came out.

( gunshot)

Then you went back to Kevin's, and as he was

preparing his famous eggs benedict, you returned

the gun unnoticed.

What did Mark do to deserve a bullet to the head?

( sighs)

I was always second.

When the three of us were in bed,

Mark always had sex with Laura first.

You have no idea how much it hurt to know

that I wasn't something new anymore.

I became an afterthought.

Why not just leave?

Cut your losses?

I loved him.

And when I told him how I felt, he laughed.

Said I was being stupid.

Told me to get over it.

Well, I was going to make sure he never laughed again.

And now I'm over it.

You okay?

Yeah.

Just, uh, finishing up some stuff.

Nice work on the Butler case.

Danny said you did a great job.

Thanks.

He also said you were

struggling a bit with this one.

It's natural to want to know why...

to understand the whole story.

Well, what if you don't get any answers?

Sometimes

bad things happen to good people,

and you don't get to know why.

That doesn't work for me.

Not gonna lie to you. It's hard. It eats at you.

We rarely

have all the answers, Lindsay.

I still lose sleep over the ones that got away.

( sighs)

( ship horn blaring)

I want to know why.

Why did you do it?

Why Sara?

You came all the way down here for that?

♪ ♪

These are the, uh, DNA results

from all the open rape cases in the city.

None of them come back to D.J. Pratt.

But there are five cases

where the evidence was either degraded or non-existent.

One has a similar M.O.

Maybe Pratt, but...

maybe not.

You can leave those.

Thanks, Adam. Good night. All right.

You're gonna catch this guy.

I know it.

Good night.

Good night.