Original subtitles

The story you are about to see

was inspired by actual events.

The names have been changed

to protect the innocent.

*

It was Monday, it was warm in Los Angles.

My partner and I were working the day shift

out of robbery homicide.

The call came at 11:15.

Abandoned car, Santa Monica Canyon.

Female decomposed body.

Possible gunshot to the head.

A fire department brush clearance team

spotted the car.

Santa Monica Canyon was on the western edge of the city,

quiet, isolated.

That was one of the strange things about LA.

Patches of barren wilderness

hidden in a vast metropolis.

People came out here to forget the city.

Sometimes, if they were unlucky,

the city forgot them.

My name's Friday.

I'm a cop.

Seven Series Beemer went over the edge.

Could have sat there forever,

no one would have known.

You on this one?

Captain knew I was on call in Santa Monica,

asked if I could swing by.

Any idea how long the car was down there?

Tag says April '97, we're running the plates.

Six years, anything left of the victim?

Depends on your definition of anything.

Mind if I stay in on this?

Well, if it is what it looks like

everyone will be in it.

Detective, take a look.

Adult female.

Freshly mummified from the elements.

The skull is shattered here.

It could have happened when she drove off the road.

Looks more like a small caliber gunshot,

that's why I called it in.

Anyone touch this car?

No, not on the inside.

I don't think she drove off the road.

You don't drive off a cliff in neutral.

Maybe a robbery?

I don't see any jewelry or a handbag.

Maybe she picked up someone she shouldn't have.

I don't think you drive a BMW

and pick up hitchhikers.

Well, whoever did this,

why don't they take the car?

Looks like she had a son,

maybe 15, 16.

Okay, auto status says car was registered

to Christopher and Carolyn Meeker.

*

Six years.

You couldn't help wondering

what had happened in this house since then.

A child becoming an adult without his mother,

a husband mourning the loss of his wife.

Time had stopped for Carolyn Meeker.

For those who loved her,

life had gone on.

How had they coped?

Who had they been then?

And who would they be now?

I kept hoping the phone would ring.

She'd say she was sorry,

that she was coming back.

Are you sure it's Carolyn?

We'll know better after the autopsy.

I uh...

I'd thought she'd abandoned us.

Why did you think that?

Too many business trips.

I actually...

I said it to my son.

I thought she was having an affair

and that she ran off with someone.

When was the last time you saw her?

It was dinner the night before.

I left early the next morning to go the airport.

I had this consulting business.

My son called

and said that she didn't come home.

So I called her office and her friend.

I called the police.

Other than the idea that she was having an affair

was there anything else?

Didn't make any sense.

She had everything.

She had a great job, she loved it, ConSec.

They're defense contractors.

I went on TV,

I asked everyone if they'd seen her, nothing.

People say,

"Move on, let it go.

You'll recover from this".

You know what?

You never do.

*

Christopher Meeker was right.

We say we recover from the worst,

the truth is, people don't.

We could offer one thing,

a version of finality.

Who took this woman from the people who loved her?

What would the evidence tell us?

Single shot fired into the right frontal lobe.

Stomach contents?

The insects took care of that.

But the other organs in a remarkable

state of preservation.

That's her uterus,

completely mummified.

Appeared slightly enlarged so I did some sections.

I expected endometriosis,

maybe cancer,

but that is clearly an embryo.

Eight weeks at most.

Carolyn Meeker was pregnant.

*

*

*

I've ever seen.

Detective on the case was Louisa Reiner.

Retired, spend more time with her kids.

She'll be here in ten minutes.

From the looks of it she was good.

Over 51 interviews.

Anything on the weapon?

...22 Browning automatic.

Start at the beginning of that, call everyone.

What are they gonna remember after six years?

Anything they've thought about her since she disappeared.

Six years, a month hasn't gone by

I haven't thought about Carolyn Meeker.

She was about my age.

Sixteen year old son,

my boy was 16.

She was very successful, big bucks,

but found the time to volunteer for a nursing home,

just one of those weird things that sticks in your head.

Husband had some vague idea about an affair.

Her friends said she was distracted,

something on her mind.

She came home late a couple of times too often.

Says here that she had cashed in corporate stock options

just a week before she disappeared.

Yeah, it was a defense contractor,

350 grand.

Well, that's motive.

Her husband?

No, no.

First of all he was out of town.

Everyone said they were happy.

And uh, on top of it all she was making a fortune,

twice what he did.

So you never thought of any suspects, nobody?

I thought about the son, Zachary.

He had no alibi, truancy,

ran with a bad crowd.

The father never mentioned that.

Kid ended up doing juvy time.

Him along with a couple other kids.

Liquor store, armed robbery.

Just tagging along,

those guys weren't even my friends.

Why go through with the robbery then?

Just being a punk.

Acting out, I guess.

We found that in the car with your mother.

Six years now I uh,

thought she bailed on me.

It's like I can't let myself believe that she's um...

She's dead.

Do you,

do you know who killed her?

We have a lot of unanswered questions.

Does that include, you know,

someone she might have been seeing?

Well, why would you say that?

Blew off school one day, went down to Melrose, bought some CDs

and I saw her in a restaurant with this guy.

My mom looked pretty upset

and this guy reached over and took her hand.

And he just kept holding it

and my mom was letting him.

And that's the last time you saw them?

I know they were together another time,

um, a business trip.

I called her hotel and a guy answered.

I'm not really sure it was him,

but who else could it have been.

You didn't mention this to the police six years ago?

I was 16 then.

I didn't know what to think.

I was mad.

I figured she doesn't wanna be found,

I'm not gonna look.

Do you remember the date that you called?

How could I forget that one?

It was the uh, night before we robbed the liquor store.

You think that was honest?

Sure, this was his mother.

Feels guilty for being angry at her.

Look what he tells us.

I get angry, I act out.

He calls a hotel.

A man who's not his father answers the phone, then what?

He robs the store.

You think he lost control?

Maybe, he's got no alibi,

thinks his mother's having an affair.

Are you honestly telling me you think that kid

murdered his mother?

When I add it all up, no,

but something's wrong.

What?

I don't know.

But he gave us the date of his mother's hotel stay.

Let's call ConSec, see if they have her travel records.

We were horrified by the news about Carolyn.

Please.

You worked with her at that time.

I brought Carolyn into the company, she was my protégé.

Truth is if she hadn't disappeared

she'd have ended up CEO and not me.

She must have been very smart.

They don't come much smarter.

She turned our guidance system division around

in six months.

Looking back is there anything you've thought

that might help explain her disappearance?

Wasn't it a robbery or something?

What can I tell you?

Well, for example, she exercised stock options

at the same time.

Yeah, the police asked about that,

I don't know what to say,

she was cautious about money.

Did other executives cash in their options?

I'm sorry, why would that have anything to do

with Carolyn's disappearance?

Mr. Hindle, it's a simple question.

Look, it was a long time ago, I...

This was a smart guy, Martin Hindle.

He knew all about stock options.

What they were worth,

when you sold,

when you didn't

Six years ago Carolyn Meeker sold hers, he knew why.

He didn't wanna tell us.

Thank you.

Carolyn's former assistant

has the travel records that you wanted.

She was terrific.

She treated me like a real person.

Did you know her outside of work?

Ah, not really.

She was awfully busy most of the time.

Before she disappeared did you notice any change

in her behavior?

Well, I didn't think about it til later.

She was...

Yeah, I don't know what it was.

For years I made all the calls

and then suddenly she started closing her office door

and making her own calls.

Possibly to a man who wasn't her husband?

No.

Not Carolyn, no, not,

absolutely not, no.

She would've never cheated on Chris.

If you had seen Carolyn with her family, you'd know.

She wasn't that kind of a person.

Ah, Carolyn's travel,

September through October 1997.

Carolyn Meeker had some secrets.

You mean an affair.

Maybe, or maybe something entirely different.

Hindle was holding something back.

Why did she cash in those options?

That's something we need to follow up.

Before that I want you to see where they are on the gun.

They've dug some bullet fragments

out of Carolyn Meeker's skull, sent them over.

Your shooter used a hollow point .22.

Man, when you said "fragments" you really meant it.

What about the shell casings they found in the BMW?

Here it is.

This you can get a match on.

Pin strike and extraction marks.

Well, there's only one problem.

What makes us think

we're gonna find a gun

used in a six year old murder?

The guy you just spoke with, uh, Martin Hindle?

According to this he said the same exact thing

about Carolyn Meeker when he was interviewed six years ago.

Run him, see if anything turns up,

sexual harassment charges, anything.

Carolyn Meeker was at the Fairmont Hotel in San Francisco

three weeks before she disappeared.

Just like the son told us,

around the time of his arrest.

All right, get the names

of all the male guests at the same time,

look for anyone who was alone and had an LA address.

Carolyn Meeker's son, the armed robbery?

I checked the juvenile record.

One of the kids fired a gun to scare the clerk.

What kind of gun?

A .22 Ruger.

Carolyn Meeker was shot with a Browning.

Ballistics said they weren't sure.

Check with evidence,

see if they have the gun from the robbery.

It didn't seem likely that Zack Meeker

was involved in his mother's death.

But we follow every lead.

Was it possible?

Could we match the gun

used by a friend of Zack Meeker's

to the gun that killed his mother?

I know, we thought Carolyn Meeker

was shot with a Browning.

Could it have been a Ruger?

Browning, Ruger, Beretta, maybe.

Hard to tell from fragments.

Either way, you don't get anything from this.

Okay, whoa, whoa, whoa, stop.

Okay, there, there's a mark on the lens.

Turn the slug from the robbery.

That's something.

Yeah, something I'd never testify to.

If the son killed his mother,

this doesn't make your case.

Zack Meeker's a dead end.

No way to rule him out?

No way to rule him in.

He might still be helpful.

DMV photos for men all stayed at the Fairmont

at the same time as Carolyn Meeker.

Maybe one of them's the same guy

Zack saw his mother with.

*

Oh my God.

That's him.

That, that's the guy.

You sure?

Yeah, he was sitting with her at the restaurant,

I wouldn't forget that face.

Gerald Canin?

She ever mention that name before?

No.

But I mean, that's him, I remember him.

He had this habit,

he was running his hands through his hair like it was thinning

and he was feeling it or something.

And the, the way he stared at her, I mean,

he was always staring at her, always.

He did remember.

He was telling the truth.

It was as if we were back there right now.

Still, I couldn't help wondering

was he remembering the right things?

What had he forgotten?

What had the passage of six years erased?

My mom was uh,

was cheating on my dad, right?

That's him.

Did he kill her?

*

Gerald Canin was in room 404 of the Fairmont

the night Carolyn Meeker was there.

She was in 406.

That helps if you wanna have an affair.

Gerald Canin, UCLA Law,

used to work for the Public Interest Policy Counsel.

Is that government?

It's left wing consumer advocates.

She's a corporate officer,

why is she having an affair with the enemy?

The year Carolyn Meeker disappeared

Gerald Canin quit his job as man of the people

and opened a patio furniture store.

Canin, Gerald.

Registered Smith and Wesson .38.

What's the year of the registration?

Uh, November '97.

Well, I have a question.

Are we so sure that an affair and a pregnancy

are motives for murder?

Here's another question.

What's a public interest lawyer doing with a gun?

Let's ask him.

Mrs. Canin?

Yes.

Detective Friday, LAPD,

my partner Detective Beltran.

Is your husband home?

What's this about?

Daddy, door.

Ah, it's okay honey, go on in.

We need to ask you some questions about Carolyn Meeker.

Yeah, mind if we do this out here?

I saw about Carolyn on the news.

Maybe it'd be easier if you came downtown to talk with us.

I'm not sure I could be much help,

I only knew her briefly

and I don't remember that much about her.

Well, maybe it would jog your memory

if we told you you were a suspect in her murder.

*

What my client says never goes beyond this room.

Counselor, he can talk now

or he can talk in front of a grand jury.

Uh-uh.

What he's going to say puts him at great risk.

If he sounds paranoid he's got a right to.

If he needs protection we'll make sure he gets it.

In July 1997 I got a call from a woman

who wouldn't identify herself.

Do you know what Carolyn Meeker did at ConSec?

Department head on her way up.

She oversaw risk analysis on the laser guidance systems.

Their biggest client was the Defense Department.

I uh, I first met her in,

in the garage of the Chandler.

She was uh,

she was scared.

She said that they were suppressing evidence

of design flaws in their systems

and she had documents to prove the cover up.

How did she get to you?

She saw me on TV.

I was loud in those days.

She trusted me uh, told me who she was

and that she wanted to blow the whistle

and get a federal investigation.

You think ConSec is behind Carolyn Meeker's death.

Does that surprise you?

What surprises me is you met this women in garages in hotels

for a couple of months.

And you're making this sound like it was all business.

Did you have an affair?

No, I didn't.

She was the most courageous woman that I ever knew.

She wanted her life to make a difference.

Why'd you buy a .38?

She disappeared, I was scared out of my mind.

Wouldn't you be?

Do you have anything to back this up?

What do you think?

I think it's a stretch.

You didn't like Carolyn Meeker's boss.

Wanna go back and squeeze him?

No, if there's any case to be made

I wanna talk to a DA first.

You think Carolyn Meeker was murdered

because she was a whistleblower?

It's a lead, what do you think?

I wanna hear what our science guy thinks of the documents.

Gerald Canin sounds legit.

Please, Canin thought Velcro was a conspiracy.

I have trouble with conspiracy theories, too,

this is hard to buy.

I read your stuff, guys.

It's scary.

If these are real ConSec knew its guidance systems

were prone to failure.

You're saying they knew they were making

a defective product.

Defective and potentially dangerous.

If that was in the "LA Times"

company officers would start worrying about prison.

Where do you start?

ConSec's a big company.

Carolyn Meeker's boss was a man named Martin Hindle.

Now CEO.

Hindle, you sure can pick 'em.

Talk about the height of respectability.

White collar criminals, respectable until indicted.

Hey, we're not talking fraud.

We're talking murder for hire.

I'm not convinced.

At the very least we need to know Carolyn Meeker

really was gonna blow the whistle.

If you were gonna rat out your employer

who would you tell first?

I knew she was having some problems at work,

but we never talked specifics.

We believe your wife was going to the feds

over a cover up at ConSec.

That's serious stuff.

Wouldn't she have shared that with you?

I knew she was concerned,

something about test results?

But that was her job.

She was more than concerned.

These were confidential documents.

Look, even if what you say is true what would they do?

This is not the most ethical company,

but they wouldn't resort to murder.

It didn't make sense.

Was Carolyn Meeker planning to blow the whistle or not?

If she was wouldn't she have told her husband?

Maybe she wouldn't have told anyone else,

she certainly would have told him.

Carolyn Meeker was on the brink.

That's why Canin was so scared when she disappeared.

The question is why didn't her husband know.

Beltram.

Yeah.

Okay, thanks.

That was the DOC.

A prisoner in Calipatria

has some information on Carolyn Meeker.

Wants to trade.

Ah, they'll be coming out of the woodwork.

What the hell, go up and see him.

Ugh, it's 150 miles.

Take Langler along, he's good company.

I know you like looking at him.

Carolyn Meeker,

shot in the head,

October '97.

Keep talking.

What do I get?

Well, you don't get a reduced sentence.

But you can raise my comfort level.

Transfer me to Lancaster,

I wanna be closer to my wife.

Gilbert Muncie.

Thirty-five years with an armed robbery,

one strike prior,

and manslaughter with an unidentified object.

You all pulled the Meeker woman out of her car

in the Santa Monica mountains, right?

Everyone read that in the paper.

The paper said she was done with a .22.

Yeah.

Yeah, she was shot in her Mercedes.

Beemer.

You're on a roll.

You do for us, we do for you.

Well, I once was on the block

with a man named Ancona.

Ancona, huh?

Got a first name?

Jon, J-O-N, big talker.

I must have heard this story a hundred times.

Well, we just need to hear it once.

He had a thing for blondes who caught his eye.

You know, you never know who's behind you

on line at the grocery store.

He followed her out, he put a gun on her,

had her drive to a nice spot,

but when he tried to get it on,

well, she rejected his advances.

*

He took it badly.

He popped her, took her cash,

some hardware, and dumped her car down in the woods.

I never believe these stories.

Any reason to believe this one?

He knew about the .22.

Yeah, and we didn't release that

so he didn't hear about it on the 5:00 news.

No, he definitely knew details.

What do we have on the con who he says killed her?

Uh, Jon Ancona, half a bad ass.

Armed robbery, assault, rape.

Fits the bill.

Ancona got out of Quentin a month ago

and until two weeks ago he was living up north in Danville.

Where's he living now?

He's not.

- What? - Dead.

Jon Ancona was shot during an armed robbery last week.

San Jose.

It's a setup.

Suspect conveniently dead,

someone doesn't want us to find out who killed Carolyn Meeker.

Get the prison visitor's log.

Someone visited your snitch in the last 24 hours,

told him exactly what to say.

You visited your husband in Calipatria yesterday.

I go out there whenever I can.

He gets lonely.

Listen, Regina, your husband told us a story um,

now we think he was paid to tell it.

What's that got to do with me?

Someone gave him the information

he was trying to sell.

You were the only person that visited him.

I don't know what you mean.

He's probably hustling you.

He does that.

So uh, how do I get one of these with food stamps, huh?

I work half days when I can get a sitter.

Oh.

So that's what, you make seven, eight bucks an hour, yeah?

Regina, someone paid him to lie,

you got the money.

Nobody paid me anything.

Then you wouldn't mind showing us

your most recent paystubs.

Without a warrant

I don't have to show you anything but the door.

Well, this was fun.

We'll stay in touch.

She went up there to her husband

and told him to make up a story.

What are you people saying?

Major corporate executives paid a convict

to screw up your investigation?

It's been known to happen.

Carolyn Meeker was a threat to that company.

Says who, some burned out left wing radical?

Your expert liked the evidence.

Listen, anyone ever hear of Karen Silkwood?

Lot of people think that she was killed

by the nuclear power industry.

Sandy, I agree with you,

I don't think corporations are running around killing people,

but we do need to get back there and talk to her boss.

Sandy, they've got to confront this guy,

see what he says.

Then your chief gets a call from the ConSec lawyers

and you know what they say.

One word of this leaks to the press

and the city gets sued for 50 million.

My advice, be careful.

Don't piss this guy off.

Come on, you don't think anyone from this company

was involved in her death.

What would it have cost

had Carolyn Meeker gone public with those documents?

Absolutely nothing.

We lost that contract in '99,

Clinton Administration,

budget cuts.

Can you answer two direct questions?

Ask them.

Did you know Carolyn Meeker had the documents?

Did you know she was going public?

We knew.

That probably shook things up around here.

I'll tell you exactly what we did.

It's the way you handle these things.

The general counsel in the company

took me to Carolyn's house.

We told her and her husband

that we would litigate them into the ground,

they would be destroyed,

they'd need expensive lawyers,

they'd spend every nickel that they had ever saved.

When it was over, they'd be broke.

Back up.

You said her husband was there.

Chris Meeker?

He was there, he was terrified.

He knew precisely what his wife was doing.

And he wasn't too happy about it.

*

Carolyn had concerns.

ConSec threatened you and your wife.

They basically told you your lives would be destroyed.

A meeting like that?

That's not something you forget.

Look.

They're a powerful company.

Why would I say anything about them?

They wanted to hurt me now,

they still could.

He was different this time.

His pain was gone.

In its place,

self assurance, confidence.

It all sounded reasonable,

except for one thing.

They'd threatened him six years ago.

And he's afraid to tell us now?

How could it matter?

She realized that those documents

were not gonna be enough,

and so she reconsidered the whole thing.

You're saying she changed her mind.

No, she never committed to it in the first place.

It's like I told you.

She thought about it

and in the end she decided

that it wasn't worth the risk.

You're not buying.

I'm on a budget, I'm not buying a story

that changes every day.

Well, he's evasive.

Does that mean he had a reason to kill his wife?

And call me a sap,

but these two people look like they loved each other.

At one point they did.

Suppose she wouldn't be able to get a job.

Suppose they were gonna be broke.

Is that enough?

Nothing's ever just about money.

I don't believe he did it.

He killed her or he had it done,

the question is why and how do we prove it.

We need to know a lot more about Chris Meeker.

No doubt about it.

Chris Meeker, he was telling the truth.

Said he went to the papers for help looking for his wife.

Six paragraphs on page 31,

not exactly a desperate attempt.

He was smart enough to do more if he wanted to.

These diplomas, Stanford.

Full scholarships the whole way.

Full scholarships?

Stanford doesn't hand out any full rides

for good grades, either,

he was some kind of all star athlete.

Or he grew up in a lower tax bracket.

Well, Meeker strikes me as a guy who comes from money.

Well, guess again.

He's from La Puente.

Not exactly high going neighborhood.

All right, get a subpoena.

Get Meeker's canceled checks from July to December '97.

Get his savings and money market accounts, too.

Feel like taking a ride?

*

A trailer park.

Meeker had started his life here.

The kind of place you aren't proud of.

A place you'd sooner forget.

I was starting to understand who Christopher Meeker was.

If Meeker was born rich his parents sure hid it well.

Oh, this is the one.

Sir.

Meekers still live here?

You're about four years late,

Tom Meeker died of lung cancer.

How long have you lived here?

Twenty years.

Tom lived here at least twice that long.

You ever talk to Chris?

Chris?

Tom's son.

God, he looks just like Tom.

I knew Tom all those years

and I never knew he had a son.

Thank you.

You're welcome.

Meeker walked away from all this,

he never looked back.

Can you blame him?

He wanted the American dream, though.

He had it, too.

Yeah, and he'd have done anything to keep it.

We're ruling out an affair as motive

and we're not thinking some corporate executives

paid for a hired hit.

We're moving off of that.

And based on no physical evidence whatsoever

we're going with the idea that the husband killed her.

I grant you,

no physical evidence,

he's got an alibi, but he has motive.

Oh, come on.

Being poor as a child?

Put yourself in his place.

He grew up with nothing, less than nothing.

Worked his ass off.

Got the big car, got the big house,

he had it made.

Erased his childhood.

Then his wife says, "I'm taking this down on ConSec."

Which, by the way, will cost us everything".

So he stood to lose his money

so he killed her.

Deeper than money, it's about him.

It's about who Meeker was and who he wanted to be.

And she was gonna take it all away from him.

You got motive,

I got opportunity.

A connection between Christopher Meeker

and our snitch in Calipatria.

Tell me your snitch grew up in La Puente.

Not quite, but his wife did.

Regina grew up right around the corner

from the Royal Gardens trailer park.

Bingo.

Back to her.

No, she won't budge.

We need someone with information

who's willing to talk.

We talked to everyone.

Well, maybe not, sometimes the best information

comes from people who don't even know they have it.

Look, it was six years ago, I don't remember.

Well, try to think back.

Had anything in the relationship changed?

Why are you asking this?

Did they fight?

Sure.

Not as bad as some, though,

I had friends whose parents used to throw things at each other.

The day your mother went missing

your dad was out of town.

Yeah, Phoenix.

What's with the questions?

Do you remember how long that trip

may have been planned in advance?

I don't, I don't know whether or not it was planned.

He told us he was gonna leave the night before.

I'm gonna go.

I only have a few more questions.

Yeah, well you know what?

I don't wanna answer them.

The officer will drive you home.

I'll take the bus.

What happened?

He knows more than he wants to know.

Well, we went through Meeker's checks.

Do you really think he'd hire someone to kill his wife

and leave a paper trail?

Checks or cash, we can find them.

This might not mean anything,

but six weeks before Carolyn Meeker disappeared

$500 cash machine withdrawals every third day

for the entire six weeks.

Well, they could have spent it out of their pockets.

Well, wouldn't she spot a check to someone she didn't know?

Unless they hadn't cleared.

Or unless he found a way of paying somebody

without her noticing.

*

HB Landscaping.

15,000 ten days before Carolyn Meeker disappeared,

and over here another 10,000 the day after.

With that yard?

Big pool area?

They could have spent that easy.

Except for the timing.

One check right before she disappeared,

another check right after, huh?

HB Landscaping.

It's not a corporation, it's a DBA.

Pull the business license.

If we find out who's behind HB Landscaping

we find out who killed Carolyn Meeker.

HB Landscaping.

A guy named Henry Berk.

Mr. Berk stays busy when he's not trimming the hedges.

Burglary, 18 months,

armed robbery, a deuce at Chino,

and the good part.

Two years ago CCW,

...22 Browning Buckmark automatic.

Meeker hired his gardener to kill his wife?

Why not?

Berk's mowing his lawn,

he and Meeker get to talking,

comes out Berk's done time.

We don't have Henry Berk's gun

so we can't match shell casings.

We still have a picture of the.22.

Yeah.

But that's no good to us.

Sure it is.

Pull Henry Berk's prints.

Get me a picture of that gun,

meet me at ballistics.

This was a nice gun.

Started production in '92, I think.

There's a new model now, they changed the barrel.

Can you get this exact gun?

I told you it's been scrapped.

All right, find one,

age it to look just like this one,

and then check the scratches on the grip and barrel,

try to duplicate it exactly.

I get the feeling we're about to do something unethical.

Unethical, no.

Devious, maybe.

*

Henry Berk?

It's Hank.

Only people who call me Henry are family or cops.

Step away from the truck, please.

Stop moving, Henry.

What are you, some kind of limey?

Keep your hands away from your body.

Look here man, I'm clean.

I made all my parole meetings, all right?

You're under arrest for the murder of Carolyn Meeker.

Radio for backup.

*

Stupid mark, I got 20 years on you.

You're under arrest for the murder of Carolyn Meeker.

You have the right to remain silent,

anything you say can and will be used against you

in a court of law.

You have the right to an attorney.

If you cannot afford one...

You're a three time loser, Henry.

I got two felonies.

You're about to get a third.

Says you.

25,000, that's pathetic.

Killing a woman you should have asked for more.

I remember I used to work for those Meeker people,

a long time ago.

Put in some trees and bushes.

And a bullet in Carolyn Meeker's skull.

Look familiar?

You carried without a permit.

Cops took it away from you.

Shell casing from a bullet they fired this morning.

This one's from Carolyn Meeker's car.

You see those firing pin marks, Henry?

They're identical.

Now this is how this goes.

You're gonna enter a plea to a straight first,

tell us everything or take your chances at trial,

but that's risky.

Because you can wind up with a needle in your arm.

Now this offer is good

for ten seconds.

*

Five.

*

I-, I never popped anybody before.

I mean, he even told me where to,

where to push the car so they'd never find her.

He wanted to know if I really did it,

she showed me a picture of her kid.

*

She begged me, man.

Said he didn't wanna hear about it.

*

Beautifully done.

Thank you.

He's nailed.

Do the speech.

Ladies and gentlemen of the jury,

the sole witness in this case is a convicted felon

who avoided the death penalty by entering a plea.

Do you believe him,

or do you believe the upstanding citizen Christopher Meeker?

Will the DA offer him a deal?

They said no, we need a confession.

An arrest would give us the last chance.

You surprise a man,

you arrest him,

take him away in handcuffs,

he's nervous, disoriented.

Tense.

Yes, we would tell Christopher Meeker his rights,

but somehow I felt he wouldn't call a lawyer.

It would make him look guilty.

He had hired a man to kill his wife,

but he would make every pretense of innocence.

And while he did I had a window of opportunity.

Time to push him before he could think.

I didn't kill my wife.

You were out of town.

You paid a man named Henry Berk to kill your wife.

I loved my wife.

Did you love your son?

You took his mother away.

That's who he is.

He's trying to recover from the worst loss he'll ever know.

Zack's doing just fine.

When I first met you I wondered.

Successful guy, has it all.

How come he never remarried?

Now I think I understand.

You never did get over it.

You never came to terms with killing your wife.

*

You don't know who I am.

You couldn't visit your own father when he was dying.

Must have been hard for you.

Remembering when there was no food on the table.

Kids at school had new clothes,

you didn't have any.

*

Where'd you grow up?

*

Nice little tract house in the Valley.

Fake cedar shingles on the roof.

Your dad was a cop.

Your mom taught high school.

She was the principal.

Close enough.

No one ever said you weren't smart.

I can almost be there with you.

Your nice house,

standing by your pool.

Thinking how hard you worked to get this far.

Now you're gonna lose it all

and all you could see was the dirt yard of a trailer park.

Your son was 16 years old.

I protected my son.

You killed your own unborn child.

Now if you knew about that, if she told you about the baby,

would she still be alive?

*

She...

She said she had to do it.

Why?

Why?

It wouldn't change anything,

you can't change the world.

It would destroy us.

And for what?

ConSec would go on doing what they always did.

They'd be on the front pages for a day

and they'd go back to their lives

and they'd still have everything they had.

We would have nothing.

*

There was no way out.

I couldn't let her do it.

*

I didn't have a choice.

*

You arrested my dad?

Sit down, Zack.

I'm so sorry.

Where is he?

You can't see him right now.

How could he have done it,

he wasn't even here.

We're charging him with paying someone else to have it done.

You knew, didn't you?

Knew what, Zack?

When you asked about my mom and dad.

About the last day.

It's funny, I...

I always wondered.

I couldn't ever really explain it.

I can't tell now, but...

I think I always knew.

Sometimes we know things.

We can't do anything about it, so we put it away.

So we don't have to know.

Detective Beltram will take you down to County Jail

and you can see him when he's rebooked.

Come on, Zack.

*

What else could I say to him?

He would be looking for peace the rest of his life.

We try to leave the past behind,

sometimes we have to just to survive.

But the past is never past.

It's there with us all the time.

We can try to rewrite it,

it doesn't work.

Either we learn to deal with the past or we don't.

If we don't,

it deals with us.

Henry Berk entered a plea to murder in the first degree.

He is currently serving a life sentence

at the State Penitentiary at San Quentin.

Christopher Meeker entered a plea

to murder in the first degree.

He is currently serving a life sentence

at the State Penitentiary at Folsom.

*

*

*

*