Original subtitles

[camera shutter clicking]

[Falsone] Suicide?

Maybe.

How'd he get up on a beam like that with his hands tied behind him?

That's what I'm thinking.

That chair's too far away for him to have kicked out.

He's got some bruising on the face, too.

So it's a murder.

Wow, a hanging murder.

A member of the Baltimore City Police Department Homicide Unit

used the word "wow" on the crime scene?

You got to admit it, Meldrick, it's a little different.

I mean, we get shootings and cuttings, cuttings and shootings,

and every now and then some mope tries

to pound somebody to death with a baseball bat.

But who goes through the trouble to hang people nowadays?

Hey, Doctor.

Wow!

I say it, it sounds stupid. She says it, what?

Now see, I'll explain something to you.

She went to medical school, okay?

She says something stupid, she sounds way smarter than you do.

Thanks, Meldrick, I think.

So, who is our longneck in the spiffy $800 suit here?

It's Martin Ridenour, 33 years.

Cash, credit card, watch, wedding ring still on his person.

Also in his wallet is a business card

identifying him as a partner at Gable and Cress.

- [Cox] The advertising firm? - Yeah.

So why on earth would a downtown advertising executive

be hanging around these parts?

- He's fit to be tied. - [Lewis laughs]

[chuckles] Yeah, I can't tell you too much right now,

not until I get Mr. Vertical here laid out horizontally,

so whenever you two are ready.

[suspenseful instrumental playing]

[theme song playing]

[*]

[officer] Homicide.

[knocking on door]

[Bayliss] Need some company?

[Pembleton] Yeah, help yourself.

- Get you anything? - Hey, Tara.

Yeah, let's see, I'm gonna get the, you know,

egg whites on a Kaiser roll, and also some coffee.

So, is this the Gerbes case?

Yeah, I'm waiting for the boys from the Traffic Investigation Section

to send me whatever the City Garage found.

Uh-huh, so, are we going to charge the old lady, Dorothy Nichols?

Dorothy Nichols, the 84-year-old great-grandmother,

who says that the car's accelerator stuck.

Thanks, oh, let me get some grapefruit juice, too, thanks.

- I'm famished. - Busy night?

- It was just dinner, Frank. - Good?

Yeah, you and me, we've had dinner before.

You had dinner with a guy.

With a very interesting guy.

- [Pembleton] That redefines "dinner" for me. - [Bayliss] Hmm.

- Morning. Frank, Tim. - [Pembleton] Morning.

- Ah, how you doing, Laura? - Hungry.

- [Tara] There you go, hon. - [Bayliss] Thanks.

Oh, that smells good.

Mm-hmm, it's egg whites and home fries.

- Huh, you know, I'll have that and a cup of coffee. - [Bayliss chuckling]

So, grapefruit juice, egg whites,

it's very healthy, I like that.

Yeah, ever since I gave up the egg yolks,

I don't know, it just feels like I have more energy.

Can I have a bite of your sandwich?

- Sure. Sure, here. - [Ballard] Thanks.

[moans] Holy [indistinct], this is a good sandwich.

I could get addicted to this.

Yeah, well, I invented that sandwich.

[chuckles] You can have some of mine when it comes.

Thanks.

- I'm out of here. - [Ballard] Oh, wait, wait, wait.

- Did I interrupt you guys? - No, no, no, not to fret.

I just got a guy who was run over last night.

- [Ballard] Oh, yeah, that. Sad, huh? - [Pembleton] Mm-hmm.

That little old lady shouldn't have been driving that late at night.

You know, you get to be that age, your eyes are shot.

I'm kind of hoping the car accelerator stuck.

Everything else's getting way too complicated.

- See you, Frank. - [Pembleton] See you.

- Bye. - [Pembleton] Bye.

- Damn good. - [Bayliss] Isn't it good?

- [Ballard] Oh, here comes mine. - [Bayliss] Oh, yeah.

- Oh, look at it, thanks. - [Ballard chuckles]

- [Bayliss] I'll just take this here. - [Ballard laughing]

[Bayliss] And you can have mine, since you [indistinct].

[Ballard] Right?

You say you were home all night?

Yeah, next door's been vacant for I don't know how long.

All kind of dogs and rats and everything else crawling up in there.

All kind of noises pop up,

but I don't pay that no mind.

What kind of noises did you hear last night?

Shouts, tussling, yelling.

But who knows, that might not even have been real.

Might have been somebody's television set on across the alley.

- [Lewis] So you found the guy? - Yes, Lord.

White boy was swinging there with his mouth open

like a lake trout on a fishing line.

You ever seen him around [indistinct]?

If I had, he'd been remembered, all dressed up like that.

What time was it when you found him?

I'll be damned, lost my Rolex.

Come on, man, this is your corner.

That's your crew.

What kind of self-respecting drug dealer works without knowing the corner?

I don't sell drugs.

- Okay, I'm not a cop. - [corner kid laughs]

Yes.

Okay, I'm not Narcotics, I'm Homicide.

A little something to play with.

Damn.

Look what happened to that man's neck.

Stretched him out.

It's all in the laws of gravity, [indistinct].

Look at his face, you recognize the guy?

Is he a customer?

I ain't never seen him before. He never copped from us.

[siren wails]

- [Munch] Hey, Tim. This the car? - Hey, yeah, this is it.

[laughs] Look at that front end. How fast was the old lady going?

I don't know, but fast enough to throw Gerbes about 100 feet.

Little old lady from Pasadena, huh?

[Bayliss] Uh-huh.

So, how's things with you and Julianna?

I'm working here, Kellerman.

So, I spoke with Traffic Investigation.

- Uh-huh. - And they say that from first looks,

this car's brakes and linkage are in excellent condition.

They checked the carburetor, and it's clean.

Well, that means the accelerator couldn't have been stuck.

Well, I'm suspecting that old lady Nichols mistook the accelerator for the brake.

Uh-huh, I think we should talk to her, and get this all figured out.

Yeah, by the way, what did you and Ballard get figured out?

About what?

I saw you putting the moves on her over at Jimmy's, you got a thing for her?

- Ballard? - Yeah.

I don't know, she's beautiful,

she smolders, she's got wonderful skin.

Who knows?

- She smolders? - Yeah.

I'm attracted to her, Frank.

Who aren't you attracted to?

For the past three weeks, you and our esteemed ME

have been tripping the light fantastic.

Now you're telling me you got a thing for Ballard?

Wait a minute, you remember when we were riding together on the Frandina case, hmm?

What Frandina case?

Four years ago, the sex call-in girl?

- Frandina? - Yeah. Yeah.

The one who was strangled with the leather belt.

What I'm talking about is kinky sexual acts.

Dehumanizing acts

between two human beings, all right?

Sex is love, period. This I believe.

Oh, right. Okay, Frandina. Right.

So what, you're thinking Ballard and leather, is that it?

Well, I'm just remembering-- That's a thought, though.

Well, someone said to me once about the--

"Experiment, you know, there's nothing wrong with a little experimenting"?

- I'm this someone? - Yeah.

You said that if I was going to close cases,

I had to find out what made me tick,

both the good and the bad, the virtue and the vice.

- The so-called shadow self. - What shadow self?

The forbidden, Frank.

I'm saying you've got a darkness.

You, Tim Bayliss, you've got a darkness inside of you.

You got to know the darker, uglier sides of yourself.

You've got to recognize them, so they're not constantly sneaking up on you.

You've got to love them, because they're part of you,

because along with your virtues, they make you who you are.

Virtue isn't virtue unless it slams up against vice.

So, consequently,

your virtue is not real virtue,

until it's been tested, tempted.

[Bayliss] You know, otherwise, it's gonna jump up, and it's gonna slam me.

When I'm saying this, I'm probably making conversation.

No, no, you were stone serious.

It was during one of your rants and raves.

This is my pre-stroke days? This was, what, four years ago?

Yeah, and it's something that's always stuck with me.

So, you're saying that I'm responsible for your confusion?

I'm not confused.

Take a pill.

No, no, you see, I'm finding out.

- Outstanding. - [Bayliss scoffs]

[Bayliss] You know, I'm gonna call Dorothy Nichols, and ask her to come in,

see if she wasn't just panicking.

- [Pembleton] Panic would be my guess. - [Bayliss] It'd be mine, too.

Casa dolce casa

for the yuppie advertising exec.

You look at this place, and you wonder what the hell he was doing

over by the Orchard Street projects.

[Lewis] Same city, different worlds.

[Falsone] The guy's got some family, huh?

You ain't just whistling Dixie.

- [Falsone] It bothers you? - [Lewis] Little bit.

I'm sorry for leaving you down here so long,

I had a little trouble getting the baby to go down for his nap.

I know this is a bad time, but we have questions.

Do you have any family?

My mother's on her way up from Washington.

- She'll be here in an hour. - Good, good, that's good.

So, what? This is some kind of robbery?

Someone killed Martin over his money?

No, his wallet and watch were found on him.

[Lewis] We'll have his personal effects returned to you when we conclude this case.

Well, then, why?

Mrs. Ridenour, did your husband have any kind of problems with drugs or alcohol?

Absolutely not.

Did he know anyone in West Baltimore?

[Pamela] What are you suggesting?

Is there anyone he would have visited on the West Side?

- Over by the projects near Orchard Street? - No.

Did your husband have any African American friends or associates?

No, not that I know.

Look, if you mean, could he have made the acquaintance of a Black person,

the answer is yes, my husband was open to all kinds of people.

But right now, no one in particular comes to mind.

[Lewis] Hmm.

It's quite a family.

Well, the Ridenour family in Maryland can be traced all the way back to the 1790s.

It was a hobby for Martin.

Were there any arguments in the family?

Any disputes at the office he told you about?

No, nothing like that, martin was doing really well.

He was diligent, and he put in the hours.

In fact, he'd managed to snatch away

two national accounts from a Madison Avenue firm,

Sovereign Airlines and DRV Investments.

Who's the lady soldier on the horse?

I think, yeah, that's Martin's great-great-great-grandmother.

She fought for the South?

Well, I guess not all Southern belles

sat on the front porch sipping mint juleps.

[suspenseful instrumental playing]

My husband didn't live in the past.

His family's heritage,

it was more a matter of curiosity than anything else.

Curiosity?

Did your husband belong to any social clubs,

like maybe the Sons of the Confederacy, anything like that?

[sighs] I'm sorry if all the history in this room

has made you uncomfortable, Detective,

but history is all that it is.

[*]

[horse neighs]

What was up with you in there?

What do you mean?

We're working a murder at the far edge of the 20th century,

and you're asking about the Civil War?

Oh, excuse me, I'm just not used to going into a victim's home,

and see a Dixie waving.

They're family mementos, they don't mean anything.

To you, maybe, I go in there, and I see flags and swords

and old Stonewall Jackson peering down at me from the mantelpiece.

I'm sorry, I just don't truck with that.

Come on, what, what? You think Martin Ridenour is some kind of grand Kleagle?

I mean, he's a mild-mannered executive by day,

but after dark, he's riding through Baltimore with a bedsheet on his head?

Well, you know, with all this Gone With The Wind crap,

it's just getting under my skin.

You want off this case?

Hey, I'm working this murder here, all right?

I'm a pro. I do this for a living.

- Mm-hmm. - What you talking about?

And what was old great-grandpa Falsone doing

during the War Between The States, huh?

Stealing chickens in Palermo.

[Lewis laughing]

- [Robert] $20 million. - [Lewis whistles]

[Robert] At least.

Actually, I'm being a little conservative.

The DRV account alone was worth $20 million to us.

What would be Martin Ridenour's cut of that deal?

A point and a half on commission.

Over the next two years on that account alone,

he'd have pulled in 300,000.

Add another 150,000 for the Sovereign account.

[Lewis] So our guy was a real comer.

Martin? He was the best junior exec in the firm.

I can't believe he's gone.

What a waste.

Anyone in your line of work who disliked the guy?

[Robert] What do you mean?

Well, I mean, if he won the fight for those two big accounts,

there must've been some losers, right?

Well, the other bidders were some Madison Avenue firms up in New York,

but within this firm,

there were a couple of junior partners

who would have liked the accounts,

but Martin's presentation was really topflight.

So, can you give us the names of some of these losers?

Sure, but I got to tell you, in the advertising business,

clients jump ship all the time.

Sales of a tooth whitener drop by 1%,

and you have a dozen corporate monkeys

jumping all over themselves that blame the ad campaign.

Sales go up 0.5%,

those monkeys are throwing bonus money at the same ad agency.

Sounds pretty cutthroat.

We cut throats every day, Detective.

But I've never heard of anyone doing any actual bleeding.

[Cox] Hey, guys, how's it going?

No motive, no suspect.

No kidding.

What do you say we change up, and rule this thing a suicide.

Why, I think we all pretty much know

that Martin Ridenour didn't hang himself.

Yeah. New rule.

If we have a suspect in custody, it's murder.

And if the suspect is unknown,

it's the worst case of suicide I've ever seen, huh?

That's my new rule, I think it's gonna make us all very happy.

How about we keep it a homicide,

and I just give you a little bit more to go on?

[suspenseful instrumental playing]

What the hell?

[whip cracks]

[Cox] Whipped.

- [whip cracks] - [Falsone] What?

And what's more, he was whipped antemortem.

- [whip cracks] - Before he was hanged.

He had his shirt off, and then at some point, after the lashing,

he was allowed to redress.

Now, from the angle of these marks,

I would say that he was on his knees,

and his assailant was standing behind him, and somewhat to the left.

- Whipped? - [Cox] Yep.

[whip cracks]

I've seen a lot, but this beats them all.

We've got a downtown suit who wandered into the hood,

and gets himself whipped and hanged.

Now, if he were Black, and this were 1948,

they'd call it a lynching.

Yeah, but he's white, so what the hell do we call it?

A mess.

[*]

"Avenger by day, libidinous karate girl by night."

- [assistant] Bayliss. - Hmm.

These two people are here to see you.

- Detective Bayliss? - Mm-hmm.

I'm Jenny Torgerson, I'm representing Mrs. Nichols here.

- Oh, hi. - Hello, darling.

I want you to have these.

Sorry. I can't take anything.

Someone as skinny as you could use some heft.

Please take them. I baked them myself.

You wanted to talk to my client about the accident yesterday?

Yeah, I really appreciate you coming in.

You ain't gonna send me to jail, are you?

I mean, my driving record is spotless.

Up till yesterday, I didn't even have a parking ticket.

Okay, I'll take this interview.

- Fine by me. - Okay, this way.

- [Jenny] Thank you. - Yes.

[Gharty] All that decaf.

Wrong, hot water.

So from low octane to no octane?

[Pembleton] Yeah, that's right.

I think that old lady panicked,

got the gas pedal confused with the brakes.

- Hmm? - Your case.

Kind of like Bayliss, huh?

What?

- I hear things, peculiar things. - Excuse me?

Come on.

I have no idea what you're on about.

You don't know?

Station house whispers about your partner.

- Whispers about Bayliss? - You've heard.

Indulge me.

Well, I hear that Bayliss

is a switch hitter.

[chuckling] Is that so?

That he's riding both sides of the hobby horse.

[laughs] Both sides, huh?

Is that a kick in the head, or what?

I hear he's interested in Ballard.

I saw them eating breakfast together, what do you make of that?

- Gets you thinking, doesn't it? - They had breakfast?

Ask your partner.

I was there, and I saw it, Ballard with Bayliss.

So, if Bayliss is swinging from both sides of the plate,

where's your partner on this?

Not my partner.

You standing for a reason?

What you saying about Ballard?

Well, you're telling me all these things about Bayliss.

I see him with your partner, I don't know what to think.

- Think nothing of it. - No?

No, not a thing!

What? You look kind of pissed.

Don't let this table come between us.

Not my partner.

Come on around the table, whisper that to me.

I love the sugar cookies, don't you?

The holiday spirit, it lingers on.

Oh, sorry, you weren't reading that, were you?

No. It's yours.

[Munch] So, where you at?

- Right now? - Yeah.

Nowhere.

So, your victim was really hanged and whipped?

Not necessarily in that order.

A white businessman was found tortured and executed in antique fashion

in a part of Baltimore where white businessmen

are not often found frequenting.

It's interesting.

[Falsone] Yeah, color's fascinating.

My first thought is drugs.

Yeah, but we got no history of drug use from the family,

no drug tracks or dirty urine from the morgue, Gee.

Go back to the beginning.

[Lewis] The beginning?

Go back to the crime scene, and canvas.

Go back to square one,

and take a fresh look at the terrain for the first time.

Gee, we've been up and down that block, it's nowheresville.

Then canvas the next block, or the next two.

Everything about this murder says that it was planned.

This is not random.

Your victim is hanging in a row house for a reason.

You just don't know what the reason is.

My man.

Oh, you're thinking we're friends now?

My mainest man.

So remember, kids. Don't just say no to drugs.

Say, "No, thank you."

[corner kid] Look, man, we already talked.

You know Mickey Denning, Western District Drug Squad?

Denning? Yeah, he be storming out here.

That man liked to lock everyone up.

You know, Mickey broke me in. Knows me like a brother.

If I tell him I got a problem on this corner,

his whole squad will be right there on the pavement.

- Oh, man. - I kid you not.

Every knocker in the Western District will be there,

toasting marshmallows, and singing campfire songs.

Man, you ain't even funny.

Me and my partner are going up the block.

When I come back, I want you to tell me something I don't know yet.

Hold up, man. This has gone past being fair.

I talked nice to you one day,

you come back, and persecute me the next?

Shoot, hard enough being a Black man in America

before you got to messing with me.

Hey, don't get paranoid on me.

Look, just 'cause I'm bugging

don't mean you all ain't out to get me.

[chuckling] Kid's got flex, huh? I like him.

[laughs]

[Lewis] All right, I'll take the right side of the street,

you take the left.

Well, thank you anyway, sir. There's my card.

Please don't hesitate to call me at that number if you think of anything.

[Falsone] That's it for both sides of the street.

Yeah, row houses, anyway.

[Falsone] Hey, it's just a church, man.

Not even a church, it's like a museum or something.

[Lewis] Sure is, Orchard Street church was part of the underground railroad.

I wanna check it out.

After soaking up all that Johnny Rebel stuff yesterday,

I need something to balance out my energies.

You're standing on sacred ground.

Orchard Street was one of many stops on the highway to freedom.

This church, built in 1837

by enslaved and free Blacks,

was operating a year before Frederick Douglass made his famous escape

from the President Street Station.

The main sanctuary

is symbolic of a slave ship.

The beams were brought in from the shipyards here in Baltimore.

[soft instrumental playing]

I like to think that this is where the spirits are.

Maryland was deeply divided over slavery.

Baltimore had strong secessionist leanings,

and runaway slaves were hunted on bounties

everywhere below the Mason-Dixon line.

An escape tunnel.

This was probably made to look like part of a pantry or a cupboard,

but the tunnel actually travels 75 yards

towards what is now known

as Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.

[Falsone] So runaway slaves used to crawl through here?

Yes.

[tense instrumental playing]

I know it didn't do much for the case file,

but I just felt the need.

No problem. Yo!

[Lewis] Yeah.

A white van.

[Falsone] Excuse me?

I'm giving you something you don't know.

- That's the deal, right? - That's the deal.

A white van was in front of that boarded up house night before last.

What kind of van, did you get the make or model, plates?

[corner kid] Wasn't noticing.

But it had some writing on the side,

nothing I remember, some of those flags and dots.

- [Lewis] Flags and dots? - [corner kid] Uh-huh.

Show me.

What is this, Name That Tune?

- These the only two vans you got? - Man, I'm just starting out.

My name ain't U-Haul.

Where were they the night before last, were they in use?

[Tricky] I had them on a job in Annapolis.

Drove them back here, and locked them after we finished up.

- Who had the other one? - Dennis.

He had to spin some tunes at a dinner gig Thursday,

but he didn't drop it off till today.

I almost fired his ass for that.

- Dennis? - Dennis Rigby.

I hired the man, because he looked responsible, you know?

Like a professor with reading glasses and library books.

Thought the man was steady rolling.

But he's gone, man, he's out there.

What do you mean?

Look, I don't really want to get all into it.

Dennis is always talking some craziness.

Where is he now?

[Tricky] My guess is over at his parent's house.

- What's the matter? - City Police.

We're looking for Dennis Rigby.

- Why? - We need to talk to him

about something we're working on.

He's not here.

Can we come in, sir?

Thank you.

[Maizie] Has there been some trouble?

We just need to talk with your son, ma'am, sort some things.

My son is not about trouble.

Graduated with honors from Charles University.

Dennis is 25 years old,

and in all that time no police has ever walked through my door on his account.

No, ma'am.

He's never been arrested, never been in trouble,

never caused us to lose a minute's sleep.

We know that, ma'am,

but if you could have him give us a call,

I'd really appreciate it.

Here's my number.

You have a bathroom I could use, sir?

- Down the hall to the right. - [Lewis] Thank you.

It says "Homicide."

[suspenseful instrumental playing]

[tense instrumental playing]

[music stops]

Got lost. Sorry.

It's like we're turning a knob on a door that doesn't exist.

The guy's a college type.

I think we go back to all the advertising money, you know?

Find the guy who thought he was gonna get paid, and didn't.

Nah, uh-huh, this is the guy.

Who, Rigby? Why?

How would he even know the victim?

I don't know.

It just connects somehow.

Ballard, where are you coming from?

I was on some errands. Why, we get a call?

No, we're good. I was just looking for you.

- Yeah, why? - We gotta talk.

Step into my office.

- What did you have to buy? - Some stuff for my apartment.

- Decorating? - It's women's items, okay?

Yeah. Sure.

- Are you okay? - Never better.

Gharty?

You had breakfast with Bayliss the other day.

- Yeah, Tim's a good guy. - Yes, he is.

I never would have guessed he was so funny.

He's got a really wicked sense of humor.

He's a little strange.

Strange like odd? Queer?

But he's thoughtful, you know?

He thinks a lot, about a lot of things.

I hear that you had breakfast with Bayliss,

I want to know where, if anywhere, this is going.

Between me and Tim?

It's not good getting involved with another detective.

"Involved"? What? We had breakfast!

- [Gharty] People talk. - We had breakfast, that's all.

People are talking.

Once things get said, they have a way

of becoming nasty, part of the permanent record.

Oh, I can't have breakfast with a fellow detective?

We do it all the time, you and me.

That's different, we work together.

It's no different than with me and Bayliss, Stu.

So that's what it was? Professional?

You betcha.

[sighs in relief] Good.

Great.

- We should go to work. - Yeah.

- You got schmutz on your collar. - Schmutz.

Looks like marinara sauce.

- I just had spaghetti, you can tell? - Yeah.

For any detective,

the shortest distance between two points is a straight line,

but for Lewis, he has to take us back into the last century.

Y'all can giggle all y'all want to,

but I'm telling you, Gee, there's something to this.

Money, drugs, sex, that's the unholy trinity.

You want to find a motive for this killer,

look in your victim's life, not history books.

I got a victim who was whupped and then hung,

or should I say whipped and lynched?

Not half a block from the church that was used to shelter runaway slaves back in the day.

Now, the victim happens to be a guy

who has got all kinds of confederate connections in his family tree.

And I go visit the home of the suspect--

[Giardello] A potential suspect.

At this point, all you have is a work van near the crime scene.

A potential suspect.

Except that this cat's house is like a museum the other way.

On his walls, he's got righteous Black folks all around.

So, this adds up to something?

I say we haven't done enough with the money

this guy was making from snatching ad accounts.

Exactly, that money is real, you can die for it, kill for it.

And the murder takes place in the here and now, I agree.

And I'm telling you, Martin Ridenour wasn't strung up over no advertising dollars.

[Pembleton] Ridenour?

[Lewis] Yeah.

- [Giardello] What? - Your victim's name is Ridenour?

Martin Ridenour.

What is it, Frank?

"Hush your mouth, go to sleep

Old Patty Ridenour

take you back deep."

Hogtie a man over 6'4.

Kill little children for too much noise.

So "Hush your mouth, get on to sleep,

Old Patty Ridenour take you back deep."

[Falsone] Patty Ridenour?

What the hell kind of poem is that?

This is something that my grandmother taught me.

In her house,

Patty Ridenour was one of the great bogeymen of childhood.

She was this lady bounty hunter, chasing down runaway slaves.

Shooting them, beating them, selling them back into slavery.

- [Falsone] Was she real? - [Pembleton] Well, she was real enough

for an eight-year-old, I can tell you that.

You didn't eat your peas, Patty Ridenour'll be coming for you.

You didn't brush your teeth, Patty Ridenour will be riding up

to take another little bad boy away.

Now, Grandma was-- She was quite a sadist now,

come to think about it.

All the verses end

with some fresh act of cruelty.

"Got a gang of seven Taken slave and free

Riding day and night On her coal-black steed."

Coal-black steed?

I'll be damned.

[spiritual folk song playing]

[*]

[*]

[music ends]

License and registration, please.

- [Munch laughs] - Nothing?

No, no one in or out.

You owe Lewis, you owe me big for tonight.

I know.

Man's got no money, no means of transportation, no other known addresses.

- I don't get it. - [Lewis] I do.

[doorbell rings]

Y'all are good people, I know that,

and I'm sorry for bringing this trouble to your home so late at night,

but our job is to find Dennis.

- Well, he's not here. - I do believe he is.

Now, I could go, get a search warrant,

and we could come back, and tear your house up again,

but you and I both don't have the heart for that, do we?

[sighs]

What the hell do you think is down here, anyway?

The past.

[ominous instrumental playing]

[thudding]

[wall banging hollowly]

[tense instrumental playing]

[*]

[Lewis] Mr. Rigby?

The Black men's been chained for 400 years.

[Lewis] My man, you ain't got to worry about but 30 or 40.

I liked the false wall in the basement, you do that yourself?

[Lewis knocks on table]

You know him?

You haven't been to jail before, have you?

- I'm the other 50%. - [Lewis] 50%?

Of Black men who have never been subjected

to the criminal justice system in this country.

- Yeah, well, you're here now. - But it's different.

Isn't it?

I'm not here for dope or coke

or any of that gangster pretend.

- Well, it's all the same to him. - [Dennis] No. No, it wasn't.

Yeah. Yeah, it was.

To him, you're just another crazed nigger with a bad plan.

You're just the usual white boy nightmare.

Don't call me that.

- He knew what it was about. - [Falsone] 'Cause you told him.

You made sure to tell him, didn't you?

I'd like a lawyer.

[Lewis] Why would you want a lawyer, huh?

You ain't just some corner boy.

This was righteous. This was political.

This was history, jumping up and biting Martin Ridenour in the ass.

You wanted to send a message, didn't you, Dennis?

The Orchard Street church, the bullwhip, the lynching.

It was message time on Orchard Street.

So why hold back now? Just tell the truth.

You love history, don't you, Dennis?

Sankofa.

"Sanko" who?

[Dennis] Sankofa.

West African.

"You must study the past to move forward."

So tell us about Patty Ridenour.

[Dennis] Queen of the kidnappers.

A murderous matriarch of a vicious clan.

And what was worse,

was that she not only tracked runaways,

she hunted freed slaves.

You understand that, Detective?

She kidnapped freed Blacks,

and sold them back into slavery,

stealing their property and land.

That's a coldhearted bitch.

And my great-great-great-grandfather

was born freed and educated in Providence.

He spent $400 in sailor's wages

to buy his own farm, 600 acres.

[Lewis] Patty Ridenour.

I read. I saw the article in the paper.

"Martin Ridenour,

$20 million."

I saw his face, I saw his name,

I did my research.

And his success, it made you mad, huh?

To think what it was built on?

Yes, I was angry.

So you stalked him.

And the beauty of this is,

it wasn't enough to just

shoot him or cut him up.

You had to make it special.

And I'm with you on that.

If I was gonna do it,

I would need for Martin Ridenour

to leave this world in a way

that would keep the circle unbroken.

That's what I'm talking about, my brother, and you did that.

You brought it all around.

I did. I did.

How? How did you get him up in that vacant house?

How'd you get him up there?

I waited for him in his office garage.

I had a gun.

He thought it was a robbery.

He offered his watch, his wallet.

And after I ordered him into the back of the van,

he began begging,

promising to take me to an ATM

to get me more cash.

I tied him up, and blindfolded him in the back of the van.

When I pulled him out of the van, he didn't know where he was.

He couldn't see, he didn't know what was going on.

But when we got in that house,

when we got in that house,

I made sure he knew everything.

And you bullwhipped that white boy

on his knees,

and then you made him get up on that chair.

When the noose got 'round his neck,

he started crying.

[whip cracks]

I pulled the blindfold off.

- [whip cracks] - I made sure he saw me.

[whip cracks]

I made sure he saw me at that very last moment.

[*]

You are a sick son of a bitch.

[scoffs] I thought you'd understand.

[Falsone] Understand?

Look, you killed a man, an innocent man,

over something some long-dead ancestor

did to your long-dead ancestor?

You're Italian, surely you know what a vendetta is.

[Lewis] Why don't you tell us?

[shouting] Sankofa!

Now, my great-great-great-grandfather,

Zephus Rigby

died in slave quarters near Mechanicsburg, Virginia,

a year before the Civil War.

He hanged himself.

And the life of Martin Ridenour...

does that atone for you?

Does that atone for me?

[Dennis] The vendetta is settled.

[Lewis] He had a son.

An infant son.

And that boy is gonna grow up never having known his father,

never having known what came before his father.

But he's gonna know your name, Dennis.

That much he's gonna know.

And by the vendetta, he has all the right to come after you.

Or maybe your son.

I don't have a son.

[Lewis] And you never will.

Because the Rigby line...

[Lewis knocking on table]

...it ends here.

In blood.

[Ballard] It's wild, very wild.

[Bayliss] You know, it's contemporary primitive.

What do you think that is?

That, oh, I don't know, a sofa?

[Ballard chuckles] Well, what does he mean?

[Bayliss] Everybody needs a nap?

[both laughing]

Naps are good.

So, you're not gonna charge the old lady

with vehicular manslaughter, are you?

- [Bayliss] The Gerbes case? - [Ballard] Yeah.

No, no, that's gonna be written off as an accident.

You can't put an 84-year-old lady in jail.

We're gonna get the State to revoke her license.

[Ballard] So what do you make of this one?

[Bayliss] Oh, I don't know, let's see.

That nothing is

as it seems to be any more.

Something like that, the color sort of fades

into the eyes, doesn't it?

Mm, it's like seeing everything in black and white?

Uh-huh, yeah, and no matter how...

much the eyes look at you...

they don't see what they're looking at.

This place is a morgue.

I'm looking at the faces of the dead.

Yeah, can't even get away from work.

Well, you know, we could try.

[Falsone] So where's Billie Lou?

Night off.

I can't get past it.

Yeah, she'll be back tomorrow.

No, a murder with a motive more than a century old.

How twisted is that?

How screwed up is this country when it comes to racial stuff?

You kidding me?

I mean, we can't even--

People can't even apologize for slavery.

You cough on somebody in a crowded elevator,

you got sense enough to apologize.

We had slavery in this country for 400 years,

and can't nobody think of nothing to say.

Black or white,

as long as we got a memory of it,

we ain't never gonna get past it.

What do you want me to say, "I'm sorry"?

[Lewis] Yeah, well, I wasn't thinking about you.

'Cause I have never gone against anyone 'cause of color.

That's what I'm saying.

You don't get it.

I'm not disagreeing with you, but personally,

I have never owned slaves,

and I have never messed with anyone.

I've been a stand-up guy about that.

You don't understand.

What I'm saying is, I'll get the next round, how's that?

[blues music playing over speakers]

Just leave it the hell alone, Falsone.

[whip cracking]

[theme song playing]