Original subtitles

- [applause] - [Frost] And now it is my pleasure and privilege

to present the Medical Examiner of the Year Award.

From the National Association of Medical Examiners,

in recognition of her contributions to the field of forensic pathology,

this year's winner is the Chief Medical Examiner for the State of Maryland,

Dr. Julianna Cox.

[applause]

Thank you very much, Dr. Frost, and all my colleagues in NAME.

Um, this is great. I've never actually won anything before.

Um, the convention's been terrific,

and, uh, this is quite an honor, and I thank you very much.

- [applause] - Congratulations.

[ME 1] Insect activity in the corpse marks the time of death

as approximately 72 hours before discovery of the body,

but we don't know where the crime occurred

until we call in our forensic entomologist.

Forensic entomologist?

My, my, my! Talk about your specialists. I'm a little jealous.

So, how's he crack it?

By analyzing the larva in the soft tissue of the victim

as a species of bottle fly

indigenous to the Delaware River Gap.

So, the corpse was concealed outdoors long enough for the fly to lay its eggs,

and then driven to New Jersey and dumped, hmm?

- Exactly. - Not bad.

In fact, pretty nifty.

However, I've got one for you.

A few weeks ago, I get a call at home.

Now, it sounds like a straight-up, no-frills suicide.

A jumper.

- Munch. Kellerman. - Dr. Cox.

What have we got here? Who's our unlucky leaper?

[Kellerman] White male. Twenties.

- Name? - Not yet.

[Cox] So what do we know?

Well, he took a header off the roof.

- You been up there? - Yeah.

No signs of a struggle or presence of a second party.

Several bystanders witnessed his lift-off as strictly a solo flight by all accounts.

Well, what are we talking here, seven stories?

[Munch] Note the mangled awning, mute testimony to his tragic trajectory.

Looks like a pretty straightforward suicide.

I see absolutely no reason why

we can't all catch the nine o'clock movie at The Charles.

- Yeah. Right. - Yeah, yeah.

- What? - I wouldn't jump to any conclusions, Doctor, as it were.

[camera shutter clicking]

I don't understand. That looks like a gunshot wound.

I say, Holmes. Shotgun, if I'm not mistaken.

Which might make it... a murder!

- It's a 12-gauge. - 16.

- You wanna bet? - You're on.

All right.

[theme music playing]

[*]

[*]

- [phone ringing] - [Giardello] Homicide.

More than apparent. Now, several bystanders saw him

perched on the edge of this roof for a good five minutes before he jumped.

And after examination, you found a significant gunshot wound.

No, more than significant. It was fatal.

[clinking]

He was suicidal.

He goes to the roof to kill himself.

Stands on the edge.

Gathers his nerve.

And just as he's about to jump, mmm!

He gets shot in the back by an unseen assailant

who leaves no trace of his presence behind.

All right, all right. Actually, yes, that was my first thought.

However...

Uh-uh. He was shot in the chest, not in the back.

[Munch] Our eyewitnesses say he was facing the street.

- Maybe he was shot on the way down. - Upside-down, you mean.

Maybe he was shot after he hit the ground.

Somebody wanted to make sure he was dead,

- delivered the coup de grâce. - Overkill, don't you think?

Well, you can't be too careful. Remember Rasputin?

- Actually, I don't. - Rasputin? They poisoned him, they stabbed him,

they shot him 12 times, and then they stuffed him in a burlap bag

and they dumped him in the Neva River to drown.

And here's the beauty part: an hour later,

he pops up five miles downstream still ticking.

Well, that's why you're a great detective, 'cause you know stuff.

Except about weapons. It's definitely a 12-gauge.

You saw the pellet spread on that, right?

- You're a duck hunter now? Is that it? - Oh, and you are?

Well, at least I know the difference between a mallard and merganser.

Did anybody hear a shot?

One woman thought she heard something a split second after

our pal launched his short but brilliant career as a kamikaze.

- Which would mean that he was shot in the air. - [Kellerman] Right.

Like I said, somebody sees him getting ready to cash in his chips,

takes the opportunity for a little moving target practice, human skeet shooting.

Yeah, well, our other eyewitnesses didn't hear anything,

transfixed as they were by the sight of this shooting star plummeting to the earth.

- Enough with the metaphors. - Without metaphors, what are we left with?

We have a riddle surrounded by a mystery

wrapped inside an enigma and stuffed in a body bag.

[laughs] Well, I guess we're not gonna make that showing of The Full Monty after all.

- [pager beeping] - [Munch] Is that me?

- [Cox] No, it's me. - [pager beeping]

Well, I am so sorry. Duty calls. I've got to go.

Wait, wait, wait! You're not going anywhere! Wait a minute!

No, no, no, the rest of you are on vacation. For me, this is just a busman's holiday.

- [ME 2] Come on! - You can't leave us hanging!

I'll see you at happy hour. How's that?

I'll be taking this with me.

Don't have too much fun without me. See you later.

[laywer] Well, I'd say sole custody's a long shot.

Even shared custody.

But you agreed to the present arrangement as part of the divorce decree,

and unless there is a compelling reason,

no judge is gonna overturn the original order.

I have to get him out of that environment, okay? My ex, she has this boyfriend--

- Do you think he's a danger to your son? - Yeah. He's a drunk.

On what do you base your characterization?

I checked the guy's records. Last year he racked up a DUI.

- One arrest? - How many do you need?

The guy should not be around my kid. He's a menace.

- It's irresponsible of Daniel's mother. - All right.

We can file the papers if you want.

I just think I ought to warn you

that I don't think we got much of a chance.

Yeah, well, I'm not afraid. This is important.

Definite non-starter.

- [Ballard] Why do you say that? - Street dealer.

- You know this guy? - No, I don't have to.

The way he's dressed, the neighborhood he's in.

Well, department policy, right? We're not supposed to profile people

according to their ethnicity or neighborhood or socio-economic status.

What a crock! What else does a cop do?

Okay, so call it an educated guess based on years of experience.

So he's a dealer. That makes him a non-starter?

That makes him one more unknown soldier of the drug wars.

Instead of investigating his murder,

we ought to build him a tomb.

A mook like this,

what we call "collateral casualty."

Hope I never get that cynical in this job.

Yeah? Well, just wait.

- Hey. - Hey, there.

[Cox] Oh, let me guess. Drug dealer?

Oh, heaven forbid I should profile anyone prematurely.

[Cox laughs] Right.

Okay...

Wow, mercy! Somebody was really, really ticked off with this young man.

How'd it go?

Well, he says I got all of a clam's chance on Mount Everest.

- That good, huh? - Put it this way: it'd be like, uh...

Mike Tyson and Evander Holyfield sitting down at dinner.

Theoretically possible, but...

So what are you gonna do, give up on the whole thing?

Hell, no. Gonna make her work for it.

Maybe I'll get lucky. I'll find a sympathetic judge or something.

This no-fault divorce, it's a laugh, man!

Let me tell you something, it's all about fault.

You think that divorce is gonna be a cure.

It's just swapping one set of problems for another.

Well...

I guess that's why some people choose

the other solution: murder.

Don't think it didn't cross my mind.

- [Cox] Oh, hey. - Hey. What do we got?

Well, we found at least 26 identifiable entry wounds.

Missed it by four. Like the commissioner said,

"Drive-bys are out, executions are in."

[chuckles] We recovered about a dozen or so suitable slugs,

- mostly .38s. - More than one shooter?

Well, there could've been a whole regiment.

Any idea who this fellow is?

Someone from the neighborhood gave us a street name

and we took it down to Narcotics to identify, but, uh...

They got a whole bunch of new people over there.

They don't know the territory, they don't know the players.

You should talk to Stivers. She was in Narcotics forever

before she went to Sex Crimes.

Hey, how's the MEs' convention?

Congratulations on the big award.

Oh, yeah, thanks. Actually, I just telling some of my colleagues about

that weird jumper case that Munch and Kellerman caught.

A shotgun blast perforated his chest,

severed all the major arteries, shredded his heart and lungs.

Fatal, no question.

- So it is murder? - [Cox] Well, not necessarily.

If his intent was to commit suicide and he would've died anyway

as a result of injuries incurred from jumping off the roof,

it's still suicide, in my opinion.

Well, then it's suicide.

- Seven-story fall kills him, no question. - [Cox] Not necessarily.

If the awning slowed his momentum sufficiently,

then he might have survived his fall, had he not been shot,

in which case, it's a homicide.

So you're saying with a little bit of luck, he could've been left a pulverized, paralyzed,

drooling, brain-dead, incontinent individual with very few prospects

for future happiness and full-time employment?

I'm gonna run some tests.

It's homicide if the shot was fired with intent.

If it was an accidental discharge, on the other hand...

Don't you hate when that happens?

...then we're talking manslaughter.

You know, with that little mustache and those beady little eyes,

he looks like a cross between Steve Buscemi, John Waters, and Edgar Allan Poe.

- Aren't they all the same guy? - Okay, stay with me here, guys.

We've ruled out the shooter on the roof.

We don't know yet if he would've survived the fall.

Well, we don't know much, do we?

Well, we know that he was shot after he jumped,

- but before he hit the ground. - Right. Which I said.

- By someone from inside the building. - How do we know that?

Because we found hundreds of minute fragments of glass

and wooden window frame and glazier's putty embedded in the body.

[Munch] So much for my coup de grâce theory.

[Cox] He was definitely shot by someone

as he plummeted past their window.

So Munch and Kellerman went back to the building,

looking for telltale signs,

clues to the location where the shot had come from.

Detective work is not always neurosurgery.

I can't believe we missed that last night.

Well, it was dark. It's hard to tell an open window

- from one that's been blown to smithereens. - [knocking on door]

- [man] Yeah? - Mr. Cochran. We'd like to ask you a few questions, please.

Uh... oh, yeah. Sure. Sure. Come in.

[Munch] Thank you.

Oh, thank God! The long arm of the law!

Uh, do you by any chance happen to own a shotgun?

I've been waiting for this!

Yes, matter of fact, I do. Want me to go get it?

Why don't you just point me in the right direction?

Okay. Turn right there in the hallway--

And it's on the left-hand side. Excuse me.

Yes, turn right here, and then it's the second closet on the left.

- I'm telling him. Shh. Yeah. - [Emily] All the way down. Keep going.

- This one? - Yeah.

- Is it loaded? - It's never loaded.

- Ha! - Well, almost never.

Mr. Cochran, did you have occasion to discharge that weapon on Friday night?

- Yeah, I confess, I did. - And he was aiming the damn thing at me.

- You may be guilty of murder. - We're not sure yet.

- But I didn't hit her. - No! Just terrorized me emotionally.

[screaming]

You shot the guy who was jumping off the roof of your building.

Somebody jumped off the roof of our building?

- You didn't hear about the suicide? - We don't get out much.

How could I murder somebody who was committing suicide?

You killed him before he finished killing himself.

I didn't even know he was out there!

If you try to kill A and kill B instead, it's still murder.

But I wasn't trying to kill her. I was just threatening her.

- I've been doing it for years. - It's true, he has.

You threaten your wife with a loaded shotgun?

Of course not! Don't be ridiculous. Unloaded.

Oh, he points the shotgun at me, pulls the trigger,

- says, "boom," and cackles like a maniac. - Boom! [cackling]

- [chuckles] - See? See what I have to live with?

- [groans] - Mr. and Mrs. Cochran, please sit down.

- Yeah, yeah. - Now, when was the last time

you two staged this little pas de deux of connubial bliss?

Uh, before last night? I don't know, ages ago.

Thanksgiving, to be exact. A real knock-down drag-out.

- Precipitating incident? - Excuse me?

- Why'd you wave the gun at her? - I scorched the gravy, in his opinion.

Scorching has nothing to do with opinion, Emily. It's a chemical fact.

- [Emily] No-- Oh, chemical-- - Yeah, you heard me. Whole meal was a disaster.

Started with the cranberry sauce, went downhill from there.

- But the gun was unloaded? - Right!

And it's been in that closet since?

Oh, he likes to keep it handy.

What made you take it out last night?

She burned the pot roast,

turned it into charcoal briquettes.

- I blackened it. - Oh, black-- What are we talking, cajun pot roast?

- Cajun pot-- - Give me a break--

Whoa! So between Thanksgiving and last night,

who loaded it? Elves?

I don't know. I wouldn't be surprised if she did.

Yeah, trying to get me into trouble.

A perfect case of cutting off your nose to spite your face.

Oh, sure, sure.

And I was the second gunman on the grassy knoll, too.

Senile dementia.

All right, we're gonna have to take this with us for evidence.

- It's a 16-gauge. You owe me 50 bucks. - [Kellerman] Yeah.

Gentlemen.

So, you are going to the electric chair.

- And about time! - It was an accident, Emily!

- We'll get back to you on that. - Ah, get back to yourself. Sheesh.

I don't know, Dr. Cox. If I'd heard this story from anyone else,

I'd have dismissed it as just another one of those urban myth.

- Alligators in the sewers of New York. - The poodle in the microwave!

I would be skeptical too if I hadn't caught the case myself.

- [pager beeping] - Oh...

I am so embarrassed. As your hostess,

you must think that Charm City is the murder capital of the country.

We are not always this busy.

Well, no, I take it back. Yes, we are, most of time.

- Excuse me. I'll be right back. - Bye.

I'll call you tomorrow, okay, Paula?

Thank you.

- Ballard, Gharty, what's up? - Hey!

Some grisly sex murder? You need to know

which of my favorite serial rapists might've crossed a line?

No, no, no. Just a dead dope-slinger.

The new guys in Narcotics had no idea who this was.

Jake the Jake. Real name's Antonio Livingston.

Wow! I'm surprised he lasted this long.

We gather that he wasn't the best-liked guy in the neighborhood.

Uh-huh. Hardly. Jake was a baker.

- Baker? - He peddled counterfeit drugs.

He'd sell raw sugar as smack, oregano spliffs, baking soda for crack.

Anything white that fits in a vial.

- Well, he ripped someone off once too often. - Might've been more than money.

You can get real sick snorting or shooting up one of Jake's products.

If I were you, I'd check any one of his many dissatisfied customers.

Great. Must be thousands in West Baltimore.

You wouldn't wanna help us get off the schneid on this one, would you?

[Stivers] Sure. Let me get my coat, introduce you to Jake's world.

- Detective Terri Stivers? - Right.

I wanna thank you in advance for accepting this in a civilized and non-confrontational manner.

- [Stivers] Accepting what? - Hey, I don't read the card.

I just deliver the flowers, you know?

Have a nice day.

I'm being sued?

Georgia Rae Mahoney.

- [Gharty] Holy cow. - [Ballard] Ooh.

[*]

So have you ever been sued?

Not for 60 million bucks.

Stivers won't have to pay a cent.

City's on the hook for the lion's share.

Yeah, but still, I don't envy her.

Must be a nightmare.

This Luther Mahoney shooting, what a fiasco.

Does anybody know what really happened?

Besides Stivers, Lewis, and Kellerman? Luther.

He ain't talking.

Oh, here she comes.

- [Gharty] Hey! - [Stivers] Hey.

How are you?

So Stoney says a couple of white boys

in a trashed-out pickup truck came around looking for Jake yesterday.

Seems they were very unhappy with his product.

- White boys? Isn't that unusual? - Not very.

They roll up the hill from Pigtown, Morrell Park.

Five minutes away, this is the closest place to get a fix.

How trashed out was the truck?

Bonafide city goat stretch.

Bailing wire, caulking compound, and string.

Not to profile anybody, Ballard, but...

whites in a neighborhood like this, which is 99% Black,

drug bazaar on every corner, chances are they're dope fiends.

Or cops.

Have fun. I gotta go find a lawyer.

Yeah, well, thanks for your help, bud.

My pleasure.

It's a nice break from my life.

[Lewis] So he says, "Then I'll eat my way to your heart."

- [Falsone sighs] - [Lewis chuckling]

Either of you gentlemen Detective Lewis?

- That's me. - I have something for you.

What's this? Fan mail from a flounder?

Ah, you're too young.

Georgia Rae?

The other spiked heel finally dropped, huh?

With a vengeance.

Wrongful death civil suit.

She claims that Kellerman killed her brother in cold blood,

and that Stivers and I connived to cover it up.

Well?

- Well what? - [process server] Either of you gentlemen happen to know

where my old friend Detective Kellerman is at the present moment?

Yeah. Follow me.

So where was I? Thank you.

Ah. They'd found the old couple with the shotgun.

- The murder weapon. - Ah, yes, the Cochrans.

But... was it murder?

That was the question.

So I ran some projections based on velocity, distance,

body weight of our John Doe, speed with which he struck the awning,

angle of impact at the sidewalk.

I even tried to factor in the torque of the shotgun blast.

The shotgun torque?

How about prevailing breezes?

And the bottom line is?

Assuming median emergency response time and no mistakes by the paramedics...

[Kellerman] A major assumption.

...I think he might have survived.

- So it's a homicide? - Tentatively.

Tentative homicide?

Avec torque.

Of course, it was impossible to determine to a certainty

whether our John Doe would've survived his suicide attempt,

but I thought that the odds in his favor were pretty good.

Was the old man guilty of murder or of manslaughter?

Depending on his intent, of course, and whether or not he knew the gun was loaded.

Before you answer that, I have to give a paper on ligature strangulation.

- Could we continue this over dinner? - Absolutely. Tomorrow night.

- [MEs groan] - Sorry. I'm booked till then.

- Tomorrow night it is. - [Cox] Okay.

[overlapping farewells]

[scoffs] Uh-- Um...

Okay. Um...

I'll get it. You can just...

[Ballard] Why do you call them "city goats"?

Hillbillies.

Appalachia's only 90 miles from here due west.

They started coming to Baltimore during the war.

Get out of the mines, look for work. Still do.

Except these days, there isn't any. Unless they wanna sell T-shirts to the inner harbor.

Looky, looky. Here we go.

[Ballard] How do you know these are the guys that we're looking for?

[Gharty] I don't know. We'll bust them, lean on 'em, see what they know.

You know, if these aren't our guys,

they're probably cousins, kinfolk of some kind.

Oh, God! That is such a stereotype.

[Gharty] I'm telling you, all these hillbillies are related.

[chuckles] You'll see.

When we catch 'em, we'll get 'em to take off their shoes.

- What? Why? - Six toes on each foot, webbing in between.

- [Ballard] Oh, stop it! - [Gharty] You think I'm kidding?

Oh, what, it's not politically correct?

- Uh, no. Absolutely not. - [Gharty] Which part?

City goats, hillbillies, the whole thing, sir.

You would prefer "white trash"?

Now, why is that less offensive than any other racial epithet?

It's not racial, it's descriptive. Look at the truck.

- [Ballard] Stuart! - It must've been so difficult being a cop in Seattle,

you know, having to come up with all those euphemisms.

How about "chromosomally challenged"?

- [Ballard] Okay... - No?

-"Inbred gene pool syndrome." - [Ballard] Okay.

- [engine revving] - [Gharty] Oh, damn. Oh, they made us.

Like the lady said, dope fiends and cops. Hang on.

[*]

[*]

[tires screeching]

[*]

[Ballard] Name, address. Just give me anything you got.

Yes.

Thank you.

- Douglas McCord. - You got a name?

- [Ballard] Yeah. - I'm surprised that truck

even had a license plate, much less a current registration.

South Carey Street?

Scary Street.

Whoa...

- Let's run his sheet before we go, see what we got on him. - All right.

[Giardello] Well, now...

the Georgia Rae lawsuit.

Besides the two of you and Stivers,

she's also suing the city,

the police department, and me.

It was a clean shooting. We were cleared. She's got no case.

The standard of proof in a civil case is much lower.

This is a high-profile lawsuit.

The boss is already looking for scapegoats.

Sorry to drag you in on this, Gee.

- So what happens to us now? - [Giardello] Stay on active rotation.

Go about your business as much as possible.

Act like nothin' ever happened? A little late for that.

- I'll do whatever I can to support you. - Thanks. I appreciate it.

[Giardello] Is there anything I should know about this?

Now's the time to tell me. Don't leave me twisting in the wind.

No, it went down just like we said.

See that?

Used to be the Pigtown public baths.

Five cents a scrub, and if you were really in the mood to splurge,

another nickel for a towel and a cardboard comb.

I've never seen a cardboard comb.

I don't think they make 'em anymore.

There is a whole sense of history here

that they do not have out west.

Baltimore is one of those places

where history has people by the throat on a daily basis.

[knocking]

We're looking for Douglas McCord.

[baby crying]

Who are you? The police?

Baltimore City detectives, ma'am.

- We just wanna talk with him. - He in trouble?

No, no. We were hoping he can help us out on something.

- He ain't here. - You know where we can find him?

- I ain't seen him. - [Ballard] Well, he does live here, right?

His truck is registered to this address.

Um... some. Time to time.

When'd you see him last?

It's hard to tell. He-- he comes and goes.

Anyone else live here who could tell us where Douglas is?

Can't think of nobody.

- Uh, who's Rodney? - Rodney?

[Ballard] Rodney McCord?

Oh, uh...

Doug's brother.

- Well, where's he? - He ain't here.

Well, do you know where old Douglas or Rodney might be?

I don't. I-- I surely don't.

Well, then when would be a good time for us to come back when we can catch up with them?

Oh, any time.

It don't matter.

Whenever. Tomorrow, the next day.

[Ballard] What, you're not expecting them?

No. Not really.

Come on, let's go. This is a waste of time.

Listen, here's my card.

Why don't you tell Douglas to call me when he returns? It's Laura Ballard.

- And, uh, your name, ma'am? - Donna.

- Donna what? - [scoffs] McCord!

So you are Douglas and Rodney's sister?

[laughing] Oh, hell no.

I'm their mama!

[chuckles] I'm sorry, you're too young to be their mother.

Well, somebody should've told their daddy that.

- A stereotype, huh? - Yeah, okay.

You know that old expression "head for the hills"?

- Yeah. - When they're in trouble,

that's what they do. Go back home.

I'll bet our guys are hiding out

with Jed and Jethro until the coast is clear.

Well, according to his sheet,

the first time Douglas was paroled was to an uncle in Allegheny County.

- What do you think? - I mean, what the hell? It's 90 miles away, so.

- Should we clear it with Giardello? - Why? We just wanna talk to 'em.

Hey, I'm game.

[overlapping chatter]

[saw whirring]

- Hey. - [Kellerman] How are you?

- I'm okay. How are you? - I've been better.

I can't seem to get out from under the justice system.

[Cox] Yes, I know. I heard.

Yeah, well, it must be all over town.

It'll be in the papers tomorrow, on the late news tonight.

- I'm really sorry. - It's like the song says,

"I fought the law and the law won."

You have dinner plans?

Um, yes, unfortunately. It's just colleagues.

- ME shop talk over dinner? - Yeah.

You wanna come? You can join us.

Mmm, formaldehyde and focaccia? No, thanks.

How about-- We could do it tomorrow night.

- Sure. - [Cox] Yeah?

- [Kellerman] Yeah. - Good.

- Okay, well, I'm-- I should probably go-- - Right.

Okay.

- Dr. Cox? - What do you want?

- Detective. Dr. Cox, am I late? - No, I just was about to begin.

I better go find a seat. I've been looking forward to your talk.

[Cox] Wha--

Sorry.

Get out of here!

This is America?

Makes Baltimore look like Paris, doesn't it?

[Ballard] I can see why they'd wanna be on the first bus out of here.

They love it, though. Lot of 'em never stop going back and forth.

The lure of the hills.

- [Ballard] I gotta tell ya-- - [Gharty] No hillbillies where you come from?

- Whoa, Nellie! - [Ballard] Not like this.

Baltimore must've been a revelation.

Uh, yeah. West Coast ghettos are deceptively pleasant.

Ugh! You know, single-family homes. And yards.

You can't see the harder stuff underneath.

When I first got to Baltimore, I thought, "Okay.

This is the real thing. This is not make-believe tough,

this is hardcore tough, East Coast tough."

You know, which is what I wanted. I wanted to test myself.

Someone's living in that pigeon coop.

It's a shock to see white people live like this, isn't it?

Yeah, as a matter of fact.

It's, uh-- it's so third-world.

[rock music playing]

[song lyrics playing]

[*]

[*]

[*]

[Lewis] Hey. Georgia Rae.

[Georgia Rae] Detective Lewis. I see you're up to speed.

- I wanna talk to you about this here document. - Make an appointment.

Which one of your genius mouthpieces cooked up this little scam, huh?

My idea. If you'd like to be dropped from the suit in exchange for your testimony

as to what really happened the day my brother was murdered,

I'm sure Mr. Lansing would be more than happy to speak with you.

Sounds good. Let me lay it out for you right here.

What happened on that day was that your brother put a gun to my head and got hisself killed.

- Now drop me from this suit! - If you're worried about criminal prosecution,

we can certainly talk immunity on your behalf with the State's Attorney's Office.

No doubt. You got a cop on the pad.

Why not a prosecutor? Why not a judge?

I'm just a small businesswoman trying to get the system to work for me.

Nah.

No, you're a murderer and a drug dealer.

Now why don't you stick this where you used to mule crack and skank for Colombians?

[Lewis grunts]

[Georgia Rae exclaims]

No, no! No, no, no!

- No, don't! - [Lewis groans]

[Georgia Rae chuckles]

[Lewis grunts]

[Georgia Rae laughing]

Yeah, inadmissible in a million years.

We can still send that to the lab, and if it is involved,

then we will just sit and wait for Douglas and Rodney

to saunter on back to the bright lights of Baltimore.

We're gonna spend all our free weekends for the next two years

chasing those city goats around, I can feel it.

Well, what can I say? I do not believe in collateral casualties.

And besides, I got sucker-punched, and I do believe in payback.

This is the way rumors get started.

We have the right to remain silent.

Under the circumstances, that's probably a real good idea.

[chuckles] We went to Allegheny County to interview some suspects.

- [Gharty] Yeah, unofficial. - Hillbillies, huh?

Genuine third-generation city goats.

Little out of your jurisdiction, isn't it?

That's true. What were you thinking of?

Pretty rough crowd up there. You're lucky to be alive.

Yeah, well, we just went to interview them.

If they hadn't run...

[Billie Lou] What are their names?

- McCord. Why? - Hmm.

I still got relations up there.

- You? - It's the same as anywhere.

Works better for some than others. Some folks get out, some get left behind.

[chuckles] Can I buy you a drink?

Thanks. [laughs]

Uh... Munch says you're a composer.

Pea-tory Conserva-body, class of '74.

- That's-- that's Peabody Conservatory. - Yeah, I got that.

What kind of music do you write? Bluegrass?

Ow! What?

Not bluegrass. Atonal minimalism.

What kind of minimalism?

Atonal minimalism.

Oh.

I'm a-- I'm a tonal man myself.

Somehow I just knew that about you, Stu.

[chuckles]

[hushed] She's crazy about me.

Oh, yeah. Sure, you're the bee's knees!

You are ridiculous. "Tonal."

What? This-- this is flirting. This is harmless fantasy.

Well, it's like Rotisserie baseball.

- Rotisserie baseball? - Yeah.

You are pathetic.

I am not pathetic.

I am... romantic.

[clinking]

Okay, enough inconsequential chit-chat.

Let's have the rest of the story.

Yeah. Will you quit torturing us?

[Cox] Oh, you love it.

Previously, in the ME's office...

Yes, previously.

Previously, I determined that our John Doe

might very well have survived his suicide plunge.

Still didn't know who he was.

We didn't know if the Cochrans were telling the truth,

but if they were, who loaded the shotgun and why?

And who, if anyone, was culpable for his murder?

- If it was a murder. - So, you know, if the Cochrans are telling the truth,

it was an accident. It's not murder.

Reckless disregard for life and limb at their age?

Probation and three Hail Marys, max.

Find out who loaded the gun and why.

You want me to get the old couple in the Box, Gee,

and sweat 'em and give 'em the third degree?

Rubber hoses? Truncheons?

- Try talking to them first, huh, Munch? - Gotcha.

[Cox] Armed with a warrant, they went back to the Cochrans' apartment.

Did you bring me back my shotgun?

It's evidence. How many times we got to tell you?

You're not out of the woods yet.

But are you positive it was my shotgun that fired the fatal shot?

What? You think there were other people taking potshots

at that guy when he jumped off the building?

Trust me, it's the only thing we're positive of.

- [Munch] What have we here? - [George] What?

[Munch] Don't tell me you don't know what these are.

Well, I don't. For all I know, they could be cannolis.

16-gauge shotgun shells? We're not gonna find your fingerprints all over these bad boys, are we?

- No, sir, no way. - What about you?

Are you crazy? I wouldn't touch those things.

George Jr. put 'em away for me.

I asked him to get 'em out of my sight.

- George Jr.? - [Emily] Uh-huh.

[Cox] The lab lifted a fingerprint from the box of shells,

which we had to assume belonged to the Cochrans' son.

So, Munch brought Junior's parents in for a little chat in the Box.

So, when was the last time you saw George Jr.?

- Uh, Thanksgiving. - [Kellerman] Where's he live?

We'd like to talk to him, match his prints.

Well, we're estranged. Thanks a lot.

- Had a falling out. - I know what "estranged" means. Why?

- I cut off his allowance. - Well, how old is George Jr.?

- 30. - 29.

- And he was mad about it? - Oh, he was furious.

He stormed out of our house and went back to Tulsa, and...

we haven't heard from him since.

[whispering]

- That is so rude! - Emily! Jeez!

Do you think that before Junior returned to Tulsa,

he might've lingered long enough to pop a couple of cannolis in the old blunderbuss?

Why would he do a thing like that?

Well, he knows you play this game. You terrorize your wife.

- [screaming] - You pulled the trigger.

Boom! [cackling]

- Laugh like a maniac. - So Junior loads the gun,

figured you'd start waving it around,

it goes off, and bye-bye, Mom.

But instead, it misses her and hits some poor schmo

who just happens to drop by at that moment.

What he really meant to do is get back at both of you

- by killing his mother... - [Emily gasps]

...and framing you for her murder.

- [Emily] Oh, how horrible! - No, no, no.

[Cox] Munch and Kellerman then laid it out for Giardello,

who saw a few flaws in their theory.

Did you find Junior's prints on the shotgun?

No, just the father's.

[Giardello] Have you found Junior?

We made inquiries in the Tulsa area,

but, uh, nothing so far.

Kellerman, his prints-- if they are his prints--

on the box of shells means nothing.

Now, is he or is he not a viable suspect?

It depends on how you define "viable suspect."

He had motive. You know, Mommy and Daddy cut off his allowance.

- Have we even identified the victim? - John Doe jumper? Not yet.

That's priority. He's gotta have a family somewhere.

Yeah, Missing Persons is trying to make a match.

- No one's come forward? - They may not know. The condition of the body

precluded our putting his picture in the paper.

Look, identify the jumper.

Get George-- What are you laughing at?

Find George and talk to him!

Get Cox to make a determination whether it's homicide or suicide.

Now, charge the parents or leave 'em alone! Close the damn case!

- Well, did you? - Did I what?

- Find the son? - [ME 1] Identify the jumper?

Make a determination, suicide or homicide?

- Close the case? - Okay, okay, okay! I'll level with you.

I finally broke the case when I ID'd the victim.

- How'd you do that? - Old-fashioned way. Fingerprints.

- [ME 2] Fingerprints? - Fingerprinting John Doe is standard procedure.

Yes, I know that, which of course I did, but unfortunately,

our John Doe had never been printed while he was alive,

therefore I couldn't match it.

So, one evening I'm standing out on the pier.

I'm looking at the reflection of the clouds and the moon in the water,

and all of a sudden, it hits me, and I get this epiphany.

Reflection. Mirrored images.

I race back to the lab, and I compare my set of prints

to the prints that Munch and Kellerman lifted off of that box of shotgun shells.

- Bingo! - Bingo what?

- I don't get it. - They matched.

The dead man in my morgue,

John Doe jumper...

was George Cochran Jr.

The guy who jumped from the roof to commit suicide,

but was hit and killed by a shotgun blast on his way down...

Was the son of the man who fired the shot?

One and the same.

Angry at his mother for cutting him off financially

and despondent over his father's unexpected failure to threaten his mother,

thereby triggering George Jr.'s elaborate revenge scheme...

The Cochrans were getting along better after Thanksgiving, thanks to couples counseling.

Junior decides to commit suicide.

Ironically, he picks the very night

that his mother burns the pot roast to a smoking cinder,

sending his father into a paroxysm of rage.

Damn it, I told you what would happen if you burned anything else.

- [Munch] Cochran gets the shotgun... - [Emily screaming]

- ...and fires. - Boom!

[Kellerman] Just as George Jr.

is passing by their window, so to speak.

[Giardello] Why did Junior come all the way back from Tulsa

to jump off his parents' rooftop?

He wanted to throw it in their faces.

Figured they'd be the ones to identify the body.

Unfortunately for him, he drastically underestimated

his parents' total lack of interest in the outside world.

[Cox] Yeah, they had no idea that the jumper was their son until we told them.

They finally cam down to the morgue and made a positive ID.

Oh, no, no! Oh, George!

Oh, no, no! Don't take him away! My son, oh, God! Oh, no!

[Cox] John Doe jumper was George Jr.

No doubt about it.

Suicide. Avec torque.

What's torque?

With a twist.

And the rest, as they say, is mythic.

This time, you can pick up the check.

- [Giardello] What the hell were you doing? - She assaulted me, Gee!

Georgia Rae's attorneys were on the phone with Barnfather,

the mayor's office,

before you could scrape yourself off the bank floor.

Harassment. Intimidation. Not to mention assault.

Wha-- what are we supposed to do, Gee?

Just lie down and let this woman

manipulate us without fightin' back?

Uh-uh. Nah, nah.

I wanted to send her a message. No free ride.

She gonna be in my face, I'ma be in her face. Every step of the way.

Meldrick, in her face is one thing, breaking it is another.

You're suspended.

Indefinitely.

Barnfather's orders.

- Well, talk him out of it. - No.

For once, I agree with him.

You agree with him?

Fine.

Where you going, Meldrick?

Get some cigarettes.

But you don't smoke.

[Lewis sighs]

[*]