10x10 - Better Off Dead

[bunniefuu]

(g*nsh*t, glass shatters)

Hey!

Mom, get down!

I got you covered!

Ow! You son of a bitch!

(entry bell jingles)

(siren whoops)

Looks like he took a John Wayne sh*t.

John Wayne sh*t?

Yeah, the Duke would take one to the shoulder in all his movies, then he'd just shake it off like it was a mosquito bite.

Well, this was more like a spaghetti Western.

Involving Italians, lots of blood.

BRASS: By the way, the guy they wheeled out of here?

That's Hank Rinaldi.

He and his mother run the place.

A lot of cops like to hang out here.

Camera's up there. We'll get tape.

And this must be where Hank went down?

BRASS: That's where we found him, curled around his Glock.

(cell phone rings)

Guessing this is Mom?

BRASS: Yeah, that's Dolores Rinaldi.

One tough mother.

Go ahead.

SANDERS: Multiple g*n sh*t wounds.

.45 still gripped.

(camera shutter clicking)

She went down fighting.

sh**ting at him, I'm assuming.

Three g*nsh*t wounds to the torso, one to the head.

Edward Smith, 40.

Local address.

He's got a fat wad of hundreds in here.

Must be at least five grand.

(cash register bell dings)

Drawer's stocked with cash.

There's lots of antiques here.

Lugers, Tokarevs, Old Colts.

Some good stuff here.

Doesn't look like robbery.

Maybe he was a customer, in here to make a big purchase.

(camera shutter clicks)

I might've found part of his shopping list.

"101 SW." Smith & Wesson?

What about these rogue footprints?

With the blood here?

There must have been someone else here.

Look like a small men's size.

Nine? Sneakers.

If he walked through the blood pool, he had to have been standing right here.

Guy stands in the middle of a three-way sh**t and strolls out alive?

(sh*ts f*ring)

Was he just lucky?

Or bulletproof?

♪ Who... are you? ♪
♪ Who, who, who, who? ♪
♪ Who... are you? ♪
♪ Who, who, who, who? ♪
♪ I really wanna know ♪
♪ Who... are you? ♪

* Oh-oh-oh * * Who... *

♪ Come on, tell me who are you, you, you ♪
♪ Are you! ♪

Hey.

Hey. Catherine.

Thanks.

You're welcome.

Body's over here.

A couple of teenagers were cutting through the park and spotted her.

Thought she was sleeping.

Snug as a bug in a rug.

Well, there's a path of displaced gravel coming down the embankment.

High-speed body dump?

Well, if it is, then this quilt is awfully clean.

So, how'd it get here?

Covered up after the fact?

There's road rash under the blanket.

(tires squeal)

(heavy thud)

VARTANN: Suspect made no attempt to hide her.

WILLOWS: Yet he made an effort to tuck her in.

It's oddly tender, huh?

For a body dump.

Act of remorse?

Maybe our k*ller has a conscience.

I was in the back room.

I heard them arguing, Ma and this guy.

It's the guy in the baseball cap, right?

No, no. Not him.

The other one.

The one in the red shirt.

(muffled arguing)

I didn't get a good look at him.

I just started sh**ting.

No! Had to defend my mother.

Not that she's ever been a sissy.

And this customer, he starts unloading at the crazy guy, too.

So, this "guy in a red shirt" he takes out you, your mother and a customer?

One against three?

Sir, there were a lot of b*ll*ts flying.

I don't know who hit who.

♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪

SANDERS: Okay. Here go the lights.

The red lasers are customer Ed's sh*ts.

(g*nsh*t)

These are Delores's sh*ts.

(g*nsh*t)

And these are Hank's sh*ts.

(g*nsh*t)

And according to Hank, the man in the red shirt was everyone's target.

Which is consistent with everyone's trajectories, assuming he was a moving target.

But where are Red Shirt's b*ll*ts?

Well, all of these sh*ts are misses.

Maybe he fired and didn't miss.

(cell phone ringing)

Langston's out of Autopsy.

Ed's a*mo k*lled Dolores.

A combination of Dolores' and Hank's a*mo k*lled Ed.

And the surgeon pulled one of Ed's nine mils out of Hank's shoulder.

Well, that answers that question.

The man in the red shirt never fired.

So, all three sh**t missed him and only hit each other?

Warrick and I worked a case once where two guys were sh**ting at each other in an elevator.

Zero out of 25 were hits.

But the math is off.

Customer Ed put four of his nine mils into Dolores, one into Hank, and ten into the back wall here.

That's 15 sh*ts.

And we collected 16 nine mil cases.

So, we're missing a b*llet.

All of Ed's sh*ts missed in this direction.

And unless it's in Red Shirt, it's got to be in this back wall.

Got it. Straight through the wall and into the stock room.

Huh. Ed's nine mil.

All projectiles now accounted for, which means Red Shirt wasn't hit.

It's hard to believe.

(rattling)

Doesn't sound like g*n oil.

This can top's been doctored.

At least ten grand here.

It's probably the Rinaldis' 401AK.

Full-auto sears.

SANDERS: You insert these into the lower receiver of a semi-auto r*fle, and you've got yourself a fully a*t*matic machine g*n.

(sh*ts f*ring rapidly)

Which is why they're illegal, and fetch a mint on the black market.

Two excellent reasons for hiding them.

ROBBINS: Ran her prints.

Still a Jane Doe.

Suffered multiple traumatic events before she d*ed.

C.O.D. is no surprise.

Disarticulation of the atlantooccipital junction.

Consistent with her impact into the rock.

This, however, is the result of a separate incident.

Superficial b*llet wound.

She was sh*t?

Sodium rhodizonate test was positive for lead.

The extent of the blood clotting indicates it was antemortem.

sh*t at least an hour prior to death.

So, he sh**t her but doesn't k*ll her.

Then dumps her out of a car an hour later, which does k*ll her.

Why didn't he just sh**t her again?

Well, I saw the crime scene photos.

It's only luck of the draw that she hit that rock.

Not much logic to it.

g*n shop's camera was out of focus, only took intermittent still sh*ts and was on an oscillating pattern.

It's hard to choreograph a less useful record of events.

However, there were two helpful frames before the camera was knocked out by a stray sh*t.

This one shows Ed Smith and Red Shirt walking into the store together.

You can't see Red Shirt's face.

But it does look like they're together.

All right. Now check this out.

Hank blasting away at Ed.

Red Shirt is in front of Mom.

Not even in Hank's line of fire.

STOKES: He told Brass he was sh**ting at Red Shirt.

Red Shirt is clearly not Hank's target.

Which isn't the only thing Hank lied about.

He told Brass that Ed was just a random, well-armed customer.

Ed was another customer all right.

His prints were all over the cash with the full-auto sears.

Which explains the five grand we found in his wallet.

He was there to purchase more sears.

From Hank.

Whose prints were on both the cash and the sears.

So, Hank's about to make another big sale.

Why sh**t such a good customer?

Get too greedy for the green stuff, you can get yourself hurt.

We know about your little side business there, Hank, selling the full-auto sears.

Which is a federal offense in itself.

You pile on the fact that you lied to the cops about k*lling Ed Smith...

He was robbing us!

I was... I was afraid if I told you, you'd take a closer look at him, find out about the sears.

Honestly, I was just defending our store.

(Mom arguing) HANK: I come out of the back, and Ed's got my ma at gunpoint.

And not just him.

He brought some partner with him.

So I did what my mother taught me.

Hey! (fires g*n)

Guy kills your mom, you're okay saying he d*ed trying to defend her?

Make him out to be a hero?

The truth wasn't going to bring her back.

And I didn't want to go to jail.

(sighs)

So, you caught him, right?

Ed's wing man, the guy in the red shirt.

You caught him, right?

That's how you learned all this?

Well, actually...

But we're getting close.

Oh, God.

What?

He's still out there?

You got to find him.

That guy, the way he was just standing there with those b*ll*ts flying all around?

He was not human.

(sh*ts f*ring)

He was like the Terminator.

A machine.

I've seen my share of crazies.

But this guy?

Wasn't his first time at the death dance.

As long as he's out there, I'm staying right here.

Hey.

Car was parked in a loading zone off Industrial.

The ticketing officer saw the blood and towed it in.

I'm hoping it's related to our body dump.

R.O. is a Carrie Warren of Noelle Lane, Las Vegas.

WILLOWS: Is that an I.D. badge?

It's our Jane Doe from the ditch.

She was dumped from her own car.

Clearly, she wasn't driving.

So, uh... what's going on with you and Vartann?

I am a trained observer, you know.

(chuckles)

Okay. I see it's still in its, uh, early investigative stages.

No comment.

Huh.

Same pattern as the quilt she was wrapped in.

Key's still in the ignition.

(key turns, chime sounds)

Out of gas.

Explains why the k*ller left the m*rder mobile in plain sight.

(removes key from ignition)

Looks like we have her house keys.

LVPD!

Anybody home?

WILLOWS: How's it look?

No sign of forced entry.

All Carrie Warren.

Looks like she lived alone.

SIDLE: I got a blood trail.

It's all clear.

You're not going to like what you find in the bedroom.

I'm going to check the perimeter.

Blood spatter on the wall.

This is where she was sh*t.

(shutter clicks)

Sheets match the quilt she was wrapped in.

There's no photos of any humans.

But she sure had some love for this German Shepard.

Yeah. Roscoe.

Oh, my God.

It's Roscoe.

(sighs)

He was sh*t.

Blood trail ends in the garage.

So, k*ller's in the bedroom.

(dog barking)

sh**t the dog.

(Carrie screaming)

sh**t Carrie.

Takes Carrie and the quilt, and takes her car.

Control, this is 802 Charlie, Detective Vartann.

I need Animal Control to transport a dead dog.

Carrie's tidy.

Strange that she'd leave food trash in the bedroom.

Maybe the k*ller likes milk.

Stain on the bed skirt.

Milky vomit.

I'll get it to DNA.

Maybe we'll get lucky on some epithelials.

There's no pictures of any boyfriends, yet she's got a drawer full of tokens of someone's affections.

Hmm. She doesn't want to look at them anymore, but she can't bring herself to throw them away.

Maybe Roscoe wasn't the only man in her life.

PHILLIPS: Backed over by a car.

Fell down a well.

att*cked by coyotes.

Poisoned by a spider.

Lost in a cave.

Traded for a Mike Schmidt rookie baseball card.

And my favorite, given to a farm.

Allegedly.

The tragic fates of the Phillips family dogs.

Oh. Mm-hmm.

Okay.

I'm sorry.

I-I extracted a b*llet from his dorsal lumbar.

Shallow penetration.

Lack of vital response in the surrounding tissue indicates he was sh*t postmortem.

Oh, accounts for the lack of blood at the scene.

No blood pressure, no bleeding.

C.O.D.?

Undetermined at this point.

Huh.

Medium caliber b*llet flattened on two sides.

Double ricochet explains the shallow penetration.

And the fact that we have two wounds but just one b*llet.

I bought my first Ruger 1022 from Rinaldi's.

Oh, sweet.

Colt Single Action Army. Beautiful.

Aw, this baby's a sh**t, not a collector.

Dang it.

Hey, guys. I know you're slammed.

This is the round that we pulled from our female victim's German Shepherd.

You're looking for the "Truth About Gats and Dogs"?

(both chuckle)

A little bit of ballistics humor there for you.

See, 7.62 by 25 mil.

Only a few rare old makes of g*n use this a*mo.

Mauser, Tokarev, Norinco.

Hold on. We collected a Tokarev from the g*n shop.

Here it is.

(casing clatters)

Whoa. Whoa.

The case was stuck in the chamber.

You were supposed to clear that at the scene, Greg.

I know, but I got it out of a shattered merchandise case.

g*ns for sale are supposed to be unloaded by law.

It's clear.

Hey, y'all, there's a piece of somebody in here.

Must've blocked the slide with their hand.

Now, there is no way Rinaldi's would sell a g*n with an expended case in the chamber and a hunk of skin in the slide.

Maybe it wasn't for sale.

Wait a sec.

If your vic was sh*t with that g*n earlier today, and it wasn't for sale at Rinaldi's, then it stands to reason that your k*ller brought it there.

There were four players in the sh**t, and only three known g*ns.

Maybe the Tokarev belongs to the Man In The Red Shirt.

Who's the Man In The Red Shirt?

Some guy on a crime spree.

Bobby, can you run the serial number?

Then we need to compare my b*llet with your g*n.

(typing)

R.O. is a John Rakow.

Guy lives...

Right behind Carrie Warren.

And you have a Tokarev a*t*matic registered to you?

Yeah. I brought that back from 'Nam.

That g*n saved my ass more than once.

Thank you for your service, Mr. Rakow.

You're welcome.

Where is the Tokarev now?

I gave it to a friend.

What's the friend's name?

It's a neighbor. Why?

Carrie Warren?

Yeah.

You guys get along?

Well, I ain't particularly crazy about that yappy mutt of hers, but we worked that out.

Mr. Rakow, do you make it a point to arm your entire neighborhood, or just the pretty girls?

I had a daughter once.

She was about the age of Carrie.

She moved to New York.

Young girl all alone in the big city.

I wish somebody had looked out after her.

So I look out after Carrie; I protect her.

Protect her from what?

This armpit of a city.

You know, when seconds count, you-- you cops are minutes away.

So you've got a crazy-ass boyfriend, got some screws loose.

She's always breaking up with him, and he's always begging to come back.

So how do you fit into all this?

I chased him off a couple times, but I couldn't watch her for 24-7, so I gave her the Tokarev and taught her how to use it.

Something happen to Carrie?

She's dead.

Someone sh*t her and her yappy mutt with your g*n.

I'm done talking.

BRASS: Okay, let's talk about something else, then.

What about the boyfriend?

Has he got a name?

Dirtbag.

And I can't recall his last name.

The man is wearing boots as big as all of Texas.

There's no way he could cram those dogs into size-nine sneakers.

Plus, I observed his hands; there's no slide bite.

He didn't sh**t Carrie.

He wasn't in the g*n shop.

He's not the man in the red shirt.

ANDREWS: I got Roscoe's tox panel.

Your German Shepherd was poisoned.

High concentrations of lorazepam and diazepam in his blood.

Found the same anti-anxiety dr*gs in the milk you collected from the bedroom.

So, based on his stomach contents, Carrie's dog drank the poison milk.

What about Carrie's tox?

She was clean. Stomach was empty.

No milk. We didn't find any prescriptions at Carrie's house.

Red Shirt had to have brought the dr*gs with him.

So he dissolved them in milk and feeds them to the dog?

The dog apparently regurgitated some of the mixture onto the bedskirt, but not enough to save his life.

The k*ller premeditates the dog's m*rder, but not Carrie's?

Not necessarily.

He poisons the dog to shut it up.

Waits for her to come home, then sh**t her with her own g*n.

Well, if that's true, he knew her.

He knew her dog.

He knew where she kept the g*n.

No signs of forced entry.

He had to have a key.

Obvious question-- she have a boyfriend?

Oh, yeah.

And I'm betting he has a red shirt.

I mean, is this what women really want?

It's what men think women want.

Like candy.

It's sweet and hard to resist, but sooner or later, we just want some meat and potatoes.

(gravelly voice): All the women I take out just order a salad.

(laughs) God, I used to have drawers full of this crap from guys.

Now I just want a man I can count on.

"My eternal love is yours in life and in death. Forever, Sam."

That sure sounds like a boyfriend.

Although I never wrote a love poem to a girl that included the word "death."

There's something under that label.

Sam gift-lifted this book from a public library and gave it to his beloved.

Classy.

Call the library and find out who the last borrower was.

♪ ♪

(knocking)

Las Vegas Police. Anybody home?

(football game playing on TV)

Go, go, go, go, go. Hold.

Who are you?

I'm Detective Jim Brass, Las Vegas Police.

We're looking for Sam Trent. Who are you?

I'm Paul Trent, his father. He's not home.

What happened here, Mr. Trent?

It was an accident.

BRASS: Any idea where Sam is?

My son's 27. I don't interfere with his personal life.

Well, we do. We have a warrant to search your house.

What's this about?

An overdue library book.

Mr. Trent, I need you to come with me.

Another accident. Mm-hmm.

SIDLE: Styron, Plath, Sexton.

Looks like a reading list from Morbid 101.

Taste in cinema appears to be much lighter.

These are all romantic comedies.

SIDLE: With the kind of guy who never gives up until he wins the heart of his dream girl?

Of course, Sam's dream girl is dead.

A photograph of Sam and Carrie.

Proves they were together. Mm-hmm.

Does this look like it was taken from the top of the Stratosphere to you?

No, it's not high enough.

It's got to be the Ivory Tower Skydeck.

It's kind of a dumpy old tourist trap with a nice view of the methadone clinic across the street.

I'll take you there sometime.

Gee, thanks.

I have... at least a dozen ticket stubs to the Skydeck.

Maybe it was Sam and Carrie's favorite place.

Eight bucks a pop.

What do you have?

Letters.

"Sam, meeting you up there, the city sprawling below us, changed my life."

This is five days later.

"Sam, I'm sorry, but I can't be with you anymore."

And then a few days after that.

"I can't stop thinking about you."

"I need you.

You're the best thing that ever happened to me."

"Sam, I hope we can always be friends."

Light-switch romance.

On and off.

Well, this is from last week.

"You need to respect my boundaries, Sam.

It's over. Leave me alone, or my neighbor will kick your ass."

Good neighbor John Rakow?

Diazepam.

Lorazepam.

Both scripts written last week.

Both empty.

That's what k*lled Carrie's dog.

Mm.

Some other... letters here.

This one... written two days ago.

From Sam to Carrie.

Looks like an early draft.

"Carrie, we have talked about this.

"I know talking is easier than going through with it.

"But after the darkness comes the light.

"In a painless moment we can be together forever."

That sounds like an invitation to a su1c1de pact.

She's dead.

Did he change his mind?

You have the results from the Carrie Warren scene? I do.

There was DNA on the lip of the tainted milk bottle.

And I just matched it to Sam Trent's toothbrush that was sent over from his house.

Sam drank the poisoned milk? Yeah.

Which is why I then ran the vomit, and it turns out it wasn't actually the dog's.

The mucosal cells were a match to Sam.

Sam tried to commit su1c1de in Carrie's bedroom but failed? Mm-hmm.

(sighs) What about the tissue from the g*n?

(machine beeps) Just came up.

It's Carrie Warren.

You're joking.

She sh*t herself?

The physical evidence now supports the su1c1de pact theory.

Only Sam didn't die from the poison, and Carrie didn't die from the g*nsh*t.

Okay, check this out.

This is Carrie's house.

This is where we found the body.

This is where you found her car.

And this is Rinaldi's g*n & a*mo.

I think that Sam took the g*n and Carrie, got in her car, and I think he was headed for the g*n shop.

The g*n was jammed.

It wasn't his g*n, so maybe he thought it ran out of a*mo.

He needed more b*ll*ts, so he could finish them both off.

Okay, so why did he dump her on the side of the road on the way to the g*n shop?

Well, Carrie was dumped at the apex of a hairpin turn.

And a piece of the quilt was in the passenger door latch, which could have prevented the door from fully closing.

(tires screeching)

I mean, an accident would explain why he wrapped her in a quilt.

Nothing was going according to plan.

She's dead, he's not.

He's probably feeling left behind.

Yeah, and now he really needs to get to that g*n shop.

So when the car runs out of gas, he just walks the rest of the way.

Suicidal guy enters a g*n shop, desperate for another b*llet to pop into his Tokarev.

If they're not going to give one to him, maybe they'll sh**t one at him.

Mm. So somehow, Sam triggered the gunfight.

Just his luck, he's the only one that walks out of there unscathed.

(door rattling)

Sara... the closet door's been kicked in.

I don't think Sam did this.

Does that look like a cowboy boot to you?

Texas-sized.

Mr. Trent, if you want to try to help us save your son's life, you've got to tell me what happened in your house.

There was a knock at the door.

I barely heard it over the TV.

When I went to answer it...

(football game playing on TV)

(door banging)

(glass shattering)

Sam Trent, where is he?

Where is he?! (g*n cocks)

Sam, you son of a bitch!

When he didn't find Sam, he trashed the place and stormed out.

A couple minutes later, Sammy came home.

Sammy... Sammy, what happened?

Are you in trouble?

There was a man here.

I... I almost called the police.

No police, Dad.

Everything's gonna be fine.

Take my car. The guy had a g*n.

Go on, t-take my keys, grab-grab my wallet.

Take what you need.

Thanks, Dad.

Sam only wanted eight dollars from his father?

The price of an Ivory Tower Skydeck ticket.

Hey, you-you can't park here.

I just received Carrie Warren's medical records.

She had a history of bipolar disorder for which she was recently was being treated at St. Anthony's Hospital, 101 Southwest Harmony Avenue.

101 S.W.

The shopping list from the g*n shop. Yeah.

It was an address.

Uh-huh. We just assumed that he was driving Carrie to the g*n shop.

This is her house... body, car.

There's the g*n shop.

And just to the west of it...

StAnthony's.

He was headed for the hospital.

Sam was trying to save her life.

(lively chatter)

(wind whistling)

(vehicles passing below)

(distant car alarm blaring)

(sirens wailing)

(siren whoops)

Control, officers are moving into position (cell phone rings) at the Ivory Tower.

I need a full rescue- team response.

Detective Vartann and a police officer are already up there.

You're free to go up.

I don't want any heroes up there.

Can you hear me, Catherine?

You son of a bitch!

You're a dead man, Sam Trent! (grunts)

(gasping): One would think.

(g*n cocks)

Police, drop the w*apon! Drop it!

John, Sam didn't sh**t Carrie.

You're lying! We found her skin in the Tokarev slide. John, you know what that means? I know you do.

Carrie sh*t herself. No, you're lying.

She wouldn't do that.

John, Carrie was bipolar.

She'd attempted su1c1de before.

You told me that Carrie needed protection, but it wasn't from Sam, it was from herself.

That's not true, John. I k*lled her.

You shut up!

I put the g*n to her head.

I brushed away... LANGSTON: Sam stop.

I brushed away her hair, I looked into her eyes... and I just...

LANGSTON: John, after Carrie sh*t herself, Sam took her to the hospital.

No, that's not true! I k*lled her, John.

We found a note with the address to St. Anthony's on it.

SARA: Sam, you loved Carrie.

You tried to save her.

(uncocks g*n)

Sam!

You don't have to die today!

This is meant to be.

You don't have to die today.

The last two people who tried to stop me ended up dead.

Just give me one b*llet, okay?

Just one b*llet. Whatever this takes!

(laughs)

Just give me one b*llet! No...

(g*nshots) Hey!

This is where Carrie and I met.

And this is where it's destined to end.

It doesn't have to end here.

We know about the pact.

We know you tried to save her.

And Carrie, she would want us to save you.

Okay, but I have one question.

Was it me or the dog?

What do you mean?

It wasn't, I mean, it wasn't technically a pact.

I wanted her to come home and find me.

My whole being rendered solemn valentine.

(dog whining)

(g*nsh*t)

There was milk all over its snout.

Carrie loved that dog.

And when she came home and found him, was it the sight of me or the dog that made her pull the trigger?

It was you, Sam.

I'm sure it was you.

So nice of you to say that.

SIDLE: Sam!

(sirens wailing)

Situation is Code Four.

One in custody.