15x16 - The Last Ride

[bunniefuu]

♪

I don't know what it is, but the vibe in this place always gets me feeling hot.

♪

Sexy.

Don't tell me you don't feel it.

You wanna take a ride?

(giggles)

Come on.

I know you want to.

That's why we're here.

Right?

The hiker called it in.

Saw something glittering near the trailhead.

Glittering?

Yeah, first he thought it was trash, maybe tinfoil.

Well, turns out it wasn't tinfoil at all.

More like a tin-woman.

(cell phone rings)

She never found that yellow brick road.

No.

This is Crawford.

Hey, Nick.

Talk about your Silver Surfer, huh?

You get any I.D. on her yet?

No purse.

The only thing on her besides this dress... is blunt-force trauma.

Do we have any idea on the time of death?

Jimmy, you got that, yeah?

Yeah, liver temp puts it between 12:00 a.m. and 3:00 a.m.

Midnight and 3:00-- okay, thanks, Jimbo.

That's one hell of a sight.

Yeah.

That's straight out of Goldfinger.

What do you make of it?

I hate to speculate before we've collected any evidence, but this is Vegas, she could just be eye candy for some rich guy's party, for all we know.

Eye candy, really?

You can rent pretty girls like this and paint them up for parties nowadays.

Crawford: If she was someone's eye candy fantasy, she's not anymore.

They chewed her up, and they spit her out.

Only in the Silver State.

♪ CSI 15x16 ♪
The Last Ride
Original Air Date on January 27, 2015

♪ 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! ♪

(camera shutter clicking)

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

Looks like our Silver Girl was more than just silver on the outside.

I found silver paint in both lungs.

So, blunt-force trauma was not cause of death.

No, she asphyxiated.

In silver paint.

Not something you see every day.

No, but this is, at least in this town.

Our girl here liked to party.

Nasal perforations and irritations in the lung passages suggest chronic drug use.

And besides the blunt-force trauma, I found other evidence of a struggle before she succumbed to the silver.

There's a linear contusion pattern over the trapezius here.

Looks like parallel lines.

Yeah, kind of like a barbecue grill.

Whatever it was, it impacted her strongly.

There's also a strange bruising pattern right here between the lines.

Dug out some glass particles from her elbow.

Might tell us what we're looking at.

Thanks, Doc.

Hey.

Hey.

Got an I.D. on our Silver Girl.

Her prints were in the system.

Ava Montrose, a local with a long sheet.

Numerous burglary and drug arrests.

Next of kin?

Her last known address was her mother's place in Summerlin.

Her mom is on her way here now.

Sara's going to do the notification.

Sidle: Mrs. Montrose, when was the last time you saw your daughter?

I haven't seen Ava for months.

I was always afraid something like this was going to happen.

Crowds she ran with, places she'd go.

What places would that be?

Places where you-you buy dr*gs.

Dangerous-looking drug dealer once showed up at our door, looking for her.

Did you catch the drug dealer's name?

No.

And Ava wouldn't say.

We never had the best relationship.

Why's that?

(father sighs)

She resented me.

For taking the place of her father.

After Ruth and he split up.

It's not your fault, Duncan.

Truth is, Ava didn't listen to anybody but Ava.

Do you have children, Miss Sidle?

I don't.

It's not right for a mother to bury her daughter.

It's not right.

(crying): It's not right.

We are gonna find out who did this.

Is there anyone that you can think of that I should talk to?

A friend or boyfriend?

Ava had lots of boyfriends.

Nothing serious.

I-I wish I could help more, but Ava, her life, her friends, she was always a mystery to me.

Redecorating your mother's house?

I am, actually.

But that's not why I'm studying these shades of gray.

The silver covering our victim's body was indeed paint.

But not just any paint.

Chromic potassium sulfate.

Chrome?

Exactly.

It's a new environmentally friendly chrome that's being used in the auto-painting industry.

This color is called "silver zephyr."

What about the glass shards in her elbow?

They follow a similar road.

The glass is from a car headlamp.

It's made of bisphenal polycarbonate.

And it's suggestive of a non-sealed beam headlamp.

Now, those were discontinued by government mandate in 1939.

I'm thinking that Ava Montrose was in an altercation in close proximity to a car.

Now, Doc thought that these grill marks might be from a barbecue, but perhaps they're from a car.

And not just any car; a classic car, pre-1939.

Doesn't exactly narrow it down.

Unless, of course, you know what you're looking for.

♪ ♪

That is a beautiful car.

1938 Packard Touring Sedan.

Pushrod straight-6.

130 horsepower.

And a symbol of a dying era.

You know, they went out of business a couple years later.

So, what?

You thinking that Ava Montrose had a run-in with this car?

Yeah, well, bruising on her back says so.

And I believe that the trauma to her neck was caused by the famous Packard "Goddess of Speed" hood ornament.

All right, I buy that.

Can't be that many 1938 Packards in Vegas.

I found two in the DMV.

First one is owned by a collector who kept it in his garage which b*rned down six months ago.

Scratch Packard number one.

Number two is alive and well, and owned by an investment banker named Carlo Derosa.

What do we know about him?

He won't return my calls, so he is either a very busy man, or he may be hiding something.

(roaring engine approaches)

Sidle: How much you want to bet this is Derosa?

Maybe.

All right, you know, I say that we just pay the fines, and then we can tell the regulators to shove it.

Excuse me, uh, Carlo Derosa?

Hi. I'm Julie Finlay. This is Sara Sidle.

We're with the crime lab. We need to speak with you.

No, no, no, I'm busy. Just call my office.

I got this.

(alarm whooping)

Oh, oh, I-I'm sorry, did that just happen?

I can't hear you.

(alarm stops)

Oh, that's better.

What the hell is happening here?

Do you own a 1938 Packard?

Yes, I do. What's it to you?

Sidle: A woman was k*lled last night, and the evidence traces to your car.

What woman?

What-what are you talking about?

Ava Montrose.

Do you know her?

Oh, my God, uh...

That's my ex-girlfriend.

Your ex?

Yeah, yeah.

No, we broke up about a year ago.

I haven't seen her since.

Hang on. What happened here?

Where do you keep your Packard?

In the vault.

"The vault"?

Yeah, that's what I said, the vault.

It's in a warehouse downtown.

My dad was a classic car collector, and, uh, he built this place to keep his babies safe.

Somebody forget to pay the power bill?

Nope.

No, my dad liked to show his cars off.

His favorite part was the unveiling.

Welcome to car heaven.

Wow.

They don't make 'em like these anymore.

Is that a '57 Chevy?

You got it.

Uh, V-8 engine and twin barrel... blah, blah, blah, blah.

All I know is that it's old and it's slow.

That's one way to look at it.

Where's the Packard?

Oh! Um... yeah, it's getting a touch-up.

It's in the mechanic's bay.

What the hell's going on?

What do you think you're doing, Carlo?

I told you, no buyers!

No, you need to back up, dude, okay?

Who are you?

The owner of these cars.

This is my charming brother, Aron.

And you are not the owner.

Neither are you. They're not for sale.

We're not buyers.

Carlo: They're cops.

Sidle: We're CSIs.

We're investigating a m*rder-- a woman named Ava Montrose.

Ava?

My ex, Aron.

You remember her.

It's hard to keep track of your bimbo parade.

I-I don't understand. What does this have to do with the vault?

Hey, Sara.

Can you come here a sec?

Hey. You keep an eye on them, please?

Is this our '38 Packard?

Yes, it is.

And there definitely was a struggle.

That ended with a fatal chrome bath.

Finlay: Oh, check it out.

Couple of drops of chrome.

Kind of looks like they're heading out the door.

Yeah, maybe carrying our Silver Woman.

Finlay: Yep, the trail ends right over here.

The only empty parking spot in the whole place.

Hey, guys, can you join us?

I assume there's usually a car parked here.

Oh, my God, where's the car?

What car?

The '76 Cadillac.

The most valuable car in the collection.

Carlo: God, I can't believe this.

Caddy's gone. Ava's dead.

What the hell happened here?

Sidle: Yeah, that's what we'd like to know.

Along with, what is it about your stolen car that was worth dying over?

I-I can't believe this is happening.

I mean, who would do this?

Aron, we found no signs of any break-in, so besides you and your brother, who else had access to the place?

Uh, just Rubio, our mechanic.

Uh, he's the only other person who would know the security code.

And how well do you know him?

If you're asking if I trust him, absolutely.

He's been with the family for 20 years.

He's not even in the country right now.

He left for Italy two days ago.

What about you?

Where were you last night?

I was at my studio, painting.

Landscapes, not women.

And Carlo?

Where was he last night?

Uh, I was in my office until about midnight.

Sidle: Anyone with you?

No, I sent my assistant home around about 10:00.

How long were you dating Ava Montrose?

About a year.

I tried cutting it off six months into it, but, uh, she had a hard time letting go.

If you weren't with her last night, then what was she doing here?

That is a damn good question.

Is there any chance that Ava knew the security code?

We used to come down here a lot.

She could've, I guess, easily looked over my shoulder while I was punching it in.

I mean, she did love this place.

She especially loved my dad's old Caddy.

Enough to try and steal it?

Look...

Ava was a messed-up kid.

We both partied way too hard back in the day.

I mean, I cleaned up my act... but Ava did not.

What can you tell me about this car?

'76 Caddy.

Sounds nice, but... what, exactly, makes it so valuable?

My father was m*rder*d in it.

And that makes it more valuable?

There's a certain crowd of collectors who pay serious money for so-called "death cars."

James Dean's Porsche, Jayne Mansfield's Buick Electra...

I'm sorry, I don't recognize the name "Derosa."

Your father was famous?

You're not from around here, are you?

No, I'm from Seattle.

My dad was Alfonz Derosa.

Kind of a Vegas legend.

Okay, so you're saying that he was m*rder*d in the Cadillac?

He was gunned down by a hit man.

October 3, 1989.

k*ller worked for Pete Bamonte, a Chicago loan shark.

I've heard that story, actually.

How much is the Cadillac worth?

It'd be close to a million.

And the rest of the collection?

All up, we'd be talking about five.

I gather, from your argument, that you're ready to sell, but your brother, Aron, isn't.

Yeah, we've been battling over what to do with the collection since, um... our mom d*ed.

When was that?

Two months ago.

According to the will, we both own equal shares in the cars.

I offered to split the... the collection in half.

You know, I'd sell mine, he could keep his.

Actually, you know, Aron's the one who could use the money, but...

Van Gogh won't compromise.

Van Gogh?

Kid's a starving artist.

(laughs)

The worst kind.

Talentless.

Anyway, he needs to grow up.

Talk about an icon of Vegas history.

Hmm.

Didn't you write a book about Vegas mobsters?

Alfonz Derosa had his own chapter.

What was his story?

Savvy businessman, ruthless k*ller.

He ran the skim at the Tangier's counting room.

Guy was known as "The Vise."

I guess he didn't get his nickname for his woodworking.

It's how he broke his enemies' knees.

Mmm, they really don't make 'em like they used to.

Nope.

So tell me about Derosa's m*rder.

Well, in 1989, The Vise was in a turf w*r with, uh, Pete Bamonte, some hothead from Chicago.

One night, The Vise took his mistress for a drive up to a lovers' lane near Mount Charleston.

That was his last ride.

♪ ♪

(both chuckling)

Sanders: They parked.

Romance was in the air.

Then the mood was broken... and Alfonz Derosa and his mistress were dead.

Some hit man with ties to Bamonte was eventually convicted for the m*rder.

Some jailhouse snitch dimed him out.

He eventually d*ed in prison.

And what happened to the sons?

They must've been pretty young.

Their mother raised them.

And as far as anybody can tell, they didn't follow in their dad's footsteps.

So now one's an investment banker and one's an artist, and they hate each other.

And they both have access to this place.

I don't believe a word either one of them says.

So maybe our witness on wheels can help us.

Looks like we've got blood on the hood ornament.

That would confirm your theory that Ava had a run-in with the car.

(grunting)

Finlay: Got something else.

She broke a heel.

I think there's some residue on it.

Sanders: Got a partial shoe impression.

Could be a man's loafer.

Sanders: Could be.

So Ava breaks her heel trying to get away.

k*ller grabs her near the chrome vat.

(screams)

Finlay: Gives her a silver dye job to die for.

Sanders: Puts the body in the Caddy... and drives away.

I know you don't trust the brothers, but if one of them did it, why not clean up?

You have a point.

You got something?

Yeah.

It's a promotional magnet.

"Cienzo's Pizzeria."

Specks of chrome on it.

Says to me this was here last night.

Maybe the k*ller dropped it.

Gives us something to sink our teeth into.

Ah! Pizza party.

Thanks for the invite.

All right, I've only got a little while here.

What do you got?

Mmm. Mmm. Yeah.

I ran touch DNA on the security keypad at the vault.

Besides the brothers, I found a match to Ava Montrose.

Confirms she knew the password.

And suggesting maybe she graduated from stealing watches to stealing cars.

Is that all you got there, Papa John?

Far from it.

This is a slice of Cienzo's pizza.

Uh, the pizza parlor with the promotional magnet.

We were just there.

Hodges: Thin crust.

Very New Yorky. Delish.

I don't suppose one of their employees is our k*ller?

None of them has a record, if that's what you're asking.

And none of them collects cars.

However, I did run the credit cards for the past week and came across a very interesting customer.

Henry.

What?

The magnets, please.

Right, right.

I'm sorry.

We picked up these exemplar magnets at the pizzeria.

I think I can use them to explain what the magnet that Greg found was doing at the classic car vault.

Allow me to demonstrate.

You're showing me how a magnet works.

Are you looking to get fired today?

Wait for it.

Voilà.

The magnet sticks to one side of the fender, but not the other. Why?

Because this part of the fender has been repaired.

It's made with Bondo automotive filler.

So the magnet didn't stick.

It's a little trick that car appraisers use.

Andrews: And... according to credit card records, there is a certain Vegas car appraiser who eats at Cienzo's once a week.

Thanks for coming in, Mr. Bixler.

I have a couple of questions about your car appraisal business.

Whatever you need.

Are you familiar with the Alfonz Derosa collection?

Intimately.

I was, uh, recently hired by the estate to appraise their cars, just after Mrs. Derosa passed away.

When was that?

Uh, about two months ago.

Hmm. So you haven't been back to the vault since?

No.

I see.

I understand that you're also a regular at Cienzo's Pizzeria on Flamingo.

Guilty as charged.

Uh, is that a crime?

I mean, I know that it's not good for me...

Have you ever used one of their magnets to appraise a car?

Uh, yes.

Uh, yeah, they're quite handy.

Explains why we found one in the vault.

Um, yeah, um, like I said, I was there two months ago.

Mm-hmm.

Well, the pizzeria has a great special right now.

Large, two toppings for $7.99.

But it just started this week.

And we found this magnet in Derosa's vault yesterday.

It's the same place where a woman named Ava Montrose was m*rder*d.

I do not like being lied to.

Were you there last night?

No.

I swear, no. I...

Come on, Mr. Bixler.

Uh, but I was there three days ago.

So first it was two months ago, and now it's three days ago.

Look, I realize I lied to you. I'm sorry.

Um, I have a very good reason.

What's that?

Carlo Derosa, uh, he hired me to do an updated appraisal of a '76 Cadillac.

A very generous one.

He can be most persuasive.

Why did he want a new appraisal?

He wouldn't tell me. I can only assume that he had a buyer lined up.

Did his brother Aron know about it?

No.

No, if he found out, I'm sure he would have blocked the sale.

Look, I'm a little scared telling you all this.

Um...

Uh, you know who Carlo Derosa's father was?

Yeah, I know.

Russell: You know, this whole thing is starting to look more and more like an inside job.

One that went sideways.

Carlo Derosa wants to sell his father's Caddy.

His brother gets wind of the sale and stops him.

Right, so Carlo calls his morally-challenged ex-girlfriend.

But he doesn't want to get his hands dirty, and he needs an alibi.

So maybe Ava enlists one of her sketchy friends to help.

Someone with experience in auto theft.

Friend sees the car, gets greedy...

Kills her, takes the car, dumps her body.

Hey.

We need to talk shoes.

Not yours.

Just got the result on the trace we found on Ava's broken heel.

Elements of concrete and titanium oxide.

Now, I've seen this before.

It's a unique road-paving material they use to eliminate pollution.

It's found on a half-mile strip of Verdugo Street.

That's an industrial neighborhood, right?

Exactly.

And I did some searching-- it's the exact neighborhood where Ava Montrose just rented a 20-by-20 storage unit.

That's the perfect size to hide a car.

Stokes: Busted lock-- someone got here before us.

Crawford: LVPD.

Anybody in here?

Here's our Caddy.

Yeah.

(clattering)

LVPD. Come on out.

Listen to me.

If you don't want to die today, show yourself slowly.

Let me see some hands.

You're making a mistake.

No, you're the one who's made the mistake.

Aron, you mind telling me what you were doing in a m*rder*d woman's storage space with a stolen car?

It's not what it looks like.

No? Well, I'll tell you what it looks like to me. You recruited Ava Montrose, your brother's ex, the one you barely remembered, to help you steal your Daddy's Caddy before your brother could sell it.

So, what happened?

Uh, Ava-- the whacked-out drug addict-- did she try to play you somehow?

You get angry.

Things get ugly.

You got it wrong.

About Ava and about me.

I do?

Oh, uh, okay.

Well, e-enlighten me.

I'm not a thief, and I'm not a m*rder*r.

And Ava?

She was an addict, but she wasn't a whack-job.

She was a beautiful soul.

It sounds like you're the one that had a thing for her.

She loved me.

She left Carlo for me.

Right.

No, that kind of thing happens all the time.

Uh, girl dumps a high-rolling, Mercedes-driving investment banker for a...

I'm sorry, where do you work?

I manage a copy store.

And there's nothing wrong with that, but maybe you see my point.

Believe what you want.

I don't give a rat's ass.

All I know is Carlo is the one who got to her.

He knew exactly how to do it.

With dr*gs?

Carlo's the one who put Ava up to stealing the Caddy. I know it.

He's the one who wanted to sell it. I wouldn't...

It's a great story, Aron, but it still doesn't explain why you're the one we found in that storage locker!

I was trying to get my car back.

I set up a credit card in Ava's name.

Bills came to me, I saw she rented a storage unit, I put two and two together-- that's why I was there.

That car means everything to me.

It's the way I remember my father.

Right, because that's where he d*ed.

No.

No, because that's where he really lived.

I used to stay up late drawing.

And Carlo would be asleep.

My dad would come in and grab me, and... and we'd go for a ride.

Just the two of us.

Will you buy me a car like this when I'm grown-up, Daddy?

I'll get you 20 of them, Aron.

Sky's the limit, kid.

Aron, were you with your father the night he was m*rder*d?

It was our last ride together.

He, uh, dropped me off at a diner.

Said he'd be back in an hour.

I mean, I know my dad wasn't a saint, but he was good to me.

What about Carlo?

They fought.

They were too much alike.

That's how I know he stole it.

He's stealing from the house-- he learned that from my dad.

"Do you want to drive the car where 'The Vise' was m*rder*d?"

Yeah, not so much.

Well, someone wanted to drive that car.

Where'd you find this?

Carlo Derosa posted it a week ago on Farringer's car auction Web site.

According to Carlo's bank records, an anonymous buyer put down $100,000 on the car.

But we know that brother Aron stopped the sale.

Yes, but there's no indication that Carlo returned the deposit.

Suggesting that he hadn't given up on the idea of selling it.

So, where are we?

We got one brother who's willing to steal the car to sell it, the other one willing to steal it to protect it.

So which brother did it?

I don't think it was either one of them.

You remember the shoe impression we found at the scene?

Yeah.

We compared it to all the shoes the brothers owned, and we did not get a match.

Doesn't mean that the shoes weren't thrown away.

That's true.

But it's also true that we could be looking for somebody else.

A scorned buyer, perhaps.

Okay, so a buyer's interested in the Mob car, maybe uses Mob tactics to get it.

Any luck on following the money trail?

No, it all leads to offshore accounts.

And no names.

But I will keep working on it.

How come you know so much about classic cars?

Cute guy in shop class.

No, seriously.

Actually, uh, my brother owned a '57 Chevy rust bucket.

Left it in the garage when he went to college.

Totally forgot about it.

And then, when I got a little older, I needed a way to get to school, so...

You fixed it up.

Took the engine completely apart and reassembled it piece by piece.

I found it really interesting to see how it all connected.

Carburetor as crime scene.

Yeah, it's all in the details.

I can't believe this backseat.

You could have a picnic in there.

I think Alfonz and his mistress were up to more than that.

Talk about a last ride.

(chuckles)

Brody: I think I may have found something from our k*ller's last ride.

Some sort of fiber.

I think I found a chrome flake, too.

Could be from our Silver Woman.

We know this car was used for the body dump.

Maybe she was transported in the trunk.

You look in there yet?

Nope.

Let's check it out.

Oh.

A tarp with chrome paint and blood.

Confirms that theory.

Yep.

Ooh, what's that?

A copy of Ken Bixler's appraisal of this car.

Looks like it was printed from the Farringer Web site.

Well, maybe this printout will give us a print.

I got a partial.

Not sure if it'll be enough for AFIS, though.

Well, then, let's hope that our mystery buyer left some epithelials behind.

Find anything?

Hey, Morgan, what do you got?

I just got results on the touch DNA from the appraisal report.

So who's the buyer of the Cadillac?

Results come back as a female familial match to Ava Montrose.

And she doesn't have any sisters or daughters.

That just leaves her mother.

Ruth Montrose.

Ruth Montrose is our buyer.

And if our theory is correct, she's not just our buyer; she's our k*ller.

You must help me get this car.

Don't "must" me, Mother.

This fiasco's all yours, not mine.

Darling, I have borrowed a lot of money from some very disreputable men.

If I don't pay them, Lord knows what's going to happen to me.

Do you understand?

I understand perfectly.

You need me.

I have never asked you for anything.

Sidle: So you admit to using your own daughter to help steal a car.

Ava knew how to get into the vault.

It's appalling, I know.

I can't argue with that.

Why did you need to buy the car so badly?

I wasn't the buyer.

I was just an intermediary for a wealthy gentleman from Dubai.

I met him at a party a month ago.

He loves Mob lore and cars.

I told him that Alfonz Derosa's death car was for sale.

And he was interested?

He was ready to pay two million when he came back from Dubai.

Double the appraisal, double the purchase price.

That's not a bad profit.

So, you borrowed the money from a loan shark to make the deposit.

Yes.

And then that sentimental fool, Aron Derosa, canceled the sale.

And that's when your problems really started.

What happened to Ava in that vault?

(chuckles)

I have no idea.

Yeah, see, I thought we were getting somewhere.

I wasn't there.

I would never m*rder my own daughter.

I wish I could believe that, Ms. Montrose.

I've seen a lot over the years.

Nothing surprises me.

Believe what you will.

I think Ava brought an unsavory friend to help her.

And then something went terribly wrong.

Russell: Well, she's not gonna win mother of the year awards.

But would she k*ll her own daughter?

You believe her story?

Well, I think there's a pragmatic woman under all that crazy, (phone chirps) and her daughter's more valuable alive than dead.

Mmm. Greg wants to know if I feel like taking a ride back to the past.

Boy, this looks like it could all be part of a new edition for your book.

Could be.

But I also think it relates to Ava Montrose's m*rder.

This is Pete Bamonte.

Chicago loan shark and the guy behind Alfonz Derosa's m*rder.

Right, he hired the hit man to do it.

When I was researching the Derosa m*rder from '89, I discovered that Bamonte had a son.

Bamonte got divorced.

His wife remarried, and then his son took his stepfather's last name, which was Reidel.

Reidel, as in Duncan Reidel?

Ruth Montrose's boyfriend is Pete Bamonte's son?

I'm saying maybe we have a new suspect, and maybe Ruth Montrose's story about a buyer in Dubai was just a story.

And the real buyer is a little closer to home.

Okay, so where's our proof?

How are we doing with the, uh, trace that we got from the Caddy?

Finn's working on it.

Where you headed?

I'm not sure.

So, if you're right and Duncan Reidel is the k*ller, then he must have done restoration work before he k*lled Ava.

What do you mean?

Well, I got the results back from the fiber that we found on the passenger seat.

Cannabis sativa.

Hemp.

It's used for upholstery stuffing.

And the thing I know about classic cars is they did not use hemp in the carpet or in the seat lining.

Not in 1976, anyway.

Also, check out the result on the chrome.

It's not chromic potassium sulfate.

It didn't come off the girl.

It must have flaked off the car.

But on what part of the car?

Yeah, that is what I am trying to figure out.

Well, we found both pieces of trace here, near the passenger seat.

The chrome on the headrest post is flaking.

Someone messed with it.

Maybe the k*ller swapped out the original headrest with a new one, reupholstered with hemp.

There's one way to know for sure.

After Alfonz and his mistress were sh*t, this entire seat was covered in blood.

When is the last time someone was sh*t in the head in a car and didn't leave any blood on the headrest?

How about never?

So, Ava's k*ller replaced the headrest.

The question is: Why?

Sanders: The hit man who went to prison for the m*rder of Alfonz Derosa wasn't convicted on evidence.

He was convicted on the word of a jailhouse snitch.

So you're thinking he was set up?

Yeah, maybe there was a different sh**t, someone closer to the guy who ordered the hit.

In 1989, Duncan Reidel was 18 years old.

So, Duncan could've been the one to pull the trigger for his father.

And maybe there was something in that headrest that could've proven it.

Like a b*llet.

Exactly.

So let's see if there's something on this headrest that will help us make our case today.

♪ ♪

Sanders: Hey.

Did you get an I.D. off the headrest?

Yeah, I did.

Not who we expected.

Reidel's off the hook.

So who is it?

Russell: You know, it's interesting, what a car means to different people.

You take this Cadillac.

To Carlo Derosa, it means revenge.

Selling it's a great way to get back at a father who cared more about his cars than about him.

Yeah, to Aron Derosa, keeping it is a way of remembering that father.

To him, the car means love.

Right, we-we were just wondering...

What did it mean to you?

Mr. Bixler?

Um... (chuckles) nothing.

I mean, I mean, not a damn thing.

It was just a part of my job.

Wrong answer, Ken.

Yeah, we-we kind of figured that, to you, the car means heartbreak.

Heartbreak?

I... What are you talking about?

You see, Ken, we found your DNA on the passenger side headrest.

Well, uh, I inspected that headrest, so...

No, actually, the headrest you inspected was the old headrest.

The manufactured one.

We're talking about the new headrest.

And that's because you replaced it.

We, uh, recovered the old headrest in the Dumpster behind your appraisal office, and your prints were on that.

We also found an expended b*llet that was a direct match to a Beretta manufactured in 1980.

Your Beretta.

It's the same g*n you fired last year when you thought an intruder was breaking into your house.

Russell: Remember, the cops were called?

The b*llet and the g*n were processed and then put in the system.

And it's also the same g*n that was used to m*rder Alfonz Derosa.

Yeah, unfortunately, though... The recovered b*ll*ts were too degraded to process.

Right, but in the cops' defense, they didn't realize that you fired three sh*ts, not two.

A stray round going into the headrest.

(laughter)

The cops thought it was a professional hit.

They didn't realize it was just an enraged car salesman with a shaky hand.

What I don't understand is: Why'd you feel like you had to k*ll him in the first place?

You barely knew the guy.

I wasn't there to k*ll Alfonz.

I was there to k*ll Vera.

Vera Scanell.

Alfonz's mistress.

My fiancée.

What a beautiful wreck she was.

She never cared how much pain she caused me.

The humiliation.

They both got what was coming to them.

I didn't regret it for a second.

Until 30 years later when you realized that you left some evidence behind.

Ken, what about Ava?

How'd she play into this?

I've known her for years.

I was friends with her dealer.

I used to help him launder money.

She came to me about a week ago, telling me about her mom's plan to steal the car.

They wanted help getting it out of the country.

But with the car being sold, you were worried that the b*llet in the headrest would be discovered and finally matched to your Beretta.

I had to get it out.

I sent her away.

I sent her away for an hour or so so I could get my work done.

Too bad she had to come back.

The vibe in this place always gets me feeling hot.

Sexy.

Do you want to take a ride?

The hell you doing here?

I got bored. Let's go.

Now.

The car's not ready yet.

I thought you said you were working on the engine.

What are you up to, Kenny boy?

You got an angle, don't you?

What is it? I want in.

Stay out of it, Ava.

(laughs)

Now I know it's good.

You want me to stay out of it, it's gonna cost...

I told you to stay the hell out of here!

Come here! Get back!

Come back! (grunts)

(grunting and groaning)

Come here. Come on!

Just talked to Carlo Derosa.

He's sending someone over to pick up the Caddy.

Well, Bixler did confess, so the car's not evidence anymore.

What about Aron Derosa?

Still doesn't want to sell?

Actually, the brothers finally compromised.

They're donating the car to the Mob Museum.

Oh, that sounds like a good place for her.

Still such a shame that she's never gonna see the road again.

One last ride?

I thought you'd never ask.