"Still planning on going to the track this weekend?" "Uh, yes." "As long as the-the weather holds, that is, seems there's a a storm headed this way, so..." "Help me..." "Help...!" "Wine's especially good." "Yeah, isn't it?" "It's, uh, uh, Pinot Cab blend." "Pinot Noir and Cabernet." "Here I thought nothing could surprise me anymore." "I ran into Lauren again." "Roth?" "Bergdorf Goodman." "The third time this week." "Surprised Phillip lets her out shopping at all, considering what the NASDAQ's been doing." "And you?" "You still, uh... hosting the charity event?" "Nope." "Decided to cancel." "Just haven't been feeling up to guests lately." "Who could that be?" "Our victim is Ron Ferguson." "Real estate mogul." "Seen his billboards around the city." "Apparently, he and his partner, a guy named Phillip Roth, made a killing during the housing bubble." "Looks like the killing didn't stop there." "Pretty bad beating to the head." "We know who called it in?" "His wife Elizabeth." "It's amazing she made it to a phone at all, considering she was bound, gagged and thrown into the back bedroom" "What about the daughter?" " Where is she?" " Megan." "Movie theater." "We're expecting her home any minute now." "We know how many intruders?" "Two, both in ski masks." "What are you thinking, Mac?" "Wealthy neighborhood." "Rows and rows of million-dollar homes." "Why'd the attackers choose this one?" "No!" "No...!" "# Out here in the fields" "# I fight for my meals" "# I get my back into my living" "# Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." "# You can always be the man" "# Doo, doo, doo, doo" "# Love what you're doing as much as you can #" "# Doo, doo, doo, doo" "# Go..." "# Show the world" "# When you're coming back #" "# Don't look now, baby #" "# The future don't care #" "# Bright as the north light" "# Everything, everything, everything tastes like #" "# Don't look now, baby #" "# The future don't care #" "# Bright as the north light" "# Everything, everything, everything #" "# Tastes like fire!" "We were just having dinner together, that's all-- just like any other night, and then, uh..." "I just can't believe this is happening." "Just take your time." "The front door didn't appear forced." "Can you tell me how the attackers got in?" "Did you order something?" "On your knees now!" "No!" "Were they after something specific?" "The safe." "They said people like us always had a safe." "And so you told them where it was?" "They put a gun to Ron's head, and they threatened to kill him, so..." "I led them to the office." "No!" "Did you recognize his face?" "No." "Someone who had been to the house before?" "A repairman?" "Delivery?" "Anything?" "Mm-mm." "He..." "He was just laying there on the ground." "Back room now!" "You're coming with me." "No!" "No...!" "Let's go!" "No!" "You come out of this room, and you die." "But you didn't stay." "A few minutes later, I heard the front door close." "I waited about... ten more minutes or so, just to make sure they were gone." "And then I came out." "Ron?" "Ron?" "911." "What's your emergency?" "I shouldn't have waited." "I should have gone to him right away." "If I had, he might still be alive." "Don't blame yourself." "If you'd gone to him sooner, and the attackers came back, you could be dead now, too." "I live here." "You're not allowed in here." "Let me in!" "Miss...!" "What's going on?" "Oh, no" " Megan." "Dad!" "?" "Dad!" "?" "Dad!" "?" "Oh, my God!" " No..." " Dad!" "#" "#" "#" "#" "Megan Ferguson's alibi checked out." "Never saw her as much of a suspect, anyway." "Still had her movie ticket stub, and an usher remembered her going in." "Spektral Theater-- Rocky Horror Picture Show." "They're still showing that thing?" "Apparently so." "I never saw that." "You didn't?" "Aw, Mac, you should." "I think you'd love it." "It ranks right up there with that eight-hour" "Reagan documentary you're always watching." "Hey, I want you to pick a card, okay?" "Hold on." "Any card." "Pick a card." "You mean to tell me that while I've been trying to get a lead out of an empty cardboard box, you've been here doing magic tricks?" "Uh, it creates a diversion, helps me think." "Think about what?" "Jo found a hair at the crime scene." "Apparently, it belongs to an animal called the vicuna, which is like a lama found in a region of the Andes." "They use their wool in the garment industry." "It could have been transferred in by one of the attackers." "Will you just pick a card, please?" "Now I want you to put the card back in the deck." "All right, trust me-- this is going to pay off, okay?" "It's going to pay off." "Ready?" "Shuffle it up." "So I don't know what card you put in there." "Now I got to create some static electricity first." "And watch it;" "just watch it." "Watch it." "Watch it." "Come on." "Come on." "That is outstanding." "I have never been more proud." "What's the, uh, payoff?" "The paper fragment that Sid found on the vic's body," "Adam determined that it was coated in PVC varnish." "Take a look at the design." "It's the Queen of Spades." "Well, it's a torn playing card." "So I was figuring maybe our vic was involved in gambling." "You know, pissed off the wrong guys, they decide to settle the score by pulling off the home invasion." "Thing is they didn't realize Ron would fight back." "That's very impressive." "Thank you." "I think you should stick to your day job, though." "Let's forget about the magic and tell me what you got going on in your box." "Uh, I isolated the scent molecules, ran through the GCMS." "I got Vanilla #36 mixed with trace elements of wax." "Wax... and vanilla-scented candles?" "Yeah, I thought maybe these indentations they're from the candle wick holders." "So... made a call, got to three manufacturers that use that particular scent with this specific size candle wick holders." "Got a list of purchase orders linked to customers that have addresses in the city." "I'm on my way there now." "Nice." " How's that for magic?" " Very good." "My queen." "I believe... your exact words were, "one more stop, then we get a bite to eat." Yeah, and this office is the last stop." "No, no, no, no!" "You said it on the walk up to the last place." "That's one more." "This is two." "You are like Danny." "You do not listen to what I actually say." "Oh, I listen." "I think the problem is you're not saying what you think you're saying." " He says that too, doesn't he?" " Yeah." "Word for word." "Men and women." "Yeah." "Hey... see that guy over there?" "He matches the artist's rendering we got from Elizabeth." "That looks like our guy." "Stop!" "Stop!" "Get the hell out of the car." "What are you doing?" "Hold it right there." "Don't do anything stupid." " Linds, you okay?" " Yeah." "I'm good." "Backs to the wall." "Eyes out front." "Number three." "Number three, step forward." "That's him." "That's the man who killed my husband." "I didn't do that." " I didn't kill that man." " Then who did?" "Your partner?" "Give us his name." "Don't have a partner." "You're lying." "We have the shipping box that connects to you, a positive I.D. from the victim's wife," "DNA on a ski mask that's going to match to you." "Don't forget about the stolen property we're going to find at your apartment, once the ink dries on our search warrant." "Let's skip the BS, get to the chase." "Who are you working with?" "Are you scared of this guy?" "Is that it?" "You're afraid he's going to get to you?" "Or is it somebody you care about?" "Your brother?" "Your uncle?" "Your cousin?" "Who are you protecting, Mark?" " Nobody." " Then give us a name." "We never meant for this to happen." "He broke free and... things just got out of hand." "Give us the name of your accomplice, and we'll see to it that the court is aware of your willingness to aid our investigation." "You're going away for murder, Mark." "The only question is how long." "We're offering you a chance to do the right thing." "Chance for a lighter sentence." "I'm not saying another word, not without an attorney." "Hmm..." "Hi, Sid." "Hi." "You seem troubled." "You know, death, much like life, can be a rather complicated matter." "Oh, come on, Sid-- this is a slam dunk case, no?" "Blunt force trauma to the head?" "Not as simple as it looks, I'm afraid." "Impact injuries to the skull, while certainly serious, don't appear severe enough to result in death." "I did, however, find extensive petechiae in his eyes." "Common finding with head trauma." "Severe head trauma." "Ah!" "So you you have conflicting results." "Yeah." "I generated this CT scan of the brain to get a better look at what was going on." "Definite swelling of the cerebellum." "Which can lead to increased pressure on the brain stem, the brain's respiratory control center." "Too much pressure can eventually lead to respiratory failure, and ultimately death." "So... we're back to blunt force trauma being the official C.O.D." "No." "The swelling I'm seeing on this scan, while certainly remarkable, doesn't appear significant enough to cause respiratory failure or death." "Ron Ferguson's dead, Sid." "Something had to kill him." "Well, I'm still trying to find the significance of the playing card fragment that Sid discovered on the vic's body." "Right, we thought maybe the vic had a gambling problem, and that owed some money to the wrong people." "Still following up, nothing as of yet." "But it got me thinking-- what if the vic wasn't the one that brought us to the crime scene in the first place?" "You mean, what if the attacker brought it, and then it transferred to Ron in the struggle?" "I took a closer look at the fragment, and I found a sticky residue." "So I ran it through the GCMS, came up with this." "Root beer?" "Not just any root beer..." "It's a recipe made by the Easy Bottling Company." "It's a mom and pop operation, based out of Green Bay, Wisconsin." "Custom, homemade brews." "And they're sending me all the purchase orders for retailers in New York." "Well, let's hope this root beer leads us somewhere." "Any leads on Mark Johnston's accomplice?" "Nothing on the victim's computer or the first cell phone I looked at." "First cell phone?" "That means the victim had a" "Second cell phone." "Yes." "The first one, Lindsay collected at the scene." "The one Elizabeth used to call 911." "Exactly." "Second one was recovered from Mark's apartment, along with the other property stolen from the Fergusons' safe." "The only reason to have a second cell phone locked in a safe is if you're hiding something." "Maybe the angry voice mails I recovered will shed some light on what he was hiding." "Take a listen." "What the hell are you thinking!" "?" "Values are down 85 %!" "And you're selling our properties now!" "?" "Have you lost your mind!" "?" "You're killing us!" "Found seven more just like it." "All of them from the same guy" " Phillip Roth." "Ron's business partner." "So clearly, they weren't seeing eye-to-eye on how to run the company." "Hey, guys, so Lindsay was right." "Vicuna hair is used for making garments." "More specifically, high-end, expensive ones." "A suit using this stuff can go for 20 grand." "20,000 for a suit?" "Reason they're so expensive is because the hairs are hollow, giving them unique warming properties." "Good news is that also makes them sensitive to chemical treatment." "So that means the fibers can only be used in garments in their natural color." "Exactly." "Light brown." "So I started fishing through Ron's computer, looking at his photos." "Take a look at this." "Okay, so there's Ron." "Who's this other guy?" "Well, that guy wearing the light brown vicuna coat is Phillip Roth." "Hmm!" "Ron's business partner." "You're damn right I left Ron those messages." "I slashed his painting, too." "Why?" "I was trying to make a point." "All right." "Well, how about this?" "You don't want Elizabeth getting half of this now, do ya?" "No!" "Don't touch that!" "He and Elizabeth were... having problems." "Let's just say Ron wasn't handling it well." "What is wrong with you?" "!" "I don't care anymore, all right?" "All I care about is Elizabeth not getting a penny from me in the divorce." "If you two want to blow each other up, you go ahead and do it... but you leave me and the business out of it." "You think I forced my way into my business partner's home and committed a robbery to cover up a murder?" "That sounds a little farfetched to me." "How about hiring a couple of thugs to do your dirty work for you?" "That sound a little more plausible?" "Certainly does to me." "You know this kid?" "No." "Who is he?" "You've never spoken to the kid before?" "Phone, text, e-mail, anything?" "No, nothing." "You want to tell me who he is?" "Let us worry about that." "You just worry about whether or not we find a connection between you and him." "Hey, Mac, take a look at this." "Eva Hutton." "Who is she?" "Well, judging by the messages she and Ron were exchanging," "I'd say she was his mistress." "Ron was cheating on Elizabeth?" "Apparently so." "And it gets worse." "Take a look." ""Plan is in motion." ""A few more days and Elizabeth will be gone for good." "You and I will be together forever."" "Sounds like Ron was doing a lot more than just stepping out behind Elizabeth's back." "He was planning on having her killed." "I'm sorry, who?" "Ron Ferguson." "The same Ron Ferguson you were having an affair with." "What?" "Can we take a step back here?" "Because I don't know any Ron Ferguson." "This whole thing is crazy." "Is it?" "Because it seems like a familiar story to me." "Ron has second thoughts about his divorce;" "wants to give his wife another chance;" "he has to break it off with you." "The problem is that you weren't able to get what you were there for in the first place, so you have to hire two thugs to go in and take it for you." "Does that sound about right?" "That's insane." "I have no idea what you're talking about." ""I want you to hold me." ""To be in your arms." "Feel your naked body next to mine."" "It gets a little more explicit as we go." "And then there are all these messages between the two of you about killing Ron's wife." "Okay, I'm not gonna sit here and listen to this." "Is this not you?" "Eva Hutton?" "Yes, that's me." "But this is impossible." "And yet here it is." "But I don't have a profile page." "I've never had one." "Somebody else must have... put that up there." "And that same somebody else sent all those messages to Ron, conspiring to kill his wife?" "I guess so." "Yeah." "I'm telling you that's me in the picture, but I did not put that page up on the Internet." "Ron was cheating on me?" "She looks all of about 12." "You didn't know Ron was having an affair?" "I had my suspicions... like any other wife, I suppose." "But, no..." "I didn't know for sure." "And how was your marriage, Mrs. Ferguson?" "Apparently, not as good as I thought." "Ron and I had been married for a very long time." "We had our moments." "And lately?" "Had the two of you been having more of these moments?" "Excuse me?" "Other people I've talked to, they've painted a very different picture than you have." "Two men forced their way into my home last night and killed my husband." "What could my marriage possibly have to do with that?" "Mrs. Ferguson, we think Ron was planning on having you killed." "What?" "!" "We found several e-mails to that nature." "To be with her?" "Was she planning it with him?" "Do you think that might've had something to do with what happened last night?" "That Ron hired those people to break into our house?" "We're exploring every possible scenario." "But that doesn't make sense." "Then why kill him?" "Wait-- you don't think I did this, do you?" "Killed Ron before he killed me?" "Ron and I were having problems." "I apologize for not being forthcoming about it, Detective, but I honestly didn't think it had any relevance." "I assure you, I have nothing to do with this." "Mark Johnston, the man we have in custody for Ron's murder." "You never had any communication with him?" "Phone conversations, e-mails, texting?" "Anything like that?" "Absolutely not." "In that case, I'd like to access all your phone records, or any other electronic devices that you might have, just so we can verify what you're saying." "Yes, of course." "Anything I can do to help." "Dirty Harry." "Add that to his list of favorites." "Really?" "Dirty Harry?" "I'm not sure Mac would approve of his policing techniques." ""Do you feel lucky?" "Well, do ya, punk?"" "What's going on?" "Uh, nothing." "Uh..." ""University of Chicago," "Calvin Coolidge," "A Bridge Too Far, Lincoln High...?" "What-what is this?" "It's your profile page, Mac." "It's all part of the investigation." "Okay." "Just gotta find a profile picture." "Oh, that one's cute." "Yes, that's a good one." "Nice." "Nice, Mac." "There we go!" "Hours of social networking at your fingertips." "Great." "There's just one problem." "I don't want a profile page." "Oh, it doesn't matter-- that's the point." "Someone else can build it for you." "You're saying that's what happened to Eva?" "Someone else built her profile page?" "Pretending to be her." "Who would do that?" "Elizabeth Ferguson." "This is Elizabeth's laptop." "The IP address is the same one that was used to create Eva's profile." "I also found a deleted search history on her hard drive." "Suggesting she didn't know Eva at all." "It's like she picked her at random." "Then dug up as much information on the Internet as she could." "Including her picture, ripped right off the Internet." "What kind of person makes a fake profile to have an online love affair with their own husband?" "She must've been trying to catch Ron cheating." "More like entrapment." "We knew their marriage was in trouble." "This takes it to a new level." "She probably thought she deleted everything." "Didn't realize the profile page could be traced back to her computer." "The thing I don't understand is why make a profile of a real person?" "Why not just make somebody up entirely?" "Use a real photo, obviously, but then fake everything else." "Because a real person can be verified and a fake person can't." "It could be possible that Elizabeth was trying to use the on-line affair against Ron in a divorce settlement." "Ron's divorce attorney would've looked into Eva Hutton." "And if she didn't exist, they would have known Elizabeth was lying." "But because she does exist, it would end up being Elizabeth's word against theirs, and Elizabeth would have all the evidence to support her story." "And Ron would probably take a worse settlement just to make the whole thing go away." "That's one manipulative woman." "She seemed so convincing when I talked to her." "Can you imagine what it was like for Megan, living with these two as parents?" "Anything connecting Elizabeth and Mark Johnston?" "No." "She was lying about Eva, but apparently, she was telling the truth about him." "Hey, Sid, what do you got?" "Ah..." "Dissection of the brain confirmed my suspicion about the swelling." "Not severe enough to cause respiratory failure." "Well, also not severe enough to cause the petechial hemorrhaging" "I found in the victim's eyelids." "Then what killed him?" "Ron Ferguson was smothered." " Are you sure about that?" " Absolutely." "After ruling out head trauma," "I dissected the victim's airway." "Found cotton fibers inside his trachea." "Well, that explains the petechial hemorrhaging you found." "My guess is one of the robbers held something like a pillow or a towel over the victim's face to suffocate him." "At which point, he inhaled those fibers." "I don't recall seeing a bloodstained pillow or towel at the crime scene." "Perhaps the attackers took it with them when they left?" "It's odd that they would be sloppy enough to leave behind a ski mask and a shipping box, but smart enough to take a bloodstained pillow?" "We know Mark's mask was ripped off." "Ron saw his face." "Possible motive for Mark to smother him." "To prevent him from making an I.D." "Elizabeth saw his face." "Why not kill her, too?" "Maybe there was a connection between Ron and Mark." "They knew each other somehow." "That's why Ron was killed." "To prevent him from providing Mark's name." "Or maybe Mark's not our killer." "Maybe it was a second intruder." "The playing card fragment that Sid found on our victim's body..." "The same one with the root beer residue?" "Yeah." "Adam used the root beer to trace it back to the Spektral Theater." "That's Megan's alibi-- watching The Rocky Horror Picture Show during the time of the murder." "Right." "And we all know that people bring props to The Rocky Horror Picture Show, right?" "They bring squirt guns, confetti, rice." "They also bring playing cards." "Yeah, but people go to those shows over and over and over again." "Megan could have gone to a previous night's show, stepped on a torn piece of playing card, and tracked it home with her." "And Ron rolled over the fragment during the struggle, and transferred it to his body." "The only trouble with that theory is that last night marked the first night that the Spektral Theater showed" "Rocky Horror Picture Show in over a year." "Means there's only one way that playing card fragment ended up inside our crime scene." "One of the attackers brought it in." "Megan was lying about her alibi." "She's the second attacker." "I'm guessing you didn't know that the Spektral Theater has a surveillance camera mounted above the ticket counter." "So?" "So we have you going in... but, for some reason, you never come back out." "That's because I left through the back exit after the movie ended." "Like half the other people in the audience." "Right." "The Rocky Horror Picture Show." "How was it?" "It's pretty cool the way the audience gets involved, don't you think?" "Dressing up, throwing things at the screen?" "Confetti, rice... playing cards." "I guess." "You know, we found a torn bit of a playing card at the crime scene." "It was linked to the same theater where you saw the movie." "Time to cut the act, Megan." "The reason we don't have you on camera coming back out of the theater is because you walked in, walked right out the back door and hooked up with Mark." "It's over." "Mark's in custody." "He already confessed." "We have evidence that puts you at the crime scene." "There is no denying that." "What we don't have is why." "Why did you kill your father, Megan?" "We didn't mean to." "Nobody was supposed to get hurt." "That's what we said." "Mark promised me." "But... we got in there, and my dad, he..." "It wasn't supposed to happen like that." "I'm thinking all of this is Mark's idea." "Who is he to you, anyway?" "Boyfriend." "Did he convince you to do this?" "You don't have to protect him anymore." "He's already going away for murder." "It was my idea." "I'm the one who talked Mark into this." "Why?" "Because of them." "You have no idea what it was like." "Sitting at a dinner table with them, knowing that underneath it all, they couldn't stand each other." "With me just caught in the middle." "I was just... a pawn to them." "Finally, I'd had enough." "And you you though what, that you and Mark would just run away together?" "My dad was throwing away everything." "He was burning through all their money, just so my mom couldn't get to it." "I had to do something while I still had the chance." "I just wanted to get away." "Just start over with Mark." "We never meant for anybody to get hurt." "My dad, he-- he somehow slipped free and... he fought back." "Mark got scared, hit him." "Who smothered him?" "What?" "!" "We know your father didn't die from the beating, Megan." "He was smothered in cold blood." "Who did it?" "Was it you, or was it Mark?" "No." "Neither of us." "You gotta believe me." "I hated what my father was doing to our family." "But he was my Dad." "I loved him." "I couldn't do something like that to him." "And neither could Mark." "To be so young and feel that desperate to do what she did." "You believe her then?" "I do." "Which leaves only one other person who could have killed Ron Ferguson." "I understand you have the second attacker in custody?" "Sit down, Mrs. Ferguson." "Thank goodness this whole thing is finally over." "It's not over." "But I don't understand." "The officer I talked to on the phone said that..." "Did you know your daughter had a boyfriend?" "I remember her mentioning someone." "I don't recall ever meeting him, nor do I remember his name." "Mark, Mark Johnston." "Wait, isn't that...?" "Are you telling me Megan put two of her friends up to this?" "No." "I'm telling you the two robbers who invaded your home were Megan and Mark." "Your daughter was the second attacker." "Megan did this?" "No, that's not possible." "She's already confessed." "Is there anything you want to tell me?" "In light of this new information-- anything you want to tell me at all?" "I, uh..." "No." "I honestly don't know what to say about any of this." "Are you sure?" "Think long and hard about what I'm telling you-- about what you're going to say to me next." "Wow, that is cold." "You are actually willing to let your daughter go down for murder-- the murder you committed." "That's absurd." "What could you possibly be talking about?" "We found a fiber in Ron's throat-- white cotton-- just like the shirt you were wearing last night." "After the robbers left, you crawled to your husband just like you said you did, only, when you got there, he was still alive." "Ron...!" "You thought about calling 911, but then you realized, this was the best thing that could have happened." "You could kill your husband, avoid a messy divorce and the two home invaders would take the fall." "Only you didn't know that one of the attackers was your daughter." "And that oils from Ron's face would end up on your shirt." "At first, I didn't understand why a nice girl like Megan would do what she did-- why she felt she had to." "But now I understand." "Do you have any idea what 20 years of marriage can do to a person?" "Then get a divorce." "I was planning on it." "So was Ron." "Our marriage was a war, our divorce a cold war." "We were each taking positions, building arsenals." "And that's why you created the fake profile?" "As part of your arsenal?" "Ron was driving the business into the ground." "He was moving money from our personal accounts offshore somewhere-- untraceable." "I had to do something." "Otherwise, he would have screwed me out of every penny." "And what about Megan?" "Do you think he would have taken care of her?" "No, he would have screwed her, too." "She and I would have been left scraping by compared to how he'd be living." "Is that what you told her?" "What about now?" "How will the two of you be living now?" "He was going to kill me." "No, you're wrong." "We recovered an e-mail from Ron's computer sent to a friend... after he found out you were pretending to be Eva... joking that he was going to teach you a lesson." "He knew it was you." "He wasn't going to kill you." "No..." "No..." "No..." "You have mail."