"Okay, back that thing up." "I thought you just wanted to steal some gloss off my lips." "And you bought it." "Hey." "You are hotter than anyone in there." "For $1,000, I'll take you around the world." "I think I love you." "God should just flush this city down the toilet." "Look..." "I'm going to go find our limo." "Where it's safe." " Huskins, you first responding?" " Yes, sir." "We got one dead guy in the limo, the rest are cuts and bruises." "So, what's the story?" "Witnesses are pretty much in sync." "They heard, uh, several gunshots from down the street, they saw the limo and everybody started hight ailing' it." "Right." "Running the Bulls, Las Vegas style." "So, I got a feeling the driver didn't see anything." " No, sir." " Make sure you do Nystagmus before we pound him through the FSTs." "Limo equals drugs and what not." "And collect all the cell phones." "Are we authorized to do that, sir?" "No." "Hey, anybody have any photos or video of the crash?" "If you do, I promise to get them on Channel 8 News." "Wow." "You better wear gloves before you do the collection" "There's a lot of interrupted lap dances out there." "Yes, sir." "We got one on the guy in the limo." "A passenger." "Paramedics are working on him now." "Name's Kellen Tyford." "Oh, Kellen." "I know Kellen." "Calls himself "Drops."" "This is what happens when you don't wear your seatbelt." "That's why I always do." "It's the law." "Even in limos." "Found a wallet." "Got a license." "Vic's name is "Champ Landley."" "Open champagne bottle." "White powder residue." "I'll guess coke." "Well, then that must be... his brain on drugs." "Party till you drop." "Or get shot, whichever comes first." "Konichiwa." "Konichiwa." "Look." "I ain't in the mood, man." "So, let me guess, you don't have any blood on your hands." "Oh, look at that, you do." "Yeah, I got blood on my face, too." "How about that?" "So, who's the dead guy?" "It's Champ." "Yeah, we know that, but who's he to you?" "Huh?" "It's family, man." "So, he's your "cuz", he's your gang buddy." "Look, B, I ain't no Blud and I ain't no Crip." "Champ's just a cool kid I knew from around the way." "I met his ass over two decades ago riding my Big Wheel." "We go back like your hairline." "That's family." "So, how did his b-l-u-d end up on your face?" "We was parlayin', chillin', sliding' to the strip club, minding' our own." "So, what'd you do, piss off some rapper band again?" "The only bands I'm playin' with now is the one's I'm ripping off stacks of green." "And I ain't talking about weed, B." "You're the big cheese maker." "What's your secret, anyway?" "I promote events, parties." "I help the club life pop." "Well, you must be throwing some pretty crappy parties for someone to want you and your buddy dead." "Huh?" "So, tell me." "Who lit you up?" "I don't know, okay?" "Could be everybody, man, could be nobody." "Okay." "Let's start with everybody." "I know a lot of people..." "friends and foes." "They know I come here late night." "Or maybe, maybe the limo driver cut somebody off and we're the victims of road rage, how about that?" "Look, we're going to take you down to the station." "You can't be ser..." "I'm the one that got shot at!" "You know the rigamarole:" "we need an official statement, we need your clothes, we need your prints, we need your DNA." "Because you're a concerned citizen." "You want to help us find out who did this." "Unless you already know." "Got a nine mill over here." ".45 auto casing." "This neighborhood rains lead." "Yeah, and we have to process every last drop of it." "We're going to make Bobby Dawson's boat payment this month." "I was right." "This is a lot like garbage colleting." "You're not helping, Hodges." "I have no intention to." "Field rotation for the Lab Techs was Ecklie's idea." "He was very explicit that I was only allowed to observe." "Looks like a.38, maybe a.357." "It's a little small for those golf-ball size holes we found in that limo." "A little help?" ".50 caliber." "Casing looks new." "I bet it's from a Desert Eagle." "Or a coffee shop." "I could drink an espresso out of that thing." "Residential area." "Not much traffic." "Landscaper found the body, called 911." "Driver's license is in her purse." "Her name's Melissa Gentry, lives off Nellis." "We're trying to contact the family." "Little bit outside of her neighborhood, isn't it?" "Definitely." "Party clothes shredded." "Breaded abrasions." "Must've hit the ground moving." "No car keys and no unaccounted for... cars in the vicinity." "You thinking she got jacked?" "She gets taken along for the ride, jumps out trying to escape." "Maybe she was killed first, and this is a body dump at high speed." "I'm going to go bang on some doors, see if anyone heard anything." "I'm gonna go see if I can figure out where this started." "Whoa! "Crime Lab Nick Stokes!"" "I see we're in between bad haircuts." "Drops." "Told you I'd see you later." "It's called criminal activity." "Stand up and hold your hands up for me, please." "Now, come on, Crime Lab," "I thought we was old buddies." "The only thing we have in common, Kellen, are the dead bodies that seem to keep piling up around you." "Turn around, please." "Well, first of all..." "I ain't never killed nobody in my life." "Second, I don't have a record." "Never even done a day in jail." "Well, you keep heading down this road and, unfortunately, that's where you're going to end up." "Yeah, well... this, this ain't me." "I'm not used to this." "As a matter of fact," "I don't even know what that is." "It's a test for gunshot residue." "Hands up." "Oh, yeah, uh... the powder from a gun." "You ain't gonna find none of that." "Maybe not." "Okay, now, I need you to remove all of your clothing, including your shoes." "You can put these on for now and I'll come back to get them when you're done." "No, thanks." "Uh, I got one of my queens bringing me a suit." "I will not be throwing on these nasty ass scrubs." "You are covered in blood." "Your clothes are evidence now and I'm going to come back in here and I'm going to get them." "If not, you're just going to be standing here in your underwear." "What underwear?" "I don't wear drawers." "This is not a compromise, Kellen." "You might want to close your eyes or turn around or something." "50 AE casings came back clean on IBIS, but Ballistics was able to pull type and caliber from the copper jacket fragments inside the limo." "Consistent with.50 caliber Desert Eagle handgun." "Yeah." "Blood onhe seats suggests that the victim was sitting here, on the left, with Drops somewhere to the right." "Six shots into the limo." "Autopsy reports cause of death was single gunshot wound to the head with variable trajectory, so one of those was the kill shot." "Yeah, it's just hard to say which one." "The crash tossed everything all over the place." "And it's basically one big mess now." "Sounds like Drops's story is holding up, though." "Gentlemen." "Follow me." "There were two shots fired through the glass, but as you can see, different sizes, different calibers." "Big one's consistent with the.50." "Yeah, but check out the beveling on the impacts." "Um, based on the beveling, these shots were fired from opposite directions." "Tinting film is applied to the inside of a window, so the small-caliber round was fired from inside the limo." "Well, I analyzed the radial cracks from both holes." "The cracks from the shot that was fired out was terminated by the cracks from the shot that was fired in." "Someone inside the limo had a gun." "And, evidently, Drops wasn't telling us" "Look, I didn't lie, all right?" "I just left a couple of things out." "Well, you want to fill in the blanks before I ship you for obstruction?" "We shot back; it's that simple." "We?" "You both had guns?" "Nah, man, just one of us." "Well, I bet I can guess which one." "'Cause you're the only person in the limo with a registered.38 revolver." "I guess you know that blood is a good way to wash off GSR, right?" "Nah, my dude." "Look, I ain't do no shooting." "All right?" "Somebody jacked that piece off me, like, a year ago." "You're telling me that you didn't shoot a gun from inside the limo?" "You're blaming it on a dead guy, a dead guy who just happens to have the same gun as you.¹" "What can I say, man?" ".38's back in style." "Besides, man, Champ always had heat." "Everybody know that." "He got my back." "You know, I know everything about you, Kellen." "You're just a small-time street thug and drug dealer from Northtown." "You got the nickname "Drops"" "'cause when you sold the chronic, you made a lot of drops." "Wow, and here I was thinking that I got that name based off my boxing skills, seeing as how I used to drop fools in the squared circle." "I don't know, you're a little slow behind the jab." "And all you do is a lot of bobbing and weaving." "So get me the gun, and I'll let you have your massage." "I tossed it after the shooting, man." "Look, CSI's been all over that area, they didn't find any guns." "That's because a gun like that in a hood like that, that's rent money, baby." "Excuse me, beautiful." "We're gonna wrap up these chicken wings and take them to go." "Whoa, okay, easy now, Kojaks." "No gun, no happy ending." "Come on." "Don't tell me you're tired of the field already." "No, I had to catch up on my Perez Hilton." "I take it you're not gonna pull a Sanders on us, then?" "Let's see:" "Clean, friendly lab, bullet-strewn, urine-soaked street... that's a tough call." "You have something for me?" "Oh, most definitely." "I I.D.'d the serial number on the piece of plastic" "Warrick found in the street." "It's a GMC seatbelt adjuster." "Yeah?" "Keeps the shoulder harness webbing from rubbing on the neck." "Okay." "You got make and model of that car?" "Sure do." "But I don't think it's gonna help you much." "Oh." "That's it." "She had atlanto-occipital dislocation, a basilar skull fracture and contre-coup injuries from bouncing her head on the ground." "C.O.D. is craniocerebral trauma." "And are those ligature marks?" "They are." "The right wrist was broken." "Take a look at the shoulder." "The humeral head's in front of the usual articulation." "Completely dislocated." "She was dragged by her wrist." "We found a seatbelt adjuster at the scene." "Maybe she was dragged by a seatbelt." "Whatever it was, the dragging went on a while." "Abrasions on her elbows, ribs, and knee caps go down to the bone." "Her eyes." "What about them?" "They're the wrong color." "They were green." "You mean these?" "Green contacts." "I'm sorry for your loss, Mrs. Gentry, but we could really use your help." "Is there anyone in this neighborhood that your daughter might have been going to see last night?" "Excuse me." "Hey, Cath." "Are you serious?" "You're kidding, right?" "I'm actually with the mother right now." "I'll handle it." "I'm sorry." "I don't know why Melissa would have..." "Ma'am, your daughter's alive." "What?" "We made a mistake." "The victim that we found was carrying your daughter's I.D." "Are you sure?" "Yes." "She just spoke with my supervisor, she's fine." "It's a miracle." "Oh, thank God." "It's a miracle!" "All right." "There's just one thing." "We still need to identify the victim." "Could you tell me if you recognize this girl?" "That's Simone." "Oh, no." "That's Simone Molinez." "That's my daughter's best friend." "Oh..." "There were no drugs or alcohol in the limo driver's system." "Really?" "What about Drops?" "Also clean." "As was your head shot vic." "Club scene's getting really tame these days." "There's got to be something on the rolled-up hundred." "It's positive for cocaine, along with every Benjamin in the country." "But no coke in the driver or the passengers?" "That doesn't make any sense." "You know, if you're still having trouble coming to terms with the fact that this is no longer your lab," "I suggest counseling." "I would like you to run this for me, please." "Okay." "Hmm." "Boogers on a nose straw." "Yep." "Well, in recognition of your years of previous service," "I will make it a priority." "Thank you." "You're welcome." "I gave Simone my license a couple of months ago." "She was always getting her fakes snatched by bouncers, so I gave her my expired one." "Bouncers only ever look at the birth date." "We look alike." "Kind of, in ways, like her nose and... parts of her chin and cheeks." "And we both have nice butts." "But... that's not on a license." "Do you know anyone who'd want to hurt Simone?" "No way." "She was so nice, super cool... all about fun." "Any guys involved?" "Yeah." "Mostly guys." "Guys with money." "Like who?" "I never met any of them." "They weren't long-term things." "She would just go out with them to party." "She have sex with these guys?" "No, no sex." "She would just use them to get drunk and hang out at penthouses." "Where was Simone last night?" "I don't know, but she always starts off her night at the same place:" "The Gold Square on Sunset." "That place is a dive." "That's not the kind of place to find rich guys." "It was kind of a confidence builder for her." "Simone was a star in there." "She'd always come out with at least a couple numbers." "Gold Square Bar, gold wad of tissue in her purse... figured it was worth checking out." "Looks like a bar napkin." "Yeah, that's been shaped, rolled and twisted." "Las Vegas origami." "Pretty corny." "Probably work on me." "That bad, huh?" "Here we are." ""Carey."" "Looks like this Carey was hitting on the vic." "Maybe in more ways than one." "Hey." "Um, I got your DNA results." "Yeah, and?" "Well, there were two donors on the nose straw." "There was one unknown female and one half-known male." "So a sibling match?" "Yeah." "Greg, the male is the brother of Demitrius James." "One guy decided not to run away." "He picked up a rock and started coming at me with it." "You didn't run over a mob, you ran over one boy!" "My boy!" "How tough you feel when your not in your big SUV, huh?" "Asked you a question, killer." "This image was captured on a cell phone at the scene." "We believe that that is Aaron James." "That fuzzy blob?" "We also found evidence of Aaron James inside the limo." "Well, I hope it's better than this photo." "It's DNA, along with traces of cocaine on a rolled-up $100 bill." "Which doesn't place him in the limo." "That bill could have been brought in there by anyone." "We found a pattern in the blood on the seat next to the vic's." "It doesn't match the clothes from the limo driver or Drops', so there was at least one other passenger in that limo, and we need to question Aaron James." "This city just paid Aaron James and his mother $2.5 million because you ran his brother over." "Are you trying to find a way to give them more money?" "I'm just trying to do my job." "You want to talk to Aaron James, give me more than snot on a bill, and a dot on a crummy photo." "This is a PR nightmare in the making." "We still don't have a murder weapon." "Aaron James could be destroying evidence right now." "All right, first of all, stop talking." "You're off the case." "Everything he touched gets reprocessed." " There's nothing wrong with my work." " Okay." "I know that." " It's just standard procedure." " Oh, procedure." "Open your mouth one more time, and you're on suspension." "I'm trying to avoid a harassment suit here." "This is cover-our-ass time." "Keep me apprised." "This would have been so much easier if you had been the black guy." "We're looking for Carey Corville." "That's me, Bob." "M..." "Hottest cops I've ever seen." "Yeah, might be the hottest chicks I've seen all week." "You guys are here to get me, take me away." "Pat him down." "Am I under arrest for something?" "Yeah, that depends." "This your idea of romance?" "Can't really arrest me for that." "We found it in Simone Molinez's purse." "She kept that, for real?" "Oh, it's on." "What are you guys doing with it?" "She's dead." "Oh." "Well, listen, I don't know nothing about none of that." "Sh-She was breathing when I left her." "That's sweet." "But I have a boyfriend." "So you say." "Come on." "I'm not that hard up." "Look, she didn't like me." "So what?" "On to the next who will." "You've got a GMC truck?" "Where is it?" "Disinfectant." "Seat's damp." "Hey, Carey, there's blood in your car." "Yeah, it's, uh, my boy, Scotty." "He had a nosebleed." "Scotty who?" "Scotty Brittington?" "Well, it's a hell of a lot of blood for a nosebleed." "Looks more consistent with the body of a bloody girl." "I don't know what you're talking about." "Where would we find your boy Scotty?" "I don't know." "He's kind of hard to get a hold of easy." "Address and phone." "We're going to see what your boy has to say about this blood." "Until then, you're coming with us." "This is Catherine." "It's me." "Scott Brittington wasn't at any of his usual haunts, so I checked the hospitals, and guess what?" "He was admitted last night with a severe puncture wound to his shoulder." "He told the staff it was a work injury, but during surgery, they extracted a bullet fragment." "Interesting line of work." "Doc thinks someone tried to dig it out to avoid police notification, which actually made it a lot worse." "Dude, it's..." "Keep going." "I can't go to the hospital with a bullet in me." "Cops'll be all over us." " It's all right, man." " I got it, I got it." "Needle-nose pliers aren't exactly a fine surgical tool." "Yeah, that's for sure." "You talk to Scott?" "Well, I'm on my way to his room right now." "If he's anything like his friend," "I'll sure he'll give you plenty of attitude." "Let me know what he has to say." "I don't think its gonna be much." "A.38 fragment recovered from a suspect in my homicide matched a.38 bullet that Greg found near the strip club drive-by." "So the guys in the GMC truck got into a shoot-out with the guys in the limo." "Tie score... one dead on each side." "Over what?" "Why were these guys shooting each other up?" "It's got to be about the girl." "Her DNA matched the unknown female contribution on the hundred dollar bill, so, she was in the limo." "But that bill doesn't put her in there any more than it does Aaron." "No, but it proves she was with Aaron at some point in the night." "Wait a minute." "Why would Simone even be with those guys?" "Because of Drops." "He knows everybody in the club scene, especially the party girls." "He could have picked her up anywhere." "Simone blows off the broke guys to party with the rich guys." "The broke guys feel dissed, so they track down the limo and retaliate." "Yeah." "Yeah." "And somewhere in between, Simone just gets... tossed." "All right, how are we going to prove any of this?" "I mean, we're not going to get any answers from the suspect in the truck." "He's lawyered up." "So is Drops." "And the Under sheriff isn't letting anyone talk to Aaron." "What about the seat belt adjuster you found?" "No match to the truck." "Doesn't even have seat belt adjusters." "What about the limo?" "It's not a GMC." "It's a Lincoln Continental." "Yeah, but maybe not entirely." "Stretch limos are custom-made." "You take a Lincoln Continental, cut it apart, stretch it with whatever parts you have available:" "Ford, Chrysler, General Motors, doesn't matter." "Looks like the same belt adjuster." "This one's missing." "This blood has to be from the shooting." "This is from something else." "There shouldn't be blood on this part of the seat belt." "Think the Undersheriff will let us talk to Aaron now?" "If the DNA matches Simone Molinez's, anyone that was in this limo is up for murder." "The, uh, Undersheriff won't have a choice." "From the hood to the hills." "Didn't take him long to spend the taxpayers' money." "Hey, knock it off." " You need to look in the fridge." " Mrs. James?" "Oh, hell, no." "I got company." "We have a warrant to search the premises." "A warrant?" "A warrant for what?" "!" "We also need to speak to Aaron." "Oh, we're not talking to nobody." "This is harassment!" "That could be considered assaulting an officer." "Let's not make this harder than it has to be." "Somebody get me a phone!" "All right, ten ball, corner pocket." "Mr. James?" "We need to talk to you down at the station." "You're not under arrest." "We just want to talk." "Yeah, right." "I hear soda water works better." "What'd work better is if I took it out and shot it." "So long as I don't see it on the 11:00 news." " The James kid, he lawyered up?" " Yeah." "Yeah, his attorney's on his way." "You holding a press conference?" "Yeah, I'm on my way there now." "How do I look?" "Like fresh meat." "Oh." "Hope I hold my temper as well as you." "You've got a big future in this department." "Send the dry cleaning bill to my office." "I checked the mom's room and the guest rooms, no sign of any weapons, but..." "I did find these in the laundry room." "Look familiar?" "Yeah." "Any trace of blood?" "Nothing obvious." "They were just washed." "They smell like bleach." "Great." "What about the, uh, the hoodie in that cell phone picture?" "It looked like Aaron was wearing one." "Yeah, it's still wet." "Aaron wears his clothes baggy." "He probably keeps them out of the dryer so they won't shrink." "Looks like the little hood left us something." "You're right." "My client is guilty of partying in Las Vegas." "But with this de minimus amount, you wouldn't be able to hold him for possession." "Those jeans?" "Come on." "You'd probably find that same pattern on at least a couple thousand asses in this town." "There's nothing here that places my client in that limo at the time of the shooting." "How about this?" "A piece of Champ Landley's skull in the hood of your sweater." "I'd say you were definitely there." "Look, scared kid makes a couple of mistakes." "It's peer pressure, all right?" "It's a misdemeanor, at best." "You want to put LVPD through PR hell for that?" "No." "Not just that." "Simone Molinez was dragged to death from your limo before the shoot-out." "Aaron was in the car when she was being dragged." "I'd say that makes him a prime suspect." "No, no, no, hold it, hold it." "I don't know this girl." "Okay, she came up to Drops at the Gold Square." "Aaron, don't say..." "No, hold up, man." "I didn't kill anybody." "What's a guy like Drops doing at a dump like the Gold Square?" "Drops grew up in that 'hood." "Guess he, uh... wanted to claim his old territory." "We own that place." "Picking up a girl in there was like stealing." "Drops had been trying to open up his own club." "Asked me to invest." "Before I got my money, guy like Drops wouldn't have said, "What up," to me, let alone ask me out to talk business." "I felt like a big shot." "What's the big deal?" "We think it's that big shot attitude that's exactly what got you shot." "Taking that girl out of the Gold Square, you pissed off a couple of locals." "Everyone knows" "Drops ends his nights at the strip club." "They were waiting for you." "Look, I had nothing to do with that." "And I definitely didn't kick her out of that limo." "So who did then?" "Aaron, unless you want to go to jail, son, don't say another word." "You observed the interview?" "If the Undersheriff had seen you, he would've gone ballistic." "Well, I'm still off the case." "Besides, I just happened to be listening, and I heard Aaron say that he didn't kick the girl out of the limo." "You want me to check the body?" "Well, bruises get more distinguished as a body decomposes, so just see if there's anything we missed." "That's the one I want to talk to." "I'm on it." "Miss, excuse me." "You're not allowed back there!" "Taking one of my boys wasn't good enough for you, was it?" "Now you've got to take both?" "What did we ever do to you?" "Mrs. James, I don't have anything against you or your family." "Then what is it?" "Is it about the money?" "Then take it!" "I just want my boy back!" "Mrs. James, you need to calm down..." "I'm not talking to you!" "Well, you're going to get yourself into trouble here." "Ma'am..." "You're going to have to leave." "Protecting the nice white boy from the mean black lady." "You've got to help me." "You owe me." "You owe me!" "What do I owe you?" "Yeah, like you don't know." "I'll tell you what I know:" "I know that Demitrius was a killer." "And Aaron..." "Aaron made the decision to hang out with Drops." "He made the decision to do drugs, and to bring that girl into the limo." "That's not on me." "It's on him, and you." "Aaron is all I have left." "This bruise on Simone Molinez's body matches the heel of your buddy Champ's dress shoe." "Man, forensics be jammin' a brother up." "No doubt." "And you saw him do it." "Look, he was just trying to show a potential investor a good time, that's all." "The boy got a short fuse." "All right." "Whatever." "Why don't you really hook up my man?" "Champ, come on, man." " What's wrong with you, man?" " She's a lady." "Let me out the car!" "Oh, you want out?" "Get out." "Tell the driver to stop." "We're in a hurry!" "You want out, you get out now!" "No!" "Hey!" "So, what, he pushed her out of the car because she wouldn't have sex with Aaron?" "Champ thought it was a bad look." "Bad?" "Bad for what?" "Champ gets a bonus when business is good." "You got booze, bling, girls, guns and drugs in a limo." "Would you call that doing legitimate business?" "Yeah." "So, um... what's a few scrapes and bruises on this girl got to do with me?" "Yeah, a few scrapes and bruises, a broken wrist dislocated shoulder, broken neck... add it up: it equals death." "Death?" "Wait a minute, no way." "See, first of all, that limo was turtlestepping' it down the block." "It's like fallin' off a bike." "Yeah, maybe so, if she wasn't tangled up in the seat belt." "What, you didn't hear her dragging on the street?" "The speakers were on blast." "I couldn't even hear my cell phone and that was on vibrate." "My client has corroborated your evidence." "Are we free to go?" "What?" "No!" "I'm charging you with the murder of Scott Brittington." "Scott..." "Who?" "The guy you shot." "Okay, we already went over that." "Champ was the shooter." "Yeah, so you say." "But you're the only one in the limo with a registered.38. And you didn't toss that gun after you used it, you gave it to Aaron." "Trust me, son, you don't want to be here when the cops come, okay?" "Here, take the ratchet, and make it disappear." "Take the ratchet!" "Don't worry about it, I got you covered." "Aaron leaves the scene with your murder weapon, and you take his spot like he was never there." "Captain Brass," "I've seen the ballistics report." "The shots fired from inside the limo were fired second." "That's textbook self-defense." ""Textbook self-defense."" "Told you, forensics be jammin' a brother up." "I'll take my chances with the jury." "I'm going to see your arms behind your back sooner than you think." "Counselor." "And all this time I thought I was paying you too much." "Give me some." "The DA tells me you requested he go easy on Aaron James." "Yeah." "He's getting a suspended sentence." "Released on his own recognizance." "If the kid's brother hadn't died, would you have done the same?" "I don't know." "I just, uh..." "You think it's wrong?" "Doesn't matter what I think."