"Five cats, Kate." "You want them all?" "I promised Mrs. Batchelder." "You're an angel." "The firemen told me it was her electric blanket." "That's terrible." "If you hear from her family could you give them my number?" "I need to talk to them." "Okay." "Now, you take care it doesn't happen to you, dying alone like that, all pathetic." "She was such a sweet lady, Mom, you would've liked her." "Where's the rosemary and the lavender?" "Her son complained they were too pungent." "They told me this would be semi-private." "Oh, it's not that bad." "Anyway, sweetheart, you cannot keep 5 cats in your apartment." "What man will want to come home to that?" "I have to get to work." "I love you." "It's fine, sweetheart." "You get used to it." "A private room is very expensive." "That's no problem." "I can cover it." "That's not what you told us when your mother checked in." "Things change." "I want her moved today." "It's sterling silver." "I'm really not supposed to be doing this, but..." "This is it?" "I told you over the phone not to get your hopes up." "But she promised me." "I'm sorry." "I wish things had worked out differently for you." "Good luck." "You'll have a check in 3 days." "Just give me a chance." "All right, 3 days." "Now, good night." "This is Kate Finnoff." "I'm so sorry to bother you at home, but about Mrs. Batchelder," "I know I had more coming to me, and if I have to go to a lawyer, I will." "Please call me tonight." "You have my home number." "Cat, get back inside." "Kate?" "Kate, your cats are making a break for it." "Kate?" "Psst." "Kate?" "Oh, my God!" "Kate!" "It looks stripped." "Definitely something the building inspector should've picked up on." "We figure he's got at least a dozen landlords paying him off." "Nice sideline." "What we need to know from you is did she fall because the handrail gave way, or did she slip and then grab the handrail?" "We'd love to hit the inspector with a negligent homicide." "We'll see what we can do." "Well, can we make the task force's day?" "Well, it depends on what she tells us, right?" "The notch on the handrail is where she lost the tooth." "The fingernails on her left hand are broken, probably from grabbing the railing." "So she was coming down the left-hand side when she tripped." "Which is odd, seeing as she's right-handed." "The gums on her left side recede more than the ones on the right." "People brush more vigorously on the opposite side of their dominant hand." "So she would be coming down the right side of the stairwell." "Unless somebody pushed her off the landing." "Oh, great." "A cat person." "She just became a cat person." "This homeopathic remedy for cat allergies, it's microscopic cat dander that you put onto your tongue." "I had a girlfriend, Lola." "She had cats." "You ate fur balls for her?" "Maybe she did it for her boyfriend." "Birth control pills." "Hello?" "They told me you wanted to talk to me." "I'm Mrs. Wing, the super." "The young woman, Kate Finnoff." "Yes." "Everyone in the building loved her." "That include a boyfriend?" "Oh, I don't think she had one." "Where did the cats come from?" "Helen Batchelder." "She lived upstairs." "She died in a fire last month." "She had no family." "Kate helped her with her errands." "Well, Mrs. Batchelder had a nice way of showing her gratitude." "It's engraved, "Helen"." "It's a cigarette holder." "Sterling silver." "It's a Dunhill." "From the '30s." "Something wrong, Mrs. Wing?" "I thought I saw that at Helen's, on her coffee table, the night she died." "Was there a table lighter with it?" "They usually came that way." "I think so." "Was Kate in her apartment that night?" "Getting the cats." "But I can't imagine she would just take it." "It's not like her." "Seems there were other things she was doing that were out of character." "Credit card bills." "Her past balances were under a thousand." "Then last month, she maxed out." "$2,000 in linens, flowers every day," "$1,600 at Lorelei's." "High-end nightgowns." "Mrs. Wing, does Kate have a friend or a relative in the hospital?" "I've been here 3 months." "She always tried to make it like home." "Poor, sweet Katie." "The other ladies, have they been here longer than you?" " Them?" " Yeah." "Rookies." "I was just looking at your plants." "They'd be better off in the sun." "You know, since you have seniority here, why didn't you take the bed nearest the window?" "I did." "But they moved me to a private room last month." "Katie made a special arrangement with the hospice." "But then they put you back in here." "I mean, did something happen with the arrangement?" "Katie said there was a mix-up." "Sounds like this girl's heart was bigger than her pocketbook." "All right, thank you." "Well, her pocketbook wasn't doing so bad last Christmas." "Her bank said that she cashed a $10,000 bearer bond." "A bearer bond?" "12%, probably issued in the late '70s." "Maybe a relative?" "Her mother would have said something." "Or the old lady with the cats." "Kate helped her." "She could have given it to her as a Christmas gift." "Bonds are a little like potato chips." "People don't usually buy just one." "This old lady could've been sitting on a stack of them." "If Kate knew that, she might've thought she'd inherit some cash to go with the cats." "God knows she needed the money." "This old lady, she died in a fire?" "An electrical fire." "It's a statutory waiting period to make sure all her outstanding debts are settled." " Now, if she'd had a will..." " But 6 weeks, man." "I mean, this junk, I could care less, but the money, see, I could use the money now." "Look, Craig," "I'm really not supposed to be doing this, but..." "But what?" "The old gal peed herself during the night." "Shorted out the electric blanket." "Did you find protective undergarments or a plastic mattress cover?" "No." "Some people forget, or they're careless." "Well, look, these photos..." "I see grab bars in her shower." "She's got 4 locks on her front door, a flashlight on her nightstand." "This woman wasn't careless." "All I know is that her bed was drenched with urine." "Sure smells like it." "Did you check the urine?" "Check it for what?" "Testosterone?" "Testosterone levels are higher in women who take the pill." "Women like Kate." "God, I hope she's wrong." "Using urine to cover up an arson." "That's depraved." "Yeah, but maybe worth the trouble." "Mrs. Batchelder's bank sent over her records." "She only had $33,000 in the bank, but in 1978, she used her husband's life insurance pay-out to buy $150,000 worth of bearer bonds." "12% interest over 25 years, compounded, that's over two and a half million dollars." "The lab found testosterone, all right." "Lots of it." "The urine's from a male." "Ms. Finnoff has an accomplice." "Oh, I need the white pages for Ossining." "There's a notation in Mrs. Batchelder's bank file." "Two days after she died, they got a balance inquiry from a bank in Ossining." "Here." "Batchelder, Craig M." "The super said Mrs. Batchelder had no other family." "But this guy crawled out of the woodwork two days after she died." "What a coincidence." "Listen, I was just, you know, I was just doing some financial planning." "How much you getting?" "$33 grand." "And because she didn't have a will, I gotta wait for it." "Lighter fluid." "You thinking of doing a Jimi Hendrix on your guitar?" "No, it's for my lighter over there." "That's a butane lighter." "It doesn't take lighter fluid." "It takes gas." "I'm gonna be exchanging it." "You were gonna exchange it." "All these years, you never visited your Aunt Helen?" "I told you, I blanked out on her." "Soup's burning." "You know what takes lighter fluid, Craig?" "Old table lighters." "You don't have one of those, do you?" "You know, like a sterling silver table lighter?" "Where am I gonna get one of those?" "You have an Aunt Helen." "Yeah." "It comes in a set." "There's a matching cigarette holder." "Your aunt's name is engraved on it." "Well, the lighter has your uncle's name engraved on it." "Right?" "Right." "Yeah." "Damn it!" "You know he told me he wasn't gonna say anything." "Who?" "The guy." "The guy from the city office." "The one taking care of my aunt's stuff." "He said he wasn't supposed to do it, but..." "But he let you swipe it." "It's mine anyway." "You know?" "He said it's better I take it now." "He said things this valuable have a way of disappearing down at city storage." "Yes." "Yes, they do." "That's ridiculous." "If I let him take the lighter, I deserve to be fired." "Mrs. Batchelder's file, is it in your current basket over there?" "You know, she always does that with me." "She'll say like, "Where's the sugar?", instead of, you know, just, "Pass the sugar."" "You know somebody like that?" "Yeah." "Estates that don't have heirs, what happens to them?" "Well, after all the assets are liquidated, the proceeds go into a trust account." "You sell off the furnishings, the stocks, the bearer bonds, right?" "Everything gets liquidated." "It says here Mrs. Batchelder had a safety deposit box." "What was in it?" "Birth certificates." "Husband's death certificate." "Old photos." "No bearer bonds?" "No." "Just old papers." "No, I just..." "The reason why I keep harping on the bearer bonds..." "Do you have a medical condition?" "Because I see all these 24-hour pharmacy phone numbers." "It's my dad." "He has a chronic condition." "Diabetes, among other things." "He lives with me." "I take care of him." "The bearer bonds." "We think that Mrs. Batchelder gave one to a young woman in her building." "A Kate Finnoff." "There might be others floating around." "Not that I found." "Ms. Finnoff had something else of Mrs. Batchelder's." "A cigarette holder." "It's a set, probably a wedding present." "We can't figure out how Ms. Finnoff came to have it." "Maybe the old lady gave it to her." "Why, and split them up?" "No." "Anyway, we'd like to go over and look at Mrs. Batchelder's locker." "You know, try our luck with those bearer bonds." "Well, I can't go with you today, but I can arrange a time for you both..." "We can go today." "We'll let you know what turns up." "This stuff is great." "If Mrs. Batchelder had any idea it would end up in her nephew's head-banger paradise, she might've made out a will." "You know, maybe she did." "This is a family Bible." "It's got baptisms, marriages, deaths, through 8 generations." "And she kept it up to date." "Something that she planned to pass on?" "Even to a head-banging nephew." "Certificates of appreciation from Bide-A-Wee, the animal charity." "A cat lover like her would have left them something." "She would have had a will." "Yes, she would've." "She might have had a lawyer prepare it." "Maybe the same lawyer who took care of her husband's estate 25 years ago." "All these lockers, they're filled with the belongings of people who died without a will?" "Yes, sir." "They're tied up in here until they get settled." "Hey, Dad." "What game is that?" "That Broadway Joe?" "They want me there an hour early tomorrow." "They change the appointment?" "Well, I didn't change it." "I'm not in control of these things, Roger." "You always assume I'm the one making things difficult." "Okay, I'll work through lunch, leave early." "Just meet me at the curb." "Roger, I have a bad hip." "I cannot wait at the curb in the dead of winter." "Maybe it's more convenient if I took the bus over the bridge." "Is that what you want, Roger?" "Me on a bus?" "What?" "Roger, is that what you want me to do?" "No, no." "I'll pick you up, and I'll come upstairs and get you." "It's Roger, and call me back." "I need to clear out my inventory." "I tracked down Mrs. Batchelder's late lawyer's secretary." "She remembers her having a will." "She remembers it was filed with the court after the lawyer died." "And she remembers the old lady had a stack of bearer bonds an inch thick." "If the will was filed with the court, there'd be a record, no?" "No." "Coffman had access to those records, and he has access to a delete key." "And when people die without a will, he becomes lord and master of their estate." "And then he robs their graves." "Graves he dug." "I can't talk right now." "I'm in the middle of overtime." "At 2:00 in the afternoon?" "Where are they playing, Tokyo?" "Did I just hear them call Johnny Unitas' number?" "Yeah, that's the '58 championships..." "Yeah, I know." "Sudden death overtime." "My dad was at this game." "You don't mind if I have a look, do you?" "You just move in, Mr. Coffman?" "No, 5 years ago." "After my wife passed." "It's a good son you have there, letting you move in with him." "I don't know how good." "He stuck you in the dining room." "Well, that's because he was still with Angie then." "His ex-wife." "The Princess." "No, my son takes good care of me." "I bet you don't catch him here much." "He knows he can't leave me here alone." "Not with my health." "Diabetes." "My kidneys." "He stays with me." "Come on, Mr. Coffman, he's a single guy." "I bet on weekends he has a little, you know, love shack in the country." "He has plenty of time for that after I'm gone." "I think he's making time for it now." "Isn't that why he has a lock on the door here so you don't, you know, walk in on him?" "You know, you're awfully snoopy." "A lot of people point that out." "This isn't locked." "Of course it is." "It's always locked." "No, no, no, look at the deadbolt." "You can see the light coming through." "Here, go ahead, look." "Look, try." "See?" "Look, I bet all this time you were dying to just have a little peep in this room here." "I don't care what he has in here." "You see, this one here, I can't tell if it's locked or not." "Now, you can't go in there." "It's just clothes." "There's dust on the floor where boxes used to be." "Big boxes." "Your son move them recently?" "To a storage facility or somewhere else?" "No, there's no storage." "I didn't see him move any boxes." "Wait a minute, what is that?" "It's a side view mirror from a model car." "Roger have kids?" "No." "He did build models when he was a little boy." "Used to spend all of his paper route money on them." "Big waste." "I gotta get a glass of juice." "Let's go." "Come on." "You do dialysis, right, for your diabetes?" "Go to the hospital for that?" "4 times a week." "Over in Queens." "They hook you up for what, like 3 hours or so?" "What does Roger do during that time?" "Does he sit with you?" "No, I don't expect that." "He goes to dinner close by the hospital." "Buys me lottery tickets." "You mean like these here?" "Lucky Kim's Grocery." "I feel lucky already." "Yeah, I've seen him before." "He comes in a few times a week to buy tickets." "But he never wins." "Figures." "Why does he keep coming back?" "Does he have a place around here?" "He says he's got a sick relative over at the hospital." "Does he ever buy anything else but tickets?" "Sandwiches, fruit." "Last month he bought light bulbs." "What kind of light bulbs?" "Floodlights." "Floodlights." "Is there a storage place nearby here somewhere?" "Like mini storage?" "No." "But one street over there's a guy that rents out space." "Not sure what he kept in here." "Just that he cleared out last week." "Motion sensors." "Cameras." "Probably on the web as well so he can watch things on his computer." "It's all disconnected now." "Shammy cloth." "Meguiars Wax." "The good stuff." "My dad used to use it on his Cutlass." "6 sets of tire treads. 6 cars parked here." "The design of this tread," "It's simple." "Like an old tire." "Paint flakes." "There's some more over there near the front of the car." "Looks like all the cars had them." "And they're all clean underneath." "The oil drip." "There's..." "There's one spot under each car." "These cars were never moved." "He just..." "He just..." "He just sat in them, turned the wheel." "Like some kid." "What was the wheelbase on this one?" "108 inches." "Ford Shelby GT500, '67 for sure." "The guy's using original stock tires." "I don't see any wear on them." "Detective Alex." "Down, boy." "Lewis, thank you, man." " Sure, Bobby." " You helped." "Goodbye, Detective." "Look at this." "Okay, this is a '57 Bel Air, '66 Stingray, '64 Carrera, '68 Camaro and a '65 XKE, and a '67 Shelby." "and they're all in mint condition, all with the original equipment." "Over $1,000,000 of automotive masterpieces." "All this for a hobby?" "Not just a hobby." "A lifelong obsession." "Here, this is a side view mirror from a model car which matches the '57 Bel Air." "When he was a boy, he made models of these cars." "But now he's killing for the real ones?" "Maybe not." "The ME reviewed all the deaths." "Natural causes." "No foul play." "Except Mrs. Batchelder." "Yes." "And unlike her, none of the others had wills." "So Roger has a pattern." "He waits for people to die without wills, with a modest estate, and then he plunders them." "He does this over and over, doing nothing to attract attention." "Until Mrs. Batchelder." "She's the only one with the will." "She's the only one that he killed." "The only one with millions." "Yeah." "It must have been something urgent that he needed it for." "He searched the records of wills that are filed with the court, he found her." "But, you know, she's got money, she's old, she's alone." "The analysis on the orange paint flakes, it's the same paint the city uses." "Of course it is." "Here's the cashier's check." "He made it out like you said." "So, kiss them goodbye." "Rog, the keys." "Okay, let's move them out." "He buys a pair at a time." "As Christmas gifts." "He says people really appreciate them." "The Denver boot." "Nobody's gonna steal your car, you got a couple of these babies clamped on the wheels." "How does our guy pay?" "Cash." "He's bought 7 pairs." "7?" "When did he buy the last one?" "A couple of weeks ago." "7 pairs for 6 cars." "He's getting another car." "A two and a half million dollar car." "That's why he went after Mrs. Batchelder." "His need isn't just urgent, it's pathological." "We checked the auction circuit." "No car sold for over a million in the last 6 months." "Ditto for private sales of antique cars." "A $2,500,000 car." "That's a big jump for Mr. Coffman." "Well, the car probably has a special significance for him, a token of achievement or self-worth." "Which is why he won't run until it's delivered." "Public Administrator's office uses shippers to send stuff out of state..." "So he might use an existing account to hide his car shipment." "All legitimate invoices would be for outbound shipments, so any inbound shipments, that would be suspicious." "Like this one." "It's a container." "Arriving at the Port of New Jersey." "It doesn't say what's inside." "Roger!" "Wow!" "It's a Ferrari." "This is a 1962 Ferrari GTO." "This is incredible." "What, they made only..." "What, they made, like, 32 of these, right?" "What, the leather." "You could smell that leather." "Have you ever sat in one of these?" "No?" "I haven't, either." "I think I need to get inside." "I think I need to get inside." " You can't!" " Yes, he can." "Baby, baby, baby." "I wish I could tell you how this feels." "I can't do it in mixed company, but I wish I could." "Roger, you're under arrest for murder." "You have no idea." "You son of a bitch." "You have no idea." "Get out of my car." "Get out of my car!" "You have to come out, now." "We have the urinalysis of the blanket." "We have his name on the rental lease." "We have the Ferrari." "And once the accountants untangle your client's financial Gordian knot, we will have everything." "I don't know who this guy Gordon is, but let me cut through the crap." "My client was in Surrogate's Court filing papers when Ms. Finnoff was killed." "And this urinalysis, where's the Lipitor?" "My client takes Lipitor for his cholesterol." "If it was his piss on that blanket, it would have shown up on the test." "Well, there's still that little wet dream that he took delivery of this morning." "A stolen car shipped from Marseilles?" "That would be under the jurisdiction of our good buddies, the French." "As for this jurisdiction, he might be guilty of receiving stolen goods." "Just point him to a judge, and he'll post bail." "The smell of Italian leather." "It's intoxicating." "Have a smell, Roger?" "My assistant checked with the Surrogate's Court." "The time stamps on the papers Mr. Coffman filed provide enough of an alibi to impress an arraignment judge." "We found the Ferrari." "Receiving stolen property." "He'd make bail and vanish." "No, I mean we found this Ferrari." "These are the boxes from his warehouse?" "Anything of evidentiary value?" "He only kept things that had value to him." " It's a Chevy Bel Air." " Whoa!" "It's the one missing the side view mirror." "The Stingray." "Whoa." "XKE." "Now, this is a car!" "And the Shelby." "The detail is remarkable." "There's no Ferrari, though." "You two having a play date?" "The lab re-did the urinalysis." "No trace of Lipitor." "And Roger's doctor confirmed he takes the stuff." "There's one more playmate that we forgot." "Right in here." "All right, not so fast." "I'm 72 years old." "I've got a bad hip." "What is he doing here?" "He's here to help you, Roger." "I've gotta get you out of this jam." "Is there at least a chair here?" "Right here, Mr. Coffman." "Here we go." "We believe Roger embezzled nearly $5,000,000 from the estates of dead people." "That's not true, Dad." "We believe he used the money to buy vintage cars like these." "We're not saying that he killed these people." "They died on their own." "Well, most of them." "But a few months ago he learned that a car came on the market." "A car that he desired more than anything." "He needed a lot of money to buy that car, and he found it in the estate of a lonely old lady." "Except this old lady was still alive." "So your Roger set her on fire in the middle of the night." "And when her young friend raised a stink, he killed her, too." "My son's not a killer!" "Come on, for just a car." "Well, if they were only" "just cars." "You know, Mr. Carver and I, we were admiring your workmanship and your detailing." "Especially the undercarriage." "How did you get this effect here?" "I weathered it using Rustall, baking soda and some white glue." "It's great work." "And the tire stems?" "Oh, I made a hole, using a .019 drill bit and a piece of black wire." "And you said he was wasting his time." "Why did you stop model building?" "Why would you stop that?" "I got other interests." "That was around your..." "Your 12th birthday, wasn't it?" "All these dates on here are the same." "February 19th, 1969." "That's a couple of days after your birthday." "That's when you put all these away." "I really don't remember." "Well, I guess it just slipped out of your memory." "There's one missing." "You know, the Ferrari." "It's not in here." "No." "I never had that one." "What about this one?" "You never had this one?" "You had this one, right?" "What, did you buy it with your paper route money?" "I got that for him on his birthday." "I bet he bugged you for months for this model Ferrari." "Oh, yeah." "Had his little 12-year-old heart set on it." "This one came painted already with the decals already on it." "Now, these here, how many pieces for each?" "50?" "100?" "110." "The more pieces, the more intricate, the better it is." "Right?" "I mean, that's the whole point." "This one only has 10 pieces." "See here, it says, "Snaps together in 10 minutes." "No glue required."" "But, I mean, it's a birthday gift, you know, from your Dad." "Still, I mean, slather on all the Rustall and baking soda you want, it's still kind of a cheap knock-off." "This is the only model of this car they had." "No." "No, no, no." "That's not true." "That's not true, is it, Roger?" "I mean, there were better models." "Right?" "There were better models." "He was just too preoccupied to find one." "Too busy and preoccupied with his own life to realize that it would make a difference to you." "He probably picked this up, what, like, last minute on the way home from work." "That hurt bad, huh?" "To realize that you're... you're just an afterthought in your father's life." "Sucked the fun right out of making models." "That's when you put these away, and you moved on with your life." "Huh?" "You got married." "You put all this stuff in the past." "Until your Dad came and moved in with you and your wife." "The Princess." "That's what he called her." " Oh, but I didn't mean it in a..." " How could you?" "It was her idea to take you in." "And then he drove her away." "Then what was left?" "Hmm?" "Just the two of you." "You and him." "And that's when, what?" "And that's when the clock just rolled back to 1969." "And you were that disappointed child again." "That little 12-year-old with the big hole in his heart." "And you needed to fill it." "But not with plastic cars, with real cars." "So, what you did is you stuffed all of your resentment and all of your hatred into that one task." "No, no." "It's not true." "My son does not hate me." "He doesn't hate you?" "He implicated you in a murder." "What?" "You wear a catheter, Mr. Coffman, with a bag?" "Yeah, so I'm a sick man." "Well, thanks to your son's helpful suggestion, we took another look at the urine used in the murder of Mrs. Batchelder." "We didn't find his anti-cholesterol medicine, but we found high levels of protein and bacteria." "Protein because diabetics dump protein into their urine, while the bacteria's from the catheter." "Yeah, you see, that's another thing we believe, Stan." "That you supplied the urine used to kill Mrs. Batchelder." "You ungrateful little punk." "You mixed me up into this?" "You don't know what you're talking about." "He's just a senile old man." "Senile?" "You, stealing from a poor girl who only wanted to take care of her sick mother!" "You talked to her?" "Kate Finnoff?" "How else would you know about her mother?" "The hospice called Kate, told her they were moving her mother out of a private room." "Kate was desperate for money, so she called you." "No." "She tried you at your office, but you were out all day." "But you're in the phone book, so she tried you at home, and you were there, 'cause you're... you're always there." "You talked to her a little bit, huh?" "She told you just enough so you'd know what Roger had been up to." "And then you panicked." "You panicked about Roger going to jail." "But you panicked for yourself." "You panicked about your own life." "What's going to happen to me?" "Who's gonna take care of me?" " I don't want to be alone." " I did no such thing." "And so you dragged yourself over to Kate's apartment." "You talked to her just a little bit more." "How'd you get her into the stairwell?" "Did you tell her you needed help?" "Did you tell her that you had a bad hip?" "And then you shoved her." "I don't have to listen to any more of this." "I'm going home." "We can prove it, Stan." "See how you have your hand on the wall there, to steady yourself." "We will find your prints in her building." "I'm a sick man." "I'm going home." "Do you believe this guy, Roger?" "He's taken everything away from you." "First it was the model cars." "And then your wife, who loved you." "He's taken everything that ever mattered to you away from you." "And just when you had it right in front of you." "Well, if he hadn't killed Kate Finnoff, we might not have gotten on to you." "You'd be riding this Ferrari right out into the sunset." "Instead of a prison bus into a hellhole." "You stupid old man." "You stupid, stupid selfish old man." "You wrecked everything." "My marriage, my birthday." "You always wreck everything!" "Wreck what?" "I gave you what you wanted." "How do you know what I wanted?" "I never mattered to you." "Never!" "Get away from me!" "Get away from me!" "You never cared!" "You never, ever cared!" "What about me, huh?" "What about me?" "When do I get a little consideration?" "Right now, Mr. Coffman, you are under arrest for murder." "What?" "Look what you've done to me." "You dumb punk!" "You see?" "You see what he's like?" " Yes." " You see?" " Yes, I see." "What did Clarence Darrow say?" ""The first half of our lives are ruined by our parents," ""the second half by our children."" "Only if you let them."