"Construction crew found them when they came in to work this morning." "The woman is dead, the guy is still alive... but he's not talking." "Wouldn't even give me his name, even after I gave him my name." "Did you, huh... pull his wallet?" "No, everything is just the way I found him." "I mean, I figured some knucklehead..." "you know, came in off the street, found him, figured he had a free pass and picked his pocket, you know..." "Anyway, I'm, huh..." "I'm talking to people, I'll, huh..." "I'll let you know what we find out." "Catherine, do you need a minute?" "Yes, I'm..." "Yes, I'm..." "I mean no, Gil, I'm good." "So, how's your day going?" "Lady, best day I ever had is worst than the worst day you'd ever imagined." "Oh, I doubt that." "Who's you lady friend?" "I never saw that woman before in my life." "You're not going anywhere." "It would be a lot better for you if you just cooperate and tell us what happened." " You wanna know what happened?" " Mmh, mmh." "Figure it out yourself." "That's the fun part." " Hey." " Hey." "Qué pasa?" "One of the residents reported smelling a gas leak at 6:00 A.M." "He, uh, called the gas company." "They arrived; they evacuated the building." "I'm surprised anyone picked out a gas leak through the rest of the stench around here." "Yeah, smells like used diapers." "The gas boys traced the leak to this apartment, and that was when they found... this." "Whoa." "Alyona Ivanovna." "Manager said she's lived here alone for 27 years." "Head in the oven... it's kind of a classic, huh?" "Maybe not." "I mean, this apartment is neat as a pin." "A lady this tidy wouldn't leave a broken dish in a rack like that, you know?" "It doesn't necessarily indicate foul play." "I checked the doors and the window." "There's no sign of forced entry." "What do you make of this?" "A busted phone... with gray hairs in it." "She's definitely got gray hair." "Sir... this good" "Ok then, let's roll her over together." "Got her." "One, two..." "Single stab wound, just below the sternum." "It feels domestic." "Crime of passion?" "Him?" "Good point." "Hey!" "Hey!" "Hey!" "You ready to give me a name?" "You know, you are in a very deep hole, in every sense of the word, my friend." "Think about that while we chisel you out." "It's going to take a few hours... assuming we're careful." "See ya." "It's just a guess, but I'd say she's in rigor." "Blunt-force trauma on the forehead, and on the base of the skull." "I doubt very highly that those were self-induced." "Look at that:" "It's dented." "Looks like she may have been slammed into her own oven." "Yep." "She's been dead at least 12 hours." "I've got a substance on her... right ear." "She doesn't really look like the hair gel type." "Hang on a second, fellas." "Look at that." "Her dentures... they were in upside down." "Hey." "You're coming with me." "We got another 419 out by nellis." "Wow, busy night." "Any details?" "They tell me it tastes just like chicken." "So let see where we get." "The dead guy in the bath is Raymundo Suarez." "He works the night shift." "He cleans the equipment from 8:00 P.M. To 4:00 A.M." "The day-shift guys came in, found him like this." "The foreman here called it in." "This basin is designed to transfer an electrical current." "Of course it does." "It's a stun bath." "We use it to stun the chickens before they go into the next room." "Where they get their throats cut." "Which is why we electrocute them first." "It's humane." "Was the current on when you found the body?" "No, sir, it was off;" "it stays off all night." "Hey, huh... how long is this gonna take?" "As long as it takes." "I got a lot of birds piling up outside." "They're gonna die out there in that heat." "Well, it's not like they're gonna do any better in here." "Come on, I want to talk to your crew." "Maybe he was high." "Passes out and falls in?" "How does he end up face down in the middle of the bath?" "Kind of tough to drown in three inches of water." "Not impossible." "If he hit the water when the current was on, his muscles could've contracted, making it impossible for him to get out." "But the machine's off at night, and it was off when they found the body." "Which means someone turned it off after he was dead." "Yeah." "Who?" "All right, what's your name, and what do you do here?" "Name's Ernie Dell." "Maintenance man." "I work 3:00 to 11:00." "You see the victim last night?" "Uh, yeah, and Raymundo was just fine when I left." "You and Raymundo get along?" "Kept my nose out of his business; he kept his out of mine." "Didn't have a problem with him." "But you know somebody who did?" "Well, between you and me, the guy you ought to be talking to is Ike Mannleigh." "Oh." "You mean the guy who owns the company?" "Well, Raymundo's pretty far down on the pecking order." "You think the big boss had a problem with him?" "No." "Not unless you think a guy banging your wife is a problem." "I can't blame him, though." "Bubbles Mannleigh is a cheap whore." "Did you and Bubbles take a tumble?" "Me?" "Nah." "Reminds me too much of my mother." "Besides, uh..." "Bubbles likes the dark meat." "Unappetizing place to get your rocks off." "Not if you have a poultry fetish." "You got something?" "Yeah, I think so." "One more chance." "You look like a kid who's just found the prize at the bottom of a Cracker Jacks box." "Definitely some kind of doll." "It sure is." "Three different views of the same dead doll." "Maybe this is more than a signature." "Maybe there's something these victims have in common." "First two victims were white, third hispanic, two men, one woman, one rich, two poor, one young, two old, one famous, two obscure..." "Yeah." "And unfortunately, this is the best lead we have for their killer." "This is the most that Archie could get off that video?" "Yeah, well, with the equipment we have here." "I'm getting Raymundo's cell phone records." "I'm gonna see if any of his calls are a match to the numbers that Penny Garden and Izzy Delancy had in common." "What ever happened with that number we got off the disposable cell phone?" "Any luck with that?" "Disposable phone numbers are assigned by the carrier to the phone distributors." "It took a little bit of legwork, but I did find the store where the phone was sold." "Let me guess." "It was paid for with cash." "Yeah." "Mannleigh chickens." "What about it?" "I'll let you know." "See how it feels?" "You know, we're getting kind of backed up in here." "The only one I hear complaining about it is you." "Your cement lady's approximately 40 to 45 years old." "C.O.D is exsanguination due to laceration of the right ventricle." "Wound seven centimeters long, five millimeters wide." "That looks like it could be a double-edged blade." "It's pretty thick, too." "Well, it passed into the heart with point of entry midline just below the xiphoid process." "Upward thrust." "I just said that." "Okay." "Any idea what the weapon might have been?" "If I knew, I would've told you." "I got to get to work." "Taxpayers are getting their money's worth tonight." "Thank you." "Tingles." "You take them out, he puts them back in." "What is it?" "It's acetic acid." "Do you do feet?" "I got a bunion that could use some soaking." "What's this do?" "Takes your fingerprints." "Good luck with that." "How's mr." "Hoffa?" "Hey, Jim." "Cathy and I are just getting reacquainted." "Will Gilbert be stopping by?" "I take it we don't have a name yet." "No." "I bet you ten bucks that I have you made by 9:00 P.M." "You're on." "Okay, Hodges." "What do you got?" "The green trace on your old lady." "Adipic acid, disodium phosphate, sodium citrate, fumaric acid, yellow #5, blue #1, bha, a whole lot of gelatin, and sugar." "Which is?" "Oh, come on." "There's always room for it." "Just tell me what it is, Hodges." "Jell-O." "Lime jell-O." "Lime jell-o?" "I tell you what." "You tell me why." "Clear." "Oh, boy." "Looks like somebody cleaned up in a hurry." "More green jell-O." "Sofia, you get a tenant's name for this apartment?" "According to the management office, this apartment's a sublet, has been for years." "He's not sure who lives here." "I got blood, too." "This place has a direct view of the old lady's apartment." "So, what, the guy's killing the old lady, he sees he's being watched, and he, what, comes back here and whacks the witness?" "It's possible." "But why get rid of this body and leave the old lady?" "Hi." "I'm Izzy Delancy." "And back in my bad old days," "I'd do almost anything to sell albums." "People even accused me of biting the heads off live chickens on stage." "I'm not proud of that." "But" "I've worked hard to change." "And with the help of the good lord, 14 years of therapy and two loving wives," "I humbly believe" "I've made progress." "But this story is not about Izzy Delancy." "It's about something much, much bigger:" "Cruelty." "Did you know that every day in the united states, more chickens are killed than all the people in the Rwandan genocide?" "Now, you may argue,"Izzy, african people are not a food source."" "Well, you're missing the point entirely." "Cruelty is cruelty, whether the victim be a chicken or a malnourished african." "Where did you find this?" "I like animals, and after the delancy murder, I brushed up on my history." "As it turns out, three years ago," "Izzy Delancy had a midlife awakening and became an animal rights activist." "He starred in and financed this psa targeting Mannleigh Chickens as the epitome of everything that is wrong in the slaughter industry." "It takes a manly man to make a Mannleigh chicken." "Now, perhaps you've purchased Mannleigh roasters, fryers or assorted parts at your local grocery store, and you believe you're eating chicken." "But what you're really eating is cruelty." "Our undercover investigators secretly recorded workers at a mannleigh processing plant throwing loose animals up against the wall, stomping up and down on them, kicking them across the room." "How bad did mannleigh get hurt by this?" "His sales dropped 60%." "He launched a very expensive pr campaign to rehabilitate his image, including retrofitting a plant with cruelty-free equipment." "His business never recovered." "He probably hated Delancy." "I have no idea how Raymundo ended up dead." "I liked that boy." "Apparently, so did your wife." "She was spending some quality time with Raymundo down at the plant." "If I killed every guy that banged my Bubbles, they'd be stacking up like cord wood." "So you have no problem with it?" "Look." "Bubbles is an insatiable slut, but she's my slut, and I love her." "I don't expect you to understand." "Oh, I get it." "Do you know this woman?" "I've never seen her before in my life." "How about him?" "Let's not screw around here." "You know I knew him, and you know I hated him." "That jerk nearly put me into chapter 11." "He ended up dead, too." "And I sent his wife a hallmark and a case of frozen chickens the day he died." "He was murdered." "That's what I heard, too." "We're done here." "You want to call my attorney or should I?" "Whoo, whoo-whoo!" "Thank you, Hodges." "I can see that it's a train." "Yeah, it's Locomotiveville." "Sorry." "Thought you might be a member." "Attention all units, the suspect's name is Ernie Dell." "Copy that." "All units please be adviced that..." "Ernie Dell?" "Las Vegas police." "Open up." "Go ahead, break it." "Clear, Captain." "There's a workshop in the basement." "One of the other residents id'd the tenant in the sublet apartment as Paula Sullivan." "That's good." "Well, it's better than good." "Apparently Paula Sullivan does a little day care on the side." "We have a witness." "Hi." "I'm Warrick Brown from the crime lab." "Hi." "My Suzy was in that apartment yesterday." "And she was filthy when they sent her back, and I marched right over there to give Paula a piece of my mind, and she wasn't home." "Paula wasn't there." "Max watched me." "He's nice." "Her husband." "Neither of them was there when I went back." "Well, ma'am, we're going to need your daughter's clothes from yesterday." "I like you." "You're a giant." "And you're a princess." "Thank you." "Okay, Suzy, tell me about Max." "What's Max like?" "Max is my friend." "He's a lion tamer and an astronaut and a spy." "Guy always kinda creeped me out." "How come you didn't know that Paula Sullivan wasn't home?" "We live across the courtyard." "Bye." "I send Suzy over." "I watch until she gets inside." "I went in." "It was a big mess." "A big mess?" "What color was the mess?" "Red and green." "Don't eat that." "Max came into the kitchen in his underpants." "Did Max try to hug you or touch you?" "Oh, no." "He went and got dressed." "Did Max seem surprised to see all that big mess there?" "I don't know." "What did Max do next?" "He started cleaning up the big mess." "I bet he didn't want to get in trouble." "I bet you're right." "You know what?" "Could you help me?" "I've got a picture right here." "And I have some crayons, too." "Could you draw where the red and the green is in the room?" "So the green was all the way up here in the cabinets, too?" "He, um, he had to stand on a chair to reach it." "Did you help him clean up the mess?" "At first, but then he said there was sharp stuff, so I watched tv." "And then what happened?" "Then I watched some more tv." "Then I watched some more tv, nd then I watched some more tv, and then I went home." "Do these belong to you?" "You know damned well they do." "You took 'em from my house." "They're mine and I want them back." "So you worked with Raymundo Suarez." "Did you know Izzy Delancy?" "Everybody knows Izzy Delancy." "He's famous." "Used to do it to his music." "And how did he thank you for that?" "Public humiliation?" "And you knew Penny Garden." " Who?" " Penny Garden." "You delivered a package to her house." "You're a handyman." "What'd you fix for her?" "I don't know anything about that." "Lots of guys got that shirts." "Do you have any idea how your work ended up at crime scenes from three different murders?" "I've been making scale models since I was nine years old." "I sell my stuff at craft fairs, to hobby shops, over the internet, every damned place." "Sold things to hundreds of people over the years." "Any of them could have ended up in the hands of your killer." "You're just picking on an old man 'cause you got nothing." "We're just talking here, Ernie." "We're just talking." "You charging me with something?" "You want a cup of coffee, Ernie?" "We got decaf." "Charge me or let me go." "I want a lawyer." "You're free to go." "So was he right?" "Are we really just picking on an old man or is he the bad guy?" "Well, he's associated peripherally with all the victims, and he certainly has the right skills." "Yeah... he spent half his life in Locomotiveville." "I know what it's like to lose yourself in little things." "After a while it gets to you." "We're coming up goose eggs on cement boy and his lady friend." "You got to be kidding?" "No hits on AFIS, no hits on CODIS." "Guy's got no work card, and his keys weren't a match for any vehicle in a three-block radius of the construction site." "Unbelievable." "Apparently, just a couple of law-abiding folk." "Well, keep me posted." "Hello, Jim." "Hello. who?" "You know, I don't need your name to arrest you." "I can call you John Doe." "Okay, let's assume for the moment that you did know the dead lady laying five feet from where we found you." "I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that you killed her, and then you tried to dispose of her body, but you did something very, very stupid." "Are you with me so far?" "Interesting." "Do you have the time, Jim?" "Yeah." "'Cause it looks like it's half-past." "You owe me ten bucks." "Make sure this goes in his personal effects." "Now, I'm gonna suggest you get a name tag, put the name "Trixie" on it,'cause that's what your cell mates will be calling you." "Take him to his cell." "Anybody want anything from the vending machines?" "Come on." "It's on me." "Actually, it's on jimbo." "Took this baby off of captain Brass myself." "Look at me, generating income my first day in the joint." "Yeah, mom would be so proud." "Not hungry?" "Soda, maybe?" "Anybody?" "Hi, Max!" "Hi, Suzy." ""Hi, Max."" "Yeah, I killed my wife but it was an accident." "You accidently stabbed her through the heart?" "That's right." "Believe me or don't believe me." "I don't care." "It's the truth." "Oh, Max." "You got coffee on your shirt." "You're gonna be late again." "Could I please... just get some..." "Oh!" "Idiot." " Nice" " God..." "Max, I want to believe you, but..." "If I wanted to kill her, do you think I would've dropped a bowl of jell-o and stabbed her with a piece of broken glass?" "But if it was an accident, why didn't you just pick up the phone and call the police?" "Because I killed my granny." "Okay?" "It was a long time ago, and it was an accident." "she stroked out." "It wasn't my fault." "They never should've put the oxygen line there." "They let me off for that, but I didn't think anyone would believe me this time." "You were never convicted of killing your grandmother." "No." "Which is why you don't have a record." "You would've found out eventually and held it against me." "All right, what about your neighbor?" "Mrs. Ivanovna- did you kill her or was that an accident?" "I just wanted to talk to her." "You know, I thought I could make it be okay." "Mrs. Ivanovna?" "Hello." "Hello." "What do you want?" "Good morning." "I was wondering if I might borrow some sugar." "I get sugar." "You stay." "Sure." "I get sugar." " Stay!" " Yeah." " I get." " Yes." "I get." "You stay." "I can't have my coffee without my sugar." "The last thing I wanted to do was hurt that lady." "Mrs. Ivanovna, it's not what you think!" "No, Mrs. Ivanovna, it's not what you think." "It was an accident." "Oh, God!" "Mrs. Ivanovna?" "She was dead." "So, you know, I thought... maybe I'd make it look like a suicide." "It was not... a good start to the day." "Hi Max." "Don't eat that!" "After Suzy went back to her mother," "I... decided to, you know..." "What, to give your wife- your beloved wife- a proper burial?" "Something like that." "But along the way, I had a bit of car trouble." "Few hours later, some punk wanders over and swiped my wallet." "That's my life." "That's who I am." "I'm the guy who buys his daughter a puppy for her eighth birthday, and the next day, he backs out of the driveway and..." "No." "No." "Don't tell me you ran over the puppy." "No." "I ran over my daughter." "20 years later, she still walks funny." "I'm sorry." "It's horrible." "But it's really funny." "It's horrible and it's funny." "Are you okay?" "A guy kills two people before breakfast that he had no intention of killing when he woke up that morning." "By all accounts, he's led a meager life, an unnoticed life." "And then all of a sudden, in a flash, it's over." "And now, for him, the real suffering begins." "You're tired." "Yeah." "Hey." "Guess what." "Mankind has reached a new evolutionary plateau, and starting tomorrow, no one will rape, murder or maim again." "Uh, no." "Too bad." "But we did catch a break on that disposable cell phone number." "Raymundo Suarez called it as well." "No, he didn't." "But according to the carrier, additional minutes were recently purchased with a credit card belonging to Ernie Dell." "Brass is already on it." "They're picking him up." "We've got the miniature killer." "You have e-mail." "I CONFESS TO THE MURDERS OF..." "My name is Ernest Edward Dell." "I was born in 1946 in Ames, Iowa." "My life's been hard, but I don't complain." "I never expected better." "I'm good with my hands." "I make things." "I fix things." "I'm a handyman." "That's what I am." "A man has a right to an honest day's pay." "Me, I service the machinery of death so that people can eat." "If that makes me evil, then so be it." "I'm not the sociable type." "I know that." "Spend any amount of time around people, you get your heart broke." "Treachery, hypocrisy." "Promise of love." "Look into the mouth of a person, and you'll find lies wriggling there like maggots waiting to grow wings." "The world has gone mad." "A man could kill from sunup to sunset, and still his work would never be done."