"Yeah, I need you back here as soon as possible, Ray." "We're holding down the fort tonight." "I just collected the last finger on my 4-20." "I'll be on my way after that." "Okay." "Good night, Catherine." "Thank you for the time off." "Go, before I change my mind." "Good night, John." "Hey!" "What the...?" "!" "Look, buddy, you got the wrong guy!" "That hurt!" "Ow!" "Ow!" " Hit it!" "All clear." "Get moving." " What the hell?" "!" " My arm!" " Shut up!" "Look, what do you want from me?" "You know what we want." "I don't." "I swear to God." "I don't know anything." "That's not what Harry says." "Who's Harry?" "Don't be stupid, Henry." "Now's no time to play dumb." "'Cause Harry don't like it when people play dumb." "Understand?" "Please, look, if you just give me a hint," "I'll tell you anything you want to know." "Oh, my God!" "No..." "Happy birthday, Henry." "What?" "Happy birthday!" "Hey, man!" "You scared the crap out of me!" "What's the matter with you idiots?" "!" "Hey, hey, come on!" "I'm driving!" "It was all for a laugh!" "God!" "Henry, my friend, you are about to have the best birthday of your life, because we are taking you to the one, the only, Harry's Hog Hideout." " Yeah!" " What's a hog hideout?" "It's only the best barbecue known to mankind." "It's a little bit of a drive, but don't worry." "Greg knows where it is." "I thought you said you knew where it is." "It's just a bit of a drive, y'all." "Look, if this place, if it's so great, then how come I've never heard of it?" "Come on, man." "A little trust, baby." "Come on." "It's your birthday." " Yeah." " I hate my birthdays." "They always suck." "Oh, great, we got a full moon tonight, too, so every nut job in the state will be out." "I'm surprised at you, Henry." "There's absolutely no statistical evidence linking lunar cycles to an increase in irrational, careless, or criminal behavior." "Are you sure about that?" "Ow!" "Everybody okay?" "Huh?" " You got a little something." " What?" "Aah, I think I sprained my ankle." "Damn!" "I rolled that bad boy, didn't I?" "I'd say." "Anybody got cell phone service?" " Nope. - Uh-uh." "No." "Doesn't really matter." "Harry's is about a mile up that way, I think." "We can walk it." "Whoo!" "Gee..." " Thanks." " Here you go." "Thanks, brother." " Okay." " Okay." "Let's go." "Ow!" "Gentlemen, we've arrived." "Doesn't look real open, does it?" ""Notice:" ""Closed by the Board of Health." ""Suspected point of origin:" "a hepatitis B outbreak." "Date of closure: 7-3-09."" "Oops." "That's five months ago." "Nice." "You were gonna give me hepatitis for my birthday." "Thanks." "Still got no reception." "All right, maybe there's a working phone inside." "Let's take a look around." "Happy birthday." "I think we got a dead body here, boys." "Best birthday ever." "It appears this man has a large raccoon sticking to his face." "Ah." "Procyon lotor." "The common North American raccoon." "This is quite a specimen, too." "Bet that sucker weighs at least 30 pounds." "357 in his hand." "No blood pool around the body." "No apparent entry wounds." "No signs of decomp." "This is a recent event, fellas." "The entire upper half of his body looks like it was singed." "Hey." "Let's roll him." "Oh, no, I..." "I'm not a coroner." "Greg, help me out here." "Take a look back there." "No apparent entry wounds on the posterior aspect, either." "Okay." "Maybe the raccoon leapt through that window ninja-style, and before this guy could shoot it, it landed on him and chewed his face off." "Well, I guess we should call it in, huh?" "Oh, that's right." "We've got no reception." "Well, it looks like something propelled them both through that window at a high velocity." "All right, I tell you what." "Greg, you and Hodges take a look around outside." "I'm going to clear this building, see if I can find a phone." "Henry... stay with the body." "My pleasure." "You come here often?" "911 operator." "What is your emergency?" "Please help me!" "He's trying to kill me!" "Ma'am, please try and remain calm." "Try to get to a safe place, but stay on the line with me." "Do you understand?" "Ma'am?" "Ma'am?" "Are you still with me?" "Dispatch, possible person in distress." "917 Villacoté Circle." "Please respond." "Got one body-- female in the bathroom." "No pulse." "I'll call it in." "Roger that." "I'm still clearing the first floor." "I'm checking the other rooms." "Somebody help!" "But when help arrived, it was too late." "The victim lay dead on the floor, and the killer had vanished." "Sir, you need to wake up." "Sir, Las Vegas Police Department." "You need to wake up, sir." "Hey, Mr. Higgins, wake up." "He just keeps nodding off, sir." "Come on, man." "Bernard, come on!" "What...?" "Why are you guys in my house?" "!" "Because there's a dead girl in your bathroom." "What?" "!" "There's a pattern of reddish abrasions ringing her neck, consistent with somebody forcing her head underwater." "With her fighting back, that's a noisy way to go." "I'm gonna see what's up with sleeping beauty" " in the other room." " All right." "David, anchors aweigh." " Okay, ready?" " Yep." "Cath?" "There's something in her arm." "Looks like a broken hypodermic." "In other words, she might've been drugged." "Her name is Lily." "Lily Chow Ping." "What was your relationship to her?" "Girlfriend, I guess you could say." "She was just gonna take a bath and wake me up in an hour." "We were gonna go for dinner." "So you're telling me you slept through the whole attack?" "Attack?" "!" "Oh, God, there was an attack..." "I have apnea." "Which means I have a chronic sleep deficit." "When I put on the machine, I'm dead to the world." "Who would want to kill Lily?" "Well, that's what we're here to find out." "You o... you okay?" "I have Crohn's disease." "You know what that is?" "Yes, an inflammatory disorder of undetermined etiology." "It ulcerates the intestine." "It can be very painful." "You can't get rid of it, which is why" "I feel like my guts are on fire all the time." "Well, do you need medical attention?" " No." "Not at the moment." " Okay, then come with us." "We have some more questions." "Oh, Lily, God." "A woman was attacked and violently drowned in his own bathroom and he says he slept through the whole thing?" "Well, being connected to a CPAP is kind of like being connected to a ventilator." "It's a noisy machine, and it's a reasonable alibi." "And Mr. Higgins knows a lot about reasonable alibis." "He's a big fan of true crime." "Compressed ethylene gas." "Used book of matches." "Somebody's been playing with fire." "Gee, I wonder who." "Gnawed bones and trash at the bottom of a barrel." "Raccoon bait." "Really?" "You know, I had a hat like that when I was a kid." "Except I wore it on the back of my head." "The other kids would make fun of me and occasionally beat me up, but I didn't care, 'cause I was..." "Â¶ Davy, Davy Crockett Â¶" "Â¶ King of the wild frontier Â¶" " Hold it right there." " Oh!" "I'll unload both barrels on you and I'll turn you into a pink mist." "Don't you think I won't." "Did you kill my friend?" "Well, I go away and come back." "He's dead and you're here." "Put that gun down on the floor." "And end up like Gomez?" "I don't think so." "You think I'm crazy?" "Calm down." " Yes, please calm down." " You calm down!" "Hey, we're law enforcement." "Put that gun down right now!" "No!" "Look, you may get a shot off." "You may even kill my young friend there." "But then I will unload on you." "I can't miss from here and you don't wanna be dead, now, do you?" "You're a cop." "That's right." "Mystery solved, gentlemen, courtesy of the A-Team" "Whoa!" "Who the hell are you?" "!" "I just work in the lab." "We're crime scene investigators." "I'm gonna reach in my pocket and I'm gonna show you my badge." "Lookie here." "See that?" "That's legit." "There you go." "Nobody has to get hurt." "Yeah, tell that to Gomez." "Give me that shotgun." "You all cops?" "Here you go." "Yeah, yeah, yeah, good man." "Uh, sir, I think we can explain what happened to your friend." "You see, it looks like he baited the pipe out back to lure the raccoons, filled it with ethylene gas and then tried to ignite it." "Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the gas was pooling at the bottom so, when he resorted to other methods..." "It was an accident." "That's Raccoonzilla." "In life, he and Gomez was locked into a hatred that surpasseth understanding." "Uh..." "Raccoonzilla?" "Well, that's the meanest, vilest rodent that ever strode the planet." "Technically, not a rodent." "What?" "You're book-smart." "Gomez... he was a good man." "You kept to yourself, but you always had a smile and a helping hand for others." "You're gonna be missed." "I saw him alive less than an hour ago." "How in the hell did you boys get here so fast?" "We're off duty." "We came for the ribs." "And the hepatitis." "What are you doing here?" "I'm the handyman." "Well, I was the handyman." "I'm the night watchman now." " Do you have a car?" " Uh-uh, no." "A buddy dropped me off." "Somebody's coming." "That'd be Shirley, Harry's wife." "Where is Harry anyway?" "I'd better let Shirley tell you." "Damn it all to hell!" "Who put that pig there?" "Who are these assclowns?" "Gomez was an artist." "He was a genius with the flesh of a pig." "Kept all his recipes locked up secret inside his head." "Now, why did you have to go do that to yourself, you dumbass?" "Now we are never gonna get this place reopened." "You can always hire another chef." "No..." "No one cooks swine like Gomez did." "He's the heartbeat of this place." "I thought Harry was." "He was nothing but the front man." "Yeah, where is Harry?" "Bastard cleared out the accounts, took off six months ago." "A month later, Board of Health shut us down." "Wouldn't surprise me if Harry had something to do with that, too." "If I ever catch up to him, I'm gonna wring his ass dry." "At least I've got the martini olives." "So, Greg says that the car is toast." "And reeking of alcohol." "I think that this is the same broad that ran us off the road." "Yeah, that's what we just said." "All right, we gotta find a way to get some backup out here." "Hey, is there not a working phone in here anywhere?" "No." "There's a ham radio buried in the back." "Keep an eye on her." "That broken needle in the victim's arm contained ketamine." " Party drug." " Prelim tox on the victim shows no traces of ketamine in her system." "Maybe the party hadn't gotten started." "According to your measurements, the fragment we extracted from the victim was part of a 16-gauge needle." "Right." "The only needles we found at Bernard Higgins' house were 31-gauge." "He could've had a different kit for his recreational stuff." "What about this bloody piece of metal that was found on the floor under the recliner?" "It's high-grade stainless steel, probably from a hand tool." "Maybe scissors or a pair of snips." "I'm running the blood for DNA." "Well, if it comes back the vic's," "Bernard's got a serious problem." "You have to believe me." "I would never hurt Lily." "We, we loved each other." "I wouldn't expect a man like you to understand how this petite, exquisite creature could love a man like me, but I..." "Our hearts touched." "She used to call me..." "It's Mandarin for "bountiful panda."" "Sounds a lot sexier in Mandarin." "Listen," "I'm just not seeing it that way." "In fact, I think she came to tell you that it was over." "She was tired of banging Sasquatch." "So you kind of got all jammed up." "You roughed her up." "You roofed her with ketamine." "That didn't work." "She ran away." "She called 911." "So you had to kill her." "You've got it all wrong." "I'm a very sick man." "You have to believe me..." "Cut the crap, Bernie." "Come on." "Sorry." "I'm a narcoleptic." "It's a very serious disease." "But it never stopped me from making a success of myself." "When I'm under stress, it gets worse." "Tell me about the beautiful friend Lily." "She comes to Vegas once in a while on a layover." "Oh." "She was an international flight attendant." "And, yes, all right, I would pay her expenses when she was in town." "Show her a good time..." "You know, Bernie... you're beginning to try my patience a little bit." "Come on." "Bernie." "Stick with me now." "Call my doctor if you don't believe me, all right?" "I can't sleep." "I just drop off when I'm under... stre..." "Bernie." "Bernie!" "Hey." "Bountiful!" "Bountiful Panda..." "Uh-oh." "Ooh." "There's a radio here somewhere." "I know that, uh..." "Lift it up..." "Ah." "Here." "Be careful." "Oh, that's a..." "That's just a walk-in." "No radio in there." "I" " I wouldn't go in there, if I was you." "You don't move, Slick." "I mean it." "Just freeze." "I'm froze." "It's rubber!" "Yeah, yeah." "Harry used to make Shirley give first-timers the tour." "Never failed to scare the crap out of them." "Should've seen the look on your face." "Yeah, you got me." "Eh, that's the kind of guy Harry was." "Always good for a laugh." "Yeah, let's find that radio." "You think I don't know what you see when you look at us?" "Bunch of ignorant, drunk crackers." "Shiftless peckerwoods." "Let me tell you something." "We built this place out of nothing with our hands and our sweat and our determination." "Mayor of Vegas used to eat here." "All right-- if I can't find a phone, I'm going to make one." "Keep an eye on her." "We had politicians, celebrities, rubbing up elbows with the common man." "Some nights, we had eight, ten limos stacked out up front." "Then Harry took off." "All went to hell." "He didn't care who he hurt." "Are you sure, though, that I can't fix you boys one of these?" "You know, uh, I could use a little boys' room." "Yeah." "Yeah." "Toilets is all stuffed up." "There's one in the basement." "But you don't want to use that one, believe me." "There's like, a million black widow spiders down there." "It's like black widow convention is what it is." "You know, you just puff up and die, so..." "Use the bushes." "Whoa, whoa, whoa." "What am I supposed to do?" "You heard Greg." "Keep an eye on her." "You... are going to drink a man drink." "Just like that." "Really?" "Moonshine." "Hello?" "Hello?" "Is anybody out there?" "Earthlings, your days are numbered." "The Imperial Armada will arrive on..." "Well, maybe you could fix it." "Well, that depends." "You got any spare vacuum tubes laying around?" "Got a vacuum cleaner." "This place was a gold mine." "That man... he walked away with $250,000." "All I got... was a postcard." "Just to rub it my face in." ""Shirley," ""by the time you read this, I will be sippin' piña coladas" ""on a island somewheres far away" ""with the new love of my life," ""who is much younger than you." ""Don't come looking for me 'cause I'm all gone." "Good-bye." "Harry."" "You ever hear anything so mean in all your life?" "No, ma'am." "You're real cute." "You know that?" "Now, what'd you say y'all come out here for again?" "It's my birthday." "Well... why don't you come over here and give your auntie Shirley some sugar?" "Oh, uh, no, I can't." "I'm-I'm engaged..." "I'm married, actually." "Uh, I have syphilis." " Perfect." "Me, too." " What?" "You ever see a really advanced case of Crohn's disease?" "Only tissue sections on microscope slides." "Gross." " Oh." " Yeah." "It's kind of amazing he lasted as long as he did." "Well, he was on heavy doses of broad-spectrum antibiotics." "It may have helped." "COD's coronary infarction with complicating factors of widely disseminated sepsis." "Hello, Catherine." "I found an errant shoe impression in Bernard's bathroom." "It doesn't belong to the cops, and it appears to be a size 13..." "Bernie was a ten." "There was somebody else in this bathroom." "So Bernie may have been telling the truth." "I'll let you know if I find anything else." "All right, thank you." "What's the plural of "appendix"?" ""Appendices"?" "That's what's at the end of a book." ""Appendixes" doesn't quite sound right, does it?" "Then "appendixes" it is, because this is definitely not right." "This man has two appendixes." "One's healthy; the other's clearly septic." "Is it possible that this is a natural condition?" "Well, genetically, I suppose it could happen." "The septic appendix has been sutured to the intestine." "He has a scar in his navel." "It's consistent with laparoscopic surgery." "There's only one guy who does this kind of work." "Dr. Jekyll." "He's back." "It's about time." "Where's Nick and Greg?" "Outside." "Wha... come on!" "Go fish." "It's rummy." "It's gin rummy." "Forget it." "You think you can make it work?" "Yeah, all we gotta do is go up the pole and clip these taps into the main line." "All right, on three." "One, two, three." "So, I, uh, found an ethylene gas processing plant down in the basement." "Old Slick and Shirley are running a distillery." "Of course they are." "And I told him, that's your baby." "I didn't make that baby by myself," " and I need some money!" " Uh, Excuse me." "Uh, this is an emergency." "That's what I told him!" "And you're never going to believe what he said back to me." "That rat..." " Willows." " Oh, Catherine." "Hey, it's Greg." "You're not going to believe what happened." "So everything's been called in." "Highway patrol and a coroner are on their way." "But listen, you two are going to have to come down to the station and answer a few questions, okay?" "That's-that's routine." "This should all be cleared up soon." "It's a good thing, too." "That guy is getting pretty ripe." "I'm sure, he wasn't too good in real life either, but now..." "I need to wash up." "Hey, see if you can find an air freshener." "Aah!" "Oh, my God!" " What happened?" " Aah!" "It's sulfuric acid!" "Aah!" "All right, put your hand under cold water." "Ow!" "Aah!" "Here, here." "The charcoal will neutralize the acid." "Yeah." "Ah." "More." "More charcoal!" "Just keep it underwater." "Whoa!" "What do we have here?" "Check it out, guys." "Y'all want to tell me who this is?" "Who?" "Well, I don't know." "You tell me, Shirley." "I got no idea." "Slick?" "I don't know." "You know what?" "That's okay." "Just sit tight." "We're gonna figure this out." "All right, the sutures had started to dissolve, which means that the septic appendix was inserted into his body about four to seven days ago." "The blood on the piece of steel I found was not Lily's; it was Bernie's, and it was most likely from a laparoscopic scissor." "Dr. Jekyll has moved on to living victims, Catherine." "He is escalating." "Okay." "Joseph Bigelow, about two months ago, was found with his intestines tied into a bow." "Operated on postmortem." "What does he have in common with Bernard Higgins?" "Joseph Bigelow:" "lounge piano player, homeless." "Bernard Higgins:" "self-help real estate guru." "Different ages, different social circles, different physical types." "Nothing leaps to mind." "We'll run DNA on the septic appendix." "If the donor's in CODIS, it might give us a lead." "We can check hospital records..." "There are almost 200 appendectomies that are performed in Las Vegas every month." "If the appendix was stored in formaldehyde and flushed prior to surgery, it could've been in storage for years." "Right, which means it could've come from just about anywhere." "Bernie was a narcoleptic, the perfect victim for a surgeon who doesn't want his patients to know they'd been operated on." "Right." "And Jekyll performed the surgery in Bernie's home." "All of which suggests that Jekyll knew him." "But maybe not as well as he thought." "Bernie was so full of meds that I suspect the appendix didn't kill him as quickly as Jekyll planned." "Well, say Jekyll saw Bernie somewhere, up and about, after he was supposed to be dead." "Wouldn't that piss him off?" "And like many serial killers, it might have compelled him to finish what he started." "So Jekyll goes back to the house, packing ketamine to subdue" "Bernie, and he surprises Lily." "She runs." "She calls 911." "He chases her, tries to inject her, but fails." "He hears the sirens, and he leaves before he can finish Bernie off." "And all we have of him, maybe, is a size 13 shoe." "Well, if Bernie and Jekyll did know each other, then maybe there's something that connects them back at the house." "Poor guy." "Gomez?" "I meant the raccoon." "I got Harry's medical records and dental X-rays here." "Number three, MOL amalgam." "Number 30, full gold crown." "You know, I'm no forensic odontologist, but that's Harry." "You will be missed." "Not by pigs." "Look what we got here." "Gomez has got a record." "Busted for forgery in San Antonio 13 years ago." "Jumped bail while awaiting trial." "Whereabouts unknown." "Until now." "A little help?" "Oh!" "Oh." "Oh, way to go, little guy." "This guy's ribs are completely missing." "It looks like they were cut along the sternum and spine." "The restaurant was closed, due to a hepatitis outbreak, a month after Harry disappeared." "Harry had hepatitis B." "Which has an incubation period of roughly four weeks." "You know what that means, don't you?" "Mmm." "I have always loved Harry's ribs." "Where is Harry tonight?" "You know, honey," "I'm not sure where he got off to." "I'm sure he's here in spirit." "I just can't believe Harry's dead." "I never killed nobody." "I ain't that kind of woman." "Anyway, I loved the man until the day he disappeared." "Now, if you ask me... it was Slick." "Now, why would he do that?" "'Cause... before Harry came to town, I was..." "You was what?" "Slick's fiancée." "Oh." "Harry swept me off my feet." "I am not proud of what I did." "So you dumped Slick for Harry?" "Yes, sir." "I broke Slick's heart." "And then, after Harry disappeared," "I was in the vulnerable state, and Slick forgave me." "He took me back, but I think that he bumped Harry off, get him out of the way, so he could have me all to his self once again." "What man wouldn't?" "I'm not one to cast aspersions, but Harry and Shirley were at each other's throats night and day." "Shirley's what you might call a, uh, uh, uh... a first-class bitch on wheels." "She told me she dumped you and ran off with Harry and broke your heart." "She said that." "Yeah." "I'm the one kicked that tramp out, and she went crawling on her belly back to Harry." "Oh, she spun her feminine wiles, but he grew... he grew wise to her trampy ways." "You know, I thought he got out while the getting was good, but I will bet you dollars to donuts, it was that whore that barbecued his ass." "They both had motive, and they're both accusing each other of killing Harry." "So far, we have no evidence that suggests either of them actually did it." "Could be either one or both, or-- or-- it could be somebody else altogether." "My money is on someone else altogether." "Hey, Hop-Along." "What do you got there?" "A postcard Harry sent Shirley after he was dead, which is why I had Mandy print it-- and get this:" "She got a hit for Gomez's mother, a 60-year-old truck-stop hooker in Boca Raton." "So I ran the handwriting through QD." "It was an excellent forgery." "It was good enough to fool Shirley, kite a check and empty their bank accounts." "But, wait, where did you get..." "An exemplar of Harry's handwriting?" "From his bank." "Time out." "Let me get this straight." "Gomez, a convicted forger, wrote the postcard, sent it to his mother, who then mailed it back to Shirley all the way from Florida?" "Yes!" "See, it's a deliberate attempt to obscure the details of Harry's death." "See, I think Shirley really believed Harry ran out on her." "But why?" "Why would Gomez..." " Kill Harry?" " Yeah." "I don't know." "I bet Harry knew Gomez was on the lam, and was using it to keep him under his thumb." "One day Gomez just got sick and tired of it." "Huh." "You know, this birthday didn't suck after all." "Oh!" "Aah!" "Ow." "We got Bernie's computers," "Rolodex and personal correspondence." "Everything that we collected will go into storage, in case..." "In case Jekyll strikes again?" "He will, you know." "Well, this is what's been bugging me." "With Joey Bigelow," "Jekyll took the man's bow tie and then left another bow tie, so to speak, inside his body." "But with Bernie, Jekyll gave him another appendix." "I'm just wondering, what did he take?"