"I'm sorry, Dad." "I'm sorry I'm late." "Robin!" "Victim's Robin Prescott." "Her father says she was meeting him here to attend the event." "Lives alone in an apartment on 53rd and Second." "Works as a reader for a publishing company." "Any details on what happened?" "No." "She's in and out of consciousness." "Had to ask her four times before she remembered her own name." "Keep me up to speed on witness statements." "You'll know it when I know it." "She was in Central Park." "Looks like we've got ourselves an 800-acre crime scene." "Sorry, traffic's murder." "Danny, you're working trace on this." "I should do that." "I can handle it, Stell." "I'm sure... it's just..." "I'm gonna make sure the victim's clothes get back to the lab." "I'll be at the hospital." "Shouldn't we process the scene first?" "You can process it if you can find it." "It's somewhere in Central Park." "That's a bit of ground to cover." "Can we narrow it down." "Got any leads?" "Start with Trace and the victim's clothes." "What have you got, Aiden?" "One Jordy Thompkins." "One gunshot wound to the abdomen... one bad-smelling alley." "There's no indication of an exit wound." " Shell casings?" " None." "And unless the shooter picked up his casings on the way out I guess the murder weapon is a revolver." "Any witnesses?" "Nobody's talking." "So for now, the bullet inside of Jordy here is our only connection to the shooter." "Blackened gums... abraded teeth... singed eyelashes." "Burn marks?" "Crack user." "Looks like he has track marks on his ankles." "This was more than likely a drug deal gone bad." "Entry wound is larger than usual." "Contact wound." "Maybe they fought over the gun." "No." "The shooter didn't get this close." "No evidence of stellate tearing or powder burns." "Tissue surrounding the wound is uneven and the fabric fibers are frayed outward." "Blood spatter below entry is inconsistent with any I've seen from gunshot trauma." "Looks to me like something exited our entrance wound." "I'm going to need to take some photographs now, okay?" "Would you uncross your hands, please?" "Turn your hands around, please." "That's it." "Nurse, could you help me with her gown?" "It's okay." "It's all right." "Thank you." "I'm going to need you to lie back down, okay?" "There you go." "Robin, if at any time you feel uncomfortable and you want me to stop..." "Just let me know, okay?" "Uh-huh." "Do you have any questions before I start?" "What happened to me?" "That's what I'm trying to find out." "Okay." "Leaf of a peony." "It's a flower." "Okay, let's check City Maintenance database." "See if it's planted in Central Park." "105th Street." "East Side." "Okay, we've got a match at this location for two other trace samples found on the victim's clothing." "Geranium leaf and columbine." "There's one other location in Central Park where we can find these flowers." "North of Strawberry Fields, west of the Ramble." "Can we match any other trace evidence to that area?" "Three out of five - wisteria, geranium, magnolia." "Give me a bird's-eye view of the park." "Okay, expand it east and west." "All right, look, we know our victim lives here. 53rd and Second." "And she ends up over here, at the museum." "So, indicate the two locations where we can find our leaf." "105th Street is out of her way." "So, what do we got?" "The answer to the million-dollar question." "North of Strawberry Fields, west of the Ramble, and that's our crime scene." "As close as we can get it." "Okay, I'm going to start from the Rustic Bridge and work my way north." "Gunshot wound to the abdominal cavity." "He bled to death." "I did run into one little problem with the bullet." "Couldn't extract it?" "No." "Because there wasn't one." "You save all the good stuff on purpose, don't you?" "Check it out." "You're gonna love this." "What we thought were track marks are puncture wounds." "Made by a pair of small, central lateral incisors." "Bite marks?" "Postmortem and antemortem bites." "Face, arms and legs were the appetizers." "The gunshot wound was the main course." "And the dinner guest?" "This is where the story gets tasty." "These are tiny little footprints." "Rattus norvegicus." "Rats?" "At least a dozen of them." "You're telling me a rat ate the bullet?" "That was dessert." "I guess this is what you do when there's no one to go home to?" "There's evidence that needs to get to Dr. Giles in DNA, ASAP." "I've documented each item's distance from the actual rape..." "Hoping that it will help determine what is and isn't connected to the crime." "There were two of them?" "That's what it looks like." "One of the guys was pretty big." "This shoe impression here" " It's pretty full and deep." "Looks like some kind of work boot there." "This one I can't tell." "Knee and tip of shoe, so he knelt down next to her." "As she fought." "She fought hard." "Wait a minute, I've got something here." "What is it?" "It's a nose ring." "Possible traces of blood on it." "I lived in a six-story walk-up in Brooklyn." "You could hear the rats scampering on the staircase above you." "They didn't even flinch when you passed them." "That's because they recognized you." "They like familiar surroundings." "What they liked was my grandmother's sofa." "They're creatures of habit, Aiden." "They usually stay within 65 feet of their nests." "Rats tend to hug the walls and travel the same path back to home." "This alley, all this food and garbage is four-star cruise to the Bahamas for them." "I take it there were a lot of rats in Chicago?" "It's too windy." "When we find these rodents, we'll point the alloy gun into the pack." "It will help identify the rat that ate the bullet by listing the elemental composition of its stomach." "The bullet?" "The bullet." "Got traces of blood here." "A little rodent hair." "The root is to the right and the hair was pulled away from the body right to left." "It was moving in that direction." "What's in this building?" "Excuse me." "May I help you?" "Hey!" "Sir, actually we're here to help you." "You have a rat problem." "You're from the Health Department?" "NYPD." "Crime Scene Investigators." "You people deal with rats?" "Only when they've eaten our evidence, and as of this moment, this place is officially a crime scene." "So I suggest you hang up your apron and call it a day." "No problem." "Thanks." "What's the readout say?" "The rat that ate our bullet is up there." "Well, now all we have to do is trap it." "You've done this before?" "Never." "Coffee grounds." "Trace from the take-out container we found at the scene." "From the steak?" "Ramon's Steakhouse." "It's their specialty." ""Blackened prime rib marinated in coffee grounds. "" "It's a place over on 69th and Columbus." "All right, we're looking for somebody who ordered a steak last night." "What do you think, 20 or 30 people?" "No, it was an employee." "These aren't leftovers." "It's a full steak in a foil container." "Not some typical I'll-take-the-rest-home-in-a-doggie bag." "It could be a to-go order." "Yeah, but this is a four-star place with a reputation,and where are all the trimmings the parsley, the decorative toothpicks, and whatnot?" "Hey, buddy." "Anyone work here with a nose ring?" "Check in the back." "Hey, man, what are you doing?" "You ain't supposed to be in here." "Did you, uh... cut your nose washing dishes?" "What's it to you?" "We're from the lost and found." "You happen to lose a nose ring?" "Come on, man, I didn't do nothing!" "Yeah, you did." "You got steak sauce on my shoes." "You raped a girl in Central Park." "No, lady, you got that wrong." "I've got evidence." "You nose ring, Donovan." "It puts you at the scene of the crime." "She was passed out when I got there." "I didn't see her at first." "What did you see?" "Her handbag." "So, we got this all wrong?" "You're not a rapist, you're just a thief?" "Yeah, something like that." "I'm not buying it, Donovan." "I found Robin Prescott's wallet." "It still had cash in it." "That's what I was trying to explain to you." "I didn't have a chance to take the cash." "I want the boots you were wearing yesterday, and I want a DNA sample." "Roughly 70 million." "That's how many rats are in the city." "That's around eight rats for every person." "And it costs this city millions of dollars." "26% of all phone disruptions and electrical problems are because of rats chewing on the wires." "I mean, how do you stay on top of something like that, you know what I'm saying?" "Did you know that a female rat has a litter of six to 12 little critters on average of five times a year." "I mean, when these babies aren't eating, they're having sex, huh?" " Listen, Mr. Drewdetski..." " Karl." "Karl, we just need to catch this one particular rat." "Yeah, that's strange." "You can't help us?" "Uh, no... uh, yeah, yeah." "What's strange is, you see, when... when a rat snacks on something hard like concrete or steel a flap of skin plugs down behind its incisors stopping the shavings from going down its throat and killing it." "Now your rat wasn't snacking." "No, it swallowed it whole." "Probably bit down on a big chunk of flesh had no idea that the bullet was in there..." "Katl, Karl..." " And then when he was done scampered right up..." " Hey, listen, Karl, I don't care." "I just need you to catch the thing." "Can we just catch the rat?" "Yeah, sure, whatever." "One dead rodent walking." "I'll get the paperwork." "Let's go back to what you do remember." "You went to work, right?" "Yeah, I left work early." "I didn't want to be late." "It takes me a while to decide what to wear, so..." "I went home, I showered and changed" "And then I got into a cab." "Where'd you hail the cab?" "On Third." "I was in a hurry, so I told the cabby to go through the park." "This is fine." "I'll walk." "Where'd you get out of the cab?" "I don't know." "I just remember thinking that it would be quicker to go north" "Through the park than to cross over to the street." "I was so stupid." "I was so stupid." "Do you know when I can get out of here?" "I just want to get out of here." "Robin, you've been badly beaten, and..." "I'm sure that the doctors are going to get you out of here as soon as they can." "You know what happened to me in the park, don't you?" "My dad's outside." "Can you just tell him that I'm tired?" "Sure." "Mr. Prescott, Robin wants to rest." "Is it normal for her not to remember?" "The brain copes with trauma in different ways." "But do you have any suspects?" "Our investigation is ongoing." "We're still examining the evidence..." "Look, I'm not interested in your well-prepared answers, Ms. Bonasera." "I don't want to read about the details of my daughter's rape in the newspapers." "We have a suspect in custody, but we can only prove that he was at the scene." "But he's the guy, right?" "Why else would he be there?" "He's claiming he was there to rob her while she was unconscious." "And he just stepped over her and left her there?" "Do you have children?" "No." "I raised mine alone." "Boys are easier than girls." "You don't have to worry the same." "They're stronger." "Boys know how to take care of themselves." "Your daughter nearly lost her life, Mr. Prescott." "She fought and scratched so hard that the tips of her fingers were blistered." "Somehow Robin managed to pick herself up off the ground and walk out of that park because she wanted to live." "So, do we have a match?" "DNA analysis on the semen we collected from the victim took longer than is normal." "It was a... problematic sample." "Take a look." "This is what you're supposed to see." "And this... is the sample we collected from the victim." "I micro-concentrated the extracted DNA, but... but there's not enough for conventional typing." "Only about 25 picograms." "Our rapist is shooting blanks?" "Yes." "He's azoospermic - produces semen but no sperm cells." "No sperm cells, no DNA." "He's either had a vasectomy, or it's a medical condition." "Which means we can't compare the semen from our rapist to the blood sample we got from Donovan Tracey." "Catching this guy just got a lot harder." "It's not exactly Pest Control policy." "Yeah, well, a rat's sense of smell can detect poison before they reach the trap." "They love eggs." "An old trick I learned from my big brothers." "Caught a few cat-sized rats." "A lot of rats in that nest." "They'll risk daylight for a meal." "It's not here." "We didn't catch it." "I'm going back to check the deli." "That's our rat." "Is that focus or frustration?" "I've got a suspect with no viable alibi." "I can place him at the scene within minutes of the rape, but I can't prove that he did it, and I can't prove that he didn't." "DNA?" "He's got no sperm cells." "I have no witnesses, and I have a victim who has no memory of what happened." "You?" "Aiden's on rodent patrol." "I'm waiting to do a "rat-topsy. "" "Rape and rats." "Worlds apart." "City's the city." "Hang in there." "Hey, you know me." "Use your head, not your heart." "Linolenic acid." "Hey, Bonasera." "Walnut?" "Eliminates, Donovan Tracey as a suspect." "You got my undivided attention." "The trace powder found on Robin Prescott's contained linolenic acid:" "found in fish, pumpkin seeds, linseeds, and walnuts." "The powder was walnut dust." "Okay." "They use walnut dust to clean statues." "A four-man crew, the only crew authorized to do it in the city, were cleaning statues in Central Park the day Robin was raped." "All right, so we can connect Robin to the statues north of Strawberry Fields." "They weren't cleaning statues in Strawberry Fields, Stella." "They were cleaning them on the south end of the park, east of the bridge, so somebody other than Robin Prescott brought the walnut dust to the crime scene." "The rapist followed her through the park, raped her, and then transferred the walnut dust from his clothes to hers." "What?" "I mean, this is usually case-breaking news." "We round up these guys, we get a couple of buccal swab samples..." "And compare it to what?" "We still have no DNA from that rapist." "We can't be sure who did it." "But we will know without question who did not." "They all have sperm cells." "Not one of those guys is a suspect, Stella." "A rapist who left behind no DNA." "Perfect crime." "There's no such thing." "What's up?" "Every piece of evidence we've managed to collect has only eliminated suspects." "Robin Prescott's rapist is still out there, thinking he's gotten away with it." "For now." "We're gonna get this guy, Stella." "We need something, Danny, anything to establish an identity for this guy." "Let's go with what we know for sure, all right?" "The rapist was in Central Park, he wore a work boot, transferred the walnut dust to the victim's dress." "The perfect description of our statue crew." "Which Dr. Giles has just proven innocent." "Okay, then we're narrowing it down." "Right." "All right, you know what, maybe we're just moving too fast" "Maybe we've arrived at the most obvious answer before considering alternatives." "Six plus one is seven;" "three plus four is seven." "Five plus two is seven." "Consider all the possibilities." " Exactly." "I'm going back to Central Park." "All right." "Couldn't we get Dr. Hawkes" "Sheldon draws the line at rodents." "Died of asphyxia." "The bullet never made it through the esophagus." "Blocked the trachea, preventing air flow to the lungs." "Choked to death." "Poor little guy." "We need to distinguish the markings made by the rat's incisors from the stria made by the barrel of the gun." "Where do we start?" "With our rat." "Gardener." "You followed her through the park, didn't you, Billy?" "How many times do I have to tell you?" "I'm not the guy you're looking for." "Well, according to City Maintenance, you were scheduled to work in the area around the statues the day before yesterday." "Well, I was reassigned to the north end of the park." "They needed some extra guys." "You can check with my supervisor." "After your long day at work in the north end of the park, how did you walk home?" "You like Strawberry Fields, Billy?" "I agreed to come down here and answer your questions, I gave you a sperm sample why would I do that... if I raped someone?" "Right, right, you've been so generous." "Now, what would you say to giving us your work clothes and boots from that day?" "Whatever will prove I didn't do this." "Let's go." "Get up." "We get his boots, we match them to the scene, and we got this kid." "Even if the boots match, it only confirms that he works at the park." "Damn it, this guy's smart." "He knows that without a confession, we can't prove that he did it." "We have a semen sample from our rapist with no sperm." "We've got one from him with no sperm." "We've matched nothing to nothing, Stella, and that's gonna count for something." "Yeah, and a good defense attorney is gonna say it's a coincidence." "We can't even prove that the semen samples come from the same guy." "But how many guys out there don't have sperm cells?" "Two percent of the population." "Yeah, and that's enough to give the jury a reasonable doubt." "DNA is undisputable evidence, and we don't have it." "We have another suspect in custody, and we need a positive ID." "And I still don't remember what happened." "I got into a cab, that's it." "I understand." "But I just think maybe if you see his face..." "Then it'll all come back to me?" "You know what happened to me, all the details." "Do I want to remember?" "Robin... this guy needs to be punished for what he did to you." "If there's a chance..." "Don't let him go free, Robin." "Come to the station, do the lineup." "Okay." "I'll be there." "Good." "Mac..." "I confirmed a match on IBIS." "Two bullets pulled out of a wall at a corner deli robbery." "Happened about an hour before Jordy was shot." "Three-two's holding a suspect that was captured on surveillance and ID'd by a witness." "All right, now put this on my desk." "Call them and tell them I'm on my way." "Okay." "You know this guy?" "Nope." "Well, this was taken a while ago." "I have a more recent photo." "I told you, man, I don't know him." "You robbed that corner deli." "You needed some money, didn't you, Calvin?" "Because what you really need is a fix." "Hey, I got cash, man, only I ain't got what I owe you." "But I just need a little something." "Get out of here." "You only got $50 from the deli, Calvin." "My guess is it wasn't enough." "I ain't selling you nothing." "No." "No, no, no." "That ain't right." "Yeah, what are you going to do about it?" "The two bullets from the robbery match the one you plugged into the victim's gut." "You're a junkie, Calvin." "You'll do anything for the next rock." "Rob someone, kill someone." "Man, I tossed the gun, okay?" "Someone must've picked it up." "It happens all the time." "But I didn't shoot Jordy." "Jordy?" "Thought you didn't know him." "Hey, tell me something." "Who ratted me out?" "How long do you want to wait?" "I'll call her." "Okay." "She's a no-show." "You can let them go." "Thanks, Barry." "I heard Robin Prescott was a no-show." "You heard right." "But you showered." "I needed to cool off." "I'm not mad at her, I'm just mad at the circumstances." "You know, there are nine case folders on the edge of my desk, cases that have never been solved." "Every week I make a few phone calls, check CODIS, study police reports..." "looking for any connection." "Sometimes I go down to Evidence, dust off the box just to remind myself of what's inside." "See if there's something I know now that I didn't know then." "What do you find?" "Honestly, not much, but... the next week I come in, I'm back at it." "'Cause there used to be 12 case folders on the edge of my desk." "Have faith in the evidence, Stella." "Danny, you made a notation of trace you found on Robin Prescott's panties." "Sap-like substance." "Tree sap." "Trees are all over the park." "But the sap is on her panties." "That's a pretty intimate place." "And it wasn't on her arms, legs or anywhere on her dress." "Means it's more than likely a secondary transfer." "Rendish claims he was in the north part of the park." "City Maintenance confirmed it." "Did they say what he was doing there?" "Said they needed a crew of guys to deal with beetle infestation." "He was cutting down trees." "Billy has to know he has tree sap on his pants." "But he thinks it's his alibi." "Puts him in the north end of the park." "Or it puts him in jail." "Gotcha." "Son of a bitch."