CSI: NY s06e10 Episode Script

I'm calling to report an accident.
This is 911.
How can I help you? My wife took a whole bottle of pills.
It's on his wrist.
Can you feel a pulse? You've got to help me! Sir, is someone attacking you? I'm at 2405 Central Park West.
Hurry.
Please! Move, move, move! Clear! Whoa! Why no lights? We're working on it.
But according to the super, this place hasn't had electricity since Thomas Edison was alive.
Looks like he's been dead about as long.
Mummification rarely happens in New York.
Too humid.
Well, conditions in this room must have been desert-dry.
No evidence of putrefaction by microorganisms.
Nothing to indicate the presence of rodents or maggots feeding on the body.
A slow, steady dehydration of the flesh.
Perfectly preserved.
Do we know who this is? Well, the name listed as owner of the property is a Sam Harding.
Word is he vacated the penthouse 80 years ago.
Place has been sealed up ever since.
What about the 91 1 caller who said he was gonna die? Our boys searched the place.
Didn't find anyone.
Our mummy's the only guy here.
So how does the dead guy call 91 1? # Out here in the fields # I fight for my meals # I get my back into my living # Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah # Hey, guys.
I figured out how our dead man called 91 1.
Someone broke in? We're just finding this? My guys swear this room wasn't even here on the first go-round.
I don't know.
So who calls 91 1, asks for help, says they're dying and then cuts out before help can arrive? Maybe our caller broke in.
Saw the body, made the anonymous call to lead us to the vic and then took off.
So he pulls a B&E to rob the place, then turns good Samaritan.
I'll remember to thank him before I toss his arse in jail.
I don't think burglary was the motive.
This place is full of antiques.
He could have picked it clean.
Whoever broke in was here for something else.
Hi.
Are you lost? No.
I'm not lost but thanks.
OK.
Are you supposed to be here? Do you need to see someone or can I help you with something? It's strange to have someone that doesn't work in the lab hanging out.
Deborah Martin.
FBl Personnel Office.
I was cleared by Detective Mac Taylor.
And I'm here observing the lab, procedures, work environment.
We're considering someone from this facility for our own lab.
Someone from here is moving to the FBl? - Uh-huh.
- Wow! That's a big deal.
Yes, it is.
It's Jake, isn't it? It's Jake? Oh, he's such a Sorry, did I cross the line? Jake and l, we just applied at the same time together and, I mean, he is Actually, it's Haylen Becall.
- Wow! Really? - Yeah.
- Wow! Really? - Yes.
- Really? - Still yes.
Oh.
Wow.
Did you know that between 400 and 1 400 AD there was a common belief that mummia was a potent medicine with curative powers? People used to grind up mummy parts and put them on their bodies to get well when they were sick.
Hmm.
Take 2mg of mummy and call me in the morning! Something like that.
I thought you had hobbies outside of work.
I take it my interest in the history of my profession and the fascinating world of the postmortem does not strike you as an enjoyable pastime? Let's take him to a Jets game this weekend! OK, Sid, what can you tell us about COD? Your vic was murdered.
The cause was multiple stab wounds.
The mummification preserved every wound perfectly.
- Crime of rage.
- Or passion.
- Any idea when he was killed? - I was just doing the math.
These are Amex dentures.
Made out of aluminium.
They were created for American soldiers in 1917 as a more durable alternative to Vulcanite dentures, but were discontinued with the Armistice of 1918.
The problem with aluminium is that it can stop the body's ability to absorb calcium.
This can prevent bone growth and reduce bone density.
Now based on the deterioration of the bone at the gum line here, I'd say our vic was murdered five, six years after he got his shiny new choppers.
That would put the year of his death somewhere around 1923.
Sid, please tell me you were able to identify that body.
No, I assumed he was the owner of the penthouse, Sam Harding.
Uh-uh.
Can't be.
According to my sources, Harding died of pneumonia 30 years ago and has been pushing up daisies in T rinity ever since.
Then who is this? I'll find out.
Got a positive lD on our mummy.
His name is Walter Jones.
According to these articles, Jones was a player back in the day.
One of the first venture capitalists.
Could have been bigger than Rockefeller or Vanderbilt, if he hadn't gotten murdered.
Looks like a lot of people might have wanted him dead.
Oh, yeah.
Found court records for 19 lawsuits against him.
One of them was filed by an inventor named Sam Harding.
The owner of the penthouse.
Apparently, Jones put up money for Harding's invention business.
Sounds like their deal went sour cos Harding filed a suit in 1923 for patent infringement but it was dismissed.
Jones is missing shortly after.
Sam Harding had motive to make that happen.
Harding thought Jones stabbed him in the back and when he didn't win in court, he got revenge.
We solved an 86-year-old murder.
Not bad for half a day's work.
No, it gives us the rest of the day to tackle the remaining unanswered questions.
Who broke into the penthouse and who made the 91 1 call? Adam Ross.
What you got? Oh Yeah.
I reconstructed the shattered glass from the skylight and I lifted several usable prints.
The name's Richard Lawson.
He must be the guy that came through the skylight and made the 91 1 call.
He's got two priors for breaking and entering.
As far as we can tell, nothing was stolen.
That's because what he broke in for, he couldn't carry out.
This guy's a real estate agent.
Why is he breaking into Sam Harding's penthouse? Before he died, Harding set up a trust to take care of his home.
Keep it empty after his death.
Nobody was allowed to go inside, not even the building's super or maintenance man.
Wanted to hide the fact he murdered Walter Jones and left him to rot.
His secret and Jones' body would have remained undiscovered, except this week the rule against perpetuities went into effect.
Stops dead people from owning property forever.
Right, which means the penthouse was just about to be put up for auction by the state.
That property must be worth Yeah, and that brings us right back to this guy, Lawson.
Now he makes his living by getting a jump-start on his competition.
Two years ago he broke into a foreclosure in the Hamptons.
He's a suspect on two other cases.
The times he hasn't gotten caught, he appraises the property and makes quite a bit of money on the sale.
- We bringing him in? - Well, we can't find Richard Lawson.
- T ried the penthouse? - Flack searched the place twice.
No disrespect to Donny Boy.
You might want to try again.
When I processed the static lifts from the scene, I saw footprints with directionality.
All of them are moving into the room.
Nothing coming out.
So nobody went back up that rope.
Flack said the front door was bolted from the inside when they responded to the 91 1 call.
Lawson didn't use that door when he left.
Has to be another way out.
Or not.
We ran Lawson's phone records.
He's definitely our 91 1 caller.
Now I want you to listen to this.
I'm gonna die.
You gotta help me, please! Sir, is there someone attacking you? I'm at 2405 Central Park West.
Hurry.
Please! Does that sound like a prank call? No.
He's crying for help.
That 91 1 call was made six hours ago.
Yeah, Richard Lawson may still be in that penthouse.
Attic's clear.
- Power's back on.
- Well, that took long enough.
Guess the switch was in Jersey.
We checked every room, closet, crawl space, any place a person might hide or a dead body could be stashed.
And all possible points of escape.
Richard Lawson's gotta be in this penthouse.
There was no evidence suggesting he got out of here.
Do we rule out vanishing into thin air? I'm with Stell.
Cos where is the guy? Flack, you said on the first search of the apartment, no one found the utility room? Yeah.
It's like it popped up out of nowhere.
There's concrete behind this plaster.
It's pretty damn thick.
Why would you have cement interior walls on the 25th floor of a penthouse? There may be hidden passages between these rooms.
Stella! - You OK? - Yeah.
What the hell was that? Both of you move toward the door.
Be careful.
Pressure trigger.
After the weapon's done its job, the pressure is taken off the trigger and it retracts.
Keep the pressure on the trigger and it doesn't reload for the next unsuspecting victim.
We've got our murder weapon.
This whole house is a murder weapon.
- Heads up, guys.
- I hope you know what you're doing.
These tiles were designed to slide.
Just like a child's number puzzle.
One through 15.
You move each one.
You place them in numeric order.
Instead of a number pattern, these create an image.
Sorry.
It's a giant slide puzzle that's already been solved.
And the reward for putting the last piece of the puzzle is to be impaled by a swinging bed of knives.
And so our vic, Walter Jones, was the unlucky winner.
Sam Harding was an inventor.
This room, maybe this entire penthouse, was his greatest creation.
OK.
Knowing that, how do we find Richard Lawson? We play Sam Harding's game.
Things just got a lot more difficult.
And a lot more dangerous.
What I'm saying, Mac, is that this, this library, it, it isn't a library.
I mean, I mean, it's a library but it, it's a library Adam, Adam.
Come on.
I'm sorry, Mac.
I'm just kind of off my game today.
OK.
The short of it - this blueprint is useless.
If you're standing where you say you are standing, everything's been changed around and nothing matches the original plan.
Mac, I found a Ledger article from 1922.
Apparently, Harding spent serious bucks to pimp this place out.
I mean, major renovations.
It was a two-year $300,000 project.
At the time, that was big money.
More than four million by today's standards.
Right, and he hired different contractors to complete the construction in stages.
None of them were told what the finished product would be.
There's mystery and speculation about what he was doing up there.
I need an updated floor plan.
Find out if one exists.
I'm on it, boss.
Are you? What's wrong with you? No, l I'm fine.
Just I'm Why would Walter Jones play a game that could get him killed? Maybe he didn't know the stakes.
Or he knew the stakes but was forced to play.
And Richard Lawson had no idea what he was walking into.
An angel.
A fallen angel.
A message to a friend who's now an enemy.
Looks like there's a theme going on here.
Do these blades look like wings to you? Yeah.
He's pointing.
That can't be an accident.
The book stand.
No title.
No author.
Blank pages.
Except this one.
"lf a red house is made of red bricks "and a blue house is made of blue bricks, "what is a greenhouse made of? " Glass.
Well, the windows would be too obvious.
Two vases.
Both glass.
This is part of the game.
There's a 50/50 chance that we're right.
I can do better than that.
Careful, Stella.
It's crystal.
Crystal sings.
This isn't glass.
- lmpressive.
- Thank you.
I'll shoot you if you say ladies first.
So Adam's got his boxers all in a twist because Haylen's getting a job with the FBl.
Huh? Good for her.
So why does Adam care? Didn't he think she was after his job? - I think he had a crush on her.
- Hmm.
- This looks like tedious fun.
- Yeah.
I reconstructed the shards of plastic I recovered from Jones' pocket.
It's an old phonograph cylinder.
One of the original mediums for reproducing and recording sound.
- Wow.
Kinda like the first iPod.
- Hmm.
It's pretty beat down, huh? Yeah, there's scratches in the grooves and I'll have to dig those out to get it to play.
Are these initials right there? SH? Sam Harding.
Except I found it on Walter Jones.
Maybe he was a klepto.
Or whatever's recorded on this cylinder was important for Walter Jones to keep in his pocket.
We need something that might help us find Lawson.
Yeah, well, right now, all we got is this cylinder.
You think Walter Jones' murder is somehow connected to Lawson's disappearance? - It was 80 years ago.
- Yeah.
Harding's throne.
It's the same chair that's in the portrait in the foyer.
Same chair, same room.
But the chair's in a different place.
Also is the side table and the lamp and the candlesticks.
It's all been rearranged.
Everything in the painting is in this room.
Maybe we're supposed to put it all back the way it is in the painting.
Then let's get to it.
Everything's the way it's supposed to be.
There's gotta be something else or we just wasted our time.
Let me see.
There's only one thing missing.
I smell burnt flesh.
Could this be Richard Lawson? What is this place? Whatever it is, it burned the victim alive.
Richard Lawson? It's hard to confirm without an autopsy but according to his driver's licence, Lawson was over 6ft.
Also noticing a faint eye colour of blue.
Vic's burned to the core.
I'm thinking He died from pulmonary edema.
Yeah, his lungs filled with fluid.
He drowned before he burned.
How did he get in here without playing musical furniture? We had to rearrange that entire room before the door opened.
There's gotta be more than one way in.
Flack and I were just in this room.
Only we came through that door.
So that's how the victim got in.
Why couldn't he get out? He was trapped.
There was no way to escape.
This runs on gas.
And this is our heat source.
From the fireplace in the bedroom.
Well, Harding was meticulous when he designed this place.
Heat rises.
If he was using forced air, he'd put that vent down by the floor.
Right.
There's gotta be something else.
These side walls are made of a lead steel alloy.
They keep the heat in.
This middle panel is copper, a heat conductor.
Harding's intent was to cook his victims to death.
Richard Lawson.
They found him.
Wait a minute.
Hey! Hey, guys! Hey! Hey, Stella! Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, anybody! Hey, Stella, Mac! Anybody out there? Hey! Hey, hey, hey, guys! Hey! Hey, Mac! Stella! Hey.
Hey, hey, hey! Hey, somebody! Hey! You OK in there? Yeah.
Just get me out of here.
Guys, I don't think we're finished here.
We found Richard Lawson, Danny.
I know.
I think somebody else is trapped up there.
All right.
This better be good.
Lawson's fingerprints weren't a match to the fingertip prints I accidentally picked up on the static lift.
Somebody else came through that skylight? I assumed they were his prints.
I figured he used his hands to break his fall.
Who would know to come through that window? I checked his phone records.
T urns out that he called his house before he called 91 1.
This is audio from his voicemail.
Honey, where are you? Help me.
I'm trapped.
You gotta get here as soon as you can or I'm not gonna make it.
Lives with girlfriend, Paula Davis.
I tried to find her.
She hasn't showed up for work, missed a lunch and two other appointments.
You think she responded to his call for help? There's no evidence of her being there.
Now Adam found a fibre on the cut glass from the window.
It wasn't until I saw the crime-scene photos that I saw Lawson's clothing.
That fibre didn't come from him.
And there's the unknown prints.
Somebody else came through that window.
Paula came looking for her boyfriend and ended up getting trapped? Taylor.
Mac, you recall seeing any water leaks in the penthouse? No.
Why? I'm with the downstairs tenant who's complaining about a water leak coming from above her.
A leak? The water's been shut off in that penthouse for years.
Oh.
All right, I'll look into it.
Death by knife.
Death by fire.
If Paula Davis is up there, she's drowning.
I'm sending the blueprints over to you now.
These are of the apartment you're in below the penthouse.
I got it.
Water from a place with no water.
I'm no plumber but is that even possible? There's no plumbing on that side of the building.
Maybe a chemical breakdown of the water can indicate a source.
Boom.
Anything? Oxygen peak looks extremely low.
The sample hasn't been exposed to the atmosphere in a very long time.
How long are we talking? Well, I was a geology major and I did a lot of field-study work.
Oxygen-depleted water is most likely from an aquifer.
I studied one that hadn't been tapped since the 1 930s.
What does that mean? The water is coming from the penthouse.
It must have its own water supply.
Maybe a tank.
Whatever it is, it's right above us.
Danny said the leak was coming from the northwest corner of the apartment.
This direction.
I don't see a drop of water anywhere.
Danny? We're in the room above you.
He says to walk west 10ft.
Still dry.
The water's gotta be behind this wall.
Paula Davis! Paula Davis, are you in there? She's still alive.
I've got the camera over the edge of whatever she's encased in.
There's no way we can bust through this wall quick enough.
We gotta figure out how she got trapped.
She's losing air and going hypothermic.
We gotta get oxygen in there now.
I'm on it.
She can see the Hawk-Eye.
Her pupils are barely responding to light.
Her muscles are relaxing.
She's close to death.
We gotta find a way in.
Nothing's happening.
That water's 72 degrees.
The range for survival at that temperature is 3 to 12 hours.
Danny said Paula got the call from Lawson 1 1 hours ago.
So if we're lucky, we have an hour.
Maybe we should be looking for what we don't see.
Light switches.
There's a big giant chandelier in a tiny room with no light switch to turn it on.
Another piece of the puzzle.
It's a clue.
One that asks you to figure out how to turn on a light.
Huh, that's an odd size and place for the only window in the room, don't you think? We need a ladder.
Jones wouldn't have had a ladder.
So we use the stairs.
Nothing happened.
It's gotta all be about the window.
The stairs lead right to it.
That skyscraper wasn't there when Harding modified the place.
- It's blocking the sun.
- Can't move the building.
Then we move the sun.
Oh, hey, did you get everything you need? Yeah.
I think so.
Well, listen, for what it's worth, Haylen is really great, really competent, really smart and, um I didn't know her that well but I know she's the type of person that's meant to work in that field.
She's smart and talented.
And you're really happy she's leaving because she was threatening your job.
What? No.
No.
Who, who, who told you that? Was it Jake? Everyone.
That is so not true! Me? Threatened? Please! Wait.
How many people said that? Whatever.
A sad, painful song.
A song of lies and betrayal.
Heartbreaking.
But a song can only make you feel so much.
It's no substitute for real suffering.
That's why I invited you to my home.
Everything I worked for, you stole it and sold it to the highest bidder.
And kept the money.
My money.
Then you bought off the judge and made me look like a liar.
So while you made millions, I invested my unrewarded ingenuity and hard work into making this place a lesson in pain, lies and betrayal.
You may be smart enough to steal my inventions but let us see if you are smart enough to survive them.
Colour of that light look familiar to you guys? A UV-filtering oxide.
Harding turned the chandelier into a primitive UV light.
There's something written on that wall.
Huh.
"l search my face for a four-part song.
"My heart keeps pace eight days long.
" Should we look in the mirror? Four-part song could be referencing the four bedposts.
No.
It's a clock.
The riddle's about a grandfather clock.
Eight days long, the time some grandfather clocks run before needing to be restarted.
Its hands search its face.
It finds its song on the quarter hour when it chimes.
That's a four part song.
And its heart is the pendulum that keeps pace.
OK.
Now what? We start time.