CSI: NY s01e07 Episode Script

How difficult is it to understand the concept of stop, drop and roll? Panic and adrenaline rarely leave room for logic.
Eyelashes and eyebrows are only slightly singed.
Some blistering on the cheeks, but the face didn't suffer the same degree of burns as the chest and the hands.
There's something gooey here.
"Gooey"? There's a good forensic word.
Gooey.
We'll have to use that more.
Traces of the goo were along the hairline, behind the ear and just above the collarbone.
Some kind of melted plastic? What are you looking for? A mask.
I hear this guy is just the opening act.
The main event's in the bank.
They do things big south of Canal Street.
It's Chinatown, Mac.
Team CSI : NY Kritoph and Van's Transcript Season 1 - Episode 7 Rain They robbed the safe deposit boxes.
Cut their way in.
Gotta wear a mask to a bank robbery.
It's a rule.
How'd the fire start? Two of the bank's guards came to the rescue.
A couple shots were fired and boom.
Acetylene tank ignited.
How many perps? Security guard Marvin Hummel says there were two, but he's not sure.
He was busy trying to save his friend's life.
This one shot the other guard, Tony Fenn.
You talk to him? DOA at the hospital.
Hey, Mac.
I got a blood trail here.
?????? This means there were probably three of them.
One dead in the vault.
One who ran out in the street.
One got away.
Blood trail just ends.
Our evidence was washed away by the rain.
I heard the shots and the explosion and ducked under my desk.
I didn't see any faces.
I didn't go anywhere near the vault.
But you did call 911? Yes.
I heard screaming and smoke was escaping into the main banking area.
The sprinkler system didn't activate? It doesn't work.
So the smoke detectors only alerted the people inside the bank, and the system's not connected to the fire or police department? Unfortunately, small, independent banks tend to spend their money on attracting customers rather than safety and security.
Like I told you, I heard gunfire.
Three shots before I even got to-to the vault door.
You didn't enter the vault with Tony? No.
We hear noises all the time.
It's usually nothing.
Plus, it was raining and the wind was blowing, so I just figured it was something on the air-conditioning unit.
Can you recall any little details? Maybe the way one of them walked.
Did you hear anyone speak, notice something strange? No.
Nothing.
Look, is Tony gonna be okay? I'm sorry.
Mr.
Hummel, I'm gonna need your weapon.
Come on, bullet.
Got it.
Ballistics is gonna be fun on this one.
You know, six months ago, this place was a shoe store? And they just come in and turn it into a bank? These days anybody can be a banker.
Yeah, but you'd think they'd consider some kind of security.
I mean, even double-thick steel.
What is this, stainless steel sheeting? It's the illusion of security.
I got this stuff on the front of my dishwasher.
Okay.
Let's work this thing.
Perps cut through the wall here.
Coming from the empty storefront.
My guess is, they worked through the night.
But they couldn't enter the vault till around 8:30 a.
m.
, after the bank manager and security guard punched through their codes to disarm the alarm.
And that'd leave them about 30 minute before the bank opens at 9:00, to get in, get the goods and get out.
The security guard said his partner heard a noise.
Please don't move ! So our guard interrupts their plans and they started to head out the way they came in.
I'd say the first guy out had to knock over the tank.
The regulator cracks and this place is a tin can of excitement.
A perfectly planned bank heist ruined by the unexpected.
There's something I don't get, here.
I mean, if your time's limited and you want to get out with everything you can, why wouldn'tyou pop all the safe deposit boxes in the same row or column? Well, it's true.
These guys were all over the place.
You got 38, 58, 18, 28 What's with all the eights? It's a lucky number in the Chinese culture.
We have superstitious bank robbers? Superstitious bank patrons, most of them Chinese.
Their money and valuables are safe if they're in a deposit box containing the number eight.
Yeah, but then how do you explain, 12? We got 14, we got 45 Let's just add that to our list of unanswered questions.
Here's another one.
All right, we know how they broke in here.
How'd they break in there? Mr.
Bloom is the leasing agent.
He received a letter a week ago that he believed was from the owner.
It said he was no longer interested in renting out the building.
So, he locked up the space and stopped showing it.
I did keep the signs up for a little free advertising.
Just in case someone called and I could show them another space.
So far, there's no clear sign of breaking and entering.
The doors, air ducts, windows.
You buying his story? Well, you know me-- everybody's a suspect till you prove otherwise.
Mr.
Bloom, does anyone other than yourself have a key? Just the owner.
He's still in China.
I spoke to him this morning.
No chance anyone duplicated your key? No.
Impossible.
We'll need that letter you received.
Absolutely.
We'll also need a list and description of anyone he showed the space.
They probably cased it under the guise of wanting to lease it.
You check the hospitals on our third perp? Yeah, even the ones in Jersey.
Nothing.
Found the key.
Thank you.
Perp suffered second-and third-degree burns over approximately 52% of his body.
Most of the upper torso.
Foaming from the mouth indicates pulmonary edema.
Abnormal accumulation of fluid in the chest.
Take a look at this.
See? No soot or smoke in the throat.
A flash-fire explosion.
Right.
Inhalation of superheated air causes a reflex closure of the upper larynx.
Not only does it scald the throat tissue, it collapses.
So he suffocated instantly.
Before he even knew what hit him.
This is odd.
He was holding something.
Didn't let go until he had to.
The burns on the hands are significant.
They wore latex gloves.
The gloves went up in flames, caused a lot of damage to the exterior tissue.
How soon can we get an I.
D.
on these guys? I was just about to print them.
I think I can work from the inside out.
Looks like a partial print.
I was searching for anything that might lead us of our third perp.
Just check this out.
I'm calling him Robber Number One.
He's in the vault.
Okay, same guy.
No.
Wait a minute.
It's not the same wardrobe.
That's not the same guy.
He's got a hood on his jacket.
That's Robber Number Two.
Here come One and Three.
They're all wearing the same mask.
That's why the security guard didn't know whether there were two or three of them.
That's not a president's face.
It's not a superhero.
Not a Halloween mask.
Just an ordinary, everyday face.
Look.
It fits perfectly around the eyes and chin.
Somebody made those masks for their faces.
I mean, they could have poured it from the face or molded it from a picture.
And, if that's the case, there's a good chance it's someone they knew.
Let's find him.
From Hawkes ? Yeah.
He ID'd our burn victim from Bowery Street.
His name is Carlton Himes.
He's 26.
He was in the system for grand larceny auto six years ago.
The other body that we found in the vault is a John Doe.
Nothingto run with.
What about DNA results from the blood at the scene? You know, we're still waiting.
I want you to see something.
A jade monkey.
The English translation of the characters are "love" and "prosperity.
" I think it's a charm bracelet.
And the monkey matches the void in our perp's hand.
It's odd.
There were a lot of valuable things to grab in the vault.
Why go for that? Exactly.
It's probably worth $50.
I did lift a partial print on the clasp.
I'm running it against every database we've got, including employees that are printed at the bank.
Good.
Because superstition wasn't the only reason they opened those boxes.
Based on insurance claims, the contents were valued at over $10,000 in every case.
How do you think our perps knew that they'd hit the jackpot when they opened those boxes? It wasn't luck.
The fingerprint on the clasp belongs to Joanne Cho.
I don't know the contents of a patron's safe deposit box.
No bank employee does.
But you do know the balance of their checking and savings accounts? Yes.
Based on that information, you could probably make an educated guess of who might have something very valuable in their safe deposit box.
No.
If someone should lose the key to their box, who would they go to to get a replacement? Me.
It says here that you have a daughter.
Doris.
She's 11 months old.
And, uh, you're not married.
No.
Do you recognize these? Beads and a jade monkey.
Wow, that's good.
You knew right away.
The first time I looked at them, it took me a while to figure out what they were.
- Are they yours ? - No.
Your fingerprint was on the clasp.
What's his name? The bank robber had this charm in his hand.
I don't know what you're talking about.
Boyfriend? Baby-sitter? Are you going to arrest me? Is he your baby's father? No.
I swear to you I don't know him.
Why would a single mother, with a good job and a small child, suddenly become a bank robber? And why rob safety deposit boxes when you deal with cash every single day? Year of the monkey.
Her child is 11 months old.
Born in the year of the monkey.
Jade is given to a young, Asian female child to represent prosperity and good fortune.
Okay.
So the bracelet belongs to Joanne's baby.
But why is the baby's bracelet in the vault? Yeah.
Of all the things the bank robber could have take out of there-- money, jewels-- he takes a jade monkey? Maybe he wasn't taking it.
Maybe he brought it.
They'll kill her.
They forced you to cooperate with the bank robbery by taking your daughter.
The bracelet is hers, right? Yes.
I asked them to bring proof that they still had her.
This bank robbery just turned into a kidnapping.
???? (pas dans le transcript) We're missing the letter "X.
" It came like that.
Can you describe the men that took your child? Dark hair, dark eyes, fair complexion, medium build.
They looked exactly the same.
I opened the door to get the morning paper Oh, my God! Please No! No! Why didn't you call the police? They said they'd kill her, and I believed them.
I didn't know what to do.
I didn't know why they picked me, and then, that afternoon, that note arrived.
The phone number on the note is a pay phone at Madison Square Garden.
Great.
Two officers will be here with you, and we're going to set up a tap on your phone.
All right? Okay.
The bank robbery went badly.
They haven't returned her.
And I haven't heard anything else.
Do you think Doris is still alive? I'm going to take the note and the baby's clothing down to the lab.
I'll call you the moment I find something.
Please find her.
Just a few questions regarding the shooting in the vault.
- Hey, I'm not sure what else I can tell you.
- Who discharged their weapon first? I heard a shot So, the first shot was discharged from the bank robber's gun, and it struck Tony? Yeah.
But, again, I wasn't right there when it happened.
Who did you fire at? Well, I saw someone moving in-in the smoke.
So the vault filled up with smoke.
Made it hard to see.
Well, to tell you the truth, guys, I was scared and, uh I just fired, not thinking about it.
Are you guys any closer to finding Joanne's little girl? We're working on it.
It's a terrible thing, you know? Thanks a lot.
Okay.
You believe him? I do.
But then there's the evidence.
Mac, I got a hit on the parolee database for the mask.
I got a guy whose facial structure matches the profile.
Check this out.
Parolee Luther Willett convicted four years ago-- bank robbery.
Hit the same place twice in the same week.
Good, Amy.
Find Flack and run with it.
Luther Willett? Detective Flack.
Agent Burn.
Crime Scene Investigators.
Wow.
Cops around here just get prettier every day.
Watch it.
Oh, hey, don't get upset.
I just got out of prison.
You both look good to me.
Where were you yesterday morning, Luther? Not in Chinatown.
I read the newspaper.
You got somebody who can vouch for you? Oh, sure.
My boss.
But you know what? He's out to lunch right now.
You got somebody else? Nobody trusts nobody anymore.
It's really hard to argue with the evidence.
Ah, what do you know? - They look like me - You have a guess on who your twins are ? Nah.
I'm sorry, man.
I can't help you.
Maybe we should just take you in, Luther.
You fit the description-- bank robbery, kidnapping.
What is that, Flack? You're from Brooklyn.
Come on, Luther.
Who hates you enough to try to frame you for bank robbery? You piss somebody off in prison? You got this whole thing all wrong, man.
Why don't you enlighten me? That there? It's a tribute.
Prison just ain't about punishment.
It's about education.
Go in there, guys start bragging about what got you in there.
Then you're teaching it.
Then, one day, you got a flock of disciples.
Why don't you give us the names of your followers? I was in prison for four years.
I had 15 different cell mates, lived in five different cell blocks.
Why don't you guys figure it out? Oops.
Diapers.
paper and ink process that exists.
The good news is, the letters on our cut-and-paste note could have only come from three magazines: Gotham, The Hamptons and Playbill.
And the bad news? Over 20,000 subscribers in Manhattan.
That's not including the other boroughs.
Playbill, huh? Let me see if I can help you narrow the search.
Please.
I found traces of sodium polyacrylate on the baby's clothing.
A form of plastic.
Used in diapers for absorption.
But when I checked the morphology of the diaper, and compared it to the trace that I found on the clothing, there was no match.
It was a dead end.
And what changes that now? Snowflakes.
Fake snow, to be exact, it's also made of sodium polyacrylate.
We have someone making masks, Playbill magazine, and fake snow.
And a play set in the wintertime.
The show opened and closed in the same week.
Theater's been dark for a month and half now.
I come by every once in a while.
I would have known if someone came in here.
Never noticed the hole in the door? Mac.
And one that got away.
A tiny imprint.
The baby was definitely here.
Where is she now? He didn't live alone.
Positive for cocaine.
Found the missing letter "x".
Looks like our letter came from the inside cover of a magazine.
There's a partial zip code on the reverse side.
His name's Kevin Moretti.
He's got a rap sheet longer than I am tall, and he's spent time in jail with our good friend Luther Willett.
What'd you get from his parole officer? That he's been looking for him.
The home address he had on file for Moretti was a Laundromat in the Bronx.
No connection to this place.
Chinatown to East Broadway.
Long way to go.
Especially when you've been shot.
There must've been something here he had to get to.
Or someone.
We may have the guy, but we're no closer to recovering Joanne's baby than we were yesterday and the clock's ticking.
Six hours and our kidnapping turns into a possible homicide.
Gunshot wound to the neck.
Just nicked the carotid artery.
He might have been saved if he hadn't run.
Bled to death.
Doesn't appear to have any burns.
Clearly, he was out of the path of the blast.
Already on his way out? Did any glass shatter at the scene? No.
Lead paint? Possibly.
Usually you have all the answers, Sheldon.
I found recognizable residue in our perp's lungs.
Traces of mercury, glass fibers and lead in his trachea.
Same components found in the lungs of the Ground Zero cleanup crews, many of them got sick.
That was three years ago.
That's the problem.
Over a short period of time, inhaled glass fibers absorb into the lungs.
In this case, they haven't.
It's clear this is a recent deposit.
Taylor.
Joanne Cho received this ransom note about an hour ago.
It's marked urgent and placed in her neighbor's mailbox, but it had Joanne's name and address on it.
We have a kidnapper who relies on the kindness of New Yorkers? We get prints or DNA? No, it came up clean.
I'm running analysis on the writing.
"Deliver in unmarked bills, $200,000.
"4:00.
The New York Bystander newsstand, South East corner of Central Park.
" Same person who signed the letter to the leasing agent wrote this ransom note.
Some sort of gooey residue on top of the piece of paper.
Great choice of words.
Means it came from a notepad.
This isn't the first sheet.
Maybe we can raise the imprint from the page above it.
We need a translator.
Joanne Cho wants to pay the ransom.
The bank's willing to put up money on her behalf.
Can't we talk her out of it? I tried, but she's made up her mind.
The department policy dictates that we respect her wishes.
Great, so the kidnapper takes the money; we can't go after them.
Our priority has to be getting the child back.
Collaring the kidnapper is a close second.
Looks like we've got someone.
White male approaching the newsstand.
Flack, what the hell? Anybody got eyes on our guy? Negative, checkin' the East Side, we've got nothing.
What's with all these squad cars? A police terrorist response drill.
Right here? Right now? Did you know about this? They don't send out a memo.
The point is, they're unannounced.
Did he get the money? Nope.
This is just great.
Damn it! Flack! I found it in a puddle.
Kidnapper got rid of the one thing we could identify : the face.
He blended into the crowd.
I could've looked him straight in the eyes and not even have known it.
I'll swab it, see if I can find anything.
With all that rain, it's not like Mother Nature is playing ball.
Then it's time to change the game.
Where's Doris? Where's my child? They didn't come for the money? No, they didn't pick up the ransom.
But we have some officers at your home and your phone is being monitored.
We're still going after the kidnapper.
What's going to happen to Doris? Isn't time running out? Oh, I see a smile.
Translation of the message on the notepad came back, and we've got a name: Nina Chang.
She works as a makeup artist in the theater.
Employed on Winter Retreat.
But the theater couldn't give us a current address.
Well, what do you say we get creative and see if we can find her? There's 45 Nina Chang or N.
Chang listed in Lower Manhattan.
We got to narrow the search.
Plug in that partial zip code we found on the back of the cutout "X.
" That eliminates about four blocks and 12 Nina Changs.
It's still a needle in the haystack.
It's 'cose we don't have the last two numbers of that zip code.
If we did, it would help.
Okay, six degrees of separation.
Let's list everything that could possibly connect Nina Chang to our kidnapping.
She worked at the theater where we found Kevin Moretti's body.
I found two hairs on the body that were not his.
Can we connect them to Nina? Well, the DNA results came back as female, black, long and straight.
Doesn't mean they're Asian.
Doesn't rule it out.
So she knew Kevin Moretti.
She more than knew him.
I found one of the hairs inside of his clothes.
Most likely, they were on his body before he got dressed.
The hair didn't get there by bumping into him.
Okay, so they were more than just close friends, right? Guy just gets out of prison, he needs a place to live.
All right, we know we can put him in her apartment, which is somewhere in this zip code.
Dr.
Hawkes said the residue in Kevin Moretti's lungs was reminiscent of the debris in the lungs of Ground Zero cleanup workers.
Show me the debris fallout zone.
That eliminates nine Nina Changs.
Why would the residue enter his lungs now? Three years after the event? New construction on an old building.
That would stir up debris that had settled.
My guess is that our girl lives near a construction site.
Five construction sites in that area.
Didn't eliminate a single Nina Chang.
The drug packet I found in Kevin Moretti's pocket.
According to the guys in Narcotics, the dragon is the logo of an Asian gang whose turf runs from Columbus Park to Mott Street between Bayard and Worth.
That's a two-block area.
One construction site, one Nina Chang.
Yes.
Nina, open the door! We're coming in! Where's the baby, Nina? I don't know what you're talking about.
Why are you here? You know Kevin Moretti? No.
Sure you don't want to change that answer? I don't know anything about a baby.
Well, let me tell you what I know, you're lying.
You're a makeup artist.
You made the masks for the robbery.
I work at the cosmetics counter at a department store.
You were in that theater.
Kevin asked me to meet him there, and I did.
Kevin, what happened? It all got messed up.
Kevin? I just left.
You left your boyfriend there to die? I didn't know what else to do.
I didn't want to get blamed for something I wasn't involved in.
Where's the baby, Nina? I told you, I don't know.
That baby was in that theater.
She crawled through your boyfriend's blood.
Write down The Pledge of Allegiance.
I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America I got were five casings at the crime scene, five shots were fired.
One hit and killed the security guard, Tony Fenn.
One was recovered from the wall behind him.
One round was found in the adjacent building.
There was a missing discharge from Tony Fenn's gun.
We found it in the flesh of our wounded guy that got away.
And then there's this bullet.
You pulled it from the pillar in the vault.
Who's the shooter? The other security guard, Marvin Hummel, and it makes absolutely no sense.
I reread Flack's report, I recreated the scene, I considered every option, it's unexplainable.
It should not have hit that pillar.
We find a ricochet at the scene? I checked every inch.
And you're sure this came from Hummel's gun? Absolutely.
He doesn't deny discharging his weapon.
But? If Marvin's story is true about what happened, and he was shooting at the bad guys, this bullet discharged from his gun and stopped midair and then turned left and then hit the pillar.
I swabbed the mask for DNA.
Got only six out of 13 loci.
Not enough to send to CODIS.
The rain diluted the sample.
I got a match here.
Nina wrote the ransom note, and forged the signature on the letter to the leasing agent.
We can prosecute for murder and kidnapping.
Guys.
It wasn't Nina Chang at the drop.
The partial you lifted from the newsstand, it belongs to Marvin Hummel.
Should have never fired your weapon, Marvin.
You, Kevin Moretti, the rest of your buddies had it all planned to the tiniest detail.
You must have been sweating it, knowing they were on the other side of the vault door.
You got this all wrong.
I tried to stop them.
I shot at them.
You shot at nothing.
Shoot 'em! You had to make it look like you were doing your job.
Discharge your weapon and no questions would be asked.
We recovered your shell casing outside the vault.
You never tried to help Tony Fenn.
Well, he should've gone home when I told him to.
Nobody was supposed to get hurt.
Hey, Tony why don't you go on home, man? Nah, I think i'll wait out the rain.
I'll give it a few.
Did you hear something? No.
We've got your print on the newsstand handle.
Why'd you keep going, Marvin? Could have been a hero.
Return Joanne's baby Nobody would've known you were ever involved.
It never would've gotten to that if those guys hadn't messed up at the bank.
There's always something, something you didn't expect or count on, something that screws everything up.
If only Tony had gone home.
If only it hadn't rained.
She's so beautiful.
Thank you.