(Dogs yelp)
Hey!
How'd you guys get out?
(Barking)
(Dogs bark and whine)
What's the matter, boys?
Whoa, take it easy!
Hey!
- Thanks. - Sure.
Uh-uh.
Have you been inside?
What have you got?
There you go, Detective.
Thanks.
Little tired this morning. Pulling a double.
Yeah. Join the club.
Good morning, Catherine.
Good morning, Gil.
So this is Tony Braun's house.
Son of Sam Braun
He was Steve Wynn before Steve Wynn
You bet your ass. Sam came to Vegas when Vegas was dying.
Built three casinos in a year.
Had ties to Bugsy Siegel.
Wish I had Tony Braun's gardener working for me.
Guy sniffed it out from the jump.
Blinds were drawn shut, side gate unlooked,
dogs let out
A plus B plus C
equals 911 .
All seems very neat and peaceful, doesn't it?
Chasing the dragon.
Pinch of H, heat the foil, inhale the fumes.
With a Xanax back.
100 pills,
prescription filled yesterday.
So the rumours about old Tony boy are true?
Drug overdose?
It sure seems that way.
If only life were that simple.
Eight rolls two copies. Case is hot Put a rush on it.
OK.
Lose an earring?
Looks like somebody did.
He's got adhesive residue on his wrists.
He was restrained. Some sort of tape.
- That would be the obvious. - He had company.
Welcome?
Or unwelcome?
Where's the purge? Car blows its engine, there's an oil leak.
Guy OD's, where's the body fluid? Urine, vomit, excrement?
Did somebody clean him up?
Interesting lovebites on chest.
Curious, isn't it?
And he's posed.
When did you know this was a homicide?
- Initially? - Yeah.
When I saw the TV on.
(Dog barks)
I'll tell you one thing. lf those were my dogs, l wouldn't be leaving this gate open.
Yeah, a dog owner on heroin. How responsible can he be?
The gardener said it's the first time in five years that he found this gate unlocked.
What's so different about this morning?
The last morning of Tony Braun's life?
Either somebody in the house opened it, or somebody had a key,
because this lock hasn't been forced.
There's no pry marks, no metal shavings.
So, why was the gate open?
A heroin addict's confetti.
Nothing like going on a binge.
This is black tar heroin.
It's the difference between a Cadillac and a Pinto.
- How would you know? - It's my job.
I count at least six balloons, and that's just in the bedroom.
The dealer must have come down the chimney.
It's like Christmas in July here.
Not that Braun even needed any more drugs.
Looks like the guy had a pill for everything.
Can you get a print off those balloons?
I can get a print off air.
Any luck?
I've gone through every garbage can in the house.
- What about the cans outside? - First thing I checked. Zip.
(Barking)
Hey, doc.
Leg fell asleep.
I always wondered which one of us coroners would get to carve Tony.
His lifestyle was no secret.
Sex, drugs and a big bankroll.
No needle marks on his arms.
The guy plays golf. Short-sleeved shirts.
Check between the toes, groin area.
Whatever he did went up his nose.
Nasal cavity looks like raw hamburger.
These abrasions around his mouth? What?
Hard to shave when you're stoned?
Or they're pressure marks.
For example, if someone places a pillow or an object
against someone's nose and mouth in a struggle.
Petechial haemorrhaging
also suggestive of suffocation.
Not always.
For as much as pathology's an absolute science, it isn't.
Vessels can rupture under innocent circumstances, such as a violent cough.
These three circular red marks on his chest.
They're not bug bites.
No neurotoxins present.
But that's not to say
some overanxious paramedic trying to save a legend's life didn't cause them in the moment.
CPR wasn't performed.
Then I don't know what they are.
It's hard to OD just inhaling heroin.
I know he was restrained,
which leads me to believe someone forced him to ingest lethal amounts of heroin and Xanax.
Excuse me!
Yeah, I'll take care of it.
Boy, are you lucky my lawyer's on a golf course.
I've been standing out Here
in the heat, for hours, answering these stupid questions. Here's your answer, OK?
This is my house. OK?
This is half my house, anyway.
Who's this?
Braun's squeeze She's an ex-stripper - Hey! Hey!
- Perhaps you met in a professional capacity. These are my things!
And uh...where has she been the past 12 hours?
Well let's see.
On my God! - Quote: "Out." End quote.
When Tony's drug dealer showed up she split She slept at a friend's
She didn't like the way Tony acted when he was cruising on magic carpets.
Listen.
If anything is missing from here, I'm gonna add you to my lawyer's To Sue list.
Why don't you just put the camera away
before you get arrested?
You can't arrest me in my own house.
Right now, your house is our crime scene.
Uh...
We can do whatever we want.
That includes fingerprinting you.
Why? Didn't do anything.
- Thumb to pinkie. - Oh, look...
I just lost my boyfriend, OK? You're a woman. I'm just looking out for my end here.
You know?
Things start to disappear...
If Tony were here, he'd tell you himself. "Just make sure Janine's taken care of."
That's a lawyer's call.
Hey, I'm in the will.
Of course you are.
Can I help you?
- Is Sam Braun in? - He's not seeing anyone today.
Would you let him know that Catherine Willows is here to see him?
Just one second, please.
Mugs?
I remember the first time I saw you.
You didn't have any clothes on.
Yeah, well, that was a long time ago.
I would have taken you home right then if I could have.
I know, but you were married, and I was a baby.
It would have never worked.
Hey, Sam, how are you holding up?
Hey, Dad!
I got the press clogging up valet. Should I call security, just handle it, or what?
I'll take care of it.
You go back to the pit. Make sure nobody's robbing us blind.
You know,
back in...uh...in '67,
I was in my 20s,
and I was drinking in a dive in downtown Buffalo.
At the end of the bar was this pro quarterback, drinking double Scotches two at a time,
midnight to seven in the morning.
It's Sunday. Game day, mind you.
So you know what I did?
Called my bookie, bet against him.
Guess what.
I'll be damned if he didn't throw six touchdown passes.
Yeah. Sounds like Tony.
You know, even when Tony was juicing,
he could run circles round these college Harvard types.
And I'm not saying that just cos he was my kid.
Tony was the best damn casino exec this town has ever seen.
Just between you and me,
I couldn't hold a candle to him.
And now he's dead.
Overdose.
Sam,
the bigger the pedestal,
the bigger the target.
Nobody shoots at that target without going through me.
Well, that's business.
What about personal?
What do you mean?
Did you ever talk to Tony about any of his girlfriends?
Which one? They were all trying to pick the gold out of his teeth.
Janine Haywood.
She's the worst.
And he loved her the most. Can you believe it?
Yeah. I do.
If I know her type, now that she has the gold,
she'll be going after the silver.
(Fizzing)
OK. On the left, Braun prints we got from the coroner.
And on the right,
gold-digger prints I got from Janine Haywood.
Here's where it gets interesting. I took six prints off this bottle.
- And? - They belong to one person.
Good thing or...bad thing?
It's good if you're us,
bad if you're Janine Haywood.
Hm.
- Have you seen Brass? - Not tonight, no. Why?
Oh...print off air. Orange balloon, cyanoacrylate. Dead bang. Drug dealer.
Ooh! Ooh! Watch it! Evidence.
- Where'd you get it? - Cracker box.
It was all stuck together. I don't want to ruin any potential prints,
but I saw this TV dinner commercial, and it hit me.
I'm gonna put it in the freezer.
- Did you try this coffee? - Mm-mm.
The last cup I had tasted like motor oil.
Oh, don't touch it! That's my pot!
Your pot?
Yeah, you know, for my own private stash.
Blue Hawaiian.
$40 a pound, only grown a couple of times a year on the Big Island,
hand-picked to perfection.
Good. You're using my water, so I guess that makes it community coffee.
You want a cup, Nick?
No. Thanks.
- What's the matter with your leg? - I don't know, man.
Something back at that house must have bitten me.
Oh, is that alcohol on a bug bite?
Like butter on burns, man. Wives' tale.
This guy told me to put haemorrhoid cream on my acne.
It worked, didn't it?
This is pretty good.
Let me see the bite before you get gangrene.
- Chigger bite. - Yeah?
Probably picked it up in the ferns in Braun's back yard.
See if Catherine's got clear nail polish. It'll seal it off, keep it from itching.
- What happened with that doggy door? - Something two-legged went through it.
We got mostly partials. The Print Lab's working on it.
Be sure to check it against Janine Haywood's prints.
Braun's stomach contents.
No food, plenty of drugs.
- Xanax? - And heroin.
I thought he inhaled it.
- Inhaled and ingested. - He ate it?
Got there somehow.
- Where are all the undissolved pills? - Didn't find any.
Most ODs die before digestion's complete, right?
It's my guess someone mashed up the Xanax, dissolved them in red wine, which I did find.
OK. So what do we know that we can write home about?
Well, Braun was a heroin addict, using heavy just before he died,
which means he was probably meek as a lamb.
It wouldn't have taken much to bind his hands with duct tape.
And make him drink hemlock.
It's a lot easier
to pour liquid down a guy's throat than it is to make him swallow 100 pills.
It wasn't 100 pills.
- How many? - Educated, unofficial guess,
no more than 50.
Based on your pupes, I could take you in now.
Hey, man, I'm in mourning. It's tears you see.
I lost a customer. It's like losing my job, kind of.
- You're Braun's grocery store? - But I deliver.
- So when did you last deliver? - The night before he croaked.
About nine o'clock. Ask his woman. She fine, too.
She told us, soon as you got there, she left.
Oh, she didn't go that fast.
I dropped off some balloons, Braun paid me, she gave me a tip.
What, "Shave the soul patch"?
Ha! No.
- 30 Xanadus. - Xanax?
I told you, I dropped them down the bathroom sink.
First time I heard that.
Look, I took two, gave Tony two,
and I accidentally dropped 15 or 20 down the sink.
It was an accident. You know?
An accident?
Haven't you ever spilt a drink?
Not lately. We found 50 Xanax in Tony's stomach.
Don't pin that on me. I left.
I'll tell you what you left. Your prints all over the bottle.
I went to the pharmacy! Waited in line,
picked up the prescription, signed for it,
brought it back to the house.
You know Tony did nothing for himself except work and get high.
- It got you a new Mercedes, didn't it? - Yes, it did.
It'll buy me the dress for Tony's funeral too.
When you left your half a house, where did you go?
- A friend's. - Well, let's get her on the line.
She's out of town.
Let me guess. She's incommunicado?
If that means you can't reach her, yeah.
Oh! Mind the dummy.
It's been 24 minutes, Greg. When's this thing gonna be done?
Well, with all due respect, sir, it's not a baked potato. It's Braun's blood.
And with all the impurities in his system, it might take a little extra time.
Did I ever tell you I used to live in New York?
Is this gonna be a short story or a novel?
(Beeping) - Excuse me.
You know, heroin has a nine-minute half-life. After that it metabolises into morphine.
What's the 6-MAM count?
158 nanograms per mil.
Definitely not lethal.
The same with Xanax. Quarter-mil tabs, 100 micrograms per litre.
Again, not lethal. There's addicts walking around Times Square with more drugs in their system.
So Braun should still be walking around.
And the er...point of your New York story was...?
Oh, I was just gonna tell you about another way to take heroin.
A suppository up the coolee. You just stand on your head and let gravity...
Forget it.
Braun didn't die of a drug overdose, accidental or otherwise.
I figured. So why did I bring the dummy?
Braun's shirt.
Robbins opened him up. His lungs were compressed.
Remember Burke and Hare, the 19th-century Scottish body snatchers?
Made a living intoxicating innocent victims and suffocating them,
sold the cadavers to teaching hospitals?
Got away with it, too, till a student discovered his fiancée on a slab.
Is this part of the Sherlock Holmes Fan Club kit?
Janine Haywood...
said that she left the house when the drug dealer arrived.
I think she came back.
So Braun would have been on his third or fourth balloon by then?
It would have been easy to tape his wrists, mash up 50 pills...
..force-feed him a Xanax cocktail.
Everything was going great till the gardener showed up.
And then I think her plan turned to panic.
It takes time to OD. Time Janine didn't have.
Burke would kneel on his victim's chest,
covering his mouth and nostrils.
When you're doing drugs, you're a slob.
When you're being manhandled, you're even sloppier.
Like this.
He was Burked.
(Phone rings)
Hello?
just outside Blue Diamond - Where?
Brass? You're breaking up
Said he was in Blue Diamond, digging something up.
(Sirens)
NEW ORDER: Crystal
We're like crystal
Yeah
We break easy
Ooh-ooh
I'm a poor man
If you leave me
Ooh-ooh...
Hey! Hey, what's going on?
Anybody ever tell you to call before you dig?
I got permission to be here.
Oh, is that right?
From who? A dead man?
You got a name?
My name's Curt Ritten. Look, Tony Braun?
He was a friend of mine right?
This is his property.
He calls me a month ago, he says, !If anything should happen to me, start digging,
take care of what's mine at all cost."
- That's what I'm doing. - Do me a favour, Curt Ritten.
Put down the shovel. OK.
- Stand over there. - OK.
Maybe Janine had a helper.
Hey, guys? You might want to check out the basement.
A sable cloud turns forth its silver lining to the night.
That's a lot of motive.
And a lot of silver.
OK. Three rolls of tape, found in a truck owned by Curt Ritten.
Nice!
Let's see if that's where my print came from.
No match. Aw!
Listen to you! Would you rather hit a home run in the fourth or the bottom of the ninth?
Let me ask you something. Braun collected silver.
Coins bullion...
23 tons of it.
Why bury it in Blue Diamond?
Cos he was smart. For the past 20 years, the value of silver's gone to nothing.
A commodity broker's gonna charge you a storage fee per troy ounce.
There's only one thing worse than losing T-8% on silver a year.
That's losing 9-10% because of some stupid storage fee.
What good's collecting silver coupons when you're dead?
Depends on who's doing the clipping.
Oh, we got a positive association! Roll to tape.
Curt to Tony.
- Are you arresting me for digging? - No.
Burglary, theft and conspiracy, to start.
Tony asked me to move his silver collection to his ranch in Wyoming. I'm doing what I was told.
Mr Ritten? It appears
we may have physical evidence connecting you to the murder of Tony Braun.
Look, I had nothing to do with the drugs.
I swear to you, I haven't messed around with that stuff in a long time.
I was always telling Tony, as a friend, to get off of it. To walk away.
- How'd you know where the silver was buried? - I built the vault for him! I'm a contractor.
- That's what I do. - Ever work at his house?
No. We did talk about me building a basement for him once. It never got off the ground.
- So you've been to his house? - We were friends.
I've been to his house plenty of times.
I was there a couple of weeks ago. We watched the Notre Dame game.
Did you ever leave anything there or bring anything over to his house?
Yeah, I brought a six-pack and some chips.
Sour cream.
Tools of the trade, Curt. Construction items. Hammer.
- Duct tape - No.
Why would I do that? I got no idea what you're talking about.
Whatever you don't tell us, we'll find it.
It's the quickest warrant I ever got.
Yeah. The Braun family. Long arms.
I thought you said that Ritten's wife lives in Carson City?
She does. They both do. He just stays here when he's working.
Or digging up silver.
(Door opens)
Mrs Ritten?
Criminalistics.
Police officer.
Oh!
Jeez!
You scared me!
How'd you get in here?
I don't have to ask you that question.
How can this be, Mandy? We found the tape in the guy's truck.
You're telling us the prints on that tape aren't his or hers?
If their names are Curt Ritten and Janine Haywood, the answer's no.
- This is ridiculous. - This thing must have a virus.
- Maybe you have the wrong suspects. - That's easy for you to say.
All you do is scan prints all day and hit Enter.
Look, I'm not your beast of burden.
Sara, this is your thing.
Mandy? Give me something dandy.
I'll give you something dandy.
Your doggy door prints. Goodbye. I have to go on a break now.
- See what I mean? - Your prints came back unknown too?
No. Came back Walt Braun.
- Who is he? - He's Tony Braun's brother.
He's a pit boss at the Tangiers, which is why his prints are on file. Gaming card.
He's family. Why's he using the doggy door, not the front door?
Huh. Go figure. The more evidence shows up, the more this case doesn't make sense.
We got two suspects in custody and neither of their prints are on the duct tape.
Or on the doggy door.
- But the brother's are. - Mm-hm.
- So call the Print Lab. - It's been done.
They're not Walt Braun's prints on the tape.
Came back unknown.
Hey.
I've got Detective Vega rounding up Walt Braun.
Apparently this Janine Haywood really got around.
When she wasn't at Braun's house playing girlfriend.
she was over at Vault Boy's flat, playing mistress
Which gives neither of them a credible alibi
Flimsy alibis don't prove murder. What else have we got?
- Nothing probative. Let the girlfriend go?
Curt Ritten goes back to lockup till he posts bail.
Forget Curt. Forget Janine. Forget the suspects. It's simple.
We got to figure out how a piece of duct tape
from a roll in Ritten's truck ended up wrapped round the wrists of our victim.
Without Curt's prints on it.
- Curt, we're out of here. - You're gonna take this too?
Hun? I come down here
with a cheque to bail my husband out, and you say to him, "We're out of here"?
No, honey, you're out of here.
- Bonnie, take it easy - Easy?
How many men do you need? Huh?
At least I can take care of mine.
I've stuck by you through bankruptcies, flings, lies, and I've had it, OK? So you choose.
Me or her!
Sorry, Janine.
Yeah. Heard that before.
Call me.
Bail processing is this way.
Been there.
You came down here to ask me about a doggy door? I could have told you over the phone.
It's a quirk. I like to discuss fingerprints in person.
- Tony and I went to dinner. - How long ago?
A while back.
- Be more specific. - Uh, about a month and a half ago.
We ate at Piero's
Talked a little business. I dropped him off.
Walt!
Come here for a second, will you?
My key still works here.
- How come it doesn't work on the front door? - I changed the locks.
So I use the doggy door,
walk through the house, open the door... let Tony in.
A guy with that kind of money doesn't have a security alarm?
When you're a Braun, there's nothing you can't replace.
You can't replace your brother.
What's the matter with your leg?
I don't know. Something must have bit me.
- Mind if I take a look? - What are you, a dermatologist?
I'm an entomologist, actually. I know all about bugs.
Sure. Can you tell me what to put on it? It's killing me.
Chigger bites.
You might want to try some nail polish, keep it from itching.
Would you mind if I took a photograph,
- for my bite collection? - Whatever rubs your Buddha.
We're almost done.
Mr Braun, where do you live?
Shoshone Hi-Rise. JW Brown Road.
And you work here? Yean.
I'm a glorified pit boss.
In the last 48 hours, have you been anywhere else besides those two places?
No. My life's pretty routine.
It might just get a little more routine.
Nick? I need your leg. Show me your bite.
- It's no worries. I got some cream. - Hey!
All right. It's no big deal, really.
What time did you log in at the Braun house?
9:15 that morning.
How long after that did you start in the back yard?
- About a half-hour. - You're not the only one with chigger bites.
Who is this?
Walt Braun.
It's now 9:30 at night.
Approximately 36 hours ago, you were bitten. Three hours earlier than that,
Tony Braun was murdered. Chiggers run a predictable course.
A chigger attaches itself to a hair follicle and injects a digestive enzyme
into the skin, which ruptures the surrounding cells,
allowing the chigger to suck them up,
leaving behind a red, itchy bump.
- So? - Walt Braun lied.
We now have an entomological timeline that places him at the house
on the day his brother was murdered.
Ah, I don't know, boss.
I mean, ask yourself the question.
Are doggy door prints and chigger bites enough to get a man for murder?
What have we got?
Well, I got motive. According to the family lawyer, the drug addict...
Now, Jim, that's just a little callous.
Call it what it is. I mean, I know you're friends with the family, but the guy used heroin.
He was a drug addict who waited to inherit the old man's fortune.
And the brother?
- Walt's out of the picture. He's out in the cold. - He is?
Yeah. But Tony promised to take care of him. Whatever he got, he'd split 50:50.
All in silver included,
until about a month ago.
But Tony changed his mind, which changed the will.
So wait a second. Janine, the stripper, claims that half of everything is hers.
That's actually more than wishful thinking?
Bet Walt wasn't too happy about that, his 50:50 going 75:25 the wrong way.
Curt was digging up the silver to protect Janine's interest.
- What's in front of us that we're missing? - What evidence do we have that's still open?
I just got the references off Walt Braun, gave the samples to Greg.
A couple of things on the priority list haven't been processed
Tape lifts. Adhesive residue. I got the earring back.
Where'd you find that?
Living room, near the body.
- We have to deal with that. - Test it against Janine.
If you want to swab me, go ahead.
But I can save you the Q-tip. That's really not my style.
- Ms Haywood, you have pierced ears. - Yeah.
He doesn't understand. I don't wear studs.
Haven't worn studs since like... God, seventh grade.
Mm-hm.
Can I see that picture?
See?
This is an earring back. It goes to a stud earring.
I don't wear studs. I'm more of a dangle gal.
I like chandeliers. They move with you. They're on wires, no backs.
Are you finished?
Open your mouth.
Don't bite down. Wouldn't want you to swallow it.
How about your girlfriends?
Or...Tony's girlfriends?
Any of them wear studs?
Look, Rule No. 1, no women allowed in the house.
Tony had a wandering eye, he had a wad of cash. Who needed that drama?
- What about the maid? - Rule No. 2.
Heavy-set, over 50, no make-up, no jewellery, no English.
- Wow! You got this whole thing down, huh? - Yeah. This is my house.
I didn't do anything wrong.
I inherited Josie, and she cleans real good.
- How often does she vacuum? - Every day. Except on her day off.
Hm. The day Tony died.
Mm.
Well, if the maid is as good as Janine says she is...
Then the earring back was lost that day.
Here. Well, maybe not.
The earring back - not Janine's. But it was in the ear of a female.
So I guess Rule No. 1 was broken. There was a woman in the house.
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
Whoever's prints are on the duct tape is missing an earring back.
- Who's the only other woman in the story? - She lives in Carson City.
- She's here now. - And she has access to Curt's truck.
- The fight in the police department? - Hell hath no fury.
It's not mine. I don't wear earrings.
You know, it's funny. Just recently I had a little education in earrings.
And I noticed
- that you have pierced ears. - So what?
If you don't wear earrings for a while, the holes will close up.
Will you volunteer a DNA sample?
It will confirm your story, or confirm ours.
I'm not giving you anything.
It's OK, Jim. We have enough.
You should have let your husband rot in jail.
We lifted your thumbprint
from the cheque that you posted for his bail.
We compared it to a set of unknown prints we found on some duct tape at the crime scene.
Just like a pair of earrings identical
So you were at Tony's house the morning he died.
Along with Walt Braun,
whose prints we found on the doggy door.
You know, sometimes, doing the job that we do,
our biggest break comes from the most innocent circumstance.
It was the maid's day off.
But not the gardener's.
That's the thing about murder. You never think to have a backup plan.
The dogs led the gardener right to you.
So you had to wing it,
and finish him off.
The gardener came to the window.
But he didn't see you.
So you removed the tape from Tony's wrists
and made it look like an OD.
What I don't get is,
you and Walt Braun didn't move in the same circles.
How'd the two of you hook up?
Newsflash, sweetheart.
You can't make a deal if you keep your mouth shut.
That's the thing about my father.
He could never give advice,
but he had a million stories.
"The Scorpion and the Frog."
The Scorpion needed to get across the creek and asked the frog for a ride.
The frog says, "I can't trust you, you're a scorpion."
The scorpion says, "Sure you can,"
and hops on the frog's back.
Midway across, the scorpion stings the frog.
The frog looks at him.
"Why would you do that?
Now we're both gonna die."
The scorpion says,
"I can't help it.
I'm a scorpion."
If Tony hadn't thrown a party,
the two of us would never have been standing at that bar.
(Music and conversation)
You're looking at my brother's trophy?
No, my husband's bimbo.
Walt Braun.
Bonnie Ritten.
And an opportunity presented itself.
Tony had erased you from the will,
and Bonnie wanted the people that hurt her to pay.
Ain't love grand?
You know, this...this could have all been his. His and Tony's.
- It's not your fault. - Sure it is.
I committed the cardinal sin.
I loved one son more than the other.
It's human nature.
We can't deny our feelings.
But you can hide it. And I didn't.
They're my sons.
I made 'em, I raised 'em.
Then one kills the other.
Hey, Sam?
You've still got me.
You know, I should have married your mother.
Well, considering I was six months old when you guys lit the flame,
a lot of time has passed.
You had plenty of chances.
It just wasn't in the cards, Catherine.
Just wasn't in the cards.