Meet today's soon-to-be victim, Eric Greenwood. He's bitterly complaining, pacing on the sidewalk and wondering why it is that women love men in uniform. (It's true -- sorry dude, I can't explain it. Though I will say that it's pretty much a guarantee that everything under the uniform is top-grade.) A homeless guy behind him comments that he's a vet, wearing the uniform, and you don't see any women around, and his buddy and I both chuckle. Eric pissily throws out his cigarette and heads to a bar. The morning, two guys are sitting in a car and begin taking pictures of two other guys who zoom up in a van and start stealing bags of trash and a used sofa. They get out and wave their badges and they are, I kid you not, the Sanitation Police. They tell the guys to drop the sofa but as they do, Eric's bloodied body falls out from inside. If he weren't dead, that would have hurt. Lupo and Bernard arrive and notice he smells like beer -- one of the sanitation cops and his self-professed great observation skills point out that there's a bar on the corner. Even after his humiliation on the stand last week, which came as a direct result of his inexperience, Bernard can feel superior to the "mad observation skills" of these two.
The bartender remembers that Eric was there all night, seemingly waiting for someone (who never arrived) and texting away. The phone they didn't know about was clipped to the computer bag they didn't know about. At his apartment they figure that the laptop was what the murderer was after -- I think they discover this from a cord? I'm not positive, as our clues are extremely neat and fast-paced tonight. Lupo sees a very busty picture of someone he assumes is Eric's girlfriend and a picture of a Marine in full gear. They tell the landlord not to move any of Eric's stuff until they say he can, but he still makes an attempt to steal some car speakers still in the box by claiming that Eric was getting them for him. Let's hope he's a better landlord than thief. But this leads to the fact Eric used to work at a car stereo place. Let's go there, shall we? The guys that work there are all...characters. A little jittery guy working on a car gets into a fight with the guy who runs the office about Office Guy not being Jittery's boss, but they're interrupted by a woman complaining that they put 127 miles on her Mercedes when she left her car there. Office worker is actually named Munson, and the jittery one is Dale. Dale tells them that Eric moved to New York eight months before, that Munson gave him a hard time and made him work extra hours, and that he was thinking about joining the service. He recognizes the photo of the Marine as one Eric found online; he'd asked Dale if he could identify the guy's name and unit. (He couldn't.) And where does Dale's military knowledge come from? Call of Duty 4.
Back at the office, the computer unit tracks the photo of the marine to a website selling antique maps, and the owner refers to himself as "Semper Fi Forever." Lupo helpfully places the picture in Western Baghdad by the architecture. Why would he not have pointed that out before? Anita helpfully sends them on an antique map field trip to the NY Library's map room. The guy there tells them that the chances of buying an authentic map online are virtually nil, and goes to pull out the actual map of which they have a printout. He grabs a large binder and begins whipping through the pages, not being at all careful like I'd imagine one would have to do with antique paper, but that's well beside the point. The point is that the map has been stolen, as have all of the other ones featured for sale on the website. So back at the office, Anita's got an actual role this week, to chat with Semper Fi Forever so that the computer lady can track his location. Because she's awesome, she starts to flirt with him when she notices his attention waning and they grab the address -- when the boys barge in past a woman and two young boys, they make their way through the house to a far room where Munson is sitting at his computer. Bernard notices that Anita has asked for pictures and types back, "In your dreams, Loo." Shouldn't that be "Lu," instead of British slang for the toilet? But she knows they've nabbed the guy, and has a celebratory bon bon with the computer lady.
[Dear Cialis: I never ever wanted to think about how, in coming home from college one day, I might be surprising my parents when they were about to get it on. Thanks a lot for a mental picture that I now can't get out of my head.]
Mrs. Munson is still a little bit shaken up from cops breaking down her door. She's also really naïve and insists "her Bob" wouldn't do anything like stealing maps. Lupo asks where her Bob was on Monday and she insists he was home; even though she went to bed early, like always, she's a light sleeper and would have heard him go out. She doesn't know the combo to the safe, so she's generally useless. Lupo, however, gets it on the first try with her and Bob's wedding date and inside finds the maps as well as a bunch of pictures of military guys and a traveler's check for $5,000. He then shows these to Bob in the interview room, where Bob stutters and sweats about how he got the maps at a flea market. When they ask if Eric was his partner, he insists vehemently that Eric had nothing to do with him. Lupo theorizes that Eric discovered what Bob was doing online and was going to bust him, so Bob killed him to keep him quiet. They also tell him that his wife heard him go out, but he says she's a heavy sleeper. When they say she told them the opposite, he finally asks for a lawyer. Why do these people never just do that in the first place? Although I suppose then this would be a much more boring show. They leave the room, whereupon Anita congratulates them on the theory but points out their lack of evidence. The boys know he used the money he made on the maps to buy traveler's checks, which were then cashed in Plattsburgh with a phony ID and a signature that wasn't Bob's, and it seems that he didn't go there himself. Apparently, he had cut $60,000 in checks over the past six months, and Lupo supposes that he sent the money to a partner for safekeeping. Anita points out, "Well, maybe the partner can connect the Bob dot to the Eric dot." She's feeling a little spicy today!
Computer lady has found encrypted files on Bob's hard drive and when Lupo starts to get impatient, she tells him to have a bon bon and relax. She then punches in a few things on the keyboard and voila, one of the files opens: it contains transcripts of private chat room conversations between Eric and "Chrissy89" on a site called b-friends.com -- funny that they're on Bob's computer, but it's a discovery that just moves things along at a nice clip like everything else so far. They also find a picture of Chrissy, which is the one they found on Eric's wall. Eric is listed as one of her friends on the site, and they find another photo -- the one of the marine -- with a love note on it. They realize it's not about the maps and the money -- it's about loooove. Lupo and Bernard do a dramatic reading of the transcript that's about as flat as Fatima's Cover Girl commercial performance and basically, Eric was trying to tell her that Bob was really a married loser, and she didn't want to hear it. Eric then tells her he'll drive up and show her proof, and she tells him, "Don't you dare." He signs off saying he'll see her tomorrow, and this was three days before he died. Anita wonders if she told Bob what Eric is up to and Connie, who appears from nowhere, wonders if Bob would really kill Eric over someone he never met, asking what planet he was from. Lupo answers with a knowing raised eyebrow, "Planet Bob." Connie gets a subpoena going for b-friends' office to get Chrissy's address, while the dynamic duo figure that carless Eric borrowed a customer's car to drive to Plattsburgh.
While Lupo looks at his GPS, an old man chats with him and wonders if Eric took his car to Plattsburgh for a girl. "Why else would anyone go to Plattsburgh?" Well, I'm not from New York so I don't know the town, but it doesn't have an especially elegant name. Sure enough, the GPS was used to find an address in Plattsburgh, so away they go. The address is for the home of Donna Cheponis, who opens the door wearing a low-cut tank top that nicely shows off her boob tattoo. Seriously, that's never a good idea. When they say that they are there about Chrissy, she starts to cry and fall over, and they need to catch her. They tell her they aren't there to tell her that Chrissy's dead, but they're curious to know why she thought that. She tells them that Chrissy ran away two years before, so the police showing up at the door after all that time doesn't bode well. They tell Donna that they think Chrissy is "being deceived by an older man." Donna says that Chrissy was always naïve, and then there's a knock at the door. As she runs to get it, she tells them it's her neighbor come to fix the stove, and that when she comes back she wants to hear all about Bob. The only thing is, neither of them told her Bob's name.
That earns her a trip to the local station, where she reiterates that she hasn't been in contact with Chrissy. They bring up the verbal slip but she still denies knowing where she is. Eventually she admits that a guy came looking for her on Saturday, and confirms when Lupo shows a photo that it was Eric. He told her the same thing, that Bob was tricking her. She then ominously says that when a girl is as pretty as Chrissy, men will say anything. I'm not sure it's being pretty so much as it's posting pictures of yourself in your skivvies on Faceb... I mean, on b-friends.com. Outside the room, they speak to a local D.A. who tells the boys and Connie that Chrissy is a suspected runaway who was into drugs, sex, and hanging with an older crowd, just like her mama. Lupo needs to say out loud that he doesn't believe Donna's story, because the rest of us clearly swallowed it hook, line, and sinker and needed to be warned. The local cop tells them he'll get them a search warrant for Donna's house -- when Connie points out they don't have cause, he just tells them, "My town, my warrant." I get the feeling by his blustery tone that he enjoys being a big fish in a small pond. At the house they find shopping bags from Victoria's Secret, bebe, and Diesel but closets full of bargain-basement stuff. There's also a mounting bracket on the wall for a big TV. Lupo guesses she couldn't carry it by herself and wonders if the stove-fixer, Ronnie, helped her out.
Law time! Connie tells Jack and Cutter that Ronnie helped move the stuff into a locker on the Tuesday after Eric's death, and that the value of the goods adds up to about $60K, aka the amount Bob sent in traveler's checks. Cutter explains the new theory, that Donna was running a con, getting a sucker by posting sexy pictures of her daughter. Their murder theory is a bit strung together with hope here, and I can't quite keep track, but they can't get Donna to talk to see if she knew what Bob was up to. They can't indict her on fraud, even with the locker full of goods, because the local D.A. says that Bob sent the money willingly so they weren't gotten illegally. Cutter and Connie then manipulate Jack into thinking it's his idea to say something to the governor, with whom he has an afternoon meeting.
The governor, played by Tom Everett Scott, pulls some strings, promises the Plattsburgh D.A. money that he didn't know was already promised to the mayor, and he agrees to cooperate. They then get back to talking about a crime bill.
Donna's lawyer and Cutter bluster at each other about whether Donna committed fraud or not, and Connie finally jumps in and says they could just ask Chrissy what happened. Her piercing stare is enough to make Donna fold like a card table and tell them how, after Chrissy ran away, she started going on her b-friends page because it made Donna feel closer to her. She claims that the men were all over her and she ignored them but that Bobby was different, and they became friends and had something real. Once Eric came looking for Chrissy and told her the story, she freaked out and called Bob on the phone. Pretending to be Chrissy, she Bob everything, but of course she had no idea what he would do and can't believe he could have killed Eric, blah blah blah crocodile tears. Her lawyer, having watched the whole thing nervously, composes himself to do one useful lawyer-y thing. When Cutter tells her they'll need her chat transcripts with Bob, he jumps in to say that they won't need them because they have Donna, and that she'll testify against Bob if they drop the fraud charges against her. Interesting that he came up with this offer without speaking to his client first. Cutter happily tells Jack that Donna makes their case, and Jack counters that they'll eat her alive on the stand and that hopefully they'll cut a deal before that happens. Connie comes in with some new info courtesy of Donna's phone records. She did call Bob after Eric's visit, but then she also called Bob the night Eric was murdered, after she called directory assistance to have the number and address of the bar where Eric was hanging out texted to her phone. Cutter and Connie figure that Eric was waiting for Chrissy that night, but that Donna sent Bob instead because she was afraid Eric had figured out the scam and would expose her to Bob, stopping all of the money. Jack figures that it's time that Bob meet Donna.
Bernard and Connie have Donna in an interview room and have her read her side of a transcript of one of her conversations with Bob. Why? Because it's dramatic. Bob watches from the other side of the glass and refuses to believe it when they tell him that Donna was pretending to be Chrissy. He has the gall to be offended that she'd do that. Cutter then brings him in and introduces them to each other, noting that each of them doesn't really resemble the photos they presented on the Internet. He's pissed, but she's all aflutter to meet him and even tries to woo him a bit. Bob is dense enough that they have to keep explaining to him that he was never speaking to Chrissy, and he goes ballistic, trying to get to her and yelling that she sent him after Eric, saying that Eric was bothering her. She's crushed that he would hate her, but I think these two crazies would make a perfect pair. Cutter tells Bob's lawyer that he might want to make a plea, so his offer is Man 1 and his testimony against her. Bob blurts out that she wanted him to kill Eric, telling him where Eric was. Cutter takes the deal, and Bob dramatically wonders, "What have I done?" You've been a gullible Internet pervert, sir.
Cutter questions Lupo on the stand, who just says what we know already, and that each time Bob sent money the same amount was then deposited in Donna's account. Donna's lawyer then gets him to say that they also arrested Bob in the murder and that he pleaded guilty to a lesser charge, but that he was the one who killed Eric with a baseball bat. From the desk, Donna eyes her lawyer like a hungry cougar. Bob then describes how he killed Eric, and Cutter than asks him what Donna said in the phone conversation they had earlier. Donna's lawyer tries to object and they argue about if it's hearsay or not until Bob interrupts them to say he can't remember, and he starts to ham it up trying to recall what they said. Donna smirks once all this starts, and Bob goes on to say that she didn't tell him anything about Eric. When Cutter recounts what he told them, about "Chrissy" threatening to never communicate with Bob again if he didn't tell Eric, Bob bluntly says that he was lying. Sneering, he says that his wife had just told him she was leaving with the kids, he hadn't slept in weeks, he'd never been to prison and he was scared and desperate. Donna practically wiggles with glee as her smile grows. Bob claims he overheard Eric at work telling someone where he'd be (though earlier Dale said that Eric hasn't said anything of the sort, because he would have been bragging if he had a date) and that the murder was all him and not Chrissy. Back at the office Cutter rails about it all but Connie notes that Bob had said Chrissy had nothing to do with it, not Donna. They realize that he's back on Planet Bob, covering up for the girl who doesn't exist, and that Donna must have gotten to him somehow. Cutter wonders how, as they're in different jails with no communication and Jack awesomely tells him he must still believe in the Easter Bunny, then says to check their cells and visitor logs and find the go-between.
Donna certainly picked a guy for his ability to blindly follow directions rather than his brains. A neighbor, Carl, who claims to have no knowledge that she's on trial for murder, accepted a collect call from her, telling him to send a letter to a P.O. box. That letter was to Bob, saying that Chrissy was okay and that Donna was just covering for her, and that Bob should do the right thing. He then reveals that Chrissy stayed with him for a little while after she ran away. When Lupo asks if underage girls stayed over a lot, Carl tells them nothing like that happened and that they sound like Donna, who had a jealous streak. She and Chrissy were also having problems. Carl and Donna were seeing each other and would still hook up from time to time, the most recent being a few weeks previously, during a big thaw, when she came over worried that Carl's basement might be flooding. As one doesn't normally worry about a neighbor's basement, the boys go to check it out. Bernard finds some fresh earth probably disturbed by the "thaw." And underneath that dirt, they find a human bone.
Connie tells Jack (natty in a tuxedo) and Cutter that the dental records confirm it was Chrissy, and Cutter supplies that Donna probably went crazy when she realized Chrissy was staying at her boyfriend's house. Donna then pretended to be Chrissy to get money from men, then had Eric killed and had Bob take the fall for the entire thing to protect Chrissy, who was already killed by Donna. A perfect circle created by, as Jack nicely sums up, a sociopath. But apparently the Plattsburgh D.A. is charging Carl with Chrissy's murder, given that it was his basement and that he was involved with an underage girl. Jack asks how they know it wasn't him and Cutter's solid answer is, "The woman's a murderer." He then asks Jack if he's seeing the governor again tonight, nudge nudge.
Tom tells him that it's up to the D.A., that he overstepped his bounds before and can't do it again now. Tom's wife then comes to say hi and ask after Jack's daughter, who is now in San Diego. She leaves, and Tom asks him if it would help to mention that he's taking a personal interest in the case before leaving himself. Donna's lawyer laughs to hear that, not threatened at all by the governor's "interest." Donna doesn't seem worried at all, and asks Cutter if Carl asked about her. Connie's jaw almost literally drops at this. When Cutter shoves a picture of Chrissy's skeleton in Donn'a face, she only says in a dreamy tone that she's been gone for so long, she knew in her bones that Chrissy was dead, and that she's already mourned so much, this is just closure. Outside, Cutter tells Connie that they need to get Bob to flip, but that seems impossible since he's in denial and thinks Chrissy's remains are a trick. He tells her he needs her to go back to Plattsburgh, "And bring a box."
Bob is brought to Cutter's office -- his lawyer has allowed them to talk privately, because he's a really shitty lawyer, I guess. Bob doesn't want to talk to him, but Cutter says he doesn't have to but that nothing he says can be used against him. Bob claims he has nothing to say, so Cutter picks up the conversation to say he thinks Bob made bad mistakes but that he understands he just wanted to protect Chrissy. He pulls out her photos and starts to read some of what she wrote, recounting some of the personal details she gave about herself, including breaking her arm once. He's got the x-ray and shows it to Bob, and then actually PRODUCES HER ARM BONE to point out where you can see the break in the x-ray, so that Bob can see the break in the actual bone and know it's really hers. That certainly wasn't supposed to be funny, but it was just so awesomely Flintstones and unexpected. Over Bob's protests, Cutter tries to convince him that Chrissy is really dead. He then plays his ace, pointing out that she had a chipped tooth, and then UNWRAPPING HER SKULL to show Bob the tooth. Oh my God, this is awesome. Never in a million years did I think that weecapping this show would mean describing the dramatic unveiling of a skull. Bob starts to freak while Cutter yells at him that his sacrifice is all for nothing, and that he's only protecting Donna, adding that Chrissy would want him to help get her mother. Cutter lets Bob's lawyer back in to deal with his whimpering client and tells Connie dramatically, "Chrissy's real now."
In court, Cutter recalls Bob to the stand. He comes in and has used a palmful of hair grease for the occasion, slicking his hair to his head like a protective helmet. He tells Donna on his way to the stand that he loved Chrissy more than she ever did. Donna tells him he's an idiot who didn't even know her. She's not wrong, but hey, he's still going to nail you for murder, lady.
Jack is in the governor's office when he gets the call with the guilty verdict. He passes on the info and adds that the Plattsburgh D.A. has realized that it's she and not Carl who should be charged in the murder. The governor just tells Jackthat it's a big state and that he should be glad he's only in charge of a small part. ...Tom, I'm sorry, but after seeing you play drums for the Wonders, I just am not buying that you govern the state of New York. Given that you're a known actor, I'm guessing that you'll appear week, so we'll see if you can sell me on it then. But right now I'm just waiting for you to whip out some shades and play a little jazz beat on the secret drum set under your desk.
["Oh, he's coming back week all right...in a ripped-from-the-headlines episode about the Governor Spitzer prostitute scandal! And when he tries to bring Jack down with him, he earns the wrath of Sam Waterston! ...We will likely never see him again." - Zach]