Jo (2013–…): Season 1, Episode 7 - The Opera - full transcript
On a sunny afternoon after taking his daughter to her ballet lesson, a middle-aged man gets stabbed on the steps of the Palais Garnier. The victim is an economist and a family man, and ...
[elegant classical music]
♪ ♪
[laughter]
Miss Damon said that if I
wanted to be a real dancer,
I had to give up gymnastics,
but I love gymnastics and ballet.
Making choices, that's what
being a grown-up's all about.
I'll wait outside.
I wish you'd stop smoking, Daddy.
I don't want you to die ever.
I'll quit by Christmas. I promise.
♪ ♪
[singing operatically]
♪ ♪
Souvenir? Souvenir, sir?
[operatic singing continues]
♪ ♪
- Hey!
- Hey! Stop!
- Hey, stop him!
- Stop, thief!
- Stop, thief!
- Hey!
[intense music]
♪ ♪
[choking]
[crowd murmuring]
♪ ♪
MAN: What do I do?
♪ ♪
MAN: Call me anytime, all right?
Again, I'm sorry for your loss.
He asked me questions
about Yannick and drugs,
about you and this man Charlie Lapier.
I'm so tired, Daddy.
Come. You can stay at my place.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
You'll be all right.
We're looking for a syringe.
There are 23 trash cans in the square
plus 11 up that street, 16 up that one,
and 14 on the other side of the building.
Search every one.
I'm not even gonna ask how you know that.
Oh, I counted them one night
when my wife was late for the opera.
Some woman screamed,
a guy yelled, "Thief,"
and then all hell broke loose,
and that guy started having a seizure.
Okay, thank you.
Someone's gonna call you tomorrow.
The victim's name is Raymond Sittler.
He was dropping his daughter off
in the ballet school in the opera house.
Witnesses saw him having
a smoke on the steps,
and just after, there was a disturbance
with a beggar over here.
The next thing, Mr. Sittler
was having a seizure,
and 30 seconds later, he was dead.
- Where is his daughter?
- Still in the school.
We're waiting for the mother to arrive.
You know, but how about you?
- How's Adele?
- She'll be okay.
Yeah, but if there's anything you need...
NORMAND: Mr. Sittler was a lawyer.
There's an injection mark on his neck.
Poisoned. With what?
Probably a neurological agent.
The position of his arms is
typical of tetanic paralysis.
The paralysis interfered
with the pulmonary system.
He just stopped breathing.
While everyone else was
looking the other way.
It's funny how things happen sometimes.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Enemies? Why would Raymond have enemies?
Well, maybe, as a lawyer, he
handled controversial cases or...
He's never done anything controversial.
He was a trade consultant
to a company who exports sunflower oil.
Before that, he taught law at the Sorbonne.
He brought your daughter
to the ballet school
every Wednesday.
Yes, for the last three months.
It was their time alone together.
He loved Elyse so much.
All right. Thank you.
Same time, same place
every Wednesday for the last three months.
He was a sitting duck for
anyone who wanted to kill him.
All they needed was a distraction.
That poor woman looked so pathetic.
Everybody was stepping around her.
You don't see that back home in Omaha.
Well, all of a sudden,
this kid grabs the
woman's cup and takes off.
She starts screaming blue murder.
I took off after the kid,
and I got a piece of him,
but he shoved me into a lamppost.
I mean, stealing a homeless woman's money?
How low can you go?
I wouldn't worry about her.
She probably makes more money than we do.
A professional beggar.
Did you notice any interaction
between her and the thief
before he stole her cup?
No. No.
You think it was a setup?
This beggar probably
punches a clock at the opera.
Shouldn't be too hard to find her.
[indistinct chatter]
WOMAN: That little punk.
Walked past me three times
before he took my money.
I knew what he was thinking.
Why didn't you go to the
police when he robbed you?
[scoffs] What a great idea.
Everybody knows the cops
are our best friends.
Some are friendlier than others.
Had you seen that punk before today?
No, but the other one,
the one who was killed, I've seen him.
Every Wednesday, he sits on the steps.
He smokes. He checks out the women.
He plays with his phone.
And you notice all this
while you're begging?
What do you think I do when I work, sleep?
Anything else about the murder victim
besides smoking and flirting?
I will tell you, but only
because you have a face like us.
He had a fight four weeks ago with a woman,
someone he used to work with.
Lucie, he called her.
She was crying.
It didn't look like it was about work.
Raymond and I had a little fling
when he was at the Sorbonne.
It ended two months ago when he left.
But last month, you texted him,
"I miss you. I want you."
I must have been drunk when I sent those.
Were you drunk when you had that fight
in front of the opera?
I just wanted a little acknowledgement.
Raymond told me I was a needy
girl who couldn't let go,
so that's when I knew
we were done for good.
BAYARD: What do you do at the Sorbonne?
I'm a teaching assistant, poli-sci.
So how did you meet Mr. Sittler?
Like that, around campus.
He was a lot of fun for
as long as it lasted.
But how did you meet him exactly?
People meet like that around campus.
If you'd gone to college, you'd know.
Well, I did go to college, Miss Vignault.
I took classes at the Sorbonne.
There's 23,000 students and 1,200 faculty.
The political science
department and the law school
are on opposite ends of the campus.
The chances that you just
bumped into each other
and had an affair are slim to none.
Don't ask me. I never went to college.
The professor that I work for and Raymond
were thesis advisers to a
bunch of graduate students.
That's how we met, if you must know.
I don't see what difference it'd make.
Well, it matters because you
keep telling us this affair
meant nothing to you,
but you can't stand still.
You're nervous, and
you're hiding something.
Now, that's something I
know about, and he's right.
Where were you yesterday around 2:00?
I was here.
I have to go to work now, so
if you'll let me get ready.
You can see yourselves out.
We'll be in touch.
It's been fixed recently.
Somebody broke in.
Maybe Raymond or a jealous boyfriend?
Have Normand check her texts.
She can't have written them
all while she was drunk.
Sorry I'm late.
This is my favorite
sculpture in all of Paris.
KARYN: "The Gates of Hell."
Her heart's broken.
She stops crying only
when she falls asleep.
Jo, this isn't your fault.
I made a promise to make her life better.
I made everything worse.
I should have sent Yannick out of town.
I should have taken care of Charlie
when I had the chance.
Don't go down that road, Jo.
There's nothing there for you.
I know.
My first year out of college,
my fiancé was shot outside
a restaurant in Brooklyn.
He was waiting for me.
I was late.
They killed him for his watch.
I spent three years lost in my anger,
in my hate,
but then someone who still cared
reached down and pulled me up.
In the end, Jo, the only thing
standing between us and...
and that...
Is love and forgiveness.
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
"Just give me this one afternoon.
I'm home. Come now."
That message was sent three
hours after their fight,
and then an hour later,
"Don't make me wait.
I'm half crazy thinking about you."
There was no response from Mr. Sittler.
So he's giving her the silent treatment.
Never works.
7:00 p. m., "If you
don't come to me tonight,
I'll call your wife."
The last message was at
10:00, "I warned you,"
and then nothing till 3:00 a. m.,
when she called her mother
from Notre Dame Hospital.
So the bastard broke in
and put her in the hospital?
Assaulted?
Miss Vignault wasn't assaulted.
She attempted suicide with sleeping pills.
Her father broke into her
apartment and found her.
He called emergency services.
We kept her under observation for 24 hours
and released her into
the care of a therapist.
But did she have any marks
or bruises on her body?
No. Nothing like that.
Okay?
Thanks.
Attempted suicide? Why
wouldn't she tell us that?
They say suicide is anger turned inside.
Maybe her therapy made
her turn her anger out.
Out against the right person.
If Lucie had made any overt threats
against Raymond Sittler,
I would have reported them.
Define overt.
"I'm gonna shoot him when
he's screwing his whore."
The lady who said that
showed me the gun she
bought for the occasion.
Thanks.
What did Miss Vignault say about Sittler?
I can only say she was
focused on her own life.
All was good, all positive.
Made a real breakthrough Wednesday.
Last Wednesday? At what time?
1:00 to 2:00 every
Wednesday, 7:00 p. m. Fridays.
She told us she was home Wednesday.
Sittler was murdered just
15 minutes' walk from here.
I realize that,
but Lucie left here in
a good frame of mind.
Right. Her breakthrough, what was that?
Well, for the first time
since I've been seeing her,
she was talking about the future.
She said it was like a big weight
had been lifted off her shoulders.
She finally had clarity.
She knew what she was gonna do.
I didn't tell you I was seeing a therapist
because you would have asked me why.
The only people who know
what happened are my family,
and I don't want anyone here to know
I almost destroyed myself over that man.
We need to know where you
went after your appointment
on Wednesday afternoon.
I walked to the Barbès subway station.
Okay, so that's a ten-minute walk.
We'll check that on security cameras.
I-I didn't go there right away.
I walked around a little bit first.
- I was thinking.
- About Sittler?
Did he even know what you did to yourself?
No.
You didn't want to confront him,
tell him how he'd hurt you?
My partner is right.
Sooner or later, we need to confront
the people who torment us.
I was past that.
You were past being angry at him?
Well, actually, I'm grateful
to Raymond, you know?
He made me realize I've been
hiding here at the Sorbonne.
I've been turning gray
like these buildings.
So that's what all these boxes
are about... you're running away?
I'm running to something.
I've got a job at an NGO in Africa.
You see, I don't think you appreciate
how bad this looks for you.
I don't care what you think.
I didn't kill Raymond.
I mean, as for sending
a message, you're right.
When I got to Africa, I was
gonna send a letter to his wife.
We'll talk again soon.
ANGELIQUE: Sittler was
poisoned with pyrethrin.
It's a neurotoxin derived
from chrysanthemums.
Is it hard to get?
Well, as hard as walking
into your nearest supermarket.
It's a household insecticide
which is usually nonfatal to humans,
but in a concentrated
dose shot to the brain...
You'll die like a cockroach.
That's what it's designed to kill.
I'll have a full report by Monday.
Bug spray... that's
poetic justice for Sittler.
Jo, in here.
This is Captain Heger
from Internal Affairs.
He's investigating the
shooting of Yannick Morin.
We don't need two investigations
to find out who killed him.
You mean Charlie Lapier?
You're friends with him?
We grew up together.
It's all in my file.
My criminal associations, my bad habits,
even an X-ray of my ass.
Anyway, Charlie didn't say
anything to me about Yannick.
We don't talk business. That's our deal.
Well, Charlie Lapier isn't my concern.
You are.
As I explained to Commissaire Dormont,
you're suspected of interfering
with a drug investigation
and filing a false stolen vehicle report.
By the end of the day,
I might even connect you to Morin's murder.
Yannick was my daughter's boyfriend,
the father of my grandkid.
I studied your file.
Of all your character flaws,
sentimentality isn't one of them.
DORMONT: I didn't say you could leave.
Always a pleasure, Captain Heger.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Any truth to his allegations?
Not as much as he says.
Not as much?
All these years, I've watched your back.
I will do what I can here,
but I will not be dragged down with you.
I know.
You've done enough.
[sighs]
Barbès subway station, ten minutes ago.
Nobody saw it happen.
The video, security doesn't show anything,
just a mass of people
rushing out of the car.
First Sittler and now his ex-mistress.
Same MO.
Injection site on the
neck and tetanic paralysis.
So much for our prime suspect.
WOMAN: This is beyond belief.
I had a going-away present for her,
something she could have used in Africa.
By the time I got back
to the office, she'd left.
She was going to see her therapist.
She was killed on the way there.
She was seeing a therapist? For what?
She attempted suicide four weeks ago.
My God. I had no idea.
Her affair with Raymond
Sittler two months ago,
did you know about that?
No.
She and Raymond? Christ.
We think the same person
might have killed them both.
Maybe someone that Lucie was seeing
when she started seeing Sittler?
I wouldn't know about her boyfriends.
I teach four courses,
500 students.
Plus I'm thesis adviser to
a dozen doctoral candidates.
That's what Lucie and I talked about.
Not the minutia of our private lives.
Hey, what do you make of this?
It's notes from her appointment book
around the time she was seeing Sittler.
"Calls and hangs up.
Follows me around campus."
She was being harassed.
And another one,
"Threatened to file a grievance against R."
A grievance over a campus romance.
Where do you file that?
The university ombudsman, I suppose.
MAN: No one filed any
grievance against Sittler
or against Lucie Vignault, for that matter.
Who were you thinking?
BAYARD: Maybe one of Miss
Vignault's old boyfriends?
Her boyfriend?
Why not his boyfriend?
He was bisexual?
Oh, I don't put labels on people, but sure.
He had affairs with
male and female students.
Over 40 during the last six years.
That's why he was asked to leave.
So he was trading grades for sex?
Oh, well, there's no evidence of that,
but we couldn't wait for a scandal.
It had already taken us six years
to realize the scope of the problem.
Did anyone complain about him?
Some students, a few faculty.
No one made a formal complaint.
Well, we're gonna need the names
of every student he had an affair with.
You think a student killed him?
Well, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Our students are the cream of the crop,
drawn from top schools around the world.
We've educated two popes, four saints,
and 11 Nobel Prize winners.
And one dictator, Enver Hoxha,
"the butcher of Albania."
Well, this way, gentlemen.
This should be fun,
hunting for a killer in a
college full of eggheads.
You should feel right at home.
I don't know anything. Leave me alone.
If you want us to chase you around campus
asking about your affair with
Raymond Sittler, we can do that.
JO: We're not going away.
Okay. Ask your questions.
Four people told the ombudsman
you had an affair with Raymond Sittler,
but when you were asked, you denied it.
Do you know what the
penalty is in my country
for homosexuality?
Death.
I can't take the chance
of there being anything on the record.
Understood.
- Who ended the affair?
- I did.
I realized how indiscreet Raymond was,
a complete libertine.
And this is around the time
he started sleeping with Lucie Vignault?
The TA in poli-sci, yes.
Raymond should have told me
up front that he was bisexual.
So it must have made you mad
seeing him with this girl.
I didn't care about the
girl. I was done with Raymond.
I didn't want to be center
stage when his life imploded.
Why? What did you think was gonna happen?
[sighs] He was being sued.
I don't know by whom,
but I heard him on the phone
arguing with someone about a trial.
I didn't get the details,
but it seems things were coming to a head.
WOMAN: No, I don't know
of any trial or lawsuit.
Who would possibly sue Raymond?
Maybe a student at the Sorbonne?
What for?
Your husband had affairs with his students.
That's why he left.
Yeah, I know all about that.
Raymond had needs I couldn't fulfill.
It's the way God made him.
But when he came home,
he was the perfect husband
and father, so what was I gonna do?
Did he mention being harassed by a student?
No, and I'd have known
if there'd been a problem.
He was very concerned
with shielding our daughter
from gossip, but I suppose
now it's all gonna come out?
I'm very sorry.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
What a mess to leave behind.
Sittler thought he would have time
to clean things up before he died.
That's the big lie we tell ourselves.
[cell phone ringing]
Oh, I got the final tox report on Lucie.
Death by pyrethrin.
It's more cockroach poison.
What do you think... poison of convenience
or the killer is trying
to tell us something?
I'm going home.
Put your college degree to work
and see what you come up with.
♪ ♪
How was work?
I made a plate for you.
What's wrong?
A cop came to see me at the hospital.
He said he was in Narcotics.
Duroc? What did he want?
He asked me about you and this Charlie.
I said I didn't know anything.
That's right. You don't know anything.
He said you told Charlie
that Yannick would testify against him.
That's why they killed Yannick.
I never told Charlie that.
But you're friends with him?
Yes. I was.
Is that how Yannick got mixed up with him?
I'm just trying to
understand why he's dead.
You're right.
If I hadn't come back into your life,
Yannick would still be alive.
Your mother and I had this
idea that I could help you,
but life's a mean son of a bitch.
It laughs at our good intentions.
Why didn't you stop it?
Were you protecting your friend?
No. Adele...
Don't. I'm sorry.
I can't help having this...
this horrible feeling.
[door slams]
[somber music]
♪ ♪
Hey, I was gonna call you last night,
but it was really late.
So this might be completely crazy,
but I Googled "trial and insects,"
and I came up with Franz Kafka.
You're not crazy. I Googled my bookcase.
[chuckles]
I went through Sittler's papers.
Found this.
"Kafka and the Roots of Fascism,
"a Study of the Novel 'The Trial, '
a Thesis Proposal by Jacques Benoit."
The PhD candidate. Sittler
was his thesis adviser.
Look who the other adviser is.
Lucie's boss.
But Benoit's not on the list
of people Sittler slept with.
But now he's on our list.
Of course I've heard about
Professor Sittler's murder,
but I'm just sitting down at work, and...
- It will just take two minutes.
- Um, okay. Uh, two minutes.
When was the last time
you talked to Sittler?
Maybe two months ago.
I deal mostly with Professor
Gervais at poli-sci.
She's my main thesis adviser.
What kind of relationship
did you have with Sittler?
I don't understand what you mean.
He means were you screwing him?
What? No.
What... why would you think that?
Professor Sittler slept
with a lot of students,
both male and female.
Well, he didn't with me.
JO: I feel a woman's touch in here.
Oh, yeah.
My girlfriend. She's at work.
So you like girls.
Did you like Professor
Gervais' assistant, Lucie?
Not in that way, no.
No, so why were you
calling her two months ago,
calling and hanging up?
We've checked your phone records.
I was angry with her.
She called me a professional student.
I'm not. I'm a scholar.
So you followed her.
JACQUES: Well, I was angry.
Sometimes people just don't understand
the scope of my thesis,
why it's taken so long.
They get impatient.
But we talked it out.
How long have you been
working on your thesis?
Ten years.
It's a very complex subject.
Kafka and fascism?
His novel "The Trial"
is a metaphor for the fascist state.
What about "Metamorphosis"?
A man turns into a bug, a cockroach?
A book about alienation,
the mother's milk of fascism.
And it's taking you 10 years?
Well, the research alone...
Fascism has deep roots in Europe.
It all starts with the
fall of the monarchies,
the French Revolution...
The architects of the Reign of
Terror were the first fascists.
Speaking of bugs, ever have a problem here?
You have to spray?
No, we keep the place very clean.
BAYARD: What about these
boxes? You moving out?
These are papers from my cubicle
at the poli-sci library.
I finally cleared it out.
PhD candidates get free
work space on campus.
It's one of the perks of writing a thesis.
Most of them don't give it up.
Well, I decided it would be
quieter to work from home.
Now, really, your two minutes are up.
I have to work.
[dramatic music]
GERVAIS: Quieter working at home?
That's not why Jacques gave up his cubicle.
He lost his privileges when
I terminated his thesis.
He was forced to withdraw
from the doctoral program.
BAYARD: Why did you terminate him?
I concluded he'd never finish his thesis.
He gave us the introduction
to read five years ago.
Nothing since.
Sittler agreed with your decision?
It was his idea.
Personally, I like Jacques.
But I've been too forgiving.
Sittler and Lucie made convincing arguments
to terminate him; I had to agree.
We had to make room for
more deserving candidates.
And how did Jacques take that?
He was deeply disappointed, of course.
The wasted year,
the loss of face.
He begged me to reinstate him.
I told him I wouldn't be able to
convince the others to reconsider.
So you told him Lucie and
Sittler were behind it?
I might have led him to believe that, yes.
You don't think that...
But Jacques, he's so meek,
so passive.
Mm, the first murder
ever committed on the Paris subway,
it was a woman.
She had something to do with fascists.
Laetitia Toureaux in 1937.
She was spying on the
Cagoule fascists group,
and they had her assassinated.
On a subway train, just like Lucie.
Le duc de Berry,
he was stabbed outside
the opera, like Sittler,
in 18...
1820 by an antimonarchist.
Jacques traced the roots of fascism
back to the fall of the monarchies.
His thesis, he decided
to write it in blood.
Mr. Benoit, this is the police.
Open up.
[sniffing] Smoke.
[dramatic music]
[men cough]
[screaming]
♪ ♪
I got him! Call EMS!
[coughing]
[screaming]
This is Detective Marc
Bayard, Criminal Brigade.
We've got a burn victim at 302...
You ruined everything!
Now I'm dead! I'm dead!
Shut up, you idiot. You're not dead yet.
You don't understand.
BAYARD: We're requesting an ambulance now.
You've killed me.
You killed me!
WOMAN: He has second-degree
burns over 8% of his body.
He'll need to stay here
for a week for hydrotherapy.
Other than that, he'll be fine.
- Can we talk to him?
- No more than ten minutes.
He's on pain medication.
What, no thanks for saving your life?
Right, no, you tried to kill yourself
so you'd avoid going to jail for murder.
Well, I'm sorry that we ruined your plans.
I didn't murder anybody.
No, the fire was an accident.
I was lighting candles.
In the middle of the day?
We know what Sittler and Lucie
did to your thesis.
All that work you'd
done, just down the drain,
your bright future, so you made them pay.
- It wasn't me.
- You sign your work.
Poisoning them like the
cockroach in Kafka's book,
killing Lucie like the fascists
killed Laetitia Toureaux in 1937.
Sittler stabbed to death outside the opera
like le duc de Berry.
WOMAN: Jacques!
Oh, my God.
- What hap...
- [groans]
Oh, sorry. What... what happened?
I got home, and there were firemen...
- I'm okay, Clair.
- Yeah?
It was an accident.
Miss, can we talk to you for a minute?
- Sorry, who are you?
- JO: Detectives.
But I want to stay with my boyfriend.
Better we let the doctor do her work.
I'll be right outside, okay, sweetie?
Okay.
He's such a klutz, you know?
And he's got this big
brain but no motor skills.
- JO: The fire wasn't an accident.
- Sorry, what do you mean?
He set fire to himself,
along with all his papers and documents,
all the work he did on his thesis.
Those bastards. They drove him to this.
What bastards?
The ones at the Sorbonne,
the self-important buffoons
that shitcanned his thesis.
They don't realize that
great work takes time,
and his thesis was gonna
be an important book.
I mean, still is gonna
be an important book.
He has interest from publishers
and universities in the States.
Yeah, but first it has to be a thesis.
Wasn't Jacques bitter
that he was terminated?
Well, how could he not
be? It just wasn't fair.
But did he ever talk about
taking it out on anybody?
I thought this was about a fire.
And two murders.
Raymond Sittler and Lucie Vignault.
You think my Jacques did that?
That's nuts.
He's a scholar.
He's a brilliant scholar,
but he lives inside his head.
There's no fight in him.
But her, she has plenty of fight.
No bug spray.
Maybe Jacques bored
the cockroaches to death
talking about his thesis.
A book on the fascist group
who killed Laetitia Toureaux
and a book on the political
assassinations in France.
And look at this.
It was in a file marked
"Thesis Rough Draft."
Here's the introduction
his professor mentioned
and then the first page
of the first chapter
and a revision of the first page
and another revision and another.
Nothing but revisions of the first page.
So he couldn't even get off the dime.
Wait, look at this.
"Movies I've Seen." It just goes on.
"TV Shows I've Watched."
"Cities I've Visited."
"Cities I Want to Visit."
"My Favorite Meals."
"The 1,000 CDs I'd Bring
to a Desert Island."
"My Favorite Books."
I mean, there's nothing but
sketches and poems and doodles.
But no work.
This must be why he said we killed him.
All this stuff, he was trying to burn it
because he didn't want anyone to know
that he'd just been goofing
off for the past ten years.
Maybe not just anyone.
The people at the
university who didn't care,
they were already done with him.
But the one person that really
believed in him, his girlfriend.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
The notes in the books,
it is her handwriting.
She did his research.
She knew about the murders
of Laetitia Toureaux
and the duc de Berry.
Clair worked the lunch shift
Wednesday 11:00 to 1:30.
Do you remember where she went after?
If she's like me, she went and had a drink.
2 1/2 hours getting
harassed by a bunch of punks
who think the carrots are overcooked.
- What about Friday evening?
- The dinner shift.
I saw her at 5:00, but I don't
remember seeing her leave.
She ever talk about her boyfriend?
The genius?
I've heard nothing but
for the last five years.
The genius who'll write a famous book.
The genius who'll travel
the world giving lectures.
Clair will be the queen of the ball.
No more dinner trays for her.
[spray hissing]
Um, excuse me, sir.
What are you spraying there?
Insecticide.
I'm not breaking any laws.
This stuff's totally eco-friendly.
It tickles the cockroaches to death.
You have anything, um...
anything stronger in your kit?
You know, take down the real big bugs?
Stuff I only use outside.
Here, have a look.
Now, this stuff will take down a pigeon.
Pyrethrin.
The bath helps remove the dead skin.
You'll be able to do it
in your shower at home.
Please?
I'll be right back, okay, sweetie?
Okay.
How is he doing?
Oh, you care?
You're trying to put him in prison.
Oh, no, actually, we have other suspects,
but our boss wants us to dot the Is
on your boyfriend's alibi,
so could you just confirm
that you saw him last
Wednesday around noon?
Yeah, at home, before I left for work.
- You work Wednesday?
- Yeah, all day.
I dish out mashed potatoes
in the university cafeteria.
It's the job of my dreams.
And how about Friday afternoon?
What was Jacques doing?
I assume he was writing his thesis.
I was working.
Have you read his thesis?
Just the introduction.
He won't let me read the rest
till it's letter-perfect.
He keeps it at university library,
so I can't even sneak a peek.
Well, that's another thing.
He cleared out his
cubicle at the university.
Everything he had,
every copy of his thesis,
it all went up in flames.
I mean, the smoke even
damaged his computer.
I mean, it doesn't matter,
'cause it's all in his head,
and he'll just write it
down as soon as he's better.
Well, you have a lot of faith in him.
How long have you been together?
Since we were undergrads.
I majored in semiotics.
It's the study of signs and symbols.
That's a long way from mashed potatoes.
Well, one of us has to work
a real job to pay the bills.
When I graduated, I was offered a position
at a small college in the south,
but it meant being apart from Jacques.
[yelps]
I'm sorry. I have to go.
The bath hurts so much.
It's not evidence.
You throw a rock anywhere in Paris,
you're gonna hit somewhere
an aristocrat was killed.
It's our history.
But Clair's alibi is still shaky,
and she has access to pyrethrin.
I have access to pyrethrin.
Sorry, your case isn't made.
Jo, I want to let you know
before you hear it elsewhere,
they caught the guy who shot Yannick Morin.
They found him on a tip.
He had a weapon. The ballistics matched.
He confessed.
He said that Yannick ripped
him off on a dope deal
a couple of months ago.
Nothing to do with Charlie Lapier.
You believe it?
The point is, Homicide believes it.
Charlie's a loan shark.
This guy has two gambling offenses.
He's a gambler.
He's probably on the hook to
Charlie for tens of thousands.
This is how he's paying it back.
Charlie threatened to kill him...
Drop it. The Morin case is closed.
Don't add to your problems
with Internal Affairs.
You hear me?
[intense music]
♪ ♪
Hey.
[men grunting]
You kill one of my family, you pay!
It wasn't me, Jo!
They already caught the guy.
You're scared! You've
never been scared before.
Your time must be up.
BAYARD: Get your hands on your head!
Jo, come on! Let's go!
Get your hands on your head!
On the floor now!
Jo, come on! Let's go!
Jo!
Come on, let's get out of here.
If you ever hurt my partner
and his family again,
I will put you and your
family in the ground!
♪ ♪
[engine revving]
[siren wailing]
You know the odds you would
have walked out of there alive?
What do you know about the odds?
My father was a degenerate gambler.
I know about calculating the odds.
You got to forget about Charlie, Jo.
You've got Adele to worry about now,
and we've got this case.
I need my partner.
Don't get mixed up in my business.
Your wife won't like it,
and you'll end up on Dormont's shit list.
Um, Clair's covered her tracks pretty well.
Nobody recognized her at
the opera or on the subway.
There's no traces of pyrethrin or syringes
at her home or in her work locker.
What if revenge wasn't her only motive?
Well, right, exactly.
I mean, with Sittler
and Lucie out of the way,
she can work on getting
Jacques' thesis reinstated.
If she fails, she might get angry again.
Do you mean catch her in the act?
We just need to get her
angry at the right person.
What do you call that, what she studied?
Semiotics.
It's the study of signs and symbols.
She likes symbols.
Let's give her one she can't resist.
See if you can still write
like a college student.
Before his unfortunate accident,
Jacques asked me to consider
reinstating his thesis,
maybe appointing a new adviser
now that Professor Sittler was dead.
I gave it serious thought,
but then this came to my attention.
Jacques left it behind in
his cubicle in the library,
some of the work he did on his thesis.
Here's the introduction
that we're familiar with
and then revised pages
of the first chapter, many revisions.
This is all the same page.
Where's the rest of it?
There is no rest of it.
It seems he got blocked five years ago.
What about those pages? What's that?
Lists he made.
His favorite books,
favorite films, travel plans.
It's not possible.
There has to be more.
There's this...
pages from a diary about
his struggle with the thesis.
You should read it.
I'm not interested in excuses.
It's heartbreaking, really.
"I've tried everything.
"I pace, I think out loud,
"and when I think I have it,
"I run to the computer to write it down,
"but then all my brilliant thoughts
"just fly out of my head.
"I can't connect one thing to the other.
"It's like going mad, but I'm not mad.
"I'm just empty.
"I think of the life I dreamed about,
"the life of a scholar,
"but maybe that was
Clair's dream, not mine.
"The more I stare at the blank screen,
the more I hate her for
putting me in this hell."
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have read that.
Just give me those.
He also describes a disturbing meeting
he had with Professor
Sittler a few months ago.
Jacques claims that Professor Sittler
made a pass at him.
You're lying.
Just give me those. Give it all to me.
And this.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
No!
[grumbling angrily]
♪ ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
No!
Clair?
Let me go!
What are you guys doing?
What were you gonna do with that?
You useless twerp!
She was coming to kill you.
Kill me? What... what...
"Cities I Want to Visit"?
"My Favorite Meals"?
She's figured out what you've been up to
for the past ten years.
You blamed me when it was you
who couldn't write one word,
one goddamn word?
Okay, Clair...
I believed in you, and what did you do?
You wasted my life.
I didn't mean to.
I didn't know what else to do.
Sittler knew what to do.
He wouldn't have dropped
you if you'd slept with him.
- What?
- He made a pass at you.
I know all about it!
You couldn't even do that for me.
You should have told me what you wanted.
I would have slept with him.
It would have saved me
the trouble of killing him.
- You would have slept with him?
- Yeah. So what?
All right. Okay. This is enough. Let's go.
But you're with me. You're my girlfriend.
Don't be such a child.
She used to say she loved me for my mind.
Who's gonna love me now?
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
[laughter]
Miss Damon said that if I
wanted to be a real dancer,
I had to give up gymnastics,
but I love gymnastics and ballet.
Making choices, that's what
being a grown-up's all about.
I'll wait outside.
I wish you'd stop smoking, Daddy.
I don't want you to die ever.
I'll quit by Christmas. I promise.
♪ ♪
[singing operatically]
♪ ♪
Souvenir? Souvenir, sir?
[operatic singing continues]
♪ ♪
- Hey!
- Hey! Stop!
- Hey, stop him!
- Stop, thief!
- Stop, thief!
- Hey!
[intense music]
♪ ♪
[choking]
[crowd murmuring]
♪ ♪
MAN: What do I do?
♪ ♪
MAN: Call me anytime, all right?
Again, I'm sorry for your loss.
He asked me questions
about Yannick and drugs,
about you and this man Charlie Lapier.
I'm so tired, Daddy.
Come. You can stay at my place.
[somber music]
♪ ♪
You'll be all right.
We're looking for a syringe.
There are 23 trash cans in the square
plus 11 up that street, 16 up that one,
and 14 on the other side of the building.
Search every one.
I'm not even gonna ask how you know that.
Oh, I counted them one night
when my wife was late for the opera.
Some woman screamed,
a guy yelled, "Thief,"
and then all hell broke loose,
and that guy started having a seizure.
Okay, thank you.
Someone's gonna call you tomorrow.
The victim's name is Raymond Sittler.
He was dropping his daughter off
in the ballet school in the opera house.
Witnesses saw him having
a smoke on the steps,
and just after, there was a disturbance
with a beggar over here.
The next thing, Mr. Sittler
was having a seizure,
and 30 seconds later, he was dead.
- Where is his daughter?
- Still in the school.
We're waiting for the mother to arrive.
You know, but how about you?
- How's Adele?
- She'll be okay.
Yeah, but if there's anything you need...
NORMAND: Mr. Sittler was a lawyer.
There's an injection mark on his neck.
Poisoned. With what?
Probably a neurological agent.
The position of his arms is
typical of tetanic paralysis.
The paralysis interfered
with the pulmonary system.
He just stopped breathing.
While everyone else was
looking the other way.
It's funny how things happen sometimes.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Enemies? Why would Raymond have enemies?
Well, maybe, as a lawyer, he
handled controversial cases or...
He's never done anything controversial.
He was a trade consultant
to a company who exports sunflower oil.
Before that, he taught law at the Sorbonne.
He brought your daughter
to the ballet school
every Wednesday.
Yes, for the last three months.
It was their time alone together.
He loved Elyse so much.
All right. Thank you.
Same time, same place
every Wednesday for the last three months.
He was a sitting duck for
anyone who wanted to kill him.
All they needed was a distraction.
That poor woman looked so pathetic.
Everybody was stepping around her.
You don't see that back home in Omaha.
Well, all of a sudden,
this kid grabs the
woman's cup and takes off.
She starts screaming blue murder.
I took off after the kid,
and I got a piece of him,
but he shoved me into a lamppost.
I mean, stealing a homeless woman's money?
How low can you go?
I wouldn't worry about her.
She probably makes more money than we do.
A professional beggar.
Did you notice any interaction
between her and the thief
before he stole her cup?
No. No.
You think it was a setup?
This beggar probably
punches a clock at the opera.
Shouldn't be too hard to find her.
[indistinct chatter]
WOMAN: That little punk.
Walked past me three times
before he took my money.
I knew what he was thinking.
Why didn't you go to the
police when he robbed you?
[scoffs] What a great idea.
Everybody knows the cops
are our best friends.
Some are friendlier than others.
Had you seen that punk before today?
No, but the other one,
the one who was killed, I've seen him.
Every Wednesday, he sits on the steps.
He smokes. He checks out the women.
He plays with his phone.
And you notice all this
while you're begging?
What do you think I do when I work, sleep?
Anything else about the murder victim
besides smoking and flirting?
I will tell you, but only
because you have a face like us.
He had a fight four weeks ago with a woman,
someone he used to work with.
Lucie, he called her.
She was crying.
It didn't look like it was about work.
Raymond and I had a little fling
when he was at the Sorbonne.
It ended two months ago when he left.
But last month, you texted him,
"I miss you. I want you."
I must have been drunk when I sent those.
Were you drunk when you had that fight
in front of the opera?
I just wanted a little acknowledgement.
Raymond told me I was a needy
girl who couldn't let go,
so that's when I knew
we were done for good.
BAYARD: What do you do at the Sorbonne?
I'm a teaching assistant, poli-sci.
So how did you meet Mr. Sittler?
Like that, around campus.
He was a lot of fun for
as long as it lasted.
But how did you meet him exactly?
People meet like that around campus.
If you'd gone to college, you'd know.
Well, I did go to college, Miss Vignault.
I took classes at the Sorbonne.
There's 23,000 students and 1,200 faculty.
The political science
department and the law school
are on opposite ends of the campus.
The chances that you just
bumped into each other
and had an affair are slim to none.
Don't ask me. I never went to college.
The professor that I work for and Raymond
were thesis advisers to a
bunch of graduate students.
That's how we met, if you must know.
I don't see what difference it'd make.
Well, it matters because you
keep telling us this affair
meant nothing to you,
but you can't stand still.
You're nervous, and
you're hiding something.
Now, that's something I
know about, and he's right.
Where were you yesterday around 2:00?
I was here.
I have to go to work now, so
if you'll let me get ready.
You can see yourselves out.
We'll be in touch.
It's been fixed recently.
Somebody broke in.
Maybe Raymond or a jealous boyfriend?
Have Normand check her texts.
She can't have written them
all while she was drunk.
Sorry I'm late.
This is my favorite
sculpture in all of Paris.
KARYN: "The Gates of Hell."
Her heart's broken.
She stops crying only
when she falls asleep.
Jo, this isn't your fault.
I made a promise to make her life better.
I made everything worse.
I should have sent Yannick out of town.
I should have taken care of Charlie
when I had the chance.
Don't go down that road, Jo.
There's nothing there for you.
I know.
My first year out of college,
my fiancé was shot outside
a restaurant in Brooklyn.
He was waiting for me.
I was late.
They killed him for his watch.
I spent three years lost in my anger,
in my hate,
but then someone who still cared
reached down and pulled me up.
In the end, Jo, the only thing
standing between us and...
and that...
Is love and forgiveness.
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪
"Just give me this one afternoon.
I'm home. Come now."
That message was sent three
hours after their fight,
and then an hour later,
"Don't make me wait.
I'm half crazy thinking about you."
There was no response from Mr. Sittler.
So he's giving her the silent treatment.
Never works.
7:00 p. m., "If you
don't come to me tonight,
I'll call your wife."
The last message was at
10:00, "I warned you,"
and then nothing till 3:00 a. m.,
when she called her mother
from Notre Dame Hospital.
So the bastard broke in
and put her in the hospital?
Assaulted?
Miss Vignault wasn't assaulted.
She attempted suicide with sleeping pills.
Her father broke into her
apartment and found her.
He called emergency services.
We kept her under observation for 24 hours
and released her into
the care of a therapist.
But did she have any marks
or bruises on her body?
No. Nothing like that.
Okay?
Thanks.
Attempted suicide? Why
wouldn't she tell us that?
They say suicide is anger turned inside.
Maybe her therapy made
her turn her anger out.
Out against the right person.
If Lucie had made any overt threats
against Raymond Sittler,
I would have reported them.
Define overt.
"I'm gonna shoot him when
he's screwing his whore."
The lady who said that
showed me the gun she
bought for the occasion.
Thanks.
What did Miss Vignault say about Sittler?
I can only say she was
focused on her own life.
All was good, all positive.
Made a real breakthrough Wednesday.
Last Wednesday? At what time?
1:00 to 2:00 every
Wednesday, 7:00 p. m. Fridays.
She told us she was home Wednesday.
Sittler was murdered just
15 minutes' walk from here.
I realize that,
but Lucie left here in
a good frame of mind.
Right. Her breakthrough, what was that?
Well, for the first time
since I've been seeing her,
she was talking about the future.
She said it was like a big weight
had been lifted off her shoulders.
She finally had clarity.
She knew what she was gonna do.
I didn't tell you I was seeing a therapist
because you would have asked me why.
The only people who know
what happened are my family,
and I don't want anyone here to know
I almost destroyed myself over that man.
We need to know where you
went after your appointment
on Wednesday afternoon.
I walked to the Barbès subway station.
Okay, so that's a ten-minute walk.
We'll check that on security cameras.
I-I didn't go there right away.
I walked around a little bit first.
- I was thinking.
- About Sittler?
Did he even know what you did to yourself?
No.
You didn't want to confront him,
tell him how he'd hurt you?
My partner is right.
Sooner or later, we need to confront
the people who torment us.
I was past that.
You were past being angry at him?
Well, actually, I'm grateful
to Raymond, you know?
He made me realize I've been
hiding here at the Sorbonne.
I've been turning gray
like these buildings.
So that's what all these boxes
are about... you're running away?
I'm running to something.
I've got a job at an NGO in Africa.
You see, I don't think you appreciate
how bad this looks for you.
I don't care what you think.
I didn't kill Raymond.
I mean, as for sending
a message, you're right.
When I got to Africa, I was
gonna send a letter to his wife.
We'll talk again soon.
ANGELIQUE: Sittler was
poisoned with pyrethrin.
It's a neurotoxin derived
from chrysanthemums.
Is it hard to get?
Well, as hard as walking
into your nearest supermarket.
It's a household insecticide
which is usually nonfatal to humans,
but in a concentrated
dose shot to the brain...
You'll die like a cockroach.
That's what it's designed to kill.
I'll have a full report by Monday.
Bug spray... that's
poetic justice for Sittler.
Jo, in here.
This is Captain Heger
from Internal Affairs.
He's investigating the
shooting of Yannick Morin.
We don't need two investigations
to find out who killed him.
You mean Charlie Lapier?
You're friends with him?
We grew up together.
It's all in my file.
My criminal associations, my bad habits,
even an X-ray of my ass.
Anyway, Charlie didn't say
anything to me about Yannick.
We don't talk business. That's our deal.
Well, Charlie Lapier isn't my concern.
You are.
As I explained to Commissaire Dormont,
you're suspected of interfering
with a drug investigation
and filing a false stolen vehicle report.
By the end of the day,
I might even connect you to Morin's murder.
Yannick was my daughter's boyfriend,
the father of my grandkid.
I studied your file.
Of all your character flaws,
sentimentality isn't one of them.
DORMONT: I didn't say you could leave.
Always a pleasure, Captain Heger.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
Any truth to his allegations?
Not as much as he says.
Not as much?
All these years, I've watched your back.
I will do what I can here,
but I will not be dragged down with you.
I know.
You've done enough.
[sighs]
Barbès subway station, ten minutes ago.
Nobody saw it happen.
The video, security doesn't show anything,
just a mass of people
rushing out of the car.
First Sittler and now his ex-mistress.
Same MO.
Injection site on the
neck and tetanic paralysis.
So much for our prime suspect.
WOMAN: This is beyond belief.
I had a going-away present for her,
something she could have used in Africa.
By the time I got back
to the office, she'd left.
She was going to see her therapist.
She was killed on the way there.
She was seeing a therapist? For what?
She attempted suicide four weeks ago.
My God. I had no idea.
Her affair with Raymond
Sittler two months ago,
did you know about that?
No.
She and Raymond? Christ.
We think the same person
might have killed them both.
Maybe someone that Lucie was seeing
when she started seeing Sittler?
I wouldn't know about her boyfriends.
I teach four courses,
500 students.
Plus I'm thesis adviser to
a dozen doctoral candidates.
That's what Lucie and I talked about.
Not the minutia of our private lives.
Hey, what do you make of this?
It's notes from her appointment book
around the time she was seeing Sittler.
"Calls and hangs up.
Follows me around campus."
She was being harassed.
And another one,
"Threatened to file a grievance against R."
A grievance over a campus romance.
Where do you file that?
The university ombudsman, I suppose.
MAN: No one filed any
grievance against Sittler
or against Lucie Vignault, for that matter.
Who were you thinking?
BAYARD: Maybe one of Miss
Vignault's old boyfriends?
Her boyfriend?
Why not his boyfriend?
He was bisexual?
Oh, I don't put labels on people, but sure.
He had affairs with
male and female students.
Over 40 during the last six years.
That's why he was asked to leave.
So he was trading grades for sex?
Oh, well, there's no evidence of that,
but we couldn't wait for a scandal.
It had already taken us six years
to realize the scope of the problem.
Did anyone complain about him?
Some students, a few faculty.
No one made a formal complaint.
Well, we're gonna need the names
of every student he had an affair with.
You think a student killed him?
Well, you're barking up the wrong tree.
Our students are the cream of the crop,
drawn from top schools around the world.
We've educated two popes, four saints,
and 11 Nobel Prize winners.
And one dictator, Enver Hoxha,
"the butcher of Albania."
Well, this way, gentlemen.
This should be fun,
hunting for a killer in a
college full of eggheads.
You should feel right at home.
I don't know anything. Leave me alone.
If you want us to chase you around campus
asking about your affair with
Raymond Sittler, we can do that.
JO: We're not going away.
Okay. Ask your questions.
Four people told the ombudsman
you had an affair with Raymond Sittler,
but when you were asked, you denied it.
Do you know what the
penalty is in my country
for homosexuality?
Death.
I can't take the chance
of there being anything on the record.
Understood.
- Who ended the affair?
- I did.
I realized how indiscreet Raymond was,
a complete libertine.
And this is around the time
he started sleeping with Lucie Vignault?
The TA in poli-sci, yes.
Raymond should have told me
up front that he was bisexual.
So it must have made you mad
seeing him with this girl.
I didn't care about the
girl. I was done with Raymond.
I didn't want to be center
stage when his life imploded.
Why? What did you think was gonna happen?
[sighs] He was being sued.
I don't know by whom,
but I heard him on the phone
arguing with someone about a trial.
I didn't get the details,
but it seems things were coming to a head.
WOMAN: No, I don't know
of any trial or lawsuit.
Who would possibly sue Raymond?
Maybe a student at the Sorbonne?
What for?
Your husband had affairs with his students.
That's why he left.
Yeah, I know all about that.
Raymond had needs I couldn't fulfill.
It's the way God made him.
But when he came home,
he was the perfect husband
and father, so what was I gonna do?
Did he mention being harassed by a student?
No, and I'd have known
if there'd been a problem.
He was very concerned
with shielding our daughter
from gossip, but I suppose
now it's all gonna come out?
I'm very sorry.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
What a mess to leave behind.
Sittler thought he would have time
to clean things up before he died.
That's the big lie we tell ourselves.
[cell phone ringing]
Oh, I got the final tox report on Lucie.
Death by pyrethrin.
It's more cockroach poison.
What do you think... poison of convenience
or the killer is trying
to tell us something?
I'm going home.
Put your college degree to work
and see what you come up with.
♪ ♪
How was work?
I made a plate for you.
What's wrong?
A cop came to see me at the hospital.
He said he was in Narcotics.
Duroc? What did he want?
He asked me about you and this Charlie.
I said I didn't know anything.
That's right. You don't know anything.
He said you told Charlie
that Yannick would testify against him.
That's why they killed Yannick.
I never told Charlie that.
But you're friends with him?
Yes. I was.
Is that how Yannick got mixed up with him?
I'm just trying to
understand why he's dead.
You're right.
If I hadn't come back into your life,
Yannick would still be alive.
Your mother and I had this
idea that I could help you,
but life's a mean son of a bitch.
It laughs at our good intentions.
Why didn't you stop it?
Were you protecting your friend?
No. Adele...
Don't. I'm sorry.
I can't help having this...
this horrible feeling.
[door slams]
[somber music]
♪ ♪
Hey, I was gonna call you last night,
but it was really late.
So this might be completely crazy,
but I Googled "trial and insects,"
and I came up with Franz Kafka.
You're not crazy. I Googled my bookcase.
[chuckles]
I went through Sittler's papers.
Found this.
"Kafka and the Roots of Fascism,
"a Study of the Novel 'The Trial, '
a Thesis Proposal by Jacques Benoit."
The PhD candidate. Sittler
was his thesis adviser.
Look who the other adviser is.
Lucie's boss.
But Benoit's not on the list
of people Sittler slept with.
But now he's on our list.
Of course I've heard about
Professor Sittler's murder,
but I'm just sitting down at work, and...
- It will just take two minutes.
- Um, okay. Uh, two minutes.
When was the last time
you talked to Sittler?
Maybe two months ago.
I deal mostly with Professor
Gervais at poli-sci.
She's my main thesis adviser.
What kind of relationship
did you have with Sittler?
I don't understand what you mean.
He means were you screwing him?
What? No.
What... why would you think that?
Professor Sittler slept
with a lot of students,
both male and female.
Well, he didn't with me.
JO: I feel a woman's touch in here.
Oh, yeah.
My girlfriend. She's at work.
So you like girls.
Did you like Professor
Gervais' assistant, Lucie?
Not in that way, no.
No, so why were you
calling her two months ago,
calling and hanging up?
We've checked your phone records.
I was angry with her.
She called me a professional student.
I'm not. I'm a scholar.
So you followed her.
JACQUES: Well, I was angry.
Sometimes people just don't understand
the scope of my thesis,
why it's taken so long.
They get impatient.
But we talked it out.
How long have you been
working on your thesis?
Ten years.
It's a very complex subject.
Kafka and fascism?
His novel "The Trial"
is a metaphor for the fascist state.
What about "Metamorphosis"?
A man turns into a bug, a cockroach?
A book about alienation,
the mother's milk of fascism.
And it's taking you 10 years?
Well, the research alone...
Fascism has deep roots in Europe.
It all starts with the
fall of the monarchies,
the French Revolution...
The architects of the Reign of
Terror were the first fascists.
Speaking of bugs, ever have a problem here?
You have to spray?
No, we keep the place very clean.
BAYARD: What about these
boxes? You moving out?
These are papers from my cubicle
at the poli-sci library.
I finally cleared it out.
PhD candidates get free
work space on campus.
It's one of the perks of writing a thesis.
Most of them don't give it up.
Well, I decided it would be
quieter to work from home.
Now, really, your two minutes are up.
I have to work.
[dramatic music]
GERVAIS: Quieter working at home?
That's not why Jacques gave up his cubicle.
He lost his privileges when
I terminated his thesis.
He was forced to withdraw
from the doctoral program.
BAYARD: Why did you terminate him?
I concluded he'd never finish his thesis.
He gave us the introduction
to read five years ago.
Nothing since.
Sittler agreed with your decision?
It was his idea.
Personally, I like Jacques.
But I've been too forgiving.
Sittler and Lucie made convincing arguments
to terminate him; I had to agree.
We had to make room for
more deserving candidates.
And how did Jacques take that?
He was deeply disappointed, of course.
The wasted year,
the loss of face.
He begged me to reinstate him.
I told him I wouldn't be able to
convince the others to reconsider.
So you told him Lucie and
Sittler were behind it?
I might have led him to believe that, yes.
You don't think that...
But Jacques, he's so meek,
so passive.
Mm, the first murder
ever committed on the Paris subway,
it was a woman.
She had something to do with fascists.
Laetitia Toureaux in 1937.
She was spying on the
Cagoule fascists group,
and they had her assassinated.
On a subway train, just like Lucie.
Le duc de Berry,
he was stabbed outside
the opera, like Sittler,
in 18...
1820 by an antimonarchist.
Jacques traced the roots of fascism
back to the fall of the monarchies.
His thesis, he decided
to write it in blood.
Mr. Benoit, this is the police.
Open up.
[sniffing] Smoke.
[dramatic music]
[men cough]
[screaming]
♪ ♪
I got him! Call EMS!
[coughing]
[screaming]
This is Detective Marc
Bayard, Criminal Brigade.
We've got a burn victim at 302...
You ruined everything!
Now I'm dead! I'm dead!
Shut up, you idiot. You're not dead yet.
You don't understand.
BAYARD: We're requesting an ambulance now.
You've killed me.
You killed me!
WOMAN: He has second-degree
burns over 8% of his body.
He'll need to stay here
for a week for hydrotherapy.
Other than that, he'll be fine.
- Can we talk to him?
- No more than ten minutes.
He's on pain medication.
What, no thanks for saving your life?
Right, no, you tried to kill yourself
so you'd avoid going to jail for murder.
Well, I'm sorry that we ruined your plans.
I didn't murder anybody.
No, the fire was an accident.
I was lighting candles.
In the middle of the day?
We know what Sittler and Lucie
did to your thesis.
All that work you'd
done, just down the drain,
your bright future, so you made them pay.
- It wasn't me.
- You sign your work.
Poisoning them like the
cockroach in Kafka's book,
killing Lucie like the fascists
killed Laetitia Toureaux in 1937.
Sittler stabbed to death outside the opera
like le duc de Berry.
WOMAN: Jacques!
Oh, my God.
- What hap...
- [groans]
Oh, sorry. What... what happened?
I got home, and there were firemen...
- I'm okay, Clair.
- Yeah?
It was an accident.
Miss, can we talk to you for a minute?
- Sorry, who are you?
- JO: Detectives.
But I want to stay with my boyfriend.
Better we let the doctor do her work.
I'll be right outside, okay, sweetie?
Okay.
He's such a klutz, you know?
And he's got this big
brain but no motor skills.
- JO: The fire wasn't an accident.
- Sorry, what do you mean?
He set fire to himself,
along with all his papers and documents,
all the work he did on his thesis.
Those bastards. They drove him to this.
What bastards?
The ones at the Sorbonne,
the self-important buffoons
that shitcanned his thesis.
They don't realize that
great work takes time,
and his thesis was gonna
be an important book.
I mean, still is gonna
be an important book.
He has interest from publishers
and universities in the States.
Yeah, but first it has to be a thesis.
Wasn't Jacques bitter
that he was terminated?
Well, how could he not
be? It just wasn't fair.
But did he ever talk about
taking it out on anybody?
I thought this was about a fire.
And two murders.
Raymond Sittler and Lucie Vignault.
You think my Jacques did that?
That's nuts.
He's a scholar.
He's a brilliant scholar,
but he lives inside his head.
There's no fight in him.
But her, she has plenty of fight.
No bug spray.
Maybe Jacques bored
the cockroaches to death
talking about his thesis.
A book on the fascist group
who killed Laetitia Toureaux
and a book on the political
assassinations in France.
And look at this.
It was in a file marked
"Thesis Rough Draft."
Here's the introduction
his professor mentioned
and then the first page
of the first chapter
and a revision of the first page
and another revision and another.
Nothing but revisions of the first page.
So he couldn't even get off the dime.
Wait, look at this.
"Movies I've Seen." It just goes on.
"TV Shows I've Watched."
"Cities I've Visited."
"Cities I Want to Visit."
"My Favorite Meals."
"The 1,000 CDs I'd Bring
to a Desert Island."
"My Favorite Books."
I mean, there's nothing but
sketches and poems and doodles.
But no work.
This must be why he said we killed him.
All this stuff, he was trying to burn it
because he didn't want anyone to know
that he'd just been goofing
off for the past ten years.
Maybe not just anyone.
The people at the
university who didn't care,
they were already done with him.
But the one person that really
believed in him, his girlfriend.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
The notes in the books,
it is her handwriting.
She did his research.
She knew about the murders
of Laetitia Toureaux
and the duc de Berry.
Clair worked the lunch shift
Wednesday 11:00 to 1:30.
Do you remember where she went after?
If she's like me, she went and had a drink.
2 1/2 hours getting
harassed by a bunch of punks
who think the carrots are overcooked.
- What about Friday evening?
- The dinner shift.
I saw her at 5:00, but I don't
remember seeing her leave.
She ever talk about her boyfriend?
The genius?
I've heard nothing but
for the last five years.
The genius who'll write a famous book.
The genius who'll travel
the world giving lectures.
Clair will be the queen of the ball.
No more dinner trays for her.
[spray hissing]
Um, excuse me, sir.
What are you spraying there?
Insecticide.
I'm not breaking any laws.
This stuff's totally eco-friendly.
It tickles the cockroaches to death.
You have anything, um...
anything stronger in your kit?
You know, take down the real big bugs?
Stuff I only use outside.
Here, have a look.
Now, this stuff will take down a pigeon.
Pyrethrin.
The bath helps remove the dead skin.
You'll be able to do it
in your shower at home.
Please?
I'll be right back, okay, sweetie?
Okay.
How is he doing?
Oh, you care?
You're trying to put him in prison.
Oh, no, actually, we have other suspects,
but our boss wants us to dot the Is
on your boyfriend's alibi,
so could you just confirm
that you saw him last
Wednesday around noon?
Yeah, at home, before I left for work.
- You work Wednesday?
- Yeah, all day.
I dish out mashed potatoes
in the university cafeteria.
It's the job of my dreams.
And how about Friday afternoon?
What was Jacques doing?
I assume he was writing his thesis.
I was working.
Have you read his thesis?
Just the introduction.
He won't let me read the rest
till it's letter-perfect.
He keeps it at university library,
so I can't even sneak a peek.
Well, that's another thing.
He cleared out his
cubicle at the university.
Everything he had,
every copy of his thesis,
it all went up in flames.
I mean, the smoke even
damaged his computer.
I mean, it doesn't matter,
'cause it's all in his head,
and he'll just write it
down as soon as he's better.
Well, you have a lot of faith in him.
How long have you been together?
Since we were undergrads.
I majored in semiotics.
It's the study of signs and symbols.
That's a long way from mashed potatoes.
Well, one of us has to work
a real job to pay the bills.
When I graduated, I was offered a position
at a small college in the south,
but it meant being apart from Jacques.
[yelps]
I'm sorry. I have to go.
The bath hurts so much.
It's not evidence.
You throw a rock anywhere in Paris,
you're gonna hit somewhere
an aristocrat was killed.
It's our history.
But Clair's alibi is still shaky,
and she has access to pyrethrin.
I have access to pyrethrin.
Sorry, your case isn't made.
Jo, I want to let you know
before you hear it elsewhere,
they caught the guy who shot Yannick Morin.
They found him on a tip.
He had a weapon. The ballistics matched.
He confessed.
He said that Yannick ripped
him off on a dope deal
a couple of months ago.
Nothing to do with Charlie Lapier.
You believe it?
The point is, Homicide believes it.
Charlie's a loan shark.
This guy has two gambling offenses.
He's a gambler.
He's probably on the hook to
Charlie for tens of thousands.
This is how he's paying it back.
Charlie threatened to kill him...
Drop it. The Morin case is closed.
Don't add to your problems
with Internal Affairs.
You hear me?
[intense music]
♪ ♪
Hey.
[men grunting]
You kill one of my family, you pay!
It wasn't me, Jo!
They already caught the guy.
You're scared! You've
never been scared before.
Your time must be up.
BAYARD: Get your hands on your head!
Jo, come on! Let's go!
Get your hands on your head!
On the floor now!
Jo, come on! Let's go!
Jo!
Come on, let's get out of here.
If you ever hurt my partner
and his family again,
I will put you and your
family in the ground!
♪ ♪
[engine revving]
[siren wailing]
You know the odds you would
have walked out of there alive?
What do you know about the odds?
My father was a degenerate gambler.
I know about calculating the odds.
You got to forget about Charlie, Jo.
You've got Adele to worry about now,
and we've got this case.
I need my partner.
Don't get mixed up in my business.
Your wife won't like it,
and you'll end up on Dormont's shit list.
Um, Clair's covered her tracks pretty well.
Nobody recognized her at
the opera or on the subway.
There's no traces of pyrethrin or syringes
at her home or in her work locker.
What if revenge wasn't her only motive?
Well, right, exactly.
I mean, with Sittler
and Lucie out of the way,
she can work on getting
Jacques' thesis reinstated.
If she fails, she might get angry again.
Do you mean catch her in the act?
We just need to get her
angry at the right person.
What do you call that, what she studied?
Semiotics.
It's the study of signs and symbols.
She likes symbols.
Let's give her one she can't resist.
See if you can still write
like a college student.
Before his unfortunate accident,
Jacques asked me to consider
reinstating his thesis,
maybe appointing a new adviser
now that Professor Sittler was dead.
I gave it serious thought,
but then this came to my attention.
Jacques left it behind in
his cubicle in the library,
some of the work he did on his thesis.
Here's the introduction
that we're familiar with
and then revised pages
of the first chapter, many revisions.
This is all the same page.
Where's the rest of it?
There is no rest of it.
It seems he got blocked five years ago.
What about those pages? What's that?
Lists he made.
His favorite books,
favorite films, travel plans.
It's not possible.
There has to be more.
There's this...
pages from a diary about
his struggle with the thesis.
You should read it.
I'm not interested in excuses.
It's heartbreaking, really.
"I've tried everything.
"I pace, I think out loud,
"and when I think I have it,
"I run to the computer to write it down,
"but then all my brilliant thoughts
"just fly out of my head.
"I can't connect one thing to the other.
"It's like going mad, but I'm not mad.
"I'm just empty.
"I think of the life I dreamed about,
"the life of a scholar,
"but maybe that was
Clair's dream, not mine.
"The more I stare at the blank screen,
the more I hate her for
putting me in this hell."
I'm sorry. I shouldn't have read that.
Just give me those.
He also describes a disturbing meeting
he had with Professor
Sittler a few months ago.
Jacques claims that Professor Sittler
made a pass at him.
You're lying.
Just give me those. Give it all to me.
And this.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
No!
[grumbling angrily]
♪ ♪
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
No!
Clair?
Let me go!
What are you guys doing?
What were you gonna do with that?
You useless twerp!
She was coming to kill you.
Kill me? What... what...
"Cities I Want to Visit"?
"My Favorite Meals"?
She's figured out what you've been up to
for the past ten years.
You blamed me when it was you
who couldn't write one word,
one goddamn word?
Okay, Clair...
I believed in you, and what did you do?
You wasted my life.
I didn't mean to.
I didn't know what else to do.
Sittler knew what to do.
He wouldn't have dropped
you if you'd slept with him.
- What?
- He made a pass at you.
I know all about it!
You couldn't even do that for me.
You should have told me what you wanted.
I would have slept with him.
It would have saved me
the trouble of killing him.
- You would have slept with him?
- Yeah. So what?
All right. Okay. This is enough. Let's go.
But you're with me. You're my girlfriend.
Don't be such a child.
She used to say she loved me for my mind.
Who's gonna love me now?
[soft dramatic music]
♪ ♪