Numb3rs (2005–2010): Season 5, Episode 21 - Disturbed - full transcript
Charlie, still feeling guilty about Don's injury, focuses on finding a frighteningly intelligent serial killer who is meticulous about eliminating all witnesses to his crimes.
♪ ♪
♪ I look at you ♪
♪ And before my
eyes, it's true ♪
♪ That the girl of my dreams ♪
♪ Is not quite what she seems ♪
♪ Open your door ♪
♪ Turn on the light ♪
♪ Show me some more ♪
♪ Tell me it's all right ♪
♪ Heaven is inside you ♪
♪ Heaven when I write you ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Is Hell just in my mind? ♪
(camera shutter snaps)
♪ ♪
♪ Heaven is inside you ♪
♪ Heaven when I write you ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Is Hell just in my mind? ♪
So, you working on
a little extra credit?
It's kind of a thought exercise.
DAVID: About two dozen
unsolved murders.
I mean, it looks
pretty real to me.
Ever since Don got hurt,
I can't stop thinking
every violent act is,
to some degree, explicable.
You got a lot of different
M.O.s here,
different victim types:
men, women, children;
shot, stabbed,
strangled, bludgeoned.
Three of these are
pedestrian hit-and-runs.
But there is a timeline pattern.
You found a pattern in all this?
Yep. By using some of the same
mathematical concepts that look
for signs of intelligent
life in our universe.
Ah, yeah, of course.
It's not as "out
there" as it seems.
The universe creates
an endless background
of electromagnetic static.
SETI... the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence...
Uses algorithms to sift through
all this random cosmic noise
to find a signal that is
complex yet repetitive,
a non-natural pattern
created by an intelligence.
I've adapted the signal
detection algorithm
to analyze the
pattern, and I got...
this spatio-temporal
visualization model.
Its sequence is half lunar.
It's indicative of a
recurring emotional need,
buffered by planning
and surveillance.
Okay, but if the M.O.s and
the victims are all different?
He's a different
type of serial killer.
All right.
DAVID: He's working
on a theory.
Serial killer nobody's
noticed but him.
How does he figure?
Signals from deep space.
Seems a little outside
the box, even for Charlie.
Yeah, thing is, a few years ago,
Don got shot at a bank robbery
that Charlie had predicted.
He retreated to his garage,
and he buried himself in
an unsolvable math problem.
Been in here 24/7
the past five days.
LIZ: You know, there's a
symptom of posttraumatic
stress disorder
called hypervigilance.
Means you're always looking out
for potential
danger and threats,
thinking you see it.
And it's not really there.
Oh. Trying to scare me to death.
What are you doing at the
FBI till 3:00 in the morning?
Nothing.
Nothing, huh?
(groans)
You're working some serial case.
David told me.
He thinks I'm overreacting?
Charlie, hey,
this isn't your fault.
I know that.
Well, you got to move on.
Since when have
you ever moved on?
Since I got stabbed.
Sooner or later, we're both
gonna have to learn we
can't solve every problem.
(truck backup warning beeping)
Hey! Call 911!
Ah, Betancourt,
thanks for coming.
Yeah, no problem,
JJ. Whatcha got?
Postal worker halfway
through his rounds
popped in the head,
small-caliber, close-range.
And what's he
doing in the alley?
A resident says he uses
the alleyway as a shortcut.
Maybe somebody knew his routine.
But your guy's
working on that angle.
My guy?
Yeah, the professor.
He's yours, isn't he?
Yeah. Yeah, he's ours.
Well, the pattern isn't perfect.
I mean, there are micro-clusters
that are currently anomalous.
But the overall pattern
is extraordinarily regular,
which is indicative... How
many murders in a micro-cluster?
Two. Mostly.
Sometimes three.
That's very micro.
Yeah, but those are outliers.
The macro-pattern is
persistent, statistically valid.
Charlie, we both started here
on the same case five years ago.
Okay? You know I'm a believer
in what you do. And
I'm asking for a lot.
Working your theory would
take hundreds of man-hours.
Everybody's already busy
on confirmed crimes; if I tried
to reassign agents to work a serial
case that had no serial elements,
outside of a timeline pattern
discovered by a mathematician,
I mean, I'd get fired.
This is what he's counting on.
Excuse me?
He knows serial killers
get caught because of patterns,
telltale traits,
compulsive behavior,
so he switches his M.O.s,
his weapons, victim types
on purpose.
No repetitive behavior
means no pattern.
No reason to expend
law enforcement resources
to find one.
All right, what do you
want me to do, Charlie?
SETI telescopes...
Always gathering data.
I need more data.
I'll take anything
you can give me.
Okay, all right.
There's a lot of
amateur work being done
for serial killer data,
and some of it is
surprisingly comprehensive.
Amateur work. Yeah. Uh...
there's a guy we worked
with on a recent case.
You should meet him.
Good afternoon.
Huh? Hi. I'm...
Oh! Professor!
Welcome.
Roy McGill. Oh, welcome!
Hi. Such a pleasure.
Hey, would you mind locking up?
Thanks, buddy.
Certainly.
Oh, please forgive
the, uh, concrete decor.
Nature of my work requires
an enhanced level of security.
(whispers): Welcome
to the Truth Cave.
You like it? Pretty cool, right?
Pretty cool.
(quiet, high-pitched): Yeah!
You hungry?
I'm fine. Okay.
Oh! You got to hear this.
Heads up.
(whispers): Watch
this. Wait for it.
Wait for it. This'll be good.
(eerie whirring)
You know what that
is? Of course you don't.
That's a sound
recording of a UFO
from a Russian friend of mine.
Code name: Teeger Woods.
Like Tiger Woods, but not.
Huh?
Art Bell's gonna run
it on his show tonight.
Actually, I'm, um, I'm just
here to talk to you about...
Serial killer, right?
You know how I knew that?
I have ESP.
I don't have ESP. I'm
totally messing with you.
Agent Sinclair told me. Oh!
Freakin' awesome, man!
I always knew you and
I were gonna team up.
I always knew it.
I'm really just here
to collect some data...
I'm a little surprised
it took the FBI so long.
I mean, I've only got the
sixth most popular blog
on serial killers. (laughs)
Oh. Do you want this seat?
I'm fine.
Oh, so am I.
It's pretty comfortable.
Oh!
Hey, look at this.
So, I found two murders
that fit into your,
uh, timeline pattern.
I tried to find things that fit
into the, uh, spatio-tempura
that Agent Sinclair sent me.
By the look of it, I
didn't do a good job.
I was really hoping
to find more data than this.
Not a problem.
Not... a... problem.
(whispers): And we're off!
Where are we going?
Serial killer data central.
(quiet, high-pitched): Yeah!
Gene Evans.
CHARLIE: It's a pleasure.
You guys should have,
like, some sort of, like,
you know, crazy,
uh, math handshake.
Gene's into numbers,
too. Gene's an accountant.
Mm, retired.
Uh, and, tabulating taxes
hardly qualifies as math the way
Professor Eppes knows it.
Gene is part of a network...
Amateurs who help
with police investigations.
The number of missing
persons and unsolved murders
can overwhelm most
agencies, so there's
hundreds of us
around the country,
and we... gather and tabulate
data as much as we can.
Gene solved four missing
person cases in California
and a murder case in Oregon.
Well, "assisted" would
be closer to the truth.
But the fact is, I stopped.
Couple of years
ago, I got a bunch
of phone calls, probably just
cranks, but it spooked the wife.
Well, any information
you can provide
would be much
appreciated here, Gene.
When Roy described
your theory...
something came to mind.
These aren't L.A.-area cases.
They're all from up near,
uh, Fresno and Bakersfield.
And several years ago.
Yeah, but...
the time patterns,
the knowledge of
the victims' routines,
uh, very similar.
And-and then there's this.
That's a constrictor knot.
Simple and secure,
but once you get it tight,
it's very difficult to untie.
Same knot was used in five
of the cases you're looking into.
Whoa. Freaky.
Have you shown any
of this to the police?
Yes. A detective
up in Bakersfield.
Brent Driscoll.
LARRY: Charlie,
you're living and working
out of boxes now. You've become
a previous incarnation of me.
AMITA: What's
taking you so long?
Do you need some help?
I'm too busy.
I need to find the
missing pieces here.
Make one mistake,
people get hurt.
Cognitive emergence work.
God, you haven't even
touched this since Don's injury.
AMITA: Have you ever considered
this might be an overreaction?
My theory's correct.
If you want to say that this is
a reaction to Don's
situation, go ahead.
No, I mean,
come on, you're an
applied mathematician.
You're applying
math to a problem.
And there's something to be
said for cathartic endeavors.
Well, let's say, for
hypothetical reasons,
that I'm not crazy,
that my timeline
pattern is correct.
Let's say that there is
a serial killer who
has avoided detection.
Why the anomalies
in the timeline?
Why the micro-clusters?
What am I missing?
Well, whatever is missing
lies beyond all of this.
You seek to quantify a
single individual in some
elegant, mathematical pattern.
But the universe is full of all
these odd bumps and twists.
And so are people.
Now, perhaps your
approach needs to be
less elegant, more complicated.
Haven't we had this
conversation before?
Well, now,
cosmologically speaking,
everything that happens
has happened before.
Can I help you find something?
Yeah, I think I left
something in here, some files.
For your serial killer case?
It's an office; people talk.
So everyone thinks I'm crazy.
You know about Kim Rossmo?
Canadian detective,
mathematician.
His work on geographic profiling
was, was groundbreaking.
Rossmo identified the same type
of serial killer as
you're looking for...
One that deliberately hides
any signs of a criminal pattern.
He called them
stealth predators.
They try to commit
crimes in such a way
that the authorities
aren't even aware of it.
Really?
In Vancouver, he did something
a lot like what you're doing...
Working only off of a pattern.
The police didn't believe
his theory that a cluster
of disappearances was
the work of a single killer.
So they fire Rossmo.
Ten more deaths later,
they realize that he's right.
So they caught the killer
with 31 bodies
buried on his property.
I'd love to see
Rossmo's methodology.
Had a feeling you
might be interested.
Thanks, Matt.
(screams)
You're in my spot here.
(groans)
I fell asleep.
I just had the worst dream.
I wonder why.
What are you doing here?
I like it here.
I don't know what
it is, you know?
I been shot. I been beaten.
How many sports
did I play as a kid?
And I-I've never
been laid up like this.
You got stabbed.
How can you be so calm about it?
Well, I mean, I
survived, for one thing.
Who are you?
What have you
done with my brother?
I don't know, Charlie.
All I can tell
you is I feel like
job just doesn't own me anymore.
Yeah?
Well, that's got to
be the meds talking.
Where you going?
I might as well work.
I don't want to have
another dream like that one.
Uh...
Charles?
Hey.
Um...
is everything okay?
My search for a non-random
signal has revealed
not only an intelligence,
but an extremely careful
and shrewd intelligence.
It's not one area; it's three.
He moves.
What, the serial killer?
Yeah. It became
apparent when I combined
Gene Evans' data with
Kim Rossmo's methodology
that this killer is
a stealth predator.
He knows that too many
murders in one area gets attention,
and so he moves.
Terrific.
A super-smart killer.
Who's struck three
times in 18 years,
starting in Northern California,
and then the
Fresno-Bakersfield area,
and now he's here.
It's good to see you.
Bye.
Bye.
Oh, dear.
McGILL: You do realize 7:00
is an inhuman hour
to be calling somebody.
We're very close, Roy.
I just need a little more data,
and I'm thinking
Gene's gonna have it.
Oh, man, this is gonna
blow the doors off the Zodiac,
Bundy, the Red Ripper.
(calling out): Gene?
Martha?
Hello?
(dryer whirring)
Let's check the garage.
Well, car's still here.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Gene Evans and his wife
don't fit the macro-pattern.
They fit the pattern
of micro-clusters.
What interests me is that
Evans collected
data on the killings.
Police interviewed a witness who
was driving by the Evans' house
near the time of the killing.
This is the description he gave
of a man he saw walking
across their front yard.
Uh, David, sheriff's
homicide's asking
if we're working the
Evans murder with them.
Tell them we're looking at it
for a possible link
to an FBI case.
Okay.
Do I tell them we
suspect a serial?
No. Not yet.
First, we need to see if anybody
had an ordinary motive
for killing Gene Evans.
Want to be sure.
My brother Gene and his
wife Martha were good people.
What happened to them is wrong.
Is there anyone who
would want to hurt them?
I thought you knew
about that already.
Former client said
Gene made a mistake
on his taxes, cost
him his life savings.
He threatened my brother.
They had to get a
restraining order.
There's police
reports and everything.
The guy's a nut.
What's this guy's name?
Mark Horn.
COLBY: You said you saw
someone outside the Evans' house
the night that he and his wife
were killed.
Now, could this be the man?
It was dark.
And, like I told the sheriff's
detectives, you know,
he had a jacket on
with the hood pulled up.
But...
yeah, that looks like him.
Thank you.
Uh, that guy, have
you arrested him yet?
Guys, what about
me and my family?
Are we gonna be a target now?
Whoa! Hey!
Who are you?
Why you going
through Charlie's stuff?
I happen to be Professor
Lawrence Fleinhardt,
holder of the Walter T. Merrick
Chair in Theoretical Physics.
Oh, yeah? Can you prove it?
Yes, if you'd care
to hear a lecture on
the photoelectric properties
of Ly-Alpha emitters
in a QZ2 plane universe.
I-I have no idea
what just happened.
But why are you going
through Charlie's stuff?
Because, my young
friend, I think I have
a Green Lantern book
in here somewhere.
(whispers): Green Lantern!
"In brightest day,
in blackest night..."
Yeah.
"No evil shall escape my sight."
Sight!
(laughs): I love the Lant.
(sighs): Oh. Yeah.
Yeah. Charlie and I, we're, uh,
we're investigating
a little FBI case. Shh.
(whispers): Keep it on the D.L.
Oh, wait, so you must be
the consultant, uh,
who specializes in,
well, let's call them
unusual explanations.
I think the Bureau refers to
me as "the conspiracy nut."
Some of history's greatest minds
have been rejected
by society at large.
(whispers): Whoa,
you're one of us!
Well, actually, I prefer
the term "conspiracist."
I drop the word
"nut" altogether.
For example, I don't put too
much stock in cryptozoology.
Oh, well, you
should take a look at
my, uh, Bigfoot
Web site sometime.
(chuckles) You'll be singing
a whole different tune.
It's the same old lyric: silly
men dressed up in gorilla suits.
McGILL: Oh, Charlie!
Hey, good timing.
Oh, I got something
important to show you.
Why don't you, uh,
step into my office.
Your office. I was
just kidding with you.
So, I took a look at
your whole three-area idea,
and I think I might have
identified a victim zero.
High school girl
murdered in 1988.
Nancy Kershaw, 17.
Found in a wooded
area near a public park.
What's your criteria
for identifying her
as a victim zero?
My cr... for identifying...
I love your hair, by the way.
Um, well,
I took the earliest of the
three areas you identified...
Stockton... and I, uh,
looked for previous murders.
LARRY: If I may,
you know, not all the
people murdered in that area
can be linked to a cluster.
This guy... he's good.
I got a copy of
the M.E.'s report.
Check it out.
See, right there.
CHARLIE: Constrictor knot.
But that's not unique
to all these cases.
If she is Victim Zero,
serial killers will often start
with somebody that they know
or live close to.
Uh-huh.
It's true.
Nancy Kershaw had a boyfriend.
A week after she was killed,
somebody claiming to be
the murderer called him up,
threatened to kill him, too.
I'm good.
Guys, I should be
doing this for a living.
NIKKI: Gene Evans' disgruntled
client Mark Horn used a credit card
at a gas station three
miles from the Evans' house
on the night of the murders.
Might not be good for
Charlie's serial theory.
But it's good for solving
the Evans murder case.
Mark Horn.
I didn't do anything wrong!
You got no reason to arrest me!
Oh, yeah? Well, I guess
we have a difference
of opinion. Come on.
I was watching my daughter.
You aren't allowed
around your daughter
without her mother's permission.
She is my daughter! Damn it.
Why'd you lose custody?
My wife didn't
understand that I have
to fight for what is mine.
NIKKI: Gene Evans.
He had a restraining
order out against you.
You violated it. Yeah.
I wound up in a county
jail when I am the victim!
I am not the one they
should be locking up.
Who is?
Gene Evans.
Evans is dead.
You went to his house
the night he was killed.
I only drove by.
Evans got that restraining
order out against you
because you broke into his home.
I needed his records.
I didn't kill him!
I needed him.
Help me make the
case with the IRS.
Hey.
Hey.
Charlie's not here. I know.
He's in his office running
another statistical analysis
on his serial killer data.
Mm.
He can be pretty obsessive.
You can never get through
to him when he's like this.
The only way is to find
a flaw in his analysis,
you know, prove he's
not following a valid line.
I went over his work
looking for errors.
I think there's
a good reason for
Charlie to be obsessed.
All right, why don't you
walk me through it then?
DAVID: Mark Horn threatened
Gene Evans, broke into his home.
We can place him in
the vicinity of the murder.
Can you link him to
any of the other deaths?
No, he was out of the
country for one cluster,
in another state
for another one.
DON: I just looked at those
interrogation tapes.
There's no way that's the guy.
Based on what?
Based on the fact
that he was arrested
for harassing Evans.
I mean, if he's gonna kill him,
he's knows were
gonna come after him.
Right, but Horn didn't
try to leave the area
or conceal his whereabouts.
Well, Amita showed me this
work she's doing on your timeline,
and it answered some questions.
You say he's careful.
He plans his attacks.
He scouts his victims.
So why kill Evans
without the usual interval?
For the same reason
he kills this guy:
'cause he's careful.
NIKKI: The killer didn't know
that this postal carrier would
be running three hours late.
Which means that the mailman saw
the killer at the house
of the last murder.
Okay, so he kills the mailman
as a witness, but why Evans?
Why? Because two days
before he dies, he goes online,
said he's gonna start up
with his detective work again.
And the killer
decided to stop him.
So the micro-clusters happen
when the killer
covers his tracks.
We don't have hard
evidence. It's all circumstantial.
And statistics.
And the pattern, which
indicates another attack
within the next 48 hours.
I say we move now.
Look, I'll take responsibility.
Okay, you all heard
the man on desk duty.
Let's get to it.
The one important constant,
his careful stalking
of his potential victims,
sometimes for weeks.
DAVID: There are
often police reports
of prowlers and peeping Toms
prior to the killings.
And yet you say he's careful?
I think he likes to
spook his victims,
let them catch glimpses of him.
And even if they
call the police...
Prowler reports aren't
taken as serious threats.
COLBY: Well, if
he's gonna kill again,
then maybe there'll
be new prowler reports
and attempted break-ins.
In L.A. alone, there'd have
to be hundreds a week.
CHARLIE: The most likely target
is a couple in their mid-30s
within an area of elevated
geographic probabilities.
Single-family residence,
no locked gates,
no alarm systems.
A place to conceal a vehicle,
access to a major roadway.
That gives us a starting point.
In your analysis, you, uh,
you left out Victim Zero.
Well, that's because I don't
think that there's enough
to link Nancy
Kershaw to the clusters.
See, I would have to
agree with Roy here.
I share his interest
in this Victim Zero.
See?
You see that? Physics guy
thinks there's
something to my idea.
Well, now just
consider, Charles,
you don't include Nancy Kershaw
because she doesn't
seem to fit your pattern.
But is that really a
reason to exclude data?
Do you think her death
tells us something?
Well, you know when we look
at the light from distant stars,
we look at the past, millions,
maybe billions of years.
That's how long it took
that light to reach the Earth.
And yet, the undisputed
1862 UFO sighting
during the Battle of Vicksburg
proves that extraterrestrials
have mastered
superluminal velocity.
But just returning to
the point here... Yes.
If Nancy Kershaw
is the first victim,
that tells us things about
the killer that he was
very careful to hide
in subsequent crimes.
She was in his
orbit, so to speak.
Right, right. And remember,
if our guy did kill her,
then he's the same guy
who called up her boyfriend
and threatened to kill him, too.
(whispers): So somebody
out there has heard his voice.
All right, find out what you can
from the conspiracy community,
and I'll get the FBI on it.
Thank you, astrology dude.
Astronomy.
Astronomy.
Thanks.
You remember what
Gene Evans told Charlie?
That he shared his research
on serial killers with a
detective in Bakersfield?
Yeah?
Name's Brent Driscoll,
and guess what.
He died last year.
How?
They said he fell, hit his head,
and wound up drowned
in his backyard pool.
Yeah.
Doesn't that seem just
a bit suspicious to you?
Bakersfield PD look
into it? Well, sure.
But they didn't know
there was a killer
who eliminates
investigators and witnesses.
We need Driscoll's files.
I'm driving up tomorrow.
CHARLIE: What do you have there?
It's a home improvement project
I hope you both
will help me out with.
I told you I would.
All right. So, front and
backyard landscaping.
Take a look.
You're asking him about it?
What about me? I own this house.
Oh, yeah, like you care
what hedges he puts out there.
Point made.
(chuckles)
How you doing there?
(sighs)
David's got half
the office trying
to ID potential
victims by running
down prowler reports.
Hey, you guys remember
the first time, huh?
That first serial case?
Remember? It was
right here in this room.
You figured it out together.
Remember?
It was like a lifetime ago.
Five years.
Yeah, it was right before
that you had grown so far apart
that I was the only
thing you had in common.
I figured after I died,
you might spend years
not seeing each other,
but, um, to tell you the truth,
I'm not worried
about that anymore.
(door opens)
Hey, Charlie, you
got something new?
No, I've got something old.
I was talking with Don
and my dad about a previous
serial case we worked on,
and it reminded me of this.
So I analyzed these three
clusters, and it gave me
these three probable locations
for the killer.
(computer trilling)
That's the Hot Zone equation.
The very same.
Now how does this work?
Well, think of it like a...
Can, uh, can I do this?
It's like a lawn sprinkler
spreading hundreds
of drops of water.
Now, it's impossible to predict
where the next drop will fall,
but if you take away the
sprinkler, from the pattern
of the drops you could
calculate its location.
You're saying that we can
find out where the killer lives?
Yeah. We know that
he's either lived in
or is linked to
these three areas.
DAVID: You run a
comparative analysis
against the prowler
reports we got?
Oh, I love it when
a student grasps
the full potential
of an application.
(typing) Top 30
potential victims,
ID'd from police reports,
geographic areas,
victim profiles.
The numbers represent
the probability of their being
the next victim.
The best we can get is 23%?
In the world of statistical
analysis, 23% means...
Uh, can I do this one?
It means get your ass in gear.
Come on, guys. Dinner's ready.
COLBY: So, he tends
to attack couples,
right?
And also teenagers.
Some with their parents
asleep in the same house.
We got people at
the 30 residences
that Charlie thinks are
the most likely targets.
Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky,
so to speak.
COLBY: Hey, what's that movie
with Al Pacino... he's a cop,
and he ends up
sleeping with Ellen Barkin,
and then it turns out that
her ex-husband was the killer?
Sea of Love.
No, that wasn't it.
Yeah, it is. Seen
it, like, five times.
You a big Pacino fan?
No. Michael Rooker fan.
He was Henry in Henry:
Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Oh, yeah, that guy.
That guy's always the killer.
No, he's not. You ever seen
The Replacement Killers?
He was the cop.
Hey, look there.
FBI.
Get down! On your knees!
Okay, don't shoot me!
What the hell's going on?
We're FBI.
Leonard, is that you?
You know him?
MAN: Leonard Philber.
Friend of my daughter's.
(crashing)
What the hell are
you doing here?
I was just gonna TP a tree, man!
DAVID: FBI!
(screams) (gunshot)
(screaming)
Kill your light.
Kill your light.
Did you see him?
No.
DAVID: He had a car
hidden nearby. He ditched it.
Continued on foot or had
a second car somewhere.
He had an escape route
planned out in advance.
He knew exactly
where he was going.
Everyone all right?
Everyone's fine.
All right. I'll get back to you.
Well, it was the right
place, buddy, but he's gone.
Damn it. He plans ahead.
He knew how to get away.
Listen, I'm worried that
we've presented ourselves
with an even
bigger problem here.
What do you mean? This
guy's moved three times.
Now that he was almost caught,
he's going to relocate again.
So, the killer started
in Northern California,
moved south,
and now he's here in L.A.
Like three points of
gravitational force,
the killer residing
somewhere in them, unseen,
exerting his destructive
influence like a black hole.
Yeah. We need to
narrow each hot zone down
and profile all the men in them
and look for a common link.
That's a lot of legwork.
All right. I'll get census lists
and Social Security records.
We can start cross-checking.
I found something
in the Driscoll files.
Now, Driscoll's the detective
who worked with Gene Evans,
and he supposedly
drowned in a pool last year.
He interviewed a
man as a suspect
in a murder in Bakersfield.
Robert Posdner... The
guy who claimed he saw
Gene Evans' killer.
He was a witness
in the murder here.
He was also a suspect
in a Bakersfield murder.
Even I have to ask.
What are the odds?
And Bakersfield files
ID him as Wayne Potvin.
He's one of 19 suspects
in the murder of
a married couple.
Now, Driscoll questioned
him, did a background check.
He came up clean.
It was a fake ID.
COLBY: All right.
We got more. We
ID'd about 250 men
with ties to three
geographic areas.
Ran their DMV photos
through facial recognition.
Got four hits.
Thomas Park, David Palmer,
Wayne Potvin, and
Robert Posdner.
It's the same guy.
We got our killer.
We still can't
tie him through hard
evidence to even one murder.
Well, we can at least get
him for faking his identity.
That's not enough.
We need to put this guy
away for serial murder.
What's next?
You tell me, boss.
Right, okay. Um... We-We
put him under surveillance
and we try to see if we can
get enough for a search warrant.
Sounds good.
MAN (over radio):
Follow Two to Follow One.
The Eagle has landed.
Follow One to Follow
Two. You've been made.
Don't burn the target.
Copy, Follow One. Breaking away.
CHARLIE: It's just weird
knowing who the killer is
and not being able to prove it.
Yeah. It's not unlike that
period between forming a theory
and then finding the
proof that supports it.
Well, most theories don't
relocate, switch identities,
and resume killing people.
No, not that we know of.
You realize, Charlie,
at some point,
you're going to have
to focus on work here.
You need help with
your particle analysis?
No, no, no. I'm not
talking about me.
I'm talking about
you. Your potential.
Solving crimes is important,
but discovering the hidden
mathematical structures
within brain operations...
Guys! I got something.
(wheezing and panting)
You all right? Uh-huh.
Yeah, I'm good.
My heart hurts, but I just
ran from the parking lot.
What's that, like, 200 feet?
Here's the thing.
So, I was looking
at the whole, uh,
Victim Zero case, right?
The high school girl?
There was a fellow
student who was expelled
from the same
school the year before.
He was a suspect.
Thomas Park.
CHARLIE: Thomas Park?
That's one of the identities
the FBI suspect used.
Bingo! This is so Zodiac.
Frickin' awesome.
Look at this. I got goose bumps.
And it continues down my spine.
Thomas Park was 18 at the
time of Nancy Kershaw's murder.
They knew each other
and it says here that
he was a suspect because
he kept asking her out
and hanging around
her house. Stalking her.
Nancy Kershaw's
boyfriend, Steve Savard...
now, he got to the house
when the killer was still
there. He chased him away.
Now, one week later,
he was nearly killed
in a car accident.
Someone cut the brake line.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Couple of days after,
uh, Kershaw's murder,
uh, her boyfriend received
a threatening phone call
from somebody
claiming to be the killer.
Steve Savard heard
the killer's voice.
All right. Do we know
where he is now?
Well, after the murder,
his family got scared.
They moved from
Stockton to Nevada.
Is he still out of state?
'Cause we need to
find him right now.
Uh, I did.
I used some of my
contacts to track him down.
His flight should have
landed an hour ago.
Are you kidding me? Huh?
Are you kidding me?
He's a little angry.
You know, I just figured
time was sensitive, right?
So, I took the liberty of, uh...
Of impersonating an FBI agent?
I didn't tell anyone I was...
I can't help what people assume.
I went to work that
day, like any other day.
COMPUTER (higher pitch): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
Amita's designed an
algorithm that captures
Robert Posdner's voice
from his Bakersfield interview.
Ah. When he was interviewed
as a possible suspect?
Yes, and she's
mathematically reconstructed it
to have the same tone and timbre
as his voice might
have had at age 18.
We have some recordings
we want you to listen to, okay?
Amita, we're ready.
COMPUTER (higher
pitch): I went to work that day,
like any other day.
(beeps)
COMPUTER (slightly deeper): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
(beeps)
COMPUTER (deeper,
rougher): I went to work that day,
like any other day. That one.
There's, uh, one more. (beeps)
COMPUTER (higher, more
nasal): I went to work that day,
like any other day.
No. No, not that one... the one
before it. That was the closest.
Closest? Or the same guy that
threatened you 20 years ago?
SAVARD: Well,
you-you altered it, right?
'Cause now he's an adult.
You tried to make it
sound like a teenager.
Uh...
Can I hear the
recording the way it is?
Amita, play #3 straight.
POSDNER (on recording): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
(beeps)
That's him.
He said he killed
Nancy...
(voice breaks)
and he was going to kill me.
You're sure?
He murdered the girl I loved.
Nearly killed me.
My family moved
to another state.
Everything changed.
There's not a week that goes by
I don't wake up
from a dead sleep
and hear that voice.
Yeah... I'm sure.
(car doors open and close)
Robert Posdner. FBI.
Let me see your hands.
It's Agent Sinclair, right?
Robert? What's happening?
Ma'am. It's okay, honey.
They're federal agents.
Look at her.
Poor thing has no
idea. It'll be a total shock.
Honey, it's almost time
to pick up the kids, isn't it?
Nobody knew about me.
I liked it that way.
Some serial killers, you know,
they-they write
to the newspapers
or they taunt the police.
I never drew
attention to myself.
I just wanted to go about
the things I needed to do.
You know, most serial killers...
they can't control themselves.
They're too damaged.
They aren't careful.
You need to plan, if
you're doing it right.
You know, people who know me,
they'll all say they never
suspected anything.
Well, I made sure they didn't.
That's my favorite part.
Took you guys a long,
long time to find me, didn't it?
I know there are reasons,
psychological motivations
for why sociopaths
become serial killers.
But this guy...
He just seems evil.
You really weren't expecting a
rational explanation, were you?
I mean, with these
guys, you know,
no matter how smart and
focused they appear to be,
it always comes down
to an irrational rage.
DAVID: And in the end, it's
rationality that caught him.
Rationality and logic.
That and a little obsession.
LIZ: Your brother gets
stabbed, and you react
by catching a serial killer.
You got a hell of a way
of working through things.
Some people drink.
Some gamble.
I analyze data.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
So Charlie, how about
tomorrow, we unpack your office
and get you set up in your
new, prestigious space?
Yes, and locate
several books of mine
I think got left in your stuff.
All right. I'm ready.
ALAN: What about you, Donnie?
Hmm? You gonna
be hanging out with
me for the next couple of weeks?
Sorry, pal. I'm back
to full duty Monday.
Ooh, there's a quick recovery.
ALAN: So, why don't you try to
put some time between injuries, huh?
Trust me. I plan
to take it easy.
Yeah, right.
(sprinklers whirring,
Amita screams) Whoa!
ALAN: They're supposed
to come on much later.
LARRY: Hey! This
is a vintage linen!
(shouting)
♪ Counting numbered days... ♪
♪ I look at you ♪
♪ And before my
eyes, it's true ♪
♪ That the girl of my dreams ♪
♪ Is not quite what she seems ♪
♪ Open your door ♪
♪ Turn on the light ♪
♪ Show me some more ♪
♪ Tell me it's all right ♪
♪ Heaven is inside you ♪
♪ Heaven when I write you ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Is Hell just in my mind? ♪
(camera shutter snaps)
♪ ♪
♪ Heaven is inside you ♪
♪ Heaven when I write you ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Heaven, do you want me? ♪
♪ Is Hell just in my mind? ♪
So, you working on
a little extra credit?
It's kind of a thought exercise.
DAVID: About two dozen
unsolved murders.
I mean, it looks
pretty real to me.
Ever since Don got hurt,
I can't stop thinking
every violent act is,
to some degree, explicable.
You got a lot of different
M.O.s here,
different victim types:
men, women, children;
shot, stabbed,
strangled, bludgeoned.
Three of these are
pedestrian hit-and-runs.
But there is a timeline pattern.
You found a pattern in all this?
Yep. By using some of the same
mathematical concepts that look
for signs of intelligent
life in our universe.
Ah, yeah, of course.
It's not as "out
there" as it seems.
The universe creates
an endless background
of electromagnetic static.
SETI... the Search for
Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence...
Uses algorithms to sift through
all this random cosmic noise
to find a signal that is
complex yet repetitive,
a non-natural pattern
created by an intelligence.
I've adapted the signal
detection algorithm
to analyze the
pattern, and I got...
this spatio-temporal
visualization model.
Its sequence is half lunar.
It's indicative of a
recurring emotional need,
buffered by planning
and surveillance.
Okay, but if the M.O.s and
the victims are all different?
He's a different
type of serial killer.
All right.
DAVID: He's working
on a theory.
Serial killer nobody's
noticed but him.
How does he figure?
Signals from deep space.
Seems a little outside
the box, even for Charlie.
Yeah, thing is, a few years ago,
Don got shot at a bank robbery
that Charlie had predicted.
He retreated to his garage,
and he buried himself in
an unsolvable math problem.
Been in here 24/7
the past five days.
LIZ: You know, there's a
symptom of posttraumatic
stress disorder
called hypervigilance.
Means you're always looking out
for potential
danger and threats,
thinking you see it.
And it's not really there.
Oh. Trying to scare me to death.
What are you doing at the
FBI till 3:00 in the morning?
Nothing.
Nothing, huh?
(groans)
You're working some serial case.
David told me.
He thinks I'm overreacting?
Charlie, hey,
this isn't your fault.
I know that.
Well, you got to move on.
Since when have
you ever moved on?
Since I got stabbed.
Sooner or later, we're both
gonna have to learn we
can't solve every problem.
(truck backup warning beeping)
Hey! Call 911!
Ah, Betancourt,
thanks for coming.
Yeah, no problem,
JJ. Whatcha got?
Postal worker halfway
through his rounds
popped in the head,
small-caliber, close-range.
And what's he
doing in the alley?
A resident says he uses
the alleyway as a shortcut.
Maybe somebody knew his routine.
But your guy's
working on that angle.
My guy?
Yeah, the professor.
He's yours, isn't he?
Yeah. Yeah, he's ours.
Well, the pattern isn't perfect.
I mean, there are micro-clusters
that are currently anomalous.
But the overall pattern
is extraordinarily regular,
which is indicative... How
many murders in a micro-cluster?
Two. Mostly.
Sometimes three.
That's very micro.
Yeah, but those are outliers.
The macro-pattern is
persistent, statistically valid.
Charlie, we both started here
on the same case five years ago.
Okay? You know I'm a believer
in what you do. And
I'm asking for a lot.
Working your theory would
take hundreds of man-hours.
Everybody's already busy
on confirmed crimes; if I tried
to reassign agents to work a serial
case that had no serial elements,
outside of a timeline pattern
discovered by a mathematician,
I mean, I'd get fired.
This is what he's counting on.
Excuse me?
He knows serial killers
get caught because of patterns,
telltale traits,
compulsive behavior,
so he switches his M.O.s,
his weapons, victim types
on purpose.
No repetitive behavior
means no pattern.
No reason to expend
law enforcement resources
to find one.
All right, what do you
want me to do, Charlie?
SETI telescopes...
Always gathering data.
I need more data.
I'll take anything
you can give me.
Okay, all right.
There's a lot of
amateur work being done
for serial killer data,
and some of it is
surprisingly comprehensive.
Amateur work. Yeah. Uh...
there's a guy we worked
with on a recent case.
You should meet him.
Good afternoon.
Huh? Hi. I'm...
Oh! Professor!
Welcome.
Roy McGill. Oh, welcome!
Hi. Such a pleasure.
Hey, would you mind locking up?
Thanks, buddy.
Certainly.
Oh, please forgive
the, uh, concrete decor.
Nature of my work requires
an enhanced level of security.
(whispers): Welcome
to the Truth Cave.
You like it? Pretty cool, right?
Pretty cool.
(quiet, high-pitched): Yeah!
You hungry?
I'm fine. Okay.
Oh! You got to hear this.
Heads up.
(whispers): Watch
this. Wait for it.
Wait for it. This'll be good.
(eerie whirring)
You know what that
is? Of course you don't.
That's a sound
recording of a UFO
from a Russian friend of mine.
Code name: Teeger Woods.
Like Tiger Woods, but not.
Huh?
Art Bell's gonna run
it on his show tonight.
Actually, I'm, um, I'm just
here to talk to you about...
Serial killer, right?
You know how I knew that?
I have ESP.
I don't have ESP. I'm
totally messing with you.
Agent Sinclair told me. Oh!
Freakin' awesome, man!
I always knew you and
I were gonna team up.
I always knew it.
I'm really just here
to collect some data...
I'm a little surprised
it took the FBI so long.
I mean, I've only got the
sixth most popular blog
on serial killers. (laughs)
Oh. Do you want this seat?
I'm fine.
Oh, so am I.
It's pretty comfortable.
Oh!
Hey, look at this.
So, I found two murders
that fit into your,
uh, timeline pattern.
I tried to find things that fit
into the, uh, spatio-tempura
that Agent Sinclair sent me.
By the look of it, I
didn't do a good job.
I was really hoping
to find more data than this.
Not a problem.
Not... a... problem.
(whispers): And we're off!
Where are we going?
Serial killer data central.
(quiet, high-pitched): Yeah!
Gene Evans.
CHARLIE: It's a pleasure.
You guys should have,
like, some sort of, like,
you know, crazy,
uh, math handshake.
Gene's into numbers,
too. Gene's an accountant.
Mm, retired.
Uh, and, tabulating taxes
hardly qualifies as math the way
Professor Eppes knows it.
Gene is part of a network...
Amateurs who help
with police investigations.
The number of missing
persons and unsolved murders
can overwhelm most
agencies, so there's
hundreds of us
around the country,
and we... gather and tabulate
data as much as we can.
Gene solved four missing
person cases in California
and a murder case in Oregon.
Well, "assisted" would
be closer to the truth.
But the fact is, I stopped.
Couple of years
ago, I got a bunch
of phone calls, probably just
cranks, but it spooked the wife.
Well, any information
you can provide
would be much
appreciated here, Gene.
When Roy described
your theory...
something came to mind.
These aren't L.A.-area cases.
They're all from up near,
uh, Fresno and Bakersfield.
And several years ago.
Yeah, but...
the time patterns,
the knowledge of
the victims' routines,
uh, very similar.
And-and then there's this.
That's a constrictor knot.
Simple and secure,
but once you get it tight,
it's very difficult to untie.
Same knot was used in five
of the cases you're looking into.
Whoa. Freaky.
Have you shown any
of this to the police?
Yes. A detective
up in Bakersfield.
Brent Driscoll.
LARRY: Charlie,
you're living and working
out of boxes now. You've become
a previous incarnation of me.
AMITA: What's
taking you so long?
Do you need some help?
I'm too busy.
I need to find the
missing pieces here.
Make one mistake,
people get hurt.
Cognitive emergence work.
God, you haven't even
touched this since Don's injury.
AMITA: Have you ever considered
this might be an overreaction?
My theory's correct.
If you want to say that this is
a reaction to Don's
situation, go ahead.
No, I mean,
come on, you're an
applied mathematician.
You're applying
math to a problem.
And there's something to be
said for cathartic endeavors.
Well, let's say, for
hypothetical reasons,
that I'm not crazy,
that my timeline
pattern is correct.
Let's say that there is
a serial killer who
has avoided detection.
Why the anomalies
in the timeline?
Why the micro-clusters?
What am I missing?
Well, whatever is missing
lies beyond all of this.
You seek to quantify a
single individual in some
elegant, mathematical pattern.
But the universe is full of all
these odd bumps and twists.
And so are people.
Now, perhaps your
approach needs to be
less elegant, more complicated.
Haven't we had this
conversation before?
Well, now,
cosmologically speaking,
everything that happens
has happened before.
Can I help you find something?
Yeah, I think I left
something in here, some files.
For your serial killer case?
It's an office; people talk.
So everyone thinks I'm crazy.
You know about Kim Rossmo?
Canadian detective,
mathematician.
His work on geographic profiling
was, was groundbreaking.
Rossmo identified the same type
of serial killer as
you're looking for...
One that deliberately hides
any signs of a criminal pattern.
He called them
stealth predators.
They try to commit
crimes in such a way
that the authorities
aren't even aware of it.
Really?
In Vancouver, he did something
a lot like what you're doing...
Working only off of a pattern.
The police didn't believe
his theory that a cluster
of disappearances was
the work of a single killer.
So they fire Rossmo.
Ten more deaths later,
they realize that he's right.
So they caught the killer
with 31 bodies
buried on his property.
I'd love to see
Rossmo's methodology.
Had a feeling you
might be interested.
Thanks, Matt.
(screams)
You're in my spot here.
(groans)
I fell asleep.
I just had the worst dream.
I wonder why.
What are you doing here?
I like it here.
I don't know what
it is, you know?
I been shot. I been beaten.
How many sports
did I play as a kid?
And I-I've never
been laid up like this.
You got stabbed.
How can you be so calm about it?
Well, I mean, I
survived, for one thing.
Who are you?
What have you
done with my brother?
I don't know, Charlie.
All I can tell
you is I feel like
job just doesn't own me anymore.
Yeah?
Well, that's got to
be the meds talking.
Where you going?
I might as well work.
I don't want to have
another dream like that one.
Uh...
Charles?
Hey.
Um...
is everything okay?
My search for a non-random
signal has revealed
not only an intelligence,
but an extremely careful
and shrewd intelligence.
It's not one area; it's three.
He moves.
What, the serial killer?
Yeah. It became
apparent when I combined
Gene Evans' data with
Kim Rossmo's methodology
that this killer is
a stealth predator.
He knows that too many
murders in one area gets attention,
and so he moves.
Terrific.
A super-smart killer.
Who's struck three
times in 18 years,
starting in Northern California,
and then the
Fresno-Bakersfield area,
and now he's here.
It's good to see you.
Bye.
Bye.
Oh, dear.
McGILL: You do realize 7:00
is an inhuman hour
to be calling somebody.
We're very close, Roy.
I just need a little more data,
and I'm thinking
Gene's gonna have it.
Oh, man, this is gonna
blow the doors off the Zodiac,
Bundy, the Red Ripper.
(calling out): Gene?
Martha?
Hello?
(dryer whirring)
Let's check the garage.
Well, car's still here.
Oh, my God. Oh, my God.
Gene Evans and his wife
don't fit the macro-pattern.
They fit the pattern
of micro-clusters.
What interests me is that
Evans collected
data on the killings.
Police interviewed a witness who
was driving by the Evans' house
near the time of the killing.
This is the description he gave
of a man he saw walking
across their front yard.
Uh, David, sheriff's
homicide's asking
if we're working the
Evans murder with them.
Tell them we're looking at it
for a possible link
to an FBI case.
Okay.
Do I tell them we
suspect a serial?
No. Not yet.
First, we need to see if anybody
had an ordinary motive
for killing Gene Evans.
Want to be sure.
My brother Gene and his
wife Martha were good people.
What happened to them is wrong.
Is there anyone who
would want to hurt them?
I thought you knew
about that already.
Former client said
Gene made a mistake
on his taxes, cost
him his life savings.
He threatened my brother.
They had to get a
restraining order.
There's police
reports and everything.
The guy's a nut.
What's this guy's name?
Mark Horn.
COLBY: You said you saw
someone outside the Evans' house
the night that he and his wife
were killed.
Now, could this be the man?
It was dark.
And, like I told the sheriff's
detectives, you know,
he had a jacket on
with the hood pulled up.
But...
yeah, that looks like him.
Thank you.
Uh, that guy, have
you arrested him yet?
Guys, what about
me and my family?
Are we gonna be a target now?
Whoa! Hey!
Who are you?
Why you going
through Charlie's stuff?
I happen to be Professor
Lawrence Fleinhardt,
holder of the Walter T. Merrick
Chair in Theoretical Physics.
Oh, yeah? Can you prove it?
Yes, if you'd care
to hear a lecture on
the photoelectric properties
of Ly-Alpha emitters
in a QZ2 plane universe.
I-I have no idea
what just happened.
But why are you going
through Charlie's stuff?
Because, my young
friend, I think I have
a Green Lantern book
in here somewhere.
(whispers): Green Lantern!
"In brightest day,
in blackest night..."
Yeah.
"No evil shall escape my sight."
Sight!
(laughs): I love the Lant.
(sighs): Oh. Yeah.
Yeah. Charlie and I, we're, uh,
we're investigating
a little FBI case. Shh.
(whispers): Keep it on the D.L.
Oh, wait, so you must be
the consultant, uh,
who specializes in,
well, let's call them
unusual explanations.
I think the Bureau refers to
me as "the conspiracy nut."
Some of history's greatest minds
have been rejected
by society at large.
(whispers): Whoa,
you're one of us!
Well, actually, I prefer
the term "conspiracist."
I drop the word
"nut" altogether.
For example, I don't put too
much stock in cryptozoology.
Oh, well, you
should take a look at
my, uh, Bigfoot
Web site sometime.
(chuckles) You'll be singing
a whole different tune.
It's the same old lyric: silly
men dressed up in gorilla suits.
McGILL: Oh, Charlie!
Hey, good timing.
Oh, I got something
important to show you.
Why don't you, uh,
step into my office.
Your office. I was
just kidding with you.
So, I took a look at
your whole three-area idea,
and I think I might have
identified a victim zero.
High school girl
murdered in 1988.
Nancy Kershaw, 17.
Found in a wooded
area near a public park.
What's your criteria
for identifying her
as a victim zero?
My cr... for identifying...
I love your hair, by the way.
Um, well,
I took the earliest of the
three areas you identified...
Stockton... and I, uh,
looked for previous murders.
LARRY: If I may,
you know, not all the
people murdered in that area
can be linked to a cluster.
This guy... he's good.
I got a copy of
the M.E.'s report.
Check it out.
See, right there.
CHARLIE: Constrictor knot.
But that's not unique
to all these cases.
If she is Victim Zero,
serial killers will often start
with somebody that they know
or live close to.
Uh-huh.
It's true.
Nancy Kershaw had a boyfriend.
A week after she was killed,
somebody claiming to be
the murderer called him up,
threatened to kill him, too.
I'm good.
Guys, I should be
doing this for a living.
NIKKI: Gene Evans' disgruntled
client Mark Horn used a credit card
at a gas station three
miles from the Evans' house
on the night of the murders.
Might not be good for
Charlie's serial theory.
But it's good for solving
the Evans murder case.
Mark Horn.
I didn't do anything wrong!
You got no reason to arrest me!
Oh, yeah? Well, I guess
we have a difference
of opinion. Come on.
I was watching my daughter.
You aren't allowed
around your daughter
without her mother's permission.
She is my daughter! Damn it.
Why'd you lose custody?
My wife didn't
understand that I have
to fight for what is mine.
NIKKI: Gene Evans.
He had a restraining
order out against you.
You violated it. Yeah.
I wound up in a county
jail when I am the victim!
I am not the one they
should be locking up.
Who is?
Gene Evans.
Evans is dead.
You went to his house
the night he was killed.
I only drove by.
Evans got that restraining
order out against you
because you broke into his home.
I needed his records.
I didn't kill him!
I needed him.
Help me make the
case with the IRS.
Hey.
Hey.
Charlie's not here. I know.
He's in his office running
another statistical analysis
on his serial killer data.
Mm.
He can be pretty obsessive.
You can never get through
to him when he's like this.
The only way is to find
a flaw in his analysis,
you know, prove he's
not following a valid line.
I went over his work
looking for errors.
I think there's
a good reason for
Charlie to be obsessed.
All right, why don't you
walk me through it then?
DAVID: Mark Horn threatened
Gene Evans, broke into his home.
We can place him in
the vicinity of the murder.
Can you link him to
any of the other deaths?
No, he was out of the
country for one cluster,
in another state
for another one.
DON: I just looked at those
interrogation tapes.
There's no way that's the guy.
Based on what?
Based on the fact
that he was arrested
for harassing Evans.
I mean, if he's gonna kill him,
he's knows were
gonna come after him.
Right, but Horn didn't
try to leave the area
or conceal his whereabouts.
Well, Amita showed me this
work she's doing on your timeline,
and it answered some questions.
You say he's careful.
He plans his attacks.
He scouts his victims.
So why kill Evans
without the usual interval?
For the same reason
he kills this guy:
'cause he's careful.
NIKKI: The killer didn't know
that this postal carrier would
be running three hours late.
Which means that the mailman saw
the killer at the house
of the last murder.
Okay, so he kills the mailman
as a witness, but why Evans?
Why? Because two days
before he dies, he goes online,
said he's gonna start up
with his detective work again.
And the killer
decided to stop him.
So the micro-clusters happen
when the killer
covers his tracks.
We don't have hard
evidence. It's all circumstantial.
And statistics.
And the pattern, which
indicates another attack
within the next 48 hours.
I say we move now.
Look, I'll take responsibility.
Okay, you all heard
the man on desk duty.
Let's get to it.
The one important constant,
his careful stalking
of his potential victims,
sometimes for weeks.
DAVID: There are
often police reports
of prowlers and peeping Toms
prior to the killings.
And yet you say he's careful?
I think he likes to
spook his victims,
let them catch glimpses of him.
And even if they
call the police...
Prowler reports aren't
taken as serious threats.
COLBY: Well, if
he's gonna kill again,
then maybe there'll
be new prowler reports
and attempted break-ins.
In L.A. alone, there'd have
to be hundreds a week.
CHARLIE: The most likely target
is a couple in their mid-30s
within an area of elevated
geographic probabilities.
Single-family residence,
no locked gates,
no alarm systems.
A place to conceal a vehicle,
access to a major roadway.
That gives us a starting point.
In your analysis, you, uh,
you left out Victim Zero.
Well, that's because I don't
think that there's enough
to link Nancy
Kershaw to the clusters.
See, I would have to
agree with Roy here.
I share his interest
in this Victim Zero.
See?
You see that? Physics guy
thinks there's
something to my idea.
Well, now just
consider, Charles,
you don't include Nancy Kershaw
because she doesn't
seem to fit your pattern.
But is that really a
reason to exclude data?
Do you think her death
tells us something?
Well, you know when we look
at the light from distant stars,
we look at the past, millions,
maybe billions of years.
That's how long it took
that light to reach the Earth.
And yet, the undisputed
1862 UFO sighting
during the Battle of Vicksburg
proves that extraterrestrials
have mastered
superluminal velocity.
But just returning to
the point here... Yes.
If Nancy Kershaw
is the first victim,
that tells us things about
the killer that he was
very careful to hide
in subsequent crimes.
She was in his
orbit, so to speak.
Right, right. And remember,
if our guy did kill her,
then he's the same guy
who called up her boyfriend
and threatened to kill him, too.
(whispers): So somebody
out there has heard his voice.
All right, find out what you can
from the conspiracy community,
and I'll get the FBI on it.
Thank you, astrology dude.
Astronomy.
Astronomy.
Thanks.
You remember what
Gene Evans told Charlie?
That he shared his research
on serial killers with a
detective in Bakersfield?
Yeah?
Name's Brent Driscoll,
and guess what.
He died last year.
How?
They said he fell, hit his head,
and wound up drowned
in his backyard pool.
Yeah.
Doesn't that seem just
a bit suspicious to you?
Bakersfield PD look
into it? Well, sure.
But they didn't know
there was a killer
who eliminates
investigators and witnesses.
We need Driscoll's files.
I'm driving up tomorrow.
CHARLIE: What do you have there?
It's a home improvement project
I hope you both
will help me out with.
I told you I would.
All right. So, front and
backyard landscaping.
Take a look.
You're asking him about it?
What about me? I own this house.
Oh, yeah, like you care
what hedges he puts out there.
Point made.
(chuckles)
How you doing there?
(sighs)
David's got half
the office trying
to ID potential
victims by running
down prowler reports.
Hey, you guys remember
the first time, huh?
That first serial case?
Remember? It was
right here in this room.
You figured it out together.
Remember?
It was like a lifetime ago.
Five years.
Yeah, it was right before
that you had grown so far apart
that I was the only
thing you had in common.
I figured after I died,
you might spend years
not seeing each other,
but, um, to tell you the truth,
I'm not worried
about that anymore.
(door opens)
Hey, Charlie, you
got something new?
No, I've got something old.
I was talking with Don
and my dad about a previous
serial case we worked on,
and it reminded me of this.
So I analyzed these three
clusters, and it gave me
these three probable locations
for the killer.
(computer trilling)
That's the Hot Zone equation.
The very same.
Now how does this work?
Well, think of it like a...
Can, uh, can I do this?
It's like a lawn sprinkler
spreading hundreds
of drops of water.
Now, it's impossible to predict
where the next drop will fall,
but if you take away the
sprinkler, from the pattern
of the drops you could
calculate its location.
You're saying that we can
find out where the killer lives?
Yeah. We know that
he's either lived in
or is linked to
these three areas.
DAVID: You run a
comparative analysis
against the prowler
reports we got?
Oh, I love it when
a student grasps
the full potential
of an application.
(typing) Top 30
potential victims,
ID'd from police reports,
geographic areas,
victim profiles.
The numbers represent
the probability of their being
the next victim.
The best we can get is 23%?
In the world of statistical
analysis, 23% means...
Uh, can I do this one?
It means get your ass in gear.
Come on, guys. Dinner's ready.
COLBY: So, he tends
to attack couples,
right?
And also teenagers.
Some with their parents
asleep in the same house.
We got people at
the 30 residences
that Charlie thinks are
the most likely targets.
Yeah, maybe we'll get lucky,
so to speak.
COLBY: Hey, what's that movie
with Al Pacino... he's a cop,
and he ends up
sleeping with Ellen Barkin,
and then it turns out that
her ex-husband was the killer?
Sea of Love.
No, that wasn't it.
Yeah, it is. Seen
it, like, five times.
You a big Pacino fan?
No. Michael Rooker fan.
He was Henry in Henry:
Portrait of a Serial Killer.
Oh, yeah, that guy.
That guy's always the killer.
No, he's not. You ever seen
The Replacement Killers?
He was the cop.
Hey, look there.
FBI.
Get down! On your knees!
Okay, don't shoot me!
What the hell's going on?
We're FBI.
Leonard, is that you?
You know him?
MAN: Leonard Philber.
Friend of my daughter's.
(crashing)
What the hell are
you doing here?
I was just gonna TP a tree, man!
DAVID: FBI!
(screams) (gunshot)
(screaming)
Kill your light.
Kill your light.
Did you see him?
No.
DAVID: He had a car
hidden nearby. He ditched it.
Continued on foot or had
a second car somewhere.
He had an escape route
planned out in advance.
He knew exactly
where he was going.
Everyone all right?
Everyone's fine.
All right. I'll get back to you.
Well, it was the right
place, buddy, but he's gone.
Damn it. He plans ahead.
He knew how to get away.
Listen, I'm worried that
we've presented ourselves
with an even
bigger problem here.
What do you mean? This
guy's moved three times.
Now that he was almost caught,
he's going to relocate again.
So, the killer started
in Northern California,
moved south,
and now he's here in L.A.
Like three points of
gravitational force,
the killer residing
somewhere in them, unseen,
exerting his destructive
influence like a black hole.
Yeah. We need to
narrow each hot zone down
and profile all the men in them
and look for a common link.
That's a lot of legwork.
All right. I'll get census lists
and Social Security records.
We can start cross-checking.
I found something
in the Driscoll files.
Now, Driscoll's the detective
who worked with Gene Evans,
and he supposedly
drowned in a pool last year.
He interviewed a
man as a suspect
in a murder in Bakersfield.
Robert Posdner... The
guy who claimed he saw
Gene Evans' killer.
He was a witness
in the murder here.
He was also a suspect
in a Bakersfield murder.
Even I have to ask.
What are the odds?
And Bakersfield files
ID him as Wayne Potvin.
He's one of 19 suspects
in the murder of
a married couple.
Now, Driscoll questioned
him, did a background check.
He came up clean.
It was a fake ID.
COLBY: All right.
We got more. We
ID'd about 250 men
with ties to three
geographic areas.
Ran their DMV photos
through facial recognition.
Got four hits.
Thomas Park, David Palmer,
Wayne Potvin, and
Robert Posdner.
It's the same guy.
We got our killer.
We still can't
tie him through hard
evidence to even one murder.
Well, we can at least get
him for faking his identity.
That's not enough.
We need to put this guy
away for serial murder.
What's next?
You tell me, boss.
Right, okay. Um... We-We
put him under surveillance
and we try to see if we can
get enough for a search warrant.
Sounds good.
MAN (over radio):
Follow Two to Follow One.
The Eagle has landed.
Follow One to Follow
Two. You've been made.
Don't burn the target.
Copy, Follow One. Breaking away.
CHARLIE: It's just weird
knowing who the killer is
and not being able to prove it.
Yeah. It's not unlike that
period between forming a theory
and then finding the
proof that supports it.
Well, most theories don't
relocate, switch identities,
and resume killing people.
No, not that we know of.
You realize, Charlie,
at some point,
you're going to have
to focus on work here.
You need help with
your particle analysis?
No, no, no. I'm not
talking about me.
I'm talking about
you. Your potential.
Solving crimes is important,
but discovering the hidden
mathematical structures
within brain operations...
Guys! I got something.
(wheezing and panting)
You all right? Uh-huh.
Yeah, I'm good.
My heart hurts, but I just
ran from the parking lot.
What's that, like, 200 feet?
Here's the thing.
So, I was looking
at the whole, uh,
Victim Zero case, right?
The high school girl?
There was a fellow
student who was expelled
from the same
school the year before.
He was a suspect.
Thomas Park.
CHARLIE: Thomas Park?
That's one of the identities
the FBI suspect used.
Bingo! This is so Zodiac.
Frickin' awesome.
Look at this. I got goose bumps.
And it continues down my spine.
Thomas Park was 18 at the
time of Nancy Kershaw's murder.
They knew each other
and it says here that
he was a suspect because
he kept asking her out
and hanging around
her house. Stalking her.
Nancy Kershaw's
boyfriend, Steve Savard...
now, he got to the house
when the killer was still
there. He chased him away.
Now, one week later,
he was nearly killed
in a car accident.
Someone cut the brake line.
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Couple of days after,
uh, Kershaw's murder,
uh, her boyfriend received
a threatening phone call
from somebody
claiming to be the killer.
Steve Savard heard
the killer's voice.
All right. Do we know
where he is now?
Well, after the murder,
his family got scared.
They moved from
Stockton to Nevada.
Is he still out of state?
'Cause we need to
find him right now.
Uh, I did.
I used some of my
contacts to track him down.
His flight should have
landed an hour ago.
Are you kidding me? Huh?
Are you kidding me?
He's a little angry.
You know, I just figured
time was sensitive, right?
So, I took the liberty of, uh...
Of impersonating an FBI agent?
I didn't tell anyone I was...
I can't help what people assume.
I went to work that
day, like any other day.
COMPUTER (higher pitch): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
Amita's designed an
algorithm that captures
Robert Posdner's voice
from his Bakersfield interview.
Ah. When he was interviewed
as a possible suspect?
Yes, and she's
mathematically reconstructed it
to have the same tone and timbre
as his voice might
have had at age 18.
We have some recordings
we want you to listen to, okay?
Amita, we're ready.
COMPUTER (higher
pitch): I went to work that day,
like any other day.
(beeps)
COMPUTER (slightly deeper): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
(beeps)
COMPUTER (deeper,
rougher): I went to work that day,
like any other day. That one.
There's, uh, one more. (beeps)
COMPUTER (higher, more
nasal): I went to work that day,
like any other day.
No. No, not that one... the one
before it. That was the closest.
Closest? Or the same guy that
threatened you 20 years ago?
SAVARD: Well,
you-you altered it, right?
'Cause now he's an adult.
You tried to make it
sound like a teenager.
Uh...
Can I hear the
recording the way it is?
Amita, play #3 straight.
POSDNER (on recording): I went
to work that day, like any other day.
(beeps)
That's him.
He said he killed
Nancy...
(voice breaks)
and he was going to kill me.
You're sure?
He murdered the girl I loved.
Nearly killed me.
My family moved
to another state.
Everything changed.
There's not a week that goes by
I don't wake up
from a dead sleep
and hear that voice.
Yeah... I'm sure.
(car doors open and close)
Robert Posdner. FBI.
Let me see your hands.
It's Agent Sinclair, right?
Robert? What's happening?
Ma'am. It's okay, honey.
They're federal agents.
Look at her.
Poor thing has no
idea. It'll be a total shock.
Honey, it's almost time
to pick up the kids, isn't it?
Nobody knew about me.
I liked it that way.
Some serial killers, you know,
they-they write
to the newspapers
or they taunt the police.
I never drew
attention to myself.
I just wanted to go about
the things I needed to do.
You know, most serial killers...
they can't control themselves.
They're too damaged.
They aren't careful.
You need to plan, if
you're doing it right.
You know, people who know me,
they'll all say they never
suspected anything.
Well, I made sure they didn't.
That's my favorite part.
Took you guys a long,
long time to find me, didn't it?
I know there are reasons,
psychological motivations
for why sociopaths
become serial killers.
But this guy...
He just seems evil.
You really weren't expecting a
rational explanation, were you?
I mean, with these
guys, you know,
no matter how smart and
focused they appear to be,
it always comes down
to an irrational rage.
DAVID: And in the end, it's
rationality that caught him.
Rationality and logic.
That and a little obsession.
LIZ: Your brother gets
stabbed, and you react
by catching a serial killer.
You got a hell of a way
of working through things.
Some people drink.
Some gamble.
I analyze data.
(laughing)
♪ ♪
So Charlie, how about
tomorrow, we unpack your office
and get you set up in your
new, prestigious space?
Yes, and locate
several books of mine
I think got left in your stuff.
All right. I'm ready.
ALAN: What about you, Donnie?
Hmm? You gonna
be hanging out with
me for the next couple of weeks?
Sorry, pal. I'm back
to full duty Monday.
Ooh, there's a quick recovery.
ALAN: So, why don't you try to
put some time between injuries, huh?
Trust me. I plan
to take it easy.
Yeah, right.
(sprinklers whirring,
Amita screams) Whoa!
ALAN: They're supposed
to come on much later.
LARRY: Hey! This
is a vintage linen!
(shouting)
♪ Counting numbered days... ♪