Unforgettable (2011–2016): Season 4, Episode 10 - Game On - full transcript
Carrie's investigation into the murder of a talented computer programmer exposes a successful businessman's secret.
Carrie. I saved you a spot.
Hey, Frank.
You ready to watch your Major Crimes runner get beat?
You know, you're a glutton for punishment.
Every year you come here
expecting the 44th to win, and every year you lose.
Last year, your runner came in what, 19th?
With a running time of 27 minutes 9 seconds.
Year before that, your runner came in 25th, which sucked!
All right. Care to put your money where your mouth is, memory queen?
Okay. 100 bucks. All right, done. You got it.
Done. Here's my guy now.
And he's in the lead.
Go, Jay! Go, Jay! Go, Jay! Go!
Let's go, Bobby! Let's go! Whoo!
FRANK: Where's he going? ALL: Oh!
Ah! (EXCLAIMS)
JAY LEE: What? Hey! Stop!
What? Did you see that? Come on!
Are you okay? You're all right?
I was first, right?
Wait. I got my head across before you kicked your foot.
You have to cross the line.
Carrie, a little help here.
Absolutely not. That's collusion.
Don't mind if I do.
(OVERLAPPING SHOUTS)
(JAY LEE EXCLAIMS)
Okay, Jay,
you did kick your foot over the line as you fell.
Valiant effort, but second place.
What? Pay up, Wells.
I gotta hand it to you. You got integrity.
Not so fast.
You, number 78, third place.
Are you out of your mind? And you, number 66,
in a spectacular head dive across the finish line,
you won, first place. Get your trophy.
Wait, what? How do we know you're right?
Basically, I remember everything.
I can slow it down in my head and watch it back.
But if you don't believe me,
the little girl over there got it on her cell phone.
(SIGHS)
So I guess nobody wins.
It's for charity.
Everybody wins.
(PHONE RINGING)
Gotta go.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS)
Victim's name is Jason Rios.
23 years old.
According to the M.E.,
cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull.
Jay is doing background.
All this for a video game.
DENNY: Come on, it's not just some video game, all right?
This is Satan's Palace.
Satan's Palace IV, as a matter of fact.
The greatest video game ever.
Seems a bit much to me.
No, look, these games make billions of dollars, right?
They come up with crazy ways to promote them.
I've read about this.
They, uh, it's an exact replica of the game.
It's like a haunted house type thing.
Looks like Jason was killed sometime before closing.
Couple of employees were setting up this morning,
found the body.
Manager's gonna come talk to us.
We got a weapon? Take your pick.
CSU blood splatter folks gonna love this.
Detectives?
Thank you so much. I'm Hannah Davis.
I'm the managing director of Hexler Gaming's Satan's Palace IV.
I'm a huge fan of the games.
I, I've played I, II, and III,
and I'm, I'm gonna play IV.
I mean, as soon as I solve this murder.
Uh, please, let's go to my office.
Do you mind if I just, um,
look around a little?
Watch out for the demons.
So, how close is all of this to the actual game?
Hexler Gaming is insistent that every aspect
adhere precisely to the game,
down to set dressing and costumes.
What happened last night is a tragedy,
and we'll do everything to help in your investigation.
Let's start with a list of employees.
And do you have any record of your guests last night?
Most of them. Hardcore gamers buy tickets in advance.
Otherwise, folks just pay cash at the door.
Uh, personnel will have the employee list.
Do you have any cameras inside?
No. We don't allow cell phone cameras either.
For proprietary reasons.
Anything out of the ordinary happen lately?
You know, I don't know how relevant this is,
but we've had some, I guess you could say,
protests lately.
I can't imagine the neighborhood
enjoys the noise and crowds.
It wasn't the neighbors that took issue with us.
I think it was a religious group.
What were they doing? Picketing with signs
plastered with bible quotes.
Screaming about glorifying hell.
Seems they take exception with the title of our game.
You remember the name of this group?
No, but they all wore black T-shirts...
(PHONE VIBRATING) with the letter "D."
AL: All right. We'll look into 'em.
Okay.
Yeah, Jay. JAY LEE: Jason's fiancee is ready for you guys.
Great. We'll get down there.
Thank you.
It would have been two years ago next month.
We were talking about setting a date.
I don't...
Who would do this?
AL: We're gonna try to find out.
Anything you can tell us?
Anything going on with Jason recently?
Not that I know of.
I was in Milan until three days ago.
I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason.
In Spain. He's from Barcelona.
We met on the beach and, um... (SNIFFLES)
Anything with his family bothering him?
Uh, no, no family. (SNIFFS)
His mother died when he was young,
and his father wasn't in the picture.
AL: Work? GENEVIEVE: He worked at Sistex.
Big software company.
And idea why Jason was at Satan's Palace last night?
No.
I didn't see him at all yesterday.
I had a lunch.
I thought he was at the office last night.
I don't really get all the computer stuff.
The, uh, the games.
We kind of agreed not to talk about it.
He mention any issues with work?
No. Things seemed to be going really well.
I could tell by how much sleep he got.
The last few days, he was up almost all night tinkering.
He had all his little toys going at once.
You know what he was doing?
Like I said, I really don't know much about his work.
I just know that it meant everything to him.
Sometimes, um, it would get to me. (SNIFFLES)
A few nights ago, I, uh,
ugh, I was teasing.
I... I told him he had to choose.
Me or whatever he was working on.
And I won.
I promise you we're gonna do everything we can
to find who did this.
Oh, yeah.
All right, okay.
Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Go back.
You found something?
I think I got something, yeah.
What? Right there.
What?
That guy looks just like you.
What are you, ten years old?
We got an investigation, Denny, okay?
Where are we with that protest group?
Oh, right, boss. Yeah.
So they call themselves, get this,
Dark 1.
And apparently they believe Satan reaches out
to younger souls who have been corrupted by modern technology.
Okay, modern technology being what?
I mean, basically anything, what, after the typewriter.
JAY LEE: So check what I found out on the head guy.
Meet Reverend Foster Lee Nolan.
Now this guy was definitely for Satan
before he was against him.
Trafficking cocaine and meth.
He also has a history of taking in troubled kids and ex-cons,
and uses a combination of ass-kicking and old-time religion
to manipulate them for his purposes.
Sounds like a nice guy.
Maybe we should go have a chat with him.
DENNY: Well, boss, we can do you one better.
The good Reverend's decided to grace us with his presence.
Oh, nice.
DENNY: So, what is it, you... You object to anything
even related to the D-man? Right?
Well, what about the New Jersey Devils?
Huh? Not a hockey fan, okay.
Uh, what about the Duke Blue Devils?
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons?
You may laugh, but what I do...
This is a murder case, Reverend.
Nobody's laughing.
Companies like Hexler Gaming
are billion-dollar corporations,
and they are making millions promoting sin.
It's on our screens, and in our faces,
and the public is powerless against them,
so we do what we can.
AL: You say you're powerless against them.
We just recovered these from your house, Reverend Nolan.
You don't seem that powerless to me.
What do holy men need with weapons like these?
We're commanded to use the tools that we have.
DENNY: What about Jason Rios?
Hmm?
Who commanded you to kill him?
(INHALES DEEPLY)
Neither me, nor my people had anything to do with that man's death.
We believe that all souls can be saved.
Wow.
Besides...
We weren't even there last night.
We were off protesting at an establishment called.
Devil Burger out in Forest Hills.
Although some of our members did drop by today
when news of the murder broke.
To memorialize the blood that Hexler Gaming has on its hands.
Wacko.
You know, Nolan is telling the truth about that
because we just got these pictures from his place.
Victim's name is Jason Rios.
23 years old.
According to the M.E.,
cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull.
You know, all of the costumed ghouls
that were working at Satan's Palace,
they had two zippers on the front of their costumes.
Now this guy has none.
Well, if he's not an employee, he's not a protester,
so what's he doing there? I don't know,
but I'm gonna find out. All right.
Lieutenant, I just turned your anti-Satanist nut-ball
over to the ATF.
What about his alibi on our case?
Actually panned out.
Turned out he was at the Devil Burger
with his people all night in Queens.
So we're back at square one.
Would I just bring you in here for bad news?
Um, yeah. You do it all the time.
Not this time.
We ran facial recognition on that zombie party crasher.
You know, the one with no zipper?
95% match with Daniel Lebenstrom, 28.
Guy's already in the system
for aggravated assault, robbery.
We'll go get him.
You might wan t to know something else about Lebenstrom.
His last robbery...
Stolen body parts, NYU medical school.
Happy Halloween.
(MUFFLED HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYING)
(MUFFLED WHIMPERING)
(KNOCKING) Police. Open up.
(WHIMPERING CONTINUES)
(WHIMPERING) Police! Don't move!
Hey, hey! Come here!
Sir? (GRUNTS)
I'm Detective Lee with Major Crimes.
Are you all right? Are you okay?
You all right, sir? You okay?
That was...
awesome! (CHUCKLES)
The best!
I'm not paying for the NYPD bust, though.
I didn't order that.
You paid for this? (PANTING)
Of course, he paid.
I earn a living doing this.
No laws have been broken.
A couple of laws of nature.
So what are you? Some kind of a scare dominatrix?
I'm more comfortable with the term "Thanatophile."
Someone who gets off on, uh, experiencing terror,
or, you know, inflicting it on others.
Not gonna ask how you know that.
You know how I know that.
There's no greater thrill than the knowledge
of one's own imminent death.
What about the knowledge of one's imminent ass
being thrown in jail?
(CLEARS THROAT) So, uh,
you got paid for trespassing too?
Oh, right. Uh, Satan's Palace.
A man was murdered there. Like, really murdered. Not pretend.
So, you were there getting off on your imminent death, right?
And all of a sudden, what's better than imminent death?
Actual death. We getting closer, Daniel?
No, okay. I was there last night,
and yes, I did enjoy terrifying the crowds,
but I had my eyes on a bigger prize. Hexler.
Lisa Hexler.
The president of Hexler Gaming?
The queen of horror games.
I thought, someone like me,
Lisa Hexler could probably use my ideas.
I figured she's launching a new game.
At some point, she'll show up.
So you were stalking her.
I... I wanted to pitch her.
I've got a way to turn what I do into a video game.
The only problem, Satan's Palace costs 50 bucks to get in.
I thought you made a living as a... Whatever.
The economy.
Personal terror's the first thing people cut out.
Anyhow, about a month ago I had an idea.
I put on an old Comic-Con outfit,
and found the employee's entrance and I was in.
I went back a lot, looking for her, but nothing.
And then suddenly, last night, there she is.
I followed her, but I lost her
when she went into the Gold Room.
I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason. In Spain.
Tell me more about the Gold Room.
It's the VIP room at Satan's Palace.
I hear Lisa has parties, meetings there, stuff like that.
And then what? You saw the news.
There'd been a murder, you figured Lisa Hexler's
gonna show up at the crime scene, and you went back?
CARRIE: Assuming you didn't happen to be there
'cause you'd just murdered Jason.
I... I had a client.
The session ran long.
This client have a name?
Um...
You might recognize the name.
A Congressman?
Can we talk?
Listen, I think Jason met with Lisa Hexler
in the Gold Room at 8:00 p.m.
He had a post-it. "GR 8" was written on it.
"Gold Room, 8:00 p.m."
What was Jason meeting Lisa Hexler about?
I don't know,
but whatever it was, it got him killed.
Hey. Did you find any connection
between Lisa Hexler and Jason?
I'm working on it, boss. Close.
All right. Because we cannot go after a big fish like her
unless we have something solid. You got that?
How about this?
So I've been analyzing information on Jason's laptop,
and even though it's encrypted,
I recovered a few of the algorithms,
and turns out they're for gaming software.
And if Jason was developing gaming software,
that could be something Lisa Hexler would be interested in.
Right. And he if he was developing it at work,
then the people at Sistex
might have something to tell us.
(SCOFFS) This is work?
Makes Major Crimes seem like the DMV.
I should have been a programmer.
You can't program your DVR.
Hi, I'm William Houston,
CEO of Sistex.
Lieutenant Al Burns. This is Detective Carrie Wells.
My son, Chris, General Counsel.
Hi. Hi.
So, uh, you guys knew Jason well?
I try to get to know all my junior programmers.
He had a promising career ahead of him.
Well, Chris can help you.
If you need anything, let me know.
Sure.
General Counsel, huh? You didn't get the tech bug?
Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
CHRIS: Oh, hey. Sorry.
MAN 1: Excuse me! MAN 2: Sorry about that!
One of the hazards of the business.
Hey. Got that modified Hopperbot.
CHRIS: Thanks, Adam. You can set it there.
(BOX VIBRATING)
Were you close with Jason?
Yeah, he was a good guy.
Can you think of anyone in the company
who may have wanted to hurt him?
Must be pretty competitive.
Well, it's a tough business,
but, um, we try to keep things
pretty collegial around here.
Well, I imagine collegial
and multi-million dollar software company
don't always go hand in hand.
I take your point.
Happy to get you our HR files,
but I don't think you'll find anything.
Do you know if he had any relationship with Lisa Hexler?
Why? Because of Satan's Palace?
I doubt it. I mean, um,
that's the hottest tech attraction in the city right now.
Well, was Jason developing any gaming software?
Not that I know of. The company wasn't.
We made a decision a long time ago
to stay out of the gaming market.
Of course, it wouldn't have stopped Lisa Hexler.
From what? From poaching our talent.
Lisa's notorious for finding the best
young programmers and designers in any field and stealing them away
to help build her horror games.
She's pretty ruthless about it.
DENNY: After you. Hey, there she is.
Excuse me, Ms. Hexler. I'm Detective Lee.
This is Detective Padilla. NYPD, Major Crimes.
Yes, I received your calls.
But you chose not to respond to them?
Did we not call them back?
I'm sorry. Things are just so busy with the rollout, doing press for the game.
Yeah, that's much more important
than a murder investigation.
I don't appreciate the insinuation.
And I would have been at the crime scene myself,
but I was on a conference call with Myanmar.
Did you make those calls from the Gold Room?
Yeah, see, we know about the Gold Room
hidden inside Satan's Palace.
And we know that you were meeting with Jason Rios there
last night just before he was murdered.
Which is odd because you were nowhere to be found
after he turned up dead.
I am responsible to thousands of shareholders.
How do you think it would look for a Fortune 500 CEO
to be in the vicinity of a murder scene?
Like you were innocent,
and helping with a murder investigation.
I'm sorry if I sound callous,
but I assure you I had nothing to do with that young man's death.
Why were you meeting with Jason?
I meet with programmers all the time.
You mean you steal them from other companies all the time.
I mean I win.
I'd heard good things about Jason
and he was everything people said.
We talked, I explained what I could offer,
and then I told him to go enjoy Satan's Palace IV.
That was the last I saw of him.
And we're done. If there's anything further,
Jeff can put you in touch with my lawyers.
Hmm.
Well, I heard you two annoyed Lisa Hexler earlier.
Well, we learned from the best, baby. Thank you.
And it looks like Lisa has reasons other than us to be annoyed.
Hexler Gaming is in big trouble.
Now according to industry analysts,
their last three games have underperformed retail projections.
And recent SEC filings show them operating at some serious debt.
I mean, the board was losing confidence in Lisa Hexler.
Well, that would be enough to get her to do something desperate.
And apparently the company's got
everything riding on their 3-D gameplay.
Problem is, the release date was delayed
at least four times in the past year.
Word is, Hexler Gaming hasn't developed
the battery technology to power their stand-alone 3-D gaming headsets.
GENEVIEVE: No. Things seemed to be going really well.
I could tell by how much sleep he got.
Last few days, he was up almost all night tinkering
with all his little toys going at once.
Wait a second.
I saw a headset just like that at Jason's place.
And his fiancee said he'd been working all night recently,
with all his stuff powered up.
Now what if Jason came up with something
that could power that headset?
A long-lasting battery.
That'd be enough to save Lisa Hexler's butt.
I mean, it'd be worth hundreds of millions.
No, thousands.
Thousands of millions.
Those are billions, Denny.
Eh, agree to disagree.
You guys, what if Lisa wasn't just having
a meet and greet with Jason?
What if she was trying to get her hands
on whatever he'd built?
And what if she was willing to do anything it took to get it from him?
Jay, work your magic and tell me where she is right now.
Okay. Hold on one...
(MUTTERING INDISTINCTLY)
Her cell phone just pinged off of a tower on the Lower East Side.
Wait, what's on the Lower East Side?
(MUTTERING) Something, something.
Hexler Gaming just closed on a warehouse
to build their next simulated game environment.
It's 457 Madison Street.
All right.
See if there's another way in.
Ah... (SIGHS)
Al.
(SIRENS WAILING)
According to the M.E., blunt force trauma.
Someone smashed her head against the wall multiple times.
400 bucks in her Birkin handbag,
so it wasn't a robbery.
(PHONE RINGING)
What's up? JAY LEE: Hey, Al.
I checked Lisa's phone records,
and it turns out she was called by a burner cell
two hours before her death.
Could be how the killer lured Lisa down here.
See if you can find out who purchased that burner.
JAY LEE: You got it, boss.
CHRIS: Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
Anything?
The gum wrapper.
It's from the concentration gum
that they were developing at Jason's company.
I'm sorry, but this is a lot to take in.
You really think that someone at Sistex
killed Jason and Lisa Hexler?
Someone left a wrapper
of your concentration gum at the crime scene.
That stuff is not on the market yet.
Any idea who would have access to it?
I could throw a dart. The whole company is obsessed with the stuff.
And what about 3-D software? Are they obsessed with that?
If you mean, do we have any 3-D technology
currently under development? No.
Is it possible Jason was off developing on his own?
We encourage independent work.
That said, our employees all sign pretty standard exclusivity deals.
They know anything they come up with belongs to Sistex.
You know who you should speak with is Rhonda Matthews.
She and Jason were friends.
If anybody knows what he was up to in his spare time,
she would.
I'm just curious, how would the company react
if an individual tried to market
something he'd come up with on his own?
Well, we'd ask that employee not to.
And if they continued, we'd sue them.
We wouldn't kill them, Detective,
(CHUCKLING) if that's what you're imagining.
Rhonda, these people are from the police.
They have some questions about Jason.
Uh, sure. Of course.
This is all so unbelievable.
Did you find out who did it?
You and Jason were pretty close, weren't you?
Yes, but I have no idea who killed him.
You and Jason worked on a number of projects together?
Yeah. Sistex encourages teamwork.
Although Jason and I haven't worked on a project together in...
I don't know, almost a year.
I miss working with him.
And now...
I know it's difficult,
but do you know if Jason was working on something
outside the office on his own?
I don't think so. I don't... I don't know.
(VOICE BREAKING) Um... excuse me.
It would have been two years next month.
AL: Anything you can tell us? Anything going on with Jason?
We're gonna give you a moment.
Thanks.
She has a molecule model in her drawer.
I saw the exact some one at Jason's house.
They both do computer science. They work together.
No, they haven't worked together for over a year. (PHONE RINGING)
She knows more than she's telling us.
It's Jay.
Yeah? JAY LEE: Hey, Al.
I managed to track the purchase of that burner cell
that called Lisa Hexler.
It came from a bodega
three blocks from Sistex Software.
You got a description of the guy who bought it?
Nope. Store records show that it was paid for in cash.
That's all I got, boss.
The burner cell that called Lisa Hexler
was bought near here.
Really? Well, you know what?
Tell Jay to call that burner cell.
Go ahead and dial the number.
You got it.
(PHONE RINGING)
Aren't you going to answer that?
Uh, it's not mine.
I think it's coming from your drawer.
(PHONE CONTINUES RINGING)
(PHONE BEEPS)
Oh, you just hung up on a friend of ours.
This isn't my phone.
I swear, I've never seen this before.
You want some advice?
You might want to use it to call a lawyer.
LAWYER: As I said, my client never saw that phone before in her life
until it rang inside the drawer.
Yeah, I'm always finding phones
I've never seen before inside my drawers.
She also has an alibi for the night Jason Rios was killed.
You told me. At the movies.
By herself.
There are better alibis, you know.
She bought a box of Dots and a Diet Coke with her credit card.
Maybe you could try checking it out.
Oh, we will. We'll check it out.
Believe me.
Okay, what have you got?
Okay, so check it, boss.
I got a search warrant for Rhonda's personal computer.
Mmm-hmm. I remotely accessed it,
and it's got mostly personal stuff on it
except for one large protected file, heavily encrypted.
Yeah, but you cracked it, right?
Of course I did. Of course you did.
I'm gonna spare you the gory details,
but take a look at that.
(COMPUTER BEEPING)
That's the same molecule
Carrie found in Rhonda's desk.
Does Al know this? Yup.
Just watch.
AL: You still haven't explained
how you ended up with that phone.
I told you, someone's setting me up.
The same someone who made you lie to us
about helping Jason with that battery?
What are you talking about? Oh...
(PHONE BEEPS) Jason had a model
just like that in his apartment.
It's the critical component of next phase batteries.
Jason was developing them
for someone outside the company,
and you were helping him. Now talk.
Yes, all right. I knew about his work.
We even worked together for a while,
but Jason was so secretive,
I felt like that he was shutting me out.
So I finally told him, "Screw it,"
he could keep working by himself.
Then you heard he had a breakthrough, right?
Based on work you and he did together, right?
Not only that, he was gonna sell it for a lot of money.
You must have been so angry
that he was gonna meet with Lisa Hexler without you.
I'm about one second from shutting this down.
Do we have anything on this movie alibi?
Okay, just hold on. Uh, come on, come on.
Rhonda's last credit card statement,
Dots and Diet Coke, 18.50.
For candy and soda? That's who we should be arresting.
But alibi checks out though, boss.
No way she gets across town in time to kill Jason.
All right, well, I'll let Al know.
(PHONE CHIMES)
(PHONE BEEPS)
Look,
I don't want to charge your client with murder,
but so far, no one remembers her from that movie theater.
So things look a little sketchy right here.
If there's something that you want to tell me,
now would be the time to do that.
(SIGHS)
Something did happen, uh, three days ago.
Go on.
I was getting ready to head out for lunch,
and I saw Jason putting on a jacket and tie.
I didn't even know Jason owned stuff like that.
He said he was worried about sweating on the subway,
so he was Ubering to Midtown,
and I made some joke about mystery date,
but he didn't say anything.
And later, when he came back,
I thought he'd be in a good mood,
but he was just really quiet.
I didn't know what happened, but I knew something was really wrong.
You know what? We need to know about Jason's lunch.
Hey, can you check... Check his Uber records.
Already on it, uh, searching for e-mail receipts
around lunchtime last Wednesday.
(COMPUTER BEEPS) Got it. Precisely 12:03,
Jason was dropped off at 712 West 47th.
712, that's La Maison. Excellent croque-monsieur.
All right, you know what? Cross reference all the credit card charges
with persons of interest in this investigation. See what you get.
I could, boss, or...
Come on.
I could crack the restaurant's internal security cameras
and we could see what Jason was having for lunch.
Well, there's that.
Camera C. That's Jason.
(INAUDIBLE)
JAY LEE: Well, he's upset about something.
Geez, when is this guy gonna turn around? I know it.
(COMPUTER BEEPS) JAY LEE: Got ya.
That's William Houston. He's the founder of Sistex.
Now what's he doing having lunch
with one of his low-level coders?
And more importantly, why didn't he let us know about it?
(SIGHS) Look, I... I told you
I meet with all my promising employees
on a regular basis.
But what you didn't tell us
was that you had lunch with Jason
the day before he was murdered.
Um...
Honestly, there's so many of these kids.
I... I'm not as good with names and faces
like I used to be.
Must be nice to not remember
treating someone to a $400 lunch.
A $400 lunch where you got into a...
very heated argument with him.
It was hardly an argument.
You know how these kids are.
He had a list of suggestions
for the future of my company.
I listened to them, but at some point, you know,
I... I had to say, "Thank you very much,"
and he got aggravated and stormed out.
So odd.
Because that description doesn't match
what we've been told about Jason Rios at all.
We heard he was pretty easy-going.
That's not the young man I saw at lunch.
GENEVIEVE: I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason.
You were in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, huh?
Last time the U.S. sailing team won six silver medals.
Yes, indeed. Very good.
Who's that beautiful woman in the photo?
Part of the crew?
Oh, I suppose so. It was 20 years ago.
23 years, actually.
Exactly the same age as Jason.
Interesting.
You know what's interesting?
Jason had a picture of himself
as a little boy, and that woman
was holding him.
She's his mother, isn't she?
And you're his father.
I've got nothing to say.
It's gonna be a lot easier for you
if you just talk to us right now.
Graciela was the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on.
(INHALES DEEPLY)
It was one night.
I didn't even know about Jason until...
A year later, she sent me a picture.
I tried to do my best to look out for him.
I paid for his education.
And she wrote me and said he'd won a...
Robotics Scholarship competition.
And you knew he had it, your gift.
Yeah.
He was just like me.
(SIGHS)
So when he was old enough,
I arranged for him to come to Sistex.
I wanted to tell him.
I wanted to tell Chris, but I just didn't know how.
But somehow at that lunch,
after he told you about his breakthrough,
you finally figured out how to tell him.
How to make sure you could get your hands on that new battery.
No, no. It wasn't that way at all.
(VOICE BREAKING) I told him because I was proud of him.
Can you imagine a boy, 23, with a breakthrough like that?
And he was furious with me. Told me he hated me.
Told me he was gonna hate me for the rest of his life
for abandoning his mother.
Told me he was taking the battery to Lisa Hexler.
And you followed him to the meeting with her.
Yeah. Yes.
Then when he came out of the room,
I don't know what came over me. I grabbed a wrench.
I hit him.
I hit him again. He stopped moving.
And, uh, what about Lisa Hexler, hmm?
I tried to, uh, talk to her,
and she said there was, uh, no deal.
She knew I...
Had stolen the battery from Jason.
She was trying to blackmail me,
so when she turned around, I...
I'm sorry.
Mr. Houston, you're gonna have to come with us.
(SIGHS)
What are you doing? My father didn't do anything.
Hey, look at me.
Your father's under arrest for the murder of Jason Rios.
That's insane. Did your father tell you
that Jason was your half-brother?
He did, he told me just today, this morning.
He said he told Jason over lunch a couple of days ago,
and now I had to know. (VIBRATING)
Now what is going on?
Got that modified Hopperbot.
Thanks, Adam. You can set it there.
(VIBRATING)
Now what if Jason came up with something
that could power that headset?
JAY LEE: A long-lasting battery.
Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
You know, um, I think your father's gonna need you.
Chris, why don't you let me take you to him?
Okay.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Hey, Al, can I talk to you for a second?
Chris, wait with that officer.
I'll take you to your dad in a minute, all right?
What's up?
I think we might have been hasty in our decision to arrest Mr. Houston.
I think that we should wait
until we get the fingerprints off the murder weapon.
We're not gonna arrest him? Well, no, I mean, yes.
He confessed. Of course we're gonna arrest him.
But you know any good lawyer
could get that confession thrown out,
but now that we know where the murder weapon is,
all we have to do is go get it,
get the prints off it, we got an airtight case.
Right. And then the good news for us is?
The good news for us is that, you know,
given all the things they can do now...
The technology. At the lab,
even if he washed that murder weapon down with bleach,
we could get his prints off it.
Exactly. You have the murder weapon?
You know, Chris,
your father's free to go.
He is? For now.
Take him to his father, okay?
Please tell me why we just released a killer.
We didn't, but we're about to catch one.
So, the guy confesses, right?
You have opportunity, motive,
and every detail is consistent
to what we know about this murder,
but you are not convinced. Why?
Because William Houston didn't do it.
Carries thinks his son, Chris, killed Jason.
Really? What do you think, Lieutenant?
I think she's right.
Because of a toy lizard in a box?
A toy lizard in a box powered by a battery
invented by Jason Rios.
Chris took that battery from Jason the night he killed him.
Oh, so he's got the battery. Why kill Lisa Hexler?
We think Chris met with Hexler to make a deal.
Something went wrong and he took her out.
The he planted the burner cell
in Rhonda's drawer to frame her.
At some point, he told his father about it
'cause right now, his father is covering for him.
So Chris discovers that he's got a brother.
Not only that, but he's got a genius brother,
who he thinks is gonna sell
his genius battery to a competitor.
Yeah. So Chris takes out his brother,
saves his daddy's company.
Where's the murder weapon?
Chris will lead us right to it.
Carrie's outside his office right now
waiting for him to make his move.
Hey, guys, it's show time. Carrie called.
Chris Houston just got in a cab headed uptown.
CARRIE: Boo! (COCKS GUN)
Get your hands up. Put the weapon down.
Now!
My father confessed. This will never stick.
I'll just say he told me where he left it.
Your father doesn't know where the weapon was.
I asked him.
You're the only one who knew exactly where to find it.
Hey, I get it. His only son.
Brilliant, successful father,
and all you want is to impress him.
And then suddenly, out of the blue,
he has another son.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Only that son, he has everything you don't.
He was born with that genius,
that spark that you always wanted.
And then to top it all off,
he goes and creates something magical.
That little shit was gonna give it to Lisa Hexler.
I couldn't let him do that. It's worth $1/2 billion.
You followed your brother to the meeting.
You asked him for the battery, he refused, you killed him.
I get that.
But why kill Lisa?
I tried selling it to her, but she figured out what I'd done.
She said I had two choices. Either give her the battery...
Or she'd call the police.
You were gonna let your father go down for this murder.
No wonder he preferred Jason.
Shut up!
(PANTING)
(DEMONIC LAUGHTER OVER LOUDSPEAKERS)
(DOOR LATCHES)
Let the games begin.
(BEEPING)
Yes. (DRAWER UNLATCHES)
Always loved me a game of laser tag.
(MAN SCREAMS)
MAN: Ah! (GASPS)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
Damn it.
(LAUGHING DEMONICALLY)
(NURSE SCREAMS)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
(DOOR OPENS)
Freeze! (GASPS)
(BAT PROPS SCREECHING)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
(ZOMBIE PROP SCREAMS) (GRUNTS)
Got ya.
(ZOMBIE PROP CACKLES)
(SIRENS WAILING IN DISTANCE) Game over.
Hell of a job.
(GRUNTS AND SCREAMS FROM GAME)
CARRIE: Hey. (VIDEO GAME STOPS)
Hey.
What you up to?
Just catching up on some evidence logs.
Diligent. Yeah.
So I have a question.
How'd you find me so fast inside Satan's Palace?
I don't know. Wasn't so hard.
Really? 'Cause it's a pretty tough game.
I managed. I bet.
Oh! What? (CHUCKLES)
Level two. You're doing pretty well.
Oh, and you think you're the only one
who played video games?
You remember that old Pac-Man machine
in Cal's back in Syracuse?
Just so you know, I had the highest score on that machine
for 29 straight weeks back in 1982.
No one in high school could touch me.
Of course I remember that Pac-Man machine.
And are you sure you had the highest score?
Second highest.
There was someone who scored, like,
10,000 more points than anyone else,
but we knew he was cheating.
R-E-D, right?
Yeah. Those were the initials.
Red.
Oh, no way. No way! (LAUGHS)
Yes! Yes! What were you, like, seven?
Actually, I was six. I used to go there
to drink hot chocolate and play Pac-Man.
You got beat by a little girl.
Want me to help you with this?
No, no, no. I don't need help.
You do need help. Mmm, nope.
Come on.
All right, quick. Go, go, go, go, go!
Go, before the force field goes. There's... Good.
Good, good, good. Take him out, Al!
Take him out! Come on. I got it.
Hey, Frank.
You ready to watch your Major Crimes runner get beat?
You know, you're a glutton for punishment.
Every year you come here
expecting the 44th to win, and every year you lose.
Last year, your runner came in what, 19th?
With a running time of 27 minutes 9 seconds.
Year before that, your runner came in 25th, which sucked!
All right. Care to put your money where your mouth is, memory queen?
Okay. 100 bucks. All right, done. You got it.
Done. Here's my guy now.
And he's in the lead.
Go, Jay! Go, Jay! Go, Jay! Go!
Let's go, Bobby! Let's go! Whoo!
FRANK: Where's he going? ALL: Oh!
Ah! (EXCLAIMS)
JAY LEE: What? Hey! Stop!
What? Did you see that? Come on!
Are you okay? You're all right?
I was first, right?
Wait. I got my head across before you kicked your foot.
You have to cross the line.
Carrie, a little help here.
Absolutely not. That's collusion.
Don't mind if I do.
(OVERLAPPING SHOUTS)
(JAY LEE EXCLAIMS)
Okay, Jay,
you did kick your foot over the line as you fell.
Valiant effort, but second place.
What? Pay up, Wells.
I gotta hand it to you. You got integrity.
Not so fast.
You, number 78, third place.
Are you out of your mind? And you, number 66,
in a spectacular head dive across the finish line,
you won, first place. Get your trophy.
Wait, what? How do we know you're right?
Basically, I remember everything.
I can slow it down in my head and watch it back.
But if you don't believe me,
the little girl over there got it on her cell phone.
(SIGHS)
So I guess nobody wins.
It's for charity.
Everybody wins.
(PHONE RINGING)
Gotta go.
(INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS)
Victim's name is Jason Rios.
23 years old.
According to the M.E.,
cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull.
Jay is doing background.
All this for a video game.
DENNY: Come on, it's not just some video game, all right?
This is Satan's Palace.
Satan's Palace IV, as a matter of fact.
The greatest video game ever.
Seems a bit much to me.
No, look, these games make billions of dollars, right?
They come up with crazy ways to promote them.
I've read about this.
They, uh, it's an exact replica of the game.
It's like a haunted house type thing.
Looks like Jason was killed sometime before closing.
Couple of employees were setting up this morning,
found the body.
Manager's gonna come talk to us.
We got a weapon? Take your pick.
CSU blood splatter folks gonna love this.
Detectives?
Thank you so much. I'm Hannah Davis.
I'm the managing director of Hexler Gaming's Satan's Palace IV.
I'm a huge fan of the games.
I, I've played I, II, and III,
and I'm, I'm gonna play IV.
I mean, as soon as I solve this murder.
Uh, please, let's go to my office.
Do you mind if I just, um,
look around a little?
Watch out for the demons.
So, how close is all of this to the actual game?
Hexler Gaming is insistent that every aspect
adhere precisely to the game,
down to set dressing and costumes.
What happened last night is a tragedy,
and we'll do everything to help in your investigation.
Let's start with a list of employees.
And do you have any record of your guests last night?
Most of them. Hardcore gamers buy tickets in advance.
Otherwise, folks just pay cash at the door.
Uh, personnel will have the employee list.
Do you have any cameras inside?
No. We don't allow cell phone cameras either.
For proprietary reasons.
Anything out of the ordinary happen lately?
You know, I don't know how relevant this is,
but we've had some, I guess you could say,
protests lately.
I can't imagine the neighborhood
enjoys the noise and crowds.
It wasn't the neighbors that took issue with us.
I think it was a religious group.
What were they doing? Picketing with signs
plastered with bible quotes.
Screaming about glorifying hell.
Seems they take exception with the title of our game.
You remember the name of this group?
No, but they all wore black T-shirts...
(PHONE VIBRATING) with the letter "D."
AL: All right. We'll look into 'em.
Okay.
Yeah, Jay. JAY LEE: Jason's fiancee is ready for you guys.
Great. We'll get down there.
Thank you.
It would have been two years ago next month.
We were talking about setting a date.
I don't...
Who would do this?
AL: We're gonna try to find out.
Anything you can tell us?
Anything going on with Jason recently?
Not that I know of.
I was in Milan until three days ago.
I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason.
In Spain. He's from Barcelona.
We met on the beach and, um... (SNIFFLES)
Anything with his family bothering him?
Uh, no, no family. (SNIFFS)
His mother died when he was young,
and his father wasn't in the picture.
AL: Work? GENEVIEVE: He worked at Sistex.
Big software company.
And idea why Jason was at Satan's Palace last night?
No.
I didn't see him at all yesterday.
I had a lunch.
I thought he was at the office last night.
I don't really get all the computer stuff.
The, uh, the games.
We kind of agreed not to talk about it.
He mention any issues with work?
No. Things seemed to be going really well.
I could tell by how much sleep he got.
The last few days, he was up almost all night tinkering.
He had all his little toys going at once.
You know what he was doing?
Like I said, I really don't know much about his work.
I just know that it meant everything to him.
Sometimes, um, it would get to me. (SNIFFLES)
A few nights ago, I, uh,
ugh, I was teasing.
I... I told him he had to choose.
Me or whatever he was working on.
And I won.
I promise you we're gonna do everything we can
to find who did this.
Oh, yeah.
All right, okay.
Whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait. Go back.
You found something?
I think I got something, yeah.
What? Right there.
What?
That guy looks just like you.
What are you, ten years old?
We got an investigation, Denny, okay?
Where are we with that protest group?
Oh, right, boss. Yeah.
So they call themselves, get this,
Dark 1.
And apparently they believe Satan reaches out
to younger souls who have been corrupted by modern technology.
Okay, modern technology being what?
I mean, basically anything, what, after the typewriter.
JAY LEE: So check what I found out on the head guy.
Meet Reverend Foster Lee Nolan.
Now this guy was definitely for Satan
before he was against him.
Trafficking cocaine and meth.
He also has a history of taking in troubled kids and ex-cons,
and uses a combination of ass-kicking and old-time religion
to manipulate them for his purposes.
Sounds like a nice guy.
Maybe we should go have a chat with him.
DENNY: Well, boss, we can do you one better.
The good Reverend's decided to grace us with his presence.
Oh, nice.
DENNY: So, what is it, you... You object to anything
even related to the D-man? Right?
Well, what about the New Jersey Devils?
Huh? Not a hockey fan, okay.
Uh, what about the Duke Blue Devils?
The Wake Forest Demon Deacons?
You may laugh, but what I do...
This is a murder case, Reverend.
Nobody's laughing.
Companies like Hexler Gaming
are billion-dollar corporations,
and they are making millions promoting sin.
It's on our screens, and in our faces,
and the public is powerless against them,
so we do what we can.
AL: You say you're powerless against them.
We just recovered these from your house, Reverend Nolan.
You don't seem that powerless to me.
What do holy men need with weapons like these?
We're commanded to use the tools that we have.
DENNY: What about Jason Rios?
Hmm?
Who commanded you to kill him?
(INHALES DEEPLY)
Neither me, nor my people had anything to do with that man's death.
We believe that all souls can be saved.
Wow.
Besides...
We weren't even there last night.
We were off protesting at an establishment called.
Devil Burger out in Forest Hills.
Although some of our members did drop by today
when news of the murder broke.
To memorialize the blood that Hexler Gaming has on its hands.
Wacko.
You know, Nolan is telling the truth about that
because we just got these pictures from his place.
Victim's name is Jason Rios.
23 years old.
According to the M.E.,
cause of death is blunt force trauma to the skull.
You know, all of the costumed ghouls
that were working at Satan's Palace,
they had two zippers on the front of their costumes.
Now this guy has none.
Well, if he's not an employee, he's not a protester,
so what's he doing there? I don't know,
but I'm gonna find out. All right.
Lieutenant, I just turned your anti-Satanist nut-ball
over to the ATF.
What about his alibi on our case?
Actually panned out.
Turned out he was at the Devil Burger
with his people all night in Queens.
So we're back at square one.
Would I just bring you in here for bad news?
Um, yeah. You do it all the time.
Not this time.
We ran facial recognition on that zombie party crasher.
You know, the one with no zipper?
95% match with Daniel Lebenstrom, 28.
Guy's already in the system
for aggravated assault, robbery.
We'll go get him.
You might wan t to know something else about Lebenstrom.
His last robbery...
Stolen body parts, NYU medical school.
Happy Halloween.
(MUFFLED HEAVY METAL MUSIC PLAYING)
(MUFFLED WHIMPERING)
(KNOCKING) Police. Open up.
(WHIMPERING CONTINUES)
(WHIMPERING) Police! Don't move!
Hey, hey! Come here!
Sir? (GRUNTS)
I'm Detective Lee with Major Crimes.
Are you all right? Are you okay?
You all right, sir? You okay?
That was...
awesome! (CHUCKLES)
The best!
I'm not paying for the NYPD bust, though.
I didn't order that.
You paid for this? (PANTING)
Of course, he paid.
I earn a living doing this.
No laws have been broken.
A couple of laws of nature.
So what are you? Some kind of a scare dominatrix?
I'm more comfortable with the term "Thanatophile."
Someone who gets off on, uh, experiencing terror,
or, you know, inflicting it on others.
Not gonna ask how you know that.
You know how I know that.
There's no greater thrill than the knowledge
of one's own imminent death.
What about the knowledge of one's imminent ass
being thrown in jail?
(CLEARS THROAT) So, uh,
you got paid for trespassing too?
Oh, right. Uh, Satan's Palace.
A man was murdered there. Like, really murdered. Not pretend.
So, you were there getting off on your imminent death, right?
And all of a sudden, what's better than imminent death?
Actual death. We getting closer, Daniel?
No, okay. I was there last night,
and yes, I did enjoy terrifying the crowds,
but I had my eyes on a bigger prize. Hexler.
Lisa Hexler.
The president of Hexler Gaming?
The queen of horror games.
I thought, someone like me,
Lisa Hexler could probably use my ideas.
I figured she's launching a new game.
At some point, she'll show up.
So you were stalking her.
I... I wanted to pitch her.
I've got a way to turn what I do into a video game.
The only problem, Satan's Palace costs 50 bucks to get in.
I thought you made a living as a... Whatever.
The economy.
Personal terror's the first thing people cut out.
Anyhow, about a month ago I had an idea.
I put on an old Comic-Con outfit,
and found the employee's entrance and I was in.
I went back a lot, looking for her, but nothing.
And then suddenly, last night, there she is.
I followed her, but I lost her
when she went into the Gold Room.
I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason. In Spain.
Tell me more about the Gold Room.
It's the VIP room at Satan's Palace.
I hear Lisa has parties, meetings there, stuff like that.
And then what? You saw the news.
There'd been a murder, you figured Lisa Hexler's
gonna show up at the crime scene, and you went back?
CARRIE: Assuming you didn't happen to be there
'cause you'd just murdered Jason.
I... I had a client.
The session ran long.
This client have a name?
Um...
You might recognize the name.
A Congressman?
Can we talk?
Listen, I think Jason met with Lisa Hexler
in the Gold Room at 8:00 p.m.
He had a post-it. "GR 8" was written on it.
"Gold Room, 8:00 p.m."
What was Jason meeting Lisa Hexler about?
I don't know,
but whatever it was, it got him killed.
Hey. Did you find any connection
between Lisa Hexler and Jason?
I'm working on it, boss. Close.
All right. Because we cannot go after a big fish like her
unless we have something solid. You got that?
How about this?
So I've been analyzing information on Jason's laptop,
and even though it's encrypted,
I recovered a few of the algorithms,
and turns out they're for gaming software.
And if Jason was developing gaming software,
that could be something Lisa Hexler would be interested in.
Right. And he if he was developing it at work,
then the people at Sistex
might have something to tell us.
(SCOFFS) This is work?
Makes Major Crimes seem like the DMV.
I should have been a programmer.
You can't program your DVR.
Hi, I'm William Houston,
CEO of Sistex.
Lieutenant Al Burns. This is Detective Carrie Wells.
My son, Chris, General Counsel.
Hi. Hi.
So, uh, you guys knew Jason well?
I try to get to know all my junior programmers.
He had a promising career ahead of him.
Well, Chris can help you.
If you need anything, let me know.
Sure.
General Counsel, huh? You didn't get the tech bug?
Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
CHRIS: Oh, hey. Sorry.
MAN 1: Excuse me! MAN 2: Sorry about that!
One of the hazards of the business.
Hey. Got that modified Hopperbot.
CHRIS: Thanks, Adam. You can set it there.
(BOX VIBRATING)
Were you close with Jason?
Yeah, he was a good guy.
Can you think of anyone in the company
who may have wanted to hurt him?
Must be pretty competitive.
Well, it's a tough business,
but, um, we try to keep things
pretty collegial around here.
Well, I imagine collegial
and multi-million dollar software company
don't always go hand in hand.
I take your point.
Happy to get you our HR files,
but I don't think you'll find anything.
Do you know if he had any relationship with Lisa Hexler?
Why? Because of Satan's Palace?
I doubt it. I mean, um,
that's the hottest tech attraction in the city right now.
Well, was Jason developing any gaming software?
Not that I know of. The company wasn't.
We made a decision a long time ago
to stay out of the gaming market.
Of course, it wouldn't have stopped Lisa Hexler.
From what? From poaching our talent.
Lisa's notorious for finding the best
young programmers and designers in any field and stealing them away
to help build her horror games.
She's pretty ruthless about it.
DENNY: After you. Hey, there she is.
Excuse me, Ms. Hexler. I'm Detective Lee.
This is Detective Padilla. NYPD, Major Crimes.
Yes, I received your calls.
But you chose not to respond to them?
Did we not call them back?
I'm sorry. Things are just so busy with the rollout, doing press for the game.
Yeah, that's much more important
than a murder investigation.
I don't appreciate the insinuation.
And I would have been at the crime scene myself,
but I was on a conference call with Myanmar.
Did you make those calls from the Gold Room?
Yeah, see, we know about the Gold Room
hidden inside Satan's Palace.
And we know that you were meeting with Jason Rios there
last night just before he was murdered.
Which is odd because you were nowhere to be found
after he turned up dead.
I am responsible to thousands of shareholders.
How do you think it would look for a Fortune 500 CEO
to be in the vicinity of a murder scene?
Like you were innocent,
and helping with a murder investigation.
I'm sorry if I sound callous,
but I assure you I had nothing to do with that young man's death.
Why were you meeting with Jason?
I meet with programmers all the time.
You mean you steal them from other companies all the time.
I mean I win.
I'd heard good things about Jason
and he was everything people said.
We talked, I explained what I could offer,
and then I told him to go enjoy Satan's Palace IV.
That was the last I saw of him.
And we're done. If there's anything further,
Jeff can put you in touch with my lawyers.
Hmm.
Well, I heard you two annoyed Lisa Hexler earlier.
Well, we learned from the best, baby. Thank you.
And it looks like Lisa has reasons other than us to be annoyed.
Hexler Gaming is in big trouble.
Now according to industry analysts,
their last three games have underperformed retail projections.
And recent SEC filings show them operating at some serious debt.
I mean, the board was losing confidence in Lisa Hexler.
Well, that would be enough to get her to do something desperate.
And apparently the company's got
everything riding on their 3-D gameplay.
Problem is, the release date was delayed
at least four times in the past year.
Word is, Hexler Gaming hasn't developed
the battery technology to power their stand-alone 3-D gaming headsets.
GENEVIEVE: No. Things seemed to be going really well.
I could tell by how much sleep he got.
Last few days, he was up almost all night tinkering
with all his little toys going at once.
Wait a second.
I saw a headset just like that at Jason's place.
And his fiancee said he'd been working all night recently,
with all his stuff powered up.
Now what if Jason came up with something
that could power that headset?
A long-lasting battery.
That'd be enough to save Lisa Hexler's butt.
I mean, it'd be worth hundreds of millions.
No, thousands.
Thousands of millions.
Those are billions, Denny.
Eh, agree to disagree.
You guys, what if Lisa wasn't just having
a meet and greet with Jason?
What if she was trying to get her hands
on whatever he'd built?
And what if she was willing to do anything it took to get it from him?
Jay, work your magic and tell me where she is right now.
Okay. Hold on one...
(MUTTERING INDISTINCTLY)
Her cell phone just pinged off of a tower on the Lower East Side.
Wait, what's on the Lower East Side?
(MUTTERING) Something, something.
Hexler Gaming just closed on a warehouse
to build their next simulated game environment.
It's 457 Madison Street.
All right.
See if there's another way in.
Ah... (SIGHS)
Al.
(SIRENS WAILING)
According to the M.E., blunt force trauma.
Someone smashed her head against the wall multiple times.
400 bucks in her Birkin handbag,
so it wasn't a robbery.
(PHONE RINGING)
What's up? JAY LEE: Hey, Al.
I checked Lisa's phone records,
and it turns out she was called by a burner cell
two hours before her death.
Could be how the killer lured Lisa down here.
See if you can find out who purchased that burner.
JAY LEE: You got it, boss.
CHRIS: Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
Anything?
The gum wrapper.
It's from the concentration gum
that they were developing at Jason's company.
I'm sorry, but this is a lot to take in.
You really think that someone at Sistex
killed Jason and Lisa Hexler?
Someone left a wrapper
of your concentration gum at the crime scene.
That stuff is not on the market yet.
Any idea who would have access to it?
I could throw a dart. The whole company is obsessed with the stuff.
And what about 3-D software? Are they obsessed with that?
If you mean, do we have any 3-D technology
currently under development? No.
Is it possible Jason was off developing on his own?
We encourage independent work.
That said, our employees all sign pretty standard exclusivity deals.
They know anything they come up with belongs to Sistex.
You know who you should speak with is Rhonda Matthews.
She and Jason were friends.
If anybody knows what he was up to in his spare time,
she would.
I'm just curious, how would the company react
if an individual tried to market
something he'd come up with on his own?
Well, we'd ask that employee not to.
And if they continued, we'd sue them.
We wouldn't kill them, Detective,
(CHUCKLING) if that's what you're imagining.
Rhonda, these people are from the police.
They have some questions about Jason.
Uh, sure. Of course.
This is all so unbelievable.
Did you find out who did it?
You and Jason were pretty close, weren't you?
Yes, but I have no idea who killed him.
You and Jason worked on a number of projects together?
Yeah. Sistex encourages teamwork.
Although Jason and I haven't worked on a project together in...
I don't know, almost a year.
I miss working with him.
And now...
I know it's difficult,
but do you know if Jason was working on something
outside the office on his own?
I don't think so. I don't... I don't know.
(VOICE BREAKING) Um... excuse me.
It would have been two years next month.
AL: Anything you can tell us? Anything going on with Jason?
We're gonna give you a moment.
Thanks.
She has a molecule model in her drawer.
I saw the exact some one at Jason's house.
They both do computer science. They work together.
No, they haven't worked together for over a year. (PHONE RINGING)
She knows more than she's telling us.
It's Jay.
Yeah? JAY LEE: Hey, Al.
I managed to track the purchase of that burner cell
that called Lisa Hexler.
It came from a bodega
three blocks from Sistex Software.
You got a description of the guy who bought it?
Nope. Store records show that it was paid for in cash.
That's all I got, boss.
The burner cell that called Lisa Hexler
was bought near here.
Really? Well, you know what?
Tell Jay to call that burner cell.
Go ahead and dial the number.
You got it.
(PHONE RINGING)
Aren't you going to answer that?
Uh, it's not mine.
I think it's coming from your drawer.
(PHONE CONTINUES RINGING)
(PHONE BEEPS)
Oh, you just hung up on a friend of ours.
This isn't my phone.
I swear, I've never seen this before.
You want some advice?
You might want to use it to call a lawyer.
LAWYER: As I said, my client never saw that phone before in her life
until it rang inside the drawer.
Yeah, I'm always finding phones
I've never seen before inside my drawers.
She also has an alibi for the night Jason Rios was killed.
You told me. At the movies.
By herself.
There are better alibis, you know.
She bought a box of Dots and a Diet Coke with her credit card.
Maybe you could try checking it out.
Oh, we will. We'll check it out.
Believe me.
Okay, what have you got?
Okay, so check it, boss.
I got a search warrant for Rhonda's personal computer.
Mmm-hmm. I remotely accessed it,
and it's got mostly personal stuff on it
except for one large protected file, heavily encrypted.
Yeah, but you cracked it, right?
Of course I did. Of course you did.
I'm gonna spare you the gory details,
but take a look at that.
(COMPUTER BEEPING)
That's the same molecule
Carrie found in Rhonda's desk.
Does Al know this? Yup.
Just watch.
AL: You still haven't explained
how you ended up with that phone.
I told you, someone's setting me up.
The same someone who made you lie to us
about helping Jason with that battery?
What are you talking about? Oh...
(PHONE BEEPS) Jason had a model
just like that in his apartment.
It's the critical component of next phase batteries.
Jason was developing them
for someone outside the company,
and you were helping him. Now talk.
Yes, all right. I knew about his work.
We even worked together for a while,
but Jason was so secretive,
I felt like that he was shutting me out.
So I finally told him, "Screw it,"
he could keep working by himself.
Then you heard he had a breakthrough, right?
Based on work you and he did together, right?
Not only that, he was gonna sell it for a lot of money.
You must have been so angry
that he was gonna meet with Lisa Hexler without you.
I'm about one second from shutting this down.
Do we have anything on this movie alibi?
Okay, just hold on. Uh, come on, come on.
Rhonda's last credit card statement,
Dots and Diet Coke, 18.50.
For candy and soda? That's who we should be arresting.
But alibi checks out though, boss.
No way she gets across town in time to kill Jason.
All right, well, I'll let Al know.
(PHONE CHIMES)
(PHONE BEEPS)
Look,
I don't want to charge your client with murder,
but so far, no one remembers her from that movie theater.
So things look a little sketchy right here.
If there's something that you want to tell me,
now would be the time to do that.
(SIGHS)
Something did happen, uh, three days ago.
Go on.
I was getting ready to head out for lunch,
and I saw Jason putting on a jacket and tie.
I didn't even know Jason owned stuff like that.
He said he was worried about sweating on the subway,
so he was Ubering to Midtown,
and I made some joke about mystery date,
but he didn't say anything.
And later, when he came back,
I thought he'd be in a good mood,
but he was just really quiet.
I didn't know what happened, but I knew something was really wrong.
You know what? We need to know about Jason's lunch.
Hey, can you check... Check his Uber records.
Already on it, uh, searching for e-mail receipts
around lunchtime last Wednesday.
(COMPUTER BEEPS) Got it. Precisely 12:03,
Jason was dropped off at 712 West 47th.
712, that's La Maison. Excellent croque-monsieur.
All right, you know what? Cross reference all the credit card charges
with persons of interest in this investigation. See what you get.
I could, boss, or...
Come on.
I could crack the restaurant's internal security cameras
and we could see what Jason was having for lunch.
Well, there's that.
Camera C. That's Jason.
(INAUDIBLE)
JAY LEE: Well, he's upset about something.
Geez, when is this guy gonna turn around? I know it.
(COMPUTER BEEPS) JAY LEE: Got ya.
That's William Houston. He's the founder of Sistex.
Now what's he doing having lunch
with one of his low-level coders?
And more importantly, why didn't he let us know about it?
(SIGHS) Look, I... I told you
I meet with all my promising employees
on a regular basis.
But what you didn't tell us
was that you had lunch with Jason
the day before he was murdered.
Um...
Honestly, there's so many of these kids.
I... I'm not as good with names and faces
like I used to be.
Must be nice to not remember
treating someone to a $400 lunch.
A $400 lunch where you got into a...
very heated argument with him.
It was hardly an argument.
You know how these kids are.
He had a list of suggestions
for the future of my company.
I listened to them, but at some point, you know,
I... I had to say, "Thank you very much,"
and he got aggravated and stormed out.
So odd.
Because that description doesn't match
what we've been told about Jason Rios at all.
We heard he was pretty easy-going.
That's not the young man I saw at lunch.
GENEVIEVE: I'm in the fashion business. I go to Europe a lot.
That's where I met Jason.
You were in the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona, huh?
Last time the U.S. sailing team won six silver medals.
Yes, indeed. Very good.
Who's that beautiful woman in the photo?
Part of the crew?
Oh, I suppose so. It was 20 years ago.
23 years, actually.
Exactly the same age as Jason.
Interesting.
You know what's interesting?
Jason had a picture of himself
as a little boy, and that woman
was holding him.
She's his mother, isn't she?
And you're his father.
I've got nothing to say.
It's gonna be a lot easier for you
if you just talk to us right now.
Graciela was the most beautiful woman I'd ever laid eyes on.
(INHALES DEEPLY)
It was one night.
I didn't even know about Jason until...
A year later, she sent me a picture.
I tried to do my best to look out for him.
I paid for his education.
And she wrote me and said he'd won a...
Robotics Scholarship competition.
And you knew he had it, your gift.
Yeah.
He was just like me.
(SIGHS)
So when he was old enough,
I arranged for him to come to Sistex.
I wanted to tell him.
I wanted to tell Chris, but I just didn't know how.
But somehow at that lunch,
after he told you about his breakthrough,
you finally figured out how to tell him.
How to make sure you could get your hands on that new battery.
No, no. It wasn't that way at all.
(VOICE BREAKING) I told him because I was proud of him.
Can you imagine a boy, 23, with a breakthrough like that?
And he was furious with me. Told me he hated me.
Told me he was gonna hate me for the rest of his life
for abandoning his mother.
Told me he was taking the battery to Lisa Hexler.
And you followed him to the meeting with her.
Yeah. Yes.
Then when he came out of the room,
I don't know what came over me. I grabbed a wrench.
I hit him.
I hit him again. He stopped moving.
And, uh, what about Lisa Hexler, hmm?
I tried to, uh, talk to her,
and she said there was, uh, no deal.
She knew I...
Had stolen the battery from Jason.
She was trying to blackmail me,
so when she turned around, I...
I'm sorry.
Mr. Houston, you're gonna have to come with us.
(SIGHS)
What are you doing? My father didn't do anything.
Hey, look at me.
Your father's under arrest for the murder of Jason Rios.
That's insane. Did your father tell you
that Jason was your half-brother?
He did, he told me just today, this morning.
He said he told Jason over lunch a couple of days ago,
and now I had to know. (VIBRATING)
Now what is going on?
Got that modified Hopperbot.
Thanks, Adam. You can set it there.
(VIBRATING)
Now what if Jason came up with something
that could power that headset?
JAY LEE: A long-lasting battery.
Well, not every son inherits his father's mad scientist gene.
You know, um, I think your father's gonna need you.
Chris, why don't you let me take you to him?
Okay.
(INDISTINCT CHATTER)
Hey, Al, can I talk to you for a second?
Chris, wait with that officer.
I'll take you to your dad in a minute, all right?
What's up?
I think we might have been hasty in our decision to arrest Mr. Houston.
I think that we should wait
until we get the fingerprints off the murder weapon.
We're not gonna arrest him? Well, no, I mean, yes.
He confessed. Of course we're gonna arrest him.
But you know any good lawyer
could get that confession thrown out,
but now that we know where the murder weapon is,
all we have to do is go get it,
get the prints off it, we got an airtight case.
Right. And then the good news for us is?
The good news for us is that, you know,
given all the things they can do now...
The technology. At the lab,
even if he washed that murder weapon down with bleach,
we could get his prints off it.
Exactly. You have the murder weapon?
You know, Chris,
your father's free to go.
He is? For now.
Take him to his father, okay?
Please tell me why we just released a killer.
We didn't, but we're about to catch one.
So, the guy confesses, right?
You have opportunity, motive,
and every detail is consistent
to what we know about this murder,
but you are not convinced. Why?
Because William Houston didn't do it.
Carries thinks his son, Chris, killed Jason.
Really? What do you think, Lieutenant?
I think she's right.
Because of a toy lizard in a box?
A toy lizard in a box powered by a battery
invented by Jason Rios.
Chris took that battery from Jason the night he killed him.
Oh, so he's got the battery. Why kill Lisa Hexler?
We think Chris met with Hexler to make a deal.
Something went wrong and he took her out.
The he planted the burner cell
in Rhonda's drawer to frame her.
At some point, he told his father about it
'cause right now, his father is covering for him.
So Chris discovers that he's got a brother.
Not only that, but he's got a genius brother,
who he thinks is gonna sell
his genius battery to a competitor.
Yeah. So Chris takes out his brother,
saves his daddy's company.
Where's the murder weapon?
Chris will lead us right to it.
Carrie's outside his office right now
waiting for him to make his move.
Hey, guys, it's show time. Carrie called.
Chris Houston just got in a cab headed uptown.
CARRIE: Boo! (COCKS GUN)
Get your hands up. Put the weapon down.
Now!
My father confessed. This will never stick.
I'll just say he told me where he left it.
Your father doesn't know where the weapon was.
I asked him.
You're the only one who knew exactly where to find it.
Hey, I get it. His only son.
Brilliant, successful father,
and all you want is to impress him.
And then suddenly, out of the blue,
he has another son.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Only that son, he has everything you don't.
He was born with that genius,
that spark that you always wanted.
And then to top it all off,
he goes and creates something magical.
That little shit was gonna give it to Lisa Hexler.
I couldn't let him do that. It's worth $1/2 billion.
You followed your brother to the meeting.
You asked him for the battery, he refused, you killed him.
I get that.
But why kill Lisa?
I tried selling it to her, but she figured out what I'd done.
She said I had two choices. Either give her the battery...
Or she'd call the police.
You were gonna let your father go down for this murder.
No wonder he preferred Jason.
Shut up!
(PANTING)
(DEMONIC LAUGHTER OVER LOUDSPEAKERS)
(DOOR LATCHES)
Let the games begin.
(BEEPING)
Yes. (DRAWER UNLATCHES)
Always loved me a game of laser tag.
(MAN SCREAMS)
MAN: Ah! (GASPS)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
Damn it.
(LAUGHING DEMONICALLY)
(NURSE SCREAMS)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
(DOOR OPENS)
Freeze! (GASPS)
(BAT PROPS SCREECHING)
(TOY GUNSHOT)
(ZOMBIE PROP SCREAMS) (GRUNTS)
Got ya.
(ZOMBIE PROP CACKLES)
(SIRENS WAILING IN DISTANCE) Game over.
Hell of a job.
(GRUNTS AND SCREAMS FROM GAME)
CARRIE: Hey. (VIDEO GAME STOPS)
Hey.
What you up to?
Just catching up on some evidence logs.
Diligent. Yeah.
So I have a question.
How'd you find me so fast inside Satan's Palace?
I don't know. Wasn't so hard.
Really? 'Cause it's a pretty tough game.
I managed. I bet.
Oh! What? (CHUCKLES)
Level two. You're doing pretty well.
Oh, and you think you're the only one
who played video games?
You remember that old Pac-Man machine
in Cal's back in Syracuse?
Just so you know, I had the highest score on that machine
for 29 straight weeks back in 1982.
No one in high school could touch me.
Of course I remember that Pac-Man machine.
And are you sure you had the highest score?
Second highest.
There was someone who scored, like,
10,000 more points than anyone else,
but we knew he was cheating.
R-E-D, right?
Yeah. Those were the initials.
Red.
Oh, no way. No way! (LAUGHS)
Yes! Yes! What were you, like, seven?
Actually, I was six. I used to go there
to drink hot chocolate and play Pac-Man.
You got beat by a little girl.
Want me to help you with this?
No, no, no. I don't need help.
You do need help. Mmm, nope.
Come on.
All right, quick. Go, go, go, go, go!
Go, before the force field goes. There's... Good.
Good, good, good. Take him out, Al!
Take him out! Come on. I got it.