Let's get it started!
( cheering )
( gasps )
Yeah!
Feels like bath water, right?
It's cold.
Okay, polar bears, time's up. Out of the water.
( cheering )
♪ ♪
Pretty sure this wasn't the buried treasure
our swimmer had in mind.
Coney Island, February.
Water's 35 degrees--
these people feel the need to take a dip.
I don't get it.
That's why you're not a polar bear.
Well, it's pretty dry inside.
Probably didn't spend much time in the water.
BONASERA: Tide brought it onto shore, buried it.
Kind of our own forensic message in a bottle,
or should I say a trunk.
Seems to be in one piece.
He's pretty stuffed in there, though.
We can't take him out here.
You got a shovel in your kit?
Just these.
Let's dig.
You know, last July,
Kobayashi won at Nathan's again.
Downed 53 and a half hot dogs
in 12 minutes.
It's a world record.
Now, you got to admit that's impressive.
And yet still nauseating.
All right, you ready?
On three.
BOTH: One, two, three.
( grunting )
That's not a trunk.
It's a box.
It's not a box. It's a coffin.
♪ Out here in the fields ♪
♪ I fought for my meals ♪
♪ I get my back into my living ♪
♪ I don't need to fight ♪
♪ To prove I'm right ♪
♪ I don't need to be forgiven, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Yeah. ♪
No yanking.
Cold water would've kept bloating to a minimum.
A slow and steady tug
should do it.
I'll pull up.
You two...
hold down.
Well, it's safe to say he's still in full rigor,
which usually starts 12 hours or so after death.
And remains for another 18,
so he's been dead
about a day.
Maybe; cold also
affects rigor.
Slows it down.
He could've died up to 48 hours ago.
We're not going to be able to print him.
Fingers are unreachable.
His muscle fibers are locked up pretty tight.
Body position is unnatural, to say the least,
but no worries.
I can straighten him out,
but it's not going to be a one-person job.
Mac'll help you.
I got the box.
So, where do I hold?
♪ ♪
BONASERA: Saltwater residue on all sides of the box.
Water's also penetrated
into scratches in the finish.
Twine from the box is unique.
Five interwoven fiber strands
instead of three-- that's strong stuff.
If the lid wasn't opening,
then this must have gotten into the box with our victim.
That's one hell of a fiber.
Huh.
BONASERA: Well, fibers don't have roots.
This is a hair,
and it's way too big to be human.
That's a lot of blood, huh?
Yeah. The downstairs neighbor freaked out
when it started seeping through her ceiling.
She called the super; he called us.
Positive for human proteins.
The average volume in a healthy adult
is 4.7 to five liters.
If you lose 500 milliliters, you're unconscious.
So you don't lose this much blood and walk out.
No. We're looking for a dead body.
Who lives here?
A former Miss Iowa.
Name's Paige Worthy.
Both the super
and the downstairs neighbor
say they haven't seen her in over a week.
Yeah, well, that don't mean anything.
I've lived in my apartment three years now.
My neighbors don't recognize me.
You better hope you don't go missing, pal.
MESSER: I mean, no signs of struggle.
Bed's made.
Knickknacks and whatnot
are all in their rightful place.
Everything's here except the tenant.
Shower curtain's missing.
Paige Worthy couldn't have walked out of here,
so maybe she was carried out.
You got to be a lucky son of a bitch
to get a body down from a fifth-floor apartment
with nobody noticing.
True. It takes more than luck to pull off a murder.
You got to get out of here
without leaving a trail of evidence.
And our trail starts here.
Looks young.
May have fought back.
I'll scrape the nails, do a full work-up with the post.
Bruises on the throat,
arms... and wrists.
Peri-mortem.
More on the backside caused by something
with a hook on the end.
Bruises part of C.O.D.?
It's hard to say.
The darker color bruises on the arm suggest
they're most recent.
What about this one?
HAWKES: Hickey.
But forget DNA.
Too old.
I don't see any stab wounds.
No gunshot wounds. Just the bruises.
That's the outside.
But this guy came
out of a sardine can.
I want to see what's going on inside.
Unbelievable.
Skeleton's intact...
top to bottom.
So someone killed him,
stuffed him into a two-by-two-by-two box
and didn't break a single bone?
Paige definitely wasn't planning on going anywhere.
Fridge is stocked for a long winter.
Maybe she was cooking for more than one.
I got multiple fingerprints
from the doorknob.
Single girl in the city?
Prints could be a boyfriend.
FLACK: Dry blood?
It's hard to say what it is or if it's even related
to the crime.
But this is blood here.
Gravitational drops moving towards the door.
Garbage chute.
Our killer threw something away.
( groans )
He ain't the only one.
I'll post a few uniforms on the other floors.
It's clogged.
We still don't have a name?
Prints weren't on file.
Dental's still pending.
Doc?
Cause of death... asphyxiation.
That box spent a lot of time
in the ocean-- any water in the lungs?
No. He was dead before he hit the Atlantic.
Strangulation?
No damage
Strangulation?
No damage
to the hyoid bone.
Also, didn't find any trace fibers in the trachea
or mouth.
So he wasn't smothered?
No. I think there was air.
He just couldn't get it to his lungs.
When we breathe the diaphragm drops,
the ribs and intercostals expand.
Clears room for the lungs to inflate with air.
But if the cavity is externally compressed,
the lungs are unable to draw in any air.
They can't expand.
He was alive when he was put inside that box.
BONASERA: Large hands grabbed this kid.
Probably the same person who forced him into the box.
Only kink--
defense wounds.
Trace under the nails may have been
him scratching his attacker, but other than that...
There aren't any.
No.
He was stuffed into a box
alive... and didn't fight back.
Found the shower curtain.
But the face doesn't match Paige Worthy.
STELLA: We both saw the size of that box, Mac.
Come on, my microwave is bigger.
I mean, until now,
I never believed that people were double jointed.
They're not.
There's no such thing as a double joint.
It's just people with very loose tendons and ligaments.
Physically he's just like rest of us, but I'm telling you,
if somebody was trying to shove me into a box,
I would fight back.
And this guy had no defense wounds.
Maybe he's some kind of escape artist
and this was
a stunt gone wrong.
He's trying to be the next Houdini.
Got locked in, couldn't get out.
I don't buy it.
I mean, there was nothing on his body or the box
that indicated that he panicked or tried to fight his way out.
Hey,
you're right, that hair you pulled from the box,
it wasn't human.
Elephas Maximus.
An elephant?
Okay.
New theory.
Ladies and gentlemen,
we of the City Circus must bid you
farewell.
( laughing )
I think I packed too much.
( oohs and aahs )
( audience cheers )
( circus music playing )
Welcome to the circus.
( elephant wails )
Good night, good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow!
My son, Lukas.
Mr. Neiman,
when was the last time you saw Lukas?
Um, last night.
He performed, then disappeared.
He was 17.
The city intrigued him more than the circus.
He'd sneak away at night
and explore.
How?
Sir, we found him in a very small box.
Similar to this
one over here.
It washed up on shore at Coney Island.
Lukas was a contortionist, like his brother, like me.
The boxes are part of the act.
( speaks Russian )
Your brother, he is dead.
Maxwell,
I just heard. I'm...
I'm sorry.
I take it the circus
isn't one big happy family.
We live, travel, perform as one,
year after year.
But only Lukas and Alexander are my family.
What about the man you were fighting with? What is he?
He's from Brooklyn.
Bernardo Espargosa.
I'm sorry he lost his son.
I really am. But you know what?
I don't like the guy.
Well, I got that much.
What started it off?
The fact that I'm not a foreigner
and I didn't grow up in the circus.
What does being from Brooklyn have to do with this?
I am a third generation performer.
From Europe, tradition, ancestry,
we are royalty.
I worked my ass off to get where I am.
From Roustabout, setting up the tent,
to performer, trapeze artist.
So that little display was just a culture clash?
Had nothing to do with what happened to Lukas?
Absolutely not.
Lukas... Lukas had a great bit.
The entire show is going to suffer this loss.
Lukas was fourth generation?
And these people despised him for that.
Including Bernardo Espargosa?
He has only one act.
He's not a performer.
Then why did Maxwell Neiman attack you
moments after finding out that his son was killed?
Because he cheapens us all.
Performs only for the applause.
Hoping for fame.
But it was Lukas who always stole the moment.
( audience oohing and aahing)
( audience applauds )
He was the star. Not the girl.
Who's the girl?
His daughter, Anasuya.
My daughter is the star here.
How'd you get those scratches?
Trapeze isn't easy.
I mean, I haven't had a show yet
I'm not nursing something afterwards.
Tonight was no exception.
TAYLOR: Found one just like it in Lukas' hand.
Did you get them together?
No.
It was a gift from Lukas.
He'd sneak out at night.
Make it all the way to the ocean and back before morning.
You never went with him?
I have two older brothers and a father watching my every move.
I'm stuc k here.
Lukas was off limits.
Just like in the show.
Lukas was Romeo... and I was Juliet.
Each year the circus acts are designed
around a central theme.
This year it was Romeo and Juliet.
( audience aahing )
( cheers and applause )
"Good night, good night.
Parting is such sweet sorrow."
Act two, scene two. Line 185.
I saw you backstage.
You weren't in costume.
Why didn't you perform in tonight's show?
Had a bad release last night.
I hurt my arm.
Thank God my father was there.
We don't use a net.
So I'll take a sore arm over the alternative.
TAYLOR: If the stereotype
is kids run away from home
and join the circus, where do kids
already in the circus go?
Apparently the elephant enclosure.
This twine is similar to the one we found on the box.
TAYLOR: Stella, take a look.
Trace material on the lift plate, same color as our box.
Sand in the treads.
Coney Island?
Mountain of evidence in one place.
And we know where Lukas ended up.
Maybe this is where it started.
( grunting )
Bernardo Espargosa had scratches on his arm.
Could be his skin under Lukas' fingernails.
Yeah, let me guess...
Bernardo refused to offer a DNA sample?
Good guess.
Oh, come on, Mac.
You got to admit, this is kind of cool.
I have never been this close to an elephant before.
( elephant softly wails )
Mac?
Sorry, it's just, that...
everything's here.
Elephant hair, twine, dolly.
But we found Lukas nearly nude.
If this is where he was put into the box, where's his costume?
Backstage of the circus,
it is crazy and crowded.
There are people everywhere.
If he were stripped down and shoved into a box,
why didn't anybody notice?
I don't know.
If we find the person
that took that dolly to the beach,
we'll get some answers.
MESSER: What's up, Doc?
Track down your missing tenant yet?
Paige Worthy? No.
Flack's on it, though. He'll find her.
How about our friend here
from the garbage chute?
We have a name?
Blood from the apartment was hers. Unfortunately,
she's still a Jane Doe.
Actually,
Mrs. Jane Doe.
She's married.
Obviously not for the cash.
It's a tiny rock.
Wasn't the only thing on her hands.
Defense wounds.
Ran a rape kit.
No sexual assault.
All right, what's the cause of death?
Exsanguination.
She was stabbed.
Based on the pattern
and shape of the wound,
blade was small.
Severed the femoral artery.
Bled several minutes before death.
So the sick bastard could have sat there
and watched her bleed out.
Mm-hmm.
Noticed one other thing.
A crooked nose.
Happen during the struggle?
Pre-existing injury.
As were fractures
to the orbital bone, and zygomatic arch.
And her two front teeth are capped.
Originals were either removed or knocked out.
Battered spouse.
Yeah. Ever know a woman with a broken nose
and capped teeth who wasn't?
BONASERA: Hey, Mac?
We don't need DNA from Bernardo Espargosa.
Scratches on his arms didn't come from Lukas.
Skin under Lukas' nails-- his own.
Thousand ways it could have gotten there.
How about the costume?
Positive reaction under the arms,
chest, collar, stomach area.
Sounds like sweat.
Smells like it, too. Take a look at this...
the substance adhered to the sweat stains on the chest.
BONASERA: It's powdery.
There's more of it that's adhering under the arms as well.
TAYLOR: Sweat streaks.
Those are drops.
Which means they aren't sweat.
What are they?
Pulled a wool fiber off the hand grip of that dolly.
Also fumed it.
Print city.
Any matches?
Just one.
Jake Lydell, the elephant handler.
You don't have to threaten me,
I been through the system before.
Right, Providence,
Boston, Cleveland... It seems wherever
the circus stops, you get in trouble.
I'm unlucky.
That have anything to do with the color of your water?
It's a cold day. I'm trying to stay warm.
Coat looks thick enough.
What is it, wool?
Look, I know my rights.
You have to tell me why you're here.
We found your fingerprints
on a dolly that we took from the elephant enclosure.
So?
What's the matter?
That dolly ended up at the beach.
Uh-huh, oh, I get it. The twisty kid.
I use the dolly every day.
I touch everything in the pach.
"The pach"?
Pachyderm.
"The pach"?
Pachyderm.
Elephant. It's my job to prep her for the show.
Clean, scoop-- that's my life.
Lukas ever intrude into that life?
Every day.
But he didn't talk to me
and I never talked to him.
You see, backstage, the circus
is just like everywhere else in America--
split down the center.
Talent with talent, crew with crew.
Take my coat.
Take all my fingerprints.
Take my spit if you want that, too.
You can keep your spit.
But I will take your coat.
And I'll take your hands.
Fiber on the left,
from the dolly-- wool.
Fiber on the right
from suspect Jake's coat-- cotton.
No match.
Neither were these.
Jake's hands are too big to have caused Lukas' bruises.
Well, we know that Jake had a bad temper
and a wandering eye-- did you see the way he looked
at Anasuya?
But it didn't lead to murder, huh?
Can you place him on the box?
No. But there's more than just salt water
on that box.
Propylene glycol,
manganese, aluminum silicate,
mineral oil.
This is make-up.
D&C Red Number 7 Calcium Lake.
Red make-up.
Right. Thick enough to survive the ocean.
So, who with the circus
layers it on like Tammy Faye?
Are you guys out of your minds?
TAYLOR: Clown faces are unique.
No two alike.
Yours left a print on Lukas' contortionist box.
I was trying to get a laugh.
The box was part of the act.
TAYLOR: We found distinctive bruises
on the victim's backside.
That part of the act, too?
The bruises on Lukas' body
are consistent with your props.
Wrist and throat
from your stockade, backside
from your cane; what happened?
He spilled the bubbles.
I was literally walking out into the ring.
No time to make more bubbles.
My act bombed.
Not one kid laughed, and it was his fault.
So, I pressed charges.
By beating him with a cane?
No, by taking him to court.
Order. Lukas Neiman,
a.k.a. "Romeo," I find you guilty.
You are remanded to Clown Alley for punishment.
He took his licks and got back
in the good graces of the clowns.
Problem solved.
That night we did the show
and that's the last time I saw him.
Clown court?
We handle things internally.
So do we.
Hands on the table; no gloves.
FLACK: Paige Worthy?
Is that how you hail them in the Midwest?
Only want to get picked up by a cab.
Don't have time for you.
Make time.
I'm Detective Messer from the crime lab.
This is Detective Flack.
What is this about?
It's about a dead woman
that was found in your apartment.
In my apartment?
Recognize her?
That's Lita, Lita Cartey.
Lita Cartey.
We pledged together at Grinnell.
She was staying with me.
Yeah, but you've been staying in a hotel.
Tracked your credit card.
Lita asked if she could crash for a couple nights.
A couple of nights turned into three weeks.
So you split?
Lita wasn't the problem.
It was that delinquent she married.
Jason, I told you, she's not here.
Stop calling.
Time gets away from me when I'm writing.
I figured she was okay.
Guess she wasn't, huh?
You know the husband's name?
This one's a real tough guy.
Beating on a woman half his size.
I never hit Lita.
Her nose was broken at least twice.
Lita filed three domestic violence reports against you.
I couldn't have kept a girl like Lita if I hit her.
College-educated, pretty.
I had to beg her to marry me.
But a woman like Lita
doesn't stay with a guy like you.
So, you knock her around a little bit,
make her afraid to leave.
She was my wife.
But if you couldn't have her no one else could.
I didn't kill her.
I haven't seen her in weeks.
All right, then the fingerprints I lifted from the doorknob
in the apartment won't match yours?
She wouldn't let me inside.
Come on, Lita, I just want to talk.
I talked through the door for 15 minutes.
She never answered.
The longer she made you wait, the angrier you got?
I know what she's like when she gets depressed.
Pulls the curtains, won't leave the apartment.
Just shuts everyone out.
Everyone,
or just you?
I'm not a criminal.
Yes, you are.
We're just trying to figure out what kind.
Danny, breathe.
It's okay.
I feel like it's right in front of me, Mac.
I just can't see it.
Take your eyes out of it.
Talk it out.
I got a battered woman with skin underneath her nails
hiding from a husband who admits being in the building
the night of the murder.
So, he's our guy, right? Wrong.
DNA comes back-- no match.
Husband didn't do it.
No.
You looked at all the evidence?
Yeah, including this.
Check that out.
That's loomi--
a Middle Eastern spice.
Comes from boiled limes.
I found it on the floor.
If the husband wasn't in the apartment,
someone else was.
The evidence is there, Messer.
You're not yet.
Keep at it.
You want the long or the short of it?
Short.
All right. Lukas' flip-flops and costume
came back with heavy traces
of corn syrup and dishwashing liquid.
Bubbles.
Matches Rosie the Clown's story.
So does this.
Rosie's got small hands.
They didn't wrap around Lukas' arms.
Okay, so we've accounted
for the wrist, throat and backside bruises.
Question is, who grabbed him?
The white powder we found
in the sweat on Lukas' costume was chalk.
Unique concoction of the trapeze artist.
BERNARDO: I told you, these marks happened during a show.
BONASERA: I believe that.
Lukas didn't scratch you.
But the bruises on his arm
match the size of your hands.
You grabbed him.
I had to.
He attacked my daughter.
That was five days ago.
I made Anasuya promise she'd never see him again.
Did she?
Did you know in Portuguese
the name Bernardo means "strong as a bear."
Yes, but that
means nothing in all this.
Maybe not,
but you knew this kid; you watched his act.
My guess is you knew how to fold him
and put him in the box.
You had motive
and opportunity.
I think you handled it "internally."
I despised him and his family.
But I'm not a murderer.
Lukas' bruises are telling a different story.
I know you like Bernardo Espargosa for this murder,
but before you pass the case on to the DA,
I need to show you something.
No doubt Lukas had talent.
Sticking your leg behind your head isn't easy.
But he was a great contortionist
because of what he got from his father.
He was a fourth-generation performer.
And there's something to that.
Elhers-Danlos Syndrome.
Genetic defect
in the manufacturing of collagen.
Affects connective tissues--
skin, tendons, organ walls, cartilage, blood vessels.
Makes them weak. Watch.
Okay. I think we got the picture.
One more.
It's relevant.
Skin is smooth.
Velvety. Elastic.
TAYLOR: Which translates
to "bruises easily"?
Extremely.
There's no way I can date the bruises on Lukas
based on their color.
So, the injuries on Lukas' arms
could have happened five days ago
just like Bernardo is claiming?
Yes. Basically, all of Lukas' bruises
could have happened long before he was put in that box.
Lukas Neiman may have been
a great contortionist,
but he wasn't skilled enough to shut the box,
tie it up, dolly to Coney Island
and throw himself into the ocean,
no matter how flexible he was.
BONASERA: Okay, even if Lukas wasn't physically forced into that box,
it doesn't mean he got in on his own.
He could've been threatened
by gun or knifepoint.
Yeah, it's possible...
but there's no evidence to confirm it.
And if no one laid a hand on him,
why didn't he start yelling for help or run away?
I'm beginning to wonder less
about why he didn't fight
when he was put into the box
and more about why he didn't fight to get out.
We processed the box, the twine, the dolly.
There's no evidence of murder.
We do have evidence of a relationship
between him and Anasuya,
and a father who wasn't very happy about it.
What if... life was imitating art?
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet
playing itself out
backstage at the City Circus?
Hmm. Okay, so Lukas-- Romeo--
gets caught making out with Anasuya--
Juliet-- whose respective parents hate each other.
The Neimans and the Espargosas become the Montagues
and the Capulets.
That's nice and neat,
but, uh, this is real life.
A life that Lukas Neiman wanted to get away from.
There's no secret there.
Think he committed suicide?
In the play, both Romeo and Juliet end up dead.
Makes me wonder why our Juliet is still alive.
I don't know,
but there has to be more of a connection
between Romeo and Juliet
than just a hickey.
Maybe there is.
If Paige Worthy hasn't been here for weeks,
Lita had to buy this food,
but Lita never left the apartment.
This is New York, Danny.
You can have anything delivered-- groceries,
dry cleaning.
I'm jonesing for a pastrami sandwich
at 3:00 in the morning, I call Andy
down at the deli-- boom, done.
I got a feeling...
that she was jonesing for something
requiring loomi.
Yeah.
Lita ordered loomi.
Nice.
Charged it to Paige's tab.
We just need to find out who made this delivery.
While you were trying to figure out your story,
I ran some tests.
See that?
That's Lita Cartey's blood on your knife.
FLACK: She ordered a lot from the store.
Spent about a hundred bucks a week.
MESSER: And she bought this the night she was killed.
This is loomi
from your store, all right?
It wasn't on the spice rack in the kitchen.
I found this on the floor.
I spilled it. She didn't mind.
She wanted me to stay. She was just... afraid to ask.
Wait a minute.
Spilling loomi was your way
of coming on to her?
You were flirting?
My boss always sent me
to deliver to her.
She must've asked for me special.
You thought she liked you.
She did like me.
Ever occur to you that you were misreading the situation?
That maybe she just wasn't
into you?
You did realize it, you got angry,
and you stabbed her.
It was an accident.
She was bleeding and you didn't call for help?
Somebody was there.
A man.
He was trying to get in.
( knocking )
JASON: Come on, Lita,
I know you're in there.
Lita!
I just want to talk.
When he left, it was too late.
So you threw her away?
What else was I supposed to do?
The two drops on Lukas' costume--
what are we dealing with?
DNA came back. Female. No matches in CODIS.
You don't seem surprised.
I'm not.
What's the source?
Inconsistent with vaginal fluid,
and you already ruled out blood or sweat,
so it's up to Trace to identify what they are.
Not blood, not sweat.
I think I know what they are.
Two households...
both alike in dignity...
in fair New York City, where we lay our scene.
From ancient grudge break to new mutiny
where civil blood makes civil hands unclean.
Anasuya, that's a beautiful sweater.
Is it wool?
Anasuya had nothing to do
with what happened to the boy.
We found black wool fibers on the dolly
that was used to take the box out
to Coney Island.
This is a warrant for a sample
of your DNA.
Why?
There were droplets
on Lukas' costume.
The DNA in them was female.
We suspect they were yours.
I'm sure it is.
In the show,
he reaches up to me,
and I to him.
It gets hot under the lights.
It wasn't sweat.
There were traces
of mascara in the droplets.
They were your tears.
Anasuya...
What's going on?
He committed suicide.
And you found him, didn't you?
Yes.
But you didn't tell anybody what Lukas had done.
You took him out to Coney Island. Why?
You had been there before, hadn't you?
With Lukas, at night?
If we could have gone farther... we would have.
You'd choose him over your family?
Family?
I hated it here.
Performing so my father can live out his dream.
Lukas hated it here.
Lukas got away.
And you were supposed to be with him?
Is that why...?
You hurt your arm in the show,
but it wasn't a bad release, was it?
Without Lukas as Romeo, I wasn't going to be Juliet.
We made a pact...
...but I changed my mind.
The moment my body started to fall,
I suddenly realized everything I hated about my life,
I could fix.
( crowd gasping )
I didn't want to die.
So you reached out for help.