( rap beat plays ) MAN ( with music ): Well, well, well. Why don't you roll your window down? I want you to see this. ( music continues indistinct)
♪ ♪
( indistinct police radio chatter ) No watch, no wallet, no shoes. This guy was picked clean. BRASS: In this neighborhood, he's lucky to have the fillings in his teeth.
Still there.
This guy was well-groomed. I don't care if he was lemon-scented and Martinized, if he was on Washington and D, he was copping. He should have just said no.
Maybe somebody wouldn't take no for an answer. Captioning sponsored by CBS, C.S.I. PRODUCTIONS ♪ Who... are you? ♪ ♪ Who, who, who, who? ♪ ♪ Who... are you? ♪ ♪ Who, who, who, who? ♪ ♪ I really wanna know ♪ ♪ Who... are you? ♪ ♪ Oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Who... ♪ ♪ Oh-oh-oh ♪ ♪ Who... ♪ ♪ Come on, tell me who are you, you, you ♪ ♪ Oh, you! ♪
SIDLE: in Vegas, Detective Cavaliere? CAVALIERE: Couple of weeks. We call this place Tranny-town. This is where the hustlers come. Yeah, I can see why. It's very romantic.
SIDLE: This is new.
Don't get territorial. It's for my own personal collection. Whatever blows your skirt up. Burn me a copy. There's a small cut on the forehead.
Yeah, it looks like he's wearing makeup. Blush on his cheeks... lipstick. Transvestite. Fits the profile.
Hotel's across the way. Anonymous sex becomes anonymous sex crime. Murder's usually personal. Maybe whoever had the last dance left behind a corsage. I'd settle for his clothes. Hey, I'll give you a hand.
You think a hacksaw's going to do the trick? No. But that's why God invented Sawzalls.
♪ ♪
All we got is a decapitated doll. That's still legal in Nevada.
WILLOWS: Dave, what's up? You find something? I was just thinking I wouldn't be caught dead in those shorts.
Yo, baby, look, why're you rushing the day? We got plenty of night left. I'm working, lady. See, that's something we already got in common, 'cause I'm working, too. Oh, yeah? Mm-hmm.
Were you working him?
Him? No. No, sir. But I tell you one thing. Good-looking white boy like that? I know plenty of women who'd be tripping over their platforms to get a little somethin' somethin'. But no, sir, he wasn't nobody's customer.
This guy get here on foot? I don't see a car. They haven't found one yet. I suppose nobody saw it drive away. They were all in the bathroom.
Multiple stab wounds. The deepest of which transected the thoracic aorta and the right mainstream bronchus. Anything else? His name is Ed Burnell. Matched his prints, prior for possession. And it's not the first time he stared death in the face. Our man had a double dose of cirrhosis. That takes work. Years of hard-core alcohol abuse, plus hepatitis, probably acquired by dirty needles. In Chinese medicine, the liver is the organ of anger. Addicts and alcoholics medicate their anger, consequently, destroy their liver. Actually, half the liver is pretty healthy. The new half.
Oh... A graft from a less angry donor.
Organ recipient procedure is pretty clear. They only do transplants on people who test clean for a year. Well, he probably got his new liver, figured he could, uh, start all over again. Is that what you think? That once an addict, always an addict?
WILLOWS: Don't let the scope touch the garment. You don't want to contaminate the evidence. And work systematically.
Up-down, left-right, what? Well, whatever works for you. Just don't miss any spots. All right, hang on. What do those look like to you? Semen stains. Yes. Which, on a man's underwear, aren't exactly probative. No. Can't tell you how long they've been there, or how often the guy changes his shorts. You know, I knew guys that could go up to four days on one single pair of tighty-whities. Thanks for putting that picture in my brain. All right, so... I want you to outline each individual stain with dots. But keep them at least an eighth of an inch from the edge to avoid contamination. And then, cut out the swatches and send them to myself in DNA. You got it.
WILLOWS: A fiber in his nose. Yeah, I'll get it to Trace.
Petechial hemorrhaging.
I would've thought he was strangled during some kind of rough sex-play, but there's no marks. Suffocation maybe? That's why undertakers love smother-victims.
He's got something under his nails.
Looks like silver paint.
Vegas Brow.
A showgirl thing. Eyebrows thin out from all the plucking and waxing and filling in. Well, we can kind of rule him out as a showgirl. And, you know, he's hairy for a drag queen. Hey, David? Yeah? Could you hit the lights?
His face looks painted.
Kinda looks like a clown.
MAN: Yo, man, get these spiders off my face, man! I gotta beam up outta here. I need my medication. I'm a CEO of a Five-Bag-A-Day Corporation, you know that?
Thank you.
Y'all look like cartoons, man. Okay, thank you. BRASS: Whoa, whoa, whoa. Take it easy, pal. You're not running the four-minute mile on those pins. Nice shoes. It's all good, it's all good.
Whoa! Who gonna pay for that hole in my ride, man? BRASS: Your ride? This was never your ride. This car belongs to Ed Burnell. Finders keepers, baby. I gotta bag me some ho's. What drug is he on? I don't know. Whatever it is, he either took too much or not enough.
Just 'cause the guy looks like a clown doesn't mean he is a clown. Description didn't match anyone in missing persons. If you've got a better idea, now's the time.
I'd say we're in the right place. Yeah. Either that or they're casting a John Wayne Gacey revue. And you can tell that putz that Buddy Ween doesn't send cruise ship talent for Bar Mitzvah wages. You got that? Uh, strippers are down the hall, girls. This is clowns. No kidding. I'm Catherine Willows. This is Sara Sidle. We're with the Crime Lab. Well, why didn't you say so? We do lots of police parties. The party has already happened.
What am I supposed to do with this? Identify the body. Did that man ever work for you? Well, let me put it this way: I rep clowns. That's Flappy, that's Flappy Junior, that's Allen... He doesn't work that much... Popo... Get it? All I do is book the face. I don't care what's underneath. If our victim was a professional clown, would he be in this book? Uh-huh. What are these numbers for? That's the National Clown and Character Registry. How do you register a clown? Well, not the clown. The look, the face. Each one is unique. It's like snowflakes. We're going to need to take this with us. You got a warrant?
I'm kidding. Okay, it's just a loaner, though.
MAN: I know you stealin' my medication. I am in pain, damn it! Bring me some stuff!
What are you two ladies lookin' at? Uh... Jamal... We're with the Las Vegas Crime Lab. It seems you were driving a dead man's car when you got in your accident. Half the peoples I know be dead. It don't mean they can't own a vehicle. Hey, Vanilla Ice... at this point you're lookin' at a murder rap, which may end you up on death row, and I'm not talking about the record label. Nurse, this be cruel and unusual! GRISSOM: Look, pal, right now the evidence tells us that you killed the man whose car you were driving. You want to explain that? Explain what, B? I was laid up shootin' speedballs all day. Look, man, when I get off, I'm gone. Feel me? I can't see nothin', I can't hear nothin'. Wherever high is, that's where I take the elevator up. Oh, you damn cow! Took you long enough. When I call you, you come, you understand me? Why you got to do me like this? That's right. Man's dead. What difference it make how he got there? Now, if you'll excuse me, I got a date with Mrs. Jones.
Man's already dead. Why he be needing shoes, anyway? Was that a confession? I think a plea of insanity.
DNA results on the blood from Jamal's clothes. It's his own. Well, the blood spatter's consistent with a front-end collision. So he didn't kill him in the car. Doesn't mean he didn't kill him. What I want to know is how's a strung-out junkie like Jamal get a guy out of the car with just his knife? Yeah, and why stab him six times? Well, let's just say for argument's sake that Jamal is telling the truth and that Burnell was already dead when he took his wallet, his shoes and his car. Well, if the motive wasn't robbery... what was it?
Maybe this'll tell us.
Heroin? Negative on marquis-mecke-froede. So, if it's not an opiate, what is it? I don't know. I've never seen it before. I ran a color and crystal test. Take a look.
All I can tell you is it's an indole alkaloid. Did you run it through the GCMS? Yeah, but it's not in the library.
WEEN: That's Doodles. A.K.A. Donny Zanko. So you know him. There are two kinds of clowns: There's your ex-circus pros, washed out of Ringling Bros., Barnum and Bailey, and then there's your basic chuckleheads. Which kind was Doodles? Basic chucklehead. You know, buy a getup, learn some tricks, and grab some scratch boring the crap out of nine-year-olds. He was a good birthday man, except when he, uh... So, he made money boring kids? Parents throw parties. They like clowns because they think their kids like clowns. Mm-hmm. Lindsey's fourth... Bad scene. Oh. So, what was the last gig you booked for him? Uh... Car wash, couple of weeks back. Why? Mr. Ween, he's been dead less than 48 hours and he was wearing his makeup when he was killed. That son of a bitch. He was working off the books. I never thought Doodles would try to stiff me. He, actually, was the one who got stiffed.
So, it turns out Burnell's tox report was clean. Not only that, he works at some sort of recovery center. Well, that makes sense. It does? Well, the substance we found in his car was ibogaine. What's that, the stuff that grows hair? A choline-esterase inhibitor that acts as a stimulant in the central nervous system. In the liver, it converts to an active metabolite... Noribogaine. Noribogaine locks onto addiction receptors... blocking the feedback loops that reinforce dependency. In human speak? Well, apparently, in some cases, one dose of ibogaine can cure physical addiction. Does it come with a free set of steak knives? It comes with a free trip. Curing physical addiction is a side effect. Its intended use is to facilitate visual, tactile, and auditory experiences of alternate realities. So it's an hallucinogen. Mm-hmm. Used by the Bwiti tribe of central Africa. It comes from the powdered bark of a tree growing in Cameroon.
No kidding. Many ethno-botanists believe that the iboga is what the Bible is talking about when it refers to the Tree of Knowledge. The Bwiti consume the powdered bark as part of an initiation ceremony. After the ritual, a man is called Baanzi, one who has seen the other world. No way it's legal. Not in the U.S. So, Ed Burnell was a drug dealer. Well... He's either dealing in the addiction Well... He's either dealing in the addiction or the cure, and a dealer's a dealer. And this guy's dealing out of a halfway house.
SARA: Well... I can see why Doodles drank. So, if he's hooking up in Tranny-town, you'd expect to find some man-on-man porn. All we've got is varying flavors of Juggs. Hmm.
Looks like Doodles was working out some animosity.
Oh, an answering machine with messages. ( beeps ) Friday, 11:02. WOMAN: Hey, Doodle-pie. I can't stop thinking about your enormous feet. Call me. ( beeps ) You know what they say about big feet. Saturday, 7:00 p.m. MAN: Okay, paddle boy, you want a war, you got one. And just so you know, I do appreciate the irony of me leaving you a message. ( beeps ) Sunday, 11:45 a.m. MAN: Hey, Mr. Doodles, your taxi's here. MAN: Yeah, yeah, cool your jets. I'll be right down. ( beeps ) He took a cab ride two days ago... and his costume's not here. Makes sense if he's out of town on a job. I'll call Detective Cavaliere and have him pull the phone records. MAN: Ed Burnell worked here for about a year. We're a halfway house. We provide a safe place to live. I mean, if they're going to do ibogaine, I'd rather have them do it in here than out in the street. And despite the fact that San Quentin is your alma mater and you have a record as long as my leg, you wouldn't do anything illegal, right? I wouldn't do anything to jeopardize this place, and we don't give out illegal drugs. We do a lot of good work here. You know, if ibogaine is such a miracle cure, wouldn't it make your life easier? The drug doesn't promise anything. You got to earn it. If a user doesn't realize why he used in the first place, I mean, no power in the world is going to make him stop. Right here is a good case in point.
So, you're going? Yeah. You sure that's what you want to do? Yeah. This place just reminds me too much of Ed.
Look, I really wish you'd stay here a little longer. I can't.
You did a good job here, Mindy. I'm still doing it.
What's her story? Ed got her clean. Let me show you what she looked like two months ago.
BURNELL ( on video ): Why are you here, Mindy? Wanna get off. I... I don't got another run in me, but I can't stop. My name is Ed Burnell. I'm here to help you, Mindy.
This place is nice. Can I stay here? Yes. 'Cause you're gonna take care of me, right? Yes, I'm going to take care of you.
So, was it the ibogaine or the months she spent here? You don't believe in ibogaine? I don't believe in miracles. But Ed did? Look, when Ed first came here, he was an asset to the place. And then he got... religious about it. You know, there's a reason why Mohammed kept his ass on the mountain. It was safe there. The thing about recovery is it only works for those who want it, not for those who need it. But Ed came down from the mountain, and he brought the ibogaine with him. Yeah, and he started pushing it on everyone. Sometimes he won, sometimes he lost. From one addiction to another.
WOMAN: I can't Doodles is dead. How did it happen? We're hoping you can help us find out. Yeah, according to Sunburst Taxi, one of the drivers dropped off the clown here two days ago. Yeah, that's right. My son was having a birthday. It's my own little tradition. Birthdays, special occasions, I always hire a clown. The kids love them. Except this time, I think maybe we should've gone to Circus Circus. ( chuckles ) What do you mean by that? Well, we hired a clown-- squirting flower, big floppy shoes and all that-- what we got was a smackdown. Doodles was going through his clown bit, and, uh, then this mime comes through our kitchen, which at first we thought it was part of the act.
What the hell are you doing here? ( men grunting )
So, uh, I jumped in and broke it up and dragged the mime into the kitchen. I was going to call you guys... Mm. ...but he apologized and said that, uh, there was bad blood between him and Doodles. And he gave me a hundred bucks for the damages, which I thought was a pretty stand up thing to do, so I let him go. Did you get his name? I did better than that. He, uh, told me he'd give me a great rate if I ever wanted to upgrade from clowns.
And what time did Doodles leave? The kids were really upset after the fight, so I took them out for ice cream. Doodles stuck around to help me clean up, and then he asked me to call him a cab. Do you remember the name of the taxi company or the time of the call? Well, he'd been such a good sport that I offered to give him a ride home. I dropped him off at his place at around 8:30.
Hey, excuse me.
Take a look.
Look, you do have the right to remain silent, but unless you want a trip to the station, I really wouldn't keep it up. You want to talk about Doodles, fine. Take a look at what that skeek did to me. You got that at Maguires'? ( grunts ) Stick a mime and a clown in the same place, it's like a cobra and a mongoose. You crashed Doodles' party, he kicked your ass, and now Doodles is dead. I didn't kill him. You left a threatening message on his answering machine. You declared war. Look, the creep was a parasite. When he wasn't bad-mouthing me, he was horning in on my gigs. Every time I line up a job, "ring-ring," Doodles calls the mom, gets her to hire him, too. That's money out of my pocket. So, yeah, I figured a little payback was in order. Yeah, what did you do after you left the Maguires? I had a strip mall opening out of town. You didn't stop by his house? You know, wait for him to come back? No. I got two hookers in Pahrump who can verify.
GRISSOM: We found prints belonging to three separate people in Ed Burnell's car: His, Jamal the thief, and Mindy. He could have given her a lift. Except we found her print on a condom. Well, she said she loved Ed. Yeah? How much, I wonder.
BRASS: We're looking for information on Mindy Dupont. This was her last known address. Yeah, she's here. Mind if we talk with her? You got a search warrant? You don't need a warrant just to talk. But if you want, we'll go get one and come back. Hey, it's a free country. Yes, it is.
BRASS: Mindy Dupont.
We thought you cleaned yourself up. I tried so hard.
He said I would feel again. I never wanted to feel.
Ed saved my life. How do you repay a favor like that? I tried.
We're going to clean you up. What if I don't want to be clean? No. I'm going to help you. He was an angel.
He gave me that stuff. And you didn't want to get high anymore. ( whimpers )
Did you come here to remember or to forget?
Well, the mime's alibi checks out. He took Polaroids, with the hookers. Strip mall opened at 7:30. He didn't leave Pahrump till the next morning. Uh-huh. So that leaves us with what? Nothing. Hmm.
What about timeline? Mrs. Maguire gives Doodles a lift, getting him home around 8:30. As far as we know, he didn't have another job that night. Doodles goes home, having performing all day for kids, wrestling with mimes. His costume would've been a little skanky, yet he doesn't change out of it? Maybe he never got inside. And he walks around town in his clown suit until he gets killed? Okay, what are the knowns? Um... Doodles was suffocated. We found yellow fibers up his nose. Greg analyzed the semen stains on his boxer shorts and found an unknown vaginal contribution in the sample. Mrs. Maguire was the last person to see him alive.
BRASS: The night Ed Burnell was killed you never checked into the halfway house.
Mindy, we found a knife in your basket of clothes with Ed Burnell's blood on it. Help us connect the dots.
We all have this secret, terrible cave in our hearts, and the more we try to escape it, the deeper we drive ourselves inside of it. This isn't the halfway house, Mindy. You're looking at a murder rap, so let's talk specifics. There were 57 micrograms per milliliter of monoacetylmorphine in your urine sample. That means you were using for a while. Ed gave me ibogaine. That was months ago. Where were you the night Ed was killed? It was like Adam and Eve taking you to the movies except the movie was your life and you were watching it and in it at the same time. Why would you have a knife with his blood on it?
I think Ed Burnell knew you were using again and he was out there that night looking for you. The spirits... they protect you. Well, you better hope so, because you're under arrest for the murder of Ed Burnell.
Sara. Excuse me. Could you, uh, help me out? Yeah, with what? A woman. I need you to process a female suspect for me. Sure. Palms down.
Would you hold your arms out, please?
Thanks. You can get dressed now.
Samples from your suspect. There's nothing but a few track marks. No defensive wounds, no bruising. Junkies usually bruise if you breathe on them too hard. She is a pile of twigs, very frail. What? I haven't seen you for a while, have I? You see me every day.
It's all yours. SIDLE: Thanks. Yeah. SIDLE: Thanks. Yeah. So, we're looking for clown sex... And clown murder.
This fabric is consistent with the fibers we found in Doodles' nose.
You notice how everything matches except this one pillow sham?
Yeah.
The white-faced clown with a pillow covering his face. There must've been some transfer. If a pillowcase like that had grease paint on it, would you throw it out? I'd clean it first. ♪ ♪
♪ ♪
You lied about driving the clown home. He was in your bedroom. DNA on his boxer shorts indicates that you had sex with him. We checked with the Buddy Ween Agency, and, uh, you hire clowns on a fairly regular basis: four, five, six times a year. That's a lot of clowns.
I already told you. I like clowns. I think you like them more than most people.
( laughing ) Mr. Maguire, I hate to tell you this, but while you were off driving the other kiddies home, your wife was doing the clown. We figured you must've walked in on them... in flagrante.
You stripped the body and dumped it in an area frequented by transvestites, hoping that it would just... go away. Another forgotten sex crime. You covered your tracks. You cleaned the house. You washed that pillowcase. What I don't understand, though... Why did you keep the clown suit?
You don't understand. Merrill and I have been married nine years. We have two kids. Not much left to get excited about?
I love my wife. When Al wore the suit... it worked... and it was good. If you found something that got you off... wouldn't you keep it?
Man, there is something so heartbreaking about a woman with raggedy drawers. Mm-hmm.
Grissom, we've gone through all of Mindy's stuff twice. There's no trace of blood. STOKES: Doesn't make any sense. If she disposes of her clothes, she's not just going to forget about the knife. Hey, guys, got a male DNA skin sample collected from Mindy's hair. Burnell? from Mindy's hair. Burnell? Yes and no. The blood is Burnell's, but the skin belongs to another guy. Do we know who? SANDERS: The gods of CODIS have blessed us with a hit: Riley "Boom-Boom" Renaldo, proud owner of two assault and battery charges and a possession with intent to distribute. Current occupation: apartment manager. What do you bet Boom Boom's estate is on the corner of Washington and D Street?
Renaldo was Mindy's landlord? That'd make her a bag-bride... a strawberry. Paid her rent horizontally. As long as a dealer keeps a strawberry high, the strawberry does whatever the dealer wants.
BRASS: Las Vegas Police. Open up.
GIRL: Riley... you said I could have a taste when we were done. Riley! Shut up, Sunshine. Nice. We keep Mindy for a couple of hours, and you've already moved on. What's the matter? Lose faith in Mindy? She always comes back to you. Guess Burnell was bad for business, huh?
Yeah, Old Ed gets enough people in the 'hood clean, you get no love. GIRL: Riley... I need it.
I said shut up.
Mindy didn't need it anymore, right? That's why you helped her remember.
I don't need that anymore.
What do you mean, you don't need it? Just one more, and that's it.
Burnell wasn't hard to find, was he?
Yo, man... that jackass who be messin' with Mindy is back... You've got nothing on me. Yeah, we do: Burnell's blood on your skin. BRASS: So, come on, let's go, let's go. Come on, you have the right to remain silent. Anything you say... Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's her choice, right? Unfortunately.
What do you want to do, take her to lock up? Lateral move. She's already there.
One guy's dead. One guy's going to jail.
Well, you're free to go.
Go where?
You got my message. Yeah. You sounded hungry. I was thinking... dinner at the Bellagio.
All right.
What are you in the mood for? Room service. Captioning sponsored by CBS, C.S.I. PRODUCTIONS Captioned by Media Access Group at WGBH access.wgbh.org ready