Law & Order: Criminal Intent (2001) s02e14 Episode Script
Probability
In New York City's war on crime, the worst criminal offenders are pursued by the detectives of the Major Case Squad.
These are their stories.
I quit years ago.
Watching my old man die of lung cancer cured me.
I'll see what shows up on the blood tests.
Thank you, Mr.
Gergis.
I did okay, huh? Sure.
You remember, you call me every couple of weeks.
You let me know how you're doing.
Not here.
Wait till you get outside.
Tell Elaine it's for her.
Leo, where did you get this? I earned it from medical research.
They took my blood.
Hey, they paid me $1000.
Ben, I got my ring out of hock.
Hey, tell Elaine all I want is a chance, huh? I gotta tap a kidney.
You wait for me? What are you doing here? I wanted to see you, Ricky.
I don't have your number.
It's a nice cologne, Dad.
Look, if you're looking for money No, no, Ricky, no.
Here.
It's not much.
I'm gonna make things up to you.
Okay, look, catch up with your friends, treat them to a slice, and get yourself a CD or something.
Another chance with $300? Do you know that he showed up at Rick's campus today? What happens if he decides to visit Emmy at her school? He's my brother.
I'll tell him to back off.
You tell him that if he comes near the kids again, I'm gonna have him thrown in jail.
What should I do? I wanna come home, Ben.
I wanna take care of her.
Well, you got nothing to offer, Leo.
Why don't you hit up those researchers? Well, if they can afford one grand, they can afford 10, it's I'll see you around, Leo.
Oh, hi.
I thought I got the address wrong.
Sorry I had to bother you.
Hey, well, that makes two of us, buddy.
Law & Order CI Morning shift found him crushed in here.
He tried to slip through and then the gate opened.
Well, didn't anyone hear him scream? The gate's pretty loud.
Hey, one of you guys got the time? They heard you just fine.
Maybe, they didn't hear him scream because he didn't scream, 'cause he was already dead.
Latent ID'd him as Leo Gergis, 48.
He has a record of panhandling and vagrancy.
There's a preliminary finding of accidental death.
The gate caught him on the right side of the head, but most of the trauma is on the left.
Look at this.
St.
Victor's.
The homeless shelter in Brooklyn.
It's a long way from Hunts Point.
He was married.
There's There's no tan line on his finger.
Maybe he just started wearing it.
The gold is tarnished.
There's a thin line across the band.
Someone tied a string around it.
Maybe a pawnbroker's tag.
Somehow he had the money to get it out of hock.
You know, when you live in a shelter, you learn not to hide things in your socks, your pockets, your pants.
You know, I've always wanted a jacket like that.
Well, maybe we can find out where Leo got his.
How did it happen? We're not sure.
Had you seen him recently? No, no, well, not since he crashed my son's high school graduation.
When they found him, he was wearing this.
Do you recognize it? Yeah.
He was wearing this? Did he have any reason to think you were getting back together? No, I didn't give him any.
How about you, Mr.
Gergis? Did your brother say anything to you? Well, a couple of weeks ago, he gave me $300 for Elaine, and he gave my nephew $100.
He thought he could buy his way back into the family.
We found another $500 on him.
You have any idea where he got that money? He said something about giving blood.
Well, you don't make that kind of money selling blood.
Well, then I don't know! He Maybe he had some scam going.
He used to be marketing director for a cruise line.
He He was no idiot.
He couldn't take care of his family, but he damn well took care of his own needs.
We hold their stuff for three months and then it goes to Goodwill.
Here's Leo's stuff.
Oh, sorry.
Here.
Oh, no, that's okay.
I'm better without.
Leo knew his mustard.
These look like they're from a hotel.
Well, he bought these.
Tax stamps are still on them.
Maybe he bought them for a friend.
I mean, there was no nicotine on Leo's fingers or his teeth.
He doesn't smoke.
Leo's buddies, any of them smoke this brand? Filtered, yeah.
There's Johnny, Johnny Dikins.
I haven't seen him here in a month.
He left his stuff behind.
John Dikins, age 45.
DOA a month ago.
Finding of accidental death.
Next time, call first.
I'm supposed to be on my lunch break.
You get a lunch break? All right, he fell through the floor of an abandoned building.
Autopsy found blunt force trauma to the second and third vertebrae.
Broken neck.
Do it to you every time.
Apparently, so does being homeless.
Two deaths by blunt force trauma consistent with freak accident.
Yeah, and two victims in their late 40s, both in good health.
How many cases with this profile in the last 12 months, in all five boroughs, men and women? Here's another.
Death from accidental overdose, pass.
Death from exposure, pass.
Here we go.
Lisa Fitterman, female, Caucasian, slip and fall down the stairs at 59th Street station.
Head injuries, 46-year-old vagrant.
That's 14.
Right.
Yeah.
Fourteen homeless people.
Male, female, all Caucasian, all between the ages of 45 and 55.
All in, you know, reasonably good health.
All of them dead from injuries that include a massive blow to the head.
Someone's killing the great bums of New York.
There's a call on your direct line.
He said it's about a client, someone named Leo.
Jack Bernard.
How can I help you? I'm not sure I can do that.
I have associates.
I'll talk to them.
I No, you give me a number.
I Just Hello? I'll be back in 10.
Nothing's jumping out.
The deaths were already factored into the Compstat mortality report.
If there was a pattern, the computer would've picked it up.
Well, maybe not.
These deaths are scattered across precincts.
Sometimes two weeks apart, sometimes two months.
Different times, different days of the week.
I don't see a motive here.
If it's random, maybe it's because it is random.
If these were random, the law of averages says there'd be coincidences with the times or the locations.
The fact there are no coincidences means somebody's working very hard at not setting off alarm bells.
Leo is your freshest trail.
Start with him.
In the works.
We're tracking the lot numbers on the mustard jars in his knapsack.
Sophia, these detectives wanna talk to you about the needle you found in Mr.
Gergis' trash.
It was very small, with a little rubber tube on it.
Sounds like the kind used to take blood samples.
Did you find anything else in the trash? There was these sticky square things and little strips of paper.
Electrocardiogram.
Leo had a physical.
Now why would somebody get a physical in a hotel room? Now, we ran all 14 victims through the insurance Medical Information Bureau.
They were all insured for a million bucks under "keyman" policies.
The Atlantic Union Insurance Company, they thought that they were insuring the vice president of finances for Compagnie Fiduciaire Elysee of France.
Trans-State Insurance thinks Johnny was the director of marketing for Compagnie lmmobiliere Concorde in Paris.
Somebody passed them off as corporate honchos.
Working for French companies that are the beneficiaries of the policies.
Let me guess.
The companies were bogus.
Yeah, someone is recruiting these people, cleaning them up, and getting them a checkup.
And then when the policy is enforced, they kill them to look like an accident.
At a million bucks a pop, why didn't the insurers notice a trend? Well, the scheme was designed to avoid detection by using different underwriters and actuaries, submitting policies under brokers' names without their knowledge.
Yeah, I wonder how many homeless are walking around with a price on their head.
Find out while you can still do something about it.
This perp must have left tracks.
We don't know enough about insurance companies, so they're sending us an expert.
You play the piano, Mr.
Stevens? Your fingers I taught myself.
Moving my fingers like this relaxes me.
Your work makes you tense? It stimulates me, looking for fraud, looking for falsehoods.
They always betray themselves.
The man you're looking for got his training at Hartford State.
You figured that out just by glancing at this material? So he learned something at Hartford State that he used to commit the crimes.
Maybe he took classes in statistics.
Colonial New England sponsors a course in actuarial studies at Hartford State.
The instructor uses an idiosyncratic approach to probability analysis.
Your man used that approach to manipulate the variables of each crime to avoid detection.
These four, what's the common thread? Well, he's familiar with industrial insurance.
These cases, Dikins and Sher, displayed proprietary knowledge specific to two insurers, Ohio Mutual and National Colonial.
Our man worked for one of them.
Or it's a coincidence.
Well, no such thing.
No.
The more intricate the apparent pattern, the simpler the underlying reality.
Chaos Theory.
What else can you see? He did a stint with an international firm.
Because he knew how to file incorporation papers for the phony French companies.
Yes.
This is really great.
That completes his skill set.
Other than that, I can't help you.
Thank you, Mr.
Stevens.
I didn't know you had an older, geekier brother.
How was your flight? Turbulent.
Everything connected with this business is turbulent.
It's dishwater.
Will you tell me why you need this? We're not involved in each other's private business anymore.
You made the rules, remember? This guy worked for Ohio Mutual from '88 to '93.
Specialized in employee benefits.
He interned at Lloyd's of London in the '70s.
Now, that's two markers.
That's it.
Two out of five markers.
Maybe there are no perfect matches.
Maybe there are two people who together have the required skill set.
Maybe I'm starting to sound like your little buddy.
There is one marker that Wally Stevens forgot.
That not only did our guy recruit homeless people, he had to find them again when it was time to kill them.
Now, that wouldn't be easy unless you worked with the homeless.
Insurance guys love to give each other awards, especially for their humanitarian work.
Their trade association newsletter might have something about it.
The Dominion Award for Civic Action.
Looks like there are three people in the last 10 years who won for their work with the homeless.
This guy looks old enough to be Wally's grandfather.
But this guy, he looks in good shape.
He might know his way around a blunt instrument.
Jack Bernard.
Now, he sounds familiar.
He got the award five years ago, "For tireless efforts on behalf of the homeless.
" Back then, he worked for National Colonial.
That's one of the companies Wally mentioned.
That's two markers.
Three.
He grew up in Hartford, went to Hartford State.
He's gonna wish he stayed.
Mr.
Bernard, it's the police.
There's a light on around back.
Gas.
There's somebody on the floor in there.
He's dead.
According to his passport, he hasn't been out of the country in three years.
I don't see how he picked up those insurance checks in Paris.
Yeah, this room doesn't fit.
He's got this expensive furniture and then these cheap posters on the wall.
I mean, look at this stereo.
What's that worth? Maybe $150.
And then this dining room set is worth about $10,000.
Maybe he has a friend in the furniture business.
Well, all this stuff is from Faubourg Saint-Louis showroom.
Maybe his friend in the furniture business is French.
I haven't worked for that furniture company in two years.
Why are you bothering me with this ancient history? You were personnel director until they fired you.
I was not fired.
No, see, the company said they fired you two years ago for taking kickbacks from an insurance broker, Jack Bernard.
All these ridiculous accusations.
Have you ever heard of the Compagnie Fiduciaire Elysee? No, must be your pronunciation.
Yeah, it must be, because the Interpol found your fingerprints on incorporation papers from that company.
Your client and Mr.
Bernard took their initial scam and kicked it up a couple notches.
They insured homeless people as key executives of bogus French companies and then they killed them for the insurance money.
My client denies any complicity in this scheme.
But she may know of other victims that Mr.
Bernard has insured and is planning on killing in the future.
How many? Un? Deux? Trois? Deux.
Well, we certainly don't want Mr.
Bernard killing any more people.
Let's hear her story.
Off the record.
I didn't know Jack was going to kill anyone, okay? He didn't explain it to me until after the first person died, and then I was afraid.
I had to go along.
Yeah, I can imagine.
It's true.
He picked the victims.
He decided when to kill them.
And what, you just held his coat? I just set up the companies.
I collected the checks, and I kept the policies in a deposit box.
That's it.
Fourteen million dollars.
Fourteen million dollars! Where is it? Supposed to be in a bank in the Caymans, but Jack emptied all the accounts.
He ripped me off.
So why is it that you think he is the one who took the money? Of course he's the one.
Last man he killed, he rushed me to go to Paris to pick up the insurance checks.
- The million dollars for Leo Gergis? - That's right.
Jack wanted an accountant's check straight away.
He wouldn't tell me why.
I should've known then he was going to betray me.
The other names of the homeless.
She didn't kill him.
She doesn't even know he was dead.
Not to mention, the missing 14 million.
It's not anywhere Bernard had access to.
What about mademoiselle? Same story.
We had her safe deposit box opened.
It was just insurance policies.
So there's a third musketeer, who killed Bernard and took the money.
What sunny part of the world do you wanna start looking for him? Look who's here.
The insurance companies sent him to help us recoup their money.
- Hello, Mr.
Stevens.
- You arrested someone.
- That's right.
- Did you find the money? - Not yet.
- Haven't they told you where it is? Apparently, they don't know.
Well, how is that possible? - We'll find out.
- How are you going to find out? My partner would love to explain it to you.
I've got work to do.
Mr.
Stevens, why don't we just go in here.
Right in there.
I offended her.
Well, she was uncomfortable.
She thought that you were staring at her.
I gave her too much eye contact.
I try to watch myself, but sometimes I forget.
Well, you were preoccupied with the money.
My employers are very concerned about the money.
Well, there's no trace of it.
The man who engineered the plan and did the killings is dead.
We arrested his girlfriend.
Well, she probably has the money.
Women like money.
So do men.
That's because women like men with money.
This is everything we have on the case.
They were planning on killing two more people, 16 total.
I haven't figured out the pattern yet.
Just because things are in physical or temporal proximity doesn't mean they're connected.
What, now you're saying that there are coincidences? No.
A coincidence is two unrelated events that appear alike, happening at the same time.
Two brothers dying in two car accidents on the same day.
Yes, but if you look at those two events carefully, there are more differences between them than there are similarities.
They're not really alike.
Excuse me.
If I look at someone when I talk to them for more than two thirds of the time, I seem aggressive.
But if I look at them for less than one third of the time, I seem dishonest.
I'm still practicing this.
You two looked like you were having so much fun.
Oh, he's an interesting man.
These are the insurance policies from the French girl's safe deposit box.
Leo Gergis' policy had a letter attached.
It's from the insurance company.
"The medical exam revealed the presence of a heart murmur.
"Mr.
Gergis contacted us by phone "and informed us he had a congenital heart condition.
"As a result, we attached a rider to the policy to cover this preexisting condition.
" Gergis called them by phone, out of the blue? This homeless guy? Doesn't make sense.
Or someone else pretending to be Gergis.
Jack Bernard, or the guy who killed him? Well, I mean, Jack wouldn't know his full medical history.
But you know who would? Did you know your brother had a heart condition? Yes.
He was born with it.
What does that have to do with anything? Did you ever talk to an insurance company about it? About his heart condition? No.
Why? What happened? Someone took out insurance on your ex-husband, a million dollars' worth, and then they killed him.
You see, it was an opportunity that they couldn't resist.
But his death wasn't a total waste, was it, Mr.
Gergis? Of course it was.
His death, his life, it was just a waste.
His kids wouldn't agree.
Thanks to the insurance, they both have a college fund.
Oh, your brother-in-law didn't tell you? He set up a trust fund for a million dollars in their names.
It didn't take a lot of detective work to figure that out.
Ben, what are they saying? You took insurance out on Leo? No.
No, but he found out who did.
And after Leo was killed, he blackmailed them into giving him the money.
How did you figure it out, Mr.
Gergis? You got ahold of the guys who did the medical exam? Is that how you found Jack Bernard? I never thought they would kill him.
I thought they had some other kind of scam going.
But once Leo was dead, you thought you'd do something for your family.
He never took responsibility.
When did Jack give you the money? Friday, a week ago.
Was he alone? Yes.
He seemed pretty jumpy.
He kept asking me who I had talked to about Leo.
Meaning the police? No.
He wanted to know about other people.
Other people? Other people connected to the scheme? What, he didn't want them to find out about Leo? That's the impression I got.
That he was trying to pull a fast one on them.
The girl already knew about Leo.
Jack had another partner.
That's who he was worried about.
Leo wasn't part of the original plan.
The plan wasn't to kill 16 people.
It was to kill 15.
- Leo was Jack's pet project.
- Jack got greedy.
And Jack got himself killed.
Progress? Looking for the third musketeer.
Leo Gergis, he skews the whole design.
Look, he was the only one that was killed within a month of the policies being issued.
And he was the only one that was found dead in an industrial zone.
You take him out and Well, patterns become clear.
The days that the bodies were found, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.
And the blocks that the bodies were left on.
The 500 block, the 400 block, the 600, the 300, the 700 block.
Minus one, plus two, minus three, plus four.
Dozens of small patterns.
I'm finding dozens of small patterns.
Jack Bernard thought of this? No.
The one time that he tried to set up a kill on his own, he botched it and Jack doesn't have the skill set to do this.
Maybe his computer did.
I'd hate to see what the assistant chief adjuster's office looks like.
This is how Wally likes it.
It's out of the way, huh? That's right.
Wally's not much of a people person, but set him loose on a claim He has kids.
Hope springs eternal.
- You notice the windows? - Mmm-hmm, different windows.
Different houses.
And that shadow there, that one was taken from a car.
Did Wally move recently? I don't think so.
He's still with his wife and kids? If he wasn't, I think he would've mentioned something.
Our hunch was right.
Wally's divorced, as of two years ago.
His wife remarried six months later.
Remarried well, judging by the house in the photo.
She's a paralegal.
She married one of the partners at her firm.
She got a restraining order against Wally.
He was showing up at her house every week with flowers, asking when she was coming home.
Mr.
Stevens was humiliated.
No wonder he didn't tell his coworkers.
It wouldn't have occurred to him to tell them.
Has it occurred to you, you're looking for something that's not there? "Symptoms include the need to create and duplicate patterns.
"Impairment of nonverbal behavior, such as eye-to-eye gaze.
"Inflexible adherence to routines, "often coupled with high intelligence "and a tendency to become preoccupied with a particular subject.
" What are you describing? Asperger's syndrome.
It's a high functioning form of autism.
It's why Wally Stevens can't empathize.
It's why he can't connect.
It's why this pattern is in there.
Time and space.
These are the first five people who were insured in sequence.
There, this is the pattern.
And the same pattern for the next five.
And the next five.
That leaves one pattern unfinished.
It's very visual.
Juries like visuals.
I wish we could show them the missing millions in Mr.
Stevens' possession or anything, for that matter, beyond these abstractions.
Does Weehawken sound abstract to you? Hey.
Sorry to barge in on you so late.
Something came up.
We wanted to run it by you.
Have you had dinner yet? I was going to heat something up.
Hope you like Chinese food.
Yes.
Yes, I do.
We'll need plates.
We would've come by earlier, but my partner had to look at houses.
Yeah, I'm gonna buy.
I like this place.
Looks like you got a lot of rooms.
Aren't you gonna ask me where I'm looking? - Where are you looking? - Whitestone.
It's where my parents grew up.
My partner's very sentimental.
Well, it's what I can afford.
What made you pick this house? I don't know.
My wife picked it.
I noticed that there's a grocery store around the corner.
Yes, it's very convenient.
That's what I need, you know, a deli.
Something like that.
Yeah, just in walking distance.
I like the one you looked at today.
Off Francis Louis Boulevard.
It's near Beachhurst.
I'm not sure if I saw any delis around there though.
There's a deli on 154th Street.
Hey, can I write that down? Could you show me where? Sorry.
One egg roll or two? One.
Please.
Thank you.
Bach-ing it tonight, huh? Wife out with the kids? Yes, they're out.
You know what, you should You should ask him.
I bet he knows.
My brother moved into a new house two months ago, and I'm sure I'm gonna get lost getting there.
- It's off 495, Exit 2.
- Weehawken.
Yes, Palisade Avenue.
He says I take a right turn and go under a bridge and The bridge is to the left.
Palisade Avenue is three miles to the left.
Oh, I better mark this down before I forget.
I have no sense of direction.
Do you mind? Well, I wonder where that wife of yours is, huh? It's getting late.
She's out.
- She's not out.
She's gone.
- She'll be back.
Sure, soon as she divorces that rich lawyer she married.
But that's not gonna happen, 'cause women like money.
Isn't that what you said? "Women like men with money.
" And you don't have any money.
No.
No, I don't.
Not even, let's say, 15 million dollars? I don't have 15 million dollars.
How about 13 million? I don't have 15 million dollars.
I don't have that money.
Yes, you do.
Because it's the only way you know how to get your wife back.
Because you could never offer her what she really wanted, offer her a real relationship.
No.
I'm a good husband.
I'm loyal.
I pay the bills.
Obviously it wasn't enough, so you hooked up with Jack Bernard.
I'm a good husband.
I did not kill anybody.
He had the inside track on the homeless, the French girlfriend.
And all you had was sheer analytical genius.
I didn't kill anybody.
Not me.
Yes, you did, Wally.
You left your mark all over the scheme.
The piece of music that you play, over and over.
Five bars, each with five notes.
You like the number five.
Five toes, five fingers, five photos.
And the pattern that you make with them.
And these dishes But you're not aware of it.
But can you see it now? No matter how hard you strive for chaos, it always comes out like this.
I didn't kill anybody.
You can't connect me to this.
I'm not a killer.
You can't connect me.
You connected yourself.
You're very thorough.
You scouted each place where you would dump the bodies.
That's why you know Whitestone so well.
And Weehawken.
They're where you planned to dump the other two victims you never got around to killing.
Don't you remember? You told us when you met us.
"They always betray themselves.
" Why would I do that? Why would I keep making this pattern? I wouldn't do that.
Because you can't help yourself.
Because you don't know.
I wouldn't do that.
Look, I I photocopied this for you.
They only started diagnosing Asperger's in 1994.
You would have been too old by then.
It's why you make patterns.
It's why you're not very good with people and your wife left you.
Oh.
Oh.
It's me.
That's me.
Why didn't somebody tell me? Why Why didn't they Why didn't they tell me? Nothing is the same since, since they left.
Nothing is the same since they left.
I want everything to be the same.
I want everything to be the same.
The house is so empty.
This house is so empty.
Nothing's the same.
Nothing's the same.
As soon as his lawyer gets here, he wants to make a full statement.
To think his murders almost went undetected.
Well, his murders did.
It was Jack Bernard's that didn't.
Criminal mastermind.
They don't make them like they used to.
I'm sure he'd like a pen pal.
These are their stories.
I quit years ago.
Watching my old man die of lung cancer cured me.
I'll see what shows up on the blood tests.
Thank you, Mr.
Gergis.
I did okay, huh? Sure.
You remember, you call me every couple of weeks.
You let me know how you're doing.
Not here.
Wait till you get outside.
Tell Elaine it's for her.
Leo, where did you get this? I earned it from medical research.
They took my blood.
Hey, they paid me $1000.
Ben, I got my ring out of hock.
Hey, tell Elaine all I want is a chance, huh? I gotta tap a kidney.
You wait for me? What are you doing here? I wanted to see you, Ricky.
I don't have your number.
It's a nice cologne, Dad.
Look, if you're looking for money No, no, Ricky, no.
Here.
It's not much.
I'm gonna make things up to you.
Okay, look, catch up with your friends, treat them to a slice, and get yourself a CD or something.
Another chance with $300? Do you know that he showed up at Rick's campus today? What happens if he decides to visit Emmy at her school? He's my brother.
I'll tell him to back off.
You tell him that if he comes near the kids again, I'm gonna have him thrown in jail.
What should I do? I wanna come home, Ben.
I wanna take care of her.
Well, you got nothing to offer, Leo.
Why don't you hit up those researchers? Well, if they can afford one grand, they can afford 10, it's I'll see you around, Leo.
Oh, hi.
I thought I got the address wrong.
Sorry I had to bother you.
Hey, well, that makes two of us, buddy.
Law & Order CI Morning shift found him crushed in here.
He tried to slip through and then the gate opened.
Well, didn't anyone hear him scream? The gate's pretty loud.
Hey, one of you guys got the time? They heard you just fine.
Maybe, they didn't hear him scream because he didn't scream, 'cause he was already dead.
Latent ID'd him as Leo Gergis, 48.
He has a record of panhandling and vagrancy.
There's a preliminary finding of accidental death.
The gate caught him on the right side of the head, but most of the trauma is on the left.
Look at this.
St.
Victor's.
The homeless shelter in Brooklyn.
It's a long way from Hunts Point.
He was married.
There's There's no tan line on his finger.
Maybe he just started wearing it.
The gold is tarnished.
There's a thin line across the band.
Someone tied a string around it.
Maybe a pawnbroker's tag.
Somehow he had the money to get it out of hock.
You know, when you live in a shelter, you learn not to hide things in your socks, your pockets, your pants.
You know, I've always wanted a jacket like that.
Well, maybe we can find out where Leo got his.
How did it happen? We're not sure.
Had you seen him recently? No, no, well, not since he crashed my son's high school graduation.
When they found him, he was wearing this.
Do you recognize it? Yeah.
He was wearing this? Did he have any reason to think you were getting back together? No, I didn't give him any.
How about you, Mr.
Gergis? Did your brother say anything to you? Well, a couple of weeks ago, he gave me $300 for Elaine, and he gave my nephew $100.
He thought he could buy his way back into the family.
We found another $500 on him.
You have any idea where he got that money? He said something about giving blood.
Well, you don't make that kind of money selling blood.
Well, then I don't know! He Maybe he had some scam going.
He used to be marketing director for a cruise line.
He He was no idiot.
He couldn't take care of his family, but he damn well took care of his own needs.
We hold their stuff for three months and then it goes to Goodwill.
Here's Leo's stuff.
Oh, sorry.
Here.
Oh, no, that's okay.
I'm better without.
Leo knew his mustard.
These look like they're from a hotel.
Well, he bought these.
Tax stamps are still on them.
Maybe he bought them for a friend.
I mean, there was no nicotine on Leo's fingers or his teeth.
He doesn't smoke.
Leo's buddies, any of them smoke this brand? Filtered, yeah.
There's Johnny, Johnny Dikins.
I haven't seen him here in a month.
He left his stuff behind.
John Dikins, age 45.
DOA a month ago.
Finding of accidental death.
Next time, call first.
I'm supposed to be on my lunch break.
You get a lunch break? All right, he fell through the floor of an abandoned building.
Autopsy found blunt force trauma to the second and third vertebrae.
Broken neck.
Do it to you every time.
Apparently, so does being homeless.
Two deaths by blunt force trauma consistent with freak accident.
Yeah, and two victims in their late 40s, both in good health.
How many cases with this profile in the last 12 months, in all five boroughs, men and women? Here's another.
Death from accidental overdose, pass.
Death from exposure, pass.
Here we go.
Lisa Fitterman, female, Caucasian, slip and fall down the stairs at 59th Street station.
Head injuries, 46-year-old vagrant.
That's 14.
Right.
Yeah.
Fourteen homeless people.
Male, female, all Caucasian, all between the ages of 45 and 55.
All in, you know, reasonably good health.
All of them dead from injuries that include a massive blow to the head.
Someone's killing the great bums of New York.
There's a call on your direct line.
He said it's about a client, someone named Leo.
Jack Bernard.
How can I help you? I'm not sure I can do that.
I have associates.
I'll talk to them.
I No, you give me a number.
I Just Hello? I'll be back in 10.
Nothing's jumping out.
The deaths were already factored into the Compstat mortality report.
If there was a pattern, the computer would've picked it up.
Well, maybe not.
These deaths are scattered across precincts.
Sometimes two weeks apart, sometimes two months.
Different times, different days of the week.
I don't see a motive here.
If it's random, maybe it's because it is random.
If these were random, the law of averages says there'd be coincidences with the times or the locations.
The fact there are no coincidences means somebody's working very hard at not setting off alarm bells.
Leo is your freshest trail.
Start with him.
In the works.
We're tracking the lot numbers on the mustard jars in his knapsack.
Sophia, these detectives wanna talk to you about the needle you found in Mr.
Gergis' trash.
It was very small, with a little rubber tube on it.
Sounds like the kind used to take blood samples.
Did you find anything else in the trash? There was these sticky square things and little strips of paper.
Electrocardiogram.
Leo had a physical.
Now why would somebody get a physical in a hotel room? Now, we ran all 14 victims through the insurance Medical Information Bureau.
They were all insured for a million bucks under "keyman" policies.
The Atlantic Union Insurance Company, they thought that they were insuring the vice president of finances for Compagnie Fiduciaire Elysee of France.
Trans-State Insurance thinks Johnny was the director of marketing for Compagnie lmmobiliere Concorde in Paris.
Somebody passed them off as corporate honchos.
Working for French companies that are the beneficiaries of the policies.
Let me guess.
The companies were bogus.
Yeah, someone is recruiting these people, cleaning them up, and getting them a checkup.
And then when the policy is enforced, they kill them to look like an accident.
At a million bucks a pop, why didn't the insurers notice a trend? Well, the scheme was designed to avoid detection by using different underwriters and actuaries, submitting policies under brokers' names without their knowledge.
Yeah, I wonder how many homeless are walking around with a price on their head.
Find out while you can still do something about it.
This perp must have left tracks.
We don't know enough about insurance companies, so they're sending us an expert.
You play the piano, Mr.
Stevens? Your fingers I taught myself.
Moving my fingers like this relaxes me.
Your work makes you tense? It stimulates me, looking for fraud, looking for falsehoods.
They always betray themselves.
The man you're looking for got his training at Hartford State.
You figured that out just by glancing at this material? So he learned something at Hartford State that he used to commit the crimes.
Maybe he took classes in statistics.
Colonial New England sponsors a course in actuarial studies at Hartford State.
The instructor uses an idiosyncratic approach to probability analysis.
Your man used that approach to manipulate the variables of each crime to avoid detection.
These four, what's the common thread? Well, he's familiar with industrial insurance.
These cases, Dikins and Sher, displayed proprietary knowledge specific to two insurers, Ohio Mutual and National Colonial.
Our man worked for one of them.
Or it's a coincidence.
Well, no such thing.
No.
The more intricate the apparent pattern, the simpler the underlying reality.
Chaos Theory.
What else can you see? He did a stint with an international firm.
Because he knew how to file incorporation papers for the phony French companies.
Yes.
This is really great.
That completes his skill set.
Other than that, I can't help you.
Thank you, Mr.
Stevens.
I didn't know you had an older, geekier brother.
How was your flight? Turbulent.
Everything connected with this business is turbulent.
It's dishwater.
Will you tell me why you need this? We're not involved in each other's private business anymore.
You made the rules, remember? This guy worked for Ohio Mutual from '88 to '93.
Specialized in employee benefits.
He interned at Lloyd's of London in the '70s.
Now, that's two markers.
That's it.
Two out of five markers.
Maybe there are no perfect matches.
Maybe there are two people who together have the required skill set.
Maybe I'm starting to sound like your little buddy.
There is one marker that Wally Stevens forgot.
That not only did our guy recruit homeless people, he had to find them again when it was time to kill them.
Now, that wouldn't be easy unless you worked with the homeless.
Insurance guys love to give each other awards, especially for their humanitarian work.
Their trade association newsletter might have something about it.
The Dominion Award for Civic Action.
Looks like there are three people in the last 10 years who won for their work with the homeless.
This guy looks old enough to be Wally's grandfather.
But this guy, he looks in good shape.
He might know his way around a blunt instrument.
Jack Bernard.
Now, he sounds familiar.
He got the award five years ago, "For tireless efforts on behalf of the homeless.
" Back then, he worked for National Colonial.
That's one of the companies Wally mentioned.
That's two markers.
Three.
He grew up in Hartford, went to Hartford State.
He's gonna wish he stayed.
Mr.
Bernard, it's the police.
There's a light on around back.
Gas.
There's somebody on the floor in there.
He's dead.
According to his passport, he hasn't been out of the country in three years.
I don't see how he picked up those insurance checks in Paris.
Yeah, this room doesn't fit.
He's got this expensive furniture and then these cheap posters on the wall.
I mean, look at this stereo.
What's that worth? Maybe $150.
And then this dining room set is worth about $10,000.
Maybe he has a friend in the furniture business.
Well, all this stuff is from Faubourg Saint-Louis showroom.
Maybe his friend in the furniture business is French.
I haven't worked for that furniture company in two years.
Why are you bothering me with this ancient history? You were personnel director until they fired you.
I was not fired.
No, see, the company said they fired you two years ago for taking kickbacks from an insurance broker, Jack Bernard.
All these ridiculous accusations.
Have you ever heard of the Compagnie Fiduciaire Elysee? No, must be your pronunciation.
Yeah, it must be, because the Interpol found your fingerprints on incorporation papers from that company.
Your client and Mr.
Bernard took their initial scam and kicked it up a couple notches.
They insured homeless people as key executives of bogus French companies and then they killed them for the insurance money.
My client denies any complicity in this scheme.
But she may know of other victims that Mr.
Bernard has insured and is planning on killing in the future.
How many? Un? Deux? Trois? Deux.
Well, we certainly don't want Mr.
Bernard killing any more people.
Let's hear her story.
Off the record.
I didn't know Jack was going to kill anyone, okay? He didn't explain it to me until after the first person died, and then I was afraid.
I had to go along.
Yeah, I can imagine.
It's true.
He picked the victims.
He decided when to kill them.
And what, you just held his coat? I just set up the companies.
I collected the checks, and I kept the policies in a deposit box.
That's it.
Fourteen million dollars.
Fourteen million dollars! Where is it? Supposed to be in a bank in the Caymans, but Jack emptied all the accounts.
He ripped me off.
So why is it that you think he is the one who took the money? Of course he's the one.
Last man he killed, he rushed me to go to Paris to pick up the insurance checks.
- The million dollars for Leo Gergis? - That's right.
Jack wanted an accountant's check straight away.
He wouldn't tell me why.
I should've known then he was going to betray me.
The other names of the homeless.
She didn't kill him.
She doesn't even know he was dead.
Not to mention, the missing 14 million.
It's not anywhere Bernard had access to.
What about mademoiselle? Same story.
We had her safe deposit box opened.
It was just insurance policies.
So there's a third musketeer, who killed Bernard and took the money.
What sunny part of the world do you wanna start looking for him? Look who's here.
The insurance companies sent him to help us recoup their money.
- Hello, Mr.
Stevens.
- You arrested someone.
- That's right.
- Did you find the money? - Not yet.
- Haven't they told you where it is? Apparently, they don't know.
Well, how is that possible? - We'll find out.
- How are you going to find out? My partner would love to explain it to you.
I've got work to do.
Mr.
Stevens, why don't we just go in here.
Right in there.
I offended her.
Well, she was uncomfortable.
She thought that you were staring at her.
I gave her too much eye contact.
I try to watch myself, but sometimes I forget.
Well, you were preoccupied with the money.
My employers are very concerned about the money.
Well, there's no trace of it.
The man who engineered the plan and did the killings is dead.
We arrested his girlfriend.
Well, she probably has the money.
Women like money.
So do men.
That's because women like men with money.
This is everything we have on the case.
They were planning on killing two more people, 16 total.
I haven't figured out the pattern yet.
Just because things are in physical or temporal proximity doesn't mean they're connected.
What, now you're saying that there are coincidences? No.
A coincidence is two unrelated events that appear alike, happening at the same time.
Two brothers dying in two car accidents on the same day.
Yes, but if you look at those two events carefully, there are more differences between them than there are similarities.
They're not really alike.
Excuse me.
If I look at someone when I talk to them for more than two thirds of the time, I seem aggressive.
But if I look at them for less than one third of the time, I seem dishonest.
I'm still practicing this.
You two looked like you were having so much fun.
Oh, he's an interesting man.
These are the insurance policies from the French girl's safe deposit box.
Leo Gergis' policy had a letter attached.
It's from the insurance company.
"The medical exam revealed the presence of a heart murmur.
"Mr.
Gergis contacted us by phone "and informed us he had a congenital heart condition.
"As a result, we attached a rider to the policy to cover this preexisting condition.
" Gergis called them by phone, out of the blue? This homeless guy? Doesn't make sense.
Or someone else pretending to be Gergis.
Jack Bernard, or the guy who killed him? Well, I mean, Jack wouldn't know his full medical history.
But you know who would? Did you know your brother had a heart condition? Yes.
He was born with it.
What does that have to do with anything? Did you ever talk to an insurance company about it? About his heart condition? No.
Why? What happened? Someone took out insurance on your ex-husband, a million dollars' worth, and then they killed him.
You see, it was an opportunity that they couldn't resist.
But his death wasn't a total waste, was it, Mr.
Gergis? Of course it was.
His death, his life, it was just a waste.
His kids wouldn't agree.
Thanks to the insurance, they both have a college fund.
Oh, your brother-in-law didn't tell you? He set up a trust fund for a million dollars in their names.
It didn't take a lot of detective work to figure that out.
Ben, what are they saying? You took insurance out on Leo? No.
No, but he found out who did.
And after Leo was killed, he blackmailed them into giving him the money.
How did you figure it out, Mr.
Gergis? You got ahold of the guys who did the medical exam? Is that how you found Jack Bernard? I never thought they would kill him.
I thought they had some other kind of scam going.
But once Leo was dead, you thought you'd do something for your family.
He never took responsibility.
When did Jack give you the money? Friday, a week ago.
Was he alone? Yes.
He seemed pretty jumpy.
He kept asking me who I had talked to about Leo.
Meaning the police? No.
He wanted to know about other people.
Other people? Other people connected to the scheme? What, he didn't want them to find out about Leo? That's the impression I got.
That he was trying to pull a fast one on them.
The girl already knew about Leo.
Jack had another partner.
That's who he was worried about.
Leo wasn't part of the original plan.
The plan wasn't to kill 16 people.
It was to kill 15.
- Leo was Jack's pet project.
- Jack got greedy.
And Jack got himself killed.
Progress? Looking for the third musketeer.
Leo Gergis, he skews the whole design.
Look, he was the only one that was killed within a month of the policies being issued.
And he was the only one that was found dead in an industrial zone.
You take him out and Well, patterns become clear.
The days that the bodies were found, Monday, Wednesday, Friday.
Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.
And the blocks that the bodies were left on.
The 500 block, the 400 block, the 600, the 300, the 700 block.
Minus one, plus two, minus three, plus four.
Dozens of small patterns.
I'm finding dozens of small patterns.
Jack Bernard thought of this? No.
The one time that he tried to set up a kill on his own, he botched it and Jack doesn't have the skill set to do this.
Maybe his computer did.
I'd hate to see what the assistant chief adjuster's office looks like.
This is how Wally likes it.
It's out of the way, huh? That's right.
Wally's not much of a people person, but set him loose on a claim He has kids.
Hope springs eternal.
- You notice the windows? - Mmm-hmm, different windows.
Different houses.
And that shadow there, that one was taken from a car.
Did Wally move recently? I don't think so.
He's still with his wife and kids? If he wasn't, I think he would've mentioned something.
Our hunch was right.
Wally's divorced, as of two years ago.
His wife remarried six months later.
Remarried well, judging by the house in the photo.
She's a paralegal.
She married one of the partners at her firm.
She got a restraining order against Wally.
He was showing up at her house every week with flowers, asking when she was coming home.
Mr.
Stevens was humiliated.
No wonder he didn't tell his coworkers.
It wouldn't have occurred to him to tell them.
Has it occurred to you, you're looking for something that's not there? "Symptoms include the need to create and duplicate patterns.
"Impairment of nonverbal behavior, such as eye-to-eye gaze.
"Inflexible adherence to routines, "often coupled with high intelligence "and a tendency to become preoccupied with a particular subject.
" What are you describing? Asperger's syndrome.
It's a high functioning form of autism.
It's why Wally Stevens can't empathize.
It's why he can't connect.
It's why this pattern is in there.
Time and space.
These are the first five people who were insured in sequence.
There, this is the pattern.
And the same pattern for the next five.
And the next five.
That leaves one pattern unfinished.
It's very visual.
Juries like visuals.
I wish we could show them the missing millions in Mr.
Stevens' possession or anything, for that matter, beyond these abstractions.
Does Weehawken sound abstract to you? Hey.
Sorry to barge in on you so late.
Something came up.
We wanted to run it by you.
Have you had dinner yet? I was going to heat something up.
Hope you like Chinese food.
Yes.
Yes, I do.
We'll need plates.
We would've come by earlier, but my partner had to look at houses.
Yeah, I'm gonna buy.
I like this place.
Looks like you got a lot of rooms.
Aren't you gonna ask me where I'm looking? - Where are you looking? - Whitestone.
It's where my parents grew up.
My partner's very sentimental.
Well, it's what I can afford.
What made you pick this house? I don't know.
My wife picked it.
I noticed that there's a grocery store around the corner.
Yes, it's very convenient.
That's what I need, you know, a deli.
Something like that.
Yeah, just in walking distance.
I like the one you looked at today.
Off Francis Louis Boulevard.
It's near Beachhurst.
I'm not sure if I saw any delis around there though.
There's a deli on 154th Street.
Hey, can I write that down? Could you show me where? Sorry.
One egg roll or two? One.
Please.
Thank you.
Bach-ing it tonight, huh? Wife out with the kids? Yes, they're out.
You know what, you should You should ask him.
I bet he knows.
My brother moved into a new house two months ago, and I'm sure I'm gonna get lost getting there.
- It's off 495, Exit 2.
- Weehawken.
Yes, Palisade Avenue.
He says I take a right turn and go under a bridge and The bridge is to the left.
Palisade Avenue is three miles to the left.
Oh, I better mark this down before I forget.
I have no sense of direction.
Do you mind? Well, I wonder where that wife of yours is, huh? It's getting late.
She's out.
- She's not out.
She's gone.
- She'll be back.
Sure, soon as she divorces that rich lawyer she married.
But that's not gonna happen, 'cause women like money.
Isn't that what you said? "Women like men with money.
" And you don't have any money.
No.
No, I don't.
Not even, let's say, 15 million dollars? I don't have 15 million dollars.
How about 13 million? I don't have 15 million dollars.
I don't have that money.
Yes, you do.
Because it's the only way you know how to get your wife back.
Because you could never offer her what she really wanted, offer her a real relationship.
No.
I'm a good husband.
I'm loyal.
I pay the bills.
Obviously it wasn't enough, so you hooked up with Jack Bernard.
I'm a good husband.
I did not kill anybody.
He had the inside track on the homeless, the French girlfriend.
And all you had was sheer analytical genius.
I didn't kill anybody.
Not me.
Yes, you did, Wally.
You left your mark all over the scheme.
The piece of music that you play, over and over.
Five bars, each with five notes.
You like the number five.
Five toes, five fingers, five photos.
And the pattern that you make with them.
And these dishes But you're not aware of it.
But can you see it now? No matter how hard you strive for chaos, it always comes out like this.
I didn't kill anybody.
You can't connect me to this.
I'm not a killer.
You can't connect me.
You connected yourself.
You're very thorough.
You scouted each place where you would dump the bodies.
That's why you know Whitestone so well.
And Weehawken.
They're where you planned to dump the other two victims you never got around to killing.
Don't you remember? You told us when you met us.
"They always betray themselves.
" Why would I do that? Why would I keep making this pattern? I wouldn't do that.
Because you can't help yourself.
Because you don't know.
I wouldn't do that.
Look, I I photocopied this for you.
They only started diagnosing Asperger's in 1994.
You would have been too old by then.
It's why you make patterns.
It's why you're not very good with people and your wife left you.
Oh.
Oh.
It's me.
That's me.
Why didn't somebody tell me? Why Why didn't they Why didn't they tell me? Nothing is the same since, since they left.
Nothing is the same since they left.
I want everything to be the same.
I want everything to be the same.
The house is so empty.
This house is so empty.
Nothing's the same.
Nothing's the same.
As soon as his lawyer gets here, he wants to make a full statement.
To think his murders almost went undetected.
Well, his murders did.
It was Jack Bernard's that didn't.
Criminal mastermind.
They don't make them like they used to.
I'm sure he'd like a pen pal.