CSI: Vegas (2021) s02e16 Episode Script

Previously on CSI: Vegas
All of these cases, all of
these people are related.
- Lamont Moore.
- Dario Donnelly.
Lynn Zobrist. The sick mind
behind all of these murders
is Dr. Diane Auerbach.
I was so certain that
she was responsible.
Max, you need to see this.
I need you to get two
rooms at the Aurora.
One for me, one for you. Use fake names.
Players are assigned a target.
Once they eliminate one, they inherit
that player's target as
their next assignment.
That was the plan, take out
the last man standing yourself?
But you made that pretty impossible.
I gave my best player a real challenge.
You're all in the game
now. May the best man win.
You know we have a
fully stocked minifridge
in our hotel room, right?
I am not paying ten
dollars for bottled water.
Not even after the apocalypse.
Your mom's a civil
servant, not a high roller.
How long are we planning on staying?
I thought you caught the
guy who wanted you dead.
One of 'em, but it kind of
seems like there's another one.
And we just got to be careful, okay?
It won't be forever.
Hi.
Dad.
You got here fast.
Well, there's a deranged
killer hunting your mama.
It seemed urgent.
I'm worried about you.
I've only been in town an hour
and I've already tracked you down.
Daniel, it was really kind of you
to come all this way,
but we're gonna be fine.
- I promise
- Maxine.
We're still a family.
I'm not going anywhere.
Not until you're really safe.
I am so sorry.
I can't do this. I can't.
That went well.
Poor Molly.
What have we got?
Adhesive residue on
her wrists and ankles.
Killer had her bound up.
There's no blood, no
trauma, no ligature marks.
I have no guess on cause.
Witness in that tent saw
a man wheel this cart under the 15,
then walked off whistling.
Remembers a fancy suit, not a face.
It's all right. We know
exactly who did this.
He told us himself.
He signed his work?
He's not just signing his work.
He's giving us the finger.
The only print found at
Molly Tate's dump site
was the digitus medius.
He's flipping us the bird.
- Lovely.
- In silver ink.
Here's our man, Ronald Winter.
Quite the mugshot.
His wanted poster's gonna
look like an Armani ad.
Put it on the local
news, make him famous.
I can't find any other
trace of his life online.
Uh, this was for a first-time offense.
Cyberstalking.
So now he's crawling out from behind
his keyboard to put on a show?
Going public like this feels
like Molly's his opening act.
Who's the audience?
Why dump her like that?
This guy was drafted into that
twisted wheel of death game.
But that's over. Why keep going?
He's a bit different from the others
tangled up in Ted Hester's
Silver Ink Murders.
Ron had a troubled youth, too,
but look.
Look at that IQ.
- 160?
- If he's that smart,
you got to imagine he's got an endgame.
Maybe he's already told us what it is.
The postcards, the scribbles
on the walls in the white room.
- What?
- We had the same instinct
when Ted told us about Ron.
So much so that Catherine called
a forensic linguist at Quantico.
They're working on it, but
We don't have enough material
for the cryptanalysts.
If we had a large enough sample,
they could find patterns,
figure out how Ron's
symbols could group into words,
sentences, but we need more.
You're gonna need more
evidence of every kind.
Anything that tells us where Ron is.
Well, Sonya's ready
to walk us through Molly's autopsy.
Let's start there.
Jack, please, where
are we on the coffee?
I need caffeine. Like,
any form. Intravenous
would be acceptable.
Hey, sis. How about you look down?
You all right?
- You look kind of exhausted.
- Yeah.
I'm fine. I just
I was up all night
with this autopsy while
lover boy over there was
out gallivanting around.
Did you go on a date?
How'd it go?
Well, he was wearing the same
clothes as yesterday, so
- She was talking about the autopsy.
- Ah.
You are right. Um,
not as well as I hoped.
- But I still can't tell you what killed Molly.
- Mm.
All signs point to Molly
being poisoned orally.
See those small tears
in her laryngopharynx?
That makes me think that she was forced
to swallow something,
something that did this.
Whoa!
- Yeah.
- Pretty sure the liver's not supposed
to look like a slice of Swiss cheese.
Hepatic vacuolizations. Ricin poisoning?
That's what I thought, but no.
I spent hours testing the contents
of her stomach. Not a drop.
And then I got really
confused when I opened up
her large intestine and
found extensive bleeding.
Okay, now that sounds
like hydrogen cyanide.
It does, but again, no.
And before you ask, I also
tested for arsenic and strychnine.
Even though it couldn't possibly
be either of those, because
Hey.
You okay?
Yeah.
Um Sorry, uh
Couldn't be either of
those, because those poisons
don't cause hepatic vacuolization
and bloody GI, so
so I am completely
Come on, sit down, take a seat, come on.
- Yeah.
- Let's get some water and sit down.
Whoa!
Sonya!
My heart My heart is racing.
- Sonya? Sonya, are you okay?
- Get away from me!
- Get out! Just get out!
- No! I No
Seal off the morgue!
Molly's a Trojan horse.
What are you talking about?
That's why he dumped her.
He's using her body to poison all of us.
Control, C16. This is CSI Allie Rajan.
I need medical assistance
at my location immediately!
Tell me how to help you.
I don't know.
I think whatever killed
Molly, it's killing me.
Listen. Listen. Just stay with me.
We need to restrain her!
Having a hard time. She's convulsing.
Prepping the pentobarbital.
Give her another 25 mils.
Do they know what it is?
No, but they just started testing.
And they're straight on symptomology.
Her heart is racing. She can't stand.
She's got severe abdominal pain.
Have they checked for sepsis?
Jack, they know everything that we do.
They're doing all they can, hon.
How'd this happen?
Sonya said that she was poisoned
by the same poison
that killed Molly Tate.
Was it airborne?
We don't think so.
She was with the body for hours.
She said it was a Trojan horse.
Rigged to release poison.
I just don't know how.
Are-are you all in danger?
No, none of us ever
touched Molly's body.
Maybe this is why the guy snuck
into our morgue, to-to scout it.
Guys, I don't know how long
Sonya has if we don't figure out
- what did this.
- We will.
All right? We will.
Whether we have to track down Ron
and pry it out of him or identify
the poison on our own, we will, okay?
Where do you want us?
Joshua, I want you
at Molly Tate's house.
Beau and Penny are at the White Room.
Allie, I need you to suit up.
- Somebody's got to look at the body
- I I can help.
I've got, I've got Sonya's notes.
I-I don't want to just
sit on the sidelines here.
I was gonna say, "Work with Jack."
This man came after one of our family.
We need all the help we can get.
And he's gonna realize
what a big mistake that was.
I'm gonna grab Catherine,
and we're gonna talk to Ted
Hester. He picked this guy.
Maybe he'll tell us something.
Hey.
You think this is a good idea?
To sit down with Ted?
I mean, he's the one who
put you in the crosshairs.
Yeah.
Well, now he's in mine.
I don't know what to tell you.
Ron's pretty smart.
If he doesn't want to
be found, he won't be.
- You put him up to this?
- Actually, I didn't.
Ronald's playing his own game now,
and whatever he does next
will be a surprise to us all.
You know, the one thing
I can say for sure is
it's gonna feel good.
- What is?
- Being vindicated.
I had the perfect way to find
and eliminate serial killers,
and you stopped me.
Now we all get to see
if that was a good idea.
I get that this is a game for you.
But wouldn't it be more fun
if everybody knew how to play?
I might be able to point
you in the right direction,
for a price.
- What do you want?
- Not much.
A little privacy and a PlayStation 5
so I can play Shadow Cell.
Give up your MVP for a video game?
That's my son's favorite.
They shoot zombies and
chat with their friends.
It's just fun.
You found Richard
Sloan through that game.
Is that how you talk to Ron, too?
Nice try, Dr. Frankenstein.
We're not handing you a
direct line to your monster.
I tell you what.
You give me your user name,
we'll see what we can do
about that private cell.
Sorry.
I don't negotiate with terrorists.
That's what you are.
Needlessly putting the innocent at risk
- from people like
- You?
Ronald Edward Winter.
Something tells me I'm gonna be
seeing you again soon, ladies.
Ready? Let's find out
what your sister ran into.
Okay, it's 11:45 p.m.,
December 15, 2022.
This is Sonya Nikolayevich,
head ME Clark County.
I'm performing an autopsy
on a 32-year-old female vic,
and tonight, I'm going in solo.
Hope the date's fun, Jack.
Okay, first impressions.
No blunt-force trauma,
no GSW, no knife
wounds. Possibly poison.
But I do need to get inside to be sure.
I'm using a number ten to
perform a standard Y incision.
Never seen liver
vacuolization like this before.
But the presence of blood
in the vic's GI tract has me stumped.
And while I'm asking questions
that don't have answers,
why is there an injection site
on the upper right
quadrant of the abdomen?
So Sonya opened the injection site.
Standard procedure.
If you see something on the
surface you can't explain,
you gotta go deeper to find the answers.
Wait, what is that?
It's like a pocket in between
the layers of Molly's skin.
Condition and the color says
it was created postmortem.
That would mean that Ron made it.
Why would he do that, and how?
I think I can answer both questions.
After he killed her,
Ron gave her an intradermal injection.
The liquid forced the
layers of Molly's skin apart,
creating this pocket.
And that pocket held his mystery poison
until Sonya sliced it open.
Mm.
Got a little spatter here.
Did you hear that? I think
that's when it happened.
That's it, right there.
When she hit this dermal
pocket, that was it.
I think you're right.
I think that's how she got dosed.
Okay.
I'm gonna test this
and tell you what I find.
- Huh.
- This guy didn't just kill Molly Tate.
He got her poor fish, too.
We got serious signs of a struggle.
This is probably where it went down.
He held her here, too.
Same residue was on
Molly's wrists and ankles.
He sure was careful
to keep the room dark.
Had to make it look like
nobody was home three days ago.
That's a pretty specific timeline.
Right after we arrested Ted Hester,
I sent a car over
here to check on Molly.
The uniforms knocked, no answer.
Thanks, Molly.
This might tell us what
he was playing with.
Ma'am, I need you to stay back.
This is my daughter's house.
- This is a crime scene.
- I want to see her.
I want to see my Molly!
She was poisoned?
I'm so sorry, ma'am.
This was always our worst nightmare.
Molly had so many allergies.
Peanuts, bananas, cotton.
We spent her whole childhood
terrified of anaphylaxis.
Did she take medication for that?
I'll give you a list.
She was on more than allergy meds.
Molly had some trouble emotionally.
Ever since she was a little kid.
That may actually be
why she was targeted.
What?
We recently arrested a
really disturbed individual.
He had a list of folks who suffered
mental health afflictions
like your daughter.
He was trying to get rid of them.
Molly wasn't a bad person.
Her troubles, they were just baked in.
We got her doctors.
We got her fish.
Whenever Molly felt like she
was slipping under the waves,
I bought her another
friend to keep her company.
Help her swim back up.
It never solved anything, but
She knew you cared.
A few months ago, everything changed.
Out of nowhere, Molly
started refusing my help.
What?
The guy we told you about,
he made contact with
her a few months back.
He may have been blackmailing her.
- If you know something
- She never told me anything.
She kept me out.
I always tried, but
You did what you could.
Well, clearly, it wasn't enough.
Just tell me that you're going
to find the person who did this.
The poison that killed Molly Tate.
I've run it through the
Agilent, the GC/MS, the Xevo,
the IXRF and the FTIR.
Nothing. I can't identify
it. It's either novel or
Extremely rare.
I did a bit better.
Epithelials from the pocket
confirm it belonged to Ron Winter.
And the GC/MS determined that
the holes were caused by nitric acid.
I wonder if he splashed himself
whilst he was making the poison.
If we could find him, maybe
he'd just tell us what it is.
Either that or we'll
have to hope he wrote
his recipe down someplace.
Found more hieroglyphs.
This guy had a lot to say.
I can't tell you what any of it means.
I've been staring at squiggles so long
I'm starting to see 'em in my sleep.
Memory card's almost full.
How many squiggle pics
do think it'll take to crack
the Ron Winter crazy code?
Code breaking's hard.
I doubt anyone can say how
many character combos we need
to start finding patterns.
The linguist at Quantico
just said "more."
Well, I've been keeping
track of distinct characters,
and I think we're at 34.
That's eight more than
my favorite alphabet.
Maybe it all translates to Cyrillic.
We ought to be looking for
repetitions of the same character.
That's how Alan Turing
cracked the Nazi's Enigma code.
Those two look like the Bat-Signal.
Zodiac's code took 50 years to crack.
Just leave that to the supercomputers.
We're just better off
focusing on the evidence.
Nobody collects baseball cards anymore?
Why did he have so many
infrared smoke detectors?
Maybe Ron's a safety nut.
Well, none of 'em went
off when the fire started.
Some of 'em don't even have batteries.
These are just completely disabled.
Hey.
Hello?
Mr. Winter,
this is you, isn't it?
Good afternoon, Maxine.
Let's give everyone a moment
to join before we begin.
- Hello?
- This is Detective Chavez.
Who is this?
Sounds like we have a quorum.
It's nice to meet everyone.
I am Ronald Winter.
Of course, you know that.
Just the man we're looking for.
I'm the man you're hunting.
But that's a two-way street, isn't it?
What have we done to you, Ron?
Why would you poison
our medical examiner?
Is this Miss Rajan?
I read about you.
I'm sorry, I won't be divulging
that information at this point.
Why not? I mean, the man that
was blackmailing you is in jail.
His game is over.
Yes, I read about Mr. Hester.
It was very kind of
you to take care of him.
But, uh, you found
him a little too late,
or too early.
I'm not really quite sure which it is.
If you're not acting on his orders,
Ron, what are you doing?
It's something much, much bigger.
It was a shame about Dr. Nikolayevich,
but I thought it was
only fair to show you.
I can get to anyone. Anyone.
Anywhere.
I had to assume Mr. Hester
would have promulgated my name.
That is what he does, after all.
So I had to make it
clear what would happen
if he would not give me the space
- to finish what I started.
- The only way this ends
- is with you behind bars.
- No!
Now is when you listen,
so you don't get hurt.
I just called you to tell you
to sit back and relax.
Let me lighten your workload.
What does that mean, Ron?
Ron.
What does that mean?
How did Ron get all our phone numbers?
Well, he walked into
our lab and left a note.
Clearly, he took something with him.
Now is when you listen,
so you don't get hurt.
I just called you to tell you
to sit back and relax.
- Let me lighten your workload.
- Did you hear that?
- Mm.
- Not Ron.
What's happening behind him.
That sounds like kids playing.
Maybe he's calling from a park?
- Hardly narrows it down.
- Yeah.
I just wish LVPD could
have traced his call.
Mr. Winter is way too savvy
to be caught like that.
We're gonna have to find a
different way to catch this guy.
What about his mystery poison?
Do Sonya's doctors have
any idea what it was yet?
No. We're all still banging
our heads against the wall.
So it's up to us to identify
the poison and save Sonya's life.
Yeah, one this exotic
might tip Ron's hand
- and help us find him.
- Max?
Yeah?
There is someone in your office
- you're gonna want to talk to.
- Who?
Ronald Winter.
Senior.
I wish I was more surprised.
Ronnie's always been a
a handful.
We're not close.
He got his brains from his mother,
and never had much use
for me. Neither of 'em did.
- Is he with her now?
- Helen died of cancer.
She left me with a six-year-old
who was already smarter than I was.
It was no picnic,
but I did all I could.
Probably not, though, right?
I mean, you say your son is gifted?
He's a killer.
He poisoned an innocent woman,
and used her body to poison
one of our colleagues, too.
I'm sorry to hear that.
We do not need your sympathy.
We need your son's location.
- I don't know where Ronnie is.
- Well, neither do we.
Look, ladies, it's like
I told the detective.
- I I wish I could help.
- Okay. So let me guess.
You came in here to say
that you helped the police,
but you haven't given us a damn thing.
You got his number? Call him.
Call him.
He won't answer.
Your call has been forwarded
- See?
- to an automatic voice message
We only ever talk over text.
Most times, I need a
dictionary just to get the gist.
"Orgulous. Umbrage. Ennui."
God, what a gasbag.
Ronnie's big ol' vocabulary
may be just what we need
to track him down if he uses
these obscure words online.
Right? Oh, whoa, whoa,
whoa. No, we keepin' this.
Allie.
What are you doing here, Jack?
I just came from the hospital.
Sonya's heartrate's over 100.
Her blood pressure's 90/60.
All her vitals are heading
the wrong direction.
I don't know how long she's got.
I came here because whatever
she got splashed with,
it's giving her a positive GUAIAC test.
That's usually an indicator
of arsenic or amatoxin.
I know. We eliminated both of those.
Along with strychnine, cyanide, ricin.
I just, like, I can't
think of another poison
that would trigger a positive.
I can.
Abrin.
Damn it, it's negative! How?
Maybe
Maybe the test is wrong.
High-affinity monoclonal antibodies
have made these tests
incredibly accurate.
It's not abrin.
I just don't understand why
It should have been me.
Sonya would have figured out
what the poison was by now
and saved me.
Jack, we're gonna save your sister.
I promise you.
You're not supposed to
make promises to the family.
I know.
But I'm making one anyway.
Go ahead, take 'em.
A buddy of mine has a rental
property out in Henderson.
You and Bryan will be safe there.
You can stay as long as you need.
No strings attached.
Daniel, you don't need to do this, okay?
Actually, Maxine, I do.
I have to do something.
I've had four years to think about
where it went wrong with us.
And my biggest regret is
not being more decisive.
Not showing you.
Daniel, if
Hey, I flew across the country.
- Will you let me finish a sentence?
- I'll let you finish.
Do you remember what I said to you
- the day Bryan was born?
- Yes.
What?
That we were gonna make mistakes
- as parents.
- Yeah.
But that we're gonna make them together.
And we did.
For a while we were on the same page.
But then things changed
If I'm being honest
I changed.
I'm sorry.
You do not owe me anything. Okay?
I just want to protect
the people I care about.
You never left the top of the list.
I just stopped saying it.
Here.
Whoa, this is not the same code.
This is math. Ron was
calculating something.
Math is a language we do know.
This could be like our Rosetta Stone.
I mean, do you think it even adds up?
- What do you mean?
- I mean,
none of the rest of this
even makes sense, Penny.
You ever heard of the
phrase "ravings of a madman"?
What, you think this is all gibberish?
That would be so disappointing.
What have you got?
Just a burnt mess, but it's a burnt mess
that smells like accelerant.
Is that turpentine and butane?
Yeah. Diesel, too.
I think Ron made a chemical cocktail
to ensure that the fire
burned real hot right here.
I don't think he was interested
in torching the whole room
as much as he was destroying this.
What do you think this was?
More smoke detectors,
and I don't know yet.
You're the one who's always
bragging about her Lego skills.
You see this dark blob?
I'm pretty sure it used to
be a size-six rubber stopper.
Well, whatever it is, I think
it was on the end of this
melted tan noodle,
which I think looked like a latex hose.
Got your noodle's other end melted to
a bunch of shattered glass.
Might be a tank of some kind.
Well, that corroded husk
is definitely a car battery.
And we've got these electrodes.
Got a tank, a power supply
latex hose. I mean, the setup is perfect
for electrolytic precipitation.
Ron had himself a little chem lab.
That's why he rigged it to burn,
so we'd never figure out
what he had cooked up.
We'll see about that.
GC/MS doesn't care how
big of a mess he made.
Okay.
- Tropane.
- Tropane?
Tropane.
Okay, uh, I'll get Max.
- You call the hospital.
- This doesn't makes sense.
Tropane isn't a poison.
Not unless you ingest gallons of it.
It's a precursor that can be
turned into atropine or cocaine.
But neither of those chemicals
was on Sonya's tox screen.
Yeah, I know.
It's another dead end.
If there's any change
Okay, thank you.
They had to put Sonya in
a medically-induced coma.
The pain was too much.
We may have a new angle soon.
- Mm-hmm.
- DA's making a deal with Ted Hester.
His lawyer insists he knows Ron's plan.
- They're meeting right now.
- Tell him to make space at that table.
Catherine and I want a second crack.
Hey, Max.
You look about like I
would if I was about to
give a present to a man
who ordered my death.
You really don't have
to do this with me.
You're as bad as my ex.
So he's worried about you, too?
Yeah, he doesn't think I feel safe.
Pupils are dilated. Unreactive.
Get back! Get back! He's crashing!
That's Ted.
Ron's pretty smart.
What happened?
He's seizing.
I need vitals on him now.
Take his pulse ox.
Winter did say, "Anyone. Anywhere."
Yeah, but he didn't tell us who's next.
That looks familiar.
Is that the slide of Ted's liver?
It looks worse than Molly's.
His GI tract is in worse shape, too.
He must've got an even
more concentrated dose of
What? What does this?
I'm not seeing any
puncture marks on Ted's skin
with the forensic scope.
Means he's not another Trojan horse.
Ron didn't have access to Ted's body.
He must have somehow poisoned his food.
You think he took it orally?
You see that bluish goo right in there?
That is the aftermath of a cupcake,
which was definitely
not on the jail's menu.
Chavez can pull surveillance
up from the jail,
but I don't think we
should get our hopes up.
Yeah.
It's not like you need
Andy Dufresne's tunnel
to smuggle contraband
- into Clark County jail.
- Okay.
I'm gonna choose to look
on the bright side here.
Both Ted and Molly swallowed the poison.
That's why they died so quickly.
Sonya was exposed through her skin.
Her symptoms might
be progressing slower,
but they're still progressing.
Her SpO2's dropped below 90%.
She's got hours,
not days, and the guy
that did this to her,
he-he could be anywhere.
Okay, Mr. Winter. Here we are.
Looks like there was a
problem with your garment.
What are you talking about?
You have a stain we couldn't get out,
from your lab coat.
Something abrasive. Maybe bleach?
Well
I appreciate you trying.
Say, do you like cupcakes?
Today was my niece's
birthday party, and uh
I almost have a whole box left.
Sure.
All right, Agent Mercer,
that's the last one.
You guys get it?
Page 245. Clear as a bell.
Yeah, but it should be
45,234 characters total.
That's a start. We'll let you know.
Whoa, whoa.
How about an ETA?
How long does it usually take your fancy
code-cracking software to,
you know, crack the code?
The characters are handwritten.
Lots of variance.
Could take nine or ten years.
- What?
- Uh, sorry.
Sounded like you said nine or ten years?
Could be. Could be nine or ten days.
Call me next week I'll let you know
which way it's looking.
Isn't that guy head of
the FBI Cryptanalyst Unit?
What's he got, a computer
powered by a hamster wheel?
Beau warned me it'd be slow going.
Even so, you think we could
run the Bureau's software
on all our computers?
Focus up, Penny.
Oh, I'm not playing Shadow Cell.
- I'm searching its chat function.
- For what?
Max thinks that Ted contacted
Ron through the game,
so I've been trying to
find their correspondence.
But without knowing their screen names,
and with over 80 million
comments in the chat,
it feels like that's a search
that'll take a decade, too.
- Mm-hmm.
- I just spent an hour
on the phone to a mathematician from MI
who finally admitted he has no idea
what this calculation's supposed to be.
Beau's been doing the same thing.
With similar results.
You'd think math would be
an easier language to decode
than schizophrenic medieval gibberish.
Maybe I'll ask him.
- Can you trace it?
- Yeah, I can try with an IMSI catcher.
Okay.
Hello?
Ms. Rajan, hello. How are you?
Not great, Ron.
A friend of mine is in ICU.
You put her there.
She would be a lot better
if you told me what you used.
I'm sorry, I really do
want to share with you,
but not that.
- Why not?
- Many reasons.
How's Ted Hester?
He's very dead.
Is that why you called?
To confirm that he's gone?
You're quite brilliant,
actually. How did you pull it off?
You're quite clever, too, Miss Rajan.
I wasn't admitted once to
Harvard, let alone twice.
But I must insist, we won't
be discussing my methods.
My motives are more interesting anyway.
Where are you, Ron?
Let's meet up and talk in person.
Oh, Miss Rajan.
How utterly disappointing.
From what I glean remotely,
you're the most perspicacious CSI.
Ron, you flatter me.
But I have to ask to what end?
Because we are both afflicted.
Plagued.
Did you poison me, too?
No, uh, I haven't
exposed you to anything
that you aren't immune to already.
And what's that?
People.
Hell is other people.
Their stupidity.
You might be the only other person
who understands what I'm doing.
I think you'll be grateful once
they've all been eradicated.
Who? Who are you referring to?
Patience, Miss Rajan.
You will see tonight.
It really will be, uh
lights out.
Tell me you traced it.
And then he just hung up?
Penny said he was using a relay device
to stop us from
pinpointing his location.
Smart as advertised.
Where are we on poison?
All we can tell you is what it isn't.
It's not tropane.
That's the only chemical
we found in Ron's DIY lab.
Why would he set a
fire to hide a chemical
that's not the poison?
Well, he might've added tropane
to mask whatever he was actually making.
You see this plating?
Tropane's organic.
Its extraction doesn't
leave metal on electrodes.
So something else must've been
the source of that plating.
Any ideas?
Unfortunately, we have none.
Hold on.
How many of these infrared
smoke detectors did Ron have?
Dozens. None of them work;
- it was a weird little collection.
- Then that's it.
Wait. You think
Infrared smoke detectors contain
tiny amounts of various heavy metals.
Right. It's what makes them so
sensitive to smoke particles.
He was probably
harvesting heavy metal ore
from the smoke detectors.
He could dissolve it into a solution
if he had a strong enough acid
Like nitric acid,
which explains the holes
in his shirt pocket.
So Ron was using these electrodes
to send different currents
into his acid solution to
draw out a metal of his choice.
A really nasty metal
thallium.
That's his poison.
If I remember my Intro
into Inorganic Chemistry,
symptomology
checks out.
Cellular death in the GI walls,
bleeding in the small colon,
vacuolization of the liver
It was thallium.
How'd we miss this?
Because heavy metal poisoning is so rare
there's only one machine
on Earth that could ID it.
And we don't have an ion coupled plasma
atomic emissions spectroscope.
Only geolabs do.
We're damn straight gonna get one.
But first
there's an antidote.
As soon as they administered
the Prussian blue,
Sonya's heart rate started coming down.
She's not out of the woods yet, but
Is that sign language?
When we were younger,
Sonya forced me to learn ASL
so that we could talk trash about
our idiot stepfather in front of him.
What are you saying to her?
"I love you."
But she's not responding.
Jack
if her vitals are any indication,
she's coming back to us.
The man that did this to her
We're gonna find him.
Feels like a weird time to
learn how to play Shadow Cell.
I need your login.
I tried to get my own,
but they wouldn't give me access
to the message board.
Should I be offended?
No.
You actually have to play
the game to access the chat.
All right. No lurking.
- So, while the game is loading
- Mm-hmm.
you gonna tell me why
you've been avoiding Dad?
He said you haven't
been returning his calls.
I have not been
Been I mean
Okay. Me and your dad, um
I don't know. I just,
I mean I don't know.
- What do you mean you don't know?
- I don't know.
Can we just search "thallium"
with two L's, please?
Okay, we got one.
DymphnasReaper37 said
"thallium" in a chat
- three months ago.
- Excuse me.
"My favorite metal could solve
every problem at Mountain Vista.
"I see 293 problems,
but an MO ain't one.
All they need do is breathe."
Oh, my God.
This formula calculates
dosage for his next attack.
It's a mass casualty event. Joshua!
Mom, what's going on?
- Hey, man.
- I know what Ron meant
when he said he was
gonna lighten our load.
He's gonna aerosolize thallium
and poison 293 people,
and I know where
Mountain Vista Psychiatric Hospital.
The mental hospital in Henderson?
Yeah, they have 293 beds.
If we don't get there in time,
there will not be enough
body bags in Clark County.
And we got to get there by lights out.
This is the most recent
photo of Ron Winter we have.
Keep your eyes peeled.
Yeah, remember, "lights out," 8:30.
It gives us half an hour before he
Atomizes the thallium and kills us?
Yeah, Catherine's right. Where's SWAT?
We should be storming this place.
LVPD has plain clothes inside.
They're helping staff lead
patients few at a time, but
any large action could tip off Ron.
Then? Boom.
If he's smart and we know Ron is
he will put his device in a vent shaft
and then use the AC to blow death
all over the building, okay?
I gave my guys your order.
That's where they're looking.
But I-I got some pushback.
They don't know why you're so certain.
Tell them I read all about it online.
Society has much bigger
problems than that.
Better to flip the table
and knock all the broken pieces
off the board in one fell swoop.
How?
I could brew something special.
Something expeditious.
Poison.
It's only fair, isn't it?
They infect, they contaminate,
they pollute everyone they
come into contact with.
They are God's greatest mistakes.
And what do you do with mistakes?
Erase them.
You know the most
delicious part of my plan?
Once the angel of death has
visited Mountain Vista
they'll never find me.
And they'll never catch me.
Hey, Ronnie.
That's him.
I'll cut him off up front!
Hey! Stop!
Law enforcement! Move!
Out of the way, move!
Stop!
You're too late.
We got him. We got him.
Wait, wait. You have Winter?
We do, but he doesn't have
it on him and he won't talk.
Damn it.
Beau
That's it.
That's it. That's it.
That's less than a
minute, Beau. Come on.
- Can you disarm it?
- No. Not enough time.
- Is it gonna
- No, it held.
But we're We're not
gonna touch it, okay?
The thallium has been contained.
Oh, God.
Hey! What does this say?
Hey.
It doesn't matter anymore.
It was you. Right, Miss Rajan?
You were the one who
realized it was thallium.
It could only have been you.
I'm disappointed.
I thought you, of all people,
would realize what I was trying to do.
I do understand.
You were trying to kill innocent people.
Hardly.
These people are a needless burden.
They're mentally malformed.
No, you're the only malformed
mind that I see around here.
You can only pretend to
turn a blind eye for so long.
But you see it. I know you do.
- It is our burden.
- You're so wrong.
I didn't stop you alone.
No matter how brilliant
you think you are,
you're not smarter or better
or more righteous than the people
that fight every single
day to stop people like you.
What you don't understand
is I was trying
Save it for your manifesto, buddy.
This job
I mean, I love it, but some days
Some days.
I like it out here.
I don't want to go home.
You don't have to.
Hey.
She says
"Thank you," Allie.
Hey, I'm right here.
I cannot tell you how grateful I am.
We couldn't have done it without you.
Hear that?
I'm a hero.
Pretty much like a huge hero.
Have the doctors said
anything about her recovery?
There's really no way of
knowing how much damage
the thallium did to her nervous system.
It's
It's gonna be a long long road.
Well, I'll never bet against her.
She'll be back giving
you hell in no time.
I hope so.