Cold Case s03e05 Episode Script

The following story is fictional and does not depict any actual person or event.
June 24, 1954 Otis, maraschinos.
- You want to do them? - No, you, mom.
Yeah, yowie, I like how that looks.
- How do you like that, Otis? - I like that.
Now answer me truly, after you've thought about it, really thought about it, and I don't want some off the cuff routine, I want it from your heart.
Are we done? You think about it now, I mean it.
Let's make chocolate.
Let's make every kind of sweet ever.
Absolutely, little man! Let's do it.
We can do anything we want because we are running on a constantly replenishing fuel of love.
- Do you understand that, Otis? - Yes.
Put a trivet on the table quickly.
Dad's baked Alaska.
Your father loves this dessert, Otis.
It's beautiful.
How do eggs shape up to look like the waves of the ocean, Otis? Makes the world so small.
Everything alike, from the chickens to the seaweed.
It's awful comforting.
I smell a forest fire.
It's so beautiful.
Do you see it? These colors, Otis.
And to think we made this from only eggs and love.
I've never seen anything like this.
Mom, it's burning! Get some water! It's okay, little man.
It can't hurt us.
It may be a miracle, I think.
This old lady dies in her apartment in Fishtown.
M.
E.
tracks down the son who's next of kin.
This a homicide? Old age.
Seems straightforward.
But the guy drives ten hours from Ohio to ID this Bettie Petrowski.
Gets there, says, "That ain't my mother.
" Meaning what? Meaning the old lady on the slab's a fraud.
Ain't Bettie, but she's been using her social security number like she is.
So where's the real Bettie? Unaccounted for since 1954.
- Probably dead.
- Maybe murdered.
Lil has the guy looking through Jane Does.
Detective Valens, Sutton, this is Otis Petrowski.
Oh, hi.
Sorry, I'm, I'm blinking weird because I've had these peepers on for hours now.
So we're thinking whoever this is might've killed your mom in order to use her identity.
Yeah, well, that's why I'm flipping through these books of the dead.
It would explain why Otis hasn't heard from her since he was eight years old.
How'd you account for that growing up? Well, my mother was a mental patient.
She had a breakdown when I was eight.
Almost burned down the house with me in it, so my father committed her to the Philadelphia city asylum.
What was going on with your mom? Manic depression.
"Bipolar" is the new term.
After she was committed, you didn't see her anymore? Yeah, well, we visited her a few times, but me and my dad went our own way.
He got married again.
You ever try to find your mom? I mean, it's not like I didn't toy with it, but I figured she forgot about me.
Same way she forgot she shouldn't be setting fires around your kid.
I don't need to look at that twice.
- This is your mom? - That's her face.
- You don't forget.
- Jane Doe #17.
Killed Winter of '54.
We only committed her that summer.
So if this is the real Bettie Petrowski.
Who's Frannie got in there? - forom.
com - - coldcase.
free.
fr - Scotty.
What's up, Jo? She's wiping us clean at poker is what.
Soft players here in homicide.
Guy's not parked outside your house anymore, is he? - He's keeping his distance.
- Good.
I got to run.
Nice seeing you, Gil.
- Yeah.
What's that about? Sergeant White.
Guy's a real piece of work.
Yeah, I heard rumors.
So they had a thing? Yeah, only in his head.
Sexual harassment thing.
You saying she filed a report on him? She didn't have to.
Guy made a spectacle of himself.
Because everyone around here thought it was the other way, - her stirring it up.
- No, this White didn't need to get stirred.
She's lucky to get transferred out.
Leave that behind.
The Jane Doe this guy ID'd as his mom was found dead in Fairmount park December 28.
au parc Fairmount le 28 décembre.
Blunt force trauma to the skull.
No ID, no personal effects.
Theory was Jane Doe's a drifter, killed by another drifter.
No one ever made the connect that this Jane Doe was a mental patient.
She'd already checked out.
Elle avait déjà signé son bon de sortie.
Bettie Petrowski was signed out of Philadelphia city asylum by nurse Anika Olsen on December 26, 1954.
That's two days before the body was found.
Family's gone, out of the hospital.
It's got to be a lonely time for Bettie.
People lined up to take advantage of a woman in that position.
Not to mention who she might've met in the hospital.
Rooming with loonies, some of them could've been head-bashing types.
Let's talk to this nurse.
See if Otis can tell us anything about the hospital.
What about the Jane Doe 2005, the one Frannie's got? Survey her neighborhood in Fishtown.
You got to figure we ID this Jane Doe, we're that much closer to finding Bettie's killer.
My, my daughter jumped in the car when she heard I was coming here.
Wouldn't get out.
- That's nice of you.
Keeping your dad company.
I want to learn about my grandmother.
My thing is, just because someone's manic depressive, doesn't mean the family has to, like, hide her.
All right, all right, we know what you think.
Otis, what can you tell us about city asylum? Your mom have any trouble there? Talk about problems with anyone? Oh, no, my mother never complained.
Especially in her up moods.
Her world was sunshine and roses.
I read on the internet bipolar people can have full-on hallucinations.
So she might not have seen a dangerous situation for what it was.
You know, the day we committed her, that was definitely true.
What didn't she see that day? The lunatics crawling up the walls, she was sharing with them.
Your mommy will have a wonderful, relaxing time here at our hospital.
Dr.
Paquette is a superior doctor.
He'll treat your mommy himself.
Won't that be nice for her? - Yes, ma'am.
- Hey, Otis.
This place is really something else, don't you think? Look at all these different kinds of people.
I bet I'll come home with all kinds of stories for you.
Hey, you want to know what I want to do? I want you and me to take our own tour of this place.
I want to explore.
I want to know every inch of it.
Stay away from me, fascists! Her painting is horrifying.
Grab it! Carmen, stop right there.
Come any closer and I'll show the painting to the kid.
No! It's got a lady with a zipper for a mouth.
Hear that? This girl's a painter, Otis.
I have been in a fever working on this.
It's a vision of what's happening to us.
I plan to hang it on the wall and say, "Good morning, you.
" "It's another day in this dreadful place.
" "Hold on for dear life.
" You're running out of chances, Carmen.
I'll show it to him.
I swear I will.
Do it.
Can I take a peek? Well, I bet it's just out of this world.
Bettie.
Simmer down.
It's beautiful.
It's so sad.
You lost it.
You lost it! I hate you! If someone took my poetry away, I would totally be in a mental hospital.
You would totally be in law school.
So this Carmen's doing these disturbing paintings of women.
- It was a metaphor.
- It was twisted.
Kids at school used to ask me, "Where's your mother?" What was I supposed to say? "Taking retreat with a maniac painter and assorted psychos"? I used to say mine was on tour with a rock band.
So Carmen was pretty upset with your mom.
Foaming at the mouth.
After seeing that girl and her painting, I thought for sure my mom would meet her end at that place.
Nurse Olsen, you were the last person to see Bettie Petrowski alive.
You signed her out yourself from the Philadelphia city asylum.
Everyone who came or went did so through me.
I was a one-woman security check.
What can you tell us about Bettie the day she left? She wore the clothes she came in with.
She was in good spirits.
Insisted on leaving in spite of the fact that there were no family members there to meet her.
- Good memory on you.
- True.
Was she worried about anything? Happy to leave.
They usually were.
Did Bettie make any enemies durning her stay? Of course.
with only the task of recovery to busy their idle minds.
We talking cat fights? Cannibalism.
You remember a girl named Carmen? Carmen was explosive, moody, distorted view of reality.
But it was Zelda that Bettie was truly afraid of.
Some days I can't get out of bed.
I've tried storing casseroles in the freezer so that the boys will always have supper.
Look at me now, babbling.
- Oh, please go on.
- Zelda, it's not your turn to speak.
My son's the only thing for certain I've done right.
Now I think he's afraid of me.
I thought you were gonna die at the end.
That's the only kind of story I like.
You're absolutely vile, Zelda.
- I won't listen to it.
- Can it, ankle biter.
- Give that back.
- What? This? It's mine.
My son gave it to me the day I came here.
It's all I have of him here.
Please.
Then what do I get, huh? You've got everything I want.
Why can't I get one lousy stinking thing? Zelda, on the count of three, will you sit down with your arms - crossed across your chest.
- If you bring the guards in here, - I'll absolutely faint.
- One.
- I will! - Sit with me, Annie.
I got a kid didn't make it past two months, - Two.
- And a cripple husband.
That's it, guards! - That's because you pushed him down the stairs.
- No, you didn't.
- I did.
He irked me, like you do.
Maybe I ought to do an encore.
So then Zelda was jealous of Bettie's life.
Anything'd be better than her own.
Good motive for the identity theft.
What happened to this Zelda? - She still committed? - Oh, no.
She was too tricky for that.
So she got out, despite there being bats in the belfry? She persuaded Dr.
Paquette, the chief of medicine.
How, I don't dare imagine.
I signed her out myself.
When was that? The morning Bettie was released.
And there's her opportunity.
- Zelda Amatuzzi? Philly P.
D.
- Oh, Zelda? We want to talk to you about Bettie Petrowski.
Yeah, you knew her at city asylum.
Yes, he said asylum.
Carry on.
We got people telling us you hated Bettie, threatened to kill her, like you tried to do your husband.
Hey, if a worthless, drunk son of a bitch falls down the stairs and no one's around, did he really fall? According to the police report, yes, and at your hand.
Maybe you waited for her outside the hospital, got her back for having what you didn't.
I didn't hate Bettie.
Get yourselves up to date, will you? Well, do us the honors, Zelda.
Bettie stuck up for me.
She made those other hens realize that I wasn't just loony as they thought.
Paint by numbers.
I feel like a trained seal.
- Carmen! - Yes, Bettie? Come take a peek.
Carmen, that is delightfully creative.
- This thing? I don't know.
- I like it.
Hey, bones, you could use some of this food.
Carmen had private art lessons with famous artists, because her family's got railroad money.
Ah, which they put to good use keeping me locked away in here.
Why are you here, Carmen? I paint nude ladies and skeletons, and sometimes derelicts with a bottle of booze in their hands.
I'm a pervert and a ne'er-do-well, - can't you tell? - If you're a pervert, I'm Mamie Eisenhower.
Everybody, can it! I hear him.
Oh, all I wanna do is dance.
- Oh, here she goes.
- What is it? You're imagining things, Zelda.
- She thinks she hears Elvis Presley.
- Who? - He sings negro music.
- He invades my dreams.
More like your head.
- At least I don't have knee bones wider than my head.
I hear it, too! - Hello.
- Anton.
Woo-ee, there he is.
That's when Anton got his new hobby, Bettie Petrowski.
- So he pursued her? - Like a dog on a scent.
He know she was married? He'd strut around telling all of us he'd be the one to turn her head.
- Did she return the feelings? - It's 1954.
A young black kid's got the hots for a white married lady older than him.
You think he had a snowball's chance? Let's talk about Bettie Petrowski.
We heard you had it bad for her.
She was a nice lady.
Well, Bettie was killed, you know.
Skull bashed in, over her right eye, an act of rage.
I don't know anything about that.
Ah, it must've hurt, Anton, when you realized it didn't matter if these ladies were locked up, sick in the head, you still weren't gonna be good enough for them.
You were just the black boy changing the sheets, right? No, it wasn't like that in the hospital.
- How was it? - We could be friends.
Way we couldn't on the outside.
But you didn't want to settle for just friends with Bettie.
Bettie was devoted to her husband and her boy.
Said that they were what kept her going in there.
Oh, come on.
I'm a romantic.
- You two got close.
- Yeah.
Bettie got real low a few weeks in.
They gave her hydrobath treatment.
- What's that? - Well, it's bathtubs full of ice, girls would have to soak in.
Supposed to snap you out of depression.
I looked after her then.
Learned about her.
Bettie's not moving, Anton.
Take her out.
Wait.
Not yet.
It'll help her soon enough.
Have you had it? Because I have.
- It don't work.
- All right, girls.
- I'm going in.
- Anton.
There you go.
Bettie? That's it.
Let me out.
I'm not supposed to.
Zelda wanted me to give you this.
All your friends are all thinking about you, Bettie.
- Otis.
Why don't you tell me about Otis? Tell me your favorite time with him.
At the park.
At the park.
We went to the swings.
My little sisters love that.
- It started to rain.
- Oh, no.
Warm rain.
Spring.
Everybody ran to their cars.
Not you? Otis wanted to stay.
We did.
We stayed.
That's wonderful, Bettie.
Let's get you out.
You're all better now.
What is this? What am I looking at? Hey! What are you two doing? - You put her down.
- I was making her warm, sir.
You do not touch her.
Bettie, Bettie, you look at me.
She's not feeling well, sir.
- She's been in the tub - Get out! What are you doing to me? You better run, boy.
He looked at me and I thought I was a dead man.
The husband ever follow up with you? - No.
Maybe he didn't take it out on you.
Took it out on Bettie.
Hey, your car still out? I can get you home again.
No, thanks.
Me and Will were just leaving.
You two have a nice night.
What are you doing? Offering a ride.
Maybe keep the charity out of Vera's earshot.
Ah, they're giving us grief.
It's nothing.
It's nothing when they do it to you.
You're not doing yourself any favors, clamming up about what happened with that sergeant White.
Sherman filled me in.
Why don't you tell the truth? Because Vera and them are walking around thinking you're something you're not.
Some thing? Like what? A slut? - Yeah, all right.
But you're not.
- Yeah.
I'm saying it'd be easier for you here if people knew the truth.
Every guy I've worked with, cops, you guys you guys mess around, you get around.
- You said it about yourself.
- I've made mistakes.
And whatever you did, no one gives you the up and down in the office, like you don't deserve to be here.
No one thinks that about you.
You don't have to make a presentation about personal stuff.
None of you guys do.
Why should I? It could help you.
I'm not helping myself that way.
- Jo, let me drive you.
- I'm walking.
Otis, your dad may have thought your mother was having an affair with a hospital orderly, a young black guy.
A couple of obvious problems there.
No way.
My mom was nuts about my dad.
She loved him like crazy.
Like crazy.
Your mother took good care of that cowboy you gave her.
Everyone we talked to mentions her having it around all the time.
I gave it to her to protect her.
Maybe this is why mom says you have trouble showing your feelings.
- Because of losing grandma.
- Great.
You two analyzing me.
Otis, did your dad ever show any violent tendencies? Any temper problems? My father wouldn't have lost his head about some orderly, no.
How do you know? Because by then, my dad knew he had to move on from my mom.
Otis asked me when you're coming home.
I don't want to lie to him anymore.
Then tell the hospital it's time for me to go.
- You're not better.
- They said they'd cure me.
Doctor said it's manic depression.
- There is no cure.
- Not yet.
You don't know what they'll come up with next.
- What do me and Otis do until then? - Put up with me? - You almost killed our son in a fire.
- I'm sorry.
What is it, Terrence? I met a lady at church.
Look, I've got to make a good home for Otis.
- I can't raise him on my own.
- We're being punished.
Me and the girls for something I did in art class.
Terrence, I don't think I'll survive it if I don't have Otis to come home to.
You're not good for him, Bettie.
You can't.
I guess I'm no good to him sick.
And there's no cure for that.
I want Otis to have the best life there is.
Promise.
Promise me straight from the heart, Terrence.
He'll get the best.
I promise, Bettie.
All right.
Otis, let's go.
That's okay, little man, you can take him.
You give him to me next time, mom.
I love you.
Won't you hug your old mom? What was she being punished for? - I don't know.
- Otis, when was this? - Right before Christmas.
- Right before your mom died, right? Bettie said it was she and the girls.
Maybe Zelda knows who was being punished and why.
We heard Bettie and her friends were punished by the hospital right around Christmas.
Something involving art class? - That something involve you? - Yeah, it usually did.
You're talking about Bettie's big idea.
What do you mean? You see, Bettie had this wacky idea that we needed some culture for our brains, and that Carmen would be the one supplying it vis-a-vis art class.
So, Carmen, the rich one, she was the art teacher? But it was Bettie that got her heart set on making this a real class.
- Real, huh? - Yeah.
And, uh, that's how Carmen got ruined.
I need to stop giggling.
This place echoes like a church.
I'm ready.
Consider me an artiste.
Okay, we've been talking about the human form.
Last time we did line drawings of each other's faces.
Bettie did a very beautiful drawing of Annie.
Tonight we move on to the body.
Depicting the nude is an ancient tradition in art.
Where artists sought to depict a more idealized human form.
I'll say.
Betty, you're a genius.
It is said Michelangelo believed that the figure of David already existed inside the block of stone he was carving.
And that his art would merely set David free.
Carmen, I think we're ready to be set free.
I think I'll faint.
- Carmen! - Oh, bones, just take a deep breath.
No.
This is absolutely forbidden.
Absolutely against the Holy Moses.
Mr.
De La Rosa.
Say good-bye, Carmen.
This was your last chance.
- No.
It was my idea.
It was Carmen's last chance for what? It was after that, that the hospital and her family decided it was time for Carmen to have her lobotomy.
Because of the art class? The nude black man pushed them over the edge.
How'd Carmen feel about getting the The old ice pick through the eye? What do you think? It was the end of her world.
So this is how it is now? What? - You work with someone, you need eye contact.
It's your own business.
You're right.
- Thanks.
- I didn't mean to make you upset.
- All right.
As far as you being part of things here, you've been real good.
Everyone sees you pulling your weight.
I'm trying.
Okay.
It's peace? Okay.
Peace.
- I can't do this.
- No, I know.
- I can't afford it.
- Me neither.
So don't look at me like that.
I won't.
Stand aside.
Done and done.
Hospital records say Carmen went in for the lobotomy, but never checked out.
I ran her name down every which way, no trace of her after that.
Here's why.
The old lady I brought Otis in to see, - she's Carmen Hays.
- Confirmed it from dental records.
- So Carmen stole Bettie's identity.
- But here's what's screwy.
Carmen's body? no trace of a lobotomy.
So she got out of it somehow.
Something interesting with Bettie's remains, though.
This bone was broken when Bettie's body was found in '54.
Autopsy report said that was cause of death, blunt force trauma.
But this break is clean.
Consistent with a surgical break.
Bettie's the one who had the lobotomy.
So Bettie goes under the knife, Carmen walks free using Bettie's name.
- How's this get past nurse Olsen? - The one-woman security check.
She would have known Carmen from Bettie.
She was in on it.
Nurse Olsen, let me ask you.
You notice anything different about Bettie Petrowski when you signed her out of the hospital? Different? - Like maybe she's not the same person she used to be? Like maybe she's Carmen? Look, you know what we're talking about.
No one checked in or out of that hospital without going through you.
- That's true.
- And Bettie Petrowski checked out.
Only it was really carmen.
You helped her escape with Bettie's name.
Why would I do that? The Hays family was flush.
Carmen would have compensated you nicely.
I did not do anything for Carmen.
Then how do you explain her getting out and Bettie getting her lobotomy? You put your professional opinion aside, and gave Carmen what she paid you for.
You're wrong.
It was my decision as a medical professional.
To lobotomize Bettie? You have to understand.
At the time we thought it was the cure.
- Absolutely not, Bettie.
- Wait.
Hear me out.
I told her you'd never do it, Bettie.
Just stop.
- No.
I won't! Dr.
Freeman is the foremost lobotomist in the country.
He is only in Philadelphia twice a year.
I'm saying Carmen doesn't want it, but I do.
Let him take me.
I'm the one who needs to be cured.
There's nothing wrong with Carmen.
You are not a doctor, Bettie.
Carmen's only problem is she's trapped here by her family and can't show the world her art.
Wouldn't you like that, Carmen? - I don't need to be famous.
- But you need to be free.
And the world needs you.
How many people can make pictures like yours? I don't feel right about this, Bettie.
This is harebrained, isn't it? No.
I've read it.
Lobotomy's meant to even out your moods.
That's what I need, so I can see my Otis again.
Please.
Nurse, you said Dr.
Freeman's the best.
- He is.
This is my last chance.
If I wait, Otis'll be moved on with another mother, a lady from church.
And I'll have to let him go.
All I want to do is paint.
All I want is Otis.
I'm sure.
Something in your plan didn't go right, because Bettie never saw Otis again.
- The snowstorm ruined our plan.
- How? Roads were closed.
So instead of Bettie going to the private hospital that Carmen had paid for, she was brought back to city asylum after the lobotomy.
That's when Dr.
Paquette got involved.
The head of the hospital? What did he do? To protect the hospital and his reputation he he made Anton clean up my mess.
Anton.
Did Dr.
Paquette tell you to kill Bettie Petrowski? - I don't remember that.
- You were her friend, Anton.
You cared about her.
Don't tell me this doesn't eat at you.
He said to get rid of her.
Said nobody would miss her, anyhow.
Otis missed her.
I thought I could save myself and my little sisters.
But I made a bargain with the devil that day.
What happened? - He told me he'd use the art class against me turn it into a sexual allegation.
If I went to jail, there'd be nobody to take care of my sisters.
- Where'd you take her? - She was like a child.
Couldn't fend for herself.
I put her in my truck.
She couldn't understand where we were going.
I don't know if Otis still remembers this, but I always thought it should go back to him some way.
What'd you do with her, Anton? I tried to be merciful.
It's all right, Bettie.
Isn't it beautiful outside? It's not so bad.
Not so bad.
The park? That's the park.
Otis All right, Bettie.
Remember when you and Otis went to the park? And it started to rain? Everybody else wanted to go to their car, but not Otis.
You want to go on down there? - Go on out to the swings? - Yes.
Okay.
It was springtime, Bettie, remember? It was a warm rain.
Just like now.
So you won't be cold.
Go ahead now.