The Glades s04e08 Episode Script
Three's Company
Here, baby.
Hold that.
Okay.
You sure this is okay? I mean, there's not, like, an alarm or something? No.
This house has been on the market for weeks.
That relator gave me the key to the lockbox 'cause I said I wanted to see what the neighborhood looked like at night.
Get over here.
Mm.
Go turn on the light.
What? I want to look at you.
Somebody might see us.
Look out there.
There's nothing but lawn and lake.
Are you sure that there's nobody here? There's nobody here.
Holy Mm.
Hello? Okay.
All right.
Just slow down.
Um, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain? Is it Jeff? All right, just stay very still.
No sudden movements, and I'm on my way.
You're on your way? Darius is in severe pain.
Okay, well, he should call his team doctor or, better yet, an emergency room.
And have half the hospital blogging about it? He's not gonna do that.
But he can call you at 4:00 in the morning and you're out of bed? It's 4:30 in the morning, and he's in a lot of pain.
I could hear it in his voice.
I hope it's not an infection from the cortisone shot I gave him.
Well, I doubt you jumping every time Darius Locke calls is going to do either one of you any good.
Or you mean you? Because I'm fine with it.
I have a patient in need, Jim, and I'm gonna be a doctor some day, so you're gonna have to get used to interruptions in the middle of the night.
God knows I have.
What's that supposed to mean? Hey, Colleen.
The young couple that found the body were interviewed and cleared.
They were, uh, planning on taking the bedroom for a test drive.
I'm not sure if they'll ever have sex again.
Well, bloody crime scenes do tend to dampen the mood, and not the kind of staging that moves inventory.
Victim's name is Mitch Buckner.
Found his wallet and his cellphone in his pocket.
from Coral Springs.
Liver temp puts time of death at approximately 9:00 last night.
Time of death courtesy to a smack upside the back of the head? Most likely with the iron base of this lamp, but I'll need to get him on the table to confirm.
It also looks like someone wiped it clean of any prints.
He also has a bruise on his jaw, right below his eye, but from the advanced discoloration, I'd say it's at least two days.
I just spoke to the listing agent.
She said the house has been in the market for two months and confirmed our victim had been to see the house - on several occasions.
- How several? Four times that she knows of.
She gave him a code to the lockbox weeks ago.
Pretty customary for serious buyers who want to see what the neighborhood looks like at night.
You know, loud music, barking dogs.
Dead neighbors? Was Mitch a serious buyer? The relator was thinking he might be ready to make an offer.
But nothing yet? No, and she's had plenty of traffic.
She was hoping to get competing offers over the next few weeks.
I asked her to send over the sign-in sheets from the open houses to see if they provide any insight.
Five bedrooms, four bath, lakefront.
New kitchen, appliances.
Ooh, very priced to sell.
Looks like Mitch decided that the only way he was gonna lose this house was over his dead body.
A joint infection? That doesn't sound so bad.
Yeah, except if left untreated, it could lead to permanent loss of function.
Well you treated it right away.
Thank God.
I mean, it must have been from the cortisone injection I gave him a couple of weeks ago.
I'm just glad he called when he did.
Yeah, it could have waited till morning.
Yeah, it was morning.
No, I mean morning-morning.
Not middle-of-the-night morning.
Really, Jim? I know you're tired.
I'm tired, too, but I don't bitch every time Carlos calls in the middle of the night saying he's got some dead roller-skating mermaid or whatever.
We can talk about this later.
Yeah.
Let's do that.
And now I really have to go, so, um, love you.
Bye.
Oh.
- What? - Nothing.
I just thought you might be hungry, that's all.
You always do make a great breakfast.
And I know what that look was for.
And, yes, couples fight.
Doesn't mean anything.
But sometimes it does, dad.
Jimmy, your mother and I are just fine.
Does mom know you guys are fine? Look.
You know the key to any fight is to let go.
But what are you gonna do? Are you gonna hate the woman that you love for the rest of your life? No, eventually both of you are gonna let go and you're gonna move on anyway, so Okay, a disagreement on a phone call is hardly the same as you guys fighting, because you broke your promise to retire at the end of the year.
We're not fighting.
We just have different timelines in mind.
Son, I put 30 years into my business contacts down in Brazil, and now they've landed the Olympics.
I mean, they are literally printing money to make over the city and your mother knows me well enough to know that I can't just walk away from all that.
All right, look.
I'm gonna answer some e-mails, jump in the shower.
Maybe you can bust out a little bit early, we can get a few holes in? No golf for the weary, dad.
I got a murder to solve.
Excuses, excuses.
Nice! I keep threatening to turn our den into a home office.
- Home office, Carlos? - Mm-hmm.
What, are you gonna be doing autopsies on Marisol's kitchen island? Are you kidding? Half my work is answering e-mails and filing reports.
People don't realize the amount of paperwork that lands on the desk of a chief medical examiner.
Which obviously you wouldn't hate landing on a desk like this.
Our victim was organized.
I'll give him that.
You know, if the altercation that gave him the bruising happened here in this house and not at a crime scene, I'm not seeing any evidence of it.
Well, no, not sitting there drooling over his sweet home office.
As in that As in evidence that an altercation did happen in this office.
Are you you treating me like that just because your dad's in town? Well, not just 'cause my dad's in town, but he does seem to bring out the not-so-best in me.
And maybe our victim brought out the not-so-best in someone else, as in someone being thrown into this bookcase.
That looks like blood.
Yeah, that is blood.
Might explain the older bruises on our victim's jaw.
So, maybe round one happened here in the office and round two at the crime scene.
Oh, these must be client files.
Was our victim a financial planner? According to Manus.
He must have been doing all right if he could afford this place and a second home on a lake.
Yeah.
Detective, I have just gotten Mitch's phone records.
His last call was to someone named Cindy Pavlin, and she's also his most frequently called number.
She owns a jet-ski rental place on Lake Okeechobee.
Great.
Send me the address.
And in the mean time, want to go through all our victim's client files? Maybe someone filed a complaint directly to his head.
Then Lucy will take you down and get you started.
Hi, there.
Can I show you a jet ski or maybe a boat? Oh, that does sound great, but ugh unfortunately, I'm here on business.
Mitch Buckner was murdered last night.
Oh, my God.
I know.
I just heard.
What happened? He was bludgeoned to death by a lamp to the back of the head.
The rest we're sorting out, starting with people he knew, like you, the last and most frequent caller on his phone.
At least he spoke to someone who cared about him before he died.
Uh, someone who cared about him? So, you've known him for awhile? How long we knew each other is not as important as how deeply we cared about each other.
Which is a lot, I take it, by all that.
We were engaged to be married about three years ago.
But didn't go through with it? He broke it off.
Oh, well, that had to suck.
Any particular reason? All the usual ones, I guess.
We just wanted different things.
Which takes me back to those late-night chats.
Why were you chatting with someone who broke off your engagement? Mitch was looking to buy a house around here.
Reached out and asked for my help.
I think it was just his way of reconnecting.
Or maybe your way of paying him back for dumping you.
Forgiveness is the key to making deeper connections in life, detective.
Otherwise your resentments destroy you from within.
I don't believe in holding grudges.
But maybe you know someone who did? Well, Mitch was a financial planner, and the economy hasn't exactly been answering people's prayers lately.
Maybe one of his clients took it out on him.
Possibly, although the broken heart is a much better motive, so I'll be in touch.
Oh, and in the meantime, don't jet-ski out of town.
I can confirm cause of death as blunt force trauma and the lamp as the murder weapon.
The lamp's base had trace blood and hair that matches the victim.
The scene techs dusted the rest of the house for prints, but the house has been on the market for two months, so any prints we get are somewhat useless.
Anything somewhat useful from the sweet home office? The blood that we found on the bookcase at Mitch's house It's not Mitch's.
So, maybe the killer left us a little gift, assuming, of course, that the fight at Mitch's house featured the same contenders as the fight at the crime scene.
Detective.
I'm still going through Mitch Buckner's financials, but something popped out at me that you should know.
Mitch had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in regards to his mother's recent death during surgery.
Wow.
Guy had a rough year.
Did it ever go beyond filing? As in to trial or settlement? Nothing of public record because of privacy laws.
I've asked Manus for a subpoena.
I did get the sign-in sheets from the relator.
Mitch had been to see the house twice in the last two weeks and both times signed in at the same time as someone named George Stavros.
Maybe he was his broker.
The relator didn't think so, said Mitch was a walk-in and didn't have a broker.
I got his driver's license from the DMV.
He lives in Belle Glade.
Excellent.
I'm looking for George Stavros.
No, I'm Ian, and I'm running late for work.
Okay.
Well, is he here? I need to talk to him.
He's indisposed at the moment.
What's this about? Uh oh.
The murder of Mitch Buckner.
So, let's get him out-disposed, huh? Thank you.
Nice place.
You and George roommates? There are three of us.
George.
Kind of a bad time right now, Ian.
Sweetie, you and I have the whole day tomorrow to be together.
Yeah, it's not about that.
There's a detective here who wants to talk to George.
Can he give us a minute? No.
He can't.
Sorry.
We were just, uh.
Is this about Mitch? Among other things.
Practicing polyamorist? As in As in George, Ian, and I are in a closed polyamorous relationship.
A threesome.
Not a threesome.
But the three of you are in a relationship.
But not a sexual relationship.
I mean, I have sex with Cindy - So I heard.
- But not with Ian.
- And I have sex with Ian and George.
- But not at the same time.
We each have our own days together.
And all love each other, and are in a committed, sexual relationship.
Okay, you had me till that one.
It's called a vee, detective.
I'm the pivot, which means I have a sexual relationship with both Ian and George, but their relationship to each other is platonic.
We call them metamours.
- "Meta"? - The "closed" part means that we don't have sex outside the vee.
And a triad would be Oh, no.
I get the picture.
"Um, so, would this have anything to do with why Mitch broke off the engagement," he said rhetorically.
As in something you failed to mention to me earlier.
By that I mean a lie.
I didn't lie.
It's just complicated.
And my engagement to Mitch was before I even met George or Ian.
In fact, I met George through Mitch.
I was a client.
And Ian and Mitch have been members of the same golf and tennis club for years.
It's okay, detective.
A lot of people find the poly lifestyle a little confusing.
No, no, that's not why I'm confused.
I'm confused why you're confused why I think that one of you killed Mitch Buckner.
That's ridiculous.
Why would we kill someone we were discussing bringing into our union? Oh, you were thinking of adding a fourth? Which would make you what, a "W"? Make fun all you want, detective.
But the fact is, I never stopped loving Mitch and was thrilled when he came around.
He said that if George and Ian were a package deal - So to speak - Then Mitch was open to it.
So, as a family, George, Ian, and I were discussing it.
Which included discussing new living arrangements.
Okay.
So where were you two last night? I was here having dinner with Cindy.
And I was here having dinner with George.
Well, that's all very convenient.
Where was Ian? Ian was in surgery.
Oh, was he thinking about getting one of you two removed? No.
Ian is a surgeon.
George Stavros is a Professor with a PhD in psychology.
He's also a published author, who literally wrote the book on polyamory.
"Fifty shades of just shoot me"? It's a technical guide to polyfidelitous relationships.
Did you know that a candaulist enjoys watching their spouse have sexual relations with another person? It's called compersion.
And when that person's part of an established relationship, the two partners who do not have sex - Are called metamours.
- Right.
Oh, and director Manus got that subpoena, so I looked into the wrongful-death lawsuit of our victim's mother.
You'll never guess who the defendant was.
Okay, you know when you say it like that I'm going to know the answer.
Of course, seeing as you asked me to look into their third roommate, Dr.
Ian Conners.
He's the cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the surgery.
Better known as the man who killed Mitch Buckner's mother.
Mm-hmm.
It was an aortic dissection, which is a very complicated surgery.
It's terrible to lose any patient, but the mortality and morbidity conference found no negligence.
Well, obviously that wasn't good enough for Mitch.
And who came blame him, you know? Doctors policing other doctors.
Like police and Internal Affairs? Good point.
Look all surgeries carry risk, detective.
Eleanor Buckner knew that.
She could barely get out of bed.
This surgery was her one shot at a better life.
And now she has no life.
She was 82, and I did the best I could.
You try to help people and this is the thanks you get.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Maybe you punished Mitch by giving him a lamp to the back of the head.
Please.
If I killed every person who ever filed a malpractice lawsuit against me, I'd be Ted Bundy.
Yeah, but this wasn't every person.
This was a candidate to turn your vee into a "W.
" Oh, I admit discussions about bringing someone into our family who had once filed a lawsuit against me made things a little awkward.
Oh, you discussed your discussions.
I mean, who wouldn't be sad at the loss of a family member? Mitch was grieving, and my heart went out to him.
In a relationship like ours, if something's important to one of us, it's important to all of us.
Did you, uh Oh.
So, you were okay with a guy who was threatening your career joining your consonant? Let's just say I was letting it play out.
So, where were you letting it play out last night? I was performing a transmyocardial revascularization.
And unfortunately for you, only eight critical-care staff, my patient, and her very grateful family can attest to that.
I save people, detective.
I don't kill them.
Well, tell that to Mitch's mother.
Thank you.
That's Christ the redeemer, probably their most famous statue, on Corcovado Mountain.
It has the most amazing views of the entire city up there.
It's gorgeous.
Who's that? That's my friend, Avelina.
She's beautiful.
She works for city planning in Rio.
She's made our life so much easier doing business down there.
I mean, 20 years, it's pretty hard to not get involved in each other's lives, right? That's her daughter, Vitoria.
Looks exactly like her mother.
Sorry I'm late.
Oh, there he is.
Hey.
You ready for a beer? Oh, I'm not quite off the clock yet.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Your dad was just showing me some pictures from Rio.
You should take a look at them Ah, he's seen them all before.
Any illusion of my high-flying international lifestyle went out the window years ago.
His mother keeps me plenty grounded.
Oh.
Which is where my low-flying job usually keeps me.
Colleen? I've gone through all of Mitch's financials.
The guy was on the verge of being totally tapped out.
He lost a not-so-small fortune on one big foreign investment.
Took most of his clients down with him.
Including any of our suspects? Neither Cindy nor Ian invested, but his house-shopping buddy George gave Mitch everything that wasn't nailed down.
Wow I guess being an expert in polyamory doesn't translate into playing the stock market.
Also, a thorough analysis of the blood that we found in Mitch's den revealed the trait for thalassemia.
Thala-what? It's a rare blood disorder, um, similar to sickle cell anemia.
It's mostly found in people of mediterranean descent.
And guess whose medical records revealed traits for thalassemia? Your favorite Greek metamour and mine, George Stavros.
For those of you who are new to our community, this handfasting takes the place of traditional marriage ceremonies.
Since the law does not recognize our commitments, we take this sacred responsibility into our own hands.
And, so, gathered friends, do you, Larry, and you, Emilio, and you, Curtis, and you, Catherine, and you, Jillian, and you, Aurora, and you, Justin, promise to love, honor, and respect each other, today and for all of your tomorrows, for as long as your love shall last? I do.
Please join hands.
You should join your hands together, too, George.
So I can put these on them.
You're wrong detective.
I didn't get mad when Mitch lost my investment, - and I certainly didn't kill him.
- Really? He lost your entire nest egg and that didn't piss you off? Not enough to kill him.
But enough to leave blood in his sweet home office.
From that swing you took to his jaw, left a nasty bruise on his face, and this on you.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
I-I lost my temper.
He told me my investment took a hit, but I didn't know the entire thing was gone until I got my statement on Tuesday.
So you punched him on Tuesday, killed him on Wednesday.
I blew a fuse, but that is all.
Look, I have anger issues, which I am dealing with.
Embracing the poly lifestyle has really helped me understand my feelings.
Now, when I calmed down, Mitch reminded me that investing is speculative.
And when he told me that he lost his investment, too, I couldn't really blame him.
We had good dialogue and left as friends.
But losing a six-figure nest egg is still a great motive for murder.
I'm hardly destitute.
And I make a good salary.
And, actually, there was about to be more than enough to go around.
Meaning what? Meaning Cindy's aunt just passed away and left her a couple million dollars.
That's why we were house shopping.
We need a bigger place.
And what's Cindy's belongs to the three of you.
But then Mitch comes along, wants his piece of the pie, so to speak.
And you didn't want the family getting any bigger.
Well, as a matter of fact, detective, that was the whole point.
Cindy wants a baby.
Desperately.
It's the one part of her life that's missing.
And I can't give her one.
Because of your thalassemia.
I just can't risk bringing a child into this world to suffer like my sister.
And Dr.
Ian isn't interested in changing baby diapers.
He says he doesn't want children because in his line of work he sees too much pain and suffering.
Well, God knows he's caused enough of it.
But that does leave one metamour still in the "baby makes five" mix.
I went back through Mitch's computer like you asked me to.
I found a file called "C.
P.
" Cindy Pavlin, his ex-fiancée.
When I opened it, I found this calendar.
It has different little symbols on certain days.
A heart there on the 14th, a half-moon on the 29th.
But I'm not sure what they mean.
Hello? Ovulation? The best time to conceive.
As in, you were right about Cindy breaking the rule of their "closed marriage" if she and Mitch are tracking her cycle.
George said she was desperate to have a baby.
There's also this letter in Mitch's files addressed to Cindy.
It was sent three months ago.
Right about the time when Mitch reappeared in Cindy's life.
It's from the attorney who represented Cindy's Aunt Marilyn.
The letter was sent to Mitch's house because that was their last known address for Cindy.
That's when Cindy and Mitch were engaged and living together.
Apparently, Mitch knew about her inheritance before she did.
And at her request, e-mailed her a PDF of the letter.
So she's doing Mitch behind George and Ian's back, and then finds out that metamour-to-be Mitch knew about her millions all along? That had to piss her off.
Fine.
Mitch and I had already begun to express our love physically.
You sleeping with Mitch before Bert and Ernie signed off That's a clear violation of your meta-rules.
Do you honestly think I would kill the man I was trying to conceive a baby with? Honestly, it's not unheard of.
Especially after you heard from your Aunt Marilyn's lawyer.
Who'd been trying to track you down for months, which Mitch knew but failed to mention to you.
That seems pretty suspicious enough to murder someone to me.
Look.
I am not getting any younger.
And I am not naive enough to think I'm gonna get pregnant on the first try.
Not at my age, anyway.
So, we started trying.
Practice makes perfect.
My biological clock is ticking up a storm, and Mitch was giving me the ultimate gift.
Yes, I was a little surprised that he knew about the money, but once he joined the family it would be his as much as ours, anyway.
Why kill him to prevent something that I wanted to happen? But Ian and George still had a vote.
So, it was far from a sure thing.
George and Ian want me to be happy, and a baby is the only thing that is missing for me right now.
But George won't risk it, and Ian doesn't feel like he'd make a good parent.
His job is very last minute and way too demanding.
Last minute? We were all gonna get together tonight, have dinner and discuss our loss, but he got called in for another mortality and morbidity conference.
He lost someone else on his table? Maybe this guy really is Ted Bundy.
Okay, so this mortality and morbidity conference You know where that's at? I really couldn't say.
He has surgical privileges all over Palm Glade County.
Hmm.
Ian Conners? Yeah.
C-o-n-n E-r-s, thanks.
Darius signed the consent form? - I thought he refused? - He did refuse.
Until he realized he could trust me because I went over there the other night.
Touché.
And I know after my dad showed you those pictures last night, why you say you're concerned about all the time he spends down in Brazil.
But mom and dad have been fighting about this for years.
There's nothing new about it.
- So she knows everything? - Everything.
And everyone? Wait.
I'm not saying that there's anything inappropriate going on, I'm just saying that he is awfully close to a woman named Avelina.
Oh, Avelina.
Yeah, we know.
She works for city planning down there.
My dad has done business with her for years.
That's who you're worried about.
No, she's like my dad's work-wife.
You know, he has Avelina.
I have Carlos.
Trust me, a work-wife can be just as threatening to a marriage if she's getting all the good stuff and the real wife is getting the table scraps.
Just a little heads-up.
And I'm not so sure it's work that your dad's having such a hard time giving up.
Okay, here it is.
Dr.
Ian Conners.
He does have surgical privileges here, but there's no M & M scheduled for today.
And according to this, Dr.
Conners hasn't been at well-core for almost two weeks.
This is his contact information? Yeah, his cellphone, address, e-mail Dr.
Conners lives in Belle Glade.
Not according to this.
He lives in West Palm Beach.
What is this guy not lying about? Just a sec.
How much do I owe you? $25.
50.
I gave the kid a nice tip.
Why are you eating my pizza? Well, first of all, I was starving.
And, second, since you're late for your mortality and morbidity conference I thought I'd give you a little help.
You know, the one that you lied to Cindy about so you wouldn't have to go to dinner to discuss the death of Mitch Buckner.
She must have misunderstood me.
You know, I've got to tell you, Ian, for such an open and honest relationship, you poly types sure do keep a lot of secrets from each other.
That is a nice view.
Can I have some water? Okay.
I get it.
Oh, I don't mean I get how you can take another man's life.
No.
I meant this.
The view.
The quiet.
Spoils of all your years of hard work and med school, huh? Can I get that water? It's just a condo, detective.
A secret condo that your life partners and best friends Cindy and George don't know about.
Thank you.
The polyamory thing only works for you just so far, doesn't it? You like that Cindy only wants what you can give and George takes up the slack.
It's not a crime to want some peace and quiet every now and then.
They're great, but they have to talk everything into the ground.
I did notice that, yeah.
So I have my hideaway.
No harm done.
Certainly doesn't mean I killed Mitch Buckner.
Huh.
You want a family but you don't want kids.
You want partners to love.
But when they won't shut up, you just leave.
Ho, ho! And when another metamour comes along with his eager sperm, and threatens your perfect world, well, then you kill him.
Something you're already pretty good at.
I get it.
Okay.
I'm the surgeon, the one with the God complex, right? I mean, I've heard that my entire career.
But not all surgeons are egomaniacal, detective.
Some of us actually take death hard.
Especially when that loss hurts someone we love.
Like Cindy.
I admit I had to dig down deep, but she really did love Mitch and she wanted to have his baby.
And while I'm not anyone's idea of good parenting material, I wanted her to be happy.
And if that meant accepting Mitch into our union, then I was willing to discuss and consider it.
But it was far beyond the discussion stage, wasn't it? I mean, Mitch and Cindy were right into the baby-making process.
Well, if they were, I'm obviously in no position to judge.
And it was George who was convinced that Cindy and Mitch were trying to conceive without our consent.
No, it's interesting just how quickly your love for your fellow metamour can go out the window when you're trying to deflect the suspicion off yourself.
I mean, it's not very poly of you.
But it is very killer.
I didn't kill Mitch.
Look the last thing I want to do is throw suspicion on someone in my family.
But you're going to anyway, aren't you? George left three voice-mails the night of the murder, working himself up into a rage about them cheating.
This was the last one.
I'm telling you, Ian, they're already doing it! I know they are! We have frigging rules for a frigging reason! If I find out he's already sticking it to her, I swear, I'll use more than my fists this time! So, you bust the guy's jaw for losing your money.
And then the next day you're threatening to kill him for sleeping with Cindy outside the arrangement.
And seeing as Mitch is dead, I'm going with you carried out your threat.
I don't expect you to understand.
But those rules exist for a reason.
Trust is the life blood of any polyamorous union.
It's what separates us from the cancerous jealousies of so-called monogamous relationships, and is the only way one can truly love freely.
And with your anger issues, it's those rules that separate you from beating someone to death.
Obviously I lost my temper.
But Ian called me back, and he talked me off the ledge.
Cindy wants a baby, and she's not getting any younger.
Our hesitations, they're not just theoretical for her.
They could mean the difference between success and failure.
And if success meant that Mitch joined your merry little band, well, then, you prefer failure.
Of the long-term-solution kind.
That's ridiculous.
There's a rational solution to every conflict, and it usually relies on open communication.
So, I went home to talk it out with Cindy.
And that failed, too.
No.
I mean it never happened.
Waited for her there all night.
She didn't show up until after 10:00.
Well, it is about that time.
That the three of you start turning on each other.
I am not turning on Cindy.
You said you were at home together having dinner that night Mitch was killed.
But you were just protecting her, weren't you? 'Cause the fact of the matter is you don't know where she was or what she was doing.
Now, in poly cop language, we call that obstruction of justice.
We might even call that accessory after the fact.
I'm not looking for trouble.
Don't you think it's weird that Darius, after basically telling me to shove it, just hands over his entire medical history? Well, maybe it's like you said.
You helped him out and now he trusts you.
I just asked for a signed consent form so I could consult his team doctor.
This gives me access to everything.
Is that something to worry about? I just don't know why he's sharing it with me now.
He already conned me out of a cortisone injection.
Well, maybe he knows he's playing with fire and he wants you to call him out on it.
Some people need to be reminded there are consequences to their actions.
Maybe.
I just think the timing's weird.
Mm, timing's always weird.
- Talk to you later? - Yeah.
Obviously, I got a lot to think about.
And you do, too.
But I can't do it right now.
I got to go, okay? Talk to you.
Bye.
You called your mother.
I didn't know calling mom to say hi would be such a problem for you, dad.
It's not a problem.
It's just she and I trying to work things out and Oh, yeah.
You're working it out.
What is that supposed to mean? Because it looks a lot more like you're just waiting for mom to get over it.
Like she's been doing for the past 42 years.
You know it's not the work you're finding hard to give up, is it? It's it's everything.
It's all of it.
All that time you spend down there in South America and all of your friends.
Avelina.
Jimmy.
Nothing is going on between me and Avelina.
I-I would never cheat on your mother.
You have a whole life down there that doesn't include her, dad.
Oh, but you know mom.
She just she doesn't complain.
She doesn't even say a word.
She just rolls with it.
Because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, she knows it's just gonna be the two of you together.
You don't have to cheat on mom to cheat her out of what she deserves, dad.
She's ready to have you all to herself.
First time I've seen your dad at a loss for words.
Yeah, trust me.
It won't last.
What's up? Uh, Mitch's full labs are back.
He had a very high white-blood-cell count, stemming from epididymitis, which comes from an enlarged prostate gland.
And after everything I know about these people, I had a hunch and I was right.
Mitch had a vasectomy done three months ago.
Right around the same time he shows up back in Cindy's life, neglecting to mention the inheritance.
I got in touch with the urologist who performed the surgery.
She told me I was the second person to call about this same patient this week.
The second? She sent an e-mail confirmation of the procedure to Dr.
Ian Conners' wife, who said she was also his physician's assistant, sent from Cindy Pavlin's e-mail account.
Mrs.
Conners probably thought it was too complicated to explain who she really was.
Or why she wanted to know.
I went through Cindy's e-mails and found the e-mail and PDF file delivered the day of the murder.
I'd call that a smoking gun.
And there was something else.
Last week, Cindy downloaded a marriage application from the city-hall website.
Oh.
Lucky she wasn't really Mrs.
Conners, 'cause that would be bigamy.
So Mitch shows up, after three months, suddenly open to everything, which makes you happy because you never stopped loving Mitch or anyone, that I can see.
My open lifestyle is not a joke, detective.
At least not until you need to close it Like the traditional marriage license that you applied for to be Mrs.
Mitch Buckner.
I We thought that maybe that's why I was having trouble conceiving.
And by "we," you mean Mitch, who, I'm guessing, implied that the problem was your lifestyle That a baby needed to be raised in a traditional home.
I was frustrated after a few months and I was willing to try anything.
So, you threw out everything that you believed in? Until you heard from your Aunt Marilyn's lawyer, found out that Mitch had known about the money all along.
He still loved me.
I'm thinking what he loved was the money you were about to inherit, which, I'm thinking, you were okay with, at least at first.
I mean, after all, he was gonna give you the gift of life.
Who cares if he was just motivated by money? You were going to get your baby.
Until you found out about this.
Committed fraud, actually, so that you could get a copy of Mitch's medical records.
Found out that he had a vasectomy three months ago.
Lied to you about the one thing that truly meant the most to you.
So, you killed the bastard.
I mean, hey, totally understandable, but unfortunately, totally illegal.
And totally wrong, detective.
Yes, okay.
Most of your story is true.
He was a bastard, and he only wanted my money.
And, yes, I was furious.
But I didn't kill him.
He wasn't worth it.
This is where I was that night.
Atlantic Coast Donor Clinic.
Third-party IVF reproduction.
I met with a counselor and gave blood, went through donor books prioritizing possible candidates.
I was there until 10:00 that night, which you are free to call and confirm.
Oh, believe me, I will.
Daniel? I just spoke with a representative at Atlantic Coast Donor Clinic who confirmed that Cindy Pavlin was with a donor counselor - the night of the murder.
- Thanks, Daniel.
Oh, and tell Carlos I'm about to send him a photo.
Tell him to look at it and get back to me? Will do.
Woman on Dr.
Nebel to oncology.
Dr.
Nebel, oncology.
Don't worry.
It's just me.
Your timing is extraordinary, detective.
Why, thank you.
I like yours, too.
I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a patient who's already gone under.
Yeah, I told the family to reschedule.
Which, after they realized just how close their sister came to being operated on by a cold-blooded killer I mean, they totally understood.
I mean, after all, you wouldn't want to cause any more pain and suffering, now, would you? You know, the kind that you can't leave at work? Always taking it home with you Well, one of your homes, at least.
Because as much as you like that quiet beach condo, you need Cindy and George to feel loved, don't you? To feel like a family? Which adding Mitch to the mix A guy that played by his own poly-rules and threatened to kill your career would ruin.
So, you ruined him.
This is ridiculous.
As I told you, I was in surgery that night.
Right.
The transmayo Transmyocardial revascularization.
Yes.
That's what I said.
Yeah, no.
A surgery that you did perform, according to your surgical transcripts, but timed it just right so that your staff could close for you, giving you more than enough time to lie in wait for Mitch, which, thanks to George's temper, you knew was not only banging your vee and threatening your perfect setup, but, um, was planning a late-night visit to that new house.
Okay, first of all, my staff always closes for me, and as for the rest of this nonsense Well, you simply have no proof.
Surgical tape that you used to cover the motion sensor so it wouldn't trigger the security light, which, in the rush of adrenaline, you left after you killed him, leaving a big, fat fingerprint.
On the bright side, where you're going you can have all the vees and Wâs you want and never, ever have to talk about your feelings.
Brings it across.
How is he still in the lead? Oh! Yeah, he should have dunked it.
Puts it back, drops it down.
Hey.
Hey.
I wasn't expecting you.
Did I forget something? No, actually you didn't forget anything.
Okay, well, you know, I figured if we were gonna do this right, you should have complete access to my medical records.
And I appreciate that.
I just want to make sure that you've really thought this through and you're sure about it.
Yeah, I told you, Callie.
I totally trust you.
And I'm flattered that you do, especially with something so important.
I-I promise I'll help you in any way that I can.
Can we talk somewhere in private? Uh, yeah.
Let's go outside.
Okay.
Stop shooting.
You can't continue on this path that you're on.
Your body can't take it.
What you're doing to buy yourself another season will eventually catch up to you.
And I don't want to see you risk permanent injury, Darius, so if that means leaving the game earlier than you wanted Yo, hold up.
Leave the game? Nobody's talking about leaving the game.
Well, I just meant I didn't give you access to my history for that.
I did that so you could know everything, 'cause I can't have another night of pain like I had the other night.
You're not just risking your health You're risking your life.
That's for me decide, Callie.
Now that I've shared my health history with you, I expect you to keep my confidentiality, all right? From the press, from the team doctors, and from doctor Hardy.
Are we clear? Hey, man! You're missing the game, man! I got to get back.
Maria will show you out.
Hard off the iron.
I don't understand why they're taking all these 3's.
They're up 10.
How's it going? I called your mother back.
Oh, good.
You were right about one thing I don't have to cheat on her to know that she's had enough.
can't trust me? Expects me to give up a a life and a friendship that I've had for 20 years.
I don't know what to say to that.
What did you say, dad? Your mother and I are calling it quits.
Hold that.
Okay.
You sure this is okay? I mean, there's not, like, an alarm or something? No.
This house has been on the market for weeks.
That relator gave me the key to the lockbox 'cause I said I wanted to see what the neighborhood looked like at night.
Get over here.
Mm.
Go turn on the light.
What? I want to look at you.
Somebody might see us.
Look out there.
There's nothing but lawn and lake.
Are you sure that there's nobody here? There's nobody here.
Holy Mm.
Hello? Okay.
All right.
Just slow down.
Um, on a scale of 1 to 10, how bad is the pain? Is it Jeff? All right, just stay very still.
No sudden movements, and I'm on my way.
You're on your way? Darius is in severe pain.
Okay, well, he should call his team doctor or, better yet, an emergency room.
And have half the hospital blogging about it? He's not gonna do that.
But he can call you at 4:00 in the morning and you're out of bed? It's 4:30 in the morning, and he's in a lot of pain.
I could hear it in his voice.
I hope it's not an infection from the cortisone shot I gave him.
Well, I doubt you jumping every time Darius Locke calls is going to do either one of you any good.
Or you mean you? Because I'm fine with it.
I have a patient in need, Jim, and I'm gonna be a doctor some day, so you're gonna have to get used to interruptions in the middle of the night.
God knows I have.
What's that supposed to mean? Hey, Colleen.
The young couple that found the body were interviewed and cleared.
They were, uh, planning on taking the bedroom for a test drive.
I'm not sure if they'll ever have sex again.
Well, bloody crime scenes do tend to dampen the mood, and not the kind of staging that moves inventory.
Victim's name is Mitch Buckner.
Found his wallet and his cellphone in his pocket.
from Coral Springs.
Liver temp puts time of death at approximately 9:00 last night.
Time of death courtesy to a smack upside the back of the head? Most likely with the iron base of this lamp, but I'll need to get him on the table to confirm.
It also looks like someone wiped it clean of any prints.
He also has a bruise on his jaw, right below his eye, but from the advanced discoloration, I'd say it's at least two days.
I just spoke to the listing agent.
She said the house has been in the market for two months and confirmed our victim had been to see the house - on several occasions.
- How several? Four times that she knows of.
She gave him a code to the lockbox weeks ago.
Pretty customary for serious buyers who want to see what the neighborhood looks like at night.
You know, loud music, barking dogs.
Dead neighbors? Was Mitch a serious buyer? The relator was thinking he might be ready to make an offer.
But nothing yet? No, and she's had plenty of traffic.
She was hoping to get competing offers over the next few weeks.
I asked her to send over the sign-in sheets from the open houses to see if they provide any insight.
Five bedrooms, four bath, lakefront.
New kitchen, appliances.
Ooh, very priced to sell.
Looks like Mitch decided that the only way he was gonna lose this house was over his dead body.
A joint infection? That doesn't sound so bad.
Yeah, except if left untreated, it could lead to permanent loss of function.
Well you treated it right away.
Thank God.
I mean, it must have been from the cortisone injection I gave him a couple of weeks ago.
I'm just glad he called when he did.
Yeah, it could have waited till morning.
Yeah, it was morning.
No, I mean morning-morning.
Not middle-of-the-night morning.
Really, Jim? I know you're tired.
I'm tired, too, but I don't bitch every time Carlos calls in the middle of the night saying he's got some dead roller-skating mermaid or whatever.
We can talk about this later.
Yeah.
Let's do that.
And now I really have to go, so, um, love you.
Bye.
Oh.
- What? - Nothing.
I just thought you might be hungry, that's all.
You always do make a great breakfast.
And I know what that look was for.
And, yes, couples fight.
Doesn't mean anything.
But sometimes it does, dad.
Jimmy, your mother and I are just fine.
Does mom know you guys are fine? Look.
You know the key to any fight is to let go.
But what are you gonna do? Are you gonna hate the woman that you love for the rest of your life? No, eventually both of you are gonna let go and you're gonna move on anyway, so Okay, a disagreement on a phone call is hardly the same as you guys fighting, because you broke your promise to retire at the end of the year.
We're not fighting.
We just have different timelines in mind.
Son, I put 30 years into my business contacts down in Brazil, and now they've landed the Olympics.
I mean, they are literally printing money to make over the city and your mother knows me well enough to know that I can't just walk away from all that.
All right, look.
I'm gonna answer some e-mails, jump in the shower.
Maybe you can bust out a little bit early, we can get a few holes in? No golf for the weary, dad.
I got a murder to solve.
Excuses, excuses.
Nice! I keep threatening to turn our den into a home office.
- Home office, Carlos? - Mm-hmm.
What, are you gonna be doing autopsies on Marisol's kitchen island? Are you kidding? Half my work is answering e-mails and filing reports.
People don't realize the amount of paperwork that lands on the desk of a chief medical examiner.
Which obviously you wouldn't hate landing on a desk like this.
Our victim was organized.
I'll give him that.
You know, if the altercation that gave him the bruising happened here in this house and not at a crime scene, I'm not seeing any evidence of it.
Well, no, not sitting there drooling over his sweet home office.
As in that As in evidence that an altercation did happen in this office.
Are you you treating me like that just because your dad's in town? Well, not just 'cause my dad's in town, but he does seem to bring out the not-so-best in me.
And maybe our victim brought out the not-so-best in someone else, as in someone being thrown into this bookcase.
That looks like blood.
Yeah, that is blood.
Might explain the older bruises on our victim's jaw.
So, maybe round one happened here in the office and round two at the crime scene.
Oh, these must be client files.
Was our victim a financial planner? According to Manus.
He must have been doing all right if he could afford this place and a second home on a lake.
Yeah.
Detective, I have just gotten Mitch's phone records.
His last call was to someone named Cindy Pavlin, and she's also his most frequently called number.
She owns a jet-ski rental place on Lake Okeechobee.
Great.
Send me the address.
And in the mean time, want to go through all our victim's client files? Maybe someone filed a complaint directly to his head.
Then Lucy will take you down and get you started.
Hi, there.
Can I show you a jet ski or maybe a boat? Oh, that does sound great, but ugh unfortunately, I'm here on business.
Mitch Buckner was murdered last night.
Oh, my God.
I know.
I just heard.
What happened? He was bludgeoned to death by a lamp to the back of the head.
The rest we're sorting out, starting with people he knew, like you, the last and most frequent caller on his phone.
At least he spoke to someone who cared about him before he died.
Uh, someone who cared about him? So, you've known him for awhile? How long we knew each other is not as important as how deeply we cared about each other.
Which is a lot, I take it, by all that.
We were engaged to be married about three years ago.
But didn't go through with it? He broke it off.
Oh, well, that had to suck.
Any particular reason? All the usual ones, I guess.
We just wanted different things.
Which takes me back to those late-night chats.
Why were you chatting with someone who broke off your engagement? Mitch was looking to buy a house around here.
Reached out and asked for my help.
I think it was just his way of reconnecting.
Or maybe your way of paying him back for dumping you.
Forgiveness is the key to making deeper connections in life, detective.
Otherwise your resentments destroy you from within.
I don't believe in holding grudges.
But maybe you know someone who did? Well, Mitch was a financial planner, and the economy hasn't exactly been answering people's prayers lately.
Maybe one of his clients took it out on him.
Possibly, although the broken heart is a much better motive, so I'll be in touch.
Oh, and in the meantime, don't jet-ski out of town.
I can confirm cause of death as blunt force trauma and the lamp as the murder weapon.
The lamp's base had trace blood and hair that matches the victim.
The scene techs dusted the rest of the house for prints, but the house has been on the market for two months, so any prints we get are somewhat useless.
Anything somewhat useful from the sweet home office? The blood that we found on the bookcase at Mitch's house It's not Mitch's.
So, maybe the killer left us a little gift, assuming, of course, that the fight at Mitch's house featured the same contenders as the fight at the crime scene.
Detective.
I'm still going through Mitch Buckner's financials, but something popped out at me that you should know.
Mitch had filed a wrongful-death lawsuit in regards to his mother's recent death during surgery.
Wow.
Guy had a rough year.
Did it ever go beyond filing? As in to trial or settlement? Nothing of public record because of privacy laws.
I've asked Manus for a subpoena.
I did get the sign-in sheets from the relator.
Mitch had been to see the house twice in the last two weeks and both times signed in at the same time as someone named George Stavros.
Maybe he was his broker.
The relator didn't think so, said Mitch was a walk-in and didn't have a broker.
I got his driver's license from the DMV.
He lives in Belle Glade.
Excellent.
I'm looking for George Stavros.
No, I'm Ian, and I'm running late for work.
Okay.
Well, is he here? I need to talk to him.
He's indisposed at the moment.
What's this about? Uh oh.
The murder of Mitch Buckner.
So, let's get him out-disposed, huh? Thank you.
Nice place.
You and George roommates? There are three of us.
George.
Kind of a bad time right now, Ian.
Sweetie, you and I have the whole day tomorrow to be together.
Yeah, it's not about that.
There's a detective here who wants to talk to George.
Can he give us a minute? No.
He can't.
Sorry.
We were just, uh.
Is this about Mitch? Among other things.
Practicing polyamorist? As in As in George, Ian, and I are in a closed polyamorous relationship.
A threesome.
Not a threesome.
But the three of you are in a relationship.
But not a sexual relationship.
I mean, I have sex with Cindy - So I heard.
- But not with Ian.
- And I have sex with Ian and George.
- But not at the same time.
We each have our own days together.
And all love each other, and are in a committed, sexual relationship.
Okay, you had me till that one.
It's called a vee, detective.
I'm the pivot, which means I have a sexual relationship with both Ian and George, but their relationship to each other is platonic.
We call them metamours.
- "Meta"? - The "closed" part means that we don't have sex outside the vee.
And a triad would be Oh, no.
I get the picture.
"Um, so, would this have anything to do with why Mitch broke off the engagement," he said rhetorically.
As in something you failed to mention to me earlier.
By that I mean a lie.
I didn't lie.
It's just complicated.
And my engagement to Mitch was before I even met George or Ian.
In fact, I met George through Mitch.
I was a client.
And Ian and Mitch have been members of the same golf and tennis club for years.
It's okay, detective.
A lot of people find the poly lifestyle a little confusing.
No, no, that's not why I'm confused.
I'm confused why you're confused why I think that one of you killed Mitch Buckner.
That's ridiculous.
Why would we kill someone we were discussing bringing into our union? Oh, you were thinking of adding a fourth? Which would make you what, a "W"? Make fun all you want, detective.
But the fact is, I never stopped loving Mitch and was thrilled when he came around.
He said that if George and Ian were a package deal - So to speak - Then Mitch was open to it.
So, as a family, George, Ian, and I were discussing it.
Which included discussing new living arrangements.
Okay.
So where were you two last night? I was here having dinner with Cindy.
And I was here having dinner with George.
Well, that's all very convenient.
Where was Ian? Ian was in surgery.
Oh, was he thinking about getting one of you two removed? No.
Ian is a surgeon.
George Stavros is a Professor with a PhD in psychology.
He's also a published author, who literally wrote the book on polyamory.
"Fifty shades of just shoot me"? It's a technical guide to polyfidelitous relationships.
Did you know that a candaulist enjoys watching their spouse have sexual relations with another person? It's called compersion.
And when that person's part of an established relationship, the two partners who do not have sex - Are called metamours.
- Right.
Oh, and director Manus got that subpoena, so I looked into the wrongful-death lawsuit of our victim's mother.
You'll never guess who the defendant was.
Okay, you know when you say it like that I'm going to know the answer.
Of course, seeing as you asked me to look into their third roommate, Dr.
Ian Conners.
He's the cardiothoracic surgeon who performed the surgery.
Better known as the man who killed Mitch Buckner's mother.
Mm-hmm.
It was an aortic dissection, which is a very complicated surgery.
It's terrible to lose any patient, but the mortality and morbidity conference found no negligence.
Well, obviously that wasn't good enough for Mitch.
And who came blame him, you know? Doctors policing other doctors.
Like police and Internal Affairs? Good point.
Look all surgeries carry risk, detective.
Eleanor Buckner knew that.
She could barely get out of bed.
This surgery was her one shot at a better life.
And now she has no life.
She was 82, and I did the best I could.
You try to help people and this is the thanks you get.
No good deed goes unpunished.
Maybe you punished Mitch by giving him a lamp to the back of the head.
Please.
If I killed every person who ever filed a malpractice lawsuit against me, I'd be Ted Bundy.
Yeah, but this wasn't every person.
This was a candidate to turn your vee into a "W.
" Oh, I admit discussions about bringing someone into our family who had once filed a lawsuit against me made things a little awkward.
Oh, you discussed your discussions.
I mean, who wouldn't be sad at the loss of a family member? Mitch was grieving, and my heart went out to him.
In a relationship like ours, if something's important to one of us, it's important to all of us.
Did you, uh Oh.
So, you were okay with a guy who was threatening your career joining your consonant? Let's just say I was letting it play out.
So, where were you letting it play out last night? I was performing a transmyocardial revascularization.
And unfortunately for you, only eight critical-care staff, my patient, and her very grateful family can attest to that.
I save people, detective.
I don't kill them.
Well, tell that to Mitch's mother.
Thank you.
That's Christ the redeemer, probably their most famous statue, on Corcovado Mountain.
It has the most amazing views of the entire city up there.
It's gorgeous.
Who's that? That's my friend, Avelina.
She's beautiful.
She works for city planning in Rio.
She's made our life so much easier doing business down there.
I mean, 20 years, it's pretty hard to not get involved in each other's lives, right? That's her daughter, Vitoria.
Looks exactly like her mother.
Sorry I'm late.
Oh, there he is.
Hey.
You ready for a beer? Oh, I'm not quite off the clock yet.
- Hey.
- Hey.
Your dad was just showing me some pictures from Rio.
You should take a look at them Ah, he's seen them all before.
Any illusion of my high-flying international lifestyle went out the window years ago.
His mother keeps me plenty grounded.
Oh.
Which is where my low-flying job usually keeps me.
Colleen? I've gone through all of Mitch's financials.
The guy was on the verge of being totally tapped out.
He lost a not-so-small fortune on one big foreign investment.
Took most of his clients down with him.
Including any of our suspects? Neither Cindy nor Ian invested, but his house-shopping buddy George gave Mitch everything that wasn't nailed down.
Wow I guess being an expert in polyamory doesn't translate into playing the stock market.
Also, a thorough analysis of the blood that we found in Mitch's den revealed the trait for thalassemia.
Thala-what? It's a rare blood disorder, um, similar to sickle cell anemia.
It's mostly found in people of mediterranean descent.
And guess whose medical records revealed traits for thalassemia? Your favorite Greek metamour and mine, George Stavros.
For those of you who are new to our community, this handfasting takes the place of traditional marriage ceremonies.
Since the law does not recognize our commitments, we take this sacred responsibility into our own hands.
And, so, gathered friends, do you, Larry, and you, Emilio, and you, Curtis, and you, Catherine, and you, Jillian, and you, Aurora, and you, Justin, promise to love, honor, and respect each other, today and for all of your tomorrows, for as long as your love shall last? I do.
Please join hands.
You should join your hands together, too, George.
So I can put these on them.
You're wrong detective.
I didn't get mad when Mitch lost my investment, - and I certainly didn't kill him.
- Really? He lost your entire nest egg and that didn't piss you off? Not enough to kill him.
But enough to leave blood in his sweet home office.
From that swing you took to his jaw, left a nasty bruise on his face, and this on you.
Yeah.
Yeah, okay.
I-I lost my temper.
He told me my investment took a hit, but I didn't know the entire thing was gone until I got my statement on Tuesday.
So you punched him on Tuesday, killed him on Wednesday.
I blew a fuse, but that is all.
Look, I have anger issues, which I am dealing with.
Embracing the poly lifestyle has really helped me understand my feelings.
Now, when I calmed down, Mitch reminded me that investing is speculative.
And when he told me that he lost his investment, too, I couldn't really blame him.
We had good dialogue and left as friends.
But losing a six-figure nest egg is still a great motive for murder.
I'm hardly destitute.
And I make a good salary.
And, actually, there was about to be more than enough to go around.
Meaning what? Meaning Cindy's aunt just passed away and left her a couple million dollars.
That's why we were house shopping.
We need a bigger place.
And what's Cindy's belongs to the three of you.
But then Mitch comes along, wants his piece of the pie, so to speak.
And you didn't want the family getting any bigger.
Well, as a matter of fact, detective, that was the whole point.
Cindy wants a baby.
Desperately.
It's the one part of her life that's missing.
And I can't give her one.
Because of your thalassemia.
I just can't risk bringing a child into this world to suffer like my sister.
And Dr.
Ian isn't interested in changing baby diapers.
He says he doesn't want children because in his line of work he sees too much pain and suffering.
Well, God knows he's caused enough of it.
But that does leave one metamour still in the "baby makes five" mix.
I went back through Mitch's computer like you asked me to.
I found a file called "C.
P.
" Cindy Pavlin, his ex-fiancée.
When I opened it, I found this calendar.
It has different little symbols on certain days.
A heart there on the 14th, a half-moon on the 29th.
But I'm not sure what they mean.
Hello? Ovulation? The best time to conceive.
As in, you were right about Cindy breaking the rule of their "closed marriage" if she and Mitch are tracking her cycle.
George said she was desperate to have a baby.
There's also this letter in Mitch's files addressed to Cindy.
It was sent three months ago.
Right about the time when Mitch reappeared in Cindy's life.
It's from the attorney who represented Cindy's Aunt Marilyn.
The letter was sent to Mitch's house because that was their last known address for Cindy.
That's when Cindy and Mitch were engaged and living together.
Apparently, Mitch knew about her inheritance before she did.
And at her request, e-mailed her a PDF of the letter.
So she's doing Mitch behind George and Ian's back, and then finds out that metamour-to-be Mitch knew about her millions all along? That had to piss her off.
Fine.
Mitch and I had already begun to express our love physically.
You sleeping with Mitch before Bert and Ernie signed off That's a clear violation of your meta-rules.
Do you honestly think I would kill the man I was trying to conceive a baby with? Honestly, it's not unheard of.
Especially after you heard from your Aunt Marilyn's lawyer.
Who'd been trying to track you down for months, which Mitch knew but failed to mention to you.
That seems pretty suspicious enough to murder someone to me.
Look.
I am not getting any younger.
And I am not naive enough to think I'm gonna get pregnant on the first try.
Not at my age, anyway.
So, we started trying.
Practice makes perfect.
My biological clock is ticking up a storm, and Mitch was giving me the ultimate gift.
Yes, I was a little surprised that he knew about the money, but once he joined the family it would be his as much as ours, anyway.
Why kill him to prevent something that I wanted to happen? But Ian and George still had a vote.
So, it was far from a sure thing.
George and Ian want me to be happy, and a baby is the only thing that is missing for me right now.
But George won't risk it, and Ian doesn't feel like he'd make a good parent.
His job is very last minute and way too demanding.
Last minute? We were all gonna get together tonight, have dinner and discuss our loss, but he got called in for another mortality and morbidity conference.
He lost someone else on his table? Maybe this guy really is Ted Bundy.
Okay, so this mortality and morbidity conference You know where that's at? I really couldn't say.
He has surgical privileges all over Palm Glade County.
Hmm.
Ian Conners? Yeah.
C-o-n-n E-r-s, thanks.
Darius signed the consent form? - I thought he refused? - He did refuse.
Until he realized he could trust me because I went over there the other night.
Touché.
And I know after my dad showed you those pictures last night, why you say you're concerned about all the time he spends down in Brazil.
But mom and dad have been fighting about this for years.
There's nothing new about it.
- So she knows everything? - Everything.
And everyone? Wait.
I'm not saying that there's anything inappropriate going on, I'm just saying that he is awfully close to a woman named Avelina.
Oh, Avelina.
Yeah, we know.
She works for city planning down there.
My dad has done business with her for years.
That's who you're worried about.
No, she's like my dad's work-wife.
You know, he has Avelina.
I have Carlos.
Trust me, a work-wife can be just as threatening to a marriage if she's getting all the good stuff and the real wife is getting the table scraps.
Just a little heads-up.
And I'm not so sure it's work that your dad's having such a hard time giving up.
Okay, here it is.
Dr.
Ian Conners.
He does have surgical privileges here, but there's no M & M scheduled for today.
And according to this, Dr.
Conners hasn't been at well-core for almost two weeks.
This is his contact information? Yeah, his cellphone, address, e-mail Dr.
Conners lives in Belle Glade.
Not according to this.
He lives in West Palm Beach.
What is this guy not lying about? Just a sec.
How much do I owe you? $25.
50.
I gave the kid a nice tip.
Why are you eating my pizza? Well, first of all, I was starving.
And, second, since you're late for your mortality and morbidity conference I thought I'd give you a little help.
You know, the one that you lied to Cindy about so you wouldn't have to go to dinner to discuss the death of Mitch Buckner.
She must have misunderstood me.
You know, I've got to tell you, Ian, for such an open and honest relationship, you poly types sure do keep a lot of secrets from each other.
That is a nice view.
Can I have some water? Okay.
I get it.
Oh, I don't mean I get how you can take another man's life.
No.
I meant this.
The view.
The quiet.
Spoils of all your years of hard work and med school, huh? Can I get that water? It's just a condo, detective.
A secret condo that your life partners and best friends Cindy and George don't know about.
Thank you.
The polyamory thing only works for you just so far, doesn't it? You like that Cindy only wants what you can give and George takes up the slack.
It's not a crime to want some peace and quiet every now and then.
They're great, but they have to talk everything into the ground.
I did notice that, yeah.
So I have my hideaway.
No harm done.
Certainly doesn't mean I killed Mitch Buckner.
Huh.
You want a family but you don't want kids.
You want partners to love.
But when they won't shut up, you just leave.
Ho, ho! And when another metamour comes along with his eager sperm, and threatens your perfect world, well, then you kill him.
Something you're already pretty good at.
I get it.
Okay.
I'm the surgeon, the one with the God complex, right? I mean, I've heard that my entire career.
But not all surgeons are egomaniacal, detective.
Some of us actually take death hard.
Especially when that loss hurts someone we love.
Like Cindy.
I admit I had to dig down deep, but she really did love Mitch and she wanted to have his baby.
And while I'm not anyone's idea of good parenting material, I wanted her to be happy.
And if that meant accepting Mitch into our union, then I was willing to discuss and consider it.
But it was far beyond the discussion stage, wasn't it? I mean, Mitch and Cindy were right into the baby-making process.
Well, if they were, I'm obviously in no position to judge.
And it was George who was convinced that Cindy and Mitch were trying to conceive without our consent.
No, it's interesting just how quickly your love for your fellow metamour can go out the window when you're trying to deflect the suspicion off yourself.
I mean, it's not very poly of you.
But it is very killer.
I didn't kill Mitch.
Look the last thing I want to do is throw suspicion on someone in my family.
But you're going to anyway, aren't you? George left three voice-mails the night of the murder, working himself up into a rage about them cheating.
This was the last one.
I'm telling you, Ian, they're already doing it! I know they are! We have frigging rules for a frigging reason! If I find out he's already sticking it to her, I swear, I'll use more than my fists this time! So, you bust the guy's jaw for losing your money.
And then the next day you're threatening to kill him for sleeping with Cindy outside the arrangement.
And seeing as Mitch is dead, I'm going with you carried out your threat.
I don't expect you to understand.
But those rules exist for a reason.
Trust is the life blood of any polyamorous union.
It's what separates us from the cancerous jealousies of so-called monogamous relationships, and is the only way one can truly love freely.
And with your anger issues, it's those rules that separate you from beating someone to death.
Obviously I lost my temper.
But Ian called me back, and he talked me off the ledge.
Cindy wants a baby, and she's not getting any younger.
Our hesitations, they're not just theoretical for her.
They could mean the difference between success and failure.
And if success meant that Mitch joined your merry little band, well, then, you prefer failure.
Of the long-term-solution kind.
That's ridiculous.
There's a rational solution to every conflict, and it usually relies on open communication.
So, I went home to talk it out with Cindy.
And that failed, too.
No.
I mean it never happened.
Waited for her there all night.
She didn't show up until after 10:00.
Well, it is about that time.
That the three of you start turning on each other.
I am not turning on Cindy.
You said you were at home together having dinner that night Mitch was killed.
But you were just protecting her, weren't you? 'Cause the fact of the matter is you don't know where she was or what she was doing.
Now, in poly cop language, we call that obstruction of justice.
We might even call that accessory after the fact.
I'm not looking for trouble.
Don't you think it's weird that Darius, after basically telling me to shove it, just hands over his entire medical history? Well, maybe it's like you said.
You helped him out and now he trusts you.
I just asked for a signed consent form so I could consult his team doctor.
This gives me access to everything.
Is that something to worry about? I just don't know why he's sharing it with me now.
He already conned me out of a cortisone injection.
Well, maybe he knows he's playing with fire and he wants you to call him out on it.
Some people need to be reminded there are consequences to their actions.
Maybe.
I just think the timing's weird.
Mm, timing's always weird.
- Talk to you later? - Yeah.
Obviously, I got a lot to think about.
And you do, too.
But I can't do it right now.
I got to go, okay? Talk to you.
Bye.
You called your mother.
I didn't know calling mom to say hi would be such a problem for you, dad.
It's not a problem.
It's just she and I trying to work things out and Oh, yeah.
You're working it out.
What is that supposed to mean? Because it looks a lot more like you're just waiting for mom to get over it.
Like she's been doing for the past 42 years.
You know it's not the work you're finding hard to give up, is it? It's it's everything.
It's all of it.
All that time you spend down there in South America and all of your friends.
Avelina.
Jimmy.
Nothing is going on between me and Avelina.
I-I would never cheat on your mother.
You have a whole life down there that doesn't include her, dad.
Oh, but you know mom.
She just she doesn't complain.
She doesn't even say a word.
She just rolls with it.
Because at the end of the day, when all is said and done, she knows it's just gonna be the two of you together.
You don't have to cheat on mom to cheat her out of what she deserves, dad.
She's ready to have you all to herself.
First time I've seen your dad at a loss for words.
Yeah, trust me.
It won't last.
What's up? Uh, Mitch's full labs are back.
He had a very high white-blood-cell count, stemming from epididymitis, which comes from an enlarged prostate gland.
And after everything I know about these people, I had a hunch and I was right.
Mitch had a vasectomy done three months ago.
Right around the same time he shows up back in Cindy's life, neglecting to mention the inheritance.
I got in touch with the urologist who performed the surgery.
She told me I was the second person to call about this same patient this week.
The second? She sent an e-mail confirmation of the procedure to Dr.
Ian Conners' wife, who said she was also his physician's assistant, sent from Cindy Pavlin's e-mail account.
Mrs.
Conners probably thought it was too complicated to explain who she really was.
Or why she wanted to know.
I went through Cindy's e-mails and found the e-mail and PDF file delivered the day of the murder.
I'd call that a smoking gun.
And there was something else.
Last week, Cindy downloaded a marriage application from the city-hall website.
Oh.
Lucky she wasn't really Mrs.
Conners, 'cause that would be bigamy.
So Mitch shows up, after three months, suddenly open to everything, which makes you happy because you never stopped loving Mitch or anyone, that I can see.
My open lifestyle is not a joke, detective.
At least not until you need to close it Like the traditional marriage license that you applied for to be Mrs.
Mitch Buckner.
I We thought that maybe that's why I was having trouble conceiving.
And by "we," you mean Mitch, who, I'm guessing, implied that the problem was your lifestyle That a baby needed to be raised in a traditional home.
I was frustrated after a few months and I was willing to try anything.
So, you threw out everything that you believed in? Until you heard from your Aunt Marilyn's lawyer, found out that Mitch had known about the money all along.
He still loved me.
I'm thinking what he loved was the money you were about to inherit, which, I'm thinking, you were okay with, at least at first.
I mean, after all, he was gonna give you the gift of life.
Who cares if he was just motivated by money? You were going to get your baby.
Until you found out about this.
Committed fraud, actually, so that you could get a copy of Mitch's medical records.
Found out that he had a vasectomy three months ago.
Lied to you about the one thing that truly meant the most to you.
So, you killed the bastard.
I mean, hey, totally understandable, but unfortunately, totally illegal.
And totally wrong, detective.
Yes, okay.
Most of your story is true.
He was a bastard, and he only wanted my money.
And, yes, I was furious.
But I didn't kill him.
He wasn't worth it.
This is where I was that night.
Atlantic Coast Donor Clinic.
Third-party IVF reproduction.
I met with a counselor and gave blood, went through donor books prioritizing possible candidates.
I was there until 10:00 that night, which you are free to call and confirm.
Oh, believe me, I will.
Daniel? I just spoke with a representative at Atlantic Coast Donor Clinic who confirmed that Cindy Pavlin was with a donor counselor - the night of the murder.
- Thanks, Daniel.
Oh, and tell Carlos I'm about to send him a photo.
Tell him to look at it and get back to me? Will do.
Woman on Dr.
Nebel to oncology.
Dr.
Nebel, oncology.
Don't worry.
It's just me.
Your timing is extraordinary, detective.
Why, thank you.
I like yours, too.
I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about.
Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a patient who's already gone under.
Yeah, I told the family to reschedule.
Which, after they realized just how close their sister came to being operated on by a cold-blooded killer I mean, they totally understood.
I mean, after all, you wouldn't want to cause any more pain and suffering, now, would you? You know, the kind that you can't leave at work? Always taking it home with you Well, one of your homes, at least.
Because as much as you like that quiet beach condo, you need Cindy and George to feel loved, don't you? To feel like a family? Which adding Mitch to the mix A guy that played by his own poly-rules and threatened to kill your career would ruin.
So, you ruined him.
This is ridiculous.
As I told you, I was in surgery that night.
Right.
The transmayo Transmyocardial revascularization.
Yes.
That's what I said.
Yeah, no.
A surgery that you did perform, according to your surgical transcripts, but timed it just right so that your staff could close for you, giving you more than enough time to lie in wait for Mitch, which, thanks to George's temper, you knew was not only banging your vee and threatening your perfect setup, but, um, was planning a late-night visit to that new house.
Okay, first of all, my staff always closes for me, and as for the rest of this nonsense Well, you simply have no proof.
Surgical tape that you used to cover the motion sensor so it wouldn't trigger the security light, which, in the rush of adrenaline, you left after you killed him, leaving a big, fat fingerprint.
On the bright side, where you're going you can have all the vees and Wâs you want and never, ever have to talk about your feelings.
Brings it across.
How is he still in the lead? Oh! Yeah, he should have dunked it.
Puts it back, drops it down.
Hey.
Hey.
I wasn't expecting you.
Did I forget something? No, actually you didn't forget anything.
Okay, well, you know, I figured if we were gonna do this right, you should have complete access to my medical records.
And I appreciate that.
I just want to make sure that you've really thought this through and you're sure about it.
Yeah, I told you, Callie.
I totally trust you.
And I'm flattered that you do, especially with something so important.
I-I promise I'll help you in any way that I can.
Can we talk somewhere in private? Uh, yeah.
Let's go outside.
Okay.
Stop shooting.
You can't continue on this path that you're on.
Your body can't take it.
What you're doing to buy yourself another season will eventually catch up to you.
And I don't want to see you risk permanent injury, Darius, so if that means leaving the game earlier than you wanted Yo, hold up.
Leave the game? Nobody's talking about leaving the game.
Well, I just meant I didn't give you access to my history for that.
I did that so you could know everything, 'cause I can't have another night of pain like I had the other night.
You're not just risking your health You're risking your life.
That's for me decide, Callie.
Now that I've shared my health history with you, I expect you to keep my confidentiality, all right? From the press, from the team doctors, and from doctor Hardy.
Are we clear? Hey, man! You're missing the game, man! I got to get back.
Maria will show you out.
Hard off the iron.
I don't understand why they're taking all these 3's.
They're up 10.
How's it going? I called your mother back.
Oh, good.
You were right about one thing I don't have to cheat on her to know that she's had enough.
can't trust me? Expects me to give up a a life and a friendship that I've had for 20 years.
I don't know what to say to that.
What did you say, dad? Your mother and I are calling it quits.