Elementary s05e05 Episode Script
To Catch a Predator Predator
1 HOLMES: Previously on Elementary Felon, got a spit bucket here with your name on it.
Do you remember me? SHINWELL: How could I forget? It's good to see you, Doc.
So, you're a former drug dealer, correct? Well, what kind of a name is Shinwell? What kind of name is Sherlock? I was just thinking about what you asked me the other day about how to change.
I think the answer is to let people help you.
WATSON: You hate it.
Not really my style.
You know, there are so many options.
Are you sure that your partner's cool with me borrowing his clothes? I can count on one hand the number of times he's opened that trunk.
Besides, it's for an interview.
He-He'd understand.
Okay, but I'm trying to get a job working in the kitchen of a chain restaurant.
My shirt may not be more important than a nice apron.
WATSON: You know, dress for success.
What kind of hat is this? Uh if you like it, you can have it.
Sherlock never wears it.
That's nice.
You like it? I like it.
Well, we have a winner.
This is my fifth interview in the last two weeks and so far, I'm 0 and four.
You really think I didn't get those other jobs because they didn't like my shirt? I'm ex-con.
All the clothes in the world ain't gonna hide that.
Listen all we need is one person who's willing to give you a chance.
You know, I think there's a jacket down there that's gonna look great with that.
I'll be right back.
Yeah, I know.
It stinks, sweetie, but Bob wants all the TPS reports in first thing, so I am going to be stuck here in the office all night.
Dinner? (chuckles) Eh, I don't know.
I'll probably just end up ordering in.
(chuckles) (jazz music plays) Oops, sorry.
Ugh, stupid computer.
Uh, I've been having trouble with the volume.
(music stops) I never said I didn't like jazz, I said I (gunshot booms) Uh, that was (footsteps running) that was nothing.
Uh, that was Howie.
He He, uh, closed a big deal today, so he popped a bottle of champagne.
(gunshot fires) (glass shatters) (gasps) Elementary 5x05 To Catch a Predator Predator @elderman BELL: Victim's name is Damien Novak.
A little after 8:00 p.
m.
last night, he was shot twice in a motel parking lot in Jackson Heights.
HOLMES: Shot from behind.
Figure he was making a run for it.
First bullet caught him in the shoulder.
The second caught him square in the back, sent him through a window.
Any witnesses? Guests heard the shots, but no one saw what happened.
Other than the lobby area, there's no security cameras.
It's the kind of place that prides itself on its anonymity.
No-tell motel.
Was he a guest? As far as we could tell, no.
He hadn't checked in.
But who knows? He may have been on his way to the front desk when the shooter approached him.
Wrists were bound.
Zip tie in the bin behind you.
So, you think this was some sort of botched kidnapping? Novak was married.
If he was going to the motel to meet up with someone other than his wife, it's possible he was stopped by an angry husband, a boyfriend.
That guy either wanted to scare him or take him somewhere.
Either way, Novak took off and the perp opened fire.
You don't think Novak's wife could've done this? She alibi'd out when the notification was made.
I'm leaving here to talk to her right after this.
Not looking forward to floating the theory that her husband was unfaithful.
It's even worse than you think.
Mr.
Novak went to the motel to rendezvous with an adolescent girl that he met online.
He's a sex predator.
Last night, he was targeted by someone who reviles such individuals, a predator of predators, if you will.
Couldn't be more obvious.
Unless all of that is etched in teeny, tiny lettering on that zip tie, I'm not sure how you got there from here.
Mr.
Novak is not the first predator to be preyed upon.
It's happened exactly five times before.
DISTORTED MALE VOICE: Say hi to the folks at home, Jerome.
(crying): There's been some sort of mistake.
I'm not who you think I am.
DISTORTED MALE VOICE: I know exactly who you are.
Dr.
Jerome Chun, age 45.
You're a dentist with an office in Newark.
And you came here to have sex with a 15-year-old girl.
No, no.
Stop it here.
Give away the ending.
Dr.
Chun admits that he went to that motel to have sex with a minor.
You said there's four more videos like this? I've seen the filmmaker's entire oeuvre.
On five separate occasions, he used the popular dating Web site TrueRomantix to lure men with a proclivity for underage girls.
How exactly did he do that? By pretending to be one.
He's a catfish.
He says he's one thing when he's really another.
And the M.
O.
is pretty simple, really.
He creates a phony profile and claims to be an 18-year-old girl, then he strikes up conversations with lonely, middle-aged guys.
When the young woman has a suitor on her hook, she then reveals that she misrepresented her age in order to gain access to the site.
She's not really 18, she's 15.
Now, it's safe to assume, at this point, some men fall away.
Others do not.
Those are the guys that she invites to meet her face-to-face.
The ones that we would classify as predators.
On the night of their respective trysts, Dr.
Chun and four other tricked men were not greeted by a pubescent girl, but by a vigilante with a camera.
And after he shot the video, he shot the men? BROOKS: No, he let them go.
Posted the videos online.
So, something went wrong last night.
Damien Novak fought back.
The guy shot him.
Uh, maybe, maybe not.
Detective Brooks is not convinced that Mr.
Novak's murder was the work of the same man.
The catfish has been exclusive to New Jersey.
I was keeping tabs on the case from afar.
All five videos got shot in my jurisdiction.
I have questioned each of the pervs that have lived to tell the tale and none of them ever said anything about a gun.
The guy that lured them used his size against them.
Beat them into submission.
Is this supposed to be a painter's mask? Between that and the beatings, uh, the light he shines in these guys' faces, we got almost zilch in the description department.
Caucasian.
Could be as young as 20 or as old as 45.
That being said, in each case, the wrists of the victims-- and I use that term as loosely as I can-- were bound with a red zip tie.
The tie used to bind Mr.
Novak is a perfect match.
Between it and the fact that he was shot outside a cheap motel, I cannot help but think that your catfish has migrated north.
Well, how do you explain the gun? Mr.
Novak was especially fit.
Perhaps the killer felt the need to bring insurance.
Do we have any idea if Novak had a thing for underage girls? Watson and Marcus are with his wife now.
Perhaps she'll be able to shed some light on what kind of man he was.
No.
What you're saying, it doesn't make sense.
His sister, Ivy she was hurt like that when she was a teenager by a family friend.
It happened a long time ago, but Damien never got over it.
I know this is very upsetting but like Detective Bell said, there is evidence that suggests that your husband was being targeted by someone who is hunting sexual predators, so we need to know everything.
Tell them about the pictures.
What pictures? A few months ago, I found something strange on Damien's laptop.
A file with photos of women.
They were girls.
They looked young.
But when I asked Damien about them, he said they were in college.
Sorority sisters or something.
He was training them at the gym where he worked.
My sister has always tried to see the best in people and she's been that way since we were kids, but Damien took advantage.
What do you mean? The last few months he's been working late at the gym a lot and Stephanie was worried that he might be having an affair, so I talked to him and he swore up and down that he wasn't cheating.
God help me, I believed him and I got to think he was doing something much worse, that he was stalking these girls or-or meeting up with other perverts and exchanging pictures Garrett, stop it! We're gonna have to take a look at Damien's laptop.
You can, but but after I talked to him about what I found he password-protected it.
I don't know how to log on.
If it's the pictures you want to see, I can pull them up right here.
Stephanie sent me the file when she found it.
MAN: TrueRomantix will not violate the privacy of its customers.
Oh, well, I'm just asking for access to the accounts of the men who were lured and shamed using your site.
I want to trace their profiles back to the ones used by their attacker.
Or would you rather that they continued stalking your clientele? The five men in those videos that got posted, they swore to a man that they were victims of mistaken identity.
Yes, well, it's easier to play the victim than the pervert, isn't it? See, this is what I mean.
You've already made up your mind.
Five loyal members of our community are "perverts.
" Why? Because the crazy man with a camera says so? Did you not think it was strange that not one of them would show the police the correspondence that they engaged in? No, because they have a right To privacy.
Yes, I'm well aware.
As do the TrueRomantix subscribers who use your site to engage in affairs.
And that's what you're really worried about, isn't it? 'Cause once word gets out that you're willing to bend the rules, the whole horny house of cards comes tumbling down.
They move on to another site with stricter privacy protections.
The Jersey City PD asked very nicely for the same access that you are.
We said no.
So, they asked not so nicely.
Now it's in the courts' hands.
You can wait for a decision if you want, but I got to tell you I'll take our lawyers over theirs any day.
If you don't mind, I have a lunch meeting.
You want to help me, don't you? Excuse me? When I was pressuring your boss, you retrieved a document from a printer just a few feet behind us.
Despite the fact that there's another printer of higher quality and faster output much closer to your desk.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You then disposed of said document without even reading it.
You were attempting to eavesdrop, weren't you? You don't like him very much.
You seemed especially put out when he spoke of the company's obligation to protect perverts.
You take anti-anxiety medication.
You hate your job? Are you trying to get me fired? Your dual 1440p monitors and your calloused fingertips suggest you make your living writing code.
You are a programmer, so getting me the data I need would be relatively easy.
This place is the worst.
My coworkers act like they're curing world hunger, and my boss is literally like a bad guy out of a comic book.
Yeah.
Give me your e-mail address.
I'll send you whatever you need.
(pen scratching on paper) Hey.
What are you doing here? Waiting for you.
Sherlock's not home? He is.
Said I could wait inside, but he's, you know intense.
You think? Wanted to return the clothes I borrowed.
Oh.
You got the job, so you don't need to do any more interviews? I'm pretty sure I could've wore a barrel and two straps, and it wouldn't have made no difference.
Apparently, my experience in the prison cafeteria is not a "real qualification.
" The guy didn't say it, but he didn't want nothing to do with an ex-con.
I'm sorry.
It is what it is.
Why don't you just hold onto them just in case? I think I'm gonna take a break from the job hunt for a while.
Try to get more hours at the gym.
You hate that place.
(chuckles) Work is work, right? Have a good night, Doc.
You, too.
(door opens, closes) You saw Shinwell? I did.
I offered him to wait in here, but he claimed to prefer the stoop.
I don't think he likes me.
I have a feeling it has more to do with the pervert family tree.
So, did you get everything you needed at TrueRomantix? Almost.
There's no record of Damien Novak having been a customer there.
Perhaps our predator- predator lured him on a different dating site.
WATSON: Hmm, so we still don't know who this guy is.
We do not.
He is, in fact, a more cautious catfish than we realized.
The New Jersey Police assumed that he'd use the same phony profile to bait all of his victims, but that was incorrect.
He used a different one each time.
And all five of them were paid for on credit cards pilfered in the mail.
They can't be traced back to him.
So, you're analyzing his chats with these men when he was pretending to be a teenage girl.
Mm.
Perhaps you'll have better luck than I did.
I've been at it for hours, and all I can say for certain is that he is an expert manipulator of perverts.
He baits them with ease.
I'd go so far as to call him a master baiter.
Of course you would.
HOLMES: It's clear now that none of these men were the victim of mistaken identity.
According to the transcripts, they were all quite keen on the idea of having sex with a teenager.
If our quarry hadn't crossed the line into murder last night, I'd be quite tempted to let him continue his attacks.
Oh, you know, Shinwell lost out on another job.
Sorry to hear that.
You know, I was thinking, instead of trying to work for other people, maybe he should work for himself.
You think he should be a tradesman.
Well, tradesmen need to be taught their trades.
And finding a willing (printing) teacher might be just as difficult as finding a willing employer.
Well, I thought I could be his teacher.
I mean, what we do is a trade, right? You want to teach him to be a detective? We've done it before.
You're referring to Kitty.
Kitty, who never graduated, burned a man's face off and fled the country.
She had a lot of baggage.
He doesn't? Look, the point is, you taught me how to be a detective.
I think it worked out pretty well, right? Are these the phony profiles the catfish used? Yeah.
The accompanying photographs, however, are stock images taken from the Internet.
No way to trace them back to him, either.
(calling): Actually, I think there is a way.
I've seen those girls before.
Where'd you get these? Damien Novak's wife found them on his laptop months ago.
So, you no longer think he was a sex predator.
I think he was the catfish.
You think these profiles were created by our victim, Novak.
He was the one who tricked all those guys who wanted to sleep with minors, he was the one who made the videos? He fits the profile.
His sister was a victim of abuse, and even though their descriptions varied, all five men who were shamed said their attacker overpowered them easily.
Novak was built like a linebacker.
Well, there's another possibility: Novak was the worst predator of them all.
He fell for all five of the vigilante's phony girls, cut and pasted their photos into a file on his laptop so he can always have them.
The thing is, there were eight photographs in that file.
Sherlock and I worked backwards and found three more profiles.
So, these five were used to catch the men who were shamed.
After that, they were deactivated.
These three are still active.
And we're pretty sure were used as hooks in the water to catch new prey.
BELL: If we're right, the only way Novak would've had these is if he were the one doing the hunting.
GREGSON: So you're saying he went to that motel two night ago to humiliate a new predator, only the tables got turned, his prey pulled a gun.
What about the mask? All of the guys who got jumped said the perp was wearing a painter's mask? Novak wasn't wearing one when he got shot.
I went back to the motel this morning, found that in a gutter across the street.
Killer might've tossed it.
Or it might've blown away.
It was windy that night.
BELL: The lab swabbed the inside for DNA.
We're expecting it to come back a match for Novak.
All we got to do is ID the guy he was supposed to meet.
We'll have our killer.
Actually, we ID'd him.
As it turns out, he is the one guy we're pretty sure didn't kill Novak.
BELL: Gonna save us all some time, Mr.
Utz.
There is zero point denying you went to the motel the other night to sleep with a girl you thought was only 15.
We read the messages you sent Kendra on TrueRomantix.
They were pretty explicit.
You talk to your wife like that? You're positive she doesn't exist? WATSON: We told you.
Kendra was a man named Damien Novak.
The same Damien Novak who came crashing through your window.
I'm sorry, it's just I loved her.
(sniffles) I didn't know.
Obviously, I didn't know.
I had nothing to do with what happened to that man.
We believe you.
Whoever killed him knew what he was.
They laid in wait.
You'd have to be an idiot to rent a room in your own name and then blow a guy away outside of it.
GREGSON: That said you kept things from us.
It makes us wonder what else you kept from us.
Maybe you saw or heard something.
You did, didn't you? (sniffles) If this conversation is going to continue, I want you to guarantee that you won't tell my wife about Kendra.
You said it yourselves.
She wasn't real.
She was a figment.
There is nothing illegal about wanting to be with a figment.
I didn't break a single law that night.
In fact, if someone hadn't intervened, I would be a victim.
Mr.
Utz Deal.
A few seconds after the second shot, a car tore out of the parking lot.
It was a white Toyota.
Think it might've been the killer.
That isn't helpful? It might be.
I'm just wondering, why didn't you mention this the other night? It's not like it would've given away your real reason for being at that motel.
Because I didn't see it happen then.
I saw it after.
What do you mean, after? This guy was gonna record himself having sex with a 15-year-old.
(gunshot over video) WATSON: Oh, there.
(clicks phone) Can't make out the license plate.
It's hard to tell if it's the shooter driving, or if it's just someone who got spooked by the gunshots.
We have a list of the other people who were staying at the motel that night.
I'll run their names through DMV, see if anyone owns a white Camry.
(door opens) I'll wrap up with Mr.
Utz.
Hey, you weren't serious before, right? About not telling his wife? I gave my word.
I'm not telling her a thing.
(door opens) What I am gonna do is I'm gonna arrest him.
Luring a child-- whether she ends up being a figment or not-- is a class E felony.
We have written proof.
His wife ends up finding out about it on the news? That's on him.
(clicks phone) Rico Taco, taco, taco Taco, taco, taco, taco Taco.
HOLMES: Don't get comfortable, Watson, 'cause we're leaving.
Why are you listening to old jingles? As we discussed, no one had more motive to kill Damien Novak than the five men he successfully shamed.
Based on the work I did this morning, only one of them could have shot him.
Jerome Chun? No.
He attempted suicide after the police questioned him about the video that he appeared in.
He's been in a coma ever since.
Reuben Welker? Impossible.
In the wake of his shaming, he was arrested for embezzling from his construction firm.
He's serving a five-year prison sentence.
Ignacio Gomez and Shane Fitzhugh, they both fled the country after Novak exposed them.
So that just leaves Jack McGill.
HOLMES: He's an ad man, or at least he was.
Managing partner of one of New York's largest agencies.
These jingles are all from campaigns he mounted in the 1980s.
A year ago, a female employee of his sued him for sexual harassment.
Case was on the verge of going to trial, and he was caught in Novak's trap.
So, after the video surfaced, the company fired him and then settled the suit.
His wife then filed for divorce.
Took him to the cleaners.
So, he didn't just get shamed, he lost everything.
Mm, not everything.
So many boats out here.
How are we supposed to find the one that Jack McGill lives in? Pretty sure it's that one.
You're positive this is the guy who tortured me? That's him.
Good.
I'm glad the son of a bitch is dead.
So, where were you two nights ago, around 8:00? Right here.
I'm always right here.
Haven't been able to show my face in public for months, not without someone threatening to kill me.
Can anyone confirm that you were here? (chuckles) Who'd you have in mind? My wife? She lives in Boca now.
My kids? They won't talk to me.
Not even when they need money.
Which, before I was branded a diaper sniper, was pretty much all the time.
The only visitor I've had recently is the little turd who vandalized my home.
You realize you're not making yourself any less of a suspect.
You want to throw me in jail, go ahead.
I won't fight you.
Tried that the last time someone accused me of something I didn't do.
Won't make that mistake again.
We were able to access your TrueRomantix account.
We read the messages that you sent to a 14-year-old girl named Ella May.
That's great.
I read them, too.
I just didn't write them.
I never even had an account on that ridiculous site.
So you still claim that someone created a phony profile and posed as you.
I was a founding partner of a top ad agency.
You really think if I was gonna seduce a teenage girl, I'd do it in a public forum using my own name and picture? You told the police you were lured to a motel in East Orange by a phone call from a mystery man who alleged to have information that would, uh, help you in the lawsuit you were fighting? Right.
Only when I got there, I got jumped by a masked psychopath with a camera.
He beat on me for over an hour.
Said he would kill me if I didn't confess my sins.
But you know what? I never did.
'Cause I didn't do any of those things he accused me of.
After you were fired you told anyone who would listen that the woman who was suing you was the one who set you up.
Yvette Ingram.
Who, by the way, I did not sexually harass.
That's a lie.
No, it's a good thing.
I was beginning to think you were unreadable.
Yvette was desperate.
The depositions were not going well for her.
She knew if the case went to trial, the jury would side with me.
Her only hope was to force a pretrial settlement.
And when that "video" of me surfaced, she got one.
'Cause a man who would prey on a minor is more than capable of harassing a grown woman, right? The dead guy, Novak-- he was just a weapon.
Yvette's the one who pointed him at me.
Say he's telling the truth.
That would mean that Yvette Ingram beat Damien Novak at his own game.
She catfished a catfish.
To do that she would have to know that Ella Mae is one of his aliases.
But how? We've already established he doesn't ever use the same alias twice.
Perhaps they know each other.
Perhaps she shared his secret.
Perhaps she divined it without him realizing.
Well, it's worth looking for a link between them, right? It is.
You know, I've been thinking about your idea regarding Shinwell.
If you want to attempt to teach him our trade, I'm not gonna stop you, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say I-I don't see it.
See what? He isn't a detective.
He wants a job.
But what we do, it's not a job.
It's a calling.
We were born to do this work.
You were born to it.
I learned it.
You disagree it's what you were meant to do all along? Well, so, what, Shinwell was meant to be a-a janitor in a boxing gym? I just know he's not meant to be a detective.
Well, you haven't spent that much time with him.
(phone rings) Because, typically, I need to do that in order to know someone? You kno Hey, you've got us both.
Thought you'd want to know CCS finally cracked the password on Novak's laptop.
And? It's a gold mine.
He was our shamer, no doubt about it.
We found links to all eight phony TrueRomantix profiles you dug up.
But there was a surprise, too-- a link to a ninth phony profile on a totally different Web site.
He was hunting a man we didn't know about? Not a man.
A woman.
So this is profile number nine.
Raphael Arnold, aka Damien Novak.
He whipped up Raphael a couple months ago, made him a CPA based out of Queens.
You said he was using this profile to hunt a woman? "Hunt" may be too strong a word, but it definitely looks like he was targeting her.
He poked her a few times, tried to start up a conversation, but she never took the bait.
While men don't hold a monopoly on sexual predation, Raphael is clearly of age, so he wouldn't attract our kind of predator.
The woman he reached out to didn't look like a pervert, but you be the judge.
Yvette Ingram.
That's the woman who sued Jack McGill for sexual harassment.
I think we've found a link between her and Damien Novak.
Don't you? So, you're saying that this guy-- the one that was sending me all the messages-- he's really the one who beat up Jack? That's exactly what we're saying.
You were being pursued by someone who, up until the moment he contacted you, had only pursued the predators of teenage girls.
Well, I don't, I don't know what to tell you.
I I have a boyfriend.
I've never preyed on anybody.
We think you preyed on Damien Novak.
What are you talking about? Somehow you knew he was hunting sex predators.
You lined Jack McGill up in his crosshairs.
(short chuckle) This again.
This again? Jack told that little theory to anybody who would listen when that video came out.
It was crazy then and it's just as crazy now.
We don't think Damien Novak thought it was crazy.
In fact, we think he saw everything Jack was saying in the media and started to wonder, had he been tricked? If he had, how did you learn his secret? Was he in danger of being exposed? He created the Raphael Arnold profile so he could look into you, only you saw through it.
You knew he was onto you, so you ambushed him the other night.
You're accusing me of killing him.
The end result of your manipulation several months ago was a pretrial settlement of $10 million.
Who had more reason to deceive Mr.
Novak than you? When exactly was he killed? Two nights ago, little after 8:00 p.
m.
I was having dinner with an ex-client on the Upper West Side.
I'm trying to start my own agency.
She can vouch for that.
As for your motive, you couldn't be more wrong.
I didn't get $10 million.
I got a fraction of $10 million.
Actually, a fraction of a fraction.
The bulk of that settlement went to the investment firm that actually paid for that lawsuit.
Investment firm? You are familiar with litigation financing, aren't you? Wealthy investors furnish the capital needed to bring civil suits in exchange for a sizable cut of the proceeds.
It was never about the money.
Jack made my life hell while I was working with him.
The way he looked at me, the-the things he would say.
I wanted to make sure that he could never do that to anyone again.
I was going up against a company, they had deep pockets, I needed help.
If you think that he was really set up by somebody who could profit from that lawsuit, you should talk to the people that actually paid for it.
Hello? Come in.
(chuckles softly) Tell me you don't smell that.
- Smell what? - The gas.
Pilot went out.
Then I found a corroded pipe.
Had to change it out.
Oh, no.
The air smells fine.
Mm.
It's funny, I'm supposed to be helping with repairs around the building, but so far, most of the broken-down stuff is in here.
I got your text.
You said you want to talk about something? Uh, yeah.
A job.
I told you that I was gonna take a break from interviewing.
Well, you would not need to interview for this job.
It would be with me.
I thought I could teach you to do what I do.
(chuckles) You want to teach me to be a private eye? I think you'd be great at it-- you're smart, you know how to read people.
You were a great help when we were looking for the Bensonhurst Bomber.
We would not have been able to find him without you.
I was a help because I'm an ex-con.
That don't mean I'm good at detecting stuff.
I knew a guy who knew a guy.
You would be surprised how important those connections are in our line of work.
It took me years to find my own.
(scoffs) You should try going to prison for a while.
Listen, Sherlock and I have experience with teaching.
You'd be paid a stipend, which is more than you make at the gym.
But the work is hard.
You'd have to be available 24/7.
And you'd have to study harder than you've ever studied in your life.
But in the end, I think it would be worth it.
You'd be your own boss.
And it's work that your daughter could be proud of.
No.
No.
Look, I appreciate all that you're doing.
You know I do.
But that doesn't mean I'm always gonna agree with you.
I don't expect you to.
I know, it just feels that way sometimes.
Thank you for the offer.
Of course.
All right, listen, you have a good night, okay? (door opens) (door closes) What are you doing? I'm just typing.
I mean with the glasses.
Oh, I-I forgot I had those on.
They're, uh, they're just helping me get into character.
(computer beeps) Oh, my God, you have your own TrueRomantix account? No, Wade Applewhite has his own TrueRomantix account.
He's one of my aliases.
Florida-born, moved to the city in '07, systems analyst with big dreams, enjoys wind surfing.
I thought I would take a page out of Damien Novak's book and try a little catfishing of my own.
What do you mean? I've been romancing a secretary who works at the investment firm which backed Yvette Ingram's lawsuit.
We've been chatting for almost an hour.
I think she's a hair's breadth from sending me a list of the individuals who profited.
Wow, that's pretty low.
Well, it is and it isn't.
I mean, I chose her based on certain beliefs she's espoused on social media.
For example, she started her own chapter of the Ayn Rand Appreciation Society because the New York chapter was too charitable, so, you know, when Wade fails to meet her for line dancing tomorrow night, I'm not going to lose much sleep.
Oh, I spoke to Shinwell tonight.
And? You're right Not a detective.
Not for everyone, Watson.
In fact (computer pings) Oh.
The biscuit is in the basket.
Sorry.
That's just something that Wade would say.
His would-be girlfriend has sent a list of investors.
Tell me you don't have to catfish any of them tonight.
I don't think any additional subterfuge will be necessary.
One of these names is quite familiar.
You met him the other day.
You should know, I've advised my client not to answer any questions.
BELL: That's okay, he can just listen.
We know you lied to us the other day, Mr.
Lerner.
When we said there was evidence that suggested your brother-in-law was a sex predator, you couldn't get on board fast enough.
But the truth is he was hunting men like that.
And you knew it.
You said you talked to Damien after your sister thought he was having an affair.
We're guessing he told you the truth about what he was doing.
HOLMES: The timing was quite fortuitous.
You'd invested rather heavily in a sexual harassment suit being brought by a woman named Yvette Ingram.
And those depositions were not going as you'd hoped.
So you created a phony TrueRomantix profile for Yvette's former boss, Jack McGill, and struck up a conversation with one of Damien's alter egos.
Not long after, Damien assaulted McGill, and posted a video that branded him a sex predator.
A big cash settlement for Yvette went from being a long shot to a sure thing.
You made your money back times ten.
Damien was a loose end, however, so you tied him up.
GARRETT: Wait.
What do y-- what do you mean? Garrett.
No, no, uh Are-are you saying I killed him? The other day, you let your sister think that her freshly-murdered husband was a habitual seducer of teenagers, so it's not hard for us to see you make the leap to murder.
Have you said anything to Stephanie about this? - Garrett, I thought we agreed - No, no, no, no.
They think I killed Damien.
Do you know what that would do to my sister? We haven't talked to Stephanie.
Yet.
Okay, yes.
I tricked Damien into going after McGill, but I did not kill him.
Mr.
Lerner, after everything that's happened, why should we believe a word you say? Because I needed him alive.
Explain that to us.
When I communicated with him as Jack McGill, I did it from a library near my house.
If he ever caught on to me, I didn't want him to trace it back to my home computer.
The night that he was killed, I was at the library again.
I had invested in another sexual harassment case.
I figured I could use Damien again to get it to go the way I wanted.
I was creating a phony profile, okay, in the name of the new defendant, to get Damien to go after him.
There's cameras at the library.
Go see.
I'm-I'm telling the truth.
Am I a despicable person? Yes.
Did I trick Damien? Yes.
But I'm telling you, I never would have hurt him.
Never.
Not for all the money in the world.
WATSON: How'd it go at the library? Yes, well, it turns out I took out their copy of the Codex Seraphinianus in 2011 and never returned it.
And they refused access to their security footage until I settled up.
$463 later, Marcus and I were able to confirm Garrett Lerner's alibi.
He did not kill his brother-in-law.
WATSON: I had a feeling it was going that way, so I dug back into the men that Damien Novak shamed.
And? Well, you and I both don't like Jack McGill for the murder, so I put him to the side.
Jerome Chun is still in a coma, and Reuben Welker is still in prison.
So that just leaves Ignacio Gomez and Shane Fitzhugh.
Both of whom fled the country.
Yeah.
That why you were crying, Watson? Excuse me? You've been crying sometime in the last hour.
Okay, first of all, I did not cry, I teared up, and second of all, it wasn't because we weren't able to pin one of these guys to the murder.
It was because of these.
Oh, these are the statements from the women hurt by Fitzhugh and Gomez.
Oh, the toughest one to read was one of Fitzhugh's victims, Nadia Swain.
He was her J.
V.
field hockey coach.
Over the course of a year, he abused her over a hundred times.
She was 14.
20 when she wrote this.
Yeah, it took her that long to come forward.
When she was a kid, he convinced her that no one was gonna believe her and it was all her fault.
When she went to college, she knew better.
Hmm.
Told you it was tough to read.
Ms.
Swain writes that for years she's required a daily cocktail of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.
Who knows how long she's gonna have to take those for? (sighs) Is there a problem? Well, the problem is, I don't just know who killed Damien Novak, Watson.
But I liked her.
Miss Parsons, please have a seat.
If you need more data from TrueRomantix, I can't help you.
I gave my notice two days ago.
No, that's not why we asked you here.
So the other day, I, uh, misunderstood why you were interested in my conversation with your boss.
I thought you were eavesdropping because you didn't like him, but in truth, you wanted to know how much the police knew about Damien Novak's murder.
I'm sorry.
Um Damien Novak? The man you shot the other night.
We know your real name is Nadia Swain.
We also know that in 2009 you were victimized by a man named Shane Fitzhugh.
Last year, you worked up the courage to tell the New Jersey Police about it.
HOLMES: You gave them a very detailed statement, and in that you explained how you needed a, uh, certain regimen of medications now.
Sertraline, 150 milligrams, once a day.
Aripiprazole, five milligrams, twice a day.
Clonazepam, one-half milligram, once a day.
Now, when I approached your desk the other day, I saw that very same combination of medications in your pill organizer.
You own a white Toyota Camry, right? So? We have video of a white Camry tearing out of the parking lot where Damien Novak was shot.
A lot of people own white Camrys.
How many of them also own a nine millimeter handgun? We know you registered one after you turned 21.
It's the same caliber gun used to kill Damien Novak.
At first we we didn't get it.
Why kill Novak? I mean, he shamed sex predators, including the one that hurt you.
But then we reached out to Jersey City PD.
All of a sudden, everything made sense.
After you came forward, they started an investigation into Mr.
Fitzhugh.
They took what you said very seriously.
But after so much time had passed, there wasn't any evidence.
BELL: It took them a few months, but they managed to identify a second girl he'd hurt then a third.
HOLMES: So they were on the verge of making an arrest, and then Mr.
Novak muscles his way into the equation.
He shames your tormentor.
He does such a good job, the man has to leave the country.
So, all of a sudden, your quest for justice over.
You got angry, you wanted revenge, but the man who cost you a shot at Fitzhugh was anonymous.
All anyone knew about him was that he set traps at TrueRomantix.
HOLMES: So you dropped out of college.
You got a job there, undercover, right? You got access to their files, and then all of a sudden, this hunter, he becomes the hunted.
BELL: It took you some time, but you managed to identify Novak's newest phony accounts.
You monitored them, and when you saw he was going to meet Winston Utz at a motel a few nights ago, you acted.
I wanted him to understand what he'd done.
I wanted to shame him.
I was gonna make a video of my own.
Him on his knees apologizing.
He was on his way to that man's room when I came up behind him and put the gun to his back.
(crying) Made him tie his own hands.
But then, when he turned around, when he saw me he wasn't afraid anymore.
He said he was sorry that I was upset but he wasn't gonna stop.
It's like when he looked at me, he saw what Shane saw.
A victim.
(crying) I didn't mean to kill him.
(footsteps) WATSON: What are you doing? I'm chatting with a policeman in the province of Bali.
Well, you don't have your glasses on, so I'm guessing you're not Wade Applewhite right now.
I am not.
Bali.
Isn't that where Shane Fitzhugh fled to? Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the United States.
In my early days as a detective, I lost many suspects to such countries.
Didn't sit well, so I began to develop friendships with those countries' various branches of law enforcement.
Okay.
Shane Fitzhugh's going to be arrested by the Balinese police tomorrow morning.
Did he hurt someone there? Gonna find ten kilograms of uncut cocaine in his home.
Your friend is gonna plant it.
Drug laws in that part of the world quite severe.
He'll be spending the rest of his life in an Indonesian prison.
I typically don't like such measures, but there's ample evidence that Fitzhugh's a threat to young women wherever he resides.
If you feel I'm acting rashly I didn't say anything.
(indistinct voices in distance) Bang! You couldn't find a better hiding place for this thing? Hey, if I can find it, so can your parole officer.
Why are you here? Heard about your new friend, Ms.
Watson.
I understand you two been spending a lot of time together.
What do you care? (laughing) You are aware that she works for the police, aren't you? You and me, Shinwell, we got big plans.
Be a shame if you die before we see them through.
(door opens) (door closes) @elderman
Do you remember me? SHINWELL: How could I forget? It's good to see you, Doc.
So, you're a former drug dealer, correct? Well, what kind of a name is Shinwell? What kind of name is Sherlock? I was just thinking about what you asked me the other day about how to change.
I think the answer is to let people help you.
WATSON: You hate it.
Not really my style.
You know, there are so many options.
Are you sure that your partner's cool with me borrowing his clothes? I can count on one hand the number of times he's opened that trunk.
Besides, it's for an interview.
He-He'd understand.
Okay, but I'm trying to get a job working in the kitchen of a chain restaurant.
My shirt may not be more important than a nice apron.
WATSON: You know, dress for success.
What kind of hat is this? Uh if you like it, you can have it.
Sherlock never wears it.
That's nice.
You like it? I like it.
Well, we have a winner.
This is my fifth interview in the last two weeks and so far, I'm 0 and four.
You really think I didn't get those other jobs because they didn't like my shirt? I'm ex-con.
All the clothes in the world ain't gonna hide that.
Listen all we need is one person who's willing to give you a chance.
You know, I think there's a jacket down there that's gonna look great with that.
I'll be right back.
Yeah, I know.
It stinks, sweetie, but Bob wants all the TPS reports in first thing, so I am going to be stuck here in the office all night.
Dinner? (chuckles) Eh, I don't know.
I'll probably just end up ordering in.
(chuckles) (jazz music plays) Oops, sorry.
Ugh, stupid computer.
Uh, I've been having trouble with the volume.
(music stops) I never said I didn't like jazz, I said I (gunshot booms) Uh, that was (footsteps running) that was nothing.
Uh, that was Howie.
He He, uh, closed a big deal today, so he popped a bottle of champagne.
(gunshot fires) (glass shatters) (gasps) Elementary 5x05 To Catch a Predator Predator @elderman BELL: Victim's name is Damien Novak.
A little after 8:00 p.
m.
last night, he was shot twice in a motel parking lot in Jackson Heights.
HOLMES: Shot from behind.
Figure he was making a run for it.
First bullet caught him in the shoulder.
The second caught him square in the back, sent him through a window.
Any witnesses? Guests heard the shots, but no one saw what happened.
Other than the lobby area, there's no security cameras.
It's the kind of place that prides itself on its anonymity.
No-tell motel.
Was he a guest? As far as we could tell, no.
He hadn't checked in.
But who knows? He may have been on his way to the front desk when the shooter approached him.
Wrists were bound.
Zip tie in the bin behind you.
So, you think this was some sort of botched kidnapping? Novak was married.
If he was going to the motel to meet up with someone other than his wife, it's possible he was stopped by an angry husband, a boyfriend.
That guy either wanted to scare him or take him somewhere.
Either way, Novak took off and the perp opened fire.
You don't think Novak's wife could've done this? She alibi'd out when the notification was made.
I'm leaving here to talk to her right after this.
Not looking forward to floating the theory that her husband was unfaithful.
It's even worse than you think.
Mr.
Novak went to the motel to rendezvous with an adolescent girl that he met online.
He's a sex predator.
Last night, he was targeted by someone who reviles such individuals, a predator of predators, if you will.
Couldn't be more obvious.
Unless all of that is etched in teeny, tiny lettering on that zip tie, I'm not sure how you got there from here.
Mr.
Novak is not the first predator to be preyed upon.
It's happened exactly five times before.
DISTORTED MALE VOICE: Say hi to the folks at home, Jerome.
(crying): There's been some sort of mistake.
I'm not who you think I am.
DISTORTED MALE VOICE: I know exactly who you are.
Dr.
Jerome Chun, age 45.
You're a dentist with an office in Newark.
And you came here to have sex with a 15-year-old girl.
No, no.
Stop it here.
Give away the ending.
Dr.
Chun admits that he went to that motel to have sex with a minor.
You said there's four more videos like this? I've seen the filmmaker's entire oeuvre.
On five separate occasions, he used the popular dating Web site TrueRomantix to lure men with a proclivity for underage girls.
How exactly did he do that? By pretending to be one.
He's a catfish.
He says he's one thing when he's really another.
And the M.
O.
is pretty simple, really.
He creates a phony profile and claims to be an 18-year-old girl, then he strikes up conversations with lonely, middle-aged guys.
When the young woman has a suitor on her hook, she then reveals that she misrepresented her age in order to gain access to the site.
She's not really 18, she's 15.
Now, it's safe to assume, at this point, some men fall away.
Others do not.
Those are the guys that she invites to meet her face-to-face.
The ones that we would classify as predators.
On the night of their respective trysts, Dr.
Chun and four other tricked men were not greeted by a pubescent girl, but by a vigilante with a camera.
And after he shot the video, he shot the men? BROOKS: No, he let them go.
Posted the videos online.
So, something went wrong last night.
Damien Novak fought back.
The guy shot him.
Uh, maybe, maybe not.
Detective Brooks is not convinced that Mr.
Novak's murder was the work of the same man.
The catfish has been exclusive to New Jersey.
I was keeping tabs on the case from afar.
All five videos got shot in my jurisdiction.
I have questioned each of the pervs that have lived to tell the tale and none of them ever said anything about a gun.
The guy that lured them used his size against them.
Beat them into submission.
Is this supposed to be a painter's mask? Between that and the beatings, uh, the light he shines in these guys' faces, we got almost zilch in the description department.
Caucasian.
Could be as young as 20 or as old as 45.
That being said, in each case, the wrists of the victims-- and I use that term as loosely as I can-- were bound with a red zip tie.
The tie used to bind Mr.
Novak is a perfect match.
Between it and the fact that he was shot outside a cheap motel, I cannot help but think that your catfish has migrated north.
Well, how do you explain the gun? Mr.
Novak was especially fit.
Perhaps the killer felt the need to bring insurance.
Do we have any idea if Novak had a thing for underage girls? Watson and Marcus are with his wife now.
Perhaps she'll be able to shed some light on what kind of man he was.
No.
What you're saying, it doesn't make sense.
His sister, Ivy she was hurt like that when she was a teenager by a family friend.
It happened a long time ago, but Damien never got over it.
I know this is very upsetting but like Detective Bell said, there is evidence that suggests that your husband was being targeted by someone who is hunting sexual predators, so we need to know everything.
Tell them about the pictures.
What pictures? A few months ago, I found something strange on Damien's laptop.
A file with photos of women.
They were girls.
They looked young.
But when I asked Damien about them, he said they were in college.
Sorority sisters or something.
He was training them at the gym where he worked.
My sister has always tried to see the best in people and she's been that way since we were kids, but Damien took advantage.
What do you mean? The last few months he's been working late at the gym a lot and Stephanie was worried that he might be having an affair, so I talked to him and he swore up and down that he wasn't cheating.
God help me, I believed him and I got to think he was doing something much worse, that he was stalking these girls or-or meeting up with other perverts and exchanging pictures Garrett, stop it! We're gonna have to take a look at Damien's laptop.
You can, but but after I talked to him about what I found he password-protected it.
I don't know how to log on.
If it's the pictures you want to see, I can pull them up right here.
Stephanie sent me the file when she found it.
MAN: TrueRomantix will not violate the privacy of its customers.
Oh, well, I'm just asking for access to the accounts of the men who were lured and shamed using your site.
I want to trace their profiles back to the ones used by their attacker.
Or would you rather that they continued stalking your clientele? The five men in those videos that got posted, they swore to a man that they were victims of mistaken identity.
Yes, well, it's easier to play the victim than the pervert, isn't it? See, this is what I mean.
You've already made up your mind.
Five loyal members of our community are "perverts.
" Why? Because the crazy man with a camera says so? Did you not think it was strange that not one of them would show the police the correspondence that they engaged in? No, because they have a right To privacy.
Yes, I'm well aware.
As do the TrueRomantix subscribers who use your site to engage in affairs.
And that's what you're really worried about, isn't it? 'Cause once word gets out that you're willing to bend the rules, the whole horny house of cards comes tumbling down.
They move on to another site with stricter privacy protections.
The Jersey City PD asked very nicely for the same access that you are.
We said no.
So, they asked not so nicely.
Now it's in the courts' hands.
You can wait for a decision if you want, but I got to tell you I'll take our lawyers over theirs any day.
If you don't mind, I have a lunch meeting.
You want to help me, don't you? Excuse me? When I was pressuring your boss, you retrieved a document from a printer just a few feet behind us.
Despite the fact that there's another printer of higher quality and faster output much closer to your desk.
I don't know what you're talking about.
You then disposed of said document without even reading it.
You were attempting to eavesdrop, weren't you? You don't like him very much.
You seemed especially put out when he spoke of the company's obligation to protect perverts.
You take anti-anxiety medication.
You hate your job? Are you trying to get me fired? Your dual 1440p monitors and your calloused fingertips suggest you make your living writing code.
You are a programmer, so getting me the data I need would be relatively easy.
This place is the worst.
My coworkers act like they're curing world hunger, and my boss is literally like a bad guy out of a comic book.
Yeah.
Give me your e-mail address.
I'll send you whatever you need.
(pen scratching on paper) Hey.
What are you doing here? Waiting for you.
Sherlock's not home? He is.
Said I could wait inside, but he's, you know intense.
You think? Wanted to return the clothes I borrowed.
Oh.
You got the job, so you don't need to do any more interviews? I'm pretty sure I could've wore a barrel and two straps, and it wouldn't have made no difference.
Apparently, my experience in the prison cafeteria is not a "real qualification.
" The guy didn't say it, but he didn't want nothing to do with an ex-con.
I'm sorry.
It is what it is.
Why don't you just hold onto them just in case? I think I'm gonna take a break from the job hunt for a while.
Try to get more hours at the gym.
You hate that place.
(chuckles) Work is work, right? Have a good night, Doc.
You, too.
(door opens, closes) You saw Shinwell? I did.
I offered him to wait in here, but he claimed to prefer the stoop.
I don't think he likes me.
I have a feeling it has more to do with the pervert family tree.
So, did you get everything you needed at TrueRomantix? Almost.
There's no record of Damien Novak having been a customer there.
Perhaps our predator- predator lured him on a different dating site.
WATSON: Hmm, so we still don't know who this guy is.
We do not.
He is, in fact, a more cautious catfish than we realized.
The New Jersey Police assumed that he'd use the same phony profile to bait all of his victims, but that was incorrect.
He used a different one each time.
And all five of them were paid for on credit cards pilfered in the mail.
They can't be traced back to him.
So, you're analyzing his chats with these men when he was pretending to be a teenage girl.
Mm.
Perhaps you'll have better luck than I did.
I've been at it for hours, and all I can say for certain is that he is an expert manipulator of perverts.
He baits them with ease.
I'd go so far as to call him a master baiter.
Of course you would.
HOLMES: It's clear now that none of these men were the victim of mistaken identity.
According to the transcripts, they were all quite keen on the idea of having sex with a teenager.
If our quarry hadn't crossed the line into murder last night, I'd be quite tempted to let him continue his attacks.
Oh, you know, Shinwell lost out on another job.
Sorry to hear that.
You know, I was thinking, instead of trying to work for other people, maybe he should work for himself.
You think he should be a tradesman.
Well, tradesmen need to be taught their trades.
And finding a willing (printing) teacher might be just as difficult as finding a willing employer.
Well, I thought I could be his teacher.
I mean, what we do is a trade, right? You want to teach him to be a detective? We've done it before.
You're referring to Kitty.
Kitty, who never graduated, burned a man's face off and fled the country.
She had a lot of baggage.
He doesn't? Look, the point is, you taught me how to be a detective.
I think it worked out pretty well, right? Are these the phony profiles the catfish used? Yeah.
The accompanying photographs, however, are stock images taken from the Internet.
No way to trace them back to him, either.
(calling): Actually, I think there is a way.
I've seen those girls before.
Where'd you get these? Damien Novak's wife found them on his laptop months ago.
So, you no longer think he was a sex predator.
I think he was the catfish.
You think these profiles were created by our victim, Novak.
He was the one who tricked all those guys who wanted to sleep with minors, he was the one who made the videos? He fits the profile.
His sister was a victim of abuse, and even though their descriptions varied, all five men who were shamed said their attacker overpowered them easily.
Novak was built like a linebacker.
Well, there's another possibility: Novak was the worst predator of them all.
He fell for all five of the vigilante's phony girls, cut and pasted their photos into a file on his laptop so he can always have them.
The thing is, there were eight photographs in that file.
Sherlock and I worked backwards and found three more profiles.
So, these five were used to catch the men who were shamed.
After that, they were deactivated.
These three are still active.
And we're pretty sure were used as hooks in the water to catch new prey.
BELL: If we're right, the only way Novak would've had these is if he were the one doing the hunting.
GREGSON: So you're saying he went to that motel two night ago to humiliate a new predator, only the tables got turned, his prey pulled a gun.
What about the mask? All of the guys who got jumped said the perp was wearing a painter's mask? Novak wasn't wearing one when he got shot.
I went back to the motel this morning, found that in a gutter across the street.
Killer might've tossed it.
Or it might've blown away.
It was windy that night.
BELL: The lab swabbed the inside for DNA.
We're expecting it to come back a match for Novak.
All we got to do is ID the guy he was supposed to meet.
We'll have our killer.
Actually, we ID'd him.
As it turns out, he is the one guy we're pretty sure didn't kill Novak.
BELL: Gonna save us all some time, Mr.
Utz.
There is zero point denying you went to the motel the other night to sleep with a girl you thought was only 15.
We read the messages you sent Kendra on TrueRomantix.
They were pretty explicit.
You talk to your wife like that? You're positive she doesn't exist? WATSON: We told you.
Kendra was a man named Damien Novak.
The same Damien Novak who came crashing through your window.
I'm sorry, it's just I loved her.
(sniffles) I didn't know.
Obviously, I didn't know.
I had nothing to do with what happened to that man.
We believe you.
Whoever killed him knew what he was.
They laid in wait.
You'd have to be an idiot to rent a room in your own name and then blow a guy away outside of it.
GREGSON: That said you kept things from us.
It makes us wonder what else you kept from us.
Maybe you saw or heard something.
You did, didn't you? (sniffles) If this conversation is going to continue, I want you to guarantee that you won't tell my wife about Kendra.
You said it yourselves.
She wasn't real.
She was a figment.
There is nothing illegal about wanting to be with a figment.
I didn't break a single law that night.
In fact, if someone hadn't intervened, I would be a victim.
Mr.
Utz Deal.
A few seconds after the second shot, a car tore out of the parking lot.
It was a white Toyota.
Think it might've been the killer.
That isn't helpful? It might be.
I'm just wondering, why didn't you mention this the other night? It's not like it would've given away your real reason for being at that motel.
Because I didn't see it happen then.
I saw it after.
What do you mean, after? This guy was gonna record himself having sex with a 15-year-old.
(gunshot over video) WATSON: Oh, there.
(clicks phone) Can't make out the license plate.
It's hard to tell if it's the shooter driving, or if it's just someone who got spooked by the gunshots.
We have a list of the other people who were staying at the motel that night.
I'll run their names through DMV, see if anyone owns a white Camry.
(door opens) I'll wrap up with Mr.
Utz.
Hey, you weren't serious before, right? About not telling his wife? I gave my word.
I'm not telling her a thing.
(door opens) What I am gonna do is I'm gonna arrest him.
Luring a child-- whether she ends up being a figment or not-- is a class E felony.
We have written proof.
His wife ends up finding out about it on the news? That's on him.
(clicks phone) Rico Taco, taco, taco Taco, taco, taco, taco Taco.
HOLMES: Don't get comfortable, Watson, 'cause we're leaving.
Why are you listening to old jingles? As we discussed, no one had more motive to kill Damien Novak than the five men he successfully shamed.
Based on the work I did this morning, only one of them could have shot him.
Jerome Chun? No.
He attempted suicide after the police questioned him about the video that he appeared in.
He's been in a coma ever since.
Reuben Welker? Impossible.
In the wake of his shaming, he was arrested for embezzling from his construction firm.
He's serving a five-year prison sentence.
Ignacio Gomez and Shane Fitzhugh, they both fled the country after Novak exposed them.
So that just leaves Jack McGill.
HOLMES: He's an ad man, or at least he was.
Managing partner of one of New York's largest agencies.
These jingles are all from campaigns he mounted in the 1980s.
A year ago, a female employee of his sued him for sexual harassment.
Case was on the verge of going to trial, and he was caught in Novak's trap.
So, after the video surfaced, the company fired him and then settled the suit.
His wife then filed for divorce.
Took him to the cleaners.
So, he didn't just get shamed, he lost everything.
Mm, not everything.
So many boats out here.
How are we supposed to find the one that Jack McGill lives in? Pretty sure it's that one.
You're positive this is the guy who tortured me? That's him.
Good.
I'm glad the son of a bitch is dead.
So, where were you two nights ago, around 8:00? Right here.
I'm always right here.
Haven't been able to show my face in public for months, not without someone threatening to kill me.
Can anyone confirm that you were here? (chuckles) Who'd you have in mind? My wife? She lives in Boca now.
My kids? They won't talk to me.
Not even when they need money.
Which, before I was branded a diaper sniper, was pretty much all the time.
The only visitor I've had recently is the little turd who vandalized my home.
You realize you're not making yourself any less of a suspect.
You want to throw me in jail, go ahead.
I won't fight you.
Tried that the last time someone accused me of something I didn't do.
Won't make that mistake again.
We were able to access your TrueRomantix account.
We read the messages that you sent to a 14-year-old girl named Ella May.
That's great.
I read them, too.
I just didn't write them.
I never even had an account on that ridiculous site.
So you still claim that someone created a phony profile and posed as you.
I was a founding partner of a top ad agency.
You really think if I was gonna seduce a teenage girl, I'd do it in a public forum using my own name and picture? You told the police you were lured to a motel in East Orange by a phone call from a mystery man who alleged to have information that would, uh, help you in the lawsuit you were fighting? Right.
Only when I got there, I got jumped by a masked psychopath with a camera.
He beat on me for over an hour.
Said he would kill me if I didn't confess my sins.
But you know what? I never did.
'Cause I didn't do any of those things he accused me of.
After you were fired you told anyone who would listen that the woman who was suing you was the one who set you up.
Yvette Ingram.
Who, by the way, I did not sexually harass.
That's a lie.
No, it's a good thing.
I was beginning to think you were unreadable.
Yvette was desperate.
The depositions were not going well for her.
She knew if the case went to trial, the jury would side with me.
Her only hope was to force a pretrial settlement.
And when that "video" of me surfaced, she got one.
'Cause a man who would prey on a minor is more than capable of harassing a grown woman, right? The dead guy, Novak-- he was just a weapon.
Yvette's the one who pointed him at me.
Say he's telling the truth.
That would mean that Yvette Ingram beat Damien Novak at his own game.
She catfished a catfish.
To do that she would have to know that Ella Mae is one of his aliases.
But how? We've already established he doesn't ever use the same alias twice.
Perhaps they know each other.
Perhaps she shared his secret.
Perhaps she divined it without him realizing.
Well, it's worth looking for a link between them, right? It is.
You know, I've been thinking about your idea regarding Shinwell.
If you want to attempt to teach him our trade, I'm not gonna stop you, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say I-I don't see it.
See what? He isn't a detective.
He wants a job.
But what we do, it's not a job.
It's a calling.
We were born to do this work.
You were born to it.
I learned it.
You disagree it's what you were meant to do all along? Well, so, what, Shinwell was meant to be a-a janitor in a boxing gym? I just know he's not meant to be a detective.
Well, you haven't spent that much time with him.
(phone rings) Because, typically, I need to do that in order to know someone? You kno Hey, you've got us both.
Thought you'd want to know CCS finally cracked the password on Novak's laptop.
And? It's a gold mine.
He was our shamer, no doubt about it.
We found links to all eight phony TrueRomantix profiles you dug up.
But there was a surprise, too-- a link to a ninth phony profile on a totally different Web site.
He was hunting a man we didn't know about? Not a man.
A woman.
So this is profile number nine.
Raphael Arnold, aka Damien Novak.
He whipped up Raphael a couple months ago, made him a CPA based out of Queens.
You said he was using this profile to hunt a woman? "Hunt" may be too strong a word, but it definitely looks like he was targeting her.
He poked her a few times, tried to start up a conversation, but she never took the bait.
While men don't hold a monopoly on sexual predation, Raphael is clearly of age, so he wouldn't attract our kind of predator.
The woman he reached out to didn't look like a pervert, but you be the judge.
Yvette Ingram.
That's the woman who sued Jack McGill for sexual harassment.
I think we've found a link between her and Damien Novak.
Don't you? So, you're saying that this guy-- the one that was sending me all the messages-- he's really the one who beat up Jack? That's exactly what we're saying.
You were being pursued by someone who, up until the moment he contacted you, had only pursued the predators of teenage girls.
Well, I don't, I don't know what to tell you.
I I have a boyfriend.
I've never preyed on anybody.
We think you preyed on Damien Novak.
What are you talking about? Somehow you knew he was hunting sex predators.
You lined Jack McGill up in his crosshairs.
(short chuckle) This again.
This again? Jack told that little theory to anybody who would listen when that video came out.
It was crazy then and it's just as crazy now.
We don't think Damien Novak thought it was crazy.
In fact, we think he saw everything Jack was saying in the media and started to wonder, had he been tricked? If he had, how did you learn his secret? Was he in danger of being exposed? He created the Raphael Arnold profile so he could look into you, only you saw through it.
You knew he was onto you, so you ambushed him the other night.
You're accusing me of killing him.
The end result of your manipulation several months ago was a pretrial settlement of $10 million.
Who had more reason to deceive Mr.
Novak than you? When exactly was he killed? Two nights ago, little after 8:00 p.
m.
I was having dinner with an ex-client on the Upper West Side.
I'm trying to start my own agency.
She can vouch for that.
As for your motive, you couldn't be more wrong.
I didn't get $10 million.
I got a fraction of $10 million.
Actually, a fraction of a fraction.
The bulk of that settlement went to the investment firm that actually paid for that lawsuit.
Investment firm? You are familiar with litigation financing, aren't you? Wealthy investors furnish the capital needed to bring civil suits in exchange for a sizable cut of the proceeds.
It was never about the money.
Jack made my life hell while I was working with him.
The way he looked at me, the-the things he would say.
I wanted to make sure that he could never do that to anyone again.
I was going up against a company, they had deep pockets, I needed help.
If you think that he was really set up by somebody who could profit from that lawsuit, you should talk to the people that actually paid for it.
Hello? Come in.
(chuckles softly) Tell me you don't smell that.
- Smell what? - The gas.
Pilot went out.
Then I found a corroded pipe.
Had to change it out.
Oh, no.
The air smells fine.
Mm.
It's funny, I'm supposed to be helping with repairs around the building, but so far, most of the broken-down stuff is in here.
I got your text.
You said you want to talk about something? Uh, yeah.
A job.
I told you that I was gonna take a break from interviewing.
Well, you would not need to interview for this job.
It would be with me.
I thought I could teach you to do what I do.
(chuckles) You want to teach me to be a private eye? I think you'd be great at it-- you're smart, you know how to read people.
You were a great help when we were looking for the Bensonhurst Bomber.
We would not have been able to find him without you.
I was a help because I'm an ex-con.
That don't mean I'm good at detecting stuff.
I knew a guy who knew a guy.
You would be surprised how important those connections are in our line of work.
It took me years to find my own.
(scoffs) You should try going to prison for a while.
Listen, Sherlock and I have experience with teaching.
You'd be paid a stipend, which is more than you make at the gym.
But the work is hard.
You'd have to be available 24/7.
And you'd have to study harder than you've ever studied in your life.
But in the end, I think it would be worth it.
You'd be your own boss.
And it's work that your daughter could be proud of.
No.
No.
Look, I appreciate all that you're doing.
You know I do.
But that doesn't mean I'm always gonna agree with you.
I don't expect you to.
I know, it just feels that way sometimes.
Thank you for the offer.
Of course.
All right, listen, you have a good night, okay? (door opens) (door closes) What are you doing? I'm just typing.
I mean with the glasses.
Oh, I-I forgot I had those on.
They're, uh, they're just helping me get into character.
(computer beeps) Oh, my God, you have your own TrueRomantix account? No, Wade Applewhite has his own TrueRomantix account.
He's one of my aliases.
Florida-born, moved to the city in '07, systems analyst with big dreams, enjoys wind surfing.
I thought I would take a page out of Damien Novak's book and try a little catfishing of my own.
What do you mean? I've been romancing a secretary who works at the investment firm which backed Yvette Ingram's lawsuit.
We've been chatting for almost an hour.
I think she's a hair's breadth from sending me a list of the individuals who profited.
Wow, that's pretty low.
Well, it is and it isn't.
I mean, I chose her based on certain beliefs she's espoused on social media.
For example, she started her own chapter of the Ayn Rand Appreciation Society because the New York chapter was too charitable, so, you know, when Wade fails to meet her for line dancing tomorrow night, I'm not going to lose much sleep.
Oh, I spoke to Shinwell tonight.
And? You're right Not a detective.
Not for everyone, Watson.
In fact (computer pings) Oh.
The biscuit is in the basket.
Sorry.
That's just something that Wade would say.
His would-be girlfriend has sent a list of investors.
Tell me you don't have to catfish any of them tonight.
I don't think any additional subterfuge will be necessary.
One of these names is quite familiar.
You met him the other day.
You should know, I've advised my client not to answer any questions.
BELL: That's okay, he can just listen.
We know you lied to us the other day, Mr.
Lerner.
When we said there was evidence that suggested your brother-in-law was a sex predator, you couldn't get on board fast enough.
But the truth is he was hunting men like that.
And you knew it.
You said you talked to Damien after your sister thought he was having an affair.
We're guessing he told you the truth about what he was doing.
HOLMES: The timing was quite fortuitous.
You'd invested rather heavily in a sexual harassment suit being brought by a woman named Yvette Ingram.
And those depositions were not going as you'd hoped.
So you created a phony TrueRomantix profile for Yvette's former boss, Jack McGill, and struck up a conversation with one of Damien's alter egos.
Not long after, Damien assaulted McGill, and posted a video that branded him a sex predator.
A big cash settlement for Yvette went from being a long shot to a sure thing.
You made your money back times ten.
Damien was a loose end, however, so you tied him up.
GARRETT: Wait.
What do y-- what do you mean? Garrett.
No, no, uh Are-are you saying I killed him? The other day, you let your sister think that her freshly-murdered husband was a habitual seducer of teenagers, so it's not hard for us to see you make the leap to murder.
Have you said anything to Stephanie about this? - Garrett, I thought we agreed - No, no, no, no.
They think I killed Damien.
Do you know what that would do to my sister? We haven't talked to Stephanie.
Yet.
Okay, yes.
I tricked Damien into going after McGill, but I did not kill him.
Mr.
Lerner, after everything that's happened, why should we believe a word you say? Because I needed him alive.
Explain that to us.
When I communicated with him as Jack McGill, I did it from a library near my house.
If he ever caught on to me, I didn't want him to trace it back to my home computer.
The night that he was killed, I was at the library again.
I had invested in another sexual harassment case.
I figured I could use Damien again to get it to go the way I wanted.
I was creating a phony profile, okay, in the name of the new defendant, to get Damien to go after him.
There's cameras at the library.
Go see.
I'm-I'm telling the truth.
Am I a despicable person? Yes.
Did I trick Damien? Yes.
But I'm telling you, I never would have hurt him.
Never.
Not for all the money in the world.
WATSON: How'd it go at the library? Yes, well, it turns out I took out their copy of the Codex Seraphinianus in 2011 and never returned it.
And they refused access to their security footage until I settled up.
$463 later, Marcus and I were able to confirm Garrett Lerner's alibi.
He did not kill his brother-in-law.
WATSON: I had a feeling it was going that way, so I dug back into the men that Damien Novak shamed.
And? Well, you and I both don't like Jack McGill for the murder, so I put him to the side.
Jerome Chun is still in a coma, and Reuben Welker is still in prison.
So that just leaves Ignacio Gomez and Shane Fitzhugh.
Both of whom fled the country.
Yeah.
That why you were crying, Watson? Excuse me? You've been crying sometime in the last hour.
Okay, first of all, I did not cry, I teared up, and second of all, it wasn't because we weren't able to pin one of these guys to the murder.
It was because of these.
Oh, these are the statements from the women hurt by Fitzhugh and Gomez.
Oh, the toughest one to read was one of Fitzhugh's victims, Nadia Swain.
He was her J.
V.
field hockey coach.
Over the course of a year, he abused her over a hundred times.
She was 14.
20 when she wrote this.
Yeah, it took her that long to come forward.
When she was a kid, he convinced her that no one was gonna believe her and it was all her fault.
When she went to college, she knew better.
Hmm.
Told you it was tough to read.
Ms.
Swain writes that for years she's required a daily cocktail of anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.
Who knows how long she's gonna have to take those for? (sighs) Is there a problem? Well, the problem is, I don't just know who killed Damien Novak, Watson.
But I liked her.
Miss Parsons, please have a seat.
If you need more data from TrueRomantix, I can't help you.
I gave my notice two days ago.
No, that's not why we asked you here.
So the other day, I, uh, misunderstood why you were interested in my conversation with your boss.
I thought you were eavesdropping because you didn't like him, but in truth, you wanted to know how much the police knew about Damien Novak's murder.
I'm sorry.
Um Damien Novak? The man you shot the other night.
We know your real name is Nadia Swain.
We also know that in 2009 you were victimized by a man named Shane Fitzhugh.
Last year, you worked up the courage to tell the New Jersey Police about it.
HOLMES: You gave them a very detailed statement, and in that you explained how you needed a, uh, certain regimen of medications now.
Sertraline, 150 milligrams, once a day.
Aripiprazole, five milligrams, twice a day.
Clonazepam, one-half milligram, once a day.
Now, when I approached your desk the other day, I saw that very same combination of medications in your pill organizer.
You own a white Toyota Camry, right? So? We have video of a white Camry tearing out of the parking lot where Damien Novak was shot.
A lot of people own white Camrys.
How many of them also own a nine millimeter handgun? We know you registered one after you turned 21.
It's the same caliber gun used to kill Damien Novak.
At first we we didn't get it.
Why kill Novak? I mean, he shamed sex predators, including the one that hurt you.
But then we reached out to Jersey City PD.
All of a sudden, everything made sense.
After you came forward, they started an investigation into Mr.
Fitzhugh.
They took what you said very seriously.
But after so much time had passed, there wasn't any evidence.
BELL: It took them a few months, but they managed to identify a second girl he'd hurt then a third.
HOLMES: So they were on the verge of making an arrest, and then Mr.
Novak muscles his way into the equation.
He shames your tormentor.
He does such a good job, the man has to leave the country.
So, all of a sudden, your quest for justice over.
You got angry, you wanted revenge, but the man who cost you a shot at Fitzhugh was anonymous.
All anyone knew about him was that he set traps at TrueRomantix.
HOLMES: So you dropped out of college.
You got a job there, undercover, right? You got access to their files, and then all of a sudden, this hunter, he becomes the hunted.
BELL: It took you some time, but you managed to identify Novak's newest phony accounts.
You monitored them, and when you saw he was going to meet Winston Utz at a motel a few nights ago, you acted.
I wanted him to understand what he'd done.
I wanted to shame him.
I was gonna make a video of my own.
Him on his knees apologizing.
He was on his way to that man's room when I came up behind him and put the gun to his back.
(crying) Made him tie his own hands.
But then, when he turned around, when he saw me he wasn't afraid anymore.
He said he was sorry that I was upset but he wasn't gonna stop.
It's like when he looked at me, he saw what Shane saw.
A victim.
(crying) I didn't mean to kill him.
(footsteps) WATSON: What are you doing? I'm chatting with a policeman in the province of Bali.
Well, you don't have your glasses on, so I'm guessing you're not Wade Applewhite right now.
I am not.
Bali.
Isn't that where Shane Fitzhugh fled to? Indonesia has no extradition treaty with the United States.
In my early days as a detective, I lost many suspects to such countries.
Didn't sit well, so I began to develop friendships with those countries' various branches of law enforcement.
Okay.
Shane Fitzhugh's going to be arrested by the Balinese police tomorrow morning.
Did he hurt someone there? Gonna find ten kilograms of uncut cocaine in his home.
Your friend is gonna plant it.
Drug laws in that part of the world quite severe.
He'll be spending the rest of his life in an Indonesian prison.
I typically don't like such measures, but there's ample evidence that Fitzhugh's a threat to young women wherever he resides.
If you feel I'm acting rashly I didn't say anything.
(indistinct voices in distance) Bang! You couldn't find a better hiding place for this thing? Hey, if I can find it, so can your parole officer.
Why are you here? Heard about your new friend, Ms.
Watson.
I understand you two been spending a lot of time together.
What do you care? (laughing) You are aware that she works for the police, aren't you? You and me, Shinwell, we got big plans.
Be a shame if you die before we see them through.
(door opens) (door closes) @elderman