In New York City's war on crime,
the worst criminal offenders are pursued
by the detectives of the Major Case Squad.
These are their stories.
Say it like someone punched you in the stomach.
Hai!
That was a sumo wrestler getting a wedgie.
No. Remember? Like this.
We have a great tailor at 86 Lexington, between 24th and 25th.
86 is between 25th and 26th.
You know it?
It's too sexy. Try on the other one.
Let me see how it feels in action.
This works. Not for Ms. Terada.
It belonged to Ms. Terada's mother, but the stone fell out.
Now Ms. Terada would like to set a yellow diamond in it.
Fancy vivid VS.
I have about six that will meet your criteria.
It's broken.
I have one she could use.
Yossi, are you still showing these?
I'm sorry, Ms. Terada's father needs to see her urgently.
Thank you very much.
Hershel, what the hell is this?
Yossi, this is fake!
Oh, baby, you were awesome.
Chill, Zach.
As chill as I can be for someone who's about to collect...
Oh! Hey! Oh!
Deceased fits the description of the jewel thief
that hit Zager's two hours ago.
He had an accomplice, female, Asian.
She didn't stick around.
He was searched?
Before we made him as a suspect.
Just thought he was a medical case.
ID and 600 bucks. Name's Scott Talbert.
East Asian market analyst for Goldberg Lynch.
You know the economy's tanking
when investment bankers start knocking off jewelry stores.
Small hole in his jacket.
It's a needle mark. The paramedics give him anything?
No.
We'll need your people to search for a syringe or a needle.
Subway platforms, tracks, trash cans.
Okay.
Perp would've had to get in close to inject him.
Maybe his accomplice?
She was probably carrying the diamonds.
I mean, to kill him here, in a public place,
time was more important than privacy.
She got rid of him before they cashed in.
It looks like he outlived his usefulness.
A disposable partner. Who would've thought?
Double spectrum.
Real diamonds only refract once.
They left you three of these duds and took three of your best yellow diamonds.
A quarter of a million dollars.
I turned my back for two seconds.
You're a cautious man, right? But you trusted this couple.
A well-dressed Japanese woman
walks in with an American guy from Goldberg Lynch.
Japanese... Japanese-American, Japanese from Japan?
From Japan. She had yen in her wallet, she spoke Japanese to the young man,
and her English, it was shaky.
He spoke Japanese, too?
Very well, from what I could tell.
You said she sat here. Did she touch the counter at all?
She kept her hands folded in her lap, very ladylike.
And what about her friend?
Just the door handle when they left.
She started to reach for it first, but then he got to it in time.
She reached for it?
Yeah.
That's not very ladylike.
The ME said his lungs stopped working because of a succinylcholine injection.
Goldberg Lynch said they don't have a Scott Talbert,
which figures, and the driver's license is a fake.
Look at this.
All right, look at her hands.
She picks up the three diamonds, drops the three fakes,
covers her mouth to laugh, swallows the diamonds.
And she goes home, maybe takes cod-liver oil,
waits for the diamonds to pass.
That's an MO you don't see too often.
Check with our friends in Japan.
No, she's not native Japanese.
She reached for the door before her partner did.
Upper-class Japanese woman wouldn't do that.
And this...
There, she shrugged. Japanese women don't shrug.
She's American.
But her partner, he's got the right body language.
He's deferential to her but authoritative with the jeweler.
Yeah, he's... He spent some time in Japan.
His card looks legit, even if the name's fake.
Maybe the job title isn't. Check with Goldberg, see who has that job.
That's my card, but someone else put their name on it.
This person had the card. You know him?
Right. He came here for a job interview.
His name is Thaler. Zach Thaler.
So what's Thaler done?
What would your guess be?
Maybe some trouble with a girl.
He struck me as kind of a ladies' man.
Zach Thaler.
Taught English in Osaka, Japan for five years, until last spring.
You were in Osaka for business last year, right?
That's what they told us in Personnel. Was Zach your personal guide?
It's just when you eat all that salty Japanese food,
rings,
you know, especially wedding rings, they get really tight to wear.
I don't think I have to... We get it.
What happened in Japan, stays in Japan.
So Zach showed up here.
Try remembering where he lived.
He was house-sitting a loft, next to the Puck Building.
"R equals L, V equals B, T-H equals S."
What do you make of that? A pronunciation key?
No, there's no "T-H" sound in Japanese.
Substitute the "S"
and "thank you" becomes "sank you. "
He was teaching her to speak English with a Japanese accent.
This might be how they met.
He ran an ad,
offering language and cultural instructions for people doing business in Japan.
She might have used the mirror
to practice carrying herself like a native Japanese.
And there were hooks in the bedroom.
The mirror was originally in there.
It's heavy. It's odd that they moved it.
Maybe she didn't feel comfortable with him in the bedroom.
Someone jammed the blinds to keep them from being pulled down.
Well, there's a nice view from the art gallery.
Maybe Zach likes putting on shows for the neighbors.
No, but a true exhibitionist
would've jammed the blinds in the bedroom, not just these.
A Size 4 designer blouse.
The girl looked like a Size 4. Bargain price, 50 bucks.
There's a couple of consignment stores in the neighborhood.
Him, I remember, but the girl had shorter hair.
And I'm not so good with faces.
Did he call her by name?
No.
They paid cash for the suit. They said she needed it for a job interview.
She tried it on in the dressing room? Did you get a look at her?
Any marks or tattoos?
Just a scrape down her left arm and a bruise on her left thigh.
Like she'd fallen on that side?
Her body, was it lean or muscular?
Her legs had the muscles, especially her calves.
Skater or a cyclist.
Did she leave the suit overnight to be hemmed?
Maybe she left a phone number?
No.
I told her about a tailor we use. She has a great future as a cab driver.
I gave her the street number,
right off the top of her head, she knew the cross streets.
My money says she's a bike messenger.
That's a certain personality type, non-conformist, independent.
You get that from her?
She was definitely a brat.
She kept doing this thing to annoy him.
Every time she would try on an outfit,
she'd do a runway walk to the front of the store,
and then start voguing for the pedestrians.
Right up here is where she did her, you know, "voguing"?
Right there.
Excuse me.
Maybe she's the exhibitionist?
Yeah, her and an audience of one,
sitting at the coffee shop across the street.
In the loft, maybe she was the one that jammed the blinds,
so that the same person could watch her from the art gallery.
Maybe a lover, keeping a tight rein on her.
Yeah, a lover running the show.
A bike messenger service ID'ed your daughter, Ella, from those photos.
That bicycle was the closest thing to a home Ella has.
When was the last time you talked to your daughter?
Close to a month ago.
You have a number for her, or maybe you visit her at her squat?
No. The less we know about her lifestyle, the less we worry.
You both have PhDs in literature. You're professors?
And these other degrees, for Thomas Miyazaki, Ella's brother?
And what about Ella? Where are her certificates?
She didn't even graduate from high school.
Is that why you've written her off?
Or is there something else that she did?
My wife and I were committed to having two children.
Then a few years ago, Kaoru became pregnant.
A decision was made not to carry the pregnancy to term.
Was this a family secret?
Until a few weeks ago, when Ella wrote a letter to my parents.
They're very old-fashioned. It caused us great distress.
For a father who hasn't seen his daughter in a month,
you don't seem concerned.
She called our son two days ago in Singapore.
That's where he works.
What did she say to him?
Not much. She asked to speak to his fiancée.
She's very materialistic. Not like Ella.
But Tom said they talked on the phone for an hour.
She might have picked up an accent from talking to the fiancée.
Her next incarnation might be as a material girl from Singapore.
This letter to her grandparents
was most likely her partner's idea, to isolate her.
He wants control of her.
May be a Pygmalion thing.
He's much older than her.
This girl doesn't know what she's messing with.
She might be cute as a button, but once this sugar daddy gets tired of her...
Another disposable partner.
Go with the Singapore girl,
and put an advisory out to the Jewelers Association.
I heard around town
that you have the last jasper tennis bracelet with the one-carat diamonds?
Yeah.
Beautiful piece.
It matches your earrings.
I love your accent. Are you from Hong Kong?
No, Singapore. I flew in last night.
Singapore. That's my next guess.
There's a ring we just finished that's in the same style.
I'll go get it.
I can't believe I forgot. I'm totally late.
Miss... I have a 12:00 massage at Bliss.
I'll come back after. I really need to relax.
She said Singapore. Maybe I overreacted.
No appointment at Bliss.
She do anything before she left?
Maybe look outside?
No.
Her pager went off. It was clipped to her purse.
Her pager went off right after he went into the back?
Pretty much.
Her partner must've been watching.
But not from the street. He sent her a signal to leave.
But the cases blocked the view from the street.
She was right here?
Yes.
It's a straight shot from the second floor across the street.
May I help you?
Was there a man in here about an hour ago?
I've had one customer all morning.
A woman who tried on seven different outfits but didn't buy anything.
She spent the whole time in the dressing room?
Yes.
What did she look like?
Late 30s, nice figure.
Dark brown hair, glasses.
Lively eyes. She said she was from LA.
It's a perfect view.
You talked to her? Yes.
She was curious about my daughter. I have her picture here.
She's a musician.
This is in London. There's a London taxi cab.
I'm going to visit her next month.
She's giving a concert outside of London, at the...
I forgot the name of the hall, the Shelbourne, something like that.
The Sheldonian?
Yes, that's it.
The woman from LA said it's a beautiful old theater.
She knew it? She'd been there?
Yes. She seemed very cultured. She had a little accent.
The Sheldonian is in Oxford.
That's right. This woman was very funny.
She said when she was younger she spent a couple of weeks there, chasing boys.
That has a familiar ring to it.
Ella's sugar daddy.
Nicole Wallace.
I could've pulled it off, Nickie.
He was just getting the bracelet.
I can't risk them taking you away from me.
I've arranged for us to move to a new place in a few days,
one that doesn't have any ties to my ex-husband.
I'm not letting anything come between us.
Not anything, not anyone.
Nicole and I got divorced two months ago. I haven't had any contact with her since.
It's not my business anymore.
You put her back on the street.
No. A jury did that.
You got her the best defense money can buy,
and as soon as she was acquitted, you divorced her.
I think that you realized you were married to a killer
and were too proud to admit it.
He always take all of his defeats this hard?
He's not alone.
Look, the fact of the matter is,
we got divorced because I wanted to have children,
and Nicole couldn't have any.
You know, you once told us that you'd never give Nicole
a reason to turn on you.
Now you have,
and now you're gonna need us to protect you.
The last thing I did for Nicole
was to put her in touch with a real-estate manager.
He arranged for her to house-sit apartments while the tenants are away.
This is his number.
Ella Miyazaki? We need to talk to you.
Your parents filed a Missing Persons report.
I'm 19. I'm not a baby.
We understand that, but we have to follow procedure
and make sure that you're okay.
Nice scar. Nice for us.
Looks like the same one you had during your shopping spree with Zach.
The next part of our procedure, Ella, you're under arrest.
That's not me. That's not me. And that's not me.
No, see, they're all you. And so is this.
This fingerprint was left in Zach Thaler's loft.
Whoever wiped the place down missed it.
I know what cops do. You lie. You fake stuff.
Forget what my parents told you. I'm not stupid.
They didn't say that you were.
They didn't say that you were a criminal, either.
This is all new for you.
How did Nicole present it?
A proof of love?
Perpetrate these crimes to show your devotion to her?
You need to hear what Nicole
has to say about Nicole.
This is from two years ago, when Nicole was sitting where you are.
If you want to play, then it's gonna have to be tit-for-tat.
You have to tell me something true about you, about Nicole.
I did meet Nicole before I left for England.
She told me things.
What did she tell you?
She told me that she enjoyed
being under the thumb of her French boyfriend.
That relinquishing responsibility to him
gave her the unimaginable freedom
to commit horrible crimes without any guilt at all.
My turn.
How old were you when you first realized
your mommy wasn't like all the other mommies?
Seven.
Were you ashamed?
And frightened. Listen, it's my turn.
How old were you when your father first molested you?
None of those things happened. None of those things are true.
I am Elizabeth Hitchens. I am a professor of literature...
No... ... at...
No! When I met you, you wanted me to know who you truly were.
How smart, how funny, how charming you were.
You wanted me to know you. Nicole Wallace.
The sparkling little girl who survived horrible abuse
with her wits intact.
It's a trick.
It's her ex-husband. Nicole said he'd use his money to make trouble for us.
He hates us, hates who we are. I don't have anything to prove to Nicole.
I know that she's overwhelmed your sense of right and wrong.
Nothing is too insignificant to escape her attention.
She even has you writing malicious letters to your family.
Did we make that up, too?
Your grandparents received a letter from you
about your mother's abortion.
Would you like to see it?
Say hello to Ms. Miyazaki's attorney.
Now say goodbye, and let me talk to my client.
She didn't fall for the fingerprint.
How'd the saleslady do with the scar?
It's healed some, so it's not as big as she remembered.
And the jewelers couldn't pick her out of a line-up.
She came with the lawyer.
"The greatest detectives in the world. "
You have to wonder about people who need so much positive reinforcement.
I missed you at the reading of the verdict.
Then again, it wasn't one of your best moments.
Well, none of us have been at our best lately.
You've gone from multi-millionaires to street urchins.
It's a step up from Gavin, believe me.
At least you're not calling yourself Elizabeth Hitchens anymore.
Well, if you can't beat them...
I meant to tell you, Detective.
You looked radiant when you took the stand at my trial.
Speaking of cradles, it looks like you robbed one.
You're looking for her?
You worried that you didn't inoculate her thoroughly enough against our "tricks"?
She has a natural immunity to pathological liars.
Well, I've never seen you so agitated.
It must be all the pleasant memories this place brings back.
You'd be more agitated if you saw Ella's reaction
when we showed her the letter to her grandparents.
They think that she sent it.
Why wouldn't they? It's her signature.
It could be her signature, except the rest of it is typed.
Anybody could have written it, especially you.
To isolate her, to make her more dependent on you.
You tried to remake her in your image.
That was the line that she couldn't cross. So you wrote it yourself.
I didn't come here to engage you. I want... I want a truce, Bobby.
A truce? Notwithstanding your...
That's not in your nature.
...unrelenting pursuit of evil.
Evil, Nicole, is also unrelenting in its pursuits.
Your ex-husband, who actually loved you,
he knew enough to step away from you.
We divorced for reasons familiar to many couples.
Because you couldn't bear children?
Is that what he told you?
Obviously I need to remind him that our divorce agreement
has a confidentiality clause. Excuse me.
Finally.
She's just being taken down for arraignment.
It'll be fine. We'll be home soon.
She asked for a truce.
At least she hasn't lost her sense of humor.
Well, she's lost something.
I smell blood in the water.
I made us some tea.
Are you still cross at me?
If I hadn't sent the letter,
your parents never would have shown you their true colors.
And now they have. You're making me quite sad, darling.
Now, starting tomorrow, we have something to take care of.
I hope those strong legs of yours are up to it.
Yes, Mommy, they are.
Ella's back working hard.
She's averaging 30 messenger runs a day.
I guess if you want to be Nicole's lover, you have to pull your own weight.
You know, I keep going back to the letter.
The fact that Nicole needed so much to cut her off from her family,
that's a level of possessiveness that she hasn't shown.
These logs from the messenger service, three days in a row this week,
Ella made a delivery uptown at around 2:00.
Then nothing for an hour and a half. She just disappears.
And next thing you know, she's all the way downtown doing a pick-up.
The pick-ups, where are they?
The Financial District, 12 Stone Street, 27 Broad, 18 Stone.
Gavin Haynes' office is five blocks away.
Here. Edwin Leeds, his financial adviser.
It's the corner of Stone and Broad.
Yes, I saw her coming out of the stairwell two days ago.
She was looking for an office.
She came up the stairs? All 12 flights?
Well, the elevator's not very reliable. It gets stuck.
The messengers always take the stairs.
This envelope for Mr. Haynes, a messenger is picking it up?
No, he is, this afternoon. He walks over from his office.
Thank you.
Excuse me. The elevator, it gets stuck how often?
A few times a week.
It happens every time someone pushes the up and down call button at the same time.
Thanks.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
That's like a sardine can.
Suffocating.
Especially if you had asthma.
What are you doing here?
Taking the elevator up to Mr. Leeds' office?
The stairs are a little tricky for you with your asthma.
That's right. What's going on?
You ever been on the elevator when it got stuck?
What happens to your asthma then?
Well, after 5 or 10 minutes, I have to use an inhaler.
Nicole ever been on the elevator with you?
Yes, yes, what...
I caught a glimpse of her, but she took off.
Were you bumped on the way over here?
On Wall Street, yeah. Well, everybody's rushing.
Your inhaler, it's in your jacket pocket? Do you mind?
It's empty.
I just put a brand-new vial in this morning.
Nicole's lover bumped you on the street and switched inhalers.
She was going to follow you in here. When you got on the elevator,
she'd cause it to get stuck. Your asthma would kick in.
Without an inhaler, after 15 minutes...
Oh, my God. I would have suffocated.
Nicole's not in my will, she knows it.
I just have no idea what she would get out of murdering me.
She mentioned a confidentiality clause.
Is there anything she might have told you she wouldn't want us to know?
Maybe something personal?
No. Pillow talk wasn't her style.
What about her infertility? It got a rise out of her when we brought it up.
Yeah, I'm not surprised. It was a touchy subject with us.
She ever see a fertility specialist?
No, she refused. Wouldn't even go for a consultation.
I even got a referral from my physician,
and Nicole gave me one of her smiles and said, "Just mind your own business. "
Well, maybe she just didn't want anybody examining her.
Hey, they're gonna be up soon in Sydney.
Besides a medical condition,
what else would an examination show?
A doctor could tell if she'd had an abortion or given birth.
This is from the Australians.
Queensland Department of Birth and Records.
They found a birth certificate for a baby girl,
born in 1997 to Rohan Bartlett and Nicole Wallace.
So Nicole has a daughter. Where is the child?
It doesn't say. But I asked them to run the father's name.
Here. They found an accident report he filed with the Brisbane police in 2000.
His daughter was swept out to sea off Stradbroke Island,
while at the beach with her mother.
The body was never recovered.
This is what she didn't want Gavin Haynes to know.
And if she had killed Gavin, we never would have thought to look for a child.
Tragic as this accident is,
it doesn't seem worth murdering him to keep it secret.
At worst, it makes her out to be a careless mother.
Well, there's worse.
We need to bring them both back in, Nicole and Ella.
Well, Ms. Miyazaki was trespassing in the financial adviser's building.
That's a violation of her bail.
If her girlfriend's a suspected diamond thief,
doesn't that make Nicole Wallace a candidate
for a material witness warrant?
Trespassing?
Next thing, you'll be handing out parking tickets.
Come on. Sit down, Nicole. That chair practically has your name on it by now.
You're both so transparent. Punishing Ella just to get at me.
That's Nicole's maternal instinct rearing its little head.
You can't deny those feelings, even if you can't have kids of your own.
Yes, thank you.
Not all of us can be blessed like you with eggs ripe and ready for hire.
Tell me, did your sister let you keep the sonogram,
so you'd have something to cuddle up with at night?
I see my nephew three times a week.
Being pregnant was a great experience, Nicole.
Consider yourself robbed.
Is that what this girl is for?
To offer you a chance to exercise your maternal yearnings?
And why not? Adopting Asian children is all the rage, Bobby.
They're practically fashion accessories.
Tell me, Nicole, since it's just the two of us.
Your infertility...
You think it has anything to do with the abuse you suffered as a child?
You don't listen, do you? I was not abused.
And since you'll hound me until I tell you,
I can't conceive because of an infection I contracted during my misspent youth.
Is that why you refused to see a specialist?
I didn't refuse. I just didn't see the point.
People like you and me just aren't fated to have children, Bobby.
Well, don't count me out, yet.
You know, I was thinking about
what a specialist can learn from an examination.
Depending on the size of the uterus,
they can tell if a woman has delivered a baby,
even seven years after the fact.
Very good, Bobby.
She's adorable. Where is she?
I decided to leave her with the good sisters at Mater Hospital.
They placed her with a nice, middle-class couple.
You never think of what you missed?
Of course. But she's got a better life where she is.
I'm sorry for your loss. It was a year before you left Australia.
The report says that you spent the whole day alone with her at the beach.
You just looked away for a moment.
Yes. She loved the water.
Is there comfort in that?
Or is it just cruelly ironic
that you lost her in the ocean?
I suppose it's a little of both, isn't it?
And now there's just emptiness and Ella.
No wonder why you hold her so close.
Your daughter, was she strong and independent, like Ella?
She was bright, Bobby, like her mother.
But of course.
Close to her father, you know, daddy's girl?
Aren't they all?
All little girls flirt with their daddies, is that what you're saying?
Nature of the beast.
Is that what you thought when you saw them together?
When he stroked her hair,
when she gave him little baby kisses on his eyelids?
That she was replacing you as the object of your lover's attention?
She could never.
She was precocious that way, this three-year-old, wasn't she?
Stop talking about her.
Three years old.
That's how old you were when your father first molested you.
I won't listen to this.
He said that it was your fault,
that you seduced him.
That all little girls flirt with their daddies.
And you believed this big lie. What other explanation could there be?
Why would your father do these horrible things to you?
So when you saw your daughter with her daddy,
how could you not see her as a sexual rival?
Get out!
How could you not be jealous of her?
You couldn't allow her to take your place.
I did not kill her.
And through this whole thing, you haven't managed one solitary tear for her.
My child drowned.
You're insane to think anything else.
Who helped you concoct this theory? Your mother?
In her wildest delusions,
she never spawned anything like you, Nicole.
I've got a judge's order for your immediate release.
What about Ella? You can't let him near her.
Set this place on fire, I don't care,
but you keep him away from my girl.
She killed her child, maybe drowned her.
No body, no witness. She was home free.
A year later, she leaves Australia.
After she killed Hitchens and took her money.
But maybe money wasn't the reason.
Maybe she was after Hitchens' identity.
Because she was on the run from something catching up to her.
You know the country code, start dialing.
Nicole Wallace never made it back to her apartment.
We sent somebody in there 20 minutes ago.
All of her valuables were gone.
She probably has a travel bag stashed somewhere, ready to go.
I need to talk to the girl.
This is why she left Australia.
Killing Hitchens was just her ticket out.
Did she tell you she lost a child?
Nicole told us that you filled the space that her daughter left when she died.
All the feelings Nicole had for this little girl, she now focuses on you.
You're not so different.
You crave warmth and closeness,
something that you didn't get from your parents.
You want guidance and friendship, intimacy.
And you found it all in Nicole, this bright woman
who always stays one step ahead of all the people that try to hurt her,
however cruel she is towards them.
And you feel immune and protected.
Just like this little girl,
cradled in Nicole's arms.
But there is no safe place around Nicole.
These are the remains of a three-year-old girl.
They were dug up by dogs
100 miles from Stradbroke Island,
a year after Nicole's daughter drowned.
There were no other three-year-olds reported missing
in that area in the previous two years. Only Nicole's daughter.
You see this here? This is a spiral fracture of the arm.
Someone, you know, twisted it.
And here, her neck was broken.
Nicole did this, with her own hands, because in Nicole's world,
even...
Even her daughter,
her own daughter,
is a threat to her.
That's why she wanted you to kill Gavin Haynes.
So we'd never dig into her past. So you would never see this.
She kills her young.
She kills her lovers.
And you? You, Ella?
You're both.
We're willing to offer a plea, but we'll need her help with Ms. Wallace.
I just wanted her to be proud of me.
Yes? Darling, are you all right?
I'm so chuffed to hear your voice.
No, I'm not at home.
We'll meet later. I'll have everything ready.
Let me tell you where.
Near Pier 30, 8:00.
Pier 30? There's a helipad.
Wallace might be heading for the airport. Is she up for this?
She says she wants to do it. We'll stay as close as possible.
She's inside. Let's tighten it up.
Nickie, where are you? Over here, darling!
You made it. What's this in your pocket?
Nothing. Just lipstick.
No. It's a microphone!
No!
All this blood.
Here's the bug.
Your Ms. Wallace must have had her claws dug in pretty good.
This girl's trachea's crushed.
When she hit the water, she didn't have a chance.
And the blood in the room?
Well, it all matched what we have on file for Wallace.
We estimate there's a little under a quart.
There's no way Wallace would survive in the river after losing that much blood.
I guess we'll be seeing her in somebody's tuna net one of these days.
How long do you think it would have taken Nicole to collect a quart of her own blood?
If the blood was a set-up,
why wouldn't Ella say something about it when she saw it all over the room?
Maybe she was in on it. Maybe we never turned her.
Then she had to learn the hard way.
It's just a thought.