A phone rings, pulling a man from his sleep, the voice of a sensual, sexy young woman on the other end. What starts to look like a sexy phone call quickly takes a turn for the worse – as the ex football player collapses to the ground with a knife in his throat.
Doug Maclain, a retired football player for the past twelve years, is still something of a name. So when he’s murdered in his own home the team is called in to get to the bottom of this. The wound perfectly severed his carotid artery. The blood spray showing that his last three heartbeats were sprayed over the window as he dropped to the floor, dead before he even realizes it.
When the body is turned over to the ME another problem arises, the widow wants the body in order to freeze it for cryonic storage. As it’s a murder, they cannot release the body, he has to be autopsied in order to follow through on the crime report, but an autopsy can damage the body for such a freeze. Cryonic suspension hasn’t quite gained the popularity that they first thought it would, but there are enough people interested in it that it’s still covering costs and more.
As Callie, played by Emily Proctor, begins to investigate the scene she discovers a piece of double sided tape, and the investigation also reveal that Doug’s three championship rings and the ball used in his last game are missing. The theft more than enough reason to kill Doug. A signed team ball and the three rings are the prizes of Doug’s collection, so the items that would sell for the largest amount of money on the market.
So just who was the woman on the phone?
The sticky tape from the window had some fibers on it, but they don’t match anything in the house. Instead leading to something made from Italian silk.
Callie finds her way to the woman who was on the phone, who turns out to be a pretty young reporter who had been updating Doug’s obituary for the newspaper. Although it sounds strange many newspapers keep updated obituaries for their records. But the fact his was being updated on the day he died, does seem more than a little weird? Was this a way of keeping him distracted so the killer could walk in, commit the murder and kill him.
Alex Woods, played by Khandi Alexander, is left trying to find a way to do an autopsy without disturbing the body. Which means running a form of full body cat scan in order to get the in-depth images required for a virtual autopsy. As that is going on the person selling the missing rings and ball is tracked down. A man who claims that the rings and ball were sold off legitimately by Doug’s manager – is that true, or lie? The team has to dig deeper in order to find out. The person who bought the items admits he put them up on sale within hours of hearing about Doug’s death, but as he says. When a legend dies the fans go into a feeding frenzy – all he was doing was recouping and tripling or more, his initial investment into the items.
When the manager is tracked down it appears that the buyer told the truth. The items were sold off legitimately. Though Doug wasn’t happy with what his manager was doing. The sales were needed, according to the manager, because Doug was still spending money as if he were in the prime of his career and the manager felt he had no choice if Doug was going to stay with his head above water.
The double sided sticky tape that Callie discovered also carried some skin cells, and the team are able to track down the person the DNA belongs to. A woman who claims she had an affair with Doug three years ago. When she’s tracked down she insists she was invited over and that’s how the tape got into the house. But did she kill Doug because she was his second choice?
As channel five suddenly announces they have the tape of the last phone call, where he then dies during the call, Callie has to go back to the reporter to find out just what stunt she is pulling. Callie, needless to say, is less than thrilled. A warrant is issued to grab the tape, the reporter arrested for obstruction of justice, the tape never makes it to television but, instead, is delivered into the hands of the team as Hannibal and his team try to find out just what happened. Twenty five minutes after Doug is dead there is the sound of footsteps and a phone call made. A phone call made to Doug’s wife, Melissa.
Only now does it come to light that Melissa and Doug were separated and had been for over a year. Something they had kept secret from his fans and the police alike. The man behind the call, Martin, Doug’s manager. But how did it happen that Martin was there so soon after the murder?
Martin admits he was there shortly after the murder, but then claims he took items from the house that would have then put Doug in a bad light. From pills to alcohol, as he sells heroes, not broken down stars. Even in death Doug would be able to earn him some money, but only if his memory remained intact and unsullied. But in the box of goodies is something else, a picture of a boy wearing a football uniform with Doug’s old number. But when they come to track the boy down it turns out he died a week before of a rare kidney disease. And the son ties back into the women who claimed to be Doug’s old flame.
Caleb, only six when he died, was Doug’s son.
Doug was approached by Caleb’s mother to help, as Caleb needed a transplant and her kidneys were not a match. But Doug turned his back on his own son instead of offering to help. She hadn’t been there to meet up with his old flame, but had been there to talk to him. Hearing the phone call with the woman on the phone tipped her over the edge and she stabbed Doug. But now the knife is missing and it wasn’t in her grasp. Rita Sullivan is the murderess – or is she.
When the knife went in, it severed the artery, paralyzed him, but didn’t kill him as the blade plugged the knife. When Rita fled she left the knife in. He was hurt, but alive. Whoever then removed the knife killed him. The blade had been inside Doug for at least thirty minutes before it was pulled out and killed him in doing so. So just who pulled it out. Who finished off the two point murder? The phone call, or the recording of it, shows that there was someone else there twenty five minutes after the initial attack. That’s when the phone call was made to Melissa by Martin. But was it Martin who killed him, or Melissa when she arrived?
Or someone else?
When Callie and Delko arrive to confront Martin he still claims he didn’t take the knife, but one of the items Martin has is a bag, that shows that it had the knife in it for a brief time. The body bag Doug had been stored in. But the show takes a twist. Was the scientist who came to collect Doug’s body for storage the very man responsible for his death? When the pod is opened up the knife is in the bottom of it. In storage with Doug himself and the finger print on the knife ties back to Melissa.
When Martin called her back she found Doug there, on the floor. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She called the cryonic team and then heard Doug groan. She didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t pretend anymore. She didn’t like how Doug was living his life, how what he was doing was affecting Melissa and their daughter. So she pulled out the knife and let him die. Three heart beats and it was over. The scientist in charge of the cryonic’s was persuaded to take the knife, and he hid it in the body bag, which is how it ended up in the pod.
All in all an interesting episode.
