( police radio chatter )
( distant sirens blaring )
Gotta be somewhere. You wanna keep goin'?
Officer Smith, ma'am.
We're looking for a man who went after a woman last night
at Esplanda apartments, the ones right behind you.
- Heard anything unusual? - No, sorry.
Oh, my God, that's terrible.
- Is the woman all right? - Huh?
- The woman, is she all right? - Yeah. Yeah, she good.
Excuse me, my brother Omar Little
came here last night.
He fell out the damn window.
We don't have anyone by that name.
He was kinda, you know, high.
Probably messed up his name.
Real dark, got himself a scar.
Legs should be busted up real bad.
No one with that type of injury came in last night.
Not a goddamn thing.
Been in every trash can, Dumpster,
vacant for three blocks 'round-- nothin'.
We even checked down the sewers.
( cell phone beeps )
Marlo wanna meet.
So what you want us to do?
Which one?
Don't seem possible.
It don't.
Some Spider-Man shit there.
We missed our shot.
Now he gonna be at us.
Usually, my staff tries to keep sharp objects
- out of my hands. - ( laughter )
( applause )
You know, it all started with Charles Center and Tommy D'Alesandro,
and it continued with William Donald Schaefer and Harborplace.
And following that, there were Mayors Schmoke and O'Malley
with Inner Harbor East.
Well, today it is my administration's turn
to lay claim to the middle branch of the Patapsco
and what will soon become known as New Westport,
revitalizing another waterfront area of our great city.
- Thank you. - ( applause )
Say good-bye to Locust Point South.
Fuck you, Krawczyk!
Yeah, fuck you, greed-head motherfucker.
Fuck you for tearing down the Port of Baltimore
and selling it to some yuppie assholes from Washington.
- Come on, buddy. - This is bullshit.
- Who the hell's that? - Oh, that's nobody, Mr. Mayor.
It's nobody at all.
( crying )
( grunts )
( chatter )
- You happy now, bitch? - I am content, yes.
- You called the reporter, huh? - No, actually.
That asshole's making up his own shit.
Brass called a press conference for this afternoon.
They're gonna be shoveling
so much money at my bullshit, it'll make your head spin.
- What's with all the casework? - Bodies from the vacants.
- Some still missing lab work. - Pathetic.
Some of them have been worked pretty good.
You know what, Jimmy?
I'm gonna go back to the beginning and work every one of them again.
Back to square one.
You know why?
Because I'm a murder police. I work murders.
I don't fuck with no make-believe, I don't jerk shit around.
I catch a murder and I work it.
Working this shit like I'm supposed to.
Well, let me know if you need anything, all right?
Cars, some OT, some lab work, anything you need.
Because in... three to four hours,
the money's gonna flow on my case.
Whatever you need, Bunk.
I'm probably gonna have more of it than even Lester could use.
To be that close to a serial killer-- it must be weird.
Kinda, yeah.
Wonderful story, Scott.
Yeah, well, it kinda wrote itself.
I mean, it's a lucky thing to have the guy call me like he did.
Well, it comes from you pounding the pavement, right?
That's more than luck. That's putting yourself in the place
where the story comes to you.
- What do you have for tomorrow? - For tomorrow?
This is not the kind of thing we can let go of after a day or two.
I, um-- you know, I was thinking that
if I spent a night with the homeless, you know?
Did what they did, saw what they saw-- that kind of thing.
I mean, if it's an overnight thing,
I couldn't get it for tomorrow, but the next day, sure.
That's great.
That could be the perfect follow.
I'll speak to Gus.
Also, Scott, we've been taking calls
from some of the national networks and cable outlets.
- They're looking for you to go on-camera. - Me? On television?
I'd avoid the locals, but if you can do the national stuff
- in a responsible manner... - Sure, yeah.
I mean, I'm just not all that comfortable
- having myself in the center of the story like this. - Of course not.
But there is a way of handling this responsibly, I think.
Just remember you're an ambassador for the paper.
Star time.
Yeah. How 'bout that?
- Homelessness? - Our coverage should reflect
the Dickensian aspect of the homeless,
the human element.
Scott will lead it off spending a night on the streets
and writing from that perspective.
Scott? He's the lead on your education project.
I think we need to get him back on the--
I don't see the-- the school project as yielding
the same kind of impact as our attention
to homelessness can.
These murders, the phone call to our reporter...
it really opens up the issue, don't you think?
- Well, yeah, but I-- - From now till the end of the year,
let's focus not only on covering the murders,
but on the-- the nature of homelessness itself.
The Dickensian aspect of it, yeah.
Freamon: I've reached a point, Detective Sydnor,
where I no longer have the time or patience left
to address myself to the needs of the system
within which we work.
- I'm tired. - You're gonna quit?
Not yet. Not just yet.
So what are you talking about?
When they took us off Marlo this last time,
when they said they couldn't pay for further investigation...
I regarded that decision as illegitimate.
- Illegitimate? - And so I'm responding in kind.
I'm going to press a case against Marlo Stanfield
without regard to the usual rules.
I'm running an illegal wiretap on Marlo Stanfield's cell phone.
- Fuck, Lester. - If you have a problem with this,
I understand completely
and I urge you to get as far fucking away from me as you can.
You remember this one here?
I backed away from jackin' the boy up
out of respect for that goofy motherfucker Pryzbylewski.
Wonder what the young man might tell me a year later, though.
- Bunk. - What the fuck is this?
Landsman: Vernon here did a search warrant
on this dead guy's appliance store,
pulled all that out of the desk drawer.
- Grand jury shit? - Transcripts, sealed indictments.
- Who's your murder? - East Side dealer by the name of Joe Stewart.
Caught one in the back of his head the other night.
- Somebody finally touched Prop Joe, huh? - Mm-hmm.
You remember when narcotics indicted Charlie Burman last year?
Motherfucker ran a couple days before the raids, still on the wing.
Holley: The sealed indictments are all in there.
Every one of 'em.
Who don't we trust at the courthouse?
Marlo on wire: They put cheese on them fries?
Man on wire: They can. Chili, too.
- All right, then. - You want a drink with that?
- Strawberry lemonade. - All right, I'm on it.
They're back on cell phones after more than a year?
That they are.
Tell me they're talking in code, Lester.
I wanna go to jail for snatchin' something better
than Marlo Stanfield's fucking lunch order.
There's no code that I can tell.
I got a half dozen calls, all routine.
No drug talk, no numbers, no times.
Nothing but what they seem.
So he ain't doing business with the phone, then.
So take this mess down and let's get the fuck outta here.
I also have five calls, 30 to 40 seconds duration,
each one picked up on the first ring,
each one with nothing whatsoever said between parties.
You see? When they talk, it's bullshit.
But there are calls where no one says a thing.
30 seconds without conversation.
( knocks on door )
- Is he...? - Mm-hmm.
We talked it through. He knows the risks.
I'm in. If it makes the fucking case, I'm in all the way.
So, what's up now? They talking dirt?
- No. - Lester, fuck.
Marlo's not gonna talk dirt on the phone,
but there's something to this.
I just haven't figured it out.
We could use some more manpower.
We need a couple of surveillance teams to get on these guys
to see how they're using the phones.
- You see the newspaper today? - Mm-hmm.
A headline like that, the bosses are gonna start
throwing money at the homeless murders.
When they do,
I'll peel off a couple of detectives, throw them your way.
The homeless murders?
How does that case tangle in with this?
Hard to explain.
Remember what the DNC folks told me two years ago?
What I needed to do to take the statehouse?
Build something downtown and stick your name on it,
get the crime to go down, and stay away from schools.
And keep my boyish good looks.
One out of four ain't bad.
Jesus.
Did we have to schedule this the same day as New Westport?
My good news isn't even going to make the front of the local section.
The ribbon-cutting was schedded two weeks ago.
This homeless thing no one saw coming.
- ( chatter ) - ( camera shutters clicking )
First of all, I'm surprised to see so much media here.
A press event held earlier today
to announce the revitalization
of yet another part of our city was not so well attended.
It would appear that media attention is always focusing
on the negatives when it comes to Baltimore,
but you guys aren't around when we're making real progress.
Nevertheless, I'm glad to see so many of you here.
Some of you representing not just our local media,
but national attention to this problem.
Thank you for caring enough about
our most vulnerable citizens to address
yourselves to this tragedy.
Our homeless citizens, those who have fallen
through the cracks of our society,
those who command the least of our attentions and efforts,
they seemingly have little to endear themselves to politicians.
They don't vote, by and large.
They don't contribute to campaigns.
They offer little to a city's tax base,
and to the extent that our government is made aware of their existence,
it responds by trying to mitigate the damage done by their presence.
We open a food bank here, a shelter there.
We try to move them away from downtown,
away from our communal areas, away from our schools,
away from our homes.
If you were to judge our society by the manner
in which we treat those lost on our streets,
we would have cause to be shamed.
Well, I am, God forgive me, a politician.
( crowd laughs )
But I am also someone who ran for public office
because I believe that there is a different way of governing.
And I believe that in the end,
we will be judged not by the efforts
we make on behalf of those who vote for us
or those who contribute to our campaigns
or those who provide for our tax base.
I believe that we will be judged by what we provide
to the weakest and most vulnerable.
That is the test. That is my test.
Somebody is killing homeless men in this city.
They are taking the lives of fellow citizens
who do not have the means or the strength
to properly protect themselves.
They will be stopped.
We will do everything in our power to stop them.
You have my word on this.
( reporters clamoring )
Thank you, Mr. Mayor.
What got into you?
- What? - Damn, boss.
I want to assure the public
that we're doing everything possible in our power
to apprehend this subject.
Homicide detectives are working around the clock.
District officers are in contact with the agencies
that work with the homeless.
I cannot go into specifics of the investigation,
but with that caveat, I will take questions.
( reporters clamoring )
Commissioner, is there any connection between these murders
and those in the vacant homes last year?
- No connection. - ( reporters clamoring )
Commissioner, are you asking the FBI to join in the investigation?
I think Deputy Commissioner Daniels
is in a position to elaborate on that.
We'll take whatever help is offered.
Certainly, our detectives will work closely
with the Behavioral Analysis Unit at Quantico.
Deputy, even with all the resources at your disposal,
isn't it extremely difficult to catch a serial killer?
Our ability to secure genetic material
and the growing DNA data bank
are assets unavailable to us even a few years ago.
And our ability to effectively use resources
has been increased with the aid of sophisticated computer software.
And, of course, we have some of the best criminal investigators
in the nation working 24/7.
As the mayor made very clear a moment ago,
this is now a priority for the department.
- ( reporters clamoring ) - Has a note been found at any of the scenes?
I'm not at liberty to go into any details
of the investigation at this time.
( reporters clamoring )
- ( door opens ) - ( music playing )
Want me to hang?
( door closes )
He told you who I am, right?
Son, the thing about murder
is it never goes off the books.
I mean, we work on 'em for weeks, months, years.
We keep on with it until finally
someone decides they've had enough,
until we get the right word
from the right person.
And you know what happens then.
When a case does go down...
all those people who kept quiet about it,
who lied about it,
all of them who thought it wasn't coming back on 'em,
they end up catchin' a charge.
And they get time behind that.
Time, huh?
You gonna give me time?
If you know something about that boy Lex getting shot,
now is your last chance to speak to that.
You gave a statement last year.
Why don't you promise to get me outta here?
That's what y'all do, ain't it?
Lie to dumbass niggas?
Yo, y'all need to get this police outta my face before I bank his ass.
You're a natural, kiddo.
You had them eating out of your hand.
Shit, I was just following the mayor's lead.
He wants a full-court press, right?
We can add a detective or two.
And you can ask patrol to concentrate on posts where vagrants congregate.
But other than that, Deputy, the cupboard is bare.
- But Carcetti said-- - Make no mistake.
He wants us to solve the murders.
He just doesn't want it to cost.
Don't look so shocked.
You're runnin' with the big dogs now.
( laughs )
Isn't it enough that we're up on the killer's cell phone?
I would think that you could track him on the GPS chip alone.
But he's using a burner.
And we suspect he's taking out the battery between calls.
And there's nothing to stop him from changing phones,
calling the reporter from a new number.
So you want to tap the reporter's phone as well.
It stands to reason that we should monitor this thing from both ends.
- It's what we would normally do. - Nothing about this is normal.
"Baltimore Sun" reporter's phone is problematic.
We need to strike a balance between your needs as investigators
and the first amendment rights of the "Sun" and its sources.
The first amendment does not guarantee privacy, Your Honor.
- Legal precedent clearly indicates-- - Look, look.
- I'm not saying that we can't, but-- - But what?
( sighs )
Until we get the sense that your suspect is changing phones,
I'm not inclined to look with favor on tapping
the "Baltimore Sun"'s telecommunications.
What, we're afraid to piss them off?
Never pick a fight with anyone who buys ink by the barrel-full.
- Christ. - Very well, Judge.
How many enemies do you need?
Deputy.
Where did you get all this?
Darling, you do not want to know.
What's up with you?
Got all 22 out the drawer, huh?
Workin' the whole mess at once.
I'm trying to see 'em fresh.
25. My triple.
Comes back to Marlo and his people.
You sure?
A good informant tells me so.
Says one of my vics was talking bad
about Mr. Stanfield, who took it personal.
Killed him, his girl, his muscle.
Left the little kids alive, so I guess he ain't all bad.
People out there so scared of this motherfucker,
I can't get close to an eyewitness on any of it.
Where you at with the rest of these cases?
You know, we don't even have lab work on 14 of these bodies?
A year later, I'm still walking in written requests to Landsman,
watching him just file them away in his drawer.
McNulty would've called a news reporter on that shit.
I am not him.
Well, what would the Bunk do?
Take no for a fucking answer?
We had cutbacks. You know that.
We lost three of four trace examiners.
Lost half our clerical. The freezer went bad.
We lost four months of blood samples.
Did you know that? Four months of evidence
and they still haven't replaced my damn icebox.
My heart pumps purple piss for you.
Now, I got the worst mass murder in B-more history
and you can't get the trace work back to me inside of a year?
Come on, Ron.
Look...
you can't go to the press.
I mean, heads will roll if this gets out.
It isn't anyone's fault.
In fact, it's a little bit on you, in a way.
The fuck you say?
After Annette took retirement,
the casework got backed up worse than ever, right?
Well, we put in to fill the lab assistant slot,
but with all these cutbacks, the best they could give us was a temp.
- A temp? - Yeah. No medical. No pension.
A temp hire to get us over for a while.
Come on, I'll show you something.
She was assigned to sort and file the individual trace elements--
hair, fiber mostly.
You know, from each of the 14 scenes.
- So what's the problem? - Well, in the initial paperwork,
- you guys wrote out all 22 CC numbers, right? - Right.
But in the supplemental requests,
you put all the incidents under the initial CC.
- And then you wrote, "et al," remember? - So?
She didn't know what "et al" meant.
And she sorted everything under the single complaint number.
- You don't fuckin' mean-- - Yeah.
We have no idea which one of your scenes
- any of this shit came from. - ( groans )
We don't have a clue.
( clears throat )
Actually, except for this,
she's been a pretty good employee.
Man: Who's up in the rotation?
- Surveillance teams. - Two each on 12-hour shifts.
I need them to set up on certain locations common to our cases.
Come on, Jay.
- You heard the mayor. This case is a red ball. - That it is.
You can have Greggs, if you want.
The last time I offered her up,
you kicked her back to her own casework.
Other than a second detective, you are on your own.
- So it's all bullshit. - I don't know.
I thought the mayor gave a very nice speech. I, for one, was moved.
Much like the bull to which you just referred.
- I'll tell you one thing... - What's that?
Motherfucker whose got the connect,
- he the one that did Joe. - Oh, no doubt.
Y'all know the co-op took some hits.
Joe. Hungry Man.
Good people, especially Joe.
Their passin' was, for real, cold-blooded.
I know what you thinkin', so I'ma put it out there.
I'm responsible.
( murmuring )
A week or so back, I made a move on Omar with Joe's approval.
The faggot ain't have heart enough to come at me,
so he come at those close to me.
Now I'm doublin' the bounty--
hundred large for a whiff of that dicksuck.
250 for his head.
What about the connect?
I got that covered.
And in light of that fact,
I'ma take it upon myself to conduct this meet.
Slim, I want you to take over Hungry Man's slice of the cake.
Meanin' no disrespect,
but I ain't cut out to be no CEO.
- Cheese, then. - No problem, man. Got you covered.
Marlo: Until we settle up with Omar,
I think it's best we suspend these meets.
In fact, I ain't really one for meets nohow.
Anybody got a problem from here on out,
bring it to me or sit on that shit.
Those of you on the West Side who need to re-up,
holla at my man Monk.
He gonna handle the supply over there.
On the East Side, Cheese.
One more thing-- price of the brick going up.
- 30 more. - ( murmuring )
All right, enough of this shit.
- What? - Next year for the schools.
From now until December, we're all about the plight of the homeless.
The great Whiting has spoken.
I appealed to Klebanow half an hour ago,
but he gave me the thumbs down. I'm sorry.
Check it out, people.
Our metro desk has some national profile.
Templeton: We're being careful to cooperate
with the investigators in every way.
My newspaper has no desire to get between the police and the suspect.
But still, wouldn't you agree it's an incredible moment
for any journalist to come face to face
with that type of pure evil like the Son of Sam.
That makes you the Jimmy Breslin of Baltimore.
Templeton: Well, no, I wouldn't say that. I mean...
But knowing you have been in contact with a killer,
are you at all concerned about continuing to report from the street?
No, not at all. I mean, this is what we do.
As a reporter, you expect to be in harm's way at some points.
- It's what we do. - Agreed. It's what we do.
But very rarely does a reporter end up
being in the middle of a story-- an ongoing story--
about a murderer who is still at large
and posing a severe and deadly risk to the...
McNulty: You should've heard Phelan this morning.
Too scared to tap the newspaper phones
'cause they might shit on him for it.
Fuckin' hack judge.
What would you want with more wires?
- We got all we need. - I don't want another wire.
It's the principle of the thing.
It just pissed me off listening to him.
Oh, yeah, no surveillance cars.
They won't go beyond me and Greggs.
You and Sydnor will have to work it as best you can for right now.
Assholes.
They need another body, don't they?
I'll call our man in the Southern.
( music playing on radio )
- I can take it from here. Y'all can bounce. - All right, boss.
What up, Rick?
Just like old times for me and you, huh?
Whatever you want it's yours, all right?
Tonight, I'm just gonna take your jump.
( glass shatters )
- And leave you with a little something. - What's that?
My word in your ear.
I'm callin' Marlo a straight bitch.
I'm sayin' it don't take much to shoot down a blind man.
And as for him steppin' to me,
- you tell that dude he ain't got the heart. - All right.
You tell that man I'm in the street, waiting.
And just like a little bitch, he ain't nowhere to be found.
I'll tell him. I will.
Pick up your keys and go on inside, yo.
You kill Joe? Hungry?
( chuckling )
Didn't think so.
( door closes )
Greggs: What now?
There's more than one way to skin a case.
Already ran them for priors, right?
Priors, yeah.
But I'm gonna run every name you guys developed through the entire database.
Not just for priors, but for anything at all
in the Miles system.
Court appearances, parole, probation,
gun permits, DOC, open bails.
You're playing longshots, huh?
Darlin', I'm playin' the hand I've been dealt.
Greggs: An H-file?
- Greggs: Who caught the case? - Worden. Other shifts.
Stepfather. Beaten to death.
They interviewed the mother,
but no one else in the household.
Doesn't exactly fit with the others, does it?
I mean, a straight-up ass-whuppin' in an alley
- doesn't seem like Marlo Stanfield. - No, it doesn't.
But you're gonna work it anyway.
Wilson: In the Pentecostal church where I was given religion,
it would have been said the spirit was on you yesterday.
- It got good to me. - Let praises be.
I don't know. It just pissed me off that on top of everything else
I gotta deal with, some nutjob starts killing homeless guys.
I mean, fuck, already. How many shitbowls are there?
Steintorf: He's right, though. You were great.
That passion was just the thing.
- You think, uh... - You step out on this issue, it could provide
- some national presence. - Didn't the governor scrap the emergency medical
and housing program last year?
- What was it, TEMHA? - He did, replaced it with T-DAP,
which cuts funding to anyone who doesn't qualify for federal support.
Wilson: It's worse than that, actually.
He froze eligibility
by disallowing new applications,
which put all kind of folks out on the street.
So we slam the Republican for sticking it to the poor.
It plays.
Nationally, you're taking up the cause of the forgotten,
and no one is ever in favor of homelessness.
Statewide, you're going up against the fella who tore up the safety net.
Homelessness. Huh.
I'll be damned.
( computer beeping )
- Base to 23-06. - Sydnor: Go ahead, Lester.
You see anybody using a cell phone?
Wait one.
- ( knock on door ) - Negative.
Hold on. Somebody's here.
Pearlman: Lester?
Can't get used to how empty this place feels nowadays.
True, but you'd be surprised what you can get done
when no one's looking over your shoulder.
You'll need to serve these. Running out of time.
- I'll get right on it. - There's a couple of loose ends
I think we should cover as well.
- Now? - If not now, when?
The trial date is coming up on us fast.
Right, but it's, uh...
- Is it something I said? - No.
It's-- Sydnor is bringing in a CI.
- And if you're here... - Oh, shit.
I'm sorry. Um...
I'll leave you my list, okay?
No problem. We'll get right on it.
I'm sorry, Lester, if I was intruding.
You couldn't know.
So why you here?
If this about Michael and what he into,
y'all should know he don't live here no more.
Actually, I'm following up on your man's case.
You spoke to Detective Worden when it happened.
Hmm?
- He was your boyfriend, right? - When he weren't in jail.
Father to my youngest.
But you know how he died. Beaten bad.
A crime of passion, as we say.
Didn't seem like he was home long enough
to get somebody that riled at him.
Unless, of course, it was over you.
What, you sayin' I know somethin' about that?
Lady, let's put our cards on the table.
I been in this game longer than a little bit,
and there's one thing I know from jump.
You get a murder like this,
there's bound to be a woman at the center of it.
I don't know nothin'.
You know my gut tells me that you do.
And I'll tell you what...
we're gonna take a ride downtown,
let you talk to the grand jury.
You're not straight with them, they'll slap you
with a material witness warrant.
And you'll sit over at women's detention
for a couple of weeks.
It's amazing what it does for the grieving process.
- Get your things. - I ain't goin' no-damn-where.
It's me or the wagon.
Detective, I swear, I ain't in this.
It ain't me you wanna talk to.
It's the boy. He know.
He runnin' with them who did it.
You just tryin' to put me off the scent here.
No, you gotta believe me.
He told me Devar weren't comin' home
'fore we even knowed he was dead.
You said he's runnin' with them?
Runnin' with who?
Chris, Snoop, all them gangsters.
Who else doin' all the killin' around here?
Freamon: Let me see your camera.
- Add a minute-six to your times. - Got it.
Here it is. Look at this.
Single ring. Connection. Silence.
- What do you have? - Took these three.
They're just hangin' around.
What time did Monk leave?
1:24. Two minutes later.
( chuckling )
It's not what Marlo's sayin', it's what he's sendin'.
- Look at Monk. - Yeah. Text message.
Text? Need I remind you, Detective,
these young men are products of Baltimore City schools?
Besides, look how far away he's holding his phone.
Too far away to be reading a text.
Naw, son. Pictures.
( chuckles )
Pictures.
Man: You got a dollar?
Man: Got a dollar?
What the fuck you lookin' at?
You know what they do, right? They tease you.
They let you get close, and just when you're about to pull the case,
they rip the fuckin' rug out from under you.
I'm not lying. We got a fuckin' serial killer on the loose.
You didn't know that?
It's in the goddamn paper.
What support do I get? One fuckin' detective.
They wanna play their simple-ass games, fine.
But I gotta do what I gotta do.
- ( cell phone rings ) - Excuse me.
McNulty. Yeah, Oscar.
Beautiful.
Absolutely. Where? On my way.
- ( dog barking ) - Jeez!
( laughing )
Snoop: Man, you can't let it get to you like this.
Why don't we go buy up a bunch of toys
- and take 'em to your kids? - You ain't hearin' me.
How can I go near my people with Omar on us?
How he gonna find out about them?
How we find out about the blind man?
( music playing on radio )
- ( all shouting ) - Man: Omar, yo, Omar!
Man #2: Omar!
- Get! - Man #2: Omar!
It's Omar!
( man grunting )
You too, shorty.
Woman: Omar! It's Omar!
Money a little late today.
( grunting continues )
That buckshot in your leg should help you some
when you explain' yourself to Marlo.
As for them other two, they gonna wish I'd have peppered them a bit.
( car alarm blaring )
Now you make sure you tell old Marlo I burned the money.
'Cause it ain't about that paper.
It's about me hurtin' his people and messin' with his world.
Tell that boy he ain't man enough
to come down to the street with Omar.
You tell him that!
( siren wailing )
My sergeant and two side partners got here before me.
Then the shift commander showed.
- Now the duty officer is on his way. - For a DOA?
Yeah, well, you and Lester started some shit here, son.
Now a DOA call brings everyone in a heartbeat.
( helicopter blades whirring )
God bless.
Pictures?
Photographs on cell phones.
Now, that means new PC to capture the photos
and new equipment that could do it.
How do I write that into my bullshit homeless killer's MO?
When we started this, you said all we needed were some bugs,
a camera or two, and in a couple of weeks, we'd have them.
That's what you said.
So I cranked up my bullshit to pay for that,
but, no, then you needed a wiretap.
So I went along with that. I got you the wiretap.
Then you ask for surveillance teams.
But before I can get to that, you came to me with this.
I mean, what the fuck?
I gotta tell you, Lester, I don't want to hurt your feelings,
but I can see why Daniels cringed every time you opened your fucking mouth.
You're a supervisor's nightmare.
I'm just following the thread.
Okay, say we get you the intercept on your pictures.
- Will that give us Marlo? - It'll be coded, probably,
but I'm sure we can break it.
That'll tell us how they do business,
and, usually, that's enough.
Or not.
Look, the truth is I'm running Sydnor ragged
just staying on a couple of mopes and monitoring calls.
Now, when we're up on their code,
we're going to need more manpower to run down a stash or a re-up.
- We can't do it all. - I can't juke this thing any more than I have.
Last night, half the police department turned up
at Oscar's crime scene before I could get there.
We can't make another murder.
- Thanks for the milk. - What's a donut without milk?
So you were talking about your second tour.
The bad one, yeah.
Second tour fucked me up good.
- But they don't wanna hear it. - Who doesn't?
Mostly it's command and the senior EMs.
They put it down that marines don't get PTSD.
But they do.
Can you tell me what happened?
Terry, can you talk about it?
We had a month left on the tour,
working an S-and-A mission outside Fallujah.
I was assistant team leader.
Our M998s were retrofitted with up-armor kits.
M998?
A Humvee. Sorry.
They're big on nomenclature.
Anyway, we finished our sweep, headed back in, right?
It was all good. Then, bam...
our lead vehicle was hit with an elevated IED.
The blast tore the M50 gunner in half.
Flipped the Humvee like a Matchbox car.
Driver lost both his hands. Blood shooting out all over.
He's fuckin' laughin',
saying over and over, "Look, Ma, no hands."
It's the laughing I can't shake.
Weird.
'Cause he's okay, you know? I mean, he's better than me.
Got himself a couple of prosthetic mitts, 80,000 apiece.
Wow.
- What happened next? - Nothing, really.
We pushed out, secured the perimeter.
Corpsman did what he could and we waited for the CASEVAC.
( horns honking )
Look, I'm not looking to shit on another guy's copy.
I just wanted to let you know this was out there.
I'm at a community meeting in Belair-Edison
to hear about school zoning and this woman talked my ear off about this.
- She said the kids never saw a dime. - Hmm.
I mean, I'm hoping this is all bullshit.
- Hey, Scott, how's it coming? - Pretty good. Seen the art?
Yeah, yeah. Good stuff, good stuff.
Listen, we got a complaint
about a story you wrote a couple weeks ago.
The one about the woman who died from an allergic reaction to seafood.
- You remember? - What about it?
Neighborhood lady who knows the dead woman's sister
says our story made a lot of money for those kids,
- a scholarship fund we wrote up. - Yeah, so?
Well, she says the sister has a history of fraud, convictions on it.
Says all the money went to Atlantic City casinos
and the kids never saw a dime.
- Christ, who the fuck-- - I know, I know.
It's probably some old biddy talkin' about stuff she don't know,
but maybe you should go back and check with the family
and see we don't get took on this, huh?
No, no, not now. After you file.
Just make a couple calls, huh?
- This is kidnapping. - Actually, I'm not sure.
I asked him if he wanted $100 to go someplace for dinner
and talk and he walked to my car.
You give him the hundred?
Stuffed it in his jacket.
He's fine, Lester. He's great.
- Think he'll find his way back home? - Eventually.
By then, we'll be done with Marlo where we shut this thing down.
And as far as what happened to this guy...
They'll write it off as some fraternity prank.
Does he know we're cops?
No.
Even if he figures it out, who's gonna believe him?
- He's nuts. - How do you know he's nuts?
First of all, just look at him.
He's fucking bouncing off the walls.
Second of all, I got his scrip.
I called the university ER. It's an anti-psychotic.
So...
I took his ID, I'll scratch his name off the scrip,
and leave him with this.
I got that one from the first homeless death that Oscar gave us.
The one that was too rigored. Donald somebody or other.
It had him in a Cleveland, Ohio shelter.
McNulty, you're deserving of serious psychological study.
You need PC to intercept cell phone photos.
Well, here it is, right here.
We send photos of this guy
all ribboned up from a dry cell phone to that goofy reporter,
along with a message bitching about his stories.
"I ain't no pervert," or whatever.
Now the killer says,
"You ain't gonna find no more bodies, only photos of the victims..."
Before they disappear.
Look at this poor sucker.
I don't believe we're gonna do this.
He disappears, the city goes batshit.
You get your photo intercepts,
and by the time we need to run down one of Marlo's re-ups,
you got all the manpower you need.
- And Marlo falls. - Falls hard.
( sighs )
Don't fucking tell me you mislabeled this, too.
I want comparisons between known suspects
and the DNA from this scene.
By the looks of it, we got a whole lot of DNA outta this mess.
- Now, motherfucker. Right now. - Top of my list.
As soon as we work through all the trace from the homeless killings.
That's the priority, Bunk.
- The homeless killings. - Everything is backed up behind that. Sorry.
Your boy McNulty has everyone's attention right now.
The homeless fucking killer.
- ( music playing on radio ) - So it's Larry, huh?
Okay, Larry. You're with good people here.
It's all gonna be great.
You're gonna like this place.
It's warm. They got nice beds.
Best of all, I gave you cash money
just for walking in the door.
Come on, Larry.
It's gonna be fine. I promise.
You feel up for trying Clay yourself?
I mean, it's been a while
since you tried a criminal case personally.
It sends a statement, I think.
We should start with our witness list.
See if we can pare that down any
out of respect for the distracted nature of a Baltimore jury.
First, there's something else I need to bring up.
- Old grand jury stuff? - Sealed indictments.
Sealed transcripts. Dozens of them.
Pulled from the desk of a shot-to-death drug dealer in East Baltimore.
The Deputy Ops brought me those.
We have a leak.
And he showed up outside where I work.
He was confused. Lost, I think.
So I brought him here.
Donald, where are you from?
Tell the lady, Donald.
Baltimore.
But he told me he came from Cleveland.
Donald, do you have identification?
This does say Cleveland.
Donald, why don't we get you something to eat?
It's okay. Come on.
We're good to go?
It's great, Gus.
It sings.
- Hey, Scottie boy. - Hey.
Hey, great piece.
I mean, this one really feels like the real deal.
- It's great work. - Thanks.
What I like most about it is that you didn't overwrite it.
No extra color. No puffy adjectives.
Just tight, declarative sentences.
And you really let this ex-Marine just tell the story.
- Thanks, Gus. - Hey, Mr. Slot Man, read it and weep.
And I mean that literally.
Oh, hey, Scott, did you get a chance
- to drop a couple calls on that complaint? - Yeah, it's bullshit.
I talked to people in the neighborhood.
Sister's good people, but there's another woman
up there, unrelated, keeps getting arrested
for kiting checks and stuff, and she--
she uses the sister's name every time she gets locked up.
She's done it, like, three or four times now.
- No shit. - Yeah, it's crazy.
But sister's clean. Everyone says so.
Okay.
( chatter on TV )
Is there anything else I can do for him?
No, we've got it.
But thanks for bringing him in.
Most people, they just ignore them.
I just want to get all of your paperwork taken care of.
( theme music playing )