- Grace's life is full of missing persons and animals when her dog disappears while walking with Clay, and a friendship formed in the wake of the Murrah bombing is threatened when a young man and his girlfriend vanish.
- Grace wakes up next to a naked Ham. It is 10:40 p.m. She sticks his buns with a fork, telling him "they're done" and that he has to leave. Ham reveals that its actually 1 a.m. He set her clock back. Ham also mentions that he moved out of his wife's house.
"What?" asks a stricken Grace.
"Hey, nothing's got to change between us," Ham says.
Angry, she sprays his naked bod with catsup. He stuffs ice cubes in her panties. She rubs mustard on his chest. The food fight is apparently erotic because the two begin making out. They drop to the floor. Cue credits.
The next morning, Grace gets a call from Rhetta. They have a case. Before she can leave the house, however, Earl suddenly arrives with a brood of chickens. "Looking like they're coming home to roost," he quips.
Grace arrives at the scene. Rhetta explains that she has found a trail of blood and a smashed cell phone but no body. But the most amazing news is that Ham has left his wife. Perry enters with an old photograph found on the scene. It's Grace with a mother and son -- the Shapiros. Paul Shapiro, who would be 21 now, lived in the apartment. Grace leaves to find the boys mother.
"Two days after the bombing, early in the morning, Grace recovered the body of this kid's father," Perry explains to Rhetta.
Grace greets Janice Shapiro. They hug like old friends. "What has he done?" asks the all-too-weary mother. Grace explains that no one is completely sure ... but there is evidence of violence. "Keith Kinson," Janice says.
Back at the office, Ham explains that Kinson is a convict. Perry instructs Ham to start looking for him. Perry and Ham then go over Paul's rap sheet, which includes many a mention of drug possession. Butch, meanwhile, tells Grace that the blood on the scene was from a nosebleed. Perry suggests that perhaps it wasn't a violent crime after all.
"Maybe just a coked out kid with a nosebleed," Grace says. "Still need to find him."
Bobby enters with news: the cell phone belonged to Paul's girlfriend, Karen. The last call made on the phone was to 9-1-1. The 9-1-1 call is garbled, but Karen can be heard telling someone to "stop it!"
"Well, s***, that doesnt sound good," Grace says.
Grace plays the recording for Janice, explaining that no one can find Karen or her car.
"Were looking for Paul as a suspect now," Grace says.
Meanwhile, Ham interviews Karen's rowing-team friend. She says that Karen left an alumni party to go meet Paul the night before. The friend then tells Ham that Karen has a brother named Eric. The friend calls Paul a "cokehead" and mentions that Karen was hanging out at the party with an older man of about 50.
Some time later, Butch interviews Eric at a loading dock. The brother says he hasn't seen his sister in four days. Eric says the last time he saw Karen, she was heading to Paul's house. Eric claims that Karen has a bright future as a rower -- maybe even the Olympics -- and Paul is a bad influence.
Back at the office, Bobby has discovered that Kinson has dead of an overdose for five days. Rhetta reports that the blood at Paul's place belongs to a female and has tested negative for drugs. Rhetta pulls Perry aside. Perry admits that she too cared for the boy after the Oklahoma City bombing. They're both personally involved.
Just then, Clay enters. He has lost Gus. Clay begs Rhetta not to tell Grace. Clay then calls Grace a "liar." Rhetta is livid.
"I know what happened," he says. "My Aunt Grace didn't babysit me the day before the bombing. A kid at school told me."
Clay and Rhetta run into Earl (although they don't quite realize it). Earl, walking a dog with a giant tongue, agrees to say a prayer and keep an eye out for Gus.
Back at the office, Grace tells Ham that Paul emptied his $5,000 savings account before disappearing. It was the last of his dead father's money. Grace then explains that Janice admitted that she has begun dating again. Ham theorizes that perhaps Paul was upset when he found out that his mom was in her first serious relationship since the death of his father. That, combined with knowing that Karen was seeing an older man, might have pushed the kid over the edge.
Ham enters. Paul's credit card was used at 2 a.m. at a gas station in Shawnee. Bobby is heading out to get the tape. Rhetta knocks on the window to the office. Gus is missing. Grace rushes out, furious and worried.
She arrives home, yelling for her beloved dog. Grace grabs a picture of Gus from the fridge and rushes back out.
Back at the office, Butch says a witness spotted Karen leaving Paul's house in a car. Bobby enters with the video from the gas station. It shows Paul alone and gassing up. Ham theorizes that perhaps Paul drove out of town to score coke since his regular dealer, Kinson, died.
"I like that better than he went there to bury Karen's body," Perry says.
In the meantime, Grace hands out fliers of her missing dog. "Is this some kind of punishment for breaking up Ham's marriage," she asks Earl. He tells her that "God doesn't work that way."
Butch, meanwhile, has discovered that Eric lied when he said his sister lived with him in a duplex. She actually lived in a riverfront property near the rowing boathouse. Eric is called in for questioning. "I say the wrong thing, Karen loses her shot at the Olympics," he says. Butch sets the boy straight. "Look, man, I don't care if its money, or a car or a damn riverfront condo that she got from this alumni, we just need to find him so we can find her."
"Michael Parks," Eric squeaks.
Grace and Rhetta continue to put up fliers. Rhetta explains that she met a "really nice guy" walking a dog with a long tongue. "I think you met Earl," Grace says. "S***, Rhetta, you've been touched by an angel." The two break up laughing.
Perry questions 50-something Michael Parks, a program donor, and then lets him go. She is suspicious, but the older man's alibi is rock solid. Perry is preparing to leave the station when Janice enters with a young man on her arm.
It's Paul Shapiro.
Grace confronts Paul. "You had me worried, buddy," she says. Paul says he and Karen "kind of" had a fight. He kicked in the bathroom door and she left. Paul then lies, telling Grace that he fell asleep and didn't wake up until that morning. Grace pleads with Janice to talk to her son ... but Janice has already called a lawyer.
"Let's charge him," Grace tells Ham. "Kidnapping."
The lawyer arrives and tells Janice she that she would be a fool to let Paul talk to the cops. Janice thinks it over ... and finally decides to go with her heart. She sends the lawyer home. In the interrogation room, Grace tells Paul how she found his father after the bombing. Mr. Shapiro was sitting at his desk, seemingly asleep. Peaceful.
"I want to believe that you don't want to put your mother through the pain of another loss," she says.
Paul admits that Karen went to Shawnee -- but without him. She had found out that Paul and another man were going to score some coke and sell it. Furious, Karen confronted the other man, warning him to stay away from Paul. Then, Paul says, Karen drove home alone along route 270.
Grace and Ham drive along route 270 looking for Karen. Inevitably, talk of their pseudo-relationship surfaces.
"I didn't ask you to leave Darlene," Grace says.
Ham tells Grace to open the glove compartment ... and a bunch of coiled "snakes" spring out. Grace laughs out loud. Ham has been leaving her items (catsup packages, for one) the entire episode. The two laugh ... until Grace notices skid marks on the rode. A car has hit a deer and swerved off the road. Grace looks down into a ravine ... to find Karen's wrecked car. Karen is in the car ... hurt but alive.
Later, Grace and Janice talk. Paul will have to go to prison for possession, but it could have been worse. They hug and Janice leaves. Suddenly, Earl is standing in the living room. Grace smacks him across the face, demanding her dog.
"I don't know where he is, Grace," Earl says.
Grace weeps, screaming for her dog.
Later, Clay and Grace look for Gus in the park.
"I'm sorry about yesterday," she says.
"I'm sorry too," Clay says.
Clay asks if Grace didn't babysit him the day before the bombing because she was drunk.
"I wasn't drunk," she says. "I was hung over."
Clay asks if Grace is dating Ham. Grace says no.
A police cruiser pulls up. Gus hangs out of the back window. Overjoyed, Grace embraces her dog. Her prayers -- or someone's -- has been answered.
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