- Joanne Webster: Oh, Carrie, I'm so sorry. Al told me you knew him. Were you his student?
- Carrie Wells: More like his object of study.
- Joanne Webster: I can't imagine you being a lab rat.
- Carrie Wells: I was difficult. I tried to chew through the bars on my cage.
- Joanne Webster: [laughing] Look, I know I'm not the detective on this, but I'm with you. Your friend had help going over that balcony.
- Jay Lee: You know, I am starting to understand why Carrie didn't stay in touch with these memory folks.
- Cherie Rollins-Murray: Yeah, you hold on to everything long enough, it's easy to forget anyone else is out there.
- Carrie Wells: [on the phone] You're forgetting. I hit the Red Sox on Wednesday. Plus, I nailed that three-team parlay of the A's, Jays, and the Reds on Friday, right? Which would put my new total at...
- [listening]
- Carrie Wells: See, that is a very nice number, Zeke. All right, give me the Mets tonight, two times. Okay. Bye.
- [hanging up]
- Carrie Wells: That was my bank.
- Jay Lee: Your bank's not like my bank.
- Carrie Wells: Oh, you have no idea.
- Carrie Wells: So, what do we got?
- Jay Lee: Old guy took a noser from the twelfth floor. Eliot has us out here because he's some big-shot doctor on the faculty at Algonquian.
- Carrie Wells: What's his name?
- Jay Lee: [checking his notes] Uh, hold on. Lustig. Eugene Lustig.
- Carrie Wells: It was 2004. Year and a half after... I quit the force. Quit you. I was a wreck. I mean, every, uh... every bad thing that had ever happened to me, every mistake I had ever made was running in my head on a loop. Like a swarm of bees. And then I heard about this neurologist, Eugene Lustig, and... so I tracked him down. I figured, you know, why not... donate my body to science before I was dead? Maybe in the process, I wouldn't crack up. Then I-I joined a research group, with five other people. The first of what became known as Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory. HSAM.
- Al Burns: Were you still in touch with him?
- Carrie Wells: No, not for years. It's... Gene Lustig is the reason I didn't crack up.
- Al Burns: Not exactly lived in. You'd expect a few books, at least. Know if he was married?
- Carrie Wells: He was.
- Jay Lee: Getting divorced, actually. I just talked to the neighbor. She said Lustig moved in a month ago after breaking up with his wife.
- Al Burns: Neighbor know him well?
- Jay Lee: It occurred to me, but she says no. But she did say Lustig was having a bunch of health problems, was down in the dumps lately. And judging by how clean this place is, no sign of struggle or forced entry, kind of makes you wonder.
- Carrie Wells: What are you saying? Suicide?
- [he shrugs noncomittally]
- Carrie Wells: You find a suicide note? Any kind of drugs for depression?
- Jay Lee: No, but, you know, still doesn't mean...
- Carrie Wells: Then I'm not buying it.
- Al Burns: Railing's too high. We can cross off "accident."
- Carrie Wells: [remembering her conversation with Jo] There was a geranium right there.
- Al Burns: There was a plant. How you got geranium, I don't know.
- Carrie Wells: Because I saw it down below. Bits of clay, dirt...
- [spotting dirt on the railing]
- Carrie Wells: Gene's attacker... rushes him and throws him over, but Gene grabs onto the railing. So in order to break his grip, the attacker picks up the first thing he can find, and... smash. The flower pot goes over, too.
- Al Burns: We don't know the flower pot is connected to this, we don't know how many people were involved, we don't know for sure he didn't jump. We'll get Webster on it, and CSU will take a look at the clay fragments.
- Carrie Wells: I knew Gene Lustig. He was one of the most positive, vibrant people I have ever met. He gave me hope when I had none, and that's not easy to do. He didn't commit suicide.
- Cherie Rollins-Murray: Nothing on the surveillance video from Lustig's building. The camera in the lobby shows him entering alone. No cameras at all in the basement or garage.
- Al Burns: Any prints off the flower pot?
- Cherie Rollins-Murray: CSU has to re-assemble it first. We're talking pellets. I wouldn't hold your breath.
- Carrie Wells: According to a transcript from the tenure committee, Gene thought your work displayed, and I don't think I'm getting this wrong, "a shoddy methodology bordering on fraudulent." Now, that... that had to hurt.
- Alwyn Pierce: That was a joke. Especially since his work was sloppy and mediocre.
- Carrie Wells: I was a part of Gene's work. There was nothing mediocre or sloppy about it. Where were you between the hours of 6:00 and 7:00 this morning?
- Alwyn Pierce: Wait a minute. I got denied tenure, and I blame Eugene Lustig, but I sure as hell didn't kill him.
- Carrie Wells: You sure as hell didn't answer my question.
- Alwyn Pierce: I was asleep, in my bed, by myself. You need proof, talk to my cat.
- Eliot Delson: She make any physical threats?
- Al Burns: "I'll ruin your life", "you'll regret what you've done", "you'll be sorry." That sort of thing.
- Eliot Delson: Sounds like my daily staff meeting at the mayor's office. Anything else?
- Al Burns: Well, we're trying to find something more concrete, see if we can work up a warrant to search her place.
- Eliot Delson: Please, Burns, with all deliberate speed? Algonquian University pumps $9 billion into this city's economy every year. I know, I thought it was a typo, too. It's not. Having this on the front page of the "Times" irritates the mayor, who then irritates me.
- Al Burns: That's a lot of irritation.
- Eliot Delson: You need more on this woman, and you're not gonna find it here.
- Jay Lee: Would it help to know that she's a thief?
- Jay Lee: I followed up with campus security. Got them to give me all the neuro lab surveillance footage since that faculty meeting where Alwyn went off. 2:30 a.m., one day after the tenure meeting. Alwyn enters the lab, and she heads for a cabinet by Lustig's desk. She opens the cabinet. Right there. That box.
- Al Burns: Security say she was authorized to be there?
- Jay Lee: Definitely not. That's trespassing.
- Eliot Delson: Forget the search warrant. Go pick her up.
- Al Burns: [Carrie watches an old tape of her HSAM study] You all right?
- Carrie Wells: Yeah. It's just weird, you know? One thing to remember something, it's another thing to actually see yourself. That girl doesn't exist anymore.
- Al Burns: Those were tough years, after Syracuse. Wish I'd been there to help.
- Carrie Wells: I had to learn to help myself.
- Al Burns: Did Professor Pierce talk about her relationship with Dr. Lustig?
- Dale Parsons: Not a word. She just said that she was trying to update an earlier study. And like I told her, thanks, but no thanks.
- Al Burns: [handing him a business card] I'd say "call if you remember anything else", but I've learned there's no point.
- Al Burns: How is it I came up in your memory study?
- Carrie Wells: Gene wanted us to deal with some memories accompanied by strong emotions.
- Al Burns: And how exactly did you describe me?
- Carrie Wells: Well, I'm not really sure.
- Al Burns: You don't remember?
- Carrie Wells: All right, fine. I may have given you... a lisp, a wandering eye, and really bad dandruff. But we had broken up, and I was mad.
- Al Burns: Nice. Let's go, lemonhead.