Angela Bird, Tess Laughty, Sandra Bishop, they were not random victims of a serial killer. Those women were whistle-blowers, and they died trying to tell a story. A story that isn't over. Starling, get this accountant on our payroll. Julia. You sure are here late. Yes. Lots to go through. I just wanted to say you're doing great work, Gordon. What did you say? See you soon. CATHERINE: I found where his mother lives. CLARICE: Whose mother? CATHERINE: Buffalo Bill's. I'm going to go see her. Do you remember the first thing you said to me? I said... FBI! You're safe. That was a lie. I'll never be safe. Neither will you. Can you sleep? GASPS Or do moths wake you up? There's no-one for you. Just me. RECEIVER SLAMS BALLS THUDDING LOUDLY # Tempted and tried # We're oft made to wonder... # B-14. B-14. # Why it should be... # A reminder that the prize for this game is a beautiful German chocolate cake, courtesy of Laraine Narducci. Thank you, Laraine. You went out of your comfort zone for this one. # While there are others # Living about us... # SUSPENSEFUL MUSIC PLAYS # Never molested... # N-12. N-12. CATHERINE: Excuse me. Can we play on more than one card? Yep. Sorry, I've never played before. Do I know you? No. You sure look familiar. I've never been here. Oh, I know that. No-one here's pretty. MAN: I-16. I-16. You can play as many as you can keep track of. Thank you. G-47. G-47. You got one there. JULIA: He found me in the file room. He kind of cornered me. Scared the hell out of me. CLARICE: I'm so sorry, Julia. ELECTRICITY BUZZES Oh, my God. This... Those are all people I work with. Julia, is this the man who threatened you? Yes. Joe Hudlin. He used my name, my name from before. He was telling me he knew exactly who I was. How did he know that? I didn't tell anyone. Why would I? Honestly, I find that people feel pretty comfortable sharing my story without so much as a thought, much less a reason. Well, I promise, I will never violate your trust in that way. Someone must have tipped Hudlin that we're talking to you, and he probably looked into your background. I'm so sorry. I don't know why I'm helping you. I could lose my job, my... my life, Erin's life. This is... This is crazy. And this is what you do for a living? You just go chasing after terrible, evil men. Yeah. Why? Can't dance. DOOR OPENS ESQUIVEL: Sorry. Uh, Julia, you've met Special Agent Esquivel. This is Special Agent Clarke. Julia brought us all the R&D reports from the Stage Three Reprisol Trial. ESQUIVEL: Thank you. And the families of these women would thank you, too. Oh, my God. Glad to help. Julia? Uh, would you like a cruller? Uh, thank you, Julia, and we will need your eye making sense of all this. JULIA: Sure. Happy to answer any questions you have. And, uh, you're good with her seeing all the... Can we trust her? Ow! Um, can I ask why we're doing this in a basement? This investigation is highly sensitive. And not entirely sanctioned. SCOFFS Great. PAGER BEEPS That's Krendler. Julia, it's my boss. I have to go. I'm so sorry. I'll be right back. Um, hey... Can you just make sure Clarke doesn't spook her? Clarke can only be himself. Ow! I mean it. What's with the punching? DOOR OPENS TELEPHONES RINGING, INDISTINCT CONVERSATIONS BEEPS Yes, sir? I'm at Ruth Martin's apartment. The AG is here with me. Catherine has...run off. DOOR CLOSES Apparently, she saw an ex-boyfriend yesterday, and it upset her, and now... Clarice, Catherine talks to you. Did she mention anything? Um... Ma'am, have you been through her room? For what? She's been gathering information about... ..Buffalo Bill's mother. What the hell? What? Clarice, what is going on? Catherine told me she had located Jame Gumb's mother, and she might have gone to...confront her. When did she tell you this? When I came for dinner. And you didn't see fit to tell me? She told me in confidence, ma'am. You don't keep Catherine's confidences from me! I didn't bring you here to be her friend! Starling, Starling, what is she thinking? I don't think Catherine knows, really. She said she wanted to make Lila Gumb... "see her." Lila Gumb? It's his mother's name. She's changed it since. That's all I know. OK, we'll run the woman's social. Check it against Motor Vehicles. I'll have someone at IRS, they'll have a look. Starling? You've gone quiet. What else, Starling? Speak up! If we're looking for Lila Gumb, I'd look at the evidence from Buffalo Bill's basement. RUTH: Go to my office. I'll have it there for you. RECEIVER CLICKS SIGHS Hey. Are you free to come to Justice with me? There's some evidence waiting that could really use your eye. Can it wait? I'm about to file my complaint. It can't. Then can you find someone else? It's Bill. CAR DOOR CLOSES CLARICE: We're trying to find Jame Gumb's mother. The only place I can think to look is in the evidence from the Buffalo Bill case. We don't have a lot of time. Catherine might be about to do something very... foolish. Ladies. Let us know if you need anything. TELEPHONES RINGING IN DISTANCE You OK? To be here? DISTORTED KNOCK ON DOOR Hi. You were at bingo. Yeah. Uh... I need to talk to you. OK, hon. What's wrong? What do you need? About your son. You with The Tattler? No, I just wanted... You little bitch. Following me, at my church? Get the hell off my property, or I'm gonna call the police. No, no, no. No. Wait. Aah! Ah, the hell. Now, see? GROANS That was your own fault. I didn't mean to hurt you. Let me look. Don't touch me! Oh! THUD BILL DISTORTED: How does it feel to be so beautiful? # There's power in the blood # In the precious blood of the Lamb. # www.able.co.nz Able 2022 CATHERINE: Please don't die. Please don't die. SQUEAKING He was wearing these when you... He would starve them so their skin would slacken. And then he'd play a game with them. He'd turn out all the lights... CURTAIN SCRAPING ECHOES ..and hunt them in the basement before he killed them. TELEPHONE RINGING, DISTORTED RINGING STOPS This is the mother. From these film reels. He watched this so many times, there's almost more Scotch tape then celluloid here. He was a big fan. He barely knew her, actually. She lost him when Jame was two. He grew up in foster homes. Huh. Sort of like me, yeah. He's nothing like you. No. I was sent away, he was taken away, then returned to his grandparents for a time. He idolised her. Fetishized his mother. ARDELIA: He loved her. He was trying to get back to her. Well, we always end up going home. Home. When Jame's grandparents, Lila's parents, died, the funeral was in... Carney's Point, New Jersey. Look for "Lilas" and "Gumbs" in... Let's call the Newark Division. THUMP ECHOES CATHERINE: Please don't die. Please don't die. No. Go on ahead. I'll meet you there. OK. RECEIVER CLICKS What is it? The residence of a Lila Kinney, formerly owned by a Thomas Gumb. Maybe a grandfather. It's a family home. She changed her name and went there to hide. This is where Catherine went. So, where are we sending this? The Newark office? The last thing Catherine needs is a SWAT team crashing through the windows. It'll go bad. It'll go so bad. I have to go. I can't go with you. We're turning in our complaint for the Coalition Lawsuit to the EEOC tonight. And, honestly, as your friend, I'll tell you this girl isn't your problem. She has plenty of resources available to her. Ardelia, there is one person alive in this world who shares that basement with Catherine. You've been wearing this too long. SIGHS You don't have to any more. Ardelia... I know. You hope we get it done today. I know you hope for that. We will. Be careful. You, too. DOOR OPENS DOOR CLOSES SIGHS CATHERINE: Please don't die. I wasn't trying to hurt you. I was just trying to talk to you, and you came at me, and I got scared, OK? Please. SIGHS RUTH ON PHONE: Are you sure? I don't know anything for sure, ma'am, but that's where I'd go. Give me the address. I'll call it in. Actually, ma'am, I think I should go. Say more. SIGHS OK, respectfully, ma'am, a SWAT team has one job, and we both know what that is. If I go, I can get Catherine out of there safely. You can't afford to have this blow up. Neither can she. This is both of your lives. KRENDLER: Starling, it's yours, too. Yes, sir. But I'm a trained FBI agent. Now, ma'am, I need you to call it. Clarice, bring her home. TELEPHONE BEEPS SIGHS WHEEZING, GROANING CATHERINE: Wake up! LILA: Get the hell out of my house. Go! Why can't you people leave me alone? I'm not a reporter. He's dead. It's over. Wait. Those curls. Oh, Lord. You're the Senator's girl. You're Catherine. You know my name? I knew I recognised you. You look different. You weren't skinny. What do you want? I need to...ask you... I don't know anything. You have to. Why? He went into foster care when he was two. I pushed him out of my brain until I read about him in the newspaper last year. That's how I know your name. Same way I know the name "Buffalo Bill." Get out. Please don't lie. He was like a wreck that happened. A car crash. SNIFFLES: Get out! Stop lying to me! You know him! I don't! Go! Go where? He's everywhere. VOICE BREAKING: He's everywhere except here, and that doesn't make any sense. Everybody thinks it's cool or funny. These monsters... they leave human beings behind, like... ..like you. And me. If I could help you, I would. Don't you think you were entitled to a life? Yeah. But his father sure didn't when he ran off, left me behind like... Oh, they all do it, honey. Some way or another, they toss the girls to the wolves. BREATHES SHARPLY You're just a rich girl who found that out late. Go home to your mother. Have her tell you the facts of life. You don't know my mother. SIGHS I know she wants you to be all right. You won. What? The bingo game. Oh. Yeah, I did. Never won anything in my life. I took it like it could be a sign. Look, girl... I can't help you. I told you, he's a stranger. His skin cream is in your bathroom. What? The smell. SNIFFLES: I've never smelled it anywhere but the hole in the ground. I had to smell like that! SCREAMING Tell me what you did to make him... BANGING ON DOOR CLARICE: Mrs Kinney? WHIMPERS WHISPERING: Shut up. Lila Kinney? FBI. BANGING ON DOOR Catherine? If you look, something's weird about how we paid the CRO. Here are pay-outs to Lockyer Laboratories, Inc. That's for the Phase Three Reprisol trial. Here are more pay-outs a year later. Lockyer Labs, LLC. They're two different federal tax IDs. They're two different companies. It's a shell company. Alastor set it up to scrub the results before the sale. At least they tried something before murdering three whistle-blowers. JULIA: And there's something else. Joe Hudlin is getting an absurdly high percentage of the sale for a lawyer. Like, 0.08%. It's $10 million. So, Hudlin stood to gain from faking the trial results? Definitely. Is there something I can help you with, Agent Clarke? I don't think so. Uh... Yeah. I can see the buffet of questions in your eyes. "Uh, Julia, what bathroom do you use? "Oh, how could you ever give up being a man?" Ooh. "If I think you're hot, does that make me gay?" OK, stop, stop, stop, stop. I ge... I get it, but you don't know me, and I don't... I don't need to know all that. Then what do you need to know? Well... I was gonna ask if, um... you dyed your hair. My sister, on her 13th birthday, our mother let her dye her hair. Same colour as yours. She liked it so much, she bought extra packets of the stuff. Not that she ever got to use them. Um, did she pass away? She disappeared. Uh, someone took her, trafficked her. Oh. Yeah. Yeah, we're still looking. I am. I'm sorry. Uh, thank you. Anyway, a few years back, they discontinued the shade. So, I was thinking that maybe... they brought it back again. It's... It's my natural colour. Ah. Yes. Well... It looks nice, anyway. CHUCKLES LIGHTLY OK. Uh, let's get back to work, huh? Anybody want a coffee or... DOOR OPENS You OK? Yeah, I just... CLEARS THROAT I feel like you're asking me to burn my house down while I'm still standing in it. The house was always on fire. It was burning when you walked in. KRENDLER: Let me know if Starling checks in. CLOCK TICKING My guys didn't even know she left, much less where she went. That was the point, Paul. She's my agent. Starling is my agent, and I'll remind you, so are you. SIGHS We are not gonna do this again, Ruth. Really? We're gonna talk about this now? When my daughter is... Yes. Because last time Catherine went missing, you did the same thing. Have you forgotten? Paul. You made a back door deal with a serial murderer to get information about who took her. You undermined the FBI. LIQUID POURING You put lives in danger. And you were right there with me, so I don't know why now, suddenly... And we sprung a maniac from confinement, where he escaped and eviscerated two cops and a paramedic and God knows who else! We did that! Have you ever thought about those cops, Ruth? Have you? You are about one word from losing your job. CLOCK TICKING The only thing either of us wanted to do... was make the choices that kept people safe. And you're risking her life. I am trusting her. Which is something you've never done. I don't trust her not to get herself killed. Did you always use that lotion? Did he want me to smell like you? I lost him when he was two. He couldn't have remembered... Lost him? What did you do? I drank. I was a drinker. But the State wasn't gonna let me have him, so I asked my Momma and Daddy to take him in. GUN COCKS Tell me about the smell. I'm telling you! My mother's bathroom. She didn't even like it. My father did. She said the smell gave her a headache, but she wore it for him. That's where I found it. And Jame did, too. Your boy wanted my skin soft and loose, so it would peel off me. He was... He was disconnected. My mother called him "hateful." What did they do to him? SIGHS Tell me! I can't. Tell me! CLARICE: Catherine? CLARICE: Hand me the gun, OK? CATHERINE: Hello, Clarice. Lila. This is the bitch who killed your son. Catherine, put the gun down. Let's go home. Did my mother send you here? Mrs Kinney, go. Go now. Don't. I don't buy her being a parent all of a sudden. Well, what if she did send her? Your momma? Someone's gotta take care of you. You're thin as a stray dog. CLARICE: This is on you, Catherine. Not your mother. I know you two are caught up in some hard stuff, but that doesn't mean she isn't standing by you 100%. Love doesn't always look like we want it to. It's time to move on. Move on? What about you? I could draw his house from memory, and you can't remember half your time in that basement. Your mother probably has a scrapbook filled with your articles in it! Get out! Get out! Catherine, put the gun down! Stop! Everyone. BREATHING QUICKLY Catherine, you're right. I think about him every day. Every single day. I'll tell you what I can, all right? RUTH: Of course I think about them. Those officers. I have dreams about them. Horrible dreams. CLOCK TICKING They don't have faces. I had no idea that what I was doing would lead to that. I just wanted my little girl back, Paul. I know. But... she just needed something different than me. I was never the right one for her. I might've been a good mother for someone else, but not her. LILA: I met Jame's father at a beauty pageant. He took me to Los Angeles. He said I could be an actress. My first audition was for a Van Johnson picture. Oh, I was barely showing, just a little bump, but they took one look at me and told me to go home. Jame's daddy didn't like that. He left. TICKING CONTINUES But Catherine came into the world yelling and vibrant and fussy and so... ..loving, intensely loving. At four, she would hug you so tight, she'd leave a bruise. And she'd laugh in her sleep. I don't know where she came from, but I loved her so much. SNIFFLES: I loved her so much it hurt. LILA: I believed what people said. I'd love him when I held him. And I did. I tried. You hurt him? Is that why the state took him? No. Never. I had a job interview. Cleaning. Jame had an earache. He screamed on the bus, all the way downtown. SIGHS The bus driver kicked us off. I got some cough syrup, and that quieted him. And he fell asleep. And then I... I drank the rest. To calm myself. By the time we got there, they wouldn't even see me. SIGHS And that's when I realised Jame wasn't with me. You'd left him. On the bus. RUTH: All I ever wanted to do was help her. But every single thing I said and did just made her hate me more. Intentions count. At least, I hope they do. For all the damage we do. Do you think if we'd known this was coming... ..nights like this... SNIFFLES Would we have had children at all? CLOCK TICKING LILA: They wouldn't even let me say goodbye to him. I went to jail for three months... for child neglect, and when I got back, I was... TICKING CONTINUES I don't know what happened to Jame. You said your parents took him in. He killed them. At 12 years old. He killed them both. He slashed them to death with a box cutter. Probably supposed to be me. VOICE BREAKING: I prayed that there was something that would explain why...he was so wrong. A birth defect. Something. But I just didn't love him right. Get out! Get out! PORCELAIN SHATTERS GASPS LIGHTLY He was in 11 foster homes. Some of them were... If I'd kept him with me... There's no telling. I'm not here to feel sorry for her! It's somebody's fault! He didn't just happen! Yes, he did! He did! He just happened! He stole my life! I can't eat! I can't move! I can't love! I... can't be who anyone needs me to be! Someone has to answer for him! Catherine, don't let him kill you twice! You came back from that pit. You were smarter. You stayed alive. But if you make me shoot you now, he wins. It wasn't you. VOICE BREAKING: It wasn't me. It was him. You don't have to carry it any more. You don't have to carry him any more. You can learn to put him down. I can, too. CLATTERING GUN ECHOES THUMP ECHOES CATHERINE SOBBING CLARICE: My mother sent me away. I grew up in an orphanage, and I'm nothing like him. Is that supposed to make me feel better? You take care, ma'am. LAUGHTER He was literally stealing money from my underwear drawer. I knew it. I knew it. Ew, no. Screw him. Actually, no. Never screw him again. Better plan. Better plan. Why do I keep attracting these losers? Am I stupid? No. No, you're not stupid. But... you do sometimes attract unsavoury men. But it's because you're so vulnerable and open-hearted and beautiful and kind and... And, ooh, a little stupid. A little stupid. A little stupid. It's fine. Cheers. Yeah. Cheers. LAUGHTER TELEPHONE RINGING Oh. Hello? CLARKE: Julia. It's Special Agent Clarke. Oh, uh, now... now's not a good time. Yeah, I know. You have people over. You're... LAUGHTER IN DISTANCE JULIA: You're watching me? Why? ESQUIVEL: We came to talk to you, but we saw you had company. We didn't want to mess up your evening. Listen, the information you got us, it almost gets us there, legally. But we need to be able to prove that Nils Hagen knew exactly what he was doing when he put that drug on the market. Would you be willing to try again? Search through the records one more time? I gave you what I could. Now you want me to do... what? Julia, hey, I know. You have a nice house. You have friends, you... people. Uh, you have a lot at stake here, and a young girl was killed doing this. If you can't do any more, I get it. Just, um... DOGS BARKING IN DISTANCE ..thank you. Just go back to your life. LAUGHTER IN DISTANCE Uh, I have to think. Um, I'll be in touch. Now, go away. RECEIVER CLICKS You think she'll do it? Hard to say. I mean, she's a strong... woman, but hell of a choice. KEYS JINGLE, ENGINE STARTS She'll do it. She has to. We're running out of time. What are we doing? I'm calling your mom. CELLPHONE RINGS BEEPS Starling? CLARICE: I have her. She's all right. Oh, thank God. Thank you. Was it what you thought? She held Lila Kinney at gunpoint. Is everyone safe? Yes, sir. We're in the car. SIGHS And, uh, the woman? Is she... She'll be fine, and I don't expect we'll hear from her again. SIGHS Ma'am... I'm gonna turn her in to the Carney's Point New Jersey Police. RUTH: But I thought... CLARICE: There have to be consequences, ma'am. A terrible thing happened to Catherine. She can come through it in a couple of ways, but making this all just go away is not one of them. Clarice, bring my daughter home. SIGHS The charge will be assault and trespassing, and I'll push for a fast arraignment and a psych eval. If she were anyone else's daughter, this wouldn't even be a question. She needs to know what she's done. She needs to feel it. And I have to go now, ma'am. CLOCK TICKING Did you think I'd do it different? I don't know. SNIFFLES LI: And no-one got hurt? CLARICE: Well, everyone got hurt. No-one got shot. CLOCK TICKING CLARICE: Well, I might have grenaded my career, actually. For Catherine, it felt kind of inevitable, but Lila Gumb... I can't even imagine. But we all need to keep moving through. I know that. And that's what you're doing? You went in alone. Again. Yeah. You went in alone in Baltimore. You went in alone with Bill, with Marilyn Felker. It's nearly killed you every time. What is it that you want so badly? I just want to be a good agent. A good officer. A good officer works alone? My dad worked alone. You said that pretty fast. Well, he did. And your mother? Did she work alone? She was a hotel maid after your father died. She raised the kids all by herself. Not this kid. I was sent away when I was nine. She wanted me gone, so... I was gone. I guess she wanted to just be alone. She wanted my father gone, too. She did? Why? Get out! Get out! PORCELAIN SHATTERS Get out now! She was so angry when we did fun stuff together, just he and I. BREATHES SHARPLY And this one night, she just lost it. Oof. She was raging at him. "Get out! Get out!" Get out! Get out! Come on, Reesey. You're coming with me. And I just remember my daddy swooped me up, took me out of there, past bedtime. What were you doing that night? We got Coke floats. Did work stuff. And I just remember I felt so... I felt safe. Best night of my life. What? INDISTINCT CONVERSATION I just... I just... I remember... I remember men. These men under a streetlight. I couldn't see their faces. I couldn't see who they were. So, more than just Coke floats. Angry mother. A father taking you away from the house. Clarice, are you sure that this story you've been telling yourself is the whole story? Captions were made with the support of NZ On Air.