"You guys know there's no shortage of new dead bodies, right?" Warner asked as they entered the autopsy room, "I don't need job security this bad."

"Did you find anything that looks questionable?" Olivia asked.

"I ran my findings against the original coroner's reports and death certificates…Daniel Mueller, the one Beck said got his carotid artery severed with a piece of a bottle…checks out, there are still slivers of glass in the wound."

"Okay so if the company was cleaning house they probably wouldn't pay that much attention to detail," Elliot said, "probably just slit his throat with a knife, leave a broken bottle near the body and call it good."

"The others were all shot, and the positioning of the bullets in the bodies is everything, we all know how the press has a field day if somebody turns up with entry wounds in his back."

"And these?" Olivia asked.

"Two shot in the chest, one in the stomach, one in the ribs, and one in the face."

"Oof," Elliot cringed.

"The angling and trajectory of the wounds are consistent with somebody making a lunging movement in front of the gun, nobody just walked up to these people and blew them away," Melinda told them. "Also nobody shot any of them in the back of the head."

"So much for that theory," Olivia said.

"Guess Munch can sleep a little easier," Elliot commented.

"No he won't, he'll just redirect his conspiracy theory so this is still a cover up," Olivia replied.

"What about the blood found in the car?" Elliot asked, "did you get anything definitive on it?"

"It does match a sample of David's taken from a doctor's appointment, but I don't think he was assaulted…there were a couple nostril hairs found in it."

"So David had a nosebleed."

"That still doesn't mean Clancy didn't hit him," Elliot said.

"That alone doesn't, but when CSU turned the car inside out, there were travel packs of Kleenex and a jar of petroleum jelly in the glove box. It sounds like David or somebody who frequented that car gets nosebleeds on a regular basis."

"Is that serious?" Olivia asked.

"People today tend to hear nosebleed and think leukemia, but there are other normal causes for everyday episodes, dry climate, weakened blood vessels, if he was a compulsive nose picker when he was younger, he would have weakened his nasal membrane."

"And Clancy would've known that and been ready," Olivia said.

"Good old, dependable, trustworthy Roger," Elliot remembered the housekeeper's comment.


"He dumped this kid somewhere, we don't know if he's dead or alive," Elliot said as they drove back to the station, "State troopers have retraced his steps as far back as the highway, before that we have no way of knowing where he was."

"Elliot," Olivia looked at him, "it's been too long…if David was alive when Clancy got rid of him, he couldn't have been anywhere that he'd have access to food and water for too long."

"I can't accept that," Elliot shook his head.

"You heard what he said," Olivia told him.

"Yeah, he said David was gone, that doesn't automatically mean dead."

"He also said we'd never find him."

"How many times have we heard that before?" Elliot asked, "it doesn't mean anything, he didn't confess to killing him, we don't have a body."

"And we may never," Olivia replied. "The only good thing is that there's no family who won't get closure if we don't."

"Liv, there are just too many things that don't add up. Clancy's already looking at the death penalty, so why wouldn't he just admit that David's dead if he did kill him?"

"Maybe Huang or Skoda has an answer," Olivia said, "some deep rooted denial, if he admits it it suddenly becomes real."

"That's reaching," Elliot told her.

"Well we don't have anything else to go on," Olivia replied.

"Well there's got to be something," Elliot said, "why is this guy holding back?"


"Miss Novak," Casey heard a man call to her as she stepped out of the courtroom and turned around.

"Mr. Beck, what brings you here?" she asked.

"I've been to Rikers, tried to speak to John, tried to talk some sense into him," Evan told her.

"That's damn stupid, that's what his lawyer's for," Casey said.

"I got him a lawyer, John wouldn't take him, what the hell is going on here?"

"You tell me and we'll both know."

"You still think I'm hiding something?" Beck was appalled.

"Mr. Beck, the facts are as plain as day, Clancy killed Moll, he kidnapped David, he ditched the gun, he got rid of David somewhere, and you still refuse to accept that he's guilty."

"You don't have a gun, you don't have any witnesses."

"And I don't have David, if Clancy didn't kill him, where is he?" Casey asked.

"If I'm covering something up, why isn't he telling me?" Beck returned.

"I'm not sure," Casey admitted, "but just because your employee doesn't trust you doesn't prove to me that I should either."

"Miss Novak, something is wrong here," Beck told her.

"I know, Mr. Beck, and you're part of it," Casey said. "Clancy's pleading not guilty but everything he's doing screams that he is guilty, and he doesn't even seem to care. Why is that?"


"We tried putting a jailhouse informant in Clancy's cell, the guy's not talking," Cragen told Casey.

"Besides that, the snitch tells us that Clancy's sleeping like a baby," Fin said, "whatever he did, he's not feeling any guilt for."

"Any takers on why that is?" Cragen asked.

Skoda explained, "George and I both tried talking to him."

"He say anything?"

"Aside from something of not having to do anything except stay white and die, no, not really," Skoda shook his head.

"He wouldn't tell us anything, he's not telling his lawyer anything," Casey said, "And his employer is trying to get him to talk to him."

"Is it possible they're both involved?" Skoda asked.

"I have gone over everything in SafeTCorp's background, the whole operation just seems too shady," Casey said, "but I've had the financial records checked three times, there's not one comma out of place, that money isn't going anywhere that it's not supposed to. Beck seems to be on the up and up but for some reason he just refuses to admit that Clancy is guilty, and I don't think it's just for the reputation of his business."

"What else is there then?" Elliot asked.

"I don't know," Casey answered.

"Maybe you should arrange another meeting with him," Skoda suggested.

"Why? You think he knows something?" Casey asked.

"I don't know," Skoda replied, "but the question that needs answering right now is why is he so devoted to maintaining his employee's innocence?"

"I can't talk to him," Casey said, "if anything he would be a witness for the defense."

Elliot thought of something and blurted out, "Unless we can get him to lead us to the evidence Clancy's guilty."

All eyes were suddenly on him.

"What do you mean?" Casey asked.

Elliot thought before he answered this time and admitted, "I'm not sure…but maybe if we go back over the evidence there'll be something that'll convince Beck, then he'd be a witness for the prosecution, and we could talk to him."

"Why not?" Casey asked, "What else have we got to lose?" Though inwardly a few things came to mind, her dignity, her career, etc.


"Miss Novak, you realize how outrageous this is," the public defender said during their meeting in the prison's interview room. "I could haul you before the ethics committee."

"Oh I know how outrageous it is," Casey replied, "I also know that your client isn't doing himself any favors by refusing to speak to anybody, Mr. Beck or myself that's no surprise, but you can't even prepare an adequate defense for him when he won't give you any details of what happened."

"And why should that matter to you?"

"Because a 12 year old boy is still out there somewhere, and if he's alive we need to find him, and if he's not, he still deserves a proper burial," Casey said.

"John," Evan looked at the man sitting across from him at the table, "what happened out there?"

Clancy's eyes were hard as stone and not focused on anything as he told his employer, "Don't ask me that, Mr. Beck, I can't answer."

"Where'd you get the gun you shot Steven Moll with?" Casey asked.

"He doesn't have to answer that," the public defender said.

"Well he better start talking to somebody soon, he's too functional for an insanity plea to work, our psychiatrists have already spoken to him and deduced there is nothing mentally wrong with him," Casey replied.

"How could they determine that when he wouldn't talk to them?"

"All of you go away," Clancy said as he stood up from the table. "I've got nothing to say to anybody."

"John, don't be stupid," Beck told him. "If you don't tell what happened, you're going to go to prison, you could get the death penalty."

"My conscience is clear, I didn't do anything wrong," Clancy replied.


"Well Mr. Beck, are you convinced yet?" Casey asked as they left the prison.

"No. I'm not."

"I don't get it, Mr. Beck," she told him, "all the evidence is staring you right in the face, why is it so impossible for you to admit that despite all your best efforts, all your background checks and psyche evaluations, that you missed something, and you let a killer slip through your fingers?"

"Because I don't believe he's guilty," Beck answered.

"Let me ask you something, Mr. Beck, would you jump this far into it if it were any other of your bodyguards?" Casey asked.

"Yes, I would," he answered, "I don't make mistakes, when I hire somebody I know they're the best."

"Then explain Steven Moll's murder," Casey said.

"It's not murder if John was justified in shooting him," Beck answered.

Casey stopped and looked at him. "You know something we don't?"

"All I know is that's the only thing that makes sense."

"If that were the case, he would've told you what it was, wouldn't he?" Casey asked.

"What do you think I've been trying to get him to do? We train our men to throw themselves on live grenades, not on their own swords. Miss Novak do you really think that if John was guilty of murder, he wouldn't just lie about it and say it was justifiable?"

"It would be the shortest distance between two points," Casey said, "but how do you explain him not saying anything?"

"I can't, but I can't believe he just shot Moll for no reason either and kidnapped David for no reason," Beck replied.

"He torched David's school uniform, his backpack, his school books, what does that tell you?" Casey asked.

"I don't know, but it doesn't tell me that he killed David, it wouldn't make sense to dispose of his belongings separately from the body. If he were as cold blooded as you think he is, what would've stopped him from dousing David in gasoline and setting him on fire as well?"

"I saw 'Seeds of Doubt', Mr. Beck, the facts are more important than your need for Clancy to be innocent," Casey said.

"But you don't have all the facts, Miss Novak," Beck replied. "There's something that's not adding up here."

"A lot of things actually," Casey suddenly thought of something. She looked at Beck and mentioned, "When Clancy was caught on camera leaving the motel he was wearing camouflage pants, a gray T-shirt and white sneakers. When the police arrested him 12 hours later he had on jeans, a black shirt and boots…the other clothes weren't in the car, what did he do with them?"

"What was in the car?" Beck asked.

"I can get the inventory from evidence," Casey said.

"What happened to the car?" Beck asked.

"Police impounded it for evidence too."

"You got all the evidence out of it you're going to, right?" Beck asked. "Get it out of impound, I want to see it."

"That's highly unethical, Mr. Beck."

"Maybe I know better what evidence to look for than your detectives do, we assigned him that car and everything that was initially in it."

"This goes beyond unethical," Casey said. Still, when she considered her options she realized she didn't have any. "Alright, Mr. Beck, let's go."


"All the detectives found was what was in the trunk and the glove box," Casey explained as Evan walked around the car, examining every inch. "There was no suitcase, no change of clothes, and that emergency kit you mentioned was also nowhere to be seen."

"But he cleared all his stuff out of Moll's house, right?"

"Right, but we haven't been able to figure out what he did with it all."

"When the assignment's over, anything that hasn't been used is supposed to be returned to the company," Beck explained, "nothing turned up."

"You said they carry $10,000, right?" Casey asked.

"Yep."

"Do you know if he'd used any of it?"

"Nothing that we heard, that's just to get the hell out of Dodge if things hit the fan, we also supply them with petty cash for small purchases that won't draw attention."

"Like stopping at a motel for the night or at a diner for breakfast," Casey said.

"Stuff like that, yeah, get groceries, get gas," Beck went around to the driver's side door and climbed in.

Casey mentally kicked herself, wondering how she was ever going to explain any of this without being disbarred and thrown into jail herself.

"Miss Novak, something's wrong here," Beck called from the driver's seat.

Casey went around to the door on his side and asked, "What is it?"

"Check out the mileage," Beck pointed to the dashboard, "that SOB put 3,000 miles on this car in a week."

"Okay, that's excessive, but does it mean anything?" Casey asked.

"Yeah, every week part of the check-in report is how many miles were put on the car, it's an insurance measure to make sure nobody tampers with the tracking device," Beck explained.

"Clancy dismantled the tracking device so we don't know how much he put on it," Casey said.

"Yeah, but he checked in with us four days earlier, the average distance he puts on the car in any given week when things are uneventful is about 250 miles, if you think you're being followed you drive around for another half hour or so to make sure you shake them, nothing real substantial to add on top of the regular mileage, you know? When he called, he'd only put on 20 so far for the week. And there's no way he put all that extra on just in the two days he was on the run."

"But what does it mean?" Casey asked.

"It means he's been deactivating and reactivating the tracking device for weeks to take miles off the official report," Beck said.

"Which can only mean he didn't want anyone to know where he was going," Casey said. "How long do you figure he's been doing it?"

"Based on these numbers and the way I know he's capable of driving, I'd figure at least four weeks," Beck told her.

"So where has he been going all this time?" Casey asked. "When he used the car regularly, that you knew about, where all did he go?"

"Just basic stuff, pick David up from school, take him to school, get groceries, go to the post office, the bank, take David to the movies…"

"The post office?" Casey repeated, "what post office?"


"Yeah, he comes here," the clerk behind the counter said when he saw Clancy's picture, "mails a few packages…he has a box here."

"We'd like to see the contents of it," Olivia said.

"Oh I can't do that, it's against…" the man saw the badges she and Elliot were flashing and decided, "I suppose I can. Has he done anything?"

"Just open the box, please," Olivia said.

"Looks like John found a way around the no contact rule," Elliot said, "has private mail sent to a private box, the doctor doesn't know about it, nobody at SafeTCorp knows about it."

The clerk opened the box and the detectives were let down to discover it was empty.

"When was the last time he had mail?" Elliot asked.

"I couldn't say, I've been off the past two days," the clerk said.

"What kind of packages did he mail?" Olivia asked, "do you remember where any of them went?"

"Sorry," he shook his head.

"Another dead end," Olivia groaned to her partner.

"I hate to say it but I think we've finally run out of options," Elliot said.

And that meant accepting that David had to be dead, which Olivia knew was tearing Elliot up. Unfortunately they'd exhausted all leads, looked for others where none existed, and there didn't seem to be anything more that they could do.


"I'm not sure I understand, don't you have enough to convict Clancy on?" Cragen asked.

"I don't have the murder weapon and I can't prove what ultimately happened to David, but yeah, I think the jury will convict on murder 1," Casey said. "This whole case just doesn't set well with me."

"We've gone back over every square inch that we know Clancy was at between the murder and when he was arrested," Elliot said.

"And there's no way of tracking all his additional movements that he put in under the radar," Olivia added.

"Are you sure Beck's not involved?" Cragen asked.

"I really don't get the feeling he's hiding anything," Casey said, "he never stonewalled us."

"At the same time he was never too helpful either," Munch added.

"Well something screwy is going on," Cragen said. "Clancy is claiming defense without asserting any defense, he's not listening to his counsel, what's his aim?"

"The biggest obstacle I have is that there is no motive," Casey said, "we know he did it, we just don't know why, and even though that's not an actual requirement for trial, juries tend to follow them above all else, if there's no motive, there's room for reasonable doubt."

"Maybe that's what he has in mind," Munch said.

"I don't think so, the jury's still going to see this picture perfect family that he blew to hell, and the child has never been found, they'll convict on that if nothing else," Casey said.

"Picture perfect…" Olivia thought of something.

She took out the photograph of the safari park and asked Elliot, "Why do you suppose David saved this picture?"

"Souvenir of the park," Elliot guessed, "the only picture with Clancy in it."

"It's also the only picture in that whole house we saw of David and his father together," Olivia said. "All the others we took to show Clancy, those weren't family photos…Elliot, take out your wallet."

"Why, you want to turn a $50 bill into a 20?"

"Just do it."

Elliot reached into his back pocket and took out his billfold.

"Now show me the pictures of your kids," Olivia said.

He did. "Maureen's first dance, Kathleen's birthday, Dickie's Little League game, Lizzie winning the spelling bee."

"These actually look like family photos," Olivia said, "David's all looked like the school took them. And you saw that house, the whole living room wall was a monument to Steven Moll's ego."

"That's not a surprise," Fin said, "both the docs figured Clancy's motive was Dad was neglecting the kid."

"But then what happened to David?" Casey asked. "That's what we can't find out, we've searched everywhere."

"We haven't been able to find a possible motive John Clancy would have for killing Steven Moll, and we searched through all the records that Beck and SafeTCorp had on both of them," Elliot said.

"Here's a wild idea," Munch said, "just because Beck didn't withhold anything from us doesn't mean Moll didn't withhold anything from him."

"Like what?" Casey asked. "Beck's policy is to do a complete background check on all would be clients."

"Maybe the chink in Beck's armor wasn't his bodyguard, maybe it was Moll's life story," Munch said.

"You know," Olivia thought of something, "for a rich doctor who can afford everything in sight…there was no safe in that house, no lock box, nothing, so where would a guy like that keep all his important documents?"

"I can think of a couple places," Casey said, "and both of them require going over his financial records again."


"Here's every piece of paper that Steven Moll had locked up in a storage space he'd been renting since he moved in," Elliot announced as they put two boxes of documents on their desks.

"Cross check every document here against the records Beck kept on file," Casey said.

"You're not going to stay for this slumber party, counselor?" Munch asked.

"I have to go find McCoy and explain what happened today without him hauling my ass to the ethics committee," Casey said, "keep your fingers crossed."

"You do the same for us," Munch called after her.

"So what exactly are we looking for?" Fin asked.

"Anything that's different, or missing, from the files SafeTCorp had on Moll," Olivia said.

"Gonna be another long night," Fin said.

"Well, let's get started," Elliot said.


Olivia rubbed her stiff neck as she turned another page. "It's amazing how someone who could never want for anything turned out to have what it takes to finish med school and become such a proficient doctor."

"Yeah, everywhere I look it's silver spoon central," Elliot said, "parents were loaded, best private schools, captain of the lacrosse team, captain of the squash team, captain of the swim team…"

"All of which he either passed or forced onto David," Olivia said, "his room was full of sports equipment."

"Yeah, but Clancy picked him up at the same time every day right after school was out," Elliot said.

"Maybe sports didn't work for him," Olivia thought.

"Top of his class, top of his class, and oh look at that, top of his class," Munch said, "From grade school to med school. How is it possible for somebody to be so perfect? It's not human."

"It used to be called buying the answers from someone else," Elliot commented.

"You don't suppose Clancy was just sick to death of this guy having the perfect life, do you?" Munch asked.

"I doubt it, John," Olivia replied.

"You sure?" Munch said. "If I were 20 years younger I might be tempted to take an ashtray to the skull of somebody like this."

"So if he got all this money, why couldn't he spring for a full time maid?" Fin asked. "Live-in, even."

"Makes you wonder if something really was going on once the help went home for the day," Munch said.

"Why did Clancy have private tutors for David for 6 years?" Elliot asked.

"Supposedly they were on the move too much for him to attend school, even though the neighbors say they'd lived there for 5 years," Olivia said.

"Let's assume for a minute that they were a bunch of jetsetters," Cragen said, "what suddenly changed 3 months ago?"

Elliot and Olivia started sorting through the papers by dates and Elliot concluded, "Nothing where their finances are concerned."

"Nothing except David turned 12 back then," Olivia said, "here's a receipt for a $50 birthday cake."

"For that much money, I wonder what pops out of that?" Munch mused.

Olivia grabbed another stack of papers and started flipping through them.

"I still don't get what we're looking for here," Cragen said, "if Moll omitted something from SafeTCorp and Clancy found it out, how could Clancy disclosing it now be a problem now that Moll's dead?"

"Whatever it was, why didn't he tell it instead of killing the guy?" Fin asked.

"Clancy keeps his mouth shut, even the best lawyer can't turn the jury's attention away from the chain of events, Moll gets his brains blown out, Clancy cleans house, Clancy picks up the kid, Clancy's arrested and the kid is never found. It's a sure shot to the needle, so why the hell is he keeping quiet if there's something that would justify the shooting?" Cragen asked. "He's not doing himself any favors with this code of silence crap, so who the hell is he protecting?"

Olivia looked up from the papers and answered, "David."