Episode 13, Season 2
Title: Strangled

Written by: Gary Glasberg
Directed by: Michael Gershman
Original Air Date: 3 February 2003


Description:

In an annual Cavanaugh tradition, Jordan joins with Woody and the rest of the morgue staff to examine an unsolved homicide from Max's days as a rookie detective -- which coincided with the killing spree of the famed Boston Strangler. Stepping back in time to 1964, they each assume the identity of someone involved in the homicide investigation, hoping to unearth a new shred of evidence to possibly discover the true identity of the killer in the controversial murder case.

FORENSICS

Guest Stars:

Allison Barcott (Ruth Carter), Jeana LaVardera (Peggy), Anthony Crivello (), Robert Cicchini (), Stephen Snedden (Detective Max Cavanaugh)

Random Facts:

Goofs:

Music:

Devil or Angel, The Clovers
She's Not There, Zombies
Hello Stranger, Barbara Lewis
Suspicion, Terry Strafford
Town Without Pity, Gene Pitney
Harlem Nocturne, Johnny Otis

Quotes:
Transcript (courtesy of CJ Online)

Moran (Woody): I’m just pointing out…
Dr. Malone (Garret): That she’s female. Wow. You are a detective.

Woody: Today doesn’t matter. We’re talking prehistoric detective work.
Max: I resent the prehistoric comment.

Jordan: Woody. Listen, ah I know it’s short notice, but what are you doing tonight?
Woody: Nothing. Order in. Watch my beloved badgers on satellite TV. Why?
Jordan: Want to have some fun?
Woody: Ah Jordan. Is this going where I think it’s going? Because, ah ever since our kiss, back in California, you’ve sort of been on my mind too.
Jordan: It’s dinner at my Dad’s bar."
Woody: Oh.
Jordan: Well it’s kind of a once a year tradition. I mean we eat, we have a lot of fun. You should come!
Woody: Please don’t tell me it’s just going to be the 3 of us!
Jordan: It’s not going to be the 3 of us. You will know everybody there!
Woody: Everybody? (She nods) I’m not going to have to sing am I?
(She shakes her head and pulls him along)

Max: For those of you attending for the first time, Jordan and I started this during an ice storm a while back. Mostly out of boredom, but once we got into it.
Jordan: Trying to solve old cases became kind of a kick.
Nigel: Yeah I did enjoy our attempt to ‘Jack’ the ripper.
Garret: (laughs) We didn’t really solve the damn thing.
Max: No. But we had fun trying.

Nigel: Putting our collective minds together, role-playing. Attempting to solve the unsolvable.
Woody: Cool. So it’s like clue, only for real.
(Jordan shakes her head at Woody "oh boy")

Max: Now in some cases who you play will be based on your personality. Study your roles, think like they did.
Jordan: (reading her file) Joyce Quinn. M.E.
Max: First lady Coroner I ever had the pleasure of working with.
Garret: I’m playing Roger Valone, Joyce’s boss.
Bug: Wow there’s a stretch!

Joyce: Joyce Quinn. I’m the medical examiner that’s assigned to the case.
Young Max: Max Cavanaugh from the 7th. Heck of a business for a lady to go into
Joyce: Who said anything about being a lady?

Roger Valone: You trying to kill me back there or what?
Jimmy Moran: I just like watching you squirm.

(Valone lights up a cigarette)
Jimmy Moran: (raises his eyebrows) Article in the paper said those things’ll kill you.
Roger: Yeah I know. I wrote it.

Moran: Let me ask you something Roger. Under the circumstances, big media case like this. You sure someone like Joyce should be calling the play?
Valone: Drop the sports analogies Jimmy, I hate football. Let me tell you something, Quinn did her schooling at John Hopkins’s and BU. She’s a fine medical examiner. I stand by my decision.
Moran: I’m just pointing out…
Valone: What? That she’s a female? Wow you ARE a detective.

Joyce: Better get used to it detective. I leave my lace gloves at home.

Max: Now it’s important you hear the details unfold the same way I did. Remember gang, I was there! All the rumors, whispers, I heard them all.
Lily: Well start talking Mr Gossip.

Garret: You know Valone’s decision to focus on the bigger picture was the right call. I’d of done the same thing.
Lily: What about the girl’s family? How do you explain their daughter’s death wasn’t a priority?
Garret: Sometimes we make decisions because we have to. It isn’t always right, but it comes with the job.
Lily: I hope that’s Valone talking.
Garret: Not necessarily.

Joyce: Ruth may not be a strangler victim, but there are two people in that room right now grieving the loss of their daughter. And I’ll be dammed if I’m going to tell them that she doesn’t matter.
Young Max: You heard Valone. The city has priorities.
Joyce: There are 200 men alone working that case. Not to mention the feds. You think they really care what we do?
Young Max: I just got promoted to detective 5 months ago. Let me talk to my lieutenant.
Joyce: No. By then the trail will be cold. Look Max, 13 women are dead by the hands of a mad man and the whole city’s after him. One girl's gone and no one seems to care! What makes her life any less important?

Young Max: Where are you from professor?
Dr Morehouse: Shut up.

Dr Morehouse: (holding up the hair) Someday we’ll be able to tell all we need to know about a person from a hair like this.
Young Max: What can you tell us now?
Dr Morehouse: (sarcastic) That the killer has split ends.

Dr Morehouse: (To Joyce) Are we still on for coffee? You know Ginnesberg himself is reading at the student union next Tuesday.
Joyce: I got a phone. You remember the number?
Dr Morehouse: (kissing her hand) How could I forget.

(Listening to Bug ramble about DNA)
Nigel: Bloody riveting. Umm listen how about some fun for yours truly? I’m not eating these cocktail wieners for my health you know.

Bug: You know it’s interesting to me that Joyce wasn’t afraid to use her assets to get what she wanted.
Lily: So what’s wrong with that?! Do you know how many barriers she had to break just to get that job?
Max: Not to mention earning the respect of an all male police force.
Bug: I was merely making an observation…

(Upon finding out he’s playing the suspect)
Nigel: Forget it. Okay every year it’s the same. I’ve had enough. (He starts to leave)
Max: Come on Nigel. Wait. Wait.
Bug: Stop complaining it’s just a game.
Nigel: Yeah perhaps. But I’m tired of always being the killer pervert.
Lily: (to Jordan who is sitting next to the bar with Garret and Lily) Is it true?
Jordan: Last year he was the Milwaukee Bondage Killer.
Garret: The year before that the Ice Cream Rapist of ‘77. (He looks at Jordan)
Jordan and Garret: (they both look at Nigel) Killer Perve.
Lily: (Lily bites her lips) Hmm
Nigel: I mean for once why can’t I be the district attorney, or a gun toting cop?
Bug: When have you ever seen a cop who wears leather pants and snakeskin boots?
Woody: (looking out over a file) The village people.
(Jordan shakes her head at Woody’s comment)
Nigel: Don’t be so quick to criticize mister. You’re a far cry from that college Casanova you just portrayed.
Bug: (stands up on the bar stool to be taller than Nigel) Well I wish I could say the same for you, because white hair aside, you’re equally disturbed.
Lily: (To Jordan and Garret) I don’t think they’re role-playing anymore.
(Jordan laughs)
Garret: (not having too much fun) Can we get back to the case please?
Max: You heard the man! Where were we?
Woody: (points at Nigel) The killer perve was about to jump ship.
Nigel: (looks around) I’ll Stay. I’ll stay and I’ll participate, under one condition.
Bug: No this is not negotiable. You’re the killer pervert. Deal with it.
(Nigel puts on his hat and storms towards the door)
Max: (stops him) Now Nigel. Since I know where this is going, I can bend the rules a little bit. Nigel you might want to stick around.
Nigel: Oh! Well if you’re suggesting that things are more complicated than they appear…. (Fixes his hair)
Woody: What a pervert.

(Valone is watching basketball on TV, Moran walks into the doorway)
Moran: Trying to relax Chief?
Valone: Easier said than done.
Moran: Man’s got to find time for himself, other wise he looses perspective.

Moran: When you work around the dead too long, you start to think people aren’t paying attention. But there are still a few eyes open around here. Watch yourself Chief.

Moran: Boo.
Joyce: Jimmy.
Moran: You know Joyce. Really need to keep your wits about you.
Joyce: It’s 2 in the morning.
(He takes off his jacket and tie)
Moran: Girl can’t be careful enough these days. (Takes off his shirt) Course I happen to have a spare key. But you can’t trust anybody. You really need to know who you’re spending time with.
Joyce: Oh I know who I’m spending time with. An Irish egotistical horses ass. (They kiss)

(Jordan is a the juke box, Woody comes up to her grinning)
Woody: So how about that?
Jordan: How ‘bout what?
Woody: According to Max, Moran and Joyce had a ‘thing’ going on.
Jordan: Too bad she had such lousy taste in men. Moran was married.
Woody: Maybe their marriage sucked?
Jordan: Now you’re defending him?
Woody: Hey I’m just playing devils advocate here! You got to admit though, all these people, all spending time together. It’s ah, entertaining. (Grins at Jordan) Sorry you invited me?

Lily: (takes a shot) I can’t believe she’s dead!
Woody: Moran must have been devastated! Guy spends a year and a half chasing a killer and his wife becomes the next victim.
Max: Don’t be so sure.
Bug: What do you mean?
Jordan: Historically that would have made Peggy Moran the Strangler’s 14th murder.
Garret: But we know that’s not the case.
Lily: Another copy cat?
Woody: And if so, how did they figure it out?
Jordan: The same way we would today. Peggy was dead, but she still had all the answers.

Joyce: Fellas what do you know about ladies stockings? (Max and Valone look at each other, clueless) That’s what I figured.

(Bitching about the lack of technology)
Nigel: We’d know in a moment today whether those pantyhose were new or not! And we could do skin and secretion samples from the fabric! Pfff.
Lily: Instead they had nothing to go on.
Bug: And how about that computer, 18 hours?
Woody: Might as well been the Stone Age.

Max: Ever heard of a woman named Annabel Costa?
Lily: Uh…
Garret: Costa worked as a dry cleaner in Newport Rhode Island. The feds used her in the strangler case.
Lily: Used her how?
Max: What if I told you, in 11years, Costa found 5 kidnapped children, solved 3 murders and helped apprehend 7 criminals?
Lily: I’d say that she was wasting her time starching collars.
Nigel: She was a psychic.
Max: Cute. But a little eccentric.
Garret: So you’re perfect.

Annabel Costa: Do you have any Jujubes? I really like Jujubes.

Annabel: I also like licorice. But only if it’s a rope and only if it’s red.

Annabel: (to Joyce) You’re skirt is too long.
Joyce: Excuse me?
Annabel: Your skirt is too long. I work in a dry cleaners. The new length is about an inch higher. You have nice legs though, for a coroner I mean…

Garret: According to medical records, the blood on the shirt doesn’t match the dishwasher’s blood.
Nigel: Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

Bug: These days you could pull DNA from sweat around the armpits, run it through the Codas database and hope for a match.
Woody: Today doesn’t matter. We’re talking prehistoric detective work. It was probably all contaminated anyway.
Max: I resent the prehistoric comment! Medieval maybe.

(Moran comes up behind Joyce and hugs her)
Moran: Hey.
Joyce: You scared me.
Moran: Sorry. I needed a hug.

Woody: No! No way! No! It’s impossible!
Jordan: The shirts match up.
Woody: Circumstantial nonsense.
Lily: Aren’t you taking this a little personally Woody?
Woody: Somebody’s got to defend the guy. He was a big time decorated cop.
Max: Assemble of the force, Right Woodrow?
Woody: Exactly. The guy’s wife dies and suddenly he’s a copy cat killer?
Bug: Look the truth is, there could have been hundreds of shirts out there made by the same tailor.
Woody: With tiny differences, but differences none the less.
Nigel: If the shirt don’t fit, you must acquit.
Bug: Tasteless, but appropriate.

Joyce: Sorry, I should have said something about us earlier.
Young Max: You don’t owe me an explanation.
Joyce: I know he’s married. I tried to break it off, but uh, the fact is it’s not about a relationship, it’s just…
Young Max: Convenient?

Moran: It was one night. It was nothing. It meant nothing. We had sex and I left. I didn’t kill her. I didn’t kill anyone. (Silence) You still want my blood?
Joyce: Yeah.
Moran: Alright. Take it. But Joyce do me a favor.
Joyce: What’s that?
Moran: Go to hell!

Woody: Circumstantial evidence pointed to Moran, but you always need a solid piece of forensic truth.

Lily: Who killed both women?
Nigel: And did an almost perfect job of mimicking one of the greatest unsolved cases of the 21st century?
Jordan: We can try to do this! But it would be a first.
Bug: Try what?
Garret: Another patented Cavanaugh reenactment. You better have another drink.

Nigel: Anyone up for some breakfast? I know a great little Greek diner around the corner.
Bug: That’s is so not funny. I am in the mood for waffles.

Woody: Jordan don’t say anything, and please dance with me.

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