404 Thirteen

He’s killing his apostles …

Summary:  Cryptic messages related to Bible passages lead Don’s team on the trail of a serial killer

Original air date: October 19, 2007 (US)

Written by: Don McGill

Directed by: Ralph Hemecker
Opening numbers:

6: Days of creation
10: Commandments
14: Stations of the cross
1: Word of God


Family Concepts: (character development)

  • Charlie’s book is titled: The Attraction Equation: Being Popular is as Easy As Pi
  • Charlie would spy in Don when they were kids
  • Alan has thirty years experience as an urban planner
  • One of the few things Alan could help Charlie with during his school years was making dioramas.
  • Megan’s assignment with the Department of Justice was working with the CIA interrogating suspected terrorists.
  • Colby is staying with Don’s team.

Episode Quotes:

  • Alan: Look at this workload of mine.  How do these kids do it?
    Charlie: They’re kids.
  • Charlie: You’re a genius.
    Amita: And hot, too. Don’t forget that.
  • Alan: I prefer my math and my religion on opposite sides of the menu
  • David: Manager says he’s a model tenent. Quiet, pays his rent on time.
    Colby: Yeah and Son of Sam’s the employee of the month.
  • Colby: Not to diss his decorating sense, but I’ve definitely seen obsession done better.
  • Alan: Ya know, smart Charlie I’ve spent thirty years learning to live with.  Wise Charlie will take some getting used to.

 


Episode Synopsis:

The body of Peter Guzman is found in an abandoned warehouse.  Along with the body is an ornate grid of numbers and a Bible verse.  This pattern matches a similar find three weeks previous at a school.  Charlie realizes the grids of numbers are actually a Fibonacci sequence, but there is a line missing.  He works out the grid from the first crime scene and discovers the missing numbers match Guzman’s cell phone number.  Working out the next line at the current crime scene reveals another phone number.  Don calls it only to hear the sounds of the next victim over the phone.

The cell phone Don called belongs to Thad Esmond a lawyer who went missing the day before.  Megan tries to figure out the motivation for the killer and suggests numerology may play a role.  Charlie dismisses the idea, but offers to talk to Alex Trowbridge a professor of religion and philosophy who specializes in numerology.  Professor Trowbridge is able to make many numerological connections within the grids of numbers.  Megan doing more research of her own realizes the killer is using his victims as stand-ins for Jesus’ Apostles; the theory is confirmed when David and Colby find the body of Thad Esmond who had been beheaded and the barely alive John Lerner who had been left under a sun lamp for three weeks.  There is also another missing person, Nathaniel Greene; who’s Biblical namesake was flayed to death.

An investigation of paint used to draw the grids and other artwork leads to Jared Parr.  Jared is described as a screw up by his sister and a follower.  Colby, David and Liz, arrive at the house he shares with his sister and find Jared running away.  They chase him down, but before they can do much more than talk him out of jumping from a roof, he is shot once through the heart.  A tattoo on his arm declares Jared as Judas and another number grid is tattooed as well.  The grids are not following the same pattern anymore and Charlie works out they are map coordinates for Jerusalem, the killer is following the stations of the cross as closely as he can in the LA area.  Charlie also realizes there must be a victim the FBI hasn’t found yet that started the process.  They find the case file for Mary Valasco; her boyfriend Clay Porter is suspected in her death.  A search of Clay Porter’s apartment finds signs he’s been following the case closely and has even taken pictures of the FBI team.

David and Liz follow up in the tattoo work Jared had done and talk to the shop owner John Corcoran about one of his artists a Tomas Barros.  Corcoran recognizes the picture of Jared and says Tomas did the work, however Tomas had quit a few days before and Corcoran hadn’t seen him since.  David spots Porter watching them from a nearby van and arrests him.  Porter claims he had nothing to do with any of the murders and he was interested in the case solely to see that justice is done for Mary.  Colby and David track down Tomas only to find his body; however Tomas had been dead for months, John Corcoran lied.  Using Charlie’s map of probable LA locations, the FBI tracks Corcoran and find him and Nathaniel who is still alive.  Corcoran is arrested but as he is led out of the building, he is shot, once through the heart.  Colby and David find the rifle and a picture of Clay Porter and Mary in a nearby building.  Porter is not caught and it is presumed he ran to Mexico.