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The squad attempts to identify a possible male murder victim from his skeletal remains, only to find he may have a serious criminal past of his own . Rusty continues his investigation of the Alice case with the help of a new friend while Provenza pays him to help him with a major move.
The Victim[]
- Tate Harrison
- "Mr. Box-of-Bones"
- Sociopathic multiple rapist and thief. Raped an unknown number of women, particularly at his family's company, siring Tim Greggs through one of these rapes.
- Heavily in debt.
- Alcoholic and drug addict who attempted to get sober to get back in his family's good graces.
- Began harassing Mallory Greggs after realizing that Tim was his son.
- Shot in the head, potentially with a .22 caliber gun and body left on a trail off of Mulholland Drive. Reported missing by his landlord.
- Bones scattered across a mile by animals but eventually recovered over the course of a few weeks after his femur was found by a young girl.
- DNA matched Kelly Press' rape kit.
- Mallory Greggs
- Used to work as an interior designer for the Harrison family.
- Raped by Tate Harrison, resulting in the birth of her son Tim.
- Never told her husband about the rape or Tim being Tate's son.
- Kelly Press
- Former second grade teacher.
- Now works helping rape victims.
- Was raped two years earlier by Tate Harrison.
- DNA identified Tate as her rapist and Kelly confirmed with his picture.
- Unknown number of women
- Raped by Tate Harrison while working for his family's company.
- Reported the rapes to Johnathan Harrison who covered it up to spare his parents the news.
The Suspects[]
- Johnathan Harrison
- Tate Harrison's brother who beat Tate up before his disappearance after catching Tate stealing from his wife's purse.
- Had attempted to give Tate a job but was uninterested in his brother's excuses.
- Received reports of Tate raping employees of his family's company but covered it up for their parents' sake.
- Jeffrey Greggs
- Husband of Mallory Greggs.
- Owns a .22 caliber handgun, the same type of gun used in the murder.
- Resistant to cooperating with the police.
- Claims to know nothing of Tate Harrison despite his kids' having recognized the man.
- Unaware of Mallory's rape or that Tim is not his biological son.
- Got married to Mallory shortly before her rape.
- Mallory Greggs
- Interior designer who once worked for the Harrison family.
- Raped by Tate Harrison at his parents' Christmas party and never reported it.
- Got pregnant with Tate's son Tim from the rape, but never revealed it to her husband.
- Was harassed by Tate to be Tim's "other father" once he learned the truth about Tim.
Evidence[]
- Preliminary autopsy conducted by Dr. Morales.
- Tate's DNA connecting him to the rape of Kelly Press.
- Kelly's statement and identification of Tate as her rapist.
- Tate's box of possessions.
- Credit card bill for a coffee house.
- Testimony from Tate's AA sponsor and Tate's brother.
- Jeffrey Greggs' missing .22 caliber handgun.
- Tim Greggs' missing baseball glove that ended up in Tate's possession.
- Mint tea Tate bought for Mallory Greggs.
- Mallory's phone records.
- Further testimony from Johnathan Harrison.
- Paternity test revealing Tate Harrison fathered Tim Greggs.
Closing the Case[]
After learning of Tate being beaten up by his brother Johnathan, the latter is brought in under the pretense of the police learning more about Tate. Johnathan tells them that Tate showed up claiming to have been sober for months, but Johnathan was skeptical due to Tate's history and didn't want to listen to his apologies or make their parents hear them. Johnathan explains that after he found Tate going through his wife's purse, he beat Tate up. Johnathan tells them that Tate had a list of people he wanted to apologize to and the only one that Johnathan knows is Mallory Greggs, an interior designer who had once worked for the Harrison family.
Looking up Mallory Greggs, it is learned that her husband owns several guns, including a .22 caliber handgun. Sykes and Julio visit the Greggs' household to find that Mallory is at work. Her husband refuses to let them see his gun collection and claims not to know Tate, but Mallory's daughter Olivia recognizes Tate's picture as that of a friend of Mallory who had given her cookies.
After being refused entry, Sykes uses her phone to film through a fence on the side of the house and takes a picture of a baseball and a bat.
Julio, Sykes, Tao, and Flynn visit the Greggs' house again the next morning with several patrol officers. While they still don't have a search warrant, Provenza attempts to convince Jeffrey Greggs to allow them to search the house. To help convince him, Provenza asks if his wife drinks mint tea which is what the person who was with Tate the day he died drank. Jeffrey confirms this, adding that he drinks it as well. When Provenza brings out the baseball glove found amongst Tate's things, Mallory's son Tim identifies it as his glove that went missing. After Provenza implies that he will answer Jeffrey's questions if he shows them his gun collection, he consents. Jeffrey opens his safe, revealing that his .22 is missing. He admits that he didn't notice until the night before when he checked after Sykes and Julio visited. Julio reads Jeffrey his rights and he is taken to the Major Crimes interrogation room while patrol stays behind to search the house for the missing gun.
In interrogation, Jeffrey insists he doesn't know where the missing gun is. Jeffrey admits he hasn't opened the safe in awhile. With his wife returning to work full time and Jeffrey taking care of the kids, he hasn't had any time to get to the gun range. Jeffrey continues to insist that Tate has never visited the house and he doesn't know how Tate got his son's baseball glove.
At the same time, Sykes speaks to the children and reports that they told her that the glove went missing the summer before and Tate visited the house several times while Jeffery was out. However, patrol was unable to find the gun though they did find some mint tea in the kitchen. Sykes, Buzz, Provenza, and Sharon try to make sense of everything and figure that Tate likely tried to apologize for either raping or stealing from Mallory. While they theorize the two could've had an affair the husband didn't know about, it doesn't explain the baseball glove being at Tate's apartment.
Tao interrupts with the news that Mallory is there and that he has discovered a number of calls Mallory made to Tate's cell phone. Mallory tells Sharon and Tao that she worked for Tate's family's clothing line right out of college as a design assistant but that Tate embezzled some money and framed her for it. Mallory claims that Tate only came by once to apologize and she accepted it since it was so long ago and she hasn't seen Tate since. Sharon and Tao then reveal that Tate is dead and was killed with a .22 like her husband's missing gun. They also bring up the fact that she made several calls to Tate's cell phone in the last two weeks of August. On September 2nd, the day that Tate disappeared, he called Mallory at 12:09 and she returned his call at 12:58. A few hours afterwards, he made his last purchase, which included mint tea. When Sharon and Provenza tell her that they will get to the truth, Mallory agrees to start again, but with her lawyer present this time.
After meeting with Mallory, defense attorney Linda Rothman tells Sharon and DDA Robin Meeks that they could make three separate statements of facts and Mallory is willing to make one particular statement against Rothman's advice in exchange for a deal of manslaughter with eight years in prison. Rothman claims there are mitigating circumstances for Mallory bringing a gun to meet Tate and Sharon convinces Meeks to hear Mallory out as its all hypothetical at the moment.
Mallory tells Sharon that she had lied before about forgiving Tate for getting her fired. In reality, his framing her for embezzlement ruined a promising career with Tate's father not figuring out the truth until years later. Mallory states that when she refused to forgive Tate, he claimed that it was ruining his recovery and began stalking and threatening her. Desperate, she agreed to meet Tate at the coffee shop, slipped a bunch of Valium and Ambien into his latte and asked Tate to take a drive with her before it took effect. Once Tate passed out, she killed him.
Sykes notes that it sounds like what Tate did to Kelly Press while Tao notes that it fails to explain the stolen baseball glove. When Meeks points out that Mallory admitted to murder, not manslaughter, Rothman challenges them to corroborate Mallory's statement with the Harrison family. Mallory is shocked at Rothman's suggestion, causing Provenza to realize something is wrong and to have Johnathan Harrison called back in.
Johnathan reveals to Sharon, Provenza and Meeks that Mallory wasn't fired, she attended his parents' Christmas party during her first year and then never came back to work. She also never returned their phone calls. After Sharon confirms that Mallory killed Tate but they don't know why, Provenza asks for another reason that Tate might've had to apologize to Mallory. A horrified Johnathan admits that he had some complaints about Tate over the years, complaints that Sharon realizes were related to sexual assaults on employees of the company. Johnathan tells them that he should've reported it to the police, but it would have devastated their parents so he hid the truth.
Johnathan didn't know, however, about Mallory being one of Tate's victims which happened just after she got married.
Flynn interrupts the meeting with Johnathan with news. Flynn reveals that the bill for the medical test they found amongst Tate's things wasn't because Tate was sick. It was a paternity test. Tate had stolen Tim Greggs' baseball glove to swab it for a DNA sample and sent it in to a lab to find out if he was Tim's father or not. The paternity test came back positive, confirming that Tim is Tate Harrison's biological son through his rape of Mallory Greggs.
Provenza realizes that Tate went to make amends with Mallory for the rape, sober and saw Tim, whom he realized was his son. However, Meeks believes they can't prove that the sex wasn't consensual although Julio points out that Mallory drugging Tate was the same thing he did to his rape victims as described to them by Kelly Press the day before. Meeks acknowledges they might have put it together correctly but they might also have not, but there is still questions he needs answered.
Sharon and Flynn confront Mallory with the paternity test, but she denies it. When Flynn threatens to run it again, something that Rothman challenges them to do, Mallory refuses. Mallory offers to plead guilty to murder and do anything they want as long as they don't tell Jeffrey or Tim about it. Rothman agrees to let Mallory make a second statement of facts that is purely hypothetical until they come to a plea agreement, to which Sharon agrees.
Sharon asks if Mallory is admitting that Tate is Tim's biological father and that is the reason she killed him. Mallory states that it was more than that: Tate was demanding visitation rights for Tim who he called "our son" to Mallory despite Tim being a product of rape. Tate thought that if he had Tim, he would get a share of his parents' company. Tate wanted to be Tim's "other father" and Mallory couldn't bring herself to leave Tim alone with Tate after all of the horrible things he did.
Mallory tells Sharon and Andy that Tate raped her at his parents' Christmas party, but can't bring herself to talk about it as she has never been able to talk about it. Mallory admits she had hoped that Tim was Jeffrey's son, but as Tim got older she could see the truth and so could Tate when he came to apologize. As soon as Tim entered the room, Tate knew and asked why Mallory didn't tell him, as though having sired a son with her through rape was something he was proud of.
Rothman promptly withdraws both statements and demands that Mallory be released without further trouble. Rothman points out that they have no weapon, bullet or witnesses with the preliminary autopsy stating that Tate was killed by a contact wound to the head, leaving them without a cause of death. As a result, without Mallory's statements, they don't have a case against her. Instead, Rothman suggests that when Mallory refused to let Tate be Tim's "extra father", he hitched a ride up to Mulholland Drive and committed suicide out of despondency.
Although Mallory confessed, the confession was hypothetical and has been withdrawn and they have no evidence. Rothman gives them fifteen minutes to release or arrest Mallory. If they hold Mallory beyond that time, Rothman threatens to file a civil suit. She also refuses to discuss her earlier manslaughter plea.
The squad discusses the situation with Meeks, concluding Rothman is right. While they have the motive and know the truth, they can't prove it and have to release Mallory. Meeks believes that none of this would've happened if Mallory had reported her rape and believes that she killed Tate Harrison to keep her secret from her husband. As a result, Meeks believes that Mallory is getting away with murder and is bothered by it. On the other hand, the squad, having learned of Tate Harrison's numerous depravities, are more sympathetic with Mallory's situation. Sharon states that they have chosen to view it as Mallory getting away with manslaughter, not murder.
Guest Cast[]
Co-Starring[]
- Diego Delpiano (Tim Greggs)
- Payden Kershner (Olivia Greggs)
Recurring[]
- Patrick Stafford (TJ Shaw)
- Dawnn Lewis (Patrice Perry)
- Jeri Ryan (Linda Rothman)
Locations[]
Episode Notes[]
Provenza and Patrice[]
- Provenza decides to move in with Patrice but hires Rusty and his new friend TJ Shaw to move his stuff into storage in case it doesn't work out.
Sharon and Andy[]
- During the episode, Andy and Sharon are back to calling each other by their titles, indicating that their date didn't go well. Despite this, they are revealed to be officially dating in "Hostage to Fortune".
- In a deleted scene for the episode available on the season 4 DVD, its revealed that their date went extremely well. When Rusty brings up Sharon and Andy calling each other "Captain" and "Lieutenant" again, Sharon explains that Assistant Chief Russell Taylor is away at a conference and before their relationship can go any further, she must disclose it to him.
Trivia[]
Episode Media[]
- This edition features Rusty in the murder room discussing what he's found in his investigation using the Major Crimes Division murder board in a similar manner to the division itself.