Life Episode 2.18 3 Women

Crews shows Ted the picture that was found on Rayborn's computer of Reese on Mickey Rayborn's boat. Ted suggests it could be fake, but Crews had it analyzed. It's real. Ted asks what he's going to do. "Go to work," Crews says. At work, Crews fights ex-con John Flowers in a freight elevator. As they fight, they compare their prison time. Crews gets Flowers at knifepoint and says he has a dead woman's blood on his boots. Flowers acknowledges it. The elevator reaches the lobby where an attractive woman stands, gun drawn. It's Crews' new partner, Detective Jane Seever. Flowers asks Crews if he wants to trade places.

In her apartment, Sally Murdoch lies bludgeoned to death by a golf club. Crews and Seever discuss why he chased Flowers and get off to an awkward start. They start over. Seever is honored to meet Crews. Crews tells Seever he already has a partner, two in fact. She knows, having done her homework. Crews learns she's ambitious, with a 15-year plan to become mayor of Los Angeles. First law school, then detective. If things go right, chief of police, then mayor. When she says she got sidetracked for a few years, Crews asks if she went through a dark time. Not even close. She was an Olympian on the track relay team.

At the station, Crews and Seever interrogate Flowers, who served a long prison sentence for a jewelry store robbery. Flowers admits having Sally's blood on him and running, but says she was dead when he got there. And, that he was invited into her home. They met when she wrote him in prison, and then started seeing each other when he got out. Flowers says he was at the movies last night. Crews asks Seever to talk to him outside, only to close the door behind her when she leaves.

Alone with Flowers, Crews labels him as "that guy" who writes back to the women who write convicts. He asks Flowers if he wrote her every day, like she was the only one he needed. Flowers nods. Crews gets him to admit there was one other woman whom he wrote to like she was the only one. Not proudly, Flowers says she didn't take it well when he cut her off after his release. When Crews asks Flowers his golf handicap, Flowers says it's three. Later, at the news station where Sally worked as a closed-caption typist, her boss Sam says she never mentioned Flowers. And, that she wasn't the type to get involved with a convict.

As Tidwell and Crews watch Seever multi-task with the skill of a cyborg, they downplay her as just a regular detective to Reese, who's on speaker phone. When they ask Reese how the FBI assignment is going, she downplays as well, saying it's just a bunch of paperwork. Unbeknownst to Tidwell and Crews, she's staring at the Mickey Rayborn file, including a photo of Crews talking to Rayborn. Agent Ray hands her more files, and Reese cuts the conversation short.

Seever briefs them on her findings. The movie played when Flowers said it did, but none of the staff remembers him at the theater. Neither Sally nor Flowers' place revealed the letters they wrote to each other and the prison doesn't have records of them either. Neither proves anything one way or the other, since as Crews says, prisons barely keep track of prisoners. Already anticipating they'd ask, she says she's located Flowers' second pen pal. She then gives Tidwell coffee exactly how he likes it, and Crews tea. After she walks away, Crews and Tidwell say in unison, "Not Reese. Definitely not Reese."

Seever compliments Crews on his investigation tactics, even walking her out of the interrogation room. She's written everything that he said down, which makes Crews uneasy. She asks why Crews asked Flowers his handicap. Crews says Flowers was the safe-cracker on the jewelry heist, and they usually have a healthy respect for their tools. A golfer of his caliber wouldn't take his three-iron to someone's head. Crews tells her not to write that down. Seever reassures him that she understands she's not Reese.

At the FBI, Reese accuses them of not having an organized crime task force. She thinks they brought her there to rat out Crews and her father. Ray assures her that's not the case. They are the organized crime unit and this is part of it. She asks Reese where her father is, and if he left her mother. She then shows Reese a picture of Crews talking to her father. Ray says she's not asking her to be a rat, just a cop. She adds that she understands it's hard but Reese needs to believe a few things.

At a small church, Crews and Seever question Amy, Flowers' other pen pal. Amy admits being angry that he failed her like no one ever had, but she's not angry anymore. On one of the hand-painted murals, Crews spots a saint with Flowers' face. Amy confirms she used his likeness, as the lowest of us are saints. She says she was at the church, "with her Lord" last night, and that Flowers didn't contact her after he was arrested. As they leave, Crews says Amy would do anything for Flowers, so if he didn't call her, who did he call? Later, they learn he made a six-second call to a Nina Fiske.

They enter a warehouse where a man strapped to an electric chair yells that he doesn't want to die. At first, they're alarmed but then it becomes clear it's a play rehearsal. They meet Nina, who wrote the play about redemption. She corresponded with Flowers for years but once he got out of prison she never heard from him until he was arrested. He called asking for help and she hung up on him. When asked, Nina says she was at rehearsal last night. Seever asks Nina about the play's title, "3 Women," based on the real case of Len Lyle Hix, who beat three women to death. Nina says those are the facts, not the story.

Back at the station, Tidwell says that Flowers called in his own transfer to a minimum security hospital wing, where he walked out. Crews warns Nina and says to keep him on the line if he calls. When Tidwell sees Seever speed reading, he asks Crews if he's seen her blink, because "robots don't blink." When they go stare at her, she blinks, confirming she's human. She points out a part of the transcript from Flowers trial that says the diamonds from the heist were never found.

At the prison in the conjugal visit room, they talk Ken Lankford, Flowers' partner in the jewelry heist. He doesn't know where Flowers is and says they both thought the other one had the diamonds. They show him Sally's death photo, and Lankford is genuinely upset she's dead. He says Sally wrote him as well but he only wrote back once. Honey Pot comes bounding in, excited to see Lankford. As they are leaving, Crews tells Seever that he doesn't think Honey Pot has a 15-year plan.

At the station, Crews notices that Sally was the court reporter at Flowers' trial. Something the speed-reading Seever missed. Nina brings Flowers into the station. Flowers says he knew Sally was working him to find the diamonds, but didn't care. He doesn't know where the diamonds are but he didn't tell Sally that because he knew she'd keep looking for them. Meaning, she'd never leave. He says he loved her.

At the mansion, Crews updates Reese on the trial and his new partner. As they talk, Reese studies a picture of Crews with Rayborn and Crews looks at the photo of Reese with Rayborn on his boat. Both agree that sometimes things are just what they seem, but they aren't talking about the case. Ted, standing nearby, asks what Reese was doing on Rayborn's boat. Crews says that's not the question. The question is, "What's she doing at the FBI?" At the FBI, Agent Ray again assures a clearly conflicted Reese that they're just asking her to be a cop.

As Crews reads the "3 Women" script, he muses aloud to Seever that Amy from church wanted to save Flowers' soul, Sally wanted his diamonds... what did Nina want? Seever shows Crews a video of Len Lyle Hix being interviewed on a talk show about the play. Beside him, Nina holds his hand and says they met when she wrote him letters in prison. When she realized he wasn't the same man as he was 20 years ago, she wrote to the parole board. Her letter played an integral part in their decision to grant him parole. Len adds that she's a really good writer.

Crews and Seever attend Nina's play, "3 Women." Crews sits behind Len and asks him what's going on in the play. Somewhat annoyed, Len explains it. Crews then asks what kind of bat he used when he killed the three girls. Len recognizes Crews as "that cop." Seever asks Len if he would use a three iron if he didn't have a bat. Len counters by interrupting the play to publicly introduce Crews, another victim of the foul system, as a special guest. Several audience members take their pictures. Crews shows Len Sally's picture. When asked, Len says he was in Oakland on a publicity tour last night.

At breakfast, Seever asks Crews if he thinks Len was after the diamonds, adding that he killed the three women and took a total of 42 dollars from them, so the diamonds would have been tempting. Crews says Len would wonder if Sally had a partner, and that he'd want to talk to that person too. They figure out that Sally worked at the news station for three years, during the exact time span in which she corresponded with Flowers.

They talk to Sally's boss, who admits that Sally told him about the trial and the diamonds. He says they were doing a story about women who write to prisoners, so he told her to write Flowers to see if she could find out where they are and turn them in for the reward. Crews shows him a picture of Len, whom he doesn't recognize. He does however, recognize Nina from her photo. He says she was writing a play about news and wanted to do some research. And, that Nina and Sally talked a little, but he doesn't know what they discussed.

Crews and Seever find Len outside the theater, signing programs, and ask why Nina turned Flowers in. They show him stills from a surveillance camera of Nina leaving the station after she turned Flowers in, looking happy. Len just repeats that Nina did the right thing. Crews poses the question that perhaps she's happy because Flowers is going down for a crime that Len did. Len says that if he did that girl like he did back then, there wouldn't be enough for a photo like that. Later, they get word that Len's alibi checks out. They wonder if Nina could have killed Sally.

They deduce that Nina killed Sally when she found her in her apartment looking for the letters, then turned Flowers in because in prison he'll need her again. Unlike Len, who's a star. Nina denies it. When Crews asks how she's dealing with killing someone, she glances at her notebook. As a writer, she's written it all down. Knowing it incriminates her, she runs, but Seever stops her. At the prison, they crash Lankford's conjugal visit and discover Honey Pot wearing a diamond belly ring. Lankford chastises her for wearing it in public. Later, Seever learns that Len is back in prison for an "unprovoked attack on an LAPD detective" during Nina's play. Looking at his conspiracy wall, Crews calls Agent Bodner and asks, "You still have that bullet I gave you?"