Criminal Minds (TV Series)

Submerged (2018)

Paget Brewster: Emily Prentiss

Quotes 

• Jennifer Jareau : [Rossi is catching the last dregs of an empty coffee pot]  Well, I say just open your mouth and get on in there.

  David Rossi : Don't think I haven't considered it.

  Matt Simmons : A late night?

  David Rossi : Poker. My friends were losing, so I let the game go on, give them a chance to win their money back.

  Matt Simmons : Mm-hmm. Or ride your hot streak a little longer.

  Jennifer Jareau : So, uh, who was there last night? Ooh, can I guess? Um... Ringo, of course. One of your three-star general buddies, and... I saw Judge Judy was in town.

  David Rossi : So close, and yet... so far.

  Emily Prentiss : [passing by]  I hate to break this up, but we have a case.

• Penelope Garcia : So, remember that old expression "Dont go swimming while tethered to a cinder block"?

  [no reaction] 

  Penelope Garcia : No? Larry and Wanda Robbins from Ramona, California. Newlyweds. They were found dead last night in their backyard pool. Wanda was shot once in the chest. Larry was gagged and drowned because of that cinder block thing I mentioned earlier.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Anything stolen from the house?

  Emily Prentiss : Jewelry was missing from Wanda's vanity. This is the latest in a string of backyard pool murders in Ramona over the last two weeks.

  Penelope Garcia : Oh, that's my part. Victim number one, Ben Stiles, 82 year old widower. He was found at the bottom of his pool, tied to a cinder block like Larry Robbins. Six days later, victim number two, Bert Schofield; divorced, lived alone, and as you can see, same kind of awfulness.

  Jennifer Jareau : Were their houses also burglarized?

  Penelope Garcia : Yeah. Well, Ben Stiles' was. His coin collection was missing. I'm not sure about Bert Schofield.

• Emily Prentiss : Local law enforcement has been treating these as burglaries gone wrong, but...

  David Rossi : The "gone wrong" part could have been easily avoided.

  Emily Prentiss : Exactly. Straight-up burglary, the unsub would have made sure the homes were unoccupied first.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : And he wouldn't have wasted time with drownings and cinder blocks. He would have been in and out.

  Matt Simmons : Yeah, it's pretty obvious the unsub wanted these occupants dead.

  Emily Prentiss : We've got a long flight ahead of us. Wheels up in thirty.

• Emily Prentiss : That's interesting what the sheriff said about the drought. He might be on to something.

  Matt Simmons : Well, except we're not here to solve burglaries. We have a serial killer on the loose.

  Emily Prentiss : Like I said, he might be on to something.

  Matt Simmons : What, you think that drought could also be tied into the killings?

  Emily Prentiss : Look at the crime scenes.

  [pointing to pictures on the murder board] 

  Emily Prentiss : Pool. Pool. Pool. It's curious when a town without water suddenly has a string of watery deaths.

• Sheriff Clifford Mason : Small town like ours, we're not used to this. Folks are jittery as hell.

  Emily Prentiss : Understandably.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Robbery's one thing, and Lord knows we've had a lot of that around here lately. But these murders...

  Emily Prentiss : You've had an increase in robberies?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Yes, ma'am. Burglaries, petty thefts. It's on account of the drought.

  Matt Simmons : Well, why would lack of rain cause an increase in burglaries?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Our local economy has taken a hit. A big chunk of our revenue is from tourism and outdoor recreation; fishing, boating. But everything's drying up. We had to shut down the marina up at Lake Palmer and close it off from fishing. I don't suppose you folks brought some rain-making secrets with you?

  Matt Simmons : Well, the BAU has a variety of skill sets. Unfortunately, that's not one of them.

• Emily Prentiss : Any information on the first two victims?

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Not much on Ben Stiles. His wife died ten years ago and he pretty much kept to himself after that. He had health issues. Barely went out.

  Matt Simmons : So that should make it easier to narrow down who had access to him or knew about that coin collection.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Which was just some silver dollars, by the way. Not worth much. But it was more of a hobby with Stiles.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [entering]  I just got a call from up at Lake Palmer. Ben Stiles' coin collection is scattered all along the shore.

• Dr. Tara Lewis : I just don't get it. I mean, the unsub goes through all the trouble to steal these only to turn around and throw them in the lake?

  Luke Alvez : The guy didn't put a whole lot of heave-ho into it. You know, we found the right here at the water's edge.

  [Prentiss approaches] 

  Luke Alvez : Problem?

  Emily Prentiss : Gentlemen said he found the silver dollars an hour ago walking the shore. He's not too happy I told him he can't keep them.

  Luke Alvez : Why'd he call the police, then?

  Emily Prentiss : He didn't. A woman nearby remembered that silver dollars were stolen from Ben Stiles. She's the one who called.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Practically in plain sight. I mean, it's like the unsub wanted these coins to be discovered.

  Luke Alvez : It could have been a forensic countermeasure. "Look at these shiny things over here while I go over there."

  Emily Prentiss : That would bolster our theory that the burglaries were just for show.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yeah, but if the unsub wanted to sell these home invasions as legit robberies, he wouldn't have taken junk. He would have stolen something valuable.

• Luke Alvez : Is that a body bag?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Damn. Another one.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : What's going on?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Remember I said this town is on pins and needles? This is what kicked it off.

  Emily Prentiss : There are bodies in the lake?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Old bodies. Skeletons, more like. Lake Palmer is a man-made reservoir. Before it got flooded, all of this out here was just rugged canyon. So if someone drowns, they tend to get tangled in the submerged trees. Hardly ever make it back up to the surface. But with this drought...

  Emily Prentiss : The surface is coming down to them.

• Jennifer Jareau : Lake Palmer's a good ten miles from our crime scene, and that's a long way to go just to dump some coins.

  David Rossi : The killer might work or live there. What's the population of Lake Palmer, Sheriff?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : It depends on the season. Year-round, a couple of thousand, I'd say. Less, maybe.

  Emily Prentiss : There's a disconnect with this unsub. I mean, on the one hand, the crime scenes are extremely organized. That would suggest a killer with maturity and skill. But then he grabs these bright, shiny items of little monetary value; the silver dollars, costume jewelry, bowling trophies.

  Jennifer Jareau : Yeah, it's like he suddenly reverts to immature and impulsive behavior.

• David Rossi : The thefts could be purely symbolic, but of what?

  Jennifer Jareau : It might be about the lake, I mean, with everything going on there.

  David Rossi : Human remains fished from tree limbs? As unsub triggers go, that's hall of fame material.

  Emily Prentiss : How many have drowned there in the last years?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Nine, that we know of.

  Emily Prentiss : Sheriff, when they were pulling the body in, you said "another one."

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Yes, ma'am. They've pulled five out of there so far.

  Emily Prentiss : When was the first body retrieved?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [as he talks, Prentiss writes on the murder board]  November 22nd. I remember because I was getting my Thanksgiving turkey when I got the call.

  Emily Prentiss : Any other retreivals?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [checking his phone]  Well... the next was pulled out of the lake on November 28th. The other two bodies were recovered on December 3rd.

  [seeing the retrieval dates line up with the day before each murder] 

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : I'll be damned.

  David Rossi : And that is what we in the serial killer business refer to as a pattern.

  Emily Prentiss : We need to notify every homeowner within a twenty-mile radius who has a backyard pool. This unsub will strike again within the next twenty-four hours.

• Emily Prentiss : The unsub appears to be killing as a direct response to the old accident victims being pulled from the lake. So why is he dumping the stolen property into the lake instead of the victims themselves?

  Luke Alvez : Maybe the coins are an offering. Some kind of superstition.

  Emily Prentiss : What if we've had this all backwards until now?

  Jennifer Jareau : In what way?

  Emily Prentiss : We were thinking that the items he stole were unimportant, afterthoughts. But what if just the opposite is true, that it's 100% about the stolen items?

• David Rossi : I just got off the phone with Reid. That stitch through the nose, it's an ocean-burying tradition from centuries ago. It was especially common among pirates.

  [something clicks in Prentiss' mind, and she turns to look at the crime scene photos on the murder board] 

  Jennifer Jareau : Lovely. And the reason being?

  David Rossi : To make sure that the body they were about to throw overboard was really dead.

  Emily Prentiss : So, death by drowning, pillage and plunder, now this pirate burial tradition. I think I know why the unsub is choosing these pools over others.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [she points to the photos]  Diving boards.

  Luke Alvez : They all have a plank to walk.

• Emily Prentiss : What is it, Garcia?

  Penelope Garcia : Bob Turner, our missing canyon dweller, has gone from off the grid to gridlocked. Turns out Bob Turner isn't even his real name. It's Casey Peters, and Mr. Peters has what I would diplomatically call a sketchy history.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Sketchy how?

  Penelope Garcia : Embezzlement, fraud, forgery. I could go on. He's lived mostly in Florida and the Carolinas.

  Emily Prentiss : What brought him to Ramona, California?

  Penelope Garcia : A place to hide out, apparently.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : From what?

  Penelope Garcia : Something to do with money. Months before the canyon was flooded, federal Treasury agents were closing in on him.

  Emily Prentiss : And that's when he pulled up stakes in Ramona and vanished. Do we know where he is now?

  Penelope Garcia : We do not, but I am on the hunt. I am sending you a DMV photo of Casey Peters from his Bob Turner days.

  Emily Prentiss : [looking at the photo on her phone]  I know that guy. From the lake.

  Dr. Tara Lewis : Yeah. That's the guy who found the coins.

• David Rossi : So, which one of us tells them Peters is not our unsub? He doesn't remotely fit the profile.

  Emily Prentiss : I know. It doesn't mean he's guilt-free, though. Peters is tied into this somehow.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [approaching]  Escondido P.D. just called. Casey Peters was locked up over there November 20th through the 24th on a drunk and disorderly.

  Emily Prentiss : Means he was in custody when Ben Stiles was murdered.

  David Rossi : Convenient. Happy accident or part of his plan to build an alibi?

  Emily Prentiss : Why don't we ask him?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : I gotta warn you, he's not in a very talkative mood.

  David Rossi : Ah, that's okay. We specialize in mood adjustment.

• Emily Prentiss : Good evening, Mr. Peters. I'm SSA Prentiss. This is SSA Rossi. We're with the FBI. We have some questions to ask.

  David Rossi : [silence]  So, what brings you to Lake Palmer?

  Emily Prentiss : [another silence]  Do you live in the area?

  David Rossi : [more silence]  Well, how about this? We'll talk and you sit there praciticing your stonewalling, because we already know a lot.

• Emily Prentiss : Back in the '90s, you got into trouble with the law down in Florida; embezzling, writing bad checks. Then you moved to Ramona, you changed your identity, and you hid out in the canyon.

  David Rossi : And then right before they flooded the canyon, you packed up again and took off.

  Emily Prentiss : Now, lo and behold, you are back at the exact same time these murders started up.

  Casey Peters : News flash: I was in jail when the first guy got killed.

  David Rossi : Well, that guy you were hassling out on the dock, what was that all about?

  Casey Peters : You can ask all the questions you want. I'm done talking.

• Emily Prentiss : Yeah, Garcia?

  Penelope Garcia : It's "pieces fall into place day" here at Garcia Central. I have been looking at old Ramona public records for all things Bob Turner, and another Turner caught my eye; a Leland Turner. In 1997, he was thirteen years old. He has a long juvie record, no family history. And he listed his address as Palmer Canyon Road.

  Jennifer Jareau : Wait, that's the road that used to lead to the residences in the flooded canyon.

  Luke Alvez : Casey Peters had a son.

• Emily Prentiss : Well, I gotta give you a tip of the hat, Casey. It is not easy to evade law enforcement for twenty years. And if you hadn't come back to Lake Palmer, you'd still be out there free as a bird. But you're here. Why? That boat owner down at the dock. I think you were trying to see if maybe that was your son Leland behind those sunglasses.

  Casey Peters : How do you know about Leland?

  Emily Prentiss : Casey, people are dying, and we're on a clock. So if you know where Leland is, you need to tell us.

  Casey Peters : I don't. I haven't seen my boy in twenty years.

  Emily Prentiss : But when you heard about these murders, you thought he might be involved. That's why you came back.

  Casey Peters : Leland didn't want to leave Ramona. They were supposed to go. We got into this fight. Boy runs away. That's the last I ever saw of him.

  Emily Prentiss : He was thirteen years old. Did you look for him?

  Casey Peters : Called around, asked some people. It's not like I could walk into a police station and file a report. I had my own problems.

  Emily Prentiss : Casey, did your son like to play at being a pirate?

  Casey Peters : Yeah. He did. Why?

  Emily Prentiss : Whoever's committing these murders in Ramona, it's tied into a pirate fantasy.

  [seeing Peters grin] 

  Emily Prentiss : Are you smiling, Mr. Peters?

  Casey Peters : He's alive. My boy is out there.

• Emily Prentiss : Officers canvassed the crime scene neighborhoods, nobody's recognized the photo.

  David Rossi : It's six years old. Jess Carney could look a lot different now.

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : [approaching]  It might not have anything to do with this, but a twelve year old kid's just gone missing. His name's Timmy Kane.

  David Rossi : When was he last seen?

  Sheriff Clifford Mason : Yesterday afternoon. What's got me worried is parents say the boy spends a lot of time up at Lake Palmer.

• Emily Prentiss : We found the killer. It wasn't your son. It was a friend of his, a kid he used to play pirates with, Jess Carney. Do you remember him?

  Casey Peters : [he shakes his head 'no']  It wasn't Leland?

  Emily Prentiss : No.

  Casey Peters : He died that day, didn't he? When they flooded the lake.

  Emily Prentiss : We may never know exactly what happened, but yes, it points that way.

• Casey Peters : I wanted it to be him.

  Emily Prentiss : Excuse me?

  Casey Peters : The killer. I wanted it to be Leland. Because if it was, it meant he was alive, he's always been alive, breathing the same air I've been breathing. Is that wrong?

  Emily Prentiss : You loved your son. Let's leave it at that.