At night a man,
Carleton Chase, runs up to a payphone on a city street in
Worchester, Massachusetts. He leaves a message on an answering
machine, saying to call "him" off and give Chase a chance
to explain. He says that the girl lied to him and to check her
right-hand desk drawer - the whole story is there. He runs off and
enters a police station. Another man is seen following him. Chase is
frantic and officers put him in a holding cell after he tries to
grab an officer's gun. He screams that he is not safe in the cell,
then through the door window the officers see blood splatter.
Scully looks at an
x-ray - the man was shot by an armor piercing bullet. The cop tells
them that they figured that the bullet came through the air vent,
and somehow the killer must have gotten inside the vent. The Doggett
tells him that even with a silencer, they would have heard an echo
through the ductwork. Scully and Doggett eventually determine that
the gun was fired through the roof of the police station, but it was
an impossibly lucky shot because there was no way for the shooter to
see to target his victim.
Doggett: So,
lucky shot?
Scully: Very. But this victim here stated that he was gonna
be killed just moments before he was shot. Which doesn’t sound
lucky at all.
Doggett: I guess I can’t argue with that.
Doggett notices a
piece of cloth on the floor and puts it in the evidence bag. He
tells Scully that it was an old God Father trick - wrap a towel
around a pistol to muffle the sound. The only question was that how
he made the shot through the roof. Scully mentions thermal imaging
technology, which can pick up body heat through walls, to which
Doggett replies that they had field tested that in the marines. The
machine would be about 90 pounds heavy and has to be cooled with
liquid nitrogen.
A woman, Tammy
Peyton, enters the office of AAA Surekill Exterminators. She plays
the answering machine message and hears the message, in which Chase
says to check the right desk drawer. After deleting the message,
Tammy takes out a metal box with a black bound book from the drawer.
She closes the box and puts it away, as boss, Dwight Cooper walks in
the room. He makes her play the answering machine, but there's a
different message from a client complaining that they didnt kill all
the rats and that he wants them to come back and get the rest of
them.
Dwight's brother,
Randall, also works there and is the man who we saw following Chase.
Outside, near a dumpster, Dwight asks Randall what happened last
night. Dwight says that he's not mad at him, but he needs to know
exactly what happened and if Randall decides to do something without
telling him first he could get them both in trouble. Randall tells
him that he found the Chase stealing. Dwight says Randall has to get
the money before doing "his thing." They are going out
again that night.
Doggett and Scully
visit Chase's real estate office. According to some reciepts, he did
a lot of business with the exterminating company - six jobs in one
month. In a back room, Doggett finds a .45 shell - not the same
caliber as the bullet that killed Chase. The room has several bullet
holes in the walls.
Doggett: You
know, Elvis used to do this to his hotel rooms.
Scully thinks that
Carlton Chase did it. Doggett replies that if it were someone in the
room, he would have surely hit him. She says, "Unless it was
someone outside"
That night, Dwight
enters a warehouse where three men are about to make a drug deal.
They ask him whether he's a cop. He tells them that he's not, but
he's going to take all their money and drugs from them. Amused, they
each pull a gun on him. Dwight simply points a finger like a gun at
them and says "Bang" killing each one of them. Randall
walks in from another room, holding a gun - with a towel wrapped
around it.
The next day,
Scully and Doggett visit the scene with police. Outside the room
where the men died are bullet holes that perfectly match up with the
victims. Scully speculates that someone with exceptional vision
might have the ability to see at wavelengths that allow targeting
through the walls - other wavelengths from infrared to gamma have
penetration properties, although our eyes can only register a small
portion of the electromagnet spectrum. Doggett isn't impressed with
the thought of "X-ray vision."
Doggett:
Wait, you’re not saying this guy has x-ray vision?
Scully: I’m remarking that these wavelengths exist, and
that the only thing that is stopping us from seeing them, if you
will, is the biochemical structure of our eyes. I’m conjecturing
that if this structure were somehow different, we’d have the
ability to see things that we don’t.
Dogett: (leans close and whispers to her) Calling Clark Kent.
Scully: “Okay…So you explain it.”
Doggett tells her
that he can't, so he's going to stick to what he knows - that it was
a drug rip-off - the 5th in the area in the past two months. Scully
asks him how a dea real estate agent figures into that. He replies
that he hasn't figured that out, but he did find something else -
sulfurofluoride.
At the Surekill
office, Dwight calls Tammy into a room for a tryst. As she undresses
she says she doesn't like having Randall right outside. Randall
watches intently through the wall but is distracted when Scully and
Doggett walk in. Dwight comes out to talk with them. Dwight says has
been legally blind since birth. The agents ask Dwight about the
bills found Chase's office. On a piece of fabric found at the police
station, apparently from a cloth wrapped around the gun to silence
it, they had found pesticide chemicals - sulfuroflouride. Dwigh
tells them that they did use it, along with 200 other chemicals.
Dwight served jail
time a long time ago, but he and his brother are chamber of commerce
members now. The agents ask why Chase called their office a few
minutes before he was murdered. Dwight says they had all gone home
and there was no message on their machine. After the agents leave,
Dwight asks Tammy about the message and she claims that she
accidentally erased it before listening. Dwight peers into Tammy's
eyes, holding up a lighter flame to see clearly by, saying that by
seeing her eyes he can see the truth.
Doggett finds the
record of Dwight's 1986 arrest for grand theft auto. Since he is
blind, Dwight must have had a driver. Randall was also arrested at
the same time, but didn't serve much time. The two brothers are
twins.
Doggett: I
hate twins. Twins never rat each other out.
Scully says that
maybe there is somebody in the office who will.
At home that night,
Randall and Tammy are in adjoining apartments. He watches her
through the walls as she undresses and prepares for bed.
The next day, Tammy
gets to work early and rushes in to retrieve the metal box, but
Dwight and Randall interrupt her. Dwight says that she is there very
early, and she left her car running - he dangles her keys at her.
They take the box and as they begin to open it, Doggett and several
police officers enter with a search warrant. Doggett opens the box
but finds it empty. Scully, however, finds several file folders
which result in Dwight and Randall being taken in for questioning.
Their little company billed over Chase for over $700,000, both
Doggett and Scully interviewing Randall and Dwight respectively in
seperate rooms cant believe that they made that kind of money
killing rats. Both reply (seperately) that he's "just a regular
Joe, providing a public service" Randall is looking at Dwight
through the questioning room walls. Scully realises what he did and
calls him on it. She asks him if thats what his brother just said to
Agent Doggett in the other room.
Scully: You
know why I said that, don’t you? Because somehow you can see
through that wall. You can see your brother behind me and you can
read his lips. I don’t know what gives you the ability, but I know
how you use it. You shoot drug dealers from places where they
can’t see you, and then you and Dwight rob them. That’s how you
make all that money, isn’t it?
Randall: No, we’re exterminators.
Scully: Yeah, you certainly are. And talking to you now, I
think that the whole thing is Dwight’s idea. It’s time to be
your own man Randall. It’s time to think for yourself.
The agents then
question Tammy together - she claims she just keeps the books and
didn't know about the murders. The agents think that Chase was the
fence - he sold drugs the brothers stole - and that he was killed
because of a relationship between him and Tammy. While the agents
question Tammy, the brothers agree that Tammy is a problem that they
have to take care of. Tammy is not under arrest and goes home. In
Tammy's phone records the agents find several late night calls to
Chase. Tammy goes next door - she tells Randall she knows it was him
that killed Chase. He has tender feeling toward her and she
apparently reciprocates.
The next day, at a
bus station, Tammy tells Randall that she needs the book Randall
took out of the box to protect her from Dwight. He gives it to her
and the book has a key in it. She tells Randall she will be back in
a half hour. She thinks that Randall is afraid that she won't be
back, but she assures him that she will cause she owed him one for
saving her from Carlton. She drives off.
The agents visit
Tammy's apartment - her clothes are gone and she is apparently on
the run. Doggett checks her phone and determines that her last call
was to the bus company. Tammy has picked up her evidence from a bank
safe deposit box and gets back into her car. Dwight is in the back
seat.
Meanwhile, Police
arrive at the bus station and Randall slips away. At the Surekill
office, Dwight discovers that Tammy has been keeping two sets of
books and has stolen $100,000. He tells her that Randall should have
killed off her instead of Chase or maybe they (Chase and Tammy) were
working together. Tammy claims that Chase found out about the money
and was blackmailing her, and making her "do things," the
implication of which is sexual. A little confused, Dwight asks why
Randall killed Chase if he wasn't stealing - after a moment he
realises that Randall killed him because of the things he was doing
to Tammy.
Randall arrives
back at the office. Dwight wants Randall to kill Tammy, taunting him
that Tammy used him. Dwight tells Randall that blood is thicker than
anything, and leaves the room so that Randall can kill her. She
pleads for her life as Randall wraps a cloth around the gun to
silence it. He aims and shoots - but shoots throught the wall and
kills Dwight.
At the police
station, Randall has declined representation by the county DA. Tammy
has not been found.
Scully: He
watched her everyday, wherever she was. The man who could look at
anything in the world, and he chooses her. He must have seen
something in her she couldn’t see in herself.
Doggett: Well, if you’re suggesting he could see into her
heart, Agent, I think we’re out of FBI territory on this one
The episode ends
with Randall looking throught wall at the computer display of
Tammy's picture.
