Numb3rs Episode 2-4, Calculated Risk
Note: Navi Rawat (Amita) does not appear in this episode
A woman tells her son to hurry up because she needs to get to the lawyers. We hear a doorbell ring, and the woman answers the door. Cut upstairs to the boy as gunshots are fired. The boy rushes to the window to see a car driving away. He goes downstairs to see a gun – and his mom, dead on the floor.
Don arrives on the scene. Colby, David and Megan are already there and tell him that the victim is Lucinda Shay, CFO of the Syntal Corporation, a bankrupt energy company a la Enron. She was set to testify against other Syntal executives. Turns out that there was no federal protection because it was a white collar case. Don wants to question Syntal employees, starting with the CEO, Thomas Galway. He spots the boy as we head to the
Opening Credits.
At HQ, they go over the gun and find it to be a dead end. Colby suggests asking the “whiz kid” and luckily, Charlie shows up just then. Turns out he helped Lucinda Shay out a couple of times going over the numbers for the SEC filings, which led to her blowing the whistle. Don asks him to go over the names of employees and stockholders to see if they can find anything there.
Everyone’s worried about the boy, Daniel. Megan notes that he’s still in shock. He seems to be the key to the case. Don tries to talk to Daniel, and tries to use his mom’s death to connect with him. Daniel doesn’t remember much right now.
Charlie’s office. Larry comes in and sees Charlie trying to find suspects – he’s divided the people into two – those that lost money and want revenge, and those that made money and want to keep it. Larry apparently lost money on Syntel, but pushed due to investing in Google. This leads to talk of Adam and Eve and the need for Charlie to reconstuct the Syntel fraud.
Don is talking to the attorney Nadine Hodges (Sarah Carter from Episode 2-1). She’s prosecuting Thomas Galway, and the Shay murder kills her case. He’s in Vancouver, and Don plans to meet him when he gets back. And he’ll offer him protection as a way of determining Galway’s guilt.
At HQ, Charlie tells Megan and Don his plan to reconstruct the fraud. Meanwhile, Megan notes that Daniel has a grandmother that they’ll send him to, but she can’t fly, so he’s going to have to stay in a group home for the night. So Don volunteers to keep Daniel in the Eppes house. Alan doesn’t have a problem with it. Daniel’s memory of the murder is coming back, and he remembers the car, but not what type of car. Don tells him that Daniel will be sleeping in his old room, but Daniel, wants Don to stay in the house with him.
At HQ, Colby and David are going over the numerous threats made to Lucinda Shay and the other execs. Megan pulls up Morgan Stanbury as a possible because he has controlled anger.
The next morning, Don asks Charlie to babysit Daniel while he and Megan meet Thomas Galway at the airport. Galway seems rather nonchalant when told his life might be in danger. His son, Malcolm, does note that there was a death threat against him but Thomas is still uncooperative. And unsurprisingly so, seeing as the FBI is also trying to put him away for fraud.
Colby goes to Charlie’s office to see what information he has in terms of suspects, and Morton Stanbury comes up in Charlie’s data, but Charlie thinks it’s a bit flawed.
No matter, as the Colby, Megan and David track him down to a motel. His room has clippings of the Syntal case and photos of the execs. Stanbury comes back and they catch him after a brief chase. Morton asserts that they don’t understand what he’s doing.
At HQ, Megan believe that Stanbury isn’t the guy who killed Lucinda Shay. Charlie talks to him, and finds out that he talked to the US attorneys.
In the Eppes garage, Charlie is still working on recreate the fraud, and a little advice from Daniel helps him to solve it.
Back at HQ, Nadine mentions that they did get some calls from Stanbury but they thought he was nuts. And lucky for him his alibi checks out, so he’s in the clear. Charlie drops in, and he notes that the fraud was perpetrated by trading on energy futures, and five people were perfect in their trading records – to the tune of $312 million. Nadine notes that this is the first she’s heard of this, and Charlie notes that you’d have to be looking for this in order to find it. So the focus of the investigation shifts from the people that lost money to those that earned it, and want to keep it.
At the airport, Don and Megan are back to look for Thomas Galway. They find Malcolm, and he thinks it’s not a good idea for him to talk to the agents.
At the Eppes house, Don checks in on Daniel, but he can’t remember the type of car the murderer drove. He’s worried that the “bad guys” will come after him, but Don assures him that they won’t. Oh, and his grandmother is eager to take him in.
At Charlie’s office, Larry and Charlie talk about finding the source of a water leak, and this triggers some equations in Charlie’s head, which leads him to discover that the money was moved before the fraud was enacted – meaning that the fraud was done to hide the theft, and the bankruptcy would erase the fraud.
Meanwhile, Colby and David note that the “perfect traders” don’t actually exist, but Don gets a call, and Daniel is missing. It turns out though, that Daniel took a cab home to try and trigger his memory. And it works, as he remembers that the car was a Mercedes. David and Colby catch up to Don, and note that the hiring manager was the same for all 5 nonexistent traders.
The agents catch up to Galway at the airport, but it turns out that they want Malcolm Galway, who wanted to prove to dad that he was much better than the position he got in the company.
At the airport, Alan, Don and Charlie see Daniel off, and he tells Don that it’s OK to cry about his mom.
