REPORT: SPIN DOCTOR
FILE #: 410

The episode begins with Jarod hearing on a TV newscast that Secret Service agent Todd Baxter’s body was just recovered from the Potomac River, an apparent suicide. It shakes Jarod up and he recalls meeting Todd 4 years prior … on the night that he escaped from The Centre. Jarod was running through the Blue Cove Woods in the middle of the night, away from The Centre … he was being chased by Willie and other sweepers, who were closing in. Jarod reached the road and flagged down a car – he told the driver that his car had broken down and pleaded for a ride. The driver of the car was Todd Baxter and he drove Jarod away – just as the sweepers broke out of the woods and onto the road. Jarod credited Todd with saving his life for being kind enough to give a stranger a ride on that night.

As Jarod prepares to pretend to be a Secret Service agent in order to find out what really happened to Todd, he hears on the news that Baxter is presumed to have killed himself by jumping out a window of a hotel, into the river after a night of depression and drugs. Jarod doesn’t believe that the man who helped him on that night 4 years before would have killed himself or used drugs. He told Jarod on that night that he thought that if he worked hard enough, he could “change the world.”

Jarod meets Agent Halder and introduces himself as “Special Agent Jarod Wilkes” – who works in behavioral science. Halder offers Jarod lunch – which Jarod declines. Agent Halder knew Todd and also could not believe that he would kill himself. Jarod meets Agent Talbot who is running the show. He was expecting Jarod, having received a fax containing Jarod’s papers from “Seattle.”

As the hotel room from which Baxter jumped is examined, Jarod learns that the body had been in the Potomac for about a week. Baxter had put a “do not disturb” sign on the door, so it took the hotel people quite a while to get suspicious that something might not be quite right. The night that Baxter jumped, witnesses saw him having a drink downstairs with his girlfriend. It appears that they then went upstairs for a night of sex and drugs. They were still looking for Baxter’s girlfriend, but hadn’t found her yet.

Talbot tells Jarod that the FBI is forming a theory that Baxter’s death is a homicide. He says that the suicide is embarrassing enough without the FBI tossing out murder theories. Talbot wants Jarod to get the FBI to see “the truth” about Baxter’s psychological profile so that the entire matter can be laid to rest as quickly as possible.

As Talbot is leaving, Bailey Malone from the Violent Crime Task Force enters the room and is introduced to Jarod. When Jarod last met Malone, he was using another name, and the two men look closely at one another, but neither says anything. He gives Jarod and Halder the autopsy report on Baxter and tells them that they have some catching up to do.

At the Centre, Miss Parker enters her father’s office saying that she just heard … Mr. Parker is playing with baby shoes – holding them up in the air by the laces and blowing on them. He tells her that there is nothing to worry about … the doctors just wanted to keep her baby brother for observation. He’s happy to be back at his desk and tells her that he’s proud to be her father — she brought her baby brother into the world and got her father back to The Centre. She tells him that it’s been a tough couple of weeks … Brigitte dying …but he tells her that she needs to stay focused on getting Jarod back and that she should consider her life officially changed because it’s a “brand new day at The Centre.” He hugs Miss Parker affectionately … but over his shoulder, her face is still troubled.

In his atrium, Sydney is recording with voice and video into his computer, saying that his attempts at cross pollination on his plants appear to be successful. He touches his plants lovingly and seems to be proud of his accomplishment. Then he notices a small plastic bag tucked between the pots and pulls it out to examine it. It’s a Centre evidence bag and inside is a broken wrist watch. The sight of it sends Sydney into a rampage and he brushes several of his plants off the table, smashing the pots onto the floor before he flees the room altogether.

Halder is telling Jarod that the VCTF isn’t just thinking of the Baxter case in terms of a homicide, they are thinking of it in terms of a “signature” killer. He tells Jarod that their profiler is the one who has brought this up and again Jarod seems a little uneasy, undoubtedly wondering what will happen when he meets Sam Waters again – but when he turns around, he doesn’t find Sam in the door, but Rachel Burke – a new profiler. They don’t get off to a very good start — Jarod doesn’t agree with her “signature killer” theory and she’s not all that sure about Jarod either. She tells Jarod that the autopsy supports her theory — Baxter didn’t commit suicide – he was strangled with a piano wire before being thrown out of the window and there were marks on his wrists consistent with being tied up. Jarod watches Rachel closely as she explains why she thinks the homicide is the work of a signature killer – and comments on what he calls an “instinct.” Rachel replies, “Yeah, something like that” not even trying to explain the flashes of mental insight she gets as she looks at certain things.

Their conversation is interrupted when Halder tells Jarod that they have located Baxter’s girlfriend, Emily Sadler. Jarod says that he’d like to question her himself and tells Rachel that he’ll keep her in the loop as he leaves. Rachel turns away from the autopsy pictures and tells Jarod that she’ll look forward to that.

Emily tells Jarod that she met Baxter when she majored in journalism at Columbia and that he was a nice guy, but that he had demons and that working in D.C. made it worse. Halder says that Baxter had a drug habit and Emily confirms it, saying that he was fighting a demon and it haunted him. Jarod is interviewing her, sitting in front of her, but Emily often looks at Halder as she answers. Emily says that Baxter started taking drugs and drinking that night – they fought – some things were said – so she walked out. Jarod wants to know how she could just walk out on someone she supposedly cared about and Emily replies that now it’s her demon. Having just seen the autopsy photos that show without a doubt that Baxter was killed and did not jump – Jarod asks Emily if, in her opinion, Baxter was capable of jumping that night. She says that he was capable of it … that’s just how he was … always going too far.

Back in the mess that used to be Sydney’s atrium, Miss Parker is walking around saying that it can’t be right – Sydney loved his plants and wouldn’t destroy them like that. Broots has played back the video on the computer and Miss Parker has him back it up even further until she has found the spot where Angelo comes into view and hides the Centre evidence bag between the pots. As she watches Sydney ruin his beloved plants she says, “How many black holes has Sydney helped me out of … and why didn’t he come to me?”

Talbot is telling Jarod that he has 48 hours to wrap up the investigation. He says that if the FBI wants to continue investigating, that’s up to them, but he’s not going to waste his department’s resources on Agent Baxter. He thinks that it’s bad enough that Baxter’s problems didn’t show up on his profile, but now to find out that he had a drug habit – it’s just too much. Jerry Linden walks out of a nearby office and adds that Baxter had one more thing that hadn’t shown up before … he was arrested in college for possession of heroin. The cards are rapidly getting stacked against Baxter and no one in the Secret Service seems to care that he didn’t commit suicide, but was murdered.

Emily is going home late at night and is alone on the street. She looks over her shoulder, but doesn’t see anyone. When she stops in front of her building to get out her key, a masked man comes out of the shadows with a piano wire and attempts to strangle her. Jarod comes around the corner and rescues her – getting his hand cut in the process when the attacker pulls a knife. After they have both received medical attention, Emily prepares to go back to her apartment, but Jarod stops her. He tells her that it wasn’t an attempted mugging and that he thinks she knows that. He finally gets her to tell him the truth … she and Baxter were just friends. He told her that he was meeting someone at the hotel … they met for dinner and she left the hotel right after dinner – never went to his room with him. She lied because she got an anonymous phone call from someone who put pictures of her father in her mailbox – and then told her that if she didn’t lie, her father would be hurt. She tells Jarod that Baxter was never arrested for drugs in college – it’s a lie. Jarod tells her that she did the right thing and tells her to stay at his place for the night so that she’ll be safe.

Back in Sydney’s atrium again, Miss Parker has called in Angelo … but all that Angelo will say is that “Sydney lost hope” and that The Centre takes hope. Frustrated, Miss Parker tells Broots to check the files. Finally Angelo says that “Mr. Parker takes hope from Sydney.” When Miss Parker asks him what her father has to do with this, Angelo holds his head as though he’s in pain and will say no more. On a road somewhere, Sydney sits in his car … forlorn. There is a sign in front of the car that says, “Curved road ahead.” Sydney is in as much mental pain as Angelo.

In the office, Jarod suddenly turns playful with Rachel and offers to “cook” her lunch in the form of the Cup-O Soup of her choice. She doesn’t find the thought appealing and turns him down. Talbot arrives and Jarod tells him what Emily said about Baxter telling her that his name was going to be in the newspaper for reporting something good. Several days later, the reporter that covers the Secret Service dies unexpectedly. It looks as though whoever killed Baxter to prevent him from giving out whatever story he had, also killed the reporter that he may have given the story to. Rachel disagrees … she thinks that someone else is calling the shots and that the killer is killing for the purity of it. She and Jarod begin to argue and Talbot stops them and tells them that they’d better get on the same page. After Talbot leaves, Rachel and Jarod argue but it quickly turns playful again – with Rachel offering to make Jarod real soup so that he can stop drinking the processed kind.

Later Jarod is looking through Todd’s briefcase again, thinking of things that Baxter said to him in the car the night he escaped from The Centre and of things that Emily said. None of what he sees makes sense. Jarod talks to Halder who tells him that the files in the briefcase look random – not connected – like someone just put them in there to replace what was taken. As Halder leaves, Jarod gets a phone call from Bailey, who tells him that the campus cop that supposedly arrested Baxter for the heroin possession doesn’t exist — the whole story is a fake. At that moment, Talbot and Linen walk up … Talbot is pushing for Jarod to close the investigation and Jarod says that they should track down the officer that arrested Baxter on the drug charge in college. Jerry Linden says that he already has and that he interviewed him! Since Jarod already knows that the arresting officer does not exist, he is beginning to see the light about Jerry Linden.

Jarod tells Emily that it was Linden that switched the files and she tells him that if that’s true the originals are long shredded by now. Jarod is not swayed and takes the shredded paper bin from the Secret Service office and spends all night sorting it and taping everything back together.

Miss Parker confronts her father, reminds him that it’s a brand-new day at The Centre, doesn’t let him get away with simply telling her that he doesn’t want to talk about it, and insists that he explain the meaning behind the watch and Sydney’s reaction. Mr. Parker tells her that years ago Sydney killed a woman and that The Centre helped him out.

Bailey Malone finally tracks Jarod down and “reminds” him that he worked with them about a year ago on a kidnap case – only under a different name. Jarod tells him that he works for a Congressional oversight committee but Bailey still has questions. Jarod convinces him that the most important thing right now is to find Baxter’s killer.

At the Centre, Miss Parker has pulled the file on “the Sydney affair” … in the early days of the Jarod Project; Sydney hired a college intern from France and became involved with her. They went to dinner one night and on the way home, Sydney lost control of the car and ran into a tree. According to the file, the intern died two hours later. Miss Parker tells Broots that they might find Sydney at one of the spots related to the accident since yesterday was the anniversary of the accident – and they head off to look for him.

Rachel is impressed that Jarod was able to piece together several documents from shredded paper. They all connected Jerry Linden to several illegal operations that had padded his bank accounts nicely over the years. In addition, there were several “suicides” that had taken place in relation to those operations that in retrospect were probably more murders. Jarod is still being playful with Rachel and says “How about those apples?” She corrects the way he phrased the saying and he looks a little embarrassed. She plays back, a little, by offering him a cup of her homemade soup, which impresses Jarod.

Miss Parker and Broots find Sydney at the restaurant where he had dinner with the intern the night of the accident. He’s consumed half a bottle of whiskey and is working on the other half. Sydney tells Miss Parker that the watch was what he had given Claudia on her birthday, the night they were celebrating. He tells her that there was no affair but The Centre used the story they fabricated to force him to do their bidding. He also tells her that her father was running The Centre at that time.

Rachel and Jarod tell Talbot about Linden … he wants to move on it right away. But for once, Jarod and Rachel agree — Linden is the mind behind it all – he’s not a killer. They want to use him to lead them to the killer.

At the Centre, Miss Parker is confronting her father again – this time with Sydney standing in the background. Mr. Parker says that he was only following orders and that he doesn’t like Miss Parker’s attitude. She relents a little and tells him that she just wants Sydney to have some closure. Mr. Parker says that can be arranged … buzzes someone named Morgenstern and Claudia is brought in!! She didn’t die in the crash after all … she has been working as a ground-breaking psychiatrist for a Centre funded teaching hospital outside of Paris for all these years. Claudia is just as surprised to see Sydney as she is to see him, because in order to separate the two of them, they told her that Sydney had died in the crash. They speak endearingly to each other in French … saying “Is it you?” since both had thought the other dead for so long. Sydney is very happy, but Miss Parker is clearly shaken by the extent of manipulation of someone’s life that has taken place at the hands of her father and the fact that the deception would have continued had it not been for Angelo precipitating Sydney’s reaction to the anniversary of Claudia’s supposed death with that watch.

Jarod tries to set up a sting to get Linden to talk at the Riverglen Hotel, room 814, which overlooks the Potomac, but Linden is wise to stings … he’s set up too many of his own. He goes to the hotel, but won’t talk … he knows he’s being recorded or that there is a two-way mirror in the room. Jarod pulls the plug on the video so that no one can see them, shoots Linden full of some kind of drug – begins putting evidence around the room to make it look as though Linden was involved in drugs – the way that they had done to Baxter. Then he hangs Linden out the window until he tells Jarod what he wants to know. The other man is Agent Halder … who was waiting in the service elevator at the end of the hall. Halder escapes before Rachel and Jarod can get to him.

Back at the officers, Jarod says goodbye to Emily with a hug while Rachel watches from a nearby room. When Jarod walks in, she offers him a cup of soup. She tells him that they haven’t found Halder yet – there are three teams looking for him. During the exchange, Rachel gets a flash and suddenly realizes that Jarod is alone in the world. She tells him, but he’s not ready to talk about it. She asks him why he took the case so personally and he says, “Let’s just say that I was helping out an old friend.” Rachel says that if Jarod ever needs a new friend, to call her … and she kisses him and leaves!! Jarod is intrigued, but closes the door behind him and leaves as well.

And the screen almost fades to black — but then…