REPORT: THE PAPER CLOCK
FILE #: 105

The episode opens with images from a dream Jarod is having. In his dream he’s a young boy standing out in the backyard of his home. His mother is there, but her back is always to him. He cannot see her face. Clocks suddenly appear everywhere around him; all ticking. He tries to get his mother to look at him, but she doesn’t hear him and doesn’t respond to him. An alarm on one of the clocks goes off… And Jarod wakes up with a start.

IN THE CENTRE , Broots tells Sydney that Jarod has been calling every two minutes, like clockwork, but will speak to no one but Sydney. Broots then sets up a relay so that he can record, listen to and trace Jarod’s telephone call. Sydney picks up the line and tells Jarod he’s there.

IN HIS LAIR , Jarod tells Sydney about the dream he been having… then flips a switch on a unit next to his telephone. A loud electronic squeal goes over the line, and Sydney and Broots have to pull away from their receivers so as not to be deafened by the noise. When the squeal stops, Jarod grumbles, “Tell Broots I’ve discovered Radio Shack.” Realizing that Jarod knows about the tap and has found a way to thwart it, Broots throws down his headset and leaves the room. Sydney remains at the phone, however, and continues to talk to Jarod.

Jarod tells Sydney that it seems strange, but he feels “homesick”, even though he doesn’t know where “home” is. Sydney tells him his home is at The Centre, “You were never meant for the outside world.” Angrily, Jarod responds with, “Spare me the white leopard speech, Sydney.” He then demands that Sydney give him some clue to his own past. Jarod tells Sydney that if Sydney will give him some information about his family, Jarod will return some of the DSA’s he’d stolen from The Centre when he left. “A piece of my past, for a piece of yours.”

IN LOS ANGELES , in the huge lobby of a courthouse, Jarod — posing as Jarod Holmes — is met by his new client, Isaac Dexter, who he’s never seen before. Isaac is up on assault charges; he’s claimed self-defense and Jarod has been assigned as a lawyer to defend him in court. To Jarod’s surprise, Isaac is a tall black man who’s dressed as woman in a bright pink skirt/jacket combo, high heels, full makeup and a wig. In response to Jarod’s shocked expression, Isaac asks, “Didn’t anybody tell you?” Jarod says, no, but he’ll stand up for Isaac in court anyway. Appreciative, Isaac smiles and asks: “So how long have you been a lawyer?” Jarod, heading for the courtroom, tells him, “… About seven minutes.” Now it’s Isaac’s turn to look stunned.

Later, Jarod arrives at the law firm of SLOANE AND ASSOCIATES. He’s met in the office of senior partner, Mr. Sloane, by Sloane and another attorney named Bradley DuMonte. DuMonte mocks Jarod’s last client — Isaac — and thinks the whole case is a joke, but Sloane is happy that Jarod won his case easily, and didn’t balk at the fact that Sloane had thrown him a “curve ball” for his first case. Sloane then asks DuMonte how the Whittaker case is going, and DuMonte says he’s too busy with other cases to work on the appeal. Sloane reminds him that the court date is coming up shortly and that he’d better get on the ball.

Sloane’s secretary, Annie, comes in with some completed work for him, and Jarod and DuMonte leave the office. Outside the office, Jarod tells DuMonte he’d be happy to work on the Whittaker appeal, and DuMonte, who really isn’t interested in the case, tells Jarod he’s welcome to take over as long as he doesn’t tell Sloane about it.

AT THE CENTRE , Sydney meets with the Centre’s Director — an elegant-looking black woman — and tells her about Jarod’s proposal: the trade of DSAs for information about his past. The Director says she’ll discuss the idea with the Tower, but makes no promises.

AT THE LAW FIRM , Jarod comes across Annie struggling with a Rubik Cube. She tosses it away from her, and complains that she can’t do it. Jarod picks the puzzle cube up, and asks her where he might find the file on the Whittaker case. Before Annie can answer, Sloane arrives with five dictation cassettes and asks Annie to transcribe all of them and bring them to his boat that night. Annie tries to say she can’t do it, but Sloane won’t take no for an answer. He smiles at her, tells her how invaluable she is to the firm, and walks away. Annie looks back at Jarod and tells him that if he wants information on the Whittaker case, he’ll have to go into the basement archives to find it. But, she warns him, it’s impossible to find anything down there. Jarod grins at her, says, “Nothing’s impossible,” and hands her the completed Rubik Cube puzzle.

Jarod goes into the basement, and finds a whole box of materials on the Whittaker case, including crime scene photographs, newspaper clippings, and four video cassettes. Among the crime scene photos is one of a bloody shoe print. The sole shoe that made the print has a distinctive horizontal-line pattern on it.

Jarod carries the box of information out of the basement, and is leaving the law firm building with it, to take it back to his lair, when he’s intercepted by Isaac. Isaac, now dressed in a bright orange satin mini-skirt and leopard-print jacket and cap, thanks Jarod for all his help with the assault case. As a token of his gratitude, Isaac says, he’ll act as Jarod’s personal chauffeur… driving Jarod wherever he wants to go in Isaac’s Fab Cab (a yellow cab Isaac has purchased in lieu of the limousine he’d like to have). The cab is decorated with swirling designs on the outside, and jungle-print upholstery on the inside. Jarod is grateful for the transportation and agrees to let Isaac be his driver.

AT THE CENTRE , Miss Parker (in an uncharacteristically up swept hairdo) barges in on an ESP test Sydney is conducting with a young girl. Without seeing a card Sydney is touching, the girl is able to draw (with an electronic slate and pen) an image of the face of the card: such as a star, wavy lines, etc. When Miss Parker bursts in, the little girl wipes her electronic clean. Miss Parker takes Sydney outside of the cubicle where the little girl is seated, and demands to know what he’s been promising Jarod. Sydney tells her that he’s approached the Director with a proposal to trade Centre DSAs for information on Jarod, and Miss Parker is furious. She tells Sydney she’s going to kill his deal, and she storms off. Sydney turns back to the little girl in the cubicle, and realizes that on her electronic slate she’s drawn an image… of a woman with a sad face and tears running down her cheeks.

IN ISAAC’S CAB , heading for the California State Correctional Facility where Marcus Whittaker is being incarcerated, Jarod listens to the “blues” on Isaac’s stereo and reads through his little red notebook. In the notebook are newspaper clippings with headlines that read: “Learning Disabled Janitor Arrested in W.L.A. Murder” and “Marcus Whittaker Sentenced in Audrey Price Slaying: Claims Innocence”.

While he’s driving, Isaac talks to Jarod about “the blues” and about “truth”. Jarod asks him for the truth about why Isaac dresses as a woman, and Isaac tells him he doesn’t know why he likes it, he just does. All of his life Isaac felt something was “off” or missing from his life, and when he “found” women’s clothing, he felt whole and happy. Himself dressed as a woman was his “true” self, he says. Isaac then tells Jarod that he wasn’t happy pretending to be something he wasn’t — dressing like a man, acting tough — and says that when people pretend to be something other than who they are, they run the risk of losing themselves forever. Jarod winces and nods: he can totally relate to that.

AT THE CENTRE , Miss Parker, Sydney and the Director all meet in a hallway, and the Director informs Miss Parker that The Centre has agreed to Jarod’s deal. When Miss Parker protests, and threatens to tell her father about what’s happening, the Director informs her that it was Mr. Parker who cast the deciding vote okaying Jarod’s deal. The Director then promises Sydney that she’ll have something for him to give to Jarod by the end of the day.

IN HIS LAIR , Jarod has the nightmare about his faceless mother again, and wakes up with a jolt. Unable to sleep, he goes through the Whittaker case file and watches the videos, which contain newsreel footage and other images related to the case. From the videos, Jarod learns that Mr. Sloane was the personal friend of a man named Michael Metzger, who owned the building in which both Audrey Price (a tenant) and Marcus Whittaker (the janitor) lived. Sloane and Metzger tell the press that they were together on Sloane’s boat the night Audrey was killed, and when they heard about the slaying, Whittaker agreed to pay all of Marcus’s legal fees as long as Sloane and Associates defend him.

Jarod then goes through the 5,612 pages of information in the file, and discovers that the bloody shoe print was never brought up in Sloane’s defense of Whittaker, and neither was the fact that the murder weapon was never found. These two major flaws in the defense case resulted in Whittaker being found guilty of the crime… and necessitated the appeals process, in which Jarod was now involved.

THE NEXT DAY , Jarod has Isaac drive him to several shoe stores. In one store that has seven different pairs of deck shoes foe sale, Jarod sits on the floor for over an hour, studying the soles of the shoes… while Isaac shops for high-heels. Eventually, Jarod finds what he’s looking for and tells the clerks he’ll buy all seven pairs of shoes…and some red sling-back heels for Isaac.

LATER, IN HIS LAIR , studying the Whittaker case, Jarod is interrupted by a knock on the door. He gets up and greets a neighborhood by, who’s brought Jarod a copy of the book, “My Days in Court” by Alan Edwards. The book is dirtied and ratty-looking because the boy has dragged it around town behind his bike. Jarod pays the boy $5 for wrecking the book. The boy tells Jarod that he has friends, and they can boost a car for Jarod if he wants them to. Jarod says he’ll keep that in mind, and thanks him for his time.

The next day, Jarod goes to a bookstore where Alan Edwards is autographing copies of his new book, “Prosecutor at Large” . When Edwards sees Jarod’s ratty copy of “My Days in Court” , he asks what happened to it. Jarod says he’s read the book over and over again, and used it as a sort of “bible” in his own legal career. Edwards is flattered, and asks Jarod who he is. Jarod introduces himself as John Corey, Jr. Edwards tells him that he went to law school with a man named John Corey, and Jarod tells Edwards that he’s John Corey’s son. Overjoyed at meeting the son of his friend, Edwards invites Jarod to lunch.

Over drinks, Jarod and Edwards talk about John Corey… and the Whittaker case. Edwards was the prosecutor who won the conviction against Whittaker. He tells Jarod that Sloane and Associates did a horrible job defending Whittaker; which is why Whittaker lost. The prosecution kept waiting for a ferocious defense of Whittaker by Sloane and his partners, but it never came. It was almost as though Sloane WANTED to lose that case.

Jarod goes again to the prison where Marcus Whittaker is being held and gets an opportunity to talk to him. Marcus is working on a paper clock as he talks to Jarod; he says a “pen-pal” had told him how to make them. Jarod supplies Marcus with some extra card stock so he make the clock stronger, then he asks Marcus to tell him about the night Audrey Price was murdered.

Marcus tells Jarod that he was bringing Audrey flowers, like he normally did, and found her body on the floor of her apartment. It was “twisted up” and there was blood all over. Marcus says that at first she looked like she was asleep — except for all the blood — and when he realized she was dead, he ran away and hid in his janitor’s quarters. Marcus also lets Jarod know that he noticed something missing from Audrey’s coffee table when he went in and found the body: a large stone owl, one of a set of three, that she usually had displayed there. He also confirms for Jarod that Audrey was seen at lunch in her apartment every day by Michael Metzger, Mr. Sloane’s friend. After the murder, though, Marcus says, Mr. Sloane told Marcus not to mention Metzger’s daily visits to Audrey. Not knowing any better, Marcus did what Sloane told him to do.

Jarod takes all of this information back to his lair. He then uses his laptop computer to hack into the local phone company’s archives to find out what sort of telephone calls, if any, Metzger and Sloane made on the night of Audrey’s killing. He discovers that Metzger made a telephone call from his house to Sloane’s boat shortly after Audrey was killed… But both Sloane and Metzger had said Metzger was on Sloane’s boat that evening. If Metzger was with Sloane, then how could he have called Sloane from his house? And why would need to call at all? Jarod realizes that Sloane and Metzger are both implicated in Audrey’s death…

LATER , Jarod goes to Mr. Sloane and informs him that the District Attorney has issued a warrant for the murder weapon in the Audrey Price killing. Sloane doesn’t take the news well. Shortly afterward, Jarod follows Sloane to Sloane’s boat and sees him carry a large stone owl (wrapped in plastic) onto the boat, where Sloane hides it.

Later still, back at his lair, Jarod dozes off, but he’s awakened again by the dream of his faceless mother. He calls Sydney and asks if The Centre has agreed to their deal; Sydney tells him, yes, the deal was sanctioned by the Director and Mr. Parker… and Sydney sends a photograph to Jarod via e-mail to prove it. The photograph arrives in Jarod’s laptop computer while Jarod is still on the phone to Sydney: it is an image of Jarod’s mother’s face. Jarod asks if the woman in the picture is really his mom, and Sydney says he believes it is. Thankful, Jarod tells Sydney he’ll meet him at their appointed place and time, and Jarod will turn over some of DSAs to him.

That same night, Jarod goes through some audio dictation cassettes of Mr. Sloane’s voice, and, splicing them together, makes a new message to Annie in Sloane’s voice. Jarod calls the office and, using the spliced up audio tape, leave the message on Annie’s voice mail so she can retrieve it first thing in the morning.

THE NEXT DAY , outside Sloane and Associates, Bradley DuMonte can’t get his car started. He’s surprised and thankful, however, when a black in a chauffeur’s uniform walks up and offers to drive DuMonte to his next appointment in his limousine. DuMonte hops into the back of the limo, and we see, as the driver walks around to get into the driver’s seat, that he’s wearing bright red, sling-back, high-heel shoes. It’s Isaac!

Isaac drives DuMonte to his appointment, then drives him right out of city. When DuMonte realizes they’re leaving Los Angeles, he tries to get out of the limo, but finds that Isaac has locked all of the doors. Isaac drive DuMonte all the way to Las Vegas. He needs to keep DuMonte out of the city, so Jarod can go into court that day as Marcus Whittaker’s representative.

MEANWHILE , inside the office Annie retrieves her voice mail and gets the doctored message of Sloane’s voice that Jarod has placed on the machine the night before. In response to the message, Annie leaves the office again.

In court, Sloane is surprised to see Jarod seated at the defense desk instead of DuMonte… and is doubly surprised when Marcus Whittaker is also brought into the room. Marcus sits next to Jarod and asks the court to allow Jarod to represent him. Sloane argues that such a thing is very irregular, since Bradley DuMonte was supposed to be the one assigned to the case, but the judge says Marcus has a right to choose anyone he wants to represent him. Jarod thanks the court, then calls his first and only witness: Mr. Sloane.

Jarod confronts Sloane with the fact that although Sloane had told the police that Michael Metzger was on his boat at the time Audrey Price was killed, Metzger had called Sloane from his house only five minutes after Audrey’s time-of-death. Jarod also says he knows that Sloane wears a size 11 deck shoe… the same kind of deck shoe that left a bloody shoe print at the murder scene. Annie then arrives in the courtroom with a canvas bag of items she’s gotten from Sloane’s boat — items she thought Sloane himself had asked for. Jarod opens the bag and pulls out the large stone owl, explaining to the judge that the owl was the murder weapon… and that it had just come from Mr. Sloane’s boat.

Sloane insists that he wasn’t the one who had killed Audrey Price, and Jarod agrees with him. But, he reminds Sloane, Sloane WAS an accessory after the fact. Michael Metzger had killed Audrey in a jealous rage, and then called Sloane (and old friend of his) for help. Sloane went to the murder scene, removed key evidence and framed Marcus Whittaker for the killing. To throw the authorities off the track, Sloane and Metzger then pretended to care about Whittaker, paying for his court fees and defending him…. but not well enough so that a jury would find Marcus innocent.

Sloane says any good lawyer could refute all of the things Jarod’s has said. The judge tells Sloane he’d better hire that good lawyer because she was putting him under arrest as an accessory. She also issues a bench warrant for Michael Metzger’s arrest, and finds Marcus not guilty of the murder of Audrey Price.

AS JAROD IS EXITING THE COURTHOUSE , to go to the place where he and Sydney were supposed to meet to do the DSA exchange, Jarod is startled to find Miss Parker and several Sweepers (including Sam) there. They spot Jarod and chase him out of the courthouse and around the building, but Jarod escapes, driving away in Isaac’s cab which has been waiting for him on the street. On the curb, Miss Parker finds Jarod’s leather briefcase. She opens it up to find there are no DSAs in it; only a note which reads: YOU DOUBLE-CROSSED ME. — JAROD. Miss Parker and Sam then try to drive off after Jarod, but find their car won’t start. The same neighborhood boy who had gotten $5 for dragging Jarod’s book around town, assisted Jarod again by removing the distributor cap and wiring from the engine of Miss Parker’s car. Jarod smiles and waves at the boy as he drives past in Isaac’s cab.

SEVERAL DAYS LATER , Marcus Whittaker is freed from prison, and is surprised and happy to see Isaac, dressed nattily in a black suit coat and miniskirt, waiting outside the prison for him — with a limousine and Marcus’s mother. Marcus’s mom tells Marcus that Jarod paid for her flight out, and that Isaac will take them wherever they want to go. Before Marcus gets into the limo, Isaac hands him a present from Jarod. Marcus opens the present up and finds a paper clock inside the box with a note that reads: NOW YOU HAVE THE TIME IN THE WORLD, CHERISH YOUR FREEDOM, MARCUS. YOUR PEN-PAL, JAROD.

The episode ends with Jarod at a rodeo, dressed in blue jeans and a pale straw cowboy hat. He’s sitting astride a bull, and is told he only has to stay on for 8-seconds. “Eight seconds?” Jarod asks. “Eight seconds? Let’s go –” The chute is opened and the bull races out with Jarod on top of it.