May ,
Rose, stay put, all right?
And keep your head down.
You never know what these
darkies will try and pull.
Wait, Curtis.
- You hear that music?
- Take it easy, all right?
Crank that window up.
Collins, where you been?
I'm damn near dry in here.
I can't help it.
I got wide demand.
Hey, chickadee.
Watch it, buddy.
Rose Collins, get in the dang car!
What're you aping at anyway?
I ain't. I'm not.
Looking.
Commercial diver checking for sewage
leaks found this truck with a body in it.
Dredged it up from
the Delaware this morning.
- Was it down there long?
- I'd say so.
No kidding. / Guy in my neighborhood
had one of these vintage jobbies.
Spray you with a garden hose
if you got close to it.
- How old we think it is?
- It's gotta be early ' s.
The headlights mounted on the bar,
not the fender? Means it's pre ' .
We'll get an exact year when we
match up the plates and vin number.
Truck was halfway stuck in the mud.
Kept them bones from
getting turned into sand.
We got a reason to think
it wasn't just bad driving?
About a dozen. / CSU has something that
might explain the reason for the b*llet holes.
Remains of a glass jug and copper
tubing found underneath the seat.
- Tubing for what?
- Add sugar and rubbin alcohol, Lil,
you're making moonshine.
Bootlegging. Hot.
- years dead.
- Nice and cold for you.
Could be our new record.
I called in a favor with auto squad.
Turned up a match for our plates.
Dodge pickup.
Registered to a Curtis Collins.
Could this Collins be our bones?
Nah, he's accounted for.
In fact, guy's still kicking it
at a retirement place in Haverford.
Lil and Vera are on
their way out there.
We know if he ever reported
his truck stolen?
Nope. Because Curtis Collins had good reason
to keep the cops far away from his truck.
It's like we thought.
Picked up twice for illegal distribution of
alcohol and violation of the th amendment.
Curtis Collins,
bona fide bootlegger.
And the truck was
the company car.
Glad we brought you
a challenge for once, Frannie?
Outside of paleontology camp,
this is the oldest body
I've ever worked on.
You able to get anything
from what's left?
Fractured skull was
the cause of death.
From a g*nsh*t?
- Probably the accident.
- What else?
We got the skull and pelvis,
so I can tell you the victim was female.
Late adolescent to young adult.
A girl? / Had to be
some lady bootleggers, right?
Curtis Collins?
This can't be good.
Did you lose
a truck around ?
Sure. You making reparations?
It was dredged up
from the Delaware this morning.
No kidding. / Had b*llet holes
all over it and a body inside.
A body?
You don't say.
Any idea who that was?
Good chance that's
my sister in there. Rose.
What makes you think that?
She ran off with my truck,
August of ' .
And you're just now thinking
she might be dead?
When I couldn't find her back when,
I thought she didn't want to be found.
You two on bad terms?
No.
Our father k*lled himself
after the bank took his store,
mother was long dead.
Leaving you in charge.
Can you think of anyone
who'd want to hurt her?
No.
Other than refusing to heed me,
Rose was sweet as honey.
Light up a room.
Took a peek at your file, Curtis.
Selling moonshine
was a dangerous business.
That earn you some enemies?
Guess so.
Cause as a young businessman,
I sure wasn't sweet.
Collins!
Reach over for your brother and
turn that engine off, girly.
Easy there, Doc Win.
Had a nip of that gasoline
you trying to pass off as whiskey.
Tastes like you ran
it through with fertilizer.
The only fertilizer here's
the lice you're dropping, Doc.
I'm about done
dealing with you, Collins.
This block is my territory
and I am fierce in protecting it.
You won't find another outfit
willing to supply you.
Unless you're dead and gone.
Then we'd all celebrate.
Please don't hurt him!
Take, take another jug!
Dang it, Rose!
What'd I say to you?
Stay out of it, doll-face.
I know you're not talking
to my sister familiar.
- What if I am?
- You do not talk to her.
Calm down and
leave the girl out of it.
Fertilizer-tasting or not,
the hooch is half the draw of this place.
Other half being the entertainers,
and they all need the hooch
to get in touch with the muse.
Go serve it up, why don't you?
Let's not talk business
in front of the females.
I'll catch up with you
another time.
Friend.
So this Doc Win thought you were
selling him an inferior product.
There were fellas making liquor
out of hair tonic.
Least I put corn syrup in the mix.
And Doc Win didn't see you
being decent that way.
Not at all.
So if Rose was in your truck,
maybe some of your business contacts
thought they were offing you instead.
Yeah.
Well, Doc Win knew the truck.
Always said it rattled a particular way.
Irked him.
We know this is a stretch, Celia,
asking you about your great-grandfather.
Doc Win's a legend in our family.
I've been hearing about him
my whole life.
He had a beef with a guy
named Curtis Collins, a bootlegger.
Curtis's truck was pulled up
out the Delaware today with a body inside.
We think it may be his sister.
And you think Doc
had something to do with that.
- Possible.
- Her name was Rose Collins.
Ring any bells?
The name, no.
But the face...
from Doc's album...
This is the same girl, right?
It is. Sure. / I've looked
at this picture so many times.
You know anything about this girl?
My grandma used to tell me
stories that Doc told her.
My favorite was about this night when
Billie Holiday came to play Doc Win's.
What do you think
of this one, Billie?
She ain't bad.
She's got my name.
That's in her favor.
Oh, no.
- Your brother know you're here?
- No.
Please don't toss me out
because of him.
I got money to buy
drinks just like she does.
A cordial, please.
Hello.
Bible study's out the door,
three blocks down.
I'm here for the music.
Watch out. She don't sing
about lollipops and flowers.
This ain't no place for you.
Why don't you go on home?
I need to listen a while.
Pardon me.
Could I try one
of your cigarettes?
Fresh out.
Dang it!
My hat was off.
How come your mother lets you
dress like a boy?
I do what I please, first off.
And I ain't dressed like a boy.
I'm dressed like a fox.
Doc Win, you gotta go give this
Sunday-best-wearing white girl
her very first cigarette
while I'm trying to listen?
- Why don't you hit the skids?
- I have a drink I paid for.
Now shoo, fly,
and don't come back.
Story was Rose was the first
white girl to come to Doc Win's.
Lured in by the music.
Doc said it was a testament
to the blues being universal.
And who was this Billie
giving Rose a hard time?
One of the regular customers.
Read in the club's poetry
readings, too.
Can we hold onto this album
a little while?
Sure.
And I've got boxes of Doc Win memorabilia
that I've been meaning to go through.
If I find anything else,
I'll give you a call.
So Rose Collins might've been the type
to stick her nose where it didn't belong.
She definitely wasn't
welcome at Doc Win's.
Looked at the old ledgers.
Doc Win's wasn't a good girl's kind of place.
Cops arrested people
there every weekend.
Shady clientele?
Drunks, women of ill-repute,
artist types.
So maybe Rose goes back
to Doc Win's and this Billie,
or someone else there,
takes issue with her.
Hey. I did some more looking
at your girl's skull.
And? / There's no nasal sill,
the little bone at the base of the nose.
Nose bone mean something?
It's one of the ways to determine
race from skeletal remains.
Your victim was African American.
Well, Rose Collins is still alive.
No kidding.
Living somewhere up in Manhattan.
Got a last known address.
You find a name for our bones?
So far, six young black women,
disappeared or assumed dead around ' .
Saved that stack for you.
- It's a birthday present.
- When's your birthday?
- Tomorrow.
- How you celebrating?
I'm . I'm almost dead.
I'm going home tonight,
writing out my will.
Okay.
Most interesting name I found,
Wilhemina Ducette.
Nickname Billie.
- The girl from Doc Win's.
- Check out her mug shot.
Looks like she thinks
this whole arrest thing's funny.
Girl had a close relationship
with Philly PD.
Age , juvenile division picks
her up for curfew violation.
Age , engaging in illegal
possession of liquor.
, arrested for causing a public
disturbance by wearig men's pants.
She sure liked her boy's clothes.
She was getting in scrapes
pretty regular till summer of ' .
Then no more. Great aunt files
a report when Billie drops off the map.
Into the Delaware?
Best answer so far.
Maybe Rose can give us more.
We thought you'd be
harder to find, Rose.
Seeing as your brother thought
you might've died in ' .
I ran away that year.
Curtis and I haven't talked since.
year sibling squabble.
You got me beat.
He and I never got on.
He wanted me under
his thumb like a kid.
I wanted to live.
We got some questions
go way back, Rose.
You remember a woman
named Billie Ducette?
Sure. She was a character.
Any idea how she could've wound
up in your brother's truck.
August of ' ?
I lent it to her.
You and Billie were friendly?
Because we heard she hassled you,
the night Billie Holiday played Doc Win's.
She did.
But after that, we became friends.
So she borrowed your truck,
and disappeared?
I thought maybe
she took off for New York
and knowing what Curtis would do
if he found out she had his truck,
I followed her to get it back.
- And that's how you wound up here?
- I never found her, though.
I was gonna go home
to Philly, but I, uh...
I met a Wall street man.
And he became my husband.
You remember Billie
having any enemies?
She was saucy.
Had her share of rifts with people.
Anyone who'd go so far
as to sh**t at her?
You've heard the expression
"a woman scorned"?
Sent that girl away a night ago,
and don't she know it's been ashes
Sent her away and
don't she know it ache
Heart of mine, throat of smoke,
I sent a girl away and
it's been hell opened up,
working on my skin
till it be bone.
You're wearing a skirt.
I clean house. They make me.
Well...
Well, what?
That about me?
It's one of my originals.
How I express my truest thoughts
through poetry.
I got one of my poems
published in a magazine.
You heard of opportunity?
Published by W.E.B. Dubois?
Who's that?
Wasn't them chose me anyhow.
They will when I move to New York.
Was this other outfit,
equally prestigious, you know.
Paid me two dollars.
- Gee...
- You come back to the club,
I'll buy you a real drink
using my poem earnings.
Thought you didn't want me there.
All right, listen.
I go with this girl,
little Georgie and she's batty.
You go with a girl?
They're a headache,
but that's my taste.
I have a beau.
Ted. A boy.
- Your boy get jealous?
- Sure. He's a hothead.
Little Georgie's got a p*stol in her purse
and I've seen her use it.
- You saying she'd use it on me?
- If she came in, saw us jawing.
But I broke it off with her.
Told her I got the right
to new friends if I want them.
Will you teach me how to smoke?
Will you teach me how to dance?
Yeah, all right.
Oh, no.
Step in there.
- That her?
- She followed me. You ought to go.
Billie Ducette!
- You stop in your tracks!
- And put some speed on it.
So Billie had a thing for you.
At first.
Which was scandalous to me.
But you still became friends.
I was taken by the way she lived.
- So free.
- Wearing pants.
Smoking and cursing
and not caring who protested.
And this little Georgie
was her jilted ex?
Billie said just ignore her but,
I couldn't stop thinking about
the pearl-handled p*stol she carried.
You in my view, boys.
Got to interrupt your vacation
for a minute, little Georgie.
What'd you call me?
We meet in another life?
Let's talk about that life.
You remember a girl
named Billie Ducette?
Oh, no. That hurts.
Back when, that girl
bruised my heart and good.
- And what'd you do in revenge?
- Revenge?
Not my way.
You stabbed a lady in '
and spent five years in prison.
Woman got in the way of me
and my dance moves.
Would it surprise you to hear
Billie was k*lled back in ' ?
Death don't surprise me.
There were g*nshots in the back
of the truck she was found dead in.
And we know you had a fondness
for using your p*stol.
Billie had enough trouble
coming her way.
Didn't need mine.
What kind of trouble
we talking about?
Worst kind.
Kind that comes with being sweet on
an innocent, little white girl.
Hit me again, Doc.
I can still feel my damn heart beating.
I never slow-danced before.
Ted doesn't like dancing.
You like it?
In New York, you can go to clubs
like this in a single night.
That'd be nice.
Dancing all night.
I bet we'd have fun there.
- Ted!
- Rose,
you know what
kind of a place this is?
You got to be out of your mind.
- You've been drinking.
- My brother's a bootlegger, Ted.
Been bound to happen.
You being lippy just then?
That's the hooch
and it don't suit you.
You were supposed
to say, "can I cut in?"
So this is the one.
My pal saw you two
outside st. Abigail's.
She's a q*eer, Rose.
And she brought you down here
to get you sauced and take advantage.
No, no.
You the one that don't dance?
Man can't move his feet's
a man can't move when it counts.
Drinks is on me everybody!
You hear about any fallout
from this Ted situation?
But not too much after's
when Billie took a powder.
You mean, was k*lled.
Guess that's right.
Tell you what.
Men do not like having another woman
as romantic competition.
Okay. / Seen a few of these scenarios
first hand and they are right ugly.
So this Ted guy,
Rose's boyfriend?
Dead and gone.
Still might be the doer.
Aced Billie for eyeing his girl.
Happy bihdhday, Will.
Yeah, yeah.
Give yourself a present, man.
Go see her tonight.
- Who?
- Lena. Singer at this club.
I'm staying in tonight.
I'll go with you, wingman.
Forget it.
Got cigars and guitars at home.
That's all I need.
Celia Watson dropped this off.
Mementos from Doc Win's?
Literary magazines.
"To Rose."
"An original poem by Billie Ducette."
Maybe something in one of these
gives us a clue to how she died.
So we got to make sense of,
"oh, ripest fruit, pink and hidden,"
"I've traveled wet,
sweaty miles to find you."
Sounds like Billie visited
Rose's school again.
"To Rose, whose breathing
is blooming,"
"school bell shocks my heart
into moving"
"Springtime sends green roots
through my veins,"
"my eyes are dusted off,
my blood is searching,"
"at the bell, I'm born again,
through the earth aching,"
"moon-faced girl,
you are the only one I see."
Sounds like Billie was smitten.
What about Rose?
She said they were just friends.
This makes it sound
like more than that.
"Those three words I have
never heard together"
"Those three words
I have never heard together,"
"before you made them
in your mouth,"
"chewed them soft
like sugar cane,"
"polished them with your tongue,"
"gave them to me sweet,"
"and I swore I'd never get them lost."
"Is it how I can't find sleep,
or get fed, this thing you said?"
"Is it how my heart grows
at the sight of you?"
"Then, baby, yes,
I love you, too."
Rose told Billie she loved her.
We sure these aren't
just Billie's fantasies?
She said it was her truest self
she wrote in her poems.
Okay, well, this one ain't pretty.
Date on it, August .
Close to when Billie disappeared.
What's it called, Nicky?
"My body broken."
"Tired, nickel-colored night"
"You can take my blood
and keep it,"
"I ain't need it no more,"
"use my broken teeth
to pave your street,"
"my splintered bones
stomped for sand,"
"if this lead-footed man should
once again leave me dead,"
"my body broken,"
"my soul would find a way,"
"oh, night, to dance
with his girl again."
Someone beat up Billie,
left her for dead.
Someone whose girl she stole.
Possible Billie stole a lot
of girls in her day.
She calls him "lead-footed,"
like he can't move his feet.
Maybe dead Ted.
The bad dancer. / Rose didn't
tell us Billie got beat up over her.
She didn't mention
love poems, either.
Didn't want to own up?
I can't picture my grandma
owning up to something like this.
Back to the Big Apple.
Best friends.
That's what we were.
That's all?
Rose, someone hurt Billie pretty bad
a few nights before she died.
That your boyfriend, Ted?
Yes.
All because you and Billie
were friends, huh?
Rose, she wrote you love poems.
You have them?
Yeah.
I'm a great-grandmother.
- My family doesn't know.
- We're talking to you,
not your family.
I was .
I didn't know what it was.
I just knew I wanted to be around her.
You had feelings for her?
There's a book in my desk,
the drawer on the left.
With the violet cover.
Writings from my teenage years.
You're a poet, too.
Oh, just that summmer.
I tried to write my own poems.
I was trying to be just like Billie.
I was terrible, of course.
"I came up from the dark
without you,"
"and every day since
has been in shadow."
I thought Billie
brought me out of the dark.
Showed me the light.
What happened
when Ted beat her up?
It made me realize how much I felt.
You think he broke anything, Billie?
Look at me.
He told me I come near
you again, he'll k*ll me.
No.
But I gotta come near you, Rose.
He won't k*ll you.
It's crazy.
Don't you see how it goes?
It ain't easy for us.
Hold still.
Hold still, will you?
It's okay, it's okay.
I got a plan
so we can be together.
We'll go to New York.
We ain't got no money.
Sure, we do.
Look around.
We got lots.
After that, I knew Curtis would k*ll me,
so we, we had to go.
To New York.
That was the plan.
Billie was gonna take the truck
and liquor, pick me up at school.
But she never made it?
I took a bus to New York
in the morning.
I tried to find her.
Rose, why were you so afraid
of your brother?
After our parents died,
Curtis became fixated on me.
He, he wanted us to
be together forever.
He never would have let me go.
And you think he caught Billie
stealing the truck?
What would he do to her?
If that happened...
I'm sure she would
have been k*lled.
My sister's dead.
No, she's in New York. Alive.
You got it wrong.
How would you know, Curtis?
You lost touch in ' .
I just know, is all.
Answer me a hypothetical.
Back in the days when
you weren't so sweet,
what would you do if you caught
someone lifting your moonshine?
- sh**t them.
- Did you sh**t Billie Ducette?
I don't know who that is.
Sure you do.
She broke into your shed,
stole your hooch, your truck.
You chased her, shot at her,
ran her off a bridge.
That's poppycock.
What about someone
stealing your sister?
What would you do to them?
Watch that mouth.
Billie Ducette becoming
a little more vivid to you now?
I didn't sh**t that thing.
- What's that?
- The one poisoned my Rose.
Ain't k*ll her, but...
Rose had to step in.
What the hell are you doing?
Looking for leaks.
- Stop it!
- I caught myself a thief, Rose!
Curtis, leave her alone!
You gone bughouse?
She's stealing from us.
I love her!
You what?
Love her.
Please let her go.
You better watch
what you're saying, Rosie.
You don't know what she is.
Yes, I do.
I know it through and through.
Don't you say that to me!
No.
Oh, lord. No.
I tried to raise you right!
I tried, but you slipping off.
I'm your heart, Rose.
I know that you know that.
But you let this thing
get in your mind like a maggot.
- It's all right, baby.
- Don't talk to her!
You gotta choice is what.
You cannot be loyal to this thing
and be part of this Collins family.
- Rose.
- Which one?
Blood or this?
Me or this?
I'm gonna put her
out of her misery.
Now, go get my g*n
out of the truck. Now!
Go get it!
You're not my family,
you sorry son of a bitch.
Billie, get in the truck.
Rose...
Curtis...
I guess good-bye.
I took my plymouth and
drove after them.
- Shot at them?
- Emptied my g*n.
But they kept on.
So how did the truck
end up in the river?
Bridge was out
because of the rains.
I saw the sign, slowed down.
And the girls?
Hit the bridge going full-bore.
That's, that's what's
scrambling my brains, see.
You saying Rose is alive.
Because she was in that truck.
They both were.
And I...
I saw it go off of that bridge.
I don't know why, exactly.
The last couple of days,
I feel short of breath at home.
I know that feeling.
Fresh air helps.
We talked to your brother
about your theory he k*lled Billie.
He gave us something else.
He told us you were
in the truck, Rose.
- When it went off the bridge.
- That's not possible.
I would've died.
Yet here you are.
I was not in that truck.
I was waiting for Billie.
I was alone.
Right.
So there was no plan.
- You never loved her.
- You never healed her.
You never came up
from the dark without her?
Rose...
"came up from the dark without you"
"and every day since
has been in shadow."
Dark is the water.
This is about the accident, isn't it?
You gave us this poem, Rose.
You want to tell us.
Water, love, guilt.
Death.
I'm no writer.
But she was.
And that's why you wrote this.
For Billie.
I wondered if it was wrong,
the feelings I had for her.
No.
It was just the wrong time.
All these years...
I've carried her with me.
What happened that night?
In the truck?
I betrayed my girl.
How?
I lived.
- Baby, hold tight.
- He's gonna k*ll us!
He's gonna follow us
all the way to New York
and track us down like dogs.
Let me out, then.
It's me he's after.
You blow on out of here.
- No, he'll k*ll you.
- I'm not scared, Rose.
No. We can make it.
It's closed off.
No, no, no, no.
We ain't getting away
from him now, Rose.
I know. But he's not
taking you away from me.
- You love me?
- Baby, what are you doing?
- I'm your girl, right?
- You're my girl and I love you.
How'd you like to love me forever?
Yes.
Okay.
All right, then that's
what we'll do.
Billie!
"I came up from the dark
without you"
"and every day's been in shadow."
"I have begged the tide to
wash away my sin"
"and take me to you in the dark"
"but every day I surface again."
"but in the spring,
I am betrayed by the new earth"
"with you in my heart,
I am born again a green bud,"
"I am born again blooming."