Bob White is a recently deceased man who was found dead at a bus station, lying across the asphalt close to the curb. His body was examined by Woody, who found a blood alcohol level of .31 and drew the reasonable conclusion that Bob had drunkenly tripped onto the asphalt and died as a result of his head hitting the ground. However, Karen reprimands him two days later when Grace Larsen, the mortician who was in the process of embalming Bob, comes to her to point out that Bob was also mysteriously missing an ear, which was severed prior to his death and certainly not by a bus tire. She suspects foul play and is hired to consult.
Shawn and Gus do not want Woody to be fired and investigate the scene. With the knowledge that the street light right over the spot where Bob's body was found wasn't working, they realize that the bus driver could never even have seen Bob. Given this strange coincidence they now also consider it more likely that someone murdered Bob and then ensured his corpse would be hit by a bus to make it look like an accident. As the duo are about to leave they meet murder aficionado Whip Chatterly, who wants to tag along with the investigation.
To establish a timeline, Woody and Grace examine Bob's stomach contents. They find waffle chunks, lemongrass, bean paste, greens ("collard maybe"), potato and sugar content ("sweet potato pie") and wonder where someone would go to eat both soul food and Thai. Shawn and Gus immediately realize Bob must have dined at Phat Thai Jones, an Afro-Thai place.
Shawn, Gus and Whip visit the restaurant, where waiter Singh tells them that Bob was one of the regulars and dined there alone at 6:00 on the night of his death. He also says that Bob turned down his offer of plum wine because he's allergic to alcohol, which suddenly makes his .31 blood alcohol level quite hard to explain. Singh does say that he gave Bob some plum cake, which is made with alcohol, but Woody and Grace assure Shawn over the phone that the cake couldn't have caused such a high blood alcohol level. Singh then shows the three a coupon he was given by Bob. Whip recognizes it and takes our duo to the next location, a retro dime-a-dance hall.
At the hall, Woody calls Shawn to let him know that they found an injection site between Bob's second and third left-foot toes, which must be how the alcohol got into his bloodstream. Whip realizes someone must have hand-picked Bob as a victim and shows our duo to the dance floor. The woman Gus is assigned to question, Sandy, expresses grief when she learns of Bob's death and tells Gus that Bob had recently lost his mother and often felt lonely. She also says that Bob seemed paranoid on the night of his death, convinced someone was following him. Since he looked especially down that night, Sandy called in a favor from her psychic friend Ivana and sent him there at 9:00 so that Ivana could tell him something that would cheer him up.
Shawn, Gus and Whip visit Ivana, who says that Bob told her he was in love with a beautiful girl called Penny. To satisfy the favor Ivana then "divined" that Penny was in love with him too, after which he rushed out to profess his feelings for her. Meanwhile, Lassiter and Juliet independently realize Penny is worth questioning when they find her name all over Bob's day planner.
The gang visit Penny together, who turns out to be a performance artist Bob came to watch almost every day. They had never spoken, however, and when Bob suddenly showed up at midnight and professed his love she threatened to call the cops. Bob left heartbroken, and Penny saw him talk to the driver of a black Impala before getting in. The gang realize that whoever drove the car must have been the last one to see Bob alive, but since it's such a popular vehicle that information isn't very helpful.
However, Woody and Grace have found a mixture of calcium carbonate, titanium oxide and pigment fillers in Bob's nail beds, and given that these are all common elements of acrylic stains Gus knows that this must mean Bob somehow got paint under his nails. When Woody says he also found a string of muriatic acid, a preserving agent, Gus realizes Bob must have scratched a mural, specifically the one near Penny.
He and Shawn visit the mural and realize Bob was most likely bludgeoned from behind and then grasped at the mural as he fell down. They find one of Whip's stamps on the artwork and conclude Whip wanted to be immortalized as a killer, and his apparent suicide and the corresponding note seem to confirm as much. However, surveillance footage in Whip's bookstore and a capsule of book fragments in Whip's esophagus point to Grace as Bob's (and Whip's) real killer. She explains that her struggles to be hired as a coroner left her frustrated and led her to kill Bob and cut his ear off after the autopsy in order to cast doubts on Woody's competence and muscle in on the investigation. She says that Bob was the perfect mark and even goes as far as saying his death was "kind of a mercy killing".
Trivia[]
- Instead of the plum wine, Bob apparently ordered a coke that he never even finished.
- Lassiter calls Bob a loser based on the fact that he has a lot of potted plants. Juliet calls this an ugly assessment, but does conclude from the empty answering machine and from only finding letters "addressed to resident" that Bob probably didn't have many friends.
- According to Bob's autopsy report, he had not only suffered severe head trauma but also a broken leg, presumably the result of the bus running over him post-mortem.