Wes(ley?) Hiltonbock lost his brother and roommate Bill, a gifted musician, to depression-induced suicide. This was the first of the string of such in "9 Lives", and so the starting point for Shawn and Gus to piece together what happened. They visit Wes pretending to be prospective tenants of the apartment he no longer wants after Bill's jump from its balcony, but do not find anything amiss about Wes and end up collecting one of Bill's old phone bills as their only clue. This leads them to the 1800 stress line that Bill, and as it happens the other three victims as well, had called several times before their death. Its phone lines are being worked on at the moment, and in a startling discovery it turns out Wes is one of the phone repairmen and listens in to the conversations from his pole. Having been unable to save his brother, Wes developed a raging hatred of those 'weak' souls who called helplines and decided he would punish them by killing them while making it look like suicide. His first victim was an unnamed woman whose head he left in an oven, after which he forced Mortimer Tilden to overdose on pills and asphyxhiated burgeoning actress Gloria Starks with her car's exhaust fumes. His next victim would have been the SBPD's very own Buzz McNab (suffering from wedding jitters), but fortunately Shawn solves the case in time to prevent a fourth murder, with Little Boy Cat helping out by disarming Wes.
Trivia
- When visiting the apartment, Shawn leaves Wes under the impression that he and Gus are a gay couple, much to the latter's dismay.
- Although Shawn and Gus obviously did not plan on actually renting the apartment, Wes does end up choosing them as the next tenants.