Synopsis of 05×07: Everyone is getting into Shinwell’s business and he finally strikes back. Meanwhile, Joan and Sherlock investigate the death of a base jumper who was shot, but even if he hadn’t been, would have died anyway because his chutes had been tampered with. Someone really wanted him dead.
Meanwhile, a pair of base jumpers took a dive off of a building only to have one of them become the target of a sniper. He plunged to his death, shot through the chest, and his buddy ran off from the scene. Sherlock was summoned to the scene and found that his chute had also been cut, though it appeared to be the bullet that killed him. Due to the tampered chute, they determined that there has been a murder and an attempted murder, two different people had some reason to want the victim, Bennett, dead.
As always, they looked to the wife first who claimed she not only had an alibi, but had tried to convince them not to jump that night. She suggested that the other jumper, Bennett’s camera man, may be to blame. A while ago one of their friend’s, who jumped with them, died when Bennett collided with him and knocked him out. Arturo, the other friend, was not able to deploy his chute and plunged to his death.
Since the wife seemed clear, Sherlock returned to the Brownstone and looked through the base jumping videos in order to try and find a lead on the missing friend. Joan informed him that Bell had tracked down Mark’s phone, but had not found him, and Sherlock let her know he had a lead because he had tracked the camera instead of the phone.
They returned to the station when Bell brought Mark in, and Sherlock noted that Joan’s sister was there. Joan explained she was looking through old mug shots to see if she could identify who it was Shinwell met up with. Sherlock pointed out that Joan should consider asking Shinwell instead of going around him.
With Mark in the interrogation room, they found the evidence less than convincing. He claimed he did not kill Bennett, and that all of the issues they had been having had been set aside. Instead, he put them on the trail of Arturo’s sister who was a West Point cadet with sniper rifle skills. She was a dead end too, though, when she insisted she had more to gain from keeping Bennett alive to publish her brother’s book than she did having him dead.
Sherlock got his hands on Arturo’s book and found a photograph of him and Bennett when they were doing contracted work, guarding shipments of money into Iraq. The photo was labeled “our one regret,” which appeared to indicate that perhaps they had a chance to take some of the money and turned it down. Sherlock decided to try and find the other gentlemen in the photograph and tapped into one of his irregulars – the one who let him borrow a helicopter – to get to the bottom of it.
Joan went to the precinct to meet “Tall Boy” (was this a reference to “Sick Boy”?), the gentleman that Shinwell had met. She wanted to know why he, a gang member, threatened Shinwell’s parole. He claimed Shinwell was the one who had asked to see him and that she needed to get it straight with Shinwell and lecture him if she had a problem.
Sherlock’s irregular, in exchange for the name of a lady who is smitten with him, came through on a name. A gentleman named Declan showed up on Sherlock’s doorstep and Sherlock was forward with him regarding why he was there. Declan admitted to stealing some of the money, but claimed he was not the killer. The $500k that he had given to Bennett was not blackmail, it was a loan, with a high interest rate that Bennett made payments on every month. Why would he killed his “cash cow?”
When Sherlock asked what Bennett spent the money on, the team was led to a private sky diving plane that appeared to be registered to a shell corporation out of Canada. While they explored the airplane hanger, Sherlock compared Joan to a sponsor for Shinwell, before Bell interrupted them. It was curious, a plane bought with borrowed money by a shell company, flying back and forth over the US/Canadian border. They realized that Bennett had been smuggling something.
That something? People. When they dug deeper, they found that one of the latest pairs was an Iraqi warlord that was wanted for war crimes and his daughter. They had no way to track him or his daughter down until Bell flagged down Bennett’s business partner and backed him into a corner with the fact he had smuggled a warlord into the country.
Sherlock took a break and tracked Shinwell down to a local park where he was playing chess in exchange for money. They had a discussion not only about chess, but about Joan, and Sherlock essentially told Shinwell not to throw away the opportunity to change. He shared his own additional history and told him about the importance of avoiding pieces of the old life. Shinwell told him he heard what he was saying and would consider it. Sherlock left early after he was summoned back to the precinct.
They brought in the war lord and his wife, not his daughter, and they explained that first he and his daughter came into the US, followed a couple weeks later by his wife and son. His wife explained that her husband had done what he had to do in Iraq in order to protect their village.
He sided with the Taliban when they were the controlling power, then with allied forces when they were in command. When the Taliban regained control he tried to switch back but they did not trust him and killed his brother, with a threat to kill him, which is why their family fled.
Of course, they had a good reason as to why they were not the ones to kill Bennett, and they said to talk to the pilot. It took a bit, but they tracked down the pilot who had used a fake license, accused him of tampering with the chutes, and the guy confessed. However, Sherlock called him on the lie, and made the connection that the pilot was Bennett’s wife’s father, and he was trying to protect her.
When they brought the wife back in she admitted to the sabotage. Bennett had been having an affair and in her anger, she cut all the chutes. Sherlock believed that while she had not shot him, the affair was at the heart of the matter, and they returned to the Iraqi parents who said shortly after arriving with their son, their daughter ran away and the son went after her. It just so turned out the son had military training.
They explained that he would kill her, after killing Bennett, in order to get back the family name. Sherlock and the team tracked him down just as he was about to take a shot at his sister and arrested him, saving her.
Joan went to see Shinwell at his request, and he told her he no longer wanted her help. He claimed that he was dangerous, his life was dangerous, and she needed to choose. He could hurt her, even flipped a table to prove it, and she left, but not without looking over her shoulder to see his sadness. Obviously something else was at play, but for now it will remain a mystery.
English