"Silence of the Lamb"
Keith greets Veronica one morning with the question of whether she ever goes to an oceanside bar where a lot of college kids hang out. She assures him that she doesn’t and he tells her that a guy named the E-String Strangler has struck again. Veronica remembers that Keith headed up the killer’s case a couple of years earlier, and thought that the guy had been caught. He replies that the Oakland murders were never officially connected to the Neptune killings, and the mayor and the Chamber of Commerce wanted to calm everyone by finishing up the case. At school, a kid named Jackson asked Veronica to dig up some dirt on his parents. Nearby, Madison (see “Return of the Kane”) is given a birthday gift in the form of a serenade by a string quartet. She hands out fliers to her birthday party, which is apparently the best party of each year. At Mars Investigations, Veronica’s digging session is interrupted by Lamb and the mayor, who are there to see Keith. Veronica tries to eavesdrop on the conversation, in which Lamb and the mayor ask Keith to temporarily return to the sheriff’s department. Keith isn’t happy to have to team up with Lamb to work on the E-String Strangler case, but he does appreciate the money he’ll earn. Veronica points out that Keith will have access to Lilly’s murder files when he’s at the station and find out who the anonymous source was who turned in Koontz. At school, Veronica gives Jackson the information she’s gathered on his parents. Word spreads and Veronica winds up with some more customers.
At the station, Keith speaks with Lamb, Sacks, and a deputy named Leo D’Amato (Max Greenfield) about the E-String Strangler case. (He’s called the E-String Strangler because all of his victims are found with guitar strings around their necks.) At school, Veronica gives out more info to customers. After school, Mac (see “Like a Virgin”) pays Veronica a visit at Mars Investigations and offers her a business deal - Veronica doubles her asking price and Mac designs a website where people pay them to dig up dirt on others. Veronica isn’t sure she has time for the business, but she does like the idea of making some money and promises to think about it. Mac hesitantly asks Veronica to investigate her parents (which Veronica offers to do for free), and in doing so, Veronica discovers that Mac’s parents received $1 million in a hospital lawsuit settlement in 1992. She offers to look into it further. Veronica heads to the library and looks up the case, discovering that it had to do with swapped infants - Mac was switched at birth and is currently living with her non-biological parents. Keith and Lamb go to a guitar store, where Keith makes a Spinal Tap reference that goes over Lamb’s head. One of the employees, Gabe, tries to pretend that the guitar strings the killer uses are unique, but finally admits that they’re pretty common. Veronica goes to Mac’s house, where they’re annoyed by Mac, aka Cindy’s, brother and tended to by Mac’s mother. Veronica admits to Mac that the Mackenzies aren’t her parents and she was accidentally switched with a girl born the day after her. A shocked Mac realizes that she was switched with Madison.
Keith interrogates a witness at the station, getting a little violent when the guy makes inappropriate remarks about Veronica. Veronica meets Leo and they flirt a little. She’s pleased to learn that he’s new and she could probably get away with anything while he’s there. Keith’s witness points him towards an amateur videographer nicknamed the Worm, whom Keith and Lamb go to investigate. The Worm, whose real name is Eddie, raises Lamb and Keith’s suspicions, but they don’t see eye to eye on their options. At school, Mac suggests to Veronica that they crash Madison’s birthday party that night. Veronica doesn’t think it’s a great idea, but that night, the two of them and Wallace go to the party anyway. Veronica voices over the fact that the last time she went to an 09er party, she wound up drugged and raped. Mac winds up in a library, where she encounters Madison’s/her sister Lauren. Madison catches Mac there and Veronica decides that it’s time to leave. In the car, Mac notes that she has a sister she doesn’t even know and wonders why their parents didn’t switch them back. She’s also curious to find out what her parents did with the money from the settlement. At the sheriff’s department, Keith tells Lamb that he’s learned that Eddie has been videotaping girls when he shouldn’t be. They decide to split up the tapes and check them to see if Eddie filmed any of the murder victims. Leo arrives and notes that Eddie has the same guitar strings as the ones found on the victims.
Veronica heads to the station with pizza, feeling slightly guilty about using Leo but preferring to find out what she can about Lilly’s case. As Veronica and Leo chat, Weevil arrives and complains about the amount of noise in his neighborhood. He’s really just distracting Leo so that Veronica can grab his keys and sneak into the evidence room. There, she snags a CD entitled “Crime Stoppers Hotline.” Later, even though he’s 20 and knows that Veronica’s 17, Leo invites Veronica to come hear his band play that weekend. At home, Veronica listens to the Crime Stoppers CD and hears an electronically-distorted voice point the finger at Koontz. Keith tells Lamb that one of the victims is on one of Eddie’s tape, so he wants to bring Eddie in for questioning. Lamb already has him there, so Keith and Lamb team up for Good Cop/Bad Cop. Unfortunately, they can’t get anything substantial out of Eddie, and Keith doesn’t think he’s the killer. At Mars Investigations, Veronica e-mails Mac the voice file from the CD and asks her to strip it down. She tells Mac what happened to her parents’ money and mentions that they never told Mac the truth because she does have a choice in the situation. After promising not to do anything stupid, Mac heads to the Sinclairs’, where she encounters her birth mother (who may or may not recognize her). Lauren goes to look for Mac’s purse, which she left there the night of the party, and Mac and Mrs. Sinclair make awkward small talk. Madison arrives and Mac winds up leaving before things can get more emotional between her and Mrs. Sinclair. Keith is preparing to leave the station when a woman arrives and reports that her daughter is missing. Keith immediately unpacks his things, ready to get back on the case. Sacks announces that the phone number on a victim’s hand was from a bartender, so the department puts an APB out on him.
Keith calls Veronica, leaving her a message telling her that he’s tracking her cell phone and wants her to call as soon as she gets the message. Keith tracks Veronica to where Leo’s band is playing and lets Leo know about the missing girl. After noticing the soundproofing in the room, Keith sends Veronica to the station with the guitarist and heads off with Leo. They wind up back at the guitar store, where Keith decides that Gabe kidnaps the girls on Friday, keeps them in the closed store that weekend, and gets rid of them on Sunday. No one hears them because of the soundproofing in the store. Keith breaks into the store, finds the missing girl, and almost gets knocked out by Gabe. Fortunately, Leo saves him and Gabe is arrested. Back at the station, Veronica congratulates Leo on his strange method of trying to get closer to her. He’s upset, though, because the sheriff discovered that someone grabbed his key, so he’s suspended for a week. Veronica implies that she’s the guilty party, but Leo doesn’t seem mad at her. Mac calls Veronica and tells her to drop by the next day to get the voice file; it has to be early because she’s going camping with her family. The next day, Veronica hears the file and recognizes the voice. As Mac’s family prepares for their trip, Mac spots Mrs. Sinclair in her car across the street. They put their hands over each other’s on the car window before Mrs. Sinclair drives off. Veronica sends Wiedman photos the way he did of her (see “Drinking the Kool-Aid”), voicing over, “You send target photos of me to my mom. You call in the Abel Koontz tip. Two words for you, Clarence Wiedman: game on.”
WELCOME TO NEPTUNE: Leo
THE TITLE IS A PLAY ON...: The movie Silence of the Lambs.
MEMORABLE QUOTES: Keith: “You don’t go to the oceanside bars that the college kids hang out at, do you?”
Jackson: “I hear you do detective stuff for people.”
Gabe: “This exact string? This is a triple nickel antioxidant special order string we get for just one customer. A guy we call Devil Dave.”
Written by Jed Seidel and Dayna North; directed by John T. Kretchmer
Veronica: “I prefer the biker bar by the train station. I get more attention there.”
Veronica: “I do favors for friends.”
Jackson: “I can pay.”
Veronica: “Sit down, friend.”
Lamb: “Do you know where we can find this Devil Dave?”
Gabe: “Devil Daaaave?”
Dave: “Huh?”
Gabe: “Did you kill anyone this week?”
Dave: “Uh-uh.”