Numb3rs

Hey Jimmy,

check Gallery One, will ya?

Hey, Jimmy? You there?

No sign of an outside entry.

Guy must of come in during business and laid in wait.

He had key-card access to the entire building,

could of hid out anywhere.

- Any witnesses? - No, he was wearing a mask,

guards didn't get a look.

Well, this thing looks pretty high tech to me.

- What'd they get? - Pissarro painting.

- Estimated worth-- 22 million. - Yeah?

What is it? Paris au Printemps, Apres-Midi.

You speak French?

There was a girl, once upon a time.

- Who's that? - Museum curator, Arthur Ruiz.

He was in bed, when he got the call.

Excuse me, guys, I got it, thanks.

How are you doing? Don Eppes, FBI.

Hello.

So, uh,

what can you tell me about the security here?

Well, we're a small museum, but the system's state of the art.

Any changes in routine,

security guard roster changes?

You're thinking one of my people had something to do with this?

Well, we're gonna need to see a list.

Any security footage you might have.

Of course, of course, that, uh,

that Pissarro was the most valuable piece we had.

And frankly, the timing couldn't be worse.

And why's that?

The painting was scheduled to begin a major tour next month.

Well, you got insurance, right?

Actually, the Pissarro was on loan from a private owner in Glendale.

He's out of town on vacation.

He must be a generous guy, loan you something so valuable.

Actually, one of the advantages of loaning a painting to a museum

is the savings on an insurance policy.

Assumption being a secure museum is as safe as a bank vault.

I'll get you that personnel list.

- So much for safe assumptions. - So much.

You're not leaving that?

So, so I'll... I'll clean it up when I get back.

This isn't Animal House, Charlie.

Right, this is my house.

Yeah, I've been meaning to talk to you about that.

It's not for sale.

I'm not interested in buying the house back.

Just like to see you put more into maintaining it.

It's a cup of coffee, it's a bowl of cereal.

Oh, yeah. What about the leak in the attic, huh?

The garage door needs fixing, cable is out.

- Cable's out? - Yeah.

Since when is the cable out?

Since our resident math genius forgot to pay the bill.

Look, I don't want to be a nag, I just want you to live up to

- your responsibilities. - All right, all right,

I'll tell you what: Make a list for me.

Okay. I already did.

Running down the museum employees, but no one's popped.

And we have eyes on the video.

So this guy beat a card-entry system,

- lasers and motion sensors. - He's a pro.

- Hey, guys. - Which is why we have to move fast

if we have any hope of catching him or finding this painting.

Jack Tollner, from New York, Theft Unit out of D.C.

- David Sinclair, Megan Reeves. - Morning.

- You got here pretty quick. - Yeah, well, 22 million buys you a red eye.

- Here you go. - Art Theft Unit, huh?

I always pictured you guys for horn rims and bow ties.

Well, Lasik surgery took care of the horn rims,

and I've never been partial to bow ties, but...

if you like them, I'll go out and get myself one.

Oh, what are we looking at here?

Well, based on the paperwork the museum sent over,

I'm guessing a piece like this may be difficult to move.

- Because of its value? - Because of its provenance.

- Provenance? - The paper trail of ownership,

the documentation of a piece of art's origins--

and this Pissarro has quite a tainted one.

What do you mean, by tainted?

This isn't the first time this painting's been stolen.

First time was by the Nazis.

Season 3, Episode 3 Provenance

Nazis stole the painting?

The provenance shows a pattern of Nazi looted art that I've seen before.

- Looted how? - When the Nazis came into power,

they passed laws forcing Jews to register property,

it provided them virtual "shopping lists."

They looted homes by day,

shipped the families off to the camps the same night.

Right and no witnesses.

Except for the few who survived.

All right, well, what we do know is that whoever stole the Pissarro had skills.

Well, the Bureau has a database of career art thieves, I'd start there.

All right, I'll get on it.

This is the perfect way to show that electric and magnetic forces

- are 2 sides of the same coin. - Right.

Hey, guys, what, uh,

what are we doing here?

Oh, this screw is attached to this battery by a magnet

and the current running through the wire is causing that screw to spin.

Let me guess, show-and-tell day?

Yeah, Charlie and I are preparing a joint lecture on circular motion.

Yeah, the movement is governed by Fleming's Left Hand Rule.

Our lecture's also looking at the Coriolis force.

It's the same principle that causes hurricanes to spin

counterclockwise in our hemisphere.

So, what's happened? What's up?

A Pissarro was stolen last night.

The father of Impressionist painting.

Continue with the Pissarro, I'm sorry?

At, uh, The Roland Museum, they were in and out less than 6 minutes,

so we got a database of art thieves, names, M.O's.

I'm figuring you can get through it faster than us.

Maybe we could use a Quadratic Discriminant Analysis.

Right, we can Look for a combination of attributes

in this existing set of data that match to a new set of data.

- Good, good. - In this case,

identifying variables of a particular theft.

Type of art, museum, security,

specifics of the crime.

Because there has to be something to this museum

or something about this particular piece of art

that proved attractive to your thief, right?

- Right. - In a field of flowers

we know that only certain types of flowers attract certain types of insects.

An insect will alight on certain flowers.

Just like a thief will only be attracted to certain targets,

based on specific characteristics.

We know the characteristics of this most recent theft.

And we can compare that data to past thefts

using a Quadratic Discriminant Analysis,

I mean, we should be able to quickly and, you know,

efficiently boil down your suspect pool.

All right, I came to the right place.

I might have a suspect here.

8 years ago, Mrs. Erika Hellman,

was notified by the Art Loss Register

that the current owner of the Pissarro was trying to sell it.

- Art Loss Register? - Database

of lost or looted artworks, I've often seen it come into play in Holocaust claims.

Owner's dealer checked the Pissarro against Registry,

found Mrs. Hellman's claim that it had been looted by the Nazis.

She sued the owner, his name's Peyton Shoemaker,

and she lost. Apparently, there was insufficient documentation.

Not surprising. The Nazis were very good at covering their tracks.

How old is this woman?

Um, according to the DMV, she's 78.

There are people she could have paid to do this.

Did you know about the Pissarro's provenance, Mr. Ruiz?

Well, of course. As the museum's curator, I have to know.

Doesn't sound like you were too troubled

by the indications that it was once looted by the Nazis.

No, it was a concern.

But we did our due diligence.

The owner's paperwork was in order.

We were satisfied with the assurances he provided us.

Especially with the importance of an acquisition like this one.

There are many paintings with problematic provenances, Agent Reeves.

That doesn't mean they're all Nazi looted art.

Yes, but none of those other paintings would have

increased your admission revenue by 50 percent.

Look, I don't deny the Pissarro's been a boon to a small museum like ours.

Perhaps the Guggenheim can afford to be more selective,

but we can't.

So, one family's misfortune will be another man's treasure.

The painting hung in our home in Berlin.

When I was little,

my father used to pretend we were the people in the painting.

He always promised that...

when I got old enough he would take us all there to Paris.

Obviously, did not happen.

I'm sorry for your loss, and...

I hope you understand why I would have to ask you...

about it.

Well, I hate to disappoint you, but you,

you have the wrong man.

Naturally, I would love to have it back again.

You see, the Nazis,

they took everything.

Not just the painting.

I don't have one photograph of my family.

But when I look at the Pissarro...

I-I feel as if I was seeing them all again.

You have any idea who might have taken it?

No, but we know who stole it 70 years ago.

Sorry, Nana, traffic on the freeway. I got here as soon as I could.

- Yeah. - Hi.

This is my grandson, Joel. This is Agent

- Eppes, Don Eppes. - FBI.

From what I understand, a federal court denied your grandmother's claim?

They used the law against her,

same as they used it against my great-grandfather in 1938.

We just didn't have the money to continue the fight.

What my grandson is saying is

that we did not... lose the painting on the merits of the case.

We lost it... because my memory is failing.

My grandmother is the only living witness