Eleventh Hour

Whoa.

I take it you're the ice man from the FBI.

Ice man?

Hmm.

That's a little harsh.

Actually, I'm the science man from the FBI.

I'm Special Agent Rachel Young.

I'm assigned to Dr. Hood.

Well, I'm Detective Cordero, LAPD.

This is Dr. Nash from the coroner's office.

Hi.

Dr. Nash. How are you doing?

This was our case

till the feds showed up,

told us to wait for you.

Why is the FBI so interested?

Uh, you should, uh, put on a mask.

No.

- I don't think so. - Funny, I wouldn't

have pegged you as the "live dangerously" type.

There's nothing dangerous about it.

An airborne pathogen couldn't

have frozen her like this.

- Why not? - It's thermodynamically impossible.

Uh, airborne molecules...

they're too small.

They don't have anything close

to the heat capacity

to cause this kind of damage to a human being.

Well, then, what did?

I mean, there are no wounds,

no puncture marks on the body,no bruising,

lesions, injection marks.

No indication of physical trauma whatsoever.

Who was she, Detective?

Marlena Gower.

Marketing student at Malibu State.

She spent most of last night

at a house about 100 yards from here.

Left near dawn.

Was a big party.

A few noise complaints from the neighbors,

but no reports of screams or signs of a struggle.

39 degrees Fahrenheit.

Seven degrees above freezing.

Her body shows no signs of sub-thermal exposure.

And it appears like she's not warming up, either.

Detective, can you tell me

how a seemingly healthy college student

in the prime of life freezes to death on the beach

on one of the hottest days of the year?

No.

Doctor?

No.

Neither can I.

Which is why the FBI is interested.

Anything unusual on Marlena's body,

maybe in her purse?

We found a near-empty bottle of champagne...

pricey stuff...

a bottle of prescription tranquilizers

and some odd text messages on her cell.

Odd in what way? Well, they

were pretty cryptic, asking her

if she had reconsidered something.

Have you traced them?

To a prepaid cell.

We're trying to track it down right now.

She wrote back some pretty nasty responses,

so whatever it was about, she didn't like it.

And you checked her cell record?

There were three other

"Have you reconsidered?" text messages.

First one came in five days ago.

Could be connected to the death.

I asked Dr. Nash to run a metabolic panel,

also to check the stomach contents,

see if there was anything unusual

in that champagne she had.

Please call us with the results.

Will do.

Thank you.

Also, we should check out

the house she visited last night,

see if there's anything there to give us a clue as to how

she ended up like this.

Or why.

Yeah,she was here.

Too bad... she was a real hottie.

Came with a bunch of coeds from Malibu State.

Real party girls, if you know what I mean.

And I'm sure they were all over 18, right?

All my parties are legal.

Hey.

Hey!

What are you doing, man?

Just checking out your AC unit here.

Yeah, well, it's up to code and state of the art.

You use it very often?

Now and then... doesn't get

over 90 in Malibu that often.

It did yesterday.

Yeah, well, I had it on for a few hours in the afternoon.

Turned it off as soon as the sun went down.

Okay, thank you very much.

Someone slipped our victim a Freon Mickey?

They don't use Freon in air conditioners anymore.

Damages the ozone layer.

Any sign of tampering on the unit?

No.

So we can rule out death by air conditioner.

She was taking

prescription medication.

Maybe we should go talk to her doctor.

She was taking

benzodiazepine for anxiety.

Understandable, of course.

Why, was she having trouble at school or with a boyfriend?

She had bigger problems.

- I assumed you knew. - Knew what?

She was diagnosed last month with severe aplastic anemia.

Unfortunately, we couldn't find it

in time to begin effective treatment.

She was terminal?

I'm afraid so.

Could the illness have contributed

to her freezing to death?

It's a very rare

blood disease with a lot of horrible symptoms,

but fatal hypothermia isn't one of them.

It's amazing.

You can actually see the heart beating.

And now we know what color to paint the nursery.

I've always loved the color blue.

We'll name him after you.

I just wish I could give him more than a name.

Maybe you can.

Honey, I made that appointment for us at the Foundation.

I think you should at least consider it.

We still have some time left before...

It's, uh, been over 24 hours

and the extremities are finally starting to thaw.

Her body is just a,uh,few degrees below ambient.

Autolysis has begun.

The body has started to digest itself.

It's always such a...

brutally efficient process to watch.

Yeah.

Life is a miracle, but, uh,

death, in its own terrible way,

is no less beautiful.

She was only 21.

Oh.

Well,her death is tragic, no question,

but, uh...

I did this autopsy on a guy last month

who had been hooked up to a heart-lung machine

for, uh, 12 years because his family

just couldn't accept the fact that he was brain-dead.

The way our culture tries

to deny death, uh, hide from it...

I just think that's tragic, too.

You got a tissue sample?

Yeah,I got a liver section

right over here.

Thank you.

No frostbite.

But that's impossible.

I mean, she was frozen, wasn't she?

Well, that's

the interesting thing.

She was frozen, but...

but not with ice crystals.

Were there any chemical compounds

in the blood work you couldn't identify?

Well, the tox panel was clean.

There were a few lines in, uh,

the spectral analysis that I didn't recognize,

but of course, that in itself isn't unusual.

Well,I'm gonna need at least 100cc's of her blood,

tissue samples from her major organs,

and a real lab.

Rachel, can you find me one?

Oh, yeah, not bad.

Not bad at all.

Can I help you?

Yeah, I'd like to borrow your facility, please.

I beg your pardon?

Uh, Dr. Hood and I are here to discover

exactly what killed Marlena Gower,

a 21-year-old student from your school, and to ascertain

whether or not it poses a risk to national security.

Now, I can't legally compel your cooperation

or the use of your lab, so I'm asking you

to compel yourself

to do the right thing.

I have good days

and bad days.

I'm set to start chemo treatments next week.

I'm doing everything that the doctors tell me.