The pending demolition of an old house prompts the relocation and subsequent discovery of a body that has been buried in the basement for twenty years. The young woman's body is determined to be the subject of an old missing persons case of Captain Deakins (Jamey Sheridan). The prime suspect is Rick Morrissey (Danton Stone), a middle aged misfit with a history of drug abuse, whose parents owned the house. When Morrissey is suspiciously found dead, Goren and Eames are led back to his college chess club and a dominant, over achieving college friend Jay Lippman (Jim True-Frost). Lippman is a successful engineer who has concealed his dark past until Goren and Eames discover his murder of a prostitute in Vermont and connect him to the twenty-year old murder. The lack of direct evidence is overcome by Goren's crafty interrogation where he plays on the suspect's arrogance.