The episode began with McGarrett (Alex O’Loughlin) and Danny (Scott Caan) at Honolulu International Airport, where Danny’s mother (Melanie Griffith) arrived. She surprised Danny by telling him she was getting a divorce from his father.
The next scene was a homeowner who hired a mover to hang a painting. She was very explicit about where she wanted the painting hung and kept changing her mind. When he ripped some plaster from the wall removing the hanger and she screamed, he begged her not to over-react, then he turned to see a face of a dead man behind the wall.
Driving into the driveway of Danny’s home, McGarrett was quick to respond to a call from Chin (Daniel Dae Kim) to go to the crime scene. He left Danny and his mother and drove off quickly on his truck. When he arrived at the scene, McGarrett was stopped by Sean Hutton, a reporter from the “Honolulu Register” who wanted to know what McGarrett could tell him about Lou Grover’s past with the Chicago Police Department. McGarrett told him he didn’t know Grover that well and didn’t know about anything that might have happened in Chicago.
At the crime scene, Max determined the probable cause of death to be a gunshot wound to the head. He also said the body had to be behind the wall for several months. Upon exhuming the body from the wall, Chin found a driver’s license with the name Guy Ingram, a realtor.
Upon investigation, the team learned that Ingram had purchased an airline ticket a few days before his death to Los Angeles – one way. He had also purchased a ticket for a Sally Ann Caldwell. His listings had been taken over by Cherin Tranton.
Hutton confronted Grover and gave Grover 24 hours to tell his side of the story before he published what he had.
Meanwhile, Chin and Kono (Grace Park) visited Tranton and basically ruled her out as a suspect. While leaving her residence, Kono got a call from Charlie, who told her the bullet from Ingram’s body matched a gun that was used in a jewelry heist two years earlier. While wondering how this could happen, Kono and Chin went to the police evidence locker, only to find the gun missing.
Grover called McGarrett and arranged to meet him at a secluded location in Waikiki. He told McGarrett while on the Chicago police force, he had tried to talk a man into giving up. The man was holed up in a house with his baby son. He was holding the child because he didn’t want his wife to take the child away from him in a divorce. Grover thought he could talk the man into surrendering peacefully. The situation ended when the man not only committed suicide, but killed his son. Grover walked inside immediately after and saw the two bodies. While he was attempting to get the man to surrender, his team clearly gave him the signal that the sniper had a clear shot. Since Grover was convinced he could talk the man into surrender, he never gave the signal for the sniper to act. As a result, a young child lost his life.
After this conversation, McGarrett met with Hutton and asked him to leave Grover alone. He told Hutton that his facts were probably correct, but that he should sympathize with the daily decisions and consequences every man who wears a badge has to live with.
Meanwhile, Chin and Kono found out that the gun in question was sent to be melted to scrap, as was done with such evidence after a certain amount of time. This gun, however, was stolen by someone between the evidence room and the metal works company.
The pair went to the metal works company and found out the yard boss who signed for the stock of guns which contained the gun in evidence was the brother-in-law of the owner. He felt obliged to hire his wife’s brother, who had been reselling untraceable guns on the street. He had called in sick that day and had done so on every day a shipment of weapons was set to be destroyed.
Kono and Chin invaded the brother-in-law’s house in the midst of a deal going down and arrested everyone. The brother-in-law confessed who bought the gun from him. It was Defense Attorney Gerard Burns, who was married to Sally Ann Burns (or Sally Ann Caldwell, who was having an affair with Guy Ingram). She had been reported missing by her husband six months before, about the time Ingram had been killed.
Chin and Kono took Burns in for questioning and told him fingerprints found on the plaster behind the wall where the body was found would incriminate him. When he realized what was happening, he told them where to find his wife’s body – behind the wall with the lover she wanted to spend eternity with.
The team went back to the house with Burns and found his wife’s body exactly where he said it was.
As McGarrett left the house, Grover was waiting for him. Grover thanked McGarrett for what he said to Hutton, who had called and said he was dropping the story.