Season 1 - Episode 1 - Blink

Detective Mac Taylor and his team investigate the murder of a missing woman, whose body turns up on a hillside in Brooklyn Heights. Dr. Hawke’s autopsy reveals the victim suffered a hemorrhagic stroke, perimortem smoke inhalation of a noxious substance and bedsores that suggest she was on her back for a significant length of time.
Detective Stella Bonasera identifies the victim as 28 year old LeAnn Goodman of Pelham Bay. Tox screening indicates the presence of codeine-based cough syrup in her blood as well as trace levels of nicotine. This suggests the use of a “fry stick,” a date rape concoction. The rape kit, however, is negative.
Taylor finds a second victim on a State Island garbage barge with similar neck contusions and lividity marks, and determines they are looking for a serial killer. Garbage associated with the body is from Brooklyn Heights.Hawkes finds that the second female died of asphyxiation due to strangulation. Her neck was broken post-mortem. She died at around the same time as Goodman.The neck contusions on both women center upon the occipital artery, internal, external and common carotid arteries, all of which are arteries to the brain and the vagus nerve.
The second woman remains unidentified but, from the condition of her dentistry, Mac Taylor surmises that she is of Russian descent. Detectives Messer and Burns develop film found in a camera associated with the second body. They find photos of the victim and a man at several New York landmarks, as well as a photo of the woman blowing kisses in front of an unidentified brownstone. Bonasera identifies the woman from a Missing Person’s report as 24-year-old Zoya Pavlova of Coney Island.Bogdhan and Nadia Ivanov, Pavlova’s sponsors, state that the student often disappears for days at a time with her American boyfriend. The Ivanov’s identify the boyfriend, Jason, as the man in the photographs, but do not know where he lives. They inform the police that he works as a street vendor in Brooklyn Heights.
Jason Parnell states that the last time he saw Pavlova was four or five days earlier and that she had stopped taking his calls. He claims that he does not know where the house in the final photograph is, or who took the picture.
Work in the AV lab leads Taylor and Bonasera to a neglected Brownstone in Long Island, Queens. In the basement they find a helpless woman lying on a wooden table, breathing with a respirator.
Carson Silo, the owner of the brownstone, states that a rental management firm, now defunct, took care of all matters relating to the property. The present renter, who is unknown to Silo, paid in case for a full year’s lease.
Dr. Leonard Giles informs Taylor that the perpetrator may have medical knowledge and be conducting an experiment in “Locked In’ syndrome, an irreversible neurological disorder characterized by complete paralysis of all voluntary muscles except the eyes. The brain remains fully functional. The condition can be achieved by sedating the victim and then compressing certain arterial pressure points. Taylor and Giles realized that Pavlova was killed first, Goodman second, and that the third woman was kept alive because the perpetrator had succeeded with the experiment.
The third woman is able to blink “yes” and “no” and removes Goodman’s husband and Jason Parnell from the list of suspects before she suffers a severe stroke that leaves her brain dead.The semen on the bed sheets in the brownstone does not match that of Silo or Parnell.On a medical bag left in the basement, laser light points up the Cyrillic initials B I as well as an emblem of a hammer and sickle.
When presented with DNA evidence, Ivanov admits that he and Pavlova had sex in the brownstone on several occasions. He claims that they had a pact in which he would take care of her completely. He chose to interpret this as consent to his medical experiment. His work in New York City as a cab driver allowed him access to other women who resembled Pavlova, whom he unintentionally killed. He offered his victims cigarettes that he laced with cold medicine, which rendered them unconscious almost immediately.

Season 1 - Episode 2 - Creatures of the Night

Written by Pam Veasey
Directed by Tim Hunter

Detectives Stella Bonasera and Danny Messer investigate the brutal rape of a young girl, Robin Prescott, who was attacked while walking through Central Park at night, leaving her with no recollection of what happened.
In the trace lab, Danny processes the victims clothing to try to determine the location of the crime scene somewhere in the 800 acres of Central Park. A leaf lifted from Prescott’s nylons proves to be from a peony. The flowers are planted in two specific locations in the park, along with other trace organic materials also discovered on the victims clothing, the CSIs are able to find the general area of the crime scene, north of Strawberry Fields, west of the Ramble.

At the scene of the crime, Bonasera bags a set of keys, Robin’s wallet and a takeout container with an entire steak in it. She locates two sets of men’s booted prints in association with Robin’s missing shoe. From their state it is clear that a struggle took place. The impressions are deep, indicating that the men involved were large. Blood on the trunk of a nearby tree marks the place where Robin’s head was slammed. Nearby is what looks to be a bloodied earring.

Back at the lab, Stella and Danny process the takeout container found at the scene. They discover the steak is covered with coffee beans, a speciality of Ramon’s Steakhouse, a four star restaurant. They determine the container must belong to an employee as opposed to a “takeout order” due to the lack of trimmings and presentation.

At Ramon’s Detective and Stella encounter Donovan Tracy, 17, from whose nose a ring has recently been ripped. Under questioning, he claims that Robin was passed out when he found her. He was in the process of stealing her handbag when she came to, frightening him. Her bracelet caught on his nose ring, tearing it out.

Dr. Giles informs Stella the DNA analysis from semen removed from the victim reveals there is not enough DNA in the sample to conduct analysis and the perpetrator is azoospermic, either as a result of a vasectomy or of a medical condition.

Back in the lab, Danny processes trace powder taken from Robin’s dress and finds the presence of linolenic acid, which is found in fish, pumpkin seeds and linseeds is also found in walnuts, the dust of which is used to clean statues. On checking the park schedule, a four-man work crew was cleaning statues in the park on the day of Robin’s rape; they were working in an area far removed from where the rape took place, meaning that Robin herself did not carry the dust with her. Semen samples taken from this crew are all normal, indicating that none of the four raped Robin.

Stella returns to the park where the four-man crew was cleaning the statues. She realizes that the perpetrator was perhaps a city gardener who planted flowers at the feet of the statues that were being worked on. One of them, Billy Rendish, claims he was at work at a remote part of the park and had nothing to do with Robin’s rape. He does, however, provide an azoospermic sperm sample, although this would not be enough to convince a judge of his guilt.

Stella convinces Prescott to try to identify her attacker in a lineup but when Robin doesn’t show, Stella goes back to the evidence and matches tree sap in the shape of a check mark on Robin’s panties to a mirror image tree sap stain on Rendish’s jeans, proving his guilt.
Meanwhile, Detectives Mac Taylor and Aiden Burn investigate the murder of Jordy Thompkins, a drug dealer and addict, who was shot in the abdomen. There is no indication of an exit wound and there are no casings nearby. The victim’s gums are blackened, the teeth abraded, the eyelashes singed, and the hands are burned. This evidence indicates that Thompkins used crack cocaine.
Mac notes that the entry wound is larger than usual, but there is no stellate tearing or powder burns, ruling out a contact wound. Blood spatter beneath the point of entry is inconsistent with gunshot trauma. Tissue surrounding the wound is uneven and the fabric fibers are frayed outwards. It appears that something exited Thompkin’s body through the entry wound.

Dr. Hawkes finds that Thompkins’ bullet wound entered three inches right of the saggital plane. The wound track is left to right and slightly downward. The bullet struck the liver and breeched the inferior vena cava. The victim bled to death. However, there is no bullet in the body. Further, what the CSI’s first took for track marks on the victim’s ankles turns out to be puncture marks left by small, central lateral incisors. There are both postmortem and ante mortem bites. The gunshot wound itself was also eaten away at. The body is, upon closer examination, covered with tiny bloody tracks of at least 20 rats. It is likely that one of the creatures took the bullet out of the body.

Mac and Aiden return to the alley where Thompkin’s was murdered. They follow a trail of rat hair and excrement to a deli market, where Aiden uses a thermo alloy analyzer “gun” to locate the rat that ate the bullet from Thompkin’s body. They find the now dead rat with the bullet inside its stomach. Mac performs a “ratopsy” to remove the bullet. Mac and Aiden attempt to distinguish the ridges on the bullet caused by the rat’s incisors from the stria made from the barrel of the gun.

The bullet stria gets a hit in IBIS matching a gun used in a deli robbery one hour before Thompkins was shot. Video surveillance leads them to drug user, Calvin Montgomery, who robbed the deli to buy drugs from Thompkins. When Montgomery found out he did not have sufficient funds, he shot and killed the Thompkins and took the drugs.

Season 1 - Episode 3 - American Dreamers

Written by Eli Talbert
Directed by Rob Bailey

When a human skull and torso are found on top of a double-decker tour bus in Times Square, Detectives Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera must determine whether it was a practical joke or murder.

Based on the bone structure, Dr. Sheldon Hawkes determines the victim is a Caucasian male teenager who most likely died from a blow to the head.

Stella gets a hit in AFIS from a fingerprint found on the skeleton that leads to a Port Authority Bus Terminal worker, who admits pulling the prank. A black coating of diesel exhaust on the bones containing high levels of Benzene, not EPA approved since 1994, proves the victim has been dead at least ten years. Mac follows bus exhaust to a nearby basement and recovers the rest of the victim's bones, and the victim's meager possessions, including a pocketknife, backpack, artwork, and a book copyrighted in 1984, narrowing the CSI's timeline from 1984 to 1994.

At the lab, Detective Aiden Burn uses the skull to reconstruct "John Doe's" face in clay. The parents of a boy missing since 1987 reveal the knife and backpack belonged to their son, Aaron Moreland, but "John Doe" is not their son.
Mac finds a "blank" piece of paper in the victim's pocket and utilizes multiple forensic tests to recover the faded print, revealing it's a 1990 pawn ticket for a watch. At the pawnshop, they learn the watch was recently purchased, but video surveillance catches the mystery buyer nonchalantly strum a guitar. The CSI's recover epithelials and match them in CODIS to the missing Aaron Moreland. Using "aging" software on a photo of Moreland, supplied by his parents, leads Mac and Stella to 34-year-old Moreland.

Moreland confesses he was a clothing rack runner with the victim and would trade his possessions for money to buy drugs. When the victim took the pawn ticket for Moreland’s watch and only gave him two dollars in return, Moreland snapped and hit him in the head with a pipe. Mac and Stella bury the still unknown victim in a pauper's grave.

Season 1 - Episode 4 - Grand Master

Written by Zachary Reiter
Directed by Kevin Bray

Detectives Mac Taylor and Aiden Burn investigate the murder of up and coming hip-hop artist DJ Banner, who was stabbed to death outside a nightclub shortly before being crowned winner of a DJ contest. A threatening message on Banner’s cell phone is traced to hip-hop mogul, Kevin Vick, who signed Banner to his label three days before the competition.

Vick denies killing Banner but 3-day old bruises around Banner’s ankles and hesitation marks in his signature suggest Vick hung Banner over a balcony until he signed a contract. Mac finds a strip of paper from a copy of the contract on the fire escape outside of nightclub owner Jayden Prince’s office, and Aiden discovers a bloody shirt in Prince’s toilet tank. A tool mark on Banner’s rib bone is traced to a steel construction file and a sub dermal photograph of Prince’s hands reveals thin bruise lines from the construction file. Prince confesses chasing Banner down the fire escape and stabbing him with the construction file, after learning Banner wasn’t going to resign with him. However, Mac informs Prince that Banner was forced to sign with Vick, and only waited to tell Prince because he didn’t want to destroy their friendship and promising career together.

Detectives Bonasera and Messer investigate the drowning death of elite fashion editor, Deborah Gayle, who was found in her penthouse pool. Toxicology reports reveal victim ingested blowfish poisoning, and red nail polish behind her teeth containing the blowfish poison is traced to naked “female table” sushi restaurant/model/employee, Mitchiko Muzawi, one of Deborah Gayle’s former models. Deborah Gayle fired Muzawi for being overweight, and Muzawi, tired of Gayle’s demeaning behavior, mixed blowfish poison in her toenail polish, knowing Gayle had exotic fetishes and would eat sushi off of her toes.

Season 1 - Episode 5 - A Man a Mile

Written by Andrew Lipsitz
Directed by David Grossman
Guest Stars: Terry Kinney

The death of construction worker, Pete Riggs, during an underground explosion takes Detective Mac Taylor and Danny Messer seven hundred feet below ground into the world of “Sandhogs”, a union of construction workers who build all underground tunnels in Manhattan.

Dr. Sheldon Hawkes autopsy reveals Riggs died from Asthmatic Asphyxiation before the explosion and Detectives Mac Taylor and Danny Messer find an empty inhaler and evidence Riggs was intentionally left underground, suggesting a cover-up.

Mac and Danny question the Sandhogs, including the Foreman and Pete’s brother, Joe Riggs, who both claim it was an accident. A drop of Pete’s blood is found on a Sandhog’s boot and it is revealed fellow worker, Tom Zito, got into a fight with Pete for carelessly dropping his carabineer down the tunnel opening, striking Tom, leaving permanent mental damage.

Later, Joe is hospitalized after a beating, but refuses to divulge any details. Mac re-examines Pete’s injuries and notices his finger is dislocated and has a void from a missing Sandhog union ring. Mac suspects the Sandhogs beat Joe for breaking their “code” by leaving his brother underground, and ultimately Joe admits he was trying to teach his brother a lesson about respecting the site, only to discover his brother dead the next morning. Joe panicked and attempted to cover-up Pete’s death with the explosion.

Detectives Stella Bonasera and Aiden Burn investigate a sixteen-year-old “floater”, Hannah Recchi, found with ligature marks on her neck. They determine she was clubbing with her friend Tina Paulson, at Tina’s older brother, Matt’s, bar and video surveillance shows Hannah was intimate with him.

A visit to the Paulson house reveals Tina’s deceased father was a hunting buff, and Stella finds a picture of Hannah with Tina’s dad and brother, being “bloodied” for killing her first fox. Tina’s purse strap matches the pattern on Hannah’s neck and has her blood on it. Tina couldn’t stand Hannah winning her father’s attention, and now her brother’s, so she ultimately confesses she strangled her.

Season 1 - Episode 6 - Outside Man

Written by Timothy J. Lea
Directed by Rob Bailey

Detectives Danny Messer and Aiden Burn test their skills when they are assigned to the brutal slaughter of employees in a Brooklyn restaurant, Quality Café. The body count; two victims in the basement, one upstairs behind the counter and two survivors, Terrell Davenport and Octavia Figueroa, their hands tied with duct tape and plastic bags over their heads. The glass front door of the Quality Café was smashed in by the cops; there are no other exits, the alarm wasn’t set and the place closed at 11 p.m. sharp. Danny thinks it must be an inside job.

In the trace lab, Danny and Aiden retrieve prints from the duct tape which belong to Terrell Davenport, who served five and half years for armed robbery. At the hospital Terrell Davenport, head swathed in bandages, is indignant at the implication he’s involved in the crime. He tells Aiden and Danny, that Octavia, his manager, called him downstairs, where a man put a gun to his head from behind and forced him to tape the other victims hands and put bags over their heads, then to do the same to himself. He tells them to ask Octavia who will verify his statement. He is told Octavia died from her injuries.

Also at the hospital, a distraught Jose Figueroa, brother of Octavia, is crying. Octavia died. Two young children around him begin to weep. Danny and Aiden watch as Octavia’s kids get into a well-maintained sedan, belonging to Luis, father to Octavia’s kids.

Danny and Aiden examine the garbage in the dumpster behind the café. They find multiple syringes, and fingerprints, which they scan into AFIS and find a match: Jose Figueroa. Danny interrogates Jose and confronts him about the syringes. Jose admits to going to the café that night to see his sister but when he arrived she was already dead. Aiden has a hard time believing he saw his sisters dead body then shot up. Danny retorts that Jose is a junkie and it probably made sense to him at the time.

The investigation leads Danny and Aiden to Luis Torres, father of Octavia’s kids. In the Interrogation Room, Danny and Aiden show Luis wilted flowers found in the café’s dumpster. They found traces of stamen on the glass door and his fingerprints on the flower wrapper. Reconstructing the crime, they confront him with the fact that he used the flowers as a ploy to get Gina (the waitress) to open up the door. He got everyone to go downstairs to the basement, but one of the employees tried to escape, so Luis shot him. Terrell was forced to bag and tape everyone. Octavia was taking her kids to Albany (upstate), and Terrell got “caught in the wash.” Luis put bags over the victims’ heads because he couldn’t look them in the eye and kill them.

Meanwhile, Mac and Stella investigate the discovery of a male left leg severed just above the knee. Dr. Hawkes examination reveals that although there didn’t appear to be anything wrong with the leg, it had been surgically amputated.

Their investigation leads them to the apartment of a dead Frank Hertzberg who is missing his lower left leg. Mac is annoyed when he sees uniformed cops and an EMT (emergency medical technician) look into the apartment. Mac sprays the area around the bed with luminal and finds that someone has washed the place down. The “surgery” was conducted in the bed. Stella finds a human pinkie finger in the freezer that doesn’t belong to the dead Frank Hertzberg.

Stella finds a match from the finger to Joe Garford. They find him at the NY Transit Authority office missing a finger and a leg. Joe tells them that Frank felt “oppressed” by his left leg and couldn’t feel whole until he’d have it removed. When Mac asks him who performed the surgery on Joe’s leg, he replies that, like Frank, he is an amputee “wannabe,” but he lacks Frank’s determination. He stands up, releases a hidden cord and his healthy left calf folds down from behind his thigh.

Stella talks to Dierdre Hertzberg, the angry wife of Frank. On a computer screen, Dierdre shows Stella a photo of Frank, his left leg missing. Photoshop retouching. She tells Stella that it was obvious that amputation was on her husband’s mind: he’d drill his leg, cut himself and once he froze his leg in dry ice.

Frank suffered from Apotemnophilia, a body integrity identity disorder. People hate some parts of themselves, thinking it is causing all of their problems, and try to amputate it.

In the Reconstruction Room, Dr. Hawkes shows Stella the femur from Frank Hertzberg’s leg. A black edge at the bottom of the cut indicates that the saw jammed and stopped. They replicate the sawing on a femur sample. Stella deduces that cutting through femur puts a tremendous strain on the electric saw and that the electricity must have cut out.

In the Hertzberg apartment, Stella finds a breaker box and dusts for prints. Mac and Stella interrogate the EMT who was at Hertzberg’s apartment who claims he was there in response the police radio call. Stella shows him photos of a clock in the apartment that reads 9.55. She and Mac arrived at 10.45. The EMT appears in a photo with a clock that reads 9.54.

Mac and Stella reconstruct the crime. The EMT started the surgery and it was going well until the electric saw got jammed in the bone. He finished the cut with a handsaw, sewed up and got out. The CSIs have his print on the breaker box. He blew the fuse, he took off his surgical gloves and threw the switch.

The EMT confesses, saying that Frank begged him to amputate his leg. He was paid $10,000 for the procedure, and since he was a premed student he thought he could do it.

Season 1 - Episode 7 - Rain

Written by Pam Veasey
Directed by David Grossman

Rain pours down on Chinatown and a sea of black umbrellas bloom. Suddenly a man on fire bursts from a building, collapsing in the middle of the street as horrified bystanders look on.

Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera examine the charred body of the formerly flaming man. The victim appears to have been wearing a plastic mask. The CSIs enter the empty storefront and find a 4x4 foot hole cut into the wall, leading into the safe deposit vault of the Chinatown First National Bank. Several of the safe deposit boxes have been pried open. An oxyacetylene tank lies on the floor. They find a charred Caucasian male with a gun next to his body, a plastic mask melted onto his face.

Detective Flack tells the CSIs that the fire started when two security guards interrupted the robbery and during the ensuing gunfire, a bullet hit the acetylene tank causing it to explode. Stella finds a trail of blood, leading out to the back door. One of the robbers got away and two died.

Inside the safe deposit vault, the entire CSI team collects evidence. They reconstruct the events; the perps cut through the wall, after the bank manager and security guard each entered the alarm disarming code. Tony Fenn, the security guard heard a sound and when he checked the vault gunfire ensues and the robbers head out the way they came in. However, a bullet hits the tank and the place goes up in flames.

Later Mac and Flack look around the empty store adjacent to the bank, accompanied by Rob Bloom, the leasing agent. Bloom claims that a week earlier he received a letter from the owner who said he was no longer interested in renting out the space. The investigators ask for that letter.

In the Trace Lab, Stella examines the evidence she found on the vault floor, including a small jade monkey and some beads from a bracelet. She is able to pull a partial print from a jewelry clasp, belonging to Joanne Cho, the bank’s manager. Further investigation reveals the robber brought the bracelet with him to the bank.

Stella confronts Joanne about the bracelet. Joanne tells her the robbers had kidnapped Joanne’s eleven-month-old baby girl, Doris, and she had asked for proof they still had her. The robbers had threatened to kill Doris if Joanne didn’t do what they asked. A ransom note arrived that afternoon.

Mac studies the cut and paste ransom note. He researches the phrasing and the fonts. He tells Stella the typeface can only come from three magazines; Gotham, The Hamptons and Playbill. Stella tells Mac she found sodium poyacrylate on the baby’s clothing but wasn’t diapers but rather fake snow. They connect the dots: Playbill magazine and fake snow mean “theater,” a show set in wintertime.

At an off-Broadway theater they discover the lifeless body of Kevin Moretti, the third robber, lying face down in a pool of blood. Bloody baby prints trail away from his body but no baby is to be found. Mac and Stella speculate that Moretti must have been trying to meet someone in the theater. Stella retrieves a long black hair from the body and a missing letter from the ransom note, cut from the inside of a magazine, which as a partial zip code on the reverse side.

Danny tells Mac that five shots were fired at the crime scene. A bullet pulled from the pillar in the vault is from Marvin Hummel, the second security guard, but its location doesn’t make sense when compared against Hummel’s report. If Hummel’s story is true then the bullet stopped in mid-air, turned left, and hit the pillar. As they examine Kevin Moretti’s body, Dr. Hawkes finds traces of mercury, glass fibers, and lead in his system – the same components found in the lungs of the Ground Zero clean-up crews.

Stella shows Mac a ransom letter Joanne Cho received an hour earlier. It demands two hundred thousand dollars in unmarked bills to be delivered to the New York Bystander newsstand, South East Corner of Central Park. They find that the same person who signed the signature on the letter to the leasing agent wrote the ransom note. The ransom paper has indentations on it of Chinese characters.

Flack tells Stella that Joanne Cho wants to put up the ransom. They sit in a car-watching pedestrian’s walk by the ransom drop off newspaper stand in the drizzling rain. Finally, a white man approaches the newspaper box and suddenly a convey of forty or more police cars appear sirens screaming. Stella is shocked and the suspect disappears. Flack tells her that it’s an unannounced terrorist response drill. She retrieves the money from the newspaper box and hands it to Flack. Stella finds a nondescript mask on the ground, in a muddy puddle. Stella tells Mac that the mask blended the suspect’s face into the crowd. Mac finds a partial print off the newspaper vending machine.

Stella tells Mac that they translated the Chinese characters from the indentation on the ransom note and found the name “Nina Chang.” She worked in the theatre as a make-up artist. They are able to use the partial zip code they found to locate the whereabouts of a Nina Chang, living two blocks from a construction site.

Stella and Flack and three uniformed officers enter Nina Chang’s apartment. Nina admits to meeting her boyfriend, Kevin Moretti, at the theatre. She took his loot bag and left him to die on the floor. Nina claims she doesn’t know where the baby is. Mac tells her to write the pledge of allegiance on a pad of paper. Her writing matches the ransom note and forged signature of the letter to the leasing agent. Unfortunately there are no matches to the partial print Mac lifted from the newspaper box.

Danny and Stella determine, based on the ballistic evidence in the vault that Marvin Hummel shot at the wall for no apparent reason. Hummel is slammed into a parked car by Danny and Flack. Danny tells him that he should have never fired his weapon.

Mac interrogates Hummel. Tony Fenn was supposed to go home but decided to wait out the rain. Then he heard a sound from the vault and went to investigate. Hummel followed and when Tony took a hit and went down, a wounded Kevin Moretti knocked over the oxyacetylene tank on this way out of the vault; Hummel pulled his gun and fired away from the robbers. Tony, still on the ground, realized he was on his own and struggled to make a last shot his bullet ignited the oxyacetylene-filled air, exploding the vault.

Mac tells Marvin Hummel he could have been a hero and returned the baby. Why didn’t he? Marvin says it never would have gotten to that if those guys hadn’t messed up at the bank. Mac tells him, there’s always something you didn’t expect. If only Tony had gone home. If only it hadn’t rained.

Mac sees Stella handing Doris, the baby, to Joanne Cho.

Season 1 - Episode 8 - Three Generations are Enough

Written by Andrew Lipsitz
Directed by Alex Zakrzewski

Controlled pandemonium on the floor of the New York Mercantile Exchange as traders shout and use a combination of intricate hand signals to close their deals just before the competition. Few people survive here beyond thirty – and it turns out they might not even make that, when a security guard discovers a black brief case seemingly belonging to no one.

Within moments, the organized chaos of the Mercantile Exchange turns into pure panic, as all the traders go on a wild stampede to the exit. A short while later, the floor is completely empty, save for a robot whirring over to the briefcase. The robot is remote controlled by Mac Taylor, who uses it to safely disrupt the bomb in the briefcase – but not before taking a remote photograph of a fingerprint on the briefcase’s lock. The police computer connects the fingerprint to a certain Luke Sutton, and Mac and Aiden quickly make their way over to his Upper East Side apartment. But upon arriving, they find his apartment smashed, and Sutton gone, probably kidnapped. From a suspect, Sutton has turned into a possible victim…..

Meanwhile Stella Bonasera and Detective Flack are called to investigate the death of a young church worker, Trina Rolston, who apparently died when she fell off the roof of St. Juliana Church. But further investigation reveals she was first hit over the head with a candlestick, and when is revealed that Trina was pregnant, the CSIs have a possible motive. They discover a love letter to Trina inside a prayer book she was reading shortly before she died, and then find matching fingerprints on both the prayer book and the candlestick belonging to Father Murphy, one of the priests at St. Juliana.

Season 1 - Episode 9 - Officer Blue

Written by Anthony E. Zuiker
Directed by Deran Sarafian

A clear morning in Central Park., a scuffle breaks out between an African American man and a British tourist. Mounted Officer Valasquez, on his beautiful Tennessee Walker nicknamed Officer Blue, rides towards the commotion. A gunshot rings out and Valasquez is shot in the back. The bullet is deflected into his trusty horse, nicknamed Officer Blue. He falls to the ground and the horse takes off, rider less, in full gallop. A taxi rounds the corner and the animal slams into the car. The car screeches to a halt and the horse lies in the middle of the street, badly hurt, but not dead. Extracting the bullet from Officer Blue would mean almost certain death for the beloved animal. Officer Mac Taylor doesn’t want to do that just yet, preferring to work with other evidence the CSIs can gather up in the meantime.

It appears Officer Valasquez was shot from a neighboring building, and the sidewalk fight was likely a set-up to distract the police officer. The team finds a fingerprint belonging to Richard Smockton, an animal activist who has been vocal in his discontent about the NYPD’s use of horses, on the sixteenth floor of the building – a perfect vantage point for a hit. Smockton denies he had any part in the shooting, and it seems he’s telling the truth. Mac notices that he suffers from Graves’ Disease, which causes hand tremors that would have made him a poor marksman.

Their investigation leads them to another suspect, Willie Chancey, the street salesman who was arguing with the tourist in Central Park. Their altercation was caught on camera, and the footage clearly shows that Willie deliberately provoked the tourist into a fistfight. However, Willie couldn’t have shot the police officer as all his actions were recorded on tape – he must have had an accomplice. The bullet lodged in Officer Blue could provide a vital lead, but is Mac prepared to order the horse to undergo an operation that could kill it?

Aiden Burn investigates a flaming hot crime at a pizza parlor. The victim, Lenny Starks, was found stabbed to death on the street, with curious burn marks on the side of his face. The blazing trail leads back to the local pizzeria, where Aiden finds the owners are not too willing to help her investigation.

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Night Mother

Written by Janet Tamaro
Directed by Deran Sarafian

A woman is found outside of her apartment complex, in a bloody nightgown, pounding her hands on a dead woman's chest, causing blood to ooze from a gaping abdominal wound. Detectives Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera find a bloody wooden stake next to the victim, Rachel Camden, and muscle tissue from Rachel's heart under her apparent killer, Ophelia Dichiaria's, fingernails.

Mac learns Ophelia is a parasomniac, and was sleepwalking when she was found with the victim. Using video surveillance of the apartment lobby, Mac discovers a large shadow behind Ophelia as she exits the building, and using corneal imaging, capturing details reflected in the eye's cornea, Mac identifies witness, Jason Walder, who was playing basketball nearby.

Splinters from the wooden stake are found in Jason's hands and a condom in his wallet contains identical lubricant found inside Rachel. Rachel was having an affair with Jason, and when she ended it to start a family with her husband, Jason killed her.

Mac learns Ophelia was trying to massage Rachel's heart, mimicking the memory of trying to save her son's life, who died in a car accident with her husband.

Detectives Danny Messer and Aiden Burn investigate the murder of "professional" pickpocket, Lenny Cook, who was beaten and robbed, with the exception of several Australian hundred dollar bills hidden in a secret pocket and a number of dimes found near his body.

They ultimately discover a member of Lenny's pick-pocketing crew suspected him of skimming and set Lenny up to pickpocket a "mark" carrying Australian bills. When Lenny didn't give his partner his correct share, he beat Lenny to death with a roll of dimes in his fist that broke, littering the crime scene.

Season 1 - Episode 10 - Night Mother

Written by Janet Tamaro
Directed by Deran Sarafian

A woman is found outside of her apartment complex, in a bloody nightgown, pounding her hands on a dead woman's chest, causing blood to ooze from a gaping abdominal wound. Detectives Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera find a bloody wooden stake next to the victim, Rachel Camden, and muscle tissue from Rachel's heart under her apparent killer, Ophelia Dichiaria's, fingernails.

Mac learns Ophelia is a parasomniac, and was sleepwalking when she was found with the victim. Using video surveillance of the apartment lobby, Mac discovers a large shadow behind Ophelia as she exits the building, and using corneal imaging, capturing details reflected in the eye's cornea, Mac identifies witness, Jason Walder, who was playing basketball nearby.

Splinters from the wooden stake are found in Jason's hands and a condom in his wallet contains identical lubricant found inside Rachel. Rachel was having an affair with Jason, and when she ended it to start a family with her husband, Jason killed her.

Mac learns Ophelia was trying to massage Rachel's heart, mimicking the memory of trying to save her son's life, who died in a car accident with her husband.

Detectives Danny Messer and Aiden Burn investigate the murder of "professional" pickpocket, Lenny Cook, who was beaten and robbed, with the exception of several Australian hundred dollar bills hidden in a secret pocket and a number of dimes found near his body.

They ultimately discover a member of Lenny's pick-pocketing crew suspected him of skimming and set Lenny up to pickpocket a "mark" carrying Australian bills. When Lenny didn't give his partner his correct share, he beat Lenny to death with a roll of dimes in his fist that broke, littering the crime scene.

Season 1 - Episode 11 - Tri-Borough

Written by Andrew Lipsitz and Eli Talbert
Directed by Greg Yaitanes

The electrocuted body of a young man is found on the tracks of a subway in Queens. The autopsy reveals the victim was already dead before he hit the tracks. Mac and Stella must follow the evidence to not only find the crime scene but to uncover the identity of the victim. Eventually, they discover his name was Randy Hontz, nickname ‘Slick,’ and last night, he was Parkouring. (Parkour is a new extreme sport, where athletes who practice the sport see the city as an urban obstacle course, climbing on rooftops, jumping from building to building, and performing somersaults and flips to make their “parkour run” even more spectacular.

But for Mac and Stella, it’s not the thrill that counts – it’s the sport’s potential for criminal abuse. When one is scaling skyscrapers and sliding down fire escapes, what do you do when you see an open jewelry box behind a window on the eleventh floor? In fact, Slick’s best friend, and the last person to see him alive, has a burglary conviction on his record. Could Slick’s death have been the result of another less than legal diversion from his parkour run?

While Mac and Stella delve into the world of extreme sports, the rest of the CSI team tackle two other murder cases. Danny Messer takes along a Detective Maka to investigate the death of an art dealer who appears to have been involved with a major scam involving fake paintings. In addition, Aiden, along with Detective Flack sets out to solve the case of a worker found dead at a construction site.

Season 1 - Episode 12 - Recycling

Written by Timothy J. Lea and Zachary Reiter
Directed by Alex Zakrzewski

Detectives Mac, Aiden and Flack find their patience severely tested when snooty dog owners place their prize animals’ chances of winning a kennel club show over solving the death of one of the animal handlers.

The search for a new champion at the Westminster Kennel Club Dog Show, takes a backseat to that for the killer of Elaine Curtis, a twenty-something dog handler found dead next to the Red Cross tent in the show’s backstage area. She has a knitting needle stuck through her heart and bite marks on her neck. The initial interrogations are not very useful: the emergency doctor was in his tent while the murder took place and did not hear a thing, while the owner of the needle is a neurotic dog owner who is widely known to calm herself and her dog before each show by knitting.

Then Aiden finds a clue: a trail of paw prints leading away from Elaine’s body. When they also find a dog’s hair on Elaine’s body, they are able to narrow it down to a Spaniel, or small hunting dog. Mac has the police round up the dogs for his own dog show – but instead of the best-behaved animal or the most elaborate coiffure, he is just looking to see whether any of them has blood on its paws.

Mac finds one that clearly stepped through a pool of blood – and although the dog may still be innocent, its handler, a man in his late 40s named Alvin Marbert, is looking very guilty indeed. He admits that he had a relationship with Elaine, but that he couldn’t tell anyone, as his employer would surely fire him if she found out he was dating someone working for the competition. Mac asks him if he can explain the bite marks Elaine had. Alvin is silent for a while. Then he reveals that he and Elaine used to enjoy pretending to be dogs while having sex, barking and playfully biting each other. Their investigation takes a turn when Mac discovers Elaine’s case containing her dog’s supplies has been broken into and the contents tampered with - and the trail leads them to the killer.

Meanwhile, Stella and Danny investigate the death of Michael Starling, a bike messenger who was stabbed to death while racing through the streets of New York. His employer says Michael was probably his best man. He was fast. However, that also meant he was taking work away from his colleagues – could one of them resented him enough to kill him?

Season 1 - Episode 13 - Tanglewood

Written by Anthony E. Zuiker
Directed by Karen Gaviola

Mac and Stella investigate the brutal murder of a young man, Paul Montenassi, who is beaten to death with a baseball bat at night in a park. Nearby impressions in the snow indicate that he was assailed by three, possibly four attackers. The evidence shows that this wasn’t just a random beating – Paul’s face is covered with high-velocity blood splatter, indicating that he had shot someone the night he was attacked.

Detective Flack meets Danny and Aiden at the scene of a car accident, the victim, Marta Santo, a 30 year old, Hispanic female. Evidence on the car indicates a hit-and-run. Marta’s body shows signs of trauma, indicating rape or rough sex. The forensic evidence leads the CSIs to the Wuhan Spa and Sauna in the East Village where scandal is uncovered between an astute businessman, wife, and his mistress.

Aiden and Detective Flack are called out to a crime scene at a bodega in Spanish Harlem. The owner, Harish Lev, is distraught at the shooting of his brother, Mihok Lev, during a robbery the night before. When Aiden views the store’s surveillance tape, she discovers that the robber is none other than Paul Montenassi. Not only that, but Harish Lev is seen chasing him out of the store with a baseball bat.

Case closed? Not so. Harish’s bat was aluminum, but the one used to kill Paul was definitely a wooden one. And it wasn’t any old bat at that, but a real collector’s item, signed by New York Yankees legend Mickey Mantle himself.

As it turns out, Billy Butts’ Sports Bar a local hangout of rival suburban gangs from Tanglewood and Pelham Bay, is missing a Mickey Mantle bat that used to be proudly displayed on its walls. Paul was a Tanglewood wannabe, desperate enough to do anything to gain admittance into their gang. Mac and Stella suspect he was given the task of assaulting a member of the Pelham Bay crowd, an assignment that could have had fatal consequences for him.

The CSIs track down the leader of the Pelham Bay gang, Johnny Lucerno, in the New Rochelle Mall, where he and his posse are causing trouble. He’s arrogant in the extreme, one of the new breed of rich kids who think nothing can touch them, and even if they do happen to get caught, their rich daddies will pull a few strings and get them off. And he just happens to be sporting stitches from an assault the previous night. The weapon? A baseball bat. The attacker? Paul Montenassi.

Season 1 - Episode 14 - Blood, Sweat and Tears

Written by Eli Talbert and Erica Shelton
Directed by Scott Lautanen

After an early morning dive in the chilly ocean with a group known as the Polar Bears, a man discovers a chest buried in the sand. He uncovers it, but there's no treasure inside--just the contorted body of a teenaged boy in his underwear. Mac and Stella arrive on the scene and determine the box was sent out to sea and washed back in with the tide. Both CSIs are surprised when they remove the chest from the sand and find it is a box and not a larger trunk like they expected. Back at the morgue, Dr. Hawkes and Mac remove the young man from the box and straighten his body out. Rigor has set in, but Hawkes theorizes that the boy could have been for anywhere from 24-48 hours, as the cold could have affected the rigor progress. Mac pulls a copper oval out of his hand with the word 'Cyclone' on it. In the lab, Aiden determines that the twine found on the box is distinctive, and Stella discovers a thick black hair--too thick to be human.

Danny and Detective Flack are at the scene of a crime with no body. There's a huge puddle of blood in Paige Worthy's apartment, but no victim in sight. The neighbors haven't seen her in a week and Danny notices the shower curtain from her bathroom is missing--someone may have carried her out.
Back in the morgue, Hawkes points out the bruises on the victim's arms, wrists and throat to Mac. Mac notices a hickey, but Hawkes surmises it is several days old. The men are surprised when they X-ray the victim and discover his bones are in tact. Hawkes tells Mac the boy died of asphyxiation--not from being smothered but because he literally couldn't breathe in air. Mac surmises he was alive when he was put in the box.

Back at Paige's apartment, Flack notices Paige's refrigerator is full of food, and Danny discovers a brown powder on the floor. When Danny notices gravitational blood drops leading toward the door, he follows the trail to the garbage chute in the hall. Danny barely misses being hit by a falling garbage bag, which lodges in the chute before getting to the bottom. Concluding that the chute is clogged, Danny heads downstairs to the first floor and determines what's causing the clog: a woman's body, wrapped in a shower curtain. But her face doesn't match the picture of Paige that they found in her apartment.

Mac wonders if the victim is an escape artist, but when Aiden tells him the hair found on the box is from an elephant, Mac puts it together: their victim was with the circus. Maxwell Neiman, one of the contortionists at the circus recognizes the victim as his seventeen-year-old son, Lukas. He last saw Lukas the night before. When one of the trapeze artists, Bernardo Espargosa comes over to offer his condolences, Neiman attacks the man. It turns out there is a deep-seated rivalry between the two. Neiman is a third-generation circus performer and looked down on Brooklyn born Bernardo. Neimen’s son and Bernardo’s daughter, Anasuya, performed in the circus shows together as Romeo and Juliet. The CSIs talk to Anasuya, who has a similar Cyclone copper oval—a gift from Lukas. She hurt her arm in the previous night’s performance so she didn’t perform in the evening show. In the elephant enclose, Stella discovers a dolly with traces of scraping from a box and sand. She suspects it was used to move Lukas. The CSIs discover Lukas’s costume in a nearby trashcan and wonder how nobody noticed if the boy was stripped and shoved in a box.

Dr. Hawkes tells Danny that the woman from the chute died from exsanguinations—her femeral artery was pierced. He points out her wedding ring and then shows Danny her crooked nose and capped teeth. Danny immediately suspects she was a battered spouse.

In the lab, Mac examines Lukas’s costume and finds sweat stains as well as some drops he can’t identify. Aiden gets prints off the dolly: Jake Lydell, the elephant handler, who has a sizeable rap sheet. Mac and Stella question Lydell, but he denies involvement and offers them his jacket. Sure enough, the fibers from his jacket don’t match those on the dolly. Mac turns to some paint he found on the outside of the box—clown face paint. When Mac questions the clown whose face paint design matches the pattern on the box, he tells him Lukas spilled his bubble solution and was sent to ‘clown court.’ They beat him with a cane, explaining many of the bruises on him, but certainly didn’t kill him.

Danny and Flack track Paige Worthy down. She’s been staying a hotel. She gives them an ID on their victim: Lita Cartey, a sorority sister of hers from college. Lita was staying with her to escape her abusive husband, but when the stay was extended and the husband kept coming around, Paige checked into a hotel to get some work done. Danny and Flack question Jason Cartey, Lita’s husband, who denies beating her. He admits he went to Paige’s apartment, but he says that on the day of her murder he knocked for fifteen minutes and went away when no one answered.

In the lab, Mac observes how frustrated Danny is and asks him about the case. Danny is frustrated because the husband’s DNA doesn’t match that found in the apartment. Talking to Mac brings him back to the brown powder he found on the floor: a Middle Eastern spice, Loomi. Going back to his own case, Mac finds white powder on the dolly, which is used by trapeze artists. His suspicions turn to Bernardo, who has scratches on his arms that he denies are from Lukas. But he relents and admits he hit Lukas when he caught the boy kissing his daughter, Anasuya, five days ago. Mac thinks the bruises are more recent, but Hawkes informs him there’s no real way to tell as Lukas had Ehlers Danlos syndrome, which explains how he was able to contort his body. His elastic skin bruised easily, meaning Hawkes can’t tell how old the bruises are.

Danny and Flack go back to Paige’s apartment and notice that the Loomi Lita had is almost empty. Flack again notes the full refrigerator, and the two men find a delivery receipt. Danny and Flack go to the delivery company and discover a young man with scratches on his face. He’s the one who delivered Lita’s food, and the one who killed her. He liked her and thought she liked him, but when he made an advance on her and she rejected him, he stabbed her. He didn’t leave because her husband was at the door knocking and by the time the man left, Lita was dead. The delivery boy dumped her body and left.
The DNA from the drops on Lukas’s uniform are female and they’re not blood or sweat. Mac has it figured out. He and Stella return to the circus. The black fibers from the dolly match Anasuya’s sweater. The drops on Lukas’s suit were her teardrops. She and Lukas were enacting a real-life Romeo & Juliet scenario, and Lukas committed suicide. Anasuya was intending to as well, but at the last minute, she changed her mind, realizing she could fix the things about her life that she didn’t like.

Season 1 - Episode 15 - Til Death Do We Part

Written by Pam Veasey
Directed by Nelson McCormick

Mac and Danny are called to a hotel where the bride and two doves have died just as the father has given the bride away. Through a series of twists and turns the two investigators figure out the woman died of formaldehyde poisoning. If that was not strange enough the weapon was her wedding dress. A mortuary worker stole the clothes off dead people just before burial and sold them to a second hand clothes store.

Stella, Aiden, and Flack are called to an abandoned monastery after two building inspectors find a hand. The team finds the body it belonged to a few feet away. The man had been handcuffed to the wall in the empty building for a few days and chewed his way through his wrist to get out of the handcuffs. Unfortunately, he died of blood loss. Their investigation reveals the death is linked back to a prison rival of the dead guy.

Season 1 - Episode 16 - Hush

Written by Anthony E. Zuiker and Tim Lea
Directed by Deran Sarafian

After a trucker is shot and injured when some teens try to steal his truck, Flack calls Mac and Stella to the scene. There's a pulverized body in the back of his truck. Or rather, half a body, as Hawkes, armed with a spatula, tells the CSIs.

Danny and Aiden arrive at another scene, where they find the body of a naked dead woman in the woods, a little bit off the road. Aiden notices headlight glass on the ground, and Danny sees the bark of a nearby tree is bloody and broken, as well as skid marks.

Stella, Mac and Hawkes discover the other half of the body that has been crushed underneath one of the flatbeds. Hawkes takes it back to the morgue, where Danny and Aiden are waiting for his take on the body in their case. Hawkes isn't able to identify her, but he does point out ligature marks that indicate she was restrained. The vehicle from the case is discovered: it's an F-150 in impound with an odd apparatus strapped to the front of it. The apparatus turns out to be harness with a button on the bottom of it. Inside the car they find a latex suit, straps and a red ball with teeth marks on it--the woman was strapped, upside down, to the harness on the front of the car. Danny also finds glass on the passenger side, but it doesn't seem to be from any of the car's windows.

Hawkes reassembles the body he refers to as "spatula man." Stella has an ID: Paddy Dolan, a longshoreman. Hawkes says Dolan was crushed to death, but points out an ante-mortem knife wound. Back at the docks, Mac and Stella question the men who worked for Paddy: Manny Moraga, Sean Bally and Mike Prineman. The men are wary of being questioned--only Mike speaks out against Dolan, calling him lazy. He says Dolan collected a big check for doing no work. Mike won't say any more--he's afraid of losing his job and has a family to support. Mac notices Mike is carrying a knife and collects it to test.
Danny and Aiden arrive at the house of Ron Bogda, who owns the F-150 from the impound. He identifies a photograph of the victim as his wife Debbie, and claims they led separate lives during the week as she worked and staying in Manhattan.

Mike's knife isn't a match for Paddy's stab wound. Nor are any of the other workers' knives. Stella finds insect eggs on Paddy's jeans. Mac, puzzled by Sean's spotless knife, questions the young man. Sean is bitter because Paddy intentionally hurt his hand with a forklift. Stella IDs the insect eggs: they came from the Southern Pine Beetle, which isn't native to New York. They go back to the dock and discover another body in another container: identified as James Prineman, Mike's brother. He was killed by multiple blows to the head and his assailant was wearing brass knuckles. His clothes have the same beetles as Paddy Dolan's had, but James has been dead for days, indicating he died before Paddy did.
Danny and Aiden get a print off of the latex suit: it matches a woman named Jennifer Stupaine. The CSIs pay her a visit and find Jennifer and her husband John hosting a forniphilia instruction seminar for safe bondage practice. Jennifer has bruising that she has tried to conceal under her make up. Aiden takes her aside and photographs the bruising on Jennifer's body, which appears to be from a car accident – a bruise that resembles a seat belt from the passenger side of a car. She photographs John as well, but he has no such bruising on his body.

Mac is upset when he learns that Mike Prineman has been fired—he feels responsible. At Paddy’s apartment, Mac and Stella find stolen merchandise and dollars stashed away. Mac finds a pair of brass knuckles and concludes that Paddy killed Mike's brother. Stella also finds a bloody shirt. The CSIs track down the workers at a local bar, looking for Mike, but the guys deny seeing him and leave. The bartender admits he saw the yard workers having a disagreement. Paddy was extorting money from James, and Mike followed Paddy out when he left on the tail of James. They question Mike, who admits he followed Paddy out, but he claims he was just making sure his brother was all right.
Jane tells Stella she found two sets of DNA on the brass knuckles: one from James, and one from an unknown source. The skin cells don't match Paddy Dolan. Elsewhere in the lab, Danny and Aiden go back to the car, where they determine that the button at the bottom of the harness was a safety precaution, a way for the person strapped to the harness to alert the driver if he/she wanted to stop. During a search of the Stupaine’s house they find a Super8camera. They determine that Ron, Debbie's husband was the driver: he filmed Jennifer strapping Debbie in and drove the car, speeding until he lost control of the car and hit a tree, killing his wife.

Back at the docks, Mac and Stella realize that someone moved the container with James' body in so that it would be shipper out immediately, something only a boss could do. Just as they realize this, Stella pulls Mac out of the way of a flatbed moving to crush him. Kevin Hannigan is on the run, but Mac floors him and aims his weapon at the man. Hannigan was envious of Paddy, who was cutting deals with the men. He wanted to teach James a lesson and killed him accidentally. Paddy helped him clean up the mess and then blackmailed him; Kevin killed him and made it look like an accident. After Kevin is led away, Mac thanks Stella for saving his life. All's well that ends well: Mike Prineman gets his job back.

Season 1 - Episode 17 - The Fall

Story by: Bill Haynes
Teleplay by: Anne McGrail
Directed by: Norberto Barba

Three young Hispanic men enter a wine store in the Bronx and shoot the owner. Mac and Stella arrive and notice footprints in the spilled wine. Stella finds a nine millimeter bullet casing. She also finds a lighter one of the men left behind and finds a footprint on it. Mac spots the surveillance camera and hopes the men's images were caught on it. Outside, Detective Flack talks to Gavin Moran, his mentor, and the two trace the route the suspects took. In one of the alleys, Moran discovers an abandoned gun.
Danny and Aiden arrive at the scene of a death in Chelsea, where a large man whom Aiden identifies as movie producer Melvin Heckman, lies dead on a canopy. Danny notices a party on the third floor of the building and the CSIs decide to start there. Heckman's wife, Chandra, is surprised to hear about his death and said she didn't notice he was gone as he often snuck off on business. Danny asks her if Heckman had any enemies, and she tells him there was a long list.

In the lab, Mac tells Stella that all the blood at the scene was from the victim, while she tells him that there were no prints on the gun. The print on the lighter matches a member of the Crazy Aces gang, Luis Accosta. The CSIs watch the surveillance tape and they hear one of the gang members call out to another named Hector to shoot the owner of the wine shop. Mac surmises that the murder was a gang initiation. Stella notices a soda can left by one of the gang members, but neither he nor Stella saw it at the scene.
At the Heckmans' apartment, Danny spots a fiber on the railing of the balcony. Danny posits that Melvin fell face first, and Aiden spots blood on the ledge.

Moran, Flack and Mac track the Crazy Aces down at a housing project. Tomas Perez, aka "C-Dog" denies being at the scene, and both he and Accosta deny knowledge of Hector. Mac tests both their hands for GSR, but both are negative. Mac is under pressure from prosecutor Allen McShane to crack the case. Stella is bothered by the can's absence, and since Moran was the first officer on the scene, Flack pays him a visit and asks to see his log book. Moran is defensive but finally turns it over.

Hawkes tells Danny that Heckman was killed by a blow to the head. Hawkes points out a strong floral scent identified as a woman’s perfume on Heckman's hand as well as two small bruises on the man's backside. Aiden finds an oily stain on Heckman's jacket and identifies it as salmon oil. She finds a palm print on the back of his jacket, which indicates he may have been pushed. The CSIs head back to the apartment, where they find the woman wearing the fragrance, an actress named Gwen, who had the lead in a movie but was fired by Melvin, who thought she had gained weight. The palm print matches a screenwriter named Brent. Brent claims he didn't push Melvin; he was imploring Melvin not to open a sure-fire blockbuster Pixar film against his movie. Brent claims after he talked to his agent on his cell phone for three and a half hours.
Flack is disturbed to find an entry crossed out in Moran's log book. He asks Stella to run the entry off the record to see if the inks used are different, and she confirms that they are. She spots "Hector--soda can" under the crossed-out section. Flack returns to the scene, where he discovers the soda can in a nearby trashcan. He brings it back to Mac and Stella, but defends Moran, that he wouldn’t be on the take. Mac takes the can to Jane Parsons in DNA, who runs it and tells him the prints aren't on record, but the epithelials are from Moran. But she surprises Mac with another piece of information--the DNA from the saliva indicates the person who drank from the can is Moran's son. Mac shares the information with Flack and tells him to check Moran's financial information and find the mother.

In the lab, Aiden studies photos of the victim, specifically the bruises on his backside. She analyzes them and realizes the come from a shoe. She called a cousin who sells shoes for advice, and then IDed the shoes as a woman's size seven. Meanwhile, Mac confronts Moran with the DNA evidence that Hector is his son. Moran tells Mac to call his union lawyer and Mac reminds him he's looking at time. Mac asks for his help in finding the shooter, but Moran continues to stonewall him.

Danny and Aiden learn that Chandra Heckman wears a size seven shoe, so they go back to question her. She say she kicked him because she caught him eating chocolate, which given his weight and health, was practically poison for him. Danny finds a sliver of silver on the wall from one of Melvin's cuff links, which backs up Chandra's story that she kicked him into the wall, and not off the balcony.
Flack finds a history of checks written by Moran to one Blanca Vasquez. Mac and Stella pay Blanca a visit, and she says Hector left her a message telling her to tell his friends that he went down to Atlanta to stay with some cousins if they asked. Mac realizes Hector must have failed the gang initiation, meaning he wasn't the shooter in the wine store. The gang is after him now, though. Mac and Stella listen to the message and based on the background sounds are able to track the boy to a warehouse in Brooklyn, where they corner him and bring him in.

Back at the station, Mac confronts Hector with the evidence and asks for his account. Hector claims he doesn't trust cops but also says that he didn't shoot the wine store owner. He claims Perez was the shooter--Perez tried to get Hector to do it, but when he didn't, Perez did it himself. After the gang members fled, Hector ran in a different direction. When D.A. McShane catches wind of Hector's story, he tells Mac he wants Hector arrested, but Mac reminds him the evidence was compromised and suggests their best bet is getting Hector to turn on the gang.

Hawkes tells Danny he's certain that Heckman wasn't poisoned, but says he did find barely -digested chocolate in his stomach, suggesting he ate it just before his death. Danny and Aiden go back to the Heckmans' balcony, and Danny notices a discarded candy wrapper a floor below. Danny spots a gargoyle just in reach if one stands on the ledge of the balcony. Danny steps up and finds a stash of chocolate. The CSIs put it together: Melvin fell reaching for the chocolate.

Mac and Flack arrest Perez and confiscate a handgun and his jacket. Mac and Stella find glass shards in his jacket from a broken bottle of wine that one of the bullets went through. The CSIs find spatter from white wine on his jacket, confirming that Perez was indeed the shooter. Mac tells Flack that Hector was given a deal and intends to go pick up Moran, but Flack asks if he can do it instead. He goes to the station, where he tells his mentor he's going to be forced into retirement, but he'll still get his pension. Rather than handcuffing him, Flack and Moran walk out of the station as if they were going for a cigarette break. Mac looks on from across the street.