CSI: Crime Scene Investigation s09e13 Episode Script
Deep Fried and Minty Fresh
The call did say 419 at Choozy's Chicken.
Not him.
Him.
Oh,careful,guys.
It's real slippery back here.
Manager Bob Graham, Salt Lake City,Utah.
Had a whopping $42 in his wallet.
Make that $62.
Who found him? Well,a patrol car went by and saw the broken window around 12:15 A.
M.
Place closes at 11:00 P.
M.
, so a call went out to the night manager, Kiwi Long.
Floor's covered in oil.
Probably from the fryer.
It does look a bit low.
And it's still on.
Looks like somebody interrupted closing time.
I have a backpack here.
Vic has multiple lacerations, contusions and fractures.
All confined to his face and skull.
Razor's still wet.
A little personal hygiene at the dish sink? Yum.
A pair of jeans.
Men's.
Too small to be the victim's.
This stuff's got to be an employee's.
Somebody's using this place as a motel.
Maybe Big Bob caught them checking in and things went very wrong.
If Backpack Dude had a key,then why use the mascot as a battering ram? I'm Choozy Chicken, the chicken of choice, but you can just call me delicious! Maybehecan tell us.
proudly presents sync:ßÇÈâÈâ Episode13 Deep Fried & Minty Fresh Registers are empty.
Robbery? Not sure.
u know,back in high school, I used to work at a fast food place.
We would put the cash in a drop safe and leave the registers open to show that there wasn't anything to steal.
I'm gonna go check the manager's office.
You find something,Ray? - Will you kill the overhead fluorescents,please? - Yeah.
Drag marks.
Starting from the fryer leading to the back door, diminishing as they go.
Possible second victim? Possibly.
And the blood tell you anything special? Tails on the blood drops establish directionality.
But these tails indicate that the blood is going into the kitchen.
Drag marks lead outside.
Oil out, blood in.
Good observation.
Nick.
Can't be full of oil if it's full of body.
Nothing.
This drum doesn't belong to Choozy's Chicken.
It says,"Mr.
Hu's Mandarin Kitchen".
What,do you eat a lot of Chinese or something? I wrote a journal article about dengue fever.
Most of the research was in Mandarin.
Oh,well, that's good.
Then,you and Mr.
Hu will have a lot to discuss.
My Mandarin's a little a little rusty.
Skid marks.
Somebody was in a hurry.
Scuff marks on the pole.
I have something.
Mirror.
Looks like transfer.
Looks like the killer and whoever he was dragging made a not-so-clean getaway.
I'm Kiwi Long,manager on call.
Captain Jim Brass.
Mister-- Captain Brass,I don't know why the alarm didn't go off.
I - I was supposed to close last night, but I've been having some trouble with my son's babysitter.
Bob said that he was going to cover for me, and he's a regional manager, so I figured the place was in good hands.
Oh,my God,that could have been me last night.
Who else,uh, closed up last night? Elizabeth Martin.
She's one of my best employees-- really responsible.
I'm going to need to get in touch with her.
I already called her.
It went to voicemail.
Something must be wrong.
She always takes my call.
Okay,uh,who else has the combination to the drop safe? Only me and Bob.
It's the day I got my promotion, the day my son was born, and the day we got our cat Zoey-Omega.
So Okay,I-I'm gonna need all your surveillance.
Oh,you have to call corporate.
It goes straight to them.
Some clips ended up on YouTube that were, um,unflattering to the franchise.
Not on my watch,but,um, ever since, all the surveillance cameras are wired to a digital feed in the manager's office.
I'm gonna need contact information for all your employees, both former and current.
Okay? Oh,are you going to be contacting Bob's next of kin, or should I? Because I don't know who they are.
The husband's blood alcohol level is through the roof.
The wife's dead in the bedroom.
Mailman tried to deliver this when he found them.
******* Nice house to lose.
Mr.
Tucker's a mortgage broker.
His wife's a real estate agent, so they probably got first pick.
There's no sign of forced entry, but the place is a sty.
Yeah,looks like he's been living on the couch.
Thready pulse.
BP's 90 over 60.
He's wasted.
- He's gonna need a stomach pump.
- I'm good.
I'm good.
Rigor's begun to set.
And her liver temp is 93 degrees, which means she's been dead three to five hours.
You want to bet that that's about the time the husband started drinking? Okay,I'm on my way to the hospital to get his statement.
I'll get back to you.
Looks like some kind of a struggle.
Yeah.
But it wasn't a fair fight.
She was handcuffed.
Which under the right circumstances can be fun.
You got a C.
O.
D.
there,Dave? Undetermined.
Catherine, I apologize for the overshare.
Thank you for the overshare.
Whoa,you have your hands full.
Uh,yeah.
Just put your stuff down over there.
Thanks.
I'm,uh,I'm still trying to get organized.
Trying to figure out when's a good time to eat lunch.
Lunch-- which,I just turned into a biohazard.
Your vic had quite a night.
Ante-mortem, fractured cheek bones, broken nose.
And I have some sort of a circular trauma to the cerebellum.
I think he might have gotten whacked in the head with a "wet floor" sign.
No! So much for safety in the workplace.
This is your C.
O.
D.
High-speed impact to the base of the skull, at the atlanto-occipital junction, dislodged the C-1 vertebrae, severing the spinal cord.
Hit,fall,kick.
Who knows? But death swift and certain.
Stokes.
Really.
Thanks.
We'll pay him a visit.
Mandy got a hit off of the side-view mirror.
He's a former Choozy's Chicken employee who's already in the system for assaulting dear old Bob here.
Let's go check him out.
- Okay.
- Thanks,Doc.
Uh,you can just leave it.
Come back later for it.
Thank you.
Where were you last night,Max? Here.
Studying.
Can anyone confirm that? Sure.
32 other frat brothers.
We were all here.
Studying.
This side-view mirror is from your truck.
We found it last night at the Choozy's Chicken on Tropicana.
Hey,maybe we should take all 32 brothers downtown,what do you think? - Why not? - Yeah? Okay.
Okay.
Look,um, the damage was an accident.
It was supposed to be a smooth operation.
You know? Tie him up,throw him the truck, bring him back here.
But he fell,and he was too heavy to lift.
And I was working with a new crew.
So,I guess I miscalculated.
I talked to my dad, he said he'd pay.
You can't buy your way out of this one.
You've already assaulted him once.
Were you trying to finish what you started? What the hell? How does it feel to be my chicken bitch? - Oh,where you going? - Come on,fatty! You embarrassed me.
Forgot friendliness.
And service.
That's why people choose Choozy's.
No,no,I was there last night, but I didn't run into Bob.
I didn't see anybody.
The place was closed.
Come on,Max.
Your record kind of speaks for itself here,man.
Look,that guy was an asshat.
That assault charge is bogus.
Ask anybody who was there.
The dude went berserk on me-- it was self-defense.
Is that what got you fired? Oh,no,I wasn't fired.
I just quit.
I only took the job for recon.
Recon? Choozy's Chicken was the only one I didn't have.
Good-looking couple.
You could blind yourself on these incisors.
Ting! Looks like we have a runner.
Didn't know that wine had electrolytes.
They say it's good for your heart.
Yeah,a lot of good it did her.
Now we know how they got those whites so pearly.
Home from a run.
More than halfway through an afternoon cocktail.
They haven't been getting along, he's drunk, - and he won't take no for an answer.
- No! Romantic.
I do like the extra money working at Choozy's gives me, but mainly,you got to keep busy when you're my age.
Sure.
Sure you do.
Can I just get you to keep your fingers straight? Dude,I can't lose this job or my dad's gonna take my car away.
Well,if you didn't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about.
Well,Jackson's always doing something wrong.
I can't believe this is all over Bob.
Probably choked stuffing Choozy's down his pie hole.
Jabrone.
You just didn't like him 'cause he wouldn't let you throw ice cubes in the fryer.
It's the best thing about the job,Marge.
Okay, has anybody seen Elizabeth Martin or Gary Comstock? No,I haven't seen either of them.
"Ooh,Gary.
Gary,could you give me a ride home?" Dude,shut up,okay? He's just a nice guy.
Yeah,for a homeless junkie.
Look who's talking.
You're,like,one spliff away from rehab, moron.
Thousands in the safe.
A stack of loose cash, and only $200 missing? That's not much of a robbery.
Well,it could be.
Elizabeth Martin was closing up with Big Bob last night.
I ran down her address from her license.
I mean,it's Ann Elizabeth Martin.
She's a Seven Hills desperate housewife with 2.
5 kids and a Nordic silver SUV and a recurring victim of identity theft.
Little lie,big lie? Could be an illegal.
Someone with priors.
Maybe Bob caught her with her hand in the cookie jar.
- Excuse me, Captain Brass.
- Wendy.
Um,we just finished getting the fingerprints and DNA from all the Choozy's Chicken employees, but there were two no-shows: Elizabeth Martin and Gary Comstock.
Now,I actually got a CODIS hit from one of them 'cause the epithelials from the razor came back to Gary.
In the system for felony drug charges? Last-known address was a rehab center? I called it,but they said they hadn't seen him in six weeks.
Yeah,that's because he's living out of a backpack at Choozy's.
Well,easy to do when you have a friend with a key to the back door.
So,Gary's on crack time.
He comes back there to crash.
Only Bob's still there, catches him in the act, and all hell breaks loose.
What are you doing here,Gary? Well,where's Elizabeth? Probably in an oil drum somewhere.
No honor among thieves.
Okay,but wouldn't a drug addict grab up all the loose cash? Anything come back on the SAE kit? Negative.
No sign of sexual activity, forced or consensual.
So he cuffed her to the bedpost in her underwear, but they didn't have sex.
Excuse me.
I just wanted to get my kit.
How's business with Choozy's Chicken? A little confusing.
How's your case going? A bit confusing.
You,uh,want to stick around? Yes,I would.
What do we have,Doctor? - Did this woman have a highly stressful job? - Why? Gastric ulcer.
Pretty advanced.
- Thanks.
- Sure.
Here.
Death by Smurf? - Have you ever seen anything like this? - Nope.
Minty.
Fresh.
Shouldn't that be in an evidence bag? That's not the one from Choozy's Chicken.
I took that out of our bathroom.
But first I'm going to give you the bad news.
That bloody handprint on the countertop that was all smudgy? I got a useable index fingerprint off of that, but it's not a match to anyone,including Gary.
Measures about ten inches from the tip of the middle finger to the wrist, which is quite large for a guy and it's huge for a woman.
So we're looking for a guy whodoesn'twork at Choozy's? - Right.
- Damn.
Okay.
Then I got a lot of incidental prints on the sign, all of which were eliminated to the employees.
However,there was a set of prints that got my attention.
Eight fingertips on one side of the sign, two thumbprints on the other.
- That is an attacking grip.
- Right.
And I found a matching fingerprint for that on Elizabeth Martin's register receipt.
But I can't say for sure it's hers.
So I need to see Elizabeth.
Or,um,one of her fingers.
You're sick,Mandy.
So it says here that that blood drop that I collected from the manager's office is menstrual blood.
It's weird,right? And weirder still, it's not even Kiwi's.
According to this,it's not any of the female employees.
Well,I don't have an exemplar for Elizabeth Martin, so we can't exclude her.
Pants off in the manager's office during that time of the month? Assault? No blood smears, no semen,no torn clothing.
It didn't look like a rape scene.
- Maybe it was consensual.
- With Bob? - Or Gary.
- Or both.
Love triangles can be deadly.
Don't I know it.
That was well said.
The owner of the restaurant is upset because his drums keep getting stolen, and he's not getting his energy rebate.
I didn't know restaurants got rebates for recycling.
That's why he has security cameras pointing straight at his drums.
Well,lucky for us, we have Mr.
Hu's footage.
Now,this is just after midnight, same night your guy was killed at Choozy's.
Sweet ride,huh? Chevy Corvair.
Take one, leave an empty.
At least our barrel bandits recycle.
- Can you get a read off the license plate? - Yeah.
This is Timothy Rand's vehicle.
You know, I missed the whole hippie thing.
I was too busy in Southeast Asia keeping my head down and my feet dry.
I'm surprised you didn't drop a little acid or smoke a little T.
Well,things did get a little wild.
Namast¨¦.
I'm Silver.
Police.
I'm Brass.
And this is Ray Langston from the Crime Lab.
Is Timothy around? Oh,yeah,he's in his workshop.
Here,follow me.
Can you feel that? Feel what? High ratio of positive to negative ions.
Unfriendly air.
But you can't let it bring you down.
Scientifically proven.
The Santa Anas, the Siroccos.
You know what I'm talking about.
Timothy Rand? I know why you're here, but this is not a crime,man.
They put this valuable resource out with the trash! Some restaurants are,you know, pouring it down storm drains, or dumping it in the desert.
If one good thing could come out of all those caged animals hopped up on hormones, who are then slaughtered and then frozen, only to be deep fried and wind up as plaque in our arteries,it is this, biodiesel.
It only cost me 200 bucks to convert my van! You know what I'm saying? One man can Make a difference! Look,this planet is our mother, and we're all her children.
That's right,baby.
Where'd you get the Choozy Chicken barrel? The one on,uh, Tropicana.
I always return them.
I just haven't processed this one yet.
Well,congratulations.
It's a boy.
David,you have the touch of a surgeon.
Thank you.
Looks like there's a blood stain on the boxers.
I'm going to need to get those to DNA.
Will do.
Ante-mortem abrasions on the second and third knuckle.
Could be from busting up Bob's face.
Extensive third degree burns here.
I'm gonna need to,uh,take a look inside his mouth.
Go ahead.
There are full thickness burns on all exposed surfaces of his face.
There's damage to the nares and nasal mucosa.
So his breathing was compromised.
That's your C.
O.
D.
Asphyxia due to inhalation of hot oil.
Prints just confirmed I.
D.
It's Gary Comstock.
Tox panel came back clean.
So he wasn't using anymore.
The man had a second chance at life.
Till he was murdered.
Nope.
Any news on blue goo? The blue goo was toothpaste.
Approximately 12 ounces worth.
Equivalent to two full tubes.
Yeah,we collected a couple of empties in the trash at the house.
I'll compare them.
Is it possible to O.
D.
on toothpaste? Definitely,if it's fluoride toothpaste.
Each tube comes with a warning-- "If swallowed,please contact the Poison Control Center immediately.
" Never had a cavity.
No joke.
How much fluoride would it take kill a person? Depends on the person.
Uh,female victim, 110 pounds.
With a pre-existing stomach ulcer.
Which means it would get into her system faster.
The P.
T.
D.
-- "Probably Toxic Dose"-- is five milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
A regular tube of toothpaste-- you're talking 170 grams .
25 percent of which is fluoride,so She's 50 kilograms.
Yeah.
So she would need 250 milligrams for it to be toxic.
And if there's 425 milligrams in one tube So one tube would do it.
Assuming she absorbed it all and didn't throw it up.
Well,then,for sure,two tubes would get the job done.
She would experience what I like to call a catastrophic symptom train.
Wicked muscle spasms would give way to decreased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, decreased respiration and,eventually,death.
Death by toothpaste.
You know,I got something else.
I found trace amounts of diphenhydramine hydrochloride in her tox panel.
Maybe she had allergies.
Someone slipped it to her.
I analyzed her wine.
It was cheap a California merlot with an antihistamine mickey.
Why? Well,diphenhydramine hydrochloride is both a soporific and an antiemetic.
It makes you sleepy and it keeps you from puking.
Paramedics found this in your pocket.
It's the key to the handcuffs that we took off your wife.
We checked your Pay-Per-View selections.
You've been watching a lot of bondage porn lately.
Strap Daddy.
Silk Cuffs OneandTwo.
What happened to my wife? Scott,there's not enough booze in this town to make you forget murder.
Fluoride poisoning? Are you kidding me with this? No.
See I'm thinking you're a mortgage broker.
Your business is in the crapper.
The bank is trying to foreclose on your house and your wife had a very nice insurance policy.
Nice enough for you to pay off all those debts.
You see where I'm going,Scott? Look,I'll admit things weren't that great between Melinda and I.
Okay? She blamed me for losing the house and everything else.
But those handcuffs are from better times.
We hadn't had sex in months.
We,uh,checked your medical records.
You have receding gums.
So what? Who cares about my gums? Well,you use a special, high fluoride toothpaste.
We found your prints all over these.
Yeah.
Before Melinda became a real estate agent, she was a dental hygienist.
We had boxes of that stuff lying around.
Free samples.
We both used it.
Look,if I had tried to cram toothpaste down Melinda's throat she would have kicked me in the cubes.
Hey,Ray.
Did your "Barrel Boy" wear glasses? Not according to his D.
M.
V.
record.
But Big Bob did.
Halt.
You can't bring food in here.
Not my rules.
I found this in the fryer oil.
Along with two metal screws, which was the giveaway.
Cheap plastic frames and lenses.
These don't look like French fries.
That's because those are bits of Gary.
And what were these? Once upon a time, those were $180.
How do we know that? All right,what am I looking at here? You are looking at a plastic security strip.
It's embedded in all U.
S.
bank notes.
Supposedly to prevent counterfeiting.
Although I've heard that they can be read by satellites, so the "Man" knows how much money's in your pocket.
And we still can't find Bin Laden.
Nine plastic strips.
Nine twenties-- $180.
Plus the 20 we found in the dead manager's pocket.
So all the missing money from Choozy's Chicken is accounted for.
Which means there was no robbery.
We've got evidence that isn't telling us the whole story.
So let's walk through this again.
Shall we? Bob was on the floor here.
There were oil drag marks leading from the kitchen to the Dumpster.
And we now know that Gary was dragged outside and put into an oil drum.
There was also a blood trail leading in from the Dumpster as well as blood stains on Gary's boxer shorts.
Now,DNA confirms that both samples were "Dead Bob's" blood.
Bob bled on Gary dragging him out, and then bled on the ground when he walked back in.
But did Bob kill Gary? Or was there another assailant? All right.
I'll be Gary.
You be Big Dead Bob.
- Seriously.
- Yeah.
Seriously.
Okay.
- We struggle.
- We struggle.
You shove my face in the oil.
That could explain how Bob's glasses ended up in the fryer.
As well as the missing $200 that could've slipped out of his shirt pocket.
Let's do it again.
Look at your left hand.
You're using it as leverage.
If Bob pushed Gary into the fryer, the handprint we collected would be Bob's.
But it's not.
Well,the evidence can't be wrong but we could be.
What you doing? I need to see for myself the volume of 340 grams of toothpaste.
You know,unencumbered by a tube it is an awful lot.
Join in.
I used to do this as a kid.
Now we get paid for doing it.
Even with an anti-emetic, how would you force this much toothpaste down someone's throat? Excuse me for interrupting arts and crafts, Ah,it's an experiment.
Well,maybe for you.
The toothpaste that Mrs.
Tucker ingested contained a bleaching agent.
The tubes you collected didn't.
There were two empty tubes of toothpaste in their bedroom, but it's not the toothpaste that killed her.
Arts and crafts are over.
Gotta go back to the house.
Their life in garbage.
And no toothpaste.
Nothing on the ground or in the planter.
Shoe rubber.
The gate was locked.
Homeowner's about 80.
Once I asked loudly enough, she gave us permission to search without a warrant.
Fluoride toothpaste with bleach.
Hey,Mandy.
Okay,you know what, no more shotgun approach.
You need to start prioritizing your latents.
No,no,I'm only interested in one print,the handprint.
O - kay,but I already put that through the database.
Well,we're having a little disparity between context and the evidence.
What are you asking me? Is it possible the print got distorted? Well,you can only distort prints with pressure or body weight.
Well,we do now think that the surface print was left during a struggle, and Bob Graham was a big boy, so can you run that index finger for me again? - Yeah,okay.
- Thank you.
It's a reversal.
There must have been enough pressure to invert the print.
I'm sorry, I missed it.
Okay.
Right.
Do you see how these appear to be ridges, but there is no sweat glands? Which is because those are furrows.
It's a match.
I'm sorry.
It's okay, you're human.
Stokes.
Hey,Nicky, I got Elizabeth Martin from her canceled payroll checks.
The bank gave me her address.
- So she's alive.
- Oh,yeah.
Did her record kick back any priors? No record.
Immigration got wind of it.
They scooped up her whole family.
She's an illegal working here on a fake I.
D.
She's in Interrogation now.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
All right.
Hello.
- I'm Detective Jim Brass, Las Vegas Police.
- Okay.
Let's start with an easy question.
What's your real name? Rosa Gonzales.
Okay,Rosa Gonzales tell me what happened at Choozy's Chicken the other night.
I didn't mean to kill him.
You wanted to see me? Your drop bag was short.
I checked it twice.
You want me to call the police,huh? I'm gonna have to do a strip search.
He made me take off all my clothes.
Did he assault you? Touch you? He put his hands on me.
No! What the hell is this? What are you doing here,Gary? I'm not the issue here,Bob.
Then what happened? I got dressed.
I could hear them fighting.
I went out into the kitchen.
Stop it! Get out of here! What the hell are you doing, Bob? I ran.
But I swear to the Virgin herself, I was just trying to help Gary.
Hitting him with the sign isn't what killed him.
So I can go home? Miss Gonzales,you see the immigration agent outside with your family.
They tell me that you're in this country illegally.
I grew up here.
I work.
I take care of my family.
I believe you,I do, but it's not my call.
Well,we've exhausted every suspect, and we still don't know who killed Bob.
Well,at this point, it's a locked room mystery.
After all that we've been through, how can you guys eat that? Power of suggestion.
And because I can't help myself.
They're good.
It's 'cause they put crack in the fries.
What if the room is the suspect? According to his insurance records, Bob had twenty-eighty vision.
Without his glasses, he was practically blind.
Elizabeth gave him a pretty good whack to the cerebellum, which can affect equilibrium.
Add those factors to a slippery floor It's a case of blind justice.
So when I'm filling out the paperwork,who do I list on the suspect line? There is no suspect.
It was an accident.
The DNA from inside the latex gloves was You ready for this? - Scott Tucker? - Related by marriage.
Melinda? Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
It was suicide? Yeah.
With a nice,big frame around it.
Otherwise,why not just pop the diphenhydramine? Why spike the wine? Well,maybe she was trying to frame her husband for attempted murder, hoping for a poisoning, not a death.
Doubtful.
I mean,she was a hygienist.
If that were the case, she would've just stopped at one tube.
Henry did say that there was about an hour between ingestion and her death.
Plenty of time to set up the husband.
She goes outside,she climbs the fence, she ditches the evidence in the neighbor's trash, and then cuffs herself to the bed and then waits to dies? What could you possibly have done to make your wife hate you so much? We used to be an amazing team actually.
She'd find the client the house, I'd get them financing.
Everyone was happy.
But I always told her-- don't get too friendly; these are clients, they're not friends.
But she goes to all the parties.
all the barbeques, all the fund-raisers.
So,when the NINJA loans flipped over, and the banks kicked them out of their homes because they couldn't afford to make their payments, well,they called us, screaming like it was our fault, and I blamed her.
If she hadn't gotten all buddy-buddy with them in the first place, they never would have crossed that line.
That's when the marriage went belly-up.
We couldn't look each other in the face after that.
I thought she was weak, and she wanted me to feel bad because I didn't feel worse.
I never thought she'd kill herself,though.
Tried to kill me a couple of times.
Couldn't sell the house, couldn't afford to get a divorce.
I can't believe that bitch set me up.
Figured it's better than nothing till they find you something.
You could put a desk in there.
It's perfect.
I should check with Catherine first.
I already did.
- All right.
Thank you,Doctor.
- You're welcome.
I think I'll be right at home here.
Not him.
Him.
Oh,careful,guys.
It's real slippery back here.
Manager Bob Graham, Salt Lake City,Utah.
Had a whopping $42 in his wallet.
Make that $62.
Who found him? Well,a patrol car went by and saw the broken window around 12:15 A.
M.
Place closes at 11:00 P.
M.
, so a call went out to the night manager, Kiwi Long.
Floor's covered in oil.
Probably from the fryer.
It does look a bit low.
And it's still on.
Looks like somebody interrupted closing time.
I have a backpack here.
Vic has multiple lacerations, contusions and fractures.
All confined to his face and skull.
Razor's still wet.
A little personal hygiene at the dish sink? Yum.
A pair of jeans.
Men's.
Too small to be the victim's.
This stuff's got to be an employee's.
Somebody's using this place as a motel.
Maybe Big Bob caught them checking in and things went very wrong.
If Backpack Dude had a key,then why use the mascot as a battering ram? I'm Choozy Chicken, the chicken of choice, but you can just call me delicious! Maybehecan tell us.
proudly presents sync:ßÇÈâÈâ Episode13 Deep Fried & Minty Fresh Registers are empty.
Robbery? Not sure.
u know,back in high school, I used to work at a fast food place.
We would put the cash in a drop safe and leave the registers open to show that there wasn't anything to steal.
I'm gonna go check the manager's office.
You find something,Ray? - Will you kill the overhead fluorescents,please? - Yeah.
Drag marks.
Starting from the fryer leading to the back door, diminishing as they go.
Possible second victim? Possibly.
And the blood tell you anything special? Tails on the blood drops establish directionality.
But these tails indicate that the blood is going into the kitchen.
Drag marks lead outside.
Oil out, blood in.
Good observation.
Nick.
Can't be full of oil if it's full of body.
Nothing.
This drum doesn't belong to Choozy's Chicken.
It says,"Mr.
Hu's Mandarin Kitchen".
What,do you eat a lot of Chinese or something? I wrote a journal article about dengue fever.
Most of the research was in Mandarin.
Oh,well, that's good.
Then,you and Mr.
Hu will have a lot to discuss.
My Mandarin's a little a little rusty.
Skid marks.
Somebody was in a hurry.
Scuff marks on the pole.
I have something.
Mirror.
Looks like transfer.
Looks like the killer and whoever he was dragging made a not-so-clean getaway.
I'm Kiwi Long,manager on call.
Captain Jim Brass.
Mister-- Captain Brass,I don't know why the alarm didn't go off.
I - I was supposed to close last night, but I've been having some trouble with my son's babysitter.
Bob said that he was going to cover for me, and he's a regional manager, so I figured the place was in good hands.
Oh,my God,that could have been me last night.
Who else,uh, closed up last night? Elizabeth Martin.
She's one of my best employees-- really responsible.
I'm going to need to get in touch with her.
I already called her.
It went to voicemail.
Something must be wrong.
She always takes my call.
Okay,uh,who else has the combination to the drop safe? Only me and Bob.
It's the day I got my promotion, the day my son was born, and the day we got our cat Zoey-Omega.
So Okay,I-I'm gonna need all your surveillance.
Oh,you have to call corporate.
It goes straight to them.
Some clips ended up on YouTube that were, um,unflattering to the franchise.
Not on my watch,but,um, ever since, all the surveillance cameras are wired to a digital feed in the manager's office.
I'm gonna need contact information for all your employees, both former and current.
Okay? Oh,are you going to be contacting Bob's next of kin, or should I? Because I don't know who they are.
The husband's blood alcohol level is through the roof.
The wife's dead in the bedroom.
Mailman tried to deliver this when he found them.
******* Nice house to lose.
Mr.
Tucker's a mortgage broker.
His wife's a real estate agent, so they probably got first pick.
There's no sign of forced entry, but the place is a sty.
Yeah,looks like he's been living on the couch.
Thready pulse.
BP's 90 over 60.
He's wasted.
- He's gonna need a stomach pump.
- I'm good.
I'm good.
Rigor's begun to set.
And her liver temp is 93 degrees, which means she's been dead three to five hours.
You want to bet that that's about the time the husband started drinking? Okay,I'm on my way to the hospital to get his statement.
I'll get back to you.
Looks like some kind of a struggle.
Yeah.
But it wasn't a fair fight.
She was handcuffed.
Which under the right circumstances can be fun.
You got a C.
O.
D.
there,Dave? Undetermined.
Catherine, I apologize for the overshare.
Thank you for the overshare.
Whoa,you have your hands full.
Uh,yeah.
Just put your stuff down over there.
Thanks.
I'm,uh,I'm still trying to get organized.
Trying to figure out when's a good time to eat lunch.
Lunch-- which,I just turned into a biohazard.
Your vic had quite a night.
Ante-mortem, fractured cheek bones, broken nose.
And I have some sort of a circular trauma to the cerebellum.
I think he might have gotten whacked in the head with a "wet floor" sign.
No! So much for safety in the workplace.
This is your C.
O.
D.
High-speed impact to the base of the skull, at the atlanto-occipital junction, dislodged the C-1 vertebrae, severing the spinal cord.
Hit,fall,kick.
Who knows? But death swift and certain.
Stokes.
Really.
Thanks.
We'll pay him a visit.
Mandy got a hit off of the side-view mirror.
He's a former Choozy's Chicken employee who's already in the system for assaulting dear old Bob here.
Let's go check him out.
- Okay.
- Thanks,Doc.
Uh,you can just leave it.
Come back later for it.
Thank you.
Where were you last night,Max? Here.
Studying.
Can anyone confirm that? Sure.
32 other frat brothers.
We were all here.
Studying.
This side-view mirror is from your truck.
We found it last night at the Choozy's Chicken on Tropicana.
Hey,maybe we should take all 32 brothers downtown,what do you think? - Why not? - Yeah? Okay.
Okay.
Look,um, the damage was an accident.
It was supposed to be a smooth operation.
You know? Tie him up,throw him the truck, bring him back here.
But he fell,and he was too heavy to lift.
And I was working with a new crew.
So,I guess I miscalculated.
I talked to my dad, he said he'd pay.
You can't buy your way out of this one.
You've already assaulted him once.
Were you trying to finish what you started? What the hell? How does it feel to be my chicken bitch? - Oh,where you going? - Come on,fatty! You embarrassed me.
Forgot friendliness.
And service.
That's why people choose Choozy's.
No,no,I was there last night, but I didn't run into Bob.
I didn't see anybody.
The place was closed.
Come on,Max.
Your record kind of speaks for itself here,man.
Look,that guy was an asshat.
That assault charge is bogus.
Ask anybody who was there.
The dude went berserk on me-- it was self-defense.
Is that what got you fired? Oh,no,I wasn't fired.
I just quit.
I only took the job for recon.
Recon? Choozy's Chicken was the only one I didn't have.
Good-looking couple.
You could blind yourself on these incisors.
Ting! Looks like we have a runner.
Didn't know that wine had electrolytes.
They say it's good for your heart.
Yeah,a lot of good it did her.
Now we know how they got those whites so pearly.
Home from a run.
More than halfway through an afternoon cocktail.
They haven't been getting along, he's drunk, - and he won't take no for an answer.
- No! Romantic.
I do like the extra money working at Choozy's gives me, but mainly,you got to keep busy when you're my age.
Sure.
Sure you do.
Can I just get you to keep your fingers straight? Dude,I can't lose this job or my dad's gonna take my car away.
Well,if you didn't do anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about.
Well,Jackson's always doing something wrong.
I can't believe this is all over Bob.
Probably choked stuffing Choozy's down his pie hole.
Jabrone.
You just didn't like him 'cause he wouldn't let you throw ice cubes in the fryer.
It's the best thing about the job,Marge.
Okay, has anybody seen Elizabeth Martin or Gary Comstock? No,I haven't seen either of them.
"Ooh,Gary.
Gary,could you give me a ride home?" Dude,shut up,okay? He's just a nice guy.
Yeah,for a homeless junkie.
Look who's talking.
You're,like,one spliff away from rehab, moron.
Thousands in the safe.
A stack of loose cash, and only $200 missing? That's not much of a robbery.
Well,it could be.
Elizabeth Martin was closing up with Big Bob last night.
I ran down her address from her license.
I mean,it's Ann Elizabeth Martin.
She's a Seven Hills desperate housewife with 2.
5 kids and a Nordic silver SUV and a recurring victim of identity theft.
Little lie,big lie? Could be an illegal.
Someone with priors.
Maybe Bob caught her with her hand in the cookie jar.
- Excuse me, Captain Brass.
- Wendy.
Um,we just finished getting the fingerprints and DNA from all the Choozy's Chicken employees, but there were two no-shows: Elizabeth Martin and Gary Comstock.
Now,I actually got a CODIS hit from one of them 'cause the epithelials from the razor came back to Gary.
In the system for felony drug charges? Last-known address was a rehab center? I called it,but they said they hadn't seen him in six weeks.
Yeah,that's because he's living out of a backpack at Choozy's.
Well,easy to do when you have a friend with a key to the back door.
So,Gary's on crack time.
He comes back there to crash.
Only Bob's still there, catches him in the act, and all hell breaks loose.
What are you doing here,Gary? Well,where's Elizabeth? Probably in an oil drum somewhere.
No honor among thieves.
Okay,but wouldn't a drug addict grab up all the loose cash? Anything come back on the SAE kit? Negative.
No sign of sexual activity, forced or consensual.
So he cuffed her to the bedpost in her underwear, but they didn't have sex.
Excuse me.
I just wanted to get my kit.
How's business with Choozy's Chicken? A little confusing.
How's your case going? A bit confusing.
You,uh,want to stick around? Yes,I would.
What do we have,Doctor? - Did this woman have a highly stressful job? - Why? Gastric ulcer.
Pretty advanced.
- Thanks.
- Sure.
Here.
Death by Smurf? - Have you ever seen anything like this? - Nope.
Minty.
Fresh.
Shouldn't that be in an evidence bag? That's not the one from Choozy's Chicken.
I took that out of our bathroom.
But first I'm going to give you the bad news.
That bloody handprint on the countertop that was all smudgy? I got a useable index fingerprint off of that, but it's not a match to anyone,including Gary.
Measures about ten inches from the tip of the middle finger to the wrist, which is quite large for a guy and it's huge for a woman.
So we're looking for a guy whodoesn'twork at Choozy's? - Right.
- Damn.
Okay.
Then I got a lot of incidental prints on the sign, all of which were eliminated to the employees.
However,there was a set of prints that got my attention.
Eight fingertips on one side of the sign, two thumbprints on the other.
- That is an attacking grip.
- Right.
And I found a matching fingerprint for that on Elizabeth Martin's register receipt.
But I can't say for sure it's hers.
So I need to see Elizabeth.
Or,um,one of her fingers.
You're sick,Mandy.
So it says here that that blood drop that I collected from the manager's office is menstrual blood.
It's weird,right? And weirder still, it's not even Kiwi's.
According to this,it's not any of the female employees.
Well,I don't have an exemplar for Elizabeth Martin, so we can't exclude her.
Pants off in the manager's office during that time of the month? Assault? No blood smears, no semen,no torn clothing.
It didn't look like a rape scene.
- Maybe it was consensual.
- With Bob? - Or Gary.
- Or both.
Love triangles can be deadly.
Don't I know it.
That was well said.
The owner of the restaurant is upset because his drums keep getting stolen, and he's not getting his energy rebate.
I didn't know restaurants got rebates for recycling.
That's why he has security cameras pointing straight at his drums.
Well,lucky for us, we have Mr.
Hu's footage.
Now,this is just after midnight, same night your guy was killed at Choozy's.
Sweet ride,huh? Chevy Corvair.
Take one, leave an empty.
At least our barrel bandits recycle.
- Can you get a read off the license plate? - Yeah.
This is Timothy Rand's vehicle.
You know, I missed the whole hippie thing.
I was too busy in Southeast Asia keeping my head down and my feet dry.
I'm surprised you didn't drop a little acid or smoke a little T.
Well,things did get a little wild.
Namast¨¦.
I'm Silver.
Police.
I'm Brass.
And this is Ray Langston from the Crime Lab.
Is Timothy around? Oh,yeah,he's in his workshop.
Here,follow me.
Can you feel that? Feel what? High ratio of positive to negative ions.
Unfriendly air.
But you can't let it bring you down.
Scientifically proven.
The Santa Anas, the Siroccos.
You know what I'm talking about.
Timothy Rand? I know why you're here, but this is not a crime,man.
They put this valuable resource out with the trash! Some restaurants are,you know, pouring it down storm drains, or dumping it in the desert.
If one good thing could come out of all those caged animals hopped up on hormones, who are then slaughtered and then frozen, only to be deep fried and wind up as plaque in our arteries,it is this, biodiesel.
It only cost me 200 bucks to convert my van! You know what I'm saying? One man can Make a difference! Look,this planet is our mother, and we're all her children.
That's right,baby.
Where'd you get the Choozy Chicken barrel? The one on,uh, Tropicana.
I always return them.
I just haven't processed this one yet.
Well,congratulations.
It's a boy.
David,you have the touch of a surgeon.
Thank you.
Looks like there's a blood stain on the boxers.
I'm going to need to get those to DNA.
Will do.
Ante-mortem abrasions on the second and third knuckle.
Could be from busting up Bob's face.
Extensive third degree burns here.
I'm gonna need to,uh,take a look inside his mouth.
Go ahead.
There are full thickness burns on all exposed surfaces of his face.
There's damage to the nares and nasal mucosa.
So his breathing was compromised.
That's your C.
O.
D.
Asphyxia due to inhalation of hot oil.
Prints just confirmed I.
D.
It's Gary Comstock.
Tox panel came back clean.
So he wasn't using anymore.
The man had a second chance at life.
Till he was murdered.
Nope.
Any news on blue goo? The blue goo was toothpaste.
Approximately 12 ounces worth.
Equivalent to two full tubes.
Yeah,we collected a couple of empties in the trash at the house.
I'll compare them.
Is it possible to O.
D.
on toothpaste? Definitely,if it's fluoride toothpaste.
Each tube comes with a warning-- "If swallowed,please contact the Poison Control Center immediately.
" Never had a cavity.
No joke.
How much fluoride would it take kill a person? Depends on the person.
Uh,female victim, 110 pounds.
With a pre-existing stomach ulcer.
Which means it would get into her system faster.
The P.
T.
D.
-- "Probably Toxic Dose"-- is five milligrams per kilogram of body weight.
A regular tube of toothpaste-- you're talking 170 grams .
25 percent of which is fluoride,so She's 50 kilograms.
Yeah.
So she would need 250 milligrams for it to be toxic.
And if there's 425 milligrams in one tube So one tube would do it.
Assuming she absorbed it all and didn't throw it up.
Well,then,for sure,two tubes would get the job done.
She would experience what I like to call a catastrophic symptom train.
Wicked muscle spasms would give way to decreased heart rate, lowered blood pressure, decreased respiration and,eventually,death.
Death by toothpaste.
You know,I got something else.
I found trace amounts of diphenhydramine hydrochloride in her tox panel.
Maybe she had allergies.
Someone slipped it to her.
I analyzed her wine.
It was cheap a California merlot with an antihistamine mickey.
Why? Well,diphenhydramine hydrochloride is both a soporific and an antiemetic.
It makes you sleepy and it keeps you from puking.
Paramedics found this in your pocket.
It's the key to the handcuffs that we took off your wife.
We checked your Pay-Per-View selections.
You've been watching a lot of bondage porn lately.
Strap Daddy.
Silk Cuffs OneandTwo.
What happened to my wife? Scott,there's not enough booze in this town to make you forget murder.
Fluoride poisoning? Are you kidding me with this? No.
See I'm thinking you're a mortgage broker.
Your business is in the crapper.
The bank is trying to foreclose on your house and your wife had a very nice insurance policy.
Nice enough for you to pay off all those debts.
You see where I'm going,Scott? Look,I'll admit things weren't that great between Melinda and I.
Okay? She blamed me for losing the house and everything else.
But those handcuffs are from better times.
We hadn't had sex in months.
We,uh,checked your medical records.
You have receding gums.
So what? Who cares about my gums? Well,you use a special, high fluoride toothpaste.
We found your prints all over these.
Yeah.
Before Melinda became a real estate agent, she was a dental hygienist.
We had boxes of that stuff lying around.
Free samples.
We both used it.
Look,if I had tried to cram toothpaste down Melinda's throat she would have kicked me in the cubes.
Hey,Ray.
Did your "Barrel Boy" wear glasses? Not according to his D.
M.
V.
record.
But Big Bob did.
Halt.
You can't bring food in here.
Not my rules.
I found this in the fryer oil.
Along with two metal screws, which was the giveaway.
Cheap plastic frames and lenses.
These don't look like French fries.
That's because those are bits of Gary.
And what were these? Once upon a time, those were $180.
How do we know that? All right,what am I looking at here? You are looking at a plastic security strip.
It's embedded in all U.
S.
bank notes.
Supposedly to prevent counterfeiting.
Although I've heard that they can be read by satellites, so the "Man" knows how much money's in your pocket.
And we still can't find Bin Laden.
Nine plastic strips.
Nine twenties-- $180.
Plus the 20 we found in the dead manager's pocket.
So all the missing money from Choozy's Chicken is accounted for.
Which means there was no robbery.
We've got evidence that isn't telling us the whole story.
So let's walk through this again.
Shall we? Bob was on the floor here.
There were oil drag marks leading from the kitchen to the Dumpster.
And we now know that Gary was dragged outside and put into an oil drum.
There was also a blood trail leading in from the Dumpster as well as blood stains on Gary's boxer shorts.
Now,DNA confirms that both samples were "Dead Bob's" blood.
Bob bled on Gary dragging him out, and then bled on the ground when he walked back in.
But did Bob kill Gary? Or was there another assailant? All right.
I'll be Gary.
You be Big Dead Bob.
- Seriously.
- Yeah.
Seriously.
Okay.
- We struggle.
- We struggle.
You shove my face in the oil.
That could explain how Bob's glasses ended up in the fryer.
As well as the missing $200 that could've slipped out of his shirt pocket.
Let's do it again.
Look at your left hand.
You're using it as leverage.
If Bob pushed Gary into the fryer, the handprint we collected would be Bob's.
But it's not.
Well,the evidence can't be wrong but we could be.
What you doing? I need to see for myself the volume of 340 grams of toothpaste.
You know,unencumbered by a tube it is an awful lot.
Join in.
I used to do this as a kid.
Now we get paid for doing it.
Even with an anti-emetic, how would you force this much toothpaste down someone's throat? Excuse me for interrupting arts and crafts, Ah,it's an experiment.
Well,maybe for you.
The toothpaste that Mrs.
Tucker ingested contained a bleaching agent.
The tubes you collected didn't.
There were two empty tubes of toothpaste in their bedroom, but it's not the toothpaste that killed her.
Arts and crafts are over.
Gotta go back to the house.
Their life in garbage.
And no toothpaste.
Nothing on the ground or in the planter.
Shoe rubber.
The gate was locked.
Homeowner's about 80.
Once I asked loudly enough, she gave us permission to search without a warrant.
Fluoride toothpaste with bleach.
Hey,Mandy.
Okay,you know what, no more shotgun approach.
You need to start prioritizing your latents.
No,no,I'm only interested in one print,the handprint.
O - kay,but I already put that through the database.
Well,we're having a little disparity between context and the evidence.
What are you asking me? Is it possible the print got distorted? Well,you can only distort prints with pressure or body weight.
Well,we do now think that the surface print was left during a struggle, and Bob Graham was a big boy, so can you run that index finger for me again? - Yeah,okay.
- Thank you.
It's a reversal.
There must have been enough pressure to invert the print.
I'm sorry, I missed it.
Okay.
Right.
Do you see how these appear to be ridges, but there is no sweat glands? Which is because those are furrows.
It's a match.
I'm sorry.
It's okay, you're human.
Stokes.
Hey,Nicky, I got Elizabeth Martin from her canceled payroll checks.
The bank gave me her address.
- So she's alive.
- Oh,yeah.
Did her record kick back any priors? No record.
Immigration got wind of it.
They scooped up her whole family.
She's an illegal working here on a fake I.
D.
She's in Interrogation now.
I'll let you know how it turns out.
All right.
Hello.
- I'm Detective Jim Brass, Las Vegas Police.
- Okay.
Let's start with an easy question.
What's your real name? Rosa Gonzales.
Okay,Rosa Gonzales tell me what happened at Choozy's Chicken the other night.
I didn't mean to kill him.
You wanted to see me? Your drop bag was short.
I checked it twice.
You want me to call the police,huh? I'm gonna have to do a strip search.
He made me take off all my clothes.
Did he assault you? Touch you? He put his hands on me.
No! What the hell is this? What are you doing here,Gary? I'm not the issue here,Bob.
Then what happened? I got dressed.
I could hear them fighting.
I went out into the kitchen.
Stop it! Get out of here! What the hell are you doing, Bob? I ran.
But I swear to the Virgin herself, I was just trying to help Gary.
Hitting him with the sign isn't what killed him.
So I can go home? Miss Gonzales,you see the immigration agent outside with your family.
They tell me that you're in this country illegally.
I grew up here.
I work.
I take care of my family.
I believe you,I do, but it's not my call.
Well,we've exhausted every suspect, and we still don't know who killed Bob.
Well,at this point, it's a locked room mystery.
After all that we've been through, how can you guys eat that? Power of suggestion.
And because I can't help myself.
They're good.
It's 'cause they put crack in the fries.
What if the room is the suspect? According to his insurance records, Bob had twenty-eighty vision.
Without his glasses, he was practically blind.
Elizabeth gave him a pretty good whack to the cerebellum, which can affect equilibrium.
Add those factors to a slippery floor It's a case of blind justice.
So when I'm filling out the paperwork,who do I list on the suspect line? There is no suspect.
It was an accident.
The DNA from inside the latex gloves was You ready for this? - Scott Tucker? - Related by marriage.
Melinda? Wait a minute.
Wait a minute.
It was suicide? Yeah.
With a nice,big frame around it.
Otherwise,why not just pop the diphenhydramine? Why spike the wine? Well,maybe she was trying to frame her husband for attempted murder, hoping for a poisoning, not a death.
Doubtful.
I mean,she was a hygienist.
If that were the case, she would've just stopped at one tube.
Henry did say that there was about an hour between ingestion and her death.
Plenty of time to set up the husband.
She goes outside,she climbs the fence, she ditches the evidence in the neighbor's trash, and then cuffs herself to the bed and then waits to dies? What could you possibly have done to make your wife hate you so much? We used to be an amazing team actually.
She'd find the client the house, I'd get them financing.
Everyone was happy.
But I always told her-- don't get too friendly; these are clients, they're not friends.
But she goes to all the parties.
all the barbeques, all the fund-raisers.
So,when the NINJA loans flipped over, and the banks kicked them out of their homes because they couldn't afford to make their payments, well,they called us, screaming like it was our fault, and I blamed her.
If she hadn't gotten all buddy-buddy with them in the first place, they never would have crossed that line.
That's when the marriage went belly-up.
We couldn't look each other in the face after that.
I thought she was weak, and she wanted me to feel bad because I didn't feel worse.
I never thought she'd kill herself,though.
Tried to kill me a couple of times.
Couldn't sell the house, couldn't afford to get a divorce.
I can't believe that bitch set me up.
Figured it's better than nothing till they find you something.
You could put a desk in there.
It's perfect.
I should check with Catherine first.
I already did.
- All right.
Thank you,Doctor.
- You're welcome.
I think I'll be right at home here.