CSI: NY s01e11 Episode Script

Engineer see anything? Oh, they're busy.
Find an I.
D.
? No wallet, no watch, no keys.
Well, we've got a young man, if his blood-alcohol level is elevated, he fits the profile for a third-rail exit.
He may fit the profile, but it doesn't match the M.
O.
Third-rail electrocutions tend to be foot-to-foot.
Someone steps on the rail, and the current travels up one leg and down the other, going to only one place: ground.
Yeah, but this one is hand-to-foot.
No evidence of a struggle or anyone else being down here.
Why would a kid cross the tracks? To get to the other side? One way or another.
Have you have I.
D.
'd him yet? Not officially.
So I've been calling him Slick.
Watch.
Skin's covered with a hydrophobic substance.
You get a sample? Already sent to trace.
Lots of antemortem scrapes and bruises.
Couple of healed fractures.
Cause of death? Ventricular fibrillation.
His respiratory muscles suffered titanic contractions.
Titanic contractions are associated with the locking-on phenomenon in alternating-current electrocutions.
That doesn't make sense.
New York City subways run on direct current.
And DC has the opposite affect on muscle tissue as AC.
It causes single-muscle contractions that throw a victim away from the power source.
Not to mention the fact that victims of direct-current electrocutions display visible burns at the entry and exit sites.
But Slick's burns lack hemorrhaging.
That means these are postmortem burns.
Slick was dead before he hit the subway tracks.
So we're looking at an electrocution to cover an electrocution.
You like what you see, Messer? Kylie.
I'm full-duty again, Danny, so it's Detective Macca.
How's it feel? Brand-new.
Of course, I'm setting off metal detectors now.
Well, you got shot.
It's a small price to pay.
It's good to have you back.
Thanks.
Where are we? Vic's Leo Whitefield, art dealer.
No priors, nothing funky going on with his business.
We did a walk-through, uh, no signs of robbery.
I can see why.
See our guy over there? Who, Mr.
Sweater Vest? His name's Ron Lathem-- he owns the bookstore across the street.
About an hour ago he saw a black car double-parked out front.
Now the front door to the galle is wide open.
He comes inside, finds this.
Leo Whitefield, gallery owner.
High-velocity blood spatter.
Powder burns.
Means he was shot at close range.
Dropped gun.
Obvious the killer wasn't worried about us finding it.
That's because it was wiped down.
Most likely with something red.
So prints are out? No sweat.
We got databases for bullets, too.
Ah.
GSW is a through and through.
Check this out.
It looks like part of an insurance document.
"This is to certify that "Inhumanity" by Jacques De Souis owned by Charles Dowright of was destroyed by fire on the sixth of October, 1814.
" Reason Street.
Do you know where that is? No.
But I know where this is going.
Oh You smell that, Flack? The guy stinks.
I thought the cold was supposed to cover up the smell.
It's not him, it's his clothes.
Get an I.
D.
yet? Yeah Bill Lemachia.
According to some of those guys, he was filling in for a worker who was let go for drinking on the job.
I'll find out who that was.
Anybody see anything? When does anybody ever see anything? olive oil.
Don't ask me how it got there.
What are you running? A piece of stone-- found it in his pocket,it looks like a finger from a statue-- a couple of bucks,and a a note.
"Gap noon.
" There's about a thousand Gap stores in that city.
Hm.
No match on the prints.
Hey.
Looks like our vic retrofitted his water patch with a digital camera.
I'm gonna take it to A.
V.
, see if we can find out what he was filming.
Slick was electrocuted, and it wasn't just an outlet shock.
He couldn't let go of whatever he was holding.
Which means he absorbed a lot of juice.
Could've caused an outage somewhere.
If it was summer, there'd be a lot more possibilities but in winter? How many transformers blow in January? Yeah.
Hey, good news-- I've got a case-to-case hit in IBIS.
The gun was used before.
Homicide two years ago.
Suspect's name is Paul Gionetti.
He's mobbed up.
Captain of the Pastelli family.
That's the second time that name's come up today.
I went through the vic's receipt books, and business was slow, real slow.
Until Paul Gionetti decided to plunk fifty thou cash to buy Inhumanity.
Wasn't that the painting the insurance document said was destroyed? Yep.
So if he did buy it, I don't think it was the original.
Leo Whitefield sold a mobster a fake painting.
That's enough to cost him his life.
You know how long I searched for an art dealer who understood the aesthetic of my soul? I'd finally found him.
Leo Whitefield.
Mm.
He will be missed.
No, save the kind words.
He was shot with a gun that traces back to you.
Allegedly.
And how that gun ended up in his gallery is totally beyond me.
Look I'm not a rookie, Mr.
Gionetti.
All right.
Leo wanted a gun.
He didn't say why; I didn't ask.
I simply gave him a number to begin his search.
Coincidence has led you back to me.
No, a fake painting has.
And I think he scammed you and you found out.
You were gonna sell me a fake? I don't spend $50,000 on fake paintings.
There's only one Inhumanity, and Leo promised me he'd get it.
He had to.
It's place on my wall has already been reserved.
Yeah, but it's not there.
So where is it? I don't know.
That's why I had Leo.
I needed him.
I didn't kill him.
The body was found in a subway three blocks from here, and this is the only disturbance reported in Brooklyn last night.
transformer lost power.
No signs of any problems with maintenance or illegal tampering.
I think one of these houses has a statue that's missing a finger.
All fingers accounted for.
Who is it? I'm Detective Taylor,NYPD.
I can't open the door for strangers.
Is your mother home? She's dead.
Can I help you? Detective Taylor, NYPD.
Detective Bonasera.
Go inside and tell your brother to put these away.
There was a power outage reported in your neighborhood last night.
Yeah, I was watching the Knick game, and everything just went out.
How long was your power out? Oh, a couple of hours.
Do you recognize him? No.
Sorry.
Anything else I can help you with? If you think of anything else.
Theoretically,he could have been electrocuted someplace else.
And just happened to get dumped in the one neighborhood in Brooklyn that lost its power last night.
Mm-hmm.
One of those everything's- connected moments.
Anything from dental records? Nothing.
All we know about our vic is that he was electrocuted.
And he knew how to beat the traffic.
From his digital camera we found in his backpack.
Taken the day he died.
Is he being chased? Whatever he's doing, he's covering a lot of ground.
Yeah, well,I hope he goes home, because this is our only connection to him.
Grand Army Plaza.
G A P.
The note in his pocket.
It's not a store, it's Prospect Park.
Where he had something at noon.
All right, so we have a where and a when.
And in order to get to a what we need to start with a who.
That's our guy Cops.
Let's go.
Feel like chasing them? Absolutely.
"All the news that's fit to print.
" Do you recognize him? That's Randy Hontz.
What happened to him? He was electrocuted.
How do you know him? We parkour together.
"Parkour"? Free running? Traversing the urban obstacle course we all encounter on a daily basis from a new perspective.
It must come in handy when you're breaking into houses.
That was a one-time mistake.
Breaking in or getting caught? I took a plea for criminal trespassing, did community service.
Case closed.
Well, this case is still open, and you're on a video with Randy the night that he died.
We do that all the time.
We take a camera out, get some shots.
If you're claiming a new route, you better be able to prove it.
As far as we know you're the last one to see Randy alive.
Which is how I left him.
I mean, he said he was going home.
We're going to need that address.
All I can say is, they give you those hard hats for a reason.
Cause of death? Massive cranial fracture.
Whatever he used to kill this guy shattered his skull with one blow.
Ouch.
Any defense wounds? None.
Died instantly.
Okay, so the guy died at a construction site, tools everywhere.
Any distinct markings in the scalp that might help me narrow down what did the damage? Nothing that I saw.
However, I did detect a foul smell emanating from the wound.
Yeah, Flack and I got a whiff of that at the scene.
I thought it was a pair of stanky jeans.
It smells like chemicals of some kind, with a mixture of excrement.
Down here we call that a James Brown.
It's funky.
Yeah.
I'll take it over to trace.
GC Mass spec's got a great sense of smell.
I got info.
Me, too.
I lifted two sets of prints off the plastic sheet that document was in.
One matches the vic, Leo Whitefield And the other? Not Paul Gionetti.
There were another set of hands on that document.
I got a pretty good idea who.
I found Inhumanity.
That's it.
That's it.
A masterpiece.
Jacques De Souis, 1704.
Looks like you have one hell of a stoop sale Moving? Liquidating.
Is that why you're getting rid of your masterpiece? What do you guys want? We want to know how your fingerprints got on a document we found in Leo Whitefield's gallery.
It says your painting, Inhumanity, is a fake.
Makes it worth a lot less liquid now, doesn't it? Leo Whitefield tried to lean on me because some mobster leaned on him.
He calls it business.
I call it extortion.
What is this? The one you got is a reproduction.
What are you talking about? The painting is authentic.
I said no deal.
$50,000 is an insult.
Inhumanity is worth ten times that much at auction.
Mm-hmm.
But if that document goes public, it's worth zero.
We call that motive.
I didn't kill anyone.
Inhumanity is authentic, 100%.
Well, it's 100% mine now.
Sorry.
All I see is an X ray.
But with excellent contrast.
You see how bright the white paint shows up? It means it's lead white paint.
So it was supposedly made in 1704.
Did they use lead white paint then? Yeah, today the white pigments are titanium based.
Then the painting's real? I don't know.
I mean, titanium's the modern choice but sometimes they use lead white paint.
Then this X ray really hasn't proven anything, has it? Not yet.
But that's only step one.
Step two, infrared spectral analysis.
This is going to tell us if any new paint has been added.
Nothing seems to be jumping off the canvas.
Yeah.
The painting hasn't been retouched.
On to step three UV longwave.
Ultraviolet light.
I get it, but what does it do? It's going to tell us if the painting's been cleaned and revarnished recently.
Recently being? Within the last 50 years.
Overall glow, no disturbances.
It hasn't been revarnished.
Step four? Hairline cracks in the paint extend right through the signature.
No interruptions.
Doesn't that mean that the paint that was used in the signature has been there as long as the paint that was used in the image? Mm-hmm, it wasn't added later.
Evidence shows that no one but Jacques De Souis has signed this.
So how do you explain the document that says that it was destroyed in 1814? Easy-- the document's a fake.
Inhumanity is real.
So Mass Spec went crazy with this odor that we found from our head wound vic.
I've got words here longer than DiMaggio's hit streak.
Check it.
Dodecylbenzyne, sulphonic acid, Tetrasodium EDTA, Benzosothyazolonal.
Whoa, Benzosothyazolonal? Do you know what that is? No.
It's all the chemicals found in deodorizers and disinfectants.
Deodorizers? That guy smelled like ass.
What are you thinking? Construction site, deodorizers, feces smell portable bathroom.
Randy Hontz led a pretty simple life.
No pictures, no address book.
Maybe "parkour" is French for leave no trace behind.
A lot of music, all of it burned.
And DVDs.
Should be equally as hot.
Oh, yeah.
Paroni.
Paroni.
This is pricey stuff.
It comes from Paroni.
You know where that is? Yeah, it's a small village outside of Sparti.
Sparta.
Spartans.
Wow, I didn't know you could get this stuff in the U.
S.
No food.
He's got a case of olive oil in the kitchen.
Well he's not putting it on food.
And then some.
It's an original.
This is the fake.
You testing the ink? Yeah.
Maka found the document in Leo's gallery.
Since the painting is real, it must be the fake, and I want to find out who forged it.
That's odd.
The ink's practically all iron.
That'd be consistent with what would be used in 1814.
Well, back then, ink was made of iron or carbon.
Yeah, but ink alone doesn't prove it's real.
It only proves that someone back in 1814 had an interest in the painting.
For whatever reason, wanted it to look like it was destroyed.
You may have a 190-year-old forgery case on your hands.
Maybe.
Maybe not though.
On the flip side, the recipe for ancient ink, simple.
Any hobby shop has the ingredients: it's iron shavings, tannins, gallets, mix and stir-- boom, ink the old-fashioned way.
For all you know that document was made somewhere between 1814 and yesterday.
Yeah, and if I want to prove that the document's been forged, the answer is not in the ink, it's in the paper.
Thank you.
Olive oil from Randy's apartment matches the sample Dr.
Hawkes swabbed from his body.
And that olive oil is exclusively sold in one place in the metropolitan region, Galanis and Son Importers.
You recognize him? No, sorry.
There's our connection.
I sell to a lot of people.
Someone maybe gave it to him as a gift.
Pretty specific gift for his purposes.
This is for your sales records.
Maybe we can help you refresh your memory about when you sold the oil to him.
I'll pull up my customer list.
What did you say his name was? Randy Hontz.
H-O-N-T-Z.
He's not here.
Ever think this is all just a coincidence? There's no coincidence in crime.
We could cross reference, see if there's another way of connecting him with Galanis.
Or we could get a warrant and search the Galanis house.
The missing finger.
After you.
May be evidence.
Oh, God, this is bad! What do you guys do in here? I don't go in public.
Oh! I wouldn't have wanted to be him.
I got the name of the worker who was let go.
And I think I've just found his prints.
Brian Brocko? That's me.
You're a member of the construction union, Local 71, is that correct? Damn right.
I understand you were let go for drinking on the job.
I had a little pick-me-up in my Thermos.
We all do it.
Except you got caught.
Who snitched? I don't know.
But I'd like to find out, though.
Was it Bill Lamackia? That guy's a bum.
He stole my job.
Whoa.
Sounds like motive to me.
We found your prints on the Port-O-Waste at the construction site.
You pushed it over with Bill Lamackia in it, didn't you? Hey! Hey! Someone! Hey! Hey! I was pissed.
So you taught him a lesson then cracked him over the head.
What? Bill Lamackia died from blunt force trauma.
Someone hit him over the head with something, shattered his skull.
What are you saying? I killed him? He died somehow.
So I had the paper carbon-14 tested.
It means they count the number of radioactive particles given off.
C-14 emits about 15 beta radiations per minute per gram.
Okay, stop.
How old? So the paper's real? It means it's as authentic as the painting.
The Delanis house is an unlikely target for a burglary.
Hm, pretty far off the parkour circuit.
So there's only one reason for Randy Hontz to be here.
The lock's broken.
"Julie G.
" Julie Galanis.
Looks like Randy isn't the only one with a taste for olive oil.
We still haven't explained the electrocution.
Or how Randy walks in and out of this house without dad saying something.
He doesn't.
He put his parkour's skills set to good use.
Avoided dad completely.
Julie, open this door now! Almost, but not quite.
Hey, Mac, I've got what looks like burnt skin here.
I think this is where he was electrocuted.
And that was how? Mac? Take a look at this.
Safe way to electrify the pole.
It seems kind of extreme, doesn't it? Put yourself in Bob Galanis' shoes.
Your daughter is seeing a guy who can leap over rooftops and swing from trees.
You're never going to be able to catch him.
What's the only option available? Shock and awe.
I'm heading over to DNA.
Prints come back to the father? Some of them.
And the others? No match.
Still working on it, but it's a mess.
Danny? Hey.
Greenwich Village.
Or at least it used to be.
Named after Thomas Payne's The Age of Reason.
Until the church deemed it as an attack on the Bible.
Payne's popularity fell.
Reason Street becomes Raisin Street.
That's even worse.
Raisin was a .
colloquial term for slave.
And then they renamed it again in 1809, Raisin becomes Barrow Street.
After Thomas Barrow? Yep.
His depiction of the Trinity Church in ruins after the great New York Fire was hailed a Masterpiece.
What's all this got to do with your case? Everything.
The painting and the ink and paper from the document all check out forensically.
And that's why I didn't see what was right in front of me.
See, there was a Reason Street, and there was a great fire, but neither of them happened in 1814.
The great fire happened in 1776, and Reason Street became Barrow in 1809.
The forger got his dates wrong.
But he got the street right.
Barrow Street is where Leo Whitefield's gallery is.
I believe he's our forger.
Why? What's that get him? A good customer.
Paul Gionetti.
His house is full of paintings and if Leo can get him Inhumanity at a low price, none question, he's coming back for repeat business.
It's easy money.
The only problem is The painting is real.
Yeah.
And both Paul and John James knew it.
The document means absolutely nothing to them.
So neither had motive for murder.
Someone else killed your art dealer.
And I need to find the evidence.
I've been running down Ryan Brocko's alibi.
It checks out.
So unless you got something new, he's walking.
Well, I got good news and bad news.
We tested the Puraflush chemicals in the Port-A-Waste.
It matches the chemicals on the victim's jeans.
And the bad news? It doesn't match the chemicals in the victim's head wounds.
The difference is Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium Which is? Breaks down waste.
Got it.
Two crappers, no connection.
Welcome to my world.
I've got a dead guy with traces of disinfectants, deodorizers and fecal matter in a head wound, but no murder weapon and no suspects.
So where do you go from here? A piece of the puzzle that doesn't fit, that Dimethyl Benzyl Ammonium is the odd chemical out.
Why? Holy crap.
Blue ice? At 30,000 feet, the temp's 50 below.
Third in atmospheric air pressure, meaning any liquid seeping from the plane is going to freeze instantly.
So once the plane descends, the temp goes up.
And bomb's away? There's been 27 documented incidents nationally in the past 24 years.
And the construction site in Queens is a stone's throw from LaGuardia, and with 1,200 flights a day circling that area? So a crapsicle killed this guy? Plain and simple.
I dug deeper into Leo's past.
The guy was a straight arrow.
I didn't find anything that would give someone motive to take him out.
All right, that doesn't mean it's not there.
Just may be hiding in plain sight.
You know what? Leo Whitefield pissed someone off, and to find out who, we have to go back in time.
Hiding in plain sight.
Exactly.
Tools of a forger.
It's genius in its simplicity; dissolve iron shings in nitric acid, neutralize with water, add tannins and gallots for color-- done deal.
The History of Ink.
His how-to manual.
Yeah.
Writing utensils.
Aging process.
But how did he beat the dating tests? Only possible way is old paper.
The first page is usually blank.
"Homicide, by Mary Charlton.
The C-14 test has an error margin of plus or minus ten years.
If he used a page from this book, the earliest he could date his document would be 1814.
That's why he screwed up the dates.
The book left him no choice.
Yeah, but there's only one book.
You're losing me here.
Leo's forgery was nearly perfect.
And there's only one blank page in this book.
He's not hitting a home run on the first swing out; he needs to practice.
So there should be evidence of trial and error, other pieces of paper.
How many times do you think it would have taken him? Who knows, but each one came at the cost of a very old book.
And old means rare.
And rare means expensive.
Come on, Mr.
Lathem.
It's Ron.
Okay, Ron, one more time.
Did these books come from your store? Uh, no, I don't think so.
Whoa.
Hold on a second, Ron.
You mind if I take a look at your handkerchief? Why? Because he asked you to.
Ron, that looks an awful lot like gunshot residue.
I don't know how that got there.
I must have touched something.
Yeah, a gun.
Mind if I take a look behind the counter? Uh, no.
The first page is missing from your books.
-Yes, I'm aware of that.
-Yeah, and are you aware that they're also stained with blood? It's Leo's fault.
I loaned him a few books, companion pieces to art on his gallery floor, but he wasn't even showing them.
So if you can just explain to me where they are and where they were supposed to be.
Ron, calm down.
Let me explain.
You ruined my books! Look at this! My books! Leo! What are you doing? Crime of passion? The written word is priceless.
It's a work of art.
You can't reproduce history.
No, but you can die trying.
Let's go.
You never met him, did you? At least not while he was alive.
Julie, open this door! I would have been mad, too.
Julie, open this door now! Freddy Hontz went out the same way he came in.
Only he had no idea what was waiting for him.
All he had to do was complete the circuit.
And there was no way he could let go.
We found jumper cables behind your house with your prints on them.
We also found your prints on the cover to the electric box on the side of your house.
It was an accident.
Oh, your jumper cables accidentally connected themselves from your power box to your flag pole? Him dying.
That was an accident.
What were you thinking? Julie is my daughter.
I was trying to protect her.
Same way you're trying to protect your son, Will? What? We found this in Randy's pocket.
That's your fingerprint.
We found it on the stone.
Your fingerprints were also on these.
We found them over your father's fingerprints, which means you were the last one to touch them.
You did this by yourself, didn't you? How can you tell? Your wagon told me.
We found traces of olive oil in it.
That's when your father found you.
Will, get in here.
I didn't mean it.
It wasn't my father's idea.
We know that.
I mean, the subway.
I told him about that.
You thought you could hide what you'd done.
I should've known.
Subways run on direct current.
Your mistake was made a little earlier than that.
I didn't think the power box had enough current to kill him.
It wouldn't, except for the fact that he was perspiring.
You sweat when you have sex? I just meant to zap him a little.
I thought it'd be cool.
And it was.