Episode 315 - Some Buried Bones
A security guard, Jeff Zegers, follows a young woman who has been shoplifting up and down 5th avenue into the dressing room, only to be fatally shot. Danny finds a dental mirror and burned off security tags by the body, and Adam is able to zero in on a woman wearing a reflective coat on surveillance videos. The CSIs follow her trail, interviewing a shop girl named Marissa Richardson, who their mystery thief stole a $25,000 purse from. When the shoplifter strikes again, this time stealing men's items, Stella realizes they're dealing with a professional thief. The CSIs view the newest surveillance footage and see the woman licking her finger to slide a ring onto it. They get the ring from the store--which proves to be a fake switched in by the thief--and get DNA off of it. Though the sample is unknown, the levels of a drug called propanolol in the sample indicate she's part of a medical trial, and through the records, they are able to identify the shoplifter as Ava Brant.
The body of a Chelsea University college student is found beaten and stabbed in a hedge maze in Queens with exam slips with two different names on them. Both boys, Eddie Williams and Thomas Brighton prove to be alive, and Eddie identifies the dead boy as Brian Miller. Both Thomas and Eddie, a pre-med student who is also Brian's roommate, admit that Brian took tests for them. Mac is surprised when Reed Garrett, the son his wife Claire gave up for adoption, comes to him and tells him that he and Ryan were colleagues on the college paper, and that Brian was writing a big expose on a secret society on campus known as the Knights and Shadows. Mac and Flack zero in on Thomas Brighton, a member of the Knights and Shadows. Thomas claims not to know anything about the article, but admits Brian was a member of their group. He underwent their exit ceremony that night when he told the group he wanted out, and though the ceremony involved a beating, Thomas swears they left Brian alive.
After Reed, who was working on a story exposing college kids helping others cheat on their exams, is beaten, Hawkes discovers radioactive material on a scrap of fabric found in one of the bushes near Brian and connects it to med student Eddie. Eddie confesses that he killed Brian after learning about the expose story Reed was writing. Eddie hoped to cash in on the university clause that gives straight As for the semester to any student whose roommate dies. He also beat up Reed, who tells Mac at Brian's funeral that he wonders if he could have prevented Brian's murder.
Danny and Stella track Ava Brant down, but she denies killing Jeff, something Adam backs up when he finds a sophisticated device that reads credit card numbers from a distance in the $25,000 bag. This leads the CSIs back to Marissa Richardson, the shop girl who showed Ava the bag. She conspired with an ex-con named Chris Campbell to swipe credit card information from wealthy customers and defraud them, but Jeff caught on to their scheme and wanted in on it. Chris lured him into the women's dressing room and shot him. Ava is off the hook for murder, but not grand theft. Stella compassionately suggests the women reveal her past abuse at the hands of her husband, to get leniency from the judge, and offers Ava her card if she wants to talk.
Episode 316 - Heart of Glass
The body of a young woman named Diane Langdon is found dead in a bathtub with no evident fatal wounds, though a bullet fragment is found next to her. Mac discovers a credit card on a nearby table with wood shavings on it and realizes the apartment is not Diane's. The name on the lease reveals it to be that of a man D.J. Melvoy, who had a restraining order against Diane. None of the neighbors know Diane, but one tells Danny he heard two soft pops during the evening. He also gives Danny the name of the guy he knows as the tenant of the apartment: Justin McKinney. Justin tells Danny and Angell he's subletting the apartment but denies knowing Diane. Mac joins Stella at the apartment of Emery and Kennedy Gable, where Emery has been found dead amidst bloody glass from his fish tank. Kennedy, who has been living with her brother since they were in a car accident together nine months ago, claims a 5'5 blonde woman attacked them and killed her brother. Stella goes through the blood glass and accidentally cuts herself with a shard. Though she washes the wound thoroughly, she is thrown to learn from Sid that Emery had AIDS. Realizing she could be infected, Stella goes to a clinic to get tested and starts taking anti-virals as a precautionary measure.
Peyton determines that Diane was electrocuted, so Danny takes a trip back to the scene and is surprised to discover the light above the tub is rattling. He investigates and finds the rest of the bullet--as well as a severed electrical wire, which he realizes was responsible for Diane's death when she herself investigated the light fixture. Danny returns to one of the neighbors, Colleen Ballard, who mentioned a headache the night of the murder, and takes her back to the morgue to see Peyton. At Danny's behest, Peyton examines Colleen and find a bullet in her skull. Colleen, who didn't even realize she'd been shot, is taken to the hospital. Danny and Angell arrest Colleen's husband, Russell, who shot at his sleeping wife twice the night Diane died and was shocked to come home and find his wife very much alive.
Stella and Hawkes question Rebecca Monin, a former hit artist Emery produced, and Mia Opal, an alternative medicine specialist who was performing heat cupping on Emery. Both women were angry with Emery and fir the physical description from Kennedy of the killer, but both deny murdering him, and the evidence backs them up. Mac's suspicions turn to Kennedy, who passes a polygraph but still bothers Mac. A trip back to the apartment helps Mac put it together: countless broken mirrors and glass in the apartment and Kennedy's claims that the woman who killed Emery had broken in twice before, coupled with the car accident confirm for him that Emery did indeed kill her brother. He breaks the news to her gently: she has Capgras syndrome, a disassociative disorder that follows a stressful trauma and causes sufferers not to recognize their own reflection. Kennedy saw her reflection, assumed it was an intruder, and when she attacked her reflection she cut her brother, who was trying to stop her. Kennedy proves his point when she attacks the reflective mirror in the interrogation room, shattering it and cutting Stella behind it. Hawkes tries to help Stella, but she refuses to let him touch her and runs out of the room.
Episode 317 - The Ride In
After consoling Stella Bonasera, who is anxiously awaiting the result of an HIV test after cutting herself at a crime scene with bloody glass, Mac heads off to a house in Rockaway Beach, where Noah Hubler has been found dead in a pile of money, the victim of a fatal gunshot wound. The real surprise is in Noah's backyard, where an ark full of both animals and people sits, awaiting the big flood, which according to the faithful is due in on the upcoming Sunday. Dr. Hammerback is surprised to discover a pair of surgical scissors in Noah's body, the remnants of a shoddy gastric bypass procedure. Flack questions Jackie DeMartino, who left several angry messages on Noah's machine, but she claims he conned her out of ten thousand dollars. Sure enough, Flack does some digging around and learns "Noah" is actually Patrick Dent, wanted in several cities on fraud charges. He escaped custody several months prior to his death with the help of a woman dressed in disguise as a police officer. Danny questions another woman Patrick Dent conned, Melodee Costanza, whose boot prints were found at Noah's house. Melodee admits to going to try to get her money back, but Noah claimed to have spent all the money from his cons on the ark and when Melodee spotted the giant boat, she realized he was telling the truth and left in disgust.
Stella and Dr. Hawkes are on the case of a man wearing a cigarette costume found dead, his costume charred from fire, in front of a cigarette company, National Spirit Tobacco. The man was apparently protesting smoking, and the CSIs track down a hookah bar manager he had an altercation with, but the man denies doing anything other than pushing their victim. When Stella goes to the morgue to talk to Sid, she finds him passed out from anaphylactic shock and not breathing and gives him mouth in order to revive him. Stella and Hawkes turn to National Spirit when a cigarette found near their dead man turns out to be a prototype of Spirit Green, a new cigarette with less nicotine not yet on the market. The CSIs question the CEO and are shocked to learn the Jason Williams was actually a National Spirit employee spearheading a unique marketing campaign. A gym bag found at the scene leads the CSIs to Heidi Pesco, a young woman who works at a pretzel stand--in costume. Heidi was attacked two nights ago, and she shows the CSIs bite marks on her neck to prove it. The marks lead Stella and Hawkes to a man dressed in a vampire costume who was trying to get costume greeters to unionize. He got violent with those that didn't support his plan, attacking Heidi Pesco and setting fire to the unfortunate Jason Williams. Stella goes to Hammerback to tell him about her possible HIV status and his potential risk for infection, but he cuts her off and reminds her she saved his life.
When the CSIs learn the money Patrick was found in was counterfeit, they track down the counterfeiter, Jim Eisberg Easman, currently doing time in jail. He tells them he stashed the bills in his car after getting caught, and that the car was sold in a police auction--apparently to one of Patrick's followers. Mac tells Danny that the surgical tool in Patrick's body had given him a rampant infection, causing him to be delusional. The ark wasn't just another scene; Patrick really believed in it. Flack is able to ID Patrick's partner, the bogus detective who helped him escape custody in New Orleans, as none other than Jackie DeMartino. Jackie and Patrick had been partners prior to Patrick's surgery, but after he began to spout scripture, they parted ways. Jackie demanded her cut of their profits, but when she learned the bills were counterfeit she confronted Patrick and shot him. She thought he was lying when he said he didn't know about the bills being fake, but Mac tells her he wasn't.
318 - Sleight out of Hand
Illusionist Luke Blade has arrived in New York to perform his three night show "Death Becomes Me," but during his first trick--surviving being sawed in half--the body of his assistant Vienna Hyatt turns up in a box, having actually been sawed in half. The CSIs follow up on a man she took out a restraining order against, Rupert Lanigan, the manager of magic store Magic Paradise, but he has an alibi for the time of the murder. Mac turns to Luke Blade, but he tells the CSIs he looks at his employees like family. He soon loses another member of his "family" when his stunt engineer Austin Cannon is found burned to death during Luke's four-hour stunt in which he is lit on fire.
Stella is able to trace skin DNA off a magic wand found at the scene of Austin's death to George Clark, who proves to be Luke's biological father. She's able to dig up the sad tale of Luke's past: he was adopted by a woman named Sylvia Walker but she abandoned him to the foster care system at the age of six when he showed signs of fetal alcohol syndrome, including aggressive, adversarial behavior. Realizing his final trick will be to exact revenge on his adoptive mother, Mac, Stella and Flack chase Luke to the warehouse where he stores his magic devices and stop him from drowning Sylvia just in time.
In Montana, Lindsay testifies at the trial of Daniel Cadence, the man who shot her three friends in a diner ten years earlier. Lindsay breaks down on the stand as she testifies that she was in the bathroom when she heard gunshots, but she breaks down and asks for a recess. The next day, she's back on the stand, trying to finish her testimony, when Danny walks in the door. Encouraged by his presence, she testifies that she opened the door and spotted Cadence with a shotgun in the restaurant. Cadence is convicted and Danny and Lindsay embrace before heading back to New York.
