CSI: Miami
Season 2 -
Episode 19 - Deadline
Story by Sunil Nayar
Teleplay by Ildy Modrovich & Laurence Walsh
Directed by Deran Sarafian
Hotshot reporter Josh Dalton is visiting an abandon building in the
Golden Triangle district of Miami, a haven for drug dealers. Josh is
accompanying Mike Griffith, an aide to a local councilman. Josh seems
nervous but Mike assures them he has made drug buys plenty of times
before. Moments later, a nearby cop hears shots ring out.
Later, Horatio and the CSI are processing the crime scene in the
abandoned building. Mike Griffith is dead but Josh is unharmed. Horatio
recognizes Josh’s name from a negative piece he wrote on the CSIs a
couple of years earlier. Josh’s pen cap is found in the pool of blood
but he assures Horatio that it was dropped after the shooting.
Calleigh and Speedle are examining bullet holes in a door in the
abandoned building. It seems Mike was shot blindly through the door with
a full automatic pistol. Just inside the apartment, Speedle finds the
murder weapon. Delko arrives and the three CSIs begin looking for the
killer’s escape route. A window that had recently been painted shut
shows signs that it was forced open. Delko finds fingerprints on the
outside of the window from Bobby Jeter, a low level drug dealer with a
long record.
Meanwhile, Horatio doesn’t trust the story being told by reporter Josh
Dalton. He claims he was doing a story on drug activity in the area and
that Mike was a source. When Horatio sees the spread of bullet holes in
the door, he realizes that the bullets should have hit Josh as well.
When confronted, Josh admits that he heard the gun being cocked and dove
behind Mike before the bullets flew. Horatio takes Josh’s jacket to run
some tests.
An empty tin of mints is found among Mike Griffith’s effects, and a test
of the residue inside shows the tin once contained Oxycontin (aka
Hillbilly Heroin). Empty plastic bags found in the apartment also test
positive for the drug, but Mike’s bloodwork is clean of all narcotics.
On a hunch, Horatio confronts Mike’s councilman boss Nathaniel Putnam.
Putnam admits that he is an addict and that he regularly sent Mike to
the Golden Triangle to buy him Oxycontin.
Horatio goes to see Josh at work with a warrant to collect his notebooks
on the Golden Triangle story. Editor Jim Rennert tries to support Josh
but eventually allows Horatio to
leave with the coded notebooks. Code expert Cynthia Wells tells Horatio
that the stories in the notebook are mostly about a Cuban extremist
group called “Las Sombras” and that the person who wrote the notes was
left handed. Horatio knows that Josh wrote with his right hand.
Delko interviews Bobby Jeter, but the drug dealer denies that he had
anything to do with a murder. Delko performs a gunshot residue test on
Jeter but the results are negative. Later, he realizes the plastic bags
found at the crime scene could be used as gloves. One bag tests positive
for gunshot residue on the outside and has Jeter’s prints on the inside.
When confronted with the new evidence, Jeter confesses to shooting Mike
Griffith. He tells Speedle and Delko that he thought Josh was a cop so
he opened fire. Meanwhile, Horatio discovers that senior reporter Amy
James has written several stories on Las Sombras and that her desk is
right next to Josh’s. He confronts Josh with the notes and the reporter
claims that he and Amy were sharing notes on the story because
Councilman Putnam was suspected of having connections to Las Sombras.
Horatio needs to hear it from Amy and Josh tries to reach her by cell
phone. Amy answers, but her voice is very weak as she begs for help.
Horatio has Speedle trace the cell phone and they get a location. The
cell phone is in a moving vehicle and Horatio is able to pull it over.
Two Latino men are driving and they quickly cop to the car theft.
Horatio pops the trunk and finds the dead body of Amy James. The two men
swear they only stole the car and Delko backs them up. This kind of car
trunk cannot be popped from inside, the actual trunk key is required.
Horatio and Delko search Amy’s apartment and find the place torn to
shreds. The thermostat is ripped off the wall, the smoke detector is
missing and an alarm clock is missing pieces. Horatio realizes that Las
Sombras are planning on using these items to build their next bomb as a
warning to Amy. This, along with the fact that Amy was killed with a gun
rather than a knife leads Horatio to believe that Amy was not killed by
members of Las Sambras.
With a bomb about to go off in Miami and a murderer still on the loose,
is there enough evidence for the CSIs to put a stop to both?
|
 |
