CSI: Miami

Season 3 - Episode 1 - Lost Son

Teleplay by Ann Donahue & Elizabeth Devine
Directed by Duane Clark

Cars pack the Miami causeway headed for the Keys.  A couple argues in their sedan on the bridge as a yacht heads straight for one of the bridge’s major supports.  Following a loud crash, the support gives way, sections of the bridge crumble and the car nosedives into the water.    

 While the passengers of the car are rescued from the water, Delko and Speedle have been called in to join Caine on the case, since witnesses said that the boat was aiming for the bridge support, making this a homicide.  Meeting Salas on the yacht, Caine finds one victim – male, bullet wound to the head, shot at close range.  A scuffmark on the side of the boat indicates another person was there, but departed.

 Alexx Woods IDs the victim as Richard Williams, age 51, of Bal Harbour, a wealthy suburb.  Caine and Salas question Williams’ much-younger wife, Tawny, who tells them her husband had taken $3 million in jewels to answer a ransom demand for their son, Joey, who was kidnapped from his martial arts class.  Caine and Salas question the boy’s martial arts teacher who, initially, makes up a story about who Joey had left with.  After Caine catches him in a lie, the teacher, Ken Thompson, produces an envelope with $1,000 in it, saying that the driver of the car gave this to him to look the other way.  He then gives an accurate description of the car in which Joey was kidnapped.

 From a specific type of carp found in a gym bag on the yacht, Delko and Speedle are able to narrow their search for spots in Dade County where that type of carp had been recently released into the canals.  Their search leads them to the kidnap getaway car, a submerged Chevy Malibu. They bring it up; the trunk interior shows signs of a struggle.  Muddy footprints nearby show that the boy tried to run.  He’s still alive.

 Back at the yacht, Delko discovers the $3 million in jewelry on the floor of the intercoastal, but it turns out to be high-quality fakes.  Also, Williams’ wife turns out not to be Joey’s birth mother.  Caine (with Speedle) re-questions Tawny Williams, this time implying that she might be complicit in Joey’s abduction, perhaps to collect twice on the insurance.  She firmly denies this, and also denies having fake jewelry.  Caine asks if she ever has the jewels cleaned and she says that she sometimes does after events, at McCauley Jewelers.

 Caine and Speedle check out McCauley Jewelers, but before they can ask too many questions, bullets begin flying from the back room.  Caine and Speedle exchange fire, but Tim’s gun jams and he is hit squarely in the chest.  Caine calls for backup and cradles Speedle as his life ebbs away.  Alexx arrives and takes Tim from Horatio in a touching and tender moment.

Furious with grief, Caine questions the jeweler, who maintains that he knows nothing of the kidnapping, only that he is a simple thief who stole his client’s jewels and replaced them with fakes.  An investigation is begun within the department on the shootout and why Speedle’s gun did not fire.  Calleigh is assigned the investigation and discovers what she feared – Tim’s gun was filthy, which was why it didn’t fire properly.

 A partial print Delko had pulled from the yacht finally gets matched, to an ex-con named Pete Keller, whose known associate is none other than the victim’s widow, Tawny Williams.  In fact, the pair were arrested in the past for fraud and theft for ripping off lonely old men.  Caine dangles Keller in front of Tawny as bait and she readily confesses to her past, but swears that it was just that – her past.  Caine believes her, and believes that she is a changed woman.

 A longshot – help from the Questioned Documents Lab – turns out to be the missing link to the case.  The envelope Ken Thompson turned in that held the $1,000 “bribe” he received from the “kidnapper” had indentations on it indicating it was “for karate lessons,” therefore it couldn’t have been hush money.  He is the kidnapper after all.  A search of Thompsons’ studio reveals that he and Joey were there but are gone; however, trace evidence leads the CSIs to Shark’s Bay, Everglades.

 Caine finds Thompson, but, refusing to give himself up, Thompson turns and heads into the water, where a bloody and watery end awaits him.  Thompson is no longer a threat, but now Horatio must find and rescue the six year-old boy who is lost in the Everglades, then return to Miami and join his colleagues as they lay one of their own to rest.