CSI: Miami

Season 3 - Episode 14 - One Night Stand

Teleplay by Michael Ostrowski & John Haynes
Directed by Greg Yaitanes

At Miami’s Agramonte Hotel, bellman Todd Boyce delivers four suitcases to a room, announcing himself as he enters. The room’s occupant, in the shower, tells him to leave the cases by the bed, which Todd does, but not before helping himself to a couple of twenties from the unattended money clip on the dresser. Opening the suitcase and registering surprise at what he finds, Todd turns to face a gun, held by a dripping wet hand.

Alexx Woods examines Todd’s lifeless body, his face bloodied by a bullet strike to the cheek. Horatio quickly deduces from the claim ticket found in Todd’s pocket that the room’s inhabitant was one of the thirty thousand people who spend the night in Miami each night before boarding cruise ships the next day.

Ryan Wolfe collects evidence, including a used bar of soap from the shower, while Tripp enters, having located one more of the room inhabitant’s suitcases that were never delivered. The room, they discover, was registered to Fulana Perez, Cuban jargon for Jane Doe. The bag contains a giant stack of paper with a lock of dyed red hair, which Horatio assumes is some sort of message. At Questioned Documents, Cynthia Wells identifies the paper as rag, manufactured by Crane, the company in Massachusetts that makes all the material U.S. currency is printed on. Secret Service Agent Peter Elliott has already arrived at CSI to meet with Horatio about the discovered paper, which he informs H. was hijacked earlier in the week.

Back at the Agramonte, Calleigh is approached by Tom Hanford in the lobby, a tourist who claims that his wife is missing and asks for her help. Tripp soon informs her that the woman has been found, clothed in only lingerie, dead in the service elevator. Biological evidence on the body indicates sexual activity. During autopsy, Alexx discovers tissue lodged between Erica Hanford’s teeth, and pink paint under her nails. She also rules the cause of death laryngeal edema leading to cardiovascular collapse – her body reacted to an outside substance.

A fingerprint on the suitcase left behind belongs to Cuban exile Juan Fernandez, who claims that he met a friend at the hotel and while there, helped a guy with his luggage. Caught in his lie by Horatio, Juan admits to hijacking the paper truck but swears that he dropped off the bags at the hotel for delivery to the room of a guy who hired him to do so. Though Peter Elliott wants to interview Fernandez, Horatio convinces him to hold off, saying that he fears for the life of a potential kidnap victim if Fernandez is spooked. Elliott agrees.

Valera informs Calleigh that both the semen found on Erica Hanford’s body and the tissue found between her teeth are from the same person and that it is not the victim’s husband. Tripp and Calleigh interview Tom Hanford, who tells them that he and his wife attended a “Friction Party” the night before, a party for couples where they swap partners and play around with each other – without actually having sex – then return to their own rooms for heightened sex with their own partners. Tripp and Calleigh head to the penthouse where the party took place, and discover Melody and Rick Simms, still moving under the sheets. Melody is literally painted pink, so Calleigh asks for a DNA sample since Erica’s nails had pink paint under them, and also collects empty shot glasses from the oyster bar where Erica had been downing the supposed aphrodisiac appetizers.

Ryan investigates possible modes of exit transportation for the killer with the four suitcases and concludes that he used a pirate cab service with a van, then calls on several until he finds the guy who picked up the fare at the hotel. He obtains an address from the driver and soon, Horatio, Ryan and a team of MDPD uniforms enter a warehouse to discover the heart of a counterfeiting operation, but Horatio immediately detects the sound of a giant liquid bomb suspended from the ceiling about to detonate. Everyone scatters as the bomb descends, detonates and destroys the warehouse.

While searching the warehouse wreckage for evidence, Horatio hears a human moan and discovers a man, Bart Jameson, 39 years old, partially buried but still alive. Green ink found on Bart’s hands IDs him as the printer. Jameson won’t reveal who he was working for, and Horatio tells him that they know that someone near to Jameson was kidnapped in order to force him to counterfeit. Jameson still will not reveal anything, but a photo of he and his 16 year-old daughter in his wallet -- she with red streaks in her hair – tells H. that she must be the kidnap victim. Caine and Wolfe double-time it to the Jameson house, where they find Gary Milbanks holding Kelly Jameson at gunpoint. Never losing his focus for one moment, Horatio slowly advances on the pair from room to room, backing them into a corner and firing a bullet into Milbanks’ head before he can carry out his threat to kill Kelly. Bart Jameson, however, cannot ID the dead man. This is not the guy who is forcing him to print the money, and he is more worried now than ever that they will go after other of his family members. Horatio promises protection.

In the Trace Lab, Calleigh discovers that every single one of the oyster shot glasses have traces of aspirin in them, the substance to which Erica Hanford was highly allergic, something only her husband could have known. The last couple to be interviewed finally show up, Mitch and Halle Lockhart. Unwilling at first, Mitch soon admits to having sex with Erica in the service elevator, where she bit his chest during the fray. Calleigh tells Halle that they found her palm print on the railing of the service elevator and Halle says she took it to the basement with a kid named Billy to get some drugs to “keep the party going.” Halle then admits to Calleigh and Tripp that she and Mitch are actually married, but not to each other. They get together once a year for a week of sex-filled wild abandon.

Horatio’s intense examination of all the bomb fragments and other evidence from the warehouse explosion, including a cigarette filter which he IDs as the bomber’s “signature,” helps him to locate Eddie Michaelson, a federal parolee he brings in for questioning. Before long, Eddie tells all. They agree to cut him a deal, but only if he IDs the guy at the top of the food chain, which he does. After looking through hundreds of photos, the guy Eddie IDs is the very guy Ryan had talked to earlier – the rogue cabbie supposedly hired to transport the suitcases. It was this guy who sent them to the warehouse to be blown to kingdom come by the bomb. Suddenly, Ryan remembers a parking permit that was on the dashboard of the cab, and is off and running.

Calleigh and Tripp interview Billy at the Agramonte, who claims that he took Halle down to the basement to get her aspirin, not drugs. He even shows them the empty containers and the table where she crushed them up, claiming that she had a hard time swallowing them. On the Fingerprint Lab’s computer, Calleigh can’t locate Halle in her home state, nor in any neighboring state. On a hunch, she tries Indianapolis, where Erica Hanford was from, and finds a match. Further investigation reveals the answer to the entire mystery, and Calleigh, flanked by a pair of MDPD officers to aid in the arrest of Halle Webber (her real name) tells the murderer what she has pieced together before Halle can leave on her cruise. Halle and Erica were members of the PTA in their hometown and saw each other at the Friction Party. Halle knew she’d be ruined when Erica told everyone back home how she had cheated on her husband so, knowing of Erica’s aspirin allergy, she called on Billy to supply the substance and when she saw Erica availing herself of the raw oysters, made sure that every single oyster had enough aspirin in it to kill Erica in order to keep her sexy secret safe.

At the Marina, Ryan has located the pirate cab along with a set of Customs seals, so he and Horatio meet at the port, where they search through x-ray images of container contents, hoping to find the counterfeit bills. Finally, they discover the suitcases in a container that wasn’t supposed to be loaded yet and set out after the guy who had it loaded – Barker, the cab driver. The chase is on and Barker is soon at water’s edge when it’s learned that he can’t swim and is apprehended.

Back at CSI, Horatio learns that the print from the soap doesn’t match Barker’s, but he’s not surprised. He brings in Juan Fernandez, charging him with the murder of bellman Todd Boyce. Juan finally gives them the name of his accomplice, a woman who works for the company that dispatches the money trucks.

Horatio finds Agent Elliott leading a handcuffed Bart Jameson away, and intervenes, insisting that he will make life very difficult for Elliott if the agent prosecutes this man who only printed the counterfeit money in order to protect his daughter to save her life. Elliott finally relents, and a grateful Bart Jameson is free to return to his home and family.