CSI: Miami

Season 3 - Episode 5 - Legal

Teleplay by Michael Ostrowski & Ildy Modrovich
Directed by Duane Clark

Miami’s young and sexy crowd is lined up to enter The Lounge at Astra, the place to be in the wee hours of the weekend.  Inside the club, bodies pump on the dance floor, writhing to the music.  In the unisex bathroom, stalls are occupied by couples getting it on.  In the last stall, feverish breathing turns raspy, indicating desperate lust.  A hand slams against the glass door of the stall, then slides down, leaving a smear of crimson blood in its wake.

 Horatio and Alexx surmise the scene and discover the victim has a crushed larynx, which prevented screaming, and a jagged wound, from which she bled to death.  A microchip imbedded in her shoulder contains her ID and credit card information, so that she, like other clubbers, can wear next to nothing while out for the evening.  Before the body is removed, Calleigh and Wolfe remove trace evidence from around the dead girl’s mouth, for testing.  They also discover the murder weapon – the jagged stem of a martini glass – in the stall.

 Ryan Wolfe prints and swabs the patrons, meeting wealthy sugar scion Jack Warner Bradford.  Horatio learns from the microchip that the victim is Jenny Price, 18, and that she was working undercover for Alcoholic Beverage Control to monitor underage drinking at the city’s clubs.  Horatio confronts Chase Shaw, the club’s manager, with this news; Shaw claims he knew nothing about Jenny’s position as an ABC operative who could potentially close him down.  Horatio answer’s a knock on Shaw’s back office door.  From the alley, an SUV heads straight for Horatio, crashing into the doorframe, allowing the driver to flee.  They discover a Hungarian male, Ivan Radu, inside the SUV, dead.

 The DNA lab determines that Ivan fought before he was killed, strangled by an electrical cord.  Tissue found in Ivan’s watchband belongs to Wayne King, convicted felon for grand auto theft.  King admits that he was getting a massage at a place called Twelve Palms when Ivan burst in and attacked him, over the girl doing the massage.  King fought back and the manager came in to drag Ivan out.  End of story, per King.

 Calleigh interviews Bradford, who is 19 and stands to lose his inheritance if he is caught drinking before he turns 21.  He has an alibi -- his buddy Kevin Lewiston was with him on the dance floor while Bradford was inhaling Kevin’s Zintol, an asthma medication that gives a head rush, during the time when the murder was committed.  However, Kevin reneges on the alibi, saying he didn’t see Bradford until after the police arrived.  Calleigh confronts Bradford again, discovers blood on his shirt.

 Horatio and Delko interview Tommy Novac, the owner of Twelve Palms massage.  He can’t produce any of his massage girls for interviews and can’t provide home addresses or phone numbers either.  Also, Delko discovers a condom wrapper in one of the “treatment” rooms.  Horatio makes the connection – Chase Shaw’s alibi during the club murder was a girl named Nina, who happens to also be the masseuse the guys fought over.  Shaw and Novacs are running a prostitution ring through Twelve Palms.

 Wolfe determines the blood on Bradford’s shirt is transfer and not splatter, with traces of cranberry juice that connect clubgoer Venus Robinson to the crime scene.  Venus admits to throwing a cosmopolitan on Jenny in a moment of jealousy over Bradford, but nothing more.

 After interviewing Nina/Sandy, Horatio and Delko know that they must return to Twelve Palms.  There, they discover a hidden room – a dank, prison-like place where the girls were kept against their will.  They also discover an electrical cord – the weapon used to murder Ivan.  Obviously, these girls were not only prostitutes; they were human slaves.  Novac is arrested for pandering, trafficking and murder.  He implies that Shaw is his partner in trafficking the girls.

 Calleigh and Ryan are close to nailing Bradford for the murder of Jenny Price.  Additional trace evidence indicates Zintol on her lips – she was kissed by someone who inhaled Zintol prior to her murder -- further indicating Bradford.  But Bradford had put cocaine on his Zintol inhaler for a greater “high,” yet Jenny’s report didn’t reveal any cocaine on her lips, only Zintol.  The only other person in the club using straight Zintol was…Kevin Lewiston, Bradford’s supposed alibi.  It turns out Kevin had come on to Jenny and she turned him down to protect him – she didn’t want to have to turn him in for underage drinking because she liked him.  Her reward was death.

 Delko and Horatio retrieve 24 Hungarian passports from Chase Shaw’s safe as they put him under arrest.  Returning Nina’s to her and freeing her from her nightmare, they now begin the arduous task of searching for the 23 other missing girls.  With Nina’s help, a warehouse is located and the first step towards freedom is taken by the abused women who came to America looking for a new life.