CSI: Miami

Season 4 - Episode 23 - Open Water

Written by Idly Modrovich & Marc Dube
Directed by Scott Lautanen

As the Windermere cruise ship pulls into Miami, a passenger screams that a man has gone overboard.  Mike Harris gasps for breath as circling sharks take one more bite of his flesh.  His wife of three days, Gwen Creighton, whom he met and married on the cruise watches in horror as he is devoured by the sharks.   The team arrives on deck; Horatio and Tripp spot blood and a shoe print by the railing indicating a scuffle took place before Harris went overboard.

The ship’s Captain, Quentin Taylor, wants attention shifted away from the unpleasant incident.  Deck officer Keith Murray confirms Harris was traveling with Gwen and her sixteen year-old daughter Mandy.   Calleigh discovers Harris’ in-cabin safe was robbed of $70,000.  She also finds a glass with a trace of Diazepam in it, confirming Harris was drugged.  Murray tells Wolfe he tried to help a drunk and belligerent Harris back to his room, to no avail.  Gwen confesses she had a drink with ship’s magician Barry Judd, and assumes he tricked her out of the safe’s key.

 Delko brings up the shark that Taylor shot.   Horatio finds Marisol pacing the floor; she informs him that FBI agent Wynn brought her in for questioning, probing her about Delko and the CSI lab.  Horatio confronts Wynn.  Part of Harris’s leg is recovered from the shark’s stomach, revealing he had been stabbed before he went overboard.

 Wolfe and Delko uncover blood in front of the ships’ infirmary.  Dr. Lana Whitford confirms passenger Rebecca Farraday had symptoms of Bird Flu and was restrained, per Taylor’s request.  Taylor tells Delko he didn’t want to cause a panic with her diagnosis.  Judd confesses to stealing the money from the safe.  Mandy’s DNA is traced to the glass, and she confesses she drugged Harris because she didn’t want to attend the ship’s father-daughter night with him.  She’d been through this before – this was her mother’s fifth marriage – and past stepfathers only used her to get close to her mom.  After she drugged Harris, he discovered Mandy and Murray making out on deck.  They argued, and she let out all her pent up anger on Harris, stabbing him in the leg and watching him fall overboard.

 Delko searches the ship for Rebecca Farraday and finds her body buried in the trash.  Alexx confirms Rebecca was strangled and it’s Taylor’s binocular strap that matches the mark on her neck.  Marisol’s doctor gives her a clean bill of health.