CSI: Miami

Season 5 - Episode 4 - If Looks Could Kill

Written by Barry O'Brien & Ildly Modrovich
Directed by Scott Lautanen

Alexx processes a dead body on a dock, confirming Horatio’s suspicion the victim was dead before reaching the water.  Alexx finds a piece of plastic embedded in the victim’s leg.  Calleigh sends the piece to Trace; it belongs to a convertible Mercedes.

Natalia is stunned to see her ex- husband Nick Harvey at the lab.  Fresh out of prison for breaking her arm, he’s applying for a job as a body hauler.

Horatio and Delko trace the Mercedes to Bob Tanner, a tow truck driver who picked up the car that morning.  The car is registered to Ian Caulder at Faces International, a modeling agency.  The victim is identified as Steve McKay, another model.   Caulder tells them he had lent McKay his car after their photo shoot was finished so McKay could visit his girlfriend, Abby Biggs, one of the agency’s owners.  Horatio and Wolfe question Abby, who reluctantly confesses that McKay was the love of her life and asks the CSIs to keep this information from her business partner, Janet Sterling, as the pair have an agreement not to sleep with employees.   A sticky substance found in the Mercedes is a steroid; Abby tells Horatio that McKay was allergic to steroids, but Caulder uses them.  Natalia finds a cell phone in the Mercedes.

Harvey shows up again; this time Natalia loses her cool and pushes him.  Harvey warns Delko to stay away from Natalia because he has no idea who she really is.

The phone leads the team to Danny Rivers, owner of a Bengal tiger that attacked McKay during a photo shoot.  Rivers had to pay $500,000 because McKay claimed he couldn’t work after the attack.  Rivers said he had been following McKay to prove his counter suit.  Caulder confesses to the murder of McKay, admitting he ran the guy down because McKay was getting more attention and modeling gigs than he. 

Horatio is called to the scene of another murder involving another male model.    Harvey files a temporary restraining order against Natalia for pushing him.  Later, he shows up at a crime scene, restraining order in hand, forcing Natalia to leave the premises.  Alexx ID’s the second victim as Cody Lane, and Wolfe determines Lane was pushed from a balcony of the condominium complex.  Valera matches up DNA found on Lane to Janet.  Janet confesses to having sex with Lane in the condo they rented for a photo shoot, but maintains she left while he was alive and fine.  Delko and Natalia find the condo Lane fell from and find dog hair at the scene, which leads them right back to tow truck driver Bob Tanner.  Tanner admits he was hired to kill Lane.  He did it for money to help offset his daughter’s medical bills but he refuses to give any details on who hired him.  Wolfe uncovers insurance fraud between McKay and Rivers.

Calleigh learns of a two million dollar life insurance policy taken out on Lane with Abby and Janet the beneficiaries.  Calleigh and Horatio confront Janet and Abby about the murders.  Each proclaiming their innocence, Abby learns that her partner has a six million dollar policy on Abby’s life, and Abby becomes scared for her own safety.  As the team closes in on the killer, they return to Faces International to find Janet shot to death.  Was it suicide or homicide?  What happens next tells the tale, but the killing isn’t over yet.