CSI: Miami

Season 5 - Episode 5 - Death Eminent

Written by Corey Miller & Brad Daivdson
Directed by Eagle Egilsson

Horatio stands in a vacant house peering over Alexx’s shoulder as she counts six, seven, eight maggot infested pocket-knife wounds in councilman Chad Bridges’ bloated body.  Horatio exits the waterfront home to an audience of curious, and angry, neighbors.

 Homeowners Daniel and Julie Wells and their teenage son Austin tell Horatio about the Apais Company and slick developer William Preston’s plan to take their home, citing Eminent Domain.  While the Wells family rants, Horatio eyes a shifty Gary Logan slinking near his moving box-filled boat.  Wolfe promises Austin that he will help fight the Eminent Domain eviction.  Calleigh and Natalia discover a freshly dug grave and a suitcase full of bones in Gary Logan’s yard.  The bones belong to missing teen Marta Argenta.  The suspect list grows when Delko and Wolfe find Logan’s fingerprints on Bridges’ briefcase, homeowner Timothy Nash’s cigar particles at the murder scene and Julie Wells’ wedding ring on the floor where Bridges’ body was found.

 Horatio grills a smug Preston about his unscrupulous friend, Judge Joseph Ratner, who declared the waterfront neighborhood blighted and eligible for Eminent Domain.  Timothy Nash admits to being paid by Preston to vandalize the waterfront neighborhood so it would be declared blighted and redeveloped for hotels and a shopping center. 

 Horatio arrests Judge Ratner for paying Logan to kill his illegitimate daughter … Marta Argenta.  Wolfe examines Austin’s pocket knife.  Austin admits to stabbing councilman Bridges.  Austin could not stand to see his mother offer herself as a bribe to Bridges only to have his family lose their home.  The Eminent Domain declaration is cancelled.