CSI: Miami

Season 5 - Episode 8 - Darkroom

Written by John Haynes
Directed by Karen Gaviola

Horatio stands at a turnpike toll booth examining a bloody five dollar bill with the words “he’s going to kill me” scrawled on it.  The toll booth attendant explains that an unidentifiable female passenger handed the bill to her from a charcoal gray Ford Mustang.   Calleigh checks the toll booth’s surveillance tapes.   The Mustang’s license plate is distorted, but a restaurant parking receipt is in full view.  Horatio is called to another crime scene just five miles away. 

Horatio and Alexx stand over twenty year-old Leslie Anderson’s body.  Alexx points out the handcuff bruises and jagged, broken fingernails.  Calleigh and Wolfe examine the video and discover the Mustang’s female passenger’s wrists have handcuff bruises identical to Leslie’s.   Alexx explains they can’t be the same person because Leslie died two days ago.  Calleigh and Wolfe discover clay on Leslie’s pants -- the same type of clay used on a historical house near the restaurant ID’d by the Mustang’s parking receipt.  Wolfe and Tripp enter the house and find Leslie’s broken fingernails … and Tommy Boyer hiding near a wall safe.  Tommy swears he was looking for his missing fiancée, Jill Girrard, and doesn’t know Leslie. 

 Wolfe and Tripp open the safe and discover “fetish items,” including panties, sunglasses, jewelry and black & white pictures of twelve women, including Leslie, and Natalia’s aspiring model sister Anya.  Calliegh discovers the blood on the bill is Anya’s.   A desperate Anya phones Natalia and says she’s somewhere near water.  Delko and Wolfe find Gavin Laporte, a fashion photographer who uses the same specialized black & white film they discovered in the safe, but the smug Gavin defends his innocence.

 Horatio discovers the dead body of Kellie, the toll booth attendant, along with Mustang owner Gavin Laporte’s marina yacht address.  At the marina, he finds a brainwashed captive, Jill Girrard.   Horatio shoots out Gavin’s tires as he attempts a getaway.   The CSI team rescues Anya and arrests Gavin.   Natalia carefully examines her sister Anya’s handcuff wounds.   They embrace.