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| • Crow's Feet • |
Episode Number: 96#
Original Airdate: October 21, 2004
Written By: Josh Berman
Directed By: Richard J. Lewis
Synopsis: "Catherine is called to the scene of an apparent death from Ebola, but the autopsy reveals the lesions on the female victim's skin are from cosmetic surgery. After a second female victim is found dead with similar indicators, Catherine and Nick discover that both women have recently undergone an anti-aging treatment from a plastic surgeon. Meanwhile, Grissom, Sara and Greg investigate a homeowner found dead inside his tented house post-fumigation."
Guest Stars:
David Berman as David Phillips
Alexx Carter as Detective Vartann
David Anders as Travis Watson
Steven Brand as Dr. Malaga
Larry Sullivan as Officer Akers
AJ Buckley as Ted Martin
Corey Mendell Parker as Nate Allen
David Wells as Elliot Beckman
Brad Hunt as Rory Kendell
Larry Joshua as Zach Alfano
Eyal Podell as Kevin Stern
Notes:
- Catherine says the title, "Crow's Feet" during the episode
- Catherine has the line before the opening sequence, she says "Ok, its my turn, clear the scene"
- Gary Dourdan (Warrick) does not appear in this episode.
| • Review • |
Inside the a room at the opulent Mediterranean Hotel, Detective Vartann is on his cell phone urgently asking for a list of all the countries she's visited in the past 30 days and her passport. What's going on? Who is she?
Dr. Robbins, in a Level A hazmat suit, makes his way through the hallways, and from his point of view we see various hotel staff, guests and security people moving quickly by. He enters a room where a dead woman, Julie Stern, early 50s, lies face up on the bed, covered with amoeba-shaped blotches.
Catherine Willows enters the crowded hotel lobby and is intercepted by Officer Akers. In spite of her CSI credentials, Catherine is not allowed upstairs due to the quarantine.
Robbins reaches into his chest pocket and retrieves a nasal speculum. He inserts the speculum into the dead woman's nostrils and then pries open one of her eyes, shining a light into the sclera (white portion). He pulls off his headgear, announcing that it's a false alarm.
Dr. Robbins tells Catherine that David Phillips followed protocol when he saw the victim's red blotches, which are consistent with CDC photos of Ebola. Catherine sets down her kit and tells them to clear the scene. It's her turn now, and she starts to work.
In the coroner's office, Dr. Robbins informs Catherine that there are 42 distinct laser burns on Julie Stern's body, indications of liver spot cosmetic treatment. The victim was recovering in the hotel. They notice that she also exhibits Mees’ lines, a series of parallel horizontal white lines on her nails that indicate heavy metal poisoning. Dr. Robbins also found 10ccs of urine in her stomach.
Grissom, Sara and Greg Sanders approach a house that has been tented for termites. Captain Jim Brass waits there and informs them that the exterminators discovered Elliot Beckman, 42, dead in the family room.
Inside, the CSIs find dead bugs, broken eyeglasses, displaced floor rugs, vomit and a dead Beckman. The scene and body are consistent with fumigant poisoning. Greg finds long, thin blue feathers on the floor, and Sara sees that the victim has a bruised cheek.
Captain Brass interviews the exterminators, Ted Martin and Nate Allen. Ted tells Brass that they conducted a thorough walk-through before releasing the gas. Brass posits that Beckman could have snuck back in, but Martin says that the house is toxic for the first 12 hours. Brass mentions that tented homes are prime targets for burglars.
Catherine and Nick interview Dr. Tony Malaga, charming and handsome. He admits to having had Julie Stern as a client and that he ablated her liver spots three days prior. Nick asks for a copy of her medical file, but Malaga directs his response to Catherine and says that would violate doctor-patient confidentiality. Nick asks the doctor if he has a problem with him, since he's only addressing Catherine. Malaga says Catherine has classic Venus de Milo aesthetics and, blushing, Catherine says that they will be getting a court order for Ms. Stern's records.
At the tented house, Greg and Sara conduct a perimeter search. Greg notices that someone tampered with the tent. The window's open, and they wonder if Beckman attempted to climb in and once inside, was overcome by the gas. However, Greg postulates that the window should be open wider. Sara lifts up the window, and when she lets go, it drops to several inches above the sill, its original position. The rope that counter-balances the window is old and snapped. They find a trail of sand leading away from the house towards the next-door neighbor's house.
The neighbor, Rory Kendell, answers the door, coughing. He tells them he's been under the weather with flu and is surprised to find out that his neighbor is dead. Greg thinks that Kendell is suffering from sulfuryl fluoride gas poisoning and asks him for a urine sample.
In the CSI Layout Room, Nick reads a graph and tells Catherine that Julie Stern had arsenicin her system. However, they can't determine that arsenic poisoning was the cause of death. Catherine mentions that in poisoning cases, the killer is usually a relative.
Kevin Stern, the victim's son, sits in the Interrogation Room with Catherine and Nick. He wonders why they couldn't discuss the death of his mother on the phone. They find out that Julie Stern last visited Kevin about three months before, but left early because she was uncomfortable around his four-year old. The word "Grandma" was a dirty word. She didn't want to feel old.
Nick tells Kevin Stern that they ran a background check and noticed that he was deeply in debt. Kevin tells them that when his father died, he left his mother a lot of money, but that she wouldn't give him a loan to help out on his vineyard, which was suffering from blackrot. Nick asks if Kevin uses pesticides on his grapevines, and when he answers in the affirmative, Catherine says they will send out a tech to get a sample.
Elliot Beckman is on the slab in the Coroner's Office, Y-incised. Dr. Robbins tells Sara that Beckman drowned. The termite fumigant entered his bronchioles, causing his lungs to fill with liquid. Robbins tells her that the bruise on his cheek was caused by an inflicted blunt force to his face that fractured his zygoma.
Catherine consults Travis Watson, ex-jock, the Tox Tech. Travis tells her that the pesticide they retrieved from Kevin Stern's vineyard is a copper-arsenate mix, chemically different from what Ms. Stern ingested. On another note the particular type of pesticide was outlawed by the EPA, so he's a polluter but not a killer. Travis flirts with Catherine.
Sara tells Greg that she lifted several prints off the clamps found by the open flap of the tented house. The prints were for Zach Alfano, the neighbor on the other side of the house. His daughter said that an ambulance picked him up two days ago. He was vomiting, couldn't breathe and passed out.
Brass stands next to Alfano in a hospital room. Alfano tells him that he was coming back from a run when he heard screams inside his neighbor's house. He went inside and by the time he found Beckman, he'd already passed out. Alfano started to choke so he left and went next door to Rory's house but there was no response. His daughter called 9-1-1, and now he's in the hospital.
Greg, using powder, prints the doorbell at the tented house. He tells Sara that it's a perfect match for Alfano. Sara mentions that they missed the fact that the directionality of the floor rugs points toward a side flap.
Back in the Interrogation Room, Brass and Sara ask Rory Kendall why he didn't answer the door when Zach Alfano rang his bell. He mentions again that he was sick, and Sara informs him that Sulfuryl Flouride was found in his system, indicating that he was in Elliot Beckman's house. Kendall had filed five noise complaints against Beckman in the past year, but he counters that a loud stereo is hardly a motive to kill someone. They arrest Kendall.
Dr. Robbins autopsies another woman, Renita Loakes, who also has fingernails striated with Mees Lines. He brushes toluidine blue, a thiazin dye, over the victim's face. He begins his autopsy, placing a clamp between the esophagus and the stomach. He tells Catherine and Nick that this is only the second time in his career that he has found urine in a decedent's stomach. He explains to the CSIs that he painted her face blue to highlight the several pinpricks that he saw on her face. Robbins produces a fax of a Chinese face with marks on it at specific locations. Catherine sees that the pinpricks match the points on the fax: an acupuncture facial, to reduce the signs of aging.
Catherine and Nick enter Renita Loakes' apartment. There is workout equipment against one wall, and stacks of diet books are on a coffee table. Catherine finds Renita's supplement diary and reads her daily youth regimen: Coenzyme Q-10, bee pollen, grape seed, deer antler drops, chinese mountain ant extract, tincture of wild reishi. And that's just for breakfast. Nick wonders if the supplements do any good, and Catherine says there's not much evidence. She finds an assortment of very expensive eye creams on the vanity.
Nick finds a bedpan cradled inside the toilet bowl. He spots a crystal wine glass and reaches for his blue light ultra with orange isolation shield. Both the glass and bedpan glow, indicating urine. Renita Loakes drank her own urine.
Back in the A/V Lab, Greg has ID'd the feathers found on the crime scene as hyacinth macaw.
Sagebrush Spa. Posh and expensive. Women of all ages in white robes mill about, waiting for facials and massages. The menu is very pricey and Catherine mentions that the prices are equivalent to her car payment. Nick tells her she doesn't need any of that stuff. She says everybody needs that stuff. On the counter is a book: Urine Therapy, Nature's Elixir. Dr. Malaga tells the CSIs that his clients swear by it.
Catherine and Nick point out to Malaga that he sold the Dorian Spray to both Renita Loakes and Julie Stern. He tells them that even though arsenic is a poison, so is Botox and so is Foxglove, a deadly plant that doubles as cardiac medication. Even if the two victims drank a case of the spray, the amount of arsenic wouldn't be lethal.
In the Garage, Grissom stands at the work area. In front of him are containers of chemicals: Ssulfur, dried potassium nitrate, black powder, aluminum powder, iron oxide, carbon tetrachloride and a bag of confectioner's sugar. He combines the chemicals, and Sara asks him what he's doing. He replies that he's making two smoke bombs. The sugar makes the smoke a darker tint.
At the tented house, Grissom and Sara wear full-face purifying respirators and release their bombs, filling the house with fumes.
Over at Rory Kendall's house, Greg waits for something. Then smoke wafts up from behind a closet door, from an uncapped electrical conduit. He calls Grissom, informing him of the smoke.
In Beckman's house Sara finds that the fumes traveled directly through an electrical conduit behind a speaker. Sound also would have traveled that way, directly into Rory's house, so it explains why he was mad about the noise level. This explains why Rory had fumigant in his urine. Grissom and Brass interrogate the two pest control guys, Ted Martin and Nate Allen, since they were the last people to see Beckman alive. Nate mentions that Ted stayed behind to release the fumigant while he went on to a next job. Nate gave Beckman and his bird a ride to the Four Aces Motel, where he was staying during the fumigation.
In the A/V Lab, Catherine reads a passage off her computer screen: "If you believe in me, you will never thirst. Rivers of living shall flow from your bellies." John 7:38. This was used as religious justification for Urine Therapy, and several books online espouse its magical abilities to reduce the signs of aging. Nick comments that he doesn't get these women and their anti-aging pursuits. Catherine has Nick flex his arm and points out to him that he must work out at least five days a week. And for what? He gets the point.
Catherine and Nick examine a "Dorian Spray" that was found on Ms. Loakes when she was loaded into the ambulance. It contains arsenium, holistic for arsenic. Dr. Tony Malaga's name is on the label.
As the CSIs interview him, Dr. Malaga takes a picture of Catherine and unbeknownst to them begins to digitally manipulate her face on his computer. He plumps her lips, removes lines around her eyes, firms the area between her nose and the outer corners of her lips.
Malaga tells them that he considers aging a disease, with a 100 percent mortality rate. Catherine tells him that they need Ms. Sterns' and Ms. Loakes' medical records. She presents him with a court order.
Brass tells Sara and Greg that the hotel manager at the Four Aces turned Elliot Beckman away because he didn't have a cage. Supposedly, he went back home to retrieve it, but neither he nor the bird ever returned.
At Beckman's house, Sara and Greg find flies all over the place. Since fumigation kills everything, they suspect that the bird may have flown up and died in the kitchen pantry. Instead, they find a dead rat, which means the bird isn't there.
Grissom walks into an exotic bird store and finds the manager repeating, "I love you" over and over to a white parrot. He finds out that the manager sold a Blue Hyacinth to Mr. Beckman. When Grissom shows him the tail feather, the manager points out that someone must have yanked them out. Macaws only molt one tail feather at a time.
In the Tox Lab, Catherine, Nick and Travis rule out arsenic as the cause of death. However, Catherine notices that the vials of blood from the two decedents haven't separated from the serum. The red blood cells have lysed, which means that something caused the red blood cells to pop so the yellow serum is no longer distinguishable from the blood cells.
Catherine and Nick realize that the one commonality between the two female victims is that on the same day they both hydrogen peroxide therapy: a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution is injected directly into a client's vein, bathing the red blood cells in nourishing oxygen, boosting the immune system and reversing the signs of aging.
In the CSI Print Lab, Grissom dusts a blue tail feather and pulls a print. He photographs the print.
Brass, Grissom and Sara present a search warrant to Ted Martin, the exterminator, and enter his one-bedroom apartment. Sara finds twenty-odd wristwatches in a drawer. Martin claims to be a collector, and then Sara rummages through another drawer filled with rings, a necklace, cufflinks, all things that can slip easily into a pocket. She reads a pen that has the name Joan Arryington inscribed in it. Most likely a client of the pest control company.
Grissom finds Bob, the blue bird, in his cage in the bathroom. The crime is reconstructed. When Elliot Beckman went back to his house to retrieve a cage for his bird, he found Ted Martin rifling his drawers. Beckman told him he was going to call the cops, and then Ted sucker-punched him, shattering his cheekbone and knocking him cold. Then Martin grabbed the bird by the tail, pulling out a fistful of tail feathers. Once out of the house, Martin started to fume the house, but Beckman woke up and tried to stand but was overwhelmed by the gas. He died.
In the Layout Room, Catherine and Nick have several vials of blood with serum in front of them. The blood cells have settled beneath the serum, leaving yellow at the top and crimson at the bottom. They start with a 3% hydrogen peroxide solution and start to inject it into the blood samples. When they finally get to 30%, the yellow serum turns red: lysis.
In Dr. Malaga's office, Catherine tells Malaga's attorney, Adam Matthews, that his client injected a lethal batch of hydrogen peroxide into two of his patients. Dr. Malaga tells Catherine that all procedures have risk. She asks what happens when he screws up again? His malpractice premiums go up, replies the lawyer.
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