CSI: NY s04e11 Episode Script

Louis Tre.
Two-Twenty a pop, essex? You must be feeling festive.
I think I just closed the biggest deal of my life.
Well, in that case, let's start a tab.
What's she drinking? Margarita, rocks.
Next one's on me.
Hey.
Need a light? Thanks.
Who we looking at, flack? Essex palmer.
Well, what's left of him.
entrepreneur.
According to witnesses, one minute he lit up, The next minute he blew up.
Exploding cigar? Apparently, the guy was a regular with a twisted sense of humor And a history of pulling practical jokes.
On himself? He's a young guy, suffering a painful death in a public place¡ª I don't think he was in on this joke.
No Talk about going out with a bang.
Our vic made a fortune buying and selling high-End comic books online.
Then he stepped up to buying and selling comic stores.
Word is, the kid was loaded, and his wallet seems to agree.
A guy in the line outside picked it up after somebody else dropped it.
Pickpocket? Well, the blast couldn't have blown it all the way out the front door.
Well, the cash and the cards are still there.
Maybe he dropped it.
Well, if you guys can lift some prints, Hopefully, I can run down the rest of the story.
Did you get anything else from the patrons? Everybody reports the same loud explosion and then after that, It was panic at the disco.
And he did come alone? Yes.
Bartender says he was here celebrating some new business venture.
Evidently he chose to celebrate by slipping something into a lady's drink.
A roofie? Well, it sure ain't a spanish fly.
You in there? We're going to be late.
You awake in there? Ruben, it's 7:30 in the morning.
Today's the day for the blessing of the bikes.
We have to be there.
You promised.
Blessing of the bikes okay, okay.
Right, right.
You forgot.
No.
No, I did not forget about it.
The line's going to be long, so we have to hurry.
Mom, we're leaving now! He's been up since 5:30.
Yeah.
I went to bed at 5:30.
- Do you want a cup of coffee? - No.
We got to go.
- Okay.
Sorry.
You guys have fun.
- All right.
- Grab a shirt.
We're leaving.
- All right.
And when the living creatures went, the wheels went by them: And when the living creatures were lifted up from the earth, He wheels were lifted up.
Wherever the spirit went, they went And the wheels were lifted up over against them: For the spirit of the living creatures was in the wheels.
May the almighty and merciful lord be our companion on our many journeys And bring us back to our homes in peace, health and happiness.
This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water, In the name of the father, and of the son, and of the holy spirit.
This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water, In the name of theat fher, and of the son, and of the holy spirit.
This bicycle is blessed by the sprinkling of this holy water In the name of the father and of the son, and of the holy spirit You think my mom will let me ride my bike by myself? Oh, is that what this is all about? I'm ten years old.
Okay, time me to the corner.
Ready, set, go! All right.
Don't hit anybody, okay? Yeah, it's messer.
Hey, don't go don't go past the corner, buddy! Hey! All right, let me call you back.
Rueben?! Ruben, go straight home! Right now, ruben! Help! Somebody! Help! I need an ambulance at 459 west 75th.
I've got a suspect, caucasian male fleeing the scene of a shooting.
He's armed, and he went down the 76th street subway entrance.
Brown jacket, approximately six feet.
All right all right, all right are you shot? Notify the er, I'll be at the hospital within the hour.
I'll need to swab and photograph the wound before it's stitched.
You're going to be fine, justin.
- Check on my sister, huh? - Definitely.
That's our victim, justin scott.
He said the shooter came in alone.
Told him to empty the register, at gunpoint.
Open the register! Took two additional hits to the face.
He said the perp had something heavy Maybe hard up his sleeve.
Female witness? Justin's sister, lucy.
She came out from the back, saw the shooter fleeing, Said he turned back and shot at her, Then ran across the street to the subway entrance.
You see enough to I.
D.
Him in a lineup? I saw him from the back.
But both justin and lucy remember that the whites of the perp's eyes were blue.
Haven't found a bullet or an impact mark.
It appears that the bullet passed through this orange.
Entered here, exited here.
*we can walk in straight lines* *we can't see quite right* *we've lost the plot* *and we can't get it back* *so let's lose ourselves* *let's lose ourselves* *can you spot the english here?* *We can see it for real* *but it doesn't make sense* *it can climb its way to the top of a cloud* *I'm away with the fairies now* Mario galanti.
Mario galanti, nypd.
Hey! You hearing me? Hey! Hey hey I'm, I'm sorry! I- I can't hear anything! I need you to come with Turns out mario galanti was dumb enough to nab our vic's wallet, And he's also been completely deaf since the blast.
Acoustic trauma.
It's caused by a loud noise or explosion near the ears.
Need a light? Thanks.
That's why he dropped the wallet outside the club.
Right, but flack said he has no trouble talking, And he says he swears that all he did was rip essex off.
Well, if he didn't cause the explosion, who did? Well, I can't tell you who, but I can tell you what.
The cigar, right? More specifically, the mouth end of a gran cahill cigar.
I found it blown halfway down the vic's trachea.
The C.
O.
D.
Was massive internal hemorrhaging caused by the sivencusco force of an explosion at close proximity.
I sent a sample of the tobacco out for detailed isotopic analysis, But from my collegiate experience smoking stogies, I'd say it was, um, fresh Likely hand rolled, with a few unnatural additives, of course.
Like smokeless gunpowder? I found heavy traces of that on the vic's clothing when I ran them through xrf.
Which is usually used in high explosives.
Right, I did find something else.
On the victim's tie, I found a stain.
It turned out to be mineral water with a twist.
It contained dna from the saliva of this guy.
Lawrence gelachter? Yeah, he was in codis with priors for tax evasion.
All right.
I wonder what his relationship is to essex palmer? Well, judging from the size and impact of the stain, It couldn't have been too friendly.
He spit on the guy.
Do we have a current address on mr.
Gelachter? - Yeah.
Flack's meeting us there right after this.
- Good.
All right, then ladies, unless there's something else There is one more thing, sid.
Mucuna pruriens.
In india, they're also known as, uh, velvet bean, cowitch.
But here in the united states, we usually call it itching powder.
Oh! No! Oh! No! Looks like he stuck it in his pocket, And then after the blast, it wound up dispersed on his clothes.
But why aren't you, uh The long-Sleeved lab coat.
Both stylish and functional.
Uh, exploding cigars.
You know, insect ice cubes, itching powder.
What kind of a clown are we after? No way! Lawrence gelachter is laughing larry! We were able to raise the subdermal bruising on justin scott's face.
You can see he got slammed pretty hard.
Your bodega thief's weapon of choice is a revolver.
Open the register! Gsr I collected from justin scott's head wound didn't give us any compatible hits in the database.
I did find traces of fiberglass in the laceration of the cheekbone, Which you can see here, was crushed.
I found traces of fiberglass on the register.
Well, I might have a theory for why the whites of the suspect's eyes were blue.
Sclera- The whites of the eyes¡ª Can have a purple or blue tint if someone is suffering from osteogenesis imperfecta.
Individuals with O.
I.
¡ª Their bones do fracture easily.
Exactly, which is why I hypothesize your thief could be wearing a fiberglass cast.
That would explain the crushing of justin scott's cheekbone.
And why he thought the perp had something up his sleeve.
This osteo, uh thing¡ª Uh, can, uh, we track it? Well, if our robber knows he has it, if he's seen a doctor about it, Then we might even be able to get photos of possible suspects from physicians.
Boom.
So we show these photos to justin and lucy, They I.
D.
Our guy, and we are We are what? We are what? No.
No.
Sid, where-Where'd you find him? Hey, danny, what's going on? An alley off 75th street.
It says here there was a bicycle found that said ruben on it.
Oh, ruben! Danny, man, you know this kid? No.
Get outta here.
No, don't touch the body! Okay, okay.
Sheldon, get him out of here.
No, no, no, wait, wait Danny, come on.
Let's go, come on let's go come on No, no, I watched him take the shortcut home.
- Come on, man, let's go.
- Wait, wait, wait.
I saw him.
He was fine.
I saw him.
He rode the bike right away from me.
OhI, shouldn't have stopped.
I shouldn't have stopped.
Why did I stop?! I should have made sure the kid got home safe.
Ruben was a block and a half from your apartment building.
There was a man down, bleeding.
Justin scott needed your help.
You acted on instinct, danny.
Ah, man, i wish I hadn'T.
I wish I hadn't! He just got his bicycle blessed this morning.
Danny? I just heard.
This is a tough one.
Oh, I'm not very good at this kind of thing.
What should I say to him? Just tell him you're not very good at this kind of thing.
It's about time you guys got back.
I was starting to get a little worried, messer.
How long was the line? Where's ruben? Rikki Where's ruben, danny? Rikki, we, um I'm sorry.
We, uh we we were on our way back.
We were on our way back, and then, um, he, uh There was a robbery at a bodega No, no, no.
Just tell me where he is.
You tell me where I can find him.
Just-Just say that he's okay.
Oh, just tell me that he's okay! Tell me he's okay.
I can't tell you that he's okay.
I can't tell you that he's okay.
No! No! No.
No! No! No.
Process what was collected at the bodega.
Whatever danny started, finish.
- I want answers, not guesses.
- Got it.
Mac, I got your message.
Our bodega robbery is connected to the shooting of ruben sandoval.
I found citric acid on the bullet sid extracted from ruben.
More than likely it's the bullet that traveled through the orange.
Yeah, and the reason why you didn't find it at the scene¡ª It entered ruben just under his arm here.
Axillary region.
It's common that someone could be shot there and not immediately know it.
I imagine ruben was traveling on his bike, He heard the gunshot, was scared, adrenaline pumping, Doesn't feel the initial pain.
Does what danny tells him to-Heads for home, doesn't make it.
- Did the bullet get a match in ibis? - No.
Even stranger, the caliber of the bullet is inconsistent with a revolver.
Does that mean we have two shooters? Danny only heard one shot.
Laughing larry? You got to be kidding me! You have any idea how much of my childhood was cruelly destroyed by this moron? Trust ime.
Feel your pain.
You two want to enlighten me here? - I was into comic books as a kid, right? - Yup.
And this guy had a full-Page ad in the back of each and every one of 'em Selling things like dribble glasses, onion gum, hypnocoins, whoopee cushions.
Plastic vomit, rubber dog doo.
Sounds great.
Oh, yeah, and it all looked great.
And I'd do whatever it took.
I would scrimp, I would save, I would mow every last lawn in the neighborhood To get my hands on sneezing salts or 100 piece battle fleet, And then, I go to the mailbox.
And right there before my innocent, young eyes would be disappointment in a cardboard box.
I once spent my entire summer allowance on this hovercraft that laughing larry said Would take me and my friends riding on a carpet of thin air.
Hovercrap.
How about the x-Ray specs I bought in middle school to see through girls' clothes? Yeah.
The only thing I ever saw through those was a nun coming at me with a yardstick.
- Unbelievable.
- Right? I bought sea monkeys.
But that was then, and this is now, so come on.
We have a man to see about a cigar.
Welcome to laughing larry's laffatorium where you get more yuks for less bucks! Well, now, hey, don't you look spiffy? Do you mind if I take your picture? On the victim's tie, I found a stain.
It turned out to be mineral water with a twist.
It contained dna from laughing larry's saliva.
Laugh it up, lar.
You pull another gag like that, And I'm gonna add assaulting an officer to your murder charge.
Wait a minute.
You guys are cops? Who died? Essex palmer.
That's what we'd like to talk to you about, larry.
Whoa, whoa.
You mean, somebody killed him? So you two did know each other.
Yeah, what happened? You decide to fool your friend with an exploding cigar? What are you talking about? That's how he died, larry.
Just a hot-Damn minute now.
You guys think that-That I had something to do with his death, You're bigger stooges than I thought.
So, how did you two meet? He walked in here, he said he was a big fan, he said he loved my stuff, And he offered to buy the whole thing and ten years of back stock! He said he wanted to turn it into some kind of¡ª I don't know- E-Commerce venture- Laffatorium.
Com! Me I don't know the internet from intercourse, But I can tell you, after 40 years of raising rubber chickens, He was bailing me out of a damn deep hole! You got any paperwork to prove it? Ah, it was all on a handshake.
Yeah? He get the joybuzzer, too? Bet he didn't know what kind of guy he was getting into business with Until the whole thing blew up in his face.
I've been selling exploding cigars and cigarettes for 35 years, And the only thing they ever hurt was people's pride.
Tell that to essex palmer.
I'm telling you, it wasn't mine! - Did you give essex palmer a cigar? - Yeah, but If it wasn't yours, then where did you get it? I don't know.
People give me cigars all the time! It's part of my shtick.
What?! Well, how about i shtick you in lockup? All right, all right, hold on, hold on.
Let me remember who gave it to me.
Uh wait a minute.
That's right.
It was this guy.
He was a new father.
He gave it to me! I just had a baby girl.
He just came up to me and gave it to me.
Hey, thanks.
Congratulations! All right.
Okay, he was, uh medium build, light hair About your age, only a lot better-Looking.
All right, all right, so you passed on his cigar to essex.
It didn't cost me anything.
Well, it cost him plenty.
The only combustible agent in laughing larry's exploding cigars is lead azide¡ª No smokeless gunpowder at all¡ª So, as much as i hate to admit it, he's right.
They're annoying, but they're not going to kill you.
What about the tobacco? I'm still waiting for isotopic analysis on essex palmer's hand-Rolled cigar.
But I did scope a visual comparison between the two, And our laughing friend's smokes are strictly low-Grade.
Small leaf, paper fillers and enough preservatives to fill a tox report.
Consistent with larry's story, as well.
Cheap and tasteless.
Well, I found a kink in laughing larry's tale.
Kim wey imports.
According to the new york state tax board, They're a chinatown novelty distributor who have filed no fewer than seven liens Against laughing larry in the past three years.
Looks like he owes them quite a bit of coin at this point.
A good reason to want laughing larry dead.
You ready for this? "Unpaid receipt of class c fireworks, " Including party poppers, snapping caps, and exploding cigars.
So, maybe, when larry couldn't cough up the cash, They decided to deliver their message loud and clear.
We're not just talking party poppers.
This place is more like a powder keg.
Aren't fireworks illegal in the state of new york? Yep.
So is murder.
Hey, folks, nypd, time to close up shop.
Hey! Stop! Freeze! Hold it right there! Hold it right there! I'd rather let it go.
Stella, lindsay, get out! Okay, we're out of here! Let's go! Move! Move! Let's get out! Lindsay, move! Out! Go, go, go! Stop, drop and roll, you son of a bitch.
He's the reason I had to sell black market fireworks in the first place.
Let me guess.
You're gonna blame your illegal immigration status on laughing larry, too.
You think I care about being deported? He owes me a hundred grand.
I got to make a living.
Even if it meant killing him with an explosive cigar? If I wanted to kill that idiot, I'd strangle him with my bare hands.
And believe me, I thought about it.
But I held off when it looked like he was finally about to sell.
I even paid him a little visit, to make sure he remembered his debts.
Sign it! See for yourself.
The deal's in my pocket.
He offered me a hundred grand, plus another 50k in interest.
Well, it doesn't look like he signed it to me, mr.
Wey.
It's disappearing ink.
He thinks he's funny.
I know where to find him.
Good.
So maybe you can send him a postcard from shanghai.
There it is.
I don't get it- If larry had no reason to want essex dead, This guy has no reason to want larry dead.
All either one of them wanted was money.
Means that our real killer is still invisible.
Hey, sid.
Mr.
Ross, what brings you down here? Uh one question.
How often are you wrong? I - I mean your theory that the bodega robbers suffer from osteogenesis imperfecta Is just that-A theory, right? I hope you haven't come down here to question my many years As a pathologist without some evidentiary ammunition.
The perp's blue eyes.
I kind of have a theory of my own.
Bring it.
Hawkes found three specialists in the field of osteogenesis imperfecta and subpoenaed the records.
Justin and lucy couldn't make a positive I.
D.
To any of the photos.
In the meantime, the fiberglass that danny found at the scene, I found trace levels of caffeine and aspartame.
Description of a diet soda- Which contains carbon dioxide.
Which, if someone suffered from O.
I.
, They'd be instructed to avoid Because carbon dioxide can dissolve calcium in bone tissue.
Well, not many patients actually follow their doctor's instructions, adam.
Yeah, I thought of that.
But still, it did leave a small window of doubt in your diagnosis.
So I started thinking.
What if the fiberglass cast was a coincidence? That our perp simply had a broken arm? Which led me to discover a possible alternative to what caused the whites of the perp's eyes to be blue.
I see- So you really came down here to run your theory by me, So you could report to mac and say that I have your back.
I guess so.
Okay, why are the whites of our perp's eyes blue? Eyeball tattooing.
What? Somewhere in this conversation you're going to have to start making sense.
I checked with sid.
Our perp doesn't necessarily have osteogenesis imperfecta.
Danny found a hair- A clipped dog's hair at the scene.
It had traces of dye, but not just any dye, all right? Dye used for tattooing.
On a dog? Some veterinarians tattoo the lighter areas on a dog's nose.
The ink works as protection against skin cancer.
They also tattoo pets' ears for identification, And, in most cases, they clip the hair.
Okay, but I'm not seeing a connection to blue eyes or our bodega suspect.
Veterinarians send the pets to tattoo artists¡ª Places that you and I go.
I mean, well, I would go-I mean Uh, anyways, I located several establishments, And one place in particular offered me a special on eyeball tattooing.
We're the only ones who do it.
It's one of the oldest forms of tattooing.
We inject color pigment under the top layer of the eye.
Your brown eyes would really pop with a little bit of green.
I can give you a discount.
Actually, sadie, no.
I'm looking for someone.
Someone who might have these eye tattoos.
Counting her? Only four people I know who have it.
I'm going to need those names.
I'm telling you, I didn't do anything, all right? You don't know what you're talking about.
The whites of your eyes are blue, ollie.
It's kind of hard to miss that.
You were in that bodega.
You slammed your gun into justin scott's face.
You crushed his cheekbone with your cast.
You stole the money from the register and fled into the subway; We have two eyewitnesses.
What you don't know is that a kid took a bullet and died.
What? Look, I never fired my gun.
There was a crime scene investigator around the corner from the bodega.
He heard a gunshot.
That's because the bodega owner fired at me.
You saw justin scott fire a gun? Who else could it be? I didn't do it.
There was no gun in the bodega, ollie.
Then you got a lot to figure out, 'cause I never fired my gun.
That's what you do, right? You can prove that, right? Look, I dumped my gun, okay? It's in the third canister along the wall in the subway station.
I am not going down for murder, man.
Did you see him fire his gun? I never said he did.
I heard a gunshot.
By the time I rounded the corner, Ollie barnes was running away from me with a gun in his hand.
Lucy scott said he fired his gun.
I thought I told you to take some time off.
You did, I just don't want to go home.
That's why I don't walk down that hallway now.
I'm not going to hear the kid laughing on the other side of the walls, you know? Crying when he doesn't want to go to bed.
I'm just afraid I'm gonna miss him.
Ollie's telling the truth.
There were no traces of gsr on his hands, And the gun retrieved from the garbage was not recently fired.
And is it a revolver? Yes.
Which doesn't explain why the bullet sid removed from ruben was a nine millimeter.
No match to a revolver.
Did justin scott fire a weapon? We didn't find a weapon on him or in the bodega.
Then again, we weren't looking for one.
This is our crime scene based on lucy scott's account of what happened.
She said the shooter fired back from the street as she approached her brother.
I found an orange pierced by a bullet here.
Justin scott's there, lucy's right behind him.
So the line of fire has to be in this area.
But ollie barnes is over six feet tall.
If he fired back at lucy, How did a bullet pierce an orange that was at least a foot below his sight of her? Yeah, that doesn't make sense.
I mean, either he's a really bad shot or somebody else fired at her.
Let's look at ollie's theory.
Someone shot at him.
All right, if we change the spatial orientation of the orange The path of the bullet changes.
The orange didn't come from the stand closest to the street.
It came from the boxes near the door.
The bullet pierced the orange and entered ruben sandoval.
But the kid was shot on the right side, the side closest to ollie barnes.
No, danny, ruben heard what you heard.
He turned toward the sound of lucy and the gunshot.
Help!Somebody stop him! And there's only one person who could have been in the exact position To shoot both the orange and ruben sandoval.
I don't understand, detective.
Is the guy that robbed us dead? No.
We arrested ollie barnes this afternoon for robbery and assault with a deadly weapon.
That's the young kid you shot and killed.
His name is ruben sandoval.
- I don't think - Yes, you do.
Your intention was to stop ollie barnes as he fled the bodega.
You were kneeling down next to justin when you shot at him.
What did you do with the gun, lucy? Somebody stop him! What are you doing? It can't be true.
I didn't shoot that kid.
Did I? Ruben was riding his bike past the bodega when you pulled the trigger.
It was a split second in time.
Help!Somebody stop him! Ruben, go straight home, ruben! Go straight home! Hey, lindsay, what do we got? We finally got the isotopic results back from the hand-Rolled cigar fragment That sid found in essex palmer's throat.
Ah, "pre-Embargo cuban tobacco in a wrapper leaf from cameroon.
" A hundred bucks a pop¡ª And when you couple it with the special little "it's a girl" label, There's only one place in the city that sells them: Haynes house of fine tobacco has a web-Based, in-House surveillance system.
And only one person bought those cigars in the past week.
The trouble is that the video is really grainy And I've lust about tweaked it into oblivion.
I was thinking it's time for plan B.
Biometrics? Bingo.
Now, if we can define our guy's unique facial measurements¡ª Length of nose, width between the eyes, width of mouth, Maybe we can get a hit in pims.
Got about half a dozen possible perps with priors.
Looks like it's time to bring laughing larry in for a lineup.
Can they see me? No.
Poor saps, don't know what they're missing.
Mr.
Gelachter, please, just look through the window And see if you can see the man you picked out from the photo.
Wait there, that's him: Number three.
You sure that's the guy who gave you the cigar? Just had a baby girl.
Hey, congratulations.
Thanks.
Yeah, that's the happy father.
Benjamin sutor.
He's new to the system.
He works for an ammo company.
He just got booked three days ago for violating a restraining order filed by his ex-Wife.
Report says she was awarded full custody of their son, but he's a toddler.
There's no mention of a newborn.
Is it you? Hmm? You recognize me, laughing larry? Hey, I thought you said he couldn't see me.
He can'T.
Of course not, but I know who you are.
Yeah, you look the same as you did in all the comic books I read when I was a kid.
You know, my best friend sam and I, we never missed one of your ads.
You know what we wanted more than anything in the entire world? The narwhal nuclear submarine.
You said it was the most powerful weapon to sail the seven seas, That it would dive the deepest depths, And that we could search for sunken treasures beyond our wildest dreams.
Even though it was only $6.
98, It was more than either of us could afford on our own, so I came up with the brilliant idea that, If we saved up, we could buy it together.
I have to admit I was a little bit skeptical When it arrived in the mail and it was made out of cardboard.
I was unsure that it would do all the things that you said that it could, But, uh, but sam wasn'T.
Sam was sure that it would work.
Sam knew that it would work because laughing larry had said it would.
So why wouldn't it? You know, what you forgot to tell us is that, Uh, is that sam had to know how to swim.
I lost my best friend And I swore that I would never read comic books again Or let my own son read comic books Or play with toys or play with other kids, So I kept him in the house around the clock.
I was just too afraid that my little boy was going to get hurt.
So So your wife took your son and filed a protective order against you.
It broke my heart when they went away.
But I couldn't blame them, so I blamed him.
Just had a baby girl.
Hey, congratulations.
I'm sorry that an innocent person died.
Here you go, essex- Glad we're in business together.
Thanks, larry.
That was not my intention.
I tried to stop it, but I was too late.
But I swear, for the rest of my life, I will pray for one thing, and that is that you That you never laugh again.
Okay, come on, let's go.