CSI: Crime Scene Investigation s04e12 Episode Script

Butterflied

Ready for us? For now, no one enters this house except CSI.
Warrick, you got the car.
Which one? Both.
Uh, take the Honda.
The VW belongs to the victim's friend, over there.
She called it in.
Aw, that's too bad.
This will be a day she'll never forget.
Sara, you take the perimeter.
What? You just did a one-hour walk-through.
The perimeter cannot be a priority.
I need you to work the outside.
Catherine and I will be inside.
I'll go talk to the friend.
Find out where she walked and what she might have touched in there.
Hey, Jim.
Did you talk to that guy across the street? The neighbor? He's on my list.
Yeah, he looks like he has something to say.
Hi, I'm Catherine Willows.
I'm with the crime lab.
What is your name, Miss? Kelly McNeil.
And what was your relation whith the victim? Deb and I are best friends.
We were supposed to get together yesterday.
It was our day off.
You're a nurse? Yeah.
Both of us.
Desert Palm Hospital.
We made lunch plans, but she canceled.
She give a reason why? Michael.
Michael? Michael Clark.
Um, she's been seeing him for a month or so.
He's a surgical intern.
When she didn't show up for work today, I called the house her cell no answer, so I drove by after shift.
And how did you get in? We have each other's keys.
Did you touch anything inside? No.
I walked in and I saw her and I ran out.
Kelly, this, uh, Michael - is he just a guy, or is he somebody special? He was the first guy that Debbie ever blew me off for.
And did you see him today, at the hospital? No.
I figured they were both playing hooky.
Single girl.
Alone in the house.
Got my attention.
I'm running for captain of the neighborhood watch.
I'll probably have to self appoint myself, but I'm going to put out a flyer, you know, about shutting doors, locking windows, I mean, the thing is you just don't think it's going to happen to you.
You know what I'm saying? On your block Listen, Pike.
Stop talking.
I never seen somebody so excited about Let me tell you something: I know the business of everyone up and down this block, all right? Who's cheating on his wife, who's behind on his bills, whose kid's going to become the next Manson.
Let's talk about Debbie Marlin.
You know what they say about nurses.
What's that? That-that they like to party.
Hey, look.
You see a stethoscope around this chest? No.
You want to know why? I'm not a doctor.
So I couldn't even get close to her.
Well, who is getting close? It's like a fricking doctor auto mall over there.
You know, hunky surgeons, board certified, lots of dough.
And if you want my opinion, I think they were dropping quarts.
Okay, did you notice any automobiles, any cars out front? You know, as a matter of fact, sir, yes.
Black Mercedes, E320.
2004 model, been there about a month.
Rolls in all hours.
I'm figuring on call, booty call.
That kind of thing.
When's the last time you saw the Mercedes? Two days ago.
Around lunch.
And, uh, he stayed for a little bit of dinner, too.
Thanks a lot.
Yeah, this is Detective Jim Brass.
See if you can find a registered to a Michael Clark, M.
D.
Thanks.
I have absolutely nothing.
How are you doing? I got a lot.
Check out the backseat.
Bananas.
Stuffed mushrooms.
Chocolate syrup, a six-pack of soda, a box of condoms.
No surprises there.
Fresh bag of groceries in an unlocked car? Maybe she was interrupted.
One thing I can never get over with this job: Anything can happen to anybody.
That's why we're here.
This bathroom is the reason she bought this place.
What am I smelling? Cleanser.
Bleach maybe.
Arterial spray is neck high.
Indicates she was standing when she was attacked.
And the highest gush of blood has the most volume.
Definite lack of lividity.
She must have bled out.
The killer had to get something on him.
Had to be a bloody mess, but there's no footprints, there's no handprints, no smears.
She looks like she was placed in this position.
What's the message? What do we got here? Pendale's milk.
Non-fat.
Half a gallon.
Unopened.
Groceries that made it inside.
Fancy crackers brie.
Coupons with no receipt.
No receipt? This milk expires on the 23rd.
Eight days from now.
Milk is delivered daily to the supermarket.
That's a ten-day window.
People usually reach back for a fresh one.
Hmm subtract ten from the 23rd? She was at Pendale's two days ago.
Well, according to Brass, that was the last time her boyfriend's car was seen out front.
Positive for both.
Same here.
So there's blood in all four drains, followed by bleach.
He kills Debbie in the shower.
Then he washes up in both sinks and in the tub? Why? The answer is in the drains.
He cleaned everywhere but inside the shower.
We're never going to know where the blood ends and the bleach begins.
Where's all this blood coming from? Dr.
Clark is on my surgical rotation.
He was scheduled to assist this morning.
No show.
Oh.
Was that like him? No.
It's completely out of character.
See, half these interns come in here so scared, they couldn't carve a turkey.
I have to give them scalpels with training wheels.
Clark was different.
He, uh, he's a real artist, a steady hand.
Yeah, he has a gift.
How about outside the O.
R.
? Was he socially gifted? He turned a lot of nurses' heads, but it never interfered with his work.
Why the questions? Debbie Marlin, one of your nurses, was murdered.
Throat slashed.
You didn't know this? Dr.
Clark and his "steady hand" haven't been seen or heard from since, so you don't have to be a brain surgeon to guess what I'm thinking.
Uh all I can ask is that I I hope that you're wrong about Dr.
Clark.
Excuse me.
No cleansers.
No rags, no sponges, no paper towels You'd think that she restocked when she went shopping.
Well, I'm thinking the killer used everything the victim had.
And then disposed of it.
Nothing.
Nothing here.
I think I found the victim's internal organs.
This guy meant business.
I think I can confirm the victim's male.
It seems he vacuumed to remove any trace from the house.
City picks up the evidence and spreads it all over the dump.
We have the victim's clothes.
Very neatly folded.
Well, if this is our boyfriend, then Brass is looking for a ghost.
Heard about the shower.
Nurse, huh? Multiple hairs, multiple donors.
Looks like she had a few "friends" over.
A little nurses gone wild.
Blanched.
Killer poured bleach down all the drains.
Talk about sucking all the life out of DNA.
If there's anything left, it's probably denatured.
Wait a minute.
Wait, wait, wait bleach might have missed this one.
Lucky for us we got a skin tag.
She's exsanguinated time of death is anybody's guess.
Rigor's past, so it's over 24 hours.
Deep incised wound of the anterior and lateral neck, transecting both carotids and the anterior trachea.
Cut's clean.
Extremely sharp, short instrument.
Scalpel? That's what I'm thinking.
You know, I caught a 25-pound yellowtail last year off the coast of Mexico, and it took me half an hour to filet.
Dismembering an adult male with this precision and without cutting through the bone, twelve hours minimum.
Half a day.
That's patience.
The, uh, patella was cleanly removed.
And with one slice, the femur was separated from the tibia and the fibula.
There's a perverse elegance to this butchery.
Oh, I'm not so sure I see it that way.
A killer with knowledge of anatomy whose tool is a scalpel.
I think the butcher was a doctor.
So David, isolate all ten fingers, ink them, give Jacqui the ten - card.
We need to know who he is.
Grissom.
Hey.
Sara, uh, listen, I'm in a bad area.
I'll call you back.
I got a skin tag off the bathtub drain pipe.
Skin tag? That's great.
Uh, give it to Greg.
Yeah, I did.
Hey, do you want me to come over there and give you a hand? No, I-I'm fine.
I'll-I'll, uh I'll talk to you back Hey, where'd Brass find the car? Long-term parking at McCarran.
Ran the plates.
R.
O.
-- Dr.
Michael Clark.
The head of security is giving us a copy of the surveillance tape.
So, he kills her and whoever she was with, and then he hops a plane? Well, it seems like that.
You know what they say down at P.
D.
The quickest way to get a car stolen is to leave it at the airport unlocked.
See what I mean? Who doesn't know that? Black powder on a black dash.
I know.
Let's just superglue it, huh? Wipes and swirls.
He cleaned everything but the driver's seat.
Well, he had to drive himself to the airport, right? He put something on the seat.
Whatever he put, he took it with him.
The black, plastic bag, maybe? He missed a piece.
He puts a bag on the seat, and then he adjusts it.
How tall was he? Five-nine, according to the DMV report? Wow.
I'm six-two, and this is more than enough room for me.
So, whoever was driving this car, was way taller than five- nine.
Two days ago, Debbie Marlin is off work.
Sometime in the morning, Sometime in the morning, she buys groceries.
It's from Pendale's, the closest store in West Charleston.
Brass talks to the box boy, remembered her, saw her just before his lunch break at 11:15.
Pendale's is about 20 minutes from her house.
Where's Nick? American Academy of Forensics Science Convention.
Hey, guys, can we continue, please? She comes home from the grocery store.
She parks in the driveway, and she begins to unload.
She takes out her perishables first.
She has to go back for second shifts, so she probably leaves the front door open.
leaves the front door open.
Explains why there was no forced entry.
Getting ready for her date.
Lighting candles.
Multi-tasking.
She opens up a bottle of wine, two glasses.
Her girlfriend said that she was locking down for the afternoon with Michael Clark.
Nosy neighbor puts the Mercedes in the driveway sometime around noon.
Thought you guys would want to know.
The hair Sara found is a match to the bags of human tissue.
Prints confirm it.
Per Jacqui, it's Michael Clark.
So, um, most of our efforts have been towards identifying another victim.
Michael Clark.
But can we place him dead at the house? Greg, what else can you tell us about that hair? You mean hairs? There were two.
Ancillary, maybe arm or leg hair.
Found it in the tub drain.
The abbatoir of choice for dismemberments.
According to Jacqui, there were no prints found on the scalpel blades or handle, but the blood's a match to both victims.
So Michael Clark was dead in the tub.
We just don't know how he got there.
Well, I KM'd the carpet at the threshold of the bathroom.
It's negative for blood.
So all the violence took place in the bathroom, at least anything that had to do with blood.
The bathroom is big, but it's not big enough to kill two at the same time.
She lights the candles in the shower.
Her back is to the door.
He grabs her from behind and slits her throat.
Then he positions her body .
.
so that her face is the first thing the boyfriend sees when he walks in.
So he takes seconds to kill Debbie.
So why does he spend so much time cutting up Michael Clark? Most likely because Michael Clark was the real focus of his rage.
Don't tell me you never went home? Okay.
I just got started in here.
Haven't even gotten to the other rooms yet.
You know you lose your edge after sixteen hours.
You're into your third shift.
I mean, I'm all for overtime, but this is just plain greedy.
My knees can't take this anymore.
Have you eaten anything? What did you bring? I'll see what's in the fridge.
We have to replace that, you know.
Hey black lung.
Ha, ha.
I've been sifting through this trash for about six hours.
You coming to rescue me or make fun of me? I am just looking.
Relax.
What are these white fibers here? They must be from the spare bedroom because all the other carpets are green.
Spare bedroom wasn't on his entrance or exit path.
Look, all I know is that they were near the top of the bag, so it must have been one of the last things he vacuumed.
I did happen to find this butterfly pendant, with some white fibers on it.
It looks like a necklace or a bracelet and it has this link that snaps, so I'm thinking sign of struggle? The killer was in that spare bedroom.
Feel better? Well, now that we fed you, we should probably talk about a shower.
I mean at your place.
You need to go home.
As soon as we find some evidence, I promise.
With fresh eyes, you won't miss it.
Just talk it through with me, will you? What do we know? All right.
The bathroom is where things got started, candles, oils, steam shower, cleaned up, oiled up, sexed up.
Let's go back to the bedroom.
No, nothing on this sheet.
She changed her sheets for her date - I would.
Hey, Cath? Got silk? Why, yes, I do.
I don't mean to embarrass you, but, um some guys need leverage.
They do? I'll dust for prints.
Grissom.
It's Warrick.
I have something for you.
I found a butterfly link with some white fibers on it.
Butterfly? Where? In the vacuum bag.
You check all the rooms? I haven't checked the spare bedroom.
Let me look again and I'll call you back.
All right.
Hang one.
Toe print.
I'll have Sara compare it against both victims.
Good.
Warrick found a butterfly charm in the vacuum bag.
I think I just found a piece from the same chain in this box.
Butterfly, huh? She had a collection.
Gifts from her gentlemen callers? Maybe the killer was taking his gift back, as in leave no trace.
Maybe he finally ran out of patience and got sloppy.
And this is why I didn't leave.
Hey, you seen Grissom? He's still at the crime scene.
I eliminated both victims from the print you pulled off the bed.
Well, we know she was fishing off the company pier.
You, uh, seen Debbie? Yeah, I compared her toe prints.
If I didn't know better, I'd think that was you on that table.
I didn't really look at her face.
When you see Grissom, will you tell him? Oh, that feels nice.
Do you have something to take this off? Just step on the card, please.
Good thing you caught me early in the shift.
Yeah, lucky for me.
I think I could probably tell who pulled a double.
Listen, I've got a patient waiting in pre-op.
We'll have you out in a minute.
We appreciate you providing your prints voluntarily.
Well, there's probably a little bit of a lot of us in Debbie's house.
Oh, we'll know soon enough.
You understand, right? The police aren't the only ones with a code of honor.
Now, some of these men are married, and if this gets out Nothing gets out unless it needs to get out.
Got a match.
Dr.
Tripton.
I'm afraid your patient in pre-op is going to have to wait a little while longer.
Don't really know why I'm here.
Your toe print was found in Debbie Marlin's house.
Same house she was murdered in.
Her car was in the shop, and I gave her a ride home one night, and she invited me in for a cup of coffee.
She didn't like anyone wearing shoes in the house.
Some Feng Shui thing.
So, you Feng Shui-ed your way to the bed? She was provocative.
You take your coat off, she has her clothes off.
She came on to me.
Come on, doc, let's do it.
Take a look.
All right, well, let's talk about what's not open to interpretation.
Yours were the only prints found in the house.
Michael Clark was on your rotation -- he was on your surgical team the day he was killed.
You called in sick.
Surgery was cancelled.
Freed him up to be with Debbie, who also had the day off.
What luck.
My son had a ball game.
My daughter was at a swim meet.
My wife was at a conference, and the surgery was elective.
Not a stretch.
Your wife know about you and Debbie? No.
She asked for sex, right? She also asked for the bracelet, too, huh? No, but I gave it to her.
This one.
She loved butterflies.
Uh, I figured if I gave something special to her, she'd give something special to me.
Hmm.
So it was a long- term relationship? That's the hair from the spare bedroom.
There's an oily film on the surface of the hair.
Propylene glycol.
Active ingredient in rogaine for male pattern baldness.
Personally, I don't use the stuff, but my grandfather, Papa Olaf -- he was Bruce Willis at age 16.
Lucky for me, baldness comes from the mother's side, so I'm safe Greg, please, I'm very tired.
Well, maybe the guy we're looking for is going bald or trying not to.
According to Papa Olaf, a lot of guys who use rogaine also use propecia, kind of like a cocktail.
I ran the hair through massspec.
I got four peaks: Ethyl alcohol, propylene glycol, minoxidil, and finasteride.
Finasteride, the chemical name for propecia.
But wait, there's more, and it's a family secret.
Sexual.
Happens in less than two percent of users.
Papa Olaf was one of those guys that needed hydraulics.
Oh.
The prodigal CSI returns.
You get any sleep? Not yet.
So, uh, Brass had to let Dr.
Tripton go.
The old sex alibi.
Too bad he didn't leave a toe print on a scalpel blade.
You got a take on him? Balloon head, but credible like most adulterers.
Is he going bald? Not really.
Grey hair? No.
Anything else? He's a lefty.
Okay, keep in mind, this is just a theory.
It's a hot button issue among forensic pathologists.
What's the consensus? Most doctors say it's impossible to prove handedness based on the wounds inflicted on a victim.
Forget hard science.
What's your hypothesis? Based on micro-incisions and hesitation marks, the victim was lying face up when he was killed.
Take a look at the right knee.
The cut on the cartilage of the right distal femur has slight angulations from the, uh left distal to the right proximal, which suggests the killer was left-handed.
This angulation is consistent with cuts made to the acetabulum and to the wrist, but bear in mind, it's not going to be admissible in court.
I don't care about court.
My mind's on a left-handed, propecia-using surgeon who's probably on staff at Desert Palm.
There was no need for the light show.
All you had to do was ask.
Good.
Since we're being completely honest are you losing your hair? I'm a 48-year-old man.
I'm not unique.
Your hair is, though.
We found it at the crime scene.
Minoxidil absorbs infrared light.
I-I take rogaine and propecia.
Again, not unique.
Well, we think that Debbie Marlin and Michael Clark were killed by a surgeon who is left-handed, and we know of two left- handed surgeons at Desert Palm: Dr.
Tripton, who has an alibi, and you.
Well, if you're going to make accusations, you should really do your homework.
Howard and I are the only lefties on staff.
Dr.
Randolph, who has privileges at the hospital, he's also a lefty.
We play tennis every Wednesday.
He's got a heck of a back-hand.
If you want me to name more names, I could, but you don't want me to do your job for you, do you? Gentlemen we're here as a courtesy, so if you're quite through wasting our time, I think that the doctor would like to get back to the business of saving lives.
Not so fast.
Is this a link from a bracelet you gave Debbie? Mm-hmm.
It looks like it.
Where's the rest of it? This link was vacuumed from the floor of the spare bedroom after the murder.
The other link was in her jewelry box.
The funny thing is that all the bracelets from the other guys she slept with are intact.
Well, all I can tell you is when I gave it to her, it was in one piece.
Do you have any other evidence? No, we don't.
We might not have any other evidence, but we have a theory.
That's not admissible in court.
Oh, no, no, it's worth a listen.
We think you killed Debbie Marlin because she rejected you, and Michael Clark paid the price.
Thank you for your time and your theories, but you said it yourself: You don't have a case.
Doctor.
It's sad, isn't it, doc? Guys like us.
Couple of middle-aged men who've allowed their work to consume their lives.
The only time we ever touch other people is when we're wearing our latex gloves.
We wake up one day and realize that for fifty years we haven't really lived at all.
But then, all of a sudden we get a second chance.
Somebody young and beautiful shows up.
Somebody we could care about.
She offers us a new life with her but we have a big decision to make, right? Because we have to risk everything we've worked for in order to have her.
I couldn't do it but you did.
You risked it all and she showed you a wonderful life, didn't she? But then she took it away and gave it to somebody else, and you were lost.
So you took her life.
Debbie, it's me, Michael.
You killed them both, and now you have nothing.
I'm still here.
Are you?
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