CSI: NY – Episode 5.05 “Cost of Living” Recap

CSI: NY Episode 5.05: Cost of Living
Air Date: October 29, 2008

A young man, who looks like he robbed the Indiana Jones wardrobe room, wrestles a railcar from its position to unearth some treasure buried beneath it. As guards enter the tunnel or building, he takes to the ceiling and clings to a steam pipe. After a daring escape, he appears to be telling the story to some interested friends in a club. After an exchange of remarks, “Indy” exits.

The team is overlooking his dead body in the alley. He has a gunshot wound surrounded by GSR, indicating a shot at close range. Don IDs the victim as James Sutton, an archaeologist. His friend, Laura Roman, had heard the shot, found Sutton, and called the police.

Blue liquid is spattered . On Sutton, Mac and Stella find his credit cards, jewelry, and $500 cash on the body, seemingly ruling out a robbery. Mac finds the leather he had wrapped around his find at the dig. Non-bleeding marks on his neck seem to imply a necklace pulled off post-mortem.

Laura Roman tells Don that all the women in the club wanted Sutton, and all the men wanted to be Sutton. She couldn’t imagine anyone wanting him dead, but Don replies that those are the two top motives for murder.
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Sid and Hawkes pull out small, blue, plastic shards from around the entrance wound. The bullet is not very deep into the body.

At the scene, Danny finds an oven mitt with fishing hooks caught on it. In the lab, he discovers the traces of Sutton’s blood, as well as blood and hairs from multiple rats, on the oven mitt. Hearing this, Stella gets an idea, and takes Danny with her to talk to Wolford Bessie, the “Rat Fisherman”.

Bessie is luring a rat with a piece of pizza hooked onto a fishing line. When the rat gets close, Bessie scoops it up with his oven mitt. He denies seeing anything. Stella, though, notices Bessie’s pocket watch, as she remembers Mac remark on Sutton’s leather wrapping that seemed to be missing its contents.

He gives it to Stella, and tells them about hearing a shot in an alley, and taking the watch from Sutton’s body. When they ask about the necklace, he produces a shiny, silver-colored necklace. Bessie tells them that the wrapping was untied, when he found the watch on the ground. He said there were two men there, the first was over the body, the second came down the alley right after the first man ran off. The second man scared Bessie off.

Mac finds Adam sailing paper airplances down the hall. Adam shows Mac and Stella how he analyzed a blood-soaked map that Stella had found. Making a copy, he had found that he could produce a different map by folding the copy into a paper airplanes.

Stella is attacked by a Greek-speaking mugger. She tells Mac and Don that the man had asked what they got off Sutton’s body.

Hawkes deduces that the shallow bullet wound must be from a homemade weapon. He’s also found that the blue liquid on Sutton was mineral oil and blue dye.

Sid tells Mac that the bullet wound from the crime scene hadn’t killed him. A bullet wound from a couple years ago killed Sutton. Scarring makes it look like an amateur dug around the wound to remove the slug. Don hadn’t found any records of criminal activity, though. Sid points out that the cause of death was a ruptured abdominal aorta. The old, improperly treated, gunshot wound had caused weakening of arterial wall, and the trauma of the new gunshot wound had caused the rupture.

The team answers a call. The Rat Fisherman is dead, and shows signs of torture. It seems that Bessie must have been dead before the time Stella was mugged. Stella notes that they must have two separate killers, the one who murdered Sutton, and the second man who came down the alley way. The second man must have killed Bessie.

Adam shows Mac that a shard that Lindsay had found in the soil at the scene, matches a Roosevelt family plate. The soil analysis from the treasure wrap indicates residue carbon steel and lead-based, pullman green paint. Mac puts the pieces together, and asks to see the map again. He leads the Don and Danny to a rail tunnel…track 61…beneath the Waldorf. He tells them that FDR often stayed at the Waldorf, and took the Presidential train right into the hotel here. They find Sutton’s dig site. Suddenly, someone runs past the men. Don catches her…Laura Roman.

Mac and Don question Laura. She tells them that she loved him, and wouldn’t have killed him. Don tells her it’s suspicious that she originally told police that she and Sutton were merely friends and colleagues, when they were, in fact, lovers. She explains that they were competitive. She tells them that she was in the tunnel trying to finish Sutton’s work.

He was looking for the remains of a judge who disappeared a long time ago, Joseph Crader. Lindsay, watching the interrogation, notes that the pocket watch yielded a serial number that led her back to an owner…Judge Joseph Crader. Crader had been appointed to the NY Supreme Court by then-governor Franklin Roosevelt. He had disappeared in 1930, and his body was never found. Lindsay said the watch wasn’t particularly valuable, so the real prize must have been whatever else was wrapped up with it.

Stella and Danny inspect the necklace, and find a rare, ancient Greek coin with the head of Phillip II on the face.

Sid tells Mac that Sutton had surgery in 1999 to remove a ruptured spleen. The body, however, still has its spleen. So, this man wasn’t the real James Sutton.

Adam shows Mac a video he found of the real James Sutton. In the video, he tells a little personal history, then offers his life at auction. Don and Mac find Sutton working in a lighthouse museum. He identifies the dead man as Mitch Henson, who paid $500,000 for Sutton’s identity. Sutton says he was just looking for “a fresh start”. He says he hadn’t spoken with Henson, since they had a non-communication clause in their contract.

Mac notes that Henson was shot a year or two after he bought Sutton’s identity.

Laura begs Don to know more about Henson. She is upset that she’d spent three years with him, and didn’t know who he really was. Don is surprised to hear that she must have known him when he was shot, the first time. She admits that it was she who shot Sutton, but it was an accident. She tells Don that she was hired to excavate in Cyprus. She arrived to find Sutton was already there. Angry, she pulled a gun on Henson. He jumped her, causing the gun to fire, accidentally. Don doesn’t tell Laura that her bullet is the one that killed Henson.

Hawkes has examined the blue plastic from Sutton’s body, and has built a homemade gun out of a pen and a handful of household items. This must be the sort of weapon fired behind the club.

Mac and Don question Sutton. Sutton says he confronted Henson, who was getting famous…and more rich…using Sutton’s original life. Sutton wanted his life back. He’d killed Henson, believing he’d get away with it.

Stella visits the Greek Embassy to get identities of known smugglers. Stella meets Sebastian, an antiquities expert. Stella recognizes Sebastian as the man who attacked her. She excuses herself, and leaves the embassy. This is definitely the beginning of a multi-episode story arc….