01x07 - Breathless

[bunniefuu]

Yeah, baby, that is hot!

Oh, yeah!

All right, I got a little
game for you, baby.

How'd you like that?

We got a looker.
Twenty-two years old.

Name's Noel Peach.
He's a college student.

Do we know why he
was up here last night?

Well, you know,
some sort of private party.

Not private anymore, is it?
Any sign of what k*lled him?

I was hoping you could tell me.

Well ...

I guess we can't rule out exposure.

According to his liver temp he died sometime
between five and seven this morning.

No sign of trauma
or obvious injury.

Look at this white substance
around his mouth.

dr*gs?

Wouldn't be the first OD at a
Coconut Grove Party, would it?

Substance on his genitals.
Could be semen.

Also found this
-- condom wrapper.

At least he was careful.

And busy.

I have a...

number of different hair samples here.
I'm thinking female.

I've got something.

Culex quinquefasciatus.

Mosquitoes.

Mosquitoes are attracted to circulating blood
and carbon monoxide from breathing,

which means our friend here was
alive when he got bit, doesn't it?

Meaning we might find traces
of any dr*gs that he took.

I'm bagging you guys.

Speed.

I don't know what the
latin name for this is.

No such luck.
Roman women wore leather straps.

Must have been some
hell of a party.

Speaking of straps ...

Ligature marks.

You think bondage?

Seems contradictory. I mean, what
kind of stud likes to be tied up?

Unless we've got it backwards,
ladies and gentlemen,

and our friend Noel here wasn't
the predator ... he was the prey.

Tough way for a
night to end, huh?

I almost didn't come.
This was my first time.

Your first time?
For what?

A cupcake party.

Cupcake party?

Care to explain that?

Cupcake it's ...

just a grab, basically an enviroment
where woman are charged.

get together and
celebrate a sexuality.

Would you say that that celebration
includes male entertainment like...

Noel Peach?

Yes, there were quite a
few male dancers here.

Would you describe the
entertainment, please?

It was harmless, really.

Harmless. A little harmless lap dance
followed by some harmless sex.

Cupcake isn't about having sex.
It's about taking it back.

Fair enough.

I do that, too.

I'm always picking up the things
people leave behind.

This is your home.
It was your party.

It is.

I must admit that I find cupcake
to be an interesting concept,

but I don't understand it.

You don't have sex at
the end of the evening.

So what do you do?

Don't you think that there's something ...

freeing about just stimulating your
senses and leaving it at that?

Sure, that's possible.

But when people get stimulated,
they get territorial.

That's human nature.
And that can be dangerous.

Your party have rules?

That's the great thing
about cupcake.

There are no rules.
Excuse me.

Sure.

So, let me get this straight--
everybody gets together for sex

and then nobody has it.

Everybody knows what
goes on at an orgy.

I mean, you can add all kinds of
weird little party favors -

... cupcakes, weird ingredients

-- an orgy's an orgy.

But Noel Peach was the
one that got screwed.

We're going to
need you inside.

In more ways than one.

So, this is our first time.

The two of us on a case. You know,
you usually work with Speed.

Yeah, I guess I do.

Well, he says you taught him a lot.

Oh, yeah?

All right, the couple that called it in...

are Lisa and Mark Tupper.
Transplants from Boston.

They said they were taking a
nap about seven miles out.

Anyway, an unidentified male
climbed up their aft ladder,

then promptly dropped dead.

A guy comes out of the Atlantic,
chooses their boat to die on?

That's their story.

Well, single s*ab wound to the gut.

Pallor indicates he bled out.

So, uh, where's the
rest of the blood?

There was a lot more blood
than what we're seeing.

Let's process this boat for
any potential w*apon.

Got knives.
You find something?

Yeah. I found traces of blood and
hair here on the end of this flashlight.

Good work.
Let's get it to DNA.

Okay, right away.

Great.

His heart simply stopped beating.

Now how could that happen
to a perfectly healthy young man?

Tox was negative for
the garden variety dr*gs.

What about the white powder
you found on his mouth?

Six percent conchiline,


Good, old-fashioned, ground-up
pearl dust. Harmless.

Could he have had an
allergic reaction to it?

No rashes, no edema,
no airway congestion.

Just the ligature mark you found and
a tiny oval impression on his chest.

Those certainly didn't k*ll him.

So where does that leave us now?

With an apparent death
of natural causes.

I hate to say it, but we
could be done here.

Alexx ... does the DNA suggest
that there's semen present?

Yeah. Tails on the sperm indicate
sex just before death.

And a vaginal contribution
that eluded the condom.

But that's not why
you're here.

No, it's not.

You think one of the women did it,
don't you?

I do.

No such thing as free love.

Consenting adults have at it ...

but I can guarantee you our friend
Noel here didn't consent to this, did he?

Hey.
Hey.

These are swabs taken from
the knives on the cabin cruiser.

No trace of blood.

Detective Puig says that the rest of
the Tuppers' story was confirmed.

The marina owner saw just
the two of them go out.

So they could be telling the truth.

They cleaned up the blood.
Why hide that?

Well, people hide things.
Half the time without even thinking.

What'd you get off the flashlight?

Um ... hair.
Belonged to our dead swimmer.

And the blood, we're still testing.

The hair is enough.
Let's bring the Tuppers in.

You know those things we
took from your boat, Mark?

Yeah.

You want to tell us
about the flashlight?

It wasn't Mark. He didn't do anything.
He was asleep.

I never meant to hurt him.

We could charge her with as*ault.

Your call.

Did the wound to the head play
a part in the victim's death?

I don't know yet.

So I processed the mosquitoes, but they
were too dehydrated to extract any blood.

So I asked myself:

A bunch of dead, dried-out mosquitoes,
what's so strange about that?

People swat and k*ll them
all the time, don't they.

But these were pristine.
Not swatted, not smashed.

Pristine like the victim.
Alive one moment ...

Dead the next.

So, if Noel did die of natural causes,

what k*lled these mosquitoes?

Exactly. And since
mosquitoes drink blood ...

Something in the blood
must have k*lled them.

You know what? Let's have
Alexx go over the body again.

Looking for?

Looking for something lethal.

Ladies.

According to the physical evidence,

someone had sex with Noel
Peach just before he died.

So, we want to get a DNA reference
swab from each of you, okay?

Okay, if you guys could just
form a line right here.

That's not necessary.

It was me.

I didn't k*ll Noel.
He was fine when I left him.

About what, uh ...
time was that?

Just before two. I went upstairs
to lay down for a minute --

before I knew it, it was morning.
Please, you have to believe me.

One more question ...

what did you do with
the condom you used?

I didn't use one.

Yes, ma'am. Yes, ma'am, well,
I'm sorry for your loss.

That's correct. You have
my number. If you have ...

if you have any questions, please don't
hesitate to call me. Yes, ma'am.

Next of kin?

That was his mother.

And she said that she'd spoken
to him three days ago.

He told her that he had
declared a college major.

Did she know what
else he was into?

Well, only that he no longer
needed help with his tuition.

I went back over Noel's body.
Found this.

An injection site.

But there was nothing in his medical records.
No diabetes, known allergies, nothing.

Nothing that would require a daily injection.
And it's not track marks.

No. If he was a druggy,
it was his first time.

So we've got dead mosquitoes
that are telling us nothing ...

And the body telling us everything.
One of the hardest crimes to solve.

Poison.

The three most
common poisons are ... ?

Strychnine, but that's obvious.

Leaves the body horribly contorted
with that gruesome grin.

Arsenic-- causes hair loss,
makes the skin jaundiced.

And cyanide has that
bitter almond smell.

The tox tests were negative
for all three. So that leaves us ...

The world.

It leaves us the world because any element
can be poison. It's all about the dose.

Yeah, water will k*ll you if
you drink enough of it.

Yeah, you'd think it would be easy --

just put his blood in the mass
spec and get a result.

But it's not easy ...

... because poison
dissipates in the body.

It disperses. It changes.
It becomes metabolites.

In short, looking for poison
is like looking for smoke.

Here's what we're going to do.

Alexx is going to take a
sample from the body.

What we're looking for is
whatever was given to Noel...

and who had a reason to give it to him.
This kid had a family.

They deserve to know
what happened to him.

Preliminary autopsy report says
the flashlight blow was a minor injury.

Cause of death was from the blow to the liver,
causing massive internal bleeding.

Any number of stabbing
implements could've caused it,

but the interesting things
here are the organs.

His spleen was contracted --

about a twenty percent decrease in size from what
you'd normally find in a male his size and age,

but his heart and lungs were
twenty percent larger than normal.

So, we've got a guy with
big lungs and a big heart.

Could be an athlete.
But the spleen, is that it?

Would I do that to you?

Swabbed his wound.
Found some kind of microorganism.

Really?

O-kay, folks,
let's crash their party.

Hello.

Microorganisms in our swimmer's
wound are spores. Barrel sponge.

Bravo, Alexx.
Hmm ... take a look.

Aren't those found
in deep water?

Over fifty feet down below the,
uh, sun canopy.

How's that possible?

No excess nitrogen in our swimmer's system.
He wasn't using compressed air.

You said he had an enlarged
heart and lungs, right?

And contracted spleen.

I'm thinking he was a free diver. They're purists.
They dive without air tanks.

Record's a hair over seven minutes.
They train like crazy --

um, condition their lungs. They hyperventilate
to shut off the breathing center.

For most people, thirty seconds and
your brain's screaming, "breathe!"

I heard about this one contest
where they had one heart attack

and forty shallow-water
blackouts caused by hypoxia.

It's, uh, oxygen starvation -- makes
you delusional, tricks the brain.

Sounds crazy ... but it does explain the
size of our swimmer's lungs and heart.

And the compressed spleen.
Pressure makes the organs contract.

It allows the body to squeeze the last
drop of oxygen out of the blood.

Someone in homicide...

told me that there was a contest out of
Crandon Marina really early this morning.

Yeah?
Yeah.

You got directions?

And a full t*nk of gas.

Excuse me,

is there someone we could talk to about
a diving contest out here this morning?

Yeah. Who are you?

Detective Puig.

Donner, Delko,
Miami Crime Lab.

Okay, you're here about Adam?

Adam?
Carson ... cops are here.

Have you found him?

Who?

My brother Adam.
That's why you're here, right?

Your brother's missing?

Since this morning.

Called the coast guard. I filed a report.
Just tell me you found him.

Um ... we may have bad news.

Uh, there were maybe, uh,
fifteen people diving.

We must've lost track.

Yeah, but don't you guys
go down with a buddy?

You don't know
what this is, do you?

Free diving ain't
no team sport.

It's just you and the big blue --

no air, no life vest, no limits.
You're on the edge, on your own.

Huge tuna.
Put up a hell of a fight.

That must get the adrenaline
pumping, huh?

It can.
Listen ...

people were blacking out down there today,
staying down so long to look for Adam.

Hypoxia can cause delusions, can't it?

Not if you know your limits.

That's the point, isn't it --
pushing past limits?

What do you got there, Delko?

Spear g*ns.

I'll trade you some stale caviar for
some of those nifty spear g*ns.

I hate fish eggs.

Hey, Megan, did you miss me?

She actually forgot your name.

Two of us working together, we swabbed
every spear and knife from that competition,

and on this one here we
found traces of human tissue.

Spear g*n belongs to Ignacio Paez,
our Cuban diver.

So, we've got a m*rder
w*apon and a suspect.

What have you got?

I have a m*rder w*apon
of a different sort.

The DNA results confirm
that they're Nikki Olson's.

And inside the intimate part of her intimates,
a pubic hair from our victim, Noel Peach.

And the impression on his
chest matches this bra clasp.

An epi pen?

Yeah, a spring-loaded injector
designed to treat allergies,

and I found a print match
from one of our suspects on it --

Nikki Olson.

The blonde girl?

They usually only contain a
single dose of epinephrine,

but someonecould double-
or triple-load it.

Yes, they could, and give old
Noel his last dance, huh?

It's for bee stings.

I'm allergic.
Arrest me.

We didn't find any bee
stings on Noel Peach,

but what we did find was a puncture
mark from that injector pen.

Your pen, your prints.

Feel free to jump in anytime.

I never would have hurt Noel. And, frankly,
I don't know anyone who would.

Well, the evidence says it's you.

I thought he was going to die.

You see, Noel
is allergic to shellfish.

He didn't know those
were pearl sh**t.

Vodka and oyster juice
with pearl dust mixed in.

It's supposed to be
an aphrodisiac.

Well, that would explain the white
crystals around his mouth, but ...

Okay, he had an allergic
reaction and you saved him.

Was that before or
after you had sex?

That's not what happened.

We have a mark on Noel's
chest from your bra clasp and

trace evidence of him inside your underwear.
And that didn't get there all by itself.

I paid him, all right?

It was a fantasy of mine.

You ever strap on a
pair of four-inch heels?

A pushup bra? Just to look
good for a man, right?

I wanted to humiliate him like ...

We dated. We had sex,
just not that night.

He told me he was dating someone new,
that he was in love ...

I was happy for him.

Horatio?

I just got off the phone with Alexx...

and she said there was no more than
a single dose of epi in Noel's body.

Probably not enough to k*ll him.

Maybe he just had a
bad reaction to it?

Do you believe her story?

I don't know.

I guess that depends on whether you like
seeing men dress up in your underwear or not.

Personally, leather chaps, nothing else.
That was a joke.

I know.
You know what we do?

Let's round up the rest of the evidence
from the party and get it to trace.

Back to square one?

Back to square one.

Mr. Paez, we found human
tissue on your spear g*n.

Are you telling me you don't
know how it got there?

Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.

Maybe it was an accident?

A misfire, could have been
faulty equipment... ?

Mr. Paez ...

can I ask you a question?
Mr. Paez!

What do you want?

I'd like to run a test on you.
With your consent, of course.

What is that thing?

Tympanometer. It measures the middle ear's
response to waves of sound and pressure.

It's a flat graph.

Barotrauma.

In english, please?

His eardrums are ruptured.

You're losing your hearing,
aren't you, Mr. Paez?

You've been losing it for a while.

Yeah, it's caused by intense pressure
from repeated dives to depth.

Now, the air pressure in the inner ear has to be
equalized via valsalva or frenzel maneuvers.

The water creates pressure when it
tries to push in from the outside,

and if you don't equalize that
pressure on the way down, well ...

... pop goes the weasel.

Megan, can I talk
to you a minute?

Okay, so he can't hear.
He still could have k*lled our vic.

Not under fifty feet of water.

That's the only place he could have
picked up those sponge spores.

At that depth, water pressure would
have blown out Paez's inner ear.

Put him in the hospital.
He didn't do it.

Champagne and cocktails came
back negative for contaminates.

Our poison is still a no-show.

But did we find anything?

There were traces of milled calcium
sulphate on the condom wrapper.

Chalk?

It might lead us to somebody
else who had sex with Noel.

So, we are looking for someone
who is around chalk all the time.

What did the guest book say?

DMV helped me out with this:
Sophia Ananova, 24 years old.

Take a guess what she
does for a living?

Myrtle Shores Day School.
Third grade.

Hey.

We've got a problem.
No DNA match to our swimmer.

But there were human
skin cells on that spear.

Not from our victim Adam Cassidy.
I did a full run.

Profiler Plus and coFiler.
We don't have the m*rder w*apon.

We ran tests on all of the blades and
all of the spear points from that boat.

Well, we're missing one.
Maybe it's at the crime scene.

And fifty feet of water.

Or somebody's hiding something.

Speaking of which, um,
at the marina I hid something.

When I was processing
the flashlight, I sneezed.

You contaminated evidence?
Why didn't you tell me?

I wanted to,
I just didn't know how.

Okay, Eric, we all make mistakes.

What's important is we don't make them
very often, and we never withhold information.

I messed up.

Don't let it happen again.

I won't.

Good. 'Cause I'd hate to lose
the only CSI in Miami ...

who can process a crime
scene in fifty feet of water.

Great.

I know we've talked to you once,
but we need to follow up.

God, I can't believe this.
I'm going to lose my job.

What you do on your own
time is your business.

Well, I appreciate that.

But when you commit a crime
it becomes our business.

Can we hurry this up a little?
I'm got later gators in five minutes.

Horatio ... look.

It's the same brand.
Looks like a match.

It is a match.

I try to be safe.
Is that a crime?

No, not a crime.

But m*rder is.

I didn't have sex with that man.

Listen, we've all been there.

The morning after you wish you
hadn't. Just doesn't make it so.

I'm telling you the truth.

That condom was yours.
It was in your bag.

I know.

It was exciting, wasn't it?

To be ...

that intimate with
someone you hardly knew.

You changed your mind.

It wasn't like that.

I mean, I fantasized about it, sure ...

but I would never actually
have sex with a stranger.

Do you smoke?

Yeah. Well, I mean, I did.
I've been trying to quit.

Good luck with that.

Nicotine patches?

Nicotine is actually one of the
most toxic of all poisons --

more lethal than cyanide or
cobra venom, believe it or not.

Yeah, but seven to 22 milligrams per nicotine
patch is not enough to k*ll someone.

But 50 milligrams is. That's only three or
four of those patches right there.

First you get seizures as the nicotine
moves through the central nervous system.

Followed by paralysis. The lungs collapse,
the heart stops beating.

It can happen in five minutes.

Did Alexx do a
second tox screen?

Alkaloid salts came back positive.
Traces of cotinine metabolites.

Noel peach died of
nicotine poisoning.

Okay, but then how was
the poison introduced?

It wasn't inhaled, the dosage would have
been too small, and it wasn't ingested,

he would have tasted it, right?

Trans-dermal absorption.
She stuck a couple of patches on him.

We found no adhesive residue.

She could have worn gloves , maybe applied
liquid concentrate directly to the skin.

We're not making this case.
Let's go back to the body.

H-5.

H-6.

Well, here it is.

The exposure site is
between K-6 and L-6.

Oh, my.

Confirmation. Nicotine was introduced
through the penile tissue.

It gives a whole new meaning
to the term "members only."

Yes, it does.

Guess who won the 1998
Blue Water Meet.

Carson Cassidy.
Adam's won it every year since.

Huh. Well, this knife belongs to Carson,
but we can't prove it k*lled his brother.

The test for blood was negative?

Inconclusive, as were the
matches to the wound track.

You know, I used to have this
summer job scraping boat hulls.

A lot of bilge contaminants in the water.
I used to have to clean my knife every night.

Blood might have gotten
inside the handle.

His brother's keeper.

Sevilla is ready to file the arrest
warrant on the teacher.

Tell her to hang on a
minute, will you?

For what?
We got her.

Do we?

Well, she had the nicotine
patches and the condoms.

The problem is, is that
the box of patches is full.

She bought a new box.

But distillation takes time.

So where did the nicotine
come from?

That flower bed was filled
with roses, wasn't it?

And crawling all over
those roses are what?

Aphids.

How do you get rid of a
pest like an aphid?

Insecticide.
Nicotine is an insecticide.

One of the oldest known to man.
It's been in use since the mid-1800s.

And that would explain
our dead mosquitoes.

Have we processed that garden yet?

We went through the
patio and the toolshed.

I don't recall seeing any
heavy-duty insecticide.

Have we talked to the gardener?

Yeah, I keep the insecticides
locked in my truck.

Some of that stuff
is dangerous.

Red k*ll. Forty percent
nicotine sulfide solution.

Oh, really?

I could have
sworn I locked that.

Oh, yeah, we got a couple of prints.
Off to the lab they go.

Adam must have
borrowed that knife.

We already know he
borrowed a spear g*n.

Look, you've got no witnesses.
You've got no case.

Would you mind
taking off your shirt?

There ... are your witnesses,

hundreds of them from a
deep-water barrel sponge.

You and Adam were
down at least fifty feet.

It took about two
minutes to get there.

You must have already have
been entering that hypoxic state.

So Adam sh**t you with a spear g*n.
I don't think he was aiming for you.

You were both oxygen starved,
running on adrenaline.

It was like a dream.

Like ...

my hand wasn't my hand.

That would be the hypoxia talking.
You were delusional.

That's not supposed to happen.

Free diving makes everything clear.

It's a trip down to primal instinct.

k*lling your own brother --
doesn't get more primal than that.

I already told you Noel danced
for a lot of girls that night.

A lot of girls wanted him.

Enough to k*ll him?

Here we go.

What's that?

These are Noel's phone
records for the last month.

He called here over 107 times.
And most of those calls ...

were less than a
minute in length.

Why would he do that?

Well, Nikki mentioned to me...

that he was seeing someone new,
and based on those records,

I think it's you.

But you weren't the one
who wanted him.

It was the other way around.

Noel was obsessed with you.

He pursued you, even tried to make
you jealous by going off with Nikki.

He wouldn't end it, so you
decided to end it for him.

You took the condom out of Sophia's bag.
Added nicotine and insecticide.

We found your fingerprints on
the bottle in your gardener's truck.

And after the party, you let
Noel come to you one last time.

You knew he couldn't resist.

Poisoners are like kids
with their homework.

They want to show the math.

What are they doing?

The other day, while you out there
with Detective Sevilla ...

You inadvertently provided me
with the smoking g*n.

Horatio.

See, I'm guessing that inside
that thing will be nicotine,

and on the outside will be
your epithelial cells.

You could have poisoned yourself.

Well, that's why they
call it "safe sex."

Not for Noel.

He didn't understand.

He was in love with you.

So what?

Why is it always about
what the man wants?

His decision ...
his orgasm ...

his rules.

So, you k*lled Noel ...

because he wouldn't play by your rules.
Is that what you're telling me?

At least he gave me a
new kind of thrill.

Well ...

I hope you enjoyed it ...

because it's going to be your last.

You going to release the body?

Yeah. His mother's here.

Just have to sign
the death certificate.

Not the kind of diploma
he was after, though, huh?

Not the kind you frame.

You okay?

You need a couple more minutes?

No, but he did.