CSI: Miami: Raising Caine (Episode 613)

This episode opens on Elizabeth Berkeley, starring as Julia Watson, high-end real estate agent and trophy wife.  While she presents her latest island getaway to her crop of rich banker-types, a man leaves the room and heads to an office.  Once there, he picks up a picture of himself and Julia; Julia is half-smiling and sporting a ginormous diamond.  He furrows his brow, pulls a Horatio with his pensiveness, and begins to rifle through some papers on his desk.  As he begins to sign, he hears a knock at the door and asks for a minute to himself.  He returns his attention to the papers, begins to sign, and BOOM!  Gunshot to the chest.  Blood spatter everywhere.  Just your typical Miami real estate schmooze-fest...

 

Horatio shows up with Frank.  The dead guy is billionaire philanthropist and investor Bill Winston.  Frank brings in Pamela Osborne, the "house manager."  She found Bill dead.  Among the houseguests, she only recognized Bill's lawyer.  She explains Mrs. Winston's clientele and Horatio asks where she is.  She is. in fact, behind him, and says "I'm over here, John."  Horatio turns.  Turns out Julia is Kyle's mom!!  Holla!

 

Julia likes Horatio's "new" name.  Okay, at this point, I realize (straight as I am), that Jessie Spano is freaking HOT.  I don't care if she's Botox-ed to shit, if that's why she looks flawless, I want some.  Unfortunately, it hasn't helped her acting skills; the entire episode I kept confusing her with the bitch she played on that one Law and Order episode (the one who conned a bunch of guys into paying for their "son" and her jealous sister put her in prison, etc etc).  Anyway, the sexual tension between her and Horatio is high, but mostly because it's clear that H. never got a chick as hot as her ever again and is still pining over her.    She asks about Kyle and Horatio tells her he's in jail.  She wants to see him, but Horatio reminds her that there's a murder - her husband's murder - to clean up first.

 

Natalia and Calleigh survey the crime scene.  Natalia finds "disturbed blood" which leads her to finding the pen Bill used to sign the documents.  Putting two and two together, she realizes that there were documents here and now they are missing.  The pen reads "Larry Hopkins, ESQ."  They bring Larry in for questioning.  He admits he was at the house to bring Bill the papers.  Larry willingly tells the cops that he heard the gun shot, rushed in, and took the papers.  He thought it more important to put ultra-private Bill's affairs in order than to call the cops.  Basically, he was Bill's "shovelbuddy."  He also refuses to disclose more without a warrant.

 

Here begins the misguided montage of scenes of ASA Nevins deposing Kathleen Newberry and Horatio and Kyle talking in prison.  I guess they are supposed to juxtapose or have some running theme, but they really don't, it's just probably because they used up the episode's "techno music montage" quota with "Eric in lab" later in the episode.  Kathleen gets freaked out while talking to Nevins, who's a bitch.  Horatio spends his time reassuring Kyle that he's a good parent and will be there for his son.  In fact, Horatio even filed for custody after Kyle get released.  

 

Alexx autopsies the body and gives Eric some details.  The bullet traveled upward, meaning Bill was shot from under the desk. Although most houses in Miami don't have basements, the Watson house had a wine cellar.  Right under the desk is an AC vent (convenient).  Eric finds hair and blood on the rim of the vent.  Back at the lab, Natalia runs it - it belongs to Rob Mason who has previously been arrested for white collar crimes.  Turns out he weaseled his way into the upper class and wanted to take a look at the wine cellar.  He was on a ladder and bumped his head... yeah right.  They test his hands for gunpowder residue and it comes back negative.  He's too cocky to be innocent, though.  Good thing the CSIs agree!  

 

At the lawyer's office, the detectives finally get a look at those phantom papers that dead-Bill was about to sign.  They were for an annulment from Julia; Bill claimed her to be a "fraud."  Turns out that she cut their honeymoon short to close the deal on the island getaway.  This raised Bill's suspicions and he snooped around in her past.  He planned on publicly outing her at the house the night of his death, but you know, got shot first.  A lipstick smudge on the edge of the paper means a chick knew about it; assuming it was Julia, it now gives her a motive.  Horatio tries to get a hold of her and finds her visiting Kyle in prison.  She's acting all motherly with him, tying his tie and reassuring him that everything will be okay and that she's never leaving him again (likely story).  Kyle, being deprived of a mother's love, is buying it.  It kills H as he watches it.  He pulls Julia aside.  We learn a little about their history - they met when he was undercover, going by the name "John."  She admits she found out about the annulment the night before the real estate party while she was finalizing some things with the lawyer.  He stepped away from his desk and she snooped, finding the documents.  They walk outside and Frank is checking her car.  He finds a gun.  Horatio and Julia have another sexually-charged and awkward interaction and she accuses him of still loving her.  I'm gonna say.... TRUE.

 

Eric runs tests on the gun found in Julia's car (to techno beats, of course).  The prints on it aren't Julia's - they're Rob Mason's.  They call him back in and ask to swipe his hand and pocket.  They both test positive for residue, because although he scrubbed good the first time around, he put his hand in the pocket in which he kept the gun and got residue on it again.  Oops.  He starts ratting out Julia, who apparently found out about his checkered past from the house manager.  HM recognized Rob from an old restaurant job or something.  Julia agreed not to out him if he shot her husband.  So... he did.  Unfortunately, there's no physical evidence tying Julia to the crime.  Even if he's telling the truth, there's not really anything the cops can do about it.

 

Switch gears to Kyle's trial.  Nevins calls Kathleen Newberry, who doesn't show up.  She asks for a brief recess.  Horatio vows to find her.  Instead, he finds a house full of bills and a foreclosure notice.  Also, Kathleen has packed most of her crap; seems like she's hit the road.  There were money bands scattered on her bed... somehow Eric deduces that she must have had close to a million dollars.  Natalia, meanwhile, heads to speak with Julia and the house manager.  Julia says that someone provided Kathleen with an anonymous gift and that it was charity, not blackmail or a bribe.  The house manager idiotically incriminates herself by cockily asking Natalia if the cops have a body.  Should there be one?, Natalia replies.  Immediately, we flash back to court where the judge declares the charges void since the state can't produce it's key witness.  Kyle is free to go... but now has to choose which parent he goes with.  He picks mommy, mostly because she throws him the keys to her sportscar when they leave.  Little bastard (although both parents were pretty absentee).  

 

Outside the courtroom, Julia clarifies with Horatio that Kyle can't be retried if Kathleen never comes back.  She's right and Horatio implies that she'd do anything for Kyle.  Julia's story seems so plausible that the next scene was actually a bit of a surprise.  In the "montages" that occurred when Julia was explaining her "charity" to Natalia showed a smiling Kathleen driving with craploads of money.  In the final scene of the show, Kathleen is bleeding from the head, bound and gagged with duct tape as her car plunges into a swamp.  She screams and struggles as it fills with water and sinks.  Badass ending.