CSI: Let It Bleed (Episode 904)

This isn't what it looks like, Sara. It's totally platonic, I swear.

Twas the night before Halloween
When all through the Strip
Every deviant was stirring
And not one leaves a tip.
The shops were robbed in the casinos' bright glare
No fear; brave Nicholas soon would be there.

Nicky explains to New Girl that in Las Vegas, the Halloween celebrations go on all week. They've been responding to a series of calls in which a man dressed up as a cop robbed a bunch of liquor stores. As they're walking, they interrupt one in progress. They both give chase but New Girl falls back to call for backup while Nicky races on. He follows the robber into an abandoned building and is shot at a bunch of times, but if you think the fact that his best friend was recently shot to death would deter him, you'd be wrong. Nicky corners the thief in a room and urges him to give himself up but the guy looks around frantically, then decides throwing himself out a window is better than being arrested. Nicky peers down at the robber's bloody body, which landed in a dumpster, and the case gets more interesting when New Girl trots over and alerts Nicky to the fact that another body is already occupying the dumpster.

Grissom arrives and immediately scolds Nicky for being reckless, saying he could've ended up in the Dumpster O' The Dead as well. "Understood," Nicky replies, which is not exactly an apology or promise to not do it again. The dumpster belongs to a mirror and glass store which closed earlier in the afternoon, but New Girl observes with a sniff that the second victim, a young woman, is freshly dead. Okay, she sniffed the body. That's gross, yet kind of awesome. I'm not ready to give her her name yet, but she's growing on me. Nicky speculates that the woman was a hooker who ran into bad luck with a john. "Trick or treat," Grissom mutters cynically.

Nicky's working the B case, that of the suicidal robber, and it's funny but not as compelling as the A case, so I'm going to get it out of the way all at once. Nicky's examining the police officer's uniform when Brass comes in, asking about the gun. It was unregistered, Nicky says, and the uniform has a Reno PD patch on it but patches can be bought in a lot of places. Brass asks to use the ALS, which surprises Nicky since Brass hasn't played a science geek since he was demoted as the team supervisor in the pilot episode in a very long time, but Brass says it's just like riding a bicycle. "What, you don't want to share your toys?" Brass snarks. Nicky smirks and lets Brass take a look at the uniform. Brass declares that the uniform is legitimate, which means there's a Reno cop missing his uniform somewhere in Las Vegas.

Nicky tracks down the Reno cop, who says he's in town testifying in a case. He's staying at the Palermo and says he met a hot girl who wanted to have a fun, sexy time with the cop while wearing his uniform. Cascading champagne was involved so the cop sent his uniform out to be dry-cleaned, only he never got it back. The casino insisted they hung it on the back of his door. He gives his hotel room number to Nicky then ruefully says he's going to catch hell for the snafu from his department but it was worth it. "I'll see what I can do, Casanova," Nicky jokes.

Awww, how sweet. Nicky gifted Mandy with the robber's dismembered fingertips. She lifts one out of its little formaldehyde home and prints it, just in time for Nicky to arrive for the results. She doesn't demand that he sing to her again, which is a real shame. The robber was Thomas Taylor from California, and he's got quite the extensive violent crime record. After some investigating, Nicky discovers that someone with the name Barry Wunderlick, also from California, rented the patent leather shoes Taylor was wearing when he robbed the liquor store, along with another pair and two tuxedos. A room across the hall from where the cop was staying was also reserved under Mr. Wunderlick's name.

Barry Wunderlick has been found, in the drunk tank no less, and brought into interrogation. He says he came to Las Vegas with his best man, Thomas Taylor, for a bachelor party. They gambled away all their money, then Wunderlick beat up a few casino personnel when they cut him off. Wunderlick ordered Taylor to come up with some funds and bail him out so he wouldn't miss his wedding. He's proud when Nicky tells him that Taylor robbed several stores while disguised as a cop, but it's not quite so funny when Wunderlick realizes his best man ended up dead trying to bail out his stupid ass.

Now it's time to go back to the A case. Before Nicky takes off to investigate the twist on Cops & Robbers, he spots a fish tattoo on the hip of the dead girl. It's a fake and New Girl speculates that it's a club stamp. She checks the database, then she and Catherine head out to Dark Water to check things out. Everyone's in costume and New Girl observes, "Looks like a bunch of adults going as teenagers this year." Catherine's more interested in the actual teenager going as an angel: her daughter, Lindsey. She charges over and scares off the jailbait-hunting perv Lindsey's dancing with and orders Lindsey to hand over the fake ID. Lindsey is angry and humiliated, as only a busted teen can be, but doesn't put up much of a fight when Catherine tells an officer to escort Lindsey home, perhaps because Catherine informs her that a girl her age was murdered near the club last night. New Girl wonders when the CSIs became bouncers and Catherine snaps that when she has kids, they can talk. New Girl, bless her childfree heart, replies that they won't be talking anytime soon. And that, dear readers, is how Riley earned her name.

Riley has learned that because the victim had a stamp but not a wrist band, she was in the VIP area. Catherine and Riley go talk to the club owner, Craig Hess, played by Sex And The City hottie Jason Lewis . Alas, Craig is a smarmy sleazeball and not at all like the sweetheart Smith, but Catherine does hilariously call him "Mr. Big." After shooing away his entourage ("Finish puberty somewhere else." - hee!), she lights into Hess for letting Lindsey in but Hess coolly shoots back that Lindsey possessing a fake ID is not bad club management, but bad parenting. That's not entirely accurate but it hits close enough to home that Catherine lets it drop. Riley shows Hess a picture of the dead girl but he claims he doesn't recognize her.

Greg and Riley go over the surveillance footage from the club and see that the victim was thrown out by a bouncer about four hours before she was found in the dumpster. The girl fights with the bouncer but Hess says something to her and she quiets down. In the morgue, Grissom photographs the body while Catherine tweezes pieces of glass out of the girl's flesh. Catherine says something but Grissom has totally lost his concentration and zoned out. Catherine calls his name until he focuses again, then asks if he's been sleeping. He doesn't say anything and she nods knowingly, saying that she hasn't gotten much sleep either. She asks if he's heard from Sara and he admits he doesn't know where she is. Ow, my heart. Grissom goes back to the case and observes that the girl had needle marks in her arms and Catherine finds powder in her nose and hives on her stomach, perhaps a drug-related allergic reaction. Vartann joins them and says he's identified the victim. She's Angela Carlos, a college student in Salt Lake City, and she's in the US on a student visa. Her father, Juan Carlos, just so happens to be a Colombian drug lord, making the case a lot more complicated. Angela's aunt lives nearby, so Vartann and Grissom head out to talk to her.

Angela's aunt, Emelina Carlos, is distraught when she hears the news, but she agrees to answer any questions. She says Angela lived with her until she went to college in Salt Lake City, because it was a better environment for a party girl like Angela. Emelina didn't know Angela was in Las Vegas and says Angela didn't have many friends, except for her best friend Sylvie. Crying hard, Emelina tells them that they can catch whoever killed Angela, but it doesn't matter. "Juan will never forgive me," she says fearfully.

When Sylvie is found, she's also devastated when Greg tells her that Angela is dead. She tells him that she and Angela came to Las Vegas for Halloween and Angela used her powerful father's name to get into Dark Water, but Hess didn't want the trouble she'd bring and had her thrown out. Sylvie says she stayed behind because she hooked up with a guy, and she texted Angela to meet her at a party later. Greg wonders why she wasn't worried about Angela when she didn't show and Sylvie replies that nobody touches Angela.

Back at Dark Water, Catherine and Riley confront Hess over lying about Angela. He admits a former employee let her in but he had her removed right away, although he pretends it was only because she was underage and not because of her father, whom he claims not to know. Catherine thinks Hess was in business with Juan Carlos, which would get his club shut down, but Hess isn't budging. He also refuses to share what he said to Angela that got her to leave quietly, even though Catherine reveals she knows he was once arrested for rape. He smirks that the charges were dropped. "A girl wants to party and get a little bit rough, it's a date. She doesn't get flowers in the morning, it's rape."

Down in the morgue, SuperDave finds another shard of glass in Angela's skull, but it's different from the other glass found in the dumpster and was embedded before she died. SuperDave takes it up to Trace and passes Grissom, who's come down because Doc Robbins has something to show him. It's a vial of Angela's blood and Grissom observes that the blood cells and serum haven't separated, which usually only happens in advance decomposition. Robbins rattles off a list of things that could've caused it, many of which would explain the hives, but he's waiting on DNA results and a tox screen before certifying cause of death.

Catherine returns to her office to find Lindsey waiting for her. Lindsey's a mixture of indignant and contrite. She shows her mother the results of her breathalyzer, proving she wasn't drinking, then apologizes for using a fake ID. She knows her mom is dealing with a lot but Catherine doesn't need to worry about her. Catherine wryly notes that she'll be the judge of that and hugs her daughter, but is sure to tell Lindsey that she's still grounded. Awww, what a sweet moment. Call me crazy, but I think Lindsay will get through her teenage years without ending up on a slab, either by her own willful stupidity or via her mother snapping from the stress and throttling her.

Grissom is beckoned into Hodges' lair and has to listen to Hodges ramble about getting two tickets to some lecture with an open bar. Finally, Grissom catches on: "Are you asking me out?" "Is that a yes?" Hodges asks hopefully. Hee! Hodges, I'm afraid you'll have to get in line behind Sara and Ecklie. Grissom decides to kindly rescue Hodges from abject humiliation and asks about the white powder found in Angela's nose. Hodges says it wasn't cocaine but atropine, which is used to cut cocaine. However, neither was found in her tox screen. Grissom wonders how the atropine ended up in Angela's nose but not her blood stream and takes off, ignoring Hodges plaintive, "So, we're still on for that lecture, right?"

Greg finds Riley and says he's found a GPS signal on Angela's cell phone. They track it to a garbage truck and call the number to find the phone in one of the garbage bags, along with bloody glass. Back at the lab, Riley tries to connect the garbage truck to Dark Water, hoping to bust Hess, but the club isn't on the truck's route.

Wendy comes down to the morgue and from her apprehensive demeanor, it looks like her first trip. Or maybe her nervousness stems from having to interact directly with the prickly Doc Robbins, especially since she's there to tell him he made a mistake drawing blood from Angela for DNA analysis. She tells him that when she tested the blood, it came back as coming from Angela and two unknown male donors. Robbins disputes that he screwed up and suggests the mistake was on her end. They bicker about it but agree another sample should be drawn. He pulls out the drawer with Angela's body on it and Wendy looks a little nauseated. Girl's seriously gotta toughen up if she wants to be a CSI. If a mostly normal-looking dead body makes her squeamish, what's she going to do when she's confronted with her first corpse soup?

After testing the second sample, Wendy and Robbins present their findings to Grissom. Wendy says the second sample was clean, but Robbins pipes in that it doesn't mean the first sample was contaminated. He goes on to say that maybe the first result explains why Angela's blood didn't separate, and Wendy jumps in to say she ran a test on the blood from the glass Greg and Riley found and that also had the two male donors. They conclude that Angela got a blood transfusion from two donors and one of the blood types reacted badly with Angela's, causing her death. Grissom wonders how a girl looking to score some drugs ended up with a nose full of atropine and a poisonous blood transfusion, and Wendy says she can't separate the two donors' blood so she can't run the DNA. All they know is that now they're looking for two suspects.

Hodges scans in the bloody glass fragments and pieces them together into a fishbowl. He also finds a fish scale in Angela's purse and presents his findings to Catherine. He tells her that scale is from a goldfish, which are used to feed tropical fish. That takes Catherine back to Hess, who has several tanks of exotic fish at his club. She asks him about the fish and he says he doesn't take care of them but he gets all of his supplies and fish maintenance and care from his friend Goya, who runs a fish warehouse.

The cops find Goya and his co-worker Joe at the warehouse and learn that besides dealing in fish and related products such as the sedative atropine, they also traffic in cocaine. Catherine speculates that Hess sent Angela to them and eventually through questioning and evidence processing the whole story comes out. Angela came to the warehouse after Hess said Goya would hook her up with cocaine. Goya and Joe took her into a room where Joe was cutting cocaine with atropine but when he stepped out for a moment, Angela got greedy and took a big snort. Unfortunately, she snorted the atropine instead of the cocaine and had a seizure, smashing her head into a fishbowl and getting glass embedded in her skull. Joe and Goya freaked out when they found her but she was still alive, so rather than calling 911 or even dumping her at a hospital, they decided to flush out her atropine-dosed blood with their own. They used filter hoses to hook themselves up to her and let the blood flow, but the types didn't play well together and Angela was poisoned and died. Panic killed whatever few brain cells they had left so they dumped her body in the dumpster near Dark Water, hoping to set up Hess as revenge for him sending Angela to them. So why did they decide a transfusion was a swell idea? They cite the urban legend that Keith Richards had his blood swapped out to beat an addiction. Even knowing that story's not real doesn't matter; Goya says he knew the moment Juan Carlos' daughter walked in his warehouse that he was a dead man walking.

Grissom lies in bed with Hank, who is undeniably warm and cuddly and awesome, but just not the same as Sara. He looks weary to the bone but his eyes are open and it's a good thing he's not asleep, because his phone rings. He lets it ring several times, not wanting to deal with the call. He finally answers but he should've just turned the ringer off because the bodies have piled up all over Las Vegas. Juan Carlos has left his calling card with all the people he decided were responsible for his daughter's death. Craig Hess died in his club, Sylvie was killed near her car, and Goya's and Joe's bodies are found in jail. At the last scene, a resigned and demoralized Grissom looks at Emelina Carlos, dead from a gunshot to the head.

Next week: LADY EFFING HEATHER, Y'ALL. I can't wait!