NewYorksAngels

This episode opens having a bloody finger press L while in an elevator. The doors open and a person stumbles out woozy, reaches the reception desk to tap the bell. We hear a man say I’ll be right there, and when he comes out he sees no one but hears some murmuring. He looks over the desk to find a young woman lying on the floor all bloody saying “Help us.” White light flashes and then we see Stella walking into the hotel with her kit, Don looks up and approaches with the particulars of this case. The victim’s name is Brooke Hallworth, she is 21 years of age, and the paramedics found her with blunt force trauma to the head and she is at the Trinity hospital. Stella asks if she is a guest at the hotel, but Don replies that there is nothing registered in her name. She gets her ALS out of her kit and starts searching for a blood trail. They follow it to the elevator where they see the bloody smear when Brooke pressed the Lobby button. Don asks how do they find out what floor she was on. Stella snaps on a glove and says that there is only one way to find out, quickly presses all of the buttons. When the elevator stops at each floor she scans the floor for blood, when they find none it is on to the next floor. Finding blood on the 14th floor, they follow it back to the room, the door has been left opened. Guns pulled they scan it for perps but find a dead male body. Stella looking around, says that they can rule out robbery when they both find a big load of cash on the bed.

As Sheldon photographs the body, Mac walks into the room and asks where Stella is. Is she canvassing for witnesses? No, replies Sheldon, she is on her way to the hospital to ask the victim some questions. Mac nods, Sheldon holds up a glass and says “Champagne, cash, hotel room, ski mask…which one doesn’t belong?” Mac asks about the gunshot wound on the abdomen and whether or not he found a shell casing. He says no, that the killer must have used a revolver or took the casing with him. The bruises on the victim’s wrist suggest that he was in a defensive position, but Sheldon concludes that it was due to repeated behavior, or that he was clumsy. Or due to a painful job, says Mac. Sheldon points out an abrasion on his neck that it could have happened when he died. Mac notices that it has a pattern to it. Sheldon photographs it so they can enhance it in the digital AV lab. Mac gets up and looks around, notices that the metal housing on the privacy chain is bent, the door was forced open. Flashes to the crime of the killer forcing the door open with holding a gun on the victim, end of flash. Sheldon sums up the crime, room invasion with no robbery, one dead and one barely alive. That whoever did this wasn’t looking for cash, they were looking to hurt these people. Mac says that if this wasn’t a robbery, why not take the money anyway? Don comes in and says that the room was registered to a Jesse Davis, and that he was accompanied by a woman who matches the description of the vic. If she was in the room when the killer’s mask came off she will be able to make an ID, Mac says. If she makes it at all, says Don.

Over at the lab, Danny is painfully walking down the hall with his cane. Adam running behind him catches up and challenges him to a race to the end of the hallway. Danny pokes him lightly with his cane. Just a little humor there, says Adam. Danny asks where they are on the case now. Behind door number one, they have all of the stemware, champagne bottles and a vase to process. Behind door number two, they have a wool ski mask that was worn presumably by the killer. Which one will it be Messer, says Adam. Danny picks door number one because the room is closer. In the virtual autopsy room, Sheldon tells Stella that when he was an intern he would see a lot of broken bones, hyper extended fractures and so on. Stella asks if they were football players, and he says no. Believe it or not, they were dancers. Confused she asks what kind of dancers they were to have injuries like these. He points out a wrist fracture that comes from a dance move called ‘air flare.’ Flashes to a dancer who is holding his body on his wrist while spinning his legs in the air, end of flash. A herniated cervical disc in the neck comes from standing on his head while spinning his body around it. Their vic is a dancer, a street dancer. Stella also points out a callus on the back of his head. It wasn’t recent, and not related to their crime. It had to have happen three months ago. She asks what cause of death was. Did Sid remove the slug? All he was able to remove was this metallic powder from the wound. It was odd, the wound wasn’t a through and through. The wound was only a few inches deep. Stella asks where the bullet went when they have no exit wound and no bullet. And what is this powder adds Sheldon. In the lab, Sheldon is running tests on the mystery powder. The analysis comes up with Zinc and Copper shavings. Danny over on the other side of the lab is processing the evidence, fuming the bottles, stemware, and vase he finds fingerprints. Stella over in the Digital AV lab is processing the bruise pattern on Jesse’s neck. She enhances the bruise pattern. Mac walks in and asks about Brooke, and Stella says that the minute is she is conscious she is getting back there. He asks if Stella has seen the paper, he holds up the NY Ledger with the headline “Compass Killer Still At Large, NYPD Investigation Stalled.” And that Adam told him that there is a Facebook quiz called “If you were the Compass Killer, where would you strike next?” Stella knows, Adam already told her. She tells him to calm down they will get the guy, but for now let’s focus on the hotel room murder. She wants him to take a look at the bruise pattern she enhanced. It is a cross hatch pattern, and it took some force to do, it wasn’t a glancing blow. Sheldon was right about the other injuries, Jesse Lewis was a dancer. In fact, he was performing just hours before he died. She pulls up some video on him; he performed under the name “The Mechanicx.” This particular competition was known as Battle Step. Mac thought this type of dancing went out with Ms. Pacman and the Rubix cube, Stella smiles and say that it went underground and advanced to become known as Street Dancing.

On the video of Jesse, we see him dancing to some loud music. When done with his set, he is named winner. A man with a red jacket, upset walks up to Jesse and pushes him. Mac asks what the guy in the red jacket is so upset about. The winner of the competition wins ten grand, all cash. Mac notices that everyone there could be their suspect, while Stella says that if robbery was the motive why was the cash still on the bed? Why don’t we ask the guy who came in second, says Mac. At the competition, Mac and Don question Craig, the guy who lost to Jesse and blames him for stealing his moves while on the floor ‘the elbow air flare’. He asks why they are questioning him about Jesse, what did he do. Don replies that he stepped in front of a gun while someone was pulling the trigger. Mac makes the connection to the bruise to Craig’s hand glove. It has the same cross hatch pattern. Craig called Jesse out after the competition and accused him of scoping out his practice sessions. Jesse pushes Craig and tells him to step out of his face; Craig grabs him and holds his neck tightly transferring the pattern of his glove to his neck. Craig says that if he is going to kill someone he will do it in the ring. Over at the hospital, Stella talks to Brooke, and tells her that they have a suspect in custody and that is important that they get an ID. A friend in the room with Brooke asks if it is necessary, Stella says yes. Sometimes after a traumatic event the memories are the most vivid. She asks if he is a family member, he says no. Nick Emerson, a friend of her and Jesse’s. Don walks in Craig, and they ask if he is the one who broke into their room and hurt them. Looking at him, Brook says nothing. Craig opens his mouth and says tell them I didn’t do this. Angry, Don whispers to him “What did I say about talking?” Brooke still staring at him just doesn’t know. She says she is sorry, but she doesn’t remember. Sheldon walks Stella and Mac through Brooke’s injuries and that she has a grade five concussion which means that she won’t remember much. If this had been a grade six, they would have been investigating two murders instead of one. Mac suggests that a trip back to the crime scene might spark a memory or two, Stella nods and plans it. Sheldon is asked if there is any progress on the metallic powder that Sid pulled out of the wound. He is tracking down the source. Adam walks in Mac’s office and says that he wants to be known as “AdamRoss.edu.” “Because all day long I have giving people education” he sings to an imaginary tune. Thinking this is funny, he looks to Stella who rolls her eyes and looks away, and then to Mac and Sheldon the smile dropping from his face. He found hairs on the ski mask, no roots to give them DNA but the characteristics are the same in color and pigment. But he will run it for mitochondrial DNA. The prints on the vase come back to Brooke and an unknown donor. It could be the killer’s. Mac tells Adam and Sheldon to run the prints through all databases.

At the police department, Danny slowly walks up to Don and asks him what he has, bud. Don says this is not the first time Jesse was robbed; Danny makes a crack about how you can’t claim NY residency if you haven’t been robbed at least twice, Don snickers. Three months ago, Jesse was robbed of three thousand dollars and a watch after a competition from an Al Santiago. But it puzzles the detectives, for Al to have robbed him why didn’t Jesse ID him. He was staring Al right in the face. In interrogation, Al puts on bad accent and says “Me speaka no English” very slowly. Don ticked, says for him to knock it off Alice. “It is Al, scumbag” says Santiago to Don. “Al Scumbag?” says Danny. “I thought you said his name was Santiago,” he says to Don. Danny points out on his rap sheet that Al’s full name is Alice Adrienne Santiago. Don wisecracks that with a name like that he probably had to mail his lunch money in. Santiago says that his name is of German decent, it means “noble.” He asks what he is in there for now. Danny quips back to him, robbery with a homicidal twist. Santiago nods his head and says that sounds like him. Don comes back to him saying that he robbed Jesse, the guy he held up three months ago. They flash back to the crime and it turns out that he did do it, but couldn’t be arrested because Jesse didn’t ID him in the line up. They tell him that he took another chance to rob him again, this time wearing a ski mask. Al says now he knows that he didn’t do it because he doesn’t ski. Danny comes back at him with he may have gotten away with three thousand, but they are wondering what happened this time. Why didn’t he take the ten grand, did Jesse hit him, did he bum rush him at the door? The mask got ripped off, so he couldn’t take the chance of leaving Jesse alive, not without him IDing him a second time around. Al goes on the record to say that he doesn’t know what they are talking about. That anyone who wears a mask is a punk. He leans toward Don and tells him that it must hurt to know that they are sitting across from a guy that they are so sure of robbing Jesse but have nothing to put him away for it. Behind the glass, Mac tells Stella, everything about this says that he did it. And until the mitochondrial DNA comes from the hair sample and it is a match, they will have to cut him loose. They then question the first robbery; Jesse was staring right at the robber. Why did the ID go south?

In ballistics, Mac fires a round from his gun and the bullet hits the target and disintegrates into a powdery substance. Sheldon walks up to it and says that it matches what they found in the Jesse’s wound. Those rounds are simulation rounds. They are meant for tactical training, to mark your shots. There are two kinds of simulation rounds, an ink filled sort of like paintballs, and SafeFire rounds, frangible rounds that disintegrate upon hard targets. Adam walks in and says that he matched the SafeFire rounds to a training facility called Center Ring Firing Range in Brooklyn. Mac investigates and the instructor recognizes Jesse Lewis as one of his students. Back at his office, Mac concludes that Jesse was shot with his own handgun, but who loads it with non lethal rounds? Sheldon walks in and says that Adam got a hit on the unknown fingerprint; it belongs to Jesse and Brooke’s friend Nick Emerson, their business partner. Don questions Nick as to what his fingerprint was doing in the hotel room that night and why didn’t he tell them that he was there. Nick figured that he didn’t need to tell them, that they would figure it out on their own. He had been there to party with Jesse and Brooke to celebrate him winning the big competition. Flashes back to Jesse inviting Nick to dance, he puts down one of the champagne bottles and spins out a little move. Accidentally tripping, Nick’s hand lands on the vase end of flash. Don questions his alibi further, telling him that he would need a hair and DNA sample. Nick replies that Jesse was his friend, he wouldn’t do this. Stella leading Brooke into the hotel room tells her if at any time she wants to leave just say the word. Brooke nods. As they are going through the rooms Brooke has a flash of memories, of them drinking, having fun, and jumping on the bed with the cash. Stella asks if anyone was in the room with them, was Nick with them? Brooke doesn’t think so; she looks at the floor and sees the blood. She flashes to the crime, of Jesse dying. She rushes the killer and starts hitting him. He backhands her with the gun, knocking her to the ground; he leans over her and brushes the hair away from her face. It was like the like the killer was going to help her, but then he leaves. Brooke breaks down and can’t remember anymore.

At the lab, Danny runs through the evidence for Mac. He finds evidence of Brooke and Jesse on everything, but nothing of Jesse. Nick is lying; Sheldon matches his hair DNA to the hair found on the mask. At the competition, everyone is leaving flowers and little reminders of his life, Mac and Don find Nick there. He tells them that he killed him but they don’t’ know why he did it. He killed Jesse because Jesse asked him to. This all started with the first robbery; Mac says that they know all about it. They have all of the details. Nick asserts that they don’t know everything…Brooke was with Jesse that night. That is the part he was left out. Brooke was shaken up by it, Jesse told her to go home. He would take care of it. Jesse felt unmanned, that he should have done something to prevent it. During the robbery, Al had both Jesse and Brooke facing against the wall. As the robbery went on, Al started to nuzzle and assault Brooke; Jesse couldn’t do anything about it while Al had a gun on them. Upset that his girlfriend was being touched he reacted and was smashed in the back of the head with the gun. He blamed himself for not being able to protect Brooke; and came up with the plan to save himself in Brooke’s eyes. Stella tells Brooke what Jesse did, and she can’t believe it. That he would never do that. The rounds were non lethal and both didn’t realize that Jesse could have gotten hurt, it was his fatal mistake. Nick stunned that Jesse died from the wounds, hit Brooke by mistake when she rushed him. She could ID him, when the mask was ripped off his face. He planned to turn himself in, after he visited her at the hospital but when she didn’t remember anything he thought that it would all go away. Brooke questions why Jesse would do this, she loved him for who he was that he could make her smile. Stella says that she has one more thing to ask of her. Mac, Stella and Danny are there with Brooke, arrange a line up. We see six men; Brooke ID’s number three…Al Santiago as the robber from three months ago. He is asked to step up by Mac and the rest are let go. Don happily slaps the cuffs on and leads him out. Mac says that it is over, they have him. The end.

Whoa, Dori! That was great! :D

I thought it was a great episode. I mean, the FB quiz scene, at least Mac and Stella smiled at each other. I think it will start getting better but I disliked when Adam walked in Mac's office. I laughed at him though.

I think this case reminded Stella of Frankie because it looked like she was going to start crying. Stella didn't remember half of what happened w/ Frankie and I think she understood what she was going through. And Brooke had to go back to the apartment. I think it related to All Access. I felt really bad for Brooke.

Great summary Dori!!

I wasn't very impressed with this episode. It just didn't keep my interest for some reason.

And I was extremely disappointed in the fact that Lindsay wasn't in it at all. Adam last week and her this week. Not cool at all.

Thanks Dori

I thought it was an okay episode. The last 5 or 10 minutes I thought it finally got into its stride. NO idea why but the endding remeind me of the one where the guy walks in to the police station and tells them he shot a doctor but it turns out his wife did it and he said he did it because he was dying.

Oh yeah, that guy.

Yeah, I think they left Lindsay out because she was with Lucy. I was like, 'Where's Montana?' Haha!

I just realized that Lindsay wasn't hardly in last seasons episode No. 5 either. Strange coincidence ... *shrugs* :blink:

I only watched half so I wouldn't know. :P

It does seem odd that 2 main cast members were not in the show and the week before another cast member was not in it.


It did feel a bit as this episode was padded out with the long dance scene. like there wasn't enough of a story for a 1 case episode and could thinkk of how to use the extra time they had.