CSI: Miami

Brian Lexington is found innocent of a brutal rape he was sentenced for six years back. The spirits are high as the press gather to talk to Brian, and D.A. Monica West gives Boa Vista the credit for exhonorating him. The victim of the rape, Valerie Naff, is still suffering from nightmares from the night she was attacked. She is stunned that Brian is being released and goes to find Horatio. If Brian didn't rape her then maybe Horatio can determine who did?

When Boa Vista gets back to work after the press conference she runs into Calleigh, who is going over Valerie's rape case. She is clearly upset over the turn the case took, and seems to disapprove of Natalia's part in it. The man who raped Valerie used a condom and all they found was a single pubic hair, which was not enough to get a DNA match from six years ago. But technology has improved and now it's been proven that the hair didn't come from Brian. Boa Vista is proud of what they have accomplished but Calleigh is not pleased with her. She thinks Boa Vista should have done her job discreetly and kept away from the press. In the eyes of the media it all looks like the lab screwed up, when what really happened was that the technology didn't exist back then. Boa Vista doesn't share Calleigh's view. Her federal grant requires that she makes progress, and if her results are made public in the media then she doesn't have a problem with it. She works very hard and gets very little recognition after all, and the media attention helps her secure her grant. Calleigh moves the topic back to Valerie's case and remarks that since they haven't found a match on the DNA from the pubic hair they are out of suspects.

Down in the evidence locker Wolfe is reviewing the evidence they have on the case. Calleigh joins him and tells him what they know about the case. Brian's fingerprints were all over Valerie's underwear drawer, but since he was one of her movers that wasn't suspicious. However they later found her underwear in his car, and he then claimed he had stolen them earlier in the day. They also found footprints outside her bedroom window. That, combined with Valerie identifying him, led to his arrest. Unfortunately he wasn't guilty of the rape. Now they have to review all the evidence more carefully.

Brian goes to see Horatio. He is very upset with him, since Horatio was the one who lead the investigation against him. Horatio points out that they had strong reasons to suspect him. But they were wrong, and now Brian is filing a lawsuit against Horatio and his lab for stealing six years of his life. He is hiring George Hammett, a top lawyer, to represent him.

Down in the morgue Alexx' assistant Foster wheels in the body of Kelly Gerber, a young woman who died in a car accident. There's something fishy about her death and he wants Alexx' opinion. Kelly's car slammed right into the center divider and there were no skidmarks which means she didn't hit the breaks. Yet strangely enough her injuries are not bad enough to have caused her death. Alexx takse a look and finds an infected appendectomy scar. She opens the body to take a look and finds a surgical sponge left behind from the appendectomy. It caused an infection which grew until it caused her to go into toxic shock. It must have hit her while she was driving.

Meanwhile Wolfe has found graphite powder on Valerie's pyjamas. Locksmiths use it to lubricate the locking mechanism in keyways. When Valerie moved she changed the locks. The locksmith was questioned six years ago but it's time to talk to him again. Calleigh tracks him down. His name is Phil Cobb, and he tells her that he was installing the lock to the bedroom door while Valerie unpacked her clothes. The graphite powder could have gotten on her pyjamas at any time during the installation.

Back at CSI Delko returns a bracelet to Boa Vista which she dropped on his couch the night before. The two of them had a date last night and it clearly went well. Boa Vista tells him that the bracelet is not hers. Alexx walks up to them and notices the sexual tension between them. Boa Vista makes her exit and Alexx asks Delko what's going on between them. Delko doesn't give her an answer but it's clear that she understands exactly what's going on. With a smile she hands him the file on Kelly and shows him that the cause of death she determined is different from the official report. Delko notes that the hospital is their crime scene and goes over to Miami General to talk to the surgeon. Dr. Brent Kessler barely remembers Kelly. Delko refreshes his memory and tells him that Kelly died. Dr. Kessler seems very nervous and is more than happy to recieve a page which allows him to leave. Delko assures him that he'll be back. As the doctor leaves Delko notices that something is not quite normal with the glass the doctor just drank orange juice from. He takes the glass with him as he heads back to the lab.

Boa Vista tells Wolfe that the DNA from the locksmith is not a match for the pubic hair. Once again they are back at square one. However Wolfe has noticed something. Phil told Calleigh that he left three keys in Valerie's apartment, but in the evidence bag there are only two. He asks Boa Vista to see if she can find any DNA on the keyring. She later tells Horatio what she found. The keyring had Valerie's DNA on it as well as male DNA, matching the pubic hair. This is bad news. The killer let himself in six years ago and he still has the key to Valerie's apartment.

Horatio goes over to talk to Valerie and notices that she already has company. Brian is there, wanting to talk to her, but she is not ready. Brian wants an apology from her. Horatio interrupts the conversation and Brian leaves. Valerie tells Horatio that he is naming her in his lawsuit for wrongful accusation. Horatio tells her that they have reason to believe that the rapist came in through the front door rather than the bedroom window. He needs to know who else had a key. Valerie doesn't remember anything about a key. Nobody has a key to her home but her, not even her boyfriend Doug. Unfortunately someone else does have the key.

Dr. Kessler pays Alexx a visit. He is upset with her for sending an investigator to question his competence. Whatever happens in his OR is none of her business. It's not Kessler's job to count the surgical sponges, that's the scrub nurse's job. Alexx tells him that she's talked to the nurse, who told her that Kessler left in the middle of surgery. Kessler points out that he has helped a lot of people live long and happy lives, while Alexx only works with dead people. She doesn't like the comment and tells him to stop sending his patients to her morgue.

Wolfe and Calleigh are looking at the photos from the six year old crime scene. There is a picture of the keys on the shelf where Valerie kept them. Also on the shelf is a picture in a frame as a house warming gift. It's possible that whoever put the picture there also took one of the keys. Wolfe calls Valerie who tells him that her realtor, Jeff Colson, gave it to her.

Horatio and Tripp question Jeff, who firmly believes that Brian is the rapist. He tells them that Brian was practically drooling every time Valerie walked by. Horatio wants a DNA swab from Jeff to determine whether or not the DNA on the keyring is his. Jeff tells him to get a warrant.

After getting the warrant Horatio and Tripp go out to a house Jeff is currently trying to sell, hoping to get to take the DNA swab. When they go inside they find Jeff beaten to death. Someone obviously knew he was their prime suspect. While Alexx processes the body Horatio takes a glance at some realter brochures for the house. The pictures show a piece of modern art made in marble which is now missing from the house. Alexx tells him that Jeff was beaten pretty badly in the abdomen, but what killed him was beatings to the back of his skull. Whoever did this did it with rage and was not out to kill Jeff quickly. The attack was personal.

This leads Horatio to Valerie, who has more reason to rage against Jeff than anyone else. He brings her in for questioning and she is in disbelief when he tells her that they believe Jeff was the rapist. Horatio wants to know where she was when Jeff got killed. She was at home, alone. Her boyfriend Doug was not with her.

Horatio sends Calleigh to talk to Doug. She notices that his hands are bruised and he tells her that his hands take a beating all the time at work. He's a landscaper. Calleigh tells him that someone else took a beating, and that someone raped Doug's girlfriend six years ago. Doug is surprised to hear that they found the rapist, neither he nor Valerie thought they would. He can't deny that he's pleased to hear Jeff is dead, but he was not the person who killed him.

Back at the lab Tripp wants to talk to Boa Vista. He needs to know if she's talked to anybody about the warrant for Jeff's DNA. Wolfe comes up to them as Boa Vista angrily snaps at Tripp that he shouldn't come interrogating her. Tripp snaps back that someone is leaking information and since she's been such good friends with the press lately she's a strong suspect. Jeff is dead because of the information someone leaked. Wolfe breaks the argument, reluctantly telling them that a reliable source told him that there is a mole in the lab. Someone who is liked and trusted.

Alexx pays Delko a visit to find out what he found on Dr. Kessler's glass. It turns out that it's nothing but vitamins and 5-HTP. Perfectly innocent to Delko, but Alexx knows better. The blend found in the glass is used to cover the effects of
ecstacy. Kessler seems to be in the wrong place in his life to be partying with that kind of drugs but Delko thinks it could be something else. He reveals a difficult secret to Alexx. He tells her about his sister Marisol, who deals with constant pain and nausea, and hints that when you're in that situation you look for an relief you can find, whether it's legal or not. Alexx catches his drift and gently thanks him for his help and tells her she's sorry about what's happened to his sister.

She is less sympathetic with Dr. Kessler when she talks to him. All it takes is one call from her to the chief of staff and Kessler will be forced to take a urine test. He agrees to go into a program. Alexx is not finished. She's noticed that he was sweating in her chilly morgue and that he has tremors. She doesn't see him as a bad man or a bad surgeon, she sees something else. Early signs of Parkinsons. Her sympathy is back and she sits down with him to talk. He tells her that he takes ecstacy to keep his hands from shaking in the OR. It didn't work however when he operated on Kelly, which is why he left in the middle of the procedure. He wants to keep operating for as long as he can; the feeling that he's doing something good helps him. When the disease gets worse he will stop. Alexx shows him the pictures of Kelly and tells him that his disease is already far too serious for him to continue operating. He should have stepped back a long time ago.

Valerie holds a press conference, stating that she was suffering from post-traumatic stress when she indentified Brian as her attacker. She is retracting her statement and offers her apologies to Brian and his family. Horatio finds the timing odd and goes over there to talk to her. He wonders if perhaps she was lying earlier when she told him that Brian was including her in his lawsuit. Perhaps he was actually asking him to join her. With her on his side Brian would get triple the money, and Valerie would get her share. That would explain why Calleigh found Doug at a yacht earlier. Valerie gets angry and tells Horatio that she is entitled to every penny after what she's been through. Horatio is low on sympathy at the moment. Somebody killed Jeff, and Brian had a known obsession with Valerie. Valerie admits that they've had more contact than she's let on. She did in fact know that Jeff was the new prime suspect; Brian called her and told her.

Alexx tells Wolfe that she found signs that Jeff fought back when he was attacked. They have a suspected murder weapon but Alexx points out that if someone hit you four times with a marble statue your head would fall apart like Humpty Dumpty. Jeff's scull is fractured but not that badly. However, if the killer was injured he would not have been able to put as much force into it. Wolfe recalls that Brian got stabbed while he was in jail. A closer examination shows that the injury does not affect Brian today, but they should still have a chat with him.

Horatio and Tripp bring him in for questioning. He has his lawyer, Hammett, with him and insists that he's moved on with his life. His lawsuit begs to differ. Horatio wants to know how he found out that Jeff was the rapist. He doesn't get an answer, but begins to suspect that Hammett was involved. Tripp remembers that when he went to get the warrant for Jeff's DNA a delivery boy saw the papers. It turns out that the boy is being bribed by Hammett to reveal inside information. Cornered Hammett admits to having gotten information that way in order to poke further holes into the older rape investigation. That, in combination with Hammett leaking to his client, is obstruction of justice. Hammett can kiss his top lawyer status goodbye.

Wolfe has got interesting news. Valerie's boyfriend, Doug, was admitted for emergency surgery a while back. He is brought in for questioning and admits to having punched Jeff but nothing more. Horatio points out that there's a little more to it. He broke his shoulder on a job and now he can't raise his right arm above shoulder level, which explains why Jeff had so many injuries below that height. Tripp is sure that it also accounts for Jeff's scull being fractured rather than split open, but Horatio realises that it doesn't. The sculpture weighs 12 kilos, too heavy for Doug to be able to swing it. The killer had limited upper body strength which points to a woman. And Horatio knows one woman who had the rage, the motive and who's lied to him before.

He pays Valerie a visit. She tells him that she thought she would feel better if she joined in the lawsuit, but no amount of money can help her. She couldn't stand the knowledge that Jeff had gotten away with raping her and that someone she had trusted was living his life as if he had just forgotten what he did to her. She needs Horatio to understand why she killed him. He makes it clear that while he understands her pain he does not approve of what she did. She is going to have to face the consequences. But he promises her that he will walk her through it.