CSI: NY

Cold winter night in the Bronx. An upscale wine store, one of the pioneers of gentrification that have set up camp in this run-down neighborhood. When three Latino teenagers enter, the owner looks up, visibly nervous. Gangbangers Perez and Accosta wear sunglasses, while Hector eyes the owner and drinks a soda, leaving the can on a shelf. Perez pulls out a nine-millimeter gun from his jacket and demands cash from the owner. Accosta starts shooting rows of wine bottles, and Perez gives his gun to Hector, telling him to "finish it, man." The owner insists that he gave them everything. Accosta shoots out the security camera. Hector aims his gun, and Perez shouts, "blast him."



Sgt. Gavin Moran writes notes on his pad as he studies the carnage in front of him. The owner lies in a river of his own blood mixed with red wine. Mac Taylor and Stella Bonasera enter and begin processing the scene. Moran informs them that the victim identified his attackers as two unknown male Hispanics in their late teens, two of them armed.



Red footprints indicate that the owner was running away when he was shot in the back. Stella and Mac process the scene, identifying the bullet shells as nine millimeter. As there is so much broken glass in the area, they look for a potential second bleeder. They find a disposable lighter and use a FUME WAND to find a print on it. They also notice the surveillance camera.



Sgt. Moran greets Detective Flack, who was his charge for four years. Moran and Flack walk down the street, recreating what three panicked teenagers would have done with their guns. Moran finds a gun in an alley under a dumpster, and then Flack finds another nine millimeter in the next alley.



In Chelsea, Danny Messer and Aiden Burn investigate a body that has landed on a canopy outside an apartment building. Dr. Hawkes appears, and he and Danny use a scissor-lift to approach the body of a huge man, 40s, lying face up, bleeding from his forehead. Hawkes determines that the victim has been dead for around four hours. There is an oily smudge behind his right shoulder. Aiden recognizes the body as Melvin Heckman, a big-time movie producer.



Aiden dusts a terrace door handle for prints, and Danny tells a group of trendy film people in one of the apartments that they cannot leave the premises. Chandra Heckman, 40s, wife of Melvin, tells the CSIs that he was always sneaking off to make deals, so she didn't notice his absence at first.



In the CSI Ballistics Lab, Stella shoots a nine mil into the firing water tank. Using the COMPARISON MICROSCOPE, she sees two bullets with identical striations.



Mac tells Stella that the blood samples in the wine store were all from the victim. Stella responds that testing confirmed that the guns were the weapons shot in the store, but there were no prints.



The main suspects are the Crazy Aces gang. Mac got a hit on the lighter print, a Luis Accosta, age eighteen. They hope the surveillance camera caught him dropping the lighter, as it would be enough evidence for them to make an arrest.



Mac and Stella view the surveillance camera footage and notice that Accosta lost his lighter off-screen. Accosta, however, did shout, "Hector, finish it!" and now they have a name. They realize that this was Hector's gang initiation. They also see the soda can that Hector was drinking and realize that they don't have it as evidence.



Danny inspects the rail from which Heckman fell and finds a fresh break in it. A robin's nest is 12 feet away. Danny finds a light blue fiber, like one from Melvin Heckman's shirt, and Aiden finds blood on the ledge. Melvin struck his head on the way down.



Moran, Flack and Mac enter the basement of a housing project building and find eight gangbangers hanging out, playing dominoes and listening to rap music. Moran pulls the plug on the music, and Mac asks "C-Dog" for his real name. The boy answers, "Tomas Perez." Mac asks Luis Accosta if he is looking for the lighter he dropped earlier that evening. They claim not to know anything or any "Hector." Mac tests the boys for gunshot residue, spraying filter paper with SODIUM RHODIZONATE and applying it to their hands. The tests come back negative.



As the CSIs leave the basement, Mac tells Moran that his "shaking tactics" are civil rights violations and that they could jeopardize the case.



In Mac's Office, D.A. Allen McShane tells Mac that he needs an arrest on the wine store killing. Mac tells him he's doing everything they can, but McShane wants him to "do it faster."



Flack is frustrated because he feels that they had two of the three suspects in front of them in the basement, but Mac points out that they didn't have the requisite evidence.



Stella tells Flack that Hector left a soda can at the scene, but they didn't find it. Mac tells Flack to ask Moran about it, as he was the first responder.



At the Bronx Precinct House, Moran tells Flack that he never saw a soda can. Flack orders Moran to hand over his memo book. A moment of tension between the former mentor and his now-senior protégé.



In the Autopsy Room, Dr. Hawkes tells Danny that a blow to the head sustained in the fall caused Melvin Heckman's death. The inner right hand bears a floral scent and there are two small bruises on his right buttock. Stomach contents were chicken, arugula and chocolate, and he had an alcohol level of 0.11.



Aiden processes Melvin's clothing, spraying it with chemical fluorescent DFO and viewing it under ALS. Danny tells her that he had the scent on Melvin's hand analyzed: a woman's perfume called "Suspicion." Aiden tells him that a woman puts that kind of perfume on her neck, wrists and cleavage. Chandra Heckman wasn't wearing that perfume.



Aiden ID's the substance on the jacket shoulder as salmon oil. They got a partial palm print, so they go back to the Chelsea apartment, where the sequestered partygoers stand in line and have their hands scanned. Gwen, 29, is processed afterwards with a Z-NOSE that beeps, identifying her scent. Danny tells her that her perfume was also found on Melvin. She tells him that she was up for the lead in a movie in which she was supposed to be dying. Melvin saw her at the party and grabbed her wrist, telling her that she was supposed to be dying, but she had gained weight. He fired her.



Aiden informs Danny that she found a print match. The CSIs question Brent, who told them he didn't push Melvin; he was begging with him. Brent finished a movie for him but when Heckman found out he sold his next project to Paramount, he became enraged and told Brent that he was going to release his movie against a Pixar movie, effectively killing it. Brent grabbed Melvin, pleading with him.



At the NYPD Bullpen, Flack scrutinizes Moran's memo book and sees that there are scribbled-out words. Concerned, Flack catches up with Stella and asks her to run the memo book off the record.



Stella uses a VIDEO SPECTRAL COMPARATOR and is able to remove the obliterating ink of the scribble from the underlying writing. She tells Flack that the obliterated writing was "Hector, soda can, scar right cheek." Moran withheld a dying declaration and took the soda can.



Flack returns to the wine shop and traces Moran's possible steps. He walks across the street, digs through a trash can and finds the soda can.



Stella posits that Moran made ties with gang members, but Flack can't believe that. Mac advises them not to postulate until they find the evidence.



Mac asks Jane Parsons to process the soda can. She reports to him that there are two donors on the can, saliva from an unknown male and epithelial from Sergeant Gavin Moran. There is something else. Mac tells Stella and Flack that the DNA on the soda can indicates the donors are father and son. Hector is Moran's son.



In the Layout Room, Aiden has a line of ten black stiletto heels, all identical except in She tells Danny the bruises on Melvin's buttocks are from a Feldman stiletto. Her cousin Manny is a cobbler, and when she told him about the distinctive teardrop heel bruise, he pointed her towards the Feldman shoes. They are looking for a seven shoe to match the bruise.



In Mac's office, Moran stands while Mac reconstructs the situation. Moran met a girl on his beat and had a son with her. He stays on the same beat as a way to keep checking in on her, but his son is lured to the gangs. Being half Dominican and half white would make him feel he needed to prove something. When Moran responded to the robbery, he realized that the dying owner's description was of his son, Hector, so he covered the crime, disposing of the soda can. Moran admits nothing, but asks for his union lawyer.



At the Chelsea apartment, Chandra Heckman admits that she kicked Melvin "in the ass" as hard as she could to save his life. Melvin was two hundred pounds overweight and had tantrums and ridiculous cholesterol levels. She was the candy police. She found him sneaking a truffle and kicked him in the behind, knocking him against a wall. She claims that she loved him and didn't kick him off the balcony.



Flack finds years of checks to a Blanca Vasquez from Moran's accounts. Mac and Flack go to Blanca's apartment, and she tells them that Hector had packed and left a message that he was going to his cousin's in Atlanta. Also, he said not to answer the door if Tomas Perez came by. The CSIs realize that Hector failed his gang initiation, and now the gangbangers want him dead.



Mac and Stella use a SOUND SPECTROGRAPH on Blanca's answering machine and isolate the sound of a loudspeaker, a subway announcement: "Whitford-Ninth Street." It's in Brooklyn. They call Blanca Vasquez.



At a warehouse in Brooklyn, Stella tells Flack that Hector's mother used to bring him to work when he was a baby, before the plant closed. They find a duffel bag, and Flack calls out for Hector. Hector bolts to the exit with Mac in pursuit. Mac grabs Hector as he tries to climb up a ladder.



At the NYPD Interrogation Room, Hector tells Mac he doesn't want to see his father. Hector also claims he didn't shoot the shopkeeper. C-Dog, Tomas Perez, is the killer. Hector was told to shoot the owner but couldn't, so Perez grabbed the gun and shot the owner as he tried to flee.



D.A. McShane eats a hotdog on a Manhattan street corner and tells Mac that he wants Hector booked even though he wasn't the shooter. McShane tells Mac that he doesn't have much time to settle this case.



Dr. Hawkes tells Danny and Aiden that the chocolate found in Melvin's stomach wasn't a truffle, but cheap milk chocolate. The chocolate appears to have been barely digested and may have been the last thing he ate before he fell.



Back at the Chelsea apartment, Aiden and Danny see candy wrappers in the robin's nest below. There is no corner store around the neighborhood. The CSIs find a stash of candy bars in a stone gargoyle's mouth above the railing. Melvin reached for another candy bar, but due to his inebriation, he lost his balance and fell, banging his head on the way down.



Perez is patted down by Flack as Mac watches. In Perez's waistband, Flack finds a handgun that Perez claims he found on the street and was going to turn in. They take his jacket.



In the Lab, Stella uses a UV LIGHT on Perez's jacket and Mac takes samples from the bottom of a broken white wine bottle. Stella performs a CHLOROFORM EXTRACTION and runs the sample through the GCMS. The samples have identical chromatograms, indicating that the high-velocity chardonnay splatter on the jacket matches the wine from the store.



Mac explains that "wine is one of the few man-made subjects that can be exclusively matched." Mac tells Flack that Moran needs to be picked up.



At the Bronx Precinct House, Flack tells Moran that D.A. McShane is going to recommend forced retirement for him to save his pension. Flack asks him if he needs to contact his wife, but Moran says he'll "sit her down tonight." Flack tells Moran to walk out with him like they are going for a smoke.



Mac watches as Moran gets into the passenger side of Flack's car. Flack and Mac make eye contact, they nod at each other and Flack drives off.