A Kiss Before Frying - Recap

In a black-and-white scenario, men in suits break into a room containing
a sleeping couple. One of them says "Not so smart, doll" as they carry
her out, sobbing and crying "No!"

Langston and Greg are brought to a severely burned body at a work site.
David joins them, apologizing for his tardiness. Smoke is rising off the
body, and David wonders why bodies can't die closer to the road. When
they reach him, it's only his head that is badly burned. David cuts into
him to determine the time of death, and the body reacts. Their victim is
alive. Langston goes to the hospital with the victim, leaving Greg and
David behind to process the scene. David declares that his work here is
done, and Greg should call him if the patient's condition worsens.

Nick says there was no ID on the victim. Greg figures that the body was
thrown down the hill, and the dust and vegetation put the fire out. It's
lucky he didn't set the whole hillside on fire. Nick sees that the tire
tracks didn't even stop, just tossed the body and kept on going. Nick
hopes the victim survives so he can tell them what happened.

At the hospital, Ray takes pictures of the victim and removes a piece of
debris for analysis. He fills Greg and Nick in on what they know thus
far. He suffered 3rd degree burns over 90% of his head, and there were
ligature marks on his wrists. He has a mark across his chest which would
indicate that he was restrained with some kind of strap. He also had a
burn on his right ankle. Everything they have points to him having been
electrocuted in an electric chair.

Hodges brings through a tour group. A beautiful woman gets Greg's
attention, and she directs her questions to him. She says she's a 4th
grade science teacher, scoping the place out to see if it would be
appropriate for a class trip, but she's afraid not. Greg tells her the
tour can definitely be cleaned up for more innocent eyes. Ray hands a
container over to Hodges for analysis and tells him he will take over
the tour now. Ellen looks like she's leaving against her will, as her
eyes lock with Greg's. Nick tells Greg he needs to go get her number.
Greg doesn't think she came here to get hit on but Nick says it was a
pop fly hit right to him, and it would be a disgrace if he missed the
catch. Greg goes out and gets the number, as sparks fly.

Ray creates an electric chair so they can run some tests, as Hodges goes
to work on the tissue sample Ray gave him. Catherine arrives and asks
what Jell-o man ever did to Ray. He responds that some men were just
made to suffer. The governor didn't call, so he's toast. Catherine
doesn't know why nothing happened to set the guy's head on fire, as
happened with their victim. Ray figures he missed a variable, and
Hodges says he figures correctly. That tissue he analyzed is from a
polyethylene sponge. Because it's synthetic, it impeded the charge to
the victim's head, converting the electricity to heat and literally
cooking the victim at low amperage. Jell-O man's head bursts into flames.

Ray and Catherine discuss the case. Because the damage used voltage
instead of wattage, the chair could have been used anywhere. Since the
victim was tossed from a moving vehicle, the chair was likely somehow
set up in a truck. Greg calls her in to tell her they got a match on the
tire treads but unfortunately, they belong to the most commonly sold
light tire in the SW.

Their victim now has a name. Carlton Doreen. Regular guy, works at a
hardware store, wife called him in missing two days ago. No record, no
known enemies, no outstanding debts. Greg is wiped out, and Catherine
sends him home. As he's headed for the door, Nick badgers him to make
the call, or he will.

Greg and Ellen are at dinner. She's surprised he called so soon, he's
surprised she was available. She tells him she's pretty much given up on
the dating scene. It's too painful. She asks him to visit her class, and
he agrees. They have a wonderful evening. He won't let her take the bus
home; they'll share a cab. He doesn't want the night to end, and she
says it doesn't have to.

He fills Nick in on how wonderful the evening is. She smells like fresh
peaches. They get to another crime scene, exactly like the last. There's
a storage facility nearby, so they have hopes of pulling surveillance.

Back at the lab, Greg tells Catherine that the new victim is Elijah
Newbloom III. They both come from old money, but Carlton's family lost
their fortune while Elijah is a trust fund kid that never had to work a
day in his life. Strangely, their last names are Las Vegas streets which
intersect. Hodges cuts in. He has trace evidence of a chemical found on
both victims, which ties them to an industrial explosion some time ago.
Catherine will have Brass run some unis through the area. Archie arrives
to say he thinks he found the truck on the surveillance from the second
body's crime scene. He was able to get and run plates. It belongs to
Johannes DeSmoot, who runs an appliance repair shop in north Vegas.

Ellen calls and asks Greg if they're still on for tonight, but he's up
to his eyeballs in case, and begs off. She gives him a rain check, but
asks him not to wait too long.

DeSmoot was an interrogator for the South African Secret Police before
he fled the country at the end of apartheid. Brass questions him, and
DeSmoot says he sold the truck but can't remember who to. All he knows
is the guy was wearing a fedora. His face was in shadows. DeSmoot claims
he can remember everything but the guy's name. DeSmoot insults Jim,
telling him that he's stupid if he thinks DeSmoot wouldn't make up a
decent lie if he were in fact lying. Brass says he should know better
than to insult the man who holds his future in his hands. DeSmoot's work
visa expired six months ago. Either DeSmoot cooperates with him or Jim
will put him in a box marked perishable and ship him home again. He'll
call everybody DeSmoot ever crossed and let them know to expect them.
Who knows. Maybe they'll have a clambake for him.

Ellen arrives bearing sandwiches and thanks "Lodges" for bringing her to
Greg. She says she's not the kind of girl that falls into bed with a
stranger on a first date. She knows it's all happening so fast, but she
can't get him out of her mind. Greg feels the same way. She asks after
the burn victim, and says she'll pray for him.

Henry gets a dazed look on his face when he sees Ellen. He pries his
eyes away to tell Greg that the tox panels are in on the victims. Greg
excuses himself, and Henry tells him they both had chloroform in their
system. When he gets back in his office, Greg finds Ellen looking at his
files. She tries to flirt her way out of things, but he remains
uncomfortable. She kisses him goodbye with a promise she'll stay out of
his files from now on. He checks the file she was looking at, and it's
the truck.

Greg follows her. She gets out at a club that says "Rita von Squeeze' on
the marquee. An angry man yells at her about the time and then hauls her
into the club by her wrist. Greg runs in after them, but they are lost
in the crowd. He thinks he sees her, but it's not Ellen. He stops at the
bar and asks about the guy being mean to Ellen. For a bribe, the
bartender tells him he's never seen him before in his life. The man puts
down a glass and Greg grabs it for prints. as she begins performing, he
swes that Rita von Squeeze is Ellen, and the bartender is filling the
mean man in on Greg asking after him. Ellen is a burlesque dancer, and
the crowd goes wild. She sees Greg watching and looks sad.

In the lab, Greg gets a partial print, and a name. Roderick
Hammerbacher, a delusional schizophrenic. He looks up Ellen, and she
really is a teacher. Teacher of the year, as a matter of fact.

Greg tells Nick everything, and Nick advises him to cut his losses.
She's not a teacher, she's a stripper. Greg corrects him. Not only is
she a teacher, she's not a stripper: She's a burlesque dancer. Greg
tells Nick he called her. He wanted the truth. She told him she does
this because she can't make it on a school teacher's salary, and she
didn't tell him before because she didn't want to scare him away. Nick
doesn't buy it, and besides. If she lied to him once, she'll lie to him
again.

Now, who is this Reddenbacher dude? Hammerbacher. Her manager. He's bad
news. He has a long history of psychiatric incarceration. Nick says
great. This is just getting better and better. They finally arrive at
their crime scene, the third in the series. Same MO. Greg calls Ellen's
school and leaves a message for her. Ray, Nick and David note that the
killer is improving his technique. He's a perfectionist. Greg's phone
rings, and it's the hospital. The first victim died. And since DeSmoot
was in custody when the third victim died, he's off the hook.

CSI starts processing their third victim's evidence. Hammish Hershkowitz
is their third victim. He was a professor at WLVU, listed in the system
as a foster parent. Greg exclaims "THE RAT!" Herzog Hershkowitz. These
cases have their roots in old Las Vegas, and connect all the victims.

Greg recounts how at the end of WW II, Bugsy Siegel plucked the great
French chanteuse, Agnes LaPlouffe, from the ruins of Europe. He brought
her to Vegas to make her a star. During the war, Agnes lost her one true
love, a Russian ballet dancer named Boris Kuchko. Or so she thought. He
wasn't killed, and he escaped Russia to secretly reunite with Agnes in
Vegas in 1946. That is when they had a daughter out of wedlock.

Katherine remembers the story, since her dad thought it was a lovely
bedtime story. Agnes and Boris had to hide their love from Bugsy, since
he considered Agnes his property. She used to sneak away with Boris for
furtive weekends together, while she plotted her escape from Bugsy.
Bugsy grew suspicious and had his henchmen follow them to New Mexico,
which is where the scene that opened the show comes in. They found the
two of them, tore Agnes out of bed and threw her in the back of their
vehicle. They dragged her out and decapitated her, leaving her body in a
hideous dance pose to implicate Boris.

Nick wants to know where he's going with all this. Bugsy framed Kuchko
for Agnes' murder, with Hershkowitz giving his testimony to seal the
deal. The prosecutor and defense attorney in the case were the forebears
of the first two victims. They were both in Bugsy's pocket, and paid to
throw the case. Ray picks it up. There's the connection between the
three victims. Bugsy made Doreen and Newbloom rich men, and they became
pillars of Vegas society with streets and parks named after them.

Everybody knew that Kuchko was innocent of Agnes' murder, but the fix
was in. The tabloids had a field day, and Kuchko was given the death
sentence, by electrocution. Ray finds it ironic that two people survived
what was happening in Europe. They came to the land of the free, only to
run afoul of a psychotic Jewish mobster. Nick doesn't buy it, but
everybody else does. Someone is avenging history. Nick stands by his
guns, and Greg agrees. The case is strange, and it's about to get a
whole lot stranger.

He takes out a picture of who Nick thinks is Ellen. It's Agnes. Ellen is
her granddaughter. Catherine points out that his girlfriend isn't
looking so good, and he agrees. But he also knows that she's not capable
of killing three men. Nick asks about Hammerbacher as Ray tells Greg he
thinks he is in over his head. They ask him if he's discussed the case
with Ellen, and he says no, then I don't know; maybe. Maybe? His cell
phone rings. He finally takes the call. It's Ellen, she's in trouble,
and you can hear the fear in her voice. She needs to see him. She needs
to explain. She's scared - someone is trying to kill her. He asks for a
name, and instead she gives him directions to a diner and says he should
meet her there. He's the only one she trusts. He looks back at the
meeting, and leaves.

When he arrives, a sedan pulls out and starts firing at him. He runs
inside and Ellen isn't there, but her scarf is there and a bus schedule
shows an 8:10 pm departure is circled. His phone rings again, and it's
Ellen Whitebridge. The real one, the teacher.

Catherine gets a call about the shooting. The caller described Greg to a
"T". Catherine and Ray have been trying to call him, but he's not
picking up. This woman has got him really twisted up.

Hodges tells Catherine and Ray he found something with the first victim,
magnesium oxide. Hodges checked, and the Dunlee Paint Company is within
the radius of procluric contamination. The factory has been shuttered
ever since. Catherine tells Ray to check it out with Nick, and she'll
have Brass send backup.

Greg arrives at the bus station. Brass arrives at the paint factory, and
Hammerbacher opens fire. Everybody is firing at him as he heads for the
truck, but Brass is the only one to hit him. Hammerbacher throws himself
in the back and drops the door. Brass orders him to come out, but he
says no. Ellen told him if he did everything exactly as she told him,
they would escape together. Jim tells him that Ellen isn't coming back,
and he needs to give himself up. Nick hears the generator kick in, and
Jim gives the order to deploy. Hammerbacher electrocutes himself, but is
still alive when they arrive. He flips the switch, telling them he will
see them in the next life.

Greg finds Ellen, and she's glad he's okay. She heard the gunshots,
panicked and ran. Greg says she used him, and she says no, he has it all
wrong. She and Hammerbacher fell for each other, she claims he went
crazy when she left him. He thought he could win her back by avenging
their grandparents' deaths. Greg tells her she set him up to die
tonight, and she denies it, but Greg continues. She was playing him from
the start. She blames Hammerbacher again but Greg says she doesn't know
her lies from the truth. They got the truck, and they both know her
prints are going to be all over it.

She changes tacks as the bus terminal makes the last call. She tells
Greg to come with her, she'll do anything he asks. He doesn't answer,
and she goes to board the bus. She is grabbed the police before she can
get on, and calls out to Greg for help. He remains silent. As she's led
away, she tells Greg "For what it's worth? I've loved you since Tuesday."

Catherine arrives and tells him he did good. He thanks her for giving
him the chance to make it right. She gives him a tiny dressing down, and
tells him not to let lust get the best of him again. Next time, run the
hot mysterious babes past her. She's got an eye for the rotten ones.
Deal. As they walk away, he asks her why do the rotten ones always smell
so good.

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