The Two Mrs. Grissoms - Recap

The Gilbert Foundation for the Deaf grant dinner is being held. Sara
arrives. She takes a call from Gil, who is still in Peru. They found
another mass grave, and the government asked him to stay. They lose the
call before she can talk any further. She sees half of a couple come out
of a room where she could see them kissing through the glazed glass. She
goes back downstairs and greets her mother-in-law, Betty. She has
somebody she wants Sara to met. Her name is Julia Holden, and she's the
woman Sara saw come out of the room upstairs.

Betty tells Julia that Sara is Gil's wife, but she's not "the other Mrs.
Grissom". She points out that Sara's last name is Sidle. She didn't take
her husband's name. Betty tells Sara that Julia has been like a daughter
to her, and she's so proud of her. Published author, lecturer, and the
foremost authority on deaf culture in the country.

They're joined by Dr. Eric Lambert. He introduces himself as the
director of the Gilbert Foundation. He tells her that the grant is for
$500,000 and Julia is on the committee. She's very passionate about the
candidates. Julia has a furtive expression on her face. She excuses
herself to go do paperwork. Eric asks after Gil, and Sara explains.
Betty notes that her son seems to be away from home a lot.

There's an explosion, followed by a ball of flames. Sara runs out and
finds Julia by a burning vehicle, frantic. Eric is inside, and Sara
repeatedly tells Julia he's dead, seeming to forget that Julia is deaf
and cannot hear her. She tears her away from the car in an attempt to
get her to safety. He's consumed by flames as they watch.

Nick and Ray banter about Sara's appearance, as she's all dolled up for
the dinner. They brought her work clothes, and she fills them in as she
changes. Nick asks if she was first response and she says no, aiming
them at Julia. Sara's signing is bad, and she can't keep up with Julia's
explanation. Sara grabs an interpreter, Dennis Palmer. She says she felt
the vibrations, and her window exploded. She ran as fast as she could
and saw that it was Dr. Lambert. She wished she could have saved him.

The burned body reminds Ray of his first case. Phillips thinks he could
put him in the passenger seat of the van, then he'd be able to use the
carpool line. Ray says he's always looking for the silver lining. Ray
and Sara try to figure out what made the spark that caused the gas tank
to go boom. Sara is puzzled by the car's location. How could everybody
at the party feel the explosion, when the car is at the bottom of a hill
which should have absorbed the shock waves.

Nick and Ray find gasoline and a debris trail which would indicate that
the vehicle blew up before it went in the ravine. They start marking out
the evidence. They each find what appears to be part of a detonator.
This was no accident. Somebody planted a bomb in Lambert's car.

Robbins says there was no smoke inhalation. He was killed when the bomb
went off. The force of the blast ruptured his aorta. Catherine thanks
him and turns to Sara for more information on Lambert. He was never
married so no bitter ex-wife, no greedy kids. She's going to check with
the school, see if he had any enemies. Catherine suggest she check with
Betty, since her mother-in-law is pretty dialed in there. Sara smiles
and tells her that communication isn't really their strong suit. When
Sara starts listing Betty's emotional shortcomings (she's very hard to
get close to, she questions everything, she's gotta be right about
everything, she's emotionally distant), Catherine starts laughing. Sara
is describing Grissom. Like mother, like son.

Catherine checks in with Greg, who is working on rendering a 3D
simulation of what happened with the car bomb. He took all the
information he could access and figured out what size bomb was used and
how far the shock waves traveled. They reached all the witnesses as
stated, but not the humanities building, where Julia claimed she had
felt it. There are dormitories between the bomb and the building in
question, so there is no way the shock waves would have been felt by
her. Sara realizes Julia lied to her, but lacks the evidence to prove it.

Nick tests Julia's office and finds no sign of bomb-making materials.
All that means is she could have made the bomb somewhere else. Sara says
"incoming" just before an officer tries to tell Julia she can't go in
her office. Sara gives him the okay, and she comes in. Her translator
and Betty are with her as well. Betty asks Nick what's going on, and he
tells her. Julia responds in shock. Betty asks "You don't think Julia
had anything to do with it?" Sara tells Julia she knows she wasn't
honest about her location where the bomb went off. Where was she? She
sidesteps, saying she hasn't done anything wrong. That being the case,
Sara informs them that they are executing a search warrant, and Betty
and Julia will need to wait in the hall until they're done. As they
leave, Nick tells Sara she's not winning any points with her
mother-in-law. She really seems to like him, though. If looks could
kill, Nick would be a goner.

Nick finds a message from Dr. Lambert. He left a message on her voice
mail the night he was killed. The transcription is telling Julia "this
relationship" has to end. You know the risk involved to us and the
school; we can't let it continue. Brass confronts her. Lambert dumped
her, and she blew him up. Is that how it happened? She wasn't involved
with Lambert, and she certainly didn't kill him. Sara asks if he wasn't
the man she was having sex with at the party. She and Sara exchange
sharp looks. Brass says that based on Julia lying about her whereabouts,
he thinks she planted the bomb in his car, and then followed him to make
sure it detonated. Sara continues that Julia then pretended that she
just got there, and she was trying to save him.

Julia decides there's a conflict of interest, and nobody knows what
she's talking about, so she clues them in. She has a history with Gil.
An intimate history. Brass pronounces this awkward. Julia asks if he
didn't tell Sara. She pushes, hard. "I assumed married people told each
other everything." Sara smiles and assures Julia that her marriage has
nothing to do with this case. Julia says "It does now."

Catherine informs Sara that Julia Holden agreed to give them a DNA
sample, but refused to say anything else without a lawyer present. Sara
shares how Julia totally played her. Brass wants Sara off the case, and
Catherine refused.

Nick and Ray are going over Lambert's vehicle. Ray finds an industrial
strength magnet on the car's undercarriage. It was likely used to secure
the bomb. There was no timer found, so that means the killer was on
campus to push the button that set off the detonator. Eric and Hodges
fill each other in on what they've discovered thus far. Eric found a
partial ID number on a part, so he ran a trace on it. It came back to a
company that makes consumer products for the deaf. Part of the bomb
started it's life as part of a product called the Shake Alert. Hodges
has one of those. His mom snores like a bear, so he wears earplugs. If
there's a fire, any standard sensor will send a signal to the Shake
Alert, which will vibrate his bed and wake him, thus saving his life.
Great concept. The one they're looking at came from a batch installed at
Gilbert College. Nick and Sara pay the dorms a visit. they find all the
Shake Alerts, and photograph them.

Nick finds one that's a different color, so may be new. It's in Michael
Bowman's room. He's Julia Holden's teaching assistant. When questioned,
he said he didn't know his had been replaced. He should have been at the
party last night, but he wasn't. He was sulking because his project
wasn't worthy of being considered for the grant. He's been Julia's TA
for two years, even picking up her dry cleaning. Then this Sean Wyatt
shows up from England, and it's like he's the chosen one. Sara
contributes he was a finalist for the grant. Michael says Sean was
Julia's pet. Sara asks if he was Lambert's as well? Michael says
"Hardly." He saw Lambert and Wyatt arguing a few days ago, and it got
pretty heated. All Michael could see of the argument was Dr. Lambert
saying something like "If you don't fix this, I will."

Nick and Sara test Wyatt's room and get positive results for nitrates.
Sara guesses that maybe after the fight, Sean knew he wasn't getting the
grant and decided to take out Dr. Lambert. With him out of the way,
Julia gets to choose the grant recipient, which would obviously be Sean.
Her being the first one at the scene and lying about her whereabouts
must add up to some involvement. Nick thinks she's making this personal,
and Sara denies it but then says maybe a little. It would have been nice
if Gil had told her. Nick laughs, and calls it ancient history.

Betty arrives. Nick heads back to the lab, and Sara goes over to talk to
her. Betty strongly defends Julia. Sara tells her she could have used a
heads-up about Julia's involvement with Gil. Betty claims she thought
Sara knew. Maybe if she and Gil saw each other more often, they'd know
more about each other. Sara looks hurt, but refuses to respond. She
tells Betty that a man she knows was murdered. If something was going on
between Julia and Dr. Lambert, Betty needs to tell Sara.

Betty tells Sara what she does know. Dr. Lambert was a stickler about
rules and deadlines. Lately Julia was distracted; late with paperwork,
missing classes. Betty asked Julia what was going on, but she said
everything was fine. Sara thanks her.

Hodges tells Sara he tested the nitrates from Wyatt's room. Did he have
a plant? Sara recollects a red fern and a cactus. Hodges refers to the
classic male 'green thumb'. The nitrates are less consistent with
explosives, and more consistent with fertilizer. However, he did recover
hair and vaginal secretions from the sheets in his room, both containing
DNA from Julia Holden. Hodges digs himself deeper and deeper into a hole
when he starts discussing Grissom's past, and present, sex partner(s).
Catherine gives him an out by announcing that his phone down the hall
seems to be ringing. After he leaves, Sara tells Catherine that she and
Grissom have great sex.

Catherine and Sara discuss how much damage could be done if Sean and
Julia's relationship were made public.

Brass arrives in a room containing Sean Wyatt and tells him through an
interpreter what he thinks happened between Dr. Lambert, Julia and Sean.
He tells him about the evidence they uncovered, proving he is in an
intimate relationship with Julia. Sean says that Lambert demanded he
withdraw his application to the Gilbert grant. He said that his affair
with Julia could be seen as favoritism. Gee, ya think? was Brass's
response. So then he put a bomb in his car. He gets to keep the grant,
Julia gets to keep her job, everybody wins. No, he didn't do it. He left
the party before Lambert, and went back to his dorm room. Julia is his
alibi. But she left him just before the explosion.

Ray and Sara arrive with more questions for Julia. Ray says she needs to
come with them, and she says fine. She'll go call her lawyer. Sara says
fine. As she walks back in her office, there's an explosion. Everybody
is thrown to the ground. Nick runs in panicked, but is assured Ray and
Sara are fine. The paramedics are transporting Julia to the hospital to
be treated for a possible concussion. Sara says that right before the
explosion, they saw Julia's TA, Michael, place a package on her desk.
Ray points out that because they are in a confined space and there was
no fire, they should be able to collect a lot more evidence. They go to
work on the area.

It was likely a package bomb, but most of those are set to go off when
you open them. This one had a resistor, which creates a delay. They
questions Michael. He says he'd never kill anybody, but his computer's
desktop is a stalker wall. Pictures of everybody he was angry at over
the grant. He says he was just venting. Sara points out that he majors
in electrical engineering. The resistor traces to a badge that he wore.
He reported his badge stolen to the campus police. Somebody is setting
him up. He thinks it's Sean. Something is just not right with him.

Sara goes to see Julia in the hospital and finds Sean at her bedside.
She then goes to speak with Betty, who jokes about accusing Julia of
blowing up her own office. Sara laughs and tells her about Michael being
their new suspect. She tells Betty that when she was at the hospital,
Sean signed something to Julia, and she couldn't figure it out, nor
could the interpreter. She shows it to Betty twice, and she gets it. It
means "Sweetpea" in LSQ. Quebec sign language. Sara doesn't get why, if
he's from England, Sean was speaking QSL. Betty figures maybe he spent
some time there, and picked up some of the slang. Sara says she can see
it, she remembers being in Europe with Gil. Since she brought him up,
Betty goes to town. How can they have a marriage if they barely even see
each other. Sara explains that they talk every day, and see each other
at least once a month. Betty declares that that is not a marriage. She
lost her husband too soon, but in all the years they were married, they
never spent a night apart. Sara tries explaining, but when she sees the
closed look on Betty's face she tells her that if she doesn't want to,
she doesn't have to be a part of it, and leaves.

Greg and Nick catalog and test the evidence from Julia's office bomb.
Nick concludes that the bomb in Julia Holden's office used the same
smokeless gunpowder as that used in Dr. Lambert's car. The bomber was
nearby, and had to be able to hear the arming device. This is not a deaf
person. Michael is cleared. Catherine figures they are looking for
somebody outside the deaf community. Sara cryptically says "Yes and no."

They give Sean a lie detector test, gauging his reaction to certain
images. Catherine notes that he reacts to Julia Holden, but there is no
reaction to the bomb materials. No recollection of the bombing. He
becomes agitated when told he failed the test. Sara tells him the truth.
It wasn't a lie detector test, it was an auditory test. They know he can
hear. His brainwaves noted clicking sounds he heard, even though he
didn't give any indication he had done so. Sara tells him that not only
is he a fraud, but he's a killer.

Sara informs Catherine that Sean still refuses to talk, with our without
an interpreter. Catherine figures he faked being deaf for a $500k
grant. Sara points out that if Dr. Lambert found out, that would be
motive for murder right there. Catherine wonders what else Sean might be
lying about.

Sara runs his prints and discovers Sean not only lied about his name,
but his nationality. His last name is LeBlanc, and he's from Canada.
Julia is stunned, as Sara fills her in. She can't believe that a smart,
savvy professor like Julia was fooled. Julia asked if Sara is thinking
she knew. His transcripts were forged with a watermark which means that
he had help from someone inside the school. Julia says no. When she met
Sean, he was already a student. She was his thesis adviser. That's when
they started spending a lot of time together. One night, they were
working late. Sean kissed her. One thing led to another. She should have
put a stop to it, but she was vulnerable, and fell in love with him.
Sara asks if she ever suspected he could hear, and she alludes to the
"sweetpea" in QSL. Sean said it was their secret term of endearment.
Something that nobody on the campus would understand.

Julia's career has been her life. She didn't realize how lonely she was.
We all have this need to find that one person to connect with. And when
we do, we find that we overlook their imperfections and disappointments.
Sean was using her. Sara apologizes, then asks Julia if she knows
anything that could help them. Julia recollects a night she went to his
room while he was emailing, she saw him using an email address that was
in French. She thought maybe it was another woman, but Sean said no. It
was just an old friend. Sarah asks if she knew who he was writing to,
and Julia says no. But she does remember the email address he was using.

Ray is happy to report he gained access to the email address in
question, and the emails are practically a blueprint for the entire
grant scam. Sean had a partner. He knew Dr. Lambert was onto him, and he
was getting worried. His cousin is from Montreal, but they don't have to
go that far to find him. He's been hiding in plain sight. It's Dennis
Palmer, the translator.

Brass questions him, but gives him all the information they have so he
knows that he is well and truly busted. He asks if Palmer taught Sean to
sign. Sean tells Nick that he learned to sign as a kid, because his
mother is deaf. Dennis is angry because if you're in a wheelchair, and
you're deaf, society throws money at you. They have all these grants for
deaf students, and meanwhile he's busting his hump for next-to-nothing.
For a prize as big as the grant, they needed an edge. That's why Sean
seduced Julia. He needed her endorsement, but then he started to care
about her. Dennis says that was the first complication. Lambert was the
second, when he found out Sean didn't go to Cambridge. He said he
wouldn't go to the police, provided Sean withdrew his grant application
and left the school.

So, why the second bomb targeting Julia? Dennis was trying to take the
heat off of Sean, put it on Michael. Dennis promised Sean that Julia
wouldn't get hurt. He'd make sure she wasn't even in her office. Julia
sees Sean led away in handcuffs. He mouths to her that he's sorry. Sara
asks if she's okay, and Julia says yes. They take each other's hands.

Sara talks to Gil on Skype. He asks how her week was, so she tells him.
She almost got blown up twice, she accused his ex-girlfriend of murder,
and she told off his mother. Oh good. So she kept busy.

Betty knocks on the door and joins the teleconference. She's very happy
to see him. She brought Sara a gift, African violets. They're beautiful.
Sara apologizes to Betty and asks if they can start over. Gil says when
he comes back, the three of them can go out to dinner, soon. He says he
loves them both, and they return the sentiment.


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