By The Book - Recap

Rain pounds into the grass and trees on the ground underneath, while we fly as fast as we can towards a pale mansion. Clouds seem to go on forever. Thunder and lightning ‘slams and crackles.’ At the same moment a Hummer pulls up to the front door and parks. It’s doors open and Eric and Calleigh get step out. They quickly advance towards the front door. Thunder continues to cause its chaos in the background. Eric and Calleigh discuss the ride there; the person who called did not leave their name or the address, and the 9-1-1 operator only knew that the caller was a male…When the front door that they are standing in front of opens…By itself! “That was creepy.” Eric says as they slowly walk over the threshold. Wind screaming at them as they walk through the mansion. The lights were out, the interior only lit by the moon reflecting off of the rain; and the lightning. Calleigh questions the owner of the house, Eric explains the house was untraceable. It was owned by a Trust fund. Calleigh responds [it’s not exactly warm and cozy.] They continue their flash lit tour of the house. Eric and Calleigh split up. Lightning continues to smash in the fore, and back-grounds. There are many odd things in this house. Relics and statues, much like a museum. Calleigh is startled when lightning illuminates the statue of what looks like a Male demi-god. Meanwhile Eric walks into the library, of this mansion. His eyes creep upwards to the ceiling. Suspended by the ankles from a chandelier; hangs a girl. Her hair cascades down. It stops with-in a few feet of the table placed under her. She is pale; and drained... Eric takes a breath as he approaches the woman. He begins processing, examining her. Calleigh then walks in and gasps, she notices that the woman had been drained of her blood also. Her hypotheses: The woman must have been alive when her blood was emptied. It is very hard to drain a body of its blood after the heart stops beating. Eric takes a closer look and sees, two puncture wounds on the woman’s neck. She had been bitten and it looked like Vampires. Calleigh looks at Eric and comments; “I hate Halloween…”

Horatio is now at the mansion; in the library examining the upside-down girl. Eric and Calleigh stand across from him discussing the possibilities and what to do from here. It is assumed that because there was no blood at the scene. The woman must have died somewhere else and the CSI team must find the original crime scene before the “Killer…kills, again.” A picture is snapped of the woman’s pale, tied and bound ankles. Another of the puncture wounds on her neck and a final picture of her face. Walter walks in and announces that the only way to get onto the island [That they were currently on] was to be on a “special, cleared list. No visitors were allowed on the island.” Chip was already looking for the list. Her ferry-pass was in her pocket and Tom used it to identify her as Andrea Thompson. Andrea was the Housekeeper of the mansion. A quick phone search and Ryan was able to find out more about her. She was 24 years old and had graduated “summa cum laude” from Vanderbilt University. Walter questioned why somebody who graduated top of her class from such a distinguished school would be working as a house keeper? Ryan mentioned the discouraging job market, when Tom fumbles with his clip board and drops it on the ground. He tells Ryan and Walter that his hands were feeling “tingly.” Ryan asks Tom for his gloves and identifies the smell as “dead mice.” Tom knows that Hemlock smells like “dead mice.” Scared that he may die, Tom goes to wash his hands while Walter and Ryan continue to check the grounds.

Outside, next to a pool the guys are looking for Hemlock, growing in the garden. They had looked it up online, besides being one of the most dangerous plants in North America it was also distinct and easy to spot. It didn’t take long at all to find it growing like weeds Ryan and Walter walked right up to it, identified it and then they “need, to find the gardener.” A crash comes from the other side of the pool. Walter and Ryan look over to see a man in a striped shirt picking up the items that he had dropped. He didn’t look like a police officer. They yelled over towards him “Who are you?” He asked them the same. They told him they were the Miami Police. He told them he was the gardener. Ryan and Walter both told him that he “was coming with them.”

At the police station the gardener tells Horatio that they use Hemlock to keep the pests away. He also told him “Andrea liked to eat her lunch in the garden.” He tells him that he must keep the house in perfect order in case somebody drops by, but normally nobody lives there. They just take care of it. He promptly gets up. With no ‘probable cause’ they could not detain him. If they wanted he would have been “happy to get his lawyer” involved. He then exits the police station and Horatio knows that they need to find the owner of the house.

Eric and Calleigh still investigating find a letter, an odd letter written in a language they could not understand. They decide to search and see if the language could be a cult language. It’s found out that the language was invented by a writer in 2009; A woman named Marylyn Milner. She had written a series of Vampire books…and she owned the house. The letter was deciphered, it gave Marylyn “high praise for the books; and it closes; in your honor I will drink the blood of the virgin. Signed, Your Eternal Disciple.” There were no finger-prints on the letter but Eric and Frank both agree that they must find Mrs. Milner. At the lab the girls discover that the “Vampire Letter” is written in BLOOD! Now they must find out who’s blood it was.

Flash to a vial sitting on a desk, hands come in and move quickly under the yellow, grainy light. A dropper reaches into the vial and slowly draws blood up. A pen is opened, unscrewed and the eye dropper neatly placed inside carefully empting the blood into the pens ink reservoir. The Demi Gods flash in the lightning and the pen is used to write the letter, A DNA match is found. A man named Wes Rayburn. His “Mugshot” staring evilly at the camera.

Calleigh is now in pursuit of him. Wes is running as if his life depends on it. Through the trees and through the grass. Wes tosses his bag to the side as he continues running from Calleigh. Calleigh comes to a clearing. She slows down and draws her weapon. Mr. Rayburn was no longer in sight. Calleigh looked at the hill in front of her. She couldn’t see the other side. She takes another step forward and from the side Wes tackles her to the ground. He wrestles with her and grabs her arm, he draws it to his face revealing his fangs. He attempts to bite her wrist. Horatio; Gun pointed at Wes. “Let me see those hands, Wes.” Wes lets go of Calleigh. Horatio goes and tends to her. He turns his back for a second and Wes takes off running towards the trees. He climbs. Horatio tells him to come down. His gun pointed at him again. Wes silently refuses; he stands on a branch close to the middle of the tree. Horatio sees the branch and puts a bullet into it causing Wes to fall. He is then placed under arrest despite his threat of a lawsuit.

He snidely tells Horatio that Andrea was dead when he got to Mrs. Milner’s house. He went to find out why she had not answered his letters. When he was in the house he found Andrea, suspended upside-down. He believed it was a gift from Marylyn Milner to him. He attempted to drink her blood but she had already been drained of it. Horatio calls Eric and tells him that it was important that they take another look at the victim. Marylyn is still missing. She had taken a flight and had not been seen in almost 2 years. Natalia begins to wonder if Mrs. Milner even exists. At the lab Tom is still washing his hands of Hemlock when Eric walks in. Eric tries to console Tom and he asks if he can please find the puncture wound used to remove Andrea’s blood. It had to have been removed by a needle, they needed to know where. Eric took a quick look at Andrea and found a piece of broken cork in her hair. The person who had overseen the wine could be of some help. Eric was off to find him.

Calleigh and Eric are now interrogating Mr. Kingman. He was Mrs. Milner’s Chef. He came in to the police station with an odd stain on his left arm. It was wine, he claimed he had discovered Mrs. Thompson. He had called the police and he had touched her neck to check for a pulse. He was there last night; at the mansion because they had to be ready with Mrs. Milner’s dinner at all times in case they had visitors. He heard a noise from the library and went to investigate. He knew it was Andrea but he did not know she would be dead and suspended from the ceiling when he got to her. The cork was from him; he had been prepping dinner and had just opened a bottle of wine for the lackluster occasion. Calleigh then checks him for blood; it is negative. When asked why he fled the scene, he answered Mrs. Milner’s Editor told him to go. He was there also. So Mr. Kingman left. The editor did not stay because he was sleeping with Andrea and he didn’t want it to be read about in the paper by Mrs. Milner. He used his own boat to come and go from the island as he pleased. There was a chance that they could find some evidence on it to lead them to the original crime scene.

Walter cannot find a single drop of blood in the entire mansion when Horatio calls him. he tells him to go and check the boat. Walter and Natalia excitedly head towards it. Its name “#1 Best Cellar” as they approach the boat. When they hear voice’s coming from inside. They know the owner of the boat is at the police station. So who’s in there now? Guns leading the way Walter and Natalia enter the boat to see The Gardener and Mr. Kingman reading from a computer and going over papers. “It’s not what it looks like,” Mr. Kingman exclaims. Walter and Natalia quickly surmise that they are, ghost writers. That they are in fact Marylyn Milner herself...Or him selves. When they had found Andrea’s body Joseph told them to go to the boat. They were unable to write under the circumstances. Andrea was one of them, a ghostwriter. On Joseph’s boat the CSI team finds Andrea’s laptop. On it they find an E-mail to Joseph blackmailing him. Threatening to expose herself, the Gardener and Mr. Kingman. She wanted money or she was going to go to the media. Joseph claims that he attempted to give her the money she wanted but when he approached her; she was already dead. He took the Manuscript that she was withholding from him, and took it to the printer. Frank goes to get it while Joseph waits with Horatio at the station. Once he has it the team each takes some of the pages to start testing. Looking for anything that would lead them to Andrea’s killer.

The stories in the book are identical to what the CSI team was seeing in real life. The story was written so the police could end it. In the story the dead suspended woman had her blood drawn from in between her toes. Natalia quickly calls Tom and tells him to check for a puncture wound on Andrea’s foot. It’s there just like in Marylyn’s new book. Ryan uses satellites to look at Mrs. Milner’s Island. He sees there is another structure on it. Perhaps that was their murder scene. He and Walter go and check it out. They walk towards it and find a Rolls Royce Phantom under a cover in the middle of the woods surrounding Marylyn’s house. In the back seat, an intervenes tube with Andrea’s blood still stained inside of it. They had found the original crime scene. And they had used Joseph’s phone to find Mrs. Milner. She informed Horatio of an Epilogue only available on the audio book. He had told her “It would answer all of the readers unanswered questions.” The Epilogue began telling Horatio and Ryan that the killer knew what he had to do. He had to take a goblet and drink her blood like wine…Drink her blood like wine…Horatio needed to examine Mrs. Milner’s wine collection. There was one single fingerprint found in her vast collection and it belonged to Mr. Kingman. Horatio accused Mr. Kingman of draining Andrea of her blood and storing it in the wine bottles. All because she claimed she was a better writer than him. She had stolen his work and credit. They finished their book and they deserved a ride in the rolls. He had given a chance to come clean with him but she continued to take the credit. He then exsanguinated her. He drained her of almost every last drop of blood she had. He left a trace amount of blood because the process was taking too long, He wanted to get it back to the library so it would look like it did in the book. Mr. Kingman was hoping it would look like some crazed book fan did it and not him. The only question remaining was why there was Hemlock in her system. Andrea was in possession of a bottle of perfume made in Milan. Mrs. Milner had just gotten in from Milan. Mrs. Milner. Mrs. Milner knew about the Blackmail and tried to kill Andrea by putting Hemlock in her perfume. Mrs. Milner is arrested for Attempted Murder, she and Mr. Kingman are taken away. In passing Mr. Kingman see Marylyn, he calls her name but she has no idea who he is. He had made her, and she didn’t even know him.

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