( techno-pop playing )
Okay, I got a little game for you to play.
( raucous whooping ) How'd you like that?
We got a looker.
22 years old.
Name's Noel Peach.
He's a college student.
You know why he was up here last night?
Well, you know, some sort of private party.
Not private anymore, is it?
Any sign of what killed him?
I was hoping you could tell me.
Well...
I guess we can't rule out exposure.
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♪ We don't get fooled again ♪ ♪ Don't get fooled again ♪ ♪ No, no! ♪
According to his liver temp he died some time between 5:00 and 7:00 this morning.
No sign of trauma or obvious injury.
Look at this white substance around his mouth.
Drugs?
Wouldn't be the first OD at a Coconut Grove party, would it?
Substance on his genitals.
Could be semen.
Also found this-- condom wrapper.
At least he was careful.
And busy.
I have a number of different hair samples here.
I'm thinking female.
I've got something: Culex quinquefasciatus.
Mosquitoes.
Mosquitoes are attracted to circulating blood and carbon monoxide from breathing which means our friend here was alive when he got bit, doesn't it?
Meaning we might find traces of any drugs that he took.
Mm-hmm.
I'm bagging you guys.
Speed.
I don't know what the Latin name for this is.
No such luck.
Roman women wore leather straps.
Must have been one hell of a party.
Speaking of straps...
Ligature marks.
You thinking bondage?
Seems contradictory.
I mean, what kind of stud likes to be tied up?
Unless we've got it backwards, ladies and gentlemen and our friend Noel here wasn't the predator...
he was the prey.
Tough way for a night to end, huh?
I almost didn't come.
This was my first time.
Your first time?
For what?
A Cupcake party.
Cupcake party?
Care to explain that?
Cupcake-- it's um...
it's kind of hard to describe.
Basically an environment where women are in charge.
Get together and celebrate our sexuality.
Would you say that that celebration includes male entertainment like Noel Peach?
Yes, there were quite a few male dancers here.
Would you describe the entertainment, please?
It was harmless, really.
( women whooping ) Harmless.
A little harmless lap dance followed by some harmless sex.
Cupcake isn't about having sex.
It's about taking it back.
Fair enough.
I do that, too.
I'm always picking up the things people leave behind.
This is your home.
It was your party.
It is.
I must admit that I find Cupcake to be an interesting concept, but I don't understand it.
You don't have sex at the end of the evening.
So what do you do?
Don't you think that there's something...
freeing about just stimulating your senses and leaving it at that?
Sure, that's possible.
But when people get stimulated, they get territorial.
That's human nature.
And that can be dangerous.
Your party have rules?
That's the great thing about Cupcake.
There are no rules.
Excuse me.
Sure.
So, let me get this straight-- everybody gets together for sex and then nobody has it.
Everybody knows what goes on at an orgy.
I mean, you can add all kinds of weird little party favors-- cupcakes, weird ingredients-- an orgy's an orgy.
But Noel Peach is the one that got screwed.
We're going to need you inside.
In more ways than one.
So, this is our first time.
The two of us on a case.
You know, you usually work with Speed.
Yeah, yes, I do.
He says you taught him a lot.
Oh, yeah?
All right, the couple that called it in are Lisa and Mark Tupper.
Transplants from Boston.
They said they were taking a nap about seven miles out.
Anyway, an unidentified male climbed up their aft ladder then promptly dropped dead.
A guy comes out of the Atlantic chooses their boat to die on?
That's their story.
Well, single stab wound to the gut.
Pallor indicates he bled out.
So, uh, where's the rest of the blood?
There was a lot more blood than what we're seeing.
Let's process this boat for any potential weapon.
( sneezes )
DONNER: I've got knives.
You find something?
Yeah. I found traces of blood and hair here on the end of this flashlight.
Good work.
Let's get it to DNA.
Okay, right away.
Great.
His heart simply stopped beating.
Now how could that happen to a perfectly healthy young man?
Tox was negative for the garden variety drugs.
What about the white powder you found on his mouth?
Six percent conchiline, 92% aragonite.
Good, old-fashioned, ground-up pearl dust.
Harmless.
Could he have had an allergic reaction to it?
No rashes, no edema, no airway congestion.
Just the ligature mark you found and a tiny oval impression on his chest.
Those certainly didn't kill him.
So where does that leave us now?
With an apparent death of natural causes.
I hate to say it, but we could be done here.
Alexx...
does the DNA suggest that there's semen present?
Yeah. Tails on the sperm indicate sex just before death.
And a vaginal contribution that eluded the condom.
But that's not why you're here.
No, it's not.
You think one of the women did it, don't you?
I do.
No such thing as free love.
Consenting adults have at it...
but I can guarantee you our friend Noel here didn't consent to this, did he?
Hey.
These are swabs taken from the knives on the cabin cruiser.
No trace of blood.
Detective Puig says that the rest of the Tupper's story was confirmed.
The marina owner saw just the two of them go out.
So they could be telling the truth.
They cleaned up the blood. Why hide that?
Well, people hide things.
Half the time without even thinking.
What'd you get off the flashlight?
Um... hair.
Belonged to our dead swimmer.
And the blood, we're still testing.
The hair is enough. Let's bring the Tuppers in.
You know those things we took from your boat, Mark?
Yeah.
You want to tell us about the flashlight?
It wasn't Mark.
He didn't do anything.
He was asleep.
I never meant to hurt him.
We could charge her with assault.
Your call.
Did the wound to the head play a part in the victim's death?
I don't know yet.
So I processed the mosquitoes but they were too dehydrated to extract any blood.
So I asked myself: A bunch of dead, dried-out mosquitoes what's so strange about that?
People swat and kill them all the time, don't they.
But these were pristine.
Not swatted, not smashed.
CAINE: Pristine like the victim.
Alive one moment...
Dead the next.
So, if Noel did die of natural causes what killed these mosquitoes?
Exactly.
And since mosquitoes drink blood...
Something in the blood must have killed them.
You know what?
Let's have Alexx go over the body again.
Looking for?
Looking for something lethal.
Ladies.
According to the physical evidence someone had sex with Noel Peach just before he died.
So, we want to get a DNA reference swab from each of you, okay?
Okay, if you guys could just form a line right here.
That's not necessary.
It was me.
I didn't kill Noel.
He was fine when I left him.
About what, uh... time was that?
Just before 2:00.
I went upstairs to lay down for a minute-- before I knew it, it was morning.
Please, you have to believe me.
One more question...
what did you do with the condom you used?
I didn't use one.
Yes, ma'am.
Yes, ma'am, well, I'm sorry for your loss.
That's correct.
You have my number.
If you have... if you have any questions please don't hesitate to call me.
Yes, ma'am.
Next of kin?
That was his mother.
And she said that she'd spoken to him three days ago.
He told her that he had declared a college major.
Did she know what else he was into?
No. Only that he no longer needed help with his tuition.
I went back over Noel's body.
Found this.
An injection site.
But there was nothing in his medical records.
No diabetes, known allergies, nothing.
Nothing that would require a daily injection.
And it's not track marks.
No. If he was a druggy, it was his first time.
So we've got dead mosquitoes that are telling us nothing...
And a body telling us everything.
One of the hardest crimes to solve.
Poison.
The three most common poisons are...?
Strychnine, but that's obvious.
Leaves the body horribly contorted with that gruesome grin.
Arsenic-- causes hair loss, makes the skin jaundiced.
And cyanide has that bitter almond smell.
The tox tests were negative for all three.
So, that leaves us...
The world.
It leaves us the world because any element can be poisonous.
All about the dose.
Even water will kill you if you drink enough of it.
Yeah, you'd think it would be easy-- just put his blood in the mass spec and get a result.
But it's not easy because poison dissipates in the body.
It disperses.
It changes.
It becomes metabolites.
In short, looking for poison is like looking for smoke.
Here's what we're going to do.
Alexx is going to take a sample from the body.
What we're looking for is whatever was given to Noel and who had a reason to give it to him.
This kid had a family.
They deserve to know what happened to him.
WOODS: Preliminary autopsy report says the flashlight blow was a minor injury.
cause of death was from the blow to the liver causing massive internal bleeding.
Any number of stabbing implements could've caused it but the interesting things here are the organs.
His spleen was contracted-- about a 20% decrease in size from what you'd normally find in a male his size and age but his heart and lungs were 20% larger than normal.
So, we've got a guy with big lungs and a big heart.
Could be an athlete.
But the spleen is that it?
Would I do that to you?
Swabbed his wound.
Found some kind of microorganism.
Really?
Okay, folks, let's crash this party.
Hello.
The microorganisms in our swimmer's wound are spores.
Barrel sponge.
Hmm...
DELKO: Bravo, Alexx. Take a look.
Aren't those found in deep water?
Mm-hmm, over 50 feet down below the, uh, sun canopy.
How's that possible?
No excess nitrogen in our swimmer's system.
He wasn't using compressed air.
You said he had an enlarged heart and lungs, right?
And contracted spleen.
I'm thinking he was a free diver.
They're purists.
They dive without air tanks.
Uh, record's a hair over seven minutes.
They train like crazy-- um, condition their lungs.
They hyperventilate to shut off the breathing center.
For most people, 30 seconds and your brain's screaming, "Breathe!"
I heard about this one contest where they had one heart attack and 40 shallow-water blackouts caused by hypoxia.
It's, uh, oxygen starvation-- makes you delusional, tricks the brain.
Sounds crazy...
but it does explain the size of our swimmer's lungs and heart.
And the compressed spleen.
Pressure makes the organs contract.
It allows the body to squeeze the last drop of oxygen out of the blood.
Hmm.
Someone in Homicide told me that there was a contest out of Crandon Marina really early this morning.
Yeah? Yeah.
You got directions?
And a full tank of gas.
Excuse me, is there someone we could talk to about a diving contest out here this morning?
Yeah. Who are you?
Detective Puig.
Donner, Delko, Miami Crime Lab.
Okay, you're here about Adam?
Adam?
Carson... cops are here.
CARSON: Have you found him?
Who?
My brother Adam.
That's why you're here, right?
Your brother's missing?
Since this morning.
Called the Coast Guard. I filed a report.
Just tell me you found him.
Oh, God.
We may have bad news.
Uh, there were maybe, uh, 15 people diving.
We must've lost track.
Yeah, but don't you guys go down with a buddy?
You don't know what this is, do you?
Free diving ain't no team sport.
It's just you and the big blue-- no air, no life vest, no limits.
You're on the edge, on your own.
DONNER: Huge tuna.
Put up a hell of a fight.
That must get the adrenaline pumping, huh?
It can.
Listen...
people were blacking out down there today staying down so long to look for Adam.
Hypoxia can cause delusions, can't it?
Not if you know your limits.
DELKO: That's the point, isn't it-- pushing past limits?
SPEEDLE: What do you got, Delko?
Spear guns.
DUQUESNE: I'll trade you some stale caviar for some of those nifty spear guns.
I hate fish eggs.
Hey, Megan, did you miss me?
She actually forgot your name.
Two of us working together we swabbed every spear and knife from that competition, and on this one here we found traces of human tissue.
Spear gun belongs to Ignatio Paez our Cuban diver.
So, we've got a murder weapon and a suspect.
What have you got?
( clears throat ) I have a murder weapon of a different sort.
( chuckles ) The DNA results confirm that they're Nikki Olson's.
And inside the intimate part of her intimates, a pubic hair from our victim, Noel Peach.
SPEEDLE: And the impression on his chest matches this bra clasp.
An epi pen?
Yes, spring-loaded injector designed to treat allergies and I found a print matching one of our suspects on it-- Nikki Olson.
The blonde girl?
Mm-hmm.
They usually only contain a single dose of epinephrine but someone could double- or triple-load it.
Yes, they could and give old Noel his last dance, huh?
Mm-hmm.
It's for bee stings.
I'm allergic. Arrest me.
We didn't find any bee stings on Noel Peach but what we did find was a puncture mark from that injector pen.
Your pen, your prints.
Feel free to jump in anytime.
I never would have hurt Noel.
And, frankly, I don't know anyone who would.
Well, the evidence says it's you.
I...
I thought he was going to die.
( women whooping )
You see, Noel is allergic to shellfish.
He didn't know those were pearl shooters.
Vodka and oyster juice with pearl dust mixed in.
It's supposed to be an aphrodisiac.
CAINE: Well, that would explain the white crystals around his mouth, but...
Okay, he had an allergic reaction and you saved him.
Was that before or after you had sex?
That's not what happened.
We have a mark on Noel's chest from your bra clasp and trace evidence of him inside your underwear.
That didn't get there all by itself.
I paid him, all right?
It was a fantasy of mine.
You ever strap on a pair of four-inch heels?
A pushup bra?
Just to look good for a man, right?
I wanted to humiliate him like...
We dated, we had sex, just not that night.
He told me he was dating someone new, that he was in love...
I was happy for him.
Hi.
Horatio?
Mm-hmm?
I just got off the phone with Alexx and she said there was no more than a single dose of epi in Noel's body.
Probably not enough to kill him.
Maybe he just had a bad reaction to it?
Do you believe her story?
I don't know.
I guess that depends on whether you like seeing men dress up in your underwear or not.
Personally, leather chaps, nothing else.
That was a joke.
I know. You know what we do?
Let's round up the rest of the evidence from the party and get it to Trace.
Back to square one.
Mr. Paez, we found human tissue on your spear gun.
Are you telling me you don't know how it got there?
Yeah, that's what I'm telling you.
Maybe it was an accident?
A misfire, could have been faulty equipment...?
Mr. Paez...
can I ask you a question?
Mr. Paez!
What do you want?
I'd like to run a test on you.
With your consent, of course.
What is that thing?
Tympanometer. It measures the middle ear's response to waves of sound and pressure.
Flat graph.
Barotrauma.
In English?
His eardrums are ruptured.
You're losing your hearing, aren't you, Mr. Paez?
You've been losing it for a while.
DELKO: Yeah, it's caused by intense pressure from repeated dives to depth.
Now, the air pressure in the inner ear has to be equalized via Valsalva or Frenzel maneuvers.
The water creates pressure when it tries to push in from the outside and if you don't equalize that pressure on the way down, well...
pop goes the weasel.
Hey, can I talk to you a minute?
Okay, so he can't hear.
He still could have killed our vic.
Not under 50 feet of water.
That's the only place he could have picked up those sponge spores.
At that depth, water pressure would have blown out Paez's inner ear.
Put him in the hospital.
He didn't do it.
Champagne and cocktails came back negative for contaminates.
Our poison is still a no-show.
But did we find anything?
There were traces of milled calcium sulphate on the condom wrapper.
Chalk?
It might lead us to somebody else who had sex with Noel.
Then we are looking for someone who is around chalk all the time.
What did the guest book say?
DMV helped me out with this: Sophia Ananova, 24 years old.
Take a guess what she does for a living?
Myrtle Shores Day School. Third grade.
( sighs ) Hey.
We've got a problem.
No DNA match to our swimmer.
There were human skin cells on that spear.
Not from our victim Adam Cassidy.
I did a full run.
Profiler Plus and Cofiler.
We don't have the murder weapon.
We ran tests on all of the blades and all of the spear points from that boat.
Well, we're missing one.
Maybe it's at the crime scene.
And 50 feet of water.
Or somebody's hiding something.
Speaking of which, um, at the marina I hid something.
When I was processing the flashlight, I sneezed.
You contaminated evidence?
Why didn't you tell me?
I wanted to, I just didn't know how.
Okay, Eric, we all make mistakes.
What's important is we don't make them very often and we never withhold information.
I messed up.
Don't let it happen again.
I won't.
Good. 'Cause I'd hate to lose the only CSI in Miami who can process a crime scene in 50 feet of water.
Great.
I know I've talked to you once but we need to follow up.
God, I can't believe this.
I'm going to lose my job.
What you do on your own time is your business.
Well, I appreciate that.
Mmm. But when you commit a crime it becomes our business.
( door opens )
Can we hurry this up a little?
I'm got Later Gators in five minutes.
WOODS: Horatio...
look.
It's the same brand.
Looks like a match.
It is a match.
I try to be safe. Is that a crime?
No, not a crime.
But murder is.
I didn't have sex with that man.
Listen, we've all been there.
The morning after you wish you hadn't.
Just doesn't make it so.
I'm telling you the truth.
That condom was yours.
It was in your bag.
I know.
It was exciting, wasn't it?
To be... that intimate with someone you hardly knew.
( speaking Spanish )
You changed your mind.
It wasn't like that.
I mean, I fantasized about it, sure...
but I would never actually have sex with a stranger.
Do you smoke?
Yeah.
Well, I mean, I did.
I've been trying to quit.
Good luck with that.
Nicotine patches?
Mm-hmm.
Nicotine is actually one of the most toxic of all poisons-- more lethal than cyanide or cobra venom, believe it or not.
Yeah, but seven to 22 milligrams per nicotine patch is not enough to kill someone.
Mm-mm, but 50 milligrams is.
That's only three or four of those patches right there.
First you get seizures as the nicotine moves through the central nervous system.
Followed by paralysis.
The lungs collapse, the heart stops beating.
It can happen within five minutes.
Did Alex do a second tox screen?
Alkaloid salts came back positive.
Traces of cotinine metabolites.
Noel Peach died of nicotine poisoning.
Okay, but then how was the poison introduced?
It wasn't inhaled, the dosage would have been too small and it wasn't ingested, he would have tasted it.
Trans-dermal absorption.
She stuck a couple of patches on him.
We found no adhesive residue.
She could have worn gloves...
applied liquid concentrate directly to the skin.
We're not making this case.
Let's go back to the body.
H-5.
H-6.
H-1.
Well, here it is.
The exposure site is between K-6 and L-6.
Oh, my.
Confirmation.
Nicotine was introduced through the penile tissue.
It gives a whole new meaning to the term "members only."
Yes, it does.
Guess who won the 1998 Blue Water Meet.
Carson Cassidy.
Adam's won it every year since.
Huh.
Well, this knife belongs to Carson but we can't prove it killed his brother.
The test for blood was negative?
Inconclusive, as were the matches to the wound track.
You know, I used to have this summer job scraping boat hulls.
A lot of bilge contaminants in the water.
I used to have to clean my knife every night.
Blood might have gotten inside the handle.
His brother's keeper.
DUQUESNE: Sevilla is ready to file the arrest warrant on the teacher.
Tell her to hang on a minute, will you?
For what? We got her.
Do we?
Well, she had the nicotine patches and the condoms.
The problem is, is that the box of patches is full.
She bought a new box.
Distillation takes time.
So where did the nicotine come from?
That flower bed was filled with roses, wasn't it?
And crawling all over those roses are what?
Aphids.
How do you get rid of a pest like an aphid?
Insecticide. Nicotine is an insecticide.
One of the oldest known to man.
It's been in use since the mid-1800s.
And that would explain our dead mosquitoes.
Have we processed that garden yet?
We went through the patio and the toolshed.
I don't recall seeing any heavy-duty insecticide.
Have we talked to the gardener?
Yeah, I keep the insecticides locked in my truck.
Some of that stuff is dangerous.
Mm-hmm.
Red Kill. 40% nicotine sulfide solution.
Oh, really?
I could have sworn I locked that.
Oh, yeah, we got a couple of prints.
Off to the lab they go.
Adam must have borrowed that knife.
We already know he borrowed a spear gun.
Look, you've got no witnesses.
You've got no case.
Would you mind taking off your shirt?
There...
are your witnesses, hundreds of them from a deep-water barrel sponge.
You and Adam were down at least 50 feet.
It took about two minutes to get there.
You must have already have been entering that hypoxic state.
So Adam shoots you with a spear gun.
I don't think he was aiming for you.
You were both oxygen starved, running on adrenaline.
It was like a dream.
Like... my hand wasn't my hand.
That would be the hypoxia talking.
You were delusional.
That's not supposed to happen.
Free diving makes everything clear.
It's a trip down to primal instinct.
Killing your own brother-- doesn't get more primal than that.
I already told you Noel danced for a lot of girls that night.
A lot of girls wanted him.
Enough to kill him?
Here we go.
Hmm.
What's that?
These are Noel's phone records for the last month.
He called here over 107 times.
And most of those calls...
were less than a minute in length.
Why would he do that?
Well, Nikki mentioned to me that he was seeing someone new and based on those records, I think it's you.
But you weren't the one who wanted him.
It was the other way around.
Noel was obsessed with you.
He pursued you, even tried to make you jealous by going off with Nikki.
He wouldn't end it, so you decided to end it for him.
You took the condom out of Sophia's bag.
Added nicotine insecticide.
We found your fingerprints on the bottle in your gardener's truck.
And after the party, you let Noel come to you one last time.
You knew he couldn't resist.
Poisoners are like kids with their homework.
They want to show the math.
What are they doing?
The other day, while you out there with Detective Sevilla...
you inadvertently provided me with the smoking gun.
Horatio.
See, I'm guessing that inside that thing will be nicotine, and on the outside will be your epithelial cells.
You could have poisoned yourself.
Well, that's why they call it "safe sex."
Not for Noel.
He didn't understand.
He was in love with you.
So what?
Why is it always about what the man wants?
His decision...
his orgasm...
his rules.
So, you killed Noel because he wouldn't play by your rules.
Is that what you're telling me?
At least he gave me a new kind of thrill.
Well... I hope you enjoyed it...
because it's going to be your last.
You going to release the body?
Yeah. His mother's here.
Just have to sign the death certificate.
Not the kind of diploma he was after, though, huh?
Not the kind you frame.
You okay?
You need a couple more minutes?
No, but he did.
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