CSI:New York

Season 1 - Episode 16 - Hush

Written by Anthony E. Zuiker and Tim Lea
Directed by Deran Sarafian

After a trucker is shot and injured when some teens try to steal his truck, Flack calls Mac and Stella to the scene. There's a pulverized body in the back of his truck. Or rather, half a body, as Hawkes, armed with a spatula, tells the CSIs.

Danny and Aiden arrive at another scene, where they find the body of a naked dead woman in the woods, a little bit off the road. Aiden notices headlight glass on the ground, and Danny sees the bark of a nearby tree is bloody and broken, as well as skid marks.

Stella, Mac and Hawkes discover the other half of the body that has been crushed underneath one of the flatbeds. Hawkes takes it back to the morgue, where Danny and Aiden are waiting for his take on the body in their case. Hawkes isn't able to identify her, but he does point out ligature marks that indicate she was restrained. The vehicle from the case is discovered: it's an F-150 in impound with an odd apparatus strapped to the front of it. The apparatus turns out to be harness with a button on the bottom of it. Inside the car they find a latex suit, straps and a red ball with teeth marks on it--the woman was strapped, upside down, to the harness on the front of the car. Danny also finds glass on the passenger side, but it doesn't seem to be from any of the car's windows.

Hawkes reassembles the body he refers to as "spatula man." Stella has an ID: Paddy Dolan, a longshoreman. Hawkes says Dolan was crushed to death, but points out an ante-mortem knife wound. Back at the docks, Mac and Stella question the men who worked for Paddy: Manny Moraga, Sean Bally and Mike Prineman. The men are wary of being questioned--only Mike speaks out against Dolan, calling him lazy. He says Dolan collected a big check for doing no work. Mike won't say any more--he's afraid of losing his job and has a family to support. Mac notices Mike is carrying a knife and collects it to test.
Danny and Aiden arrive at the house of Ron Bogda, who owns the F-150 from the impound. He identifies a photograph of the victim as his wife Debbie, and claims they led separate lives during the week as she worked and staying in Manhattan.

Mike's knife isn't a match for Paddy's stab wound. Nor are any of the other workers' knives. Stella finds insect eggs on Paddy's jeans. Mac, puzzled by Sean's spotless knife, questions the young man. Sean is bitter because Paddy intentionally hurt his hand with a forklift. Stella IDs the insect eggs: they came from the Southern Pine Beetle, which isn't native to New York. They go back to the dock and discover another body in another container: identified as James Prineman, Mike's brother. He was killed by multiple blows to the head and his assailant was wearing brass knuckles. His clothes have the same beetles as Paddy Dolan's had, but James has been dead for days, indicating he died before Paddy did.
Danny and Aiden get a print off of the latex suit: it matches a woman named Jennifer Stupaine. The CSIs pay her a visit and find Jennifer and her husband John hosting a forniphilia instruction seminar for safe bondage practice. Jennifer has bruising that she has tried to conceal under her make up. Aiden takes her aside and photographs the bruising on Jennifer's body, which appears to be from a car accident – a bruise that resembles a seat belt from the passenger side of a car. She photographs John as well, but he has no such bruising on his body.

Mac is upset when he learns that Mike Prineman has been fired—he feels responsible. At Paddy’s apartment, Mac and Stella find stolen merchandise and dollars stashed away. Mac finds a pair of brass knuckles and concludes that Paddy killed Mike's brother. Stella also finds a bloody shirt. The CSIs track down the workers at a local bar, looking for Mike, but the guys deny seeing him and leave. The bartender admits he saw the yard workers having a disagreement. Paddy was extorting money from James, and Mike followed Paddy out when he left on the tail of James. They question Mike, who admits he followed Paddy out, but he claims he was just making sure his brother was all right.
Jane tells Stella she found two sets of DNA on the brass knuckles: one from James, and one from an unknown source. The skin cells don't match Paddy Dolan. Elsewhere in the lab, Danny and Aiden go back to the car, where they determine that the button at the bottom of the harness was a safety precaution, a way for the person strapped to the harness to alert the driver if he/she wanted to stop. During a search of the Stupaine’s house they find a Super8camera. They determine that Ron, Debbie's husband was the driver: he filmed Jennifer strapping Debbie in and drove the car, speeding until he lost control of the car and hit a tree, killing his wife.

Back at the docks, Mac and Stella realize that someone moved the container with James' body in so that it would be shipper out immediately, something only a boss could do. Just as they realize this, Stella pulls Mac out of the way of a flatbed moving to crush him. Kevin Hannigan is on the run, but Mac floors him and aims his weapon at the man. Hannigan was envious of Paddy, who was cutting deals with the men. He wanted to teach James a lesson and killed him accidentally. Paddy helped him clean up the mess and then blackmailed him; Kevin killed him and made it look like an accident. After Kevin is led away, Mac thanks Stella for saving his life. All's well that ends well: Mike Prineman gets his job back.

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