CSI:New York

Season 1 - Episode 17 - The Fall

Story by: Bill Haynes
Teleplay by: Anne McGrail
Directed by: Norberto Barba

Three young Hispanic men enter a wine store in the Bronx and shoot the owner. Mac and Stella arrive and notice footprints in the spilled wine. Stella finds a nine millimeter bullet casing. She also finds a lighter one of the men left behind and finds a footprint on it. Mac spots the surveillance camera and hopes the men's images were caught on it. Outside, Detective Flack talks to Gavin Moran, his mentor, and the two trace the route the suspects took. In one of the alleys, Moran discovers an abandoned gun.
Danny and Aiden arrive at the scene of a death in Chelsea, where a large man whom Aiden identifies as movie producer Melvin Heckman, lies dead on a canopy. Danny notices a party on the third floor of the building and the CSIs decide to start there. Heckman's wife, Chandra, is surprised to hear about his death and said she didn't notice he was gone as he often snuck off on business. Danny asks her if Heckman had any enemies, and she tells him there was a long list.

In the lab, Mac tells Stella that all the blood at the scene was from the victim, while she tells him that there were no prints on the gun. The print on the lighter matches a member of the Crazy Aces gang, Luis Accosta. The CSIs watch the surveillance tape and they hear one of the gang members call out to another named Hector to shoot the owner of the wine shop. Mac surmises that the murder was a gang initiation. Stella notices a soda can left by one of the gang members, but neither he nor Stella saw it at the scene.
At the Heckmans' apartment, Danny spots a fiber on the railing of the balcony. Danny posits that Melvin fell face first, and Aiden spots blood on the ledge.

Moran, Flack and Mac track the Crazy Aces down at a housing project. Tomas Perez, aka "C-Dog" denies being at the scene, and both he and Accosta deny knowledge of Hector. Mac tests both their hands for GSR, but both are negative. Mac is under pressure from prosecutor Allen McShane to crack the case. Stella is bothered by the can's absence, and since Moran was the first officer on the scene, Flack pays him a visit and asks to see his log book. Moran is defensive but finally turns it over.

Hawkes tells Danny that Heckman was killed by a blow to the head. Hawkes points out a strong floral scent identified as a woman’s perfume on Heckman's hand as well as two small bruises on the man's backside. Aiden finds an oily stain on Heckman's jacket and identifies it as salmon oil. She finds a palm print on the back of his jacket, which indicates he may have been pushed. The CSIs head back to the apartment, where they find the woman wearing the fragrance, an actress named Gwen, who had the lead in a movie but was fired by Melvin, who thought she had gained weight. The palm print matches a screenwriter named Brent. Brent claims he didn't push Melvin; he was imploring Melvin not to open a sure-fire blockbuster Pixar film against his movie. Brent claims after he talked to his agent on his cell phone for three and a half hours.
Flack is disturbed to find an entry crossed out in Moran's log book. He asks Stella to run the entry off the record to see if the inks used are different, and she confirms that they are. She spots "Hector--soda can" under the crossed-out section. Flack returns to the scene, where he discovers the soda can in a nearby trashcan. He brings it back to Mac and Stella, but defends Moran, that he wouldn’t be on the take. Mac takes the can to Jane Parsons in DNA, who runs it and tells him the prints aren't on record, but the epithelials are from Moran. But she surprises Mac with another piece of information--the DNA from the saliva indicates the person who drank from the can is Moran's son. Mac shares the information with Flack and tells him to check Moran's financial information and find the mother.

In the lab, Aiden studies photos of the victim, specifically the bruises on his backside. She analyzes them and realizes the come from a shoe. She called a cousin who sells shoes for advice, and then IDed the shoes as a woman's size seven. Meanwhile, Mac confronts Moran with the DNA evidence that Hector is his son. Moran tells Mac to call his union lawyer and Mac reminds him he's looking at time. Mac asks for his help in finding the shooter, but Moran continues to stonewall him.

Danny and Aiden learn that Chandra Heckman wears a size seven shoe, so they go back to question her. She say she kicked him because she caught him eating chocolate, which given his weight and health, was practically poison for him. Danny finds a sliver of silver on the wall from one of Melvin's cuff links, which backs up Chandra's story that she kicked him into the wall, and not off the balcony.
Flack finds a history of checks written by Moran to one Blanca Vasquez. Mac and Stella pay Blanca a visit, and she says Hector left her a message telling her to tell his friends that he went down to Atlanta to stay with some cousins if they asked. Mac realizes Hector must have failed the gang initiation, meaning he wasn't the shooter in the wine store. The gang is after him now, though. Mac and Stella listen to the message and based on the background sounds are able to track the boy to a warehouse in Brooklyn, where they corner him and bring him in.

Back at the station, Mac confronts Hector with the evidence and asks for his account. Hector claims he doesn't trust cops but also says that he didn't shoot the wine store owner. He claims Perez was the shooter--Perez tried to get Hector to do it, but when he didn't, Perez did it himself. After the gang members fled, Hector ran in a different direction. When D.A. McShane catches wind of Hector's story, he tells Mac he wants Hector arrested, but Mac reminds him the evidence was compromised and suggests their best bet is getting Hector to turn on the gang.

Hawkes tells Danny he's certain that Heckman wasn't poisoned, but says he did find barely -digested chocolate in his stomach, suggesting he ate it just before his death. Danny and Aiden go back to the Heckmans' balcony, and Danny notices a discarded candy wrapper a floor below. Danny spots a gargoyle just in reach if one stands on the ledge of the balcony. Danny steps up and finds a stash of chocolate. The CSIs put it together: Melvin fell reaching for the chocolate.

Mac and Flack arrest Perez and confiscate a handgun and his jacket. Mac and Stella find glass shards in his jacket from a broken bottle of wine that one of the bullets went through. The CSIs find spatter from white wine on his jacket, confirming that Perez was indeed the shooter. Mac tells Flack that Hector was given a deal and intends to go pick up Moran, but Flack asks if he can do it instead. He goes to the station, where he tells his mentor he's going to be forced into retirement, but he'll still get his pension. Rather than handcuffing him, Flack and Moran walk out of the station as if they were going for a cigarette break. Mac looks on from across the street.

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