CSI:New York

Season 2 - Episode 18 - Live or Let Die

Teleplay By Pam Veasey
Story By Michael Daly and Gary Sinise

Mac and Hawkes arrive at the crime scene; the roof of a hospital in which two men dressed as medical personnel shot an intern to death and then high jacked a helicopter carrying a liver from an organ donor. Hot on the trail, Flack and Danny locate the abandoned helicopter in the warehouse district. Inside they find the pilot Jeb Clayton; he’s unconscious, and duct tape covers his mouth and wrists. Danny lifts prints from the roof of the cockpit, and finds pieces of shattered glass near a wall that looks like its been hit by a car. Mac returns to the hospital to speak with Dr. Beaumont; the Doctor responsible for the organ transplant gone wrong. Beaumont doesn’t recognize the victim, and believes that he was probably an organ carrier from the delivering hospital. Beaumont says he usually picks up the organ himself, however in this case he could not. Back on the roof, Danny sees the bullet beneath a grate. With the help of a contraption made by a homeless man, Mac is able to pull the bullet out from beneath the grate. When he returns to the lab, Hawkes tells him that the prints taken from the victim are not for a Ryan Elliot (identity the hospital paperwork points to), but a Sean Hovac. Hawkes and Flack bring Ryan into the interrogation room. Ryan says that Sean was his friend and took the shift for him; pretending to be Ryan. Danny examines the shattered glass and ties it to a Mercedes, while Flack confirms that the bullet came from a gun registered under the name of Angie Watson. Watson was in custody for holding up a dry cleaners. Angie says that when she was fleeing from the crime scene, she dropped the gun in an empty trash can near a brownstone by 64th avenue close to the dry cleaners. In the interim, Danny finds the vehicle number for the Mercedes; the car is then tied to Dr. Beaumont’s wife. With a strong line-up of suspects, the CSIs search for the person who would take someone else’s life to save another.

In the meantime, Stella and Lindsay question their first suspect: Chris Cooper. His business card was found at the victim’s house; prints from both the victim and Cooper are on the card. Cooper denies having any relations with the deceased Lillian Stanwick. However, Stella and Lindsay doubt his innocence as they prove that he has had several telephone conversations with Lillian in the last few weeks. Back at the lab, Sid confirms that the victim was raped several times, but with no signs of struggle. Sid concludes that she was hit in the head, fell to the curb and died; perhaps she fell on the bicycle. Looking for more evidence, Stella and Lindsay enter Lillian’s apartment to find a drawer full of business cards; all from men. After hearing the alibis from the card owners, Stella and Lindsay pare their suspects down to three men: Charles Cooper, Will Graham, and Dwayne Gessner. Lillian worked as a hostess at a restaurant, so naturally Stella and Lindsay make this their destination. Both find a glass bowl near her station that allows people to drop their cards in it to win a free dinner. The CSIs conclude that Lillian rifled through this bowl for men’s numbers, and then called them for phone sex. When they meet with Cooper he has a dirt stain on his coat that matches the pattern of the leaf that was found on the victim’s body. Cooper, Dwayne and Will all admit to having phone conversations with Lillian, but state that they have never met her in person. Was this heinous crime committed by one of Lillian’s naughty phone friends or do Stella and Lindsay need to dig a little deeper to find their criminal?