CSI:New York

Season 2 - Episode 9 - City of the Dolls

Written by Zachary Reiter
Directed by Duane Clark

In New York’s famed “Doll Hospital”, the place where New York’s rich, famous and sentimental send their priceless heirloom dolls to be patched, glued and sewn, our CSIs recover the corpse of the doll “doctor” beneath hundreds of body parts – doll body parts. Autopsy shows that the doctor was killed with a slice from a cracked porcelain doll, but why? Who would have wanted this doctor dead? Analysis of the evidence reveals he was killed for a very special doll-- a doll that can record a diary, memos, passwords and in this case… a secret. Mac and Lindsay realize that the doll recorded her five-year-old owner’s discovery of someone in an indecent situation. But the little girl isn’t talking and our CSI’s must turn towards the evidence: collecting and piecing together the shattered dolls they found at the crime scene. A fingerprint with traces of rhodium, as well as a doll’s eye covered in blood directs them towards…the little girl’s mother. The evidence mounts and our CSIs understand the girl witnessed her mother engaged in a career-ending affair. And when the mother realized that her daughter told the secret to the doll and the “doctor” heard it, she felt she had no choice but to recover the incriminating doll by any means necessary.

Stella and Hawkes find a beautiful young woman is dead in her Upper West Side apartment. At first blush, it appears to be suicide. Autopsy reveals that the vic was riddled with cancer and not expected to live more than six months. But in addition to the cancer, her body reveals evidence of chronic arsenic poisoning. Examination of the victim’s organs and rapidly shedding hair show that she had been ingesting arsenic for months. Analysis of the victim’s possessions reveal that the organic tea bags she was using to soothe her were actually filled with the deadly poison. Is this a case of product tampering? Or was our victim specifically targeted? And if so, who would have wanted to kill a deathly ill woman? The answer lies in an otherworldly trace found at the crime scene: meteorite dust. As our CSIs investigate, they learn the killing wasn’t personal; it was all about the victim’s rent controlled apartment. It’s not about who would kill the victim, but rather who wouldn’t kill for an apartment with a view of the park.