 Episode Summary |
There's a shootout in a gun store with a woman and man shooting at another man. A third man is seen leaving. Brass, Greg and Nick arrive on the scene. One man is injured, another is dead and a woman is dead. The dead man has a wallet full of cash, but the register is still full. They see bloody footprints from the third man, size 9. The man apparently stood in the middle of the shootout and walked away unharmed. At the hospital, Brass questions Hank Rinaldi, the co-owner of the gun store who was injured. He says that a man in a red sweatshirt came in and started shooting while he was in the back. He came out to defend his mother, and the second customer, Ed Smith, started shooting as well. At the scene, Nick and Greg try to determine who hit who in the shootout. All three shooters missed the man in the red shirt, who was their target, and shot each other. There are no bullets from the man in the red shirt, nor was he hit by the bullets. Dr. Ray, Nick and Greg all look at the videos to see what took place. It appears that Hank was shooting at Ed, and not at "red shirt" as he had claimed. Hank also lied about his relationship with Ed....Ed had been buying illegal bullets from Hank. Why was he shooting at such a good customer?
Sara and Catherine visit a crime scene where a young woman has apparently been dumped, but she's covered with a quilt. It's strangely tender for a body dump. In the autopsy room, the doc reveals that the girl died from hitting her head on a rock, but had been shot in the head about an hour before she died. Catherine doesn't understand why the killer didn't just shoot her again if she hadn't died the first time. At this point, the girl is still a Jane Doe.
Nick goes to visit Hank in the hospital, and tells him he knows about him selling the automatic gun bullets. Hank says he came out of the office and saw Ed and the red shirt man holding up his mom. He fired at Ed and then the red shirt man just stood there as they shot at each other. Hank asks Nick if they've caught "red shirt" and says that he doesn't want to leave the hospital until they do - "[that guy's] not human."
Sara is processing a modern VW Beetle that was parked illegally and had blood on the inside. The ticketing officer had it towed in. They find an id badge, their Jane Doe was Carrie Warren and she had been dumped from her own car. The keys are still in the ignition but the car is out of gas. They use her house keys to further the investigation in her home. It looked like she was the only person living there, and they find blood spatter on the walls of the bedroom where she was shot. Her dog was also shot and killed in the bedroom. There's a nearly empty bottle of milk on the floor and vomit on the bed skirt. In the autopsy room, Dave tells Sara that the dog was shot post mortem. Sara realizes that the bullet was the same one that hit Carrie. It ricocheted into the dog's body. She takes it to ballistics and it turns out to be a round carried in a Tokarev automatic. Greg is there and says that he recovered a Tokarev from the scene. It turns out the gun was loaded and had skin in the trigger, which means it wasn't for sale. Carrie's killer brought the gun to the scene....and was the man in the red shirt.
They compare Sara's bullet to Greg's gun and find the name of the owner - John Rakow. He lives right behind Carrie. Brass and Sara question Rakow and he says he gave the Tokarev to Carrie to help her protect herself. He said he wanted to protect her from her crazy ex-boyfriend, who he has chased off a few times. He is saddened when he hears Carrie is dead. Dr. Ray notes, outside the autopsy room, that Rakow's boots are bigger than size 9. He couldn't be the man in the red shirt.
The team comes together to analyze the facts. Henry tells them that the dog was poisoned with the milk laced with prescription medication. There were no signs of forced entry which means he has a key. Greg and Catherine go through Carrie's belongings, including a drawer full of small stuffed animals. They find a book with a label that says 'My eternal love is yours in life and death, love Sam." The book was stolen from the library. Brass, Ray and Sara show up at the home of the last known borrower of the book - Sam Trent. They arrive and find Sam's father Paul and a huge mess on the floor, including broken vases. Paul tries to play off the mess and seems uncooperative. Sam isn't home, but Sara and Ray find another mess in the bedroom. He's got tons of books about death and romantic comedy movies. They also find a picture of Sam and Carrie together on the Ivory Tower sky deck. There are dozens of tickets to the sky deck. Sam also has dozens of letters from Carrie...they alternate between being romantic and breaking up with him. There are empty prescription bottles that match The final important piece of evidence is a draft of a latter from Sam to Carrie. It sounds as if he is asking her to be in a suicide pact with him...but he's not dead.
Catherine visits Wendy in DNA. The vomit on the bedskirt wasn't the dogs, it was Sam's. The tissue on the gun was actually Carries. She shot herself in the head. They both tried to kill themselves, but were both unsuccessful. Sam took the gun and Carrie to the ammo store so he could buy more bullets. Catherine realized that the body was dumped at the apex of a hairpin turn, and the body was dumped accidentally. When the car ran out of gas, Sam walked the rest of the way to the gun shop and tried to start a gun fight. At Sam's house, Sara and Ray find a cowboy boot print on the closet. Paul comes clean to Brass. Rakow broke into the house looking for Sam and then left. When Sam got home later, his father told him to take the car and the money he needed and leave because someone was after him. He takes eight dollars and leaves, according to Paul. Sara notes that eight dollars is just enough to visit the Ivory Tower sky deck.
Catherine tells Nick that Carrie had a history of bipolar disorder. She was being treated at St. Anthony's hospital, which was further out from the gun shop on the same route Sam was following. They realize that Sam was trying to save her life. Sam is seen at the top of the Ivory Tower sky deck standing and ready to jump. The cops arrive. Sara, Ray, Brass and Vartan are there. Rakow grabs Sam off of the ledge and holds a gun to his head. The team arrives just in time and finally convinces Rakow that Sam didn't kill her, besides Sam's insistence that he did. Sara and Ray try to talk Sam off of the ledge when he jumps back up. He says that he set it up so Carrie would come home and find him dead, but the dog drank the milk as well. He wanted to know if it was the sight of him dead, or the dog, that made Carrie kill herself. When Sara says that it was him, he says "Thank you" and jumps off the edge. He falls but the team below has placed a inflated landing pad in his path. He survives.
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Better Off Dead 
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