Plot

CSI discovers two dead bodies in the same dumpster. One committed an armed robbery in a stolen police uniform, and the other is the teenage daughter of a South American drug lord.

Two corpses coincidentally end up side by side in a street dumpster. Angelica Carlos, daughter of a Colombian drug lord, was last seen in Craig Hess's nightclub and died from a dose of atropine, used to pep cocaine for the market. Related violence follows. The male corpse wore a real Reno police uniform, but was a civilian nobody and his buddy's partner in fun and crime.—KGF Vissers

On Halloween Eve, Nick and Riley are walking on the sidewalk when they stumble upon a robbery of a liquor store by a man dressed like a police officer. Nick chases him in a building, and he tries to escape jumping in a dumpster. However, he dies and the CSI find a young woman dead near his body in the dumpster. Their further investigation shows that the victim is Angela Marie Carlos, the daughter of a notorious and powerful drug lord. What will be the consequences of her murder?—Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

"CSI" - "Let it Bleed" - Oct. 30, 2008

A man with a knife in his back walks away from the camera muttering about smelling brains. He's a zombie. As he walks by two CSIs Nick explains that even though it's the night before Halloween, people in Vegas celebrate all week. They're on their way to process another "407," a liquour store robbed by a "cop." Third one tonight. As they say this another "cop" runs out of a store in front of them. Nick and Riley give chase. The guy shoots at them as he runs inside the back door of something. Fake cop, but real gun. Nick goes after him while Riley calls it in. The guy busts into the interior of the building, which is under construction, NIck continues to chase. The guy finally stumbles and falls and loses his gun. Nick has him in his sights when the guy bolts out a window and falls dead in a dumpster. He falls on top of another body, a female. Grissom reprimands Nick for chasing but is glad the guy led them to the girl. She's, um, fresh, according to Riley's nose.

They take pictures of the girl in the dumpster, which they've brought to the lab, contents intact. Then they lift her out. Nick notices a tattoo on her leg of some kind of fish. It's temporary. Might be a club stamp. If they can figure out where she was they can figure out who she is.

Cut to a club with the same fish logo. Riley and Catherine navigate among the dancing costumed masses. She sees her daughter. She coughs up her fake ID. Lindsey tries to bitch but Catherine points out that a girl her age who was there last night was murdered. (Trump that, missy.) The victim was working the VIP section in the back. Catherine and Lindsey go to talk to the owner in said section. They show him - him being Jason Lewis of "Sex and the City" - the picture of the dead girl. He doesn't recognize her and wonders if there's anything else. Catherine gripes her under-age daughter was let in. He snarks that meant she had a fake ID, which is not poor club management but poor parenting. Catherine is not amused.

Nick and Jim examine the uniform of the dead "cop." They think it's a real cop uniform from Reno.

Riley and Greg are looking at the previous evening's surveillance video from the front door of the club. As suspected she was ushered in the back so they don't have her arrival but they do have her departure. She's struggling angrily with the bouncer tossing her out but sexy club owner guy whispers something in her ear that makes her leave calmly and happily. This was four hours before they found her.

Grissom and Catherine take more pictures of the dead girl and pull glass from her body. The clinking glass seems to unsettle Grissom, Catherine's voice sounds far away to him. The wounds from the glass are superficial, so she was already dead when the "cop" fell on her. Catherine asks if he's getting any sleep. She says she isn't either. She asks what he hears from Sara. He says he doesn't know where she is. Grissom notices track marks on the girl's arm. She says most people don't start off shooting up so she must've been a longtime user who graduated from snorting or smoking. There's also white powder on her nose and hives on her belly. A cop comes in with a folder for Grissom. The vic Angela Marie Carlos, popped up in the Homeland Security database. She was the daughter of a drug dealer named Juan Ramon Carlos, a big time dude in Colombia. He's got a sister in Henderson, they go to make the notification.

They visit the sister, who is sad. She last saw Angela two months ago when she went to college in Utah. She used to live with the sister but they sent her to Utah because she liked to party, like her mother. Angela only had one real friend, Sylvie. The sister says the cops might catch who did it but Juan will never forgive her.

Nick talks to Reno cop, the one who lost his uniform. He was in town to testify at a trial, hooked up with a call girl who wanted to wear his uniform to role play, spilled champagne on it and sent it out for cleaning. He didn't get it back and housekeeping said they hung it on the door.

Greg breaks the news to Angela's friend Sylvie. Turns out sexy club owner guy was a "friend" of Angela's family. For some reason Angela had a fight with him and he kicked her out. Sylvie didn't leave with her, she hooked up with some guy. She wasn't worried because "nobody touches Angela."

Riley and Catherine go to visit sexy club owner guy and confront him with his lie. He said as soon as he saw her, he sent her out. Catherine says she thinks that sexy club owner guy does business with her father. He pretends he doesn't know her father. Catherine says it wouldn't be the first time SCOG got rough with a girl as he has a prior rape charge. They were dropped he points out.

Robbins and Phillips, in their examination, discover another piece of glass in Angela's head. Grissom comes in and says Robbins has something he's never seen before. He holds up a test tube of blood that has some funky stuff going on- we go inside her veins as they explain some science stuff about blood being "hemalized"(?). An unknown chemical imbalance caused her blood vessels to rupture. Causes are a bunch of stuff and they're waiting on a tox screen before they determine cause of death.

A female CSI lab tech is examining and printing the chopped off fingertips of the "cop." (Ew.) They're sliced up but a computer scanner puts them together. Nick comes in looking for a hit. They get one, Thomas Taylor. He has several violent priors.

Lindsey sits in Catherine's office playing a video game. Catherine says being grounded means staying home. Lindsey protests she wasn't doing anything wrong and proffers the Breathalyzer results she made the cop who took her home give her. She apologizes for the fake ID. She tells Catherine she doesn't have to worry. But, Catherine says, she will.

Hodges calls Grissom over to tell him about tickets to a lecture by some archaeological dude and Grissom wonders if he's asking him out. Hodges wonders if that's a yes. Grissom is more interested in the determination of the white powder in Angela's nose. Not cocaine but a stimulant often used to cut it called atropine. Her tox screen came back negative for both. Atropine also has a tranquilizing effect on fish and other animals. (It should be noted here that the club sports a bunch of huge aquariums).

Jim reports to Nick that the Reno cop was in a special room at the hotel. Nick wonders how the dead "cop" had access to such a high level room and wonders why he was wearing patent leather shoes. He surmises he might've been in town for a reunion or wedding and the shoes were rentals.

Greg tells Riley that they got a GPS hit on Angela's cell. They think if the killer has it they have the killer. They head out and pull over a dump truck. He dumps his load. They call the number to see where it rings. Riley finds the right bag. They open it and take pictures. It's filled with broken glass and Angela's purse. If the dump truck serviced the club of SCOG- who is named Craig apparently- then they think they have him.

Riley and Catherine look over a map of Vegas and determine the places she was, weren't on the truck's route.

Whitney visits Robbins to report that Angela's blood was a mixture. Which can't be since Robbins took it from the heart. She ran it twice and it came back as a mixture as one female and two males. It's contaminated somehow. He pulls out Angela's corpse to draw more blood.

Nick tells Brass that the dead "cop" Taylor and another guy - Barry Wonderlick- rented a tux and shoes and were staying across the hall from the real cop.

Robbins and Whitney report to Grissom that the reason Angela's blood was hemalized (sp?) was because she got a blood transfusion with no medical need. Because her donors were of a different blood type that's why she had the funky ruptured blood vessel reaction. A weird way to kill somebody. They now have two unknown suspects.

The friend of the dead "cop" has been cooling in the drunk tank all along, couldn't post bail. Wonderlick and his friend were there for a bachelor paty. They ran out of cash and got into a brawl with the bouncers at a strip club. He told Taylor to get the cash for his bail. He's bummed that his best man let him down. Nick assures him that Taylor tried his best and tells the story of the stolen uniform and armed robberies- which we now see. Wonderlick, who's gun it was, is impressed. But then realizes it didn't end well.

Hodges is scanning photos of glass shards. The computer pieces them together into shape. He also pulls a fleck of something from the folds of Angela's purse. Under the microscope it's scaly. Fish scaly. He brings his findings to Catherine. It's a goldfish flake. The glass shards created a goldfish tank. Apparently, fancy fish in fish tanks eat goldfish.

They call in Craig and he's annoyed. She wants to know what he feeds his fish. He has no idea, he thinks the fish are a pain in the ass. They're always getting sick. He's got a guy named Goya who feeds the fish. The cops and Riley and Catherine descend on Goya's warehouse. (Wow, Goya is Nick Turturro). They cuff him and ask him about the boxes he's pushing between the tanks. They read "sand" but they're bricks of coke. Catherine surmises somehow Angela was involved. Goya reminds his buddy Joe that they have nothing to say.

Catherine takes pictures of the rows of goldfish tanks. There's also tons of atropine. And a broken glass coffee table with a little white powder residue on it. Riley finds another tank with bloody tubes in it. The warehouse is on the dump truck's route. Catherine pieces it together as we see it: Angela came to get drugs, saw the powder on the table and snorted it not realizing it was pure atropine, had a seizure, collapsed on a goldfish tank on the glass coffee table. Riley proffers the tubes hypothesizing they tried to transfuse her to settle a score with her father. (I think it was to try to save her).

In interrogation Joe and Goya say they would never mess with Juan's daughter. Joe says he was just going to give her pot from his own stash. But while he was getting it she saw two bowls of powder and decided to have a toot and made the wrong choice. (We see this as he speaks). Joe called Goya in a panic. Instead of calling an ambulance or dumping her at the hospital they decided to give her the transfusion based on the urban myth about Keith Richards getting transfusions when he was all smacked out. They show us giving her the transfusion, sticking the needle in their arms. They were trying to save her. They gave her back to Craig by tossing her in that particular dumpster so that Juan would make the connection and kill Craig. Goya blames Hess.

Grissom is petting his dog when the phone rings. He picks it up. And we cut to Craig's dead body slumped against one of his own fish tanks. Catherine takes pictures. We then see a blood trail that leads to Sylvie lying dead on the ground where Greg takes photos. And... Goya and Joe lying dead as Riley takes pictures. And finally Juan's sister lying dead in her house. Takeaway message? Don't mess with Juan.