The Score

The Score
Season	4
Number	12
Writer	Barry O'Brien
Director	Jonathan Glassner
Original Airdate	January 9, 2006
Navigation
Previous Episode: Payback
Next Episode: Silencer

The Score is the twelfth episode in Season Four of CSI: Miami.

Synopsis

The CSIs investigate the brutal murder of a man who was learning how to pick up women at a hot nightclub. Meanwhile, Horatio tries to help out Marisol, Delko's sister, who was arrested on drug charges.

Plot

What seems to be a simple pick up at a private party turns deadly when Paul Sanders is found dead in a bedroom closet by his friend Todd Manning. Paul was stabbed repeatedly with an ice pick. The party's host, Wayne Reynolds, is a dating guru who hosts seminars called 'Score to Win,' which teach men how to pick up women and seduce them. Horatio is just beginning to examine the scene when he's called away by an officer: Marisol Delko, Eric's gravely ill sister, has been picked up after buying five bags of marijuana. The officer witnesses the sale, so there's no way out for Marisol, and Horatio is forced to place her under arrest. Back at the station, Todd Manning recounts discovering Paul's body in the closet while Calleigh and Ryan question Wayne about his program at the scene. He's smug and gives them very little, but they take his clothes to compare to a red fiber found on Paul's clothes, which Aaron Peters has identified as soy fibers.

Ryan interrogates Heather Larkin, the young woman Paul was seen flirting with and later going upstairs with at the party. Heather knew he was a game player, so when he got upstairs she rebuffed his advances and wrote a big 'L' for loser on his chest with her pen before leaving. Heather is disillusioned with men's attitude towards women in general, but there's nothing that immediately points to her as the killer. Elsewhere in the lab, Horatio brings Aaron the marijuana Marisol purchased for analysis, and Delko spots his sister. Horatio tells Delko to stay away from the case for his own good. The soy fibers that transferred to Paul match Wayne's shirt, but he has an explanation: he and Paul got into a scuffle when he discovered Paul was going to open a competing dating program and start conducting his own seminars. Wayne admits to being angry and fighting with him, but denies murdering him.

In the morgue, Alexx goes over Paul's body and notices an indentation on his left ring finger, indicating he was married. Ryan tracks down his wife, Brenda, who is devastated to learn of her husband's death. Ryan notices a burn pattern on her arm from a sparkler—something the waitresses were carrying at the party. She admits she snuck into the party and saw Paul going upstairs with Heather. She says she went home and cried. The Sanders had only been married for four months, and Ryan goes over their registry and finds an ice pick on the list. When he asks her about it, she says their garage was broken into, and their wedding gifts were stolen. In the lab, Horatio catches Delko looking over the report about Marisol's marijuana, but when the State's Attorney, Monica West, places a call in about the case, Horatio realizes someone has talked about Marisol's case. Horatio tells Monica about Marisol's cancer, but Monica says the amount of marijuana Marisol bought means that she can be charged with a felony. Monica also wonders if the lab's integrity has been compromised by Eric's case and now Marisol's.

Back at the crime scene, Ryan discovers a pen that his failing eyesight caused him to miss the first time around. The prints on the pen match one Karen Manning, who was at the party under a pseudonym: Heather Larkin. Karen is brought back in, and she admits that she is a newspaper columnist and was looking to expose the behavior of the men who enroll in these programs and exploit women. Karen seems genuinely shocked when she learns Todd discovered the body: she was trying to expose Reynolds to save her brother. Aaron analyzes Marisol's pot and discovers that three of the five baggies don't contain real marijuana. When Horatio tells Monica West she doesn't have enough to charge Marisol with a felony, Monica suspects the evidence was tampered with somehow. Eric insists to Horatio that he never touched any of the evidence, and together they return to the park where Marisol bought the marijuana, hoping to find evidence to lead them to the dealer. They find a baggie of joints and take DNA off of the rolling paper, which leads them to Keith Gifford. Faced with being charged himself, Gifford admits to selling mostly fake pot, and testifies as much to Monica. Marisol's case is bumped down to a misdemeanor, but Monica remains suspicious about the lab.

Going back over the evidence, Calleigh finds an aromatic dispersal unit—a fancy air freshener that releases a different scent ever half an hour. She and Ryan determine which scent would have been released during the time of the murder and begin to search their suspects' clothes for that scene. They get a positive hit off Todd Manning's clothes. After Todd saw Paul with his sister, he confronted him. Paul claimed that he slept with Karen and Todd lost it, seizing an ice pick Paul had brought and stabbing him with it. Calleigh notes the irony in the case: not only had Paul not slept with Karen, but Karen was trying to protect Todd by being there. Marisol tracks down Horatio to thank him for helping her. He cautions her not to get into the situation again. She wants to thank him by cooking him dinner, an offer Horatio politely declines at first. But Marisol presses him, and Horatio relents.

Cast

Main Cast

• David Caruso as Horatio Caine
• Emily Procter as Calleigh Duquesne
• Adam Rodríguez as Eric Delko
• Khandi Alexander as Alexx Woods
• Jonathan Togo as Ryan Wolfe

Guest Cast

• Rex Linn as Frank Tripp
• Alana de la Garza as Marisol Delko
• Boti Ann Bliss as Maxine Valera
• Bellamy Young as Monica West
• Brendan Fehr as Dan Cooper
• Armando Valdes-Kennedy as Aaron Peters
• Johnathan McClain as Todd Manning
• Dameon Clarke as Wayne Reynolds
• Kate Levering as Heather Larkin/Karen Manning
• David DeLuise as Paul Sanders
• Erica Leerhsen as Brenda Sanders
• Michael E. Rodgers as Keith Gifford
• Bobby Hosea as Officer Joey Brown
• Jaime Walls as Sondra
• Carrie Southworth as Mia

See Also

• List of CSI: Miami episodes
• CSI:Miami Season 4
• Category:Images from The Score