csi: crime scene investigation
monster in the box (16/24)

The successful Las Vegas-based forensics drama continues its seventh season. Tonight, Grissom receives another replica crime scene and realises that the miniature serial killer is still on the loose. With only two days to go before the crime is due to occur, the CSIs must locate the scene and save the victim before it is too late.

Grissom is stunned to receive another miniature crime scene in the mail. The package has been waiting for him while he was away on sabbatical. The model shows a living room with a woman’s body lying on a sofa, and seems to be the work of the ‘miniature’ killer who has killed three people. Yet a man named Ernie Dell already confessed to the crimes and killed himself (see ‘Loco Motives’). This package was postmarked after Dell died and the date on the newspaper in the miniature is two days hence. “This murder hasn’t happened yet,” Grissom surmises. It would seem that the killer is still alive and, somewhere, a woman is in danger.

As Grissom inspects the replica, Hodges wonders if the victim is to be poisoned or smothered. “It doesn’t matter how she dies if we can’t figure out who she is or where she is,” Grissom replies. But a set of restaurant flyers in the model provide a clue. Grissom narrows down the delivery area and the police begin searching several city blocks for a building that matches the exterior of the model. Warrick spots the building and the doorman identifies the room as the apartment of Dr Barbara Tallman. Entering the flat, Nick and Warrick find Tallman confused and disorientated, but alive.

Dr Tallman, a retired psychotherapist, cannot think of anyone who would want to kill her. The police suspect that the killer’s arrival is imminent, so Sofia places an undercover cop dressed as Dr Tallman in her apartment, on the sofa. Sure enough, a man appears at the door and is detained. He identifies himself as Peyton Tallman, Barbara’s brother, and is quickly discounted as a suspect. Hours later, the killer has failed to show and Sofia calls off the surveillance, only to find that the undercover cop is dead. The crime scene is complete – but its intended target was missed.

The cause of the cop’s death was carbon monoxide poisoning. Nick finds a timer device in the chimney that closed the flue and allowed the fumes to enter the room. “It could have easily been put in place a month ago,” he says, which means that the killer had no intention of being at the scene.

Back at the lab, Grissom gets more bad news. Barbara Tallman has been found dead on her sofa. The crime scene is now “perfect”. But there is a subtle difference – this time there are liquid traces on her body. The liquid is identified as tears, but there are no tracts on Tallman’s face. “I don’t think the victim was crying,” Catherine says. “I think the killer was.” When Doc Robbins reveals that Tallman had Parkinson’s disease, and DNA evidence leads to the guilty party, her death makes sense. Her murderer was not the miniature killer, but somebody with a much more humane motive.

Also this week, while Grissom is occupied with the Tallman case, Sara reviews the Ernie Dell file with Nick and Warrick. They suspect that Dell had a reason for making a false confession: “I think he was trying to protect someone,” Sara says. “Someone that he cared a lot about.” Sara and Greg discover that Dell had a son who may be connected with the murders. But the son vehemently denies any involvement, telling them that he was estranged from his father and even changed his name. Dell did, however, have dozens of foster children to whom he was more closely attached. Could one of them be the serial killer?