csi: crime scene investigation
law of gravity (15/24)

The phenomenally successful Las Vegas-based forensics drama continues its seventh season. In tonight’s episode, Keppler is forced to face his past when an old face turns up in Vegas asking him for a favour. And Grissom returns from his sabbatical and wonders what’s been going on in his absence.

Keppler (guest star Leiv Schreiber) is already having a bad day and is in no mood for more trouble – unfortunately, it doesn’t look like he can avoid it. Having woken from a nightmare in which he re-lived the moment he shot the drug dealer who raped his high school girlfriend, Amy, Keppler is unsettled to see Amy’s father Frank McCarty at breakfast. McCarty is a cop from Keppler’s home town of Trenton, New Jersey, and is in Las Vegas to ask Keppler for a favour. When Keppler refuses, saying that he’s “trying to move on”, McCarty backs off: “I get it, bad timing.”

When Keppler later joins Nick on a double homicide case, it turns out that he isn’t free from McCarty just yet. A man and a prostitute have been found shot dead in a hotel room, and the prostitute is missing a hand. Law enforcement uniforms and a police shotgun in the room identify the dead man as Trenton cop Dennis Graves – the friend who McCarty was in town with. Keppler is shaken, especially when McCarty arrives on the scene, but he doesn’t tell anyone that he knows McCarty.

Evidence including long blonde hairs and shoe prints indicate that there was a third person in the room – which means that there is an eyewitness somewhere. After identifying the dead woman as a Courtney Evans, the CSIs wonder if the missing blonde was another prostitute, and interrogate local pimp ‘Precious Ricky’ to find out. Meanwhile, Warrick heads to Courtney’s apartment and finds it ransacked. He also finds prints all over the place, which lead him to a man who claims to have found her handbag and keys in a dumpster.

Keppler, meanwhile, has a lot on his mind. After putting the pieces together, he realises that McCarty is the one who killed Graves and Courtney Evans. He meets McCarty in a bar, where the cop confirms his suspicions and tells Keppler that there’s no easy way out of this mess. McCarty still has the gun that Keppler used to shoot the drug dealer all those years ago – and he won’t hesitate to use it against him if he doesn’t get what he wants. “I need some help here, or you’re going to lose everything,” he tells Keppler, reminding him that all of Keppler’s cases could be overturned if this scandal gets out. “And that isn’t what Amy would have wanted for you.”

McCarty wants Keppler to find the missing eyewitness, knowing that she is the person who could send him away for the double homicide. Keppler realises that he has no choice, so when Catherine tells him about Courtney’s possessions being found in the dumpster, he goes there and removes the evidence – including Courtney’s missing hand – but tells the rest of the team that there was nothing there.

Later, the CSIs are baffled to find the gun that was used to kill Graves and Courtney back at the crime scene. Wondering why the killer would leave the murder weapon in plain sight, they are even more confused when tests show that Keppler’s prints are on the gun. Fearing their colleague may be a dirty cop, the CSIs seem to have their doubts confirmed when Keppler disables the tracking device on his car and disappears. Are their suspicions justified –or is Keppler actually on a personal mission to make things right?