CSI: NY – 5.02 “Page Turner” Recap

CSI: NY – Episode 5.02: Page Turner
Original Air Date: September 24, 2008

At the Maroon 5 concert in the park, a fight in the excited crowd becomes a small riot. The police use soft rounds to take down the fighters. Eliza Carpenter, a college student fleeing the action, collapses and dies, right in front of a city bus. She appears to have suffered a blow to the trachea, probably from a stray riot control soft round. The woman has a lot of face and body paint.

Listening to Mac and Stella assess what might have killed Carpenter, Don seems disturbed that the police may end up taking the blame. They were just doing their job.

Sid, examining the victim’s body, discovers signs of radiation poisoning, marks on her skin beneath the paint, and hair loss. Measuring high levels of radiation on the body, he shuts down the exam room. It isn’t airborne, though, likely transdermal…from the paint. Though Mac and Stella weren’t likely exposed enough to worry, Sid collapses. The CDC rushes in to contain the body and Sid.

Adam matches the writing…shriiimping…on the victim to the graffiti of Kenneth Bamford, aka KA-BLAM. Stella and Danny visit KA-BLAM. They find no signs of radiation, and ask him about his contact with the victim. He remembers her, but not that she complained of any discomfort or pain.
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Mac and Lindsay visit Sid, who is still unconscious. They worry that he won’t last long, if they don’t figure out how to counteract the radiation.

Hawkes finds high levels of radiation in Eliza’s liver…600 Rem…but the level is twice as high on her skin. Lindsay comments that she was a “walking ghost”. She could have survived only about a week. She also notes that the radiation would have induced dementia. Toxocology reports indicate high traces of thallium 201. Thallium is highly toxic, but this is also radioactive. At finding this, Hawkes quickly alerts the hospital radiology team to treat Sid with a nasal intubation of Prussian Blue…aka radiogardase…the only treatment for radioactive thallium poisoning.

Stella and Danny search Carpenter’s clothing for signs of the source of the thallium. They find black mold on her shoes. Stella gets a call that another body has shown up, in a movie theater. Film director Dante Gunther was due to receive a lifetime achievement award at the Horror Film Festival, and died in the balcony of the theater. Dante had shown up late, and was acting strangely. His death in the balcony was far enough from the crowd in the theater, that the film continued, even after the team arrived. Apparently, no one made contact with him.

In Gunther’s hotel room, though radiation levels are not unusual, they find a mylar tag fragment in the cuff of a pair of pants, showing high levels of radiation.

Hawkes shows Stella an aged-looking, torn piece of paper. It looks like a todo list: CALL AGENT; GET FESTIVAL DATES/TIMES; 7TH & WEBSTER. The paper has a wet sheen to it.

Adam tells Don and Danny that 60-70% of thallium is used in the electronic and optical lens industry, the rest in nuclear medicine.

Stella finds thallium in the mylar fragment, and that it’s part of an anti-theft tag used mostly in printed material. The paper carbon dates to the 1930s, and appears to have been freeze dried, as in after repair from water damage. Danny says the mold turned out to be black toxic mold, found commonly in water damaged buildings.

Mac and Stella head to the antiquities branch of the public library to search for the thallium. The building suffered a flood in the lower stacks, due to faulty plumbing. In the lower level, in Special Collections, they find radiation in a copy of the Tibetan Book of the Dead. The Knot of Eternity symbol on the cover matches the design on Carpenter’s forehead. Eliza must have researched the symbol before visiting KA-BLAM. They also find black mold on table legs in the room. The book is also the source of the mylar tag piece found in Gunther’s hotel room.

Doctors treat Sid with the Prussian Blue. Hawkes explains to Mac that it speeds the removal of thallium from the body. Meanwhile lawyer Paulson announces his intention to file a wrongful death suit against the city’s library. Paulson tells Mac that his wife worked in the main branch of the library…in Special Collections…and died with the same symptoms as Carpenter and Gunther. The family doctor said she had lupus, but seeing the news of radiation, led him to believe this was the actual cause. He shows Mac a painting he made of his wife, while the couple took an art class together. Paulson agrees to let Mac exhume his wife to investigate her death.

Stella is gleeful to find out that Sid is alert and responsive. Don tells Stella that none of the books can be removed from Special Collections. Carpenter and Gunther had both checked into Special Collections, within a week of each other. Only ten people have signed in, in the past six months. One of them, Timothy Pram, actually read the affected book. Pram also has a record including vandalism at chemical labs, and at Three Mile Island. He now resides at 7th and Webster, the intersection in Dante Gunther’s notes.

Stella and Don find Pram at the intersection, in a Buddhist temple. Changed, thanks to his newfound faith, he regrets his earlier protests, and claims to be innocent of any recent crimes. He denies knowing Carpenter. Gunther, however, had called him recently, asking about Buddhist views on preparations for death. He also told him to refer to the Book of the Dead.

Lindsay finds a small fleck of sea sponge in the Book of the Dead. The sponge has traces of chitin. Adam notes that it appears more consistent with an insect than with crustaceans or other sealife. Why would it be in a sea sponge?

Hawkes shows Mac the 3-D scan of Molly Paulson’s body. When exhumed, her body had pinned the radiation detectors. Enlarging the stomach image, they find lesions, indicating that Molly Paulson swallowed the thallium.

Danny and Stella deduce that, since Molly Paulson had died earlier, and from ingestion, she was the intended target. The other two victims were likely just collateral damage. Who, then, wanted Molly dead? Don shows up, and leads them to the office of Lawrence Wagner, Molly’s assistant at the library. Molly had written him three times for not showing up to work. Once she passed, he never showed up for work again. In Wagner’s office, the team finds a collection of smoke detectors, probably for their radioactive sources, as well as iodine tablets. The tablets would have protected the thyroid from absorbing too much radiation.

At Wagner’s home, they find him building a reactor. He exhibits a lot of agitation…almost paranoia…as he explains how he is searching for cheaper energy alternatives. He claims to have spent two years accumulating the supplies he needed to build a reactor. He says, though, that Molly had never been near his “work”. Among his radioactive materials, though, they don’t find thallium in his belongings.

Lindsay determines that the red chitin found in the sponge belongs to a beetle commonly used to make red paint pigments. KA-BLAM, though, uses an airbrush. Mac tells the team that there’s another artist involved.

Three years ago, Paulson represented a chemical plant in Chinatown. The plant had imported multiple radioactive agents, including thallium. Knowing his wife already had lupus, he feed her the thallium to collect the insurance money: $500,000. He also secretly painted the Book of the Dead to validate his claim that the library killed his wife. The additional victims would allow him to pursue a lawsuit, and claim much more money. Once discovered by Mac, Paulson confesses that, after working hard defending the chemical company, and looking after his sick wife, he just wanted to retire.

Mac, Hawkes, and Don visit a recoving Sid, bearing chips and water, to watch the Rangers game.