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Maid Man
Maid Man
Season 12
Number 4
Writer Dustin Lee Abraham
Director Martha Coolidge
Original Airdate October 12, 2011
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Maid Man is the fourth episode in Season Twelve of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

Synopsis[]

At the grand opening of the Mafia Museum in Las Vegas, an attempt is made on the life of an ex-mayor. It's up to the CSIs to find the people responsible for the attack. Meanwhile, a dead maid is found in a suite at the Eclipse that was used by a prince who liked to party.

Plot[]

Victims: Oscar Goodman (alive), unnamed security guard (deceased)

On the case: Catherine Willows, D.B. Russell, Greg Sanders, Jim Brass

Catherine, Greg, Russell and Ecklie are attending the gala event of the mob museum’s grand-opening in Las Vegas. Former mayor and mob lawyer Oscar Goodman is one of the attendees, and Greg spots three widowed wives of ex-mobsters. Mayor Goodman comes on stage for the opening speech; as he raises a glass, he's shot multiple times. The mayor survives, but Sheriff Sherry Linson instructs Ecklie to solve the case as quickly as possible, as the mayor being shot could cost her her career. Russell tells Catherine and Greg that he heard four shots. He soon finds a discarded .38 colt revolver near an exhibit that has had four rounds fired from it. 

Catherine adds that she heard shots from the opposite direction, and she and Russell head that way. They see that there were shots fired from behind a statue of Lou Gedda; the bullets took out two panes of glass. A bullet pulled out of the statue is also .38 caliber; therefore, there were two shootings executed by two shooters from two directions at the same time. Noting that the shooters would've been seen exiting out the main door, they head outside through an emergency exit and find a security guard shot dead; the guard seems to have snorted a bullet. There are tire treads next to the body indicating that someone made a quick getaway.

Greg searches the area where Mayor Goodman was shot, curiously finding a lack of bullets and blood. Russell reenacts the crime (as he's apt to do) and finds a mushroomed bullet under the podium. This is another oddity, as a mushroomed bullet would've had to hit something; however, the podium isn't damaged. In the hospital, Russell examines the mayor's suit and finds the missing bullets. The suit is bulletproof, and Mayor Goodman says he had it specially made due to making some enemies in his past lines of work.

In autopsy, Doc Robbins examines the dead security guard. He tells Catherine that evidence shows the killer was standing less than a foot away when they fired the shot. Catherine assumes that the bullet was another .38 caliber, but when Doc Robbins pulls the bullet, she's surprised to find that it's a .44. They're now looking for three shooters.

 The .38 colt revolver dumped at the museum is identified as the gun that shot Mayor Goodman. Interestingly, it's connected to seven prior shootings that all took place in the '80s. Greg recognizes the names on the list and notes that the cases went cold; however, he says that it's common wisdom that Lou Gedda's hitman, Vinnie Sapphire, is responsible for the murders. Vinnie has been missing for the last 20 years, and Russell has Brass bring in Vinnie's wife.

Joanna Sapphire tells Brass that she hasn't seen Vinnie, but says that her husband's exclusion from the mob museum would possibly drive him out of hiding. She adds that Mayor Goodman refused to represent Vinnie back in the day, even when he was facing the death penalty. This would certainly be motive enough for Vinnie to try to kill the mayor. Joanna advises Brass that if he wants to find Vinnie, he needs to find Vinnie's newest love interest.

Hodges goes through surveillance footage from outside the museum. A 1979 Cadillac Coupe de Ville was seen circling the museum for about an hour on the night of the shootings. The tire tracks found at the scene are also consistent with a 1979 Cadillac, and it just so happens that Vinnie drove the same type of car. Furthermore, the license plate is a match to Vinnie's car, and the video shows someone wearing a suit and tie driving it. It appears that Vinnie Sapphire is back.

Greg looks for bullets at the scene where the security guard was shot, but his search turns up nothing. The only blood there is from the guard, who was shot with a .44; the two shooters inside the museum had .38s. Greg theorizes that whoever was driving the getaway car shot the guard with the .44, but not before the guard fired two rounds into the car. Russell has Greg reenact the shooting, comes to a conclusion, and abruptly leaves. Back at the lab, he concludes that the two unaccounted .38 caliber bullets found in the Lou Gedda exhibit came from the guard's gun.

At the museum, Russell notes that the security guard got shot in the face without returning fire, indicating that he knew the shooter and was probably in on it with Vinnie. The trajectory of the bullets in the Lou Gedda exhibit are at an extreme upward angle; there's no way they were being fired at the mayor. Russell guesses that the security guard shot out the glass in the exhibit and took something that was on display.

The only item unaccounted for from the Lou Gedda exhibit is a journal that contains a hit list, complete with check marks next to the hits that were carried out. Ecklie questions why Vinnie would steal the journal, as he already knew all the names on the list. However, one name on the list, Cesare Mastrantonio, is a fake; he has no birth certificate. The team wonders how someone like that would end up on a hit list.

Vinnie's car is spotted at a motel off Boulder Highway. When Catherine and Brass get to the motel room, they find a dead female laying on a bed. A hat on the bed indicates that this was likely a mob hit. There's a .44 caliber gun on the floor, and Catherine sees that the clothes on the bed are the same ones the Cadillac driver was wearing in the surveillance video. The victim is identified as Monique Roberts. Catherine recognizes the name, telling Brass that Monique was a friend of her father's. Brass theorizes that Monique was the getaway driver and shot the security guard after he stole the journal for her. All of Vinnie's belongings are still in the motel room, but the journal is still missing.

Russell fixates on the name Cesare Mastrantonio. Despite Cesare never existing, Russell wonders if there was ever a death certificate issued. He and Greg visit the mortuary where Cesare is interred. While there, they encounter a disturbed Joanna, who has smashed an urn on the floor; the urn is from Cesare's display. The frantic woman curses Vinnie's name and is taken into custody.

At the station, it's revealed that Joanna's fingerprints were found in the motel room, she has gunshot residue on her hands, and she had a feather in her hair from the pillow she used as a silencer. She tells Brass that Vinnie assured her they had money; however, he took the money with him when he left town with Monique 20 years ago. Joanna says that Monique called her a few months back to tell her that Vinnie died of cancer. It was then that Joanna decided to start working with Monique.

Russell fills in the rest of the pieces, telling Ecklie and Sheriff Liston that Vinnie told Monique about Lou Gedda's stash of cash and how to find it by using the last name on the hit list. The list was buried in police evidence for years—until Mayor Goodman had it removed and put into the exhibit at the museum. Monique seduced the security guard and got him to steal the hit list, while Joanna tried to assassinate Mayor Goodman. Joanna tells Brass that she blames Mayor Goodman for ruining her marriage since he didn't take Vinnie's case, which led to him running off with Monique. The two women framed Vinnie for the attempted murder, as "the perfect fall guy is a dead guy."

Ecklie asks about Lou Gedda's stash of cash. Russell replies that its whereabouts are unknown; however, the previous owner of the mortuary retired to a villa in St. Barts five years ago—it's not hard to connect the dots. Suddenly, Mayor Goodman arrives to act as Joanna's lawyer. He tells Russell, Ecklie and Sheriff Liston that everyone is entitled to a defense. Ecklie says that if he ever gets in trouble, he wants Oscar Goodman defending him. Russell replies that if he ever gets in trouble, he wants the bulletproof suit.

Victim: Maria Garza (deceased)

On the case: Morgan Brody, Nick Stokes, Jim Brass

Morgan and Nick are called to a messy hotel suite at the Eclipse, where a maid, Maria Garza, has been murdered. Someone has shoved a swizzle stick into Maria's left eye, and David Phillips puts the time of death at three hours ago. The suite is registered to Prince Jalal Najib, who is currently at the gaming tables. Noting that Maria's skirt is hiked up, Morgan and Nick theorize that the prince tried to have his way with the maid, was rebuffed, and decided to retaliate.

Morgan talks to Paulette, Maria's friend and a fellow maid. She says that she couldn't hear anything because of the noise of the party and refuses to say whether Maria entered the suite during that time. According to Paulette, the prince would always book the same suite and always ask for Maria, sometimes calling her excessively. He was very demanding, but it seems that Maria never complained. Meanwhile, Nick searches the room and finds a hidden camera that was pointed at the bed; it's rigged to transmit to a remote location.

Brass interrogates an unsympathetic Prince Najib, who refers to Maria as the "hired help." Morgan is called in to take the prince's DNA, and he asks for a male assistant. The CSI stands her ground, gets the prince to remove his jewelry, and swabs his cheek for DNA.

Maria's sexual assault kit comes back negative, and the serial number on the hidden camera traces back to a store in Henderson. Despite this evidence, Morgan believes that the prince is still guilty in some way; Nick, however, points out that Maria was supporting her family and may have found a way to make some additional money. A fingerprint on the camera comes back to a Matthew Lapaz, who has priors for drug possession. He was also employed at the Eclipse until three weeks ago. Matthew probably still had access to the hotel, and since drug residue was found in the suite, it's possible he was hooking the prince up. When questioned, Matthew refuses to say anything and asks for a lawyer.

Nick goes through the tapes from the security camera and finds that Matthew organized them all by time and date. At the time of Maria's death, however, the camera was pointed at a nightstand. This rules out that the camera was being used to film sex tapes. As Morgan and Nick go through the other videos, they discover that the camera was pointed at a safe. A maid is seen replacing one of the prince's watches with a counterfeit. Morgan notes that when she removed the prince's jewelry earlier, she could tell that he was wearing a counterfeit watch. The thought is that Prince Najib found out and got even.

It's discovered that Prince Najib used his hotel key card to enter his suite four minutes after Maria had entered to clean it. In interrogation, the prince claims that he never saw Maria; he changed and went back down to the casino. Morgan theorizes that he saw Maria stealing from him and he killed her for it. However, the prince says that despite his demeanor, he would never kill someone and leave them the way Maria was found.

Morgan takes a look at the prince's special requests, one of which is having dirty towels and linens immediately replaced with new ones. Nick notes that there's a difference between "new" and "clean." He shows Morgan that hotels put laundry marks on their new linens after their first wash. Towels found in the prince's suite have this mark, meaning that they're not brand new. However, Maria's cart had four sets of brand new towels still in their packaging.

It turns out that Paulette's inventory from the night of the murder came up four towels short. A search of her house turned up a bag of stolen jewelry. Paulette eventually admits that Maria caught her stealing from the prince and was going to report it to their manager. She attacked Maria and stabbed her to keep her quiet. Paulette says that she has nobody to take care of her, so she took things into her own hands. Morgan reminds her that Maria's husband and kids now have nobody to take care of them.

Morgan returns the prince's stolen items to him. He's in disbelief that someone with nothing would risk their life for him and gives Morgan an envelope. The envelope contains a check for $100,000 made out to Maria's family.

Cast[]

Main Cast[]

Guest Cast[]

  • Frances Fisher as Joanna Sapphire
  • Barbara Eve Harris as Sheriff Sherry Liston
  • Karen Bethzabe as Paulette Vasquez
  • Phillip Rhys as Prince Hamad Al Maktoum
  • Oscar Goodman as Himself
  • Monique Gabriela Curnen as Xiomara Garcia
  • David Del Rio as Matthew Lapaz
  • Ana Isabel Merez as Maria Garza
  • Joyce Hyser as Monique Roberts
  • John Fantasia as Anthony Spilotro

Goofs[]

  • Police officers and CSIs who are witnesses to a crime are not allowed to be involved in the investigation of that crime. Yet, Catherine, Greg and Russell not only investigate the crime, but they move evidence around the various crime scenes before properly documenting locations of that evidence. Their involvement in the investigation could get any evidence they found thrown out by the suspects' defense attorney.
  • Additionally, it’s also a conflict of interest for Oscar Goodman to represent Joanne in court because he’s one of the victims of the crime, as well.

Music[]

  • Mambo Italiano by Dean Martin

Notes[]

  • Jorja Fox (Sara) is credited but does not appear in this episode.

Trivia[]

  • Oscar Goodman, who played himself, was the real-life mayor of Las Vegas from 1999 to 2011. He also appeared as himself in the Season Eleven episode Sqweegel.
  • The date on which the murder took place—as seen in the hidden camera video—is the same date on which this episode first aired on CBS: 10/12/2011.
  • This episode reunites Ted Danson and Frances Fisher, who played Danson's love interest, Dr. Liz Carson, in Becker.
  • When Catherine says "Someone shot Lou Gedda...again," it's a reference to both the events of the Season Eight episode For Gedda and the method by which Lou Gedda was killed in this episode (shot to death).

See Also[]

CSI:Las Vegas Season 12
73 SecondsTell-Tale HeartsBittersweetMaid ManCSI DownFreaks & GeeksBrain DoeCrime After CrimeZipperedGenetic DisorderMs. Willows RegretsWillows in the WindTressed to KillSeeing RedStealing HomeCSI UnpluggedTrends with BenefitsMalice in WonderlandSplit DecisionsAltered StakesDune and GloomHomecoming
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