CSI: Young Man With A Horn

It's a sad CSI as I learned about two sets of lovers who are separated by years, but united by tragedy. The death of a young singer leads the CSI team to an abandoned casino and an old murder. Along the way I learn that Greg has a sequin fetish and Grissom originally came to Vegas to play cards. The last one was a surprise. The sequins? Not so much.

The show opens on an American Idol...oops I mean Overnight Sensation...rehearsal. Two young singers are trying to sing a duet, but an obnoxious producer, named Drew, keeps yelling at them and insulting them. The young girl, Layla, yells back at him and then runs off the stage. The young boy, Kip, after being told that rehearsals are still going on continues singing. Naturally, our next glimpse of Layla is her dead, tied in a tablecloth, and left under an overpass. And here I was hoping the dead body was the producer.

Layla's autopsy reveals that she was killed by blunt force trauma to the stomach. She was also 8 weeks pregnant. DNA analysis of the fetus leads the team to Drew who has a history of sleeping with underage girls. Sadly, he has an airtight, prostitute alibi for the murder, but Brass is able to derive some satisfaction by arresting him for statutory rape.

That leaves Layla's murder unsolved until the team realizes that the lipstick Layla was wearing was very old: like 20-30 years old. They look at the tablecloth that was used to wrap her up and determine that it is equally old.

Using the tablecloth supplier as a guide, they find the only casino that is still standing from that time. A quick visit to Chateau Rouge and they've found their crime scene, and conveniently, a cellphone video of Layla dressed up as one of the dancers from the club singing to Kip. The films shows her being surprised by a man on stage playing a sax.

As the team contemplates that turn of events, Grissom realizes that they're being watched. He's right. It's the guy with the sax, only this time he has a gun too. He takes one look at Grissom and faints. In the hospital, the man refuses to give his name and claims that he did kill Layla. It looks like that's it for him, but Catherine goes back to the scene and realizes that Layla died because she fell on a chair after being scared by the sax man. It's ruled an accident.

In the course of the investigation, the team finds another murder. Years ago, the owner of Chateau Rouge, Rosenthal, was shot to death in his office. The casino was then closed and boarded up because his wife refused to sell it. While trying to discover the sax man's history, Grissom realizes that the man put in jail for the casino owner's murder was actually framed. A little investigation and face recognition software later and they've identified the sax man. He was a performer at the club named Harry.

Grissom brings Mrs. Rosenthal to identify Harry and when she doesn't do it, Grissom realizes what happened to the casino owner. Harry and Mrs. Rosenthal were having an affair and were caught by her husband. There was a fight and she shot her husband. The town's big bosses decided to cover up the shooting, because she was white and Harry was black. She never went back in the casino and Harry never really left.

This CSI was a bit different as the team delved into a case from the past. I enjoyed it.