CSI: CRIME scene investigation

Season 4 - Episode 9 - Grissom Versus the Volcano

Story by Josh Berman
Teleplay by Anthony E. Zuiker & Carol Mendelsohn
Directed by Richard Lewis

A bomb rips through the car of a man, killing him and a casino parking valet. Sheriff Atwater (Xander Berkeley) is a witness to the carnage. When the CSI team reports to the scene, gunfire rips through the air, and it turns out that the victim’s car was loaded with ammunition.

Once Grissom gets the decimated Camaro back to the CSI garage, he discovers that the bomber placed the explosive devise against the fuel tank so he could get more bang. When Nick reconstructs the pipe bomb to see what it will tell them, the only thing Grissom knows for sure is that there is nothing unusual about this particular device, which is not want the Sheriff wants to hear.

 What is unusual is the type of ammunition found in the car – the kind that is designed to enter, not exit--which leads the team ID their victim as a U.S. air marshal. They confirm Adam Watson’s identity at the car rental office, and also discover that he took the Camaro in a last-minute decision, proving that the bomb had to have been in Watson’s car when he drove off the lot. No one could have predicted that Watson would be in that car, so the dead man wasn’t the bomber, or the intended target. So who rented that Camaro before Adam Watson?

Enter one Roger Dunbar (Billy Keane). Rocket fuel in the bomb matches rocket fuel on his shirt, meaning Dunbar has a lot of explaining to do – especially when the CSIs uncover his double life, and duplicate families. He claims he used the fuel to make his son’s science project, but Grissom comes to the conclusion that in a complicated life like Dunbar’s, just because he made a volcano for a science fair, doesn’t mean he made a bomb.

Meanwhile, Sara and Warrick investigate when Myles Ruben (Randy J. Goodwin), the famous R&B singer known for his love songs, is on stage and his wife is found dead in a hot tub in their penthouse suite. Dr. Robbins’s autopsy shows that Amelia Ruben did not overindulge and then drown – the healthy 24-year-old woman died of cardiac arrest, which makes little sense. Tests show that Amelia was poisoned. Myles’ manager, Sam Hopkins (Don Stark) was the last person to see her alive, and Myles himself poured the tainted wine that killed her. What Warrick and Sara have to figure out is if Myles poisoned Amelia and the manager is protecting his meal ticket, or if the manager poisoned her and Myles doesn’t have a clue.