Body of Proof - "Society Hill"

Body of Proof 1.06: “Society Hill”

“Where were you?” “I was right here for you, Megan.” “No. You were too embarrassed. You were too worried about your friends.”
- Megan and Joan

We begin in what looks like a pretty nice enclosed yard. Until we see an overturned table and chair and a dead woman floating in a pool. It turns out the dead woman lives in a really rich neighborhood. Peter makes fun of Megan for saying she didn’t really miss all the perks of living there as they walk in to find Bud working the case solo. Sam’s dad is sick so she’s visiting him in DC. I kind of miss the fun Bud/Sam dynamic. We quickly learn that the victim is Daphne Zimmer, an old friend of Megan’s mom. Bud tries to impress Megan by saying she died that morning. But Megan proves him wrong. She’s passed rigor and has been decomposing for at least two days. At the lab, Peter reads off her past like a fact sheet. Fairly impressive resume but not a lot of personal life. Megan hands over some maggots to Curtis to see if he can confirm time of death and the errant hair sample they found in the pool to Ethan for full analysis. And with that, Megan and Peter are off to see if they can find a match for the sample while Daphne’s body dries out.

Bud, Megan and Peter show up at the fashion magazine where Daphne worked to find pretty people scurrying all over the place. Apparently the show must go on. They run into a guy with dark hair that at least from far away matches color-wise to the sample fished out of the pool. He tells them that he can’t disturb Daphne because she’s in a meeting.

And then everyone at the magazine learns that Daphne is dead. Megan goes through pointing out all the various problems people have, from nail biting and excessive drinking to compulsive hair pulling. Turns out the hair puller, Steve, was Daphne’s assistant so Bud takes a crack at him first. We discover that Daphne would disappear for days at a time and not tell anyone where she was going so the assistant would inform interns that if anyone asked, Daphne was in a meeting. And the last time he spoke with Daphne was five days earlier. Back at the lab Ethan walks in on Kate making a rather private phone call. She hangs up and after admonishing him too knock next time, asks him what he has on Daphne’s case. All he knows is that the hair is human. Just as Megan and Peter get back to the lab, Megan’s mom calls. She’s heard about Daphne and want to know what’s happening. Megan of course can’t say a word and turns down going to a black tie event with her mom that night because she had a miserable time at the last one.

Daphne’s body has dried out by this point and Megan finds nail marks in her skin. Square and deep. Made by acrylic nails. One of the women at the magazine had fake nails. So Bud interviews her. Apparently Daphne ran an award and opened it up to everyone this year. It pissed off a copy editor and he went after Daphne. The officer manager (acrylic girl) had to pull Daphne away. So next up is the copy editor. Bud also discovers a hidden camera in the wall clock in Daphne’s office. Megan still doesn’t know what killed Daphne. Her lungs are clear (including no water). But she did have some kidney damage and high calcium (which apparently can lead to mood swings and paranoia).

He takes the videotape back to the station and a CSU tech finds video from when Daphne’s assistant talked to her last. He looks really upset and ends up throwing the phone off the desk. Bud talks to the guy again and the guy says he was pissed because Daphne demanded he get a scarf for the mayor’s wife’s birthday and so he spent the weekend in Chicago trying to find it. Bud basically tells the guy he’s full of crap but the assistant claims he didn’t do it. He says there are plenty of high society people who Daphne has pissed off with magazine content in the past.

Megan’s examined Daphne’s corpse a bit more and discovered that she suffered some health issues related to being assaulted. She probably saw a private doctor for it. And based on the x–rays, it appears the injuries occurred about a year ago. And she died longer than two days ago so her assistant couldn’t have killed her. Megan and Peter go through a bunch of issues of the magazine and find a suspect of their own, Colin Lloyd. Meanwhile, Ethan is trying to figure out how to get DNA from the hair sample while Curtis sings to his little maggots. Somehow, I am reminded of Grissom on CSI. Ethan tells Curtis to be quiet so he can concentrate and then weird things happen. The hair follicle just breaks. So he goes to ask Kate for some help.

Meanwhile, Bud’s found out who assaulted Daphne; a guy named Tillman. She refused to testify so he only got three months in prison. Too bad he’s dead. But he did work Lloyd. Maybe he sent Tillman to assault her and then killed her a year later. They’re going to have to go undercover. Guess Megan will be going to that club dinner after all. With Peter as her date. Megan and Peter run into some old friends of Megan’s on their way in to the dinner and Megan manages to convince her mom’s date to introduce her to Colin Lloyd. She makes a scene and snags a piece of his hair and has Peter take a picture. Megan’s mom is mortified as Megan and Peter duck out to continue work on the case. Megan needed to make a scene because she needed Lloyd to open his eyes. It turns out he’s got a disease that affects the irises (benign nodules that form in the eye) and the intern that we met at eh beginning of the episode has them too. It’s genetic. He’s Lloyd’s son.

Bud and Megan confront the intern but he claims he wouldn’t have killed her. He went to her with the information that led to the expose on his dad. She gave him an internship in return. He wanted nothing to do with his father. And he would do whatever Daphne asked. After listening to the types of errands he ran for her, Megan says that it was related to her kidney issues. Still, no time or cause of death yet. Megan is leaving the building and her mom confronts her. She yells at Megan for embarrassing her in front of her friends. Megan isn’t interested in listening. It’s clear she and her mom don’t get along (hard to tell if that’s because of the accident or just their relationship).

Kate is just as baffled as Ethan is by the results. Apparently the attacker why high and put resin in their hair. So she tells him too run more tests. Curtis has some information though. Daphne did die about two days previously. She had aspirin in her system (which could make her potassium spike). Te maggots are apparently high on the stuff. Only one person knew her medical history. And we’re back to Steve as the prime suspect.

Steve admits to giving her aspirin but he didn’t think it would kill her. Megan and Bud don’t buy it. Steve says every day he gave her some and she stayed home, he could just focus on his writing. So it looks like things are wrapped up but Megan still isn’t satisfied. She tells Peter that they still don’t have a cause of death. In an attempt to cheer her up, Peter invites Megan out for drinks with a few other people from the lab. She initially declines, saying that her mom wants to call a truce over dinner. She doesn’t exactly reconsider but she realizes she missed something. Back at the lab she reexamines some cells from Daphne’s body and discovers that the cells in her heart changed dramatically in the seconds before death. Daphne was electrocuted (which Megan demonstrates by rubbing a plastic bottle on her sleeve and then tapping it on Peter’s head.

Both Megan and Peter and Bud and the CSU tech are looking for what could have cause the electrocution. Together they discover it was the space heater that her intern (Lloyd’s son) bought her. And Kate has a breakthrough on the hair. It was over one hundred years old. Megan and Bud put it together. It was the office manager. She was upset about the journalism award being opened up to interns and so she confronted Daphne. Daphne fired her and the manager pushed her in the pool and then threw the heater in. The manager burned herself when she tried to unplug the heater and that’s what gave it away for Megan.

So Megan heads for dinner with her mom while Curtis, Peter, Ethan and Bud go for a boys' night and Kate presumably meets the guy she’s been calling/texting throughout the episode. Seems everyone’s ending on a high note this week.