Body of Proof - "Occupational Hazards"

Body of Proof 2.15: “Occupational Hazards”

“The longer I can tap dance without missing a step, the longer this office can act with autonomy.”
- Kate

We star this episode off with a young couple on their honeymoon. They’re in a cab and just as the cabbie is giving them a rundown all the places they should go, he loses consciousness and crashes into several cars. Meanwhile, Megan returns home from a bagel run to find her mother at the apartment with Lacey. Lacey is introducing Grandma to social media. The Hunt women are going to NY for a little family trip until Megan gets called to the scene of the cab. Turns out the crash uncovered a dead body in the trunk of a guy visiting from Baltimore. Mr. Baltimore denies killing the guy in the trunk. He was trying to drum up business for his restaurant supply business but it didn’t work. Sam tells him to write down every place he parked his car. Over at the lab, Megan learns that the dead body’s name is Kyle and he’s identified by his (pregnant) wife. She says he was an architect and that she got a voicemail from hi the previous day around noon saying he was leaving work early. Bud doesn’t have much luck with the guy’s boss seeing as Kyle had been laid off a year ago. Megan, Ethan and Peter discover a lifting injury as well as a cut on his arm. They figure out that he must have been up against something hard based on the exit wound and the bullet reentered the body.

Kyle’s wife clearly didn’t know that her husband was out of work. She said that when they got pregnant she stopped working but bills always got paid. She doesn’t know about any of the injuries. Back at the lab, Curtis is prepping Gabriella Diaz for autopsy when Kate shows up and boots him from the case. The dead girl is the daughter of a close friend of the Health Commissioner (aka the woman who appointed Kate). Curtis is not happy to be kicked off the case. Megan is also in a bad mood as the cops still haven’t found the crime scene. But Ethan has found yellow reflective paint on the pebble imbedded in the bullet so maybe Kyle was lying on the road. We jump back to the Hunt apartment to find Lacey and Joan discovering Megan’s online profile and they friend a rather cute guy named Aiden and Joan starts chatting with him. I’m not really sure where this is going.

Bud gets back to police HQ and joins the grumpy train (especially since Megan keeps texting him about the primary crime scene). Still nothing on that front but he did find out that a police report was filed with Kyle involved a few days earlier against a guy named Sal (he had priors for drunken disorderly and assault). Bud brings Sal in and we learn what Kyle was doing to make his money. He was part of a moving company that moved people’s stuff out when they were evicted. Sal had been stealing a few things and Kyle called him on it. They fought and Kyle got cut with Sal’s box cutter. Meanwhile, Kate is meeting with Gabriella’s parents. She promises discretion in the case. I’m not really sure why we need this second case but I guess we need to give Kate something to do. Joan is clearly a devious woman (and one who doesn’t think her daughter can get a date on her own) and Aiden shows up at Megan’s office. And he’s got an adorable accent to go with his adorable face and name. At first Megan denies having talked (and makes a veiled threat against whoever was chatting with him) but then relents and agrees to go to dinner. Peter catches the tail end of their conversation and after making a little jibe at her, says that the smudge they found on Kyle’s pants was decomposed human fat. He’d come into contact with a dead body (gross).

Kate is continuing the autopsy on Gabriella when Curtis shows up with the toxic ology report. She did indeed die of an overdose of cocaine. But Megan finds lesions on her skin. Looks like the coke Gabriella used was cut with a veterinary medication that can lead to death in humans. And it’s probably all over the city. Kate is concerned about how many other people could die. Megan pays Bud a visit and Bud says he thinks that Kyle may have gone over to the dark side. He also found that there was no record of him working for a moving company. He’d been collecting unemployment and the checks were being sent to a woman named Vanessa Winters. Bud swings by her place and learns she was Kyle’s ex from college. She let him use her house as an office when he wasn’t doing jobs for quick cash. He was trying to find another architect position. And he was sending his unemployment to her because he was too proud to let his wife know about the lay-off. The next morning Megan gets to the office and Peter nags her about her impending dinner with Aiden. She says he better have news on the case. Nothing yet on the crime scene but they did identify the substance found in Kyle’s teeth; a leaf from a $700 cigar. They head out into the center of the lab to find Kate giving a health advisory about the cocaine. She declines to comment on whether that was what killed Gabriella. That’s not going to bode well for Kate.

Bud and company head out to a pool side where they find a guy who apparently had some dealings with Kyle. Kyle built the guy’s guest house recently. And they smoked cigars. He takes them into his cigar room and Megan quickly picks up on the decomposition smell. Peter takes a sledgehammer to the wall and they discover a skeleton. The guy is pretty wishy-washy on whether he knew the body was in there. He says Kyle wanted to go in to see how the room turned out. Kate gets into the office to find the Health Commissioner sitting at her desk. This is not good at all. She ends up demoting Kate for pausing before declining comment about Gabriella. How stupid is that? She didn’t reveal anything about the investigation. I really don’t like this Commissioner. And she pretty much appoints Curtis as the new Chief of the ME’s office. Kate dives in to Megan’s case (she has a background in forensic facial reconstruction). Sadly, Megan has to find out about the change up in the office when Curtis bursts in telling Kate he didn’t even want the job. Kate doesn’t want to talk about it. She just wants to focus on the case. And she pretty much orders Megan to go on her date with Aiden. Turns out the restaurant he picked is a diner kind of place with really awful burgers. She throws in a story about a gross case but he takes it in stride. We learn that he put in her and Todd’s pool shortly before they divorced. Aiden likes that Megan takes chances and he kisses her. She kisses him back. They’re kind of cute together. Kate is at the lab late into the night reconstructing the corpse’s face. Gotta say, she’s good.

Megan gets in the next morning and Kate is a little snippy with her. But Megan has a flash of brilliance and looks up their current suspect online and they find the woman who was buried in the wall. Her name is Lisa. Their suspect denies killing her. He says last year with all the remodeling of the house and Lisa’s drama, he took off for a while to Vegas and when he came back, Lisa was gone. Curtis is rather cranky his first day as Chief and he wants his first two cases to be closed pronto (and steals Ethan’s hot dog). Things switch up pretty quick when the lab discovers Sal’s print on the sheet wrapped around Lisa’s body. He denies involvement (though he did remember her from the job) and lawyers up. Megan shows up to let Bud and Sam know she found the crime scene.

They go mural hunting because the paint they found on the pebble was both yellow spray paint and a layer of protective coating. They eventually find the right one and the lab pulls prints off the shell casing at the scene. It turns out that Kyle’s boss was responsible for both Lisa’s murder and Kyle’s. Have to say I should have seen it coming but I didn’t. Megan drops by to see Kyle’s widow and delivers a letter that Kyle wrote to her (explaining everything about his job). And she manages to get a rise out of both her mom and Lacey by feeding them a fake story about Aiden to ferret out which of them was responsible. But she was pretty happy about the whole thing. I do hope we see more of him.