Body of Proof - "Identity"

Body of Proof 2.17: “Identity”

“For thirty-six hours the Whirleys thought their daughter was dead. And for thirty-six hours you cared for Donna as your own. Out of this tragedy, one girl has survived and she has all four of you to thank for the love and support she’s gotten.”
- Kate

We start this week with two sets of EMTs coming in with car crash victims. Both are in pretty bad shape but the passenger doesn’t make it. The driver is in the ICU. Megan arrives solo to inspect the passenger, Donna Whirley. After looking at the body, Megan heads out towards the garage to let Dani know she can pick up the body when Megan runs into both sets of parents. Donna’s dad asks if Carrie (the driver still in ICU) was drunk. This sets Carrie’s dad off and Megan has to break up a fight (by dumping a vase of water on their heads). It turns out Megan showed up with Aiden from a date. Poor guy is always having his time with her interrupted by work. But he’s not too upset about it as he drives her back to the lab.

Megan, Peter and Ethan start the external exam and find some interesting things. Peter learned at the evidence garage that Donna’s seatbelt was working fine and that there was a bottle of beer in the driver side door pocket next to Carrie. Ethan notes a scar on Donna’s foot and Peter found a white chalky substance on her pants. Megan rolls Donna to see if something would have inhibited her range of motion and finds a bullet hole. Meanwhile, Curtis, Bud and Sam are trying to explain things to Donna’s parents and Donna’s mother starts yelling at Bud and Sam about why they haven’t arrested Carrie yet. Okay, I get that she’s upset that she just lost her daughter but Carrie’s in a coma. She can’t exactly be read her rights. Anyway, Curtis spots Kate walking purposely down the hall and we see her going to tell Megan some interesting new. Megan, of course, beats her to the punch. It looks like it wasn’t a traffic fatality after all. It’s murder.

The doctor who is treating Carrie is trying to explain to Bud and Sam about the bullet lodged in Carrie’s heart. Megan has to translate. They can’t have the bullet for a few days. Carrie’s dad overhears the conversation and tells them they can’t take the bullet. Bud and Sam get called away to the evidence garage while Megan tries to sympathize with the Greysons. They let her see Carrie and Megan gets their permission to examine her clothes from the night of the accident. Over at the garage, Bud and Sam learn that Carrie’s car side swiped another car and the techs found a gun with one empty chamber under the driver seat of the second car. Meanwhile, we get some drama with Dani and Peter (they’re staying at each other’s places a lot but Peter’s not ready to commit to moving in together. Dani’s kind of bummed). Ethan is being Ethan with a little added weirdness. He’s trying to impress Dani by learning Spanish. She doesn’t speak it. Kate and Peter arrive down in autopsy to find Megan waiting for them. They do a little reenactment to find out that both girls were turned away from the shooter when the bullet was fired. Peter is tasked with finding out how high off the ground the window of Carrie’s car is to see if the bullet could have been shot through an open window.

Bud and Sam go pay the second driver a visit but he denies shooting them. He has a gun because he’s a process server and sometimes has to go into shady neighborhoods and confront less-than happy people. Megan stops by to fill Curtis in on the latest developments and they come to the conclusion that it’s possible one of the girls was the target of the shooting and the other was just collateral damage. Down in the lab, Ethan’s discovered that the white chalky residue on Donna’s pants was the closest thing to kryptonite as you could get. Donna was a geology major working at the college museum and they’d just gotten a sample of the substance. So Bud and Sam head over to talk to the other interns. One of the girls said that Carrie and Donna must have gotten their wires crossed because Donna left saying she was late to meet Carrie and then Carrie showed up looking for Donna. We get our next possible suspect in Suzie Foster. She and Donna were up for the same scholarship which Donna won.

We have a nice little bit which introduces the C storyline of the episode. Lacey stops by the office to give Megan a picture she drew and Curtis stops in to tell Megan he nominated her for a Medical Association award and she won. But Megan doesn’t have much time to gripe about it because Bud and Sam are questioning Suzie. Suzie says she walks to and from the museum and that she didn’t shoot Donna. She also shares that Donna had Lupus. This leads to the big “oh shit” moment as Megan is reexamining the body in the morgue. The body has no signs of Lupus but the inflamed heart of the girl still in the hospital is a symptom. The paramedics got it wrong. Carrie’s the one that’s dead and Donna is the one still fighting for her life in the ICU.

Understandably, Carrie’s dad is furious and he threatens to sue the department and everyone involved in the whole mess. Ethan discovers (having gotten the real Donna’s clothes from the hospital) that it was saturated in photo developing chemicals. Bud, Sam and Peter head over to Carrie’s apartment and find that she was obviously scared of someone. She had four locks on her door, pepper spray and bars on her window. Turns out she did have a stalker and reported it to the campus police. Peter relays all this information while Megan is getting ready for the awards dinner. She ends up bringing Aiden but they slip away before Megan accepts the award and we get our B storyline. Joan is babysitting Lacey and finds her passed out on the floor.

Megan flips out at the hospital, yelling a nurse to get the attending doctor. Guess Aiden’s seen her “true colors” now in Mama Bear mode. It just so happens to attending is the same doctor Megan’s been dealing with on the case. Lacey has Type 1 diabetes. Once Lacey is settled in her room, Megan and Joan settle in. Sort of. Megan keeps pacing until Joan tells her to get some rest and that Lacey will be okay. The previous night Donna’s heart started bleeding so Bud and Sam get their bullet. But it’s not a match to Mr. Process Server. Megan starts to leave when she sees Donna’s mother. Megan shares the news that Carrie had a stalker and things begin to click into place. Donna had a box of Carrie’s keepsakes in her bedroom. They look through it and Megan finds a strip of something in a little envelope. Ethan and Peter are looking at the intern photo from the college when Ethan says the stalker has to be the only guy in the photo because he’s wearing a shirt for an artist commune where they develop their pictures manually
Bud, Sam and Peter head over to the commune and find all kinds of photos of Carrie and some of Donna in the hospital. Obviously the stalker doesn’t know that it’s not Carrie in the hospital. They race off to the hospital because they think the stalker is going to try and kill Donna. Megan (somehow changing into scrubs) is using a microscope to examine the stuff from the envelope. It’s fungus. She makes it to Donna’s private room just as Suzie shows up. Megan confronts her and it turns out she thought she was Carrie’s best friend and was jealous of Donna. Suzie tries to kill Donna with a syringe full of nasty chemicals but Megan tackles her. Bud and company burst just in time to pull Suzie off Megan before she unleashes the nastiness. At the lab, Kate is meeting with the Greysons and tells them they aren’t going to sue anyone. She convinces them not to do this by having the Whirleys come in with Carrie’s keepsake box. They eventually make amends and agree to be there for Donna. Because of all the drama that surrounded the case, the Chief has demoted Curtis and put Kate back in her rightful place. Curtis seems kind of happy about that and doesn’t mind leaving Kate to clean up Megan’s shenanigans of leaving the awards dinner early. Meanwhile, Megan is at the hospital with Lacey. Lacey is obviously scared but Megan promises they’ll get through it.