A tourist on a tour bus finds a dressed up skeleton. First on the scene is Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) with lame joke in tow and Mac (Gary Sinise). Stella "How long was that soda?" That was meant to be funny. Mac on the other hand comments it's a "new take on a bitch ride to hell." Wouldn't expect to hear something like that from Mac. Stella thinks perhaps it's an urban legend or a joke shop gag to scare tourists and the skeleton was probably bought from a store. Mac has to describe to her the difference between store bought and an actual skeleton and she's come across how many skeletons during her career that she can't tell the difference. A store bought skeleton would be bleached, have drill marks when assembled. This is brown with no such marks. Mac: "This is a joke I'm not laughing. These bones are real."
Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) comments this wasn't clever as whoever assembled it didn't take anatomy class since the bones are reversed, held together by wires. Stella uses adhesive putty to get a print. Hawkes (Hill Harper) examines the skeleton which has a pronounced brow ridge. The head is long and narrow and the nasal bone and spine stick out over the maxilla. He's white. From the fusion of the clavicle and other bones, Hawkes determines the age and Mac says he wasn't even 18. The skeleton was shielded from the elements and has black discoloration. Mac needs a finger.
Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) comments about the newspapers posting the story and Mac doesn't call it news even if, as Danny says it will sell papers, cos of where it was found. Danny: "The media don't care." Mac: "I do." Aiden wants the skull, "human skull, big fun." Another insensitive comment. Danny notices the dark substance is layered and has been there a while. Mac finds aromatic hydrocarbons and engine exhaust from a diesel truck or a bus. Benzene is concentrated in a deeper sample, maybe from an old engine. He appears to have been dead for 10 years. Mac mentions between 1990-1993 there was a two thousand per year murder rate. "Dream with me a city that can be better than the way it is now." That was Mayor Giuliani's inauguration speech in 1994. Stella was working narcotics back then at Brooklyn North. (Should've stayed there, ha.)
Six prints were found and one belonged to Lester Jayne (John Ross Bowie) at the NY bus terminal who reads the paper and laughs, admitting he did it as a prank.. Flack (Eddie Cahill) comments "NYPD didn't find it funny." Mac notices exhaust fumes from a bus, leading to a vent and almost causing him to be run over by a bus in the process. He comes across clothes and more bones decomposing. Stella thinks this is where he died and Mac adds he lived here too, was probably a runaway. The initials 'AM' are on the backpack. Blunt force trauma from a pipe and a pocket knife is found in the shoe. A copy of Bright Lights, Big City is found, copyright 1984, indicating he may have been here for 20 years. The book was about a man who gets out of the city before it gets him.
Hawkes assembles the skeleton bones. Mac processes the clothes and finds a paper in the pocket of the jeans. Danny prints the pipe. Danny: "It's tough being in the bullpen waiting for your nod." Hawkes determines the full skeleton would have been 5' had his teeth pulled and saw a dentist. Last time he saw a doctor he had a broken tibia and left with a limp. Aiden boils the skull. Places markers where the bones, features should be, then sketches a face. Puts in glass eyes, moulds features and adds hair. Prints aren't in AFIS. There are no DNA matches from the bones. Nothing on the missing persons database. Mac finds a diary, a sketchbook of pics of the Flat Iron building, the NY skyline with the WTC. Mac says the man was following his dreams, he never got out. Why?
The parents of John Doe, Mrs Moreland (Susan Ruttan) and Mr Moreland (Charles Parks) arrive and say their son, Aaron was a musician. He left home in 1987 at 17. His backpack was monogrammed by his mother and his father doesn't think it was him. Mac tells them they're not looking for their son, but they stumble across him anyway. Danny uses a different approach and finds 113 arrest records of crimes committed 3 blocks away from where the skeleton was found. Stella tells them they need to stick to the hard evidence first, only cos she wasn't able to come up with a plan using lateral thinking for herself. His last sketch was a landscape which wasn't native to NY. He was alone here and lost. Mac: "reality rarely lives up to expectations especially when you're a teenager." Criss-cross beams in a sketch resemble the Port Authority, he was looking at it, which means he was inside the only building in the city which allows homeless children free range of all the floors.
They talk to a man, Joel (Johnny Sneed) at the shelter. Faces all look the same after a while. Danny processes the clothes and looks in the directory of logos. Fibre analysis comes up with nylon microfibre from the 1990's. Aiden asks Mac about giving the reconstruction photos of the face to the media. "I figured it was one of the few times that us and the media are on the same team." Mac uses an ALS (Alternative Light Source) on the paper he found in the pocket. He's only just analyzing that now. It shows 2/2/90 3.50pm. His shirt wasn't on the market and was a prototype from 1988. It was off the rack from 7th Avenue. Danny says to be a rack runner you don't need any experience.
A watch was pawned at Bruno's pawn shop and was picked up by the owner. Mac doesn't believe it was a coincidence it was picked up after 14 years. Why was the watch still there after 14 ears? Mac comments it's not easy to hide anymore cos of CCTV. Reflections are visible from the man's glasses and NTSC signals are over scanned. He touched the guitar so it can swabbed for DNA. Danny: "creative enough for you." Dr Giles (Grant Albrecht) puts the swabs into CODIS; the missing persons database. Aaron, who is Joel, is now 34 and a prime suspect in a murder.
Arron wasn't ready for NY. The boy ran racks and he saw him there, he always had money and Aaron always needed money. He sold the knife. He wanted more money. Six years later, he was clean and helped others. Mac tells him he killed for $2. Stella says the watch connected him to the Vic. That line was intended for Mac since he's into 'all the evidence being connected'. His parents never stopped looking for him. They don't know the boy's name. This ended up being like Blink, where they never found out Jane Doe's name either.
Mac reads from the book, "...leaving a dwindling trail of images and emotions, until all you can remember is a name." Stella: "His name is the only thing we don't know." Mac: "Now we never will." Stella asks Mac for a drink and he asks what the coffee's like. He'll love the Irish coffee. She loosens his tie and he tightens it back.
A strong story which develops from a joke into a real human interest episode about how lonely life can be in a big city and how it can eat you up. The twist being Aaron left home for an exciting life in a new city and he becomes attracted by its seedy underbelly and he turns to a life of crime, to satisfy his insatiable greed for money to support his habit. Mac understands how the city can swallow you up - but he's from Chicago and that ain't no small town. Stella however, is every bit as uncaring as she'll be in later episodes. Ordering Danny to focus on the evidence: something she had trouble doing in the last episode, Creatures of the Night and doesn't manage to find any sympathy. Fast becoming the shallow, inconsistent character she'll remain throughout.
Not much is seen or heard of Flack in his third episode, momentarily only suspended in his short role as eye candy, ha. Neither do Danny and Aiden get to shine. The book Bright Lights Big City by Jay McInerney in 1984, was turned into a movie with Michael J Fox in 1988. In the CSI episode Who Are You? a Jane Doe's face is reconstructed. When Aiden was reconstructing the face, the hands shown were not Vanessa's.
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