Circus Families Feud In 'Blood, Sweat & Tears'

See Also: 'Blood, Sweat & Tears' Episode Guide

Mac and Stella will have to go from the fiery cold that is the New York winter to a smoldering feud in the circus in the upcoming CSI: New York episode "Blood, Sweat and Tears," CSI Files sources revealed today.

Although the episode starts on a freezing February morning, the group of twenty people whom the show opens with apparently never checked the weather report. They're all gathered on the beach of Coney Island, jumping up and down as if trying to drive the cold away - until they suddenly strip off their clothes and dive into the sea. For a few minutes they try to resist their bodies' urge to fall into immediate, cold-induced cardiac arrest, then they charge back out of the water, still pretending to each other that they loved the experience. As they run away, one of the swimmers notices the top of a trunk sticking out of the sand. He's curious and opens the trunk - and is shocked to discover the curled-up body of a dead boy inside.

Mac and Stella arrive at the beach, both tightly packed in warm winter clothes and with no desire to take a dip. Instead, they go about trying to identify the boy. He's wearing a costume, so the CSIs suspect he may have been some kind of performer. Could the boy have been an escape artist whose act went horribly wrong? When Aiden processes the trunk, she discovers exactly what kind of performer he was: there's a hair belonging to an African Elephant sticking to the lid. The CSIs head off to the circus.

As we enter the city circus, the show's finale is still in full swing. Trapeze artists fly through the sky, clowns dance - and popping out of a little box is a 15-year old boy, displaying his skill as a contortionist. Backstage, Mac and Stella talk with the contortionist's father, Maxwell Schumann. He tells them that his other son, Peter, has been missing for a while. When Stella shows him an autopsy photo of the dead boy, the grief on Maxwell's face confirms their fears: the boy in the trunk was Peter.

But Maxwell's grief is replaced surprisingly quickly by another emotion: rage. One of the trapeze artists, Bernardo Espargosa, comes by and offers his condolences. Instad of accepting them, Maxwell gets into a fistfight with Bernardo. With difficulty, the CSIs separate the two, and Mac and Stella split up to find out what caused this bad blood. Bernardo admits to Stella that he feels belittled by Maxwell, who is a third-generation circus performer and always acted as if he was better than Bernardo. But according to Maxwell, Bernardo isn't a real showman, but just a fortune seeker who dreams of ending up in one of the high-paying shows in Las Vegas. And what's more, Maxwell is sure that Bernardo had a hand in the death of his son.

Bernardo does seem like a good suspect, particularly when Stella discovers scratches on his arm that he can't explain. But could jealousy be enough of a motive to kill Peter? Then Mac discovers that Bernardo had extra reason to hate Maxwell's son: Bernardo's own daughter Anasuya had an act together with Peter, but it was always Peter who claimed the spotlights. Mac goes to talk with Anasuya, but discovers that she didn't share her father's hatred for Peter - in fact, she and Peter were secretly in love with each other. Did Bernardo unknowingly kill his daughter's boyfriend?

Please note that the above plot details have not been confirmed by CBS, Alliance Atlantis or Bruckheimer Films, and until such time you should treat this information as you would any other rumour. The above information comes from early script drafts and the details and the airing order of the episodes are liable to change before the episodes are shown.

"Blood, Sweat and Tears" will likely air in February, 2005. If you'd like to get some information on the real-life Polar Bear Club who swim in the Atlantic Ocean at Coney Island every Sunday from October to April, head over to their official site.

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