When a Las Vegas officer is found dead in the restroom of a local bar, Major Crimes must peruse through his most recent case, uncovering a ring of identity thieves to find his murderer.
Recap:
A man stumbles through a bar to the bathroom, where he stays until he is found, dead and covered in his own vomit. Blech. The squad is called in at 3:30 a.m. and is, quite vocally, upset about it. The victim, assumed to have died of alcohol poisoning, is Officer Michael Adams.
Dr. Morales determines that Adams died from ethylene glycol poisoning.
Jump with me to read more.
Adams rented a room at a local motel, and in it, they find DMV records of a Laura Rikins. According to security footage, no one else entered the room. Adams’s partner, Officer Connors, nowhere to be found at the bar and a potential suspect, offers to personally bring over Adams’s open cases.
Daniel Dunn is in hot water with Rusty and now Sharon, of course, as he has arrived two hours late for their weekend trip. Daniel is more concerned with how his fiancée will handle the news of Rusty’s existence than with Rusty’s wellbeing. Sharon leaves the two to try to mend fences.
Laura Rikins is brought into the station under the impression that her stolen laptop has been found. She met Officer Adams at a hotel when she lost it, and he was worried about potential identity theft.
According to the paperwork in Adams’s file, the identity thieves have taken out a total of $12 million in loans.
Daniel must be a very convincing man, as Rusty has agreed to go meet his fiancée and her daughters.
Sharon suggests that they send out emails alerting the identity thieves of possible identity theft. This way, all of them will move their masses of cash, making it easier for the detectives to track them down. And it works! They track the movement of money to a Dr. Durban, professor at a local university. Sykes goes in, posing as a clueless wealthy woman in need of financial advice. She hands over her tablet to Durban, and Tao is able trace his fingerprints. They come back belonging to several different people.
As they search through the many names of Durban, they find that Laura Rikins is not among them. Connors decides that it’s time to share some insight into Adams’s personality; the late officer liked blondes, so much so that he stalked them.
They speak to Laura again. Her laptop was found on her desk, inside her home. So why did she claim that it was still missing?
Laura starts with the night she met Adams; he offered to keep her safe for the night, and she foolishly accepted. After that, he harassed her constantly. He even showed up at her house and spoke with her husband and children. Not wanting to confess to her husband but also wanting to get Adams off her back, Laura agreed to meet him at the bar. She slipped the antifreeze into his drink and left. She begs Flynn and Sharon to keep this from her husband. He may suspect that something’s wrong when she’s arrested for first degree murder.
Sharon arrives home to find black-eyed Rusty, home early from his trip. He angered Daniel when he told his fiancée about his troubled past.
Review:
I get the feeling that this was supposed to be a Flynn-centered episode, and it was nice to see him have more lines. But I got lost among the details of the identity theft scam, and then, as it turns out, it wasn’t necessary to understand that part of the story, as it had nothing to do with the murder.
I am so curious to see Daniel explain himself to Sharon next week. She’s a mama bear now, and all bets are off!
– Lindsay
