The Mysteries of Laura Episode 1.04 The Mystery of the Sex Scandal

Reporter Matthew Stohr covers a TV press conference on Congressman Mike Jameson's alleged extramarital affair with 26-year-old campaign staffer Caitlin Coyne. As Stohr promotes his upcoming exclusive live interview with Coyne, a faceless gunman snaps a silencer onto his gun...

At Laura's house, she's getting the boys ready for school when Jake waltzes in. He wants her on the Jameson case, but Laura has a spa day planned. Reluctantly, she agrees to tail the alleged mistress, who is being harassed by paparazzi. Luckily, Laura is smarter than the paps, and while Caitlin manages to lose them, she can't shake Laura.

Laura follows Caitlin to a warehouse sample sale and then to Times Square, where she appears to wait for someone. Suddenly Caitlin crumples to the ground - she's been shot! Laura rushes over and cradles the dying woman, whose last words are "I'm so sorry." But for what?

Out of nowhere, Matthew Stohr is on the scene and bombards Laura with questions about Caitlin. Laura demands to know his source on the Jameson story, but he refuses to cooperate. Frustrated, Laura goes to speak with the congressman, who has a solid alibi: He was at a pancake breakfast at the Children's Initiative all morning. He says he never had an affair with Caitlin and can prove it - he has, er, equipment problems and has the doctor's records to prove it. Dead end.

Meanwhile, Billy interviews Caitlin's roommate, Heather Daniels, who is devastated by her best friend's death. Heather, also a lawyer, says that while Caitlin got her dream job at the Justice Defense Fund, she didn't always get what she wanted. In fact she bombed her SATs and LSATs, but worked her butt off to graduate magna from Fordham Law.

This leads Laura and Billy to the Justice Defense Fund, where they meet with its head, Kenneth Walters. Walters is deeply saddened by his protege's death and says he was grooming Caitlin to take over for him. While Billy questions Walters, Laura notices a photo of him at the 1971 National Debate Championship. Walters reveals that he recommended Caitlin work on the Jameson campaign because he had worked on Jameson's last one and was on his short list for a judgeship. He claims Caitlin would never throw her career away for an affair and points the finger at Stohr for starting the rumors just for a headline. Perhaps Caitlin was meeting Stohr at Times Square?

After going through Stohr's records, Billy notices the reporter drops $350 at Dahlia's Tea Room every Tuesday and Thursday. It turns out Dahlia's is more than just a tearoom - it's a BDSM club. Laura finds the reporter in a back room blindfolded on all fours in his tighty-whities and can't resist messing with him. Pretending to be his dominatrix, she gets him to admit he's been a bad boy... until he realizes who she is. Stohr says he had nothing to do with Caitlin's murder and can prove it - he has a voicemail of Caitlin admitting the affair and arranging a time to tell him the whole story.

In the voicemail, Caitlin says she met up with Jameson at the El Rey Hotel on April 12. But Laura pokes a giant hole in Caitlin's story: the El Rey didn't open until May! In another recording, taped after the story broke, Caitlin tells Stohr she has new evidence he has to see, and it's completely "sub rosa," which is Latin for "secret." Baffled, Laura and Jake talk to the person with the most to gain if Jameson loses his election: His opponent, Big Bill McGuire.

They find McGuire pandering to supporters at the Sikh Diwali Festival. While McGuire's alibi is airtight, Laura pulls his frazzled campaign manager aside to learn more. She says that McGuire is a tough boss, but he's nothing compared to his old campaign manager, Calvin Gold, who was suddenly shipped off to rehab three days ago after punching a 55-year-old volunteer.

The precinct has now been turned into a mock Times Square, with every security camera mapped out. Meredith reports that there's a blind spot exactly where Caitlin was shot, but perhaps they could nab him on camera getting to and from the blind spot. However, it appears the security camera at Game Pipe, which should have covered the area, was turned off six minutes before the shooting and wasn't turned on again until five minutes after. Clearly this is not a coincidence.

Meanwhile, Laura has checked herself into the Serenity Garden Rehab with an all-too-convincing story about being a burnt out mom. She corners Gold, who is shocked to learn of the affair and murder scandals, but murmurs something about a blind spot. Laura jumps on this and learns that the year before, the Secret Service had discovered the blind spot in Times Square, but it's highly classified info.

Meredith and Billy head to Game Pipe, but before they can speak with the clerk, he books it, giving chase through Times Square until he slams into a Statue of Liberty impersonator. The detectives haul him into the station, where he admits he turned off the cameras, but only because the Overlord made him do it. The clerk explains that he was playing the online game Sceptre of Shyll when he was approached by an avatar playing in God-mode, which means the player somehow hacked the game's encryption to make his character immortal. The Overlord threatened to tell the clerk's boss about his porn addiction if he didn't comply.

Laura thinks the Overlord must have dug something up on Caitlin and blackmailed her into lying about the affair. Perhaps he even killed her to keep her quiet. She and Jake search Caitlin's apartment and find practice exams for the bar; her roommate was right - she didn't pass any of them. On a hunch, Laura looks under a dead rose in vase and finds Caitlin's driver's license, but with Heather's photo! Caitlin's secret was "sub rosa," literally under the rose. Someone must have known that Heather took the bar exam for Caitlin and used it against her. But they're not going to get any more info from Heather - she's been shot dead outside her office building... with the same gun used to kill Caitlin.

At the station, Billy and Meredith work to catch the Overlord in cyberspace by beating him at his own game, Sceptre of Shyll. But Billy turns out to be a terrible gamer, and Meredith, who is secretly a hardcore gamer, takes over, using her sexy avatar Foxy99 to lure the Overlord to video chat with her. They trace his signal to an apartment in Queens, where Jake and Laura nab the unsuspecting hacker.

The Overlord, real name Paul Scott, was previously arrested for hacking the Secret Service, which is likely how he knew about the blind spot. In the Observation Room, the team watches him argue on the phone with lawyer, who doesn't appear to be coming. A lawyer turning down work strikes Laura as very odd, so she redials the number Scott called... it's the Justice Defense Fund!

Suddenly everything falls into place. Laura races to the Justice Defense Fund to arrest Walters for the murders of Caitlin and Heather. He had been grooming Caitlin to take over the clinic because he thought he was about to be appointed to the bench. When Jameson didn't come through, he turned to McGuire, his old friend from college debate club. Laura had recognized McGuire in the photo on Walter's wall. Walters knew that Caitlin cheated on her bar exam and used that secret to blackmail her into leaking the false story about the affair. But Caitlin had a change of heart and set up a second meeting with Stohr, this time to tell the truth. The truth would ruin Walters, so he had to get rid of Caitlin - and her roommate.

Walters knew Paul Scott, aka the Overlord, because he was an old client of Walters'. Scott blackmailed the store clerk to turn off the surveillance camera. But when Scott called Walters for help, Walters told him to get lost, which was the phone argument Laura witnessed at the precinct.

Realizing the jig is up, Walters pulls out a gun, but before he can shoot - BANG! - Billy shoots Walters in the arm.

In the end, Laura gets to enjoy her spa day... listening to soothing music in a bathrobe with cucumbers over her eyes... in an empty holding cell. Hey, she'll take what she can get!