One man who studies the past winds up losing his future.
According to CSI Files sources, the fifth episode of CSI: New York will be called "The Cost of Living". The episode begins with an archaeologist named John Sutton telling the exciting story of how he found a mysterious artifact. He is sitting in the exclusive Adventurer's Club, surrounded by well-dressed young people curious about his find. The artifact, he says, could solve one of the most famous murders in the city's history.
Despite requests to continue the story and reveal the identity of the artifact, Sutton tells them they have to be patient. He's told them enough for tonight. As Sutton leaves the Adventurer's Club, he catches the eye of Laura Roman, one of the beautiful young women standing nearby. They share a smile, and soon she heads toward the exit herself.
Sutton may have promised to finish his story another night, but he doesn't get the chance to keep his word. He is shot on the street near the club. Mac, Stella and Flack arrive at the scene and examine his wound: a single close-range gunshot to the abdomen. Laura Roman found his body while looking for a cab. She is visibly upset.
There is a piece of rawhide lying next to Sutton's body. It used to be wrapped around something, but whatever it was is missing. Danny picks up an orange lobster claw-shaped oven mitt. There's blood on and inside the mitt, and he finds a fishhook stuck in the fabric.
The oven mitt, and the rat blood they find inside of it, leads Danny and Stella to Clarence Bessie, also known as the Rat Fisherman. They find him in an alley, using a slice of pizza to lure a rat and then catching it with his mitt-covered hand. Stella sees a gold chain hanging from his pocket, and Clarence admits that he heard the gunshot and found the body. Someone was standing over Sutton when he came around the corner, but the person ran.
Clarence saw an antique pocket watch glittering in the unwrapped rawhide next to Sutton's body and decided to take it--an action he regrets now that the police have come calling. He heard footsteps and saw someone approaching where he stood beside the body, so he skeddadled. Could this pocket watch be the artifact Sutton claimed was tied to a famous murder?
Meanwhile, things get dangerous for Stella when she is attacked as she leaves the crime lab. A man grabs her and slams her against a wall, disarming her and saying he'll shoot her if she turns around. The man has a Greek accent, and Stella speaks in Greek, asking him what he wants. He demands that she give him what she took from Clarence, and when she says she doesn't have it, he wants her to tell him what it was. Stella lashes out and tries to free herself, but the man slams her to the ground. The only part of him she can see is a scar along his jawline--and the gun he is pointing toward her head.
