Body of Proof 2.11: "Falling for You"

“Since when do you need an invitation to commit murder?”
- Bud

We find ourselves at a Jewish wedding shortly before the ceremony is to start. We hear a scream and the bride comes flying out of a hotel window and crashes to the ground. Not the best way to start a wedding. Meanwhile, Lacey keeps asking her mom cosmetic stuff (is she fat, does she need a nose job). Megan tells Lacey she’s perfect the way she is just in time for Lacey to run off with a friend. Luckily, Megan gets the call about the dead bride-to-be. Megan is not a fan of weddings (well she is divorced). The bride-to-be’s name is Melissa. She’s got multiple injuries (duh). There’s some debate on whether she was pushed or it was a suicide. Peter and Dani are thinking suicide but Bud’s in the “murder” camp.

Things at the lab are kind of awkward. Curtis is on a diet so he’s cranky and Ethan tries and fails to get Dani to go on a date with him (though she agrees to a Sunday matinee of a movie). Poor guy. There’s just no competing with Peter. In autopsy, Megan and Kate are going over Melissa’s body and find residue and particles consistent with crashing through a tree branch and the wedding canopy. Bud’s in a mood that no one seems to know where it’s coming from. But he’s a little happier when Megan discovers a Melissa had a black eye. So he is going to check out the groom. Bud finds the father of the bride slugging the groom and blaming him for the bride’s death. Bud and Sam take them back to the precinct for a chat. The groom says that Melissa was traditional so he hadn’t seen her since the rehearsal dinner the night before and he had no idea about the black eye. Melissa’s father is still gung ho about blaming the groom.

Meanwhile, the antics around the lab get worse. Ethan sees Peter and Dani flirting. And Curtis considers liposuction as Megan and Kate go over all the work Melissa apparently had done. And she’s apparently had her thyroid removed. And she had alcohol and anti-depressants in her system. Bud and Sam are off to talk to the maid of honor. Apparently Melissa was having second thoughts and maybe it had something to do with her ex-boyfriend being back in town. The next morning, Megan threatens Lacey with no computer if she doesn’t eat and gets a call from Ethan about the missing thyroid. She had to have it removed. She was given meds to stabilize her hormones but they didn’t show up in the labs Ethan ran. No wonder she was depressed.

Megan and Lacey are out shopping and Lacey tries on some rather provocative clothing (for a thirteen-year-old). Megan also nixes Lacey wanting to dye her hair. We then head over to the lab where Megan and Kate are meeting with Melissa’s father and step-mom. They say she was shy and overweight after her mother’s death. But after she had her thyroid removed she was more out-going. Her dad didn’t want her to have all the plastic surgery and it strained their relationship. Bud and Sam go to talk to the ex-boyfriend, Zack. Bud is still in a mood and kind of snippy with the guy and outright says he was so pissed when he came back to find Melissa engaged that he helped her off the balcony. Zack says he’s done talking and shuts the door in their face. Apparently Bud’s wife has been up all night lately because of the pregnancy. So he’s cranky.

We have our much needed Ethan/Curtis comedy bit. They’re trying to figure out the trajectory of Melissa’s fall and Ethan whines about Dani dating Peter. They do discover, however, that she didn’t jump. And they find her missing earring. Over at the plastic surgeon’s office, Megan is in a funk, too. She brings up her father’s suicide and that he never left a note. So she’s trying to understand. She’s also pretty hostile with the doctor. Not surprising given Lacey’s latest kick. As they leave, peter asks who paid for all the plastic surgery. Turns out ex-boyfriend Zack bank-rolled it. Not looking good for him. Back at the lab, Ethan is eating pizza and bolts when he sees Curtis coming and ends up in autopsy. He and Kate find a bit of metallic something in Melissa’s leg wound. Ethan makes the connection that he and Curtis saw paint chip on the bridal suite balcony. She broke her leg before crashing to the ground.

Bud has obviously hauled Zack in and has gone through the guy’s emails. Zack admits to trying to keep in contact and get Melissa back but he denies being at the wedding. He wasn’t even invited. That doesn’t seem to deter Bud. He also gets the groom to drop off some pictures from the wedding. And all is not well in paradise. Peter foolishly decides to go to a hockey game with a friend instead of out with Dani. I think she might be heading Ethan’s way. As they’re looking at the photos Megan sees a picture of the maid of honor giving Melissa aspirin. Combining Botox with aspirin inhibits coagulation and causes black eyes. The maid of honor was jealous of the fact that Melissa got the groom first.

Megan is not having any luck on the Lacey front. Especially when her daughter comes home having dyed her hair with over the counter product. And Lacey refuses to change it. I hope this doesn’t last too long. It’s kind of irritating. Bud has news for Megan. The hotel finally let him see footages from the elevator security tapes and Zack was on it. He went to try and talk Melissa out of the wedding and bolted when he saw her father. Apparently he hated Zack for paying for all the surgeries. Bud and Sam hit a similar road block with the father. Though they did find a shiny motived for murder. A clause in his late wife’s will. Meanwhile, Ethan finds Curtis chowing down on some cake after Kate sort of flips out on him for not doing what she asked. It was a touching little scene of bonding. I have to say those two are some of my favorites on the show and whenever they have scenes together it’s always great.

Ethan tracks down Dani and asks what’s wrong with him. She apologizes for leading him on and he cancels their movie Sunday. However, there is some good news at the lab. There was hair on Melissa’s earring and it matches her father’s DNA. They head over to the funeral to stop Melissa’s father from leaving town after the funeral. But Megan deduces it wasn’t her father that did it. It was the groom (based on his boutonniere). He admits to it, though he says it was an accident. She tried to call off the wedding and he pushed her away when she tried to hug him and she fell. Ethan finally confronts Peter and while there’s not much he can do to keep Peter from seeing Dani, he tells him to not break her heart. And we finally figure out what Lacey’s so upset about. She was invited to a party and so thought she wasn’t one of the ‘cool’ kids so tried to change how she looked. Megan assures her that she is perfect and they laugh about the awful color she’s turned her hair. They’ll be taking a trip to the hairdresser to fix it.