Body of Proof Episode 1.03 Helping Hand

Elena Rosas is shot to death in a seedy hotel room. Detective Bud Morris is in a particularly surly mood. He wants to know the cause of death so he can move on with his day. But as we already know, it's never that simple when Megan Hunt catches a case.

Peter says Bud is having problems with his wife. Megan thought he was already divorced. She's never been one to take a huge interest in people's personal lives. That's why it's a shocker when Megan realizes the victim was a patient back in her neurosurgeon days. Elena's father, Armando, says his daughter became a social worker due largely to the impact Megan had on her life. This is bittersweet news since Megan doesn't really remember them. Of course, she was a different person back then.

Elena Rosas had blue dye on her fingers and dried breast milk on her dress. Her boss at child protective services, Jeremy Nichols, says Elena visited Holly Bennett, a mom who almost had her baby taken away when Elena found cocaine at her apartment. Holly tested clean. She claimed the drugs belonged to her boyfriend. The breast milk on Elena's dress was spit-up from Holly's baby.

When Megan examines the deadly bullet, she realizes it struck someone else before killing the victim. The team later learns that Jeremy Nichols had a crush on Elena. The guy has bite mark on his hand from when Elena had some sort of seizure. The skin from the bullet, however, belongs to a parolee named Sean Wilcox. Elena had gotten the hotel room for the troubled kid. Sean was grazed by the bullet but never saw who fired the gun.

Sean got into trouble with a gun-runner named Vincent Stone. Elena doused Stone with pepper spray when they had a confrontation over Sean. This explains the blue dye. Bud and Sam believe Stone may have shot Elena, but they don't have any solid evidence. Speaking of evidence, Megan learns that Sean Wilcox had a fungal infection in his wound. The detectives realize the bullet passed through the dirty window screen of the hotel room. The shooter was outside in the parking, and that's where Bud finds the shell casing.

Former foster child Peter bonds with Sean Wilcox. He convinces the kid to give up the location of where Vincent is storing his illegal guns. The team finds the stash. Now all they have to do is find the one that killed Elena. Megan says don't bother with the ballistics tests. Vincent Stone isn't their killer. Why? Well, the only thing found on the bullet casing was rice powder. Ah, of course! Okay, we're kidding. We don't know what that means either. But Megan Hunt does.

The rice powder that was found on the bullet casing came from baby cereal. The only person in their investigation with a child is Holly Bennett. The woman was using drugs. She passed them onto her breastfed baby. Megan realized this when she tested the baby spit-up on the victim's dress. Ah, of course! Elena was going to have Holly's baby taken away, so she followed her to the hotel to make sure that would never happen. In the end, that's what happens anyway. Case closed.

Megan has been making an effort to become more involved in other people's lives. Her comforting words to Elena's father are a good start. The fact that she follows Bud out of the police station to chat about his wife is also nice. The guy's been practically living out of his car. Bud also has a big rip in his jacket. Megan takes it off his hands with the promise of returning it in the morning. Apparently, neurosurgery is a lot like sewing.