The Mysteries of Laura Episode 1.14 The Mystery of the Popped Pugilist

New York City morning traffic is at a dead stop... until bang! A woman's car gets rear-ended. Marching out of her vehicle to see who has ruined her day, the driver finds a young man slouched over his steering wheel. What, is he drunk? Still sleeping? Furious, she grabs his collar, yanks his head up... and screams! This guy isn't drunk - he's dead.

Meanwhile, at the precinct, Jake smiles for the cameras as a press conference wraps up. The 2nd Precinct not only successfully arrested Mr. Cortez, the New York connection to a major Mexican cartel, but also confiscated all of his assets under the law of Civil Forfeiture. After a bout of humble-bragging, Jake dismisses the reporters and directs any further questions to the Deputy Commissioner for Press Information, Lisa Hannelin. As Lisa makes her way out, she runs into Laura. Turns out Laura and the "Deputy Commish" are old friends from the Academy. Reminiscing about the good old days, Lisa suggests they get the gang back together for a Book Club reunion - which has nothing to do with books, and everything to do with alcohol. Laura isn't so sure it's a good idea - after all, she's so busy with her cases and her twins - but leave it to Max to convince her she needs to have a meeting with her "let's-get-wasted" club.

Billy and Meredith arrive at the crime scene, and Reynaldo fills them in: the murder victim is Michael "Mickey" Moretti, late 20s, who suffered a single gunshot to the head. The detectives find a shell casing in the car, along with a whole lot of other stuff: a lottery ticket, a Lady Gaga and Cher CD, a super-sized lacy bra and orange lipstick. Maybe Mickey had a hot date? But back in the medical examiner's office, Laura and Reynaldo discover Band-Aids on Mickey's ankles (maybe from wearing heels?), a heat rash on "his treasure trail" (possibly caused by Spanx?), and calcium carbonate, which is typically found in makeup, on the shell casing. They have a new theory: Mickey was a cross-dresser. It makes sense, considering the lottery ticket in Mickey's car was purchased across the street from Lady Mary's, the hottest drag bar on the West Side.

Later that night, Billy and Laura check out Lady Mary's, where they're greeted by a hostile doorman who goes by the name of Gaga. When they tell Gaga that Mickey was murdered this morning, the feisty diva quickly drops his attitude - Mickey was the Cher to his Gaga! Letting the detectives into the club, Gaga tells them Mickey was "a doll," but he did get into an argument last week with dragster Miss Clingy, who wears a bad toupee when he's not in his wig. Billy and Laura wait outside the dressing room until they find what they're looking for: a bad toupee. When Billy flashes his badge, Miss Clingy bolts, but Gaga expertly pins him down. The officers bring Miss Clingy - who is actually Andrew Jacabowski, aka Sleeping Booty - into the precinct for questioning. Andrew says he called Mickey a tease for being a straight man who dresses like a woman, and Mickey exploded on him. While the two drag queens were fighting, Mickey pushed Andrew against a wall and told Andrew he's "as bad as the backward dumb-asses in his old neighborhood." But Andrew can prove he didn't kill Mickey - he was getting full-facial electrolysis, and his dermatologist is his alibi.

In another room, Laura talks to Mickey's sister, Drea Moretti. Shocked and somber, Drea says she hasn't seen Mickey in months. She only knows he loved performing at that bar - he'd been cross-dressing since he was a kid. He was teased a lot growing up; his best friend, Eric Lombard, always looked out for him until Mickey had a growth spurt. That's when her brother learned to defend himself and no one messed with him... until now. Then Max discovers Mickey's juvenile record. Eric, his partner in crime - literally - couldn't seem to give up the lifestyle. Time to investigate the dumb-asses from his old neighborhood. Meredith and Laura head to Pizza Vongole, the pizza place where Eric works. Vongole, as in clams in Italian. Clam pizza? Ew. Eric is extremely shaken up about Mickey's death. Meredith hints at Eric being a suspect, but his boss, Sam Marks, shows her Eric's timecard, which confirms he was at work at the time of the murder. Another old friend of Mickey's, Vince, tells Laura he gave Mickey a ride to a warehouse at 10th Avenue and 21st last week.

Billy and Jake head downtown to scope out the warehouse, which is definitely not a drag club... it's a fight club. They seek out the guy in charge, Mills, who tells them Mickey was a regular. He was there just two nights ago, beating the crap out of another guy named Wall Street. Mickey "dropped him like a sack of hammers," and after that, Wall Street was spewing death threats. Jake confronts Wall Street, who's just been knocked out again, and tells him he looks like the prime suspect for Mickey's murder. Wall Street admits he dropped an F-bomb the other night - "the F-bomb that means gay" - but he was at the stock exchange yesterday morning when Mickey was shot, and about 100 people he traded with can prove it. Meanwhile, Billy seizes the camera of a young student who films all of the fights, including the one between Mickey and Wall Street.

At the precinct, the team watches the confiscated fight footage on a giant TV, which was kept from the Cortez drug bust, but it's hard to see any actual fighting. The video is basically "Ring Card Girls Gone Wild," but there's one woman who looks more businesswoman than bimbo. And she's wearing orange lipstick, the same color they found in Mickey's car! One facial recognition run later, Max determines the woman to be Donna McKinney, a well-known mixed martial arts manager. Mickey's phone records show he texted her just two hours before he was killed with the message, "Need to talk abt fix tomoro." Max digs up some more dirt: Donna has a client in a huge MMA fight in Atlantic City tonight, and Mickey was supposed to be on the undercard. Maybe Mickey found out the fight was going to be fixed, and Donna decided to shut him up when he threatened to blow her plan? There's only one way to find out... road trip! But Laura has an overdue date with her Book Club tonight and Jake's on babysitting duty... so that leaves Billy and Meredith. But how can they get an Atlantic City promoter to open up to a couple of cops? They need some "flash and cash" to relate to those kind of people. It's a good thing they have Cortez's tricked-out Mercedes in the police compound. Thank you, civil forfeiture.

Later that night, the Book Club rides again! Laura meets Lisa and the other women, Corrina and Jess, at the bar, and they get started right away - drinks all around, cheers to Book Club! It must be guys' night out as well... Tony walks in and smiles at Laura, and boy, does he look cute. Multiple shots later, the ladies challenge Laura to play their old favorite game, "That Guy." Laura has three minutes to approach whoever her friends pick and make out with him. After scanning the bar, Lisa picks the hottest guy there... Tony. Lucky Laura! Nonchalantly, Laura downs the rest of her drink, walks up to Tony, and kisses him hard. The Book Club is impressed; Laura has definitely stepped up her "That Guy" game.

Billy and Meredith arrive at the Atlantic Pearl Casino, and it definitely looks like they've mastered flash and cash. Undercover as a young, showy couple on their honeymoon, they bribe the valet for sold-out fight tickets - $2000! - on Cortez's tab. Once inside, the pretend high rollers make their way to the VIP section, right next to Donna. Billy introduces himself as a representative for fighters in Miami, and offers to make a bet on one of her fighters, "Mickey the Monsoon." Donna tells him that won't be possible, since Mickey's dead. Donna claims she doesn't know what happened to him - she hasn't talked to him since the night of the fight club. But Mickey's texts showed otherwise...

As soon as Donna gets a little too flirtatious with Billy, Meredith instigates a catfight, playing the jealous bride. While the two women go at it, Billy has just enough time to verify Donna did in fact receive and read Mickey's text. After revealing themselves as detectives, Billy and Meredith sit at a bar with Donna, who seems unfazed by their questioning. She admits she was at the fight club that night to protect her investment - Mickey - and the orange lipstick was in his car because they were sleeping together. As for the text message about fixing the fight, Donna assumes Mickey was trying to tell her he needed to fix the situation he was in, a situation involving his old pal Eric. Turns out Eric was at the casino just a couple hours prior, waving a gun in Donna's face, desperate for money. He told Donna she stole Mickey from him, and if she didn't want to end up dead like Mickey, she needed to give him $30,000. Her bodyguards chased him away at the time, but the detectives tell Donna to call and tell him she changed her mind. Once Eric returns to the casino, he walks up to Donna and starts pressuring her for money, flashing his gun. That's Billy and Meredith's cue... Eric is busted.

Back in New York at the precinct, Jake is still analyzing the fight footage. They had all assumed the "fix" was about the Atlantic City fight, but maybe it had to do with the fight club fight? Jake shows Laura footage of Mickey hitting Wall Street in the face, staggering him, but Mickey didn't follow up with another punch. And when Wall Street fell to the ground, Mickey looked shocked and disappointed. They rewind to right before the punch and see Wall Street saying something to Mickey. Must have been the F-bomb. Suddenly, Jake and Laura realize Mickey was supposed to throw the fight, but he got pissed and blew it. That means someone bet big against Mickey and lost. But it couldn't have been Eric; he doesn't have money to bet. Eric is covering for someone! Laura's going to find out who... unless Jake finds out first.

Laura's first stop is the interrogation room. Eric clearly wants to give her more information, but he's scared of the consequences. Who is Eric so afraid of? Meanwhile, Jake returns to the fight club to question Mills. As Jake saw in the tape, Mills keeps his jacket on during fights, a jacket with many pockets, even though it's hot during the fights. All those pockets could hold a whole lot of betting slips... Very reluctantly, Mills hands Jake a slip for a bet placed against Mickey. Jake just solved the murder case.

But so did Laura! Before Jake gets a chance to soak up the glory, he crosses paths with Laura at the precinct and she blurts it out - Sam Marks, the pizza guy, is the killer! The gun used in Mickey's murder was tied to an unsolved armed robbery in New Haven, home of gross clam pizza. When that crime was committed, Eric was in New York, locked up for being drunk and disorderly. And, as Jake found out, Sam bet $20,000 against Mickey the night he fought Wall Street. That's a lot of clams, and a lot of motive... Laura heads back to her least favorite pizza place to confront Sam. Laura has it all figured out: Sam gave Eric the gun and told him to get back the money Sam lost after Mickey won the fight he promised to throw. Sam, playing dumb, hands her a slice of "New Haven's finest," made from his secret recipe, meaning Sam is the only one who's allowed to shuck the clams. The calcium carbonate on the shell casing wasn't from makeup, it was from clams. And with that, Sam is in cuffs and his pizza is in the trash.

Once her mystery is solved, Laura makes her way back to the bar, this time with her guy instead of her girls. Finally, no friends, no murder, no husband... Tony gets Laura all to himself. And they dance the night away... or at least until she has to get home to the twins.