Summary: A group of boys are running rabbits (an exercise and tradition that makes them faster sprinters for football season) deep in the sugar cane fields just outside of Pahokee, Florida off Muck City Road, when the youngest of them, Declan, spots a dead man's hand sticking up out of the dirt,…
[show all]A group of boys are running rabbits (an exercise and tradition that makes them faster sprinters for football season) deep in the sugar cane fields just outside of Pahokee, Florida off Muck City Road, when the youngest of them, Declan, spots a dead man's hand sticking up out of the dirt, fingers clenched in anguish. As police arrive on the scene, we see the deceased is a middle-aged African American man. Longworth questions Declan, who doesn't know the witness but gives him an earful about the Mud Bowl, the most important football event of the year for locals, and sells him a rabbit, which Longworth promptly sets free.
Carlos, just in from a Bar Mitzvah in North Dade County, analyzes the victim, who is dressed in an expensive suit now covered in mud and missing a wedding ring (strangely on his right hand), and concludes he died of blunt force trauma. He also spots ligature marks on the man's neck and abrasions that indicate the body was obviously dragged. Manus joins to let the men know the suits from the Okeechobee Sugar Company, also known as "Big Sugar," are on their way over.
Intern Daniel Green provides evidence which reveals that the victim's name is Curtis Taylor, a 38-year-old real estate developer from Dallas, Texas. The killer clearly hoped Curtis' body could be buried undiscovered in the muck. Longworth suspects that the killer could be an outsider who wouldn't know the muck would quickly unbury anything placed there, and Manus confirms that there have been many of them in town lately, all competing to buy the 1.3 billion dollar land Okeechobee Sugar is currently in the process of selling.
Source aetv.com
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