19. Maledictus

The severed head of author Ilana Yushka ( Alla Kliouka Schaffer ) is sent to her publisher. Detectives Goren and Eames initially suspect her jailed Russian mob boss father had ordered the killing after she announced plans to write a second book about the family business, however someone else killed her before the Russians. Further investigations lead to one of her previous private school classmates, a self-tortured and cross-dressing real estate magnate Kenneth Strick ( David Thornton ). Research into the apparent suicidal death by poisoning of Strick's pregnant mother when Kenneth was a schoolboy lead Goren and Eames to the realization that he feared he would be exposed in the proposed book for murdering his mother because he had told Ilana he was responsible.