Is there anything more romantic than the beach at night? Who wouldn't pass up the chance to get bitten by sand fleas and chafed by errant grains of sand? Not the woman and man who decided to walk down to the beach together in the opening shot. He's got a bottle of champagne. Their body language is intriguing -- they don't stand so close as lovers would, but there's not exactly polite distance there. The two talk; he's relaxed, she's less so. Eventually, he's laughing and she's smiling more. The camera swoops down to the bottle of Fabinger champagne -- just so we know that it will be playing a pivotal role later -- and then back up as the two tentatively kiss. Just as their kiss is getting deeper, we see a pair of legs running in the sand, and then an arm striking the man on the back as he's kissing the woman. He goes down hard, the woman screams, and then it's a blur of shots -- the woman being pinned down by an attacker, the man being beaten.
Then it's morning, and the man from the night before is lying dead on the beach. Someone who is presumably working the scene says to Horatio, "This will do wonders for tourism." Horatio walks over with Megan, who's sporting a big suede hip-slung belt, with her badge pinned on top. It's supremely tacky. We find out that a jogger found the victims at 6:15 -- the dead man, and the live woman, Jane Renshaw, who was lying down in the surf. We find out that poor Jane's from Iowa, and she was "beat to hell, unconscious and half-drowned." Since Jane is also now in the hospital, we're switching our attention from her to the poor dead guy here, who's also sporting an impressive burn mark on his cheek. Horatio looks at the footprints in the sand and concludes, "He was running away." Megan asks, "Why kill a guy who was running from the scene?" Horatio begins pontificating, "Therein lies the rub, my friends. The evidence, as always, will speak for itself." Oh, will it? When will it have time, what with Horatio and Megan all over the screen? I'm just curious.
After we're through the credits and the commercials, we're back at the beach with Horatio, Megan, and Alexx, who's busy asking the poor dead guy, "Why'd you die so far from the girl?" Horatio says, "What's he telling you, Alexx?" So he's encouraging this kind of behavior on her part. Alexx tells everyone, "Sustained blunt force trauma to the head. Multiple blows, based on the blood. Liver temperature is 87.2." Megan concludes that our guy died around midnight. Alexx more or less pinpoints the cause of death with, "Jugular. Not a knife, though. A more irregular object. Bled out." We see the bleeding in action -- it's not nearly so riveting as you'd think -- and then Horatio brings us back to the present by asking about the mark on the guy's cheek. Alexx confirms that it's a burn mark. Horatio appears disgusted by this, walking off to say, "Smashing and slashing aren't enough -- they've got to burn him too." Megan says, "If I'm going to mess somebody up like this, I don't do it out in the open." You do if the open is sufficiently isolated, you simpleton. It's not as if the beach has a lot of foot traffic now, much less in the middle of the night. Horatio points out, "Unless you're not worried about it." He then focuses on a lifeguard station, which naturally contains hair samples which they take into evidence. I don't know why anyone bothers collecting evidence when Horatio's on the case; all he has to do is put on his ClueVision and the pieces just leap into view. Could he be any more of a supercop? All he needs is the power to fly. I bet they're saving that for sweeps. Horatio and Megan note that the hair they found is blonde, just like Jane's, and they speculate that what happened is that Jane and her would-be swain had a blanket and a spot by the lifeguard station before they were assaulted. Megan says, "She's assaulted, tossed in the ocean, and left to die," in world-weary tone. Horatio, who actually seems quite het up about the crime, speculates on what happened to the man with, "The guy tries to escape. Half-dead, scared out of his mind, he runs and someone catches up to him over here. So that makes these the last footsteps of his life." Megan's not exactly up to contemplating the fragility of life -- hey, if it's not her husband, why should she care what anyone else's last minutes were like? -- and interrupts Horatio's righteous snit to answer her phone. Once she tells the party on the other end she'll be right there, she tells Horatio that the SART nurse (SART stands for "sexual assault response team," FYI. Just so you're up on your acronyms, okay?) has finished Jane's exam, so Megan can come in to question her. Poor Jane -- the last twenty-four hours have visited upon her one horror followed by another.
Meanwhile, Delko and Speedle are preparing to build the mother of all sand castles. Calleigh comes over and asks the two men, "Who wants to help me search around the girl?" You just know she's hoping the two of them will come to blows fighting over the opportunity. Speedle sticks his spade in the sand and says irritably, "We're working on the murder scene. You asked for the girl?" Calleigh coos down at him, "I like a challenge." "I like keeping all my limbs intact, so why don't you just get a move on before Delko decides to make me crime scene number two?" Speedle shoots back. Oh, he does not. Calleigh skips on down so she can sift for shells down by the sea shore. After she leaves, Delko mumbles about the abundance of sand -- at a beach, mind you -- and Speedle diverts him from further whining by discovering a sharp shard of glass; the edges indicate very little erosion.
Then, because it's been a whole minute and a half since we've seen either Horatio or Megan, we switch to the hospital scene where Megan's getting the lowdown from the SART nurse: "Recovered what looks like some semen. Tears on the lower part of her vagina -- six, seven, and eight o'clock. Also a grade three concussion." Boy, am I glad we went through the Vagina Monologues with Sara, or else none of this would make sense. We find out that Jane's quite traumatized (no!) and doesn't remember the last twelve hours. Before Megan can go in, the SART nurse mentions one more thing: "She got antsy when I tried to administer an oral swab." Megan gives Look #2 (contemplative/diagnostic/deductive/heartburn), then concludes, "Sense memory. She's repressing." The nurse nods, whispering, "She's right on the edge." Megan replies, "I'll see what I can do." About what? Pushing her over? Megan walks over and introduces herself to Jane -- whose brutal night in no way affected her great bone structure or Pantene commercial-quality hair -- and Jane rasps, "They said I was attacked." Megan clears her throat and admits that she doesn't know who did it. Jane says, "They won't tell me if my boyfriend Paul is okay. Paul Varnette." Megan tries to bring the conversation back around to Jane: "We have evidence of a sexual assault. If we're going to find the person who did this to you, I'm going to need your help. The more evidence we collect from you, the better chance of catching him." Jane blinks; I notice that she must have been wearing that new it-lasts-three-days mascara, because for someone found face-down in the surf, her make-up's in fantastic condition. Megan makes her final plea, and sure enough, Jane's just fine with Megan completing the SART exam. And then, since Megan's bedside manner is supernatural, perhaps someone will be by to take her to the ICU so she can do a laying-on of the hands and heal the gravely ill. And then she can revive long-term coma patients. But first, she needs to get past Jane's exam, and that might take awhile; as it turns out, Jane wears a retainer and there's something stuck in it.
And now, in a desperate attempt to establish some sort of subtext between Calleigh and Delko, the writers have thrown them together again in the lab. Calleigh speeds by, trilling, "What are you up to?" and Delko tells her, "Sands from the hot area around the male victim." Calleigh's all, "Didn't you already sieve around that area?" Delko points out that a probable struggle, followed by the tramping feet of paramedics, may just have driven some evidence deeper into the sand. Calleigh then burbles, "Oh, my gosh, aren't you ambitious!" Oh, my gosh, Calleigh's knocking back a little too much espresso. She's gone beyond perky and into a whole new level of vivacity. I think it's contagious; since this scene began, my heart rate has doubled and I can't blink. Calleigh vibrates on over to where Delko's laboring, and he attempts to impress her by showing her the nosepiece from a pair of eyeglasses. He then swabs it and finds proof of blood. "Pink always was my favorite color!" Calleigh says. We know. Delko says he'll take the eyepiece and the swab to DNA, and Calleigh offers to do it for him. Okay, then. So there's...subtext between those two?
Speaking of subtext between two people on screen, we're now in the morgue with Alexx and her friend of the day. Naturally, Horatio is in the luxury suite, ready to play Metatron. Alexx notes that there's a piece of glass in the neck wound. She holds it up to the camera so that Horatio can see it blown up a thousand times, and Horatio's all, "We found a lot of broken glass at the scene, approximately five meters from the victim's body. Is your glass green in color?" Alexx confirms. Horatio says, "So that means somebody jabbed our guy with a broken bottle, doesn't it?" Alexx replies, "Interesting. Because I'm thinking he was a bartender." Horatio wonders how Alexx came to that conclusion. She tells him: "The dead talk to me. They tell me things. Secret things. I know y'all make fun of me for chatting up the dead, but who's laughing now, flatfoot?" Or, on the show that actually broadcast in North America, she says, "Lime peel under his fingernails. And this rash is occupational dermatosis. You can get it from squeezing a lot of lemons or limes in direct sunlight." Horatio wonders what kind of CPA would spend his daylight hours making Cosmopolitans, what with Jane having stated that her boyfriend's a CPA and all. The moment of confusion passes when they realize the guy on the table is not Paul Varnette. As Horatio says, "This ain't her boyfriend, but it might explain why he's on your table, Alexx." He's off to go toss Jane's hotel room at the Agramonte Hotel, on the off chance that Jane left her boyfriend there before heading out for a night of murder and mayhem.
Cut to someone in a pink button-down shirt -- years of receiving J. Crew catalogs make me automatically think "hibiscus" -- dropping a pocketful of change and a watch on top of a bureau. His me time is interrupted by Horatio and his law enforcement posse opening the door. We establish that Hibiscus Boy is, in fact, Paul Varnette, and he takes the sudden intrusion of the police rather calmly: "What's going on?" Horatio, in what is probably my favorite line reading of the episode, says as if to a slow child, "Well, Paul, your girlfriend Jane is in the hospital, the guy she was with last night is dead, and you look like you've been up all night -- so why don't you tell me?" Paul stalls for time. Fortunately, he has a commercial break on his side.
After the commercial break, Horatio's clicking from shot to shot on Paul's digital camera, each one showing an awful lot of very good dentition. Paul looks nervous; Horatio does nothing to put him at ease. Neither does Megan's sudden presence in the room. I'm still unsettled by that belt. It doesn't seem to serve any functional purpose, other than to imply that she's spending her days off driving up to Orlando and raiding the Pirates of the Caribbean ride for workplace attire. Paul says unconvincingly, "I. Can't. Believe. Someone. Did. This. To. Jane." Fenwick the detective asks when's the last time Paul saw Jane, and Paul lies about that too: "Maybe eleven. We were at a party, and I passed out. I woke up at the guest house an hour ago." Horatio rattles Paul further by pointing out that his Cuban cigars are illegal. "I got them from a guy at the airport," Paul stammers. "Oh. Well, then that's okay. There's a little-known rider in the Helms-Burton act saying that the penalties for doing business with Cuba doesn't apply to airport cigar peddlers," Horatio replies. Yeah, right. Horatio takes the cigars into evidence. Paul stammers, "I don't understand." In my second favorite line reading of the episode, Horatio sing-songs, "It's not important that you do." Megan further confuses Paul by asking him how he got those cuts across his knuckles; Paul doesn't know. His defense: "I was drunk. The Hamiltons throw a good party." This grabs Horatio's interest, and Megan asks, "The Hamiltons?" Do you mean George and Ashley? No, she means "governors, senators, war-hero Hamiltons?" Ah. He means the Kennedys, only with a few identifying details blurred so Kerry Kennedy Cuomo and the rest of the clan can't sue. We find out that Paul went to business school at Vanderbilt with Tyler Hamilton, who was apparently something of a gracious host: "He always said if we were in Miami, we had an open invitation." Horatio comments dryly, "A girl like Jane, I don't doubt it." I immediately wonder what other Kennedy-esque traits we'll see emerge over the course of an episode: a lot of touch football games? A mahked tendency to drahp yah ahhhrs? The deaths of family members leading the six o'clock news?
We establish that Horatio and the Hamiltons go way back, and then Horatio whips out pictures of the bartender, asking if Paul's ever seen him before. Instead of simply answering, "No," Paul screams that he's complicit in a crime of sordid violence, only he uses the words, "Look, I haven't done anything. I never saw this guy, and I never hurt Jane." Horatio asks if Paul maybe thought about teaching Jane a lesson for stepping out on him, but Paul vigorously denies it. Megan swoops in and says, "Then you wouldn't mind giving us a DNA sample to rule you out." Paul says that won't be a problem, but "Jane and I did have sex recently...yesterday before the party." Megan takes advantage of his moving mouth to jam a swab in there for her sample. He then attempts to plant a story with, "We were playing around, and things got kind of rough." Paul asks warily, "If you find anything..." Horatio assures him he'll be the first to know. The CSIs wrap up their business, and Horatio says to Megan sotto voce, "Oh, this guy is a friend of the Hamiltons. Let's not let him out of our sight, okay?"
Meanwhile, at stately Wayne Manor, Horatio is preparing to talk to the Hamiltons when Calleigh comes up, dressed as if she's about to star in Men in Black III and accompanied by Delko. Horatio compliments her on her suit; she lilts, "I'm pulling out my fall stuff." He then says he hears that she got something from the beach; Calleigh says, "Yes, a nosepiece with blood on it." Funny, but I thought that Delko found that; don't tell me Calleigh's in the habit of passing off other people's work as her own. After blithely taking credit for someone else's find, Calleigh says, "I'm surprised the Hamiltons are still here; usually they're in Vermont this time of year. It's almost peak foliage." Delko -- poor, stupid Delko, who's been standing there inert while she runs off with his hard work -- comments, "You seem to know as much about this family as you do about nine millimeters." Calleigh defends her obsession by drawling, "They're American royalty. What can I say?" That the record for American political dynasties isn't exactly a hearty endorsement for throwing over a democratic republic in favor of a monarchy? That political dynasties as a whole -- including such father/son all-stars as Kim Il-Sung and Kim Jong-Il -- aren't necessarily conducive to good government? That Arthur Schlesinger might have been onto something when he said, "As a democracy, the United States ought presumably to be able to dispense with dynastic families"? Any one of those would do. In any event, Horatio sends Delko off to sniff around the property, telling him to look, but don't touch, and goes inside with Calleigh. They're greeted at the door by someone who looks as though he stepped out of the pages of a Brooks Brothers catalog; the man greets Horatio warmly, and extends the good feelings by telling everyone, "Nice to meet you all. Please come in. Sorry about the circumstances." Oh, he's smooth. The guy -- I realize this is a minor pet peeve in the grand scheme of things, but would it kill the writers to try and work in someone's first name so I don't have to subject everyone to linguistic contortions as I try to write about someone without having been introduced to them? Maybe they could import Brass for an exposition seminar -- anyway, the man, whom I'm just going to refer to as Drake, asks if Horatio's got any leads on the beach assault, and Horatio tells him he believes the victims were at Drake's party. Drake feigns shock, then points out that it was his nephew Tyler's party, demurring, "It was past my bedtime."
Cut to Horatio talking to Tyler, who is clearly the repository for all the recessive genes in the family. They're out on the lawn, with random women just wandering around in the background. I've always wondered about that -- every time any scion of a powerful clan is depicted in popular media, there are always a handful of women just aimlessly meandering about the property. How do you get that kind of gig? More importantly, why would you want it? It's kind of like being one of Hugh Hefner's girlfriends, except without the dress code. In any event, Tyler claims to be shocked that Jane was assaulted, and naturally backs up Paul's alibi. Horatio then asks if he can check out the guest house, and Drake says, "I wouldn't be comfortable with that, Horatio. I haven't had a chance to clear the place of all evidence yet, because I had this wicked hangover and slept in." Or maybe Drake stopped after that first sentence. Horatio points out that giving him access to the guest house will help exonerate Paul sooner rather than later. Drake claims that they're cooperating, but "if you want to conduct a search, legally you need a warrant." Calleigh, who's been flitting around the backyard, notices a small table with a champagne bottle sitting on it. Urgh -- who wants to drink champagne that's been out in the sun? She notes that the bottle is made of glass that's quite similar to that which was found at the crime scene; Drake rounds on her, saying, "Every house on this beach serves that kind of champagne and every liquor store sells it. Look, if I let you take it, then the tabloids will be calling this a raid, and I won't put my family through that." Calleigh's idolatry is diminishing by the minute. She argues, "Mr. Hamilton, a terrible thing has happened just outside your property line." He responds, "But the important thing is, it didn't happen in my back yard, and as Dave Barry points out in the Miami Herald every chance he gets, killing people is a civic pastime here. So cram it, blondie." Or something to that effect. He then invites Horatio to consider the possibility of gang violence, because good neighborhoods get all the cutting-edge turf wars.
After they've been kicked out of Hyannisport South, Detective Fenwick is convinced that they'll be able to get a warrant. Horatio, who's considerably more tense than he was a few moments ago, warns that they have only one shot to get the warrant before a judge shuts them down. Right then, Delko comes loping up. "What do you got?" Horatio asks. "Not evidence to share with my coworkers," Delko replies. Oh, he does not either. Delko has the name of a bartender who bugged out early the night before and still hasn't returned to collect his share of the tips. The man's name is Estevan Ordoñez, and he's a Guatemalan on a temporary visa. Horatio asks, "Black hair, green eyes?" Delko shrugs. Horatio promises, "Tell you later," and speeds off.
Back at the lab, Speedle's trying to reassemble the glass champagne bottle with the pieces they've found. Once he's got about a third of the bottle reassembled, he processes it for prints in what looks like a vacuum chamber. Lo and behold, there's an intact print at the base of the bottle. Then we see Speedle matching the print on AFIS -- and I don't know what it says about me when I watch him do this and think, "Awww. He's so cute when he's concentrating" -- and finding something. He then walks into a lab, where Megan's peering intently at a microscope, and says, "Guess whose prints were on that busted bottle we found at the beach? Paul Varnette." Megan's not too impressed by that, so Speedle -- wearing a Warrickian look of great beleaguerment -- points out, "Champagne bottle's the murder weapon. I tested it." We then flash back five minutes, where we see Speedle doing a density test on the glass to determine that yes, a piece pulled out of Estevan Ordoñez's neck matches that of the bottle. Eureka! Megan says, "So Paul [beat] catches his girl with Estevan." Megan, keep up! And if you can't keep up, take notes! Speedle moves things along: "Offs the guy, assaults the girl." Megan points out that it's going to be hard to prove rape since they had consensual sex earlier that night. Speedle asks, "What's the microscope saying?" It's saying, "Don't confuse me for a dead body; those are the only inanimate objects that get dialogue around here." Megan moves on to sperm: "Ten spermatozoa per field of view. Fifty percent have their tails. Timeline fits the story, but that still doesn't explain the oral cup." Megan takes a big pause, nearly overwhelmed from the strain of having delivered three sentences in a row without stopping for a rest, then continues, "Retainer from the inside of Jane's mouth. Found skin [beat] on the inside [beat] of the screw." She then orders Speedle to take a look. Speedle would rather not: "That could be her tongue." Megan is shaking her head no, so Speedle reluctantly shuffles over, and looks as Megan rattles off, "Thin epidermis, lots of blood vessels, and the sebaceous glands are separate from the hair follicles. We're talking penis [beat] tore off." I'm wincing, and I don't even have one of those. Speedle winces and glances down reflexively to make sure Megan hasn't passed on the curse of the telltale johnson. Megan rolls her eyes and advises, "You might want to get a good hold of yourself." In the workplace? What kind of show is this? Speedle warily asks why, hoping to God Megan is not about to solicit a control sample. She says cheerily, "Still have to chop it up, confirm it's Paul's." Speedle runs off.
And the camera goes to a cigar being chopped up. Paging Dr. Freud...Horatio pulls out some tobacco and runs a trace analysis on it. Have I mentioned yet that science is his discipline? Anyway, some time has presumably elapsed; Paul is sitting in the tank, his pink shirt reflecting off a dozen high-gloss surfaces and giving passersby retinal burns. Megan watches him from behind a two-way mirror. Horatio comes into her hidey-hole and tells her, "I compared the burn residue on the male victim's face to the tobacco in Paul's cigar." That's very good, Horatio, but you can't submit that to the science fair without making a backboard first and restructuring your experiment so that it follows the scientific process. Megan reads the results and notes, "High concentrations of lanthanum and uranium in both sources." So these are radioactive cigars, is what you're saying. Apparently not -- Horatio is saying that the cigars came from the same soil and are therefore probably the same brand. He then goes on to say, "So Paul kills Estevan, puts his cigar out on his face for that personal touch for stealing his girl, staggers back to the guest house and sleeps the whole thing off." Megan replies, "One problem: I just ran the penile tissue from Jane's retainer." Horatio blinks multiple times. Megan continues, "It's not a match." Horatio counters, "But his prints are on the murder weapon." Megan muses, "Maybe he didn't do this alone. Maybe he did the killing --" "While somebody else assaulted the girlfriend," Horatio finishes.
In the scene, Megan has attempted to brutalize Paul into submission by making sure she's standing and he's trapped staring eye-level at her belt. She tells him, "We know [beat] you didn't do this alone." Paul protests that he didn't do anything. Horatio notes that in all of the digital photos, Paul is wearing a watch he purchased at the airport, yet now, he is sporting a $13,000 hunk of metal on his wrist. Given that the airport watch was $49, and this is...not, Horatio says, "I don't think you can afford a watch that expensive. Do you?" Before Paul can answer that, in strides Ryan Cutler, on retainer to the Hamiltons and taking care of Paul because, as Tyler once said, "Anytime you're under suspicion for rape and murder in Miami, let me know. I'll send my fixer." Horatio implores Paul to avoid being bought out: "Paul, if you buy into this, the Hamiltons will hang you out to dry in two seconds." "Like you aren't," he replies. They're the cops, you dolt -- that's what they do. Clearly, logical argument is not something they cover in B-school. The lawyer puts his mouth on autopilot as Horatio and Megan challenge Paul to explain how he happens to be so innocent. There are many deep and meaningful looks exchanged. Paul crumbles under the ocular strain, and chokes out, "[The watch] was kind of a gift." Megan presses for details. Paul begins quoting, "'Just one kiss. Just one kiss.' That's all he kept saying." "Who?" Megan presses. Paul responds, "Tyler Hamilton." We then hear a sonic boom as the Hamilton retainer departs. You're on your own now, Hibiscus Boy. Flash back to Tyler -- slack-jawed, perma-smirking Tyler -- pressing Paul, "Come on! Just one kiss! I'll trade you my watch." I had no idea Paul was Tyler's ty-- oh. Wait. Now I get it. Tyler keeps after Paul, asking him to effectively sell the sexual services of his girlfriend for $13,000, and eventually Paul caves. Well, some relationships you can't put a price tag on, and others cost approximately as much as a Kia. Back in the interrogation room, Paul says, "She was upset." No shit. Assuming I could get past the whole being-traded-for-a-watch thing -- and that's a galactic-sized assumption -- the idea that my beloved hadn't attempted to jack the price at least into the seven-figure range would have been a bone of contention. Anyway, we flash to Tyler bussing Jane, with her smiling gamely, then wiping her mouth. Paul's now telling Horatio, "I told her I was sorry, I grabbed a bottle of champagne, and said 'let's go.'" Because the one person I would want to leave with after my boyfriend traded me for a watch is...the boyfriend? Oh, no, no, no, no. Apparently, Jane felt the same way -- she grabbed the bottle and walked off alone. Paul is evidently upset that his peace gesture did not immediately paper over the fact that he whored her for a watch. Paul is evidently also an idiot. Horatio gets Paul to say that he didn't follow her out to the beach. Paul's all, "But I should have. Look. I screwed up." Yup. Horatio agrees with me: "Had you not traded her, none of this would have happened, but that's the past." Horatio has never really struck me as a live-in-the-moment kind of guy. He presses Paul, "I need to take a look at that watch. If you want me to buy your story, I need to look at that watch." Come on, Paul -- it's not like you have to kiss anyone to get it back.
We then see Megan swabbing the watch, picking up any stray epithelials. She gives the swab Look #2, then puts the results under a microscope. Horatio comes in and Megan tells him, "Paul was telling the truth. Found three sets of male DNA on this watch." Horatio tells her, "Separate out Paul, then cross-reference the unknowns with Jane's retainer. Can you do that?" Megan sighs, and wheels around to begin separating.
Back at stately Wayne Manor, Drake is out for a joyride when the CSI Humvee blocks his path. Horatio hops out and walks over, smiling. He and Drake greet each other by name, exquisitely polite, and Horatio says, "I'm here for a DNA sample." Drake immediately asks, "Do you have a warrant?" Horatio replies, "This is your opportunity to clear your name. I suggest you take it." Drake's all, "We have been through this, Horatio." Horatio replies, "Yes, back when I was a green CSI and driver's side airbags were standard issue." When was this? Why should we care? How does Horatio's stint on the bomb squad fit into all this? Can we have just one case that isn't tied to Horatio's past? Horatio's still talking: "Lucky for you, though not so lucky for the young girl you had in the car." Drake says through clenched teeth, "And I told you, I prayed by the side of the road before you came along to help me." Horatio replies, "You know what I haven't forgotten? That chemical burn on your arm from the airbag, and your watch imprint. I haven't forgotten those things either." Drake clenches his jaw and compliments Horatio on his memory. Horatio changes the subject by whipping out a picture of the watch. Drake tells us he gave the watch to Tyler a few months ago. I can only imagine whether he'd be pleased to learn how Tyler got rid of it. Horatio says, "There are skin cells embedded in the band." Drake says, "Skin cells?" in a tone that implies he couldn't care less. Horatio says, "Did you know your entire genetic code is stored in a single cell?" "Did you know I golf with J. Craig Vetner, and we're busy building an army of clones to overwhelm the American political system and guarantee a Hamilton in every elected office in the land? Muah ha ha ha!" screams Drake with an evil cackle. Oh, right. Drake's very polite as he listens to Horatio say, "In this case, I have the DNA of two males, one of which forced Jane Renshaw to have oral sex, and the other one is a close relative." This sounds like a GRE logic problem: If A, B, and C wear a watch, which two are related and which is the rapist? Horatio elects not to make the little chart for deductive elimination, and just asks, "Which one are you?" Drake doesn't answer.
Cut to Tyler The Slack-Jawed Hamilton, telling Drake and Horatio, "I was with her on the beach. In a sexual way, you know?" Horatio wonders why this hasn't come up previously. Tyler slurs, "Paul's my friend. Besides, once I hit that mousetrap in her jaw, it was pretty much over." He goes on to say that it killed the mood. Oh, is that all it takes? Tyler claims he left Jane and her mousetrap on the beach and went back to the guesthouse for a night of forbidden passion with Paul. Well, he went back to the guesthouse, anyway. No doubt Paul's presence was a coincidence. Horatio asks for Tyler's clothes; he replies, "Sure, if my uncle says it's okay." Drake leans in and pleads, "He's already admitted to a consensual act, Horatio. Let it go." Horatio reminds Drake that there's been a murder; Drake plays the chivalry card, arguing, "Yes, but the girl is the one who will pay. The press will eat her alive. Protect her." Horatio snarls, "Are you suggesting that I protect a woman? That's rich." That's a cheap shot.
As Horatio walks out, Calleigh is leaning against the Humvee. "More Hamilton hardball. I'm officially over them," she declares. I'm sure Delko will be relieved. She continues drawling, "Can you forgive me for ever thinking they were all that?" Horatio tells her he made the same mistake once. He then sets to looking at the estate plans filed with the city; there's a boardwalk dock that's public access, so he and Calleigh will begin their search there. The ClueVision kicks in, and Horatio finds some blood drops miraculously preserved on the boards. Calleigh notes the patterns (exclamation points) with the spines pointed in the direction of travel -- i.e. toward the guest house. Horatio's almost grinning as he reminds Calleigh that the boards are public access and theirs for the taking.
Some time has elapsed, because Megan's heading out of the lab, telling Horatio, "The blood you found [beat] belongs to Estevan Ordoñez. Of course, we can't tell if it's from him, or someone [beat] with his blood on him." Horatio tells her it doesn't matter, because the murdered man's blood led up to the Hamilton guest house, so they now have grounds for a warrant.
Too bad they have nothing to search; the team arrives as Lieannisport just as a wrecking crew is putting the finishing touches on the pile of rubble formerly known as the guest house. Horatio actually comes pretty close to losing his cool, shouting and running toward the wrecking ball. Oh, please, let him selflessly block further destruction with his own body, Tianenmen Square-style. We will sing memorial songs if you do, Horatio. Really. Horatio stops just in front of Tyler, who's got both hands in his pants and is smiling smugly. He might want to put those hands where someone can see them. Drake's looking at the warrant, clearly relieved.
In the scene, the Bob-whites are kitted out in wreckage-recovering jumpsuits. Delko comments that he's not sure what he's looking for. Calleigh, who seems to have received a promotion during the commercial break, comments, "We never are. I'd be happy with Tyler's clothes -- shirt, shoes, anything." She stops, noticing a scrap of fabric, and says, "Unless, of course, he already burned them." Speedle, visibly delighted that others have to share in the misfortune that is his daily lot, says with no small amount of relish, "You know what that means: dig in." Oh, I love Speedle. Meanwhile, Horatio is off on the sidelines so that he can observe everyone working. He comments, "Well, that's one way to bury your past." Ryan Cutler, who apparently shows up whenever Drake powers up the Scandal Signal, points out that Drake's had plans to build a tennis court for months, and there is absolutely nothing at all suspicious about him deciding to finally stop procrastinating and tear down a guesthouse. The timing is mere coincidence. Horatio assures everyone that he'll be checking the filing date of plans down at City Hall. Then, to make himself feel better, he orders DNA samples all around. Megan approaches Tyler and tells him, "Open wide. Relax -- I won't jam it in too hard."
Meanwhile, Horatio decides to join the Bob-whites and poke around the wreckage. While eyeballing one pile, he notices the lid of a cigar box, and then the cigars within. Sure enough, they match the sample taken from Ordoñez's face and from Paul's cigar. Horatio looks up to brood, and a croquet-playing Tyler is directly in his line of sight. That's a sight to try anyone. Horatio's so overcome by it, he has to head back to the lab. The minute he goes, Calleigh finds something in the wreckage and picks it up, saying, "Hamilton men, try as they might, cannot hide their zippers." Speedle calls out to Calleigh, "Very carefully, please!" as she puts it in the evidence container Delko eagerly proffers.
Once they're back in the lab, Speedle's telling Horatio, "Zippers from a guy's warm-up jacket, size medium, manufactured by FUBU." There's no way Tyler's a medium. There are Polaroids of Tyler in the jacket -- and isolated fragments of glass in the zipper teeth. Since glass melts at 2700 degrees F and a wood fire only gets up to 1000 degrees, the glass didn't melt when the jacket was burned. Speedle then helpfully points out that the glass density matches the murder weapon; we get no flashback this time. Horatio muses, "Tyler clobbers the guy, and glass rains down on his jacket." We see the whole thing in flashback. Speedle then says, "It's weird how one kiss can turn into such a mess." Before the two of them can go on about that, Megan comes in and confirms that the cigar Horatio found is smoking, as it were: not only does it match the burn on Ordoñez's face, it's also got Tyler's saliva and some beach sand embedded in it. Horatio suggests, "Let's go talk to the young Mr. Hamilton." As the two senior CSIs head out, Speedle mutters, "Nice going." Horatio gives him a clap on the shoulder and heads out. As he walks past a glass-walled lab, we see Calleigh hovering by a lab tech, waiting for something.
Then Horatio's talking to Tyler; going by the look on Tyler's face, this is not unlike talking to your dog. Tyler honestly looks like he registers everything as, "Blah blah Tyler, blah blah blah Tyler blah." For the humans in the crowd, Horatio lays out the events: Tyler swapped his watch for a smooch; Jane failed to be overwhelmed by his sexual magnetism, and opted to leave the party with the hired help. Megan then fills in, adding, "But that kiss is going to cost you more than a watch," and echoes Horatio, noting that Tyler was rather indignant over the two people leaving together. Horatio cuts in and works the class-consciousness angle: "You just wanted to razz that guy for stealing your girl, but once you went out there and saw that lowly bartender kissing the girl who blew you off, the old Hamilton arrogance turned into rage." We then flashback through the sequence of events -- including about as much of an oral-sex rape as can be shown on network television -- and after Horatio's done, Tyler's all, "If you say so." After Megan and Horatio conclude that Tyler cut Ordoñez's throat, he smirks, "You're way off." "Then why don't you educate us?' Horatio asks. Before they can become dumber through sheer exposure to Tyler, Calleigh knocks, her session with the lab tech evidently having borne some fruit.
Horatio says, "I know this is going to be good -- what's going on?" Calleigh simply says, "Tyler Hamilton doesn't wear glasses." We all pause for a moment to remember that Drake does. Well, I pause; Horatio and Megan look confused, and Horatio says, "Excuse me?" Calleigh explains that she had Surfer over in DNA check the nosepiece three times, and it had Ordoñez's blood on it, direct spatter, medium force. Megan notes, "The only way you get spatter on a nosepiece is to be there when the murder's happening." Calleigh says, "I know, but Tyler Hamilton doesn't wear glasses, so it can't be Tyler's nosepiece." This is about the point where Horatio remembers that Drake wears glasses.
Cut to Drake entering the lab and being told by Horatio, "I'm going to need your glasses." Drake asks, "For what?' Horatio declines to answer, saying only, "Either you take them off, or I'm going to take them off you." The two men stare, then Drake hands over his glasses. What, he only has the one pair? We have an ever-so-brief science montage showing that Drake's glasses have blood on them, and then the inevitable confrontation scene between Drake and Horatio. Long story short: Drake was puttering around when he heard a scream on the beach, he went down to see Jane in the water and Tyler engaged in a furious struggle with Ordoñez. The shock of seeing his uncle made Tyler freeze, thus letting Ordoñez escape, and he took off down the beach, screaming, "Somebody help me! There's been a murder!" Drake panicked, and in order to shut Ordoñez up -- and therefore prevent any murder scandal attaching itself to the Hamilton name -- murdered him. Yes, it makes no sense.
After Drake confesses to everything, Ryan Cutler points out that Drake did so against his advice. Drake tells Cutler to let it go, but Cutler has a hard time getting around that whole life-without-parole thing. "What a waste," Horatio says. Drake, strangely, seems resigned to the whole thing, commenting, "You said our entire genetic makeup is in one cell. How do we escape that?" That's deep, there. Although you could try escaping it by making like the Roosevelts, who had a charming sink-or-swim attitude toward their offspring and let them fail frequently and publicly. Or you could take Horatio's advice: "Your family? You stop procreating." Wow -- someone on the writing staff has a deep and abiding grudge against the Kennedys. After Drake's led out in handcuffs, we see Calleigh watching him go, presumably sadder but wiser for having learned that American royalty is as beset with depravity as their Continental counterparts.
In the episode's penultimate scene, Megan is hanging with Jane at her hotel, right as Jane is about to depart. She offers to walk Jane down to her taxi, and as Jane's doing the once-over in the room, in walks Paul. This is evidently the first time they've run into each other since the attack. "Jane," he begins, but Megan cuts in, "Bad idea, Paul." Actually, given his decisions over the course of the episode, that's how he can start over -- by creating the Bad Idea Paul series, complete with action figure. Paul asks Jane, "Can I talk to you, please?" Jane replies by silently picking up her things and walking out. Paul watches her go, then turns back around to see Megan staring at him. He says, "I had no idea Tyler was going to hurt her. She has to know that." She doesn't "have to" know anything, you nitwit. Paul tells Megan, "I love her." Megan says what we've all been thinking since about the twenty-five minute mark: "If you loved her, you wouldn't have traded her [beat] for a watch." A watch that's now in evidence, so Paul's out both a timepiece and a girlfriend. Way to go, pal. Megan stalks out, leaving Paul to puzzle through how people could possibly find being bandied about for Rolexes so offensive.
And in the final scene, after reading the headline, "Hamiltons Arrested for Rape, Murder," (and Tyler manages to look like even more of a simp in this photo, thereby breaking all known barriers to odiousness), Horatio and Megan are having brunch poolside in what appears to be a social context. She comments, "The Hamiltons are all over the TV tube." And, in this alternate world, probably all over People magazine, along with headlines booming about a family curse. Horatio reveals that this brings him back fifteen years: "July 25, 1987. I found Drake Hamilton's car by the side of the road after a terrible accident. Girl in the front seat dead. No Drake. Went up to the Hamilton residence, where I was received like a diplomat -- glad-hand(l)ing, promises, blah-blah-blah, 'Drake will be right down.' Well, he did come down, four hours later, with three attorneys in tow, and a story about how he lent the girl the car. So with no clothes at the scene, a solid alibi and a mysterious chemical burn on his forearm, we had nothing. No charges were ever filed. He walked. No investigation. M.E. later told me, the girl bled out, and that all he had to do was call 911 from the road and she would have lived." Megan points out, "Horatio, you got him now." "Got him now," Horatio repeats, adding, "I would have nailed him fifteen years ago, though." Megan tries to figure out what to say to that, and settles for, "Let's hope for the one." What, because the Hamiltons will kill again? Apparently so -- Horatio nods and agrees, "Let's do that." The episode closes with the two of them settling down for brunch, apparently satisfied that justice has been served.