There is a boat on the water, a small white boat of the kind used for fishing. It has the look of a fishing boat of the kind that takes charters out to the sea, where men will drink beer and catch fish. The beer is cold, the fish less so. A man is at the prow of the boat, as men will be, and he is listening to a radio. It tells us of a squall that happened the night before. As the man listens, three other men sit in chairs under the hot sun and drink cold beer. The men are drinking, but they are not relaxed. One checks his watch, the kind of shiny and expensive watch that men who sit in offices, not in chairs in the sun drinking cold beer, wear. He comments, "I'm not working on my tan here." The other men nod. A man in an orange shirt and a blue baseball cap and black sunglasses tosses the chum in the water. It lands in the clear blue water, trailing black blood. Behind, a fishing line flies taut and metal, and it is also covered in chum. It is a good line. On the small white boat, the good fishing line goes tense and the reel begins spinning, and the man leaps to his feet. He is no longer drinking beer, and he is not working on his tan. We see the line pulling down in the water, which is not blue anymore but dark, and we know that it is dark as death and on the end of the good line with the black blood chum there is a shark.
And then my headache intensifies as I realize I just don't have what it takes to recap this entire episode Ernest Hemingway-style. So much for my dream of winning the International Imitation Hemingway contest. I can still hope for the Bulwer-Lytton. A woman's got to have dreams.
Enough about me: the shot is of a shark hanging by its tail in a hangar while the men stand around a joke about how macho they are. Frankly, I'd be more impressed with shark fishermen if they met their sharks in the water -- it strikes me as inherently more fair, as the sharks get to use their natural defenses -- but I suppose it would be harder to feel macho when something's chomping on your femur. Anyway, one of the deckhands passes the fisherman a knife and tells him to gut his catch, which the man does after a moment's squeamishness, saying, "That's gonna look nice on my wall." The deckhand gives instructions ("Just give it a good jab and enjoy the ride up"), the fake fisherman follows them, and out flops a severed human arm. Well, that's not going to look nearly so nice on his wall. The fisherman rears back, disappointed that the human is already dead, thus robbing him of a chance to kill another living thing, and his friends discreetly hoarf into the wharf.
And then they vomit again as Horatio and Megan show up; they must have seen the first two episodes too. Kidding! Megan's there, taking pictures of the arm as Horatio does what he does best, i.e. stand around and watch his underlings work. Horatio looks at the arm and asks, "Is this all there is?" Why don't you stick your arm in the shark's gut and find out, Horatio? Oh, wait -- that would require you to do actual work. He hunkers down to chat with Megan: "So let me ask you a question: did you know that some species of tiger sharks are on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources red list as vulnerable, meaning that any effect on its population would push it into endangered species territory, and fishing can't be helping matters much? Have you thought about how maybe Florida should take a hint on the fishing-to-the-brink-of-extinction thing and avoid another near miss like it had with the alligator or the manatee by actually thinking ahead instead of scrambling to make a last-minute save?" Oh, no, he does not either. That would mean that Horatio thinks about anything other than himself. Or the bereaved and vulnerable. What Horatio actually asks is, "You find human body parts in a shark -- is that murder?" "It is when we're looking for lead," Megan replies, and conveniently finds some. The two of them have a moment of Zen, and then The Who kick in.
Commercial time -- and I still cannot escape NYPD Blue alumni as Amy Brenneman and her hair flounce across the screen. St. Jude, please make the hurting stop!
But the patron saint of lost causes evidently has better things to do, because we're now back at the episode. After giving us a close-up of the shark's bloody maw, we see Alexx standing and peering at it nose-to-nose. She straightens up, sashays past Horatio, and cracks, "I think we're going to need a bigger body bag." Heh -- nice Jaws shout-out. Horatio says, "If anyone can find one, it's you, Alexx." Maybe she can also find another outfit -- although her embroidered waistcoat is lovely, it's also white, and that doesn't strike me as eminently practical when one's job requires one to wallow in gore all day. Anyway, Alexx pivots over to the other side of the shark, slaps a flank (which would hurt, or at least shred her latex gloves, since sharks have notoriously abrasive skin), and says with no small amount of satisfaction, "Okay, fellows, you can bag him. My shark now." Horatio announces to nobody in particular, "I'm off to ruin the captain's day," and I snarl at the screen, "You're not content with ruining mine?"
Speaking of ruinous things on screen, in what will become a trend during this episode, Megan's subverting Horatio's authority and ruining the captain's day herself: "Everything is nautical [beat], I get it. What I want to know is [beat] did you mark the catch?" The captain's all, "Ten foot tiger shark? You bet your ass." Horatio then pops in to ruin the guy's day by telling him that the shark is now the property of the Miami/Dade crime lab. But wait -- there's more! Horatio notices the GPS system Cap'n Ron has on his boat, and Cap'n Ron answers, "I got precise positioning, if that's what you're asking." Megan asks, "'Precise positioning' -- how'd you get that? From the government?" Cap'n Ron tells Megan he has friends in low places. Horatio's thrilled about this. Cap'n Ron continues, pointing out the 170 miles total distance between Miami, the Grand Bahamas and Cuba. "We hooked in [fourteen miles offshore]." We learn that said hooking in occurred at 8:30 in the morning, and Megan tells us that she used to shark fish all the time (boo! hiss!) and she never went out during the day. Well, if you want to decimate a species, it sometimes helps to make a venti latte stop first, Megan. Cap'n Ron explains that the late start was due to a squall line pushing through, so he could neither chum (throw out the bloody bait) nor lay lines (depending on the scale, either laying out long lines with baited hooks, or simply laying the line as it unspools from the rod). Horatio decides to reward Cap'n Ron by taking his nautical maps. Cap'n Ron protests that the team has already taken the shark, and now the map, so what's . Horatio answers, "There's a school of adorable dolphins nuzzling their young with sentient compassion off the Keys. Go, man, go! Get 'em before the sun rises too high!" Right. What Horatio really says is, "You get a pass on your illegal GPS unit."
We switch to Alexx -- who has changed into something more autopsy-appropriate -- as she examines the arm, which is attached to a modest chunk of torso. It weighs 28 pounds, seven ounces. This information would come in handy if we had any context for it at all, as in how Alexx might use it to extrapolate the overall body weight of the victim, or how a forensic artist might try to get a general idea of how the victim was built. Here, however, things like explaining the data might get in the way of Horatio's screen time, so we'll never find out why we need to know the weight of the arm.
Oh, look, I went on a road trip to Rantville and forgot you were strapped in beside me. Want to stop at 7-Eleven for a Slurpee and some Funyuns before we head back? No? Okay then -- back to the scene. Alexx is puttering about the morgue as Horatio pulls his usual voice-of-God stunt. Alexx tells Horatio the body part in question has gynecomastia -- an enlarged breast which is usually caused by an imbalance in androgen and estrogen hormone levels in a man, something that can be caused by diseases (Kleinfelter's Syndrome, Reifenstein's syndrome, types of cancer that affect hormone-producing glands), by drugs (cannabis has been linked to gynecomastia, for example) that are believed to affect the liver, or by age. Alexx points out that the gynecomastia introduces some gender ambiguity; adding to the confusion, there's no armpit hair, but pronounced hair on the knuckles. The lack of armpit hair -- typically linked to androgen production at puberty -- might be a big honking clue that they're dealing with someone who's suffered a hormonal imbalance. Or it could be something based in logical deduction and fact, and therefore has no place on this show. What was I thinking? Anyway, Horatio asks Alexx what she's saying about the mystery arm, and Alexx says, "What I'm saying is I'm not an anthropologist. Could be a big woman. Could be a small man." She then tells the arm she's going to get its blood type. That Alexx, making small talk with the smallest of body parts.
After Alexx takes a swab, she goes back to examining the hunk of flesh: "Stippling and some GSR inside the wound. The shot was fired at close range." As Horatio watches all this from outside the morgue, Delko walks up, grinning like a maroon. "¿Que fue?" Horatio asks, and Delko replies, "I just got a look at that tiger shark in the cooler. Liberal eaters, like Speedle. They'll eat anything as long as it's alive." And Speedle does too? Horatio then summons Alexx with the voice-of-God mike to make sure she heard. She did. Alexx continues giving her observations: "Dermal ecchymosis around the teeth marks. Capillaries inside the deltoid muscle are hemorrhagic. Blood was circulating at the time of the injury." Delko observes, "That was like ringing a dinner bell. Two thirds of the tiger shark's brain is dedicated to processing scent." We then go to the shark-cam, where we see someone treading water while a shark swims up behind them. The camera wusses out at the last minute and cuts away, which I find surprising after a premiere devoted to repeatedly showing us a woman falling to her death. But that sort of shot might cut into Horatio's screen time, so we're back to him asking Alexx how long she thinks the victim was in the shark's stomach. Alexx replies that she'll have to test the levels of regurgitative enzymes. Delko reminds us that sharks regurgitate anything they can't digest. "Hmmm. Like human bones," Horatio says, sounding very happy in a then there's more for me! kind of way. Just then, Alexx pulls out a bullet, thus providing Calleigh's excuse for being in the episode later. Meanwhile, Horatio wants a close-up of a tattoo on the arm, as opposed to actually going down there and checking for himself. Why can't he go down there? Why? I don't care how cool the toys are; it's just plain stupid to have him examining a body two rooms away when he could just as easily stand to it.
We see the tattoo -- it's the Cuban flag, upside down, with a fish symbol in the middle. Delko notes, "Interesting tat -- the flag's upside down." Horatio replies, "Yes, that is the international symbol for distress, isn't it?" Is there an international symbol for Shut Up? Because I could use that right about now. Anyway, Horatio continues to lecture, "And the fish...the ancient symbol for Christian resistance." Well, it was actually a password ritual -- if two strangers met and were unsure about one another, one would draw an arc in the earth as they talked; the other one, if he was a Christian, would draw a second arc and complete the symbol. But Horatio's right -- and really, when is he not? Is there nothing he doesn't know? -- about the symbolism. Delko provides a little more tattoo context when he points out that Catholic leaders in Cuba also adopted the fish symbol for the anti-Castro rebellion, which would mean that the victim was a political prisoner. Horatio says, "And it also means that we could have a political mess."
Naturally, the person to turn to in times of political delicacy is Megan, so in the scene, we see her walking with Horatio and telling him, "If he was living on U.S. soil [beat], he would have been processed [beat] at Krome [beat] Detention." And Horatio, as a policeman in a city with a thriving Cuban population, would not have known this at all. The whole point to this exchange is to point out that there would have been prints on file for this man. Oh, and that we're apparently assuming it's a man we're dealing with. Also, to establish that our political prisoner was probably not swimming from Havana to Miami, but rather availing himself of the freelance shipping industry that runs between the U.S. and Cuba. As Speedle explains to Megan and Horatio, "He was from Cuba, and he was making a freedom run...based on where the shark was caught, and simple geography, it's a straight shot from Mantanzas or Villa Clara to Miami. You know what that means? Elian." Megan elaborates, "Our, uh, victim wasn't on the boat alone." Horatio commands Speedle to call the Coast Guard, "make a friend," and take Delko with him. "Aye-aye," Speedle replies, and saunters off.
Cut to a close-up of an eye encased in a heck of a lot of eye makeup. This must be the Calleigh scene. I wonder if they'll explain the war paint someday -- perhaps Calleigh's always getting accosted by department store makeover artists and she's just a girl who can't say no. Anyway, it's Calleigh looking at a bullet. Horatio comes in and asks, "You got something for me?" Calleigh replies, "I got a question. How did I end up getting less screen time than a prosthetic arm?" Oh, she does not. Horatio engages in a little ballistics humor by saying, "Shoot." Calleigh asks, "How old are you?" "Forty-five," Horatio answers. I take a moment to check IMDB to see if I can confirm this. Oh my God, did someone who hates him put that picture up there? ["Seriously. He looks like that puppet from Tales from the Crypt." -- Sars] Also, Caruso's 46. We find out that the round Alexx dug out of the body was a .45. Horatio and Calleigh agree that the round came from a Colt. Then he zips off.
Holy cow, it's a scene with neither Horatio nor Megan. I...I...I don't know what to do. It's so unfamiliar. Anyway, Speedle and Delko get out of the CSI Humvee and walk over to where a dilapidated boat is listing against a dock. They shake hands with Speedle's new Coast Guard friend, Martin, and Martin tells them that they had "four choppers doing coastline patrol -- got a chopper on an insurance job called it in." The words, they are in English, and yet, I can make neither heads not tails of them. Martin asks, "What kind of boat are you guys looking for?" Speedle replies, "The kind that has blood in it." Well, he's to the point. But that blood could muss Delko's pretty linen shirt.
And now, we're climbing aboard the Luna Nueva. Delko's stopping to measure some tire tracks in the sand near the boat -- which leads me to believe that Martin had met the Bob-whites at the site where the boat had beached, as opposed to the Coast Guard actually pulling it into some kind of holding area, which is what I had thought earlier when Martin asked, "What kind of boat are you guys looking for?" and the camera zoomed back to show many small seafaring craft. You know, I'm probably thinking too much about this, or expecting any of the random "clues" tossed our way to make contextual sense. God, this show frustrates me.
Anyway, Speedle announces that he's got tracks, and one of the tires is bald. Delko gives him a thumbs-up and goes back to wandering around the Luna Nueva. The boat's missing its hull identification number. Speedle's supremely uninterested, as he's taking super-duper close-ups of the tire tracks.
We get a panning shot so we can remember that Miami happens to be located near a lot of water, and then Speedle climbs on the boat as Delko says, "Freedom run gone wrong." The two men poke around, and Speedle finds a rosary; holding it aloft, he notes, "This didn't work too good." That's why you have to get the glow-in-the-dark ones; they're both a contemplative tool and a way to see in the dark. Delko's found an empty asthma inhaler, prompting Speedle to muse, "Artifacts and abandonment." We flash to a chaotic reconstruction of what must have happened -- in the squall that's only been referenced once since the beginning of the episode (and that was on the radio), the boat is capsizing. Back in the present, Delko asks if Speedle feels suspicious. I have a feeling suspicion is a brainstem function for Speedle. The two men continue to poke around the boat as vaguely Latin music plays. Inside the main cabin, Delko finds a waterlogged note and calls, "Hey, Speedle! What do you think you can do with this?" Speedle, who looks both hot and bothered, asks, "What -- here or back at the lab?" No answer from Delko, which is kind of a meta-comment on this show's approach at large, I think.
The two of them continue to poke around the boat; it's apparently wicked hot, as Delko's shirt is now sticking to his body and Speedle's doing a lot of wiping of the brow. Speedle digs a spent bullet out of the boat's side (not its hull; we're still on the inside, and this looks as though it's a wall to a compartment) and comments, "That's for Calleigh." Delko hmmphs, but you just know he's going to be cornering Calleigh later and singing, "I know someone who liiiiiiiikes yooooooou." Delko picks up a mattress or padded PFD -- it's not clear which, and the camera angle certainly isn't helping -- and notes a lot of blood. "This could be our crime scene." "That could be fish blood," cautions Speedle. Delko swabs it and drops it in an envelope, saying, "And this is for Megan." Megan doesn't get the same reception Calleigh did.
Back at the lab, Calleigh's checking the bullet Speedle brought her, comparing it to the bullet Alexx dug out of the torso. As they match up, Calleigh says for our benefit, "Bullet from the torso on the left, bullet from the boat on the right." "Two hearts beat as one," Horatio says behind her, which is really kind of creepy. Calleigh just rattles off the characteristics of the bullet: "Both .45 caliber, classic copper-jacketed, six lands and grooves, with a left-hand twist." Then Megan walks in, looking rattled, and announces breathlessly, "I've got a [beat] twist for you. The blood from the boat -- human. Matches our torso, was definitely XY -- [beat] male." Horatio points out that Juan Doe was on the boat, so what's the twist? Megan tells us, "Flesh tissue [beat] on the bullet Speedle recovered [beat] from the boat? XX." XX? Like the prequel to XXX? No, like the flashback in which a bullet whips through a rosary-holding hand and then disperses into a crowd of weeping, wet refugees. Megan purses her lips and looks...well, she looks like she just sucked on a lemon. I'm not sure if this is her annoyed face, her confused face, her schadenfreude face, or what. Horatio takes the news by saying, "We [beat][beat][beat] have another victim out there, ladies."
In the time it took us to live through the commercials, the boat has been moved from its nautical home to a clean, climate-controlled hangar. God forbid Horatio or Megan have to endure discomfort -- leave that to the Bob-white Club. As Horatio boards the Good Ship Plot Device, we find out that Speedle is hard at work trying to reconstruct the ship's serial number, and Delko is trapped in the past, noting that the boat looks as though it went through Hurricane Andrew (August 16-28, 1992; it struck Dade County at midnight on August 24, 1992, leaving forty dead as a direct or indirect result of the storm and nearly 250,000 people temporarily homeless). Horatio notes that the boat has enough horsepower in it to have outrun Andrew -- which, according to the National Hurricane Center, had surface wind speeds at landfall of 145 miles per hour. That's one fast boat. Funny how it went adrift in a squall that hasn't merited a mention since the thirty-second mark in the show. Horatio's explanation is, "Maybe we're running at night. Never saw the squall coming." We then flash to the weather getting rough, as the tiny ship is tossed. But insofar as the courage of the crew...Horatio then asks Speedle, "What does it say on the stern?" Speedle shoots back, "It doesn't say anything, you've got to read it." Oh, he does not either. But I bet he thinks it. We have an amusing moment where it is revealed that Speedle is unfamiliar with Spanish sentence structure. Well, I'm sure it amused someone. Not me. Horatio reveals yet another facet of his gargantuan intellect: "Moon cycle, gentlemen. It goes from first quarter to full to three-quarters to new." Is that all, Horatio? Would you like to delve into the mythology associated with the moon? How about an explanation of tidal cycles as tied into the moon? No, really. You clearly know. Speedle assumes that new moon equals no moon, and then we go to the CamCam (this show may not have a TMICam, but it does have a shot wherein we see the Leica's-eye view of the proceedings) and exit the scene lest we spend more than thirty seconds not focused on Horatio. Hold your breath, folks, as Horatio's about to make the discovery that cracks the case open, and it only involves Delko dancing about until they determine that the ship had a concealed compartment. As Delko cuts through the false wall (with Horatio supervising, natch), Horatio quips, "There's only one reason to build a hold like that, my friend, and that is to stash your stash. You can run with at least 500 keys in there." Delko looks around the room -- notice how, once again, Horatio is playing voice of God as his subordinates grovel before him -- and posits that this room has a lot in common with Capone's vault. Horatio tells the man in the dark, small room to stop using his eyes and look harder. You know, if he knows what's down there, what the hell is Delko is doing there? Is this some sort of learning exercise, Mr. Chips On His Shoulders? Delko looks harder -- it seems to involve a flashlight and a lot of mouth-breathing -- until he sees a beam encrusted in cocaine residue. "This is pure snow! Do you have any idea what the street value of this secret compartment is?" Delko screams. I wish. Delko scrapes off some of the blow; Horatio drops it in his Jiffy-Kwik Kokaine Kit and determines that yes, we do have some coca-leaf by-product.
Cut to a big, long blur getting...less blurry. The camera swings out and we see Speedle, with Calleigh sitting beside him. She asks why anyone would go to the bother of filling the numbers in as opposed to sanding them down. Or simply slapping some thermite down and let the potassium permanganate work its metal-melting magic. Speedle replies shortly, "I don't know. Maybe it's a guy thing." Calleigh pursues this line of inquiry: "What -- they'll add on or cover up, but they won't mess with the chassis?" Is she referring to chassis in the singular (pronounced 'cha-sE) or in the plural ('cha-sEz)? The possibility of mispronunciation is so high on this show, and the ambiguity is bugging me. Then again, many things about this show are bugging me. Apparently Speedle's in a similar mindset, because he looks up and gives Calleigh a slow look before spitting, "You know what -- you're scaring me." He then provides this weeks' Forensic Instant by demonstrating a mastery of Photoshop that lets us reconstruct the boat's serial number (). Calleigh instantly begins rattling off data, because it's not at all implausible that someone who lives and breathes guns would also know the constituent parts of a boat's serial number, especially after we've been given the impression that she's hanging around Speedle because he knows how to do something she wants to learn. Speedle inquires with asperity, "Do you want to do this?" Calleigh says, "No. It's a guy thing. It's just that Megan wanted it ten minutes ago." Well, Megan can learn how it feels to want. Calleigh flits off to tattle on Speedle.
Meanwhile, Megan's busy watching herself in the security camera footage, probably because she's horrified that she went out in public dressed as she did. Oh, Megan, wait until you see yourself later. Speedle comes in and asks if Megan had beeped him -- what, she sics Calleigh on him, and now she's going to beep him? If she wants the results that damn badly, she should hop off her high horse and walk down to the lab herself. Megan asks if it was a 4-1-1- beep; Speedle confirms it. Megan explains, "It means I've got info. Your hull ID number? Got us a registration and a name. Captain Robert Morton. Talked to the marina manager." Speedle asks if the manager gave Megan anything. "A migraine," she replies. Welcome to our world, Megan. She continues, "As long as the captain's check clears every month, he's the second cousin to Peter Rabbit?" So does that make him Flopsy, Mopsy, or Cottontail? Then Megan directs Speedle to "find a seat, get comfortable, and watch every frame from the last two days. See if the captain shows his face." Speedle is not too cool with this; he follows Megan out and asks, "Did you, uh, did you clear this with H? 'Cause I'm supposed to be working on the note." Megan sidesteps the question by saying, "Don't worry about Horatio." Speedle persists, "It's unclear if I'm working for him or I'm working for you." Megan once again sidesteps the issue and gives a hasan chop as she says, "You work [beat] for the victim." "Well, is the victim the one doing my annual evaluation, then? 'Cause I'd really love to know exactly who I'm reporting to, and you can skip the avoid-the-question routine and just admit that you're out to undermine Horatio's job, Megan," Speedle replies. In my dreams. Megan walks off, looking for all the world like she's just rolled out of bed, and answers her cell phone. She listens as the camera pulls closer to her, and after asking Horatio's whereabouts -- presumably so she can make sure he's nowhere around, thus leaving her clear to pretend she's still the boss -- promises the person on the other end that she'll be right there.
"Right there," as it turns out, is an area under a dock. Megan's plans for middle-management domination are foiled by Horatio's presence, but she gets a dead girl floating in an inner tube as a consolation prize. Alexx is already there, perched on the side of a life raft and snapping photographs. Horatio hunkers down and nails the girl's point of origin by noting, "Cyrillic lettering. The Russians have been forever dumping their second-rate surplus on their island friends." Does that surplus include all those gymnasts and ice skaters who fail to medal in the Olympics? Because I'd love to see that. Alexx tells everyone, "This girl's been shot in the leg. Very close to the femoral artery. Bled out." And yes, she did mispronounce femoral, but that's a small quibble relative to the others I will have about this episode. So long as I'm nitpicking, however, why is Alexx back in white? Doesn't she ever get unwanted blood stains on the job? We establish that there is no exit wound in the female bleeder, and that there is a tourniquet tied above the wound, which indicates that someone tried to save her. As Alexx cradles the body (in her white tank top, which is miraculously unspotted), she notes, "Injury like this, she would have been dead in under thirty minutes. There's no evidence of sunburn or exposure." There's also no evidence of shark-like snack attacks. I realize that not all sharks are scavengers, but nor are they late sleepers, and I find it hard to believe someone bleeding to death in the middle of the ocean wouldn't have attracted some attention, especially after that shark-cam close-up we got about fifteen minutes ago. I don't expect the episode to be an assiduously accurate representation of forensic science, but would it be too much to ask for consistency within the narrative premise for each episode? Would it? Does that go on the wish list along with Megan's transfer to Minneapolis for a third CSI spin-off? Anyway -- the finest minds in Miami/Dade deduce that the floating woman was on the drug boat that gave us corpselet #1. Then Horatio notices something around the girl's neck. Megan reads, "La Caridad del Cobre," which translates to "the Virgin of Charity." As Horatio notes, she is the patron saint of Cuba (declared so in 1916 by Pope Benedict). Megan tells us, "Families in Miami send them to their relatives [beat] as a good-luck piece for the journey." Horatio shows us what he thinks of religious icons by pointing out, "And that ninety miles of open ocean will take that luck away from you in two seconds." Megan's inspecting the medallion, and she notes that it's made by hand: "Old-school, with a palm-push graver." For those of us who don't spend our free time engraving, a palm-push graver consists of a point set into a wooden handle that fits neatly in your palm; the purpose of the tool is to give you control as you etch metal. We see this before Megan notes, "Tonal variations [beat], there's only one or two guys in Little Havana who do this bulino work." And again, for those of us who are not busy carving medallions in our spare time, bulino engraving is the practice of etching high-definition images via (you guessed it) a tool such as a palm-push graver. Horatio points out that the odds of a bulino engraver helping them out can be described in two ways -- slender or nonexistent.
In the scene, Alexx has repaired to the morgue for a lively chat with her latest workplace diversion while Horatio stands at the end of a dock and broods out into the water. Megan comes up behind him, and Horatio explains the title of this episode by saying, "Wet foot, dry foot. All a Cuban immigrant has to do is touch U.S. soil and they're here. Unless, of course, the Coast Guard picks you up out there, on the water, and sends you back to Fidel." Megan hops on the broodwagon and says, "If she'd made it to dry land, she'd have gone through 72 hours of processing and [beat] walked with a green card." Horatio muses on Fortuna, that importunate bitch, with, "She almost made it." Megan replies, "She didn't count [beat] on getting shot." Evidently, Horatio's finished his midday brooding, as he now turns to Megan and asks, "You ready to play politics?" Horatio, I recommend you check in at the office, and you'll find out just how ready Megan is with the politics.
And now, just so we get that Miami has a Little Havana, we hear salsa music and see a number of elderly men in guayaberas (which confuses me a little, as I thought those were Filipino in origin), playing dominoes and amiably chatting in Español as they smoke cigars. Horatio and Megan walk along a palm-tree-lined sidewalk that abuts a canal, and we hear, "Pero quiero saber ['But, I want to know...']" from a man who looks jovial and authoritative. I have a feeling we'll be seeing him a lot; he seems to be the stock Little Havana information broker. Call him Havana Huggybear, if you want. After the exchanging of pleasantries and the dispersing of the non-important, Horatio sits down and says, "Basilio, bodies are washing up on shore." Basilio makes a dominoes move before replying, "They wash up all the time. The government doesn't care about a balsero." Horatio corrects him: "Balsera." We see Megan watching this whole exchange with a...look, really. It's her Look #3, which is apparently versatile enough to signify any of the following: I'm skeptical/I'm observing/I'm wary/I'm in over my head. Horatio then whips out the Caridad del Cobre medallion, and Basilio hisses in the presence of something holy. Oh, he does not -- did you think this was the Buffy recap for a moment? Basilio plays it cool, saying only, "Nice work." Megan leans in: "She was wearing it." Basilio replies, "Really? And here I thought Horatio was planning on selling it on eBay and came to me for a friendly appraisal beforehand. That police stuff was just small-talk, right?" Actually, Basilio politely blows her off, and Horatio gets back to the business of appealing to Basilio's civic pride and getting his help that way. Basilio finally asks, "What's so special about this girl?" and Horatio replies, "She was shot to death." Basilio looks rattled. Actually, so do I: at what geographic point does the Miami/Dade jurisdiction end and the USCG begin? Wouldn't someone found in the water actually be investigated by the law enforcement agency responsible for patrolling that water? I realize that our lady of the inner tube washed into a Miami pier, but given that she was murdered at sea, wouldn't some other law enforcement agency be interested? If only Cindy Crawford could come by and explain maritime law!
Cut to the scene, where Megan is attempting to run down Horatio's police work by saying, "That medallion is only going to get us so far." Horatio replies that it needs to get them inside the house. Basilio gestures to the two of them, and they head in to talk to a couple. There's a little small talk -- Horatio explains that they're crime scene investigators, as opposed to typical flatfoots, then uses it as a segue to pull out the medallion. Basilio looks on with a great deal of trepidation. There's a long, awkward pause as the man stands and studies it, and then his face spasms briefly in grief before he composes himself and turns to his silent, seated wife and extends his hand to show her the medallion. As she looks at it, he puts his hand on her shoulder, which tells us all we need to know about whether or not that medallion means anything. The man speaks: "The price of freedom for Cuban children is high. But worth it." Horatio gives us the context for the quote, since he does know everything: "Ramon Grau. Spent two decades in Castro's prisons for arranging the passage for thousands of Cuban kids to the States -- I know who he is." Basilio nods. The man speaks again, "14,048 children to be exact." Horatio says, "You're one of Ramon's kids." The man nods. Then we hear a young man's voice off-screen calling, "Tia," and everyone turns to catch sight of the young man. He stands like a deer in the headlights, then flees to a bedroom and closes the door as we find out he's the man's nephew, Pedro. Horatio rises and asks if he can speak to the boy, and Basilio points out, "You asked for five minutes, it's been five minutes. Finito. No mas. Hemos terminado." Horatio protests, "But I still need somebody to come down to the morgue to identify the body." Basilio assures him that he'll make all the arrangements personally.
Just as Horatio's measuring this response, Megan goes over to the grieving woman and plays her dead-husband card. After establishing themselves as sorority sisters in grief, one woman tells the other that the dead girl's name was Elena, and as she's the niece, she's probably Pedro's sister. Basilio herds the two of them out before Megan can dredge up any more personal trauma in an effort to get information. Once they're outside, Basilio lets them know what's what: "Those are my people in there." Horatio makes a Horatio-style apology: "I meant no disrespect, Basilio." Basilio's not done, probably because he's only heard one apology: "They are in mourning. This is not an interrogation." And here comes Megan "Political Animal" Donner, protesting, "We were [beat] up front about our intentions." Basilio gives her a Grissom: "You cannot go to the well and drink it dry." Megan fails to comprehend, and protests, "We need to speak to that boy." Just then, Horatio falls in behind her, "And we'll get a warrant if we have to." Why can't he just talk to Basilio a little later and quietly get his statement then? This way, Basilio keeps his political capital within the community, Horatio maintains excellent relations with his contact, and the case gets solved. Why must we have a moment like the one we're about to have where Basilio protests, "Us Cubans are a proud people. ¿Que no?" Horatio responds, "Nos vemos, amigo." ("We see, my friend.") The camera pulls out so we can see all of Little Havana giving Megan the hairy eyeball.
Back at command central, Alexx is striding through the hall, and she tells Horatio, "Heard you hit some kind of dead end." Horatio admits that he has. Oh, he has not either -- he's just an overly linear thinker. Before Alexx can give Horatio the results on Elena's postmortem, he has to deal with Speedle. Horatio asks Speedle how they're coming along with the note; Speedle's all, "We're not." Horatio asks what Speedle means by that, and Megan tells him, "I pulled Speedle off the note for the surveillance footage. My call, not his." Horatio takes this far too calmly, and tells Speedle to finish the footage, then get back on the note. Delko's off doing Tae Bo, so he can't help. Oh, wait. He's right in the room -- he's just been given the order to "roam and assist." Yep, there's nothing like not being trusted with anything to do. Megan's tasked with trying to get DNA samples off the rope, then writing her job description fifty times for punishment. Well, she's tasked with one of those things, anyway. Horatio finally turns his attention back to Alexx. She tells Horatio that Elena's wound shows evidence of gunshot residue and stippling, and the wound tract shows traces of a synthetic fabric that can't be connected to Elena's clothing. The other, more interesting news, according to Alexx, is: "She had significant levels of albuterol in her system." Horatio points out, "She was asthmatic. We found an inhaler on the boat." Alexx continues, "My guess? Bronchospasms triggered by some kind of stress." Horatio sees Alexx's spasms and raises her an overmedication. We see Elena huffing her inhaler on the storm-tossed boat as her medallion gleams in the inexplicable light. Alexx can roll with that: "Her heart went into dysrhythmia -- a condition that doesn't go well with a severed femoral. And that tourniquet didn't buy her a lot of time." The camera swoops so that, instead of getting a shot of the Horatio/Alexx tête-à-tête, we now get the BumCam, and Horatio's off to do God knows what.
In the scene, we see Megan taking DNA samples. Then we see Horatio pinning up pictures and schematics on a board -- it's clearly meant to map out the crime scene -- and bidding whomever knocked to come in. It's Megan, looking around what was her old office and quipping, "You ought to give me the name of your decorator." Horatio replies, "It's just a phone and a desk when we're not in the field." We find out tjat there's not a whole lot of new information on the captain, and that Megan has "DNA results from the skin cell [beat] sample we collected off [beat] Elena DeSoto's rope. Somebody else tied that tourniquet." Horatio says, "Well, duh," only more nicely. Megan's back to insisting that Science Trumps A Hunch by insisting, "No, we [beat] know that now. [beat] There's significant [beat] commonality in the markers." Except that one is XX and the other is XY. Oh, gosh, have we now proved that Pedro tied that tourniquet? Or merely confirmed the obvious?
And now, on to one of the episode's more baffling interactions. Delko stops Calleigh in the hall and sheepishly asks her if he can crash at her place that night: "I'm trying to keep a low profile, and H has stirred up the neighborhood." Calleigh's expression indicates that if it were August 25, 1968, she'd drop him off outside the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Calleigh tells Delko, "You know how he is -- he's like a dog with a bone." Nice way to avoid the question, Calleigh. Delko counters that Horatio may need to learn how to let go. Maybe one of those posters with the butterfly and the "if you love something, let it go..." motto would work. Contact Horatio's decorator, Delko. He explains, "This girl's family doesn't care about solving the crime. Their niece is already dead. They're thinking, we've got to protect the living." Calleigh thinks that makes sense. She heads over the bullet-scope, looking through the lens, as Delko stays in the doorway, still wearing the "please, let me come over" expression. Finally, without looking at him, she grins and says, "On the couch. And no midnight tiptoes." Delko grins too, then nods. He's sidling up behind her, and Calleigh's not exactly unaware or opposed to this, so she tells him to check out the bullets she's looking at. She tells us all that the bullet in Elena DeSoto's leg matches the bullet in Juan Doe's torso and the shell they dug out of the wall of the boat. Delko looks about as haunted as he ever does and says, "It must have been some massacre on that boat." We see a likely scenario, as engineered by one very busy shooter. Calleigh's back on the bullet beat, so Delko turns around and heads off to tell Speedle where he's spending the night. As he hits the door, Calleigh asks off-handedly, "Did your parents make that journey?" Delko stops in the door and smiles again as he replies, "Actually, we all did." Calleigh jerks up from the scope and looks at him. Delko elaborates, "I was in my mother's belly." He smiles slightly, then heads off. Calleigh smiles back and turns her attention to the bullet again.
You know, I was only joking about Delko telling Speedle where he'd be spending the night, yet here's Delko walking in on an irritated-looking Speedle. Delko's all, "What's this?" Speedle speaks for an entire viewership when he groans, "Megan." Delko laughs before asking, "Still? And you're watching it in real time?" Sounding freakishly like Horatio, Speedle asks, "You see that rental truck there? The one to the Luna Nueva slip? It's been parked there for six hours and 23 minutes. You see the driver? Not a cup of coffee, doesn't have to take a leak, nothing." Delko wonders what Iron Bladder is waiting around for. Speedle replies, "If H is right, that hull can hold 500 kilos of blow." Delko thinks that's a lot of reasons to wait around. Horatio materializes with, "Five hundred reasons, gentlemen. Speed, get me in closer. Zoom in on those back tires. Now does that tire look bald to you, or what?" I'll take "or what" for five hundred, please. Speedle agrees with Horatio, however, and they all go off to find a big white truck with a bald tire.
But first, Horatio has to yoke himself to science. That's his discipline, you know. Megan comes into the lab, wearing Face #4 (interested curiosity/dismay/confusion/skepticism), and after Horatio asserts that yes, he does know the most recent software (as if he wouldn't -- Horatio knows everything, remember?), the two of them exchange facts. The material in Elena's wound tract is the synthetic material olefin, which is odd given that she was wearing a cotton dress. Juan Doe, however, was wearing olefin, which leads Horatio to deduce a series of events: "John Doe was shot at point-blank range, the bullet penetrated his shirt, and some of the material from his shirt was sucked back into the barrel. That means the round fired would carry that material in Elena's thigh, right?" Megan points out that there was a match on the three bullets, which places Juan Doe and Elena on the boat, and the epithelials on the rope place someone close to Elena as the tourniquet tie-guy. Since close relatives tend to cross together, they're reasonably sure the person they want to talk to is Pedro. And now that they have enough to get a warrant for material witness, that's what they'll do.
Cut to a very angry mob in Little Havana. Confession time: the first time I saw this episode, I was wondering why nobody thought to give Delko a more prominent role in the investigation -- or at least have him talk with people when they went to get the warrant. But upon further reflection...Horatio and Megan get to be the bad guys and Delko gets an excuse to sleep on Calleigh's couch (cough, cough) for a while. That boy may be smarter than he appears. Anyway, angry crowd, shades of the Elian Gonzalez protests, Horatio and Megan fighting their way through the crowd. Pedro is served and fetched, leaving Horatio and Megan to work the room. Megan finds some hair on a pillow and collects it; Horatio dusts a doorknob for prints, then notes the full vacuum cleaner bag. Hint: it's full of a Colt .45. Gasps from the crowd that's assembled. Me wondering why nobody thought to dispose of the gun.
The scene apparently takes place at the bottom of a full swimming pool, if the cool cerulean light is anything to go by. Horatio's filling us in on everything that's happened since we went to the commercial break: the captain of the boat and the rental truck were both at Miami International Airport, but are now in custody. Behind him, a pool light shimmers. No, wait. Horatio is standing in front of the aforementioned truck, which is awash in mood lighting, and inside the truck, Twinkletoes Delko is crouching and surveying everything with a flashlight. He finds a smear of blood, which he hypothesizes is a result of the cocaine wrappers absorbing the extra during the shipboard massacre. Horatio demonstrates a flash of Vegas geekery as he muses, "Locard's theory. Primary transfer." Delko makes a Freudian slip as he says, "Kind of like going to the bathroom. You can never wipe enough." Horatio smirks for a moment; I'm reminded of Maxwell Smyth and his fecal fixation in Gloria Naylor's novel Linden Hills.
Meanwhile, in another scene redolent with Freudian imagery, Calleigh's confirming all the ballistics reports by firing the Colt .45 Horatio found. We get a super-duper close-up of the bullet sliding out of the barrel -- nope, nothing at all to set off a Freudian's symbolism alarm -- and the resulting striations on the bullet shell confirm that Pedro's in possession of a gun that shot a lot of bullets.
Cut to a shot of Horatio, perfectly color-coordinated and framed by the elevator doors. As he begins loping down the hall, Calleigh comes by to recap the last scene for him, leaving out all the intimations of symbolism. Calleigh asks, "Does this mean we have the guy?" Horatio's musing, so he replies absently, "You tell me. You make a run for freedom. Along the way, you shoot your sister. Then you try to save her life." Calleigh speaks for many science geeks everywhere as she says, "This is why I like ballistics. It's an exact science."
Speedle's finally finished with Megan's mission and is now deciphering the waterlogged note as Horatio hovers. He explains, "The software digitizes the diluted pattern, and the algorithm extrapolates a reversal probability, estimating an image of the original writing." It's official: Speedle is my favorite thing about this show. Not only does he get into the science, he also looks like he's been pulling overtime, unlike the rest of these blow-dried clowns. We find out that the writing originally read, "NM 28-30." Horatio's like, "Does it crack the code?" Speedle replies, "Yeah, it just gives you the puzzle; it doesn't solve it." Horatio tells Speedle he's got to crack the code, then takes off for a coffee brood.
After the brood that refreshes, Horatio heads out to the hangar where they're storing the boat and, if Megan's pants are to be believed, costumes for the chorus in the HMS Pinafore. Poor little buttercup. The two of them wander around -- the better to give us views of the buckles on both sides of Megan's hips -- and Megan gives us an inventory of all the personal property on the boat, which apparently leads us to deduce that at least twelve people were on the boat. Horatio adds, "What we do know is about is Captain Bob, Pedro, Elena [Juan] Doe, and an unidentified female gunshot victim. Anybody else would have drowned in the Gulf Stream, never to be seen again, right?" Boy, how nice of them to remember the XX blood, given that we're never going to go anywhere with this. Anyway, Megan does some math -- "Average 150 pounds per person, that's 1800 pounds all near the stern." Horatio adds, "A thousand pounds of coke in the right hull ..." Megan comes in with, "This boat's center of gravity would have been way off." Horatio figures that huge swells and water in the fish hold would have panicked the captain. We see the captain mid-freak-out. Horatio and Megan conclude that Captain Freak-out would have had a decision to make: the passengers or the drugs? Since a school of tiger sharks in the throes of a cocaine overdose would likely attract attention -- and not the good kind -- Captain Freak-out opted to evict the passengers. The two of them muse on whether the passengers really would jump out of a boat during a storm, and Megan replies that with a gun to your head, anything's possible. "Let's go put a gun to [Captain Freak-out's head]," Horatio suggests.
Cut to the two of them talking to the captain, who's trying to split hairs by pointing out that his boat isn't missing if he knows where it is. According to Captain Freak-out, he got blindsided by a storm and had to ditch the boat south of Matheson Hammock. Megan gets a big grin and says, "We towed it for you. It's out back. Evidence in a criminal investigation." The captain recovers with, "Somebody stole it?" Nice try. Horatio steps in and tells everyone that it's a crime in Florida to build a secret compartment in a boat or a car. Captain Freak-out asks what the fine is, to which Megan replies, "For trafficking?" He laughs and says, "I don't know the song that you want me to sing." Horatio requests a new song, then, one called, "Here is my gun!" Unfortunately, Captain Freak-out doesn't know the words to that either. Horatio and Megan proceed to recap the last fifty-two minutes for Captain Freak-out -- he's been trafficking cocaine, he picked up the immigrants for cash, then when the storm hit, he chased them off the boat with a gun. Cut to Captain Freak-out singing his follow-up, destined to become a hit in the D.A.'s office: "Don't I have the right to a lawyer?"
Horatio and Megan -- whose pants, incidentally, never lose the ability to shock the senses -- are walking through the hall, talking about how Pedro's lawyer, Martin Diaz, is the Latino Johnnie Cochran, and Basilio's probably the guy who set it up. Horatio explains this with, "There is debt in every favor." We can infer, then, one of two things: either Basilio helped to arrange passage for the now-dead Elena and is trying to make amends, or Basilio is something of a Cubano Corleone, and does what he can against the day he needs a favor. Anyway, Horatio flees the pants and comes in to have a chat with Pedro y friends. After Diaz asks Horatio to be kind (to which Horatio responds, "As always"), Horatio begins to lay out the evidence for Pedro: "The gun in your room ties you to two murders...we also have skin cells on a tourniquet you used...allegedly used to save your sister's life. Now, are you going to rebut everything I'm saying?" Diaz confirms that -- thus playing into Horatio's hands, since, you know, Horatio knows everything.
Horatio then says, "Pedro, habla me. You know what that is, don't you?" "That" is the Caridad de Cobre medallion. Going by the shocked look on Pedro's face, he recognizes the medal. Horatio begins talking again, as Diaz protests in the background: "Now, it was never door-to-door service. The way it works is, you get dropped off as soon as you see the lights of Miami, but that night, there was a storm, wasn't there, and the captain's boat was taking on water. He took out a gun, and ordered everybody off. You refused, and he started shooting." Diaz explodes with, "I am taking my client out of this room until there's a formal investigation in place." Horatio's not cowed: "Whatever you want. Pedro, I know that you tried to save your sister's life." We see the rainy deck again, and Pedro grabbing the gun, then tossing a life ring over the side before leaping over with his sister, the gun still in his hand. Horatio continues, "I know you took the rope out of the inner tube and made a tourniquet, but it didn't work and she bled to death before she got ashore, isn't that true." At this point, Diaz is seconds away from picking up Pedro, tossing him over his shoulder, and sprinting out of the room. Pedro decides he'd rather talk. To make a long story short: Pedro shot Elena, because if a Cuban refugee is wounded, the Coast Guard has to take them ashore for medical treatment and they can then begin the process of getting a green card. Pedro knew he could swim to shore, but Elena was too weak, so he shot her in the leg, then began swimming to Miami. Unfortunately, he shot her right near her femoral, and while he did not blow her leg off (which would have been more likely with the gun he had), he did manage to hit near a major blood supply. Since she already had the albuterol in her system, her circulatory system wasn't exactly equipped to deal with major blood loss. To give Horatio some credit, he looks incredibly shocked at this story. However, I can't help but wonder why Pedro didn't try shooting his sister in the foot, then firing another shot as a makeshift flare for the boat nearby. Then again, I have no idea what I'd be thinking if I had just lived through a night like Pedro and Elena had, so who knows what I'd be calling a good idea by then?
Cut to Horatio and Megan, walking in front of the Moscone Center in San Francisco. My bad! It's merely the outside of the headquarters on a very foggy night. Like, banks of fog just rolling on by. After Horatio recounts the story for Megan, she asks why he kept the gun. "Sharks," Horatio replies. At this point, I am too beaten down to even pick up on this. Megan and her pants ask Horatio, "So what did the state attorney offer him?" Pedro will be getting citizenship upon testifying, which he will be taking with a heavy heart. Megan then reports that "we" finally cracked the code: "NM 28-30. New moon, twenty-eighth to the thirtieth, end of the month." Horatio notes, "No light, here or Havana. Perfect for smuggling. Freedom is right, though, isn't it, under any moon?" "Well said," Megan replies, and the two of them part ways under a full moon that gradually wanes. As for that poor guy in the shark, the one with the gynecomastia? We never find out who he is. I imagine it ends that way for a lot of people -- dying anonymous and alone in that stretch of water. Too bad we couldn't take a moment to memorialize them too.