By Sobell
After some desultory shots of the Miami waterline and the surrounding Everglades, we get to the point and quick: there's a dashboard's-eye-view of the Humvee, and the unsmiling visage of Detective Tripp at the other end of it, and we're at a rundown shack in the middle of nowhere. Tripp is looking disgusted; you just know he's thinking, "Oh, sure, first on the scene if there's a fire or a grieving widow, but when it's his turn to be the primary, he stops at 7-Eleven for a Slurpee first. I bet the jerk didn't even pick up one for me." We see Horatio get out of the Humvee and verify that no, he did not pick up Slurpees for anyone. There's some small talk about an unnamed guy living in a barn, and then Horatio asks the two uniforms, "What do we got, gentlemen?" We've got one cop who looks like he really needs a haircut; his partner can't even look at the guy. There's apparently a dead body in the barn -- a white male, maybe 25 years old, bound with duct tape. Speedle asks if anyone's been in yet, and Tripp tells him, "Waiting on you guys." So how did they secure the scene if they stood around picking their noses and waiting for Horatio to finish his 7-Eleven run? Horatio commands the troops inside.
Once they've entered the squalid shelter, Horatio notes, "You've got yellow powder on the table. Bathtub methamphetamine." And these guys are dancing around the premises without the precaution of hazmat suits because they've developed an immunity to the laws of physics? The prospect of being blown sky-high by a failed chemistry experiment holds no relevance? There is no unit in all of Miami-Dade law enforcement which handles toxic sites like this one? This whole set-up is just asinine; I've ranted about it already, so there's no point in getting worked up again when something new will undoubtedly come along. Speedle deadpans, "Speed." Horatio recites, "Cocaine high, no off button. I've seen people stay up for fifteen days on it." Usually at family dinners, which can get awkward. Ah, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Tripp is appalled at all the fine electronic consumer goods which have been disassembled. He asks, "Tweakers just tweak stuff until they drop, don't they?" Hence the eponym, Detective. Speedle observes the grungy, bound, and bloodied man and comments, "He doesn't look like he dropped. He looks like somebody beat the crap out of him." Horatio figures it's the result of an argument. Tripp opines, "Problem is, once a meth-head starts something, there's no off button." Horatio ascends to the loft and summons Delko to stand at his right hand. After Delko kicks a glass bottle across the floor, Horatio tells him, "Take it easy. Something is not right here." Delko is delighted by the discovery of a shoebox full of Polaroids. "Tweakers love their porn," he exults, photographing the prurient photos. That's kind of meta, that is.
Just then, a single drop of liquid falls from the rafters on to Horatio's clothed arm. Naturally, he detects it. So Horatio looks up, notices some sweating plastic bottles, and interrupts Delko's kinky reverie -- this is when Delko picks up the box of porn to get a better look, and we hear a distinctive "click" and the whine of something warming up -- to tell him, "Eric, run."
Horatio hauls ass downstairs, bellowing for everyone to beat feet out of the building. It looks like Delko didn't have the presence of mind to bring the porn with him, since the camera is now giving us a long, lingering look at pictures of a scantily-clad woman in a variety of submissive poses. I love how this show manufactures excuses to pull out the prurient stuff. Anyway, the porn is about to be blown to kingdom come. Everyone sprints all slow-motion style, and then the building conveniently explodes. All the guys high-five on being faster than an extremely toxic and rapidly-reacting meth lab explosion. Well, maybe they do off-camera and away from the blast.
Judging from the credits, the explosion singed Roger Daltrey, because he's doing a little screaming of his own. I'm just curious to see whether Horatio's going to be called on the carpet for blowing up a crime scene; if there's some sort of explosions trend, there should certainly be a correlating disciplinary-hearing trend.
Once we're back from commercials, Speedle's sitting outside the smoking ruins where the barn once was, and Delko's kind of gaping at the damage. Neither one of them comments on how heartily tired they are of having fires break out wherever they go. Horatio comes over to hang out to Delko and ask if he's okay. Naturally, Delko is. Horatio comments, "This comes under the heading of 'No crime scene is ever safe,' huh?" Delko considers that a lesson learned. Horatio continues, "The problem is that our murder scene has been compromised in a very big way." You think?
Meanwhile, in a plot across town, Calleigh's hopping out of her Humvee and asking Hagen, "Just you and me?" "I thought I'd start walking my own lonely road, since it appears to work so well with the chicks," Hagen shoots back. Oh, he does not either. He gives Calleigh a mock-outraged expression and pouts, "You sound disappointed." I would not be disappointed if I were to spend one-on-one time with Hagen; his anti-Horatio attitude was refreshingly different, and he's pretty easy on the eyes. Anyway, Hagen gives Calleigh the bullet: "Joe Family Man runs to the convenience store to get milk. He gets popped. No ID, no wallet. I figure robbery." Calleigh notes the up-close entrance wound and comments on how it seems kind of personal for a robbery. Hagen thought so too, so: "I had patrol canvass for a wallet. Found it over there in the trash. Cash, credit cards..." Calleigh finds a bullet in the pristine back seat of the SUV; she notes that she might be able to get a print off it, on account of it not currently being lodged inside the dead guy. Hagen doubts her: "Heat from the primer burns the prints off." Calleigh replies, "That's true, except this one is unspent, so it didn't go through the barrel. I guess the primer probably malfunctioned because of humidity, so when the firing pin hit it -- nothing. It was a dud." During the back-and-forth with these two, we see a TMICam shot of the shell being thwacked by a firing pin and starting its long, hot journey to the inside of center of someone else's body, and then we see the same thing happening, only the bullet not going anywhere. I still don't quite get the explanation -- for example, it's not immediately apparent what the primer is, so I don't get how it's burning things or malfunctioning -- but it's sufficiently jargon-y to gull the unwary into believing that this show is more than a typical, predictable cop show. Hagen, who appears to have developed some sort of infatuation with Calleigh in the last four minutes, smiles, "I stand corrected." Calleigh beams back and tells him that's what she likes about him. Aww -- the courtship dance of police department employees, performed in the springtime over rapidly cooling bodies, is a sight to stir the most hardened heart.
Then Calleigh gets a good look at the victim's face in the rearview mirror and gasps. It turns out she knows him. And how, you may ask, does she know him?
Cut to Alexx wheeling along a covered gurney. Oh, no -- don't tell me Alexx knows this person and they're going to break the news of her friend's death by whipping back the sheet and shouting, "Surprise! Look who you get to talk to today while you work! I think you already know Dennis." Oh, yes, they are going to do it that way, because Alexx and Calleigh are chatting about Alexx's Christmas party, and Alexx is saying, "Of course I remember my Christmas party. I told you no gifts, you brought one for each of my kids. Why?" Calleigh says, "The couple there, the Harmons, Dennis and Julie..." Alexx asks, "What about them? They're my oldest friends." Of course they are. Was Dennis a few days from retirement? Was he happy about that winning lottery ticket he was about to cash so he could treat his wife to the vacation of their dreams? Because this whole set-up isn't clichéd enough yet. Anyway, it finally hits Alexx that she's wheeling one of her oldest friends into the autopsy bay. Nice one, Calleigh. Alexx loses it, and it's embarrassing to watch because it seems so unguarded -- major credit to Khandi Alexander for carrying off the line, "No...we're still young." Calleigh speaks up and tells Alexx they can assign this to another ME if she wants. Why wasn't this done already? Since when it is police procedure to be all, "Hey! Was a friend or loved one killed? Let's put the bereaved on the case -- they're really the best people for the job, and will give us a completely objective investigation"? Alexx gets all teary and lies about being all right. The body gets dumped on her table, Alexx whips out a flashlight and notices immediately that Dennis's pupils are dilated, which is exactly the opposite reaction she would have expected at death. She's all over getting tox screens done. Then Alexx asks Calleigh, "Homicide notified Julie yet? I should be there when they talk to her." They began the autopsy without notifying the of kin? That's kind of tacky. Calleigh tells him that Hagen's doing it, and adds that the killing has all the marks of an acquaintance murder. Alexx is reeling: "Oh, it's got to be random. Dennis wouldn't get caught up in something like that." Alexx then catches herself and adds, "Listen to me -- like every victim's friend comes down here. Thinking I know somebody, what they'd be caught up in. Truth is, nobody really knows anyone." How very existentialist.
We're back at the burnt-out barn, where Horatio and some nameless bomb-squad member are concluding that the incendiary that set off the explosion was probably dynamite, helped along by gasoline and set on a time delay. It apparently exploded out at a rate of 16,000 feet per second; good thing Speedle and company run 16,001 feet per second, huh? Speedle's poking around and asking, "What I don't get is, if you're trying to destroy evidence, why not put the bomb to the body?" Horatio points out, "He wasn't trying to cover a murder. He rigged the bomb for kicks. The destroyed evidence is a bonus." Delko's been keeping himself busy picking up pieces of guitar all over the room. Horatio is intrigued. Right then, Speedle tosses evidence in Horatio's direction. Let's hope he doesn't do that with the spare body parts found lying around. Speedle's found a capacitor, which was part of the bomb. Horatio eyeballs it and decrees, "Judging by the oxidation, we're near the seat of detonation." This bit of know-it-all-ism, I can get behind, because Horatio did a stint on the bomb squad. Speedle asks if the capacitor is the bomb signature, and Horatio reminds him, "If we ID the signature, we can ID the suspect."
But first, he has to teleport to the autopsy bay; good thing he sent the body ahead. A considerably more composed Alexx asks disgustedly, "What is it with white boys and duct tape?" They listened when their dads told them it could be used for everything, including bondage and murder? That's my best guess. Speedle notes that the tape's hardly damaged. Horatio intones, "They say that duct tape and roaches will survive the end of the world." You know, coming from anyone else, that's a joke, but Horatio makes it sound like he read it on one of the Dead Sea scrolls. Speedle glides right over that comment and points out that the killer's prints might be on the duct tape. He takes off for Trace with the tape after getting a reminder from Alexx that her tape cuts are marked with black ink; this will be important later in the episode when he's matching up tape cuts to see how the tape was torn from the roll and applied. Horatio then asks Alexx, "I'm going to need a ten-card on this guy ASAP, all right?" Alexx snorts, "More like a one-card. Hands are singed." Horatio decides to take what he can get. Alexx then points out the material she's digging out of one of the body's head wounds. Horatio notices that it looks like wood, and asks if it's from the blast. Alexx points out, "Hemorrhagic tissue indicates he was alive when the wood fragmented with the impact. Blunt force trauma." We get a TMICam of the lethal moment of impact. Horatio's all excited about a possible murder weapon, and Alexx says dismissively, "Murder was redundant. He only had a year or so, by the looks of his liver." Yeah, but most murderers tend not to be into delayed gratification, and hovering around asking, "How's that liver? How's that liver now? Here -- have a Scotch. How's that liver now?" doesn't deliver the visceral satisfaction of beaning someone with hunk of wood. However, Horatio is adamant that someone will pay for stealing the last twelve months of this guy's life.
He does so by checking the wood fragment in a microscope and finding out it was maple. Horatio then asks Speedle how much of the crime scene he remembers, and Speedle grumbles, "About three pages' worth. I put it in my F.I. report." "F.I."? "Fire Inspection"? "Finicky Individual"? "F***ing Inconsistent"? Horatio asks if Speedle remembers a pool table; he does not. Well, Horatio thinks the murder weapon was a pool cue, saying, "Pool cues are pressed wood -- twenty laminates per inch." That's a pretty highly-laminated piece of wood; too bad we have no idea why pool cues are laminated thusly. I'd tell you, but I'd rather take this time to go off into a tirade about the laziness of shows that toss around facts without context. I'm not just referring to this one, although it is a prime offender -- I take umbrage at any show where the writer gets lazy and decides they'll show how smart someone is by having them recall some esoteric tidbit, but they don't bother to demonstrate that said "smart" character is capable of processing information beyond its memorization and recitation. Any jackball can parrot facts and memorize trivia, but actual intelligence requires that one be able to consider facts within a larger context, and to synthesize both facts and context to come to a wholly comprehensive conclusion. It would have been so easy for this pool-cue scene to have gone down thusly:
Horatio: That's a pool cue, isn't it?
Speedle: How can you tell that from any other piece of wood?
Horatio: If you look at the grain, you'll see that it's pressed in long bars held together -- I'm going to guess that's laminate.
Speedle: Yeah? Ikea's furniture is laminated too.
Horatio: Not like this, Speed. Pool cues rely on layer upon layer of lamination to ensure a smooth surface. This way, there's no chance of a warped or bumpy cue affecting the trajectory of the ball.
Speedle: Physics counts for everything in that game.
See? Thoughtful explanation, the same data conveyed, only now we know why pool cues are constructed thusly and how the telltale construction led Horatio to eliminate all other wood suspects. If I can crank this exchange out in ninety seconds, I see no reason why actual television writers who presumably got hired for a reason can't do me one better.
Anyway, after the boys figure out it's a pool cue what done the tweaker in, Speedle comments, "So we got two tweakers, up for days, getting cranked. They start scratching at each other. Our victim gets subdued somehow, bound with duct tape, and beaten to death with a pool cue." Just then, Tripp comes in to tell them that the owner of the burnt barn is one Judith Lindeman, and she rents to the dead guy, one Darwin Capshaw. Speedle comments, "Darwin. That's ironic." Since, you know, he wasn't the fittest and therefore didn't survive. Ha ha! I look forward to the episode where a serial killer sorts his victims by physical trait, and we find out his name is Linnaeus. Darwin is in the system, thanks to his freelance pharmaceuticals consulting. That's résumé-speak for "drug dealer." Tripp then delivers a name for Horatio: Darwin's partner, Tommy Lee Harkins. Horatio's all over that.
In the scene, the unkempt Tommy is fidgeting. Horatio comments, "You seem agitated to me. Very agitated." At last, Horatio's becoming aware of his effect upon others! Actually, he credits the meth. Tommy stammers that he's not agitated. Then he makes faces at a point just beyond his left shoulder. Horatio snarls, "Are the shadow people chasing you, Tommy?" If this were a Stephen King series, this is the point where the shadow people would leap into the scene and begin biting on everyone while Tommy gibbered hysterically, "I promised I wouldn't tell! I promised! Don't EAT me too!" And there would be lots of italics and capital letters in the dialogue, because it's not a Stephen King production if there aren't. But it's not, and instead Horatio just comes off like an ass. It is to David Caruso's credit that he manages to get those lines out without openly rolling his eyes. Horatio continues droning on, "Is that the meth playing with your head? Take a look at those eyes, Frank. Take a look at those eyes." Tripp does; he stares pretty intently through the entire scene. Tommy goes goggle-eyed, and Horatio hisses, "Did you and Darwin have an argument that escalated?" Yeah, over deck chairs on the H.M.S. Beagle. Horatio points out the blood on Tommy's shirt. Tommy tries to pass it off as ketchup with, "I had a burger on the way over here." I had no idea Carl's, Jr. had made it to the Florida peninsula; I thought their actively exploding burgers were a regional hazard out here in California. Horatio, however, is not buying the fast food excuse: "You didn't have a burger. You're cranked. Your body won't accept food, so you did not have a burger. Don't lie to me." "Okay, it was chicken nuggets!" Tommy sobs hysterically. Oh, he does not.
Horatio actually continues, "It looks like blood. And if it's blood, Tommy, that means you were within a few feet of Darwin during the beating. It also tells me you participated." Notice how that entire logical deduction is based on the premise that it's Darwin's blood on the shirt, and not, say, someone else's. However, Tommy's in no shape to take on Horatio's non causa pro causa logical fallacies (i.e. something is identified as the cause of an event, but it has not actually been shown to be the cause; in this case, the blood is identified as proof of Darwin's beating while Tommy was present, yet the blood has yet to be shown to be Darwin's). He admits that someone named Chaz was beating on Darwin, so Tommy ran off; apparently, they had an argument over music. Tommy says, "Darwin told Chad his music sucks," and we flash back to Darwin saying, "Your music sucks." That's really funny -- and the sad thing is, it's not supposed to be. Anyway, Chaz beat the hell out of Darwin, but before Tommy can get around to telling the tale in his own unique way, Horatio fills in the details. Tommy's all, "How'd you know all this?" and Horatio whispers, "I'm magic." Because it's the meth screwing with Tommy's head, and not Horatio. Right. Tommy asks if Chaz killed the girl, and Horatio's Crimey Senses explode into full alert -- if there is a woman in peril to be saved, a woman who can be comforted by the Grief Whisperer, he will find her. Unfortunately, he's going to have to do it without Tommy's help.
Back in the B-plot, poor Hagen is stuck asking Julie Harmon if her husband had any enemies. Of course he didn't. Julie plays the class card with, "He's a dentist. I'm a doctor. The only people we know are people at the club, or at the kids' school." Hagen asks if Dennis was perhaps stepping out. Julie's all, "Our marriage, our family is our life." Well, on the bright side, she's got time to develop some new hobbies now. Alexx comes in, and there's grieving and dithering. Hagen flees while he can. Julie's all, "I don't think I can tell the kids." I think not telling them might actually be worse, but whatever. Alexx points out, "They're going to remember who told them for the rest of their lives." The potential psychological damage to her offspring isn't sufficient motivation for Julie to sack up and talk to the kids. Alexx steps in, like the supportive friend she is. There's hugging, and while Alexx is something of a mess, Julie's curiously dry-eyed. Hmmm...
In another part of the lab, Speedle and Delko are examining the duct tape. Delko notes mournfully, "Polyethylene resin on one side, adhesive on the other. Nothing unique enough to get this guy." Speedle points out that by itself, duct tape is virtually untraceable, but when pieced together like a puzzle, he can get a pretty good idea of what was cut when. If they find the tape, they can use it to piece one end to the cut ends used to bind Darwin -- assuming, of course, that it hasn't subsequently been used on someone else. Delko then begins futzing with a charred piece of something found in Darwin's pocket, and promises to take it down to QD.
As Delko's ordering a Butterfinger Blizzard, he reflects on how his dyslexia has led him astray yet again. Oh, kidding. He's up in QD (no idea what it stands for) and a burly tech is busy fragmenting the charred piece. Delko gets all old-maidish about the evidence, and the tech decides to impregnate the charred paper with paralene in order to harden it. Once that's done, the fragment will be stable enough for analysis; by "analysis," he means placing it under an infrared light to pull out the ink on the paper, since charred ink absorbs light at a different wavelength from the surrounding paper, and the ink will pop into relief. We get "CHAZ 555-0189." Delko says delightedly, "A name and a phone number." Horatio materializes suddenly and says, "But it's a cell phone number. Meth heads don't use land lines." Delko chides Horatio with, "You shouldn't sneak up on people." Horatio completely ignores the point with, "Chaz isn't people." He then makes a little plan for tracking down the phone via GPS and sneaking up on him. And then he stalks off to fume over Delko's impertinence.
Chaz is subsequently located at a meth party, taking place in a trailer-like structure with plenty of extension cords purloining electricity from the people who have it sufficiently together enough to pay their bills. The SWAT team moves into position. We get a shot of Horatio sporting a giant semiautomatic, and he cuddles his assault weapon close as he flips a breaker switch and plunges the meth party into total darkness. Chaos ensues. Within moments the meth partygoers are on the ground where everyone can see their hands, and then they're rousted to their feet by Horatio. Then Horatio says for everyone to put their left hands out. They do. Then someone says, "Pat your head." Three people do, and are promptly kicked out of the game because Horatio didn't say. See how well pre-school games work in subduing drugged-out lowlifes? Red Rover was their first choice, but the perps kept catching on after all the drug dealers they sent over never came back. The only failure the Miami-Dade police force has had with this strategy was the duck-duck-goose method of rounding up suspects, since the goose had a tendency to run away from the game and toward freedom.
Anyway, Horatio and Tripp ask if any of the people present is Chaz, know of Chaz, or know of the woman he absconded with for presumably nefarious purposes. Horatio ups the stakes with, "If this lady dies and you have knowledge of it, you are an accomplice. Am I understood?" He then surveys all the left hands stuck out before him and identifies Chaz based on his guitar-playing calluses. Horatio asks, "Where's the girl?" Chaz replies, "I know all about you. Lieutenant Horatio Caine. Homicide. Bomb Squad." Horatio feigns modesty -- of course he's not a household name in Miami! -- and asks, "I run you in on something?" Chaz replies, "I actually know your brother, Officer Raymond Caine. Well...I knew your brother. Big meth-head. God, he loved his crank, didn't he? You probably know that, don't you? Considering you had to do the mop-up on him after he checked out?" Since when does Horatio's nemesis of the week adopt the signature interrogatory style we all know and identify as Horatio's? Is this supposed to be some subtle verbal cue that Gosh, Chaz Identifies With Dead Raymond More Than His Own Brother Did, And Isn't It Ironic How He's So Much Like Horatio Except For The Raging Meth Addiction And The Not-Being-A-Cop Thing? Horatio threatens to do a little redecorating by force, and Chaz is all, "Go ahead! It's a trailer! It would be an improvement!" Horatio cries havoc and lets slip the cadaver dogs.
Back in the B-plot, Hagen is stopping by to check on Calleigh and make sure she's not distracted by any more special requests from Horatio. Or maybe he's just stopping by, since their originally antagonistic relationship seems to have melted under the warm sun of their smiles toward one another. As it turns out, Calleigh did pull a print off the dud round, and she finds a match in a database for Miami employees. The proud owner of the fingerprint is one 22-year-old Brad Kenner, proud employee at Sunrise Harbor Security.
And boy, does Brad look young. He denies knowing Dennis. Hagen asks menacingly, "Then how'd your bullet get in him?" Calleigh tags in with a picture of the evidence, saying, "You put this bullet in the magazine. That's your fingerprint." Brad claims to have never met the guy, and we head into round two of, "Oh, yeah? Explain the bullet." Calleigh tags in with, "Brad, I don't think you understand the evidence that we have. Ridge analysis says you, and only you, loaded the gun, and I can tell you exactly where you keep it. You keep it in your basement, or you keep it in your place of employment at the loading docks, and the reason that I know this is because humidity caused the primer to malfunction. There aren't a lot of basements in Florida, so my bet is, it's at the loading dock." Hagen generously offers to drive over and recover the gun. Alexx is watching all of this behind the one-way glass, outside the room. Brad buckles a little: "It's not my gun -- it's a friend's." Hagen asks, "What's his name?" Her name turns out to be Julie Harmon. The thud as Alexx's jaw hits the floor is barely audible. Brad supports his story by producing a candid snap of his older mistress. Calleigh's keeping one eye on Alexx, trying to make a connection of some sort, and as Brad natters on about the affair and Julie giving him the gun with orders to shoot her husband, Alexx heads out. Calleigh catches her in the hall. Alexx explodes, "Why would she lie to me? To my face! Why would she have me sit there and tell her kids their daddy passed, like she had no idea why? My friend! To my face!" The range of emotions Alexx expresses in that rant -- grief, anger, betrayal, regret -- is phenomenal. Khandi Alexander is one of the best actresses working in television, and it is criminal how little she is used on this show. To her credit, Emily Procter doesn't get blown off the screen in this scene -- something that happened frequently on The West Wing, in my opinion -- and Calleigh says, "I don't know. But all I know is she is not your friend right now. She's a suspect, and anything you do or say can jeopardize the case, and I think it would probably be better if you just threw everything over to Jones -- tox, final report. I think you should just turn the case over." With that one statement, Calleigh's just generated more goodwill from me than the 22 episodes did, total. Nice job balancing concern for her friend with her appeal for professionalism. And bravo to somebody for finally stating the obvious and getting Alexx the hell off this case. Alexx asks angrily when Calleigh and Hagen are going to interview Julie; Calleigh says firmly, "I think it would be better if you didn't know the particulars of this case anymore." Alexx visibly crumples; she's on the verge of tears as she agrees. Calleigh watches her go, then slumps, totally drained. Ladies and gentlemen, I do believe we've just seen my favorite scene of the season. Well done!
Back at the trailer, Speedle delivers the news that the cadaver dogs are coming up empty. He finds notebooks and papers, and asks what it all is; Horatio answers tendentiously, "These are the ramblings of a drugged-out tweaker." They look like my class notes from philosophy; I could always tell my humanities class notes from my biology/chemistry/physics class notes, because the former were always in words, while the latter were frequently composed of nothing but formulae and sketches of viral replication or the molecular structure of assorted hydrocarbons. Speedle flips through, skimming pages, until he notes, "This one's all about a tin man." What I can make out reads: "Tin Man's playing both sides. Can't tell if he's down or fronting. [Something] of doing a job with [something] might [something] except [something] SOOOOO [SOMETHING]." Horatio starts: "Did you say Tin Man?" Speedle elaborates, "It's tweaker-speak for meth-heads. Friends of Tina, smoking off tin." Speedle says of the notebook, "This is great intel. I'll get it to Narco." Horatio asks Speedle to make him a copy before doing so. Oh-ho-ho. We have our Tin Man -- Raymond.
Horatio wanders into another room and finds the bomb-making kit. Then he wanders back outside. Tripp reports on how everyone's searched the outbuildings and found no evidence of any girl, and at that moment, Horatio notices the empty doghouse. He asks, "Did Animal Control take that dog?" Tripp answers that there is no dog -- and thank God, because the one thing that makes me go completely, irrationally Bill-Bixby-to-Lou-Ferrigno furious is the idea and/or depiction of domestic animals being abused, and I wouldn't put it past this show to show some poor dog or cat being taunted by meth-heads -- and Horatio realizes that the doghouse actually tops a secret, girl-holding basement. In Florida. Which is essentially a floating piece of land. And yet, the girl's not treading water. Go figure.
Horatio asks who put the girl in there; she answers that if she tells, "he" will kill her. Horatio tells her, "I don't want you to worry about that right now. Who put you in there?" Tripp frog-marches Chaz to a patrol cruiser, and the look on his face -- as well as the girl's -- says it all. Horatio says derisively to Chaz, "Well, I guess I know all about you too, huh?" And while I know it's wrong to not reflexively hate a drugged-out killer who captures women for kicks, I have to hand it to Chaz: he's gotten under Horatio's skin, and it's fun to watch.
Once Horatio's settled at a picnic table with the young woman, we see her fidgeting and telling him that dying was nowhere near the worry not having meth was. Horatio shows a flair for applying new information quickly by asking, "How long you been a friend of Tina?" It's been a couple of years for her. She adds, "A couple hundred years...I used to be beautiful." Horatio replies, "You still are, Susie." She half-laughs, half-sobs, then tells Horatio he reminds her of someone Chaz used to do drugs with, a real meth freak named Tin Man. Could this be getting any more obvious? All we need is Susie to say, "Yeah, he used to talk about how his wife was really into his brother. He'd find notes around the house addressed to 'H,' and it made him so distraught, he'd have to get high for days until the pain went away." Horatio composes himself -- no, it does not involve screaming, "My brother was a saint and a hero, not a bad cop!" -- and tells her he'll need her to testify again Chaz vis-à-vis Chaz's beating of Darwin and his incarceration of her. Susie's got reservations: "It's one thing to say he shoved me in a box, but dimeing him out for the actual murder?" Horatio asks urgently, "What would it take to make that happen?" Susie promptly replies, "Move my probation to Indiana. Get me a job." What she does not say: meth is an unusual drug epidemic in that it's moving west-to-east, and not vice versa, and is actually becoming a huge problem in predominately rural and/or suburban areas, so heading home to the prairie lands of Indiana is hardly going to remove Susie from the pernicious reach of crystal meth.
Anyway, Susie's optimistic about maybe kicking her habit once she's back home again in Indiana; Horatio promises to look into it. He then presses Susie for details of Darwin's killing. To make a long and not-very-interesting story short: after Susie, Tommy Lee, Darwin, and Chaz had spent the last five days doing nothing but snorting meth and indulging their tweaker hobbies, Chaz snapped and beat Darwin to death. You know, I want to kill if I go without sleep for twenty hours. I can't imagine what the rage would be like after five days. But enough about me. Susie's still babbling about Darwin, whose "head popped open like a tomato." So: beating, tomato-popping head, taping, more beating, topped by an abduction. That Chaz packs a lot into a day. Horatio tells Susie, "I'm going to need you to swear out a statement." Susie replies, "I'm good at swearing." Oh, goody -- we have the witty friend of Tina.
B-plot. Julie's assuming a contrite attitude, sighing, "I have made such a mess of things." If Julie's looking for sympathy, she'll find it in the dictionary once she flips past "shooting" and "sentencing." Calleigh offers to help her straighten out the details. Julie did give the gun to Brad -- she's an eye doctor, and she's handing out guns to her patients? That's one hell of a vision plan they have down at the docks. Hagen tells us that Brad claims Julie's the brains behind the operation; Julie seems dismayed -- not that she's been figured as the titular brains behind this caper, but that Brad ratted her out. Julie starts in on her "hey, we met when he came into my office, it was only a four-month affair, I kept trying to end it, he wouldn't take no for an answer, this killing was absolutely not my idea" routine. It doesn't play in Peoria. We find out that Julie's not getting arrested -- yet.
Speedle and Delko are off to blow up another crime scene -- this one being Chaz's car. After finding a big bag of beef jerky in the front seat and some disposable cameras -- "More pictures," Delko says. "More porn," Speedle shoots back -- Delko grins that he's not taking this to one-hour photo. Speedle's all, "Whatever." He finds the duct tape in the trunk, but Chaz cut the end. Delko's all, "Now you can't identify it, hardy-har-har-porn!" Speedle sees something we don't see, because he's hedging his bets that he can. He heads back to the lab, and sure enough, he's all analyzing the edge of the tape for magic marker ink because Chaz wrote his name on the tape.
Horatio appears and commands, "Tell me something good, Speed." "We've only got one more episode left," Speedle replies. "I meant good for me, not the recapper!" Horatio snaps. Okay -- so Speedle actually says, "The tape we recovered from Chaz's car was cut, so any comparisons with torn ends was out." "But you went further, didn't you?" Horatio goads, and Speedle replies, "Macro, not micro. Chaz wrote his name on the side of the tape." The look on Speedle's face as he delivers this line is delightfully deadpan. Anyway, the ink matches perfectly. Chaz is subsequently delivered unto Horatio in cuffs. He's bothered to put on a button-down shirt for the occasion; I imagine he ironed his entire wardrobe -- plus four friends' -- during a tweak streak when there was nobody around to beat to death.
There's some talking on the steps -- Don the DA is back and refraining from impolite inquiries about Horatio's sick relatives -- and then there's some lawyerly posturing about how there's the murder case and then there's the kidnapping case, and Susie's blown them both by writing a note that Chaz's lawyer produces: "I told you I'd get you back. You bastard. I hope you fry in Hell." Susie has remarkably good handwriting. She also has screwed up the cases to a fare-thee-well. Don is not thrilled. Horatio vouches for Susie's character -- incriminating note or no, he believes her testimony. Don points out that Susie's character is a liability. Horatio insists, "I don't care. I believe her!" Don insists, "It's OVER, Horatio! A judge would kick it, no jury would buy it." And then Don heads out to get his stomach lining surgically replaced; his county insurance covers it, because they recognize the occupational hazard Horatio represents to a lawyer just trying to get convictions. Horatio drones, "Don, you know this guy kills people for thrills, right?" Don replies, "Bring me proof. Didn't we have some Narco task force on this Chaz guy?" Horatio overrides him with, "That operation is classified." Don barrels on, "Wasn't your brother Ray part of that unit?" Horatio pulls the classification card again. Don replies, "Not classified anymore. Bring me proof, or Chaz stays a free man." Horatio heads off so he can go find some "evidence."
Meanwhile, Calleigh's busy shooting things. Alexx comes down to the shooting gallery and waves around a tox report on a case she's ostensibly avoiding. She demands, "Did you see this? Dennis had cyclopentalate in his blood stream. 150 micrograms per mil according to the tox report." Calleigh asks what I'm thinking with, "Aren't you supposed to be off this case?" Alexx replies, "Jones got the report. I can't help it if I can read upside-down." Calleigh smiles a little. Alexx explains that the cyclopentalate dilated Dennis's eyes, and finishes angrily, "And who has access to eye drops, and who is an eye doctor at Coral Gables Professional Building?" Why, it's Julie. Who else is surprised that Brad wasn't working alone? Raise your hands. You in the back? Oh, just stretching? Okay. Alexx is miffed that Calleigh's not going to ask why Julie slipped Dennis eye drops. Calleigh replies, "I'm a lawyer's daughter. I don't ask a question I have the answer to." So Foghorn Leghorn's a lawyer? "Object -- I say! -- objection!" Maybe Mrs. Leghorn's a lawyer. Who knows? We won't. Anyway, Alexx gives Calleigh a sassy look and struts off.
And now we're back with Julie. Calleigh asks, "Do you have any idea how your husband came in possession of this eye drop solution?" Julie claims to have prescribed it for him a few months ago. Hagen asks why. Julie responds, "Because I enjoy playing fast and loose with the AMA's ethical guidelines." Actually, she claims that their vasodilation powers can be used for good in the fight against migraines. We get a TMICam shot of the drops entering the bloodstream and going to work. It looks like a Flash animation. We establish that this is merely a side effect -- the eye drops are commonly used to dilate the pupil so the physician can get a better look at the underlying muscle. Calleigh notes how the blurry-vision side effect would have made it impossible for anyone who got those drops to see someone approach them with a gun. I'm more disturbed that Dennis was behind the wheel of a car with his vision all blurry -- that's just insanely unsafe. Not for Dennis; for the rest of the people on the road. Maybe Brad unwittingly saved lives by keeping Dennis from causing a five-car pileup. Has anyone thought of that? Anyway, Julie's all, "You're saying I slipped my husband eye drops before he left the house?" This raises two more questions -- how do you "slip" someone eye drops? And why didn't Dennis say, "Gosh, honey, I can't see my hand in front of my face -- can this urgent need for lotto tickets wait fifteen minutes?" Why do I even ask? Julie claims that Dennis dosed himself in the car in response to a sudden headache, and driving with impaired vision wasn't an issue. Hagen and Calleigh clearly aren't buying her stories, and don't bother to hide their feelings from Julie. Julie's all, "I guess it's time to call a lawyer." Calleigh says, "We have a phrase in law enforcement. It's called 'equivocal evidence.' It means when you can interpret the evidence both for and against the suspect equally. We are obligated to give the suspect the benefit of the doubt." Julie asks, "What happens to Brad? He's just twenty-two." Youth is no excuse. Hagen tells Julie her boy toy is going behind bars for murder one, life without parole.
Delko stops by Horatio's lab to talk about how hard Speedle's working. He then mentions the disposable cameras, which he's hot to get developed, because nothing says "pure sex" like a tweaked-out addict who hasn't eaten since God knows when or bathed for days on end. Horatio, however, is all over the cameras. He notices the cameras, tests one to see if it works, then notes, "Susie says she and Chaz were up for five days at Darwin's, but by day four, Chaz had run out of radios to fix. Now, disposable cameras like this one run off capacitors that are powered by batteries, right? But in this case, our bomber placed a nail opposite the flash button right here, so when Eric lifted the box, tension from something caused a chain of events." So Delko's responsible for blowing up the barn? Way to go, Swifty. There's some more babble about the bomb -- blah blah blah, gasoline and guitar strings, blah blah blah, but I doubt Sars wants me faithfully transcribing how to build a bomb here, since that would turn us into one of those websites neglectful parents tag as a ruinous influence during their scapegoat hunt after Junior's burned down a subdivision or gunned down his intramural volleyball team. In effect, what Horatio and Company have done is figured out how to tie the bomb to all of Chaz's bomb-making props, thus providing the evidence Don will need to put him away for something.
In the scene, Horatio is telling Chaz, "Take a good look around, Chaz. This is the last room you're going to be in that has windows." Chaz dismissively says, "Susie's a stoner. Nobody's going to believe her." Horatio sets him straight: they're not going after him for Darwin's murder, but for the attempted murder of all county employees who went after Darwin's crime scene. Chaz smirks, "What attempted murder? I wasn't even there." Ah, but the bomb was. Horatio says, "Physical evidence, My friend, is always better than an eyewitness." Chaz dismisses the charges as a consolation prize. Horatio asks, "Consolation prize?" and Chaz replies, "Yeah, for the loss of your brother, Tin Man." Horatio smiles without any mirth and says slowly, "Chaz, this is no way to start your rehabilitation." Chaz continues getting off on the wrong foot reform-wise with, "Tin Man was a dirty cop. Who do you think taught me how to make bathtub meth? Got himself killed before anyone found out the truth. Probably went out squealing like a little girl." And that would be when Horatio pulls Chaz to his feet. Tripp stands there looking like he's just waiting for an excuse to throw a punch. Horatio eventually says, "Get him out of here before I soil My reputation." As what? A brooding, sanctimonious blowhard?
And now, Julie comes to visit Alexx in her morgue. She tells Alexx, "You know I didn't do it." Alexx doesn't look up from her cleaning as she replies, "That's between you and your Maker." Julie asks, "Come on -- you believe me, don't you, Lex?" Ouch -- the nickname as appeal to loyalty. Alexx stops cleaning and replies, "You're smart and you always get what you want." This sets Julie off, since apparently the last thing she wanted was for her boy toy to end up in jail for life and her husband in the ground. Alexx shoots back, "Look who's still alive and fancy-free." Julie's amazed that Alexx thinks she did it. Alexx clarifies, "You didn't pull the trigger. But you are responsible, believe me, Julie, you are responsible." Julie's all, "You think I don't know that?" Alexx snaps, "There's no telling what you think! Our families spent every weekend together, and you got this whole other life right under my nose." Well, Julie always meant to tell her, but it was hard to get an opening. Alexx continues, "You let Denny take my kids out for ice cream! You know what kind of danger you put them in? If that boy had shot him some other night with my kids in the car, he could have killed them. He could have killed yours." Julie crumbles in the face of realizing that Alexx isn't just miffed for a foregone friendship, but for the threat to her children. Yay! I mean, yay that we get to see Alexx in a parental role, not yay that her kids were at risk. Julie asks for forgiveness. Alexx just tells her, "If it was the other way around, could you?" I'm guessing the answer to that is "no."
Proving that every episode can't end unless Horatio's onscreen to give the benediction, we now go to Horatio packing Susie off to the Midwest. She's surprised that Horatio helped her despite her uselessness in the court case; I guess Ray Caine glossed over that feature in his brother's personality when he went on five-day babbling binges with his tweaker buddies. Horatio says, "Life is full of surprises, isn't it?" Susie laughs and replies, "Tin Man used to say that." Horatio broods a little before asking, "Did you crank with him?" Susie looks thoughtful for a moment before answering, "No. No. Chaz always thought we did, but umm-unh. Isn't that what narcos do, pretend?" Horatio smiles a little and asks, "What about you?" "Oh, I wasn't pretending. I was higher than Mir," Susie responds. Oh, she does not. She mouths something about how she prefers Tina and she's hoping to spend a few more years high before the inevitable overdose or stupid drug-fueled accident leading to her death. Horatio stresses, "I will be here if you need me." When does he have the time, what with him being there for all those other women he's there for? Horatio bundles Susie into a cab, then heads back to the lab to brood. He reads the notebook Speedle found, and Chaz's voice narrates, "Tin Man's whack. Ask all kinds of questions. Going to get himself killed someday if the crank doesn't do it first."
And so the episode ends with a fundamental question about Ray Caine unanswered. One drug addict says he was a friend of Tina. Another says he was clean. Who was right? I'm guessing we find out during another sweeps period.