By Sobell
We begin with one of the most awkward transitions in the history of this series: the sun rising over assorting sparkling seaside vistas, and then an abrupt cut to a darkened room, where a man is apparently attempting CPR on a woman. I say "attempting" because a) they're still standing up, and b) she's still respiring independently. Oh, wait. This is passionate kissing. As they awkwardly move across the room -- you try cramming your tongue in someone's mouth and then steering them around -- the buzzing sound of flies becomes louder. The woman pulls back and asks, "What's that noise?" "It's the waves crashing on the beach," the man replies. Well, we know why he's not thinking clearly enough to give a more plausible excuse. There's a few more minutes of free-form wrestling, and then the woman pulls back to ask coyly, "Since when do oceans hum?" He declines to answer. Technical foul, resulting in termination of play. She's all about playing Nancy Drew and trying to solve The Mystery Of The Buzzing Waves. The guy's clueless, and continues undressing. The woman, however, has other things on her mind. She stalks around the room, following the noise to its source under the bed. Then she lifts the cover and sees a dead woman covered in flies. Cue her screaming, while I wonder how these two didn't notice the smell of a dead-enough-to-attract-flies person. Did Captain Underpants dismiss that as "the smell of the ocean"? Did we miss that part of the conversation?
The woman drops the bedspread, and in a much more elegant transition, Horatio lifts it back up again. Unless he was there all along, hiding in a closet and waiting for crime to strike -- then it wouldn't be so elegant. Anyway, we get the sideways shot of David Caruso, and as he straightens up, a detective says, "A guy and his coworker found her this morning." Horatio muses that the room had to have been cleaned before the couple checked in, and the detective snorts, "Yeah, typical maid service -- scrub the surfaces." Horatio replies, "Scrubbed the surfaces but left a dead body under the bed." Well, yes. We learn that the person who booked and paid for the room happens to be the one lying naked and conveniently arranged under the bed slats so the tender sensibilities of censors won't be aroused. We also learn that she is one Susan McCreary, booked on a string of priors for prostitution, and she was probably not staying in the hotel to get away from it all. The detective glances down and comments, "Looks like she was working the street." Horatio corrects him: "Not anymore."
Bizarrely enough, Roger Daltrey agrees.
Outside, it's sunny Miami. Inside, Horatio is taking pictures of a thermostat set to seventy-five. The camera pulls back to reveal him standing to a drooping Phaleonopsis, and a voice floats from off-screen, "With her liver temp, that puts time of death between seven and nine last night." It's a good thing I can recognize Alexx's voice, or else I'd be making jokes about how Horatio's so omnipotent, even the voices in his head are expert voices. Not that I'm not going to have more opportunities to joke about Horatio's omnipotence in the fifty-four minutes. Horatio notes the wilting flower, touches it as though he's E.T., then moves on to pay attention to Alexx. She tells him that the victim was stabbed repeatedly with a slim, sharp implement. They move on to the question of where in the room the woman was stabbed, and Alexx, Horatio, and Speedle quickly eliminate the under-the-bed scenario -- okay, aside from Chucky the killer doll, who would even try to stab someone under a bed? -- and the on-top-of-the-bed scenario. This hasn't stopped Speedle from grabbing the sheets from a maid, and he's dispatched to go get the bedspread too so that he can also get the thrilling paranoia that comes with seeing firsthand exactly how many people have deposited some sort of effluvium on a hotel bedspread.
In the scene, Horatio's using an ALS to pick up more splotches on the wall. Upon looking at a long arc-shaped one, he's all, "What do we have here?" Perhaps more of the know-it-all voices in his head can tell him. Lord knows Speedle -- who's intently doing anything but acknowledging Horatio's existence -- isn't going to. Horatio then whips out a swab, douses it in phenolphthalein, and samples the area. It comes up pink, and Horatio announces, "It's blood, and somebody tried to wipe it away." Flashback to someone making a stabbing motion, the blood flying about while they do -- because, you know, that's a lot more informative than having Horatio point out that the shape and direction of the blood spray indicate some kind of spatter wound resulting from a narrow, specific slice. It's much more fun when we're forced to figure this out for ourselves. Except for the "fun" part. Alexx, who's still with the victim, says, "Not the only surface he scrubbed. Body smells like cardamom. I use it in a mean South African curry." Well, that would explain why the couple in the first scene didn't have that what's-that-smell conversation; they just figured they were in the presence of curry. In a hotel room. Alexx continues, "But it's also used in scents and in soaps."
Cut to Horatio stalking around the bathroom area and wondering if the other person in the room took the used soap with him (he did, as well as extra towels). I don't suppose asking what kind of toiletries the hotel gives out would be useful? No? Then let's just watch Speedle run an ALS over the tub after Horatio does the usual "Let's do blah-de-blah," where "let's" translates into some sort of patently insincere attempt to make the Bob-whites feel as though they're not really catering to Horatio's every whim. Actually, Speedle begins checking out the tub while Horatio examines the extremely well-stocked hotel toiletries tray. As something of a bath-and-body products junkie, let me just put in my bid to stay at this hotel for the bath booty alone, body under the bed or no. I've seen $200 gift baskets from the Body Shop that have fewer items than this array of freebies. Horatio ponders the soap while Speedle finds smudges which indicate that the victim, Susan, may have been washed by this guy. Horatio's all, "That would explain the clean body and the missing towels, wouldn't it?" That's an annoying habit of asking questions that really aren't, isn't it? The detective from the prior scene comes with an Officer Saxon and what are probably the woman's clothes, found in a dumpster outside. Horatio's all, "We'll take it from here, gentlemen." Off-screen, Speedle's probably rolling his eyes, since this "we" business usually means, "Speedle will do the tedious grunt work while Horatio stands around and broods." Speedle more or less cops to this when he fixes Horatio with a disgusted look and says, "I guess I gotta go check the dumpster now." Well, yes.
Meanwhile, the show's still taking place in Miami. We see an outdoor scene with the usual dozen emergency vehicles. Sevilla's waiting for the B-team, which means Delko and Calleigh, who disembark from one of the Humvees and wander on over. Calleigh, it should be noted, is wearing a blazer with the kind of puffed and gathered sleeves that I remember from a prairie blouse I had in fourth grade. Why do clothing designers hate their customers enough to bring back trends that make everyone look like linebackers who stumbled onto the set of Little House on the Prairie? Did they learn nothing from this fall's hippie-chic fiasco? No grown woman who has to work is going to want to do so dressed like an extra from Hair, or, in this case, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. At least Sevilla's looking good. She tells us that the crime scene we're looking at is an "attempted car-jacking and robbery. German tourist couple. They stopped for directions." You'd think that by this point, the German government would have one of those travel advisories in effect for Miami, the same way the U.S. does for war-torn regions where Americans are likely to end up dead. The wife -- who's alive and swaddled in a blanket -- is Greta Roebling, and her husband -- whom we'll see shortly -- is Werner. Calleigh groans, "Another slam from the European press. Miami: deathtrap under the palms." Yes, because this carjacking is all about Miami's international image and not, say, the victims of a crime. And by the way, while Calleigh's pulled-back hair looks good, the plunging vee of her tight top carries her whole look into a weird, sexy frontier area that I'm not sure anyone needs to explore in a recreational context, much less on the job. Delko, who's committed no crimes of sartorial semantics thus far, focuses on the actual crime scene, asking if the wife saw the shooting. Sevilla says, "No. She said a masked man approached her side of the car, then shot her husband." Delko then asks if the body's in the car, and Sevilla says with some asperity, "No. Husband fled. Shooter ran after him, and he left his body on the floor of the garage bay." Delko then asks the question on everyone's mind: "If it's a car-jacking, why chase a guy who's already abandoned his car?" Calleigh's recovered enough from the realization that she went out in public dressed as she did to say, "Well, that's the first question of many. Why don't you take the garage, I'll take the car, and we'll meet up at the body when the ME shows up?" Delko touches her arm and assents before they split. On the bright side, he's got a nice trail of blood drops to follow to the garage. For her part, Calleigh's got plenty of blood in the car.
And now, a science montage ensues. Now would be a good time to go get a snack.
At the end of the montage, Calleigh notices a security camera in the garage, which will undoubtedly come in handy later. Delko is busy photographing Werner's body when Calleigh comes in to announce, "I got blood spatter in the car, but no bullets. Also, got a smear on the rearview mirror. There's no sign of the ME?" Delko replies, "No. Stuck on the Venetian Causeway. Bridge wouldn't close. Would you believe?" In the absence of an actual medical professional, these two decide to pretend that they can determine how Werner died. Delko says he's only seeing one entrance wound -- a small one, behind the ear, that exited through the mouth. Calleigh's skeptical about anyone's ability to run with a gunshot to the head, but Delko reminds her that anything's possible. Calleigh asks if Delko found bullets in the garage; he did not, but he's got some blood patterns he'd like to show her. When they walk over to said blood patterns, we see that Calleigh's blazer is pleated and gathered in the back, thus ensuring that it's equally troubling coming and going. We all get to see the smudge on the floor, and Delko says, "Doesn't look like a shoe, but it's hard to say where it's from. And the spatter on the back of this truck is even harder to place." Not for Calleigh: "Looks like high velocity from a gunshot." Delko counters that a second gunshot doesn't gibe with what the body's telling them. Well, perhaps an ME can set y'all straight at some point.
Meanwhile, we're looking at the hapless hooker on the autopsy table, strategically covered so as not to inflame anyone's prurient interests. Alexx is telling Horatio, "Twenty-three stab wounds in all. Some of them look tentative." "Until he got the hang of it," Horatio replies. Speaking of getting the hang of things, I see that Horatio's mastered the art of being in the same room as the autopsy he's commenting on. We find out that the majority of the wounds are deep-force penetrations, and cause of death is exsanguination from a wound that severed Susan's aorta. She bled out into her chest cavity, which explains the lack of blood everywhere. Horatio muses, "[That] would have helped the killer with his clean-up. You think he would have known that?" Alexx shoots back, "You find him and ask him." Horatio smiles in response. Then he notices the traces of adhesive, and Alexx fills him in, telling him they found it on Susan's wrists, ankles, and mouth. Horatio says, "So he picked her up, bound and taped her, and then he went to town." There's no sign of sexual activity, and Alexx comments, "[The killer] went to a lot of trouble for no personal or sexual motive." Horatio asks, "How about the joy of just taking a life? That's always good."
Then he stalks out of the morgue and right into Speedle's work area. That's either a smooth transition, or a really compact lab. Who knows? Maybe Speedle's now occupying the skybox and Horatio's powers include teleportation. Anyway, Speedle fills Horatio in on his tour of dumpster-diving, then comments that the tub's pipes were a bust: "I found traces of drain cleaner, so it would have dissolved any traces of DNA he might have left." Then we get a TMICam that could double for a Liquid Plum-R commercial. We have a brief exchange about hotel bedspreads which only echoes episodes of CSI, and then Horatio wanders off in search of Susan's family members or children, the better to make her his new personal poster child for avenging.
And then Horatio goes over Susan's stuff in the second science montage of the night. He finds a fingerprint.
In the scene, he and Speedle are cruising through the halls, and Speedle's telling Horatio, "Smear on the bedspread is mold -- a type that's not found in the bungalow." Horatio thinks the killer could have brought it in with him. Speedle replies, "But not off his body -- it could be transfer from some kind of cover he brought to keep the mess down." Horatio dismisses this with, "He did get sloppy about one thing. We found a bloody fingerprint on the victim's belt." And it turns out that fingerprint belongs to Cole Judson, who had a prior knife assault on a woman twelve years ago. Speedle's all, "Not his first time." Horatio decrees, "Let's make it his last."
Cut to Horatio and Detective Whoever pulling up in front of a house, where two guys are wrestling with a large concrete something. This is how we meet the landlord, who tells Horatio that Cole is busy helping him with his fence, and adds, "The guy pulls in six figures and his way to unwind is hacking at wood. Go figure." He pulls in six figures and he's still renting? When did the Miami economy turn into the San Francisco one? Then the landlord catches on as to why Horatio's looking for Judson: "Are you guys the police?" Once it's confirmed that they are, the landlord says, "Go right around back. Just follow the screams." When he puts it that way, it's like he's implying that Cole Judson really relaxes by hacking at others. How funny -- it's almost as if he's striving for unintentional irony. The landlord pauses for a strategic beat, then says, "His stepkids believe in expressing themselves."
We see the kids busy expressing themselves in back while a woman reads the paper. Hey, she's wearing the ill-starred hippie look that failed to fly off clothing racks this season! If that's not proof that the stylist on this show is looking to Edina Monsoon and Patsy Stone for fashion forecasting, I don't know what is. We see the usual backyard detritus, and then the camera zooms in on a hand working intently at wood while a large knife lies nearby, unsheathed. Hmmm. How convenient. It's almost as if we're supposed to believe that Cole Judson's a stab-happy monster. Detective Whoever introduces himself, and then we see Cole himself, and suddenly, I'm flashing back to the OJ trial, what with Cole's wife being extremely blonde and Cole being extremely not. Anyway, all these law-enforcement types enter, Horatio glowers, and then Detective Unsubtle announces to Cole in front of his wife and kids, "You're under arrest for the murder of Susan McCreary." Horatio glowers nearby, and it suddenly becomes my most fervent wish that a) Cole is incredibly innocent, b) Cole is incredibly litigious, and c) Cole decides to sue the Miami PD for a lot of money by alleging that his wrongful arrest has traumatized his wife and children to a point where only $100 million, plus Horatio's head on a platter, can help them put this horrible experience behind them. Cole's wife immediately freaks out, asking, "What are they doing?" They're arresting your husband, lady. Cole tells Wendy (that would be the wife) to call their lawyer, and assures her that everything's going to be okay. It's good to see that someone in the family keeps his head in a crisis. Horatio switches to the mournful brooding expression. Wendy stalks up to Horatio and asks, "What are you doing? Cole would never hurt anyone." Horatio immediately replies, "Mrs. Judson, your husband will be transported downtown, where he will be booked. In the meantime, I have a warrant to search your husband's residence. Welcome to John Ashcroft's America." "This can't be right," Wendy protests. She continues, "You're wrong." Horatio rolls his eyes heavenward in disbelief that there's still even one person in Miami who's not aware of his crime-fighting omnipotence.
And now, the B-plot. It's twenty minutes into the episode, and we've seen no indication that the A-plot and B-plot are taking place anywhere near each other on the space-time continuum. I realize these guys work different cases and all, but would it kill them to offer some sort of explanation for the parallel tracks, or set an expository scene in a communal setting so that we can see we're not watching an episode which has been spliced together from two separate shows? My, but that scene has made me testy. Anyway, Calleigh and Delko are reviewing the security tape, which was apparently not recorded but hand-drawn by Ben Katchor. Delko notes that the mask over the carjacker's face yields no facial ID, but he can tag the print found on the floor of the garage. He explains, "Perforations on that glove appear to match the pattern we found in that blood smear." The smear came about by the shooter sliding through the blood, skidding, and using his hand to correct his fall. Calleigh looks at the tape and says, "Shooter approached her side of the car, and shot the husband." We should note now that the wife ducks down as though she's used to being carjacked. Delko points out that the tape -- which now looks more like a tape and less like Julius Knippel, Real Estate Photographer -- still doesn't point out where Werner was shot. Calleigh flexes and sighs, "It's riveting, but what I really want is a call from Alexx." Delko laughs, "Easy, girl. You'll get your bullet."
Well, she does, but Alexx apologizes, as the bullet was fragmented. Calleigh looks at the fragment and says aloud, "It's a small-caliber, .22 probably. There's no hope for comparison." Alexx looks on the bright side of things by saying, "I've got your first bullet." Calleigh asks, "He was shot in the mouth?" Ugh. And we get to see it from the perspective of Werner's incisors. The bullet came to rest in the back of Werner's throat. Calleigh gets a light bulb over her head: "That would explain the blood spatter on the back of truck. He would have been spitting cupfuls of blood with a wound like that." Alexx says, "Over forty arteries and veins inside the oral pharynx and the buccal mucosa." And we get to see them all, courtesy of the TMICam. Calleigh adds a note of pathos to the proceedings with, "He was hiding from his killer." We see Werner coughing up mouthfuls of blood as he crouches by the truck.
Cut to Speedle and Horatio going through the immaculate Judson house. Given those kids, the senior Judsons must have supernatural housekeeping powers. Horatio looks out a window and sees a man picking up a Judson kid and hugging him, and he demands to know who it is. Speedle explains that it's Wendy's ex-husband. Horatio's all, "Hmmm. The ex-husband. That's interesting." Cut to the ex, Michael, taking the kids, and Wendy insisting, "This is a mistake -- it's crazy." Michael's all, "Any time, middle of the night or five in the morning, I'm there for you." Horatio's Crimey-Sense should have moved past tingling and into short, sharp shock territory at this point. Michael continues, "If there's anything I can do..." "We'll let you know. Thank you," Horatio says, with more courtesy than he's shown anyone who actually lives inside the Judson abode. Guess he's big into guilt by association. Detective Downer immediately hovers into Wendy's personal space and asks, "Are you aware that your husband has a record for a knife assault on another woman?" No, she wasn't, but thanks for bringing it up! We then find out that Wendy thinks Cole has a weekly sales meeting -- Wednesdays until 9 PM -- but then, in the scene, we find that he doesn't have weekly sales meetings. Horatio judges Cole harshly: "So he's two for two on lies to his wife." I'd argue that there's a difference between not mentioning something -- like, say, a weapons charge in one's past -- and actively lying about it, so I'd put Cole at one-for-two, but I have not the benefit of Horatio's divine mandate or holy powers of crime-solving.
Horatio goes in to pass judgment on Cole. Poor Cole, who also missed the memo on Horatio's unimpeachable cred, says, "Please, you have to believe me. I don't know what you found, but you're wrong." Horatio's all, "What happened to your hand?" Cole says he got the injury on his forefinger by whacking his hand, and one of his kids put the band-aid on. He peels off the band-aid and gives it to Speedle, per Horatio's request. Detective Annoyance then asks Cole where he was last night. "After work, I took a walk on the beach. It's what I do every Wednesday." Horatio immediately zooms in with, "That's not what your wife told us." Cole pauses, looks up at Horatio's implacable mug, and begins explaining: "I love being married, I do. And I adore those kids. I steal one night a week for myself, and I should have been honest with Wendy about needing it." Bzzt! Not good enough for Horatio, who probably can't imagine a marriage with a spouse who wouldn't want to spend every spare moment with him. Detective Unsubtle asks, "What about the girl you stabbed in college?" Cole's all, "Oh, my God. Beth? I never hurt Beth. We were young, and we were drunk, and we were arguing, and she cut herself. I took her to the ER to get stitches, they had to file a report, suddenly she was worried about what her family would say, so she said I did it." Horatio's disbelief is writ large across his smug countenance. He then whips out a picture of dead Susan and asks Cole if he recognizes her. No, Cole does not. "No?" Horatio presses. "No," Cole replies again. Horatio runs from the room, probably to go have a cry in the men's room now that his fantasy of glowering at Cole until the man caves has been rent asunder.
B-plot. Calleigh, mercifully, in lab gear. She's just kind of hanging out while the computer does its thing, and it's not until it beeps and we go to the scene that we're able to conclude that she's using a bullet-matching database to try to connect this bullet to one found in a prior case, in an effort to shed more light on this shooting. We find out that the markings on this bullet match those on a bullet found at a convenience store robbery. Cut to Calleigh, Sevilla, and Delko walking down a set of stairs outdoors while Sevilla explains that the adult connected with the robbery is still serving time, but the juvenile, Malcolm Davidson, only did a few months and is out now. Delko suggests paying a visit to Malcolm.
Cut to a doe-eyed young man staring vacantly into space while his grandmother sobs into a handkerchief that "wherever you think Malcolm was, he was out with me." Delko, who's just produced a glove linking someone in this house to the shooting, only ratchets up the tension in the house. Cut to Malcolm being kissed goodbye by his tearful grandma shortly before he's led from the house in cuffs. The tall man who's hovering behind her abruptly shouts out, "No way my brother did this!" Well, it's nice to see that the parallel plots have their common themes -- men led off by the heat while their relatives insist there's no way the people committed the crimes, past records notwithstanding.
And now, Horatio's passing on the Tao of him to the generation, a skeptical Speedle. He's saying, "So I'm the killer, and I've just wiped down the scene, and I'm preparing to dispose of some of the victim's clothes, but somehow, some of the victim's blood has escaped my cleanup, right?" Horatio opens a jar of bovine blood -- which Speedle calls "beef blood" -- and explains that it's close to human, and not a biohazard. You know, I seem to remember Gil actually using his employees' blood to simulate blood spatter from a head wound; have things changed that much since fall 2000? Horatio then rolls his print on a sheet of glass, saying, "This is how the print should look on the belt. Take a look at the picture, grasshopper." Oh, he does not; Horatio's as not-Zen as they get. Speedle looks at the print, and says, "Looks the same as the print you made." Horatio snaps, "Try and follow along, Speedle. I'll use tiny words. It's not, because it wasn't made with a bloody fingerprint. It was made with oil. Like this." Speedle just gapes, because it's finally dawned on him that he's in the presence of a master. Horatio adds the finishing touch, "And blood was applied like this" -- he dabs with a Q-tip -- "allowing the blood to slide off the ridges and pool in the furrows." He graciously invites Speedle to take a look, and Speedle's all, "Woooooow. I've never seen anything like that. I guess you'd miss it if you didn't know it." Never one to be magnanimous in victory, Horatio says, "That's right." He then advises young Speedle on the wisdom of staying current in forensic techniques: "Remember the criminalist from Taos...she did a study, and this is how you can frame somebody with their own print." Speedle asks, "What did the state's attorney say when you called and told them you had the wrong guy?" What did he say? He said keep it the hell out of the papers unless anyone was inclined to start a riot, that's what. Or, on Planet CSI, he said that a jury's not terribly likely to parse actual science when they can rely upon shopworn conventional wisdom, so Horatio's going to have to come up with something better. In the words of Grasshopper and Sensei: "So Cole Judson..." "...is looking at Murder One."
After a far too brief commercial break, we're back with Grasshopper and Sensei, and Honorable Sensei is busy saying, "I believe the killer left the print behind intentionally, but he left this behind by mistake." "That's my mold from the bungalow!" Grasshopper says. "Cladisporium is a dark mold commonly found in indoor water spaces like Cole Judson's bathroom. Now this is the mold from his shower curtain, Grasshopper," Sensei elaborates. Grasshopper replies, "Mold from the bungalow matches the shower curtain? It is not looking good for Cole." "That's true, my young pupil. But do not let your mind be clouded. God knows I don't," Sensei says. Actually, he points out that Cladisporium is a pretty common species, so they can narrow down the particular strains found in the bathroom and in the bungalow; that's an excellent way to eliminate or confirm the importance of the mold. Grasshopper replies incredulously, "You're trying to identify the DNA of the mold?" Yes, because no one has ever thought of that before in the history of forensics. Grasshopper persists in his blind query: "Mold's a primitive organism." "Is not the humblest among us composed of DNA? Except me, for I am made of pure justice," replies Sensei. Oh, he does not. He says, "If it's biological, it has DNA." Grasshopper foolishly pursues his argument: "Master, this is still going to be rough." Sensei sets him straight: "Not as rough as leaving an innocent man to do time on death row."
Calleigh and Delko are...hey, look! Paint drying! What you need to get out of this scene: they love the glove, as it has Werner's DNA, Malcolm's epithelials, and a waxy substance which, at the thirty-three-minute mark, can only be the thing which will crack this case wide open. The waxy substance is composed of castor oil, triglyceride, lanolin, heptan-2-one, and red number six barium. Delko's all, "I couldn't locate the brand or the manufacturer, but it's definitely lipstick." What? He just likes to feel pretty, remember? He thinks the lipstick came from Grandma. Oh, who hasn't borne The Mark Of Grandma at some point? Calleigh says, "It's bad enough when you're in that awkward stage between boy and cold-blooded killer, but it's even worse when Grandma's kiss links you to the scene." Delko replies, "Are you kidding me?" and Calleigh clarifies, "I found the same lipstick on the Germans' rearview mirror." Delko states, "So that doesn't just put him at the scene. That puts Malcolm inside the rental car." Now it gets interesting, as Calleigh notes, "Except we have the whole crime scene on video and Malcolm never gets in the car." Delko recovers: "So it had to happen before the crime -- but what was he doing in the front seat?" One flashback, which is absolutely no help whatsoever, has him sitting in the car and wiping off his grandmother's lipstick. Calleigh wants to know who Malcolm was sitting with.
Cut to Horatio talking to Detective Obstinate, who's asking if there's any reason anyone would want to frame Cole Judson. Everyone watching this episode immediately thinks of the ex-husband, Michael The Red Herring, and resigns themselves to watching how this plot twist plays out. Onscreen, Horatio muses that motives for framing include not wanting to get caught, or trying to deliberately ruin a life. Detective Cut-and-Dried isn't having any of it, snapping, "It's a theory!" As the detective warms up -- the better to assist him when he begins practicing his jump to conclusions -- Horatio drops the news about the mold smear diagnosis and the way the print was forged. Long story short: so long as the print is in something that can later harden and create an impression, anyone can lift a print and duplicate it later.
Minutes later, Horatio's putting together his master theory with Cole Judson's help. He asks, "Who has access to your apartment?" and Cole tells him, "I guess, the building manager, or our cleaning lady." I take back what I said earlier about his and his wife's supernatural domestic powers. Horatio tries again: "I guess what I'm asking, is who has keys to it?" Cole understandably wants to know what his apartment has to do with any of this. Rather than tell him, Horatio's all, "For right now, why don't you let me worry about that, okay?" If I were Cole, Horatio is the last person I'd be assuming is in my corner. What do you know -- Cole and I are on the same page here: "I wish I could, but I've been going through hell, and I didn't do anything. So I give you our friends, our cleaning lady's name and -- what? They're here instead of me?" Horatio argues, "The thing is, is that they might be able to help you." Cole wants to know how. Horatio asks, "Does anyone have a reason to frame you?" Cole doesn't think so. Horatio finally explains, "What I'm trying to determine is whether somebody gained access to your apartment and took something without your knowledge." Cole points out that Wendy's ex doesn't have keys, but they've come home to him inside the apartment for no good reason.
Cut to Michael pushing aside the rest of the herrings in his school and saying, "I brought the kids home. Henry was sick, so I put him to bed." Horatio points out that the story doesn't hold water with Wendy and Cole. Recognizing that he's in the presence of Miami's chief avenger for justice, Michael admits, "I told the landlady I left my car keys. She let me in and I looked around." We find out that Michael was looking for drugs and pornography; he tells everyone, "Wendy married this guy just three days after our divorce was final -- she just met him five months before that." This fails to arouse frenzies of suspicion on the part of Detective Drag-Along, and he asks where Michael was on the night of the killing. He was at a watertight alibi, so we can rest assured that he didn't do the deed. Detective Hang 'Em High opines that the only surprise in the conversation is Cole's lack of a pornography stash. Don't go projecting, Detective. Horatio soon sets the guy straight on the dangers of relying on time-of-death as a surefire indicator of guilt.
And then he segues into the scene, wherein our friend Phaleonopsis is going to help us establish time of death. Horatio is explaining to Speedle why they're returning to this -- namely, either it gets the ex off the hook or it keeps him in play in the theory pool. Speedle points out that time of death was established by the victim's liver temperature. Horatio says, "Which brings us to room temperature. When we entered the room, it was seventy-five degrees -- perfect for humans and orchids, correct?" Of course he's correct. Speedle checks one set of petals and notes that they don't look healthy; Horatio then directs him to the petals of the plant in the room and says, "[These cells] don't look healthy, and the reason they're not healthy is like [Susan's] body, they were chilled." Anyone who's ever watched Good Eats is familiar with this explanation: as plant matter gets colder, the water in its cells expands and can rupture the cell walls; this is why berries that have been frozen and thawed feel all mushy. Speedle concludes, "So somebody went in and cranked the air conditioning." This alters body temperature, and thus fudges the liver temp and throws off the time of death.
B-plot. A voman who seems as though she got her grooming tips and her accent from Joel Grey in Cabaret says, "I recognize no vun. The shooter vore a snood mask." Sevilla asks if Greta and Werner knew anyone in Miami; Greta replies, "Ve knew no vun in Miahmi. People told us, 'Don't go zhere, you get shot.' Ve came, my husband vas killed." Calleigh and Sevilla give Greta level looks, and Greta turns on the vatervorks, saying tremulously, "I vould like to go, and I would like to take my husband vith me." Calleigh comes over and awkwardly places a glass of vater on the table, saying, "Vhy don't you just drink from this so we can get your DNA, test it, skirt around the fact that maybe you're not avare of how law enforcement vorks in this country and how ve're trying to get all sorts of samples from you vizhout your direct knowledge and consent?" Or maybe something not to that effect at all. Greta drinks, and Calleigh and Sevilla have to visibly restrain themselves from high-fiving over the lipstick print on the glass. Greta pleads exhaustion and asks if she can go. "I think ve have everything ve need," Calleigh says, amusing herself vith how stealthily she just got her lip print. She's not exactly concerned vith how she gets her evidence, is she? As Sevilla escorts Greta out, Calleigh and her shirt -- a number that seems like a perfectly fine gray tee from the front, but a smocked nightmare from the back -- vhip out the latex gloves and get to vork on the glass.
Meanwhile, Speedle's telling Alexx and Horatio that the electric company has confirmed a spike in electricity at the bungalow between 9 PM and midnight. Horatio wonders if Susan was in the room by herself during that time, or if someone else might have been in there with her. Horatio concludes, "So he killed her, and then waited while her body chilled." Speedle -- who apparently borrowed someone else's shirt for this scene, as the garment is dangling past his fingertips -- notes, "New time of death clears Cole Judson." And it puts Michael back on the hook.
After the commercials, Horatio's sitting and brooding as he meditates on the forged fingerprint. When Grasshopper comes in, Horatio gives him this crime koan: "How many things do you think we'll overlook in the course of a career?" Grasshopper replies, "You? Less than anyone I know. And me, fewer because of it." It's official: Grasshopper's on the fast track to enlightenment. The two of them meditate on the perfection of clues and suspects for a while. Since Michael knew about Cole's conviction but Wendy didn't, Horatio and Speedle come to the conclusion that he may have been purchasing information about Cole -- or someone else might have.
Back at the B-plot, is anyone surprised that Greta's print matches up with the earlier lipstick prints insofar as brands and manufacturers goes? While trying to figure out how on earth Greta and Werner may have crossed paths with Malcolm, Calleigh muses, "So what kind of murder requires an advance meeting?" "A hired hit. The question is, who did the hiring," Delko promptly replies. And we go to the tape. They're trying to figure out who hired Malcolm -- Greta or Werner -- and Delko slows down the tape, explaining, "The average person's reaction time, from perception to response, is 1.5 seconds." Calleigh asks, "How do you know that?" Delko's all, "Auto insurance studies," as if everyone reads those. For all I know, maybe they do. He continues, "For an unexpected stimulus, the brain needs even more processing time." "Say, for example, if you were unaccustomed to having someone pull a gun on you," Calleigh replies. Well, yes. They look at the tape, and Delko notes, "[Greta] ducked in 1.1 seconds. Olympians aren't even that fast." Calleigh asks, "So when do good reflexes become intent to kill?" "And how, within two days of arriving in Miami, did the wife find a shooter that she knew wouldn't flip on her?"
Cut to Angry Older Brother sitting across from Calleigh and saying, "A glove, a mirror. What does any of this have to do with me?" Calleigh answers with, "Did you know that heptan-2-one isn't approved in the United States? It offers sun protection. The sun shines in Germany, doesn't it?" Angry Guy responds, "You never asked me if I lived in Germany." Sevilla points out that the State Department was more than happy to provide that information, and Angry Guy's work visa. They got that bright idea once they linked Grandma's lipstick with a German manufacturer, and then reconstructed other events -- Angry Guy was cut by the Stuttgart Ballet and apparently began teaching ballet privately, which was how he met Greta Roebling. Calleigh says sleepily, "You should have limited your services to teaching dance." Just then, Delko knocks; Calleigh goes outside, where he tells her, "Wife's ready to make a deal. She's very opposed to the death penalty, especially when it's applied to her."
Greta is busy explaining vhy Brian -- that vould be the ex-dancer -- that she's an inveterate vhiner, and vhen she said she vished her husband vas dead, she didn't mean for him to take it so literally. "And zhen Brian zhaid he arranged a shooting person." Brian, meanwhile, is saying, "I said, 'Where I come from, ten grand buys you a corpse.' I was talking trash. She gives me an itinerary, they're coming here, hands me cash for a ticket too." Calleigh interjects, "She booked you, but at any point, you could have said no." Brian replies, "I was broke, and I had leaned on every friend that I had. I swore that I would never end up where I came from." What, dancing Rum Tum Tugger in the Lakeland dinner theatre presentation of Cats? Delko continues, "So you came home to cash out on your little brother's back." Brian sighs and says, "Malcolm, he saw what I had. And he wanted out too. But he didn't have a focus." Or a talent for ballet, I'm guessing. Brian continues, "Because he had never worked for anything before." Okay, we can definitely eliminate ballet from Malcolm's short list; those dancers are among the world's preeminent workaholic masochists. Brian then gets pissed over Malcolm's botched handling of the job: "I said, 'Get a fresh strap for the job.' But does he do it? No." Calleigh comments sadly, "A different gun. That's looking out for him." Cut to Brian staring for a while as he realizes his gig may be as The Cell Block C Fairy in Florida State Prison.
Meanwhile, in a parallel episode, Speedle and Horatio are underscoring the frightening and sinister aspects of a Total Information Awareness system by expositing how anyone with any motive can quickly get quite an extensive dossier on your life. Don't you feel much better knowing how, in just a few months, the U.S. government -- which typically scores really low on network security tests -- will be able to more easily compile and monitor your personal data? And don't you love how the same government -- which routinely closes formerly-public government hearings and court proceedings, has redefined the retroactive privileges a past president can invoke for keeping things private (hi, Dad!), has recently expanded the number of agencies who can classify things as top-secret, and has sharply curtailed the Freedom of Information act -- thinks there's no contradiction in insisting that its citizens have no right to data privacy? Isn't Canada looking more attractive by the minute? And haven't I drifted way the hell off the topic here? Sorry. Anyway, it turns out that Cole's landlord, Lee Bastille, is the one who bought the report. Speedle points out that landlords routinely run background checks, so it's not exactly harmful. Horatio underscores the inherent abuse of such checks by pointing out, "Unless you use [a data report] to frame someone for murder."
Cut to Detective Useless interviewing Mrs. Bastille about how long she and the husband have owned the building. Mrs. Bastille has the look of a deeply troubled woman; Horatio should be all over this in about .45 seconds. We find out that she thinks they only run routine credit checks on tenants, and that there are tensions between her and her husband regarding how much together time a couple ought to spend. Horatio, who's been perusing the bookshelves, notes, "You have a forensics buff in the house." Mrs. Bastille says that her husband's the guy: "He can't get enough. I think they're disgusting. My marriage is a lie and I'm deeply disturbed." Or maybe I just added some subtext there. Horatio then asks if he could use the bathroom, and promptly zeroes in on the cardamom soap. Too bad it's disqualified as evidence until they have a warrant. Oh, wait. This is Horatio; the Miami circuit court judges are well aware that our mortal laws don't apply to him. Anyway, Mrs. Bastille pops in the door as Horatio's pulling on the latex gloves and asks, "Why are you wearing gloves?" Well, why is she hovering outside the door when her guests are going to the bathroom? Horatio's all, "This is cardamom soap. Is it yours?" Mrs. B replies, "No. Lee brought it home." Horatio asks if Lee brought the soap home, like, really recently. Horatio finally picks up on Mrs. B's deep unease and obvious need to rat out her husband without actually doing so, and asks, "Did he ask you to use this?" "He didn't ask," she replies.
Cut to the exposition of their freaky bath-time routine, complete with flashbacks. After Lee decided, eight years into their marriage, to become an active participant in their bonds of holy wedlock, his idea of spousal bonding was to make the missus lie really, really still in the bath while he washed her. Horatio does nothing to allay Mrs. B's fears that she's about to walk into the Lifetime movie Bathed in Deception, but he does manage to nimbly dance around all constitutional provisions regarding spousal testimony. Way to go, H. week, Horatio will order a Cuban immigrant family to quarter some U.S. troops, and then he'll stand outside polling stations and tell eighteen-year-olds to come back in 2006. Anyway, Horatio tells Mrs. B that poor, dead Susan was bathed in cardamom soap, so if she could detail Lee's whereabouts on Wednesday, that sure would help. Mrs. B breathes, "He was home. We always eat at seven. Later, he said he got a call from a tenant, some broken pipes...a little before nine. I didn't hear the phone ring. He'll be home any minute." Mrs. B is inches away from screaming hysterics, and it's Horatio's finest moment: "I don't want you to worry about that right now. Here's what I want you to do. I want to search your apartment, but first, I want to get you out of here for your personal safety. Can I do that?" Of course he can.
And now, Horatio has a date with cardamom soap! He then gets some mold out of the tub grout (the telltale fungus!) and finds plumber's putty under the sink, complete with a fingerprint.
And now, the interrogation scene, wherein we find out how and why Lee Bastille decided to frame his tenant for murder. Horatio says, "The Judsons were in your building less than a month before you created a plumbing emergency, right?" Detective Whatever says, "And both Wendy and Cole Judson confirm you insisted on fixing it -- with Cole's help." Fingerprint, check. Horatio adds, "We found traces of epoxy in the plumber's putty." Fingerprint mold for planting prints later, check. Horatio congratulates Lee on how well the print was done, but then points out that they've traced the mold from the bungalow bedspread to his bathroom. Lee's all, "I don't understand." Horatio deadpans, "Check your crime books, my friend. It's DNA." Lee then tries the I-have-an-alibi route, but Horatio zaps him with, "While Susan McCreary lay bound, gagged, terrified, but not dead, right?" And then we get to see Susan being bound up. Yay! Not really. Horatio hammers home the real mental terror of the situation with, "You left her waiting while you went home to your wife to set up an alibi. Later after you killed her, you dropped her body temperature so you could roll the clock back." Lee's got that well, damn look on his face. Too bad none of his books warned him about The Caine Exception ("when you're trying to commit a crime, just forget Miami, okay?"). Horatio mentions, "You would have pulled this off without the bloody print had you not gone too far." This is Lee's cue to talk about how much he liked the killing, because it was a break from his dull suburban routine, blah-de-blah, American Beauty and stifling soul-killing suburbia, blah-de-blah, The Ice Storm and the systematic annihilation of genuine emotion, blah-de-blah, John Cheever, the Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, any cliche which links a prefab life to soul-twisting amorality, blah.
In the most baffling fricking ending to an episode, Horatio decides it is not at all inappropriate or awkward for him to drop off the guy he wrongfully arrested and glom on to the happy family reunion which is in no way traumatized by the presence of the man who took away Daddy. Gah!