By Sobell
The episode begins with some band exhorting the virtues of easy living as the camera pans around a pool so exclusive, it only lets in people who haven't heard of melanoma or sunscreen. The camera lingers over a parade of bikini-clad flesh so we can all ooh and ahh, and we get the impression that time is slipping on by as assorted beautiful people in varying states of undress lie down and get up from chaise lounges stationed by the pool. Gradually, everyone leaves as peak tanning hours dwindle, and a white-clad pool flunky is busy picking up the jet set's towels. As he walks by one cabana, he notices a woman prone on the lounge, her hat covering her head. As he walks over, we can all see that she's got the beginnings of a nuclear-grade sunburn. The guy tries to rouse her, and when he lifts her hat, whatever he sees causes him to recoil in disgust and drop the hat. Oh, like your hairdresser's never done that when you've come in for a trim.
Cut to Horatio and our friend John -- remember John? -- walking down the stairs to the pool, with Horatio saying smugly, "So nobody noticed anything?" "She turned and burned like everyone else around her," John replies. Who would have thought rich sunbathers had so much in common with rotisserie chickens? We learn that the last person to wait on Betty Bakes-a-lot did so at 2:30, and the entire shift of attendants is collected inside and awaiting the inevitable straw-man line of inquiry that passes for investigation on this show. We see the two men walk over as Speedle lifts his camera to take pictures. The camera flashes, and we're at the scene.
Cut to John opining that Betty Bakes-a-lot looks like a dried roast. Horatio ignores that and leans down to tell everyone that she's got a bullet wound to the back of the head; it's hardly visible through her hair. Either that pool flunky had excellent vision or he's easily upset by curly hair. John asks if a sniper made the hit. What, and then the sniper shot the hat off the table and onto Betty Bakes-a-lot's head so that nobody would notice? Horatio points out a second wound, and theorizes that whoever shot this woman did so at close range. John asks, "Who would risk a murder like this in front of all these people in broad daylight?" Well, who would be dumb enough to take a sniper shot in front of all these people in broad daylight, Mister You-Think-A-Sniper-Did-It? The people at the poolside may look as though their pretty heads could barely read the SPF on a bottle of sunscreen, but they'd sure as hell notice a gunshot. Anyway, Horatio thinks that the shooter is someone who wanted to make the murder public. John says, "The guy's got to be crazy." Horatio puts on his sunglasses and replies, "Not that crazy. He got our attention."
Roger Daltrey and I holler at the same time -- him for his own personal reasons, and me because sometimes, primal screaming lets the owies out. So Horatio only pays attention to sane killers? How nice it must be to take on cases only after vetting them using stringent personal criteria.
Once we're back from commercial, we see that Betty Bakes-a-lot has turned a mottled red color. That's interesting -- I didn't know that the skin continued to react to sun exposure even after death. Then again, given the quality of the "science" on this show, I probably still don't. The invisible man must have been snapping pictures, because once we finish with the series of snapshots detailing the massive sunburn this woman suffered, the only people at the chaise lounge are Horatio and Alexx, and neither one of them has a camera. Horatio comments, "She traveled light." Alexx clarifies, "But well. $300 Helen Kaminski tote bag. Ooh, and look at her ring." It appears that Betty Bakes-a-lot is engaged to the mayor of Emerald City. Horatio comments, "Cleopatra's favorite gem. Oval cut, too." Naturally, Horatio's a gemologist in his spare time. Just then, Calleigh comes over, piping, "The shark's choking on everything. The grid search offered up six sprinkler heads, a bottle cap and a spoon." And then the shark took a big leap. Or was that the show? Anyway, I love how we're just supposed to infer that "shark" is the police lingo for metal detector. Horatio realizes that there are no casings lying around. Calleigh tells him, "Either the shooter used a revolver, or they were smart enough to pick up the cartridge. Alexx, can you characterize the wound?" Khandi Alexander comes back from the vacation she took off-screen and says, "Definite searing." Since she's only a coroner, it's up to Calleigh to explain to us what these subtle anatomical clues mean: "Barrel to skin. This may have been an execution." "Or a very good imitation," offers Alexx, before packing up for another trip off-screen. At least, that's how I hope Khandi Alexander's using her time, since God knows she's not called on to contribute much of it to any given episode of this show. "It seems real to Me," Horatio decrees. He goes on to explain that the victim seems wrong, what with being a woman, then bids Calleigh and Alexx good day so they can ponder whether women breaking the glass ceiling in gangland hits is progress or not.
In the scene, John says deferentially to Horatio, "Front desk says our victim's name is Gloria Tynan." We find out that Gloria checks into the penthouse every Tuesday afternoon with a mysterious unnamed man. Oh, Gloria. I think they've got your number. Horatio commands that, "Let's keep the cleaning crew out of here until My guys get here." John tells him, "There's more. Her hotel bill's always paid in cash." Horatio muses, "Paid for a penthouse in cash, and yet they only found ten dollars in her purse." Well, if she was paying in cash, maybe she didn't have a lot left over? Oh! I get it! We're supposed to think that someone like Gloria, who does piss away large amounts of cash on afternoon hotel-suite rentals, would be carrying a wad of cash. John carries on, "She checked out, then went to the pool. Front desk says it's part of her routine." Horatio's all, "It wasn't routine today, was it?" Not unless she's in the habit of rising from the dead after getting plugged in the back of head, no -- but that should have been obvious, shouldn't it? John resists the urge to say anything.
Cut to Speedle sulking about his haircut in the corner of an elevator. Delko comes in, sighing heavily from the imposition of working for a living, and plants himself on the wall to Speedle. As the elevator rises, Speedle says, "Hey, check it out." Delko follows Speedle's line of sight and asks, "We on TV?" In a meta way, yes. Speedle corrects him, "No, it's Alexx. It's the crime scene. We were just down there." So let me get this straight: the hotel's security cameras are feeding a closed-circuit television in a glass elevator that the guests use? What, are they expecting security to go riding elevators all day to see what's going on outside? This hotel caters to people who get their ya-yas from watching security camera footage? I'd try to cobble together a rational explanation for why a glass elevator turned into the viewing room for security central, but I might actually sprain something in my brain. Anyway, the whole purpose for this addled coincidence is so Delko can conclude, "That means that security might have caught our shooter in the act." Speedle's itching to get his hands on the footage, and Delko chides him, "There's no way you're getting out of processing this room with me." Speedle begins riffing, and once again, Rory Cochrane rises about his material with, "Why would I want to do that? I love hotel rooms. Body fluids everywhere." Delko notes Speedle's grin and snaps a latex glove as he tells Speedle to glove up. "That may play at home, but you're on the job now," Speedle shoots back. Oh, he does not. When was the last time there was anything resembling witty repartee on this show? Why would they start now?
Night rapidly falls on Miami in the time it takes those two clowns to exit the elevator and walk to the room. That must be the longest hotel hall in all of Miami. Delko assesses the situation with, "Movies on command, a full bar, that's definitely the way to go. That's how my grandma's going -- I figure we can fit the entire family in this suite, catch some Spectravision while she breathes her last, charge the mini-bar to the estate..." Or maybe he stops before fitting in a reference to his earlier contention that Grandma Delekorsky would depart this mortal plane while surrounded by her dubious genetic legacy. Speedle opines that the mini-bar is no way to rate a suite. Delko notes that the bed's made, and Speedle speculates, "Maybe they did it on the spread." Then he and Delko giggle for five minutes because he said "did it."
We then transition into a montage wherein our dynamic duo look for bodily fluids courtesy of an ALS and take fingerprints in the room. Delko finds a fresh partial print; Speedle finds some porn. Why does this not surprise me at all? I wonder if Speedle's always "finding" porn at crime scenes, then giving a capsule summary of the A.V.N. review. Delko's all surprised: "A girl that hot? Guy had to be a Viagra case." Because it follows in his sad little world that women are merely sexual objects for men, as opposed to sexual people who might get off on a little video action themselves. Speedle appears to concur: "So the suspect's probably over forty. You know what? I'm going to go watch those surveillance tapes." Sure you are, Speedle. Delko calls him on it with, "Don't digitize that one by mistake. The CSI servers are still recovering from the last digitized bootleg you put up. Damn KaZaA." Again -- what are the odds of Delko saying any such thing?"
Calleigh's down in the kitchen of the hotel, telling the assembled hotel staff, "Okay gentlemen, I'm going to need to see your hands, and by 'hands,' I mean 'awkward come-on lines,' because we need a demonstration of how my good looks can sometimes be an obstacle on the job." Or maybe she stops after the first part of that sentence while we see the rest in action. The upside is, she identifies one of the men as someone who ransacked Gloria's belongings; Gloria's girly watch on the man's burly wrist helps Calleigh make this call.
Back at the morgue, Horatio's standing at the foot of the mortuary slab with Alexx. Alexx is poking around Gloria's body, explaining, "Possible intercourse. I collected samples." Horatio replies, "Let's look for DNA for a potential suspect. And what about the gunshot wound?" What, indeed -- Gloria's got two small, clustered wounds. Horatio muses, "Pros tap twice, up close and personal, don't they?" Alexx replies, "Then we are dealing with a pro. Shooter pressed the barrel against her skull, jerks from the impact, then fires again. Two bullets." She hands said bullets to Horatio. It's worth noting that Alexx hasn't said word one to the victim; I wonder if she underwent an extensive behavior-modification program known as "rewriting the character mid-season." Alexx also produces a small vial in which a few black scraps float, and tells Horatio that the scraps have a rubbery consistency. This intrigues him. He then asks if there's "anything steel or metal...something like a suppressor." Alexx points out, "A suppressor would explain why nobody at the pool heard the big bang-bang-bang, but no. Just lead." Horatio accepts this and asks for Gloria's ten-card -- that's her print card -- ASAP. Alexx shoots back, "If you tell me your theory." Horatio broods, "Pretty girl, two taps to the back of the head -- worlds collide." This apparently means something to Alexx, because she begins silently taking Gloria's prints.
Within seconds, Gloria's scanned prints are being matched against whatever turns up. Horatio's hovering over the print technician, mentally willing the computer to work faster, until Calleigh distracts him by popping over and breathlessly announcing, "Hi. I have a suspect I'd like you to visit. He swiped our lady's wristwatch at the pool. Homicide has him in holding." Horatio lets her down gently: "It looks like you may have a minor-league thief on your hands." Calleigh is enthralled by his insight. Then her cell phone rings, and over the course of the conversation, she listens before saying too-cheerily, "Yeah! Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can break away." Once she hangs up, Horatio tells her, "I need you to take a look at the bullets we extracted from the victim." He hands them to her. Calleigh fixes him with her usual adoring gaze and tells him, "Sure thing." Horatio continues, "Particular attention to the striations." She asks lightly, "Do you mind if I run a quick errand before I do?" No, Horatio does not. On a better-written show, we'd be able to infer that he's probably guessed what Calleigh's about to go do; here, we must assume that his near-divine ability to pluck the right answer out of thin air is what's given him this moment of insight. He watches her go, before returning to brooding at the lab technician and screen.
Off in another part of the lab, Speedle's heading over to talk to a nameless AV peon, asking, "How do you like that Agramonte color surveillance?" The peon does: "It's not your average liquor-store security. Two-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar system. Just pulled it off DAT [digital audio tape]. Here's your victim, Gloria Tynan." We flash back to Gloria sauntering across the pool deck; she's not the most graceful woman on the block, but I guess anyone's stride would be hampered if she were wandering around in a bikini two sizes too small. Peon replies, "She's spending a weekday lounging by the pool at the Agramonte. What am I doing here?" "You're making a difference in your community," Speedle says opaquely; it's hard to tell whether he honestly believes this or is observing that sometimes, it sucks not to live a life of crime and danger. We then establish that Gloria's selected cabana hides any easy surveillance of her, but the following event was caught on tape: she asked the poolside attendant for a phone, despite having a cell phone of her own.
Calleigh's errand evidently includes happy hour as she walks into the bar, smiles at the bartender, then gets directed toward a back corner of the bar, where Foghorn Leghorn is practicing the avant-garde discipline of drunkapella, i.e. singing sans accompaniment or, for that matter, an actual tune. Calleigh walks on over, and Foghorn breaks off the tune with, "Lamb -- I say! -- Lambchop! Look at you!" Calleigh smiles and says, "Here I am. Were you singing songs for the customers?" It would appear that Lambchop's been through this drill before. Foghorn replies, "Nothing that they haven't ardently requested of me." Calleigh's still wearing a placating smile as she suggests, "How 'bout I give you a ride home." "I walked here," Foghorn shoots back. Calleigh laughs nervously as she says, "Well, I realize that, Dad. How 'bout you walk me out to my car?" "Why -- why! Certainly," Foghorn rallies. He raises his white straw hat -- what, did Dad head out from Belle Reve for the evening to tie one on? -- before bidding everyone good night, offering Calleigh his arm, and telling her, "A gentleman -- I say -- a gentleman may never refuse the request of a lady. Let your old dad take you out to dinner. We'll go out to that restaurant in Coral Gables that your mama's always talking about." Now that Calleigh's got her daddy in the street, she can turn off the charm: "I can't, Dad. I'm working." "Now?" he asks, surprised. "Yeah. Get in the car. I've got to go back to CSI." Foghorn informs her, "You know, you are much too pretty to work as hard as you do." Calleigh stops short and tells him, "I know you think you just paid me a big ol' compliment, but --" "But nothing. You are -- I say -- you are. Beautiful since the day you were born. Beautiful girl." It may be hard to be a pretty CSI -- at least, that's the impression we're getting with two references to Calleigh's pulchritude in under ten minutes -- but Calleigh's a sucker for her daddy. She noticeably softens and tells him that he can ride in the front seat. Well, that'll reduce the odds of Foghorn booting when his alcohol reserve meets his motion sickness. Just as Foghorn goes to get in the car, he wheels around to tell her, "I miss you, Calleigh." He hops in the car and she says with not a small amount of anger, "I'm here right now, Dad."
All of that brooding at AFIS has finally paid off for Horatio as he gets a match. Delko wants to know if it's off the ten-card; Horatio corrects him with AFIS, then calls his attention to the information on the file: "Look at this -- Regal Harbor Boat Tours, place of employment." Delko's not looking, because his eye has been caught by the flashing red number, "FED#: 202-R." Horatio tells him Gloria's been flagged by the Feds, then directs him to look at the number: "These are our friends in D.C. -- that's a 202 area code." Delko asks, "You want me to contact them?" "You know what? I think we just did by accessing this file," Horatio replies. He then calculates that any one of a number of agencies have just been notified and will be dispatching representatives to meet with him shortly.
Before they do, however, he has to go down and check in with Calleigh; she's in the shooting gallery, working out her issues with a big gun and a hapless dummy. I'm pleased to report that she's less odiously dressed than usual -- no puffy sleeves or inordinately flared pants, just a monochrome tee-and-pants outfit that, while giving her the appearance of an overly made-up orderly, manages to steer clear of any worse sartorial transgressions. Horatio comes in and lightly says, "Knock, knock, knock," as he smiles at her. He sidles up and asks, "Everything okay?" Calleigh blatantly lies with, "Yeah, it's fine." Horatio keeps looking as he presses, "You sure?" Calleigh looks up and admits, "Sometimes it's difficult to have family." And then Horatio sabotages all his likeability in this scene -- and I was liking him here, because David Caruso, while not everyone's cup of tea, has always managed to convey a certain empathetic quality that can be appealing -- by pulling the Dead Brother card with, "Sometimes, it's more difficult not to." Because Horatio would undoubtedly be thrilled to have a live alcoholic parent over a dead brother? Maybe Horatio's striving for the whole "grief can be worse than exasperation" thing here in order to dissuade Calleigh from dropping off her dad at the edge of a gator preserve, but playing "which family situation is worse?" strikes me as self-centered, and, as usual, this scene turns out to be all about Horatio. And he was doing so well, too!
Anyway, the two of them get down to striations. Calleigh explains, "I fired this projectile out of a standard .22 like the one they used on Gloria." Horatio notices a single set of striations on the bullet. Calleigh swaps out bullets and tells Horatio, "The ones pulled out of Gloria have two sets." Horatio ponders this information and asks, "Confirming silencer?" Calleigh replies, "Yes, but it was a weird one. You know that substance you sent to Trace? It was neoprene. So this is what I think happened. Anyone with half a brain can build a silencer, so the suspect attached metal tubing to the end of the barrel, and then filled the suppressor tube around it with bronze wool and lithium grease to dissipate any expulsion of gases and to keep the explosion down, and then finally capped it all off with a black neoprene washer. There's one set of striations from the barrel, another set from the silencer, and then finally, the washer fragments to silence any escaping sound."
As Calleigh's talking, she's drawing a diagram for Horatio, and while it certainly makes her look like she knows what she's talking about, a firearms maven was kind enough to write me and explain that the following points in this scene were incorrect: First, that Calleigh was shooting into a dummy at all. Most labs shoot their test bullets into a ballistic medium so striations from the gun and the shape of the bullet can be preserved. Second, that any silencer which relied on grease would get grease spatter in the wound, and none was found on the body. Third, silencers work, in the words of my correspondent, "like car mufflers, with baffles and chambers. The chambers can be bronze mesh, not Brillo, separated by baffles of rubber or leather. Not like a pipe with a cap of neoprene on the end."
Fortunately, science facts never get in the way of a good time on this show. Horatio asks if Calleigh ran the bullets through IBIS (Integrated Ballistics Identification System), and Calleigh tells us that the bullets match those found in an unsolved four-year-old robbery case out in Uleta. This rings a bell with Horatio: "Uleta? Who was the case detective?" Calleigh replies, "Your sister-in-law." Horatio laughs before saying, "Family."
Another day dawns sunny in Miami, and Horatio greets the morning by heading over to say hi to the sister-in-law, hovering outside the copy machine room and drooling as she throws her hair back, shampoo-commercial style. Eventually, the Widow Caine catches sight of Horatio -- him popping out to interrupt her organic experience with "Hi!" might have helped -- and they kind of smile at each other while mentally reviewing all the biblical and historic precedents in which wives bounce from brother to brother as circumstances change. The Widow Caine (sorry -- I don't have it in me to call her the W.C.) banishes Horatio to wait at her desk while she finishes whatever naughty thoughts she was having about him. Horatio waits, checking out the framed pictures of Raymond, the Widow Caine, and a heretofore never-mentioned little girl. I'm now incredibly curious as to how the Widow Caine is handling single motherhood and answering blunt questions about Uncle Horatio -- or if she's handling motherhood at all. Elena eventually comes over and hands him a file he had evidently asked about. Horatio asks if she remembers this case, and she replies in her inimitable accent, "Oh, yeah. Savings and loan in Uleta. Two suspects, ski masks, .22s, terrorized the tellers and got away with 600K in cash." Horatio asks about witnesses, and Elena tells him that the teller noticed a dark mole on one suspect's neck, and the only other one who looked at the burglars was a security guard who got killed for his trouble via two shots to the head. A light bulb goes off over Horatio's. Horatio puts down the folder, and the camera lingers on the Caine Family Christmas photo. Elena yammers on, "I really wanted to give his widow something. A year and a half later, I can't even bring her a name." But this happened four years ago? I'm so confused. Horatio tells her, "I think I may be able to. Somebody slapped a silencer on the weapon that was used in your robbery, and yesterday, at the Agramonte hotel, the same M.O. was used to execute a woman." Elena tells him she saw that on the news. Horatio replies, "A lot of people did." "You're thinking this is some kind of a wake-up call from one of the guys who pulled my S&L job?" she asks. Horatio replies that he thinks it's likely. Elena asks what Gloria's name was; Horatio says, "She's been flagged by Washington so I can only tell you who she isn't. This [file] is going to help, so thank you." As he walks off, the Widow Caine smiles dreamily and wonders if marrying twice into the same family is wrong.
Horatio's off to stride around purposefully while Delko gives him the 411 on Gloria: she's only in been in court when someone filed a noise complaint about her dog, the Shih-Tzu "Tootles." We also establish that whatever money Gloria had went into her one-carat emerald and not into the Dodge Neon she used to drive. Delko also tells Horatio that Gloria reported a theft six months ago at her job, and "turns out Jeff Gabler's father owns the place. Runs a day tour to the Keys and back." This sets Horatio's Crimey Senses a-tingle: "Wait a sec -- Jeff Gabler, Lieutenant Gabler from Narco?" Delko confirms that it's one and the same, then mentions that Gloria made her report regarding her stolen wallet and "cops never found the guy." Horatio gets all intense as he says, "That's because there is no guy and we are being detoured into the land of make-believe." Delko looks around look for King Friday and Daniel Striped Tiger before remembering he's a big boy now, and asks, "Are you talking about the Feds?" Horatio explains, "When they put you under protection, for whatever reason, they make up a story based on cops and cops' families." Delko realizes, "They'll keep the story straight."
Just then, Horatio's phone rings, and the scene shifts over to Speedle, who's at the hotel checking phone records for the call Gloria Tynan made. He found one call Gloria made from a poolside landline, and concludes, "I figure there's some reason she didn't use her cell." The camera switches back from the lush, darkened hotel lobby to the bright atrium where Delko and Horatio are planted. Horatio tells Speedle that Gloria called from the landline because she didn't want anybody to know about her call. Speedle says, "Right. So I cross-checked it, and I got an address -- Coconut Grove. 2420 Lyons Ave." Horatio compliments Speedle on his work and prepares to summon Detective John Hagen.
That was quick -- Hagen's at the address in question (a stucco-and-burlwood building with lots of tropical-looking foliage) telling a woman, "Yesterday, a woman named Gloria Tynan was murdered. Do you know her?" The woman shakes her head and says, "I don't think so. Why?" Horatio explains that they traced a call from the Agramonte hotel back to the address, then shows a picture of Gloria laid out on the morgue table. The woman slowly sinks into a chair and says haltingly, "I don't know where you got that name 'Gloria.' It's Gina. This is my daughter. I haven't seen her in over a year." Well, now the cops have Gloria's number, and they've got the alias that she'd been living under. Horatio is about to become the Grief Whisperer; even Hagen recognizes it. This frees him up to ask hard-boiled questions like, "You knew [Gloria] lived in Miami, didn't you?" The woman tells the detectives, "I didn't know where." Horatio tells her, "Because she couldn't tell you. Did she have a man in her life?" As a matter of fact, she did -- a nameless goon who showered Gina with gifts and pressured Gina's mom to wear a tacky bauble or else. Horatio compliments the grieving mother on her eloquence, then asks, "Do you have the box the ring came in?" As she looks, Hagen asks, "You move in recently, Mrs. Cusak?" Why, yes, she did -- per Gina's bidding. Although Mrs. Cusak never saw Gina, they talked every Tuesday at the same time when Gina would call. Hagen asks, "On that cordless phone?" Mrs. Cusak asks, "Why? What's wrong with the phone?" "Nothing," Horatio lies, because he'd rather have Mrs. Cusak do the research in her spare time to figure out how easily cordless conversations can be monitored. As Horatio studies the ring's box, Mrs. Cusak asks him, "Can you find who did this to Gina?" Horatio vows, "I'm going to do My best. And this is really going to help, okay?"
As Hagen and Horatio head outside, Hagen's pointing out, "It was a legitimate question, the cordless." "One we already had the answer to," counters Horatio. Actually, no you didn't. What would have happened if there had been no cordless phone within easy sight? After sanctimoniously asking, "Why add to the lady's guilt?" he's all, "Mmm-hmm! Town car." Who knew Horatio was a sedan man? We quickly establish that we're looking at the preferred wheels of the U.S. Marshals' witness protection program folk, whom Horatio refers to as "babysitters." As Horatio walks over to make fun of them, he chuckles derisively. Then he knocks on the window. After the man inside rolls it down, Horatio informs him, "I guess I couldn't help but notice your car over here." U.S. Deputy Marshall Ardine lets his badge do the introductions. Horatio whips out the ring bag and drawls, "Marshall, I just got this from Gina Cusak's mom. I was going to run it for prints on the boyfriend, but after all is said and done, it would just spit out background info from your imagination, right?" "All part of protecting our witness," said Ardine. Horatio's already pegged the witness: "He's from Philly, he deals in swag -- I think I have an idea, but why don't you tell Me how Gina ties into your witness." Ardine replies, "Let's just say he's a married man, and she's not his wife." Fortunately, Horatio has no moral hang-ups about adultery (this week), and can afford to get righteously indignant when he replies, "So you put his mistress into the program, but you didn't protect her." Ardine points out, "We gave her a new life, a new identity and a new job near our primary. It's not our fault she broke protocol, contacted her mother, dragged her down from Philly." Horatio chides Ardine for not checking the phone. Ardine counters that he did; the house had a secure landline. Horatio smugly points out the existence of the cordless phone, and spreads the blame around with, "Gina's killer sat out here with a receiver, picked up the radio waves from the cordless, and tracked her to the Agramonte Hotel. So you guys slipped up and Gina paid. Nice going." It must be nice to be Horatio -- imagine being so infallible! Ardine warns Horatio off the case lest he spook the witness, but that matters neither a jot nor a tittle to the Grief Whisperer.
Back at the lab, Delko is painstakingly piecing all the partials together when Horatio comes in and says, "Knock, knock, knock." Somehow, it sounds more menacing this time. To make a long and tedious scene short: Delko eventually assembles the print and matches it to one Edward Hinkle, husband to Mary and daughter to Jessica, and proud owner of red tag FED#:202-F. Horatio mutters, "Nice and tidy, courtesy of Uncle," then gets distracted by a clean-cut young man who marches by and points to a conference room. Horatio comments, "Speak of the devil." The devil evidently takes the form of thirty-something preppies -- not entirely inaccurate, but missing only the Dockers pants for true evil head-to-toe.
Horatio enters the conference room and starts, "If it isn't the wizard from behind the curtain." "I told you never to call me that outside of lodge meetings!" the devil snaps back. Oh, he does not. Instead, he cautions, "Marshall Ardine tells me you're barking up a dangerous tree." Horatio ignores this to ask, "You wouldn't happen to know where Edward Hinkle is, would you?" The Fed replies, "With us, preparing to testify in a federal trial against his former drug suppliers." Horatio's heard of them. The guy continues, "He's helping us defeat a small army we've never had a chance to get near 'til now. Case went nowhere for three years until we got Hinkle to squawk." Horatio could care less about taking down an empire of evil; for him, it all comes down to one or two isolated casualties: "What about that murder in Uleta during the robbery of a savings and loan." The fed disclaims any knowledge of that. Horatio fills him in, barely pausing to acknowledge Delko or whatever Delko dropped off: "Eighteen months ago, two hard guys popped a square badge, made off with the cash. You know what they say -- you lie down with the devil, you wake up in hell." "I am the devil. Remember?" the fed retorts in my wildest dreams. Actually, he's all conciliatory: "I don't know anything about this Horatio, I swear. We poly'd our witness before we put him under. He didn't have any outstandings." Horatio proves the fallibility of the polygraph with the driver's license photo Delko just delivered. This is two episodes in a row where Horatio's disregarded the polygraph as any sort of crime-fighting tool; let's see how he feels in a future episode when it's the only thing that will help him solve a case. Edward Hinkle is then undone by the telltale mole on his neck. Cue Agent Sackheim whipping out the cell phone to check on Edward Hinkle's whereabouts, asking, "We've got eyes on him, correct?" I don't see why they wouldn't; if the FBI has the manpower to keep tabs on travelers and library patrons, one single material witness shouldn't be a problem, right? But in this alternate America, it evidently is. Sackheim explains, "He must have seen your, uh, hotel hit on the news and took a walk." "So Mr. Hinkle's in the wind," Horatio concludes. Yes, he is, along with all those answers blowing around. Sackheim assures Horatio that they'll round up Ed shortly; then Horatio browbeats the poor guy into arranging a meeting with Mary Hinkle.
Before we can find out how that meeting will go, it's time for a detour into A Sidecar Named Desire (2 oz. brandy, 1 oz. lemon juice, 1 oz. Cointreau). Calleigh walks up to the front desk to ask for her messages -- although who's going to call at the front desk instead of trying her cell or her desk phone (if she has one) is beyond me. As she's waiting for them, she notices a big bouquet of tulips and sing-songs, "Oh, tulips! Those are beautiful! I love tulips!" "I know," Foghorn Leghorn announces as he materializes out of nowhere. Calleigh hugs him hello -- thus treating us to the only time we'll see the tulips in the shot -- then tells Foghorn, "Those aren't necessary." "Yes, they are. Thanks -- I say -- thanks for getting me home," Foghorn replies. So the Duquesnes live in Miami? Or Calleigh sped up the Florida peninsula and across Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama to deposit Daddy before heading back to the lab? This is...for God's sake, if you're going to have a character with a thick, non-Miami accent (one that doesn't sound anything at all like her alleged father's, but we'll overlook that right now) and the premise that she's from elsewhere, then either explain how her family came to Miami, or what her dad's actually doing there. Calleigh asks her dad to walk with her. He offers his arm, and we see them strolling thusly through the corridors. As Foghorn swings his straw hat, Calleigh lectures, "You know I don't like to lecture, because as far as I'm concerned, everyone's free to choose their own path. I'm just saying, maybe you should cut back." Foghorn insincerely promises, "I'm going -- I say -- I'm going to. I mean that." Calleigh's not having it. Foghorn tells her, "I don't expect you to believe me," but before he can go any further, Speedle walks by and says hi. That's Foghorn's cue to go. Calleigh stands in a three-quarter stance so the light falls artfully upon her face and illuminates how heavily made-up she is, and looks all contemplative for a moment. Maybe she's wondering what her mom's up to. I sure am -- I suspect Mrs. Duquesne is hanging out at home and answering the phone, "Calleigh! Calleigh for crime! I have always depended on the kindness of strangers to bring my drunken husband home."
And now, Agent Sackheim's day, which was already bad, gets worse as he fills in Mrs. Hinkle on Gina, Gina's death, and Eddie's possible involvement therein. The missus does not take it all in stride: "Gina? Gina from Philly?" No, Gina from the block. Don't let the big rocks fool you; she's still the same girl. Mary continues, "You guys brought her down here too?" Sackheim, who looks as if he'd rather be doing almost anything else at that moment, answers uncomfortably, "Her relocation was arranged also, yes." Mary's glaring at Horatio and saying, "I can't believe you did this to me!" Horatio quickly asserts, "Ma'am, I am infallible. I will be seated at the -- wait. Your mortal mind cannot possibly comprehend. So let Me just tell you: I'm with the Miami crime lab and not the...FBI. Can you tell Me where your husband might be?" Mary asks, "Frank?" Cut to Special Agent Sackheim slowly and deliberately beating his forehead against the table as he ponders the many man-hours of painstaking work Mary's just undone. Well, he doesn't really, but he looks like he wants to as he says, "'Ed,' ma'am, please. His alias is 'Ed.' We worked very hard to conceal his --" Mary could care less: "Ed, Frank, Gotrocks, Mister I-Deal-In-Cash-Only, whatever, all right?" Horatio takes advantage of the animosity to ask, "Could you talk about his cash." "He squirreled money away," she replies. That's no good -- there was just an article in The New York Times about how marital cash stashes can either cause or exacerbate marital stresses. Then again, if the mistress didn't indicate marital stress, I'm not sure what unique warning sign the cash stash would have sent. Sackheim's a little irritated to be learning about this cash thing, what with Ed having also pocketed a government stipend. Mary confirms that Ed had stacks of money; tragically (for her), she doesn't know where they are. Horatio asks if Ed ever gave her any money. She replies bitterly, "He didn't in Philly. I don't know why he would start now. I sneak it out of his wallet while he's asleep." Horatio asks if she's got any purloined cash on her now; Mary wants to know why he's interested. Horatio points out, "I could catch him with it." Mary weighs this option as the background music ululates and Sackheim looks from one to the other. Finally, she produces a wad of cash as thick as my wrist, wrapped in a banker's band. How on earth can you "sneak" that out of a wallet? How would Frank not notice it missing? And if that's the case, how on Earth can Frank fit such a capacious wallet in his pocket? Mary spits out, "Tell Frank if he hadn't kept Gina, I never would have done this." Horatio tucks that observation away in the "hell hath no fury" file.
Mary gets up, and Horatio gets a clear shot of the elementary-school-aged kid coloring at the table. The background music gets all cloying as Mary kisses the kid on the top of the head and asks what she's up to. Why, she's up to humanizing Horatio by pointing out how good he is with kids and how serious he is about making the world a safe place for them. If she's good, Horatio might just sit there and brood at her, but if she's very good, he'll even talk to her. This girl is very good; Horatio comes on over and evinces an interest in her coloring activities. The girl, who is probably in the slowest reading group in her class, explains, "A farm? With cows? And a pony? And some lambs." Horatio tells her it's pretty. The moppet offers to draw him one too. Horatio demurs, explaining, "Right now, I have to go back to work. But I could come back another time and you could draw Me one." Since the child and the CSI have now forged a bond that is the stuff of legend, she asks, "Will you really come back?" Horatio promises, "You know what? For you, I'll come back. I'll do that." Just say his name three times and he'll appear, kiddo.
Back in a child-free zone, Speedle's explaining to Calleigh how the pool attendants work -- they all kneel when they tend to the needs of the clientele, and they're prohibited from wearing sunglasses because the hotel wants them to establish eye contact with the guests. That surprises me; you'd think that a high-flown place like that might actually have a policy preventing the peasants from looking directly upon their betters. Anyway, Speedle quickly identifies the non-Ed-Hinkle shooter because a) he wears sunglasses, b) he doesn't kneel when serving guests, and c) he has a lousy tan. We see that Gina suffered death by towel; Speedle explains that the currently unnamed assassin had a stack of towels, and as he went from cabana to cabana, the towel stack was reduced by one until he got to Gina's cabana. In her case, he ducked in, but when he ducked out again, the towel count didn't go down, which suggests that towels were a convenient subterfuge for the muffled gun he used to kill Gina.
Of course, towels mean evidence, so Calleigh takes a trip back to the Agramonte, goes over to a large laundry basket of unwashed towels -- which, unless they were already marked as potential evidence, probably would not have existed given the normal rates at which a hotel does its laundry -- then sprays for GSR. Naturally, she finds it, thus proving that the hit man did use the towels to muffle the gun. I wonder why no towel fibers were found anywhere near the wound, since the bullet would have torn some off in its travel? Especially since Calleigh finds a hair from the perp which was captured by the towel.
The telltale hair belongs to a James Fukes, who not only has a criminal history which would suggest a predilection for bank heists but also a Pennsylvania provenance. This nicely ties him to Frank -- or would, if James had any known associates that hadn't been deleted by the Feds.
Cut to poor Sackheim -- who should certainly be lobbying for some sort of compensation for dealing with Horatio -- attempting to explain the scope of the witness protection program to a hostile and sanctimonious audience of one. Gradually, we learn that Jimmy has the gun used in the armed robbery. Horatio's all, "Yes. Jimmy got the gun, and Frank got the money." Sackheim concludes, "And now Jimmy's in town for his cut of the proceeds." Horatio brings it all back around to the Feds with, "By placing Frank in the program, he got out of paying Jimmy, and by killing Gina, Jimmy sent a message to Frank to pay up." Since both men are currently at large, it's a matter of finding them before finding the money that ties them to the bank robbery.
But first, we have to study the money for clues. That's Delko's deal. He's in a lab, telling Horatio, "All the bills you got from Frank's wife -- traces of cotton fiber, dust, chrysanthemums --" Horatio's all, "Wait a minute. You mean, like the plant?" Delko certainly does. He explains, "It's impregnated into all U.S. paper currency to reduce bacteria levels. But this one bill at the bottom of the stack has an additional trace -- a peroxygen compound combined with a surfactant." Horatio does know this: "Synthetic soap. Combine with malic acid, you get Virkon." Delko agrees: "Exactly. A disinfectant introduced last year to combat cruise ship viruses." Horatio notes that Virkon is used on all kinds of boats now, probably included those at Regal Harbor Boat Tours. He concludes, "So Frank asked Gina to stash his cash at work...so she's in charge of the cash. When Frank finds out she's dead --" Delko concludes, "He jumps on this afternoon's tour boat to grab his money. Round trip to the Keys, no stops. So if he makes it on the boat where there's no getting off, he should be back after the Regal sunset dinner." Horatio's about to head to the dock. He tells Delko to call Hagen and dispatch the man, but when Delko asks about Sackheim -- you know, the guy whose witness protection program business can help or hinder this investigation -- Horatio's all, "Let him sit."
Night falls on the harbor as Horatio and company wait for the S.S. Witness to dock. Horatio and Hagen eventually spot Frank, and a few unnamed Miami PD goons separate him from the pack and cuff him. Frank protests, "I'm not the Taliban!" but Hagen's not about to enter into a debate about the comparative detriments of religious fanatics versus small-time thugs. He's about to take Frank's gym bag instead. As Horatio walks over to pass judgment on this man, Frank is informing anyone around him, "You should call Special Agent Sackheim, FBI. I'm part of a high, top-secret operation against some Colombians, huh? Anti-American drug-dealers." As opposed to the patriotic yahoos blowing themselves sky-high in meth labs on the West Coast? Horatio punctures Frank's rhetoric and grabs the bag with, "I know a savings and loan that's been missing this." Before he can say anything else, Sackheim comes running in, breathlessly ordering, "Let go of my witness!" Horatio says, "As soon as he gives Me Fukes, I'll let him go." Can he do that? That seems like an instant ticket to a federal appeals court, but I could be wrong. The two men negotiate, and it becomes clear that Horatio wants Frank to deliver Fukes; he thinks it can be done with relative ease.
Cut to a dimly lit room -- what is it with all the blue lighting on this show? Sackheim, Hagen, Horatio, and Frank are all sitting around with a phone-tracing technician and waiting for Fukes to return Frank's call, in what looks like the forensic equivalent of teenaged girls sitting home by the phone on a Friday night. Nine hours after these folks settle down together, Jimmy finally calls Frank on a landline. And now, Frank must try to keep Jimmy on the line long enough for the number to be traced; he gets off to a bad start with, "This is your friend from Philly." On the other end, Jimmy shoots back, "What are you, Paulie Walnuts? I know who you are, Frank." Frank's all, "Let's do this." Jimmy's feelings are hurt: "You screwed me." Frank counters, "You got my attention." Something tells me he's not all torn up about Gina's untimely demise. Frank pushes for a deal, but Jimmy correctly guesses, "You're rolling over on me, aren't you, Frank? What, do you think I'm stupid?" before hanging up. Unfortunately, he does so seconds before the tech can narrow it down. Sackheim's ready to collect Frank and go run some federal errands, but Horatio's having none of it. He's all, "Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. My suspect's still at large. And I don't care if you're about to bring down a cartel that affects countless lives from Colombia to the United States -- it's all about Me and My victim. I want to hear about Jimmy Fukes." Frank's all, "I met him once," and Horatio angrily cuts him off with, "I want you to tell Me the truth, not the fairy tale this nitwit gave you!" Cut to Sackheim resolving to use Horatio Caine as a practice case for all the civil liberties violations masquerading as law enforcement John Ashcroft has and will continue to dream up. Frank folds: "I known [sic] him since kindergarten. We used to skip school together, go down to the arcade, knock off some gumball machines." Horatio -- or rather, his backlit profile, since the blocking has David Caruso weirdly lit from behind -- asks, "What did you do with the money?" Frank tells him, "Go to the track, get a degenerate to bet a race for us. When we got older, women, rings. We both like the jewel tones." Horatio asks, "You bet the smart money?" "On the horses? No, no, no. Hey, I bet the winners. Jimmy still chases the long shots, five-to-one or better. Of course, he never finds them, but..." This is a circuitous way of letting us all know that we're going to be picking up Jimmy at the track, which we do.
Within seconds of cuffing Jimmy, Horatio's plucked his car out of the parking lot by looking at the Pennsylvania plates, since the odds that gambling snowbirds from the tri-state area would be at a track in Florida are really small. The baby monitor prompts the mother of all flashbacks: Jimmy used it to monitor Mrs. Cusak's conversations with Gina, Gina gave out her hotel information, Jimmy infiltrated the hotel as a pool attendant and smuggled the gun in with a stack of towels, then executed Gina. We should all know this by now; the baby monitor is only for the five people left in America who don't realize that cordless phones are not conducive to privacy. After his monologue, Horatio finds the gun. Jimmy foolishly tells him, "There's ten thousand guns like that out there. You're not going to be able to prove a thing." Horatio tells him, "Very dumb thing to say to a CSI."
Cut to Horatio demonstrating why it's so dumb: as Jimmy sulks in a chair, Horatio gives him the rundown on the neoprene silencer and the traces of neoprene found in Gina's wounds during the autopsy. Jimmy finally snaps, "Frank was screwing me out of money, all right? The robbery was my idea. I scouted the place for months before; he just showed up on game day." Horatio bludgeons the conversation into the direction he'd like it to go: "Yes, but I am talking about another crime, and there is a detective on the other side of that glass who's anxious to talk to you about the robbery in Uleta." Cut to a shot of Elena pondering whether or not it's morally wrong to salve your grief at being widowed with the decedent's family. Horatio then stalks out to tell Elena that when she's done with Jimmy, they'll take him down to the county lockup. She points out that Uleta will want to try him first; Horatio says he'll then take his turn. Elena turns to Horatio and, bizarrely, her hair gets all windswept. She tells him, "The security guard's wife is going to want to thank you." Boy, she does know which buttons to push with her brother-in-law, doesn't she? Horatio conceals his glee at another potential conversation with a widow and tells Elena, "We did it together." Elena gets an odd and guilty look on her face. Then she thanks Horatio with something between a smoldering look and a "take me now!" expression, and while he's kind of smiling in return, Sackheim comes in to wreck the moment. Good for him!
Sackheim says uncomfortably, "I was just speaking to Washington..." "You have got to be kidding Me," Horatio grits. Sackheim points out, "It comes from higher up." Horatio proves how deeply he doesn't get it when he argues, "This guy killed an innocent girl and a father of three children," and fails to add, "And what he did far outstrips any usefulness he'll have to you." Bad Horatio! The key to any effective counterargument is to anticipate your opponent's justification and render it irrelevant, not to take out the moralizing stick and beat everyone about the head and shoulders. Sackheim explains how Jimmy's value suddenly went up for the Feds: "His attorney says he's willing to help us build a case against Joseph Berkeley --" "An alleged hit man for the Mostello crime family. I know who he is," Horatio replies. Sackheim makes the numbers argument with, "Jimmy's testimony could tie a dozen murders to this assassin." Horatio wants to know, "What about the two lives I am looking out for down here? What about them?" Twelve lives, two lives...if it's a numbers game, it's not going to go Horatio's way. Sackheim tells Horatio that it's not going to happen, and adds, "Look, I know it's tough --" "Do you?" snarls Horatio. He's all done here, and about to go blow Elena's good mood.
So now it's time to blow Calleigh's good mood too. Immediately after she fetches some evidence for a case that, mercifully, I don't have to see or recap on the screen, her cell phone rings. It's Dana over at the Whiskey Stop, telling Calleigh that her dad's sloshed again. Calleigh, Calleigh for codependency assures Dana she'll be over to fetch the drunken Foghorn Leghorn as soon as possible, then hangs up the phone so she can look very sad. And that will be the last we see of the presumably ongoing Calleigh-and-her-drunken-dad saga until the inevitable Very Special Episode where her plowed paterfamilias takes out a family of five while driving drunk, which will make for an awkward few days around the office while her coworkers collect the evidence to convict Foghorn Leghorn and she tries to figure out if she's supposed to back her daddy or Horatio. You know it's coming as well as I do.
However, the episode still isn't over yet. True to his word, Horatio has returned to the café where Mary worked between cash-pilfering activities so he can get his promised farm picture with the cow and the pony and the sheep. Sadly, the moppet is nowhere to be seen. The waitress comes by to ask Horatio what she can get for him, and he replies, "I, um, I just wanted to say hi to Mary Hinkle and her daughter. Are they here?" Exposition Gal tells us, "She quit this morning. Said she and her daughter were headed out west." Horatio's a little shaken by this. Exposition Gal asks if he's with the police department, and Horatio replies that he is. Exposition Gal says, "She thought you might drop by." From her apron, she produces a crumpled bill, then explains, "Said you overtipped her." Horatio takes the bill and opens it up to see that the back of the twenty bears a somewhat cryptic message: the motto "In God We Trust" circled in red. He laughs as he realizes that verily, Mary has divine insight, then repeats, "Good for them. Good for them."
Yes, they'll never have to see Horatio again. Good for them indeed.