“ And the credits roll while I wonder exactly how much outcry there would have been if Horatio had said that about a female body sprawled on the bed. I guess male victims of sexual assault don't get the same sensitivity and tact the womenfolk get. ”
Special congratulations to whomever selected the music for the opening on this week's episode; nothing gives away the plot of a crime drama like a rapper informing us that "this right here is payback." As the rap continues, we pan over Miami's glittering night skyline, then smoothly transition to a gorgeous swimming pool. A naked guy -- yeah, that TiVo pause button comes in handy every once in a while -- dives into the pool as the rapper continues to carry on about how his antagonist is a peon, and while we're treated to a recitation of the many levels of pain the peon is about to experience at the hands of the rapper, the naked guy swims back and forth. The music stops, and Naked Guy then gets out of the pool. Then, because he's one of those people who's apparently incapable of doing anything unless the stereo or the TV is yammering in the background, he turns on the stereo and begins getting dressed. After picking one watch out of a case containing several, the guy putters until the doorbell rings. He goes to answer the door and asks, mildly surprised, "What are you doing here?"
Cut to Horatio and a tall, bald detective -- call him Vin Ethanol -- opening the door to the house as Vin explains, "Mother and daughter team selling Girl Scout cookies. Found the door open, saw the blood and called 911." "Well, there's got to be a badge for that," comments Horatio. This is where I curse for not having picked up all my Junior Girl Scout materials for year. Vin tells Horatio that there's no ID, so they're currently checking to see if the car or the home ownership papers will provide a clue. Horatio notes that there's no sign of struggle or disturbance. Vin says, "It's the same way in the bedroom, only it's more disturbing."
The two men walk into the bedroom, where we see the formerly naked guy lying facedown on his bed, spread-eagled. His robe is hiked up to around his thighs, and his hands and feet appear to be taped to the bedstead with either duct tape or electrician's tape. Horatio notices the blood on the pillow near the man's head. Vin calls his attention to the watch case, noting, "Check this. Gotta be a hundred grand in watches." "A hundred thousand dollars in watches untouched. I guess we can rule out robbery," Horatio says. Vin adds, "Vic had to know the killer. I had my guys check the perimeter. No signs of forced entry." Horatio looks at the victim's backside and quips, "I wouldn't be too sure about that."
And the credits roll while I wonder exactly how much outcry there would have been if Horatio had said that about a female body sprawled on the bed. I guess male victims of sexual assault don't get the same sensitivity and tact the womenfolk get.
Once we're back from commercial, Speedle and Alexx are hunkered around the body while Horatio gives everyone a blow-by-blow of what he's doing. He observes, "A set of expensive clothes meticulously laid out, possibly for a date." Speedle says, "Maybe the doorbell rang and his date had a little surprise for him." That surprise, according to Alexx, "left our vic with severe anal trauma and lacerations in the distal portion of the rectum." Everyone kind of gives a little shudder. Horatio asks about the time of death, and after Alexx gives him the liver temperature, concludes it was around 11 PM the night. Speedle then mentions the four or five hairs he's found on the bed. Perhaps we'll explore the significance of those hairs later, but Horatio has no time now. Alexx finds something in the head wound, but before we can talk about this, Vin comes back and tells us the Porsche in the driveway is registered to a Richard Lee Hauschild, and the house is listed under Deveraux Jones. The watch is engraved to a Mr. Zach Kelsey -- so everyone's left wondering who this guy really is.
Forced Entry
Meanwhile, in the B-plot, Calleigh and Delko are about to enter a crematorium with someone named Riboul. However, I much prefer the nickname someone on the boards gave her, so henceforth, Detective Riboul is the Caribbean Queen. Now we're sharing the same dream. And if I've put the song in someone's head, my work here is done. Anyway, Calleigh and Delko notice some debris as they walk -- a few broken urns and piles of ashes -- and then Caribbean Queen says, "One dead body, one or more burned bodies in the crematorium. What in the world went on here? Benito Ramon owned the crematorium. A funeral director came by here to drop off one of his customers, called it in." Calleigh circles around the debris and says, "Looks like Benito had a sideline in gold fillings." This is where I display why I'll never be a criminal genius, because I'm all, "What would you do with used gold fillings? Sell them to cut-rate dentists? Is there money in that?" Anyway, Benito had a thing for the fillings. Delko asked if anyone checked the purse, and Caribbean Queen says she did; the ID inside is for Michelle Carter, and the contents are makeup, breath mints, and a dried-out rose. Just then, a uniformed cop bursts through the door and tells everyone they need to take a look outside. What is it, the heartbreak of crabgrass?
No, it's the heartbreak of a giant pile of corpses. Caribbean Queen states the obvious with, "Benito must have been dumping the bodies out here instead of cremating them." Really? And here I thought he had just stocked up at Costco. Calleigh saves me from having to make the current events connection by doing it for me: "It's like Atlanta -- there were over three hundred bodies there." Delko goes over to the pile and notes that they'll be able to ID everyone with the ankle bracelets or toe tags the funeral home provided; Calleigh gives the medical examiner a to-do list that will last her into month, what with looking over these bodies and all.
Speaking of medical examiners, we're back in the autopsy bay with Alexx, who's looking over the bedroom boy and telling Horatio he's got petechial hemorrhaging in both eyes. She also tells Horatio that the guy suffocated, and then says, "I found a little surprise when I cut the tape off his mouth. Fabric is our murder weapon." Horatio looks at the grimy gag and says, "It was either used to shut him up or kill him." He's just master of stating the obvious, isn't he? Alexx brings the grue when she says, "Either way, when he started to struggle for air, it was sucked deeper and deeper into his esophagus until it had nowhere to go." Isn't that how the kid got killed with the liver during the CSI episode "Pledging Mr. Johnson"? Is death by fabric all that common? I know some committed preppie types who'd commit hara-kiri if they ever had to voluntarily don synthetic fibers, but that doesn't seem to be the same at all. Anyway -- Horatio examines the tape used in the gag and concludes that it was cut, not torn, so he'll be able to match it to a specific tool later. How poetic -- a tool to find a tool. Alexx then mentions that the man on the table was violently sodomized, probably with a foreign object, and his spleen and colon were damaged as a result. Just then, Horatio figures out how to un-Doe the guy when he notices the big chunk of raised flesh where a tattoo once lived. He figures it might be the way to ID him, so he asks Alexx to raise it.
Calleigh dreamily says, "I used to think I wanted to be cremated. Now I don't know." Well, she could explore cryogenics, or fall in with an Egyptian cult that does old-school mummification, or maybe hook up with a small-town doctor in Castle Rock, Maine...anyway. Caribbean Queen asks, "Looking like the bodies outside are better?" "Are better"? Gah! Grammar! Subject-verb agreement! Making the hurting stop! Calleigh's all, "I don't know -- casket, embalmed. It's not going to look like that." Alexx takes a more pragmatic view: "Either way, ashes to ashes." Delko sees an opportunity to leap into the conversation: "How about bloody ashes? The blood would have evaporated before the bone broke down." Calleigh says dismissively, "Even if those are Michelle's ashes, it can't be her blood." Cut to Delko doing a slow burn. To fill the awkward silence that falls while Delko keeps glaring, Calleigh says, "I don't know...Benito? He's got ash all over his face." Delko finally replies, "Like Alexx said, payback's a bitch."
Back at the lab, a puffy and sullen Speedle is sulking in front of a computer monitor and wondering when on Earth he went from independently thinking adult to Horatio's toady. Or maybe he's just looking for a tattoo match to the gun tattoo. The original tattoo faces to the right, and there's a near-identical one facing to the left, yet Speedle is mysteriously unable to see the match. Gosh, if only Horatio and his perceptive way of fitting clues to a situation could rescue him from this brainteaser. If only...
Speedle will have to wait for a while, because we're back with Alexx, who's talking to Calleigh and Delko. After dismissing a series of X-rays on one light board as "all Benito Ramon," she moves over to another area and points out the sole film, saying, "The partial skull from the crematorium chamber. Palatine sutures have fused endocranially and exocranially. Now, I'm no forensic anthropologist, but I can estimate this person was over sixty years old." Calleigh states the obvious with, "Michelle is still missing." Delko tells her the blood in the crematorium belonged to Benito; Alexx explains how all that blood got there by pointing out the fractured skull, the broken jaw, and other owies. Benito's also got something clutched in his hand, the exact identity of which Alexx was unable to determine from the X-rays. The three live people trot over to Benito's hand as Delko identifies the phenomenon as cadaveric spasm -- or, as Alexx puts it, the death grip. "I'm going to need my saw and a microwave," Alexx says. Delko runs off to get popcorn.