A Simple Man

The first thing we see on screen is a giant cruise ship docked in the harbor. However, we do not see scores of passengers in the throes of the Norwalk virus; nor do we see David Foster Wallace being marched up the gangplank at gunpoint, weeping, "I swore I'd never do this again!" Then we see a cluster of official-looking skyscrapers (like many other things in Miami, these are vaguely pastel), and then we flash to the Miami-Dade county courthouse, where a three-ring media circus is already in full swing. In the first ring: scores of blow-dried newsdroids solemnly telling the camera what's what; in the second ring, security personnel trying to beat back the reporters, and in the third ring, a group of ambulatory newshounds running alongside an official-looking sedan and asking the occupant within, Councilwoman Escalante, all sorts of questions about housekeeper Abigail Sandoval and her husband's relationship with Sandoval. The last question echoes as Escalante heads inside: "How will your husband's murder trial affect your re-election campaign?"

We won't know, because it's time for us to get an arty, brooding shot of Horatio sitting alone in a gray-carpeted, gray-upholstered lounge. He's dressed in a uncharacteristically bright color for him: navy blue. As Horatio sits, he flips through a case file, looking at a nice portrait of Mr. Escalante, then several not-so-nice crime scene photos. We then flash back to a scene that by virtue of taking place in blurry slow motion just barely makes the censor's cut: an undressed man pinning a woman down on a bed in a hotel room as she hollers in Spanish for him to stop and let her go, and then adds something about his wife (I can't tell what). Back in the present, Horatio ponders a photo of the woman in a car for a moment. Then we flash back again, and the woman's sliding behind the wheel of her car in a big hurry. Naturally, the starter falters, which is just enough time for her to get shot in the head. Horatio checks the photo of the partially-submerged car, and we get the flashback of someone pushing the car into a canal on a foggy, but not rainy, night. Horatio rises long enough to watch Mr. Escalante get escorted past, and he practically flutters his eyelashes and simpers. It's unsettling. Escalante smirks in response, and Horatio smiles. It's all subtextual in a way I'm not comfortable contemplating.

Then we go to a courtroom with the world's most lenient judge; he's busy hanging out on the bench while everyone else tries to get their acts together. I thought the whole point to being a judge was that you made everyone wait for you, not vice-versa. ["Obviously not a veteran of New York City jury duty, where everyone waits for everything." -- Sars] Well, maybe there are a few other perks -- deciding who lives and who dies, wearing those chic black robes, maybe snagging a television deal so you can berate total losers for the delectation of daytime shut-ins -- but the waiting thing seems like one of those perks that the judge would really like. Why have a bailiff otherwise?

Anyway, while things are settling down, Mr. Escalante shoots the missus the same conspiratorial grin; she tells him to straighten his tie. Horatio glowers at the back of Escalante's neck until he's distracted by Speedle whispering, "Hey, Horatio, we've got a problem." Horatio replies irritably, "Speed, I'm under subpoena. I'm about to testify." Speedle tells him, "You might want to reconsider that. Remember that call I rolled out on this morning, the Jane Doe?" Horatio nods. Speedle whispers, "She was familiar." "How familiar?" asks Horatio. Speedle sighs: "Young, pretty, Latina. Single gunshot, close-range, left temple." Cut to Escalante checking out Horatio's conversation and turning back with a serene look on his face. Horatio decides, "Testimony, schmestimony!" and whips out the cell to ask Alexx about the Jane Doe. We see Alexx slicing away, saying, "I just got her, Horatio. I'll have results within the hour." That's not good enough for Horatio. Alexx then warps space and time to comply with His Broodingness's request, and checks the stomach, noting, "Mint leaves in her stomach. Swallowed whole. I'm guessing tox will say they're from a mojito, just like Abby Sandoval." Horatio thanks Alexx, then goes down to blow the DA's day, telling him, "There's a flag on the play, Don. I can't testify today." The DA is justifiably perturbed and wants to know why not. Horatio lies in response. DA Don points out, "You were the last nail in the coffin. That's why I've been saving you for last." Too bad, Don. Horatio's all, "Don, I need you to give me more time." Don replies, "Your grandma better be bleeding from her eyeballs. Twenty-four hours."

Back at the lab, Alexx is pulling a flattened bullet-shell casing out of what I presume is Jane Doe's brain, unless that bullet went a very long way. The location's confirmed as Horatio breezes in and comments, "Fastest scalp in the east." Alexx replies, "I think I just set some kind of postmortem speed record." Horatio asks how similar this case is to the Abby Sandoval one, and Alexx replies, "Like looking in a mirror. Both victims in their early twenties, pretty, Latina, shot once in the head, left temple, mint leaves in the stomach, both worked with their hands. Now, I'm thinking Jane Doe might have been a domestic just like Abby was." Horatio explains why this new discovery is a problem: "She couldn't have been killed by Lorenzo Escalante because he was in custody at the time of her death. How were they different?" The only significant difference thus far is that Abby Sandoval had glass in her wound track and this woman doesn't. Alexx chalks that up to Abby being shot in her car, while this one was discovered as a roadside dumpee. Horatio thinks they may not have found the car yet. Alexx asks, "You think we got a serial?" Horatio replies, "I don't know. But we better find out before we send an innocent man to jail for murder."

Roger Daltrey agrees. It's always so nice to see rock stars taking an interest in things like judicial system reform.

Once we're back from the credits, Horatio is in the shooting gallery, complimenting Calleigh on her shot. God knows he won't be complimenting her on her clothing; she's wearing this unfortunate jacket-and-pants combination that combines the most unflattering cuts possible for a short, curvy woman (cropped jacket, too-long flared pants) with some of the most aesthetically misbegotten trends on the market today (ruched fabric, those damn Little House on the Prairie sleeves again) and a color that wants to be a nice green like Eucalyptus or Evergreen, but ends up as Institutional Despair. I'm not saying that the costumer for this series needs to blow the budget on impractical but lovely Narcisco Rodriguez frocks, but I don't think it would kill them to steer clear of Forever 21 and maybe hit Banana Republic for a change. Anyway, Horatio asks Calleigh if she's busy, and she replies in the affirmative: "I'm up to my ass in alligators. There was a big shooting on the Causeway yesterday. Fifty-four expended rounds. Not to mention Detective Hagen is riding me like a Gulfstream pony." "I didn't ask about your personal life, and I'd rather not know," Horatio replies. Oh, he does not either. But you thought it, didn't you? That pony line was wide open. Horatio actually seems taken aback that Detective John Hagen has anything to do with Calleigh, but before anyone can take the effort to tell us, the audience, why we should give a rat's ass about what Horatio thinks of John, he's moved on and asked Calleigh for a favor. She agrees with alacrity. He hands over the round dug out of Jane Doe's skull and she rattles off, "Nine-mil, hollow point, brass-jacketed, so my guess is it's a Golden Talon." Horatio then tells her he needs her to lift the bullet from the Abby Sandoval case for comparison's sake. Calleigh asks, "Isn't that case on trial right now?" Well, yes, so in theory the bullet would have been checked into some sort of evidence locker for the duration, so as to not introduce the possibility of police tampering after the fact, but why worry? Calleigh agrees to do the favor, "Quickly and quietly."

Sure enough, that's what she does in the scene.

Meanwhile, Horatio and Speedle are talking, and Speedle's telling H he chatted up a court reporter and learned that the Escalante legal team has been filing motions all morning. Horatio tells him, "They're moving to get the case thrown out, so we have to work fast. Here you go." Thus are Jane Doe's clothes passed off to Speedle for fiber taping and scraping. Speedle's got his marching orders to look for fibers similar to those found on Abby Sandoval -- worsted wool, tropical weight, just like those found on Escalante's $2000 suits. Then Horatio's off again.

We see where he was heading in a big hurry -- to the outdoors, where he's exiting the building and apologizing to Delko for beeping him on his day off. Delko takes the glass-half-full approach with, "It's not a problem. I was thinking of doing some diving anyway. Might as well do it on county time, huh? One question." Horatio gives him permission to ask. Delko replies, "Speedle's Jane Doe: she wasn't a floater. Why do you want me to bring my dive gear to the crime scene?" Horatio replies with, "Abby Sandoval." Delko's all, "Sandoval? I thought that investigation was closed." Horatio replies, "Officially, it is." "So you're bringing my ass in on my day off to work a closed investigation because you've got a hunch? time you call, Caine, the victim better be bleeding on your open case file!" Delko snaps. As if -- like everyone else who works with Big Red, he apparently converted from some other, federally recognized form of organized religion to the Caine Cult and thus does what the man says without question. And before Horatio can explain -- assuming he does explain -- why Delko's working a closed case on his day off, Don the DA's busted him. Horatio turns around to face Don, who asks, "How's Grandma?" Horatio walks over, saying, "Too soon to tell. Still running tests." Don's all, "Got anything to share?" Horatio replies, "Not just yet; Grandma likes her privacy." "You want to know what I really like? I like smoking a Montecristo Number Two after winning a slam-dunk case. Now, your grandma wouldn't be trying to screw me out of a good cigar?" Don asks. If she can do that while bleeding from the eyeballs, she's an impressing grandma indeed. Horatio's all, "I want to be sure we've got the right guy." Don thinks they do: "Lorenzo Escalante. He had an affair with the maid. He admits to getting rough with her. He got his semen inside of her, his DNA under her fingernails." Horatio counters that they don't have the gun. Don reminds Horatio that technically, since they do work to convict criminals, they are on the same side. Horatio's noncommittal. Don points out that roughly a million man-hours of work and a million dollars have gone into the trial thus far. Horatio overrides him, "We have new evidence." Don shoots back, "Well, that's what appeals are all about. Listen, this is not about the case anymore. Now, it's about winning." Horatio decides to take his ball and go home.

Then he decides to put on a sassy beat while he and his environment-destroying Humvee head to the crime scene. Sevilla meets him and gives him the 411 on the scene: this is where Jane Doe and a splotch of her blood were found. Horatio concludes that "she wasn't killed here. There's not enough blood for a head shot, right?" Right. You wanted an answer, didn't you, Horatio? Sevilla tells Horatio the girl could have been dumped, and she's got a couple of guys on the road preserving tread marks. Horatio and Delko then check out the blood drops Delko's found, and Horatio's all, "Adele, pull your men off the road. We're going to expand the crime scene." Who's in charge of this scene anyway? Is it Adele as the police detective, or Horatio as the CSI? Is there some sort of chain of command, or can Adele tell Horatio to pound sand? In any case, Horatio reconstructs Jane Doe's last moments: "She crawled to here. Probably rested for a moment, losing a lot of blood. Continued to travel, and then somehow got up. Fell again right here." As he and Delko walk along, we see that they're heading along a towpath beside a canal; the blue sky is brilliantly reflected in the water below. Whatever script, acting, and wardrobe problems this show has -- and yes, I do think Calleigh's weekly atrocities are such that they can be mentioned in the same breath as the writing -- the one thing this show consistently does right is find striking visual compositions. Anyway. Horatio has no time to ponder what a pretty picture he makes; he's too busy looking at the reflection of the sky in the canal and noticing that something looks hinky. Those aren't just clouds he's seeing, but a submerged compact car. Horatio concludes, "So [Jane Doe] crawled from here all the way to the road." Delko adds, "A quarter of a mile on her belly with a 9-mm round in her head. All for nothing." "Not if we can help it," Horatio replies.

Within moments, the small blue car is being pulled out of the canal. Once it's on land, Horatio notices that the window's spiderwebbed, i.e. rent with small, circular cracks caused by the impact of something against the glass. Delko -- who apparently went diving at some point in the car-retrieval process -- leans in to look and take the guess, "It could have shattered when Jane Doe was shot, just like Abby Sandoval." Horatio points out, "The difference is, Jane Doe had no glass in her wound." Delko says he'll try to lift prints off the steering wheel to see if he can give the woman a name, but Horatio spies a purse and pulls it out. Delko asks, "Any ID?" What, like Horatio's going to use his x-ray vision in front of mortals to figure that stuff out? Horatio tells him to hang on, and finds a check-cashing card belonging to one Bonita Cruz of Southwest 10th Street. Delko notes that Abby Sandoval lived in the same neighborhood. Horatio remembers, "Southwest 14th Street, right?" Delko replies, "Yeah, I know a lot of girls like that. They come from Cuba, Honduras, Nicaragua, looking for a better life, but they wind up cleaning toilets in Bal Harbour." Given a choice between that and being shot at or tortured by assorted political goon squads, I'm thinking the toilets might have a slight edge. Not that I think immigrant exploitation is the proudest component of the American marketplace; it's just that it might help to have a little perspective, is all. Anyway, Horatio actually pins the problem by pointing out how few people actually pay attention to the folks who clean their offices and homes by saying, "Yes, the invisible ones." Delko points out, "Perfect victims. No one gives them a second look." Delko happens to find a shell casing right then, much to everyone's delight.

Then we're on to the baffling sports moment of today's episode. We see only the rocky soil, that same beautiful cloudy sky, and Horatio's shoes, and then Horatio stoops to pick up a rock, asking, "Eric, you used to play right field for the 'Canes, right? See how far you can throw that." Here's the baffling part: according to the CSI: Miami website, Delko was an Olympic-level swimmer, so it's kind of unlikely that he'd be playing baseball, a sport that lends itself nicely to arm injury, as opposed to training for meets in his spare time. Maybe the marketing people are out to lunch and Delko just likes to spend time in the water because that's where he can pretend he's Ariel. Maybe someone associated with this show likes the idea of there being another baseball-playing CSI on the team (remember, Warrick played for University of Western Las Vegas). Maybe David Caruso throws worse than my grandmother and they needed an excuse to have Delko heft the rock. In any case, Delko tosses it, and it splashes in the water at about the halfway point of the canal. This is how Horatio determines that they need to set a grid from the car to the rock and figure out where the gun landed. By "they," he means Delko, and he makes that clear as he walks off, telling Delko, "Keep in touch." Delko watches him go, wondering if he should send a Hallmark "Thank You For Giving Me More Work!" card, or maybe the FTD "You Want The Evidence, You Dive For It" bouquet complete with little scuba-diving teddy bear.

Meanwhile, quick and quiet Calleigh is busy doing as Horatio asks. This is unfortunate for Detective Hagen, who's just walked in to ask about his results, but even more unfortunate for Calleigh, as she's got to explain why she prioritized Horatio's favor over her assigned case. Hagen asks, "You got my results?" and Calleigh snits, "Not since you called me an hour ago." "You told me you'd have it done by this morning," Hagen points out. Calleigh continues to sling attitude with, "I've got fifty-four rounds and your being down here isn't going to help me solve it any faster." Hagen shows he can dish it out as well as take it with, "I'm sorry . Am I bothering you here in your nice, air-conditioned crime lab? 'Cause I'm sweating my butt off trying to get my causeway shooter into arraignment." Calleigh smiles tiredly -- and, desultory Clown Cosmetics observation aside, she really does look wrung out, so way to go, makeup people -- and says, "Personal hygiene problems aside, I am sorry. Something came up, and I got backed up." Hagen's not charmed: "Something? What kind of something?" Calleigh turns to the scope so she doesn't have to make eye contact, and says, "I can't tell you, but I promise you as soon as I get this other thing cleared off my scope, I will finish yours." Hagen replies, "Whatever it is better be big." Not recognizing that a) she got off the hook without giving out a lot of information, b) Hagen's backing off, and c) this should be any smart tactician's desired outcome, Calleigh says, "The biggest." Hagen's retreating no more; he stops and asks, "Big like Abby Sandoval? I heard about what happened in court this morning. Word is, Horatio really stepped in it."

Calleigh tries to steer the conversation back to non-Horatio subjects with, "We're going to get you your shooter. I just need you to give me some time." Hagen points out how hard that will be when he has to let the guy go at noon. Calleigh blithely replies, "Cut him loose. Re-arrest him again tomorrow." The copyeditor in me is all, "'Re-arrest him again'? Doesn't re-arrest imply repetition, thus making 'again' superfluous?" Hagen asks, "What if he skips?" What if he does? Wouldn't it be more efficient to schedule Calleigh's ass-chewing for later and get her back to work so there's some small shot at keeping this guy locked up? Calleigh's all, "Put a squad car on him. I don't know, John. I have to do it!" Hagen tells her to tell it to the hand, then comments, "I hope Horatio knows what he's doing." Calleigh rides to the rescue with, "He's been doing it a long time." Hagen's all, "I hope he gets to keep doing it." For threatening Horatio's job and unsettling his lackeys, Hagen's just vaulted to the top of the "Characters I Like" list for this show. Also, he's pretty easy on the eyes. I hope Hagen sticks around; not only does this show need someone who can act as a consistent antagonist for Horatio and crew (like Ecklie did with Gil), but it wouldn't hurt to have someone around who approaches crime-solving from a different direction. Watch -- I say that, and Hagen'll never be in another episode.

Off in another corner of the lab, Speedle's interrupting whatever it is Horatio's doing to tell him that Bonita Cruz's dress yielded many, many lightweight tropical-weight worsted wool fibers. Speedle's all, "I hate to say it, but I think we've got the wrong guy in custody." Horatio's not making too many hasty declarations yet, pointing out that the fifty fibers off Bonita Cruz's dress don't exactly track with the two pulled off Abby Sandoval's by saying "that doesn't track." "Neither does a serial killer who wears $2000 suits and kills maids," Speedle points out. Horatio's moved on: "Unless he's not a serial. I think I've figured out how he picks out his victims. Take a look at this." Speedle looks -- it's a piece of wet newsprint. To read the newsprint, they freeze-dry the paper to remove the water, microwave it (or do the forensic equivalent), then try to read the thing via magnification and light filtering. A green filter yields the text fragments:

EMPLEOS DOMESTICOS
Externa 5 dias. Refen
6300. sem.
305-555-0179

Speedle and Horatio conclude that they're help-wanted ads from the Cuban newspaper Diarios Las Americas. Speedle concludes that Bonita was looking for a job. He's awaiting further instructions from Horatio, but Horatio's distracted by the detective who just got off the elevator -- light linen pantsuit, long dark hair. Oh, please, dear God, let this not be some angry girlfriend bent on a high-volume workplace confrontation. Horatio dispatches Speedle to go play with Delko, then goes out to talk to the woman in question.

Giving her a look eerily reminiscent of the one he gave Lorenzo Escalante in the opening side, Horatio tells the woman, "Elena. I heard about the Surfside triple. Nice going." Elena replies, "Why, thank you. I just came to pick up the final labs." Horatio offers to walk her down. As they walk, he apologizes, "Sorry about dinner. I've just been really backlogged. All that brooding and stalking the unjust really eats into my spare time, you know?" Maybe he stops about halfway through that. Elena replies, "I heard. Seems like a lot of cases are being moved to the back burner lately." Horatio tells her that the way to solve that is to give him more criminalists. Rather than get into a messy budget debate, Elena elects to get into a messy Abby Sandoval debate: "Word around the department is you've reopened the case." Horatio replies, "Word travels fast." Elena reminds him, "This is Miami -- there are no secrets, Horatio." Horatio tells her he's got concerns about the case; Elena effectively tells him to cram it with, "We've had this conversation before." "Then you know how it ends," he replies. Elena asks, "How long are we going to keep dancing around in circles?" "I don't know. Some day we have to talk about that, don't we?" Horatio replies. Elena knows when she's been blown off. She closes by telling him to be careful, to which Horatio puckishly replies, "If I did that, it would take all the fun out of it." Elena closes the scene by sighing.