Whenever I'm facing a looming deadline, a long night, or a long night caused by a looming deadline, I sometimes decide to psych myself into working by tackling the project in the middle and working toward the end, working from the back to the front, or generally mixing it up so that when I do return to the beginning of something -- a book, a project outline, an article -- and commence working linearly, I run across my already completed segments and am heartened by how much I've done already.
I'm telling you this deeply personal anecdote because...well, because I tried to recap this episode that way, and while the results were entertaining in the same way a Choose Your Own Adventure book was, it really didn't make a whole lot of sense to start off with something like this:
So Liam's standing in the lab, looking as though he deeply regrets wearing the skivvies he accidentally shrunk in the wash, when Gil comes in. Liam tells him they're nailed the guy thanks to his DNA.
Sadly, the recap is a long-form epic that doesn't lend itself well to nonlinear interval work. Fortunately for you, I figured that out before subjecting you to seventeen pages of experimentation.
And with that, I've managed to write an introduction that completely avoided mention of the Las Vegas skyline, thus overcoming a challenge that has begun to tax me since I've had to find a way to describe that scene some fifty-odd times in a thirty-month period. Instead, I can just skip to the part where two ATVs are whizzing through the verdant Vegas valleys, ripping up grassy swards and leaving tire tracks in the rich, black mud that we all associate with Nevada. The two riders -- who are dressed in color-coordinated suits like the Power Rangers -- engage in the kind of vehicular hijinks that so often end with someone exhorting us, the viewers at home, to Do The Dew. Then the rider dressed in blue does the Dew outtake -- i.e. flipping their vehicle and taking a dive into the dirt, knocking over a conveniently-placed barrel that veteran CSI watchers are already eyeballing in chortling expectation.
The red-suited rider rips off the helmet, and a lot of blonde hair cascades down as she screams, "Billy!" She runs over and helps the other rider to doff their helmet, and we see more blonde hair as it's revealed that Billy is a Billie and the last minute has been devoted to hot girl-on-girl motocross action. The two girls gape at the barrel which tripped Billie up, and we see the hazardous waste sticker on the side, along with the skull and crossbones.
Within seconds, night has fallen, the barrel has been righted, and Brass is explaining, "According to the girl, one second she's riding along, having fun, everything's great. thing she knows, she's lying upside down in the dirt, staring at chemical waste." And then wondering why she can't feel her legs. Or maybe Captain Exposition declined to tell us what happened to the two girls. Brass does tell us that Billie had the wherewithal to call the local Hazmat unit, and "it's not toxic. They saw the barrel was buckling, they thought it might explode, so they opened it." So Catherine smells. She makes a noise halfway between a groan and a retch, which Brass heartily seconds. Gil is undeterred -- perhaps he's losing his sense of smell in proportion to his hearing. He heads toward the barrel and trains the flashlight on it. In the background, Catherine chokes out, "Soap mummy." Gil goes with the lingo, "Adipocere, a.k.a. mortuary wax." Hey! I've covered this territory before. Gil covers it now: "This is what you get when fatty tissue decomposes in an alkaline environment with limited oxygen." Catherine tags in: "All it needs is a little moisture and enough time. Anaerobic bacteria digest body fats, turning them into a waxy solid. Kind of like the way they make vegetable shortening." Brass deadpans, "I'll never eat another freedom fry." Well, if that won't do it, Fast Food Nation will. Brass asks for an estimate of how long the world's most gruesome molded soap has been sitting in the barrel. Gil challenges Brass's use of the generic male pronoun; Catherine elects to ignore that and estimates a saponification time of five to six weeks minimum. Brass obliquely references the fact that it's pouring rain yet again with, "With all this wind and weather, any evidence in the dump is long gone." Because it's been washed away in a flood? Because, at this point, they've been transported to an alternate dimension where global warming combined with the San Andreas fault giving America a new Pacific coastline around Primm, Nevada has conspired to give Las Vegas that rainy, temperate climate we see so often here? Because I can't harp on the rain thing enough? Anyway, Gil delivers a painful stinger with, "We got evidence -- signed, sealed and delivered."
The Who demand to know who we are.
Once we're back from commercial break, David The Edifying Coroner wheels the mystery soap guest into an autopsy bay while telling two young men, "Gentlemen, saponification most frequently occurs in infant burials. That's because their bodies have more fat and their bacterial flora aren't fully developed." As David's waxing enthusiastic, he and the less nauseous of the two lackeys are decanting the body. We get a shot of a gush of fluid filtering through a mesh screen. A ring rests atop the mesh. Then a leg heavily falls out of the barrel, and David cautions the others to hold it. It turns out he's only now noticed the ring, but when he picks it up, we get a nicely gory shot of the leg covered in brown viscous goo. David begins pulling the rest of the body out and resumes his lecture with, "Historically, saponified corpses who maintained their physical features were looked upon as incorruptible, even saintly. When it happened to children, it just reinforced that notion." The unnamed lackey who's getting squeamish could not care less about the role post-burial decay played in folk beliefs; he's busy watching the murky goo trickle out of the barrel at a molasses-like rate and thinking about what that goo used to be. The kid begins backing up slowly, probably to make a run to the nearest trashcan. I hope he lifts his splatter guard before he hurls. Otherwise -- eeeeuw.
The final touch is when David requests the easily-detached foot. The kid runs. David hardly notices, so caught up is he in the oral tradition of forensic epics: "Interestingly enough, since formaldehyde is alkaline and American caskets are sealed, there are more bodies in this country turning to soap now than at any other time in human history. We are, in fact, the adipocere capital of the world." As David's talking, his speech is punctuated by squishing noises and the occasional wet thud, none of which he seems to notice anymore. David finishes by grunting, "U! S! A! We're number one!" and prying a hand -- with index finger extended -- off the tight and slimy knot the rest of the dead body has become.
Incidentally -- because I know some of you were as curious as I about the infant microflora thing -- most babies develop their gut microflora during the first year of life, most often with bifidobacteria (which generate a lactose-metabolizing enzyme), which is a good thing as these bacteria are thought to be inhibitors of gut pathogens courtesy of two of their metabolic by-products, acetate and lactate. And infants with low bifidobacteria numbers are not only more likely to have clostridia and Staphylococcus aureus in their systems, as well as a higher rate of allergic reactions later in life (Bjorksten, B.; Sepp, E.; Julge, K.; Voor, T.; Mikelsaar, M. -- Allergy development and the intestinal microflora during the first year of life, Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology: Vol. 108/4, 2001). But all that presumes that said infant is alive and playing host to microflora and not turning into soap somewhere underground. Back to the episode.
Gil and Warrick are doing laps in the Labitrail and we join them in progress as Warrick says, "Are you serious? David lost a body?" Gil's sanguine about it: "It happens. When I was working in Minneapolis, we had two John Smiths come in on the same day. [We] sent the wrong one back to Canada. Anyway, the body's still in the morgue; David finally processed his ten-card. Guy's name is Keith Mercer." Warrick wants to know when Mercer came in; Gil tells us, "Eleven days ago. Found him in an alley off Fremont, in a pile of garbage to a dumpster." Warrick's thinking that the late date means a lack of a crime scene to process. Gil obliquely contradicts him: "Initially, the police thought he was homeless. He hadn't bathed, he had no watch, wallet or keys, and he had scars on his lower legs." Warrick pegs the cause of death by noticing the "nice laceration with ecchymosis on his left temple." Gil points out the obvious: "Cause of death was blunt-force trauma to the head." The two men bandy about possible hypotheses, and Gil sums up the dilemma with: "Evidence without context is ambiguous at best." His instincts, however, lead him to ponder a smear of yellow powder on the deceased's belt buckle.
Meanwhile, David's on a roll, asking Catherine if she's ever split a log. She hesitates before answering that she's seen it done before, and David counters, "You should try it some time. I find it...relaxing." There's a positively puckish twinkle in his eye as he shares that. What gives? Catherine's obviously wondering too. David elegantly segues from that into an explanation of what killed the Vegas Soap Guy: "The blow here was delivered in a similar fashion [to a wood-chopping blow]. Temporal bone was hit, driven down hard, upper palate smashed, most of the teeth gone." Catherine moves down to the bottom of the skeleton, and we learn that the foot was sheared off by something fast, powerful, and clean. Catherine suggests an ax -- naturally, given the conversation she was having with David -- and he tells her he'll cast the tool marks shortly to see what did separate the foot from the body. Catherine then begins brainstorming: "Body in a drum in the middle of the mountains. If the head and hands were missing, I'd be saying Mob hit." David helpfully adds fetish murderers to the list of suspects. Catherine then concludes that thanks to the cranial damage, using dental records for this guy won't work, so she'd like to try DNA courtesy of a bone marrow sample. David practically giggles in delight as he fires up Bessie the bone saw and says, "My thoughts exactly. The best sample is a large bone with a portion of joint. Then we freeze, grind, and sequence. Want a breast or a thigh?" Catherine does not give David a taste of his own medicine with, "Wing." Instead, she shrugs and tells him, "It's your kitchen." Wearing an expression that clearly says, "I'm the luckiest boy to ever be in a morgue!" David commences sawing.
Upstairs, Sara and Nicky are both refueling with coffee. Nicky pours a metric ton of sugar in his cup as he says, "Hey, Sara, I don't want to cross any lines but I've got this buddy who's not going out with anybody..." And his name is Liam? It's so typical of Nicky to try and play matchmaker. Sara quickly cuts Nicky off with, "No, no, no, no, forget it." She's gracious about it. Personally, I think someone needs to take Sara aside and tell her, "Look, the best revenge is living well -- you can be all wounded and sulky on your own time, but you need to get you some public scandal that'll make its way back to Hank so he can cry the bitter tears of regret into the pillow of remorse as he realizes what a chump he is." Then again, that strategy assumes that Hank's developed the capacity for higher thought and/or the ability to link actions to consequences, so Sara might be wasting her time on the revenge angle too. Anyway, Catherine comes charging into the lounge, then announces, "Grissom bailed. You guys are with me." She seems a little ticked; I wonder if she's reached the point where she's going to begin poking Gil to see if he spills why he's ducking out on cases, or if she's just going to snap at him one day. We won't get to find out today. Nicky and Sara saddle up and ride out. As they walk out of earshot, Nicky tries again: "He's a cool guy." "No!" Sara insists. "You don't even have to --" "No, Nick!" "Just hear me out a sec..."
Sara immediately sets to work on the ring, which has a flat face and the Omega Zeta Alpha insignia. We see her going through a fraternity database, visually checking each fraternity's crests, and coming up empty. Nicky, meanwhile gets to take apart the barrel. Although its unique ID plate has been sanded down, that doesn't stop the intrepid Texan. He merely attaches the sawed-off segment of metal to a magnetic stand, then drops a lot of iron filings on it; the filings fill the undetectable-to-human-eyes impressions and when Nicky clears off the extra iron, he's got a serial number (4LRW 84 64). Ever notice how he displays all this competency and ingenuity when he's all alone? Either Nicky's got a serious case of performance anxiety around his coworkers, or he's duping them into thinking he's a slow-witted good ole boy as part of some nefarious master plan. Maybe the Day of Justice is supposed to be a larger morality play about the comparative merits of different types of intelligence, as opposed to the logical culmination of a half-decade's repressed rage.
Anyway, Nicky's not the only one who's got something. Catherine's poring over the successful DNA identification of the soap guy; he's one Christian Cutler, as seen in his non-saponified state as a military man with the longest hair I've ever seen on someone allegedly serving in the armed forces. Couldn't someone have taken the time to Photoshop a crewcut onto this guy's head? Sara assumes Cutler was in CODIS, and asks what the felony was; Catherine sets her straight: "He wasn't in CODIS. Department of Defense registry. He was in the Army -- an E-5 sergeant honorably discharged three years ago. The guy drove tanks." Sara's thrilled with this, because "you know that fraternity ring? It's not a fraternity ring. Omega Zeta Alpha is a mechanical engineering honor society." Actually, that would be Pi Tau Sigma, but I imagine the powers that be have their reasons for making up a fake name. Catherine and Sara mull over the hardcore techiness of their victim, or perhaps pretend to while they check out each other's hair and simultaneously wonder why the ironed-out-straight look works for Sara, yet makes Catherine look a little tired. Before they can get into that discussion, however, Nicky comes in to tell them where the barrel was from.
Apparently, in order to tell Catherine, Nicky's going to require her to go on a field trip first. Maybe it's to the Rage Bunker: "And this is my wall where I record everything I did right. Do you see? Do you see? And this is my collection of weapons; I know how to use them all. Do you see? Do you see? And these are my simulation dioramas -- I took some of your hair when you weren't looking so your figurines would be more realistic. Do you see? Do you see?" Actually, it's to a warehouse district. As everyone walks toward the door, Nicky explains, "The chemical company serialized all their shipping containers. That way, if hazardous waste ends up where it shouldn't be, they know where it came from." I have the feeling the chemical company did not do this out of any altruistic environmental motives, but out of compliance with some government regulation. Anyway, Catherine notices all the noise emanating from the building and notes that it seems pretty lively for a warehouse. Nicky suggests that it's a fine noise level for a rave. As Catherine, Brass, and Nicky get to the door, a bald guy who's trying for that "I just took the red pill" look tells them the cover charge is $25 apiece. Brass flaunts the badge and says, "I got a coupon." I guess you get your thrills where you can.
Once inside, it's Robot Wars. This is the point where I give a big shout-out to sorcha mise and her fabulous man-thing, as they're the ones who provided me with any and all accurate details below (the mistakes are my own doing): Ronin (bot with a horizontal spinning cutter) attacks the tire of Overkill, while Diesector moves in the background. Then another robot, Dreadnought, moves to the foreground while the red robot Tazbot and Diesector attack Overkill some more. Since Tazbot is a Heavyweight and Diesector is a Super Heavyweight, they would never be in the same fight. Both belong to Team Mutant Robots. There's a woman calling the fights -- she's like the Lillian Garcia of the gears set -- and then we see the CSIs walk toward the fenced-off fighting pen, with Nicky explaining, "Robot Rumble. Demolition Derby by remote control. They got a show on cable TV." We go back to the pen as a yellow robot named "Spiker Chuck" -- a.k.a. "Overkill" -- spins around. We pan to a bank of intense-looking men manning the remote controls, and the announcer woman says, "The deathblade goes up and the deathblade comes down!" Random pieces go flying, and then we see the announcer -- who, frankly, looks like she should be doing manicures at a strip-mall beauty parlor called Hair and Now -- giving a play-by-play on the mechanical carnage. There's a lot of it over the few seconds. Then the camera pans to the three CSI folk -- Brass and Catherine both look faintly appalled, as if they just walked past a bank of grown men dressed like Boba Fett and camping on the sidewalk outside a movie theatre two months before Star Wars III: Come for the Mace Windu, Stay for the Obi Wan. Nicky, however, is up on his toes and angling for a better view. I bet you he still plays with his Rock-'em Sock-'em Robots at home. There's a lot more fighting -- suffice it to say that many robots wreak havoc and nearly none of them are introduced via announcement in any way that corresponds with their actual names -- and once the fighting is over, Catherine muses that the sharp metal objects, betting, and testosterone-infused atmosphere could plausibly have led to Cutler's death. "We got a room full of murder suspects," Brass says.
Aprés commercial, a little blade mounted on what looks like a pair of roller-skate wheels goes whirring around while the blonde announcer tells the CSIs, "Bots fight all over the country, on TV, around the world. This is an informal venue where competitors can come to hone their skills and their machines." As the four people wind their way through the considerably diminished post-match crowd, avoiding the hunched-over competitors doing maintenance on their machines, Brass asks if Blondie has a gaming license to cover all that money changing hands. She replies, "I don't need one. See, I just put on a show; if people bet, that's their business." I can't believe Las Vegas law enforcement would share that perspective, what with the regulation of gambling being such a huge revenue stream for the city's businesses. Brass makes a comment about Blondie's lack of business acumen, and she gives us a backstory overload that culminates in one critical fact: she's the one that owns the warehouse from which the barrel containing Cutler came.
After assuring Brass of her business brains, the woman turns to the geek crouched on the floor, who's been gaping at her denim jumpsuit-clad (I know!) nether region, and tells him, "Hey, Jimbo, you looked ferocious out there!" He replies disconsolately, "Thanks, Ginger. We lost. Please don't notice that my voice is changing because all my hormones were jump-started by the close proximity to a real, live girl." Well, you know he was thinking it. Ginger only provides fuel for further coming-of-age traumas when she purrs, "Well, I like a guy who goes down with style." Catherine's got her number; after Ginger's maintained eye contact long enough for the kid to spontaneously combust with lust, she turns back to Catherine, who grins and says, "Look available, be unattainable." Ginger points out that it keeps the geeks coming back for more; the camera elects to focus on her long, beauty-parlor talons.
Everyone then gets down to business: Brass whips out a picture of Cutler, Ginger IDs him, Brass breaks the news about Cutler's death. Catherine adds, "We found his body stuffed in a waste drum from this warehouse." After more questioning, it emerges that Ginger last saw Christian some six weeks ago at the Robot Rumble, where he and his robot Smash-n-Burn dismantled three or four other machines having "the kind of night that most of these boys dream about: using the thing that he built to destroy the thing that the other guy built. It's a basic male drive." Catherine bonds with Ginger some more when she says, "Kind of puts that whole 'weapons of mass destruction' thing into perspective." Brass refrains from commenting on that. We find out that Cutler wasn't well liked. As Ginger says in her Elvis-meets-Mae-West delivery, "Let me put it to you this way: nobody likes a winner who needs to shove it in your face." Then Brass tells Ginger he's going to need her to ID all the people who fought that night. Nicky materializes out of nowhere -- what, was he off begging the guys to let him drive El Destructador or whatever? -- and points out that they'll also need the robots, because "you can't have a murder without a murder weapon." Brass announces that they'll take all the robots, which will undoubtedly go over well with all the people slated to fight on cable that week.
The rising -- or setting -- sun indicates that time has passed and we have transitioned into the B-plot. The camera pulls in on the picture of dead Keith and his head, and a woman's voice says, "Keith went to Yosemite to climb El Capitan -- the Shield headwall." Vega asks if she went with him; we find out that she drove to Taos to see her sister and got back ten days ago, only to discover that Keith's gear was in the living room but there was no Keith. Vega asks, "What did you do then?" She recites tearily, "I called his cell phone. I called his office. And then I called the Park Service. And all they said was that Keith had been by to pick up his permit, so then I checked the hospitals up there, and nothing. Then I called the hospitals in Vegas. Then I called the police." As she talks, the camera switches over to Gil for a brief shot of him bathed beatifically in golden light; it's as if choirs of angels are about to descend and begin singing around him. Of course, he wouldn't be able to hear them, and then Vega would realize he was deaf and it would be all awkward, but nevertheless, the lighting in this scene is fantastic. Teary Wife says, "I did everything I could do, and nobody would pay attention." Gil then has a rare moment of human empathy and says, "Mrs. Mercer, you have my attention." The camera pulls in on Gil -- whose face is illuminated with light so divine, you just know Horatio will have it installed too -- and he asks, "I'd like to see your house."
As Gil asks, so he receives. The very shot is Warrick pulling out the climbing gear and verifying its presence while Gil watches. Warrick does note, "I don't see a sleeping bag, though." Gil checks the scuffed flagstone floor and says, "Looks like someone was trying to clean up too, but forgot to use their Murphy's Oil Soap." Gil straightens up and the camera pulls back so we can see that the Mercers evidently lived in the middle of the Sundance Catalog. He then calls for the luminol and closes the shutters so he and Warrick can see the results better. Warrick sprays the floor, and within minutes, says loudly, "You called it. Positive for blood." Gil shines his flashlight around the now-darkened room, examining the framed pictures of Kevin on the wall. Warrick has found the outline of a footprint, complete with shoe treads; after finding a few more, he concludes that there's a trail. Gil notices the possibility of blood on the corner of the mantel. As Warrick works his way from the initial blood discovery to the fireplace with its raised heart, the luminol stain grows. Warrick sprays the fireplace, and only one spot on the mantel glows. It's the spot where an unbelievably ugly statue happens to be sitting; this thing is what happens when primitive art mates with the flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. Warrick has a flashback to the likely murder scenario, then announces his discovery of the possible murder weapon to Gil, who raises an eyebrow in reply.
Back at the lab, Sara's getting her dose of Robot Rumble secondhand as she rattles off the names incredulously: "Spikerchick? Donsueme? Slaughter X? You really think one of these things killed the vic?" Nicky argues, "They're fast, they're powerful, and the weapons characteristics fit so I can't rule them out. Now are you sure you won't meet my friend?" Okay, so he doesn't bug Sara about the dating, but wouldn't it have been nice if he did? Sara may obliquely be thinking that too as she says, "You know what they say: it's [what's] on the inside that counts." Cue the two of them disassembling the robots. I hope they're writing down each step so they can reassemble those things too; it's always easier to take apart than put together. Eventually, one of the robots Sara's swabbed tests positive for blood; she and Nick pounce on the robot suspect. Nicky then moves on to testing tool marks against what was found on the victim. Another pig or twelve goes down in the name of science as the assorted robots mangle it in their own inimitable fashions. Nicky then takes molds of the mangle sites so he can compare them to those found on Cutler.
Eventually Liam -- who is only sporting bedhead today, as opposed to some of his more avant-garde tonsorial stylings -- comes in and asks if Nicky's having any luck. Why, no, he's not. Liam then goads Nicky with, "Could have saved you some time: DNA beats tool marks every time, you know. I ran your blood samples. Got a match -- all three of them." Nicky's a little dismayed that the results show the victim's blood on three different parts of three different robots. Liam nudges him toward the obvious conclusion with, "Where did the parts come from?" Nicky looks at Liam in dismay as he realizes that he's going to have to re-enter the freaky robot subculture some more.
Cut to Brass fiddling with that blade-on-wheels thing we saw in an earlier scene while one of the robot-making guys explains nervously how the robot-building culture thrives on selling, swapping, and trading parts. Well, that explains how the three parts ended up in three separate robots. Nicky asks if those parts on the market customarily have blood on them, and the guy replies, "I don't check. It doesn't matter that they're clean or dirty -- only that they work. Look, me and Chris are partners. I built the bot, he drove it. We kicked ass, made good cash. Why would I want him dead?" As the guy talks, Brass checks out the pictures of Chris and Twitchy Guy (who is, we see in a picture caption, named Brian Kelso). Brass tries to question him with his usual unique angle: "Your best buddy drops off the face of the earth for six weeks, you get a call or email or postcard? No. But you care so much about him, that you do absolutely nothing to find out what happened. You can understand why we're here, so straighten us out." As Brian explains that Chris's long absences were not uncommon, and he enjoyed a second career doing stage effects for a band with the ill-fated name Pyrotechnica (with a name like that, they won't be playing Rhode Island any time soon), we hear a baby beginning to cry in the background. The guys somehow get into a discussion of Brian's hobbies when Mrs. Kelso stomps out with the baby and lobs her at Brian with a snappish, "She wants her father." Nicky watches the missus go and thanks his lucky stars he's single. Brian begins comforting the baby in a manner that's frighteningly reminiscent of Michael Jackson feeding his youngest during that freaky special; all we need now is Brian insisting, "I held him strong in my arms! Strong! I love my children!" Brass comments on how Brian has a lot of hobbies, yet remarkably little hobby-related detritus around the house. This leads us to Brian's workshop after a thematic statement about how people are hard-wired to make things, and this creative construction urge sets us apart from other animals. Someone should tell coral, bees, termites, et cetera that, what with those animals being hard-wired to construct things too.
Cut to Brian's workshop, where the police descend and one scruffy I-wish-girls-thought-I-was-as-hip-as-I-think-I-am kind of guy mouths off at the cops the whole way out. Catherine blows by him without a glance. Denied! She and Nicky begin looking around the place, noticing the Polaroids of naked machine parts tacked on the workbenches. Nicky finds the now-dismantled Smash-and-Burn, and notes how the whirring rotor blade would make a nice match to Cutler. Catherine goes back to I-wish-girls-thought-I-was-as-hip-as-I-think-I-am kind of guy (or "Tool" for short)'s workspace and sees that he's the proud papa of the profoundly defeated Hammer of God. I can't be the only one who thinks of Lucifer's Hammer and the Comet Warden cult, can I? While Catherine's checking out Tool's workspace and noting that he's moderately obsessed with his robot, Nicky's checking the floor and noticing the big, barrel-sized rust circle. See? The minute eyes are off him, he's all sorts of competent. After he shares the news with Catherine, they look around some more for potential clues, and Catherine notices a long talon that looks very similar to the claws Ginger sported. Nicky, meanwhile, notices long gouges and score marks in the chain-link fencing that walls in so many of the parts lockers. Catherine's fixed on Ginger, though, exclaiming that she thinks they've got the jumpsuited jezebel.
After the commercial, Catherine and Ginger are having a sit-down in an interrogation room, the telltale nail in an evidence bag on the table. Catherine asks how that nail happened to end up on the floor, and Ginger says matter-of-factly, "They break." Catherine points out, "Yeah. They also scratch. There were skin scrapings under the nail. We tested the epithelials -- they're Christian Cutler's. Your shop, your fingernail, your waste drum with the dead guy in it." Ginger's a little tense. Perhaps her jumpsuit is too tight. She explains, "I drop by every now and then, make sure my customers are happy. Chris was there alone one night, working. He kind of got the wrong idea." We then flash back to Chris wooing Ginger via the time-honored method of siccing killer robots on her. In the ensuing altercation, she smacks him one, and her nail goes flying. Back in the present, Catherine points out, "And you didn't think this was worth mentioning?" Ginger snorts, "Hey, you guys asked me when I saw him last. This happened the day before the big free-for-all." Catherine returns to the sexual-harassment angle with, "So that's the price of doing business." "Yeah, you could say that," Ginger replies. Catherine then decides to sketch out what she thinks happened: Chris loosed the killer robots, Ginger knocked him over, and he was done in by his own creation, no doubt thinking in between screams, "Gosh, this is ironic -- man undone by his creation." Ginger disputes this version of events and then bites the hands that feed her with, "Listen, I let the geeks fantasize about me" -- since she evidently has the power of mind control -- "and most of them are harmless: happy to stare, and then go home and spank the monkey like good little college boys. But Chris was a dumb, vicious Army grunt, and maybe I wasn't as careful around him as I should have been, but that doesn't mean that I killed him." In theory, Catherine should be completely identifying with Ginger's story -- after all, didn't she provide a similar thrill in her line of work, with similar pitfalls? -- but she's looking as though Ginger's speech incriminated rather than exonerated her.
Warrick, meanwhile, is taking the ugly, ugly statue out of its evidence baggie and reading the note on the bottom: "WARNING: Do not keep this statue. Our housekeeper threw out her hip, we were nearly eaten by a non-indigenous tarantula, and our son wiped out in a surf competition while we were in Hawaii." Then he sprays the ugly little thing top to bottom with assorted solvents until he's found some prints, which he then photographs.
In less time than it takes me to type this, the scene's jumped to Warrick brandishing the photo and saying, "Mrs. Mercer, we found this statue on your mantle. It had your fingerprints on it." Mrs. Mercer explains, "It was a wedding gift." Suddenly, it all makes so much sense; ten bucks says it was from an overly sensitive relative on her side of the family. Warrick adds, "Well, we also found your husband's blood on the base of it." This is Mrs. Mercer's cue to look alarmed, which translates into her raising her eyebrows and giving Gil the Margaret Keane eyes. I should add that Mrs. Mercer looks to be in her early twenties, so referring to her as a Missus makes me feel weird -- for me, that honorific is forever reserved for people older than I. Gil cocks an eyebrow again, then asks, "Did you touch or move this statue at any time in the last ten days?" Mrs. Mercer exposits, "Keith hated that thing -- he was always trying to toss it. When I came home, I found it on the floor. I thought he'd put it there. I found it in the hall closet, in the garage, I even found it in the car once. It was like a game for us." Neither Gil nor Warrick comments, and Mrs. M says angrily, "Look, I came to you! You guys have been giving me the runaround for over a week!" I don't blame her for being pissed. Gil, however, is unflappable; maybe he's been staring intently because he's lip-reading, and so missed the other verbal cues. Maybe I'm just trying to advance this deafness thing more constantly and subtly than we've been seeing on the show. Anyway, Gil then whips out a picture of an empty box Warrick found on the bookcase, and asks what used to be in it; Mrs. M loses it, sobbing, "We inherited a coin collection and we figured we'd use it for a rainy day." Well, the Mercers had enough of them to choose from in this version of Vegas, didn't they? Gil and Warrick exchange meaningful looks.
Sara, Catherine, and Nicky are going through the online membership rolls of Omega Zeta Alpha for Christian Cutler, and then they realize the ring isn't his because he didn't go to college. On a hunch, Nicky has them check the Ks for Brian Kelso, and everyone's thrilled to hit pay dirt.
Within minutes, a gaping Brian is seated in the interrogation room and Nicky's saying, "The ring belongs to you, Brian." Brass suggests, "You must have dropped it when you were stuffing your buddy's corpse into a barrel." We see a flashback of Brian doing so, and losing his loosely-fitting ring in the process. I realize most people are panicky if they're killing someone and getting rid of the body, but you'd think that one of these days, the CSIs would run across someone who killed someone else in the heat of passion, but composed the cover-up with cool logic. Unfortunately, today's not that day. Brass continues to put the screws to Brian with: "This is how it's going to play out. Here's the best-case scenario. We arrest you for murder. The jury likes your face and you, ah, get man[slaughter] one. Then you get to spend the fifteen years staring at your wife and kid through a wire glass window. Maybe if you're lucky, when you get out you can take her to the prom." Who? The wife? The kid? Also, according to the Nevada legal statutes (NRS.200.080), "A person convicted of the crime of voluntary manslaughter is guilty of a category B felony and shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for a minimum term of not less than 1 year and a maximum term of not more than 10 years, and may be further punished by a fine of not more than $10,000." So this fifteen-year business is misleading. Granted, I don't expect people to be familiar with their state's criminal statutes, and I do expect cops to use any legal method of coercion, but the lying still rubs me the wrong way.
Brian begins weeping -- especially more so after Brass, smelling blood in the water, zooms in on the kill with, "She's going to be so proud of her daddy." Nicky watches Brian cry. Brass gives Nicky the "oh, I am not getting the thrill of making grown men cry that I used to" look. As Brian explains, "It was an accident," Nicky blurts out, "Do you want a tissue or something?" Heh. Brian turns down the Kleenex; Nicky shrugs. Brian unburdens his presumably guilty conscience: "We were in the shop. It was real late and there was no one else there. I made some changes to Smash-and-Burn's programming. We were testing them out. Smash was acting...really flaky. Sluggish and then..." Then we go to the flashback, where Smash heads for Cutler while Brian watches, immobilized by the thought, "But our robot just violated the First Law of Robotics! I was sure I had programmed Handbook of Robotics, 56th Edition!" We see the blade whirring and the blood flying as Cutler screams. Back in the present, Brian is gulping, "It just went crazy. With all that blood...and Chris...just in the middle of it, lying there. I had to make it go away." Brian's rocking back and forth -- that's a nice detail -- and crying some more, and Nicky's looking acutely uncomfortable.
Brass softens a little and walks over, asking, "Hey. Hey, Brian. If it was an accident, why didn't you report it?" Did Nicky tell nobody anything from that janitor-killing-the-hacker-by-mistake case? Brian replies, "It was my fault. I was so scared." Nicky's not buying it. He bursts out, "You disposed of the body! Cleaned up the scene! Dismantled the bot and sold the parts!" Brian blubbers, "All I could think about was my wife and my little girl! My little girl. I just didn't want to lose them." The little girl I can see being a consideration; the wife might have been considered a silver lining in that lethal cloud. By this point, both Brass and Nicky are biting down on the urge to smack Brian and shout, "Pull yourself together, man!" Brian continues crying, insisting over and over, "You gotta believe me! It was an accident! I'm so sorry!"
Meanwhile, in a less soggy plot -- and who would have thought that the poor Widow Mercer was a model of composure? -- Vega's telling Warrick that a bank has retrieved Keith Mercer's ATM card from the anonymous person who tried to use it. Within minutes, Warrick's got that sucker dusted for prints, and AFIS has spit out the mug shot of the hirsute Willy Reddington, who's got priors for public drunkenness and assault and battery. When we seamlessly move from the mug shot to Reddington in the computer-infested lab, we see that he looks a lot like a brunet, bearded Peter Krause, down to the square head. Vega asks if perhaps Reddington would care to explain how he came to be using Mercer's credit cards. Reddington stammers out, "He lent me his stuff, told me to have a good time." Vega asks, "When did he tell you this?" "Yesterday?" Reddington tries. Gil, who's been perched on a table to the right of Reddington, says skeptically, "Yesterday? Mr. Mercer's been in the morgue for more than ten days, so unless you were at a séance..." Reddington quickly admits that he found Mercer. Gil asks if he found that fancy suit too. Nope -- it turns out Reddington bought that with Mercer's credit cards. You'd think the store would check some ID. Gil whips out the bagged ATM and asks if he used that one. Reddington helpfully says, "Uh, no." He digs out a wallet -- I presume it's Keith's -- and says, "I used this one. It's not platinum. It's a gold." He hands everything over to Gil, who gives first Reddington, then Vega, a what the hell? look.
Warrick is now processing Reddington's original clothing, and comments on Reddington himself, "This guy was classy. He goes into a store, buys new clothes and leaves the old ones behind. They tossed them in the dumpster." Gil echoes my sentiment that store clerks need to begin checking for photo ID. Warrick replies, "This is Vegas, baby. Anybody can get lucky." Oh, sure -- Sara calls Hank "baby," and now everybody's doing it to everybody else. There's no blood on Reddington's clothing, the shoe treads don't match, and he's got no car, so Gil and Warrick quickly conclude that it's impossible for Reddington to have done it. They begin fixating on the coin collection after Gil wonders why a robber would take only that and not other material belongings. Warrick just sits there and looks pretty while Gil concludes, "I think the killer knew what he was going to steal."
Cut to Nicky explaining, "Smash-and-Burn wasn't some cyborg death machine with a mind of its own. You've got to drive them." Sara adds, "Well, [if] we prove it didn't happen the way Brian said it did, you may have your killer." So Sara's presuming Brian's innocent? Anyway, Nicky and Sara proceed to disassemble some of the other robots -- I guess to take the original killer parts out, then reassemble Smash-and-Burn. The robot isn't responding to the remote control, something that sets off alarm bells for both CSIs.
Within seconds, they've shucked their coveralls, collared Catherine, and convened around a light-table, so Sara can explain, "You got a transmitter module in the remote and a receiver module in the bot. They work as a pair." Nicky adds, "Yeah, and in every competition, each team is assigned a pair on a different numbered frequency. That way each driver can control their bot without interfering with anyone else's." Sara cuts in, "Or vice versa. This is Smash-and-Grab's receiver --" "And this is Brian's transmitter," Nicky adds. They've both handed their parts to Catherine, who notes that the receiver and transmitter numbers don't match. She concludes, "When Christian died, Brian wasn't controlling the bot." Sara concludes, "Somebody was." Somebody who was forcing it to violate the Second Law of Robotics, that's who!
Outside the conference room, Catherine and Nicky lope around the labitrail, talking the case out. Nicky says, "Brian claims the bot malfunctioned." Catherine points out, "It didn't -- it was responding to a different control frequency." Nicky states the obvious with, "I don't think he knew that." Catherine muses, "If he did, he was protecting somebody." Who, his infant daughter?
We transition smoothly into the B-plot, with Liam scampering up to Gil and telling him, "I wasn't able to pull any DNA off your vic's personal effects, but I did find something else. Uh, those yellow spots on his belt? I ran them through the GC/MS [gas chromatography/mass spectrometry, which separates mixtures into their components, then measures masses of those components' individual molecules]." Gil states, "You ran it." Liam says yes, and tells him it's sulfur; he continues, "Warrick mentioned something about a missing coin collection. Some dealers -- bad ones -- use sulfur to polish up coins for sale. Shake and bake. So I figure that your killer is either a coin dealer or a collector, and he transferred the sulfur to the body when disposing of it." ["Dealers (and others) sometimes polish a coin to make it shine, but that usually produces 'hairlines' which can be detected with a magnifying glass. Rookie collectors are often taken in by 'whizzed' coins like that. Sulfur, on the other hand, is what causes tarnish, like you see on spoons or candlesticks, so would not be used to shine coins. Some collectors like 'toned' silver coins, especially when the toning (tarnish) is gold, blue, or red, but not the brown/black that usually results. Silver coins are sometimes artificially toned by putting them between the pages of old books in which the paper has a high sulfur content." -- Sars's Dad]
By this point, Gil has stopped pouring his coffee to study Liam, and he asks, "Are you a numismatist, Liam?" Liam takes this as his cue to run off at the mouth: "Well, my grandpa started me off with a 1909 V.D.B. 'S' Lincoln penny, often referred to as a V.D.B. because it bears the monogram of its engraver, Victor D. Brenner. It's a low mintage." Gil's still processing this stationary habit of Liam's: "So let's see. You surf, you scuba dive, you're into latex, you like fashion models and Marilyn Manson. And you also have a coin collection." There's something about William Petersen's delivery, the way he subtly emphasizes "coin collection," that really sells that line. Liam shrugs, "Weird, huh?" Gil ripostes, "Well, I raise cockroaches." And now I'm imagining Gil in the entomological equivalent of Best of Show, lovingly rubbing oils on the shiny carapaces of his little charges and talking to them. However, as Gil walks off, Liam looks a little nonplussed that Gil's kept tabs on his assorted extracurricular activities.
Back in the A-plot, Ginger's tapping her latest set of impressive talons -- gem-studded and pastel blue, in time for Easter. To sum up a tiresome scene and dispel with this red (ruby-studded) herring before figuring out who the actual killer is, Ginger has nothing to bring to the table except a bad attitude and a barrister boyfriend whom she's threatening to sic on CSI if they bother her again. The best line concerns Catherine's reaction when Ginger flashes the picture of Johnny Law: "Does it have a name, or did it come with the wallet?" The rest, you can take or leave.
In the B-plot, Gil's meditating upon the hiking pass Keith Mercer had while Vega fills him in on Keith's cell phone records. Surprise, surprise -- two calls are to Jones Collectibles, a small-time fence. Gil immediately perceives a lead, and matches up the cell phone log against a piece of scrap paper in the wallet with a scribbled phone number. Surprise, surprise, the "JC" of the scrap paper matches Jones Collectibles.
Liam's outside, blinking in shock. "This is the outside. I've heard of this place! You CSIs get to go there!" Well, he's blinking; the monologue is mostly internal. Then he buzzes himself into Jones Collectibles, and the man behind the counter grunts a message that loosely approximates something resembling customer service. Liam pretends to browse for a moment, then says as guilelessly as possible, "I heard that you dealt in coins?" Jones says, "Really? From whom?" Liam gulps, "Grissom?" This throws Jones, but he's not willing to cop to it. Liam babbles into the silence, "He's a friend of mine. [small pause] We work together. I'm looking to see what you got. I'd like to make a trade." Liam then proffers the penny he was telling Gil about. Jones asks, "Why the flip?" Liam shuffles as he says uneasily, "I've been meaning to get it slabbed." ["Having a coin slabbed means bringing or sending the coin to an authentication service for certification -- i.e. graded as 'fine,' 'very fine,' 'mint,' et cetera." -- Sars] Jones appraises the coin and finds it good, telling Liam, "You've got yourself a slider ["an uncirculated coin that nonetheless has tiny 'slide' marks from album storage -- it's mint, but not perfect. Coinies also call sliders 'commercial uncirculated'" -- Sars]." Liam says, "I'd like to get myself a 1916 D dime. Been all over Vegas. Can't find one. You got any?" Jones says, "I might have one, but it's pricey." "Hey, so is mine!" Liam insists. Well, his is "pricey" in the sense that $45 is a lot to pay for a penny; the D dime routinely goes for five figures, so that's a whole different definition of pricey. The prices do vary (I spent some time poking around Coin Facts to see), but the point is that the penny is nowhere near a fair trade for the dime and any serious coin dealer will know that. ["Well…that depends on the relative condition of the coins. A V.D.B. in poor condition can still fetch a few hundred bucks, whereas a well-worn 1916 D goes for about $800. In top condition, both coins can bring several thousand, although the range for the V.D.B. is much wider -- for that coin with no marks, you can spend $750, or you can spend $5000. As with any other collectible, a lot depends on where you buy -- coin dealer, estate sale, mail or Internet auction -- and how much you can trust the certification of the grade." -- Sars]
Jones gives Liam the eyeball, then pulls out a whole big coin collection. Liam leans in to see the slabbed offerings: "A 1907 Saint Gaudens double-eagle gold piece?" For the record, this $20 coin recently went for four figures in an auction. ["1907 is the first year of minting for that particular coin, but a '33 Saint Gaudens went for just under $8 million at auction last year, the most ever paid for a single coin. And now please give a big hand to TWoP V.P. of Numismatics Sars's Dad, who supplied all the bracketed coin knowledge you have read here." -- Sars] ["I get paid for this gig, right?" -- Sars's Dad] Liam breathes, "I've only seen that in books." Jones snaps, "That's as close as you get. If you want to deal for the 'D' dime, it's yours." Liam holds up his penny and says nervously, "I'll take it." Then, presumably, he goes outside to call Gil and try to act all cool in recounting how he conned the fence.
The camera then switches to a still photo of the mouthy guy we saw for a millisecond a half hour ago. He's sitting to his baby, the "Hammer of God." We see many more pictures of this guy with his robot; then the camera pulls back so we see Nicky looking at the pictures. He says to the empty lab, "The bot was on a different control frequency; someone was using a different transmitter." Catherine wanders into view, musing, "Puppet master, pulling the strings." Nicky points out, "That would explain why the bot was sluggish." We then establish that the range of the controllers is limited, so whomever hijacked Smash-and-Grab probably did so by lurking in a heretofore unnoticed dark loft in a corner of the warehouse. Nicky then notices motive in the form of all those photos. All they need now are means -- which they quickly find by unearthing a box of transmitter modules and noticing that the mismatched gaps in the numerically-filed gizmos match the numerical mismatch between Smash-and-Grab's remote and bot transmitter modules.
We then abruptly switch back to the B-plot, where Jones's shop is now filled with a swarm of cops. Jones is telling Gil that Keith came in a few weeks ago and sold his collection. Gil comments, "There must be $50,000 worth of coins in here, isn't there, Liam?" He hands over the collection to Liam, who verifies with, "At least." Jones is beginning to grasp the fact that Liam pulled a fast one on him. Gil says matter-of-factly, "You must have a record of the transaction." Jones is all, "I know I got it somewhere." Gil chirps, "Maybe it's in your car?" Vega asks, "Mind if we help you look?" Jones says, "Go ahead. I got nothing to hide." We all know in the scene that he'll be proven amusingly wrong.
And the minute Gil pops the trunk and looks down, that ironic moment is upon us. Liam comments appreciatively on the massive stereo speakers in the trunk, and then adds, "Are those hot too? [Your trunk] kind of looks like the DeLorean from Back to the Future." While Liam's goading the suspect, Gil is noticing and sniffing the trace amount of sulfur he found. He asks, "You don't artificially tone your coins, do you, Mr. Jones?" Jones asserts that he does not with, "My merchandise is authentic." "You may have some authentic blood in your car as well," Gil comments. We see the flashback to Keith's body being placed in the trunk. Jones argues that he cut his finger. Liam says dismissively, "That's Keith Mercer's blood. You know it, and when I get back to the lab, I'm going to prove it." He looks at the irate Jones standing to him and grins, "I think you're busted."
Back to the A-plot, where Mouthy Guy is being frog-marched into the interrogation room while Brian is being let out. They have one of those meaningful-exchange-of-glances things as they pass each other. The camera then pans to a photo of the completely ruined Hammer of God, and Catherine asks, "What happened?" "I lost," says the guy. Nicky goads him into confessing with, "You didn't lose. You were destroyed." Wow, Nicky's been on this episode. We see a flashback of the Hammer of God getting sliced up while Christian Cutler brays and laughs and generally makes an ass of himself. Nicky concludes that the mighty Thor here wanted revenge. Catherine reasons, "You couldn't kill Christian's bot, so you killed Christian." Thor does his best Crispin Glover imitation as he whines, "I heard Brian killed him." Nicky holds up the transmitter from Smash-and-Grab and explains that they lifted Thor's DNA off it. I have to assume that this is another bluff, because unless Thor's already in the system, there's no way to match the DNA sample from the transmitter to Thor unless Thor gives a sample, and we haven't seen that at all. In flashback, we see why you shouldn't bite down on things when you need to hold them; DNA transmission, baby! Nicky leads us all to the conclusion with, "Brian wasn't in control of the bot. You were." We then see a flashback of the way Thor staged the accident, then worked Brian into a panic by making him think he was responsible. Catherine finally names this clown at the 54-minute mark when she says wearily, "The bot wasn't the only thing you manipulated, Luke." Because there's Brian, see. Whom Luke took advantage of in a distraught state to sell the story of accidental robotical manslaughter. Back in the present, we find out that Brian stopped weeping long enough to confess Luke's part in the whole sordid mess -- although from his perspective, one imagines the narrative was much different -- and then Luke visibly tries to figure out what to do .
Catherine slides a photo of the dismembered robot across the table and says, "I know what it must have been like for you. Having created something, only to lose it." Luke looks up with a petulant scowl, and snits, "Let me guess. You have a kid?" Catherine cops to that. Luke then sneers, "And you think just because you squeeze a baby out from between your legs, you know how I feel? That's biology. Any animal can do that." Catherine does not reach across the table and pull Luke's lower lip up over his forehead while quipping, "This is what that biology feels like. You think you can handle it, animal?" Instead, she listens to Luke natter on: "I took a thought from my head, and I made it real. It was perfect." Catherine decides to forgo the debate on the challenges of child-raising, and merely cracks, "I guess the only flaw then was...you." Nicky shakes his head at Luke. And we never see that freak again.
What we do see is Gil hovering over Liam's lab bench, asking how the DNA results from the blood sample look. Liam says dully, "Blood in the car is the victim's." Gil notices this and prods Liam, "What happened to your enthusiasm, Liam?" Liam tells him, "Every time I make another DNA match in here, my world gets a little smaller. Out there...felt large." Gil tells him that "'out there' means a pay cut," which makes sense when you consider that an entry-level CSI probably makes less than a senior-level DNA tech. Liam shrugs that he's not about the benjamins, and Gil takes off his glasses, as if he's seeing Liam for the first time. He comments, "That's good to know," then walks off, possibly plotting how to work Liam into the rotation where he can be seen as infrequently as Sara and Warrick now are. Stay tuned for Season Four...