The bright lights of the Las Vegas strip quickly fade to the cool glow of a hockey rink at face-off. We catch some stick-work, a guy going into the boards -- apparently the protective glass has been replaced by a highly abrasive substance, in order to facilitate more dramatic nosebleeds for the spectators -- then the bloody-faced guy going down on the ice. He looks up and barks hoarsely, "What are you waiting for? Call it!" The ref calls for a stoppage of play. A burly man in a jersey with a rat on it rolls his eyes; a woman on the opposing team, long hair flowing down her back as she skates off, chuffs in response. The arena doctor elbows his way down the bench and greets the injured player: "Let me have a look...okay, you're out. Myles will have a go from the second line." The player snarls in response, "Forget Myles, I'm going back in. Stitch me." The doctor replies, "It's a weekend league, it's not the NHL." "It is to me," replies the player. Going by the look on his face, it's also the equivalent of the medal round, and he's due to relieve the equivalent of Mario Lemieux. The doctor attempts to thread a few sutures through the raw hamburger on the guy's face and notes that the player's not a hundred percent; the player's all, "Dammit, Jim, you're a doctor, not a coach. Now stitch me up so I can hit the ice again and pretend I'm Theoren Fleury." The doctor gives him a skeptical look, thinking, "Of all the Canadian hockey players to fantasize about, why would you want to be him?"
Play resumes on the ice, and our boy prepares to re-enter the fray. The woman -- who is on the opposite team of the burly glarer mentioned previously -- glides by, giving the recently-sutured man a dark look. The burly guy, it should be noted, was watching the woman watch the guy being stitched. Such intrigue! Is the ice in danger of melting from red-hot scandal? Anyway, Burly Guy resumes glaring at his teammate, and then the melee begins anew. Cue a montage of ice skates, the assorted flying elbow, stick-work from a distance, and anything else that makes NBC's Olympic coverage look positively competent by comparison. The recently stitched guy pulls away, takes control of the puck, and drives it down the line; the goalie deflects it in a failed glove save. The camera tracks the puck flying up and down in a tight parabola, the stitched guy commits an interference call by charging into the goalie, and that's our cue to begin the brawl. The crowd fails to go wild. In fact, they look positively alarmed. Clearly, this was Hockey Newbie Night at the Las Vegas Arena -- or the regulars at a Caps game. There will be no people screaming, "Come on! I want to see blood!" then leaving in the third period when no fisticuffs are forthcoming (you can laugh, but that actually happened at a game the husband went to in Arizona ["and I was those people at a Devils game once" -- Sars]). Anyway, as the audience looks shocked and concerned, we notice that the stitched player is unconscious on the ice. It may just be a ploy to avoid time in the penalty box for that interference call. Or it may be that he's seriously injured, what with the pool of blood rapidly spreading below his skull. "Get the doctor!" the referee implores. Since, you know, doctors help people. They do no harm. Right?
Cut to Gil and Catherine entering the rink. Oh, watching William Petersen pigeon-toe it across the ice promises to be one of aesthetic highlights of this episode. I'm agog with anticipation. Gil steps on the ice, slips a little, rights himself (sadly, we don't see the feet in action), and asks Brass where the body is. Brass, whose flowing Captain Exposition cloak puts Gwendal Peizerat's gold medal ensemble to shame, tells Gil that they moved the body from the net to the bench. As the three of them move down the ice, Brass exposits, "Apparently, the guy was responsive enough to be helped off the ice. He died a few minutes later." Scott Hamilton pops in to rate Brass's performance: he gets high technical merit marks, but his artistic scores were hurt by his failure to nail a triple axel. Oh, wait. This isn't ice dancing; it's ice detecting. Catherine charges across the ice; Gil is considerably more tentative. I was right -- the pigeon-toes work wonderfully here. I give him a 6 for aesthetic merit.
The CSIs hop into the recessed area where the team bench is and look down upon the weekend hockey player. In addition to the gobbets of flesh that formerly comprised his cheek, the guy's also sporting a nasty slash across the throat. Gil points to the sticky wound and observes, "This looks fresh." Brass fills us in some more: according to the team doctor, the dead guy took one across the cheek in the second period. Catherine sticks her fingers in the laceration and deadpans, "I guess this must be from the third period. Looks like that other team worked him over pretty good." Brass comments on how hockey's a rough game. Gil deadpans, "Yeah, it's murder."
And now, The Who, which is good because it means I can stop humming "Through The Eyes Of Love."
In the bleachers, Gil is reading a litany of the dead man's penalties: "Two minutes for elbowing. Four minutes for high sticking. Ten minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct." Sara, who's sitting to him (and back in the black watch cap), deadpans, "Boys will be boys." That's pretty sexist. Just because the women's game doesn't allow checking doesn't mean it can't get rough out there. Gil proves he's no fan of the sport by saying, "Sounds like these boys went to a fight and a hockey game broke out." Miles away, somewhere from a palatial Beverly Hills estate, Don Rickles emerges, screaming, "Someone get me a lawyer! I said that first!" Sara's all, "You just don't like sports." Gil rebuts with, "That's not true; I've been a baseball fan my whole life." Sara replies, "Baseball. Well, that figures. All those stats." Oh, Sara. My opinion of you goes down with every passing moment. Baseball is so much more than the stats. Gil sets her straight with, "It's a beautiful game." As the husband and I loudly cheer this sentiment, Sara asks, "Since when are you interested in beauty?" Still staring at the ice, Gil replies, "Since I met you." Sara turns from the ice to look at Gil, clearly startled. Gil looks at her and says, "So, we'll start at the opposite goal, work our way across the blue line and stop at center ice." It's a shame that international rules aren't in play, because then Gil and Sara wouldn't be in danger of being called for a two-line pass. Ba-da-bump! Sara, who's still searching Gil's face for some sort of context in which to place that beauty remark, replies, "...Sure."
Cut to a montage of them walking over the ice. I am impressed anew by their diligence and observational abilities as they find bleached-wood splinters embedded in the white ice. Gil heads over to the boards to take a blood sample, then crouches before the goal to scrape up some frozen blood. As Gil's busy storing the blood samples, Sara ruefully notes that they don't have a lot to go on, and perhaps should consider taking their investigation off the ice. Gil is about to reply when he and Sara hear the whir of an engine. They turn around to look at the Zamboni driving on to the crime scene. Wuh? Who cleared that sucker?
In the men's locker room, as players in assorted states of undress wander around, Catherine begins interrogating people. I sense a Lisa Olsen incident in the making, but I shall fight my sense of misgiving to recap Catherine's questioning. She's currently asking the doctor why he moved the patient; the doctor's all, "You ever try treating someone on the ice wearing street shoes?" Catherine does not reply, "You ever consider strapping on a pair of skates and administering first aid?" Instead, she establishes that the victim (named Terry Rivers) was breathing when carried off the ice, but failed to respond to CPR once he was on the bench. Catherine inquires about the stitches, and the doctor goes into his "Dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor" routine again, pointing out that he had advised Rivers to stay off the ice. Catherine asks pointedly, "If he'd listened, he'd still be alive." The doctor's rueful expression passes for agreement. Having established that the deceased was something of a bonehead, Catherine then moves on to trying to get inside his thick cranium: "What do these guys play for? A little money? An imitation Stanley Cup?" The doctor elaborately rolls his eyes, as if to say, "I only treat these people; I don't pretend to understand them." Behind Catherine, Burly Guy mutters, "We play for the pride of it." Catherine wheels around, bemused and skeptical, and adds, "And the joy of kicking ass. You are...?" Burly Guy responds, "Tommy Sconzo. Right wing, first line. Hitting's part of the game. Take away the physical aspect, you've got ice skating. Guys out there doing triple lutzes." Actually, you've got something more tedious than ice skating, since hockey lacks the sartorial excesses that keep figure skating amusing. Catherine asks, "Is that how you lost the...?" while pointing to her teeth, and laughs a little before continuing, "The sit-spin?" Sconzo replies, "Second period, number nine. The guy's a real McCracken...he gave me a high stick to the mouth. That's why my guys crashed the goalie. An eye for an eye." Catherine asks if that's why his guy ended up dead. Sconzo gives her a searching look and replies, "What can I tell you, lady? It all happened so fast, you know?" Catherine rightly calls that line for the cliché it is by saying, "It usually does."
Meanwhile, Gil and Sara are heading toward a Zamboni -- this one off the rink and parked in a maintenance dock somewhere. They stop in the doorway, and Gil says, "There are three things in life that people like to stare at: a rippling stream, a fire in a fireplace, and a Zamboni going round and round." Sara nods in recognition: "Charlie Brown. I love a Zamboni." Gil replies solemnly, "We all do." He's right -- I just entered "I love a Zamboni" on Google and got 6,080 hits. Gil wheels a mirror under the Zamboni, looking for anything caught in the undercarriage. He's in luck: there's a tooth embedded in a chunk of ice on the horizontal screw. He calls for Sara's attention by saying, "The thing I love about Zambonis is that they pick up everything." Sara comes over and Gil says, "I'm afraid the other part of this tooth might be in there." He nods over to the mountain of shaved ice that the Zamboni produced between periods. That makes sense: a Zamboni's going to have to dump out the holding tank between runs. At least Gil and Sara will have time to ponder the marvel of Zamboni while they wait for the ice to melt.
And now, let us ponder the marvel of Zamboni. If geeky digressions bore you, skip this paragraph. A Zamboni's got a few parts: a blade that shaves the ice, followed by a horizontal screw that gathers up the shavings; the shavings are pushed into a holding tank by another, vertical screw. Then, a water tank soaks the ice with water, and a wiper-like blade flushes dirt from scrapes and gouges in the ice. The now-dirty water gets sucked back into the water tank (it's filtered for re-use) and a second tank, filled with hot water (140 to 145 degrees Fahrenheit, or 60-63 centigrade, depending on your measurement system of choice), spreads a little water on the ice. The hotter the water, the smoother the resultant surface. And that's how a Zamboni works. Who wouldn't love that kind of engineering when it comes packed into something you can drive?
(Note to everyone who skipped the Zamboni explanation: it's safe to read again.)
Gil says, "Time to combine Fourier's Law of Conduction with Newton's Law of Cooling." Sara's taking the dimensions of the ice pyramid: five feet high, nine feet wide, and nine feet deep. She says, "Without the calculus, I'd estimate a hundred cubic feet, temperature one degree Celsius." She's not too far off the mark -- the basic formula for the volume of a pyramid is (1/3)b*h, the base is 81 square feet...I got 135 cubic feet. Of course, Sara could probably kick my ass when it comes to writing a proof for that formula, but we'll just stop the math digression before all of us suffer a collective flashback to eighth-grade algebra. Gil replies, "The heaters max out at ninety degrees, but the variables are constantly changing." I'm just geeky enough to wonder if he meant ninety degrees Celsius or Fahrenheit. Sara challenges Gil to ballpark the estimate on how long it will take the ice to melt. Gil estimates that it'll melt at about fifty cubic feet per hour. Sara deadpans, "One hundred and twenty minutes for a tooth, the whole tooth, and nothing but the tooth." Gil glares at her for making the pun. I glare at both of them because, thanks to that scene, I'm trapped in my own algebraic hell, trying to calculate the volume of the ice pyramid, add the Fourier's Law equation (the rate of heat flow through a homogenous solid is directly proportional to the area of the section of said solid that's at right angles to the direction of heat flow and to the temperature difference along the path of heat flow) based on the results of the volume and a heat flow of 90 degrees (I went with Fahrenheit) and the Newton's Law of Cooling (the surface temperature of an object changes at a rate proportional to the difference between its temperature and the temperature of the surrounding environment).
I give up. I try to confirm the science Gil and Sara are using to come up with that two-hours-to-melt-the-ice thing, and I only end up curled in the fetal position, rocking back and forth in front of my television.
Fortunately, we've arrived at the B-plot, so I can let my brain relax for a little bit. Nicky and Warrick are walking through what looks like Caesar's; they register the excited shrieks of a woman who's apparently just gotten lucky, comment on the fickle nature of gambling, and keep on rollin'. And then we go to a female lounge singer who, frankly, is probably there to drive the patrons to drink. She's in a gauzy black cocktail dress and a scarf, kind of bobbing and weaving and providing atmosphere, and it's making me glad my TiVo comes equipped with a few different fast-forward speeds, plus a mute button. Naturally, Warrick is mesmerized by the slinky siren, leaving Nicky to introduce himself to homicide detective Lockwood, who tells Nicky the DFO's in the back. Warrick stands there, kicked in the butt by love.
Meanwhile, Nicky's getting the 411 on the guy -- Stan Grevey, 35, backup sax player -- who's lying slumped over the table. Warrick decides to make an appearance and join Nicky in bending over to examine the body. Nicky comments, "Tiny scrubbing bubbles," while the camera zooms in for an extreme close-up of Grevey's mouth. Warrick points out that the tiny bubbles have been wiped down. Nicky then notices a tiny scrap of cowhide between Grevey's teeth; Warrick turns over Grevey's arm and explains, "He tied himself off. All the signs of an OD, without any of the paraphernalia." Nicky asks Lockwood if the waitress happened to mention cleaning up Grevey's works; Lockwood answers in the negative, and finishes, "Said he reminded her of Coltrane." Warrick responds to that somewhat skeptically, and gathers up some of the white powder on the table for further analysis back at the lab. While still sitting at the table, he asks Nicky, "Two coasters, one glass?" Nicky asks Lockwood if the waitress and Grevey were having a small soiree; Lockwood replies the waitress was just coming on shift. Warrick's not paying attention; he's found a contact lens on the table. After Nicky and Warrick come to the conclusion that Grevey's problems probably didn't include a missing contact lens, they're distracted by the chanteuse coming back toward the crime scene, asking, "How's he doing?" Warrick avails himself of the opportunity to fling himself toward the woman by halting her progress and preventing her from contaminating the crime scene. She has cognitive difficulties processing the news: "He's dead? What are you talking about? They told me he wasn't feeling well. He was backing me up an hour ago. What happened to him?" Warrick takes it upon himself to calm her down, pulling her outside.
Back at CSI Central, David the Lonely Coroner's waiting in a dimly lit autopsy bay. He greets Gil with, "What took you so long?" Gil replies that he was waiting for ice to melt. I bet he and Sara sat there and did algebraic proofs for fun while they waited. David brings us back to matters at hand: Rivers's tox screen came up empty, save for quinine. David muses, "He must have had malaria in the past six months, or he's a big gin-and-tonic drinker." (There's quinine in the tonic.) David is ordering Rivers's medical records; he goes on to mention that if he were Rivers, he'd be popping pain pills owing to the hairline fracture of the ulna, bruised kidney, ten stitches off the orbital bone, fracture of the nasal bone, and recently healed rib fractures. David reaches into Rivers's mouth, pulls out a bridge, and muses, "I bet he was proud of every last battle scar. What is it about organized sports?" What is it about the fallacy that organized sports are somehow the exact same thing as the machismo subcultures that spring up around them? Yeah -- weekend warriors, idiot boys who think hazing is essential to team identity, and people who confuse a winning athletic team with a statement of personal validation are all blights upon humanity's collective IQ, but that doesn't mean that the games being played are inherently bad. Okay -- rant over. Gil replies, "Well, organized sports is [sic] the paradigmatic model of a just society. Everyone knows the same language, everyone knows the same rules, and there's a specific punishment handed out the moment someone tries to cheat. It's instant morality." Well, when you look at it that way, sure, but I say the uniforms are the redeeming thing. David brings us back from that armchair sociology lecture by asking what Rivers did when he wasn't acting out his Wayne Gretzky fantasies. Gil tells us Rivers was a stockbroker. "Competition junkie," David comments. "Aren't we all?" Gil inquires. "Not me. Not anymore," David asserts. Gil refutes that by asking how David got to be CME, finishing with, "We're all carrying prehistoric genes in a postmodern world. We get our meat from the grocery store instead of with a club and a knife. We have to work off our, uh, testosterone somehow." I have a good chuckle, thinking back to the conversation Gil and Lady Heather had. David dismisses the testosterone dissipation argument with, "Follies of youth." Gil looks reflective and a little sad for a moment before agreeing.
That meditation on their own mortality over, Gil and David turn to examining precisely why Rivers died. It could have been the cut across his carotid (which we see, in TMICam close-up, from the hockey blade's POV), or the significant trauma the basilar artery also suffered, or the blood flooding through the intimal space and possibly causing syncope. Primer for those of us who are not well-versed in human anatomy: the basilar artery is a cerebral vessel, so it affects blood flow to the brain; it can be responsible for strokes and migraine headaches. Syncope is a sudden, brief loss of consciousness. I couldn't find a lucid definition of intimal space. Perhaps the forum can help there. ["An intima is the innermost coat of an organ." -- Sars] Anyway, Gil asks, "Did his death cause his fall? Or did his fall cause his death?"
Back at the Las Vegas ice arena, Catherine and Brass are comparing notes; apparently, he was in the other locker room, interrogating Team Area 51. Brass shares his results: Rivers was something of an ass. We see that Catherine and Brass have been collecting the hockey equipment for later inspection. Catherine heads outside to question one last person on the Area 51 roster, one Jane Gallagher. Catherine catches Jane as she's heading toward her motorcycle. The following conversation demonstrates that even on her worst days, Catherine isn't nearly the bitch on wheels that Jane is.
Catherine: I understand you play for Area 51. Did you see much ice time during the game?
Jane: No, they just let me take off my cheerleader uniform and warm the bench.
Catherine: [giving Jane a "girl, please" look] Been there, done that. Just asking a question here.
Jane: I played 24 minutes, twelve seconds, about my season average. I also lead the team in assists.
Catherine: You've got good peripheral vision. You must see the ice really well.
Jane: I didn't see what happened to Terry.
Catherine: You're a real teammate. Down the line, just one of the guys.
Jane: You're looking in the wrong direction. Now, we may have disliked Terry, but his own teammates hated him.
Catherine: Any reason why?
Jane: How would I know? I'm just a girl.
Jane then takes off, after completely ignoring Catherine's acknowledgement of what a fine bike she has. I'm amazed at how well she balances, given the way that gigantic chip on her shoulder must throw her off her center of gravity.
Back in Liam's Lair, our boy -- whose hair resembles Beaker's this week -- is holding one hand over his eye, trying to empathize with the presumed junkie killer and his presumed myopia. Oh, the wacky comedy. Warrick snaps, "Don't tell us you're wearing our evidence?" Nicky rolls his own eyes and implores Liam not to be so stupid. Liam, as it turned out, isn't so stupid; he borrowed the contacts that simulate myopia from Archie, and has discovered that uncorrected bad vision gives him a headache. No shit, Sherlock. Liam then hands over the spectrometry printout of what was in the white powder Warrick took from the scene. Warrick reads off, "Mannitol -- that's that baby laxative used to cut heroin with [sic]." Nicky reads over Warrick's shoulder, "China White...you sure?" Liam says indignantly, "The [Gas Chromatography/Mass Spectrometry] doesn't lie."
Nicky then launches into a detailed explanation of regional heroin differences with, "West Coast heroin is Mexican Brown, twenty, thirty percent pure, tops. What's China White, seventy-five percent?" Liam helpfully clarifies, "Your sample's ninety-one." Warrick is incredulous: "Ninety-one percent? No wonder the guy OD'd, that's a death sentence!" Nicky continues to stun me by continuing to deliver detailed monologues about the narcotics trade, saying, "That doesn't make sense: the money from dealing heroin comes from the cutting. The more you cut, the more money you make. There's no profit in selling stuff that's too pure." Warrick suggests that perhaps murder, not money, was the motive for the incredibly pure heroin.
Meanwhile, Catherine and Gil are walking into Rivers's loft apartment. Catherine takes in the sparse, industrial-looking space and muses, "So. This is what being a stockbroker buys you." They look around the space, and Catherine asks Gil, "How do men live like that?" That's pretty rich, considering she's seenhisapartment. Gil's uncomprehending, so Catherine clarifies: "It's a cave with hardwood floors." Gil's still not getting it; he says, "It's clean. Television, couch, what else does a guy need?" Catherine suggests a plant; Gil does not note that he saveshisplants for the ladies. Catherine natters on about how this guy didn't seem to have any connection to anybody. Gil catches sight of the bed and comments, "I don't know about that." Catherine hunkers down to scan the bed with an ultraviolet light while Gil wanders off to examine the closet full of expensive-looking suits. Catherine clears her throat after examining a mosaic of stains and gets Gil's attention by saying, "It's never a good sign when the number of women a guy sleeps with is greater than the number of chairs he owns." Note to Marg Helgenberger: it's never a good sign when the script calls for you to bend over and give the cameraman a clear shot of your cleavage. Well, I'm sure for some people it is, but I personally think that's not exactly what anyone who's not Erin Brockovich or Adriana La Cerva is looking for in a job. Gil turns from the rack of shirts he's gazing upon and asks, "What's the ratio here?" Catherine ballparks it (there's that term again -- it must be the sports motif) at four women per piece of furniture. She straightens up and tells Gil, "I guess our guy is about three things: pucks, bucks, and --" And Gil looks at her with a raised eyebrow, as if to say, Catherine, this is CBS, not Showtime. "Chicks," she finishes. Gil, who has elected to skip over the seminal angle here -- probably a good thing, given how he reacted the last few times he was in the co-ed body fluids conversation -- points out that they still don't know how Rivers died. Catherine, looking down on the sheets with disgust, counters, "We know how he lived."
Speaking of Gil's usual partner when it comes to semen seminars, here's Sara, back at the Labitrail and gazing upon a tableau of hockey equipment that looks as though it were styled by the good people at ESPN SportsCentury. Liam swoons into her personal space and asks if there's any blood. Sara replies, "Testing for blood on a hockey jersey is like handing out jaywalking tickets at a marathon." Liam decides to let that slide and focus on the task at hand: making with the sensitive-guy talk in this week's installment of Exercise in Futility: the Courting Sara Sidle Story. His opening lines, "On a meta-level, isn't it obvious? The overbearing patriarchal structure of modern organized sports represents a socially palatable sublimation of what Jung refers to as 'the shadows of the unconscious.'" Sara fails to melt in the presence of Liam's attempt to channel Gil-like esoterica in casual conversation. She asks, "Sucked at team sports, huh?" Liam counters that he was the captain of his high school chess squad. Oh, good. Perhaps he can play at the White House some time. Sara continues to suck the wind out of Liam's sails by saying, "I think sports are physical by definition." Liam moves in with, "Sex is physical. Is that a sport?" Sara misses the chance to blow Liam out of the water with, "Only if you do it right," opting instead to be all humorless and, "Not for me." Liam recovers by looking at the array of hockey blades Sara is currently spraying with luminol. She exposits -- more for his benefit than for ours -- that she's betting the one that skated through the blood splatter was the one that did the damage. Liam's looking at the blades intently; he tells Sara that his freshman-year roommate, a hockey wonder from Edmonton who went on to play for the Swedish Elite League (at Stanford? They're a Division II club team. The only explanation is that Edmonton Guy was so bad, he had to play for them until he could earn the sobriquet "Canadian hockey player." Clearly, I'm overanalyzing this), used to make Liam sharpen his blades, and Edmonton preferred the blades at half an inch. The ones that likely sliced open River's carotid are set at the narrowest possible width -- a quarter inch. Liam notes, "It's a tough blade to skate on; we're talking Wayne Gretzky style." Sara adds, "And deadly in a fight." Hey, what do you know? They're Jane's blades. If you thought the conversation between Catherine and Jane was amusing, the one between Sara and Jane should be a laugh riot.
Meanwhile, back at the B-plot, Warrick and Nicky are sorting through dumpsters in the hall behind the bar, looking for evidence and chatting about the case. Warrick's all, "I don't think the singer, Lillie, met him before last night so she may be in the clear." Nicky perks up at the mention of Lillie and asks, "You sure you don't want to start in the dressing room?" Warrick's skeptical: "Right. Like you're going to take dumpster duty alone." Nicky suggests that Warrick not take his cues from Nicky's personal life -- sound advice, that -- and multitask a little by making time with Lillie while investigating the murder that happened to take place some fifty-odd feet from her. Warrick is pessimistic about that prospect. Nicky points out that his attitude is self-defeating, then exercises a little reverse psychology by asking, "Mind if I go for her, then?" Warrick gives him a look, and Nicky assumes an expression of innocence before turning back to the trash and finding Grevey's works, wrapped in Lillie's scarf.
Cut to Lillie admitting that the scarf is hers, but anyone could have picked it up. I'm a little confused, because she was wearing a scarf when she was singing. Does she travel with a collection of these things? Warrick points out that the scarf is still hers. Lillie wants to know if they've found her prints on anything; Nicky replies, "We won't know until we print you." Lillie slings some more attitude their way; Warrick responds by staring, mesmerized. One can practically hear him thinking, "Dare I approach her? My heart pounded inside my chest. I felt a burning in my loins I had never felt before. Thus, I realized I had been...kicked in butt by love." Who wrote the book of love? Velvet -- it's as simple as that.
Jane and Sara are talking at the UNLV basketball court, with Gil and Brass there to referee. As players lope by in the background, Jane protests, "You're putting words in my mouth." Brass points out, "You said everyone hated him. Now we know why." He elucidates: the CSIs read through Rivers's computer files and discovered that he had managed to lose his assorted teammates thousands of dollars via pump-and-dump stock scheming. Jane attempts to distance herself from this mess by pointing out that she doesn't play for Terry's team. Sara corrects her and tells us all that Jane recently switched from the Rat Pack to Area 51. Jane defends her decision with, "Big deal. I wanted to win." Jane apparently takes her athletic competition tips from Jean Racine. Brass asks if Rivers's mismanagement of ten thousand dollars that formerly belonged to Jane had anything to do with Jane's decision to go to Area 51; Jane vehemently denies it. Gil picks up the conversational thread by telling Jane that her skate was the one that nicked Rivers's carotid artery. Jane defends herself with, "Look, it was a pileup. Everything was a blur. That's ten guys with blades on. Hey, I was just looking out for myself." Sara's not convinced: "He was a stationary target. He was on the bottom of all those bodies." Brass jumps in: "Like you said, nobody saw anything." Gil finishes with, "Including your skate coming down on his neck." Well, speaking of pileups, I think we just witnessed the CSI equivalent. Jane responds by projectile vomiting toward everyone's shoes; Brass leaps onto a chair, while Gil and Sara recoil slightly. Jane says weakly, "I knew I shouldn't have had that shrimp salad last night," and heads off to see about cleaning it up. As she exits, Gil gets a thoughtful look on his face. Brass tries to delay the obvious by asking, "You're not...?" Gil explains, "It's evidence. Food poisoning, especially anything with mayonnaise, can induce vomiting within fifteen minutes. She said last night -- that was twelve hours ago." Sara's got a whaddya gonna do? look on her face as she watches Gil fashion a paper envelope out of his notepad and scoop up some of the vomit.
Back at the Labitrail, Liam holds up a vial of vomit and pronounces, "She's a liar...and a mother." "Morning sickness!" Sara chirps. Liam confirms it. "And you know this how?" Gil asks. "I tested for the presence of shellfish -- crustacean-free. And then I figured, if she's hiding that, what else is she hiding?" Liam says. Sara approves: "Little lie, big lie." Encouraged, Liam continues, "There was blood in the sample -- not uncommon in early pregnancy. Women get mucosal tears in their esophagus because they yak so much. So I tested the blood for the presence of human choriogonadotropins. She was definitely with child." Sara wonders why one would lie about being pregnant. Gil wonders if Jane knew, asking, "If [Jane] had [known], would she have gone out on the ice?" Sara then raises the question of paternity; Gil makes a lame crack about how Rivers is definitely deadbeat dad material. The two of them realize they have motive, which leads to a warrant to search Jane's apartment. After saying so long to Liam, they wheel off to go get the warrant and begin rifling through Jane's domicile.
In the B-plot, Nicky's talking to one of the musicians we saw back when Lillie first hit the stage. The summary of the conversation: the prints Nicky found match the musician, Bill; the bad news for Bill is that the prints were on Grevey's works. Bill explains that he cleaned up the scene because Grevey's got a son. Warrick says, "Well, that's fine. That's not the issue. You tampered with the evidence." Bill justifies himself: "He's eight years old. I didn't want Stan's son to know he died in a lounge, foam coming out of his mouth, a needle stuck in his arm. That's too much for a boy." We then find out that Bill met Grevey in AA; Bill comments that he himself is coming up on his fourth anniversary of staying clean. He then adds the stock plot complication: Lillie apparently is "going places," and he wanted to be along for the ride. Warrick interrogates Bill as to how Lillie's scarf got involved; Bill's eyes slide sideways as he answers that the scarf just happened to be there. Well, that raised more questions than it answered. Warrick asks Bill to roll up his sleeves; Bill gives him the skunk-eye, but complies. His veins appear pretty grotty, but he's got no fresh needle marks. Bill's in the clear.
Lillie's walking down a hall toward the lounge, listening to piano music as she walks. She's apparently raided Stevie Nicks's closet for this scene, clad as she is in a wafty chiffon number and a long scarf wrapped around her shoulders like a shawl. As she enters the empty lounge, we see that Warrick is at the piano. Lillie stops to watch him. It's not clear if she's infatuated, or if she's assessing what he can do for her later. Warrick continues to play until he catches sight of Lillie; he stops abruptly, surprise and embarrassment written across his features, and rises. Lillie hastens to assure him that she loves his playing. "I don't like playing in front of an audience," he demurs. Lillie reasons, "It's just me. What, are you uncomfortable in front of strangers or something?" Warrick attempts to change the topic, pointing out that he only swung by to ask her a few questions. Lillie sits down on the bench, promising, "If you keep playing, I'll keep talking." Warrick smiles, sits down again, smiles again a little self-consciously, and resumes playing. The two of them just listen together for a moment. He looks uncomfortable, then finally asks Lillie how well she knows the band she plays with. Lillie answers vaguely, "Well enough." She watches him play, swaying slightly to get into the music, then asks Warrick who he's playing. Warrick reminds her that he's the one asking the questions here, then reveals that it's his own composition. Well, well, well: beneath Warrick's street-smart exterior, there beats the sensitive heart of a musician, or some such hackneyed plot contrivance. I know, I know: Gary Dourdan's a musician in real life, and I think it's fabulous that the producers availed themselves of his talent. It's just that:
A. It's hard to write about a character's musical talents believably. See also: Ally McBeal, where Jane Krakowski's musical chops have never been adequately explained.
B. Unless you've been incorporating a love for music into the character's development all along, this sort of thing comes off as terribly contrived.
And then -- well, Warrick and Lillie introduce themselves, and Lillie's all, "We're not strangers anymore," thus taking care to leave an opening big enough for a Mack truck on the off chance that Warrick is not too good about picking up hints when it comes to women.
Meanwhile, Gil and Sara have hit the sheets. No, not like that -- they're in the lab, examining Jane's sheets, which apparently match Rivers when it comes to the bounty of bodily fluids. Or, to quote Sara, "There are semen stains everywhere. Not very Victoria's Secret." Gil wonders what Victoria's secret happens to be; I shout at the television that it's the gift of pushing poorly-made underwear at exorbitant prices. Sara looks up from a semen stain to reply, "Beauty, Grissom." Gil looks like he's remembering why he doesn't like examining semen stains when Sara's in the room. As Gil's unfolding the fitted sheet, a slice of male toenail falls out. That does it: I can see going a little while between sheet washings when you've had a romp or two, but when your bed is so messy that giant hunks of toenail go undetected? Ewwwwww. Sara reacts to the latest discovery by saying, "With all the sex these people are having, maybe I should play hockey." Sadly, we don't get to see Gil's reaction, nor do we hear the sonic boom as Liam sprints to the nearest rink and suits up.
More Lillie; she's pressuring Warrick to reveal how much money he makes. We know these kinds of questions only lead to trouble later. Warrick says flatly, "So that's what you're all about." Lillie corrects him, "No, that's what the business is all about." "Then, run," Warrick replies. Lillie then pulls the "baby, I can make you a star!" act, and segues into a monologue about how she's going places. She then loops back around to the "baby, I can make you a star!" sell, pointing out that Warrick possesses a combination of musical talent and pulchritude that's quite bankable. Warrick's all, "I don't know about that." "You could really make a difference," Lillie presses. "I already make a difference," he replies. "Riding around, chasing ghosts with that partner of yours? Nobody even knows you exist," Lillie replies. "You do," Warrick says, which is a far more polite reply than the one I would give to someone who just dissed my livelihood and my colleagues.
Fortunately, Lillie's got to go onstage before she can belittle his life and career any further. As she leaves, Warrick says, "Knock 'em dead." "I'll try," she coos, and walks off. As Warrick rises to go -- looking beleaguered, which is no surprise after the happy hour he just had -- he notices the bartender doing something particularly interesting, i.e. employing a sleight of hand to slip a packet of heroin between two coasters, then putting a drink on top of the coasters. We literally see the light bulb going off over Warrick's head.
Naturally, this is when we cut back to the A-plot. Liam waylays Catherine in the Labitrail, asking if she's talked to anyone missing a tooth lately. "I saw ten of 'em," Catherine answers. "Yeah, well, one of them's your suspect," Liam says. Sara comes bouncing into the scene, telling Liam she got his page and asking him what it's about. Liam dishes: the tooth Sara and Gil found in the Zamboni matches the toenail found in Jane's bed. Or, to clarify, in Catherine's words, "Whoever was in Jane Gallagher's bed was on the ice the night Terry Rivers died."
And that would be Sconzo, who's sporting a temporary cap and chef's togs. Gil asks, "What about the girl? Is she a temp too?" Sconzo replies, "I treated Jane a lot better than that mutt Rivers ever did. And it never cost her a cent." Sara asks, "Is that why you hated Terry?" Sconzo admits that Rivers did make the short list for that reason, among others. Gil supplies us with a secondary motivation; Rivers also churned and burned twelve thousand of Sconzo's hard-earned sous-chef dollars. Sconzo replies, "Well, money's like my tooth; it doesn't grow back." This is Gil's cue to go into some dental Zen: "Did you ever hear the story of the nineteenth-century Chinese goldsmith? He lost a lot of money for his goldsmith buddies due to his shoddy business practices, so they decided to kill him -- by biting him to death. One hundred and twenty-three goldsmiths took a bite out of the victim, insuring that no one individual could be blamed for the murder, for who could know which one administered the lethal bite?" While Sconzo's reeling from this toothy tale, Sara moves in with, "You're captain of the Rat Pack. You make it so everyone gets a shot in and nobody gets the blame. It's a win-win situation." Sconzo applauds Gil and Sara for their artistic merit, but points out that they fall short on the factual scale. Gil punishes such insolence by informing Sconzo of his likely paternity. Then his beeper goes off before Sconzo can recover enough to hand out cigars.
Cut to Gil and David booking down the hall to the morgue. David's telling Gil that Rivers had Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, a cardiac condition that can lead to extremely rapid heart rates. The resultant arrhythmia can produce palpitations, light-headedness, or loss of consciousness. David picked up the W-P-W when he was looking at the tissue sections in the histopath lab and happened to notice a defect in the atrium of the heart -- which we all see, courtesy of the TMICam. Gil asks incredulously, "So the game had nothing to do with it? It was the heart." "Not necessarily," David clarifies, continuing, "Remember that quinine I found in his system? Lethal for someone with W-P-W. Big scars didn't do him in; it was the little scar." Gil, who simply can't let anyone ever get the last word, mutters, "Someone still gets an assist."
Warrick is in a lab, working on a tray of samples, when Nicky comes in and razzes him for making like Sara and coming in to work on his night off. Warrick shuts him down with the pot-kettle argument, then launches into an explanation of what he's doing: checking out a new lead with the bartender. He squirts a pipette of solvent into a sample tray, and we all see it turn purple. Nicky says, "Marquis Mecke Froeke," which about as much sense as "Klaatu barada niktu," until Warrick explains, "Test for opiates." Nicky realizes that the coasters test positive for heroin. Warrick continues to explain as a grainy flashback plays, "[The bartender] was dealing from behind the bar. He sandwiched the drugs between the coasters; that's how he did it. Those two coasters in Grevey's dressing room, we assumed it was two people, either a user or supplier. There weren't [two people]. It was just the victim." Nicky paces, not looking too happy with that explanation. Warrick prods, and Nicky says, "He wasn't the only one with two coasters, man." Surprise, surprise; it turns out Lillie's fond of the double-decker method too. The two of them dispute whether or not Warrick needs to get the hell away from the Lillie situation before it gets any more complicated. Warrick says coldly, "Why don't you just let me handle my business?" Nicky snaps back, "Then handle it." Warrick shuts down, giving Nicky a glare before stomping out of the room.
And now, Gil and Sara are talking to Jane, who is recalling the details -- complete with flashback -- of the time she and Rivers were in bed together and, mid-magic moment, "How do I say this? He stopped...he stopped ..." "Doing it," Gil supplies helpfully. Sara gives him a look, clearly wondering if she's insane to carry a torch for someone who refers to sex as "doing it." Jane thanks Gil for helping her with that delicate phraseology, then resumes with, "His face was flushed, he was sweating, it was all good, and then he just went soft and passed out. I was scared, I called the team doctor, the paramedics came and rushed him to the ER." Sara asks Jane if Rivers explained what happened after he came to. Unsurprisingly, Jane answers in the negative. She also shares that she took off, as she didn't want anyone to know she'd been with Rivers. Gil asks, "Worried that the father of your child might find out?" Jane replies, "I was sleeping with Terry, but I was dating Tommy." Sara, genuinely curious, asks, "What's the difference?" Jane clarifies, "Terry was a bad boy, the kind of guy you just can't get out of your system, who's on your mind all the time. He used to drive my friends crazy. Tommy...husband material." Sara listens to this frank revelation of dating strategy and looks away, clearly pondering something. Perhaps she's wondering who would be friends with Jane.
Back at the lab, Gil, Catherine, and Sara pool data. There was no quinine in Rivers's apartment, no indication from his medical records that he had had malaria, nor any indication that it was prescribed. Sara fills us in on Jane's exoneration: not only did she not have access to quinine, she didn't know it would kill him. Who, oh, who would want to harm Rivers by giving him medication that could kill him? Catherine notes that someone with access to medical records could do so.
And, lo, the arena doctor is now talking to Brass. What? But he's a doctor! He swore an oath! It was in the episode title and everything. The doctor folds; yes, he gave Rivers quinine at the last game. As for motive...we see a picture of the doctor with Jane in Italy. Gil remarks, in a tone bland enough to seem polite, yet barbed enough to evoke reaction, "Jane's had a couple of boyfriends since then." Hell, Jane's had a couple of boyfriends since this episode began. We see flashbacks of the poor doctor constantly stumbling across Rivers and Jane rutting in public. The doctor says, "So what? So what if I gave him quinine?" Brass points out, "It's like giving a candy bar to a diabetic if you know he's a diabetic." Sara jumps in and fleshes out motive for those viewers who still need convincing: the doctor arrives after the passing-out-during-sex incident; Jane throws herself into his arms, managing to fit "I still need you" and "it didn't work out, but we can be friends" into the same conversation, and wringing a promise from the doctor to take care of Rivers for her sake. Sara says, with an extraordinary degree of insight, "You were always cleaning up Jane's messes, weren't you? You knew who she would turn to." And then Gil chips in with, "But Tommy Sconzo is the father." He just gets an insane amount of delight out of announcing Tommy's impending fatherhood, doesn't he? The doctor looks aghast. Gil smiles a little and says coolly, "You killed the wrong guy." Brass walks the good doctor out, and that ends the A-plot.
We zoom in on an iris, then out to Nicky crowing at the bartender, "You're nearsighted?" The bartender, surrounded by Lockwood, Warrick, and Nicky, looks all sorts of busted. Nicky, who's still having problems with the economics of dealing 91 percent pure China White, asks the bartender for a clarification; the ponytailed man replies, "I didn't know what I was cutting. I probably got a bad batch of something." "Bad batch," Warrick echoes incredulously. As Lockwood cuffs the bartender, Nicky says, "Do yourself a favor, Slick. If you don't know enough about something, stay out of it." And that's one to grow on. Lockwood hustles the bartender off, leaving Nicky and Warrick alone. They have an awkward moment. Nicky asks, "Wanna talk about it?" Warrick declines. He then adds, "I'm going to meet Lillie. I'll see you back at the lab." Nicky shakes his head slightly, more in resignation than anything else, and Warrick gets a hostile look on his face, snarling, "You don't know me." He walks off, leaving Nicky staring off after him. Nick watches him go, hurt and concerned, and mutters, "Obviously."
By the time Warrick gets to the balcony where Lillie and her acres of gauzy dress are waiting, he appears to be in a more flirtatious mood, asking, "You hiding from me?" "Are you looking for me?" she asks coquettishly. Warrick was; he wants to talk to her. "About what?" Lillie asks; she shifts slightly so she's mostly facing him, and slides her hand up so she's cupping his face. She pats his cheek reassuringly, cajoling Warrick with, "We're not strangers anymore, remember?" Warrick concedes, and brings up his hand to caress Lillie's cheek on the opposite side; she leans into his touch and smiles before saying Warrick's name. He drops his hand and reaches up with his other hand to begin sliding down her arm while he looks at her, deadly serious. Lillie's smile dissolves as she asks, "What?" She then looks where he's looking -- at her arm, exposed for the first time, with scores of needle marks all along the crook. She smiles sadly. Warrick, looking quite somber, says hoarsely, "I'm sorry, Lillie. Life's too short. Goodbye." He pulls away; both of them are tearing up, yet utterly silent as he walks away.
We then see Warrick walking in slo-mo through a nearly-deserted casino floor. On autopilot, he walks over to a blackjack table and sits down, looking miserable. He pushes out a hundred-dollar bill to the dealer, then registers Nicky silently easing himself into the seat. With a cursory glance over, he asks, "What're you doing here?" As Nicky squares up with the dealer, he replies, "I'm playing cards. With my friend." He leaves out the part about how he's enabling Warrick, but I figure that'll come later, after this male-bonding moment. Warrick looks over, still unhappy but not as bleak-looking, and the episode ends with the two of them at the table.