Special congratulations to whomever selected the music for the opening on this week's episode; nothing gives away the plot of a crime drama like a rapper informing us that "this right here is payback." As the rap continues, we pan over Miami's glittering night skyline, then smoothly transition to a gorgeous swimming pool. A naked guy -- yeah, that TiVo pause button comes in handy every once in a while -- dives into the pool as the rapper continues to carry on about how his antagonist is a peon, and while we're treated to a recitation of the many levels of pain the peon is about to experience at the hands of the rapper, the naked guy swims back and forth. The music stops, and Naked Guy then gets out of the pool. Then, because he's one of those people who's apparently incapable of doing anything unless the stereo or the TV is yammering in the background, he turns on the stereo and begins getting dressed. After picking one watch out of a case containing several, the guy putters until the doorbell rings. He goes to answer the door and asks, mildly surprised, "What are you doing here?"
Cut to Horatio and a tall, bald detective -- call him Vin Ethanol -- opening the door to the house as Vin explains, "Mother and daughter team selling Girl Scout cookies. Found the door open, saw the blood and called 911." "Well, there's got to be a badge for that," comments Horatio. This is where I curse for not having picked up all my Junior Girl Scout materials for year. Vin tells Horatio that there's no ID, so they're currently checking to see if the car or the home ownership papers will provide a clue. Horatio notes that there's no sign of struggle or disturbance. Vin says, "It's the same way in the bedroom, only it's more disturbing."
The two men walk into the bedroom, where we see the formerly naked guy lying facedown on his bed, spread-eagled. His robe is hiked up to around his thighs, and his hands and feet appear to be taped to the bedstead with either duct tape or electrician's tape. Horatio notices the blood on the pillow near the man's head. Vin calls his attention to the watch case, noting, "Check this. Gotta be a hundred grand in watches." "A hundred thousand dollars in watches untouched. I guess we can rule out robbery," Horatio says. Vin adds, "Vic had to know the killer. I had my guys check the perimeter. No signs of forced entry." Horatio looks at the victim's backside and quips, "I wouldn't be too sure about that."
And the credits roll while I wonder exactly how much outcry there would have been if Horatio had said that about a female body sprawled on the bed. I guess male victims of sexual assault don't get the same sensitivity and tact the womenfolk get.
Speaking of medical examiners, we're back in the autopsy bay with Alexx, who's looking over the bedroom boy and telling Horatio he's got petechial hemorrhaging in both eyes. She also tells Horatio that the guy suffocated, and then says, "I found a little surprise when I cut the tape off his mouth. Fabric is our murder weapon." Horatio looks at the grimy gag and says, "It was either used to shut him up or kill him." He's just master of stating the obvious, isn't he? Alexx brings the grue when she says, "Either way, when he started to struggle for air, it was sucked deeper and deeper into his esophagus until it had nowhere to go." Isn't that how the kid got killed with the liver during the CSI episode "Pledging Mr. Johnson"? Is death by fabric all that common? I know some committed preppie types who'd commit hara-kiri if they ever had to voluntarily don synthetic fibers, but that doesn't seem to be the same at all. Anyway -- Horatio examines the tape used in the gag and concludes that it was cut, not torn, so he'll be able to match it to a specific tool later. How poetic -- a tool to find a tool. Alexx then mentions that the man on the table was violently sodomized, probably with a foreign object, and his spleen and colon were damaged as a result. Just then, Horatio figures out how to un-Doe the guy when he notices the big chunk of raised flesh where a tattoo once lived. He figures it might be the way to ID him, so he asks Alexx to raise it.
Cue Alexx firing up a butane torch and saying, "Never tried this procedure myself, but if the books are right..." She then goes over the guy's arm like she's making crème brulée, and the skin bubbles up. Then Alexx takes a scalpel and scrapes away at the layer of skin before repeating the torching. Horatio watches, fascinated, and eventually Alexx scorches and peels the skin to the point where we see a detailed tattoo of a pistol. Horatio says, "Well, there you have it. That is a thing of beauty." "Unique," agrees Alexx.
Time passes, as evidenced by the sun setting over a Miami skyline that features a giant phallic skyscraper. We go back to Half-Assed Crematorium, where Calleigh and Delko are working the crime scene, as is Alexx. Delko says, "You're working a double-time today, huh?" Alexx says she can handle it. I personally think she needs an Emergency Backup Alexx, someone who works the B-cases and maybe makes awkward cocktail-party chitchat with the deceased. Anyway, Alexx says, "The guy had the hell beat out of him. Skull was fractured. Death was likely caused by internal hemorrhaging in the brain." Delko, who's swabbing a bloodstain on a wall, concludes, "It was likely caused when his head smashed into this wall. This'll crush his skull, don't you think?" Alexx is too busy passing judgment on the dead to notice him: "I don't know where you are or what's ahead of you, but I bet you figured out it wasn't worth it, was it? Payback's a bitch, baby." Right then, Caribbean Queen comes in to tell us all that the body count in back is up to twenty-seven, and they're having to piece together the ones on the bottom. Once again, I'm at a loss: these bodies came to be cremated, there was clearly not a commitment on anyone's part to keeping the mortal remains intact...so why put together bodies you're going to burn? Even if someone wanted the ashes for sentimental reasons, I presume they already got, like, a spare set from the crematorium, so it's not like they'll be able to swap those for someone else's remains. It's just all very confusing. While I'm sitting here and wondering about that, Caribbean Queen continues, "I just got back the check I ran on Michelle Carter. She was reported missing two weeks ago, wearing a red dress, red purse." Everyone's eyes go to the sparkly red purse on the floor. Calleigh asks if any of the bodies out back are dressed for a night out. She ought to know better -- if they were, the entire conversation would have gone a little differently, as in, "I ran a check and lo and behold, our body in the red dress out back matches this missing girl." Delko points out that there's a body in the crematorium oven and it broke down halfway, so maybe they'll get lucky.
As everyone stampedes over to the oven, Caribbean Queen asks, "Can you get a positive ID from bones?" It's the most distracting line reading in history -- it's as if there's a computer churning out the sounds syllable by syllable without any recognition that tone and delivery matter. Alexx somehow overcomes this bizarre obstacle to communication and tells her, "Mitochondrial DNA only gives us maternal lineage." But y'all already knew that, right? Then Alexx prods Calleigh and Delko -- both of whom are staring into the oven in fascination -- into action by pointing out that whatever's in the oven doesn't have enough of anything left to do a facial reconstruction, but they can run dental records. Apropos of nothing, Delko gives us a lecture on Cremation 101: "It takes three hours for a body to burn through. The fire has to be between 1600 and 2000 degrees Fahrenheit to reduce the body to ash, usually leaving four to eight pounds of bone particles and dust."
Calleigh dreamily says, "I used to think I wanted to be cremated. Now I don't know." Well, she could explore cryogenics, or fall in with an Egyptian cult that does old-school mummification, or maybe hook up with a small-town doctor in Castle Rock, Maine...anyway. Caribbean Queen asks, "Looking like the bodies outside are better?" "Are better"? Gah! Grammar! Subject-verb agreement! Making the hurting stop! Calleigh's all, "I don't know -- casket, embalmed. It's not going to look like that." Alexx takes a more pragmatic view: "Either way, ashes to ashes." Delko sees an opportunity to leap into the conversation: "How about bloody ashes? The blood would have evaporated before the bone broke down." Calleigh says dismissively, "Even if those are Michelle's ashes, it can't be her blood." Cut to Delko doing a slow burn. To fill the awkward silence that falls while Delko keeps glaring, Calleigh says, "I don't know...Benito? He's got ash all over his face." Delko finally replies, "Like Alexx said, payback's a bitch."
Back at the lab, a puffy and sullen Speedle is sulking in front of a computer monitor and wondering when on Earth he went from independently thinking adult to Horatio's toady. Or maybe he's just looking for a tattoo match to the gun tattoo. The original tattoo faces to the right, and there's a near-identical one facing to the left, yet Speedle is mysteriously unable to see the match. Gosh, if only Horatio and his perceptive way of fitting clues to a situation could rescue him from this brainteaser. If only...
Speedle will have to wait for a while, because we're back with Alexx, who's talking to Calleigh and Delko. After dismissing a series of X-rays on one light board as "all Benito Ramon," she moves over to another area and points out the sole film, saying, "The partial skull from the crematorium chamber. Palatine sutures have fused endocranially and exocranially. Now, I'm no forensic anthropologist, but I can estimate this person was over sixty years old." Calleigh states the obvious with, "Michelle is still missing." Delko tells her the blood in the crematorium belonged to Benito; Alexx explains how all that blood got there by pointing out the fractured skull, the broken jaw, and other owies. Benito's also got something clutched in his hand, the exact identity of which Alexx was unable to determine from the X-rays. The three live people trot over to Benito's hand as Delko identifies the phenomenon as cadaveric spasm -- or, as Alexx puts it, the death grip. "I'm going to need my saw and a microwave," Alexx says. Delko runs off to get popcorn.
A brief whirrrr later, Alexx has liberated Benito's hand from its arm. Alexx mentions off-handedly (sorry, I couldn't resist), "I had to micro a hand last week. It was the only way I could get the evidence out." She then carries the hand over to microwave, and Delko adds, "Let 'er rip." Calleigh shouts out, "Wait!" What, she just realized she shouldn't be heating up her lunch in that thing? No, actually, Calleigh's had an out-of-job experience: "Y'all are acting like that's no big deal. That's someone's hand." Alexx can't see what the problem is: "You've picked up body parts before." Calleigh replies, "Yeah, but I've never microwaved one and it sort of freaks me out that y'all have." Well, her coworkers have never put on so much makeup that even Kathleen Harris is sending emails reading, "Girl, please," but you don't see them freaking out about it, do you? Calleigh somehow gets over it, and we're all treated to the hand opening up until whatever's lying in the palm begins setting off sparks in the microwave. The closed captioning displays a merry line of dialogue that, regretfully, we don't get to hear: "It ain't bacon!" Heh. What does it say when the most amusing thing about CSI: Miami is the line that doesn't make it into the show? Anyway, Delko plucks the small asymmetrical metal disc out of Benito's palm and holds it up. Alexx asks, "What the hell is this?" Delko replies, "This is a pass to paradise. Ever heard of a club in South Beach called Canvas?" Calleigh owns up to having gone a few times. Delko says he's gone too: "I spent my whole damn paycheck, but it was worth every dime, though." Unless this club dispatches a team of helpful fairies to clean your home, do your laundry, and tune up your car while you're getting a Swedish massage and a two-hour soak in a tub full of Scharffen Berger, it's not worth the money. Delko, however, has never had a VIP medallion to Canvas. Calleigh says, "If you've got a badge, you don't need one." She walks off, and Delko laughs, wondering why on Earth that didn't occur to him when he was busy spending his paycheck.
Back on Planet Speedle, things have evidently progressed to the point where Speed's rending his garments in frustration. Horatio comes over and asks, "Speed? How are we doing?" "We," kemosabe? Given how frequently I make the complaint about Horatio's interpretation of this whole "we" thing, maybe it would be better if I just gave it a name, or a number, and then, in subsequent recaps, when I write, "Horatio kemosabes," y'all will know what I mean. Sound good? Vote on it over there.
Anyway, Speedle sighs about how all he's doing is looking at a lot of bad tattoos, and if only Horatio could show him how to find the match he's really looking for…? The two of them small-talk about the dead guy -- he didn't appear to have any visible means of support for his opulent lifestyle -- and then return to the topic of the tattoo. It's got too much detail to be a prison souvenir. Speedle says, "I also checked with Ernie, the guy that did Calleigh's --" "Did Calleigh's?" Horatio interrupts, sounding more interested in this than in anything case-related. Speedle misses this and replies, "Yeah. Not that she's ever going to let anybody see it, but Ernie thinks this is one of a kind designed by --" "Hang on a minute. Designed by the tattoo artist who did this one," Horatio interrupts, doing the basic spatial-relations twist and flipping the leftward facing gun tattoo over the right one before imposing them one on top of the other. The owner of that tattoo isn't the victim, but he's got the same tattoo, so that's a lead. Said owner is named Danny Blue, who looks like the unfortunate answer to the question, "So what happens when someone manages to be the sole male progenitor of three successive generations?" and he was released from prison following his robbery conviction a mere five days ago. Danny's also about to talk to Horatio, if Horatio has any say in the matter.
Meanwhile, Delko, Calleigh, and her tattoo are at Canvas. If this is supposed to be Miami's idea of a hot and exclusive club, then boy howdy, are Miamians starved for actual entertainment. Think roller-rink-colored lights, black lights, boring trance music, nubile people squirting each other with body paint for the patrons' amusement. Calleigh and Delko look around; Delko tells her the owner will be out shortly. Calleigh replies, "Did you read the article in Dade Distinctions about this place? Two guys from Puerto Rico -- they're cousins. They had a couple of clubs down there, but the article says they were Miami's version of knock-around guys." Delko replies, "You know what they say -- if you own the hottest club in the city, you own the city." The owners come over, and we're introduced to Michael Guerro and Jarrod Parker. Delko asks if they've seen either Benito Ramon or Michelle Carter. After quickly looking at the pictures, Parker answers, "Nope. Sorry. What's going on?" Calleigh hands over the metallic disc and tells them Benito had it; Parker replies, "That's our VIP palette." Calleigh checks out Parker's tacky ring -- it's not exactly discreet, and it's got a big C made from diamonds in the middle -- and tells everyone that Benito had the palette on his body when he was murdered. She then asks if she can check out the VIP list, and Guerro is stupid enough to snot, "Sorry, but membership on our VIP list comes with an expectation of privacy, so yeah, we mind." Delko amiably assures them that he'll come back with a warrant. He should have also mentioned that he'll call his favorite police beat reporter and tell him to start sniffing around Canvas, but he's young. He has time yet to learn how to be sneaky. Calleigh pulls Delko away by telling him they may have found Michelle.
Back at CSI headquarters, Danny Blue's getting fingerprinted, and Horatio steps over to say, "Okay, Danny Blue, that wasn't too bad now, was it?" The way he says the name makes me start singing, "Oh, Danny Blue, the cops, the cops are callin'..." It's just so lyrical. Anyway, Horatio and Speedle settle in for an amiable Q&A period, and let me just say that whoever is dressing Speedle needs to actually clothe the man in shirts that fit, as opposed to pinching pennies by going to Michael Clarke Duncan's garage sales. Horatio begins the Q&A period by showing a picture of the prone dead guy and asking, "Do you know this gentleman?" Danny says, "It doesn't ring a bell." Horatio then whips out a picture of the recovered tattoo. Danny's parole officer orders him to pull up his right sleeve. Horatio says condescendingly, "Do what your parole officer says, Danny." Danny rolls up his sleeve. Horatio, upon seeing the tattoo, says, "So it does ring a bell." Actually, jerkwad, you showed him a picture of a prone man first and asked if that rang a bell. But why let consistency get in the way of a superiority complex? We find out that Danny did some robberies with the dead guy -- now identified as Thomas Carpenter -- and only Danny got caught. Vin Ethanol's all, "Without giving up your buddy?" Speedle jumps in, "You guys both have the same tattoo, you must be pretty close." Danny points down to the post-sodomy picture of Thomas and says, "Not that close." Horatio is openly doubtful: "No? I'm going to need a hair sample, Danny." Danny asks if maybe they need a warrant for that, and Vin reminds him that, as a felon, he effectively has nothing in the way of civil liberties or protection. Horatio adds, "Either you pull it out, my friend, or I will." Wow, Horatio really likes picking on the people he interrogates. Power trip much?
With much wincing, Danny pulls out some hair. Horatio then asks if they're going to find his fingerprints at the crime scene. Danny says he was at Thomas's house a few days ago, but didn't kill him. "Convince me," Horatio spits. Danny recalls their confrontation -- he was under the impression that his not ratting out Thomas deserved remuneration, Thomas felt otherwise. "You figure he still owed you," Horatio says. "He did owe me," Danny says. "So you killed him," Horatio concludes. Wuh? Horatio didn't even make a logical leap there; he conducted the metaphorical equivalent of launching himself off a trampoline in a low-gravity environment and seeing where he landed. ["Don't give the writers any ideas. The last thing we need is footage of Caruso in the Jupiter Jump." -- Sars] Danny rolls his eyes, and Horatio clarifies, "Not two days ago -- last night." Danny points out that he was working last night; Horatio promises to check out his alibi, and then not apologize for his behavior when it turns out he's wrong. Then he asks, "What was Mr. Carpenter into?" Naked swimming, wristwatches...oh. Danny replies, "I dunno. Some scam. He said it was foolproof, he had been into it for about a year. Look, he didn't get into the details because he got pissed off at me and kicked me out. That was two days ago." Horatio, angry because he turned out to be wrong about the Danny-killed-Thomas thing, brings down the full wrath of the law on Danny's head by pointing out that he violated the terms of his parole and turning him over to Vin Ethanol.
Then Horatio goes back to the Carpenter pad to check out more evidence. He notices a folded square of material sitting on a corner of a table stocked with expensive-looking candlesticks and statues. After Horatio picks up the paisley square, Speedle comes over and asks, "How much of this stuff did this guy rip off?" Horatio estimates that, given the size of the house, most of the items in it are stolen, including the big crystal vase inscribed, "Happy Anniversary, Erin. Love, Leonard." Horatio orders Speedle to bag that vase. Speedle then tells him there's no match between Danny's hair and the sample found on the bed. In the same tone of voice a normal person might use to say, "Maybe the Grays are coming to our home planet to kill us," Horatio comments, "Maybe he was telling the truth." Speedle then gets to the unpleasant part of his report, swallowing and "uh"-ing several times as he says, "I compared the swabs Alexx took of the victim's head wound and rectum. They both had rust, likely from a corroded iron pipe." Horatio says, "Okay, excellent," then bids Speedle to bag the paisley fabric sample. Vin Ethanol comes over to show Horatio "this diamond bracelet, worth about thirty grand. Stolen from a Judy Johnson three weeks ago. She also reported a 268." Horatio says, "A two-six-eight? So he's not just a B&E guy, he's a rapist too." Vin assures him, "It gets better." Horatio asks, "It gets better than a rapist being raped. How?" Vin tells him, "He wrapped electrical tape around her hands, ankles and mouth before he sodomized her. He also gagged her." Horatio concludes, "So someone used his own MO on him, didn't they?" "It makes for poetic justice," Vin opines. "It also makes Miss Johnson a suspect," Horatio shoots back. "Except she committed suicide one week after he raped her," says Vin. Well. Doesn't Horatio feel like an ass now? Of course not -- he figures her bereaved husband or boyfriend is now an appropriate guilt-crazed suspect. He's off to talk to the husband.
Off in another part of town, Caribbean Queen is leading Calleigh and Delko to Michelle's shallow grave. Delko asks, "Can you believe she was buried under all those bodies?" "I believe it now," says Calleigh. They all hunker down to check out Michelle, who looks pretty good given that she's been marinating under a pile of moldering corpses. Delko wonders if those are scratches all over her face. Alexx replies, "No. Postmortem rodent bites. She might have also been beaten." By the rodents? Who knew the rats around the crematorium were so tough? Alexx then finds something in Michelle's hair. Back in the cool light of the autopsy bay, we see what it is. Or maybe not, as Alexx gets distracted running a UV light all over Michelle's body and noticing multiple fluorescent blotches. Calleigh asks, "What's all over her skin?" Alexx replies, "Looks like paint." "Looks like fluorescent paint," Delko adds. Calleigh concludes, "Looks like the paint they use at Club Canvas. If Michelle worked in the paint, she was a dancer at the club." Delko concludes brokenheartedly that sometimes, people lie.
And now, it's time to watch a profoundly unsympathetic character level murder accusations at the bereaved husband of a rape victim. At least Vin Ethanol has the courtesy to begin with, "We're sorry for your loss." Mr. Johnson asks flatly, "Did you find the guy who did it?" Horatio's all, "We think so." Mr. Johnson replies, "Good. Charge him with murder. Better yet, give me five minutes alone with him." Horatio says, "It would appear someone's beaten you to the punch, Mr. Johnson." Vin butts in with, "Saturday night -- where were you?" Mr. Johnson was out with friends. Horatio tells him, "Someone got revenge on your wife's rapist. Someone who knew he tied up his victims with tape, gagged them, then sodomized them in their own home." Mr. Johnson states, "You think it was me." Horatio replies, "Whoever it was knew an awful lot about what happened to your wife." Mr. Johnson asks quickly, "If it was me, would you blame me?" Horatio wants to know if this is an admission of guilt; it is not. Mr. Johnson then rips the Miami-Dade contingent a new one with, "I thought you brought me in here to tell me something about Judy's case, but you're actually helping the bastard that raped my wife because someone hurt him, right? Are you -- are you really serious?" Vin points out that the MOs match exactly, and Mr. Johnson snaps, "Of course I know how my wife was raped! Every detail. I also know how she died because I'm the one that found her with the scissors still stuck in her arm." Well, that was the wrong thing to say, because now Horatio's all about the scissors and the possibility that they were used to cut the tape that bound Thomas. Mr. Johnson speaks for all of us when he says, "You people are unbelievable." Of course, he's talking about how they seem to care more about his wife's rapist as a victim than about his wife, but the general unbelievable sentiment still works.
Another day passes, if the sunrise we see on the Miami shoreline is anything to go by. Inside the CSI compound, Horatio's blathering on about how Thomas's DNA matches the semen sample taken after Judy's rape. Speedle tells Horatio, "She wasn't the only one. There were three other victims." Horatio's taken aback: "Three others? Were they robbed?" Speedle confirms that they were. Horatio muses aloud while Speedle hangs out and tries not to squeal like an *NSync groupie over being allowed in the room while Horatio's thinking: "Danny Blue said Thomas was working on a scheme for the better part of a year, right?...It's my guess that he was making his living as a thief, but getting his power from the rapes. Medical examiner confirms that none of the women had been raped vaginally. All sodomized." Speedle picks up on it: "And he tells them if they go to the police, he'll come back to get them." I presume that means he'll rape them again, this time vaginally. Horatio declines to elaborate, thank God, and continues, "So his scam could be that he threatened his victims into silence." "Maybe one of the victims turned the tables on him," Speedle suggests. Horatio replies, "That's possible, isn't it. The question becomes, who?" Speedle points out that the other victims left Miami after filing their police reports. Horatio's all, "But Judy Johnson stayed behind and did what? She stayed behind and killed herself." We confirm that Mr. Johnson's alibi checks out, although not conclusively. Speedle sums it up nicely with, "We can nail a grieving husband for killing his wife's rapist. That's good." That's the old Speedle. Did you manage to fight your way into briefly controlling the body now occupied by Grasshopper? Do you need an exorcist? Speedle concludes, "I think the guy deserves a medal, don't you?" I like that Speedle's turning Horatio's rhetorical flourish back on him. Don't you?
In Canvas, Calleigh is scraping the paint off the wall while Parker -- whose accent seems a lot more noticeable all of a sudden -- implores her to be careful. Delko muscles in and asks, "Would you rather we take the whole thing back to the lab for processing?" Give the man a warrant and he's giddy with power. Someone shouts, "That won't be necessary," and Caribbean Queen introduces us to Vincent Graziano, legal counsel for the club. He's all, "Take note, we are cooperating with your investigation." Calleigh replies, "It's funny how warrants bring out the best in people." And the power-mad martinets in Delko and Calleigh. Graziano produces a list of VIP members and a list of employees. This leads directly to the discoveries that Benito Ramon was on the VIP list, and that Michelle Carter did work at the club. Don't those beater boys feel like chumps now? We get a few gratuitous shots of Michelle getting paint all over her barely-clad body, and then Delko says, "If Michelle was an employee, that would make Jarrod a liar." And a gaper, by the looks of him. Graziano assures Parker that he has nothing to hide, and now, with his accent hovering around Antonio Banderas levels -- seriously, y'all; I went back to the twenty-two-minute mark where we first met Jarrod, and he had only a mild accent, and now, a mere fourteen minutes later, he sounds like he was coached to say his lines phonetically -- anyway, Jarrod explains that when the police came to investigate, he decided that lies and obfuscation were the quickest way to make this problem go away. Jarrod Parker is clearly not the strategist in his business partnership.
Back at the lab, Speedle is engaged in the exciting work of matching up the cut edge of the electrical tape used to bind Thomas against a segment of tape cut using the Johnsons' scissors. There's no match. Speedle concludes that they'll have to go back to the murder weapon, i.e. the fabric gag.
Over in the autopsy bay, Alexx and Calleigh are looking at Michelle's face on the monitor. Alexx has just finished telling Calleigh how the cause of death was strangulation when Delko bursts in to tell everyone that the paint in Michelle's hair matches the paint samples they took from Club Canvas. He then notes what Alexx is staring at and asks, "Is that a UV photo?" She explains, "No. I took this post-autopsy. To get the UV photo, all I did was add an ultraviolet filter and flood her face with light. UV light penetrates the skin and picks up bruises and marks too deep to be seen by normal light. Any bruising that's already visible won't show up on a UV photo." We see the photo switching from regular shot to UV shot. Delko notices a mark on Michelle's cheek that, upon zoom-in, turns into a C-shaped bruise. Delko and Calleigh both remember those hideously tacky C-rings from their first trip to Club Canvas.
What rough CSI slouches toward the lab, waiting to be informed? It's Speedle, who comes into an area where a dreadlocked and acerbic young tech is standing before a microscope. Speedle summons all the charisma he can possibly muster and mutters, "Nice tie." "You're desperate, aren't you?" the tech shoots back. I like him already. Speedle grovels, "Well, you are the king of fibers." El Rey de las Fibras replies, "You got lucky. These fibers are manmade. [Organic] fibers would be impossible to trace; manmade fibers are produced on machines that leave distinct markings." We see a computer-generated image of puffy, vaguely triangular fibers stacked side-by-side. Speedle asks, "And the shapes are unique to that machine." El Rey de las Fibras answers, "Both fabrics were made by the same company, and since manufacturers don't duplicate each other's dyes..." "We identify the dyes, trace it back to a design house, and that will lead us to a suspect," Speedle picks up. El Rey is bouncing on his heels as he reveals that he's already done all that legwork -- there are ten different places in Miami that stock the fabric Speedle found. After Speedle ribs El Rey for his handwriting, we learn that one of the ten design houses is Murphy Home Decor, owned by Erin and Leonard Murphy. Speedle has a low-key eureka moment as he remembers the vase he found at Thomas's house with those names, and he wanders off. One presumes he'll thank El Rey de las Fibras with a yearly fabric tribute at a later date.
It turns out Speedle's wandered in to examine the vase -- and other expensive-looking things -- with Horatio. After talking about how it's really hard to fence a personalized item, Speedle notes that Erin Murphy never reported the theft of the presumably-beloved-for-sentimental-reasons item. Horatio suspects she had good reason not to.
The camera then switches to a latex-gloved hand pulling a glove onto the other hand and giving the item a snap; it's the kind of shot that usually precedes the inevitable punchline where someone's just been subjected to a full-body cavity search, a prostate examination, or some other highly comedic anal indignity. I have no idea if that transition was on purpose. The snapping gloves in question belong to Calleigh and Delko. Guerro and Parker are watching them with great trepidation. Graziano busts in all, "My clients have a club to run. This is bordering on harassment." Calleigh drawls, "I can assure you, it's all perfectly legal." Graziano replies, "Just the same, I advise them not to answer any of your questions." This does not faze Calleigh, as all she wants are their rings. There's some protest, which I honestly don't understand; these guys should be grateful she's taking that pimp-rageous gimcrackery off their hands, literally and figuratively. Guerro snaps, "You know how much these things cost? This is because of Michelle?" Graziano chides Guerro, but the horse is out of the barn. Guerro explains, "I discovered Michelle. The deal was, she would work exclusively for us." Calleigh asks, "But she decided to branch out?" Guerro replies, "She wanted to be a promoter. She knew she had the looks. Talked the talk. Walked the walk. Stepped on a lot of toes in the process." Graziano elaborates, "She started hosting events at a place called the Thorny Rose." Calleigh flashes back to the dead rose she found in Michelle's bag. And then she gets the rings she wants.
The shot is of Delko watching the beater boys through the one-way glass until Calleigh comes back to tell him that unfortunately, the rings are clean -- no blood, no epithelials, no crematorium ash.
And then we're in Murphy Home Decor with Speedle, Horatio, and Vin Ethanol. It's all a little too French Country Whatever for me; I'm a Stickley and Morris woman myself. Horatio inspects fabrics until Speedle calls his attention to the guestbook register. Just then, Leonard Murphy comes over and amiably asks if they'd like to be on the mailing list. As Vin Ethanol goes off with him so they can talk to Erin, Horatio zeroes in on the list, which has Thomas Carpenter's name all over it. No, really.
Then Horatio goes upstairs, just in time to watch Erin clip some tape with a pair of scissors. He also notices the lengths of rusty pipe stacked along the wall. There's the usual commotion wherein the Miami-Dade PD disrupt everything without bothering to tell anyone why they're doing so, and then Horatio has a tête-à-tête with Erin. He slides over a picture of Thomas (front-side up this time) and asks, "Does he seem familiar to you?" No, he does not; Leonard works the front more often than she does. Erin asks why she's involved in this and what happened to the guy, and Horatio replies, "Well, he was murdered, and we believe he was murdered to avenge a rape." Erin is suitably taken aback, but she says, "I'm sorry. I can't help." Horatio replies, "Actually, you can. I'm going to need all of the scissors I see present, and a sample of your hair." "I'm going to need to see the warrant I presume you've got," Erin shoots back. Oh, she does not -- but don't you wish she did?
Back at the B-plot, Calleigh's telling Delko that Caribbean Queen tracked down the jeweler who made those awful rings. Delko's all, "But I thought you said they were clean." Using small words and a slow speaking tempo, Calleigh explains that two of the rings they inspected were clean, but there were three rings custom-made, and now all they have to do is find the silent partner. Calleigh closes the scene by quipping, "Not so silent anymore."
Speaking of not-so-silent, Erin Murphy is saying incredulously, "You think I was raped? Is this a joke?" Horatio doesn't even deign to look at her as he says, "I can assure you, this is no joke." Erin replies, "I think you've got some wrong information. I can assure you, if I was raped, trust me, the police would know about it." Horatio attempts to discredit this by asking, "Why didn't you report your home being burglarized?" "Because it wasn't! Obviously, you've got me mixed up with someone else," Erin protests. Horatio then whips out a photo of the anniversary vase and asks, "Do you own one of these?" Erin allows that she did, but says there must be thousands of those vases. Horatio doubts that those thousands of vases are all inscribed to Erin from Leonard. She says, "But ours shattered into a million pieces. It fell off the shelf while my husband was moving furniture. He called me while I was overseas buying fabric to tell me." Horatio asks when this happened; Erin can't pin down the exact time, and implores Horatio to tell her what's going on. He's all, "First you tell me what happened to your arm." Erin's been mauled by her cat. This is entirely plausible -- both the husband and I look like our hobbies include hesitation cuts on account of our furry terrors expressing their strongest emotions with claws extended. Horatio's all, "Your trips. Your fabric-buying trips." He says that like she's some sort of jacquard jezebel wantonly rolling naked across strange bolts of cloth. Erin's all, "Yes, fabric-buying trips. I spent two weeks in India. I just got back last night." Horatio then fails to tell Erin what's going on. Nice.
We're back at Club Canvas, which has not grown more exciting with time. Graziano's sneering down at Calleigh, "I don't know what you're talking about. I don't have a Canvas Club 'C' ring." Calleigh points out the tan line where his ring recently was. Delko's all, "Yeah, you must have never heard about that guy in L.A. with the Bruno Maglis?" Delko's showing a picture from Dade Diversions in which all three Club Canvas partners are wearing their rings as they toast the camera. Calleigh tells Graziano that the police are tossing his place as they look for the ring; this does not shake him in the slightest. He's all, "Let me know when they're finished. Until then, I think I'll have a drink." Calleigh snaps, "I don't think so. You're coming with us." This is the cue for a deputy who looks as though he only got his learner's permit last week to come up and escort Graziano out of the club.
Once they're all comfortable in the interrogation room, Calleigh slides the ring across the table and says, "Diamonds are a girl's best friend, and a suspect's worst enemy." Delko adds, "Yeah. The setting was a reservoir for Michelle's blood." Calleigh sweetly urges Graziano to try on the ring. He does and says snidely, "What do you know -- it fits. Quite a coincidence." "I've got another one for you. It turns out you're more than just legal counsel for the club. You're the majority owner," Calleigh replies. Delko steps in and says, "As a matter of fact, Michael and Jarrod combined own less than one percent." Graziano explains this by saying that his club needed a public face with some personality because he wanted it to be successful. Calleigh brings up Graziano's two clubs, both of which failed miserably. Perhaps the names "Moist" and "Bellybutton" had something to do with market apathy. I'm just guessing. Graziano says, "I'm a bad businessman, not a murderer." Calleigh says, "It proves you have a vested interest in making Club Canvas the hottest club on the beach -- which you did by eliminating the competition." Caribbean Queen adds, "Competition like Michelle." She slaps down promo postcards in which patrons are exhorted to come watch Michelle paint herself elsewhere. I still can't believe this passes for fun. The drugs among the South Beach set must be incredibly good. We then see why the murder went down -- Michelle was using Club Canvas as a client pool for other VIP events -- and how, as we flash back to Graziano cornering her in a parking lot and strangling her in a fit of anger. He then gave Benito Ramon a VIP membership in exchange for Benito cremating Michelle and her stuff; when he came back to pay Ramon with the VIP palette, he saw that Benito had kept Michelle's personal items; the cremation chamber was broken and the body unburnt. So he lost it and murdered Person #2. Graziano listens to Calleigh's recitation of this, and after congratulating her on the quality of her story, tells her she forgot one thing: "I'm a lawyer and a damn good one." Calleigh tells him he's forgotten a thing or three, namely that the blood on the ring belonged to Michelle, but some of Benito's was there too; those blood samples tie him to the murders; and "you may be a lawyer, but I'm a CSI. A damn good one."
And now, time to wrap up the A-plot. Speedle's peering into a microscope when Horatio comes over, inquiring, "You rang?" He did -- to show Horatio that they've got the scissors used to cut the tape found on Thomas. Horatio mutters, "All right," and Speedle says with considerable exasperation, "You don't look too happy." Horatio shares with Speedle: "Well, it turns out that Erin Murphy was on a plane at the time of the murder." Speedle thinks that there's nothing eliminating Leonard from suspicion. Horatio's still hung up on how Erin refuses to admit she's been raped. He eventually concludes that maybe Leonard's the one who was raped.
The scene more or less confirms that -- Leonard denies it for a while, saying, "It never happened," until finally Horatio wears him down by decreeing, "You were raped and you couldn't live with it." Leonard cracks. He says, "I thought -- uh. I was just, I was just trying to get by, deal with it. I was so messed up. And then he just walked into my store one day, shopping for fabric...I wanted to kill him." Horatio prods the story along: Leonard realized that Thomas didn't recognize him, so he got him to write his address down for the mailing list, then went to Thomas's place for a little bit of that old-fashioned eye-for-an-eye-style justice. We get to see the prelude of Thomas's rape in flashback, along with a shot of Leonard swinging the lead pipe back with force as he prepares to thrust. Thank you, CSI: Miami, for introducing this phenomenon to the crowd that can't afford to see spooning on HBO. Horatio's all, "An eye for an eye." "I didn't start this," Leonard says. Horatio replies, "No. You didn't start it. But you finished it." Leonard protests, "I wanted justice." Horatio says, "Leonard, justice is not for you to dispense. It's for me." Or maybe he stops after that first sentence. I just hope he's proud of himself as he weighs the virtue of stopping Leonard -- who, so far as we know, only evened one karmic balance -- against the virtue of stopping a serial rapist and burglar. I wouldn't presume to make that call, but Horatio, as Miami's Justice Avenger, is more than qualified and happy to tell you so himself, so let him close out the episode by telling Leonard how he's going to pay and then brooding as he ponders the temerity of those who would step all over his justice-dispensing turf.