Burked

Over the cliffs and through the dunes, to Brentwood we will go. Kidding! We're apparently in Las Vegas. You remember Vegas -- lush, green Vegas, where the emerald carpets of grass roll beneath a verdant canopy of trees? Right? Anyway, a garderner's truck pulls up, the gardener pops out -- Big Gulp in hand -- and gathers together his tools to begin the task of taming the dense native foliage of desert Nevada. If you ask me, his talents are wasted: if he can do this kind of landscape work using only a few gardening tools and a millionaire's payroll, imagine what he'd do with, say, Mars. NASA has much better toys and a much bigger budget. Two big beautiful yellow labs greet him at the truck -- evidently not a normal occurrence -- and he walks through the open gate to the patio door where the dogs are stationed, baying their little canine hearts out. He peers through the blinds and registers a pair of inert legs laying on the floor. Fortunately, the legs are attached to a boxer-shorts-wearing body (hey, with this show, never assume anything); unfortunately, the legs and body appear dead.

Cut to an exterior shot of the mansion, or, as we'll be referring to it for the duration of this recap, the crime scene. Catherine strides through the crowd, CSI equipment kit in hand, looking very businesslike as she enters the house. I reflexively begin looking for Brass, or, as we'll be referring to him for the duration of my recapping career at Mighty Big TV, Captain Exposition. Instead, Catherine nearly trips over Gil; a burly plainclothes officer raises a cautionary hand and she peers down to see Gil lying on the floor, peering intently while he surveys a few square inches with a penlight. In daylight. Anyway, Gil raises a latex-gloved hand to Catherine in the universal "shush" sign, she squats down to see what he's foundand we're all sucked in as we learn that Gil has been looking for a missing contact lens for the detective.

That little errand dispatched, Gil and Catherine walk toward the body. Catherine provides us with a little backstory: the house belongs to Tony Braun, son of Vegas business giant Sam Braun. As she's speaking, the camera pans over family portraits. Gil cracks, "He was Steve Wynn before Steve Wynn." "You bet your ass," responds Catherine, who it appears has usurped not only Brass's role as Captain Exposition, but also his back-up duty of delivering the episode's most vaguely profane lines. "Sam came to Vegas when Vegas was dying. Built three casinos in a year. Had ties to Bugsy Siegel." Gosh, Catherine's up on her local business titans. Why, oh, why do we suppose that is?

In the meantime, Brass finally makes his long-anticipated appearance, gushing with praise for the observational skills of the gardener. Who is this man and what have they done with Captain Exposition? As Brass talks, we see Tony's body lying on the floor. Gil hunkers down, notes the empty pill bottle by the body's inert fingers, and says, "It all seems very neat and peaceful, doesn't it?" Catherine registers the half-empty wine glass and the sheet of foil crushed into a vee and says, "Chasing the dragon." I immediately begin snorting -- owing to a chance viewing of a Lifetime movie of that same name, starring Markie Post as a soccer-mom junkie, I now associate the phrase "chasing the dragon" with jittery divorcees shooting up in minivans. Someone needs to invent a tough new street phrase for indulging in heroin and heroin byproducts.

Anyway, Catherine gives us all a recap on how to take heroin, and Gil notes that apparently Tony chased it with a couple dozen Xanax. "So the rumors about Tony-boy are true," Brass begins. "Drug overdose," Catherine continues. "If only life were that simple," Gil opines, and we go to the credits. I am sorry to note that, despite reports of their having been added to the cast, neither Liam the Lab Tech nor David the Unfun Coroner appears in the opening credits.

When we resume the show, Gil is still kneeling beside Tony while Sara snaps photos. She hands off the film to a random crime scene tech and orders, "Eight rolls, two copies. This is hot; put a rush on it." She then hunkers down to Gil, looks intently at the carpet, and picks up an earring back with a pair of tweezers. Man, that's a handy skill to have; Sara needs to come over to my place some time. Gil registers her find, then notes that Tony has adhesive on his wrists. The two of them conclude that Tony had company, and then Sara asks the question we've all been waiting for: "A guy ODs, where's the body fluids? Urine, vomit, excrement" Gil muses, "Did somebody clean him up?" See, it's logistical details like that that separate your typical killer from a perfectionist. Well, that, or maybe it wasn't an overdose. Sara sweeps her flashlight over Tony's torso, noting three small red marks, and comments, "Interesting love bites on his chest." "Curious, isn't it?" Gil agrees in a dreamy voice. Oh, that's a new tone. Are we to infer that he and Sara have been having an extended dialogue of the nature of love bites? Sara shoots him a look and then notes that the body is posed. She asks Gil when he figured this to be a homicide as opposed to your run-of-the-mill accidental overindulgence in wine, heroin, and Xanax; Gil replies, "When I saw the TV on."

Outside, Nicky and Catherine are fussing over the dogs. Catherine comments that she wouldn't leave such lovely canines running about unsupervised; Nicky replies dismissively, "You're talking about a dog owner on heroin. How responsible can he be?" Ummmm, responsible enough to hire a dog walker? He had a gardener, for heaven's sake; I imagine he also had the financial wherewithal to retain someone to keep the dogs from bothering him while he was chasing the dragon. Catherine continues in her role as Madame Exposition by pointing out that, according to the gardener, this one morning was the first time in five years the gate had been left open. She thinks that that observation, plus the lack of signs of forced entry plus a dead body, equals something significant. She just can't articulate what.

Yay, it's Warrick! He's looking beleaguered, of course, as he surveys a bureau-top festooned with assorted drug-taking paraphernalia. "A heroin addict's confetti. Must have been going on a binge," he muses to the silent plainclothes investigators behind him. He then peers into the balloon and, thanks to the miracle of TMICam, we do too. "Black tar heroin," Warrick continues, explaining the dark and sticky residue on the inside of the balloon. "This is the difference between a Cadillac and a Pinto." As Warrick comments on the plentitude of drug props in the room -- and the paucity of evidence to explain how a dealer would have gotten in -- Jerry Stahl's name flashes on the credits. A nice little example of timing; I wonder if it's on purpose. Brass comes in and asks Warrick if he can get a print of those balloons; Warrick turns around and says confidently, "I can get a print off of air."

Down in the kitchen, Sara's digging through garbage cans for evidence. She dumps out the kitchen can again and notices a box of saltines with -- surprise! -- duct tape inside. Well, that's handy. On the outside of the house, Nicky's scoping out the side door and its embedded doggie door, preparing to fingerprint them. I'm going to assume that this scene will eventually bear fruit and move on with the show by jumping to the morgue. Gil walks in on David the unfun coroner peering at the sole of his shoe. Oh, sure, it doesn't sound all that remarkable when I write it like that, but consider this: the shoe is still on his foot, he's sitting down, and his foot is currently perpendicular to the ceiling. As Gil greets him, David swings his foot back into a normal position, thus ending this week's episode of "Fun With Prosthetics," and immediately launches into the post-mortem of Tony: "His lifestyle was no secret -- sex, drugs and a big bankroll." He continues by saying, "Whatever he did went up his nose; his nasal cavity looked like raw hamburger." On cue, the TMICam provides ample visuals. Eeeeew. Gil notes the abrasions around Tony's mouth and snidely asks, "Hard to shave when you're stoned?" David doesn't exactly dispute his hypothesis, but he also adds that such marks may also be a result of someone placing an object over someone's mouth and smothering them. Gil leans in and notes, "Petechial hemorrhagingalso a sign of suffocation." David plays devil's advocate, noting that petechial hemorrhaging (burst blood vessels in the eyes, for those of you who only now began playing along at home and missed last year's Festival Of Forensic Factoids) can also happen under innocent circumstances. David and Gil continue to banter over the corpse. "It's hard to OD on just inhaling heroin. I know he was restrained, which leads me to believe someone forced him to ingest lethal amounts of heroine and Xanax," Gil says. We shall see.

Back at the scene of the crime, uniformed officers are festooning the front porch with police tape when a low-rent blonde comes barging in, braying, "Boy, are you lucky my lawyer's on a golf course. I've been standing out here in this heat for hours answering stupid questions. Here's your answer: this is my house." "Who is this?" Catherine asks. "It's Braun's squeeze. She's an ex-stripper too. Perhaps you two met in a professional capacity?" Brass replies. Oh, that's priceless. Catherine asks where this woman has been for the last twelve hours, and Brass says, "Quote, out, end quote." Welcome back, Brass. We've missed you. As Catherine and Brass continue to scope the tart, she videotapes what's going on, probably as evidence for whatever civil suit she will inevitably file against the LVPD for pain and suffering later. She just has that look about her. Janine (the blonde's name) begins copping an attitude with Brass and Catherine; Catherine responds by beginning to fingerprint her.