Night has fallen, the cue for lovers the world over to slip out of their houses and get their freak on in public. Two lissome young things are playing a game of hide-and-seek around a swing set and giggling like mad before flinging aside all pretense of coyness and falling to the sandy ground in a tangle of limbs. Ah, youth. Ah, unfinicky youth: I hate the texture of sand on my skin, and can only imagine that, had any dates tackled me in a sand pit back in the day, I would have responded with considerably less ardor than the young woman does here. Actually -- she's more or less mimicking my probable reaction: her eyes growing wide with revulsion shortly before she screams in horror. But she's screaming because she sees a dead face submerged in the sand. We get the flashbulb-style transition, and then another shot of the face still buried in the sand, a considerably larger audience -- composed of law-enforcement personnel -- peering down in interest.
Cut to Gil and Brass. Brass notes, "You've been walking in circles for ten minutes." Gil replies, "There's no sign of struggle. Whatever happened, happened somewhere else. This is a secondary scene." "Body dump?" Brass asks. "Textbook case. David, when you dig her up, tag this one special processing," Gil replies. Evidently, the ability to deduce gender from nostrils alone is yet another of his myriad forensic talents. Brass does not think too highly of the perp thus far: "A thousand square miles of desert in Vegas, this perp dumps the body in a sandbox." Gil doesn't disagree, but notes, "He didn't put it here to hide it. He put it here to be found."
And on that note of pronoun confusion -- she? it? she? it? -- we go to the credits.
Once we return from commercial and credits, Catherine and Gil are both kneeling in the sand and staring down at the body. "This sand's a nightmare," Catherine notes, clearly a woman after my own heart. "To get to the evidence, we might destroy the evidence," Gil replies. Yes, master. Catherine -- who is endearing herself to me with every passing minute -- turns her gaze from the body to Gil, asking, "Do you get these haikus out of a book, or do they just come to you?" Gil gives her a look and says, "Every time you have to find a body, you have to choose a path. And when you take that path, grasshopper, you risk destroying evidence." And a gong sounds in the back as the bamboo flute of enlightenment plays. Actually, what happens is that Catherine sighs over the prospect of having to break out the trowels and some fine-mesh screens as they go panning for evidence. What follows is the miracle of time-compressed narration: Gil and Catherine carefully digging the body out, running each trowelful of sand through the sieve and peering at the results. Eventually, they've dug a trench around the body and uncovered it; we get an aerial shot of the corpse on a makeshift bier of sand while Gil and Catherine walk around, studying it.
“ Sara tries to head off a tirade: 'Mrs. Delgado, I know you're upset --' '"Upset"? Upset is for white people, lady. I'm pissed off,' Mrs. Delgado clarifies. Way to circumvent that hot-headed Latina stereotype there, Delgado. ”
Meanwhile, Warrick gets no cool soundtrack. He gets only the scutwork of stuffing the deposit bag in a sack, then noticing a flyer on the ground. When he looks up, he sees the same flyer still firmly tucked under the windshield wipers of the other vehicles. Curious about this discrepancy, he turns to AD and asks whether AD has run the vehicle yet. AD mush-mouths something about it being the victim's car. Warrick snorts in disgust, then walks over to Sara. "We're dealing with some criminal geniuses," he deadpans. Sara backs him up: "Grab the money bag, slice it, and run." Warrick chuckles, then adds, "You forgot 'leave the evidence on the ground.'" He whips out the deposit bag, and he and Sara thumb through the stack of checks and a deposit slip for $22,500 left in the bag. During this brief interlude, I'd like to say that while I find Sara's watchcap and pea coat fetching, I do have to wonder if she's on shore leave from the British Navy. She and Warrick conclude that either someone was casing the joint, or this may have been an inside job.
Cut to the interior of the check-cashing place, where an intense-looking Latina woman, Mrs. Delgado is explaining, "this morning, everything was fine. Then some pendejo attacks my brother, and we're out God-knows-how-much money, and I'm stuck running this place alone." Sara tries to head off a tirade: "Mrs. Delgado, I know you're upset --" "'Upset'? Upset is for white people, lady. I'm pissed off," Mrs. Delgado clarifies. Way to circumvent that hot-headed Latina stereotype there, Delgado. Warrick steps in, and we learn that Mrs. Delgado has insurance on the place: "You take six percent of a man's paycheck just to cash it? People use us, but they don't like us." Many of us here at Mighty Big TV can commiserate. Anyway, that scene ends with a thud: Sara floats the idea that Mrs. Delgado's brother might be behind this, and Warrick responds, "I'd bet my own paycheck on that." Yeah, well, you would except you gave that up, remember? AD strives for relevance by stating the obvious: if this is an inside job, not only does the perp get the insurance money, he or she also gets to pocket the cash from the theft. Warrick gives him the "whatever" look and lays out his take on the case for Sara: he holds up the flyer and asks Sara the first thing anyone does when they see these under the windshield. I personally stick it in my car and throw it out when I get home, but that's because I was exposed to the "give a hoot, don't pollute" campaign a little too much as a kid. Apparently, normal people simply toss them on the ground. In this case, the only car that's missing a flyer is the victim's -- which means that the leafleteer stopped by shortly before Sante was shot. Sara notes that the leafleteer is a potential witness. Oh, joy -- what are the odds of finding a leafleteer in Vegas? Hint: pretty high.