The Finger

Vegas during the day: we see le ersatz Eiffel Tower from the Paris casino, a large construction site, and other scenes designed to convey that daylight-in-Vegas feeling, i.e. the feeling that it's okay to sleep until dusk because you're not really missing much. The background music has been reduced to a single percussive beat. The reason for this becomes readily apparent as a sweaty and nervous middle-aged man (played by Tom Irwin, or Graham Chase to some of you) walks into a bank with a large briefcase. He shuffles up to the counter, lays down a crumpled and stained withdrawal slip for $1 million, and says, "I'll need to make a withdrawal." The bank teller stammers nervously, "I'll, um, need to see some identification." Cue a montage in which he whips out a driver's license, the bank bureaucrats get involved, and suspicions are aroused by the sweaty, jittery manner in which the man -- who, for brevity's sake, I'm just going to introduce as Roy Logan -- is awaiting the money. Logan's shouting of, "Is there a problem here?" may also be fanning the flames of mistrust. He looks up at the clock -- ten minutes 'til 5 PM -- and then at the security camera. We then go to the security tape: grainy black-and-white footage of Logan waiting. We see a time-stamp for 5:36 PM, implying that verifying the request to take out a million bucks in cash (or scaring it up) is a time-intensive process. Logan gets progressively more agitated as he waits. He finally has the money, and declines an invitation to be escorted to his car. As he pulls out, he notices a police car driving slowly down the street. Naturally, he immediately makes like Mario Andretti; the cruiser flips on its lights and announces to the dispatcher that they're in pursuit of a reckless driver. The cop eventually pulls Logan over and, as Logan wildly pantomimes that he may be in the middle of having a coronary or something equally stressful, his cell phone begins to ring. As the cop asks Logan, "You gonna get that?" he happens to notice that the man's knuckles are coated in blood. This prompts an invitation to step out of the car and put the hands in plain view. Logan does.

Cut to Gil and Catherine walking down the hall, expositing as they head toward interrogating Logan. We find out that Logan is in real estate and sits on the mayor's committee to revitalize downtown. I had no idea Las Vegas's downtown was in peril. I mean, it's quiet, and you don't see super-size tourists waddling around clutching giant plastic cups filled with quarters, but maybe the city needs a time-out zone. Anyway, Gil and Catherine walk into the tank and Logan immediately says, "I'm not saying anything without my lawyer." Gil assures Logan that he won't have to say anything, and slips on a pair of latex gloves. Logan now looks downright afraid. Catherine comes over and asks Logan to put his hands out, palms up, and swabs the dried blood. She then looks up and says, "I'm also going to need you to strip." Logan looks over to Gil and sputters, "What?" Gil shrugs and says, "Vegas."

And we go to the Who.

Catherine taking pictures of Logan in his skivvies. She notes that she sees no visible injuries; Gil cheerfully replies that he sees no blood on Logan's clothes. Logan nervously asks how long this will take. Gil hands over the clothes and apologizes for the inconvenience. Just as Gil turns back around to begin puttering with whatever evidence he gathered, a man enters the room, having been checked out of the "lawyer" repository over at Central Casting. ["Specifically, the 'dead Sopranos associates' room -- it's the artist formerly known as Mikey Palmice." -- Sars] Naturally, the lawyer asks, "What the hell is going on?" Logan responds, "Paul, get me out of here now." That's no answer to the question! Paul barks, "Put your clothes back on, don't say another word to these people. I'm taking my complaint to the district attorney -- you had no grounds to detain Mr. Logan, let alone disrobe him." Well, given the hang-'em-high mentality the DA's office has shown on this show, it looks like it's curtains for Gil and Catherine. But wait! Gil peevishly points out, "His hands were covered in blood and he had a million dollars in his briefcase." Paul rebuts that it's not a crime to be rich. Nor is it a crime to wash your hands, but Logan's apparently waiting for the Supreme Court to hand down an opinion on that matter before he takes action. Paul and Logan hustle out of there towards Paul's car; Logan is careful to pick up his cell phone, but appears to miss the sunglasses sitting to them. Paul says good-bye in lawyerese -- which, when translated into English, is apparently, "You'll be hearing from us" -- and after the two men go, Catherine asks Gil if Shakespeare is indeed the one responsible for the quote, "Let's kill all the lawyers." Gil confirms it (for the curious, it's in Henry VI, Part II, and the quote is, "The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers," as uttered by a minor character) and asks, "Where is [Shakespeare] when we need him?" Cribbing from Christopher Marlowe, no doubt. I kid! I kid! Catherine laughs politely and then asks Gil to drop off the swabs at the lab; she's got to motor to Lindsey's school recital. Lindsey's playing the girl in the moon, because the actor slated to play the man in the moon came down with the mumps. In this day and age? Don't parents take their kids in for the MMR anymore? As she's rushing out the door, she notices Logan's sunglasses on the table and makes a chuffing noise of annoyance.

We then see her walking out the door, flagging Logan in the parking lot -- which is surprising, given the alacrity with which he left the tank -- to hand him his sunglasses. Logan sighs. Catherine walks over and extends the sunglasses, quipping cordially, "Service-oriented policing." Logan wheels on her, looking panicky. "You don't understand. Get away from me." Naturally, Catherine plants herself. The cell rings, and Logan answers it. He hands it over to Catherine, saying, "It's for you." Catherine gives him a huh? face before taking the phone and saying hello. She then proceeds to have this conversation:

Voice: Who are you?
Catherine: CSI 3 Willows. Who are you?
Voice: Are you a cop?
Catherine: Criminalist.
Voice: Good. Because if you had been a cop, she'd already be dead.
Catherine: Who would be dead?
Voice: Do you have a weapon?
Catherine: Yes.
Voice: Then put it on the ground, along with your pager, cell phone, and that case you're holding.
Catherine: Who is this?
Voice: Do it! We're watching you, CSI 3 Willows. Attempt to go back into the police station, and we'll kill her. Attempt to contact any co-workers and we'll kill her. Any false moves at all, and Amanda is dead. Now get back in the car. You drive, anywhere but here, and await my call.

Read that over. That's one menacing conversation, right? You've got brutal stakes, creepy surveillance, the systematic stripping of any sort of protection for Catherine, and a scary ending. When you read that conversation, you can see it being all creepy, with Catherine looking around warily at a darkened parking lot while she slowly lays her possessions on the ground. When you read the words, you can imagine them being spoken by a low, menacing voice, possibly distorted, and it's all sinister. Except that the above conversation took place between Catherine and a member of the Lollipop Guild gone bad, if the voice on the phone was anything to go by. All the conversation needed was, "And we have her little dog too."

Anyway, at the behest of the rogue munchkin, Catherine and Logan get in the car. As she is driving off, Gil happens to leave the building and notices Catherine behind the wheel, grim and unsmiling. He whips out his cell and dials her number; her phone, placed atop her belongings, rings a few feet away. He watches it, worry creeping across his face.

Cut to a printer spitting out lab results. Gil paces around nervously before coming over to ask Liam the Lab Tech, "What'd you find?" Liam confirms that the blood is female and not Logan's. He steels himself for whatever abuse Gil will fling his way, but none is forthcoming. Perhaps Gil, like me, is quite taken with Liam's vertical 'do. Seriously -- it's hair that defies gravity. For that matter, I'm taken with Gil's tresses as well: he's somehow grown a lot of hair real fast, and it looks good on him. Anyway, as I'm sitting around admiring everyone's hair, Brass comes in. I do not admire his hair. Brass is unbowed, and persists in his mission to let us all know that Logan's a married family man with no record, and his vehicle has now been labeled with a Code 5, meaning "keep under surveillance, but do not make contact with the occupants." Brass then decides to add to Gil's worry by noting, "You know, Catherine had a gun. She could have used it." Gil looks thoughtful at this insight -- although, having been the one to stand in the parking lot and stare at her stuff, wouldn't he have noticed the gun and wondered already? -- and stalks off.

Catherine and Logan are driving along, and Catherine says coolly, "You never answered my question: who's Amanda?" Logan admits that Amanda's his girlfriend. Catherine takes her eyes off the road to fix Logan with a white-hot glare. Logan's all, "I know, I know." No, Logan, you don't know: Catherine has a no-tolerance policy with adultery. She knows ways to get you killed. Anyway, Logan's all, "I know, I know," and apparently his wife doesn't know. Right. Catherine swings into CSI Mode, asking how the Lollipop Guild made contact. Logan says that he left many messages for the mistress, and when she failed to return any of his calls, he went over to her condo. He then shows Catherine what was waiting for him on the bed -- an Altoids tin, bereft of the curiously strong mints. As a consolation prize, however, there's a severed human finger inside. Catherine looks over, repelled; the honk of horns reminds her that perhaps she should keep her eyes on the road and the car on the right side of the highway. She collects herself and says dryly, "Got your attention." Logan then continues to lay out his sordid tale: the moment he realized he was holding a severed human digit, the cell phone rang. Logan continues, "He said he wanted a million dollars in cash by the end of the day, or he would send me the rest of her." Logan, I don't think they make Altoid tins that are that big. Unless...ewww. Perhaps she's coming back in several Altoid tins. Catherine digests the dilemma she has unwittingly been roped into and groans, "I need a drink." With the way her night's going, they'll end up at one of those bars where the bartender thinks it's funny to put fake eyeballs in the ice cubes.

But we're about to see another social disaster in the making: Sara on a date. She's sitting across the table from Tall, Blond and Blandsome, whom some of you may remember as the man with the persnickety proboscis from the liquid man episode, and he's burbling with delight over how swell it is for Sara to have called him up: "I don't normally go out with women from work, but there was something about you. And it wasn't your perfume." Sara laughs -- with her mouth full -- and rolls her eyes coquettishly as she protests that she can't believe he brought that up. She then continues, "Yeah, that-that-that day we met, that-that was really gross. Not for me but, but, for everyone else, for you." It's kind of cute how she's stammering. Anyway, she notices Catherine and Logan parking across the street, and watches the two of them walk by. Catherine notices Sara too, and keeps on going. Tall, Blond and Blandsome asks Sara if that isn't Catherine, one of her co-workers. Sara, looking mortified, replies that it is. The camera swoops over to Catherine and Logan sitting at the diner counter. Catherine hands over a menu and tells Logan to go ahead and order something, since it's not like they're on a set schedule or anything. Logan acts outraged: "You expect me to eat? We should be in the car, waiting for the phone." Catherine reminds him that the neat thing about cell phones is that you can take them anywhere. The waitress comes over. Catherine orders two glasses, one with ice, one without. Roy orders coffee. Catherine then leans in and gives Roy a matter-of-fact look, saying, "Let's get to know each other. You first. You were born. You came home from the hospital. Then what?" Logan looks away. One thing worth noting in this scene, because I'm reasonably sure it was done on purpose: the song in the background is Greg Kihn's "Jeopardy." Although I doubt lyrics like "Our love's in jeopardy, baby / Oooo oooo ooooo ooooh" have some deeper semiotic meaning, there may be some sort of manufactured pop irony to having a song about duplicity playing in the background during this scene.

There's no soundtrack back at CSI Central, only Gil hunched over in his desk chair, brooding as Warrick and Nicky brainstorm. Warrick thinks Logan may have wanted to confess and take Catherine to the body. Nicky, who is rapidly becoming the Barry Bonds of the CSI Wardrobe Squad and hitting them out of the park every episode, counters that if that were the case, Catherine wouldn't have left her stuff behind. Brass comes in; while Gil and the boys have been worrying about Mama Catherine, he's been doing actual work. He checked out Mrs. Logan -- whose perfect health rules her out as the victim. The boys do not take this well:

Warrick: What do we do now?
Nicky: We wait. We don't have a crime yet.
Gil: [disappointed] Yeah.

The scene ends by focusing on a brooding Gil.

Back at the Dancing Digit Diner, Catherine's measuring out ice so she can preserve the finger. "Jeopardy" is still playing. Perhaps this is supposed to tell us Catherine's in jeopardy? Or perhaps Greg Kihn wasn't making enough on KUFX and sold the rights off with the stipulation that the little-known twelve-minute version of the song be played. We won't find out, because this is when the Lollipop Guild decides to check in, directing Catherine to drive to a remote locale called the Horseshoe Tavern. She has an hour to get there. On her way out, she puts the glass down on Sara's table. Tall, Blond and Blandsome registers the contents of the glass before Sara does, and asks her, "Is that a finger?" Sara picks up the glass to confirm that yes, it is, and yes, she's slated to have her love life forever sabotaged by work. As she follows Catherine to the street, Catherine gets back in the car and drives off. Sara watches her go and frowns.

In the car, Catherine orders Logan to open his briefcase, because she has an idea. Logan does, and Catherine whips out a wand. She explains, "I used this to paint my daughter's face for the school play tonight. She was the moon. I missed it." Then she composes herself and orders Logan to mark the edges of the money. It's a nice, subtle moment. Logan complies. The two of them talk kids -- Logan's got a son who's a soccer freak -- and then the conversation cools as they pass a state trooper. Logan's freaked that they'll be pulled over for a traffic violation. The cop does register the car as it speeds by, but does nothing else.

Back at CSI Central, Nicky's grilling Sara on her finger exchange with Catherine while Warrick hovers. Sara explains emphatically that "[Catherine] barely made eye contact. She just dropped the finger and walked out." Gil joins the Young Turks as they walk around the CSI building. Anyway, Gil asks for the whereabouts of the finger; Sara dropped it off at the coroner's lab, and they're waiting for David the Coroner to get back from Kansas City (perhaps he's known as "Autopsy Al" back there or something) where he's attending his brother's wedding. Gil confirms that it was the right index finger. Warrick gets his second line of the episode when he asks, "Any hemorrhagic tissue?" Sara replies in the negative. Gil grills Sara on Catherine's demeanor; Sara replies, "Like I told Nick, she completely ignored me." Gil continues, "And her behavior toward Logan? Was she under duress? Agitated?" Sara replies in the negative, clarifying, "It looked to me like Catherine was running the show." Which is more or less true: throughout this episode, Catherine's been keeping a cool head and trying to do her job without alarming the Lollipop Guild. Gil continues, voice pinched, "A severed finger, a million bucks, and Catherine's not allowed to talk to anyone?" Nicky jumps in with: "Kidnapping?" Warrick utters Line #4: "So who's worth one mil?" They prepare to scatter so they can begin talking to Mrs. Logan. Sara is still chewing on the odd coincidence that Catherine just happened to show up at the same diner where she was on her date: "It's not like [Catherine] knew I was going to be there." Nicky looks up and says quietly, "I knew." I guess we've nailed the staff Nosey Parker with that one. Sara gives Warrick a surprised look; he rolls his eyes in apology. She rolls her eyes dismissively in return and smacks him on the chest with the flat of her hand before stalking off. Hee! Warrick looks mildly amused. I bet what happened is Nicky told Warrick about Sara's earlier attempt to hook up, Sara told Warrick about her second chance with Tall, Blond and Blandsome, and Warrick passed it on to Nicky -- who then promptly spread it among the staff. Because what you want in a office full of professional investigators is to have the coordinates of your first dates made public.

Meanwhile, Catherine and Logan are heading to the Horseshoe Tavern. As the dilapidated sign looms in view, Catherine hits the brake and pulls a 180. Logan sputters, "Are you crazy?" Catherine non-apologizes with: "Sorry, it's been a while since I drove a sports car. Thanks." She takes back her glow-stick make-up wand, and they get out. We see Catherine discreetly check to confirm that yes, she left an impressive set of tire tracks. She then walks with Logan toward the tavern, looking back to check their footprints in the dirt road. As they open a gate, headlights flood the road and they squint into the light. Suddenly a life-size rabbit appears. Either Harvey's back and he's pissed because everyone thought he was imaginary, or Donnie Darko somehow hijacked this scene. The rabbit walks closer and, in the Lollipop Guild voice, demands the briefcase. Logan goes to hand it over, but Catherine lays a hand on his arm to stop him and demands, "First we need to see Amanda." Harvey the Killer Rabbit isn't biting; he demands that they get back in the car, drive to a gas station in Henderson, and hang by the pay phone there to await further instructions. Catherine says, "No. We need something more than just your word." Harvey shrugs, "Then she's dead," and walks back toward the car. This propels Logan to act; he runs up and gives Harvey the briefcase. Catherine rolls her eyes at the stupidity of it all and watches the lethal lapin walk back into the light.

Several hours later during daylight, Brass and Nicky go out to pay Mrs. Logan a visit. She has that ninja-dieting-spinning-class-well-groomed-trophy-wife thing going on. Hey, I realize an eight-word hyphenate is in no way as subtle or evocative as Tom Wolfe's "social x-ray," but I'm working on a tight turnaround here. Before Nicky and Brass can get a word in edgewise, she's lapping the family SUV, chiding her child for eating in the car, as the food apparently incites entire Third World nations to migrate to the roomy interior of the car, thus necessitating a costly detailing job. The conversation does not go well: Mrs. Logan's clamming up per Paul's advice, and the only thing Nicky's getting out of the conversation is the observation that the little Logan is still chowing down in the back seat.

Out in the middle of no-goddamned-where, Catherine and Logan are pulling up to a deserted service station. They walk around the grounds, looking for a pay phone. Miraculously, Logan finally finds one -- in surprisingly good condition, considering they're in the middle of nowhere at a business that closed sometime during the Ford Administration. Except that, on closer inspection, the severed cord 'twixt receiver and phone box would make the phone unusable. Logan immediately goes into histrionics: "Dammit. She's dead. I knew it. They set us up." I immediately go into pronoun analysis: first he claims that he was dealing with a man -- which would have been pretty tough to determine based on listening to the Lollipop Guild -- and now it's a "they"? Hmm. Catherine acts as the voice of reason: "He had a shotgun. If all he wanted was the money, we'd both be dead." Logan has no answer for that. Catherine worms her way inside the phone booth and notices, tucked in the old hanging phone book, a new map with an X on it. She then tells Logan to give her the phone. He has the big freak-out; Catherine snaps that they're past worrying about the kidnapper's instructions, and Logan shouts desperately, "What if it was someone you loved?"

What if? We don't get to find out, because Liam, Nicky, and Warrick are talking about the finger. They all agree that Mrs. Logan was way too calm to have seen it, but clearly, it was meant to send a message to someone. Gil and Nicky determine that Logan owned a townhouse; he wasn't renting it, but it was occupied. Nicky decides to get a warrant and go over there. As Nicky leaves, Warrick comes in to give a traffic report; Logan is leaving the gas station, according to the state trooper who spotted the car earlier. Gil orders the room to grab Sara, and announces his intention to head out.

Gil, Sara, and Warrick get out at the Horseshoe Tavern, and proceed to process all the evidence Catherine has so thoughtfully left for them. Because they're a polite squad, they take note of this; as Sara's snapping pictures of tire tracks and footprints, she says, "Thank you, Catherine." The three CSIs continue to work the scene, Warrick taking photos of the footprints, Gil coming back to share his discovery of a helium canister. "Helium for balloons?" Warrick asks, because there might actually be someone in America who hasn't ever sucked on a balloon and then sung "Follow The Yellow Brick Road." He then answers his own question, and notes that you can use it to change the pitch of your voice. The three recap the rabbit scene, sans the silly wabbit.

Meanwhile, Nicky's off having adventures in breaking and entering. Ah, the magical powers a warrant can confer! He walks into the deserted townhouse and mutters to the room, "Okay, talk to me." The room does -- or rather, a large white cockatiel squawks in response. Nicky wheels around, thoroughly freaked out, which is in keeping with incidents where he thought he was alone and turned out not to be. He regards the bird and sighs ruefully, then walks over to the answering machine. Many messages to Amanda from Logan. As Nicky's listening, he notices two half-filled wineglasses on the counter; each one bears lipstick marks on the rim. The bird continues squawking; Nicky says, "Too bad you can't talk. Maybe you can tell me where she is." Or maybe the bird can tell you it's gone a while without fresh water or food, so if Nicky can break out the sunflower seeds and a little Evian, he'd be much obliged. Nicky then bends down to get a closer look at the bird; its snowy feathers are stained in the front.

Then we're back with Catherine and Logan, who are at what looks like some sort of sewage substation. This is not going to end well -- we can see that already. After Logan does some desultory shouting -- because, really, Harvey the pissed-off rabbit is going to be meticulous about surveillance and logistics, but leave a kidnapping victim running around unsupervised and without a gag? -- Catherine notices a grill covering a drain and asks Logan to help her with it. The good news is, they've found Amanda. The bad news is, they've found her floating facedown in a pool of water.

And David the Coroner -- back from the wedding and apparently no worse the wear for it -- tells Gil that the finger Catherine passed on was severed postmortem. That makes this case about a thousand times more interesting. David continues that it was sliced off with a serrated blade. After he finishes, Gil's cell goes off. Gil answers it with a cursory "Grissom," then, as he listens, delivers a heartfelt, "Thank God." Cut to Catherine talking on the cell while Logan sits slumped in the background: "There was a kidnapping." Gil delivers his usual news: he knows already. He even knows who it is: "She's dead. And whoever touched the money probably has glow-in-the-dark paint on their hands." Catherine smiles a little, weakly, and says, "You got my clues." Gil concurs: "Yeah. Nicely done. I know just about everything except...where are you?" Catherine looks around, at a loss to answer that question.

Eventually she must, because when we get back from commercial, Catherine's walking down the hall with Warrick, who's giving her the rundown on how Lindsey spent the night: "She ate, but she didn't fall asleep until way late. We had her helping Greg out in the lab." Catherine says, "I bet she loved that." They stop in the break room, where Lindsey, still in her moon-face paint, is out like a light. Catherine grabs Warrick by the arm and says warmly, "I owe you. Thank you." She tilts up to give him a peck on the cheek; he leans into it and kisses her too. This is just the episode of a thousand grace notes insofar as the characterizations go. Yay, Danny Cannon and Carol Mendelsohn for writing it, and yay, Richard J. Lewis for directing it! They should get some credit too. Anyway -- back in the scene, now: Catherine quietly lets herself in and sits on the edge of the couch where Lindsey's sleeping, just reaching out to touch her daughter's hair.

Then she goes back to work. As she and Gil prepare to enter the morgue, Gil says, "So you couldn't see what he looked like." Catherine finally calls someone on the pronouns by sassily noting, "You're assuming it was a he." They then head in to see the results of David's work. Amanda's looking quite waterlogged; David says she's been in the water about twenty-four hours. He pulls back the sheet, displaying Amanda's seriously wrinkled toes and saying, "Washerwoman effect, but no saponification." For the jargon-impaired: saponification is the process by which triglycerides (compounds found in fat) react with a salt (sometimes sodium) to produce a glycerol/fatty acid compound we know as "soap." Human bodies, with their profusion of phospholipid in cellular membranes, can undergo saponification in some circumstances, depending on conditions like humidity, temperature, body fat percentage, and bacterial activity; there's the infamous "Soap Lady" on display at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia. Anyway: Amanda is not yet soap. David then moves to the head of the body and pulls out Amanda's tongue; nestled beneath it is a thriving colony of blowfly eggs. David notes that they're waterlogged; ergo, they were there before Amanda went in the drink. Gil notes that the decomposing body would need time to attract blowflies before it was submerged; David replies that she's been dead for at least 48 hours. Catherine notices the bloody nose and ecchymosis (a medical term for bruising exceeding one centimeter, as a result of trauma). David replies that Amanda died as a result of blunt-force trauma. He directs our attention, via TMI-Cam, to a gaping head wound that's not benefited from a 24-hour bath. Embedded in said wound is what looks to be a shard of granite.

Catherine steps out and promptly runs into Logan, who makes with the weeping and the gnashing of teeth over how he needs to see the body. She relents, probably all softened by having shared a stressful experience with him. When Logan comes in, he goes into manly fits of remorse over the body; Gil and David do not respond to this well. When he says, "If I'd only gotten to her sooner, if I'd only paid them sooner..." Gil cuts in with, "It wouldn't have made any difference. She was dead long before you could have helped her." I like that Gil's short-circuiting the breast-beating and rending of garments here. Logan does not feel similarly, asking when they'll have an estimated time of death for Amanda. Catherine ushers him out. Logan says, "I don't think I can face my wife right now." Catherine matter-of-factly replies, "This town is full of hotels."

And the townhouse is full of evidence. Nicky's spraying luminol -- in a gas mask, no less -- and uncovers a large fluorescent splotch of blood. He kneels to the marble coffee table and notices a chip missing. Catherine appears in the doorway, saying, "Marble," which is apparently the answer to, "What stone substance was buried in Amanda's skull?" Nicky tells Catherine it's good to see her again, and they get to chatting about the crime scene. Catherine thinks the kidnappers broke in and beat Amanda up. Nicky confirms that blood went flying everywhere, pointing out, "The bird's got blood on its flight feathers. Flight feathers don't bleed -- no blood, just cartilage." Catherine asks Nicky how he became an expert on avian anatomy. "Discovery Channel," he shrugs. I have a feeling Nicky tapes everything during Shark Week and tracks the rankings of the ten deadliest sharks from year to year, too. Catherine then poses the question, "How did the killer get her out of the house?" They brainstorm on that -- the lack of blood indicates that Amanda was wrapped in something that didn't leak -- then move on to find the knives used to sever the finger; the serrated knife, like all the others, is in a freshly-washed load in the dishwasher. Nicky asks thoughtfully, "Why wash the knives and leave the wineglasses?" Catherine sends the wineglasses to the lab, pronto. She moves over to the fridge and notices, among the snapshots of Amanda and Logan, a Polaroid of Amanda in the shower, smiling from behind a patterned shower curtain liner. In the scene, she and Nicky are looking at a terrycloth curtain, but no plastic patterned liner. That's because -- as a tiny plastic shred reveals -- it's been ripped out. On a side note: I'm coveting both the curtain and the showerhead.

Cut to Warrick and Sara in the maze of pipes where Amanda's body was found, because no watery scene is complete unless Warrick's up to his knees in it. They find the shower curtain. Sara does not, however, use this alone time to give Warrick a vindictive dunk in the water for blabbing about her date to Nicky.

On drier ground, Brass and Gil are racing through the Labitrail, with Brass giving Gil the rundown on Amanda's phone records. The same four numbers popped up frequently: her mom, a pizza place, Logan, and the gym, but Amanda's last logged call is to a cell phone traced to Mrs. Logan. Conveniently enough, Catherine comes by with the lab's results for the wine glasses: the saliva samples on both come from women, one from Amanda, the other currently unknown.

Meanwhile, Sara and Warrick are working on the shower curtain together, gleaning all the evidence they can via visual examination and swabbing. Sara finds a small cut in the curtain; Warrick hypothesizes that it happened when Amanda's finger was cut off. We get to see the cutting in slow motion. Warrick then bends to another smudge; he and Sara don't think it looks like blood, and when they test it with luminol, it doesn't glow. Sara notes that it's a greasy stain; upon further analysis, it turns out to be peanut butter. Liam asks, "Did you guys clean the table before putting the curtain on it?" Warrick gives him a girl, please look, and Sara grins indulgently before drawling, "Yeah." Liam continues, "'Cause I think your evidence got contaminated." Warrick's look changes to that of a Jerry Springer guest who's just been informed that the parent/sibling/paramour/all-of-the-above they've been gleefully trashing is, in fact, waiting backstage for a tte--tte. Sara looks as though she's in denial. Liam explains that they've got peanut butter in their lab evidence. And going by the look on Sara's face, those aren't two great tastes that go great together. Nicky happens to be wandering by, and Warrick asks if he's been running around eating peanut butter. Nicky disavows any taste for the product, and Warrick's all, "Well, it's on the back of that shower curtain." Instead of replying, "And you're telling me this because it concerns me how...?" Nicky flashes back to Little Logan eating his PB&J in the car.

Cut to the Young Turks tearing the Logan SUV inside out. Warrick comments, "I need to take my car to this detailer. Not bad." Nicky has no time for Warrick's automotive chitchat, and clues us all in to the fact that cleaning a surface with a carpet cleaner only pushes the dirt further in. Keeping this fact in mind, they find a patch of carpet with a dark blotch. Nicky cuts it out, then looks up at Sara and Warrick to reiterate, "Did I mention how much I hate peanut butter?"

Cut to Catherine and Mrs. Logan, facing off in the tank. Mrs. Logan is accompanied by Paul the lawyer. Catherine asks if Mrs. Logan knew Amanda, because Amanda called on the last morning of her life. "Could've been a wrong number," Paul says smugly. Gil asks in his usual guileless manner, "Then what did you talk about for three minutes and fifty-five seconds?" Mrs. Logan is silent. Catherine moves in for the kill: "We could compel a DNA sample, which would confirm that you had a glass of wine that night." Paul asks if anyone's planning on pressing charges, or if this is just Felony Story Hour. Gil ignores him and spins his theory: Mrs. Logan went over to Amanda's place to confront her, and "a civilized drink turned into a violent brawl." After pausing for a moment so that we may see the lethal catfight in flashback, Catherine steps in and concludes that Mrs. Logan wrapped the body in a shower curtain, sliced off a finger, and moved the body. Mrs. Logan, having heard enough, is compelled to speak up in her own defense -- which surprises me, given that Paul seems like he'd sooner dive headfirst into a client's mouth than have them utter a single word in the presence of the police. Mrs. Logan manages to get out, "I listened to her rantings about how she and Roy were going to get married, and I set her straight. Roy was not going to leave me for her. He loved his money more than he loved the both of us. I told her I was going to evict her from that tacky little townhouse, and then Roy came in. You should have seen the look on his face. And I left them there to work it out." Now that Mrs. Logan's said her piece, Paul wants her out of there. Catherine has one more thing she wants; she asks Brass to hit the lights, and asks Mrs. Logan to extend her hands, palms up. "We don't have time for these games," Paul sighs, but they go along. Mrs. Logan's hands fail to fluoresce, so she obviously hasn't been handling the money Catherine had Logan mark. But -- surprise, surprise -- we have our rabbit. And you thought Rabbit Angstrom was a prick. At least he wasn't ever a lawyer like this guy. Paul then utters the immortal words, "Look, I can explain." Gil and Catherine grab a bag of popcorn and sit back to watch this show.

Paul gives a wonderfully legalistic explanation of what he did: "I put on the mask, I took the money, I made some phone calls, but I did not break any laws." And technically speaking, unless Nevada has laws against huffing helium or dressing like the Easter Bunny when out collecting money, he's probably right. Catherine's asking about Amanda; Paul vigorously disavows knowledge of her death, claiming, "I'm a lawyer, I work for my client, I did what he asked me to do." Okay, I'm not a lawyer. I can't even claim to watch too many courtroom dramas on television. But I would think that the American Bar Association would frown on its members using the attorney-client privilege as a rationalization for going along with a faked kidnapping. Catherine asks, "What are you saying, that Mr. Logan paid you dress up as a bunny rabbit?" For a brief flicker of a moment, Paul looks proud of himself as he admits, "That was my idea." Gil clarifies for the rest of us: Logan set the entire thing up as a way to cover up a murder and skip town with a million bucks. By the end of the discussion, Gil and Catherine are visibly disgusted; both of them look like they want to take a shower, on the off-chance that some of the molecules hanging in the air around Paul might contaminate them.

But instead they charge off to look for the country club locker where Roy allegedly stowed his million dollars ("I figured he was just hiding assets from his wife," rationalizes Paul). While Gil goes to do that, Catherine and Brass pay a visit to Logan's hotel room to find -- surprise! -- that he's gone. After she stalks into the bathroom and pushes aside the shower curtain, Brass follows and says quietly, "I'll call down and see if his car's in the parking lot." "Fat chance," sighs Catherine. She breathes deeply, trying to compose herself, but pushes off the vanity and blinks rapidly as she chokes out, "Son of a bitch!" She turns to Brass -- teary-eyed and angrily sniffling, but still composed -- and notes in a thick voice, "He had me completely fooled." Brass looks at her impassively, but not coldly. She continues, calming down, "I bet that locker's empty too." Cut to Gil, who, sure enough, is discovering this to be the case.

This prompts a scene where all five CSIs reconstruct what happens. I love it when they do this. Gil starts off by setting up the drinks between Mrs. Logan and Amanda in flashback, then bringing in Logan, who looks appalled to see both women together. Catherine notes, "Amanda broke the only rule: don't call the missus." We then see Amanda paying for it with her life. Nicky picks up the thread: "Now he really has a problem." Warrick cuts in: "Two problems -- his wife was going to leave him, and he was going to jail." Sara gets her line: "You've got to admit, his solution was ingenious." Back to Gil, who continues, "Most killers take their time planning a murder. He took his time covering it up. Forty-eight hours, to be precise. So Logan cleans up the crime scene and calls his lawyer, asks him to help with his little charade. I mean, what better way to protect your assets than to pay a kidnapper who's already on retainer?" Catherine picks it up again and notes that everything was calculated -- even picking her up. Gil notes, "I especially like that little show he put on in the coroner's, trying to figure out how much we knew." Nicky asks why Logan went to the bother of drawing a map to lead Catherine to the body; Gil explains that without a body, Logan would be under suspicion. The CSIs quickly come to the conclusion that he wanted to set up his wife for suspicion, and the money-marking was a bonus that further deflected suspicion away. Catherine says bitterly, "And I did everything in my power to help him." Nicky, who shouldn't consider moonlighting as a counselor to the down-and-out, says, "Yeah. And he's probably long gone by now."