“ Cut to night, where an EMT is wrapping the child's hands in gauze. Wuh? Night didn't just fall, it drove over a precipice at 75 MPH and landed with a thud. Why, just seconds ago it was light out and this kid was yowling and he's only now getting medical attention? ”
It's a beautiful day on the Vegas strip/A beautiful day on the Vegas strip/Could you be my.../Would you be my...
It's a beautiful day in the Vegas 'burbs/A beautiful day in the local park/Would you be my/Could you be my/Won't you be my victim?
That's right -- we've entered the land of make-believe, where strings throb with joy as a harp plucks harmonious notes, where happy families gambol across sun-dappled lawns while engaging in the kind of wholesome family fun that godless Mother Jones readers want to take away from America, where children chase each other as they play tag, their piping voices rising in play, where --
-- where I check just to make sure I didn't inadvertently record Touched by an Angel or 7th Heaven instead, because the laughter of children is like a dagger in me. Fortunately, shortly before insulin shock kicks in, one of the children trips on a patch of improbably bare ground, gets up, and begins screaming in pain. Now that's more like it. "The dirt burned my hands!" he hollers, and indeed, his palms are getting progressively more scarlet with each wail. This may be the first time we've witnessed wounding in real time on CSI.
Cut to night, where an EMT is wrapping the child's hands in gauze. Wuh? Night didn't just fall, it drove over a precipice at 75 MPH and landed with a thud. Why, just seconds ago it was light out and this kid was yowling and he's only now getting medical attention? As an extra kitted out in a hazardous materials suit goes by the ambulance, we see Gil, Sara, and Brass threading their way through the usual thicket of emergency service vehicles, personnel, and equipment. Gil asks, "What's hazmat doing here?" Captain Exposition replies, "Kid's playing tag, takes a header in the dirt, ends up with first-degree burns on his hands." Sara's not connecting the dots: "Wait. We got a call about a dead body." Captain Exposition, relishing the return to his rightful pre-credits spot, is not about to let someone hurry his moment. "I'm getting there," he says, then continues, "So hazmat arrives, figuring some chemical spill, starts removing the toxic soil, and bam -- a shovel slams into a shoulder blade."
We then transition rather abruptly to what is now the crime scene -- a trough in the ground, illuminated by an emergency light and ringed by hazmat workers. Sara and Gil are crouched beside the body. Sara notes that the clothing's in shreds, as is the body's epidermal tissue. Gil notes that the body's viscous fluid is the consistency of dishwashing soap -- you know, I can see where it would be handy to have ordinary objects to use as benchmarks for forensic observation, but I do have to wonder if that alters a forensic specialist's perspective on said objects, like if they inadvertently creep themselves out with the Palmolive every once in a while -- and the camera swoops up to the skull, which looks like the stunt double for that guy they dug out of the peat bog a dozen years back. Gil says, "Hazmat was right. Someone doused the body in lye." Sara theorizes that whoever did this must have thought lye would destroy the body. Gil quips, "Yeah. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust -- without the wait."
“ The desiccated dead guy is a Nevada resident named Bob Martin, aged thirty-one. The twenty dollars in the wallet rules out robbery. I take a moment to wonder exactly what it is our government is using to make twenties if it can withstand a lye bath. ”
And we go to The Who, most of whom are neither ashes nor dust.
When we come back, Sara's already donned a hazmat suit and jumped into the pit formerly occupied by the corpse. She's busy looking for evidence when a hazmat tech comes over and says, "Ma'am, I'm sorry but I need to neutralize the soil." Sara replies sweetly, "If you touch the soil, you'll contaminate my crime scene, but I'll let you know when I'm finished." The tech's a sucker for purty ladies, so he smiles and walks off. And the point to that was...? Gil strides on over in a matching jumpsuit and asks Sara what she's got. It turns out to be the victim's wallet; the desiccated dead guy is a Nevada resident named Bob Martin, aged thirty-one. The twenty dollars in the wallet rules out robbery. I take a moment to wonder exactly what it is our government is using to make twenties if it can withstand a lye bath. The moment passes. Gil studies the trench while Sara continues to work, training a flashlight in her general direction. She then spots something in the dirt and holds it up for Gil's inspection. "Looks like a paint fleck, or metal chip maybe," he decrees. It's not going to be much help -- the park is poorly lit, barely guarded, and quite secluded, so it's an ideal place for dumping bodies without observation.
Another seamless transition later, Gil and Sara are standing over the body with David the Dreamy-Eyed Coroner. No, really -- he's got nice eyes. David points out that the lye had a field day on the body, and we see how via time-lapse TMICam. Another first for CSI: flesh bubbling and hissing as it liquefies. Back from the trip to special effects, Sara asks about the time of death; David tells her it was approximately twenty-four hours ago. He then turns the conversation, saying, "Tell me about the car." "Car?" Sara asks. David whips back the sheet to reveal shins that look like the result of a collision with a Weber grill. "Comminuted fractures [i.e. a fracture in which the bone is crushed and/or splintered] of the proximal third tib-fib, both legs. Bumper hits right below the knees. Sure sign he was hit by a car." We then see a recreation of the accident, with the car bumper slamming into a pair of be-jeaned legs, thus prompting a wet and muffled crunching sound. We then return to the autopsy in progress, where Gil's asking David to explain all the bruising, because if Martin was struck and killed, ecchymosis (i.e. bruising) should be nonexistent. David says, "Which suggests he survived the impact. Usual injuries -- ruptured patellar tendon, laceration of the saphenous vein, and multiple incised wounds containing slivers of glass, which I will send over to Trace." This last phrase is accompanied by David delicately plucking a hunk of glass out of Martin's cheekbone; the skin on his face also looks like a Sunday barbecue gone horribly wrong. David continues, "And bruises...legs, arms, chest. What I didn't find: arterial lacerations or underlying vessel damage." "That confirms death wasn't immediate," Sara says. David's expression gets a little more grim and he says, "Correct. This guy was like a leaky water balloon. Heart slowly pumped blood right out of his body. And based on the coloration of the bruises, trauma was sustained approximately forty-eight hours before death." There's a moment where Gil, who has been listening intently, looks disgusted. The camera does a tight close-up on David, who hammers the point home with, "Three days ago, this man was injured. He bled out until he died yesterday." Gil's looking displeased, in part because he and Sara didn't find any blood.
Anatomy of a Lye
“ Whatever it is, Nicky's acting competently and -- heeeeyyyyyy. He's all by himself! Nobody's around to see this at all. It figures. ”
Before they can go looking for eight pints of missing liquid, however, it's time for the B plot. After a brief shot of the Mirage at twilight, the camera swoops over the mountain ridge to Vegas's east, then down over a rocky peak that practically glows ultraviolet in the dying light. By the time the camera reaches the crime scene, it's dark and Nicky's striding into view, saying, "Lockwood." The officer -- who, had he not already been identified as Lockwood, would have been nicknamed Detective Hot -- greets Nick and tells him that a Bureau of Land Management chopper noted the body, as the aerial patrol is in the habit of buzzing Diablo Canyon to look for hikers in distress. We also learn that the victim is twenty-six-year-old Las Vegas resident Stacy Warner. Nicky and Lockwood walk over to check out her body -- she's on her back, sprawled as though she were sleeping, in the middle of a vast bare patch of land. Nicky whips out the flashlight and peers down at Warner, notes an engagement ring but no wedding band, then brushes back her hair to look at her head. There's a scrape on Warner's face, and when Nicky peels open her eyelid, the white of her eye is flooded with blood. "Orbital bone is fractured," he notes. "Could have lost her footing, hit her head," Lockwood offers. Nicky grunts an acknowledgement, then gets Lockwood to hold his flashlight while he checks out something at the corner of Warner's mouth. It turns out to be a small down feather -- kind of mysterious, given that Warner isn't wearing a jacket. Nicky tags the feather, notes the speck of blood and maggot in Warner's ear -- Lockwood notices this too, and gulps visibly -- and picks up the maggot, quipping, "Grissom should enjoy this," before dropping it into a specimen jar. Lockwood still looks a little squeamish; his expression does not improve as Nicky asks, "Hey, Lockwood, you got any food in your vehicle, hamburger, anything like that?" Lockwood looks appalled at the idea of feeding the maggot, but coolly replies, "Gum. Sugar-free." Nicky says dismissively, "Nah, gum'll kill him. I'll stop at the first place I see, pick up some jerky." Ah, it's so nice to see a nod to maggot scenes. It's also nice to see Nicky working a case alone -- I guess this year's evaluation went much better than last year's. Whatever it is, Nicky's acting competently and -- heeeeyyyyyy. He's all by himself! Nobody's around to see this at all. It figures. Anyway, Nicky hands over a tin to Lockwood, asks him to take a soil sample from underneath the body once the coroner's moved her, and heads off to buy a maggot dinner.
“ Back at the A plot, someone who looks like the answer to the question, 'What happens to you if you spent ten years' worth of weekends drinking Bud and watching ESPN?' is acting astonished that Martin is dead. ”
Back at the A plot, someone who looks like the answer to the question, "What happens to you if you spent ten years' worth of weekends drinking Bud and watching ESPN?" is acting astonished that Martin is dead. Brass confirms it for the guy. Sara asks, "Are you his domestic partner?" To the guy's credit, he does not immediately and vehemently go into Homophobic Denial How-'Bout-Them-Raiders mode, saying instead, "We're roommates. I got divorced last year" -- see, this is the part of the Bud commercial lifestyle nobody talks about -- "and Bob's wife kicked him out six months ago. He needed a place to crash, and I needed help with the mortgage. He's two months late on the rent. How do I go about collecting under the circumstances?" Sara doesn't know, and she doesn't care. She turns to Brass for assistance, given that Brass can be relied upon to answer with his customary sensitivity and tact. Brass turns to the roommate and gives him a look that's worth a thousand words. The roomie -- in the fashion of roommates the world over, i.e. the kind of person who's sure to survive a nuclear blast and go hunting for survivors so they can finally get the phone bill settled -- says, "We were roommates, not friends." We then learn that the two worked at the Tangiers together (the deceased managed a restaurant and the roommate worked in maintenance), and on Mondays, Martin would go off shift and walk over to "the university" (no word whether it's UNLV or the ever-present University of Western Las Vegas) and work in the darkroom before taking the bus home. Sara notes that Martin didn't come last Monday night; Roomie counters that he didn't think much of it, as Martin was always breaking up and making up with his wife Charlotte. He finishes the interview with, "What do I care, as long as the rent's paid?"
In the scene, Gil's on a quiet, dark street, looking at a bus shelter across the way. Sara walks up to him, rattling off the particulars from the photo lab and finishing by pointing out that Bob Martin happened to be in the darkroom on Monday night. "Good. We've got a bus to catch," Gil says, steering Sara toward the bus stop. A car speeds by, the horn honking angrily, and Gil yanks Sara back from the road. Then they remember to look both ways before crossing. Sara's flipping through photos, commenting that they're all of the same woman, very probably Martin's wife Charlotte. Gil stops in the middle of the road -- a logical move for anyone who's been nearly run down -- and notes silver flecks on the pavement. Sara promptly picks up a piece of plastic that might be a headlight cover. "This could be our crime scene," she muses. We then see the probable hit-and-run: Martin walking across the road on a foggy night; a car coming out of nowhere; the body hitting with that moist crunch, then tumbling over and over. Sara looks around and asks, "Assuming this was a hit-and-run, how does a guy with two broken legs end up on the other side of town, buried in a park, covered in lye." I'm not nearly the grammar goddess Sars is, but I'm thinking there's a misplaced phrase modifying the wrong thing there, as the sentence Sara spoke made me think the park was covered in lye, not the man. ["It's correct as written, but it did sound a little funny when she spoke the line. Maybe she didn't hit that last comma." -- Sars] Gil's still puzzled, because there's no blood. Sara wonders where eight to ten pints could have gone. And we go to commercial.
When we come back, Gil enters Liam's lab and asks, "Want to tell me about the silver flecks I found?" I'd like to know too, but I wish Gil had demanded that Liam give an accounting for his hair as well -- he's sporting something that looks as though he took a Don Martin cartoon out of Mad magazine, went to the local hairdresser, and said, "Make me look like that." It's as if he wanted to get a mohawk, but developed some sort of commitment issue halfway through. Liam's had some wrong 'dos before, but never has one so actively worked against his looks. Wow. While I've been marveling at this tonsorial aberration, Liam's been talking paint: "The melamine in the color coat indicates that it's car paint. A factory job. Body job paint contains styrene, not melamine." Gil asks what kind of car it is. Liam points out that Gil just asked a trick question -- but he can still answer: "It's not technically part of my job description, but as you know, I am always eager to expand my responsibilities. Take a look down the scope" Gil, giving Liam a wary eyeball, since he apparently has some sort of irrational peeve against the young man, does so and notes a crosshairs insignia, which lets Liam continue, "That plastic you collected at the accident site. That mark is only found on the S-class Mercedes. It's all about branding. Now, knowing that the headlight came from a Mercedes, I was able to compare the infrared spectra with the paint spectra provided by the manufacturer. Check this out. Your vehicle was painted Sarasota Silver, only available on the S-series '99 model. I checked with the Mercedes state rep; five were sold in Nevada. Sara's tracking down the owners." Rather than applaud Liam on going above and beyond the call, Gil says testily, "You've already shared this information with Sara?" "An hour ago," Liam says airily, completely missing the look on Gil's face, "and she was way more fascinated than you were." Gil, who is limbering up for an Olympic-class reprimand, replies, "Well, I'm somewhat fascinated by the fact that I'm your boss, but you talked to her first." Liam points out that Gil was at dinner. Gil replies that he's been in the lab all day. Oooo-kay. The point of that was...? Liam's a liar and he's shooting himself in the foot vocationally because his hormones are in Gordian knots over Sara? Gil somehow missed a summons? Liam is fated to forever fail to win Gil's approval (well, at least that leaves Nicky's nights free for something else)? Gil has an irrational dislike of young men? We won't find out this episode, as Gil stalks out of the lab and runs into Sara. "I've been looking for you," she chirps. "Well, it's hard to see me if you and Liam are out ahead of me," Gil points out caustically. Sara shrugs an apology and moves on to the most important item: she's got a Mercedes owner to talk to -- Ben Weston, aged twenty-five, who leased the vehicle last week.