Let The Seller Beware

We begin the episode with a warning that viewer discretion is advised, which I personally think is entirely too vague. If you're going to warn people, warn 'em -- tell them, "This episode contains gruesome violence/sexual acts typically found only in Joe Eszterhas's imagination/depictions of people using controlled substances and enjoying it/rabid misogyny/complete disregard for your intelligence/completely self-indulgent writing..." You get the drift.

Having warned the more delicate flowers in America's television-watching audience off tonight's episode, the camera then moves in for a shot of the Vegas skyline (casino of the week: New York, New York), then zooms out to what is one of Vegas's swankiest neighborhoods -- houses the size of hotels fronting acres of rolling green grass. Clearly, these people are so rich, they can import their own non-desert ecosystem. We then flash to the gate where there's a for-sale sign, and then to a couple walking past the fountain toward the double doors of the house. The woman burbles, "Wow. I love it already! I can't believe we're doing this. Is that the lockbox?" She's easily distracted by shiny things. The man tells her the realtor gave him the combination. Oh, that's not reassuring at all. After establishing that neither the realtor nor the owners will be coming by, we head into the house. Big, airy foyer with double staircases, all sorts of swanky interiors, et cetera. The man says, "Wait until you see the master." As they enter the room, the woman -- whose shirt seems to have a gaping problem across the chest area -- is all, "Oh. My. God. This is gorgeous." She flops on the bed, and the man flops to her, grinning mischievously. "What?" she asks. "Wanna snoop around?" he replies.

Evidently she does, as the following few scenes basically sum up the paranoid fantasies of anyone who's ever had their house on the market: the man and woman rifle through closets and drawers, try on clothes, and generally behave like boors. Then they cap the experience by having a quickie.

Cut to the woman bouncing down the stairs, buttoning her shirt and holding her shoes in her hand as she says, "Oh. My. God. I could get used to this place. I could! You're an animal!" The guy tells her the backyard is the best part of the house, and in anticipation of still more inappropriate things-to-do-in-a-house-you-shouldn't-be-in behavior, the woman asks, "Really? Is there a Jacuzzi?" She bounds outside into a beautifully landscaped patio and pulls out her stock line: "Oh. My. God." As she's standing there looking at the pool, blood begins dripping down from an unknown height and landing on her blouse. The woman stands there for a minute, then gradually notices what's dripping before looking up at a blood-drenched awning in horror.

And now it's night. The blood is coming from a very attractive woman in what looks to be some underwear and a robe, body splayed very dramatically. Gil is snapping photos -- we see one framed all arty-like. Then we see Gil standing on the balcony overlooking the woman, with Catherine on one side. Brass comes up with another photo, and launches into Captain Exposition mode: "Cal and Monica Newman. Owners of the house. My guess, second marriage." Catherine says, "'Cause she's a babe and he's..." "He's, uh, got a good sense of humor." Gil's not smiling. Catherine finds a bullet casing -- .380 auto caliber -- and Gil moves the flashlight down so we can see the gun near Monica's hand. Gil notes that Monica's got a gunshot wound in her right temple, and asks, "Women don't usually shoot themselves in the head, do they, Catherine?" Catherine replies, "Well, gunshots do a number on your face, so women typically prefer pills." Unless you're Dorothy Parker; then you're going to be having issues with pills, as well as razors, rivers, acid, guns, nooses, and so on. Brass wants to know if they're calling the woman a murder, a suicide, or an "or what." Gil implies that it's contingent on the whereabouts of the husband and how much he knows. Catherine drawls, "Well, do the math...dead female spouse plus missing husband equals murder."

Cue The Who, which I can barely hear over the roaring in my ears. Catherine...allowed to have...last pre-credits line? Wha-- ? Huh? Has the world gone mad?

Once we return, Nicky is on some kind of hydraulic platform, cutting the canvas around Monica's body. Warrick hits the button to lower Nicky, and as he and his cargo descend in fits and starts, Nicky recites the basics: "White female, multiple bruising. Bullet hole to the temple doesn't help. .380 auto on the side." Warrick does a quick survey and notes quietly, "Yeah, somebody manhandled her pretty good before they killed her." Both men pause for a moment, looking somewhat somber.

Over on another part of the patio, Gil's poking around a planter when he notices an incongruous collection of cigarette butts. Gil shines his flashlight directly up and notices an open window with a tiny tear in the corner of the screen. I love how he automatically does that; it's a nice detail that shows us how the CSIs work, as opposed to having them give us the John Madden-style play-by-play. Brass says, "Reminds me of my daughter. She used to throw butts out the window too." Ellie sounds like a ray of sunshine, doesn't she? I wouldn't be surprised if Brass recollects her pulling the wings off butterflies too. Anyway, the cigarette butts let us segue into finding out that Cal Newman had a son, Max, age fifteen. They also let Gil collect some DNA for testing. We also find out that Cal left the office to get lunch, and never came back. A survey of the place -- a garage filled with three cars that haven't been driven recently -- isn't giving any clues as to his whereabouts.

And their night isn't getting any easier: Meet Augie Heitz, the mullet-sporting real estate salesman who's somehow gotten past the crime scene tape so he can smarm at Gil and Brass: "Someone died, I know. It's a terrible thing. But we've got people knocking down awnings, stomping through the flower beds. How am I supposed to sell this house?" Oh, Augie, selling that house is the least of your worries. If I were you, I'd be more worried about the look Gil is giving you -- or, if you're feeling contemplative, I'd be worried about your lack of a survival instinct. Gil gives Augie a look that should be setting those survival instinct klaxons blaring, then points out acerbically, "This is a crime scene." Brass then diverts catastrophe by asking if Heitz has seen his client lately; Augie replies, "You're kidding. This is actually part of the service I provide. My clients never have to see me." There's a sort of sick genius in that -- imagine being so irritating that people pay extra not to have to deal with you! Brass ignores the breathtaking innovation of Augie's business model to ask if he always engages in the illegal practice of giving out the combination to his clients' lockboxes. Augie pleads poor time management: "It's a hot market. I had a fish on the line, potential bidding war. Look...I only give out the combination to people I really trust." Like Anne Heche or Robert Downey, Jr.

Meanwhile, Catherine's dealing with two of Heitz's trusted compadres: "All right -- I read rooms for a living. That closet was tossed. The carpet lit up. So I'm going to ask you again: what were you doing in there besides copulating?" The couple we saw earlier is dumbstruck; the woman can't even manage an "Oh. My. God." Finally, the man -- who resembles kind of resembles Chad Lowe -- tries to be all, "It was my idea." Catherine's not here to debate the epistemological origins of the school of screw-in-a-stranger's-house thought. She only wants to know if the laptop they found powered up on the vanity was unmolested by the happy couple.

While Gil's inspecting the rest of the planters, Nicky's working poolside -- the pool lights, by the way, are on -- and he sees a trickle of red liquid which he'd like Warrick to check out. Warrick comes over to the edge of the pool, and Nicky asks, "It's a little thin for blood, isn't it?" Warrick agrees, and to test the not-blood theory, dips an ungloved finger in a trickle, then tastes it. One of these days, someone on this staff is going to do that and really regret it. Warrick notes that it tastes like sugar, and Gil wanders over to tell them, "Erythrosine. Red dye number three." Nicky muses, "Hummingbirds do like the color red." Warrick's not sure whether to be impressed or frightened by that Gil-esque moment: "You've been watching way too much Discovery Channel. This guy needs a girl." I'm so thrilled by the continuity in that detail, I almost forget to question the wisdom of Warrick (hobby of last known amorous interest: chasing the dragon) advocating that Nick spend his free time with girls (last known result of spending free time with a girl: a murder investigation). Almost. Nicky notes that there are no visible footprints; Gil correctly counters that lack of visibility doesn't discount someone having been out there. He orders Nicky to grab the ALS, and sends Warrick to check out the cabana.

Nicky wanders out of the scene, the better for a harried-looking Sara to come charging in. She walks over to Gil, who's crouched by the pool, and apologizes for not coming sooner. Gil says rather petulantly, "I paged you two hours ago." Sara explains, "It's my day off. I was up in Pahrump at some vineyard. You told me to get a life, remember?" Gil feigns ignorance: "Did I?" Sara's expression abruptly shuts down: she hauled ass from somewhere near the California border (Pahrump's northwest of Las Vegas, near Death Valley) for this? Gil says matter-of-factly, "I'm sorry, but I needed you. Dispatch called in a 419 at Alfred Packer Memorial High School. You're on your own." Sara, who's probably been consoling herself through the long drive back with thoughts of working a case so big she had to be paged on her day off, realizes she's been called back to work a run-of-the-mill job. "On my own," she confirms. Gil looks up at her and helpfully clarifies, "Solo." "I wasn't asking for a synonym, Roget," Sara snaps. Riiight. She just kind of gives Gil the are you for real? look we so often see on, oh, everyone else who deals with Gil, and wanders off toward Packer High. Gil puts on the glasses he got from Bono for his birthday, and proceeds to pay achtung to the crime scene.

Unfortunately, people won't let him. As Sara stalks off, Nicky says indignantly, "Solo?" Sara shrugs at him to indicate that she's no happier about this than he is. Nicky turns to Gil, puts on his Bono shades, and asks, "So does this mean when I come in on my day off, I get to work solo?" Gil says shortly, "Process." Nicky does so, finding two sets of footprints via ALS -- one pair that looks to be a size ten leading from the house, and a size twelve from the pool. Gil decides their task will be figuring out which pair of footprints belongs to Cal Newman. Just then, Warrick comes out and announces, "Looks like the husband pulled a Clark Kent and left all his clothes behind." And here I thought pulling a Clark Kent meant staring longingly at your bald, evil friend while millions of viewers swooned. Warrick notes that he's also got Cal's wallet, credit cards and keys. Before Gil can wonder at how this all ended up in the pool cabana, a grating, gurgling noise distracts both him and Warrick. Nicky mentions helpfully, "It's the pool. It's been doing that all night." And the noise in no way set your crime-solving senses tingling, Nicky? No wonder you don't work solo. Warrick correctly concludes that the filter seems to be malfunctioning, and Gil asks if anyone's checked the pool. "First officer said it was clear," Nicky says. He's not really making a compelling case for working unsupervised here, especially since the first officer apparently learned the definition of "clear" on Opposite Day. Gil snaps, "Does that pool look clear to you?" Nicky, who realizes that at the rate he's going, Liam will be working solo before he does, concedes that the pool does not look clear. Gil then looks at the camera, shattering the lens with the power of his glare, and snaps, "One of you guys is going in." Then he disappears, presumably to extract whatever crawled up his ass in the last five minutes and stick it in a specimen jar.

The mirthful strings of machination kick in, and Nicky and Warrick determine who goes in by playing scissors-paper-rock. Warrick picks rock, Nicky picks scissors, and yet another actor's clothing is sacrificed on the altar of ratings. "I'll go in the pool," Nicky calls for effect -- I personally think that he should have volunteered to go in anyway in a damage-control effort -- and peels off his shirt, leaving his heavier clothing on. I don't get it. I just don't get it. Standing around in wet pants is a thousand times more uncomfortable than standing around in a wet shirt, and yet both Nicky and Warrick pull this. It is beyond my comprehension. Come to think of it, if you're on a job where going in the water is apparently a routine part of your workday, why wouldn't you either tote swimming goggles, or a bathing suit? It's not like the pool is going anywhere, and I would think that being able to see underwater would be a bonus in evidence-gathering. ["Plus, Nicky in a Speedo. Juuuuust saying." -- Sars] Anyway, Nicky heads underwater, toward a shadow he sees in the cloudy depths, and is rewarded with his efforts by coming face to face with Cal. Nicky pops to the surface and sees something almost as off-putting: a glowering Gil, backed up by a doleful-looking Warrick. He dutifully reports the presence of a body.

Meanwhile, over at the soccer field at Alfred Packard High, Detective Lockwood is asking Sara if she liked her dinner enough to see it again. Sara looks even more thrilled than ever to have been paged on her day off. The two of them walk toward the field, brightly lit by a score board (the home team lost, 3-2), and Lockwood tells us the victim is one Mandy Kirk, age seventeen. Emergency Backup David is there; he's not looking too good at the moment. Then again, neither is Mandy. "Eviscerated!" Sara exclaims, suddenly a lot less irked at having to work a case solo. Lockwood suggests that a wild animal might have done it, recalling that Animal Control picked up a mountain lion in Henderson recently. Emergency Backup David reads my mind by pointing out, "Suburbs are encroaching on the hinterlands." It perpetually amazes me -- and not in a good way -- that people can put up their McHouses because they want to get away from it all, then get all het up when the population that's already there has the nerve to continue living in the area. Suck it up -- you're the one moving into something else's territory. Sara puts on her gloves and says, "It's a cheerleader." "It"? Sara continues, fishing a scrap of something red out of the abdominal cavity, "She had to have good lungs. How come nobody heard her scream?"

Possibly because they were distracted by the bright lights of the Vegas skyline. We get a shot of the Paris casino and the Bellagio. Then we're in the morgue with poor Mandy. Emergency Backup David's notes brightly, "Didn't have to do much of a Y -- attack did it for me!" I'm guessing Emergency Backup David is a glass-half-full kind of guy; he'd probably be thrilled to autopsy someone who was drawn and quartered, because all the pieces would be small and easily manageable. Sara notes, "Died of exsanguination." For those of us who don't collect the terms for assorted means of death, Emergency Backup David clarifies, "She bled out. Internal organs -- spleen, liver, heart -- all sustained multiple mastications." Sara asks Emergency Backup David if he was able to isolate the species. Indeed he was; based on a tooth mark on her left ninth rib -- which we see up close and personal, thanks to a TMICam shot that takes us to the marrow -- Emergency Backup David has concluded that they're human. Sara looks up, nonplussed. Emergency Backup David, who's used to the CSIs questioning his calls (remember the dry-drowning diagnosis?), points out the bridgework on another area, which gives the impression of a premolar and adjoining molar. Sara, still recovering from the whole human-teeth thing, asks shakily if David can tell the age from the impressions. "No, but I can tell you this: it's one demented individual," Emergency Backup David says. Actually, he tells Sara he can ballpark the age to somewhere between sixteen and thirty, which is about when the wisdom teeth erupt. Since there's no evidence of a wisdom molar on this impression, it suggests someone rather young. Or someone like me, who never had their wisdom teeth erupt. But I've said too much. Sara thanks Emergency Backup David and heads out to see who at Alfred Packer High channeled the school spirit, but David stops her at the door: "I found an infection in the mucus overlying the large intestine. This girl suffered from the E. coli bacteria." Sara asks, "E. coli? Unsanitary conditions?" "Or a bad burger," Emergency Backup David adds. Sara realizes that whomever had Mandy tartare now also has E. coli. And that is why you should always order your food medium to well-done when you dine out: so Sara cannot trace you back to a shocking act of cannibalistic murder. And also so you can avoid spiked temperature, vomiting, lower GI irritation, the works. That's one to grow on.

And now it's time for Nicky to flex his biceps and lats as he labors to insert a pool hose in the water. On the other end, a fire truck begins pumping out the water. In the shot, Nicky works his triceps and trapezius muscles as he helps screw a smaller vacuum into place. Hey, if he's going to go to all the trouble of flexing, I can only return the favor by documenting it. As the pool level gets lower, Nicky puts on more clothes. By the time the pool is empty, Nicky's telling Warrick, "I mean, I don't get it. She's not even slated to work, she comes in on her day off, and she gets to work solo." Oh, Nicky, let it go. Did you learn nothing from the whole "the pool is clear" incident? Warrick shares my sentiment: "You're still harping on this solo thing. You know every time you work with me, you learn something." Nicky laughs it off, but you know on the inside, he's crying. Crying, and revising his list of who feels his wrath first on Judgment Day.

At the front of the house, Catherine is dealing with a repellent teenage boy who wants to know why he can't go in his own house, since the presence of multiple law enforcement vehicles and yards of crime scene tape yield no clues. His mother -- who, going by her hair, is apparently visiting us from 1995 -- tries to help the situation by explaining how she's Cal's ex-wife. ["Damn. She got over The Flash fast." -- Sars] How this is supposed to help baffles me, especially when she's all, "We have the right to an answer." Catherine points out, "We have the right to protect the crime scene." Max asks again, "What's going on?" as the words "crime scene" apparently failed to register. Think, boy! If it were a burglary, would there be so many cars here? Catherine is called away from this awkward conversation by a female deputy, who asks her to find someone to identify a body. Catherine taps the ex-wife for the job. Max asks, "What about me?" and his mother answers a little too tidily, "Oh, no, honey. You stay here." She pats his face absently, then turns to follow Catherine.

Down at the bottom of the pool, Gil's examining the body: "No skin separation. Minimal gaseous buildup. This guy's been in here under twelve hours." That fits the timeline Brass is constructing, as Cal left the office around 1 PM that afternoon. Gil walks over to an area just above Cal's head and lifts off a plastic cover. Brass asks what it is, and Gil answers, "It's an anti-vortex filter." Brass shoots back, "Hey, I'm from Jersey; we swim at the shore." Gil clarifies what a vortex filter does: "It's designed to keep his hand out of that pipe. But it's missing a few screws." Before Brass can make an editorial comment about anyone missing a few screws, Catherine comes over with Wife #1 and asks, "Ms. Newman, is this your husband? Sob once for yes, twice for no." Or something like that. Ms. Newman sobs once. We have a winner! Gil looks up, annoyed at the sight of a human being displaying emotion.

In the scene, Archie The Incredibly Hot Lab Tech is busy peering intently at something on a computer. My first thought is, of course, porn. Then I see that he's taking a virtual tour of a house, and I'm vindicated: there's no porn like real estate porn. I myself have been known to keep a few copies of Arts & Crafts Quarterly under the mattress. Catherine comes in and gives Archie her deep and sincere appreciation for his before-and-after photos of the crime scene. Archie makes like Elvis and says, "Thaynk yeuuu, thaynk yeuuu verra much." Then he returns from Graceland: "I got this off the hard drive of the computer you recovered from the crime scene. Looks like a Peter Croft sculpture." Catherine's impressed that Archie knows his fine arts, and asks if he collects. Archie points out that lab techs aren't exactly pulling down the dough required to amass an art collection, and concludes, "Guggenheim's as close as I get to something like that." Catherine says brightly, "Oh, I haven't been yet." Archie replies, "Really? Well, if you want a tour, I know a docent." Catherine gives Archie the once-over and says quietly, "A docent." I think she's taking that as a blow-off. Ah, well -- it's Archie's loss.

She recovers with, "So you think that's legit?" Archie zooms in on the statue -- it's one of those rounded primitive fertility-looking things -- and says, "House like this? Not a knockoff." Catherine disagrees: "You'd be surprised. The rich go cheap to stay rich, know what I mean?" Archie misses the cue to debate the veracity of Rich Dad, Poor Dad, and shows Catherine that the Peter Croft sculpture happens to be missing in the post-crime scene shot. As Archie says, "They don't call them open houses for nothing." Catherine muses, "Put your house on the market, your privacy's up for grabs too." Archie confirms, "The Newmans unlocked the door for anyone with Internet access."

While millions of people with personal websites are now wondering if they should have maybe not posted the photo tour of their house, the camera swivels over to Alfred Packer Memorial High. Sara's walking through the hall, saying flatly, "Soccer bunnies. What are soccer bunnies?" Lockwood explains: "Each cheerleader is assigned a soccer player. She's his bunny. Gives him gifts before the big game, places his wake-up call." Sara comments, "Sounds sexual." No, Sara -- it sounds sexist. Do the female athletes get Peter Rabbits of their own? Are there boys assigned to stroke the egos of the female soccer players? Or is it a case where the male athletes get feted, while the girls are relegated to lumpy practice fields and hand-me-down equipment? I'm just wondering here. Anyway, Lockwood claims the principal said that the bunny thing "was all good, clean fun." Good, clean, 1950s fun -- like red-baiting. Sara comments, "I'm not sure the principal's up to speed on teenagers' sexual habits." Or what decade he happens to be administrating a school in. As Sara and Lockwood walk through the halls, it's a veritable frenzy of teenaged grief. We learn that Mandy was Chuck Darwell's soccer bunny, and when Lockwood called Chuck's cell phone this morning, he claimed he had hooked up with Mandy after every game except the night's. Sara wants to know where Chuck is. As luck would have it, Chuck's been rushed to the hospital. Insert your own upchuck joke here.

After a shot of New York, New York and the Excalibur (huzzah!), we head back to the subterranean recesses of the morgue, where David the Landlocked Coroner is telling Gil that Cal's autopsy yields very few surprises, what with the cause of death being drowning and all. Gil points out that Cal's right hand was caught in a pool filter, but David eliminates the drowning-by-filter-trap theory by pointing out, "Lack of bruising, no bleeding wounds indicates the circulatory system had stopped. This was postmortem." We see a flashback of how it might have happened -- Cal was floating, he drifted over toward the filter, and it sucked him down. Gil wants to know about the marks on Cal's chest; David's not too sure. They're definitely perimortem, but aside from eliminating the possibility of a rash and concluding that we're looking at an abrasion, there's not much to go on. We also learn that Cal had several broken ribs and a bruise on his forehead. "He could have taken a bad fall." Gil gives him a look and points out, "Or he could have been beaten." Wow, nobody is spared when Gil wakes up on the wrong side of lab bench. We then move on to Monica; David's sent a sexual assault kit to DNA, but cause of death appears to be just a single gunshot to the temple. "I'll know more later," David says. "You always tell me that," Gil replies shortly. David gives Gil a look and says, "Yes. I do." He then moves on: "Depth of bruising gives us a timeline. Apparent thumbprint on her neck came first. The prints on her hands came second. Major impression on top, some kind of recoil bruise on her palm." Gil gives David another look and says, "She didn't shoot herself. She had help." We see how in a brief flashback.