A Little Murder

It's a shot of the Vegas skyline at night. Aren't you glad we're not in Miami right now? A piano tinkles poignantly as the camera pans to an empty stage, and we see a number of balloons in an oversized champagne glass, indicating that something festive and stylish may be taking place soon. One of the auditorium doors opens up, and we see a woman walking in. The woman is a Little Person -- I'm just pointing that out up front -- and she climbs onto a box to check the light board for the stage, checking assorted lighting set-ups and smiling in relief as they work. She climbs down again and walks across the stage to a red runway, checking the lighting as she goes; the camera swivels from a perspective that follows her from the back to one that shows her thoughtful face, and in the background, we can see a sign reading "International Organization of Little People Fashion." As the camera continues to pan out -- the better to get a view of the sign -- we see the silhouette of a body dangling down in front of it. The woman turns around and looks noticeably startled; to her eternal credit, she merely gasps and stares. The camera swoops up so we're watching from a perspective slightly behind and higher than the corpse, with the woman standing in the middle of a white circle on the red runway. It's a nice shot.

Cut to Sara, Gil, and Nicky walking through a crowded hotel lobby; most of the crowd tops out somewhere in the four-foot range. Sara asks, "Is this some kind...of convention?" Gil answers, "Little People convention. Every year, they come from all over the world to a designated city -- socialize, network. It's their prom, New Year's Eve, and Olympics all rolled into one." We see a little person go zooming by in his wheelchair and run right into Nicky, barking his shins. Nicky leans down and says amiably enough, "Whoa! Hey! Excuse me!" "I don't think so, Square Jaw," the man shoots back. Oh, Nicky. It's a sad state of affairs when the extras are hired to mock you. Nicky watches the guy go, wondering whether his jaw is really all that square, or more trapezoidal. Oblivious to his travails, Sara and Gil walk on, Sara asking how Gil knows about the Little People convention. Because he read the same article in Spin I did a few years ago? No, because he gets the newsletter. Of course he does.

Back at the crime scene, Captain Exposition is holding forth: "Lawrence Ames, clothing salesman from Phoenix. He's 35, four foot five inches tall. One of the convention organizers found him --" We flash to the woman we saw earlier, who's giving a statement to an officer, or, if we want to get technical, to the officer's clipboard, which is eye-level to her. She looks miserable. Brass continues, "She was checking out the stage. There's a fashion show tomorrow, if you're interested. She looked up and saw him."

Gil's been scoping out the area. Sara's planted underneath the guy, and she muses, "Guy does a suicide in a public place, he was trying to make a statement." Gil registers the ten feet of space between Lawrence's feet and the floor and says skeptically, "Suicide?" Sara counters that it's a reasonable suspicion. Poor Nicky tries to demonstrate that he's been reading up just like everyone else, but he picks the wrong thing to demo when he says, "Suicide rate in any disability group is above average." Gil issues the first Nicky-related reprimand of the episode with, "Being a dwarf doesn't mean you're disabled, Nick. It means you're short." Then, because he can't resist the opportunity to make a pun and send us into the credits rolling our eyes, Gil says, "I think we've got a little murder."

And we go to the credits. Then there are the commercials, one of which is for Dancing at the Harvest Moon, which asks us to believe that having Jacqueline Bisset fall for the adolescent son of her long-lost dead boyfriend is in no way unsettling.

Once we're back from the credits, we're at the B-plot, with Catherine briskly walking toward the scene before she's derailed by a coworker hitting on her: "My favorite CSI. I was hoping you'd get the call out." Catherine rises to the occasion with aplomb by purring, "So, look who's back in town. What happened, Drew, you didn't like Idaho? Is that it?" Drew answers, "It had everything but you." Catherine laughs it off, and asks Drew what's inside. Drew replies that there's a body -- male, Caucasian, probably the victim of a "home invasion." Whatever happened to being murdered in your bed, or some other phrase capable of accurately describing the brutality behind having someone break into your house and kill you? "Home invasion" sounds so...I mean, if you've got Visigoths sacking your dining room, that's a home invasion. Being killed by a robber is something else. Ahem. While I've been ruminating on the pernicious spread of gormless euphemisms, Drew's been telling Catherine that he's going to go door and quiz the neighbors. He asks her to keep him posted; she smiles back, "Always did." Catherine then gives him the flirty look and pivots on her heel, leaving Drew to just kind of drool after her. I think we just might have ourselves the successor to the building inspector throne.

Catherine heads into the house. As she walks in, there's a youngish cop standing upwind of the body, looking as though he's acutely regretting his vocational choice at the moment. Catherine and the cop exchange introductions; his name is Akers. Finding out two new characters' names in the space of seconds is so unfamiliar. I'm practically giddy with the excitement of it all. Catherine asks if Akers cleared the place. He replies that he's just finishing. Catherine walks over and looks at the character, who's looking a little scruffy for such a swank pad. She whips out a camera and begins shooting; behind her, Akers is audibly breathing from his mouth. Catherine hunkers down and grimaces a little at the smell. Just then, her cell rings, so she answers; this is how we establish that Warrick is on his way, but taking his time per Catherine's assurance that the dead body isn't going anywhere any time soon. Once she hangs up, poor Akers tries to give a matter-of-fact report: "We were just pulling out of the chili place when dispatch radio, uh, arrived on scene 1900 hours. My partner secured the perimeter. I've been in here..." Catherine pulls on her gloves and asks, "This is your first time on body watch?" Akers nods, his gorge working. Catherine drawls, "Well, alive, it's inside your bowels. Dead, it ends up on the floor." I imagine that must drive clean-freak suicides crazy. Akers looks as though he's moments from revisiting his dinner, and Catherine shoos him out impatiently with, "Go, go, go, go, go -- just get some air." He does.

Catherine whips out a jar of fingerprint powder and begins dusting the small appliance to the body. She then surveys the room and begins moving over to one corner to begin dusting. Catherine works for a few moments -- long enough to give us the sense that, gosh, it's been a while and shouldn't something be happening right about now? -- and as she's inspecting her glove, she notices a shadow moving behind a screen. There is enough time for her to look up and realize that shouldn't be happening before the door fully opens and a figure bursts out, and knocks her straight into the plot of the Lifetime movie They Said The Place Was Cleared: The Catherine Willows Story. The guy tries to drive Catherine into the nearest wall, but she's pushing back, hollering, "Suspect on location! Suspect on location!" Catherine manages to push herself free of the guy, but he then smacks her with a blunt object and she ends up on the floor, rolling around and groaning in pain. Conveniently, this is when Akers and company troop in. The assailant decides to beat feet.

The cops come in, doing the cop thing, and then Warrick's there, asking urgently, "Cath, are you all right?" "Out back," she answers. We get a good look at her location -- inches from the body. Warrick leans down and touches her back, and Catherine assures him breathlessly, "I'm all right. I'm okay." He heads off and Catherine raises herself up, realizing that she's now covered in the victim's blood. Warrick chooses that moment to come back in and tell Catherine, "He must have gone out the back window." Catherine sits on the floor, her hair falling in her face, looking at Warrick as if she just realized what happened. Warrick wheels on poor, queasy Akers, saying angrily, "Were you the first officer on a scene? When you clear a place, you clear it, do you understand?" Akers begins stammering apologies, and Warrick continues, "We lost a CSI two years ago because of the same mistake!" Actually, we lost that CSI because you decided to go play the ponies, Warrick, and that wasn't really a mistake so much as it was a bad judgment call. But I don't blame Warrick for being jumpy: he's had Holly Gribbs killed on his watch, Brass knocked silly, and Nicky thrown out a window, and now this. People back at the Labitrail might as well begin the dead pool on who's going to get the Warrick Whammy .

Catherine cuts Warrick off mid-tirade: "Ease up. My fault. I sent him out." Warrick angrily orders Akers to use his radio and call for backup; the boy scampers out to do so. Warrick then hunkers down beside Catherine, who's sounding a little sniffly. She's also got an impressive abrasion on her forehead. He asks if she's okay, and Catherine says she's all right. He leans in to check out her forehead, and Catherine jerks away from Warrick's fingers, pointing out, "I'm evidence."

Meanwhile, Sara, Gil, and Nicky are working the scene while Emergency Backup David begins cutting down the noose. Gil stops Emergency Backup David by pointing out that he's got a hair in the knot. Whoever manages to untie that knot and get the hair out will rule over all of Asia. Gil instructs Emergency Backup David to cut higher up the rope, so that he can preserve the noose and knot as is. Speaking of rope-related developments, Nicky found some rope used as a handrail; it matches the rope used to hang Ames. After David cuts the rope, Ames's body falls onto the waiting gurney with a thud, and everyone leans over to check out the abraded area around his neck. Gil takes the opportunity to look up toward the rafters again.

Back at the It's Only A Minor Bump, Really: The Catherine Willows Story, Catherine's putting on a fresh pair of gloves and tending to her wound. Warrick hands her a swab and tells her, "I could do this for you." "It's not going to hurt any less," she replies. Yes, but then maybe you could get a kiss for your owie, Catherine. I'm just making a suggestion. Catherine swabs the wound, and as she inhales in pain, Warrick notes, "That cut's deep." See, Catherine? Kiss for the owie. You can wait until after you're done being evidence if you're really that concerned. Carpe Warrick! Anyway, Catherine hands Warrick the swab and tells him to turn around, because she wants privacy. She begins taking off her jacket, explaining, "The guy bodied me full-on. I don't want Trace to miss one hair or fiber." From the recesses of the couch, Mr. Sobell offers to dust Catherine for prints, just to make sure they got everything. Warrick holds the bag so Catherine can toss her jacket and shirt over his shoulder, then asks if she's decent. We see the coroner pulling the body out, then Warrick ushering them toward the door. Catherine has a slo-mo moment of hesitation that will double nicely for the promotion shot in Dammit, That Was My Favorite Shirt: The Catherine Willows Story, then heads in, all business.

While all this is going on, Gil's in the morgue, taking a gander at two circular scars bisecting Ames's calves and commenting, "These scars are old. Tell me this wasn't bone-lengthening surgery." David The Incredibly Knowledgeable Coroner can't: "Probably done when he was a teenager. Surgical pins are inserted into the bones and linked to an external screw. Turn the screw, it cracks the bones. Osteogenic cells flood in, callus forms to bridge the gap. The fractures heal, and the bone gets longer." How incredibly logical -- osteogenic cells are spindle-shaped connective tissue cells that can differentiate into osteoblasts, which are the cells that secrete the matrix-like material that knits a bone together. Eventually, osteoblasts stop secreting and become mature bone cells known as osteocytes. So basically, the surgery uses extremely manufactured conditions to take advantage of the body's processes for healing as a way to alter the body. David continues, "You have to break the bones every four to six hours a quarter-millimeter at a time. Excruciating pain for an extra few inches." Well, not everyone can take those pills offered via email and grow 1-3 inches OVERNITE!!!! Gil looks pretty horrified at all this -- maybe he saw the same TMICam shots the rest of America did, which detailed the screws going in, the bone breaking, and the cells responding. Or maybe Gil's thinking about all the hazards of bone-lengthening surgery David didn't mention: possible circulatory, muscular, or nerve damage, what with blood vessels, muscles and skin being forced to stretch along with the bone; the ever-present threat of infection, because the pins which facilitate the breaking are inserted through the skin and left there until the bone heals in about six months. Gil finally comments, "What people will endure to be 'normal.'" David editorializes, "'What fools these mortals be.'" Thank you, Puck. That will be all. David and Gil get to talking about hanging, and we find out that, according to David, "this bruise behind the ear is characteristic of hanging. This bruise [further down the neck] is not." Gil wonders if it's the result of blunt force, and David directs him to the x-rays, where we see that Ames's first and second vertebrae were separated prior to his death. Gil asks, "He was paralyzed." David explains, "That's something that would only happen to a dwarf with pseudoachondroplasia. Physiology can make for cervical spine instability." Gil replies, "So it's possible that whoever did this knows something about dwarf anatomy." We then see the unnamed person jamming a spike precisely between the vertebrae in another gooey TMICam shot. David concurs, "Hmmmm."

Over at That Lonely Train Whistle Sure Adds To The Unease: The Catherine Willows Story, Catherine's walking back toward the wall of sliding screens where she first met her assailant. We flash back, and then Catherine tells Warrick, "He was drinking. I smelled beer." Warrick digests this information, then heads out to process the back of the house for clues. He peels off a partial footprint, and we flash to the man who assaulted Catherine hopping over the fence. In the meantime, Catherine's pulling a denim fiber from the cabinet, but can't recover any prints. Once Warrick comes back in, he concludes, "I don't think our dead guy lived here." Based on what? The fact that the dead guy looks like a roadie for Kid Rock and this house looks as though it belongs to a childless couple whose uniting passion is a fervent desire to get featured in House Beautiful? Warrick, however, is going on something more solid: the pictures on the fridge, which show a happy couple together. On impulse, I check our collection of fridge pictures; anyone looking to deduce anything about the occupants in our place would conclude that the place had been annexed as part of a pediatric commune. Our friends have been busy lately. Anyway, the police are checking for the homeowner's name real estate records, and Catherine concludes that what they're looking at isn't a case of a homeowner's brutal murder, but rather, an intruder's.