Got Murder?

They say that when somebody dies, a crow is there to escort their soul to heaven. But sometimes, something terrible happens and the soul can't move on until it's been to Las Vegas and had some $4.99 surf 'n' turf on the north end of the strip. Or maybe it heads out to the mountains surrounding Las Vegas. At least, that's the impression we're getting from the crow's-eye cam as it swoops toward its nest in the cool twilight. Sorry, y'all: no grown men wearing the leather pants and trying to deliver J. O'Barr lines with a straight face underneath the mime makeup. Instead, we get grown men in outdoors camouflage. None of them are wearing reflective safety vests, however, so they're not hunters; therefore, the line, where a burly man with a crew cut says, "I think I've got a good shot!" doesn't quite set off the irony meter. The three birders snap pictures and get ornithologically geeky; the guy in the middle spots the crow -- excuse me, a raven -- and says, "Corvus corax!" His fellow birders pooh-pooh his find -- clearly, they're not up on their mythology and the raven's prominent role therein -- but things get a lot more interesting when they note that the bird has a human eyeball in its beak. Shocked into synchronicity, all three men put down their binoculars and long-range lenses in a fluid motion, so we can see them gape.

Cut to a shot of an intact human eyeball. The camera zooms back, and we see Gil giving the eyeball to the eyeball. He comments to Catherine, "Well, someone's missing a contact lens." The camera zooms back so we can see that Gil's standing on a ladder and peering into the nest; Catherine's on the other side of the ladder. We see that she's got the curly hair again -- either the hairdresser's determining how Catherine wears her hair via a roulette wheel, or this episode was shot during Catherine's curly period -- and a beret. Few women can work a beret; Catherine's one of them. Gil tells her, "Ravens, like eagles, have been known to travel thirty miles from roost to feeding ground." Catherine adds, "Thirty miles in every direction." I'd like to point out that neither party is mocking the other for their aviary esoterica; I guess the comments about the Discovery Channel are reserved exclusively for Nicky. Hmmph. Catherine does some quick math -- "pi-r-squared...that means we're looking at a 2800-mile search area." Gil responds to this display of mental calculation by breaking out the Poe: "Once upon a midnight dreary/While I pondered weak and weary/Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore --" Catherine cuts this Bartlett's moment short with, "We're up a tree and you're quoting Poe." It could be worse, Catherine. He could be reciting "Ulalume." Gil shows her what's what by paraphrasing the poem with, "Quoth the raven, only this and nothing more."

And as we breach Night's Plutonian shore, The Who takes us to credits.

It's still night when we return to Las Vegas, but Gil's oblivious to the external world. It's time for him to examine the eyeball, which has several long tendons and muscles still attached to it. Gil places it in a petri dish and takes pictures. We get a flashback to the moment of removal -- yum! -- and then we see Gil removing the contact lens in slow motion. Gil then injects a syringe into the eye with a wet, squishy sound and pulls out some of the vitreous humor. I'm sure we're supposed to be all grossed out by the close-in shots of a syringe going into an eye and pulling out goop, but since it's not like Gil is doing this to an eye still attached to anyone's living, breathing self, it kind of loses its impact. After Gil's done with the eyeball, we watch Catherine take apart the raven's nest, amusing herself as she pulls out item after item. Gil comes in and tells Catherine, "You'll be pleased to know the eyeball was only slightly desiccated." Catherine asks about the iris, and Gil tells her it's still blue; Catherine replies that color distinction means the body's been dead less than 48 hours. Gil knows this, of course, and mentions in passing that he's sent some vitreous fluid to tox and some to DNA. He then asks Catherine, "Can you get me an eye for an eye?" Oh, wait -- that was only in the closed captioning. Those of us who listened to the episode as well as watching it witnessed Gil ask Catherine for nest info. Catherine picks at assorted bits and pieces, and then she and Gil go into a discussion of the types of feathers the raven used to line its nest and make it warm. They're seagull feathers. Gil immediately pegs Lake Mead, and Catherine reminds him that's only the case when the fishing's good. Catherine adds that the Lake Mead hypothesis is null, what with the ground limestone they've found in the nest too. Gil the bug doctor then continues to lecture on birds: "Ravens are incredibly intelligent; they have a brain capacity comparable to dolphins." How much do I wish Nicky had been around for this so he can ask when Gil got so smart about the birds, and why it's somehow okay for him to break out the ornithology but not Nicky. Catherine's not down with measuring intelligence via organized communication or creative problem-solving. Instead, she says, "It means she knew where to shop. We found the eye here [at Floyd Lamb State Park]. I'm thinking that she shopped here [at Pendale Land Fill] where limestone is used as ground cover."

And now, a flock of ravens is seen flying in intricate patterns overhead. They say when -- oh, screw it. We go from the flying ravens to flying rubbish as garbage trucks disgorge their cargo. Off-screen, Sara busts out the trivia with, "You know the average Nevadan generates three times more waste than the average American?" We see Sara -- in blue coveralls and hard hat, just like Nicky and Catherine -- walking toward the pile. Nicky adds some context to Sara's number by pointing out that they're factoring in tourist-generated trash -- all thirteen million pounds of it per day. Sara adds that she went to a recycling forum in March. Good for her. Catherine gets back to the here and now, pinpointing the area in which a body would have been likely to have been dumped within the time of death. Nicky watches the refuse shower down and says, "Man! You find the best evidence in the nastiest places!" Sara comments, "You are what you throw away -- it's like peeling an onion into people's lives." Think about that the time you throw away your bank statement without shredding it first.

Back in the lab, David the All-Seeing Coroner is standing in front of a series of lighted x-ray films that could double as Phoebe Glockner illustrations, telling Gil, "The electrolyte and glucose levels in the eye were normal. That means your victim wasn't dehydrated or diabetic. Other than that..." "We're flying blind," Gil finishes. That man's remorseless once a pun's in sight. Gil then strides off, exhibiting enough social skills to recognize Emergency Backup David as the younger man stands over a body to begin autopsy. Emergency Backup David returns the greeting with, "Hey, Gris." The informality causes Gil to screech to a halt and fix Emergency Backup David with a glare. Emergency Backup David quails for a moment -- the poor guy tries so hard to connect with the CSIs on their level and consistently misses the mark -- then pulls back the sheet to recite, "Thirty-five-year-old guy, car salesman, dropped dead at work [of an] apparent heart attack. Not under the care of a physician. Uh, no history of high blood pressure. Just a routine autopsy." Not a bad recovery -- only a little shaky on delivery, and given that Gil is visibly trying to summon the ability to shoot beams of fire out of his pupils, "a little shaky" is understandable. Gil grins from the nostrils down, and then his face does relax and he winks a little -- I had to rewind and rewatch twice to confirm that it was intentional and not a facial tic or figment of my imagination -- before saying, "Go for it." Emergency Backup David realizes that Gil isn't going to humiliate him in front of his boss -- or worse, in front of any of the women he works with -- and calls over David the All-Seeing Coroner to supervise him as he does the autopsy.

David the All-Seeing Coroner swoops over and whips out the tape recorder, noting, "Case 03-615, postmortem exam of an adult. Caucasian male, identified as Fred Stearns. Body received warm to the touch; rigor mortis not present. Skull, nose, bones intact by palpation. Irides are brown, slightly congested. Unidentified black substance on the front teeth, gingeva and lips." As David says this, we see all the physical signs. David looks at Emergency Backup David and says, "Okay, David, open him up." Emergency Backup David selects his scalpel with care and bends over to make the first incision. After he begins, watery blood wells up, and Emergency Backup David -- whose nerves are probably still shot from withstanding Grissom's glowering -- shakily calls out, "Dr. Robbins. I-I have blood. Sir, I have bleeding." The two men exchange a panicky look -- I get the sense that at this point in their careers, caring for live people unnerves them badly -- and then they swing into action. David the All-Seeing Coroner immediately applies direct pressure to the incision while Emergency Backup David gets his kit. Emergency Backup David then takes over on applying direct pressure while David the All-Seeing Coroner injects a syringe of adrenalin into Stearns's heart. The TMICam spares us no detail. As Stearns's pulse rate rises, Emergency Backup David threads a suture needle for David the elder, and they prepare to sew Stearns back up before calling the EMTs and demanding to know which genius called that one before wheeling the body down to the morgue. If you ask me, this has "Hank" written all over it.

Meanwhile, out at Mount Trashmore, everyone searches the trash in time-lapse photography while the dance music plays. After a prolonged sequence, Catherine finds a severed human leg. Nick comments that it's obviously female -- let's let the DNA be the judge of that, Mr. They Have No Drag Queens In Texas -- and they all make noises as if to indicate that the gam is gamy. Sara's moving trash near the leg, and sure enough, she finds a torso and head. There's no eye. We hear the black bird caw and see, once again, the moment of eyeball plucking. Sara coughs again, because she too thinks the shot was gratuitously gory. Catherine and Nicky estimate the temperature of the trash pile -- think 120 degrees Fahrenheit (thank you, physics, for the heat generated in many chemical reactions!) -- and Catherine comments on the relatively good condition of the body relative to the heat. "She should be totally bloated," Sara comments. Nah -- the producers are saving that for sweeps. Nicky comments on how torn up the body is, and Sara casts a look back over her shoulder, commenting that bulldozers are vicious. Then we get to see how vicious in a shot of the body crumpling under the trash. Catherine adds, "I think they only finished the job. How did she get here?" Catherine might want to check to see which homeowner's association decreed that Wednesday was corpse recycling day, and go from there.

It's daylight, and we can safely assume that at least one Las Vegas raven is circling around trying to figure out where the hell her nest went; the others all go home and take Chloraseptic after a long night of nevermore-ing at high-strung alcoholics. There is no going home for Catherine, though; she's sashaying into the morgue and telling David, "I heard you got to be a superhero today." "I consider myself to be a superhero every day," David shoots back. You know Emergency Backup David is hovering just off-camera and taking notes on How To Talk To CSIs. Anyway, Catherine asks David what he's got on "Our Lady of the Dump." He replies, "[Cause of death] is still indeterminate. Blunt force trauma is a possibility. She has some perimortem bruising around the left eye, but limb removal is relatively clean -- definitely post-mortem." Catherine notes that they have no arms, so no prints; she asks what kind of identifying characteristics they do have. David replies, "Second-degree midline episiotomy scar." Catherine notes ruefully, "Well, that narrows it down to more than half the women in this country who gave birth." David adds, "There might be one more thing -- at first, I thought appendectomy scar, but check out her x-ray. She's had surgery -- some kind of implant at the L4-L5 interspace. I'll know more when I open her up." Catherine tells him, "You're my hero," and then wanders off again.

Meanwhile, Nicky and Sara are sorting through the trash found around the victim, apparently under the theory that the proximity of the trash will pinpoint the victim's initial dump location. Nicky holds up a Tiffany-blue bag and comments that "she was buried with some very expensive trash." Sara lifts up one of her finds and points out, "There's nothing wrong with this frying pan. It could have gone to Goodwill or someplace." Nicky produces something: "Home pregnancy test. Better luck time." See, he's assuming that the person who took that test wants to be pregnant; maybe the negative test is the better luck. Ever think of that, Nicky? Sara holds up a bag of produce and says, "Someone? Does not like frozen peas." Nicky reads a receipt and observes, "They weren't shopping at Costco. They paid way too much for ice cream." But does Costco stock the Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby? Does it? No, seriously -- I want to know. I've searched all over the place for it, and it's like the Bay Area banned it. Sara pulls up a blood-stained white shirt and says, "There's a good chance our vic was wearing this shirt." Nicky's had enough fun peeking into other people's lives vis--vis their trash, and decides he wants to narrow this down to a neighborhood. He reads off addresses found on mail and other items in the trash while Sara marks the location on a map. It's looking like we'll be taking a visit to 174 Storm Cloud Lane.

Catherine, meanwhile, is holding the blood-spattered implant David removed from the woman's spine. He tells her, "[I] pulled it from the L4-L5 interspace. Cobalt chromium molybdenum alloy with a titanium coating and an ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene component. An artificial spinal disc. If you can recreate a spine, the possibilities are endless." Catherine needs a little clarification, as she thought disc-replacement surgery required fusing bone to bone. David explains, "Eh, typically, but it can limit mobility. Your body doesn't know the difference. Matches range of motion, flexibility, and an axial rotation of a normal spine." As he enumerates the benefits of an artificial disk, we see it in bloody action in a live spine with lots of moving vertebrae. David then reveals why we now know so much about this artificial disc: it's still in clinical trials, and there are fewer than a thousand in the country. Well, this narrows things down much more than the episiotomy scar did. David narrows it down even further based on the plate size and its lordosis (i.e. swayback, or inward curve) angle -- the implant belonged to one Amy Ennis of Austin, Texas.

And now Catherine, Nicky, and Sara are going to find out what Austin Amy was doing in a trash can off Storm Cloud Lane. Nicky's looking at a line of trash cans lined up along a suburban cul-de-sac and confirming that they're all the trashcans on Storm Cloud Lane. Sara asks, "They're on residential property, it's not trash day -- how did you get consent?" Catherine shrugs, "Talked to the president of the homeowner's association." Nicky, who's familiar with how Catherine talks to people, asks, "What'd you threaten her with?" Catherine replies, "A return visit." From the depths of the couch, Mr. Sobell opines, "I would like a return visit from Catherine. How's that supposed to be incentive to cooperate?" Within time-elapsed moments, the three of them have found five trash cans that test positive for blood. They swab the live areas, then test to see if they found human blood -- personally, I'm intrigued about the non-human blood, as I'd be wondering if the neighbors were sacrificing goats to the local slavering hellbeast. Two of the five trashcans test positive for human blood, and the CSIs quickly deduce which one held the body. Hint: it's the one with the big smear of blood down the side from the body's slide into the trash compactor.

Incidentally, if the monocle cobra is the culprit here, we would have seen some necrosis; it's commonly associated with envenomation (Reid, H.A.: "Cobra Bites." Brit Med Journal. 2:540, 1964). But I suppose we had to steer the plot away from rattlesnakes and toward a more neurotoxically likely suspect, so why not the cobra? And why not wrap up this plot? We're off to the deserted car dealership, where Gil is escorting a handcuffed Marty out of the office as he disgustedly invokes his snake-sitter's name. Gil asks, "Do you know what a syllogism is, Mr. Gibson?" Marty does not. Gil explains, "Syllogism -- Aristotelian logic. Two premises equal one conclusion -- A plus B equals C..." Marty gets it. Gil continues, "You're the snake guy, but you're also the goodwill guy who gets the coffee. So when someone gets poisoned with snake venom in their coffee...A plus B equals you." Marty's unrepentant: "I busted my ass on this floor so I can get a desk up there. And for what? So that Fred can make me his bitch?" Gil says incredulously, "So you kill him?" That's the long and short of it, yes. And now, Marty's loaded in the car, off to a place where he'd better hope those persuasive skills come in handy.

Back at the A-plot, Catherine's sitting in on Nora's surprising medical exam. We get the results a moment later when Sara shouts incredulously, "She's a virgin? What are we talking about, the immaculate conception?" Catherine replies, "More like the immaculate perception." Frankly, I'm less shocked by that than by the sight of Catherine -- or any other CSI -- reading a book for information as opposed to spouting it on the spot or invoking the Discovery Channel. Anyway, Catherine tells Sara, "Pseudocyesis -- imagined pregnancy." Sara's having trouble with this concept: "It's all in her head. Well, that would explain what she was doing in Dad's bed." Catherine is slowly beginning to realize that she may soon have to eat crow -- I wonder if they've got the one who found the eyeball hanging around, for a nice bit of symmetry? She tells Sara, "Fantasizing. Wow. 'When the desire to become pregnant is so strong, hormone levels can change, setting off all biological signs of pregnancy.'" And now the home pregnancy test Nicky commented on comes back to haunt us. Sara comments, "Kind of makes sense -- hormones travel the same channels as adrenaline." Catherine recites some of the symptoms: "Swollen abdomen, lack of menstruation, and sometimes, bilateral galactorrhea." God help me, I hear "bilateral galactorrhea" and I expect to see Dirk Benedict fighting the Cylons. Catherine notes that the breast milk leakage can be brought on by stress. Well, we saw Exhibit A a few scenes back. And then we get a computer simulation of how pseudocyesis works, but it's so patently cheesy that I refuse to deal with it. Sara remarks, "The father was clueless." Catherine adds, "About all the women in his life." Just then, a punching bag for the opposite sex comes in, in the form of Nicky. He's here to tell us that the bloodstained shirt they found is linked to both Nora and Kelly, and that Liam found Kelly's epithelials on the bracelet.