Hello, Siegfried. Hello, Roy. You must be thrilled to be featured in the establishing shot opening this week's episode. The shot in question shows daylight fading into night, just so we realize that bad things happen at night and a very specific crew of people will be called upon to deal with them.
The camera zooms into a neighborhood where a boy -- think Ali G, only without the funny -- is kissing his girlfriend goodnight before peeling off toward his car. As the boy walks past a modest tract home, we zoom in on the lit window and hear, "Turn it off! I'm not going to say it again." The "it" in question is one of those kill-'em-all games, and the boy playing it says, "Five more minutes and I'll be on level nine." "NOW!" bellows the dad in response, but before he can follow up on that line of discussion, his adorable, pink-pajama-clad daughter comes out and protests, "Dad! You said I could watch Nickelodeon!" He tells her, "You've watched enough TV for one night. It's time to go to bed." The daughter pulls a time-honored counterargument -- implying favoritism -- and protests, "How come he doesn't have to?" Dad lays down the smack: "Both of you! Bed! Now!" This is the point where the son is conveniently struck deaf, so Dad strides over and turns off the television. The boy protests, and prepares to shuffle off to bed, stopping first to grab his soda. Dad intercepts -- "You know how much sugar's in that thing?" -- and that's the moment the Cola Wars begin in earnest, with gunfire erupting and shooting out the windows. Dad tackles his boy and covers him with his own body. I have no idea what would be more terrifying: trying to protect your kid, or knowing that your parent is trying to protect you in the only way he can. The gunfire goes on for a very long time, and as it stops, Dad remembers that Aimee's been in her bedroom alone the whole time. He gets up, shouting her name.
Remember this moment, because it's about as good as you're going to feel through the rest of the episode. It's all downhill from here.
We see a jostling camera shot as Dad runs into Aimee's bedroom and sees the shot-out window and the feathers drifting down like rain. The camera switches perspective so all we see is the smoking pillow, stray feathers, and a small hand lying limply.
Cut to the requisite array of office vehicles, and Warrick greeting Gil with a curt "hey." Gil asks curiously, "Didn't you grow up in this neighborhood?" I realize that line may have just been an excuse for the ensuing exposition, but I like to think that at some point, Warrick and Gil had talked about Warrick's childhood. Anyway, Warrick says, "Yeah, not too far away. My grandmother still lives down the block. Lot of familiar faces." One of them shouts off-camera, "Hey, Brown, you gonna find the guy who did this?" Warrick replies, "We're gonna do our jobs." Then he and Gil go to meet Brass. Brass looks even more somber than usual as he introduces us to Victim #1, the boy who had been kissing his girlfriend goodnight ninety seconds ago: "Jason Gilbert, shot through and through. He's gonna be all right, though." Jason, as it turns out, has great reflexes and hit the ground the moment the shooting started. Unfortunately, it means he didn't see the car. Brass sighs and says, "Little girl inside wasn't so lucky -- Aimee Phelps, age nine." The camera zooms in on Warrick; he looks dismayed as he repeats, "Phelps?" Brass begins executing the solemn sworn duties of Captain Exposition, telling us, "Father operates a rec center down the block," but Warrick's already pushing past him. Gil looks a little nonplussed at this.
Warrick heads inside, where Phelps pere is sitting with his head bowed, choking back tears, and lays an arm across Phelps' shoulders, asking, "What happened, man?" Phelps looks up and says, "They killed my baby." Then he begins sobbing in earnest. Warrick says fervently, "I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. I got here as quick as I could. What happened?" As he's talking to Phelps, Gil drifts in, watching intently, his attention clearly torn between checking out the crime scene and trying to read the situation with Warrick. Phelps tells Warrick, "Cops said they were aiming at some white kid. I thought I was making a difference." He begins sobbing again as Warrick assures him, "You are making a difference. I'm living proof. I'm sorry." Gil takes this in as he checks out the bullet holes in the bookcase (where's there's a picture of Phelps with one of his kids as a baby). Warrick continues to pat Phelps on the back, then tracks what Gil's doing. Gil's peering more closely at the bullet holes; I suspect he's doing so both because he wants to get down to solving this and because he doesn't want to go anywhere near the Warrick/Phelps thing. We see Gil peer into a bullet hole, and the camera takes us on the TMI voyage that explains how it tore through the wall and into the pillow where, presumably, it then passed through Aimee's skull.
So Gil follows the path of the bullet to the doorway of Aimee's room and halts for a moment before kneeling beside the bed to inspect the body. We see that the bullet exited her neck and went through a wall on the opposite side of the room; the bullet hole is right above a shelf full of dolls. Warrick appears in the doorway, looks at Aimee for a moment, then takes out his gloves and sits on the bed. Gil finally gives Warrick his full attention as Warrick reaches out a bare hand to smooth down Aimee's hair. He watches Warrick grimace, then asks, "Are you going to be able to handle this?" Oh, Gil, I believe you're becoming more human every day. For one thing, you're picking up on the Earth emotion we call "grief." For another, you just let sentiment get in the way of the correct judgment call -- the minute you realized there was a connection between the victim and Warrick, you should have taken him off the case, as it would have been too easy for whomever the defendant's lawyer is to allege that Warrick's bias threw the case. Assuming Warrick's enough of a professional to handle this case is touching, but it's wrongheaded.
It's also plot fodder, so any intimation that Gil's made a bad management call goes by the wayside as Warrick replies, "I want this case."
Then we go to The Who, in one of the few instances where Gil doesn't get the last line before the credits.
After we're back from credits and commercials, Warrick and Gil are working the wrecked den. Warrick is telling Gil how Matt Phelps's house was broken into a week ago, and whoever did it took all his awards and medals; he adds bitterly that he hopes the items meant as much to the thief as they did to Phelps. Gil gets back to the case: "We're obviously looking for an automatic. The bullets went through the glass, shed their jackets, or disintegrated completely on impact with the wall. All we have left are lead cores, which are of no comparison value." Gil pauses, and the EMTs take that moment to wheel Aimee's body out. Gil watches the body go and says, "The only bullet that may help us is inside that little girl."
And on that cheery note, we go to Nicky and Vega heading inside an office park. See, I told you this episode would be sad. Nicky says, "HyperTrix? Sounds like a breakfast cereal." Yeah, the breakfast of tweakers. Vega says, "Some internet service thing. I stopped thinking about that stuff when I found out my NASDAQ fund was worth less than my son's comic book collection." And this is why you should diversify into money markets, government bonds, and blue-chip stocks, as opposed to trying to ride out a bubble. Nicky then says, "Dot com, dot bomb." Oh, har dee har. Like he wasn't crying in his HyperTrix back in 1997 when he saw those jackballs from TheGlobe.com rolling around on piles of fresh new paper millions. Vega gets back to the case at hand, telling us that the dead body in question is in a restricted area. Nicky and Vega then head into the office building.
Cut to them walking into an all-white office; it's like seeing The Prisoner. Who is Number One? You are, Nicky. As they walk by a sulky and intense guy clad in all-black, Vega explains that the night shift started at 6 PM. We then pass a girl who's doing her darnedest to channel a riot nrrd version of Bjork circa 1997 and a guy who looks like Artie, the World's Strongest Man, while Nicky continues expositing something that more or less tells us we've met our leading suspects. Then the two guys head into the server room, where Emergency Backup David is crouching among the backup disks. Everybody shudders as the folks at home all learn that thanks to the immense heat servers generate, a server room has to remain quite cool; Nicky says, "Most computers dissipate over two-thirds of the energy they use as heat. The AC's for them, not the worker bees." I wonder if he got that off TechTV. Vega could not care less. He rattles off, "The victim's name is Garrett Kwan. Job title: CTO." Nicky shoots back, "Chief technology officer. T.O.D.?" Emergency Backup David pulls out the meat thermometer and notes, "Ambient here's about 65 degrees, which makes core temp drop roughly two degrees per hour. Figure he's been dead...five to seven hours?" The 86.5 degree temperature would seem to bear that out. Nicky leans in to get a better look at the B-plot: Kwan died from a blow to the head, and there's minimum seepage. We also learn that the paramedics rolled him, as Kwan was found facedown with his head toward the server rack. Nicky and Vega banter over possible egress routes and places to hide a weapon, and then Nicky says, "One dead boss. Three live employees. I like the odds."
Back at the A-plot, Brass is outside with Warrick. As Warrick lays down evidence tags, Brass tells him, "So, Jason Gilbert, the kid who was shot? Wasn't too popular in the neighborhood. Just in a fight last week down the street." Warrick's all, "You saw his girl. She was hot. They were probably macking on her." He and Brass then figure out where the vehicle went and where it was going when its occupant(s) began shooting, aided by an upended mailbox. Brass deadpans, "It's a federal offense to mess with the postal service." Warrick notes that the vehicle took the corner quite hard, and then he rights the mailbox. Brass asks, "Doesn't that dent look high to you? Like a truck or an SUV?" Warrick gives his surprised assent, and Brass cracks, "I'm not just another pretty face, you know." Warrick notices silver paint transfer, but before we can get into that too closely, a deputy comes over and tells them that a guy was brandishing an automatic weapon over at P.J.'s Tavern a few blocks away; he's currently being held at the site.
Just like that, we're over at P.J's, where the owner is angrily telling a cop, "This guy's a punk." Brass tells him to start over at the top. He does: "This guy's no good. Every time he's been in here before, there's been trouble. So this time, I exercised my right not to serve him. You know what the little freak does? Lifts up his jacket and shows me a piece. I tell him to take a hike...hey! Are you listening to me or are you flashing back to your youth?" Oh, he does not ask that -- but we get a shot of the defiant punk glaring in recognition at Warrick and Warrick staring back with beleaguered intensity. We hear the barkeep saying, all echo-y, "He proceeded to tell me to watch my back because it wouldn't be the first time that night he killed somebody." Warrick says, "Jay...Jaycobs?" The barkeep corrects him, "No, it's Gene Jaycobs." Warrick helpfully tells us that Gene is former classmate of his who got kicked out of school. Brass says dryly, "Let's see what the lad has to say for himself." Nothing that can be repeated on primetime television without a lot of bleeping, I bet. Then Brass proceeds to channel his inner homey: "Hey, Gene, what it is! Uncuff him!" Warrick looks on with trepidation. I don't blame him; I'd probably have the same expression if I ran into most of my schoolmates. Actually, Warrick walks over to Gene, who immediately asks, "Do I know you?" Warrick says, "Put your hands out in front of you." Gene asks, "Oh, it's like that, huh?" Apparently it is, as Warrick fails to say, "You're right -- how wrong of me to not 'keep it real.' You're free to go." Instead, he checks Gene's hands for GSR and says, "I could process this now; it would tell me if you fired a gun within the last few hours. But I'm going to take this back to the lab, make you sweat it out." Something tells me Gene never signed Warrick's yearbook, "BFF!!!!" Brass picks that moment to drolly comment, "Officer, I think someone needs their cuffs put back on." Warrick continues to stare for a while, an activity that has all sorts of aesthetic merits, so far as I'm concerned.
Cut to HyperTrix, where Artie, the World's Strongest Man, is busy practicing for his interrogation by coolly smirking and saying, "I know what that is. You're checking me for blood spatter. I watch the Discovery Channel. I found the body, I called the police. Not too smart if I'm the one who killed the guy." You know, if the guy really watched the Discovery Channel, he'd know that the killer often is the one to call in the crime, the better to set themselves up as a well-intentioned innocent. Anyway. Satisfied with his delivery, Artie pops his head up over his Krebstar cubicle in the motion we at my first software start-up used to call The Prairie Dog, peers over at Nicky and Vega, then sits down to run through his patter one more time. Nicky and Vega come over then, and Nicky asks Artie, the World's Strongest Man, to stand up. Artie does so, takes a deep cleansing breath, and says haltingly, "I know what [gulp] that is. I know what that is. You're checking me for blood spatter. I watch the Discovery Channel." Nicky looks affronted at this. Artie, the World's Strongest Man, continues as Nicky continues scanning him, "I...I found the body, I called the police, nottoosmartifI'mtheonewhokilledtheguy." Vega says dryly, "Thanks for pointing that out." They then head into a discussion of Kwan's last minutes and Artie, the World's Strongest Man, says bitterly, "I didn't see him. Not tonight. I was working my way to carpal tunnel syndrome." You'd think a fancy start-up like that could afford Aeron chairs. Well, actually, they can, but they're not good enough for Artie, the World's Strongest Man. Nicky gives Artie, the World's Strongest Man, a level look, and he takes that as the fuzz putting on the heat, or something, and says all defensively, "It's not like my office has a view of the door. You should be talking to Charlie! Charlie has the good view." Nicky says, "Charlie?" and we follow Artie's finger to an empty workstation. Artie says shamefacedly, "Yeah, okay. Charlie doesn't work here anymore. That...[little tiny voice] doesn't really help you at all." Nicky asks Artie, the World's Strongest Man, to hold out his hands.
And now we're on tiresome employee #2, and I've figured out what bothers me so much about this setting: it's too aseptic and dumb. Where are the stacks of O'Reilly books? Where are the whiteboards where people have been diagramming program flows or grep statement syntaxes? Where are the life-sized cardboard cutouts of Claudia Christian and Sarah Michelle Gellar, where is the requisite artistically mangled Microsoft object, where are the pyramids of Jolt cola cans? Why is it so quiet -- why is someone not playing Rush, or Beck, or algorhythmically-generated trance? It's like someone grew these alleged high-tech types in a vacuum tube instead of checking out the native habitat of geeks. Sulky Black-Clad Guy is all, "I didn't see a thing: link, compile, debug. All night. The work absorbs me." Nicky's not too impressed, as he knows from absorbed workers, what with Gil and Sara back at the office. Sulky Black-Clad Guy is all, "My code monitors internet traffic and server load." He says that like it's something remarkable, and yet I spent ten hours at a trade show last month looking at five products that do the exact same thing. The real genius isn't in the functionality -- anyone can access HTTP requests on a server -- but in the interface for managing the traffic loads. Nicky, however, is getting all meta: "So you make your computer watch other computers that...other people are watching?" No, he's probably making sure some teenage wannabe 3l33t isn't trying to use his server as a mule for moving warez, but that's not nearly so cool and symbolic as the "who watches the watchman?" theme they're developing in this plot. Sulky Black-Clad Guy's all, "You can't see the beauty in data flow. Doesn't mean it doesn't exist." You just know this guy gets his kicks by pretending he's Neo in The Matrix. Vega asks what Sulky Black-Clad Guy's relationship to Kwan was, and in a nice moment of start-up verisimilitude, Sulky Black-Clad Guy says, "I'm employee #7. Kwan was employee #6." We then establish that Kwan and Sulky Black-Clad Guy had something of an intellectual rivalry going on.
Fortunately, there's nothing too mentally taxing about employee #3, Miss 1997. She deadpans, "You know, they confiscated all my murder weapons when I left Microsoft." She doesn't look like she has enough Gore-Tex or Polar Tec in her wardrobe to have been hired at Microsoft; I worked up on the Redmond campus for a few weeks during the summer of 1997, and it was pretty obvious REI was right down the road. This girl is working the clunky-shoed pro-sex kitten thing that swept the West Coast like a virus during the late nineties. Nicky comments appreciatively, "Yeah, you don't exactly fit the corporate image." She shoots back, "Well, it's my image. The company doesn't get a say in it." Vega takes in her work area -- which actually shows bona fide start-up personality and detritus -- and comments that it looks like Miss Thang gets special treatment. She explains, "I earn it. I optimize net infrastructure, incorporate buzzwords, do things that are generally derided in the latest IBM ad campaign, and skip around the technical details so actual geeks can't chortle at my claims that I'm all that and a bag of chips." Or maybe she stops before the buzzwords part. Anyway, Miss Thang brags about her five-figure bonus as Nicky swabs her hand. He fails to look impressed. She adds, "And, yes, I did see Garrett go into the server farm around six, six-thirty." Nicky says, "So, your boss is laying there dead for five and a half hours plus, and you never even notice he's gone." Miss Thang defends herself with, "Nobody else did, either." The sad thing is, I can totally buy that. There's a little bit of attitude-slinging that more or less leaves the viewer with the impression that all those dot-com brats got what was coming to them, and then we're out of the B-plot for a while and back to the downer A-plot.
More specifically, we're with David The Extremely Somber Coroner and Gil; David's telling Gil, "Bullet entered through the throat, severing the spinal column. C2's adjacent to the brain stem. Sever that, respiration shuts down, resulting in almost immediate death." David then picks up the bullet for inspection and shows Gil the wood splinters embedded in the jacket; Gil points out that the bullet did go through a bookcase. We establish that the bullet is a 9MM. Gil quietly thanks David, picks up the bullet, and heads into the ballistics lab. Bobby greets him, and Warrick wanders over to watch as Bobby begins processing the bullet. Gil gives Warrick a concerned look. Bobby then announces that they have a match 'twixt bullet and gun. Gil asks, "You're sure?" Bobby's sure. Warrick says with no small amount of vengeful satisfaction, "We got him!" Gil looks at Bobby, then back at Warrick, finally realizing that he may have misread how Warrick would have handled this case.
Meanwhile, Brass is busy talking to Gene. They go back and forth for a while on why Gene shot at Jason Gilbert; Gene claims to have no idea who Jason is, and that he didn't shoot anyone. Brass counters that according to Jason's lady friend, Gene was her personal almost-stalker. Gene assesses her credibility ("lying bitch!") and then claims he found that gun, it was jammed, and he cleared it. Brass shouts, "You cleared it all right -- right into Mr. Phelps's home!" You know, just once, I'd like Brass to pull this act in an interrogation and actually be right, as opposed to wasting his time and ours. Anyway, we establish that Gene actually threatened the bartender with an empty gun. When Brass questions the efficacy of such a tactic, Gene reasonably points out that the bartender didn't know it was empty. He then says he can point out where he found the gun -- back of Washington Avenue, to a big yellow dumpster. From behind the one-way mirror, Warrick snorts, "Oh, come on. That's it? That's his genius story?" Beside him, Gil points out, "We only found a small amount of GSR on his hands. Could have been transfer from just picking up the murder weapon." Warrick ignores this and insists that Gene's lying, and Gil gives him another assessing, worried look.
Within minutes, we're at Gene's place, where we discover he's been sidelining as an electronics reseller, cutting out such overhead as rent for a commercial space or actual payment to the manufacturers of said electronics and passing the savings on to his customers. Gil deadpans to Warrick, "Well, either he's buying in bulk, or that stuff's hot." Warrick reports that he didn't find any guns or ammo inside, but he did get Gene's car keys. It's all rainy and atmospheric in this scene -- either this version of Vegas gets a lot of rain, or all the episodes take place on the handful of days it rains annually -- and the two CSIs head down to search Gene's car. Gil opens the door, peers inside, and announces, "I'm afraid the only bullets in here are silver bullets." Warrick says he may have something -- the silver car has a dent in the bumper, and Warrick's thinking it took out the mailbox. I thought the height more or less eliminated low-slung vehicles like Gene's, but these guys won't come to that conclusion 'til much later in the episode. Gil asks if there's any paint transfer. "Nothing visible," Warrick admits. Gil looks troubled, but says, "Call auto detail. We'll tow it back to the lab." Watching him react to Warrick in this episode is absolutely fascinating; it's almost worth having no actual science to see the way the characters are being developed.
Speaking of character development, it's Nicky and Emergency Backup David, both behaving competently. Naturally, they're nowhere near their bosses or coworkers. Emergency Backup David's doing Kwan's autopsy, explaining that whatever killed Kwan did so with a strong blow to the parietal bone: "Based on the fracture pattern," I'd say it was a single strike to the head." "That explains the lack of spatter at the scene," Nicky says. "First hit's free," Emergency Backup David says in an uncanny imitation of his boss. "Killer knew what he was doing," concludes Nicky. Emergency Backup David then whips out the piece of black plastic he found in the wound, and Nicky gets excited over the possibility of transfer from the murder weapon.
After a pan across Vegas's sprawling suburbs, we see children playing happily; this is our cue that we're at the rec center. Warrick's walking over to talk to Phelps, who's busy cleaning graffiti off the side of his building. Where is his son? This poor kid has the most miserable night of his life, and then effectively drops out of sight, out of mind. Phelps turns around and says intensely, "I heard you got the shooter." Warrick says slowly and uncomfortably, "It's not that simple." "You think it's him?" Phelps insists. Warrick tries to make it somewhat better by assuring Phelps that they've got their guys on it; Phelps says somewhat bitterly, "Yeah," then resumes trying to clean his wall. Warrick watches a juvenile football team go jogging by and grasps for a neutral subject: "You still using those same old uniforms?" Phelps replies, "That stuff's expensive, man." Warrick's aware of that. Phelps continues, "But we managed to get the basketball court tarmacked, thanks to contributions from folks like you." Insert your own joke about the real reason for Warrick's gambling here. He only says, "I ain't stupid. I know where I came from. I wouldn't be anywhere if it weren't for this place." It's lines like that which make me suspect that the rec center's going to tragically burn to the ground before the end of the episode. Phelps points out, "You was [sic] always going places. You just lacked discipline." "Still do," Warrick admits. He then looks at the wall and notes that he doesn't recognize the ugly-ass gang symbol. Phelps says wearily, "It's hard to keep up with it all. I just don't know anymore, what with all the break-ins --" "Break-ins?" Warrick asks. You'd think he'd know -- that sort of stuff would at least make the local section of any paper that had a decent crime beat reporter. It's a story that practically writes itself: "Struggling Community Center Robbed By Those It Serves." Anyway, Phelps provides a plot point when he says, "The rec center van was stolen a few days ago. How am I going to tell those kids that they can't play in the semifinals 'cause I got no way of getting them there?" I commend Phelps's dedication, but I can't help but wonder if he shouldn't have other things -- like taking care of his boy -- on his mind right now. Anyway, Warrick says, "I'll look into it, all right? We'll get 'em there." Phelps nods. We then find out that Aimee's funeral service is Wednesday. Warrick looks miserable, and he says, "If there's anything I can do --" Phelps leans in and says intensely, "Just get me five minutes alone with the shooter. Just five minutes. I know it's not going to bring Aimee back, but I can't sleep at night knowing that he's still breathing out there. Can you?" Warrick's saved by the cell; it's Gil, calling with the news that Gene has an alibi. Looking beleaguered, Warrick goes off to find out what the hell happened.
Unfortunately, Warrick's decided to bring Matt with him back to the Labitrail. As they walk through the hall, Phelps is telling him he hasn't slept in days. Gil comes over and, ever the soul of cordiality, says, "Mr. Phelps, it's good to see you again. Would you excuse us a moment?" He pulls Warrick aside to ask what Phelps is doing here, and Warrick replies, "If Jaycobs is going to slip through our fingers, I need someone else to explain to him what went wrong." Couldn't Warrick have called ahead on that? Gil says somberly, "This was not a good idea." Warrick ducks the discussion by checking out the piece of work that comprises Jaycobs's alibi -- "clothes he slept in, bloodshot eyes. The guy's a junkie, Grissom!" You know, over in Nicky's plotline, someone like that would be called "employee #5." Anyway, Gil points out that David Artiss (the guy in question) can back up Gene's story about finding the gun and waving it around the bar, and Brass overrides the rest of Warrick's objections by coming over and saying that the DA's weighed in on this, and since the alibi was just corroborated by someone who saw those two men at the Sports Chalet equipment emporium a half hour before the house was shot up, "the DA decided not to file charges. Says he didn't want the clock to tick." Warrick's thisclose to losing it as he sputters, "Easy as this, he walks!" Brass displays extraordinarily good management skillz when he says, "Look at it this way: you have more time to build your case," but before Warrick calms down, there's a scene where Gene comes out and heads down the hall as Mr. Phelps charges for him, shouting, "Why are they letting him go? Why are they letting him go?" Gene makes a few mocking gestures -- nothing says class like taunting the bereaved -- and Warrick intercepts. As the scene winds down, Gil looks about as upset as he ever does. It's hard to tell what's got him more wound up: the emotional scene he just witnessed, or the realization that it's his protégé who caused it. As Warrick walks Phelps away, Brass tells Gil that Gene is going into protective custody "to avoid repercussions in the community." He then asks Gil, "Where are we going to put Warrick?" Gil looks back at him, troubled.
Archie, on the other hand, is extremely untroubled. He comes bouncing into the Labitrail holding an evidence box and burbling, "That was a cool-looking office! It was kind of fun being out in the field -- pulling drives, collecting evidence, flashing ID. I think I've got a flair for it." Yes, Archie. You do. Nobody as pretty as you should be locked in the Labitrail all day -- the LVPD would be doing a public service by turning you loose onto the world. Nicky's all, "You bucking for a promotion?" Archie grins and says, "Not bucking. Nudging." He then changes the subject: "You know people put their lives on these hard drives?" "Yeah, that's what I'm counting on," Nicky replies.
Cut to Archie daisy-chaining a dozen drives together by their USB ports -- I hope for his sake that they're equipped with USB 2.0, or it's a very slow process to move data indeed. Nicky, meanwhile, is sitting in front of a 15" Titanium G4 PowerBook, yet clicking his stylus around a non-Mac compatible Windows OS PDA. What he sees -- provocative pictures of Miss Thang, a.k.a. Serena -- prompts him to share with Archie. Archie expresses his appreciation of this deed by grinning widely and saying, "Serena can defrag my hard drive any time." Personally, I would have gone with "she can mount my hard drive any time." Nicky laughs.
And then he gets all serious in the scene as he hands the pictures over to Serena and asks, "Are these business emails? I'm a little confused." Serena looks through the photos and says hastily, "This is actually harmless fun so..." So now it's time for Vega to jump in: "Court documents -- Garrett Kwan was suing you for sexual harassment." Boy, that must have made for a fun workplace. Serena cops an attitude and asks, "Are you familiar with the term 'spurious'?" As the camera pulls back, revealing Serena's miniskirt and white thigh-high stockings with black borders -- oh so chic back in 1994 -- Vega shoots back, "Are you familiar with the term 'murder suspect'?" Serena looks at Nicky, who stares back impassively. This prompts her to sputter defensively, "I was just trying to let him know that I was available. Low-key, okay?" The mind boggles upon contemplating an aggressive pass from Serena. According to her, Kwan freaked, figured it was entrapment, and so he slapped a preemptive suit on her. "It's called a scare tactic," she informs them. Nicky mildly asks, "Scared to lose your job? Your five-figure bonus?" Vega then pushes it too far with, "Scared enough to kill?" Serena protests, "I was flirting with the guy. I will email you with the number for my lawyer." Then she stomps off, leaving a bemused Nicky sitting there and contemplating the strange ways of these internet people.
Warrick, meanwhile, is contemplating Gene's car, looking for something, anything to connect him to Aimee's death. Is it just me, or did this change from the car Gil was in? I'm a little confused. Anyway, he finds all of Matt Phelps's stolen awards in the van, and promptly takes them to Gil, angrily announcing that Gene has been in Phelps' house. Gil listens for a moment, then points out, "If this is evidence, it needs to be tagged and catalogued." Warrick shoots back, "This is the same guy who shot Matt's daughter in the head, and he's walking around, laughing at us." "Can you prove that?" Gil presses. Warrick gestures angrily to the awards and asks loudly, "What is this? I've been putting away guys like this for years, and now that it matters, it's like you're holding me back here." The raised voice is beginning to attract attention; we see Liam The Lab Tech hovering in a nearby doorway, warily watching, and a non-lab type stops in the hall to listen. Gil reminds him, "Your job, Warrick, is to process evidence, objectively, and without prejudice." Warrick dismisses Gil with, "I'm so tired of hearing that!" What? It's not like Gil's been harping on that during this episode at all.
However, having already leaped off the cliff, Warrick decides to go out in style with, "I've heard it a million times! I can't be like you! I'm not a robot, okay?" Gil looks genuinely wounded. Warrick keeps going, "I actually care about these people!" Cue Jacqui the fingerprint tech from a few episodes back leaning over to watch the fireworks. Gil struggles to grasp the right words for a moment, then recovers his cool enough to say, "You know what? You're not working this case anymore. I'll have another assignment for you tomorrow." Cut to Bob the ballistics tech watching in gape-mouthed trepidation. Damn -- when the Labitrail become the Panopticon? Nobody's got any privacy. Warrick tells Gil angrily to stuff his lab assignment, storms out of the lab, slams into some poor, hapless, nameless cart-wielding lab flunky, then stalks off past his shocked coworkers. Everyone immediately finds something interesting around the vicinity of their shoelaces. Gil looks furious as he watches Warrick go, then looks around. Cut to people doing guilty double-takes. He asks Bobby shortly, "Where were we." "At a dead end," Bobby says apologetically. "Go back to work," Gil commands. Everyone does.
Off in the rainbows-and-kittens portion of the Labitrail, where news of the confrontation has not yet spread, Nicky's walking down the hall toward the Geek Cave. He's waylaid by Liam. Now that I can get a better look at Liam, I just have to ask: Is he taking his hairstyling clues from the blokes on Manchester United? Anyway, Liam's all, "Hey, Stokes. We gotta talk." Nicky plows on and asks about the plastic scraping, and Liam tells him it's a very common plastic indeed, P.E.T., used in everything from garbage bags to floppy disks. Nicky thanks him, and Liam says, "That's not what I wanted to talk about." Nicky's all ears. Liam makes the head-jerking, let's-pretend-we-have-privacy movement, and the impish music starts up, so you know this is supposed to be all lighthearted, as opposed to the Sturm und Drang we witnessed a few minutes ago.
Nicky smiles and follows Liam into his little lair, and Liam leans in to say, "I thought we had a relationship. What are you doing taking Archie out into the field instead of me?" Nicky grins and replies, "It's the right tool for the right job, man. You have to understand the world you're investigating." Liam gives him an oh, yeah? look, and Nicky soothes his skepticism with a demonstration: "Hey Archie? What's that Star Trek episode where that guy's got that forehead thingy and the time portal?" Archie promptly asks for clarification: "In classic, TNG, DS9, Voyager or Enterprise?" Nicky turns back to Liam with a told you so look, and Liam says flatly, "Point taken." Archie pipes up again, "Or were you thinking about Farscape?" "I have no idea what you were talking about," Nicky admits. Archie shrugs it off, then tells Nicky he's got something to show him. Both men peer down at the iBook on Archie's desk, which shows a blow-'em-up not unlike Marathon -- or, as Archie says, an "FRPG, a fantasy role-playing game. See, players use avatars to represent themselves in a fantasy world." In Nicky's FRPG, it's Day of Justice, and he's got the smartest, handsomest, rightest avatar. There, I said it, we can all move on. Anyway, this particular game features troublesome employees one through three -- Kwan is hanging with Artie, the World's Strongest Man, and Serena, creating a little portal-like thing through which Sulky Black-Clad Guy emerges as the judge on Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law and decapitates Kwan. After Nicky takes all that in, he says to Archie, "You know a lot about this stuff." Archie nods. Nicky replies, "You gotta get a girlfriend." Archie shoots back, "You should see my FRPG, big guy." Oh, he does not. He tells Nicky to go first.
Cut to Mister What-is-the-Matrix claiming that his FRPG is merely "a game, an entertainment." Nicky unfortunately replies, "Nah, it's more like a place where you can play God, right?" No, that would be The Sims. Nicky speculates that the FRPG reflects the way Sulky Black-Clad Guy really wishes he could treat his coworkers. Vega ruins the moment by stating flatly, "But virtual murder's not nearly so satisfying as the real thing, is it?" Nicky notes that Sulky Black-Clad Guy looks a little uncomfortable, to which he replies that the office is always uncomfortable, due to the ventilation set-up. Sulky Black-Clad Guy tells Nicky, "I put Kwan in my game because I was upset...I was designing characters for a new multi-player sim...on company time. Kwan found out somehow. [The] man always seemed to be one step ahead of his underlings." Nicky asks how this is possible, because he wants to take this knowledge back to the lab for his own use. Sulky Black-Clad Guy replies, "If I'd have known that, he would have been working for me. In this instance, he informed the board. Unauthorized use of bandwidth. Nearly got me fired." Kwan is a jerk and a bad manager -- there's an issue with using company time to do personal work, but there's no need to tattle to the board. Sulky Black-Clad Guy finishes by saying that he didn't kill Snitch #6, but he's glad the guy is gone.
Cue the percussion and the harmonizing voices as we zoom back to Warrick's old neighborhood. Gil pops out of a yellow dumpster -- it's Whack-a-CSI! -- and hops down to the pavement with surprising lightness. A police car pulls up, and Gil asks the officers what's going on. We get all a cappella for a moment, and then we get a demonstration of how low-income, high-crime neighborhoods get and stay that way as the officer lackadaisically replies, "Possible burglary. Homeowners on vacation, neighbors called it in last night. We're only getting around to it now." The cops decide they're going to have to climb over the high cinderblock wall, but Gil finds a gate by the side, opens it up, and then opens the garage door for the fuzz. The a cappella continues (I think the percussion line is human; I used to work with an a cappella producer, and her recordings used to feature a similar sound), Gil smirks as the officers make their subdued way inside. Yup, it's a burglary. Gil notes that one of the spears on top of the garage gate is bent down, and suddenly imagines that a gun flying through the air might just do that. Gene's story is looking more plausible by the minute, especially after Gil sees a round of 9MM ammo laying in the dirt.
Cut to Gil slapping something down on the table in front of Jacqui. "Stovepipe, jammed in our murder weapon. Never exposed to the heat." Jacqui asks, "And you're thinking there might be a recoverable print." Gil nods. Jacqui shoots back, "Dare to dream." Yeah, there are no offers for Gil to go get a beer with her. Come to think of it, there are no women in this episode either, aside from her and Serena. Who wrote this one -- Racoona Sheldon?
Nicky, meanwhile, is going through Garrett's stuff, where we find out that a) Kwan had written a client-side spy program, b) installed it on everyone's computer, c) made backups of their activities nightly, and d) stored the backups on labeled CDs in his desk. Frankly, I'm shocked nobody found out -- there were no employees wandering around after hours "casually" glancing at people's desks and trying to figure out what was on them? Nicky makes the inevitable comparison between computer-monitoring software and Big Brother, and Archie replies, "Company owns a network, company owns what's on it. Sick, but legal." Well, yeah -- it all depends on what rights you sign away when you take the job. Nicky says, "Knowledge is power...Kwan made a new one of these every night. This [disc] was made the night of the murder. If we find out who was away from their desk at the time of his death, we've got our killer." Unfortunately, Archie discovers, "Based on those time stamps, everybody in that office was working when Garrett Kwan was killed." Nicky visibly deflates.
Back in the A-plot, Warrick leaves the Labitrail and enters Bad Idea Country as he calls ADA Kelly's office, gets an assistant, and weasels the address Gene is staying at from him or her by claiming, "I have Gene Jaycobs's personal belongings and I need to get them returned to him...I need his relocated address...yeah, I know it's not standard procedure, but I missed him at lockup and I'm going to be in hot water if I don't get this stuff back to him."
Venturing further into Bad Idea Country, Warrick enters the motel where Gene is staying and knocks on a door. Gene comes out. Warrick says, "It's just me. Nobody here, I got no heater." Gene cops an attitude as he says, "What can I do for you, Mister Brown?" He can stand there as Warrick says, "I just thought I'd come and let you know we're going to get you for robbery, if not murder. By the time you get to lockup, every roughneck in the joint is going to know you offed a nine-year-old little girl." Gene finds this hilarious. He finally says, "You know, in school, you were a nerd, Brown. You were, remember? Every kid there used to beat your ass. Thick glasses, hand-me-down clothes, always with a book in your hand, like you were better than everybody else. Nigga, I ain't scared of you." Spoken like someone who peaked in sixth grade. Warrick gives Gene a long, level look, backs up, and dares Gene to bring it on by saying, "Wanna step outside then?" Gene scoffs and slams the door.
Well, someone got Gene to step outside, because the shot is of his pulverized face in a hospital bed as a doctor recites, "Fractured nasal bone, fractured right zygomatic arch extending into the maxilla. Fracture of the right anterior ribs..." Brass begins talking over him as he calls ADA Kelly's office. He takes a moment to mention that the motel manager called in the beatdown, and there was no weapon at the scene. The doctor says, "Thank God his assailant only used his fists. Given the severity of force, anything else would have killed him." Brass thanks the doctor and then prepares to tear the ADA a new one, pointing out that only two people were supposed to know where Gene was, but evidently, word got around.
Word then gets to Gil, who slaps a pile of photos -- all of which detail Gene's macerated face -- in front of Warrick and gives him an angry, distrustful look. Warrick looks dismayed, then asks, "What, you think I did this?" Gil's already read Warrick's face, but he says pointedly, "I don't jump to conclusions." Warrick says that he didn't, then loses whatever ground he may have gained by adding, "I'd like to shake the hand of the guy that did, though." That hand's probably still packed in ice, Warrick. Gil hands across a folder and says, "Well, you may get a chance. [It's] your new assignment. Check out the pattern in the center of this contusion; it's probative." Warrick begins looking.
Back on the farm -- the server farm, that is -- Nicky's looking around with Vega and brainstorming, "No suspect, no motive, no weapon." Vega shows his deductive chops by pointing out, "You just don't spontaneously develop a head wound. Somebody had to kill him." Nicky muses, "A guy goes into a room with no windows and no doors -- how does he get out." I seem to remember the answer to this being, "He brings an egret, because eventually its mate, the egress, comes along, and you use that to escape," but that seems a little too cute for this scenario. Vega admits he doesn't know the answer, and Nicky smiles a little before replying, "Same way he got in. There is one thing that comes in and goes out of here all the time." He then looks up at the air-conditioning vent. The shot is of Nicky peering up into the duct and saying, "Black P.E.T. as far as the eye can see -- and a possible transfer."
Would that Warrick were having as easy a time of it; he's in Phelps's house, asking, "Where were you last night?" Phelps claims he was home, and Warrick follows up uncomfortably, "I'm going to need to see your hands." Phelps stares at him. At that moment, his son finally emerges and calls for his dad, just to amp up the pathos, and Phelps calls back, "Trav, go to your room." Wow, is this scene uncomfortable. Major props to the actors for the way they play it. Warrick checks the hands, and unfortunately, the ring Phelps is wearing matches the probative pattern Gil pointed out earlier. Wow, that's unfortunate. It also raises the question of why Phelps didn't take off the ring and flush it down the toilet; he had to have known it might have incriminated him. Warrick gives Phelps an unhappy look and he argues, "Look, you went there too. That's how I knew where to go." "But I never touched the guy," counters Warrick, conveniently forgetting how his conversation with Gene ended. "He didn't kill your daughter!" shouts Phelps. Warrick says more angrily, "If he's guilty, then we'll put him away." Phelps expresses his doubts vis-à-vis the efficacy of the judicial system and concludes, "You wait ten years for somebody else's definition of justice, and they always put the criminal's rights before the victim's. The first good night of sleep I had was last night." Warrick looks anguished, and then he swings back to angry, saying, "Eye for an eye and the whole world goes blind. You taught me that!" Phelps is unrepentant: "Well, my perspective has changed. Aimee's dead." Warrick deflates, and he's near tears as he says, "I've got no choice here. My hands are tied. I gotta let them bring you in." Phelps gives him one last look, the music swells dramatically, and a few uniforms enter to cuff Phelps and take him away past the crowd of people surrounding his house. As he goes, his son starts toward him -- you know, I know it's all heart-tugging and dramatic, but given that his daughter was recently killed and he's a prominent community figure who's undoubtedly touched the lives of lots of people like Warrick, you'd think he'd have more people rallying behind him and taking care of his son so the kid's not left in the care of child services -- and Phelps calls out that it's going to be okay, and he loves his boy. Then maybe he should have thought about how his actions concerning his dead child affect the living one. Phelps turns to Warrick and says, "Make sure they take care of him, all right?" Warrick assures Phelps that he will. More poignant music, the camera zooming in on Warrick's desolate face, the crowd gradually dispersing. A deputy picks this convenient moment to come by and tell Warrick they've found the stolen rec center van.
What do you know? The van is silver, and it's got a lot of spent ammo in the back. Gil notes the blue paint transfer on the bumper. Warrick gives him a truly beleaguered look. Gil continues implacably, "I found a 9MM cartridge in the backyard of the house a few doors down from where Jaycobs said he found the gun, a house that had been broken into? You said he was a thief, right?" Warrick confirms this. Gil says, "See, I think he lied about where he found the gun so we wouldn't know he was breaking into houses. Apart from that, I think he was telling the truth." Cut to a shot of Jaycobs conducting a break-in when, from his perspective, the Firearm Fairy delivers an automatic to him. Back in the present, Warrick nods in understanding, so Gil jerks his head toward the bumper and asks, "Shall we?" The a cappella kicks in again as he scrapes the paint transfer on the bumper. Warrick, meanwhile, finds the fuzzy end of a lollipop wedged under the brake pedal. He call for Gil and explains, "Matt used to have this really harsh rule about no eating in the van," effectively telling all of us that the DNA of the shooter will probably be on the stick.
Wrapping up the B-plot, in sad denouement #1, Vega and Nicky stop by the maintenance room where Hugo Karlin, the general maintenance guy, is working in a duct. To make a long and sad scene short for my benefit, if not yours: he was working in the shaft above Kwan, his hammer dropped and hit Kwan on the head, he used a pinching tool to retrieve it, then retreated, scared out of his mind. Karlin explains that he didn't say anything to anyone about this because "people never notice me when I'm around here, and I figured if I covered my tracks, this time wouldn't be any different." Wrong. People now notice Karlin for sure, especially since Nicky and Vega apparently take the long way around to the squad car so poor Karlin -- whose only real crime was not calling 911 and explaining immediately what happened -- can be paraded past all of Kwan's former coworkers.
Cut to Liam making time with a cute little (female) lab tech. It's good to see he's doused the torch he holds for Sara and moved on. Gil calls for Liam and asks, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?" Liam turns back to the tech and says blithely, "The world may never know." She giggles some more until she catches sight of Gil. Gil, surprisingly, looks almost amused. Warrick asks Liam to just try to get some DNA off the stick, and Liam, watching his paramour saunter off, says, "All work and no play makes Liam a dull boy." Gil motivates him by pointing out, "All play and no work makes Liam an unemployed boy." Oh, smacking down Liam never gets old, does it, Gil? Just then Jacqui appears to tell Gil she's got a print for him.
In her lab area, she explains that she pulled a good-sized thumbprint, and Warrick reads AFIS over her shoulder, "Tyrell Constantine. Arrested last June for joyriding. Date of birth...'87?" This guy's a juvie. He's only fifteen." Gil checks Warrick's reaction as Warrick heads off.
Within seconds, Tyrell has been apprehended and is having a frank exchange of opinions with Brass; Brass's opinion is that Tyrell is as guilty as the day is long, while Tyrell is of the opinion that he didn't shoot anyone. He demands, "Who says I shot someone?" and Gil replies, "That would be me." Heh.
Meanwhile, Warrick is talking to an orange-jumpsuit-clad Phelps -- what, they're not going to let this guy out on bail? There's not sufficient community outrage or press to help him make bail, period? -- and Phelps says, "Tyrell Constantine. Oh, yeah, I knew him. He used to hang out at the rec center." Warrick asks, "He used to?" Phelps explains, "Until he lost his privileges." Warrick states, "So you threw him out." Phelps elaborates, "He was smoking weed on the field, showing up late to practices, starting fights." Warrick asks when this happened. Lo and behold, it happened very recently.
Back in the other interrogation room, Gil is explaining the mysteries and wonders of DNA to Tyrell, taking care to draw the connection between the lollipop stick and the van. Brass asks Tyrell if he stole a van from the rec center; Tyrell drops his head. Gil adds, "The van wasn't hot-wired, so I think you knew where Mr. Phelps kept his keys."
Cut to Phelps saying, "Wh-what, why you asking me about Tyrell?" Warrick breaks the news that the vehicle used in the drive-by was the stolen rec center van. It begins to sink in for Phelps -- his actions, which were probably fairly routine, led directly to the death of his daughter. After a long moment that's difficult to watch, he whispers, "Oh, God."
Brass gets all sympathetic with Tyrell, saying, "We know you didn't mean to shoot anyone. It was a stray bullet that hit Aimee Phelps." Tyrell cracks and says, "I wanted to scare him." The lawyer steps in right about then, and Gil leans forward, saying sympathetically, "Tyrell, talk to me." Tyrell waves off his lawyer, insisting, "They need to know it was an accident. He shouldn't have thrown me out! Pushed me around like that in front of my friends! I just wanted to shake him up." Gil eliminates any other motive for once and for all by confirming that Jason Gilbert was just collateral damage; Tyrell admits, "I was driving pretty fast; I didn't look where I shot." Gil visibly sags, worn out by what he's just heard. Brass looks pretty hard hit too. He asks, "What about Aimee?" and Tyrell shakes his head.
This is when the faint strains of "Sky Blue" by Peter Gabriel begin -- more specifically, the point where the Blind Boys of Alabama begin to really take voice and carry the song. Tyrell and Phelps pass each other in the hall, and Tyrell can barely look at the older man. Phelps turns to Warrick and says, "I gave up on him. If I hadn't..." Warrick replies, "He gave up on himself." Gil watches Warrick watching the guards take Matt away, clearly shaken by the day's events; it's also obvious he's wondering whether he should give up on Warrick or not. He then steels himself and looks up at Warrick, noting that Warrick's been staring at him pretty intently. Warrick says matter-of-factly, "I blew it." Gil says, "Yeah. But you're not the one who's paying for it." Gil's a believer in tough love. He walks off, leaving Warrick to stand in the hall.
The scene shows Warrick standing in the parking lot of the rec center as the doors are chained and padlocked. He watches this, and then hangs on the fence looking at the baseball field there, and the episode closes as he shuts his eyes and the Blind Boys of Alabama take us home.