Lady Heather's Box

Our episode begins with a disclaimer: "Due to adult themes, viewer discretion is advised." This is, of course, the televised equivalent of passing around Forever in the back of the class with the "good stuff" highlighted, i.e. a device designed to spark prurient interest in an otherwise disinterested audience. So now that we're all duly warned, let's get to the good stuff.

After a desultory series of shots meant to remind us that a) we're in Las Vegas, and b) the city experiences the same "night" phenomenon so many of us take for granted, but c) a lot of neon helps to hold back the forces of darkness. Then we see a crowd of people preparing to go party, but the security force at the door is standing between them and a good time. As person after person patiently submits to someone waving a handheld metal detector, we see that they've sped the process along by helpfully not wearing a lot of clothing that needs to be searched. One woman in short-shorts sets off the metal detector as it hovers in the vicinity of her crotch, and when the security guard looks up inquiringly, she snits, "My kitty's pierced. Wanna see?" This is CBS, so we can't. We then see her sashaying into the main event -- a big room filled with scantily-clad pretty people dancing to bad house music where a DJ intones, "Let the foam take you away to your deepest desires." Like clean dentures? No more carpet stains? Tidy tile -- oh, wait, that comes with the tiny scrubbing bubbles. My error. The irony here is that none of these people dancing through clouds of foam look like they're even aware of housework as a concept, much less as an activity where it's more than possible to be up to your elbows in foam. The DJ intones, "Cleanse yourself. There's no turning back now." Much lascivious bumping and grinding as the foam clouds rain down. A young man with a goatee tries to grin seductively, ends up looking foolish, kisses a woman, then dives into a cloud of foam, presumably to continue his activities with/to/on her away from the watchful eyes of the network censors. The party rages on until a blonde emerges from the foam and begins screaming loudly enough to stop people's cleansing activities.

Cut to the body lying face-up on the floor of the empty, still-foamy room; although the clouds of bubbles have deflated, the heavy scum remains. Gil goes down the stairs and walks over to the body as Brass asks, "You ever been to a foam party?" "What do you think?" Gil replies. Brass declines to answer; he knows Gil's a man of hidden depths. Instead, he says, "Things can get pretty wild." Gil looks down at the body and deadpans, "Evidently. You got an ID on this guy?" Captain Exposition says, "Yeah. The deceased was Trey Buchman, age 21." Gil asks about witnesses, and Brass says, "There was too much foam. The party was over; most of the responsible young adults had split." Gil notes, "It's amazing how the sight of blood can clear a room." Brass points out that he's got the girl who discovered the body, but she's not going to be too useful even if she sobers up. Gil's already moved on. He hunkers down beside the guy, observes all the blood staining the foam around his head, and wonders what made the puncture wound in the guy's neck. Any guesses as to which vein or artery got hit? My money's on the jugular. Brass tosses out a guess (ice pick), then points out that they can probably dismiss money as a motive, what with the $3000 found on the body. Gil says, "Proves the old adage." Brass realizes they're moments from the credits, and resigns himself to setting up the pre-credits zinger: "What adage is that?" "You can't take it with you," Gil replies.

And we go to The Who, as I wonder whether that girl really had a piercing, or if there's something else in her shorts. A murder weapon, maybe. Or a red herring. It's tough to say this early in a marathon episode.

Once we're back from commercials -- and at this point in the television season, I am taking CBS's incessant pimping of made-for-television movies as a very personal insult -- we see a few more shots of Las Vegas just in case the combustible chemistry of Christine Lahti and Daniel "Not Adam At All" Baldwin made us lose our heads and forget where the show takes place. Then we see Warrick and Sara walking along, talking. Warrick's saying, "Foam at the Sinner's Circle. I've been there a few times." Sara demurely replies, "Never been." Warrick says incredulously, "You mean your knucklehead boyfriend never took you on the party circuit?" Sara ignores the slam against Hank -- really, how's she going to disprove Warrick on this one? -- and says, "Pass." Warrick explains how the party circuit is precisely what's so cool about Vegas, rattling off a different nightclub every night of the week as they head down. Warrick's voice fades out as someone whom I presume is the club owner is telling Brass, "Hey, look, kid dropped dead. It's a shame. Kids OD all the time in nightclubs. They're big boys and girls. This ain't church." I want you all to know how valiantly I am straining not to increase the probability that I'm going to Hell by making a crack about kids' relative safety in a church versus a nightclub. Brass turns a deaf ear to the club owner's pleas about the need to operate the business, dismisses the idea that he doesn't "get it," and tells this guy, "Here's how it works, pal. You cooperate, and you'll be up and running in no time. I got a daughter who's twenty. She hangs out. I don't want her to die in a place like this. So do me a favor, get me the VIP list for tonight. And smarten up."

Down on the floor, Sara's opening her kit and pulling on her gloves while Gil runs an ALS over the floor and announces, "There's seminal fluid all over the place." "Is this a dance club or a sex club?" she wonders. Warrick fishes a bra out of some foam and replies, "A little of both." "Whatever you say, Superfly," she shoots back. Warrick dismisses that as payback for calling Hank like he sees it. Warrick then calls their attention to the odor of the place. Gil comments that it smells like strawberries, and Warrick explains, "It's the foam. It reminds me of the Mirage. Steve Wynn didn't like the smell of the volcano, so he changed the fuel mixture. Now it smells like a pia colada." As Warrick talks, he fishes assorted pieces of underwear and high-heeled women's shoes out of the gloop. Maybe it's just me, but high heels at a foam party seem like a broken ankle waiting to happen. Before Warrick can share any more Vegas lore, Brass comes in to talk about Trey the victim some more. Trey Buchman had booked a room at the Sphere, so they're off to check that out.

Within moments, the crew is in the messy hotel room taking it all in. Gil's staring at the bed. Sara's looking at a pair of handcuffs casually draped over a wall ornament or light fixture that looks like something Hildi would have come up with; as Sara runs her ALS over the fixture, she comments, "These people are freaks." Oh, Hank must be so vanilla. Dump the knucklehead, Sara. Dump him! In the bathroom, Warrick's announcing the discovery of a long dark hair, which doesn't square with the victim being short-haired. Gil holds up a champagne flute to the light and shares, "One of our freaks wears pussycat pink." Two feline references in twelve minutes. Coincidence?

Shifting gears abruptly, we're now at a kiddie pageant, where Lindsey appears to be playing a princess and checking out her video-taking mom in the audience. Catherine looks thrilled. Awww. Eddie comes in and sits down. Catherine looks considerably less thrilled. She hisses, "You're late, Eddie." Eddie tells her not to start. Too late, Ed. Catherine continues, "You know how much this meant to Lindsey." Eddie asks if maybe this argument can't wait until after the pageant. As much as it kills me to admit it, he may have a point -- Lindsey may not be happy her dad is late, but she may be unhappier if her parents bicker through the whole play. Onstage, Lindsey the sleeping beauty gets kissed, and Eddie exclaims delightedly, "She's so beautiful! Give me that." Catherine hands over the video recorder and compliments him on his perfume. Eddie does look like he's been ridden hard and put away wet. The perfume comments snaps his last nerve, and he gets up just as Lindsey begins speaking her line. "Fine! Is this okay?" he snaps, and Catherine glares daggers at him. Onstage, Lindsey's completely thrown off and just stares at her teacher as the woman feeds her the line. She starts the line, then checks out her mom in the audience, as Catherine mouths along, "At long last, you have come for me." Nope -- Lindsey blows past the prince and heads backstage.

Cut to the family unit out in the lobby, where Lindsey correctly points out that her parents ruined her play for her, then caps Catherine's day by deciding she wants Eddie to take her home. This comes as a surprise to Eddie, too, but everyone rolls with it. Well, sure, now they're being mature.

Back at the lab, David The Clean Coroner is giving Gil the 411 on Trey Buchman. He gets the drop on Gil by telling him the tox report is negative -- Buchman didn't even have an aspirin in his system. Gil replies, "That's odd. It was a den of iniquity." It could have been a substance-free den of iniquity; perhaps these are freshly-detoxed participants in moral turpitude. Gil then asks about the neck wound. David tells him, "The sternocleidomastoid muscle and the jugular vein were lacerated. The wound was a bloody mess. Probably lethal." We get to see this mess courtesy of the TMIcam. Gil asks if David's got any clues about what caused the wound. David says it's an odd entry wound, then hazards a guess: "Not a knife or sharp object. Probably something blunt like a pen or stake of some sort." Gil then asks if there's anything else he should know, and David rolls the body slightly to show him a small, raised red bump on the guy's arm. Gil notes that it looks like a bite, and wonders if it's a spider bite. David tells him he'll process the tissue in histopath and let him know if there's anything to it.

Then Gil heads back to the lab to inspect a small silver thong, turning it this way and that in his hands. Warrick comes in and immediately deadpans, "I was wondering where I put my nice silver satin thong." Gil chides Warrick about wearing gloves, then hands over the photos, directing him, "We're looking for any kind of blunt object that could have been used to stab our victim in the neck." Warrick begins walking around the evidence table, picking things up and earning fresh new glares from Gil every time he recites an object: "Glow stick? Ballpoint pen? Cell phone antenna? You have the luminol?" Gil hands it over without even looking up, then flicks off the lights. It's good to see these two are back to normal. Warrick's got nothing, so he asks, "Are we sure it was a blunt object?" Gil picks up another bagged item -- it's the shoe Warrick found -- and flashes to how that might have been used to kill. He shows Warrick, saying, "Size ten, double-AAs." Warrick's appreciative: "Stilettos, huh? Brings out the toes, accentuates the legs, murder on the ankles, though." Let's just assume he knows that because he's a good listener. Warrick sprays the heel with luminol, and it glows. Gil observes that and quips, "Looks like murder to me."

While Gil's cracking wise in the nice, dry Labitrail, Brass is out in the pouring rain -- because it rains so often in Las Vegas, you know -- talking to a woman who alternates between boasting about how many VIP lists she's on and bemoaning how she doesn't want to be on Brass's. That's a churlish thing to say to the man who's holding your umbrella for you, especially when he compliments you on your shoes. Once Brass has escorted her inside a large ballroom area -- not the Labitrail -- we see Gil talking to a group of lovelies, saying, "Okay, this is the story: one of you lovely Cinderellas is missing a glass slipper, and I'm playing the prince. So would each of you remove your right shoe, please?" Why do I have the feeling we're going to be seeing this on FOX , with Alex McLeod stiffly saying, "Joe will select the round of princesses by placing their feet in stilettos," while a bunch of tan-fried wannabe actresses simper at Paul Hogan and his tray of shoes. We see Gil endlessly trying on the shoe, and it keeps sliding off woman after woman. It finally fits, and Gil looks into Elizabeth Berkley's face before quipping, "If the shoe fits..." Take it off? Oh, this is delightful. I hope we find out she's a dancer. I hope she tells us repeatedly, "I'm a dancer," right before pushing someone down a flight of stairs. That would just...words cannot describe the potential for comedy that Elizabeth Berkley has just introduced to the episode.

Cut to Brass asking Elizabeth if she's comfortable. "So far. Thanks for asking," she replies slowly without taking her eyes off him. The camera pans back and we see a lot of leg. She's a dancer, you know. Brass asks if maybe she'd like to share how her shoe ended up in Trey's neck. Elizabeth replies, "I don't know. Last I remembered, the foam was rising, and my heel went into something soft. I thought it was someone's foot." Brass smiles and tells her that her heel went into someone's jugular -- "there's a slight difference." He then asks her why she left her shoe behind, and Elizabeth tells him it's because the heel broke. Brass shakes his head and tells her, "It had blood on it. That wasn't the reason." Elizabeth claims she never saw blood, and Brass says, "I did some checking, because that's what I do, and you and our victim had a relationship some while back." Elizabeth takes a deep breath and tells him, "I've relationshipped a dozen guys on the circuit, including Trey. Nothing ends -- we all still end up meeting at the clubs." Brass and Elizabeth stare at each other a while, and then she comes over, sits on the edge of the interrogation table, and begins to pull a Sharon Stone, swinging one leg up and over as she says, "And the way he gave it to me -- believe me, he's the last guy I would have wanted dead."

Gil picks that moment to interrupt, saying brightly, "Excuse me, Jim! Am I interrupting something?" Brass starts and composes himself. Gil comes in, still wearing an unnaturally perky persona, and says, "Miss, I'm going to need a sample of your DNA." Elizabeth oozes in his general direction and asks, "How do you want it?" and Gil smiles at her before saying, "I like your hair." "I like yours," she coos back. Gil asks, "Are you a, uh, natural blonde?" They both turn to look at Brass -- Gil inquiringly, Elizabeth sneakily -- who smiles shamefacedly and shakes his head no. Holy cow, CBS wasn't kidding about the adult themes in tonight's episode. As Elizabeth's busy smirking down at Brass, Gil yanks out a hair, and she yelps. Gil apologizes insincerely, explaining, "I needed a follicular tag." As Gil hits the doorway, Elizabeth calls his name. Gil stops. She asks, "Any chance you found my thong? Silver lam, probably twisted in knots." "I thought that was Warrick's," Gil replies. Oh, he does not. He says, "We did. You'll have to fill out a form. The captain will help you." Brass doesn't look like he minds.

Meanwhile, David's working over that hunk of raised flesh he found on Trey's arm, first sterilizing a sample on a slide, then testing it with haematoxylin, acid alcohol 1-percent, and eosin. I'm as curious about what he's doing as you are, but given that I'm currently snowed into MaBell's cozy Quantico pied a terre and the speed of the Internet connection here depends on how fast the hamsters feel like running in their exercise wheel, I'm in no position to research it. week, my pretties. David eventually sees an interesting-looking pattern of cells -- two thick arches meeting each other in the middle, surrounded by smaller clumps of cells -- and looks up in surprise.

In the non-sexed-up part of the Labitrail, Gil's got on some headphones and is listening to opera while he studies his work. Or maybe he's just got the opera playing so he can plead distraction if someone comes in and he can't hear them. David comes in and calls his name, but Gil doesn't look up. David leans down and asks, "Carmen?" Gil looks up, surprised but not too startled, takes off the headphones so we can all hear how loud the music is, and confirms this by saying, "Right after the murder." David smiles -- and oh, what a smile he has -- as he says, "Opera makes it all sound so lovely. And at the risk of sounding like your mother, you're going to ruin your eardrums." Gil fails to acknowledge this and picks up the photos David's offering instead. David tells him that he tested the skin off Trey's contusion; Gil's looking at a section of tissue sample 30 microns below the skin surface. "So, it's not a bug bite," Gil concludes. "Man-made subcutaneous hypodermic injector. High pressure penetrated the skin," David replies. We see how via TMIcam. Gil asks if David sent a sample of whatever Trey was injected with to toxicology, and David nods -- it was insulin. Gil asks, "Diabetic?" David replies, "Nope." Gil concludes, "So cause of death was insulin shock." David says, "It doesn't make for a narcotic or hallucinogenic high, so I don't know why Buchman would take the stuff." Gil ponders the meaning of this.

Outside the Labitrail, the thunder rolls, and Nicky, making what is apparently becoming his trademark late entrance, walks into a loft-like apartment, telling Catherine, "Downstairs neighbor smelled it, called the plumber. Thought it was a sewage problem." Catherine mutters, "They always think it was a sewage problem," as Nicky throws up an arm to ward off the smell. Her cell phone rings, and she checks the number, answering tensely, "Eddie?" There's a pause and she says more loudly, "Ed? Hello? Uh, bad connection, Ed. Uh, I just entered a scene. I'll-I'll call you later." The scene in question is a battered man lying half-in, half-out of the patio area, covered in blood and making quite a stink. Nicky looks at the barbell lying on top of the guy and comments, "No pain, no gain. Purge fluid." "D.U.N.S.," Catherine explains. We go to flashback with some blond man looking up at a spreading rusty stain on his ceiling and making the lemon face. Nicky fills in, "Dead Upstairs Neighbor Syndrome." Catherine nods and Nicky says, "Yeah, well, it's going to take us a while to get this smell out of our nose hairs." Catherine's already moved on: "Parchment changes in the skin -- what's the exposure in that window? South?" "East. Gets direct sunlight half the day. I learned that one down in Lauderdale," Nicky replies. Catherine snipes, "Right, on that spring break activity with your frat brothers." Oh, whatever -- everyone else apparently gets to haul out observations from lives that include gambling addictions and stripping and that's okay for crime-solving purposes, but a little collegiate spring break action is somehow disqualified from experiences eligible for further reflection? At this point, if Nicky's not keeping a rage diary, someone should be keeping it for him. He only replies to Catherine, "Something like that," then moves the flashlight down so we can all admire the dead body's cocaine fingernail.

Nicky flashes his light around the place and notices, "No mail built up, I don't see a telephone. What do you think -- Howard Hughes in a studio apartment?" Catherine doesn't answer because her cell phone rings again; she again talks to thin air. Nicky asks, "What's his deal?" and Catherine sighs, "Lindsey's with him. Maybe she's ready to come home." Nicky wins points by saying, "Yeah, I'll bet." They then go through Dead Guy's closet, noticing the passport and fat stacks of cash, and his Windows laptop, learning that his user login was "crichards," but not getting his password. Catherine logs the designer clothing and says, "Ten to one Croix Richards was a drug dealer. That is no workout accident." Nicky's about to respond when Catherine's cell goes again; after she picks it up and hears only staticky noise, she says, "Eddie. Eddie, you got to get to a land line. This connection sucks." Before she can hang up, we hear Lindsey saying in a panic, "Mommy!" "Lindsey?" Catherine says anxiously. Nicky begins unabashedly eavesdropping. Catherine asks, "Where are you?" and Lindsey's staticky voice comes through in a garble, the only comprehensible thing being "alone." Catherine asks, "You're alone? Where's Daddy?" Nicky mouths something about taking care of the crime scene as Catherine quickly thanks him and rushes out, still talking to Lindsey and assuring her that she's coming.

We then see Catherine in the car, still talking to Lindsey, who's telling her how she and Eddie were speeding in the car, Eddie hit something, and -- Catherine cuts her off, asking where they are. Lindsey doesn't know, but there's lots of water. Catherine asks, "Are you near a lake, are you near Grandma's house?" and Lindsey corrects her at top volume, "No, there's lots of water in the car!" This finally registers with Catherine: "In the car? Lindsey can you get out?" Lindsey looks around and replies in the negative. Catherine assures her everything is going to be fine, and tries to pinpoint the location. Lindsey tells her that Eddie said they were going to the hospital. Catherine asks if Lindsey saw any hotels, and Lindsey tells her she saw the castle. Catherine says, "Excalibur" (huzzah!), then asks if she saw the pyramids. Lindsey did. Catherine asks, "Industrial Road -- is that it? Is that it, Lindsey?" Lindsey, who's going to need to tread water in about thirty seconds, whimpers, "There was a bridge. We went through a fence." The phone goes out then; nobody takes it well. Catherine then notices a fence with an opening that probably wasn't there before a car went through it. Well, that's convenient. She gets out -- getting soaked instantly, since these sorts of accidents can never happen on calm, clear nights -- and sees a red sports car about to sink into the runoff water at the bottom of a culvert. She also sees Lindsey trapped in the car, yet miraculously able to see her through the windshield, the debris, and the rain. Catherine runs back to her first-aid kit, gets out a screwdriver, tries to break the window but Lindsey's in the way, goes underwater to break the glass and pull her kid out, and pulls them both to safety. All this scene needed to be complete were the circling sharks and a fire on an oil slick heading their way.

Now, just because the poor kid hasn't suffered enough, she has to be questioned by Vega. They couldn't haul out Lockwood for this one? Vega asks if Lindsey knew who was driving, and all he gets out of her is that the lady had pink hair. Vega points out, "It was your father's car. Why wasn't he driving it." "He had a stomachache," Lindsey said. We see a flashback where Eddie's groaning in pain while a woman tells him to hang on, immediately before they go into the drink. Lindsey says, "The lady got out, and then Daddy fell out, and he didn't come back." Vega pulls Catherine -- who's looking a lot worse for wear than her daughter -- aside and asks if Eddie would have left Lindsey in the car. Catherine says, "Never, never, never, no. He loves Lindsey. He'd never do that -- not willingly." At that moment, the hydraulic crane pulls the car out of the ditch. Sara's shouting, "Be very gentle with this car, guys. Very gentle." Lindsey draws Catherine's attention away by asking, "Mom? He's dead, isn't he?" Catherine replies, "Ed's dead, baby. Ed's dead." Then she throws Lindsey on the back of a motorcycle and drives off before Marcellus Wallace can kick her ass. Oh, she does not either. She replies, "I don't know, baby. I-I'm going to go look for him, though. I'll be right over there. I want you to stay here with Detective Vega." Catherine shrugs off her blanket, signifying that she is an accident victim no more, and strides off purposefully as Vega plies her child with Swiss Miss.

Sara's already waving a flashlight around the car, checking out the interior and noticing the dark, rusty stain on one the passenger-side seat. Catherine's checking the undercarriage. For crying out loud, Ed's not a piece of litter -- he didn't end up there. She then yanks open the door of the car, more or less ignoring Sara, and finds a vial on the dashboard. As she picks it up, Sara watches her and the vial, finally settling on saying, "Drugs." "Knowing Eddie's taste in women, that's probably a good bet," Catherine replies. Sara says, "Yeah. You wanna give me that. You shouldn't be handling evidence. You're not on the case." Go, Sara; it's got to be hard to negotiate this kind of situation, especially when Catherine's giving you the fisheye.

Back in the clean, dry morgue, David is busy scanning Croix Richards's skeleton when Nicky comes in, begins pleasantly enough with, "I thought I'd get an update on Stinky here," and ends with, "Wow, that's horrible." David tells him, "I'm generally immune to the stink of decay but two weeks of a decomp still tickles the old vibrissae of my nasal vestibule." Nicky's all, "I'll say. Hey -- what's that foreign body lodged in his femur?" David directs the non-Emergency Backup David person to run the body back up through the x-ray scan so they can take a look-see. Nicky muses, "Whiter than bone, denser than metal. What exactly are we looking at?" David's filled with the spirit of exploration. He makes a juicy incision and reaches in with a pair of tweezers, commenting, "I feel like Androcles pulling a thorn from the lion's paw." Nicky thinks it looks like the tip of a needle; David replies that it probably broke off when it hit the bone. We get to see this scenario via TMIcam.

We don't get to see what happens with Johnny Decomp, because we're now watching Gil and Brass do laps through the Labitrail as Brass tells Gil that Trey -- remember Trey? -- booked a room in the Tangiers for tonight. This doesn't sit well with Gil, who remembers Trey and his handcuffs being checked into the Sphere. Brass replies, "He got a room for one night. He was a busy boy."

Naturally, Brass and Gil decide to send Warrick to check out exactly how busy Trey was supposed to be getting at the Tangiers. He walks into the hotel room with his kit in hand, only to be greeted by a brunette who clearly thinks this is her lucky night. It's understandable. The brunette leans back on the bed, giving us a full view of her Victoria's Secret ensemble, swirls her champagne, and purrs, "You're late, not -- not that I mind...there's two of you?" This is directed at Gil, who just walked in with a "What the hell?" expression. Warrick deadpans, "We work as a team." I imagine certain forum members nearly passing out as they put themselves in this woman's place. She recovers nicely and asks, "What's in the kit?" Gil kills the mood with, "Latex gloves, cotton swabs, evidence-gathering jars, other evidence-gathering stuff." It begins to dawn on the woman that the only way she's getting either Gil's or Warrick's hands all over her body is if they're dusting her for prints. She finally says, "Oh, my God. You guys are cops. I'm really embarrassed. I've never done anything like this before." Gil notes that the room is registered to Trey Buchman, and asks, "Who are you?" "Do we have to do names?" the brunette asks. Warrick says, "Uh-huh." Rebecca McCormick explains that she got a number for an escort service from a guy who was giving out cards on the Strip, and she thought this would be fun. Gil coolly assures her that she's not under arrest yet.

Then, because Gil's just that talented, he teleports back to the Labitrail to check in on Nicky, who's managed to get into Johnny Decomp's laptop and is now reading through his address book. Gil observes, "Women's names, hotels, blocks of time." Nicky points out that Johnny Decomp (a.k.a. Croix) had a sweet little apartment, and "we thought he was selling drugs -- he was selling himself." "Gigolo," Gil says flatly. "Paid to get laid," Nicky shoots back. Gil replies, "So was mine. Two victims, same profession." Nicky is awed by this. Gil presses him on the needle they found in the decomp, and Nicky tells him it was pegged as a 30-gauge. Gil notes, "Insulin dependents use needles that thin." Nicky points out they're not likely to get anything off Johnny Decomp owing to his severe state; Gil is undeterred, and replies, "I think we're working the same case." "Good thing my gigolo was so organized," Nicky responds, bringing up his guy's finances and employment history. Gil leans in, suddenly seeing something he's not too happy to find.

Cut to an exterior shot of...Lady Heather's. The closed-captioning notes, "Man screams in the distance." It's the little details that add so much fun to this scene. As the lady herself winds her way down the stairs, Brass and Gil hang out in the parlor. Lady Heather greets them with, "Mr. Grissom, Captain Brass, good to see you again." As the closed-captioning says, "Screaming continues," Brass comments, "Good to hear things haven't changed around here." Lady Heather shoots back, "I see you haven't changed either." Brass shows Lady Heather a sheet with Johnny Decomp and Trey on it, and remarks, "They're both on your payroll." Lady Heather coolly replies, "Hard workers. Quite skilled." Brass replies with no small satisfaction, "They're deceased." "They'll be missed," Lady Heather replies, without missing a beat. Brass says, "First Mona Taylor, now two more employees. Risky business." "Accusation?" Lady Heather replies. "More like observation," Gil cuts in. Brass continues, "These guys traded in sex and I know you don't allow intercourse in your domain. Now that is an accusation." Lady Heather goes into the blah-dee-blah portion of this evening's dialogue with, "I profit from the theatrics of pleasure, allowing people to play out their fantasies. Trey and Croix were independent contractors." Gil speaks up again, asking what services her contractors provided.

In the scene, we see a farmer dominatrix scolding, "Bad little pig boy -- bad, bad! Oinky, sloppy pig!" As she scolds, Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" plays. What is this -- Classic Rock Night at the dungeon? We see more whips and chains, chips and dips, and then we see the computer dominatrices. I kid you not -- it's like the riot nrrd girl's gone and franchised herself out with a webcam. Lady Heather notes, "My dominion is also my domain -- ladyheather.com." I've always contended that the leading edge indicator for any technology trend is the adult industry; it's nice to see Lady Heather taking advantage of the broadband market to provide streaming, screaming media services. Or, as Lady Heather calls is, "Voyeurism in a brave new world." "What would Aldous Huxley say?" Gil wonders. He wouldn't be surprised -- has Gil read Brave New World recently? Lady Heather replies, "If his credit card were valid, he could say anything he wanted at $3.95 per minute. Do you like my lipstick?" Gil's taken aback at this and asks, "Why?" "You've been staring at my lips," she replies. "You have lovely lips," Gil flirts. Oh, the lengths he'll go to in order to conceal his hearing condition. Brass is a little nonplussed at this turn of events, and recovers his equilibrium by stepping into the space Gil and Lady Heather have been heating up with their gazes and saying, "And [you have] a very successful business. Thank you for your time." As he shepherds Gil out of there, Lady Heather says, "See you soon."

Back at the Labitrail, Vega and Sara are talking to Lindsey as a nervous Catherine looks on. Vega's trying to reconstruct events after Eddie took Lindsey, so he asks where they went after the recital. "Leatherbey's," Lindsey replies. Vega begins to say something about the desserts there, but Catherine cuts in with, "Did he have anything to drink -- did he have a beer, a glass of wine?" Lindsey looks away from Vega (who's looking pretty irked) and over at her mom as she replies, "Just water." Sara asks, "So it was just the two of you?" Lindsey looks over at her and nods. Vega asks, "This lady who was driving, the one with the pink hair, the one that you told us about -- where did you meet her?" Lindsey replies, "I don't know." Catherine says tightly, "You remember, Lindsey, just think about it." Sara gives Vega a raised eyebrow. Vega sees her eyebrow and raises her two eyebrows. I have to admit, he's got a rapport with the kid; I like him in this scene. Lindsey explains that she fell asleep, and woke up when they got to some kind of building. Vega and Sara are doing fine talking to her until Catherine breaks in with, "Why did you stop there?" Lindsey replies, "Daddy said he had a meeting. He told me to stay in the car and keep the doors locked." Catherine switches into ex-hating mode -- pity, that, especially since this entire scene's been undercut with cops searching the now-drained culvert and finding Eddie's body -- and says sharply, "You mean he left you in the car alone --" and Sara snaps, "Catherine!" Lindsey babbles, "Mommy, it's okay. I said I could take care of myself, I told him I could stay in the car. Just don't be mad at him. He didn't do anything wrong." Sara tries to pour oil on the troubled waters with, "It's okay, Lindsey, nobody's mad at anybody." Catherine looks like she feels the mother of all headaches coming on, which is unfortunate since Sara's about to take her out in the hall for a well-deserved talking-to. Catherine elects to talk to herself in the hall instead. Then she tries to lip-read the questioning. Where's Gil when you need him?

We flash back into what must have gone down the night Eddie drowned. He met a woman named "Candeece," and she hectored him about where he was while he assured her that everything was more than okay. Lindsey watched from the car. Back in the present, Lindsey tells Sara and Vega that Candeece -- who may or may not have been Eddie's squeeze -- argued, and when Eddie got back to the car, he had a stomachache. Out in the hall, Catherine gets the call that Ed's definitely dead.

Her day doesn't get much better when she gets down to the morgue and beholds his sodden, pancake-making body lying on a slab. David says, "Catherine, you can't say goodbye in an autopsy room." Catherine stalks out and begins walking along the Labitrail in a daze. We know she's in a daze because the camera's all out of focus. Just then, Gil and his people skills round the corner. What? You only saw Gil? I rest my case. Gil says, "Hi. Uh --" Catherine replies, "Croix Richards and Trey Buchman. Same profession, same type of death." "Insulin poisoning," Gil says. "Not your typical male M.O. Lady Heather a suspect?" Catherine asks. "I can't rule anybody out," Gil says, not sounding too happy about that. Then he tries, "I'm sorry about Eddie and your daughter. If -- if you'd like to take some time off, or..." He finishes by waving his hand around as if hoping to conjure the end of that sentence. Catherine assures him she's all right, then wanders off. Gil's gaze goes to an AV booth where Warrick and Nicky have been watching the whole thing, and he watches her walk in, where both men say in subdued voices, "We heard about what happened..." "We're so sorry..." "If you or Lindsey need anything..." Warrick's doing that upper-arm grip that passes for a comforting pat, and Nicky's got his best condolence face on. Gil watches this with a sad, puzzled look, then walks into the room.

Nicky begins explaining to Catherine what they've been working on, namely the credit card records for Ladyheather.com. He and Warrick have determined that the rent boys were both virtual doms (or subs -- it's not made clear), and they died approximately four weeks apart. Warrick reminds everyone, "Killers don't usually stray too far from home." "Especially for repeat crimes," Catherine points out. Warrick says he's squeezing the Las Vegas area to see which frequent Ladyheather.com visitors show up, and we see some snazzy computer graphics as a list of names drops out of a vast text listing, then neatly morphs into a grid of Las Vegas drivers' licenses. I sincerely hope I'm not the only person who's alarmed by the fact that there are databases capable of tying my credit card activity to my driver's license and spitting out that information on demand; I mean, I'm not about to go off the grid or anything, but it is a little dismaying how big our data footprints are, you know?

While four of the CSIs present a troubled family tableau, Sara's off on her lonesome, talking to Leslie Bega about blue boogers. Hey, Leslie's words, not mine. Sara thinks it's "GHB with food coloring -- that's a date-rape drug." Leslie tells her times have changed: "Not anymore. You mix it with the right stimulant, like meth, you've got a great party drug." "Everyone's a chemist," Sara sighs before thanking Leslie. Unfortunately, she happens to do so just as her path on the Labitrail passes the AV lab where our fractured family is dealing with Lady Heather's employee problem, so there's plenty of time for an awkward look to pass between Sara and Catherine.

Gil doesn't notice, because he's musing about the dark hair he found in the hotel room in the Sphere. Warrick says he'll exclude everyone with light hair, and as assorted ladies from California and Oregon are deleted, up pops Rebecca McCormick's Nevada driver's license. This catches Gil and Warrick's attention. Quoth Warrick, "First time, my ass."

In the shot, Gil and Catherine are waiting silently and tensely in a nicely-appointed loft. Eventually, Rebecca comes down with a guy, and the guy's all manners, asking what he can do for them. Gil says, "You can tell us about your relationship with Croix Richards," and the guy -- who looks like Satan's younger cousin -- says smoothly, "I hired Croix Richards to dominate Rebecca." Gil's eyebrow shoots up of its own volition. He then asks if Gil would like a chocolate; Rebecca flutters, "They're Godiva," as she fetches them. Gil and Catherine are holding out for the good stuff, so they decline. Satan Lite's all, "You could say Mr. Richards worked for me. We were hoping that he might ease some of Rebecca's sexual difficulties." As Satan Lite says this, he runs his index finger around his gums, trying to dislodge any spare chocolate. Gosh, it's hard to imagine why Rebecca wouldn't be turned on by that. Catherine's a little incredulous about extramarital sex as relationship therapy, and Satan Lite explains, "The problem wasn't with our relationship, it was with my wife's lack of experience." Oh, there are problems in this relationship, all right. Gil clarifies with, "Which Mr. Richards helped you with?" Satan Lite looks at Rebecca, so she answers brightly, "Yes!" before putting the chocolates away. Satan Lite explains how first they worked with Croix over the internet before working with him in person. Gil's all, "We?" and Satan Lite replies, "Yes. I participated." His idea of participation, we find out in flashback, is to wear tight black leather pants as he cowers in a corner. Rebecca, wearing full wedding regalia, is handcuffed so her arms are spread out, and Croix's smacking her with a whip as he bellows, "Do you take this man to be your wedded husband, to love, honor, and obey?" In between sobs, Rebecca looks at her husband while he shouts, "Say it!" The best part about that scene was imagining how horrified wedding planners will be when some woman plunks down a screen capture and says, "I want a wedding just like that." The second-best thing is knowing that Rebecca's getting some mileage out of that gown -- it always seems like such a waste for a woman to blow four or five figures on a dress she's only going to wear once.

Anyway, Gil asks if these sessions were at Lady Heather's, and Satan Lite answers, "Yes. Lady Heather thought it best if I would be involved. I'm sure secrets would have made the problem worse at that point anyway." Catherine then looks at Rebecca and asks if she met Trey Buchman at Lady Heather's as well. Rebecca doesn't bother answering; she only looks at her spouse, who's all, "I'm sorry. Who?" Gil points out that Trey's another one of Lady Heather's dead contractors. This is the point where Rebecca has to admit that she was doing the digital with Trey on Lady Heather's site. Trey makes a strangely compelling virtual master. Gil asks about the night at the Tangiers, which comes as news to Satan Lite. He looks to the wife for an explanation, and she says, "Croix was fun, uh, I wanted more experience, variation. I made a date with Trey. He never showed up." Things have become tense between the McCormicks. She's going to be wearing that wedding dress for a week, I'm thinking. Catherine speaks up and asks for a sample of Rebecca's hair, for DNA purposes. Satan Lite says tightly and cordially, "We'll give you anything you need." Then he puts down the candy bowl and stalks into another room while Rebecca stares straight ahead. I bet those two are a kick at dinner parties.

Back at the lab, Sara's unwinding by returning to an old pastime -- dismantling cars for evidence. She notes the bloodstained passenger seat where Eddie was sitting, the folded-up flyer promoting Candeece, and the Sahara Sound CD in the slot.

Within seconds, we're at Sahara Sound, where we find out that Eddie was behind on studio-time payments -- big surprise -- and that he left a mess in the form of Candeece singing some execrable ballad in between temper tantrums on the cell phone. The nice young producer man says, "Eddie was just in it for the quick score. Cut a demo, sell a contract, get a ride on the charts and you just ride that wave." Why Sara and Vega should look surprised by this revelation is anyone's guess. The more hirsute sound guy points out that the Eddie and Candeece relationship might have been a little different, what with the complicating factors of her actual talent and their extracurricular affair thrown into the usual mix. After the comment, "Nothing was going to stop him from making her a star," Vega replies, "Except a .22 in the gut." The two pros ignore him in favor of bickering over how the jackhammer noise outside is affecting the bass line of Enrique The Expository Device's demo, and Sara interrupts to ask, "Aren't recording studios supposed to be soundproof?" The hirsute guy shoots back, "Lady, if the guy standing to you is Clive Davis instead of a cop, it would be." Sara realizes that the sound leakage would have been recorded, and asks, "After Candeece left, did you guys keep recording?" Why, yes, they did.