The show may or may not take place in Las Vegas. I don't know, because the sight of Warrick in a suit has more or less obliterated my ability to retain simple details. He's wearing a very nice pinstriped number, and his pale robin's-egg blue shirt picks up the color of the stripe in his charcoal suit and acts as a really nice background for a darker-blue tie. It's a good look. I'm just saying. Warrick is busy telling someone, "I searched the car in the CSI garage, and discovered the knife under the passenger seat." A lawyer hands over the knife and asks if it's the knife Warrick found. He answers in the affirmative. The lawyer then asks, "And is it true that you spend all your time wishing some woman would recap your every move on some Web site, desperately hoping she'll notice you and return your love?" "God, yes," says Warrick. Oh, damn. My fantasy life appears to have popped up again. Hang on.
Okay, so we find out that Warrick found the knife in the vehicle of one Michael Fife, the defendant whom we haven't seen. Oh! There he is now. He's one of two guys in drab navy suits and white shirts. I'm guessing he's the one who doesn't look bored so much as dismayed. The lawyer asks Warrick to describe the physical condition of the knife when he discovered it. Warrick answers that the knife was wrapped in a white towel, and both the towel and the knife were caked with dried blood. The lawyer asks how Warrick processed the evidence. He tells him, "I swabbed the blood, and sent a sample to the DNA lab. The lab technician ran a sample through CODIS. The DNA sample was a match to a recent rape and homicide victim, Rachel Lyford." As Warrick recites this, the camera switches to Gil chillin' in the audience and nodding along with Warrick's testimony. I wonder if he does that for all the CSIs, or only the anointed successors to his crime-fighting kingdom. The lawyer intones, "Rachel Lyford, who lived in Unit 7 of the Saturn Arms complex." That's like Vegas's designated rape 'n' murder condo. I wonder if the management has lessees sign something telling them their of kin won't get the cleaning deposit back if there's excessive blood and luminal on the carpets. As it turns out, the reason the Saturn Arms is such a target for criminals is because it apparently has a monthly special for rapists and murderers, if Michael Fife and his address are anything to go by. We see the Lyford -of-kin at the hearing; they're far more composed than I would be. The lawyer asks, "Is this knife consistent, in size and shape, to the fatal wounds sustained by Rachel Lyford?" Warrick confirms that it is. The state rests.
And now it's time for the defense. They open by asking Warrick, "You state you found the knife in Mr. Fife's vehicle. Is that correct?" Warrick confirms it. The defense then asks why Warrick searched the vehicle. We go to the anxious-yet-composed Lyfords. Warrick explains, "I received a call from Officer Watson. He informed me that he had pulled the defendant over to cite him for a broken taillight. After running his plates, it was discovered that the defendant had an outstanding warrant for drugs. He then arrested Mr. Fife and ordered a respond-and-tow, at which point he asked me to search the vehicle for drugs, at which point, I found the knife." I realize there's probably a reason police-speak is so dependent on the passive voice and lots of dependent clauses, but it's hard on the ears. While Warrick is answering the question, Watson's looking kind of smug. The prosecuting attorney has the file open and turns around for some reason, giving the Lyfords plenty of time to check out the crime-scene photos in the file. That's when they crumple. The DA notices this and quickly hides the photos again. The defense asks when Warrick got the warrant to search Fife's vehicle. That's when the awkward silence descends over the courtroom. Whoops.
Warrick recovers with, "Officer Watson would have secured the warrant prior to calling me." The look on Officer Watson's face suggests that this little detail eluded him. Sure enough, the defense confirms that Officer Watson never secured a warrant. Wouldn't someone have picked up on this before now? I find it difficult to believe that the chain of custody for evidence doesn't include a checklist making sure that all appropriate documentation is on file. Following the news, Warrick's eyes bug out a little, and he seeks out Gil's face in the audience. Gil is looking a little concerned. The defense asks if Warrick got the warrant. Warrick replies that he did not. The defense lawyer correctly points out that the knife is the product of an unlawful search, and they submit that the knife and towel are inadmissible. Warrick and Gil have matching freak-outs. The judge rules that all evidence acquired as a result of the illegal search is inadmissible, saying, "Fruit of the poisonous tree." For those of you not up on your legal terminology, it's the doctrine that evidence found through illegal search or other unconstitutional means cannot be introduced by the prosecutor; the tree (original evidence) is tainted and will taint further anything growing from it; the phrase seems to have been introduced in Nardone v. U.S., 308 US 338 (1939). The Lyfords are looking appalled, as well they should: can you imagine your loved one's death never being addressed appropriately by the courts because of a procedural screw-up? Not only has this horrible thing randomly descended on you, but someone else's fuck-up on the job is going to keep you from getting any legal resolution.
The DA argues that additional evidence is pending, and the knife would have been more than sufficient for the purpose of a preliminary hearing. Warrick closes his eyes, because his day, which is already heading downhill faster than Picabo Street, is about to hit the proverbial tree. The judge asks, "You have no other evidence to present?" and a pissed-looking DA replies, "Not at this time." The judge finds insufficient evidence to hold the defendant. The DA protests that Fife is accused of raping and killing a woman, and ought not be let back on the street; the Lyfords are weeping openly now. Judge Brenner snarls, "Are you suggesting that I violate his constitutional rights, counselor?" Gil leans over the banister and urges quietly, "Ask him for twenty-four hours." The DA improvises with enough legal jargon to convince the judge to let them hold Fife for twenty-four hours. The judge then orders a recess, and Warrick rolls his eyes as he lets himself off the stand. The packed courtroom -- and it's not packed with reporters, so heaven only knows who on Earth decided to hang out at a preliminary hearing -- empties.
Warrick grabs the now-useless knife and heads toward the door. Gil intercepts him and offers his brand of motivation: "The murder weapon's been excluded. That's all. We still have a lab full of evidence we can process." Warrick gripes that they've been completely blindsided, which totally raises this question: Whose job is it to make sure the warrants are sworn out? And what safeguards are in place to double-check? And why doesn't the DA's office have a law student intern or paralegal checking to make sure all the warrants were issued before basing their entire case on evidence that -- whoopsie! -- turns out to be improperly seized? I realize that logical answers to this question would make the episode ten minutes long, but that's another thirty-six minutes we could spend on something else.
Anyway, along comes Officer Watson, losing his cool all over Warrick. Warrick is literally like, "You gotta be kidding me." Watson bitches about how Warrick should have brought more than a knife to the courtroom. Yeah, way to avoid the question of who should have secured the warrant, Watson. Warrick takes us there instead, and Watson's all, "Blame it on the cop, huh?" Well, if the shoe fits…Watson continues, "You wouldn't even have a suspect if I hadn't pulled that guy over." And they wouldn't be standing here flapping their gums if you had written the warrant, so let's not overstate our importance in the food chain, Watson. Gil steps in to say, "If you have a problem with CSI, file a complaint. We're busy." Watson stalks off looking pissed.
Gil and Warrick begin walking off and Warrick asks petulantly, "What about what you said about never rushing the evidence?" Gil pushes him on out the door and says, "Well, the twenty-four hours, we're breaking the rules." He sounds so excited about it!
The Who are excited too.
Hey! It's Xander Berkeley. He's laying in wait for Gil at the Labitrail. Gil greets him with, "Sheriff." Hey! Where did Evil Ike go? And why isn't Xander Berkeley glowing in the dark? So many questions, so little time. Anyway, Xander's all, "We need to talk. About him." The dolorous Warrick snots, "Nice to meet you too." Gil tells Warrick to go ahead and start "that briefing," and he'll catch up after he and Xander compare notes on their new facial hair.
Okay, apparently by "briefing," Gil meant "self-inflicted concussion time," because Warrick is busy bashing his head into the locker in the co-ed locker room. He's all alone, ladies.
Gil, meanwhile, is defending his subordinate. Deceitfulness about creeping hearing loss aside, Gil's always been a good boss, and this is just another scene proving it. Xander, however, cares nothing for the fact that Warrick was the one doing his job correctly and that it's elementary: Watson screwed up. He's all, "Warrick Brown was on the stand. He's the face of the case. All about perception. If Fife walks, the public only hears one thing: evidence against a killer was thrown out in court because CSI conducted an improper search." Gil, who has been futzing with the stuff on his desk, looks up to ask, "You think I don't know that?" Xander moves on to look at a pig in a jar, asking, "What the hell is this?" It's no baby in a jar, that's for sure. Gil tells him it's an irradiated fetal pig; he was using the tissue to determine -- well, maybe to determine any one of a number of things we'll never know since Xander's all tell-it-to-the-hand, and begins the butter-up process, carrying on about how Gil's team does fabulous work, blah-de-blah, elevated the status of the bureau, blah-de-blah -- and Gil says flatly, "Uh-huh. Then why are you here?" I love how Gil doesn't even bother to acknowledge the compliments: it's like he's already decided his people do great work and he doesn't need anyone else to tell him. Xander explains, "I'm holding a press conference in less than an hour, where I'll be telling the press this case is under your purview." Gil chuckles and says patronizingly, "Oh, it is about perception, isn't it?" Xander has no shame; he nods and says, "Glad we understand each other." Gil makes a moue of contempt. Xander leaves with, "Why don't you call my office week -- put a little lunch on the books, huh?" Gil acidly replies, "I work nights." Which is why I recap so many scenes that take place in glaring sunlight. Xander unleashes that I-am-tired-of you-o-little-man look I knew and loved from 24 and replies in an equally snide voice, "So make it a dinner." Gil looks irritated.
And now it's time for a family meeting. Warrick's explaining that impound towed the vehicle to the garage; the Fife warrant was for marijuana possession, so that's what he was originally looking for. We flash back to Warrick finding the knife, and then in the present, Warrick is explaining that he swabbed the knife and passed the swab off to Liam for testing. We go to Liam, who has apparently been spending his free time exalting over the Duran Duran reunion tour by adopting Simon LeBon's new haircut and Nick Rhodes's old eyeliner. He spends his work time matching the swab to another case. Cue Catherine explaining, "My case. Rachel Lyford, 19. Murdered in her apartment. The assistant coroner examined the body. Based on the vaginal introitus, he suspected rape." Anyone else here not know that we were talking about the opening of the vagina, or was it just me? Well, now we all know. In any event, Catherine processed the scene, but there was nothing probative, such as prints or DNA, and everything she found was in the vault. She continues to explain, "Now, once Warrick found the knife, the DA thought there was sufficient probable cause and rushed the prelim. Further processing of the evidence became a low priority pending the trial date." Nice way to deflect attention from whomever made that judgment call. Not that it's not understandable, but still…way to skip around the question of why nobody thought to double-check the evidence.
Gil comes in right then, glares around, then says, "This is a rush case. Everyone's in the pool for twenty-four hours. Warrick, you need to see Robbins, have him walk you through his notes on the autopsy. Nick, Sara, the judge issued a warrant for Fife's vehicle. Detail is towing it back to our garage." Nicky cuts in with, "Warrick's searched the car, and the knife's been excluded. What exactly are we hoping to find?" Good question. Gil replies, "I don't know. But the knife and the towel are invisible evidence. The jury will never see them. So we have to find something that's visible." Sara raises her pencil in an opening gesture and says, "Listen, I recognize the importance of this, but I'm in the middle of my own homicide investigation." Rather than snap back, "If by 'recognize the importance,' you mean 'ignore the part where I said everyone's in the pool,' Sara, then we're on the same page," Gil elects to tell Sara he'll explain what's going on to the investigating detective. Sara replies, "Well, it's not about my detective, it's about my own responsibility." Since, you know, none of the other CSIs had cases they had to drop for this politically hot potato. Gil smacks her down with, "I'm handing out assignments, Sara. It's not a negotiation."
And for anyone who's ever wondered why office romances between boss and subordinate are a bad idea, there's your Exhibit A: can you imagine how their coworkers would feel if these two were dating and she pulled that in a meeting? And can you imagine how pissed Gil would be that his girlfriend put him in the position of having to pull rank? Or, alternately, how pissed Sara would be that her boyfriend pulled rank?
Anyway, everyone makes a big show of averting their eyes, and then Catherine says she'll head on back to the Multiple Murder Arms to check on the crime scene with fresh eyes. Gil tells everyone tensely, "Deadline's 4 PM tomorrow. Once more, into the breach." Or they'll close up the wall with their CSI dead.
There are dark clouds over Vegas, which seems portentous. It also seems appropriate, given that Sara is leaning against the fence and glowering while Nicky walks on out and tells her that traffic detail got into a little bit of a jam and will be by with the car shortly. Sara replies, "You know what really pisses me off?" "Lots of things," replies an experience-scarred Nicky. Heh. Sara continues, "Victims aren't equal. High-profile cases get priority." Nicky points out that a ticking clock gets priority. Sara counters, "Every case is a ticking clock. Only difference between a cold case and a hot case is time." She's making a valid argument, but I suspect that her motivation is less than ideologically driven at this point. Nicky replies, "I don't care if you're working the hottest case of your career. Your supervisor tells you to leave a scene to go wash his car, you do it." Sara fixes him with a look over the rim of her sunglasses, and Nicky continues, "You don't have a career without a job." And that is why, in the real world, Nicky would probably get the promotion; Sara may be a better or smarter CSI, but she lacks the ability to put up and shut up, and that's going to bite her in the ass. Unfair but true.
The truck pulls up with what looks like a metal pancake. To make a long story short, the impounded car was flattened due to unknown agencies, but largely for an excuse to make this part of the plot complicated later on.
Warrick and David the Reflective Coroner are going through Rachel's autopsy photos. David tells him, "Body was released last week. Cremated at Desert Haven. I.D.'d by the sister. Pretty girl. Couldn't stop crying." Warrick adds, "Yeah, Rita. They were close. Lived together up until a couple of months ago. These stab wounds look like they're limited to the neck and upper torso area, huh?" David explains, "The fatal stab was to the left side of the neck. The blade traversed the subcutaneous tissue, sternocleidomastoid muscle, jugular venous complex, the carotid artery and the vagus nerve." That's a hell of a wound -- which we see in TMIcam as the knife blade punctures through the muscle (it's on the side of your neck, used to flex and rotate your head) and releases gouts of blood on its way to severing the longest of the cranial nerves.. David continues, "She bled right out. Raped, no semen in the vaginal vault. And I don't know if it's relevant, but check out the abrasion around her neck." Warrick grunts, "Noted. What's this substance on her wrist?" No idea yet -- so Warrick's off to ask Emergency Backup David.
Warrick wanders over to the cleanup bay, and sees Emergency Backup David poking at something in a giant stockpot with a pair of tongs. He ribs the assistant coroner about bringing his wash to work -- bringing to mind the image of a crude clothes press constructed from spare Erlenmeyer flasks suspended on old titration rods -- and David brings up a respectable-sized knot of bones, explaining, "I'm cleaning a pelvis." "Great," Warrick deadpans, before launching into an investigation of what the mystery substance was on Rachel's wrists. There's a sample in Trace.
There's also Hodges in Trace. Without even looking up from the scope, he tells Warrick dismissively, "Sample's still running through the GCMS. I'll let you know." Yeah -- after he scampers after Gil and gets shot down for his efforts. Warrick asks how Hodges knew he needed the sample, and Hodges replies, "411 from David. Hey, I heard about court today. Must have been embarrassing, huh?" Warrick replies, "That's okay. Tomorrow, the case will be solved, and out of my hair. You, meanwhile, will still be grappling with your hamster-sized package and a terminal personality disorder." Oh, he does not. But don't you wish he did? Warrick gives Hodges an icy glare instead, then asks, "Hodges, why'd you leave L.A. again? Never mind, it's probably none of my business." He stalks out of the lab, leaving Hodges to gape defensively as he cowers behind his microscope.
Warrick then runs into Brass in the hall; Captain Exposition asks, "Hey, Rick, you okay? 'Cause I'm here to drop some more pressure on you." I love that Brass and Warrick have that nickname thing going. Brass continues, "Rachel Lyford's sister showed up at the police station. Man, she was angry. She was firing on all cylinders." Warrick responds, "I don't blame her." Brass exposits, "Apparently, Rachel wore a silver chain around her neck. It wasn't with her personal effects. It had her father's army dog tags on it. The family wants it back." Warrick's all, "You came all the way over here for dog tags?" Brass admits that the sheriff asked him to track it down, and adds that "Rory Atwater" (a.k.a. Xander) has only been in office four months, so he's all political and doesn't want Rita badmouthing the police. Warrick puts news of the chain together with the abrasion photos. Brass sighs, "Killer took a souvenir. I'll let the sheriff know. Thanks."
Gil is brushing a green beer bottle for prints; as Warrick comes in, Gil explains that he got a print off the bottle in the garbage, and the bottle was the only one of its kind. Warrick asks if Gil needs a hand, and Gil tells him to do the sheets. Warrick's kind of puttering, and he notices that the steak knife he found in the car matches the set Gil has scattered on the table; Gil supplies that they only found five knives in the apartment. That's an odd number of steak knives. Gil queries, "Weapon of opportunity, perhaps?" I don't know. You are talking about an invisible knife here. Or invisible evidence. Same diff. Warrick looks up at the clock; it's ten minutes to eight. Aiee! Only twenty hours and ten minutes to go!
Warrick checks out the sheet -- and to this day, I cannot look at bloodstains on any fabric without thinking of Rorschach from The Watchmen -- and he notices the splotch of mystery substance on the sheets. It matches the substance found on Rachel's wrists, and as Gil notes, "That doesn't look like it belongs on the girl or her sheets." Warrick nervously checks the clock again. Gil follows his line of sight, then turns back to Warrick. He switches into sensei mode, instructing, "Stop watching the clock." Warrick tensely replies, "It's just that new evidence is coming in, and the old evidence hasn't even been processed yet. We're running out of time here, you know?" Gil senseis, "If you're watching the clock, you're not watching the case." Warrick's in no mood to play Grasshopper. He snits, "Not even you can stop time." Gil looks up from his work with an expression of beatific smugness, as if to say, "I can. But it's far more important for you to learn, my chosen heir." When Warrick looks over, Gil arches an eyebrow, and Warrick grins wryly. I suspect he thinks Gil can stop time too.
We're back, and this time, we're with Catherine at the Multiple Murder Arms. She's looking around the apartment -- which is decorated like something Old Navy would cook up if they went into housewares -- and flipping through the paperback Rachel left with the bookmark wedged about two-thirds of the way through. O, the poignant symbolism! The uniform who came with Catherine says, "I'm reading the same book." Catherine looks up and replies, "Really? Is it any good?" Oh, like she has any time to read between the demands of her job and the demands of her daughter and the demands of her father and his big, fat checks. Catherine waves around the flashlight some more, then crouches down beside the mattress, checking out the Rorschach blots of blood across its surface. The phone rings, startling the hell out of Catherine. As the answering machine kicks in, I can't help but be reminded of a very similar scene inManhunter. Anyway, it's some poor clown named Walter calling a few weeks after a party. Boy, won't he feel like an ass when word finally gets back to him that Rachel was brutally slain in her bed. Catherine continues waving the flashlight around; she tells the uniform she processed the apartment for twelve straight hours without a break. The uniform says, "Yeah, my sister calls that the CSI diet. She's a CSI up in Bakersfield. Whole family wears a badge." I wonder if they all sit around at Thanksgiving and ask each other to pass the food in cop-speak: "I apprehended the turkey doing one mile an hour. After due inspection, white meat was confiscated, but we were unable to determine who has the wishbone." And then the poor lawyer who married into the family would chime in, "As established in Smith v. Smith (1986), under the 'Finders, Keepers' doctrine, my client, should they have the wishbone, is under no burden of precedent to turn it over, and any pressure to do so is unconstitutional." And then everyone would continue losing weight because an entire dinner filled with this kind of babble would drive people from the table in self-defense.
Anyway, despite Catherine's oh-so-thorough inspection of the place, she's at a loss as to where the rapist ejaculated, and she suspects he used a condom. The officer says, "I'm no expert, but most guys can't wait to take off the rubber jacket. You check the wastebasket?" Catherine did, but now she realizes that "not every guy uses the trash." Twelve hours in that apartment and the possibility that some guys flush only comes to mind now? And she only inspects the toilet -- and finds a smear of semen on the toilet flush lever courtesy of the ALS, natch -- now? Catherine explains it away with, "Fresh eyes, new evidence."
Back at the office, Nicky and Sara are inflating the car to the Stone Roses's "Love Spreads" off their Second Coming album. And y'all should take note, because I've just hit the 50 percent mark on the "songs used in an episode that Sobell will know" quota for Season Four. Anyway, the song conveniently ends as these two wrench the car into a shape they can actually crawl into and inspect. "We're done!" Sara says happily of their reassembly job; there's something so circle-of-life about seeing her re-assemble a car after all those autos she's stripped for science. Nicky whips out his flashlight -- literally, y'all -- and commands, "Let's get started."
Sara finds a parking placard for the Saturn Arms. Even after freeze-framing the screen, I can't see if the phone number for the in-house parole officer is there as well. Sara points out that it's the same kind of permit she has at her apartment building. Makes me glad I live in a place where the parking is fenced off by a gate. Well, not really; I dig the remote more than anything else. For his part, Nicky's found some white threads; Sara notes, "Impossible to trace the source of a white thread." Nicky adds, "Reddish-brown stain, consistent with blood." Sara's all excited because it could match the towel, and Nicky reminds her that the towel is inadmissible, but the threads are fair game. And then he has to go and be a dork with, "So. You still upset about your case being put on hold?" Sara gives him a "Shut up!" look, and he grins because he got her goat.
Warrick comes hustling into the fingerprint lab, where Jacqui's busy downloading music from the iTunes store on her G4 laptop. She gives him a little crap about him answering her page in record time; he only responds, "Tell me you found something probative." "Extremely probative," she replies. I realize "probative" is a perfectly innocuous and legal term, but it's still fun to imagine Warrick all, "You ain't even seen probative yet, baby," and then the wocka-chicka-wocka-chicka soundtrack kicking in. Anyway, back in the episode, Jacqui's all happy that the print she lifted off the beer bottle in the trash matches the suspect's. Warrick recalls, "In that pretrial interview, Fife denied ever being in the victim's apartment." Jacqui retorts, "Let him try to deny the print." Jacqui's attitude is as saucy as her hair.
Brass is taking a meeting with Fife and his lawyer. The lawyer's covering his ass with, "I want it on the record that I advised my client against taking this meeting"; Fife is magnanimous in…well, Fife is actually kind of a glowering, orange jump-suited cipher, but that's okay. The whole point to this scene is for Warrick to drop the news about the blood-drenched white fibers found in the car, since they're now admissible into evidence. That's probably worse news for Fife than the admission that a paperwork screw-up was responsible for turning his schmancy car into a metal flapjack. It also gives Brass a chance to exercise his lungs as he establishes the relationship between Rachel and Fife; Fife claims they were on nodding terms, and the reason the bottle ended up in her trash was because he happened to toss it there when she had the can in the courtyard during an apartment complex party. Do you suppose all the tenants stand around and talk about all the different CSI visits over the years? Brass throws some skepticism around, and Mike gets all intense with, "I don't know who killed Rachel. I don't know how that knife got in my car. I didn't even know my taillight was busted until that dumb-ass cop pulled me over. I've been in jail ten days for something I didn't do, and I am tired of this crap!" Jeez, keep a stoner from his bud and see how cranky he gets. I can see where the week and a half in jail wouldn't help, though.
Warrick spent much of the last scene looking put-upon. His night's about to get worse: Rita has just showed up at the front desk, where she tells the receptionist in a brittle, determined tone that she'd like to see Mr. Brown, and she doesn't mind waiting. The receptionist tries to take a message, but Rachel's not having it. Warrick picks that moment to wheel by, and Rita follows him: "Mr. Brown." He says hi in a really harried way. Rita says shakily that "I know you must be extremely busy, but I need to know -- I need you to tell me -- that Michael Fife is going to pay for what he did to my sister." Warrick nods and tells her he's doing everything he can. Rita continues, almost in tears, "My mother's been medicated, and I can't sleep, and you're on a coffee break?" Warrick, to his credit, stays cool and polite, telling Rita, "Actually, it's the first coffee break I've had since I left court, so if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do." As Warrick walks off, he passes a curious-looking Nicky. Rita shouts after him, "What's going on here? Does anyone even care?!" Oof. This hits a little close to home. However, because this is fiction, Nicky comes over right then, and immediately averts a PR disaster with, "I'm Nick Stokes, I'm also a criminalist in the lab, and I want you to know I understand your frustration; this is not an easy thing to deal with. I can assure you that this entire lab is on your sister's case. Okay? I can't make any promises, but we're doing everything possible to keep the suspect behind bars, where he belongs." Rita's entire body relaxes. She half-says, half-sobs, "Thank you. That's all I needed to hear." Sing it, Rita. I'm just surprised that some relative of a victim didn't do this sooner.
Unfortunately, Nicky then goes and ruins his display of good judgment by getting all up in Warrick's face vis-à-vis his abrupt treatment of Rita. Warrick gets booted off the T.V. boyfriend list for cracking, "This job is hard enough -- I don't need the victims' families all up on my face." He and Nicky snipe back and forth about who's really the crap investigator -- the one who blows off victims' families to work, or the one who gets all mooshy with them -- and then there's a lot of macho bluster. Whatever. I'm still annoyed at Warrick. He had better pull off a fine-looking outfit later on, or he's out of my good graces.
Warrick's in the bathroom, splashing water on his face. He registers the natural light pouring in, and hangs on to the sink for a minute, probably thinking, "Holy crap, I just worked through the night. Again." I've been there too, only I get all giddy after the first eighteen hours. I don't see that happening here. Catherine comes on in and asks evenly, "How are you holding up?" Warrick tells the sink, "I'm fine." Catherine asks, "You sure?" Warrick tells the sink, "Yeah." Catherine rolls her eyes at an unseen audience and tells him, "You're in the women's bathroom." Warrick looks up from the sink, shocked. "My God, this is so much nicer! We only have an open trough after that experiment Gil did with fertilizer," his expression seems to say. Warrick apologizes. Catherine laughs and tells him she's all for it -- it is a matter of weeks before Warrick's in one particular woman's bathroom, I'm thinking. Now Warrick gets a little giddy before sobering up and telling Catherine, "This case is twisting me up. The interrogation room…it was a bust. Fife can lie better than I can tell the truth." To Gary Dourdan's credit, he's managed to nail the talked-all-night raspiness some people get after working all night. Catherine shrugs, "Better to know his lies before we go to trial." Warrick admits that he's not sure they'll actually get to the trial. Catherine breaks out the pep talk on polypeptides with, "We've got time! Seminal DNA's being processed as we speak." Warrick mopes some more, and Catherine goads him into admitting that it's kind of a rush to work on a case when you're racing against the clock.
Meanwhile, Hodges is doing St. Vitus's dance in the lab. Gil eventually comes over and asks coolly, "Yes?" Hodges tells him, "I just ID'd the substance on Rachel Lyford's wrists. Same substance found on the sheets." Gil asks Hodges if he's told Warrick yet, what with Warrick being the lead on the case and his appointed heir. Hodges completely misses his conversational cue to shut up and wash the metaphorical car, so to speak, and says, "About Warrick -- what happened in court today? I tried to talk to him -- he, he just shut down." Gil curtly says, "He just shut you down." Burn! We find out that the substance is wax, and Hodges is still working on what kind of wax it is, but he does know it has a very low melting point. He's ordered up some information from New Jersey to be rushed; Gil tells him to cross-check the product labels on the internet. At the door, Gil turns around and says, "Listen, if you need someone to talk to --" Hodges jumps off the table and asks, "Yeah? When's a good time?" Gil finishes, "There's a psychologist here on Tuesdays and Fridays." Burned again! The camera focuses on Hodges, who looks like he needs a psychologist now.
Catherine, Warrick, and Liam are all hovering around the machine that goes ping. Gil leans in, and the machine goes, "Ping." Well, not really: it spits out results that show the suspect's DNA is nothing like the DNA Catherine lifted from the toilet. Warrick says, "Great!" in a way that suggests he'd like to cram Catherine's pep talk about the case breaking wide open down her throat. Nicky pops up just then to tell Gil that Xander's on the warpath and looking for an update. Warrick gloomily advises Gil to avoid him. Nicky, who is only now noticing all the long faces, asks why, and Catherine replies, "Our only suspect may be innocent."
Day has broken over Vegas, and Sara has joined the little group to refresh the memories of those who may have forgotten what just happened after three minutes of Humvee commercials. Hey! A little clock at the bottom of the screen now says it's 7:06 AM. Why are we just getting a timer now? Could they not contrive a way to get a clock into the scene, like maybe having Emergency Backup David stagger by with a grandfather clock on his back while David the Supervisory Coroner follows behind, calling merrily, "I've never done an autopsy where I had to pry the body out of a clock before!" Anyway, Sara suggests that the semen could have come from a prior sexual encounter with another man; Nicky backs her up by pointing out that Sara's possibility doesn't negate the idea that Fife raped and murdered Rachel. Catherine points out that the semen belongs to whomever flushed the toilet last. Gil points out, "We have no evidence that he raped her, no evidence that he killed her, and even if we consider the invisible evidence, that still doesn't give us enough to put him at the scene of the crime during the commission of the crime. Our trinity of evidence is incomplete." The team brainstorms how the knife got in the car (Fife lives alone and nobody else has access), and slowly, the idea of another suspect placing the knife in the car -- and therefore reintroducing the knife as evidence, since it's only excluded in the case of the suspect whose rights were violated. Just then, Xander shows up. Catherine calls Gil attention to it, and he rolls his eyes and sighs like he's fourteen.
He gets up and heads on over to Xander, saying shortly, "I'm sorry. You look lost." Xander reproachfully tells him, "I've been calling your cell." Gil glibly lies, "We get bad reception at CSI. Listen, if this is about dinner when I'm free week, I'll be having the fish." Xander testily notes there are nine hours left, and demands an update. Everyone else except Gil quietly leaves right then. Gil tells him, "The investigation, which is under my purview, has taken an unexpected turn. When we know something, you'll know something." Xander glowers, "I don't like surprises." Gil tells him, "Me neither." Xander's a little put off that Gil won't be elaborating any further.
Nicky takes another look at the knife and notices some whitish residue on the handle. He takes a scraping to send down to Trace.
Sara's busy staring at the sheet Gil tacked up to the wall. Gil comes on in and asks, "Checking my work?" Nah -- Sara's just looking. Gil asks what Sara's thinking. "Well, her body left this void. The attacker was on top; he held her down by her wrists," Sara says. Gil replies, "Which would explain the transfer of wax from him to her." Sara agrees. They look thoughtful for a moment, and then Sara says, "Pin me down." Gil does; he looks uncomfortable. Sara explains that Rachel would have struggled, then stopped, and when the rapist/murderer got up, he would have put his hands on the sheet for leverage. Gil lets go of Sara's wrists and moves his hands down to near her waist to demonstrate. It's worth noting that the two of them only broke eye contact at that moment. Oh, will one of you just transfer or something? Anyway, now that we've figured out how the wax got to the sheets, it's time for an awkward personal conversation. Sara stammers, "Well, you know, I applied for the promotion for the key position." Gil confirms, "Your application is on my desk." Sara barrels on, "About that. I, um, I needed to know. I…I wanted to make sure, rather, that anything that happened or didn't happen between us won't be a factor." I bet that sounded a lot more smooth and professional in her head. Gil looks like he's considering the idea for the first time. Sara realizes, "Never mind. I-I shouldn't have said anything." Well, maybe not during the middle of a big, high-profile case where the clock is ticking and you're already sticking in your boss's head for being all ornery when he handed out assignments. A little conversation on the QT later might have worked. Sara babbles on, "I, uh, I'm always over-talking around you." Sara, woman, transfer out of that shift. Then you can ask Gil out all you want. Gil just kind of stands there, looking stunned and wondering who will be afflicted with sleep-deprivation goofiness .
Down in Trace, Hodges is asking Catherine if she's ever heard of body wax, which is kind of like asking a voodoo priestess if she's ever heard of chickens. This is the wacky way we get to Hodges telling us he identified the wax. He snots to Catherine, "Per Grissom, I'm not allowed to release the results to anyone but the lead CSI, and that would be Warrick." Among the many reasons I personally find Hodges delightful -- his snide attitude, his open contempt for anyone else, his unctuous attitude around Gil -- his commitment to pissing people off tops the list. We find out the substance is Axion car wax, available only in commercial car washes.
Catherine, Warrick, and Gil meet so they can discuss how to figure out where Fife gets his car washed, since his day job as an electrician would more or less eliminate casual exposure to the wax. By this point, they're all, "What's the worst that can happen?"
Well, if you're Fife, the worst that can happen is going into hour eight of a conversation with Captain Exposition. Brass wants to know everything that happened from the party to the arrest. Fife is downright snarky when he notes, "Devil's in the details, huh?" Warrick, who's hovering over Brass's shoulder like the Angel of Death, replies, "Could be." Fife spills all: "I hung out until about midnight. Drank my six-pack. Hit on a couple girls. Struck out. Went back to my apartment. Passed out. In the morning, I drove up to Green Valley, installed a chandelier, two sconces. At noon, I went back to my apartment and I made a tuna fish sandwich. Lettuce, tomato, spoon of relish, wheat bread. Then…" Fife pauses here, as if to think, before concluding, "I took a leak. I don't want to skip a beat." "Outstanding," Brass deadpans. He continues, but we're in the secret looky-loo box behind the interrogation room, where Gil and Catherine are standing, so we don't hear anything. As Gil watches, Catherine says archly, "So, I liked your tough act yesterday." Gil asks, "Huh?" Catherine sing-songs, "'I hand out the assignments. This isn't a negotiation.'" Gil's way too casual when he replies, "What? Too much?" Catherine fervently replies, "Not enough." Y'all remember what I said a few pages back about boss-subordinate relationships? This is Exhibit B. Back in the room, we're finally getting to the whole point of the scene: Fife stopped at the Reliant Car Wash on Chardon Cir., a block from his apartment, for the lunchtime special. Warrick and Brass are extremely interested in this; this perks up the lawyer's ears. Brass asks if the attendant bothered to point out the broken taillight. Fife is all, "No. Hey! Yeah! They should have said something." The lawyer's all over the idea that the focus of the investigation has shifted. He's all, "This conversation is over!" which kind of loses its lawyerly impact when the scene is over too.
And now we're at the car wash. Warrick and Catherine are getting ready to look around. Catherine reasons that your vehicle is pretty much open to the world at one of these things, and is most vulnerable as it goes down the tunnel. She's thinking the taillight was fine when the car entered the car wash -- so how did it break, and why didn't anyone say anything? Catherine, Warrick, and a uniform quickly cook up a hypothesis wherein the killer is working on the line, plants the knife, and busts the taillight, knowing full well some officer would pull the car over and do a search. You know, I tooled around California for four months with a broken taillight and the long arm of the law never reached in my general direction. Who knew Nevadans had a zero-tolerance policy about it? To make a long story short: Catherine collars the manager and asks when was the last time he had the drain trap cleaned. Conveniently enough, it was about a month ago. Catherine tells him she's going to clean his trap. Warrick has gone punchy by now; he's nearly snorting in amusement. The manager is all, "Sorry, lady. Can't just shut down the shop; I got customers." Catherine threatens to come back at an extremely busy time with a search warrant, and the manager folds like a map. Within seconds, Catherine's stripped down to her trusty white tank top -- at moments when you can't find an envelope for the evidence, you can simply smear it on the shirt -- and is rummaging in the bowels of the drainage system until she finds broken taillight bits. Wow, too bad the car's the size and shape of a drying rack now -- it would have been nice to try to match those pieces to Fife's taillight.
Just to confirm that someone did break the taillight on purpose, Warrick asks the manager if it's possible for two cars to get too close to one another. Nope -- the whole automated system shuts down if cars get within three feet of one another.
And now, the entire car wash staff is assembled in a holding room at CSI Central, giving DNA samples. Brass is saying, "We know you work hard, so we've provided some lunch for you, burgers and stuff, compliments of the Las Vegas police department." A tiny and cynical part of me wonders if this isn't a sneaky way to gather some sort of evidence. Brass sorts everyone into two lines by birthday. The manager pulls some 'tude with, "How long is this crap gonna take?" Rather than pulling out Rita Lyford and asking icily if El Jefe would prefer to repeat the question in front of the deceased's fightin' kin, Brass simply shoots back, "As long as it takes." Catherine's getting ready to swab people when someone drawls, "Ma'am, I gotta take a leak." Catherine drawls, "Well, you just hold on there." Incidentally, that someone is played by James Marshall, whom many of you will remember as the hoody, not terribly emotive one from Twin Peaks. No, the other one. Anyway, it's a swab-apalooza, and Catherine gets James Marshall before asking the uniform to escort him to the john. As James leaves, Warrick notices that he's wearing a thin silver chain around his neck.
Cut to James telling Warrick and Catherine, "You guys are making a big mistake. I don't know a Rachel Lyford. I swear." Catherine tells him his bastard DNA betrayed him. The defense attorney begins to realize her day's about to get worse when she says, "You don't have to answer, but if you could explain the semen…" James decides to get cute with, "I know a Rachel, but I never knew her last name. Did the girl that you guys are looking for live at the Saturn Arms apartments?" Hell, which murder victim in Vegas doesn't? Catherine's all, "So you do know her?" James begins a badly-improvised story about how he's part of this black-market economy of car waxers who goes to the customer's house, he waxed Rachel's car, and when he went to pay her, he waxed her car again, if you know what I mean.
Catherine begs to differ: she suspects that what happened is that James raped Rachel on impulse, and after he finished, realized that he had violated someone who knew his name and where he worked, so rather than risk her going to the police, he killed her. The flashback's pretty much what you'd expect -- brutal and senseless. Warrick is looking at this guy as if he'd like to kill him if he weren't so tired. Or perhaps the realization that he and the CSIs were willing to send an innocent guy up the river on bad evidence just sunk in. Catherine points out that now they're looking at the death penalty; James replies, "Lady, you are whacked." The lawyer points out they didn't find the murder weapon in James's car. Warrick explains for the slow viewers at home that James went from the apartment to the car wash, where he seized the chance to frame Fife. The lawyer tries to discount that as a hell of a coincidence, and Warrick replies, "It was your lucky day. You recognized the parking permit in the car window." Warrick drops the final nail in the coffin of this investigation by whipping out dog tags belonging to one Aaron Lyford, a.k.a. Rachel's dad; James had been wearing them on his way into the bathroom, but Warrick found them stashed in a toilet tank. I'd ask what kind of idiot would think of trying to get rid of evidence in a police station, but I have no doubt someone's pulled it off successfully. Anyway, James is so busted.
Cut to Warrick back in court, testifying that the defendant arrived at the station of his own accord and provided a DNA sample, which was then analyzed chop-chop and found to match the semen at the crime scene. This time, Warrick gets off the stand without raising any troublesome issues. The judge finds it appropriate for the defendant to stand trial for the murder of Rachel Lyford. I love how nobody refers to this guy by name; it's like the writers were so busy thinking of the plot twists, they forget to give their little last-minute killer an actual name. Rita gets all teary in the audience; Gil is smiling paternally. Verily, Warrick is the discipline whom Gil loves. The music swells to indicate that we should all feel like some sort of meet and proper ending has occurred, as opposed to merely signaling the beginning of a long and drawn-out criminal case.
Anyway, Warrick stops to chat up Rita, because now he has time to make nice with the victim's family, and she is appropriately grateful. Eh, it's not a bad suit. Warrick -- or whomever dresses him -- knows how to keep things within the same color family.
Xander shows up right then, a master of coincidental timing if ever there was one. The music gets muted so we can hear this snappy line from Gil: "I think you're right on time. There must be a press conference nearby." Xander, to his credit, wants to share some of the spotlight with Warrick, demurring, "There might be a few questions outside of my --" "Purview?" Gil suggests. Heh. Xander prompts Warrick to come along now, Warrick tries to get out of it, and Gil assures him, "You won't have to talk much." Before he goes, Warrick turns around and says, "Grissom, thanks." This is like two regular people hugging, y'all. Are you all choked up yet? Gil shrugs and asks, "For what?" because he's all emotional right now too. Warrick strides off and Gil watches him go, smiling beatifically and thinking, "Yea, verily, when I am assumed bodily into CSI heaven, Warrick shall build a lab in my name on the rock of his forensic work." Or something to that effect. How appropriate that an episode which brings up the question of promotion shows what a good manager Gil is.