Vegas! All lighted and shiny and streaky and things! For those of you who are still drinking caffeinated beverages, no doubt this opening screen looks like the view from the Millennium Falcon's windshield right before they jump to light speed.
Anyway, we zip from the Strip-traffic-on-meth speed on down to a man-on-the-street scenario. Or, in this neighborhood, the hombre en la calle scenario. Some tired-looking casino employee finishes transacting his business at the corner taqueria, gets into the car, then heads down the street with a faceful of carne asada blocking his eyeline. This does not stop him from looking alarmed and slamming on the brakes. We see why as an out-of-control Hummer bears down on him. Well, of course Burrito Jones saw that coming: how can you miss seeing one of those earth-rapers? Within moments of impact, Burrito Jones is covered in both glass and carne asada. As if being trapped in his car isn't bad enough, now the poor guy's got nothing to snack on while he waits for the Jaws of Life to extract him.
And it's apparently a good meal he's missing, too. We flash to the scene, where Gil's ducking under the crime scene tape as a uniform tells him, "This is the best taco I ever had." "I'm happy for you both," Gil shoots back. Rowr! As Gil heads over, Brass asks him blithely, "What, you piss off Ecklie again? This is a hit-and-run. I was expecting Grasshopper, Your Adopted Son Number Three." "We don't call him that anymore," Gil snaps, then continues, "We're slammed. Everybody's on a case." I will leave it to you to sift out the stuff I made up from the actual dialogue. Gil finally takes in the scene and asks incredulously of the car 'neath the Hummer's tires, "Is this a Fiero?" Brass confirms that it is, and adds, "Kind of makes you nostalgic for Members Only jackets." Gil gives him a look like, No, not really.
Brass explains, "The Hummer was going the wrong way on a one-way street. The guy in the Fiero is lucky to be alive. Nobody saw the driver get out." Gil points out that "people who drive $100,000 vehicles don't usually run away from them." They will after Greenpeace effects a coup. Brass passes up the chance to score environmental points and snorts, "Well, you obviously haven't met any paroled rappers." That's because there's a woeful lack of demand for entomologists in the posse racket. Gil's got his mind on his evidence: "Tread marks indicate acceleration. Pedal to the metal." We get the Osmont cam effect with the car, and it's not unlike taking a ride in Disney's Haunted Mansion. Brass suggests that it was a joyride, adding, "There's a red smear on the door. Somebody's got blood on their hands." Gil takes this in, as well as the exploded airbag, and quips, "Well, we know one thing about the driver: he's had a face-lift."
The Who would like to know who the driver is so they can fix him up with Catherine. After all, those two have at least one thing in common.
When we get back from commercials, Gil's loping through the Labitrail. As he walks by the receptionist's desk, Liam the larval CSI and Sara cross the reception area behind him. Both are clad in blue jumpsuits, and Liam's saying, "Sara, I just want you to know that while we were in the shower, I didn't see anything." Gil's head whips around as Sara replies, "Really? Gosh, I saw everything." Sadly for Liam, she does not sound awestruck while saying that. Gil takes a moment to brood, while I take a moment to snap at the TV that he does not get to pull that dog-in-the-manger routine. Anyway, Judy interrupts Gil's reverie with "Mr. Grissom, PD just called. Apparently the Humvee from your hit-and-run was carjacked earlier tonight." By the way, Judy is rocking a pair of tortoiseshell frames that I seriously covet, and anyone who can tell me who makes them will get a special shout-out from me in the recap, I promise. Because they would look awesome on me and we wants them.
But enough about the precious frames. There's a pissed-off touristy couple currently reminding Brass that sometimes, there are worse things than living alone. There's living with this harridan, for example, who's busy contradicting every detail in her husband's account over exactly what kind of carjacker absconded with the hideous vehicle they won from the local auto show. By the end of the scene, all these two agree on is that a bipedal hominid may have taken the car. Everything else -- including the species of the hominid -- is up for negotiation.
The one useful piece of information is that the Hummer's would-be new boyfriend was lurking by a fence in this show's definition of a bad neighborhood. What's left unexplained is what the couple were doing in this part of town, or how the carjacker managed to get them out of the car. Let's not dwell on it right now. So Gil just happens to notice some not-so-fresh blood on the fence and snaps a photo. He then notices the trail of blood drops leading to the fence, and a bloody white bandanna.
Gil's momentarily distracted by a cruiser and an unmarked car speeding by in hot pursuit of...something, but he returns to looking at the bandanna. Within seconds we find out that the two cars were, in fact, speeding to a local convenience store. There, a belligerent young man is being frog-marched out while the irate Asian shopkeeper screams, "Try to steal from me, you miserable lowlife! This time, I get justice!" Or you get Brass and two extras in cop uniforms. As the bloody-kneed guy is marched to the cooler, the store owner screams, "Jail! You are going to jail!" The thugling retorts weakly, "Man, you just a racist." Worth noting: this guy is about as street as Thurston Howell.
Brass tells the kid that he matches the description for a suspect in a carjack and hit-and-run case, and the kid cheerfully corrects him: "Na-ah-ah. I jacked a 40, not no car, a'ight." Brass replies, "Yeah, a'ight, One-Cent. Let's go." The camera switches back to the shopkeeper, who's clearly thinking, "I would have gone with Eminot."
Within seconds, Brass and Gil are doing a little light cardio on the Labitrail as Brass tells him that One-Cent vigorously denies ever having been in a Hummer, much less trying to steal one. Gil's all, "Well, we matched his blood on the gearshift and on the headband we found in the alley." Brass sighs, "And he's skinny, which matches one of the descriptions. I'm charging him."
Speaking of sardonic humor, it's Hodges Time. As Gil looks into what appears to be a microscope slide designed by Murikami, Hodges tells him, "The oily stain you collected from the Hummer's airbag was, ironically enough, oil. More specifically, lard." Gil observes that "it looks like there's tissue fibers mixed into it." Hodges replies, "Several different types, actually. So I ran an ELISA to differentiate. Pork, beef, chicken and possibly human flesh. A real taste treat." Gil looks thoughtful. Or hungry. It's hard to tell the difference. Anyway, Hodges natters on as Gil begins thinking of meat-lover's pizza, meatball sandwiches, meatloaf, soylent green...and finally notices that Grissom is on another, tastier plane of thought. "What are you thinking about?" Hodges asks. "Tacos," Gil breathes. And then the uniform from the two-minute mark pops up to point and shriek, "What did I tell you about those tacos?" Or not.
Cut to Gil ambling over to the taqueria we saw previously. He says, "Hola," and the guy heading up the stand replies, "Hola. Chicken, beef or pork, boss?" "Human, if you've got it," Gil replies. Because, really, it has been a while since we've had a cannibalism episode. Aren't we due? No? Anyway, in the actual episode, Gil asks for carnitas, and as the guy prepares his lunch, Gil asks all casual-like, "Say, have you had any trouble around here recently?" Gil flashes his ID, and the taco jockey replies, "Just a little scuffle yesterday. Nothing I couldn't handle." And how. We flash back to the gentleman tucking a few dollars into his apron. Then One-Cent and his sidekick come up, demanding, "Yo, Pops, give us the loot." The taco master picks that time to erect a language barrier and decide that in his home country, "give us the loot" translates into "knife One-Cent in the knee while tossing a pan of hot grease in the other guy's face." It's a very satisfying scene to watch, in a visceral and not-at-all-nice kind of way. Maybe it's that I really didn't like little One-Cent.
Gil asks, "Why didn't you file a police report?" Taco Master clucks, "Oh, bother you guys with something like that? I was a kid once. Those guys just needed someone to set them straight." Or stab and sear them straight. Potato, po-tah-to, you know? Taco Master hands over the carnitas and Gil takes them as if expecting to get a cleaver to the knuckles. Heh. Gil makes as if to pay, and Taco Master tells him it's on the house. Gil is in no mood to argue with a man who's so quick with the lard. He is, however, in a mood to dial Brass and tell him, "We need to go back to the hospitals. We may be looking for a burn patient."
Well, I'm sure Liam would be happy to send you over to one he knows about. But really, we're looking at a new burn patient, one Lawrence Lafontaine. As Brass comes in to arrest him, Lawrence is all, "Did Vern rat me out?" You know, it's hard to live the thug life with a name like Vern. Gil replies that it was a telltale taco. Lawrence snots, "Everyone in my 'hood knows that old taco guy. To get whupped by his old ass and not do anything about it?"
Apparently, the first thing Lawrence and Vern did was go into a flashback, where Vern was whimpering to Lawrence, "It hurts for reals, dawg." Lawrence plays Clara Barton and ties on a bandanna with the tender admonition, "Stop being such a little baby." Vern decides, "I need some medicine, and I ain't talkin' about going to no hospital either." Fortunately for him, Walgreen's is open 24 hours, and it doesn't ask questions. Lawrence decides that gosh darn it, before the night is over, he will have broken the social contract in some form!
Back in the present, Lawrence says, "Vern just bitched out. Wanted to forget it ever happened. Not me." Gil says slowly, "So you stole the Hummer...for revenge?"
Cut to the Bickersons, arguing about whether or not he should have gotten directions. No wonder they're so cranky -- their life lacks anything above the clichéd. Anyway, Lawrence gets the Bickersons out of the car by dint of sheer lung power alone, and we see the Hummer heading the wrong way down a one-way street so he can, presumably, strike down the taco master where he stands. Unfortunately for him, he is going down a one-way street, and so runs into opposing traffic from the Fiero. Pontiac wasn't lying about building excitement, were they?
Back in the present, Brass asks, "Let me get this straight. An old man refuses to let you steal his money, so you jacked a Hummer to try and run over his taco stand." Lawrence realizes for the first time that sometimes, if a plan sounds really stupid when spoken aloud, it actually is stupid. He says in a small voice, "Maybe." Gil raises an eyebrow, then tells Brass in a choked tone, "I think this is the dumbest thing we've ever heard." Gil looks like being so close to something so stupid is paining him. It's the best line reading EVER.
And now, Vegas is bright! Shiny! Lights moving! Things rewinding! And now Gil is reverse-brooding! As Sara and Liam go reverse-walking through the Labitrail! And we zoom away from Las Vegas! The Hummer goes backwards! Night becomes day! It's all very exciting and nonlinear.
And now we're at a car show. It's filled with shiny cars and shinier women, and the schlubs who love them. People are gathering as someone extols the virtues of a mobile home: "It's a ski lodge, a beach house, a state-of-the-art virtual office. Your home on the road." Curiously enough, he's neglecting to mention what kind of gas mileage these things get. Is that not a selling point? Anyway, Deluca Motor Coaches is proud to present an interior cutaway of the G-4700, and that's when we find out that in addition to being a ski lodge, a beach house, and state-of-the-art virtual office, this thing also makes an excellent crime scene.
Cut to Warrick walking inside and greeting Vartann. Since the victim is thin, he's suitably outraged over this senseless loss of life. She is Lisa Schumacher, age 29. I should point out that I actually typed in my own name there, as the victim and I share a first name, and our last names both begin with "Sch," have an "m" in the middle, and end with "er." No doubt this is purely coincidental. Warrick muses, "A convention girl." Emergency Backup David plays the naïf for exposition purposes: "A what?" "You know, a model, stripper or showgirl working the convention floor for extra cash," Warrick replies. I can't help but wonder if there's some sort of convention-girl hierarchy depending on what your other gigs are. Anyway, we find out Lisa died at 4 AM, she's got laceration on her lower lip, contusions on her neck, and petechial hemorrhaging. Vartann says soberly, "So she got slapped around, strangled, and maybe somewhere in between she was raped." Warrick notices some streaks on Lisa's neck that don't look like blood, but she's got all sorts of skin and hair fragments under her nails. Well, that's a bonus.
As the convention continues with its clamorous hubbub, Warrick is collecting evidence in the world's largest RV. So does it work as a ski lodge, a beach house, and state-of-the-art virtual office because it combines the square footage of all three separate structures? Fortunately for Warrick, he finds a semen sample in the toilet. Snapping open the flip-bottom lid that separates the bowl of the toilet from its waste tank below, he spies several condoms sitting on top of...things better not contemplated in what was presumably a new vehicle. Warrick mutters to himself, "So that's why they call it a recreational vehicle."
When we get back to the morgue, David the Compact Coroner is explaining to Catherine, "Her COD is strangulation. Whoever did this used a lot more force than they needed to. There's bleeding in the neck muscles, fractures in the cornu of the thyroid cartilage and the hyoid bone." Catherine asks if David did a wet mount. He tells he did, and he "found motile sperm in the vaginal cavity." Catherine's eyes roll expressively. Well, at least some part of her face is still capable of expression. Catherine says, "Well, Warrick found several used condoms in the RV. Killer must have run out and started riding bareback." David's all, "Don't go assuming anything there, what with me not having mentioned any evidence that would imply penetrative sex." He adds, "The semen was found at a depth not consistent with penile penetration. In this case, only a couple of inches in." Catherine's eyes roll in another direction -- hey, they're doing the work of an entire face here -- and she archly suggests, "Maybe that's all the killer had to work with."
Back on the convention floor, it turns out the Bickersons just won a Hummer. Let's hope they don't get too attached to that car. Meanwhile, some guy who'd like to think he's a player is busy telling Warrick, "I got over 70 women working this show -- booth bimbos, crowd gatherers, narrators, demonstrators, translators. Whatever you need, I got it." Vartann points out they're only interested in Lisa Schumacher, and the guy smarms, "She's one of my girls. I represent her. They call her 'Cris,' for Cristal, the champagne. She can't get enough of it." Warrick asks if Lisa -- whom I am going to call Cris from now on, because I'm getting a severe case of cognitive dissonance from typing my name -- liked to party, and DemiPimp answers, "She liked to make money. Girls who like to party make money. This ain't L.A. where you get up at 10 AM for an audition." Because when we think of "Protestant work ethic gone west," the first city that springs to mind is Las Vegas. Anyway, at 10 AM, DemiPimp's girls are still at Drai's, partying with the clients. Warrick finally breaks the news of Cris's death, and DemiPimp feigns shock. The tragedy of it all will sink in later when he's balancing the books. Warrick and Vartann want to know what Cris could possibly have been doing in the RV after the show floor closed at 10 PM. DemiPimp doesn't know. He'd rather focus on the ravages of time: "Look, she worked behind a booth, yapping her mouth. I can't really throw her in a bikini no more -- three-oh, uh-oh." Before Warrick and Vartann can ask DemiPimp if this no-bikinis-after-30 edict applies to them too, a very busty young woman in a lot of spandex comes up and whimpers at DemiPimp, "Donny…" Donny -- whom I will continue to call DemiPimp because I darn well feel like it -- reads the situation with the innate tenderness of the born humanitarian, and snaps, "You're late! And you're not dressed. What's the deal, girl!" From the depths of the couch, Mr. Sobell registers his indignation at DemiPimp's callous ways, and expresses fervently, "I love her. She needs to run in and discover bodies every week. She's awesome."
The girl pleads that she's had the worst morning ever, and DemiPimp snaps that she did not because "Cris is dead!" He's got a gentle way with the ladies, that one. The girl rushes off, and DemiPimp remarks ruefully to Warrick and Vartann, "It's a tough business." Yes. When you're a bimbo wrangler, you don't have time to cry from the pain.
Warrick somehow manages to make it back to the Labitrail before DemiPimp can work around to "I rocks in the East and I rolls in the West." As Warrick strolls into Hodges's lab, he calls the tech's name. Unfortunately for Hodges, he's under the sink inspecting the pipes, face mask covering his mouth and nose, and the summons makes him rear up and bump his head. It's comedy gold.
Hodges manages to bite back the "Arrrgh" to ask, "What do you want?" Warrick's distracted: "What are you doing?" "Looking for leaks," Hodges says, paranoia soaking every syllable. Warrick says in exasperation, "Call Facilities. You got my results?" Hodges snaps back, "If you knew what grew on these pipes, you'd be on your hands and knees with me." Warrick asks for the results from Cris's fingertips. Hodges is all, "Fine," jerks aside the face mask in a supreme act of peevishness, and rattles off the results: nonoxynol-9, which is fairly compelling evidence that Cris handled a condom at some point; a hair gel, which is fairly unsurprising, what with the hair found on her too; and self-tanner. Warrick muses, "She had hair under her fingernails, so she could have scratched her attacker's scalp." "Not my job," Hodges says with a shake of the head.
Warrick then heads over to Jacqui's lab. She tells him she got four work-card permits from the prints in the trailer: Dana Simmons, Candice Mosti, Lane Kelly, and Cris. All four girls have one thing in common: their work history all lists their most recent job as "Royal Flush Models." Prior to that, their work histories are a little more mundane. Dana was a coffee barista, Candice was a high school tutor and a sales clerk, Lane was a restaurant hostess, and Cris was a Tangiers waitress and a sales clerk. So now I have all sorts of questions about the work ID cards. When do you get them? Does the job have to take place in the casino? Because I'm wondering what kind of high school tutor works out of the Tangiers, say. Also worth noting: Cris is a mere 29, not 30. Warrick mutters something about Cris's employer thinking of her as over the hill and Jacqui says, "Please tell me you're kidding." Warrick replies, "This town has different standards." If they can be called that. Jacqui looks shocked. God knows why -- it's not like she flies to work in a bubble from a remote Alpine village in which the beauty myth is used to scare children at bedtime. Anyway, it takes Warrick mere seconds to notice that Cris and Candice weren't just coworkers. They were also roommates.
Cut to Candice being all, "So my fingerprints were all over the RV. Can you blame me? That thing is a ski lodge, a beach house, and state-of-the-art virtual office. You know what else it is? Sex on wheels. I loves the cars when they get three miles to the gallon! There's nothing like the smell of the Cretaceous burning to get me hot and bothered! Rrrrrrr!" Vartann's all, "Right. And I'm just going to pretend that you protested how not-suspicious your actions were before telling you that yes, it looks a little funny to have you raffling off a Hummer hours after your roommate turns up dead." Candice protests that she's dedicated to her craft. Actually, she's dedicated to the idea of paying off her car insurance. Warrick notices the self-tanner on Candice's arm. She's all, "Forgot to rub it in, I guess." Warrick's not buying it: "Razor-tight girl like you forgetting to rub in tanning lotion." Candice looks up like she's expecting him to notice she needs a bikini wax too. Warrick continues, "That doesn't sound right to me. You know, the funny thing is, your girl Cris had streaks of tanner on her body too. Were you girls together last night?"
The tell-tale tanner prompts Candice to spill all. DemiPimp ordered the four models to hang out after work with Mr. Deluca. (You will recall that he's the one selling the wondrous RV that doubles as a ski lodge, a beach house, and state-of-the-art virtual office.) Vartann goggles at the prospect of a four-model party. Warrick snorts incredulously, and Candice snaps, "I'm not a hooker. All I do is these conventions. So when a big baller like Mr. Deluca comes into town and offers us a little cash to hang out, I'm with it." "With it where?" Vartann asks. Candice replies, "We had dinner at Fix, partied at Mix, then came back to the RV for Pick-Up Sticks. Then we did him in the van, and we did him in the can. We did him --" Warrick interrupts, "I do not like this tale, Vartann, I do not like it, 'Rick I am. Oh, stop, stop, stop before I pop. Stop! Stop! Stop! Stop!"
Sorry about that. Let's reset. 'Twas midnight, and the skanky hos / did gyre and gimble in the van.
Let's reset again. Candace reveals that everyone went back to the RV because Deluca was "hammered and horny." And smooth, if his opening line is anything to go by: "Who gets the first ride? Ha ha ha ha!" Candace is shocked sober at the prospect of taking the anti-joy ride. Do not weep, maiden, for booze is kind / Because your lover got you hammered/ in an RV / and your three colleagues are now drawing straws / Do not weep. / Booze is kind.
Cris climbs over to him and Deluca is apparently not too drunk to snap, "If I wanted someone your age, I'd do my wife. Ha ha ha ha ha!" He then pushes Cris down before she snaps back, "And if you wife wanted unspectacular copulation, she'd do you." Dana and Lane promptly attach themselves to Deluca with the foolhardy brio of women who are still under the impression that they'll remain young and immortal. Candice comforts Cris, then slips out before Deluca can woo her by pointing out any personal flaws. Candice tells the guys that Deluca didn't even want to touch Cris; this baffles them, what with the sperm and the condom evidence. Candice points out that when she left, Dana and Lane were keeping God's Gift to Masochists busy and Cris was locked in the bathroom.
Cut to Deluca whining, "You want my prints? My DNA? Come on, guys -- I'm on vacation here." "Oh, our bad. We forgot how the Fourth Amendment protects your right not to be hassled on vacation," Warrick apologizes. Deluca protests that "my DNA is going to be all over that girl, but I didn't put it on her. She did. This broad was expiring like spoiled milk, and she was looking for a way out." Her way out: doing a little impromptu artificial insemination. Deluca admits that he reacted to this unorthodox attempt to jump-start the miracle of life by slapping Cris around a little. Vartann figures that it's also a swell reason to consider someone a murder suspect. Deluca points out, "If I killed her, do you think I'd have put her in my own motor coach? And then present it at an unveiling ceremony that I was announcing?" Vartann and Warrick exchange looks like, Crap. He has a point.
And then we're outside, with Nicky telling someone on the other end of his cell phone, "Yes, yes. I'm very aware of Butterfield Academy's privacy policy. But this is --" and then he fades out, because the camera switches to Warrick and Catherine strolling on by. Warrick's telling Catherine of the condoms: "On one of them, his DNA and her epithelials are on both sides...it does support his story." Catherine asks about the epithelials under Cris's nails, and Warrick's not quite sure. He's still working on the case. And when he's done, he can find the Surgeon General of Beverly Hills and get him to de-freeze Catherine's face. It's getting distracting.
Warrick's idea of working on the case is heading back to the car show and running his fingers through DemiPimp's gelled hair until he uncovers the furrows in his scalp from Cris's final fight. There's a TMIcam, because we haven't seen enough blood yet tonight. Really. Anyway, we wrap up this story with Warrick explaining DemiPimp's motives: "You were thinking how Cris pissed off your best client, and how much business it was going to cost you. You kill her, Deluca takes the fall, you can't lose." DemiPimp spits, "Cris was a nothing. Old news. Why would I risk everything for a zero like her?" "For that exact reason," Warrick replies. DemiPimp snaps, "That's a real good story. You find that in one of your forensic journals?" Who would have pegged DemiPimp as someone who even knew about reading? Much less someone familiar with the world of peer-reviewed publishing? Warrick snaps back, "When I match your DNA, I'll make sure you're on the cover." So Warrick's planning on submitting this to Criminal Jackasses Monthly. I love a happy ending!
And once again: Vegas is bright! Shiny! Lights moving! Things rewinding! Warrick and Catherine are walking backward through the Labitrail! Nicky is walking through the Labitrail and talking backwards. And I hear hidden messages: "Evil Knievel II, you say? Would I have to wear another wig?" We zoom out of Vegas, the car show runs in reverse, night becomes day…
We're now in plot number three. Mr. Sobell gets his wish -- his new TV girlfriend is indeed being brought back so she and her gravity-defying breasts can discover another body. Seriously. She bops up the steps to meet her personal trainer ("Hey, Paul. It's Gwen.") but after he fails to open the door to her invitation to "let me in...work me out," she walks around the house and discovers him stretched out on the floor, his face all bruised.
Within seconds, Cavaliere has arrived and begun spewing exposition in Sara and Liam's general direction: the 28-year-old victim, Paul Charles, was a competition bodybuilder and personal trainer. By the way, Sara's outfit here is excellent -- flared chinos, a dark tee, and a tobacco-colored, fitted, and belted suede jacket. (I dig the jacket too. When did "CSI" begin to stand for "Cool Shopping Investigation"?) Funny how once she got over that whole I-dig-my-boss thing, she learned how to dress herself. If only she could teach Liam, who's dressed in an ill-fitting charcoal suit jacket and shades. He's like Miami Vice by way of the Munsters. Anyway, we get a good look at Paul, whose face is as pink and purple as a Lisa Frank notebook. Liam looks around at the room full of poster-sized photos of Paul, and comments, "This guy's the poster child for self-love." So this means he shaved his palms before the photo shoot, then.
Back at HQ, Mr. Sobell is singing a happy tune -- "More scenes with Gwen! More scenes with Gwen!" -- and Cavaliere is asking Gwen what she knows about Paul's schedule. He had cut down on clients so he could train more aggressively for the Mr. Las Vegas competition month. Gwen notes forlornly, "He really wanted to win this time. He cancelled my last two workouts." Cavaliere's all, "You know, there are other cops -- I mean, trainers in the sea. Also, have you checked out these guns? Police-issued, baby." Gwen's all, "Yeah, I was thinking about ditching him. Especially after I made a pass at him a few sessions ago and he shot me down because he had a headache." "Perhaps he was gay," suggests Cavaliere, and Gwen's all, "I don't care! Just lying back on that bench, sweating and pushing the weight with all of his muscle right beside me. I mean, it was totally...motivating." Cavaliere is seconds away from suggesting that Gwen check out the weight bench in the police locker room. You can see it in his eyes.
Liam and Sara are processing the scene, and Liam is getting all philosophical with, "No matter how hard you work to get big, there's always someone bigger." Sara comments, "It could be what keeps them going. Like Freud said, 'Anatomy is destiny.'" Liam would like to know if Freud had any non-contextual quips validating Liam's theory that the murder weapon is one of the weightlifting bars. No, but Sara's going along with the hypothesis anyway. She natters on, "The killer didn't even have to be the same size. All they needed was the right weapon, some leverage, the element of surprise…" Liam is ignoring her in favor of flexing in front of the mirror.
Cut to David the Droll Coroner telling Emergency Backup David, "Victim is a well-developed male. Musculature appears hypertrophied." I love his gift for understatement. He then asks Emergency Backup David if he'd like to guess on the COD. Emergency Backup David suggests, "Blunt force trauma," and David twinkles, "Absence of bruising." Emergency Backup David recovers: "Maybe it was a post-mortem blow." The two prepare to find out.
Meanwhile, Liam goes poking around Paul's bedroom. Shockingly, it's devoid of reading material. In the top drawer of the nightstand, Paul had stashed a gun. Liam photographs this. In the bottom drawer, Paul had stashed his 'roid supply. Anyone who's surprised, you're fired.
Sara's in Paul's "office," or, to be more precise, his shrine to himself. Paul didn't think of his body as a temple so much as he thought of it as a sort of mobile Sistine Chapel, if his reclining pictures are any indication. Sara's flipping through Paul's appointment book when Liam strolls in to announce, "Nine-millimeter in the bedroom, and syringes to the bed." Sara's all, "Wow." You're fired! Liam smirks, "The vic was putting the 'smack' in 'smackdown.'" Well, you can't spell "lame quip" without "Liam," can you? Although it's weird that he sees a syringe and thinks "heroin" in a bodybuilder's house. Sara takes this time to point out that there was no blood on either the poles or the weights.
The coroners continue their autopsy. Shockingly, they find evidence that Paul may have been injecting steroids. No! And then they make the really cool, really gruesome discovery. After David notes, "Left eye socket appears swollen," he presses down on it, and out oozes all this black, oily gunk. Emergency Backup David looks alarmed as only an X-Files fan can.
Cut to a bunch of extras in biohazard suits yanking Sara out of the crime scene. I was about to ask if that sort of thing was really necessary, then remembered that yes, in Sara's case it is. Liam is being escorted a little more gently. In the vaguest and most frightening terms possible, the suits mumble about contamination and biohazard suits, and usher them into a tent for the Silkwood treatment. We see two things of note: Sara's got a tattoo on her left foot (it appears to be a flower, a star or a sunburst -- something radial and spiky, anyway), and she's checking out Liam's dimpled bum. That girl has awesome multitasking powers. Liam turns and blinks, and Sara quickly averts her eyes to face the spray again. Eye contact in the shower avoided! Good call, that.
Back in the morgue, David saws through Paul's head, pops out the top of his skull, and removes the brain. Frankly, I'm shocked he still had one. It is dripping with black oily goo. Eee! Alien infection ahoy!
Anyway, now we're back to the scene in the Labitrail lobby where Liam's trying to be all gentlemanly in his own way and Sara's busy stoking his paranoia. This time, Gil appears to be skulking in the shadows behind them. I'm surprised Gil didn't bump into Hodges as the younger man conducted his Mia Vigil.
We're in a conference room where David's explaining, "The black pus suggested a possible infection from an airborne agent. I took the precaution to get you out until hazmat cleared the scene." Sara's all, "Yeah, thanks. I'm going to be having nightmares about the last few seasons of X-Files for a while now." Anyway, as David prepares to tell us all about mucormycosis, we see Hodges. Wow, he and Gil must have just missed each other on the skulking circuit. Hodges hangs out and eavesdrops as David explains, "It's a disease caused by exposure to rhizopus oryzae." This apparently rings a bell with Hodges, who's all, "Did you say rhizopus oryzae?" Liam frets that he and Sara spent hours in the fungi-filled house, and David assures him they're not at risk because their immune systems are healthy. Paul, on the other hand, had a craptacular immune system because he was filled with more steroids than an NFL locker room. For some reason, this news shocks Liam: "Steroids! That guy was stacking to get bigger." You're fired, Liam! Anyway, Sara's curious as to how a mold infection makes Paul look as though someone smashed him across the face. Easy: the mold was eating him from the inside out, turning his bones into soup as it festered in his sinuses. I bet you everyone reading this will freak a little during their bout of sinusitis.
Anyway, after Hodges points out that rhizopus oryzae likes to grow on human tissue, Sara and Liam conclude that there was some human tissue somewhere in Paul's house: find the root of the fungal infection, and find the tissue source. As the two systematically rip up a wall, they notice the presence of blood, courtesy of luminol, and eventually find the source of the fungal infection: a wet, drippy pipe that's simply coated with the stuff. Liam asks, "How did human tissue get inside a wall?" Sara thinks that's a good question. Conveniently enough, she notices a bullet hole right then. Even more conveniently, it's a 9MM bullet hole. So our working hypothesis is: Paul shot someone, and the bullet with its human tissue payload got wedged in the wall.
Now that we've worked that out via flashback, Liam and Sara are explaining to Gil what they think happened. Sara tells him, "We ran the phone numbers on the vic's planner. Everybody checked out except a woman named Tiffany." Gil's all, "No last name?" "Well, the name Tiffany is sufficiently uncommon in Las Vegas for there to be only one," Sara replies. And then, in the real episode, Liam steps in and explains that Tiffany is merely a street name for known prostitute Angela Wheeler. Angela's been missing for a while. Gil looks down at a picture of Paul in a bright red banana sling and concludes, "Anyone who appears this narcissistic may prefer paying for hookers rather than wasting his love on a girlfriend." Or maybe it's just that once he's done loving himself, he doesn't have enough to spread around.
Sara gleefully adds, "As we know, in addition to immune suppression, heart and liver disease, steroid abuse can also cause shrunken testicles, impotence and 'roid rage." That really makes Paul sound like a catch. What woman wouldn't swoon over a tiny-penised narcissist given to bouts of uncontrollable rage? Anyway, Sara theorizes via flashback that Angela made an off-hand quip like, "Looks like you have one muscle that isn't hard," and Paul flew into a rage, screaming, "Wrong! The penis isn't a muscle, but two spongy columns of tissue called the corpora cavernosa, which become engorged with blood upon arousal! And now, you must die for your lack of anatomy knowledge!" Who knew kinesiologists were so uptight? And then Paul killed her.
Sara concludes that "if the DNA from the tissue on the bullet matches Angela --" "You have a sample?" Gil asks. They sure do -- it was collected from her apartment, and Mia's currently matching the two samples while Hodges lurks in the shadows, singing, "Sequence again for me / that DNA…" Gil's all, "Well. No need to carry this on any longer," and Liam comments, "This is like that Edgar Allan Poe story where the victim's heart, under the floorboards, betrays the murderer." Gil replies, "'The Tell-Tale Heart.' I thought you didn't like the classics." "I do when they're about dismembered bodies," Liam replies. Gil arches his brow again, as if to say to Sara, You could have spent the rest of your youth pining over me, but now you're showering with someone who rates literature on the grue scale?
And then we reverse again! Vegas is bright! Shiny! Lights moving! Things rewinding! And now Gil is reverse-brooding! As Sara and Liam go reverse-walking through the Labitrail! And we zoom away from Las Vegas! Slime bubbles back into Paul's eye!
This time, it's still night. A hooker, who appears to have quit working immediately before lurching across the scene, wobbles over to a sidewalk bench and orders the slumped figure lying across it to "Move over, Chester. My dogs are barking." The figure, which is stretched beneath a blanket, doesn't move. The hooker sits down, chewing Chester out, and a homeless guy with a shopping cart rolls up to point out, "'S'not me. You should put your shoes back on." The hooker pulls back the blanket, and the gray face of a child appears. "Oh, sweet Lord," she says.
Cut to the usual three dozen law enforcement vehicles around the scene. Emergency Backup David's telling Nicky the kid doesn't look more than 12 or 13, and asks, "You think he's homeless?" Nicky doesn't think so: "Jeans are a little nice for a homeless kid. Check his veins and do a SART kit anyway." As Nicky asks for TOD, we pull back so we can see that the kid's outside a laundromat. It's been about eight hours. Nicky shakes his head: "This is a busy line. Lot of buses, a lot of traffic --" "And nobody noticed him?" Emergency Backup David asks. Nicky theorizes that the kid hasn't been there the whole time, but was dumped later.
Nicky notices that there's a set of parallel tracks in the grass to the bench, and calls out to Chester, asking if he's been taking his shopping cart off-roading again. Chester's all, "Nah. The mud throws off the alignment." Nicky thanks him. It's a nice moment -- good for Nicky for remembering the name and being so polite.
He soon repairs to the lab and begins processing the body to a musical montage. Nicky lifts a lot of lint from the kid's jeans. He notices a lot of little burns on the kid's face, some weird black stuff melted into his hair, and a lunch card for the Butterfield Academy; the name on the card is "Chase R." Nicky pauses for a moment and drops his head. Poor tired baby.
When we see him, he's walking through the Labitrail while imploring the guy on the other end of his cell phone, "Sir, all I'm asking you for is the class roster...yes. Yes. Yes, I'm very aware of Butterfield Academy's privacy policy, but this is a homicide investigation. Sir, please, court orders take time. You could help me identify this boy tonight...okay...no, no, no. I understand your position. Thanks."
And then Nicky's night just gets better as he heads down for Autopsy Talk With Doc Robbins. The kid has first- and second-degree burns all over his body, he's got several hematomas along his arms, plus a nasty skull fracture. "I'm thinking child abuse," David the Dismal Coroner concludes. Nicky wants to know if the skull fracture's the COD, and David says with surprise, "No. Positional asphyxia. Check out his eyes -- heat damage. To all the respiratory mucosa as well. I'd say this kid was in a small, hot space for quite a while. A closet with a radiator, a boiler room --" "Shake and bake," Nicky says sadly. I would be sad if I were him too. Everyone else gets cases with some comic element and he's left dealing with a little boy.
As Nicky goes moping through the hall, Catherine calls his name and says, "I heard you were looking for the student directory of Butterfield Academy." Nicky asks, "How'd you get this? I talked to the headmaster. He wouldn't give me jack!" Catherine replies, "I pay tuition." This is news to Nicky. Catherine shrugs, "She was at a crossroads, and I needed to put her in a school with tighter reins. You know, when it comes to your kids, you find the money." Nicky's all, "Funny, I don't remember asking if cash was a little tight after your weekend at the So'Na Skin Clinic, but whatever." Catherine then turns the conversation back to the familiar, i.e. commenting on everyone else's libido: "You looking for a prom date?" Nicky chuckles off the intimation that he's a statutory rapist by explaining that he's hoping to ID a body.
And he has. Nicky figures out that the kid is Chase Ryan, and heads on over to the opulent Ryan McMansion. The door is opened by what appears to be Chase's older sister, a not-so-accomplished liar who claims that her truancy is due to a bout of illness and not, say, by a bout of drinking with her friends until Nicky rang the doorbell. Nicky plays bumpkin just long enough to lull the girl into complacency, then zings her by asking for her parents' work or cell numbers. "Okay, they're skiing in Vail. What are you going to do -- arrest me for having a kegger?" she snots. Nicky's all, "No. Not exactly." This conversation takes a turn for the more awkward when a bare-chested boy drapes himself on the girl and asks, "What's going on, babe?" Nicky blurts out, "How old's he?" The girl snots, "My father's a lawyer, so I probably shouldn't be talking to you." Nicky then steers the conversation around to Chase. Yes, he is the girl's brother. No, he isn't around. He told her he was spending the night with his friend Andy. Nicky asks for a picture of the boy. When the girl brings it over, we see that it is Chase, and he looks very young. Nicky gets very sober and says, "I'm going to need your parents' contact information in Vail, if you don't mind."
Cut to Nicky in an interrogation room with Andy and his mom. Nicky says soberly, "You're Chase's best friend, Andy. I need to know what happened last night." Andy's mom replies, "Andy was supposed to sleep over at Chase's, but Chase wasn't feeling well, so Andy came home early instead." Nicky tells the nice lady to butt out and let Andy talk. Nicely, of course, since this is Nicky and he's physically incapable of summoning the snark that flows so naturally from Hodges or Brass.
Andy sings like Vienna Boys' Choir: he had told his mom he was sleeping at Chase's house, Chase told his sister he was sleeping at Andy's house, and then they lurked around the high school party. We flash back to the adolescent bacchanal. Chase and Andy are drinking beer. Andy says, "This tastes horrible," and Chase replies, "Keep drinking. It must get better." Ah, the sweet naiveté of youth. Andy explains that "Jackie caught us and made us leave. We promised to go to my house. But we hit the bars instead." Y'all know "the bars" is shorthand for "wandered around town," right?
Nicky then wanders into Hodges's lab and exhorts him, "Talk to me, Goose." Oh my GOD, please don't tell me Nicky's in the throes of a Top Gun thing. If Hodges is Goose to Nicky's Maverick, who's the Iceman in this scenario? Warrick? Chomp. Cavaliere? Chomp. More disturbingly...who's his Charlotte "Charlie" Blackwood?
Hodges says lightly, "According to Tox, Junior was a boozer. BAC was three times the legal limit." Nicky explains that Jackie had a kegger. For some reason, this sets Hodges off: "How old were you when you first got drunk?" Nicky was 16 or 17. Hodges muses, "Amortized over a generation...twelve's about right." Nicky replies, "You're saying two generations from now, four-year-olds are going to be getting trashed?" With a somewhat evil little smile, Hodges replies, "Preschool graduation parties are going to be off the hook." I LOVE HIM for that. Oh, Hodges, you've grown on me like the mold in a bodybuilder's eye.
Anyway, Hodges soon gets to the real point: a crazy array of hairs were found on Chase -- he was a virtual pan-species, pan-ethnic, pan-fiber textile clearinghouse. The black goop was melted shoe rubber. Nicky muses, "What's hot, cramped and full of other people's hair." Hodges quickly yanks his mind out of all the dark, nasty places it had gone in answering that, and replies, "As I've often said, that's your job."
Nicky's answer: surprisingly not "Liam's locker." Instead, it's the Laundromat we saw back when it was nighttime. A cab drives by, sporting an advertisement for the auto show. We see Nicky inside, where he soon finds a dryer drum with a gob of melted rubber similar to that which was in Chase's hair. Then it's on to the laundry cart, which rolls easily across the lot, but locks up the minute Nicky gets to the edge of the parking lot. Hmmm.
Nicky then talks to the manager. Since he's standing behind the guy, it's easy to lie and say, "I was taking my laundry to the car, and the cart locked up on me." The manager is all, "Yeah, we got a fancy system 'cause people steal them. I'm the only one with a...remote." This is where he notices Nicky's in his little CSI vest.
Cut to the manager in the interrogation room saying with dread in his voice, "Murder?" Nicky replies, "A twelve-year-old boy died in one of your dryers the other night. You trying to tell me you don't know anything about it?" The manager claims the boys were playing around the Laundromat and making trouble, so he chased them out, adding, "What happened after that, I don't know." Grinning like a shark, Nicky says, "I don't buy it, Jared." That ought to scare Jared into a new pair of trousers. When Nicky's looking at you like fresh meat, you're going down.
Nicky snarls, "I don't [buy it]. You know why? Your fancy carts." Someone would have had to have unlocked a cart to have wheeled Chase over to the bench, and someone did, what with those tire tracks we saw in the grass earlier. Nicky sits down and gives the manager a flat, hard stare as he says, "Someone wheeled your cart through wet grass and dumped a dead 12-year-old boy on a bus bench."
The manager then takes us into a flashback where the irate Asian convenience store manager from three stories ago is worked up over the goop on his uniform, and is sharing his displeasure with the laundromat at the top of his lungs. While this is going on, the very drunk Andy is wheeling the equally drunk Chase around the laundromat in a cart. The manager had a little meltdown, headed outside for a Yoo-Hoo break, and when he came back, he noticed Chase slumped in the dryer. "I didn't know if he was dead or not," the guy says. Nicky snorts in reply before saying, "Bus bench? Hospital? I can see how you'd make the mistake."
The manager feebly protests, "You have any idea what the liability would be on something like that?" Nicky says sarcastically, "I'll let you know." That this sort of thing is even a plausible consideration -- that a business entity's welfare is automatically held to be a greater moral good than a human life -- is a pretty sad commentary. The manager snivels, "I was just hoping that somebody would find him and take care of him." And you couldn't because…? Urgh. Nicky is going to need a cleansing detox shower after this.
Nicky snaps, "Hey, you found him." There's a pause and he adds, "You put him in the dryer." We see now that we're talking to Andy. Andy's all, "Uh-uh," and Nicky replies in the same tone, "Uh-huh. Chase can't even lock himself in those things. They lock from the outside. I matched your print off the handle. I got it off the school's safe kit." Andy's mom is quite horrified that she raised a drunken little monster who fluff-and-folded his best friend. Andy responds by barfing all over the table. Good. For once, they've featured a kid on this show who's merely an idiot and not a scheming psychopath. Let's call that progress!
And now, Nicky is going home. He walks through the lab slowly, looking like he's been tossed in the dryer for a few rounds. As Nicky passes Gil, the older man asks sympathetically, "Rough shift, huh?" "Just another day in paradise," Nicky replies, because it'll say more than actually recounting the craven pageant that unfolded on his case. And then Gil heads off as Judy says, "Crime lab, how can I help you?" -- signaling that we're right back where we were in the middle of the first story, the wheel of crime and solution rolling right along.