Choose Life!
Updated 2002-10-27 16:00:00
Then we go back to Alexx, pointing to a bullet wound in Father Carlos's thigh. She then leans in and asks, "What can you tell us, Father, about who did this to you?" My respect for Alexx grows by leaps and bounds; I hope there's a sweeps event where the guests at a diplomatic ball are massacred so we can see Alexx working her knowledge of Burke's Peerage as she chats up the dead. Calleigh bats her eyes -- no small feat with the lashes she's got attached -- and tells us that whomever shot the padre meant business, rifle-shootin' business. Megan stands up and does a word problem: "Three possible shots [beat] and only two casings. Are we missing one?" Speedle congratulates Megan on her subtraction skills, then shows her the two separate shoeprints he's lifted, which indicate that whoever was wandering around the rectory had worn out the left sole of their shoe much more dramatically than the right. The team begins brainstorming: there's no sign of break-in, because priests open their doors to a Catholic cross-section of humanity; there are two glasses, but the one without alcohol has a lip-print that's probably the result of lip balm. Megan notes, "Priests can have [beat] a drink. They can also [beat] have company over." Speedle says, "You've got an uncle who's a priest, right?" Megan clarifies, "Jesuit. He drinks, smokes, plays poker. Just doesn't [beat] have sex." But he does provide that all-important personal connection to the case, and heaven knows, we can't have an episode of CSI: Miami pass by without there being some sort of personal connection for Horatio or Megan. Meanwhile, Alexx is pulling a condom out of Father Carlos's pocket and quipping, "Don't know if we can say the same thing about our priest."
Meanwhile, in this show's inaugural B-plot, Horatio is pulling up in the CSI Humvee and hustling over to where Delko is, a ravine in which a thoroughly gutted SUV has rolled to a rest. As Horatio walks over, someone shouts off-camera that she's with Highway Patrol and the car was stolen. Horatio stands on the lip of the gully and shouts for Delko, who responds by scaling the grade and saying, "We've got a female driver, H. She's dead." The woman is the only person in the SUV, which was reported stolen two weeks ago in Georgia, and which went right over the edge of the ravine sans skid marks. Horatio and Delko wend their way back toward the scene, and Delko prepares us for the crispy carnage within by warning, "I'm thinking the fuel line ruptured when the car hit bottom. The gas tank punctured, and sparks set it off on impact." The camera then focuses on the woman in the passenger seat, who's roughly the same color and consistency as pork barbecue. We get a flashback to the car going over the edge a few times -- hey, if it's going to cost money to send an SUV over a cliff, then get your money's worth -- and then we're back with Horatio and Delko. Delko's showing off his newest piece of evidence for Horatio, a charred label to a bottle of Beauchamp cognac. Horatio comments, "Our car thief has expensive tastes -- that's a $400 bottle of cognac." Well, it was an expensive car, too. You wouldn't expect an SUV thief to be hitting the Mad Dog 20/20. ["Not until CSI: Camden, NJ, anyway." -- Sars] Horatio and Delko walk over to the car and survey the fried body within. There's no ID -- the purse found near the car was bereft of anything that could help. Delko also reveals that there was a suitcase found near the car, and Horatio muses, "Now why would this poor thing travel with a suitcase and a purse and no ID?" Could it be...foul play?