When we come back from commercials, Horatio has Pete in the box. Pete has evidently been briefed on what Horatio found, and he's wide-eyed as he tells Horatio, "I didn't know he was into that." Rather than take someone who jeopardized his own parole out of concern for his son at his own word, Horatio has to prove that sometimes the system sucks with, "Let's ask your parole officer about that." The parole officer sneers, "All that ammo, the son's probably in training to knock off a chain of markets just like his old man." Ass. The parole officer continues to stay on my bad side by suggesting that Pete prevailed upon Horatio because Jeff stole one of Pete's guns, and Pete wants him found before the gun can be connected to another crime. Pete replies that he doesn't have a gun, and the parole officer snorts, "Right. You just got a hundred bullets in your backyard tree." Maybe he does -- if the guy works, he may not know what's going on with the kid. The parole officer effectively forces Pete into a Scylla-and-Charybdis position: "Unless you're gonna make a case to the board that this contraband is your son's, you're going back inside to serve out the rest of your sentence." So...sell your kid down the river for something he may or may not have been doing, or lie about the contraband to protect him and serve the rest of your sentence. God, this storyline irritates me, and Horatio's smugness about forcing Pete to claim that the pot and the ammo were his is both annoying and repellent. Horatio delivers Pete unto the asshole parole officer for a return visit (duration: 729 days) to the pen, and broods about how Jeff is still out there.

He can't brood long. He's got a hot date with his sister-in-law and his nephew. After a few seconds of family-style banter, (Y)Elena excuses herself, and the kid's all, "She set this up so you'd give me five minutes of the male authority-figure attention I so desperately crave, and now I'll stop beating up my incredibly news-literate fourth-grade classmates when they insult my dad." Or something to that effect. Horatio talks too, but I think we can all correctly track what he's going to say: Your father was a good cop, ignore the playground weasels, to thine own self be true and get used to calling me your new daddy. Maybe not that last one -- no doubt that conversation will be coming later on.

Delko has managed to cut through the red tape, because now he's cutting through the padlock on Jeff's school locker. After whipping out a flashlight to explore the inscrutable interior of deepest, darkest lockerdom, Delko unearths Gun Ho magazine. Frankly, with a title like that, I'd expect something other than a pistol on the cover. The headlines are enjoyable as always: "Heart Stopping Man Stopping .45," "New Laser Sights Will Make You King of the Jungle," "Big Time Survival Techniques," and "Take 'Em Down: Our Pull-Out Combat Guide Shows You How." I especially like that last one; it's fun to imagine some The Most Dangerous Game scenario in which a group of batty, amoral rich people is taken down by a wild-eyed Gun Ho subscriber and his pull-out sheet of combat strategies. Delko also finds sneakers with all sorts of dirt.