Detective Calleigh Duquesne is a fictional character on the hit CBS drama CSI: Miami. She is portrayed by Emily Procter.

Background

Calleigh is a ballistics specialist; originally from Darnell, Louisiana, she is fluent in Spanish and has a bachelor's degree in physics from Tulane University. While working for the New Orleans Police Department, she gained the nickname "Bullet Girl". Calleigh is an almost eternal optimist, with a sunny disposition and a smile to match. However, this attitude does not in any way interfere with her quest to put criminals where they belong. She is pretty much universally liked by her co-workers, who sometimes remark on her being nearly 'too happy.' And while she does not believe in supernatural curses and the like, she does believe in karma (episode 5-06, "Curse of the Coffin"). Though her time as a CSI has exposed her to intense violence and gore, in episode 218 "Wannabe," she has an intense fear of ants which Eric Delko helps her overcome.

Relationships

Her father, Kenwall "Duke" Duquesne, is an alcoholic defense attorney who has tried to rehabilitate himself several times. Calleigh sometimes helps him by picking him up and driving home when he is too drunk to do so himself. When he comes to the lab to confess that he might have killed someone while driving drunk, she lies to her boss to protect her father (episode 303, "Under the Influence"). Her father sometimes calls her "lambchop" (episode 118, "Dispo Day"). Her parents divorced around 1992, and the separation with bitter and hostile (episode 521, "Just Murdered").

Calleigh reveals that she once dated a Marine Corps Special Ops sniper, now retired, who helps Horatio Caine understand the mindset of a sniper on a spree in downtown Miami (episode 109, "Kill Zone").

Calleigh has a brief relationship with Detective John Hagen, former partner of Horatio's brother Raymond, in season 2; they break up when he goes on leave for a "bad back." Ryan Wolfe, to her shock, informs her that a bad back is a euphemism for not passing the department psychological evaluation (episode 317, "Money Plane"). In the season 3 finale, a deeply depressed Hagen steals a crucial piece of evidence from a crime scene, possibly to produce it later and look like a hero. Unfortunately for him, Calleigh notices the void when she comes to photograph the scene, and Hagen come up from behind, pulls his gun on her, and flees. Though at the time she does not know that he is the perpetrator, she remembers vividly the sound of the gun cock, and recognizes it moments before Hagen commits suicide in the ballistics lab. She finds the missing evidence in his jacket pocket as the coroners wheel out his body (episode 324, "10-7").

She also shares a mutual attraction with Special Agent Peter Elliott, a Fed from the Financial Crimes Division, when they first meet in episode 217, "Money For Nothing." However, Hagen in jealousy and hostility tells Elliott to back off from Calleigh. Elliott goes on to engage State Attorney Monica West, but neglects to inform Calleigh of such, continue to offer warm overtures to her. Calleigh is naturally upset and angry when his fiancée walks in and introduces herself, though Elliott tries to defend himself by saying that he was going to tell her soon (episode 409, "Urban Hellraisers"). Later, when the lab is under investigation by the FBI, Calleigh determines that Elliott was the last person to handle the money that went missing from evidence, and that it is Monica West who is leaking false information that discredited the Miami-Dade Crime Lab, as well as stealing the the money (episode 425, "One of Our Own"). Despite their fallings-out, Calleigh and Elliott remain friends, and she calls him in to determine the authenticity of money they confiscated during the course of a case (episode 503, "Death Pool 100").

Ryan Wolfe's first case upon joining the lab investigates the possibility that Calleigh's father killed a man while driving under the influence of alcohol.

Therefore, Calleigh and Ryan's relationship begins on a bit of a sour note (episode 303, "Under the Influence"). However, Calleigh soon grows to accept him. She is often caught in the middle of verbal sniping between Ryan and Eric Delko, at least until they grow to trust each other (episode 408, "Nailed"). She later buys an iPod for Ryan's niece, and, when he pays her back with a $100 bill, she is dismayed to learn from Federal Agent Peter Elliot that the bill is counterfeit. Though Calleigh confronts Ryan about his participation in the very Death Pool they are investigating (the source of the fake money), she does not follow up officially, and Ryan destroys all his "winnings" shortly afterwards (episode 503, "Death Pool 100")

During an investigation in 2006, another of her former love-interests surfaces: an undercover police officer, Jake Berkeley. Unfortunately, Berkeley had become too enamoured of his role in a weapons-dealing, drug-using motorcycle gang, and at one point Calleigh suspects he murdered his clean partner, Ken McCartney, though this assumption is later proved false (episode 502, "Going Under").

After colleague and friend Eric Delko is critically wounded in the line of duty, Calleigh and fellow CSI Ryan Wolfe go to the hospital to give him blood, but they learn that they are too late and that he is on plasma due to catastrophic blood loss. Calleigh and the others take turns at his bedside; she places a cross in his hand to show how much she cares, and is scared for him while he is unconscious (Eric is Roman Catholic); She is the first to talk to Eric after he wakes up, and the first to learn of his impaired memory when he asks after his months-dead sister Marisol. Calleigh, not wishing to upset Eric in his critical condition by reminding him of her tragic murder, demurs for the time being. She is instrumental in discovering his shooter by her analysis of the bullet fragment recovered from Eric's head(episode 515, "Man Down"). After Delko's return to work, Calleigh keeps a close eye on him, going over his reports and hoping his recovery is as complete as they would like. Unfortunately, she discovers a small but critical error in his procedure, which almost allows a killer to escape justice. Later, a depressed Delko declines to join her in the interview room, saying forlornly he came back to work too soon, even though he earlier provided critical insight to the case. Sympathetic, Calleigh allows him to sit out the interrogation (episode 516, "Broken Home").

Other Major Events

Following John Hagen's suicide in her lab at the end of season 3, Calleigh transfers out of ballistics briefly, only to return after she witnesses her successor's incompetence (episode 410, "Shattered").

When Horatio Caine and Eric Delko go to Brazil in pursuit of murderer Antonio Riaz, Calleigh is given temporary charge of the lab. Despite the geographic distance between them, she does her best to help them in their quest for justice by identifing a substance that leads them closer to Riaz (episode 501, "Rio").

During the course of the one case, while taking back roads to avoid traffic on the way back to the lab from the scene of the murder, Calleigh is nearly killed when another vehicle forced her off the road into the water. Fortunately, she is able to escape the Hummer before she drowns, but much of the evidence is contaminated. Despite this setback, she and the team eventually solve the case (episode 502, "Going Under"). She is also shot in the line of duty after tracking down and confronting a suspect, but her Kevlar vest protects her from any serious injury (episode 509, "Going, Going, Gone").