Fur and Loathing
Rating 90-95
A man dressed in a full raccoon suit becomes roadkill after he's hit by a car on a dark stretch of highway. When Grissom and Catherine arrive, they discover he has also been shot. It turns out the dude is part of a weird group that believes in acting on animal instinct.
Catherine: "Ooh, that's what happens when 6,000 pounds of thrust meets three feet of hood."
Gil: "This was not a fair fight."
Catherine: "Well, now, how did she end up way over here? There must be 20 feet of rubber burned into this asphalt. She was braking hard."
Gil: "She definitely swerved out of her lane. I think I may know why."
Catherine: "Oh. What kind of animal are we talking about here?"
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Gil: "A big one."
Catherine: "The victim could have clipped the animal when it ran in front of her. Well, it can't have gone far."
The follow the paw prints to the side of the road. At the bottome of the hill they see a man, in a raccoon suit.
Catherine: "Hmm. Ooh. Not much padding."
Gil: "Whoa. This is incredibly detailed. Eyelashes, nostrils ..."
Catherine: "Oh, yeah. That's what you see out of. I once dated the Detroit Lions Mascot. Off-season. Dutch was his name."
Gil: "The breadth of your social experience never ceases to impress me."
Gil takes photos of the body as Catherine inspects the mask. In the mouth she finds blue fibers.
Catherine: "Dutch never had furballs, though."
Catherine bags the evidence and David walks over to them, staring down at the body.
Gil: "Are you all right, David?"
David: "It's just ... disturbing. There was a big raccoon who hosted an after-school kids show when I was little. Stripey. Everybody loved him. I loved him."
Gil: "'Stripey's' brother suffered blunt force trauma caused by a violent collision with a moving vehicle."
David clears the body from the scene.
Catherine: "The eternal question: Why did the man in the raccoon suit cross the road?"
David: "Linda Jones, 35, single. We're trying to track down the next- of-kin. No mystery in cause of death, though."
Catherine: "Your basic massive internal trauma."
David: "And then some."
Catherine: "Anything unusual about our furry friend?"
David: "We're about to find out."
Gil: "Did you know that raccoons have opposable thumbs?"
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Catherine: "Well, this one liked to wrap his around a bottle. '30 days: One day at a time.' He was a friend of Bill W.'S."
David: "I'll send the blood work down to tox."
Catherine: "Oh, my -- hand stitching."
David: "Lining looks like some kind of latex."
Gil: "Whoa. That's a lot of blood for blunt force trauma."
Catherine: "This isn't a costume. It's a six-foot condom. Explains why there was no blood on the road."
Gil: "Yeah, his tailor didn't think of everything. His suit's not bulletproof. Shall we?"
The three of them flip the victim over and Catherine opens the suit in the back.
Catherine: "Through and through."
David: "It's a high-velocity round. Gives the bullet a smooth entry in and out."
Catherine: "So, he was shot and hit by a car."
David: "Bad night."
Gil: "Even for a raccoon."
Catherine: "PAF con?"
Gil: "The Plushies and Furries convention. And we're looking for a bright blue Plushie ... I think."
Gil and Catherine look around at the different people in costime milling around.
Gil: "This is fascinating. A whole tribe of people who prefer to interact as furry animals rather than human beings."
Catherine: "I think I'm having Hunter Thompson's flashbacks. This is weirding me out."
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Gil: "It's not that weird. It's instinctual. Many native American tribes wore entire bearskins, including the head, when they performed their war dances. They thought it made them brave."
Catherine: "I'm not getting the brave thing."
Gil: "Well, think of stuffed animals as a Jungian archetype. What's the one quality they possess that a man like Bob Pitt might want?"
Catherine: "A full head of hair?"
Gil: "They're lovable. We better divide and mingle."
Gil looks at the schedule next to them.
Gil: "I'm going to take in a lecture."
Gil: "I guess we're lucky that blue's not a more popular color."
Sexy: "Hello. This is racial profiling."
Catherine: "Um, we're going to need samples of your fur."
Gil: "We're also going to need to talk to you without the masks on."
The two blue cats with Gil remove the heads.
Sexy: "Uh-uh."
Catherine: "You have a problem with that?"
Sexy: "You wouldn't ask a human lady to take her makeup off. If you want to talk to me, this is the me you're going to talk to."
Brass: "Take this chair right here."
Sexy takes a seat at the table.
Brass: "Do you a have a name, miss, uh ... ?"
Sexy: "My friends call me Sexy."
Brass: "Oh, lucky you. Now, do you want some help with the ... your helmet?"
Sexy: "I'm a lawyer. I know my rights. You can't sequester a domestic animal without due cause."
Brass: "Well, it's coming off one way or the other, so ..."
Sexy: "Fine, fine."
Catherine: "Hello, Sexy."
Sexy : "Okay. Happy now?"
Gil: "Thrilled. Let's start at the top."
Brass: "What's your human name, sir?"
Sexy: "Bud. Bud Simmons. But I'm no criminal, and I don't have to talk to you people."
Gil: "You have a very musky odor, Bud. Quite stimulating, I imagine. Look, we found blue fibers similar to the ones on your costume in the stomach of a dead man. Bob Pitt?"
Bud: "Huh?"
Gil: "You may know him as Rocky Raccoon?"
Bud: "You think my costume killed Rocky?"
Gil: "We think it may have incapacitated him."
Bud: "Rocky was... skritching me."
Catherine: "That's one I haven't heard."
Bud: "Skritching is like grooming. It's friendly scratching. People who don't know each other can't just nuzzle and trade tummy-rubs, but for animals, skritching is perfectly normal."
Catherine: "Well, killing is perfectly normal for them, too. It doesn't make it legal for you."
Gil: "Well, clearly, this kitty costume is where bud felt safe enough to skritch. I wonder if he felt safe enough to explore some of the more aggressive aspects of his animus."
Catherine: "So, if we follow the ipecac and civet oil, maybe it'll lead us to the shooter. I don't see a compartment for a concealed rifle."
They both put on goggles and Catherine uses the ALS on the costume.
Catherine: "Okay, well ... I've heard of some guys getting off in some weird ways, but humping an animal suit? Well, whatever happened to normal sex?"
Gil: "What is normal sex?"
Catherine: "Uh, you think it's natural for a grown human to only be intimate with a talking animal?"
Gil: "Well, Freud said that the only unnatural sexual behavior was to have none at all. And after that, it's just a question of opportunity and preference. And evidently, many prefer the feel of fur to the texture of human skin."
Catherine: "Well, I like hairy chests, but I'm not about to bop a six-foot weasel."
Greg walk in the room.
Greg: "Bud is starting to look like a pretty bad cat. Trace from his costume."
Gil: "Well, identical to the trace we found in Rocky Raccoon's vomit. Ipecac and civet oil."
Greg: "Well, that's what you get for eating ..."
Wolf: "Password, please?"
Catherine: "E-I-E-I-O?"
Wolf: "This is a private party."
Gil: "Uh, we have an invitation from the Las Vegas police department."
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Gil holds up a warrant.
Wolf: "Uh, okay."
They walk into the room, and see a large furpile.
Catherine: "Whoa, Nellie!"
Plushie: "Is this a raid?"
Catherine: "It's a homicide investigation."
Gil: "Look, we need you to stop skritching or yiffing or whatever, take off your costumes, and tell us your names."
Catherine: "Ooh! These costumes are pretty marinated. Smokey could've used some deodorant."
Gil: "Well, you know, pheromones are the basis for mammalian reproduction. When the female is in estrus, the male picks up on her come-get-me scent. But most mammals only copulate seasonally."
Catherine: "How boring."
Gil: "For some. No one else in that furpile threw up, right?"
Catherine: "Uh, Rocky was a target."
Gil: "Smell this."
Catherine: "Civet oil and ipecac."
Gil: "So I guess we're looking for a wolf ... in wolf's clothing."
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Gil: "Linda Jones is Linda Lamb."
Catherine: "Damn it. This was here the whole time."
Gil: "Yeah, but evidence without context is not evidence. We had no reason to search the trunk."
Catherine: "So she didn't just hit rocky, she knew him."
Gil: "For the philandering raccoon that he was."
Gil: "Okay, assuming that Linda and Bob were heading home after Bob got sick at the hotel, how did he end up on the side of the road?"
Catherine: "You ever have a car fight?"
Gil turns around to look at Catherine.
Catherine: "You know, if a couple has any kind of history together, they know how to press each other's buttons. And you lock 'em up in a metal box with wheels on a bad night, they're going to start pressing 'em. You follow?"
Gil: "So, uh, either Bob told Linda to stop the car and let him out, or she told him to start walking?"
Catherine: "Yes. That one. I mean, it's bad enough that raccoon-boy blows his girlfriend off to go fur-piling -- he gets sick licking some nasty kitty and makes lambchop drive him home."
Gil: "Which begs the question: Why did she turn the car around and head back toward the hotel?"
Catherine: "Well, she wasn't heading back to the hotel. She was heading back for him. 'Cause that's how car-fights always end. After about a mile or two, you start to feel guilty that you've abandoned the person, and you turn around. Except she didn't plan on an 18-wheeler finishing her off."
Gil: "Mack truck ex machina. But it still doesn't explain how bob got shot in the back."
Catherine: "No ... but I think I may know the last person who saw them alive. Why don't we ask the valet if he saw some ... furriest conventioneers?"
Valet: "Damn straight I remember them. How often do you see a six-foot raccoon heaving out a car window? Dude was hammered, man. His girl... she was pissed."
Gil: "Thank you. You've been very helpful."
Valet: "All right, no problem."
A customer comes up to them.
Valet: "Hey, I got that."
He returns to work.
Catherine: "So, there's your car-fight. Now she thinks that he's back on the booze, which he denies, but the sicker he gets, the more she this he's lying."
Gil: "The righteously angry versus the wrongly accused."
Catherine: "And the battle's just beginning. Okay, so it makes sense up to that point, but then what? He gets out and ... she shoots him?"
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Gil: "I'm not so sure that people who dress up like cuddly forest creatures carry guns."
Catherine: "You don't think they allow plushies in the NRA? All right, then who shot him?"
Gil: "Well, we have a grassy knoll ... but no Lee Harvey Oswald."
Gil and Catherine are searching the side of the road, looking for the bullet.
Catherine: "Hey, Grissom. Over here. I found the bullet."
Gil: "Well done. So, we got a sick raccoon with an abdominal through-and- through who was shot from what appears to be a fairly steep trajectory."
Catherine: "So, either he was shot by a giant ... or he was, uh, on all fours."
Gil: "Or both. I mean, imagine looked like out here at night and from a distance. We've been looking for ... a person who shot a person, but ... maybe we should be looking for a person who shot an animal."
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller
Rancher: "How you doing? Can I help you?"
Gil: "We're with the Las Vegas crime lab. This your place?"
Rancher: "Yeah. Must be here about that accident. Terrible thing. Like I said to the wife, the way these 18-wheelers fly down here ballin' the Jack, I ain't surprised. I'm surprised there ain't more accidents."
Gil: "Why don't you give us a brief history of your evening?"
Rancher: "Ah, well, I had dinner with the missus. Uh, fed the scraps to the dogs. Watched Jeopardy. Could hardly hear it, the dogs were, uh, so stirred up. Went outside to take a look, spotted a coyote. This is my business. Purebreds. Wouldn't want to lose one. So, I, uh, took care of it. Came back inside in time for Final Jeopardy."
Brass: "So the raccoon was mistaken for a coyote. You gotta be kidding me."
Catherine: "He was dosed intentionally but killed accidentally."
Gil: "We got the Ranger's rifle, we collected a bullet at the scene, and ballistics made a match."
Catherine: "Bob Pitt was sick when he got out of the car, wounded when he got onto the road, and dead when he hit the dirt."
Brass: "Well, the rancher's going to get off, Linda's dead, and Wolfie ... skates with a misdemeanor."
Catherine: "We took one look at those furry suits and thought 'foul play,' but this was really just a domestic dispute gone mad."
Gil: "Hmm. Fur and loathing in Las Vegas."
Impressions, Bits of Insight and the Pics that Don't Fit
picture courtesy of CSI Storyteller