Wild Justice

Sequel to: Missing

Rating: M

Pairings: Jim/Carolyn & Nick/Nicole

Author's Note: Just a little heads up... we've rewritten a few episodes of CSI. So, if the plot sounds familiar you'll know why. Also, we used to be MidnightCrime & Brassfan24 but have decided to use one name, CrazyWriters, for the both of us.

Chapter 1

/CSI Lab/

Catherine no longer worked with Gil Grissom and his graveyard shift. She wanted desperately to be transferred to days, so she could spend more time with her daughter Lindsey. With Carolyn and Nicole apart of the graveyard shift, Catherine found her way out and transferred to days.

Sara, on the other hand, transferred to days for another reason. She wanted a change of pace. And being on days definately gave her that. She missed the graveyard shift but day shift was a lot simpler for her.

Carolyn and Nicole were walking down the hall of CSI and were glad to be back at work. They couldn't wait for their first case. Jim and Nick thought it would have been a better idea for the girls to take some more time off but they were more than willing and ready to get back to the trenches. Although now the lab was going to have to get used to another Brass being around. Now that Carolyn had married Jim and taken his name.

As they walked past the A/V lab they could have sworn that they heard Warrick cursing a blue streak. They stopped and looked into the room. "What's wrong, Rick?" Carolyn asked.

"I can't believe you're on TV. And with Dog the Bounty Hunter at that. Please tell me you got his autograph?"

"Actually, we did. We'd never forget you, Warrick." Nicole said.

Carolyn handed Warrick the envelope she had in her hand and they watched him open it. Inside was an autograph photo of Dog, Beth, Leland and Tim. When Warrick saw the picture he couldn't stop smiling. "Thanks. I really appreciate this, but right now I wanna finish watching the episode."

He turned back to the TV just in time to see the wedding. "Get the hell out of here! You and Jim tied the knot."

"Actually, Dog convinced them to go for it." Nicole said.

"Yeah, well, Dog didn't have to convince me to marry Jimmy. But it was a good idea to get married in Hawaii." Carolyn said as Jim and Grissom walked into the A/V lab and caught the last part of the conversation.

"You're not telling him about Hawaii, are you?" Jim asked.

"Didn't have to, he saw it on TV." Carolyn said smiling at Jim.

"Okay, let's get back to work here." Grissom said interrupting their fun. "Carolyn, you and I have a car accident out on the highway. Nicole you're with Nick, guy dead in a freezer. Robbins will meet you there."

"You and me, Griss, this could be interesting." Carolyn said and she and Grissom left the A/V lab. But not before she kissed Jim goodbye.

At that moment Nick walked up to Jim and Nicole. "Okay, let's get going." Nick said to Nicole.

"What's hurry, Nick? I mean we're dealing with a popsicle here, right?" Nicole asked. Nick just looked at her and walked off down the hall. Nicole looked at Jim. "Was it something I said?" She took off down the hall after Nick.

Jim just watched her go and smiled to himself. His and Nick's lives have truly livened up since Nicole and Carolyn joined the crime lab that's for sure.

/Highway/

There was a truck driver talking to an officer as Carolyn and Grissom approached the mangled car. "Ooh, that's what happens when six thousand pounds of thrust meets three feet of hood." Carolyn said looking at the car.

"This was not a fair fight." Grissom added.

They looked into the car at the body behind the wheel and then Carolyn looked at the road. "Well, now, how did she end up way over here?" Carolyn asked looking at a skid mark on the road. "There must be twenty feet of rubber burned into this asphalt. She was breaking hard."

"She definitely swerved out of her lane. I think I know why." Grissom said.

Grissom found paw prints on the road and Carolyn walked over to look at them. "Oh. What kind of animal are we talking about here?"

"A big one." Grissom replied.

"The victim could have clipped the animal when it ran in front of her." They continued to look down the road. "Well, it can't have gone far."

They both followed the paw prints to the side of the road. Just at the bottom of the hill, they found a man dressed in a raccoon suit.

/Highway/

Carolyn and Grissom were still processing the crash scene well into the daylight. Carolyn reached down and removed the mask from the raccoon and looked inside. "Hmm. Ooh. Not much padding." Carolyn said.

Grissom looked at the mask. "Whoa. This is incredibly detailed. Eyelashes, nostrils..."

"Oh, yeah. That's what you see out of. I hung out with the mascot of our high school football team, back in Newark. His name was Mitch." Carolyn said as Grissom took photos of the body. Just then she pulled something out of the mouth of the mask. It was a piece of blue yarn. "Mitch never had fur balls though."

As Carolyn put the yarn into a plastic bag, David Phillips grabbed his clipboard and walked over to the body. He just stood there staring at it. "Are you all right, David?" Grissom asked.

"It's just... disturbing. There was a big raccoon who hosted an after-school kid's show when I was little. Stripey. Everyone loved him."

" 'Stripey's' brother suffered blunt force trauma caused by a violent collision with a moving vehicle." Grissom stated.

David got to work. He loaded the body onto a gurney and pushed it up the hill toward the coroner's van.

"The eternal question: Why did the man in the raccoon suit cross the road?" Carolyn asked. Grissom just glanced sideways at her.

/Big & Best Warehouse - Freezer/

There was a man dead on the floor of the freezer. Nicole and Nick stood over the body looking down at him. "Frozen stiff." Nick said.

"Looks like he died trying to get out. Trying to get to the door, maybe." Nicole observed.

"It got messy. Check out the shotgun spatter."

"Single blast. Went in, went out. Ooh. This has got to be the coldest place in Vegas."

"Let's go. Vega's got the security guard."

"Yeah, he's not going anywhere."

Nicole and Nick stood up and left the freezer. They joined Detective Sam Vega who was interviewing the security guard Petey. "So, Peter, when you checked in at eight..." Vega started to say.

"Not Peter. Petey. P-E-T-E-Y."

"Hey, how you doing?" Nick asked.

"Good." Petey replied and Nick walked over to the vending machine.

"The shooter may have cleaned out the machines." Vega said.

"Those things hold a lot of dough." Petey added.

"Take was maybe, uh, six hundred bucks." Vega said.

"They shot a guy over a vending machine?" Nick asked.

"So, uh, Petey, where were you when all this went down?" Nicole asked.

"I was in the guard shack. Where else would I be?"

"You tell us." Vega said.

"If a guy walks into a freezer, shoots a guy and smashes six vending machines, I think I'd hear that." Nicole stated.

"The shack's out there." Petey said.

"You don't make rounds?" Nick asked.

"Look, I'm not supposed to leave the premises, okay?"

"Okay, but if you were here, you're a suspect. Come on, man. Middle of the shift, you're getting hungry. You figure, hey, I'll duck out and grab a bite to eat. Who's going to know, right?" Nick asked.

"I was gone five minutes, tops."

"When?" Nick asked.

"A little after 11:00. Grabbed a burger and came back."

"What kind of burger?" Nick asked.

"In 'n' Out - three blocks from here."

"I love In 'n' Out. I always get the In 'n' Out double-double, animal style." Nick said.

"That's what I get."

"You grill the onions?" Nick asked.

"Hell, yeah."

"Now, that is crazy, Petey, 'cause you know, being an In 'n' Out kind of guy, I know it takes at least five minutes to grill the onions alone." Nick said.

"Come on, man."

"That time of night, you're lucky if you don't wait twenty minutes just to get to the window." Nick stated.

"Look, my boss finds out I'm leaving the site every night to get my burger, I'm toast."

"You keep lying to us, you're gonna be toast in a jumpsuit." Vega said.

"Around 11:00, this cat George - he usually works days - drives up and asks me where Al is."

"Al Sesto? The guy in the freezer?" Nicole asked.

"I told him he was back here. I came back. Everything was quiet. So I ate my dinner in my shack."

"Where'd George go?" Vega asked.

"Beats me. His car's still in the parking lot."

"You want to show me which one?" Vega asked.

"Sure."

Vega and Petey left and Nicole stepped over by Nick. "Unless he was slick, the guy that did this definitely left behind a print, and, frankly, nothing about this looks slick." Nicole said.

/CSI - Autopsy/

David escorted Carolyn and Grissom to the autopsy room. "Linda Jones, 35, single. We're trying to track down the next-of-kin. No mystery in cause of death, though." David informed them and opened the autopsy door.

"Your basic massive internal trauma." Carolyn stated.

"And then some." David added.

They walked into the room. "Anything unusual about our furry friend?" Carolyn asked.

"We're about to find out." David replied.

Grissom grabbed a pair of gloves and put them on. "Did you know that raccoon's have opposable thumbs?" he asked.

"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." Carolyn replied and showed them the 30 days tag.

"I'll send the blood work down to tox." David told them.

Carolyn looked at the stitching of the suit. "Oh, my - hand stitching."

"Lining looks like some kind of latex." David said and started to cut through the suit. He hit the bottom and blood poured out onto the table.

"Whoa. That's a lot of blood for blunt force trauma." Grissom stated.

"This isn't a costume. It's a six-foot condom. Explains why there was no blood on the road." Carolyn said.

"Yeah, his tailor didn't think of everything. His suit's not bulletproof." Carolyn thought about that one. "Shall we?" Grissom asked.

They all helped to flip the raccoon over. Carolyn opened the Velcro and found the bullet wound on his back. "Through and through."

"It's a high-velocity round. Gives the bullet a smooth entry in and out." David explained.

"So, he was shot and hit by a car." Carolyn said.

"Bad night." David stated.

"Even for a raccoon." Grissom added.

/Big & Best Warehouse - Freezer/

Robbins had arrived on the scene and was standing over the body. "The last time this happened they tried to chop the guy out. 1989 - year the Mirage opened." Robbins stated.

"How'd it go?" Nick asked.

"Lost an arm and a leg. I miss the cold weather."

"So, what are we going to use, hot water."

"Boiling works best. Just, uh, spread it around the perimeter. Melt the ice."

"Guys, let's do it here." Robbins assistant said.

"To preserve the body?" Nick asked.

"That's right. Close as you can." Robbins said.

They poured hot water over the body and the ice began to melt. When it was completely free, they lifted the body onto the gurney and wrapped a blanket around it.

"All right, guys, let's go." Robbins ordered.

Robbins' assistants wheeled the body out of the freezer. Once they were gone, Nick looked at the spatter on the boxes and took a sample of the pellet. He extracted more pellets from the freezer.

Outside the freezer, Nicole was dusting for prints on the vending machine. Back inside, Nick looked at the blood on the ground. He moved over to the side, picked up a piece of something black and put it in a bindle.

/CSI - Lab/

Carolyn entered the lab where Warrick was looking through a microscope. "Hi, Warrick."

"Hey."

"Anything on Mr. Raccoon?"

"Yeah. I got an AFIS hit. Robert Pitt. Court-ordered to AA after a DUI."

Warrick pointed to the print on the counter next to him. Carolyn picked it up and Warrick went back to the scope. "Oh, that's where he got the 30 day chip. Maybe he fell off the wagon after he hit 31." Carolyn stated.

"If I had to go around dressed like Rocky Raccoon, I'd be drinking, too. I don't get this whole thing."

"Oh, hey, Warrick, it's Vegas. People come here to be animals."

"I hear you. Take a look at this."

He stepped aside and let her look through the scope. "Oh, yeah, the blue fur ball." Carolyn said.

"Yeah, it's synthetic, not natural."

Just then Greg entered the lab. "Your manimal died sober. No alcohol."

"Really?" Carolyn asked.

"All this schmohawk had in his system was trace amounts of ipecac and civet oil, which, if you ask me, is even weirder than the raccoon suit he was wearing."

"Well, ipecac's an emetic. I had to give it to my cousin once when she accidentally swallowed mothballs, but civet oil?" Carolyn asked and shook her head.

"Yeah. Civet's a wild cat. Its scent has been prized since the pharaohs for being an aphrodisiac." Greg explained.

/Robert Pitt's Residence/

Jim, Carolyn and an Officer entered the apartment. "Pitt was a computer programmer. No next-of-kin." Jim said.

"Ooh." They looked around the place. "Not an architectural digest reader." Carolyn said and made her way into the bedroom. "If you want to know what the man is really all about, Jimmy, check out his bedroom."

Robert Pitt's bed was full of stuffed animals. Jim entered the room and pointed to the bed. "Now, this scares me."

"A man lives alone. Has no relatives. No attachments. So, he forms his own furry little family."

Jim looked at the calendar on the wall and noted the red circled dates. 'PAF CON' at the 'King's River Hotel'. "PAF con meeting." Jim said.

"What's PAF con?" Carolyn asked.

"I don't know, but whatever it is, it's still going on."

Carolyn looked at Jim. "Minus one raccoon."

/King's River Hotel - Lobby/

It was the Plushies and Furries convention going on in the lobby. Carolyn and Grissom walked into the lobby. "PAF con?" Carolyn asked.

"The Plushies and Furries convention. And we're looking for a bright blue Plushie... I think." Grissom and Carolyn stared at the group of people dressed in costumes. Grissom looked fascinated by the sight; Carolyn looked perplexed. "This is fascinating. A whole tribe of people who prefer to interact as furry animals rather than human beings."

"I think I'm having Hunter Thompson's flashbacks. This is weirding me out." Carolyn stated.

"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."

"I'm not getting the brave thing."

"Well, think of stuffed animals as a Jungian archetype. What's the one quality they possess that a man like Bob Pitt might want?" Grissom asked.

"A full head of hair?"

"They're lovable. We better divide and mingle." Grissom glanced down at the schedule on the board, then turned to Carolyn. "I'm going to take in a lecture." he said and walked away.

/CSI - Hallway/

Rich led Nicole and Nick back to the Ballistics lab. "Uh, why did you page us?" Nicole asked.

"Your wood sample from the freezer."

"The one we gave Hodges?" Nick asked.

"Yeah. He bounced it back to me."

"I'm lost." Nicole stated.

"It's from a shotgun stock. Probably a mossberg 500."

"Probably our murder weapon." Nicole stated.

Rich stopped walking and turned around to look at them. "Well, if you find it, I can match it."

"Till we do, anything else?" Nick asked.

"That's up to Hodges."

/CSI - Trace Lab/

Nicole and Nick were in Trace with Hodges. "The gray stuff - it's adhesive." Hodges told them.

Nicole looked up from the scope. "On the gun stock?" she asked.

Hodges shrugged. "Cheap repair."

"So, some budget-minded garage gunsmith glues his gun stock together..." Nick started.

"And then kills Al Sesto for $600 in change." Nicole finished.

"Even Petey can do better than that."

"There's always the elusive 'George'." Nicole stated.

TBC...