This was the first episode of the season which looked at two separate cases. In the first, a woman turns up at party, attacked and bloodied; leaving a bloody handprint on the car outside. Her name is Robin Prescott (Michelle Hicks) and Flack (Eddie Cahill) says she only recalled her name after being asked four times and was attacked in Central Park. Mac (Gary Sinise) : "We've got ourselves an 800sq metre crime scene."
In the second case, Jordy (Sven Holmberg) is shot. No shell casings are found and Aiden (Vanessa Ferlito) believes the murder weapon to be a revolver. He appears to be a drug user and has track marks on his ankles. The entry wound appears to be larger than a needle. The tissue around the wound is uneven and fibres are frayed outwards. The gun spatter also seems unusual. Mac: "something exited our entrance wound."
Stella (Melina Kanakaredes) takes the Vic's clothes at the hospital and processes the Vic, attempting to be nice to her. Danny (Carmine Giovinazzo) analyzes her underwear and clothes. He brushes her dress and finds a leaf of peony. He looks it up on the database and discovers it's found near North Strawberry Fields and tries to see if there's any other trace evidence, indicative of the area, and finds magnolia.
Hawkes (Hill Harper) analyzes the second Vic and finds he received a gunshot wound to the abdominal cavity and bled to death. There's no bullet inside of him. The track marks are actually puncture wounds made by small, central lateral incisors. There are post and ante mortum bites. "The gunshot wound was the main course." Mac: "and the dinnerguest?" Hawkes: "This is where the story gets tasty." He found tiny footprints on the DB. Mac: "The rat ate the bullet." Hawkes: "That was dessert."
Stella processes the CS at Central Park, coming across a wallet and a shoeprint. Danny: "I guess this is what you do when there's no one to go home to." Stella needs to find evidence so she can find DNA and has to document everything to see what she can connect to the crime. Danny thinks there were two of them and had a heavy workbook, knelt next to the Vic. At least he was right about there being two people there. Stella thinks Robin fought hard and finds a bloody nosering.
Aiden recounts how she lived in a six story walk-up in Brooklyn and could hear rats on the staircase, she didn't flinch. Mac: "That's because they recognized you. They like familiar surroundings." Being creatures of habit and they travel the same path home. It was too windy in Chicago for rats, well lucky for some. Letting us know Mac hails from Chicago. They need to "ID the rat that ate the bullet." With the use of an alloy gun, left hair was pulled away so giving them the direction in which the rat was moving. The grocery store is officially their CS. The read out shows the composite bullet is there. Karl (David Marciano) gives us a history lesson on the number of rats in NYC (for 2004 that is) 70 million. That's 8 rats for every person. Karl leaves poison in some eggs to catch the rat, which doesn't turn up, but a dead rat is found in the store.
Trace from a steak which was found at the scene, leads to Ramon's takeout. From the employees, one wears a nosering and Donovan (Joseph Thomas) claims he didn't do it, though he was at the CS and saw her bag. Robin grabbed him, he's not a rapist but a thief. Robin claims she left for work early and took a taxi. She went through the Park and doesn't remember going out. Her father, Arnold (William Russ) comments boys are easier to raise. Stella doesn't give him a straight answer only that their investigation is ongoing. Robin fought and picked herself up, shown by her blistered fingertips. Dr Giles (Brett Albrecht) conducts a DNA analysis on the semen which is problematic. The sample from the Vic isn't enough for typing and the assailant was shooting blanks. Can't be compared to a blood sample from Donovan.
Stella is overwhelmed with this case, what she's given up already. Mac asks her if it's "focus or frustration?" She can't prove who did or didn't do it. Mac: "City's the city. Use your head and not your heart." But she can't be blamed for not using her heart, she hardly ever does. Danny finds traces of linoleic acid and walnut, which eliminates Donovan as a suspect. Also found in fish, pumpkin and walnut is used to clean statutes in Central Park. Sending Stella to the end of the Park, east of the bridge. Someone brought walnut dust to the CS. The workers are rounded up and swabbed. There was no DNA left behind. Dr Giles calls it a "perfect crime." Stella interjects "there's no such thing." Well if you can't solve the case then there is such a thing. Stella needs to go over the details and Danny attempts to reassure her they'll get him.
Hawkes refuses to autopsy the rat so Mac has to do the honours. The rat choked to death as the bullet blocked its windpipe. Mac measure the incisors to distinguish the bite marks from the stria of the bullet. Aiden tests the bullets and finds a match on IBIS. Two bullets were retrieved from the wall at a corner deli two hours before. Calvin (Josh Hammond) denies killing him and needs a fix and stole $50 from the deli. He tossed the gun but didn't shoot Jordy. Then asks "who ratted me out?"
Stella questions the gardener Billy (Fred Koehler) who denies it was him. City maintenance was reassigned to the north end of the park. Danny watches from the other side of the glass, his fave place ha, see later episode. Danny matched the boots to the CS but without a confession they can't prove he did it. Robin doesn't attend the ID parade to ID him. Mac tells Stella about his folder of 9 unsolved cases (is that all). He makes calls, dusts off the evidence to see if something is there, before he used to have 12 folders.
Mac: "Have faith in the evidence Stella." How can she manage that when she doesn't have faith in herself and her own abilities. She goes over the evidence again with the help of Mac, Danny and Aiden. Mac notes traces of tree sap on her undies. It's an intimate place so indicates secondary transfer. There's a beetle infestation on the north side of the park, so trees were being cut. The tree sap on the pants and the underwear position matches. Proving Billy was her attacker.
The storyline with the rat was interesting but rats have been covered in CSI episodes before this one. A bit of history on the characters, Aiden being from Brooklyn. Mac from Chicago. Stella failing to grasp that in letting herself down in not being able to conclude the case without help, she would have been letting the Vic down even more.
As for her taking a shower, she wasn't the one who was attacked. However, originally, Robin's reason for not turning up at the ID parade/line-up was that she was meant to have committed suicide and was found by Stella, thus she takes the shower to wash her blood away, but in itself this scene was pointless. This isn't Stella's first rape case and it won't be her last, but she acts like it is with her defeatist attitude, which doesn't do much to bolster the younger CSIs confidence if she's seen to be giving up already. After telling Robin's father about Robin's resillience, she gives up. Danny having the chance to make another comment about Stella and her not having a personal life, then to be fair it could refer to any one of them.
Rape cases seem to be the downfall of CSIs in this show, as we know from watching the later episodes with Aiden. Hawkes doesn't do rats, so what did he do in high school when you had to dissect rats in science. Flack didn't make much of an appearance, aside from his easy collar of Donovan. Creatures of the Night could refer to the predators lurking in the night and preying on hapless Vics, as well as the rats who do much the same. Or a reference to a KISS 1982 album of the same name.
Certain criticisms were levelled on this episode and the rat story being more funnier, detracting from the seriousness of the brutal rape; but searching for the rat was also to close a case and to call the Vic who died any less important is to detract from the work of CSIs. They solve cases for all Vics and this gunshot Vic didn't have a voice and needed the CSIs to speak for him. That was like saying the same thing as Mac does in a later episode when he pulls Danny off a case, leaving it to the police to solve as he doesn't deem it urgent ebough to warrant their attention, but Danny, rightly refuses.
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