Author's Note and Disclaimer: Hello folks and welcome to another edition of "Let's get Munch in a sticky situation!" Let's face it; I'm hopeless for Munch. I wasn't going to write for a while, but this just wouldn't get out of my brain until it went down on paper. So here it is; I hope you enjoy.
And now I must say that I do not own any thing related to Law and Order: SVU. I also wanted to say that I hope this doesn't offend anyone of the Jewish faith, it was not meant to do that. It is for entertainment purposes only. I personally am not Jewish, and must give a shout out to the Judaism 101 website for helping me with spelling and such. I had no idea how to spell synagogue or yarmulke, and now I do! I do respect the culture and I want to learn Yiddish. (I already speak German, Yiddish might be fun!) I also do not own anything related to Homicide: life on the street, I just borrowed Kay Howard for one short scene, simply because her and Munch rock together.
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The white police sedan rolled to a stop in front of the Amtrax station in Baltimore. Sitting in the passenger seat, John Munch turned and looked at the woman with the firey red hair sitting behind the steering wheel.
"It was good working with you again Kay," he said smiling at his former sergeant.
"The whole thing was ridiculous John. These detectives they have in homicide now are all idiots! An old case that you and I practically had closed nine years ago, except our prime suspect skipped town, resurfaces and those immature pea brains screw it up, creating a red ball that forces you and I to come back and clean up their mess," Sgt. Kay Howard was still fuming.
John just chuckled, "I've missed you Kay - no woman I know has your kind of passion." He started to go on, but his cell phone rang.
"Munch." "Hey Fin, yeah?" "No, we just reached the Amtrax." "I'll be back in about three hours" "Okay I'll meet you a headquarters" he snapped his phone closed and his eyes met with Kay's.
"It never stops, does it," she said meaningfully.
"What can I say? I'm popular," he smiled. "Take care of yourself, huh Kay?"
"I will John. You do the same okay? And would it hurt you to visit more often?" she asked.
"Visit? I was just here! I'm trying to avoid this place like the plague. I bet it wouldn't hurt you to come up to New York for awhile," he retorted.
"No way," she replied.
"I'll let you sleep on my couch," he said in a singsong voice and gave her his famous 'over the glasses' look. This resulted in a stiff push toward the door from Kay.
"Get out of my car Munch!" she said.
John just chuckled as he got out and retrieved his luggage from the back seat. "Good-bye Kay - till next time!"
Kay just shook her head meaningfully.
He shut the door of the car and watched her for a moment as she sped away. He smiled to himself and shook his head as he made his way towards the tracks.
XXX
Hours later he was exiting another car, this time a taxi in New York City. He stood up and streached his old and weary limbs as he looked up at the building where he spent most of his time. For a moment the building leared down at him, towering over him, predicting some impending doom, but he just shook those feelings off, paid the cabby, took his things and walked inside.
The buzz of the people in the Special Victims squad room was an unwelcome sight for Munch. After the red ball in Baltimore, he had hoped to come back to something slightly quieter, at least for a week or so until he could settle back into his routine. This was not to be. He rolled his suitcase next to his desk and joined his fellow detectives at the board where they were going over their current case.
"Do we know cause of death yet?" Captain Don Cragen asked.
"Still undetermined," replied Detective Elliot Stabler. "The ME is still working on it. The wounds and bruising on both victims seem to be uncharacteristic of anything we've seen before."
"Hey John! Welcome back! How was Baltimore?" Detective Olivia Benson greeted John.
"A barrel of fun - like always. I see you all have wasted no time getting yourselves into another mess. Is this why I was called straight here?" replied Munch. He scanned the pictures on the board.
"This one is right up your alley John," explained Cragen. "We've got two victims, found two weeks apart. Both are older males, found naked, bloodied, bruised and beaten in conjoining alleyways."
"I don't understand what that has to do with me at all," replied John. "Exactly why is this so important that after a month of being away, I couldn't go home and unpack first?"
"Because they're both Jewish, John," answered Cragen.
Surprised, John took a closer look at the crime scene photos. He recognized the yarmulkes on the heads of both men. He studied the situation carefully, taking in all the facts he could from what the pictures would tell him.
"We are thinking maybe hate crimes," spoke Detective Odafin Tutuola, or simply Fin, for the first time.
"No," said John quietly. "This isn't a hate crime - they were stoned to death."
What? Are you sure?" questioned Benson. "What about the marks on the back?"
"It looks like they were whipped and then stoned," answered Munch. "The marks on the back would be caused by a whip, but the irregular bruising probably is caused by large stones being hurled at the person until they were crushed to death."
"But why isn't this a hate crime then?" asked Cragen.
"Because stoning is a traditional method of capital punishment for the Jews as punishment for heinous sins." Everyone looked surprised at Munch, he continued. "I'm talking times of Moses, of Herod, nobody preaches this now."
"Well someone must be starting it back up," stated Cragen. "Any other similarities between these two?"
Benson was the first to speak. "They were both over fifty, both either single or divorced, and just moved here with-in the last six to eight months."
"And they lived in the same neighborhood," Fin chimed in.
"Okay. Stabler, Benson, go check out all the synagogues in that area where the men lived and where they were found. Let's see if we can find out where these two worshipped and if there are any connections there."
"Captain," started Munch. "Don't you think maybe I should do that? I know I'm a pretty rotten one, but I am a Jew and maybe…"
Cragen cut him off with the raise of his hand. "No John, my gut is telling me to keep you presence a secret for now. Go home, unpack, get some rest. We'll see you tomorrow."
John nodded. He was secretly glad not to have to go out. He had an uncomfortable relationship with his religion for as long as he could remember. He leaned on it because it was his heritage, his family. He grew up in a Jewish household, learning its traditions and culture. But he hated it because of the hypocrisy he found within, and the condemnation he felt from the outside. His parents had put up a good front as a nice Jewish family for a while, but then his father cracked under the pressure of life and had commited suicide, and his mother had become violent and abusive. He spent his time protecting his brother from these realities.
When he had turned to his religion for answers, he had found none. He had become a frustrated, stubborn, hurt and confused teenager. They had moved to Baltimore and he found that he couldn't run from his religion. His classmates could see he was Jewish. He was beat-up and bullied constantly. Somewhere deep down, even now, all those emotions were there. He couldn't hide history forever, his emotions would be hard to continue to repress.
XXX
The next Morning, John was already sitting at his desk reading the files from the current case when the other three detectives stumbled into the squad room. They deposited their thing and made their way over to the coffee pot, where they began munching on the bagels that John brought in for them.
Cragen came out of his office and swept his way through the room. "What do we know?" he asked.
"Turns out that both men were in the same congregation. Elliot and I talked the several Rabbis before we found it. The Rabbi's name is Reubenstein. He wouldn't talk to us for very long, but confirmed that both men had attended his congregation. He said that both were coming back to the religion after very long absences," explained Benson.
"He wasn't very surprised or broken up when we told him that they were dead," said Stabler. "He didn't act guilty, but something tells me there is more there than meets the eye."
"I checked the databases - nothing on our Rabbi, but I did get a match on several similar cases from the last 15 years," stated Fin as he passed his finding around the group. "We've got 5 cold cases in that time frame, all older Jewish males, beaten just like our two, in that same neighborhood. All are unsolved."
"And no one noticed the connection until now?" asked Cragen.
"Probably never thought to look," answered Benson. "The crimes are so far apart. We only are catching this now because there were two in two weeks."
"I'm telling ya, this Rabbi knows something, I can feel it!" exclaimed Stabler.
"We don't have enough for a warrant," replied Cragen. "What about the crime scenes, any evidence?"
"Nothing," said Fin.
"Then I guess its time for a little undercover work," stated Cragen as he looked pointedly at Munch.
John could quickly see where this was headed. "On no, Captain…"
"Sorry John, you fit the bill. Plus you've been out of the city for a month, so its unlikely that you've been spotted as a cop."
"I think you'll look really cute in one of those yarmulkes," jabbed Fin. Munch just glared.
"You're overruled," said Cragen. "Let's set it up."
