Wednesday late afternoon: Cragen's office.
"You two are going to Mexico."
The look on Olivia's and Elliot's faces following Cragen's statement was a mix of surprise, astonishment, shock and confusion.
"Tomorrow morning; plane takes off at 8.30 am."
Elliot added a raised eyebrow to his facial expression.
"Take a seat." Cragen pointed at the two chairs in front of his desk.
Olivia pulled herself together before Elliot, "Captain, we're in the middle of a case, what's this about?"
"This is about the case."
In three weeks, three couples were found brutally murdered. Same MO for all of them: the men were beaten to death while the women were raped and then killed. The last two were found in their apartment, exactly like the others. No witnesses, nobody saw or heard the fights. Just normal people, living normal lives with normal jobs. The only link between the victims was their age, they all were in their twenties, but with the third couple the connection broke, husband was forty-six and wife forty-two.
Elliot, Olivia, Munch and Fin spent the whole Wednesday morning and early afternoon with routine investigation: meeting the parents, friends, job colleagues, searching for a motive, trying to get the accounts square, but nothing added up in that case. They were totally groping in the dark.
"The lab found traces of cocaine mixed with heroin and some sort of chemical substance in the apartment of our latest victims.", Cragen started to explain.
"So, how does it help us?", asked Elliot "Killer is a drug addict, nothing new, there are thousands in the city."
"The problem is that the drug was found in the victim's clothes in their walk-in closet inside a baggage and this is a new recipe according to our friends at Narcotics."
"Let me guess, there was still the sticker of their recent travel on the baggage.", said Elliot.
"Exactly, I made a few calls and turns out that our victims spent their honeymoon in a resort in Cancun. Is it a coincidence that also our first two couples had been to Mexico three and two weeks prior their deaths?" Cragen continued leaning towards his two detectives.
"One no problem, two possible, three is a proof and no coincidence. We didn't find out about the first two 'cause they were killed a lot after their travel. You think they were used as couriers?" Olivia tried to reason
"Happy American couple, back from their special vacation in Mexico, no guard would search them.", said Elliot shrugging.
"Alright but it's dangerous, there was still a possibility for them to be inspected. It's not like when they swallow it.", Olivia could not get a sense from the story.
"The question is: why would they risk a federal charge for this?" Asked Elliot more to himself than to the others in the room.
"Maybe they were threatened, or maybe they did it for money. They all had average jobs. The real question is: why would the guy getting the drug risk the entire smuggling by raping and over killing the couples?", wondered Cragen.
"Perhaps he's just a perv puppet in the whole organization. He gets the drug for his bosses and then goes back to his victims. But this time he was unlucky, some drug spilled and we found it." , assumed Elliot
"Why didn't you call us earlier?", asked Olivia to Cragen "And why do we have to go there if the rapist is here?"
"I've been in a closed door meeting with la crème de la crème of 1PP for the whole day. I called you as soon as they left. They decided we have to follow the lead from its source to end up here. Plus our next victims could now be drinking their last tequila. We don't have much time. Go home and get ready.", Cragen said firmly.
Elliot and Olivia exited Cragen's office. Munch and Fin were already back and done for the day.
"Hey, what's up you two?" greeted Fin.
"We are going to get married.", answered Elliot walking past them with Olivia. They grabbed their stuff and left the squadroom.
"What did we miss?", whispered Munch to Fin.