A/N: Hey everybody. I just wanted to say that I have read each and every one of your reviews (they're like candy to me). Each of them is taken to heart because you all are so awesome! So keep reviewing!
A/N2: Okay, so I know a lot happened in the last chapter (I got emotional writing it myself). So keep reading on, because stuff is going to happen.
Disclaimer: I don't own them. I wish I did, but I don't. It's sad, I know.
Elliot and Olivia arrived at the scene, about five blocks from where the first murder had occurred. The drive was silent, and when they got out of the car and onto the muddy ground, they saw a uniform heading towards them.
"You must be Special Victims," he said, "we arrived on the seen about twenty minutes ago, he looks like yours." They all started to walk towards the yellow tape. As Olivia and Elliot ducked under it, the uniform stayed there. Elliot turned back to look at him.
"Sorry," the uniform stated, "but my partner just threw up from the scene. We have to head back." Elliot nodded and followed Olivia's footprints to where the crime scene lay. They both walked over, Warner was already checking him out.
"What do you think?" Olivia asked. She and Elliot slouched over the body, pulling on their white gloves.
"Well," Warner started, "Same age and type. Same cause of death; trachea crushed by what looks like the same object. His arms are crossed over the same way." She paused, "The only difference is that this boy has no fluids present like the other one. No semen or spermicide, and I see no trauma."
Olivia looked at Elliot, "Well, I guess that checks Rick out." Elliot nodded, and they both stood up.
Warner stood up as well. "I guess I'll try to get the results in as soon as I can. Two murders within three days, this guy is probably a serial." She closed her case, and with that, headed to her car.
Elliot and Olivia walked back to the car.
"God, I thought it was Rick," he exclaimed as they passed the yellow police tape.
"Well, you were wrong. I think we have bigger problems, anyway. We are about out of suspects and no eye witnesses."
"Lets head back and see if we can find a connection. We don't even know the boy's name." They both got in the car and drove back to the station in silence. Neither one making eye contact with the other.
The next day, Elliot and Olivia sat at their desks, going through some case files. Everybody was silent and no body made looked at eachother. Elliot looked up from his desk to across from him, where Olivia sat drenched in files. He could tell she was overworked at that moment. He didn't know why he hadn't noticed before. They hadn't talked about anything other than work since the fight. What could he say? He knew he crossed the line in a way.
The truth was that it killed him inside to know that he had hurt her. But he sure as hell wasn't going to back down. He grunted and put his head back down to his own desk.
Cragen suddenly put the attention towards him. He walked out of the office with a file that was being held up. "Attention, we have an ID on our John Doe." All four detectives stood up, except for Fin, who had been busy filing paperwork for the past two days.
Cragen continued, "His name is James Collin."
Elliot cut in, "How did he get into the system?"
"Foster care," Cragen said while putting the boy's picture on the board. "He lives near south Jersey right now. His foster mother, Elizabeth Trolley, put a missing persons report on the boy two days earlier."
"That's about the same amount of time as Roger," Olivia commented. "What school did he go to?"
"No luck there," Cragen stated. "He went to a May Style High School. It's also in south of Jersey where he lives. Anybody got anything?"
Munch stepped forward, "Me and Mr. Five-year-old over her," he pointed to Lake, "have been checking out sex offenders on parole in the same area, but when Stabler and Benson said that the second boy had no sexual trauma, we came up with a different theory."
"And what's that?" Cragen asked.
Lake cut in this time, "Maybe it was never about sexual favors. If that guy Rick Foley was telling the truth, it means that our killer probably isn't a pedophile. So we were thinking maybe we should give Homicide a call. See if they have any recent parolees out on probation in the Manhattan and Jersey areas."
"Okay," Cragen nodded, "you two go check out the 23rd precinct. Ask for Greene, he can give you more files then you know." He turned towards Elliot and Olivia, "You two, go to Warner's. I just got a call; she wants to show you something."
Fin suddenly spoke up in a sarcastic tone, "Yeah. Don't worry 'bout me. I got enough to do over here." He put his head back on his desk, leaving him with the biggest anticipation of the end of the week when he could get back on the field.
The four detectives each put on their jackets and headed to their squad cars.
Lake and Munch sat in the car, about fifteen minutes away from the 23rd precinct. They hadn't overall talked that much, mostly because they didn't have many things in common, and mostly because Munch just didn't like him. The silence was overwhelming and eventually Lake spoke up.
"So, how long have you been a cop?" Lake said looking at the road.
Munch put on his sunglasses. "Well, let's see. I started at the academy when you were probably in preschool."
Lake smirked. "You don't like me that much, do you?"
Munch smiled, "What's not to like?"
"You know, this is why I worked solo in Brooklyn. I tend to not get along with partners. I tend to piss people off."
Munch sighed, "Well, I'll give you a break here. People tend to get annoyed by my ranting, yet accurate, conspiracy theories."
Lake laughed. Still looking at the road ahead, he said, "So I heard you used to be in Homicide up in Baltimore. Why'd you leave?"
"Because I had a five year old partner like you," Munch said sarcastically.
"No, seriously. Why would you leave that place to come to sex crimes? A lot of cops would think you're insane."
"The truth?"
"Yeah."
"I'm not totally sure myself. I was tired of seeing all of the death, and I guess I wanted to see more of the living. Besides, it was either Special Victims or Vice."
"I don't think Vice would be as hard as SVU," Lake said.
"I guess it's just something that needed to be done," Munch continued. "Me and the guys back at the squad, Elliot, Olivia, Fin, we don't really have explanations. We do it because no one else will. It's kind of what makes us a family. Why'd you do it?"
"Well, to tell you the truth, I almost quit after the first week. I had a kid case. A four year old girl was raped and smothered. When I came to the scene, her eyes were still open," he paused, "I can't get them out of my head."
"So why did you keep doing it?"
"Because, like you said Munch, somebody has to."
They spent the rest of the ride in silence. When they parked and got out of the car, Munch looked at him.
"Your okay with me kid."
Lake smiled back at him, "Your not too bad yourself." Lake smirked, "Considering that you're an old man."
Detectives Benson and Stabler walked into Melinda Warner's office. She was in the middle of another autopsy. Her tape recorder was on and she was wearing blue scrubs with her curly hair tied back.
". . . liver is severely lacerated from about two inches in length. Lungs are incinerated and filled with fluid." She looked up and saw her two guests. "Oh, hello detectives. You guys make good timing." She took off the mask covering her face and put the light blue sheet over the victim she was working on. Melinda pulled her gloves off and put them in the trash. "Here, follow me," she continued.
Olivia and Elliot followed her quick pace to the coroner's room, where they keep the bodies in drawer shelves. Melinda walked over to the middle where the handle of one of the shelves said "Collin, James".
She pulled on the handle and it let out a plastic body bag. She unzipped it showing the 14 year old boys face.
Elliot and Olivia were pretty much hardened by experience that they shouldn't have flinched when they saw the boy's features, but somehow, this boy just hurt them. He was young and handsome, and even though they had come to the crime scene before and seen him, there was just something so sad about him lying quietly and calmly in a gloomy coroner's office.
"He reminds me of my son," Elliot mumbled. Olivia glanced over at him. It was something personal to him and she knew that.
"So," Olivia said not taking her eyes off of the boy, "what did you want to show us."
"Well," Melinda began, "your first victim didn't really have any DNA or clues on his body other than the semen. This boy, however, is different. Look at the neck. He was killed by the same object, but this time it left a small white residue. The white residue contained fluorescent particles that are used in plastic."
"So what are you saying?" Elliot jumped in.
"I'm saying that whatever killed your two boys was a small, long, probably light, plastic, and white object. Ring a bell?"
Elliot and Olivia glanced at each other and then back at Melinda.
"Not yet," Olivia finished.
The entire squad was sitting at their desks looking at the board, except for Fin who had been filing out papers nonstop.
"So," Cragen said leaning on one of the desks, "What do we got?"
Munch cleared his throat, "Well, Mr. Stud over here," he pointed to Lake, "and I headed over to homicide. They only have two people on record that had the same M.O. However, one of them is serving a life sentence in Sing-Sing Correctional Facility, and the other is dead."
Munch continued, "I would say the dead one did it, but he liked to have sexual encounters, which we have now established was not the base of these killings."
"So what?" Cragen asked, "Is the trail cold? Can we find any connection between these two boys?"
Olivia jumped in leaning back in her chair, "Other than the fact that they both went missing two days before the murders and had the same cause of death, no."
"Not anything?" Cragen urged.
Elliot began to speak, "They had separate lives. One went to WP High School in Queens; the other went to May Style High School in south Jersey. They lived in separate areas, used different stores. There is no connection."
A silence overwhelmed the room. It was full of defeat.
Suddenly, Fin spoke up. Everybody seemed to jump, forgetting he was here.
"You guys, I think I got somethin'," he said. "You said that Mr. Crin, the choir teacher, was teaching seminars?"
Olivia nodded.
He continued, looking down at the file in his hands. "Well, it says right here that when you were interviewing him, he said he was down near south Jersey when Roger Cleine was found." He stood up and gave the file to Cragen, "Right around the time that James Collin went missing."
Everybody's eyes opened wide. Elliot stood up and looked at the file and then at Fin.
"He could have easily killed and dumped Roger before he went, leaving him just enough time to grab James," Fin finished.
Cragen looked around, "Did anybody ask what schools he went to when he was teaching these seminars?"
Munch stood up, "Nobody thought it was relevant."
"Wait!" suddenly Olivia popped out of her seat and looked at Elliot and then at Cragen. "Warner said that the object that killed both of them was small, long, white, and made of plastic." She looked at Elliot, "It was his conducting stick."
Elliot's eyes widened and they both looked at Cragen.
Suddenly, the phone rang and Cragen quickly picked it up. His expression changed from confusion to hurt. "Thank you," he said into the receiver.
He looked up and rubbed his face, while looking at the detectives. "Miss Jane Blossom called dispatch about fifteen minutes ago. Her son, Kevin Blossom, didn't come home last night. I was just informed that he is the same age as both victims." Cragen paused, "He also went to WP High School."
"Son of a bitch," mumbled Lake.
Cragen pulled himself together. "Okay, Munch, you and Lake go talk to Miss Blossom. Elliot, Olivia," he looked at them, "I need you two to go pick up Tom Crin now."
He didn't even have to finish. All four of the detectives were out of the room in less than five seconds.
A/N: Review! (I don't know how else to put it).
