. when life gives you a lemon… .

Office of the Medical Examiner
Monday, July 19th

Warner looked up in surprise from where she was finishing performing an autopsy on a corpse when Olivia and Elliot came strolling into her office. "Hey, I was just about to call you guys," she said as she walked over to a sink to wash her hands after stripping off her bloody plastic gloves and dropping those into a trash bin.

"Did you find something?" Elliot asked hopefully.

Warner nodded. "And it's as strange as the LSD in the first victim. I found sperm in both of your victims but-"

"The man who examined her on the scene said the girl hadn't been raped though," Olivia said.

"Carl…" Warner grimaced. "I knew I shouldn't have had him go on scene for me but I was dealing with the corpses of a double homicide at the time and the detectives with the case were putting pressure on me to get the autopsies done ASAP. Carl's been with us for only a couple of weeks and he's not very good at solo on-scene examinations yet."

Elliot remembered their days with Cassidy and his frequent mistakes. He smiled and shrugged, "It's okay. Did he miss anything else?"

"Nothing else that was obvious, except after examining your second victim, I would say that it's a safe bet to assume that she was a prostitute. As for what wasn't obvious, I found lemon juice in both of your victims' vaginal cavities."

Both Elliot and Olivia stared at Warner with blank expressions for a few moments before Elliot said in a puzzled voice, "I must have heard you wrong, Warner. For a second there I thought you said 'lemon juice.'"

"I did. I thought the test results had been screwed up somehow but when your second victim came back positive for it too, I knew they were right."

"'Lemon juice?'" Olivia repeated in a tone just as confused as Elliot's had been. His cell phone rang at that moment and he stepped away to answer it. "How did lemon juice get there?"

Warner smiled. "I asked the same question. My research revealed, however, that lemon juice was once used as a contraceptive in Mediterranean cultures and experiments have shown that it acts as a spermicide as its high acidity kills sperm on contact."

"But if the perp was going to kill her anyway, why would he use it?" Olivia wondered aloud.

"Well, another proven benefit of the use of lemon juice is that it inactivates the HIV virus, reducing the risk of contracting it, and from my analysis of your victim, the perp should be glad he did use it."

"She's positive for HIV?" Elliot asked as he snapped his cell phone shut.

"Yes, and she has been for sometime and so has probably passed it onto many johns."

"Thanks, Warner." He turned to Olivia. "We need to get back to the precinct. Munch and Fin have got the girl's last client in custody and are going to start questioning him soon."

…

The captain of the Special Victims Unit stood in the observation room, looking through the one-way mirror at the man pacing the length of the interrogation room. Outside, Cragen gave his detectives brief instructions on how to deal with the man in their custody. "We've got him for soliciting a minor and making false licenses so use that to pressure him into telling us about the girl. Do you think he could be the perp?" The question was directed at Huang who was standing near Cragen, watching Brad closely.

The FBI psychiatrist shook his head. "At this point, I can't say for sure, but I believe it's doubtful. The killer you're looking for is probably not sexually active and, if he is, then he would only have sex with adult women, as intercourse with a child is against God's teachings."

"And yet he thought it was all right to have sex with a dead body. Somebody should teach this guy the meaning of 'logic,'" Munch grumbled. "And if he's paying so much attention to God's teachings, he should hearken back to the well-known phrase 'thou shalt not kill.'"

Cragen nodded to acknowledge Huang's assessment and turned back to his two detectives. "Then I want you to proceed under the assumption that he is not our perp." Munch and Fin nodded to show Cragen that they had heard him and Fin opened the door and they entered the interrogation room.

"So, Brad…" Munch took a seat at the table and placed a case file in front of him. He opened it up and made a show of scanning over the documents inside before looking up to make eye contact with Brad. "It seems that you have a weakness for little girls."

The man stood with his back against the wall and hunkered down in his large leather coat. "Everyone likes kids. Is that a crime?"

"It is if you have sex with them," Fin said from where he was standing behind his partner, casually leaning against the one-way mirror.

"What would you say if I told you they like it?" Brad asked with a sneer.

"I'd tell you that you're mistaking tears of humiliation and pain for tears of joy," Munch replied lightly.

Brad stepped away from the wall and slid into the chair on his side of the table. "Cut the crap. What do you want?"

"The girl you hired last night. What happened?" Fin asked.

He stared at Munch testily. "I didn't pay for any girl last night."

"Well, someone at the club you went to last night says otherwise. They saw you there with this girl." Munch slid a photograph of the girl across the table. "You know her?"

Brad looked at the picture. "Nope."

"Huh." Munch put on a perplexed expression. "Well then, since you don't, I guess that DNA sample that nice girl gave us today won't match any fluids found on the body." Fin surreptitiously glanced at his partner who gave him a confident look. Although there had been no fluids on the corpse to their current knowledge, Brad didn't know that and they could use that against him.

"Body?" He perked up. "What body?"

"That girl is dead," Munch explained, gesturing at the photo. "But since you say you weren't with her, I guess you didn't kill her and it's just a blatant coincidence that she ended up with a false license issued from the DMV by you." He paused for a moment before continuing with a slight shrug. "Of course, if your DNA comes back as a match and you actually did spend some time with her last night and you're lying to us, that won't be a pretty situation and my partner and I will be very irritated. So it would be best for all parties if you cooperated fully with us at this time."

Brad mentally digested this for a moment. "Well, say that it's true that my DNA sample comes out to be a match… hypothetically speaking, of course. Will I be charged for murder?"

"Unless you have an alibi, most likely," Munch answered, although he knew that they didn't have enough evidence yet to charge him even if they thought he was the killer.

Brad stared at Munch for a few minutes, weighing out his options. "If I talk to you guys, could you maybe let me off light on the current charges?"

Although he heard Munch mutter quietly, "No chance in hell," and Fin privately agreed with his partner, he answered, "We could put in a good word with the DA but there's no guarantee."

The man shook his head. "Knew you'd say something like that… ah, hell. Okay, so I did pick up a girl last night and fixed her up with a fake license. I wanted to go clubbing, didn't have a girl to go with so I figured a prostitute would work out. It did too. She made me pay a lot for all the time that it took up and the little something that I got before she left but it was a good deal. She got out of my car on the corner of Madison and East 67th. Said she would take it from there." He shifted around uncomfortably on his chair. "I was a bit concerned 'cause you know; a kid out at late hours, stuff happens. She gave me this look and said she'd be fine. So, I went home, got there no later than one. My roommate can vouch for me."

"And you better hope he can," Olivia said as she walked into the room. She looked over at Munch and Fin. "Warner's running the DNA sample against fluids from both of the bodies." The female detective glanced back at the man sitting at the table. "And you, you might want to get checked out for STDs soon. Maybe, specifically, HIV."

The blood drained from Brad's face and he choked out, "That whore was HIV positive?"

"What? Did I say that?" Olivia glanced at Munch and Fin, who shook their heads 'no' before walking out of the room. She looked back at Brad. "You know I can't legally release HIV-related information, even if the person is dead. I was just saying that out of friendly concern. After all, if you have unprotected sex with hookers, you're bound to contract something nasty sooner or later. Now I've gotta go and check with that alibi of yours so, until then, have a nice day." She smiled frostily at him before following Munch and Fin out and leaving Brad behind, pale and shaken.

Okay, before any of you say, "Jeril! Lemon juice as a spermicide? Girl, what the fuck are you tripping on!" I have some evidence for this! I found an article online at a trusted source that specified lemon juice was used in older days as a spermicide and it also had the nice ability to inactivate the HIV virus. If you want to read the article for yourself, check my livejournal where I posted the link just in case. My livejournal's listed in my profile under "homepage".
And if you're wondering why I decided to add that lemon juice bit in; I thought it would be kinda screwy as with the LSD and since this fic is all about being messed up, lol, I thought it'd fit in well…

Oh, and I hope Benson's thing with Sinclair at the very end wasn't OOC. o.o Please tell me if it was though… and if anything else that I write is OOC for any character.