. searching for leads .

Special Victims Unit
Squad Room
Tuesday, July 20th

"Do we have any leads?" Cragen asked his detectives in exasperation.

"Unfortunately, no," Elliot answered from where he sat at his desk, shifting through the papers present there. "Nothing new has come up and we've depleted all of our sources concerning the two victims."

Olivia hung up the phone and announced, "Brad's alibi checks out. Last night, his roommate confirmed that he got to their apartment around midnight. Warner said the girl was killed sometime between midnight and two a.m. but considering our perp's religious fixation, I think he probably killed her a few minutes before midnight so that she died on Sunday. Brad's out of the question because he couldn't have made it from Central Park to his apartment in less than a half hour."

"Any chance his roommate is covering for him?"

Olivia shook her head. "I talked to her and she doesn't like him. She said the only reason she puts up with him is that they've got a good deal on their apartment. She seemed pretty sincere."

"Well, there's got to be something we can do," Cragen said, moving over to stand by the board where they had all the victims and the information concerning the case displayed. "We can't just wait with our thumbs up our asses until this guy kills again." He tapped a photocopy of the second victim's fake driver's license. "Do we have an I.D. for her yet?"

"No, for now, she remains 'Jane Doe,'" Munch replied.

"Let's find her a name then." Cragen said, turning around to face his detectives. "I want you all to canvass the area where Brad said he picked her up, asking the local working girls if they knew her. She's got to have talked to someone in the time between johns."

…

"You boys lookin' for some friendly company?" a woman asked, leaning over to peer in the squad car, managing at the same time to give the two detectives inside a good view of her ample bosom.

"Isn't it a little early to be peddling your wares?" Munch asked, showing the woman his badge.

"It's never too early for a little pick-me-up, detective," the woman answered coolly. "What do you want?"

"You seen this girl?" Fin showed the woman a picture of the second victim.

The prostitute barely glanced at the photo before replying, "No." She stood, turning to leave.

"C'mon lady, you didn't even look at the picture!" Fin protested.

She spun on her heel and poised elegantly with one hand on her hip as she glared at the two men. "Give me one good reason why I should."

"The girl's dead and we're trying to find the guy who killed her. We think he's targeting women of your particular," Munch paused for a moment as if searching for a suitable word, "profession."

"What makes you cops care about women in my 'profession,' all of a sudden?" she spat contemptuously. "You guys only get involved with us when one of your upstanding citizens dies. Who was it this time?"

"A nun," Munch replied.

"A nun?" She looked taken aback. "What sick bastard would kill a nun?"

"When we find him, we'll tell you," Munch answered dryly. "But I think it'd help us to catch this guy if you looked at the picture."

"I'm not good with faces."

"Yeah, you're good with other things," the detective quipped.

"Just look at the picture," Fin growled. The woman looked at him, slightly surprised at the sudden outburst.

"Excuse my partner," Munch said, "He's been very temperamental lately, which is understandable considering that we've been combing this city the whole morning trying to get other uncooperative ladies in your line of work to tell us if they knew this girl or not."

"Okay, okay. I'll take a look." She peered at the picture for a moment before nodding her head. "Yeah, I knew the kid."

"What was her name?" Munch asked.

"Amber, she said."

"No last name?"

"Nope."

"Do you know anything else about her?"

"Look, we just worked by each other. I gave her tips sometimes but this job doesn't give us a lot of time to spill our life stories to each other over a friendly cup of coffee."

Munch sighed in frustration. "Any of your friends know her better than you?"

"Maybe." She walked over to the other three prostitutes that were hanging out in the area and pulled one of them aside. They exchanged some quick words before she rejoined the other women and her friend walked over to the detectives' car. "Lemme see your badges." The detectives showed her and she studied them before saying, "You want to know about Amber."

"Yeah, for starters though, what'd she tell you?" Munch asked, gesturing at the woman they had spoken with first.

"She said you two were okay," she answered with a hesitant smile, "but that you don't know how to hold your tongue."

"Maybe this is why you never have any luck with women," Fin commented to his partner.

"I'll have you know that some women find my propensity to speak what comes to mind very attractive," Munch said defensively.

"Until you turn that sharp tongue on them."

"Uh, detectives?" the woman interrupted them. "If you take any longer, I'm going to have to start charging you by the hour and I'm sure that won't look good to anyone who might happen to be watching."

"Good point," Munch said and turned to business. "Did Amber have a last name?"

"If she did, she never told me."

"Do you have any information that could help us? Family, friends, home, stalkers…"

She thought for a moment. "Am had a little place over by Central Park. It was pretty nice, she said, and she had a roommate to help pay for it."

"This roommate, he got a name?" Fin asked.

She shrugged. "Some guy. Jason, Jared, James; a name like that."

"There's a lot of names that begin with the letter 'J'," Munch observed. "Could you narrow it down, by any chance?"

"I don't know. It was…" She thought for a moment. "Jeff. Yeah, that's it. His name was Jeff. He went to some college."

"And I suppose it's useless to ask for a last name?"

She leveled a look at Munch. "Detective, if I had that much trouble remembering his first name, any chance you ever had at getting a last name out of me is long gone."

"Thanks anyway," Fin said and handed her a card, "if you remember anythin' else, give us a call."

"Okay. She also said he was gay. The only kind of guy roommate Am said she'd ever have," she added.

"Well, at least that eliminates a lot of the Jeffs in New York," Munch said sarcastically.

"Well, you're welcome," the woman said in an equally sarcastic tone before walking over to join the other women in waiting for business propositions.

"We should check out the college closest to Central Park," Fin said as he started up the car. "That's probably the one he's going to."

Okay, I don't live in NYC, so unfortunately, I don't know it's layout 'n stuff. So,I dunno exactly ifthere'sapartments that're fairly priced around Central Park.
I will however, figure out the nearest college and use that one. I do try to keep up some semblance of reality in these fics.
And if I went OOC with Munch in this, I'm sorry. I tried to keep his dialogue Munch-like, witty and sharp, but sometimes I think I screw up...