A/N: Just wanted to give you all a little Christmas gift on Christmas day, so here's a chapter. Merry Christmas. XD Amd I hope you all have a good New Year.

. coincidences? .

Apartment of David Waters
& Abdullah Ali
Tuesday, July 20th

"Detectives, come in," David said in a pleasant voice, gesturing them inside the apartment. "What brings you to our doorstep?"

"David, who's there?" Abdullah asked as he entered the room. He stopped when he saw it was Munch and Fin. "Detectives? What're you doing here?"

"Do either of you know Jacqueline Monroe? One floor up?" Munch asked.

"I don't know her myself but David does," Abdullah replied, taking off a black jacket and hanging it up from a hook on the wall.

"Yeah, she's a nice girl, but her job leaves something to be desired," David said. "Why do you ask?"

"She was murdered Sunday night," Fin said.

"Oh my god." David looked shocked. "That's horrible. Poor girl"

"We think it was done by the same man who killed Sister Abigail."

"Abdullah told me about that. Oh my. This is terrible. Is there anything we can do to help you?" David seemed sincere in his concern but Abdullah looked slightly resentful, obviously wishing that the detectives had not come to talk to him and his roommate.

"Do you know if Jacqueline had any connection with the abbey?" Munch asked.

"She wasn't a fan of religion," David replied. "Her parents' strict religious beliefs were one of the reasons she ran away from home."

"I never saw her at the abbey," Abdullah agreed.

"Can I offer you something to drink?" David asked, gesturing towards where the kitchen was, presumably. "Water? Coffee? I just brewed a fresh pot."

"Water sounds nice," Munch replied.

"No thanks," Fin said.

David nodded, "Okay." He turned and walked into the kitchen, a limp apparent in his walk. Munch glanced at Abdullah, who was watching him with a strange expression on his face. When the man meet Munch's gaze however, he turned and left the room. David returned moments later, bearing the glass of water for Munch. "There you go," he said, handing the glass to Munch.

Munch thanked him and drank some of the water. "If you don't mind me asking, David, what's the limp from?" he asked.

"Childhood injury," David replied, rubbing his right hip with his hand as if to rub the limp away. "I was rock-climbing in one of those indoor systems and the safety rope broke right as I reached the top. I landed wrong and my whole leg got screwed up. Unfortunately, I also had an incompetent doctor who didn't help the healing process much and by the time my mother realized something was wrong, short of re-breaking my leg, it was impossible to have it heal right." He smiled. "Ever since that fall, I've had a horrible fear of heights."

"I'm not surprised."

"Anything else you guys need?"

"Nah, we're good. Thanks," Fin said and he and Munch left the apartment. Fin looked at his partner as they walked down the building's stairs. "So?"

"Abdullah said that the man he saw that night had a limp," Munch said.

"You think it was David? If Abdullah knows that it's him, then why doesn't he just come out and tell us?"

The older detective shrugged. "I don't know. Maybe he thought we'd figure it out on our own and that way he wouldn't have to betray his friend."

"If it was David, it would explain why Jacqueline appeared to have gone into the park willingly with the killer. She knew him and trusted him."

Fin pulled his phone out his pocket as they exited the apartment building. "I'm gonna call Elliot and get him to check and see if David's got a record."

"Have him check on Abdullah too," Munch said and Fin nodded. As Fin talked on his cell phone, Munch wandered over to talk with a man standing ten feet or so away from the door. "Hey, you hang around here often?"

The man gave Munch a look that contained some suspicion. "Who wants to know?" He seemed to be around thirty years old and he seemed to be of Latino heritage, although his dark hair was bleached blond.

"Detective Munch," Munch answered, showing his badge.

The man glanced at Munch's badge and answered, "Yeah, sometimes."

"Sometimes being…"

"Now and sometimes early in the morning or late at night. Depends." He shrugged.

"On what?"

"The weather," he replied with an easy smile and tone that clearly said, "It definitely does not depend on the weather, detective, and you and I both know it but you can't do anything about it."

"Uh huh." Munch eyed him for a moment before asking, "What's your name?"

"Blake."

"Well, Blake, were you here early Sunday morning by any chance?"

"Nope, I don't work Sundays."

"Oh, so you're working right now?"

"No, I just stop by here on the way home from work to meet a few friends." The man's eyes showed no visible hint that Munch's questions were bothering him though the detective was sure they were. Dealers were usually bothered when the cops asked them a lot of questions.

"How 'bout Monday mornin'?" Fin asked, walking up to join Munch.

Blake only gave Fin a glance before nodding, still calm and unshaken. "Yeah, got here about midnight."

"You know Abdullah and David?"

"A bit. Nice guys."

"You see them come home Monday?"

"Yeah, Abdullah came back around one-ish, I guess, and David got here about two-thirty, three, somewhere in there. He was with a few guys too. Looked like they'd been out drinking."

"All right, thanks for your help," Munch said.

"No problem, detectives. My pleasure." He smiled at them pleasantly as they turned and walked away.

…

"What do we know about these two?" Cragen asked his assembled detectives after Munch and Fin had returned from their reconnaissance.

"Well, Abdullah Ali's clean as far we have any records of him but David Waters has been in trouble twice for driving under the influence," Elliot reported.

"And we suspect them, why?" Cragen turned to Munch.

"It's not just a coincidence that they both knew the victims and lived one floor below the second," Munch answered.

"Abdullah said he saw someone with a limp and David has a limp?" Cragen asked.

"Yeah, but if it was Abdullah, he could be saying that to throw us off," Munch pointed out.

"The guy outside the apartment building told us that they both came home late Monday mornin', though David was with a couple buddies," Fin added.

"What about Sunday?"

"Still lookin'," Fin answered.

Cragen was about to speak when he noticed a distraught young woman enter the squad room, obviously in need of help. Olivia's gaze followed his own and when she noticed the woman, the detective jumped up and hurried over to help her.

Elliot stood up, "Cap'n? Actually, Abdullah seems to have a juvie record but it's sealed. I was wondering if I could go talk to Casey and see what she can do it about."

Cragen nodded. "Okay." He glanced at his watch. "And go home after that. It'll be too late for anything else."

Elliot nodded and smiled. "Thanks, Cap'n."

"Just make sure you're here on time tomorrow. Looks like we've got something new to deal with." Cragen nodded his head in the direction of the troubled woman.

…

At the knocking sound on her office door, Casey Novak, Assistant District Attorney, sighed with an irritated air. "When will they stop?" she grumbled to herself, thoroughly annoyed with all the people who had been bugging her the whole day long. Unable to deny her presence in her office though to whomever it was outside of her door, she finally said, "Come in," with a grateful look to her clock, which noted that she only had another half hour to go before her hellish day came to an end.

"Elliot!" she said in surprise. The detective was one of the last people she was expecting to see as she wasn't currently handling any case from the Special Victims Unit. "What brings you to my door?"

"I've come to ask a favor," the detective replied to her inquiry, taking a seat in one of her chairs.

Casey sighed again. "Well, I hope I can help you out but I warn you; I have very little favors to call in anymore."

"We need the juvenile records of a suspect. A Mr. Abdullah Ali," Elliot told her, handing her some papers.

Casey glanced at them and sunk back into her chair with a weary smile at the detective. "You just had to make it tough, didn't you? Pulling sealed records is hard, but this guy's of Arab descent and you know how things have been about that stuff since 9/11."

"I guess it doesn't help either that we don't have a lot of evidence against him," Elliot said, smiling sadly.

Casey glanced over the evidence that Elliot had listed on the paper and looked back up at him with a look that said, "You're shitting me." What she did say out loud, however, was, "This is all circumstantial. Please tell me this is just some really bad joke that you guys are playing on me?"

Elliot shook his head. "No."

"Then I can't help you. At least, not until you get some better evidence then this."

Elliot stood up. "Well, it was worth a try."

She smiled at him sympathetically, knowing that he was just as tired as she was. "When you get something a bit more solid, come back and I'll put it through ASAP."

"Thanks, Casey."

"Anytime, Elliot."