Chapter 20
"Calvin is asleep," Olivia said to Elliot as she exited the cribs. Her partner had followed her to the door, hoping for a moment alone.
"That's good. He's been through a lot today. How are you doing?" Elliot wanted to know.
"I'll be fine when we find these fuckers," she said. While swearing was not unheard from the detective's lips, she didn't often use the f-bomb. That was usually Elliot's department.
"I called Detective Taylor. He and the forensics team are all over it. You'll have a new front door in the morning. Officers are guarding the apartment. We have to focus on getting the fuckers who messed with Stephanie. They are the key to this. Speaking of which, I sent patrol officers to protect Stephanie and her family at the hotel. Doug and his mom are heading to her sister's place," he said, kissing her temple. Olivia leaned into it a little before pulling away.
"Good call. Let's capture these guys then huh?" She whispered, hoping their little moment wasn't noticed by their colleagues. Heading to her desk, she watched Munch lay out what he found on the sheet that he and his buddy decoded.
"Are we allowed to know who this guy is or is that a CIA secret? I mean he'll have to testify how he broke the code," Olivia said to the Sergeant.
"If anything, I'd be keeping his identity safe from the CIA," Munch told her.
"Right so the DA is supposed to believe we decoded it all on our own huh?" Kenny asked from his desk. He'd been shoring himself up for more video watching by making a large pot of coffee and ordering some takeout for everyone.
"Well no. Luckily, our decoder is above reproach. More on that later, for now, we can bask in the brilliance. As you have all previously noted, there are numbers and letters intermixed in these coded squares," Munch started.
"Right, so we figured that the letters were probably some sort of initials, but the numbers made no sense," Elliot spoke up as he poured himself a cup of coffee from the fresh pot.
"Well, we got lucky that I have a less then clean mind and the fact that the letters in a lot of these sections happen to match Alan's initials," the Sergeant said.
"For example?" Olivia asked.
"This first square – C1DBA2LSR3JK. Now if we remove the numbers, we're left with CDB, ALS, and RJK. Since that makes three sets of initials, we figured that the numbers stood for the position in the threesome…" Munch was interrupted.
"Position? Isn't that a leap?" Olivia cocked an eyebrow.
"Well ALS stands for Alan Lawrence Smythe. Since he has the two, we figured that he was busy being in the middle. Probably pleasuring CDB while RJK is getting their jollies off using Alan's back door…"
"I think I'm going to be sick," Kenny interrupted him.
"How did you get into SVU anyway? Did Lenny pull some strings or…" Munch wanted to know – a little perturbed at being interrupted again.
"Not you. The Captain just texted. Sally was just rushed back into surgery again. He doesn't know what happened but there was a code blue…" Briscoe explained. Olivia let out a breath, swearing as it went.
"Shit," Elliot pounded his fist on the desk.
"We can't do anything for her now. We need to stay focused so we can be there for Fin," Munch brought them back to the spreadsheet.
"You're right. Alan was in a threesome in the first DVD that Rena in TARU and I screened. Maybe we can tie those faces to initials. What about the other cells?" Olivia wanted to know.
"Well some show pairings and some have no numbers at all so for those we're assuming that it's just an act rather than a full blown, everyone's naked, kind of event," the Sergeant explained.
"Ok, so what initials do Alan's show up with the most? Maybe if we can decode one, we can decode the others. What about the names on the DVDs or files?" Elliot posed.
"Well it would seem that Alan enjoyed the company of CDB quite a bit though RJK makes quite a few appearances as well, but not as much as CDB," Munch pointed out.
"The DVDs just have first names on them. There is one with a 'C' – Connie. Nothing with an 'R' though," Olivia said as she flipped through the list of names that TARU had given them via evidence inventory.
"I have a few files with just the initials of RJK and then CDB pops up quite a bit. I also have the combination of them," Kenny announced.
"So these three people were the bulk of the experiences. We just need to see if Connie is the CDB on the files," Elliot said.
"I'll call Rena up and have her deliver the DVDs and we'll see if we can side by side compare them," Olivia offered before grabbing her desk phone.
"Kenny, queue up the video with just RJK. Let's confirm the sex of our player," Munch told him. The younger man nodded and quickly pulled up the files on the laptop he and Fin had been using earlier. The two detectives walked over to him and Kenny pressed 'play'. He hadn't gotten to this file yet as it was near the bottom of the list.
"Well I think that answers that," Elliot said as he watched the two males on the screen.
"Yup. So the back door theory wasn't far off," Munch was a little proud of himself. Kenny stopped that video and pulled up one with just the CDB initials.
"And that is definitely a woman. Let's hope the DVD matches and we can try and figure out who this is," Elliot said.
"How do we handle that? I mean do we put out a bulletin or make an announcement? Ladies and gentlemen, see if you can decipher this sex face for us?" Kenny was only partially serious on that last one.
"I'm thinking we see if your little friend down at TARU can clean up the videos and get us a nice clean shot. Just say we're looking for her as part of our investigation and that she isn't in any kind of trouble," Munch gave him a look.
"Rena is on her way with the DVDs," Olivia announced, fresh off her desk phone.
"Excellent. Let's hope we have a good lead," Elliot smiled.
To Be Continued…