Chapter 6: Jessica and Rachel Mullins

After she left the bar with Amanda, Chris called Ryanne, the waitress she'd met at the restaurant they'd went to earlier that week. She went over to the restaurant and waited for her shift to end and they walked back to Chris' house together. She'd made the call to Amanda as promised and then turned all her attention to her guest. They'd been in bed pleasuring each other for hours when her phone started to ring over the soft music she had playing in her bedroom. She tried to ignore it and enjoy what Ryanne was doing to her under the covers but it wouldn't stop ringing. She told her to stop and reached over and grabbed her phone.

"Reyes" she answered not even trying to hide the annoyance in her voice. "Where?" Ryanne kept kissing her on chest and neck and licking her ear. "Yeah, ok. I'm on my way". She hung up the phone was immediately met with her bedmate's lips on her own. "I have to go" she said in between kisses.

"Humm...right now" she whined placing chaste kisses on Chris' lips.

"Yes, right now. I have to go to work". Chris didn't want to be rude but she needed to get this girl out of her house so she could leave. There was no way she was going to stay while she went to work.

"But it's like...four in the morning" she said still placing kissing up and down Chris' neck.

"Yeah, well criminals don't care about the time. Come on, I really have to go" she said lightly pushing her off of her. She got out of the bed and started to gather her clothes for her. "I need to shower really quick but I can drop you somewhere if you want". She handed Ryanne her clothes and waited for a response.

"No, that's ok. I'll just call a cab" she said as she pulled her clothes on. Chris could tell that her feelings were hurt but she didn't have time to think about it and if she was being honest with herself she really didn't care. She just nodded and left her room to go hop in the shower.

Chris came back ten minutes later to an empty bedroom. She moisturized her golden toned skin and put on black jeans and belt, a gray top with a black jacket and gray boots. She pulled her hair back in a low ponytail and clipped on her badge and gun. She grabbed her phone and keys and quietly headed out the door. When she stepped out onto the porch, Ryanne was sitting there waiting for her cab. She sat down next to her, "I don't mind driving you home, Ry" she said.

She shook her head, "It's fine. I already called the cab. It's five minutes away" she said not even looking at her. This was the part that Chris hated, feelings. She was never good with dealing with people's feelings so she just didn't.

"Ok, well, I...I have to go. I will...ummm...I'll call you, ok?" Ryanne still wouldn't look at her.

"Yeah right" she said not believing her. Chris just got up and went to her car. Ryanne's cab pulled up just as she drove away from her house.

She drove to hell's kitchen and met up with Fin and Amanda. The area was full of police cars, a fire truck and two ambulances. A crowd was starting to gather and uniformed officers were trying to keep them behind the crime scene tape. Chris showed her badge and ducked under the tape to go over to her partners. She tried to get a look at the scene but there was too many people surrounding the area. "Hey" she said seeing Fin and Amanda standing next to the fire truck, "What's going on?" she asked.

"Got two bodies, females, badly burned" Fin explained.

"Why is this ours?" she asked confused. She knew that SVU only hadn't sexually motivated crimes. Two burns victims would go to homicide.

"They were stripped naked before they were set on fire. They might have been raped. The ME is taking a look now to see if we'll be able to get anything from the bodies" Amanda said jumping in. Chris turned around to face the chaos surrounding the scene and saw a black women with curly hair approaching them.

"Whatcha got, doc?" Fin asked as she reached them.

"Well, you got lucky" she said,"Their backs are completely charred but everything else is intact. I'd say they were already dead when they were set on fire. They were badly beaten and raped. I found fluids on both women, took swabs. They're already on the way to the lab" she said explaining her findings.

"Any identifying marks: tattoos, birth marks, scars?" Chris asked. They'd been yet to be properly introduced so Rollins did the honors.

"Dr. Melinda Warner, this is detective Christina Reyes. She filling Liv's spot now that she's been promoted to Sergeant" she said making the introductions. They shook hands and exchanged pleasantries.

"There weren't any marks that I'd could see but I'll be able to tell more once they're on the table. I did get this off one of them though". She held up a bag with a silver medical bracelet inside. "She was a diabetic" she said handing it to Reyes.

"Any chance we can get in there?" she said looking over at the area surrounded by fire fighters.

"It took me twenty minutes to get them to let me examine the bodies. Good luck" Warner said as she turned and walked away. Chris decided she'd go over and try to talk her way over to look at the scene.

"Excuse me" she said showing her badge, "I know you have to secure the area, make sure there are no other fire hazards but is there any chance we could go over there and look around" she asked one of the fire fighters. She put on a sweet tone hoping to win him over.

"Like you said detective, we have to secure the area first" he said.

"Ah, come on. There's nothing here. They're already dead. It was a small fire set to two bodies. The blaze is gone. We just want to look for any identification, find out who they are, notify their families...please" she said nicely. Rollins stood behind and watched while she tried to sweet talk her way into the cordoned off area.

"Alright but make it quick" he said stepping aside and letting them pass. "Thanks". She and Rollins stepped over to get their first look at the bodies.

The smell of gasoline and burnt flesh filled their nostrils. Fin brought them both pairs of gloves to put on so they wouldn't contaminate anything. They checked the area around the bodies for purses or wallets. It was a long shot that they'd find anything but they had to try. Reyes spotted the dumpster for the shop that the women's bodies were dumped behind and jumped up on the edge, holding herself up on her hands, to peer inside. She saw a white trash bag in the midst of only black which told her that it didn't belong. She quickly reached in and grabbed it and hopped back to the ground. She sat the bag on the ground and opened it up to see clothes and purses inside. She yelled for Rollins to come and see what she'd found. "Has to be our vics" she said showing her the clothes and bags. Rollins pulled out one of the purses and opened it up, taking out a wallet.

"Jessica Mullins" she said reading the driver's license aloud. Chris grabbed the other bag and found a second wallet. She opened it up and found a student id,

"They look like mother and daughter to you?" Reyes asked. Rollins peered over her shoulder at the two bodies laying on the pavement.

She shook her head, "Look to be around the same age. Why?" Chris held up the id for her to see, "Rachel Mullins" Rollins said reading the id. "So, they're related. What do you think, sisters?" she asked. "

Or not sisters" Reyes said walking over to the bodies. Rollins grabbed the trash bag and put the purses back inside before following Reyes over to the victims were now covered with white sheets. She was kneeling down beside them, lifting the sheet to look at something. "Tan lines on both ring fingers" she said. She dropped the sheet back down and stood up.

"They were married" Fin said understanding their connection. They took off their gloves and stepped out of the area and let the fire fighters finish up. Rollins handed the bag to CSU and told them to voucher the contents and dust the wallets and that dumpster for prints. As they were leaving, the fire department finally finished and were allowing the bodies to be transported to the ME's office. Rollins, Reyes, and Tutuola headed to the precinct.

It was nearing eight o'clock when Benson and Amaro arrived at the precinct. Fin, Amanda, and Chris had waited a while to get their victim info and what they knew about the crime so far put up on the board before calling them in. They'd also gone ahead and taken care of the notifications. Reyes was sitting at her desk when they came in and Olivia was ready for her and Amaro to be brought up to speed. They gathered at the table in front of the board and waited for Reyes to join them. She was making a quick call home to make sure her brother had gotten up for work and her sister was up getting ready for school. She told her brother to make sure he put their mother's medicine out for her before he left. She hung up the phone and went over to the group giving her apologies for the delay.

"Alright, what have we got?" Cragen asked getting them started.

"Two females, Jessica and Rachel Mullins, 35 and 30 years old, both average women, educated, fit, and friendly from what I can tell from their social media. Jessica was a bank teller and Rachel was a student at Hudson. She was taking psychology classes. She was also a fitness coach. She ran classes out of a small studio that she rented" Rollins said starting the briefing. "Both women were beaten and raped, throats cut. They were dumped in Hell's kitchen and set on fire. ME puts time of death at around one this morning. Their backs were pretty badly burned but their fronts were mostly untouched by the fire so she was able to get DNA. Ran it through the system, no hits" she finished.

"How'd we id them? Were their prints in the system?" Amaro asked.

Reyes shook her head, "No. They were stripped naked but we found their clothes and wallets in a dumpster nearby. CSU wasn't able to lift any prints" she explained.

"So they're sisters, mother and daughter, what?"

"Wife and wife" Reyes said. "We saw tan lines on both women's ring fingers". Reyes sat on the table working on her second cup of coffee of the morning. She'd been the one to put up the pictures of the victims and write everything up on the board. She'd been doing a lot of thinking about what they looking at and where this case might go but she'd yet to share her thoughts. She was just waiting for the right time.

"Have we located the families?" Cragen asked. That was one of the worst parts of the job. Notifying family members of a death was always hard but it was necessary. Not just for the obvious reasons but families could often offered insight into victims: who they were, who they associated with, who might want to hurt them.

"Jessica's parents died five years ago, car accident" Fin said, "She has a brother though, lives in Jersey. Called him an hour ago, he's making the drive up to claim the body. Rachel and her family were on rocky terms since she came out seven years ago. When she married Jessica two and half years ago they cut off contact completely. They're religious and didn't want to have anything to do with her "sinful lifestyle". They said to release the body to Jessica's family" he explained.

"They won't even come in to id her? No funeral? Nothing?" Amaro said in disbelief.

"No. When we told them she was murdered her father said he wasn't surprised because of the life she was living. They didn't want to have anything to do with her then and they don't want to have anything to do with her now". Olivia closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Ok" she said with a sigh. "So we have two women, who were beaten, raped, stripped naked, dumped and then set on fire. We have fluids but no hits in the system, no prints on the dumpster, clothes or wallets, one brother who could possibly give insight into the victims, and the other family who won't be able to give any insight because they hadn't had a relationship with her in seven years. That's not a lot to go on" she said.

"Reyes" Cragen said trying to get her attention. He noticed that she was kind of staring off into space and he wanted to bring her back to earth. "Reyes" he repeated. She slowly gained her focus back.

"Yeah" she answered.

"You want to share that daydream with the rest of us?" he teased.

"Yeah, actually, I do...but not right now" she added quickly. He gave a weird look and folded his arms over his chest. "I just want to get my thoughts together before I share" she explained. That was true but she had a theory about where this case was going to go and she wanted more evidence to back it up before she opened her big mouth. She'd been thinking about what Fin said about being a rookie and having to prove herself. She didn't care if they liked her personally but she cared about doing her job and doing it well. If they didn't appreciate anything else about her, she knew they'd appreciate that.

A man walked through the squad room doors and came over to them. He looked tired and his eyes were red and puffy like he'd been crying. He took off his baseball cap and held it tightly in his hands. "Excuse me" he said getting their attention, "I'm looking for Detective Reyes". Chris hopped down off the table and walked over to him.

"Hi, I'm Detective Reyes" she said extending her hand, "You must be Jessica's brother".

He shook her hand and nodded, "Robert Mullins" he said. Upon hearing that he was the victim's brother, Rollins turned the board around so he wouldn't see the crime scene photos of his sister that they'd taped up.

"Why don't we go in here and talk?" she said putting a hand on his shoulder."Can I get you some coffee or water?" she asked nicely.

He pulled away from her touch, "Uh, no. I'd like to see Jessica now...please". His voice broke slightly when he said his sister's name. Chris wasn't sure what to say. She hadn't done much dealing with notifications and identifications or families in general when she worked narcotics.

"Uh, I...I really don't think that's a good idea. You should remember her the way she was, not how she is now" she said in the nicest way possible.

"What do you mean how she is now?" he asked confused. Reyes looked at him sympathetically. "Oh my god" he said, his eyes filling with tears, "What'd he do to her?" he asked. He was beginning to become hysterical and Reyes wasn't sure what to do or say. She wasn't exactly good at the whole comforting thing. She was making this up as she went along.

"Why don't we go in here and sit down and we can talk about it?" she asked. She wanted to give him the option to decline her offer to talk. Ultimately it was up to him whether he stayed at the precinct or went to view his sister's body. The rest of them sat quietly and watched as Reyes tried to console the man and get him to the interview room. They were surprised at how much compassion she was showing given the whole Ariana debacle. After a moment of thought, Robert nodded his head and walked over to the interview with Christina. She came out a minute later and went over to the coffee pot, poured a cup and stop by the group.

"Sooo...I don't really know what I'm doing. I was kinda winging that but I feel like it went well and I wanna try to talk to him by myself". She was directing this comment towards the Captain because, after all, it was his decision. But she interested to know if she'd have the support of everyone else.

"Well, you really shouldn't wing it" Olivia said.

"Yeah, you need to know what you're gonna say to him before you go in there" Amaro said agreeing. It was surprising to her that they didn't object to her going it alone but rather just gave her a few tips. Rollins and Fin jumped in with their two cents and Reyes listened attentively. She really didn't want to screw this up. The man had just lost his sister and she didn't want to make him feel any worse. After hearing what everyone had to say, she took a deep breath, grabbed the cup of coffee and went to talk to Jessica Mullins' brother.

Reyes got all of the information she could out of Robert Mullins about his sister and her wife. He told her that Rachel had basically become part of their family when she and Jessica started dating five years ago, just a few months before their parents' death. Rachel had been Jessica's rock through the entire ordeal. It made them closer. Jessica supported Rachel through her family troubles, returning the favor of being a rock when her family cut her off upon their engagement. It was a kind of death for her, losing her whole family. They became the people she counted on to be there for her. After some time, she decided that if they didn't want to see her, it was their loss. She wouldn't let them or their beliefs make her feel bad about who she was or who she loved. He told her about how happy they were, how much fun they had together, what a difference he'd seen in his sister since she met Rachel. They made each other better people. Robert gave Reyes a list of places that they frequented around the city and friends of theirs that could shed more light on who the women were. Chris had tried to hold off for as long as possible on telling Robert about what'd happened to his sister but she'd asked him all of her questions and he was asking to see his sister again. She explained as gently as she could what his sister and her wife had gone through but the words hit him like a ton of bricks. He became hysterical and kept asking her why anyone would do that to them. She couldn't answer him. After about five minutes she was able to calm him down and had an officer escort him to his hotel to get settled in.

They gathered again in front of the board to discuss what they're next move was. They split up the list of friends the brother had given them and went out to do interviews. The captain paired Fin with Rollins and Amaro with Reyes while Olivia went over to the ME's office to see if her autopsy had turned up anything else they could use. They did their interviews and met up for lunch to discuss what they'd found out.

"The ME didn't turn up anything new. They were both beaten and raped. She confirmed that they were both dead when they were set on fire. Not a professional, the cut to their throats weren't clean. They were jagged...almost hesistant" Olivia said explaining Warner's findings.

"Like he'd never done it before" Reyes added. They looked at her confused.

"What makes you think that?" Fin asked sipping on his soda.

"Hesitant wound patterns usually indicate an inexperienced offender. And his MO is really specific; beaten, raped, throats cut, stripped naked and set on fire. If he'd been done this before he'd be in the system" she said taking a drink of her coffee.

"Maybe he's just never gotten caught" Amaro said.

"Yeah but he leaves his DNA behind so we would've gotten matches from other cases logged in the system. He doesn't use any counterforensic measures because he knows we can't match it to anything".

"Well, that still leaves us with nothing. What'd you guys get from your interviews?" Olivia asked picking at the salad in front of her.

"Pretty much the same thing from everyone", Rollins said jumping in, "They were great people; a fun, loving couple. Nobody could think of anyone who'd want to hurt them" she said.

"Ditto" Reyes said giving what they'd gotten from they're interviews.

"So we have nothing to go on" she said obviously frustrated.

"We could go to some of the places they went to regularly" Reyes suggested, "See if they had altercations with anyone in the last few weeks". They agreed that would be their next objective. Reyes pulled out her notepad with the list of places Robert had given her and split them evenly between them. They split up again, Benson joining Amaro and Reyes, and went to do more interviews. Again, they came up empty. Nobody remembered Rachel or Jessica having any problems with anyone in the weeks leading up to their deaths. Everyone seemed shocked to hear that they'd been murdered. They'd lost count of how many times they heard "everyone loved them" throughout the day. They returned to the station around nine in the evening and updated the captain. They all agreed that there was nothing else they could do tonight. They wrapped up paperwork for their day of interviews and then called it a night.