"Well going back to Baltimore was a bust," Munch announced as he and Fin reentered Mike's hospital room, "Nobody at the old unit knows anything about anything."

"Or so they say," Toni suggested.

"You don't sound convinced," Fin said.

"Cuz I'm not," Toni said, "We're all adults here, just about everybody back there who's not dead or in jail has something in for Mike, whether or not it's his fault."

"What've the doctors said?" Munch asked.

"Nothing new," Mike told him, "Every few hours they come in to poke and prod me and feed me more pills."

"John, I say we get him some clothes and get him the hell out of here," Toni said, "This isn't a healthy environment, it's a hospital."

"That's the point," he reminded her, "Look Toni, you weren't seriously banged up in the crash, why don't you check out and go home?"

"Home!" she said, "Why would I go home? There's nobody there…I…" Toni spun around on her heel and said to Fin, "I've got to get into New York City and see Jack McCoy." Then she spun again and said, "John, when we crashed I had a camera and some pictures in the car, please tell me they weren't destroyed."

Munch shook his head, "I collected everything removed from your car and have it in my desk at the precinct."

Toni turned back to Fin, "Well?"

Fin sighed and said, "Alright, I'll ride you over."

"Wait a minute," Munch turned to her, "What do you have to see Jack about?"

"Murder," Toni answered as she followed Fin out of the room, she looked back to Mike and waved, "See you later, Mike, hope you feel better!"

"You do realize how bad your case is looking, don't you?" Arthur Branch asked Jack McCoy during a lunch break outside the courthouse.

Jack slowly nodded his head and replied, "I know."

"You were lucky to even get this case past the grand jury," Arthur reminded him, "You can't tie Phelps to the murder, he's got a perfect alibi, appointment at the dentist getting an impacted wisdom tooth extracted, and his doctor's got the records to prove it."

"Arthur, I know he murdered John Rossmore."

"Yeah, but you can't prove it," Arthur said, "The papers are eating this up."

"I haven't been paying attention," Jack defensively replied.

"Pity, they've got some real yarns, saying you're over the hill, burnt out, some are even saying senile," Arthur told him.

Jack glared at him and said, "I know there are a few people who'd love to see me carted off to Bellevue in a straitjacket."

"Well," Arthur suggested, "Maybe the time's come to enforce a little reverse psychology on the jury. You're going out there dead serious and everybody's making you the court jester, maybe if you started acting a little loopy they'd start buying your case."

"I don't think so, Arthur," Jack said.

Both men's attention was drawn to the noise of car tires screeching and they saw a car pull up and Toni Keller got out and came running up to them.

"Jack, is the trial over yet?" she asked.

"Almost," Arthur answered.

"Miss Keller, what're you doing here?" Jack asked.

"I've been reading in the papers that your case is not looking too good, you're having some trouble linking Jacob Phelps to the murder of John Rossmore, I hear that he has an excellent alibi," she said.

Jack reluctantly nodded his head, "It would seem so."

"Wrong," she told him, "And I've got the proof to it."

"You what?" he asked.

"How much time is there before court resumes?" she asked.

"About half an hour," Arthur answered.

"Perfect, come on, Jack," Toni pulled on his wrist, "I'll explain inside."

Arthur followed behind them and commented more to himself than to the others, "Never a dull moment in this court."

Jack practically ran into the courtroom when it resumed, his first words to the judge were to call forth a new witness. The defense objected since they had no idea about the witness, to which Jack replied his new witness had just come forth with new evidence in the case. The judge thought the whole thing would prove to be very amusing at the least and he allowed it.

"The People call Toni Keller to the stand," Jack said.

Toni was sworn in and seated and Jack came up near her and started asking her questions, "What's your name, miss?"

"Toni Keller," she answered.

"How old are you?" he asked.

"Why, you looking for a date?" she asked.

There were some giggles from spectators but the judge shut them up quickly, Jack continued, "Why are you here today, Miss Keller?"

"I came here to offer some new evidence on this murder trial," she said.

"Oh really?" Jack asked, he looked confused and asked her, "Are you a police officer?"

"No."

"You're not a medical examiner are you?" he asked.

Toni shook her head, "Nothing of that sort."

"Miss Keller, what do you do?" he asked.

"I'm a writer for a magazine," she said.

"True crime?" Jack asked.

"Objection," the defense attorney said.

"No," Toni replied, "Just a general one. I also work temporarily as a house painter but in that regard I'm currently unemployed."

"So," Jack paced about as he asked her, "What qualifies you to say you have evidence that pertains to this case?"

"Well I've been following the story in the papers," Toni said, "And when the police first questioned Jacob Phelps, his alibi was that he couldn't possibly have murdered John Rossmore, on the day of March 24th, around 11 A.M., because he had an emergency appointment at his dentist to get a tooth extracted."

"Yes," Jack told her, "And we've all seen Dr. Hines' reports and files showing that that was true."

"Mr. McCoy," Toni said, "Have you ever had a tooth extracted?"

"Me?" asked, "No."

"I have, four times," Toni told him, "Very painful procedure, even with anesthetics, what they call pliers they're basically cutting your teeth out with a flathead screwdriver. Now the first couple of times you get this procedure done, when it's over they give you a card of instructions that you absolutely must follow for as much of an uncomplicated and not entirely uncomfortable recovery as you can get. The first rule is that you are given a cup of gauze to bite down on the hole with, and you must change them every 15 minutes for a couple of hours. The next rule is that for the next 24 hours following the extraction, you can only eat soft foods. And the third rule is that also for the next 24 hours, you cannot drink anything through a straw because the suction dislodges the blood clots and then you're in for real trouble with the recovery."

"I'm a little confused, Miss Keller," Jack said, "What does any of this have to do with the murder case?"

"I turned 21 a few months ago and I got a new camera as a present, and this is a kind that time stamps all the pictures…and I was painting a house that day, but work was slow so while I was waiting around I decided to get some pictures to try the new camera out, so I just took a bunch of random pictures."

"And?"

"Well I didn't get the roll filled up, that took a few more times which occurred over the course of a few weeks. I only recently got the film developed…as I said the pictures were time stamped, so they had the day's date on them. And it turns out that the first batch of pictures I took were on March 24th, around 2 o' clock in the afternoon."

"Miss Keller, do you have this pictures with you?" Jack asked her.

"You know I do, I showed them to you," she answered.

The spectators got out a few laughs again but quickly quieted down. Toni handed the pictures to Jack and he handed them to the jurors to pass around and look over.

"It wasn't until I was reading about the murder trial that I saw Phelps' picture and realized I had gotten a couple of photos of him during this. As you can see, he's walking in the middle of the street just a few blocks away from where the murder occurred, and he's drinking a can of soda through a straw, most likely to avoid splashing any of it on his nice suit. Now nobody who had just gotten an extraction a couple hours before would do that, so the only logical conclusion is that he did not get a tooth extracted that morning; so either his appointment was later than he said, or he purposely had a tooth extracted for no medical purpose but merely in order to create an alibi."

The courtroom was abuzz with people murmuring and talking to each other.

Jack still didn't appear satisfied, "But, we've already seen the dentist's records offered into evidence confirming he was there at 9 that morning."

Toni Keller's look was a poker face as she said, "The police who initially investigated the homicide thought that the killer had a partner, and since dentists don't make it a habit of forging inaccurate records for their patients, the partner in question seems to have been identified."

"No more questions," Jack said as he went back to his table.

The defense attorney for Phelps was dumbstruck and when he finally managed to speak the only thing he could say was, "I have no questions for this witness."

Fin saw Munch enter the squad room looking like he was ready to kill someone. "How's Mike?" he asked.

"Same, he doesn't know anything, the doctors are still taking turns poking at him, they think maybe by tomorrow he can get checked out."

"Hey John," Elliot called over from his desk, "How come you never told us about Mike before?"

"I never told you about any of my ex-partners from Baltimore before," Munch responded, "Why would I about Mike?"

"You never told us about the Mahoney thing either," Elliot said, "I barely remember even hearing about it."

"Yeah well…for the most part I wasn't there," Munch told him.

"But you think Mike's clean?" Elliot asked.

Munch hung up his jacket and stopped at Elliot's desk and said, "I know he is." He went over to his desk as he added, "The irony of it all, he's the only person in the squad who does the right thing, and he gets thrown to the wolves for it while the rest of my brethren in homicide cover their asses and get to keep their cozy jobs and pensions and keep their good names." As he sat down he concluded, "For two cents I'd like to kick Meldrick Lewis so hard I bury my shoe right up his ass. In retrospect he was the most unstable person we had, the only idiot who could drive smack dab into the back of a parked coroner's van and say it wasn't his fault. I don't know why I ever went into business with him."

Elliot opened his mouth to respond but stopped when he saw Olivia entering the squad room, "Hey Liv, where've you been?"

"I cashed in my vacation days last week," she said, "Didn't I tell you?"

"Must've been a warm climate," Munch told her, "You got a good tan."

Olivia tensed slightly when he said that and the color in her face deepened into a slight blush as she removed her jacket and said, "So, what's been going on while I've been gone?"

"It's a long and sordid story," Munch said, "But in layman's terms, an old partner of mine from Baltimore is here in New York and he was raped."

"That's terrible," Olivia said, "Any leads?"

"That ship has sunk," Fin told her, "We've already been up and down the whole list, nobody's looking good for it."

"Wrong," Munch shook his head, "Half my old squad looks good for it, I just can't prove it."

Nobody was paying attention but it was at that moment that Munch's demeanor changed as if he was suddenly hit with an idea. He started sorting through some files on his desk when his phone rang, he answered and had a very short and quiet conversation with whoever was on the other end before hanging up and getting up.

"What is it?" Elliot asked.

"That was Toni," Munch said as he headed out, "She needs me to pick her up from the courthouse…incidentally, I don't know what she did but Jack McCoy's got a new notch to carve in his dashboard, guilty in his latest murder case."

"So what's Toni been up to?" Olivia asked as she sat down at her desk.

"It's a long story," Elliot told her, "And it's all quicksand."

While Munch was gone, Fin filled Olivia in on what had been going on in Mike Kellerman's case and all the dead ends they'd run into. A short while later Cragen showed up and was surprised to see Olivia but eagerly welcomed her back and let her know she arrived at the right time because they were shorthanded. It was about an hour later that they saw Munch returning with Toni walking beside him.

"Hey Olivia," she said, "Nice to see you're back from your vacation, now Elliot can bother you and get off my back."

Before anybody else could get a word out in response, Cragen said in a hint of desperation to her, "Please, don't tell me you need our help again because we've got enough problems as it is already!"

"Actually," Toni replied bitterly, "I was thinking I could help you, Alopecia." As they walked further into the squad room, Toni explained, "Munch was telling me that you have some other cases on file that are similar to Mike's attack."

"What're you talking about?" Elliot asked.

"Fin and I have worked another case with similar details," Munch explained as he went to his desk and took several large photos out of the file and headed over to the board to pin them up, "I wasn't making the connection because we all had a share of them and there was a significant amount of time occurring between them…they're all cold cases we haven't been able to crack yet."

"I remembered something I had told Mike at the hospital the other day," Toni explained to the others, "And I think I've got the insight you need for your perp."

"How do you figure that?" Elliot asked.

"I think I know the mind of your perp very well," Toni said, "The other day when I was in the hospital with Mike, I told him if I was in any mood for it, his would be the first bones I'd jump. There was just something about him…only it isn't him exactly, it's his type."

That had their attention.

"What do you mean type?" Elliot asked.

"We all have our physical preferences, despite what we say about personality and intelligence coming first," Toni said, "It's something different for everybody, some people like the tall, dark and handsome type, others like the black curly haired Greek boys, or Latin,…I tend to go for the young looking medium built redheads and blondes…something to their appearance," she smiled mischievously as she further explained, "They just look so damn innocent, like you could strap them to the bed and when you're done you'd have to peel them off the ceiling with a spatula."

Munch pointed to the photos of the past victims, the first was a young red haired man with a bruised face, "Brian Quinn, 22-year-old redhead, was found dumped in an alley at 5:30 in the morning and was taken to Mercy General where a quick examination found he had been sodomized, again no hairs, no fibers, nothing." The second picture was of another young man, this one had black spiky hair, "Thomas Harmon, 23 years old, dumped out of a speeding car just a block from Bellevue. Liv, I believe you and Elliot had this one last month."

"He's not a redhead," Olivia said.

"That is insult to injury," Munch retorted, "You will recall his assailant hastily dyed his hair sometime during the ordeal, underneath that he was as orange as a carrot. It was most likely done so we wouldn't draw the connection, but once again, he had been penetrated but a rape kit couldn't find anything. And now, our own dear Mike Kellerman, who is much older than he looks; he's 20-some years from getting a pension but he still looks like he needs to be carded to buy a beer." By now Munch was starting to heat up like a coffee pot on a high burner, "This wasn't some dumb kid who didn't know anything and who couldn't protect himself, he was a homicide cop for crying out loud!"

"Had the other two men been drugged?" Toni asked.

"Yeah," Munch nodded, "But not with GHB, sleeping pills."

"He's escalating then," Olivia said, "If he's now using a date rape drug."

"He?" Toni repeated, and shook her head as she grimly laughed, "No, Olivia, that's the whole point here…there were no fluids or hairs found because they weren't penetrated by a man."

"You mean a woman raped these guys?" Elliot asked.

She looked at him smugly and remarked, "Well I know that's not a very popular idea but yes, that's what I'm saying…a woman did this."

"Why?" Olivia asked.

"Obviously she's psychotic," Toni said, "A safe bet would be some kind of psychosexual disorder perhaps. These aren't the dark and charming stranger types, they give off an air of being naïve boys, and with an experienced woman it'd be like throwing a virgin into the prison rodeo."

"And you know this?" Elliot asked.

"I told you before, Elliot, I have a good idea I know the mindset of this woman. I tend to look at these types of guys the same way, only I don't go for that weird stuff, it's just plain sex, the difference is I restrain myself from acting on my impulses. Despite what our society wants us to believe, we are still in full control of our actions and lack thereof, addiction and impulses can be beaten by willpower; but people don't use it, and our society is coming to accommodate them by telling them it isn't their fault, but it is."

"You really believe that?" Cragen asked.

"You're a recovering booze bag aren't you?" Toni asked, "Why haven't you broken that? The urge is still there, you still want to drink but you don't. AA didn't rewire who you are, it didn't take out that part of the brain that tells you you want to drink, you are what's keeping you from getting smashed when you go into a bar. You resist the temptation because you know you don't want to revert back to the way you were before. Change comes only in people who want to change."

"And what about our mystery woman here?" Olivia asked, "It isn't just sex here, she is torturing these men."

"I said she was psychotic," Toni said, "My guess is she wants to punish them for something, she wants them to suffer and she thinks she has a justified reason to make them suffer. It could be some young redhead did something to her once and she's taking it out on everyone who looks like him or it could be something on a different level altogether. I don't know, you'd have to talk to the expert in sex psychos for the answer to that one, incidentally where is Huang?"