Firefighters bust down the door of an apartment currently being destroyed by a raging inferno, and find a woman unconscious on the floor. But since this Special Victims Unit and not Arson Investigation Squad, she's got the telltale panties down around the ankles as the firefighters carry her out.
Farewell, Jenna Ludlow, 25. We know more about you in death than we did in life, that you were assaulted and raped, and dead before the fire had a chance to cremate you, as the detectives learn, partly thanks to Warner, when they show up on scene. Also, she was pregnant. Not very far along, judges Warner. "Wonder if Jenna knew she was pregnant," says Olivia. Well, she's dead, so unless this is a Medium crossover, you're not going to be able to ask her.
The detectives pick their way through the crime scene, but there's not much evidence to gather, since what wasn't burned has been washed away. Olivia does manage to sniff out some Gucci and Prada in the closet, so Jenna must have been living the life. The fire marshal tells them the fire was deliberately set, using jellied methyl alcohol -- Jenna had some Sterno under the sink.
Then they catch a break, courtesy of the fireproof dishwasher. Two wine glasses. Jenna had company last night, huh? Olivia's skeptical, saying those glasses could have been there a week, and asks us to trust her perspective as a single woman with a busy job.
Back at the precinct, Munch is justifying his salary by Googling Jenna Ludlow, and watching a web video that advertises her services as a personal stylist, saying she can make your $250 suit look like two grand. "Size doesn't matter, guys. The size of your budget, that is," she says, snapping a tie. Chester notes that the real tragedy is that Jenna died before she could help Munch. Cragen interrupts the good-natured joshing to ask about how much money Jenna could make as a stylist, and Olivia says "big bucks." Well, she only had $300 in her account in her business account, and hadn't made any deposits in months. Her personal account is another story, with $10,000 wired from an untraceable account in Lichtenstein. Cragen figured the payments started around the time Jenna got herself knocked up, so the theory is Jenna was blackmailing a Lichtensteinian sugar daddy, who then raped her and killed her. So how they find "Count Lichtenstein", asks Cragen. "Go to heaven," says Munch, clarifying that Jenna's been writing a cheque for $200 to a Heaven Moscowitz, and the memo line reads "therapy." "Heaven only knows who Jenna's been sleeping with," says Olivia, and that's quite enough lame jokes on this contrived name, thank you.













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