The Road to Hell
"Nobody talk to me just yet," Elliot said as he entered the station late one evening.
"Rough night already?" Olivia asked.
"I got off duty at 11 this morning, got stuck in traffic on the way home, had a late lunch, laid down for the first time in 22 hours…just got up 30 minutes ago when the captain called, and he wouldn't even tell me why. Where is he?"
She shrugged her shoulders, "Haven't seen him for a while."
"Great," Elliot grumbled as he took his jacket off, "I get my ass out of bed for nothing."
Elliot squinted his eyes against the bright overhead lights in the squad room.
"Would it kill them to miss a light bill for once?" he asked himself.
"You know," Olivia said as she got her things together, "You don't look so well, are you feeling alright?"
"Yeah I'm fine…" then it hit him, "You're going home already?"
"I came in early today," she answered.
"There you are."
Elliot and Olivia turned and saw Cragen standing in the doorway.
"Alright Captain," Elliot said, "I'm here, now why did you call?"
"We got somebody in lockup who specifically asked to speak with you," he said.
Still half asleep, Elliot tried to remember the head count of how many kids were at home when he left, "Tell me Maureen didn't do something stupid again."
"No," Cragen grimly shook his head, "It's not Maureen."
"Who is it then?" Elliot asked.
The look on Cragen's face became blank, "I'm not sure."
Elliot turned to Olivia, "You know anything about this?"
"No…you want me to come?"
"Sure, why not?"
Elliot looked at the faces of everybody in lockup for the night. Some of them were tired and bleary eyed, others were mad as hell…oddly enough, tonight most of them were quiet. Another thing he noticed as they made their way down the corridor, most of the unfortunate ones of the night were women.
"What's the charge?" Elliot asked, not sure what was going on.
"Uh…" Cragen stopped at the correct cell, then turned back to Elliot, "No charge."
"What?" Elliot asked.
"She asked that we put her away for the time being," he explained as he unlocked the door, "Given her behavior when she came in…I was inclined to agree." He pushed the door open and Elliot stepped into the cell and saw a young woman sitting idly in the middle of the floor, barefoot, her head hanging low so he couldn't see her face. She had dark reddish-brown hair that couldn't reach her shoulders yet, and she was dressed in a T-shirt and Capri jeans. Under the jeans he saw a bunch of scars on her right leg under the knee and realized who it was.
"Toni?"
The woman picked her head up and looked at him. He noticed that she wore a large bandage patch on her right cheek. She looked like she hadn't slept in days, and also like she was drunk. Laughing, she rocked back and forth where she sat.
"Hey Elliot," she said casually, "I've got something for you."
"What're you doing in here?" he asked.
"I told you I got something for you," she said, "Here in my pocket, come and get it."
Cragen and Olivia stood by the door and watched as Elliot stepped further into the cell and sat down beside her.
"What is it?" he asked.
The girl reached into her shirt pocket and took out a crumpled up tissue. When she gave it to Elliot, the corners unfolded and he saw in the middle of the tissue was a piece of what looked like bloody mucus. Elliot's face scrunched up as he saw it.
"What is this?" he asked.
"DNA," she answered.
Now that he was up this close to her, Elliot could really see her face, and when she pulled the bandage off her cheek, he couldn't stop the horrified expression that formed on his own face. Her right cheek had been cut to the point that the top layer of skin was mostly gone, the blood had mostly dried up and she looked positively terrifying.
"He tried to kill me, and he tried to get away," Toni said, "But he's sick…I hit him in the chest and he coughed that stuff up, and I saved it…analyze it, match it to who he is, and arrest him before I kill him."
"Who?" Elliot asked, "Who hurt you this time?"
"His name is Tobias Wentworth," she answered, "I need you to arrest him before I kill him…"
"You know her?"
Cragen and Elliot looked through the two-way mirror in at the girl who they'd transferred to an interrogation room.
"Yeah," Elliot answered, "Unfortunately, I do."
"Who is she?" Olivia asked.
"Uh, her name is Toni Keller," Elliot said, "I thought I'd seen the last of her eight years ago."
"What happened eight years ago?"
"We got a search warrant for this guy's house, the neighbors were complaining of the noise, sounded like kids screaming…I got in and I found these three little girls locked in the closet. Toni was nine, she looked seven, she was malnourished, had been for years, I always figured her growth would be permanently stunted after that…and look at her now."
"His kids?" Olivia asked.
"No…they were sold to him by their parents…Toni's father…" Elliot closed his eyes for a minute in remembrance, "I'll never forget that bastard as long as I live…Antonio Keller."
"You know him?" Olivia asked.
"Everybody knows Tony Keller," Cragen said, "The man's doing life for three homicides. He killed three people after robbing them; the money was never found however. But at the trial, Keller's defense was that the money was his and they had stolen it from him, and threatened him when he tried to get it back. The jury didn't buy it. At the time of his arrest, it had been over three weeks since he'd had any contact with his daughter."
"I saw Keller when they tracked him down," Elliot explained, "I don't know what came over me but I grabbed him and bashed him against the wall. At the trial he had the gall to say that he didn't sell her to anybody. First time I saw her, she had those scars on her leg from always being beaten. She looked up at me with these eyes that already looked dead. Her father," he sneered the word, "Was a heroin junkie with homicidal tendencies, her mother was a disease riddled woman already before she got involved with him. She died when Toni's three, her father who she's had all of probably 15 minutes with, sells her off to some pimp or dealer to pay for another fix. They shuffled her off to foster care after that…I think."
"So why'd she come back after all these years with a Kleenex of some guy's phlegm?" Cragen asked.
"Everybody tried to get through to her, tried to help her… I told her if she ever needed help, to reach me…I guess she figured now's the time."
"Tobias Wentworth," Olivia tried to place a face to the name, "Doesn't ring a bell."
"Tobias is Tony's cellmate in Rikers," Elliot said, "Or was…he got out about a year ago. Everybody's just been waiting for him to do something to get sent back."
"Well if the DNA in the tissue matches the name, it looks like that's going to happen," Olivia replied, "Do you think Keller sent Tobias out after his own daughter?"
"I wouldn't put anything past him," Elliot said.
"Do you think she's telling the truth?" Cragen asked.
Elliot turned to look at him, "About what?"
"When she said she hasn't killed him yet." Cragen said, "Take a look at her face…if somebody did that to me, I'd want to kill him myself."
"She said Tobias is sick," Olivia remembered.
"I hope the son of a bitch got TB," Elliot commented offhandedly.
"Work on your subtlety," Cragen said, "Get in there and see if she'll tell you where she last saw him…he may still be there dying."
"I wish," Elliot said, but he went into the room and Cragen and Olivia watched through the glass.
"Well?" Toni asked.
"We're having it analyzed," Elliot told her, "Uh how did, how did you say you got that out of Tobias?"
"Well," she started, "I'd seen him around earlier today but didn't think much of it. I mean the guy serves his sentence, what can you do? You gotta let him out. Tonight he started bothering me and I tried to leave, he followed after me. Son of a bitch jumped me, BAM!" she hit her fist against her palm, "Nailed me to the ground in some street, took out a knife and he…" she raised a hand to her mutilated cheek, risking but never actually touching the ruined flesh, "He cut me, Elliot…hurt like a bitch, I screamed, but nobody did anything. That's New York for you…so when he finished, he got up, and I got up and I knocked him down. There he was, lying on the ground, lying beneath me…looking very pathetic already."
"And…what did you do?" Elliot asked.
She stood up from the chair and said, "I hit the son of the bitch, I pounded my fist straight down on his chest, like this!" she balled her hand into a fist and brought it smashing down on the table, then raised her fist and said, "Again," and hit the table again, "And again," she hit it again with tremendous force, "And again!"
That little performance was about enough to scare the hell out of the two people watching from outside the room.
"And he coughed it up?"
"And spit it out," Toni added, "I knew if I didn't get something with his DNA, I'd have no evidence to get him locked up…and what he did to me tonight Elliot, he made me so MAD, he made me look so UGLY…I could've just killed him…oh God, Elliot, I wanted to."
"Are you sure he was alive when you left him?" Elliot asked.
"I didn't leave him, he jumped up and ran away."
"Alright, listen," Elliot tried to calm her down, "I know you don't want to hear this, but we need to get you put in the hospital for the night…" he saw the look in her eyes in response to the very mention of a hospital, "They need to see how much help you need."
"All they can do is clean out the rest of the blood and prevent an infection, they can't give me back the flesh he cut off of me," she said, "Not even with all their miraculous cosmetic surgeries of today. I'm always going to look like this."
"Don't be so sure," Elliot said, "Now come on, I'll run you over there."
"Alright." Toni pushed the chair into the desk and started to follow Elliot but halfway to the door she screamed and fell to the floor. Elliot caught her and asked her what was the matter. Toni pulled up one foot and showed him she'd had several blisters on the bottom and they'd broken.
Elliot picked Toni up and carried her in his arms out the door and down the hall with Olivia following him, and out to a squad car. Olivia got the passenger side door open and Elliot put Toni in and shut the door after her.
"Want me to follow?" she asked.
"No, you better see if you can find anything on Tobias Wentworth…I have an idea this isn't the first time he's attacked somebody since getting out of prison."
"Elliot, wait, how did you know Tobias bunked with Keller?"
Elliot didn't answer Olivia. Instead he added that she see, or have somebody else look to see if there were any recent records on Toni Keller; so they might have some idea of just where she had been and what she'd been put through lately.