The shining star of NYPD; Charly Bragg. A mere twenty-five years old and yet, he is the diamond of NYPD. The beating heart, the breathing lungs. Charly Bragg. Graduated top of his class, first three years at law school, then straight into the police academy. Charly Bragg.
His sight is unforgettable. Charming, glorious pair of eyes; onyx, as unusual it might sound. Never wastes a smile, the heartbreaking smile he is infamous for. Standing a proud 6 ft 2, and with neatly combed sandy hair, he almost resembles a high school football player. With smooth tanned skin, what should he be but a womanizer?
Though with stunning looks, his brain and mind are even more of a spectacle. His cleverness is beyond anyone else's, and he can outsmart any lawyer at any day. While slightly embarrassed about it, his brain is like a skyscraper, unimaginably tall with endless rooms for endless information.
Charly Bragg, young and talented as he is, only has the one job, specializes in a single department, he is in now. He can crack murder cases within hours, predict the movements of kidnappers even before they budge, but his heart is elsewhere. His smile gives the victims hope, calms them down as none other does. His eyes can read them like books. His brain puts together the puzzle pieces they present him with. The heart of NYPD is SVU. Special Victims Unit.
They were happy to have him, but the murder division was, understandably, unwilling to let go. It was a game of Tug of War, yet SVU finally got the overhand. Charly Bragg, respected detective, was granted his wish to transfer to SVU after months of struggle and arguments.
Sweat ran down Elliot Stabler's forehead as the juror rose to speak the verdict. Two rows in front of him sat the victim, thirteen year old Anna-Julie. She'd been numerously raped by her uncle, father and grandfather until her best friend – now boyfriend – had persuaded her to go to the police. The jury couldn't do anything but speak them guilty, even if they the best evidence come out of weeks of investigation was not thoroughly concrete.
"We speak the defendants not guilty," the juror said out aloud.
What. The. Hell.
"He left the diaries in a place where we could find them easily," Dr. George Huang told Olivia Benson, both looking at a nineteen year old boy sitting in the interrogation room. "This makes me conclude that he knew of his suffering and he was conscious about it, and he wanted to seek help from someone even if this urge was subconscious."
"Us," she said. Olivia was leaning against the wall, staring at the fidgety and anxious teen. He looked around insecurely.
He nodded. "Yes."
"Then how bad is his suffering?"
Dr. Huang took a breath. "He seems to be suffering from severe –"
Both Dr. Huang and Olivia jumped as the door to the offices burst open momentarily and Elliot stormed in.
"They let them walk!"
They looked at him, shocked.
"You're talking about Anna-Julie's relatives?" Olivia asked, not the slightest bit surprised by her partner's reaction. It had been a heartbreaking case.
Elliot started pacing madly. "I can't believe it. They'll just walk free, and once at home Anna will get raped again."
Dr. Huang burrowed his brows. He hadn't been involved in the case directly, but he had picked up some details, such as that Anna's mother had died at her birth and she'd since lived with her father, grandfather and uncle, and seen Anna-Julie; she resembled Elliot's daughter Kathleen quite a bit. It was understandable that he was upset.
Elliot started hitting his palm with his fist.
"It's no good hitting or blaming yourself," Olivia told him, slowly growing tired of this. She knew that they couldn't win every case and that it was no help getting so worked up about losing one.
Elliot stared at her, appalled. "The system let her down, Olivia."
She took a step towards him. "Maybe, but we didn't so don't get so worked up about this."
"We are the system!" Elliot yelled outraged.
Dr. Huang listened silently.
"We don't make the rules, we just follow them," Olivia argued calmly. "That doesn't make us the system."
"You tell that to yourself to get to sleep at night?" Elliot puffed.
She looked at him. "I don't need to tell myself anything for that matter. Anyways, we only have to insure that the system works."
He kicked a chair in his rage. "But it didn't!" He turned to Dr. Huang, panting breathlessly. "What is your opinion, Doc?"
He looked at Elliot with raised eyebrows. "My honest opinion? You should take some anger management classes, Elliot."
"Ha-ha, very funny," the detective replied, his voice breaking with sarcasm.
Olivia looked at him before she turned to leave. "He's right, you know," she called over her shoulder. She had enough of his mood bursts. While Elliot was pleasant to work with, he had uncalled anger problems which he needed help coping with.
Donald Cragen mustered Charly Bragg who sat in front of his desk. He was all he'd been told; charismatic, smart and enjoyable to talk with.
"Well then," Donald, mostly going by the nickname "Don", said. "I'll shortly introduce you to your new colleagues, Charly."
The door opened without a notifying knock. Olivia stuck her head in.
"Oh – sorry. I didn't realise you were speaking to someone, Captain," she said, slightly embarrassed, after seeing Charly. She crunched her eyes. "Do I know you from somewhere?" she asked.
Charly threw her one of his infamous smiles. "I'm sure you have heard of me," he said, speaking in a soft voice with thin American accent overlapping a typical British voice. He stood up and offered his hand. She shook it. "I'm Charly Bragg."
She nodded. "Ah. NYPD's wonder boy. Right?"
He shrugged, still smiling. "What can one do but their job?"
"Charly just transferred to us," Don told her. "Was there something you wanted to talk about to me?"
Olivia took a moment to remember. "Yeah, actually there was. I wanted to ask you if you can pair me up with Fin for a while, Elliot and I'm not exactly on speaking terms right now."
Don burrowed his brows.
"I can be your partner," Charly offered, casting another hypnotising smile.
"No," Don decided. "Charly, you'll be paired up with Elliot. Liv, you can take John."
"What about Fin?" she asked. She'd originally expected John to be paired up with Elliot.
"He's been bugging me about some holiday," Donald explained. "Wants to go camping with his son."
Olivia laughed. "Fin and camping? You kidding me?"
Don shrugged. "That's what he told me."
Elliot, still angry, returned to his desk. Seeing another officer sit in his chair he got even moodier.
"What are you here for?" he snapped.
The officer stood up and offered him his hand. He didn't take it.
"I'm Charly Bragg, your new partner," the officer said, shrugging.
Elliot snorted. "I'm not a babysitter." He leaned down to put something on his desk.
"I don't need one."
He whirled around, pointing his index finger dangerously close to Charly's throat. "Listen, Gregg, I'm over a decade older than your little whiny ass and you don't have half my know-how, so don't go round thinking I'll take you serious let alone respect you."
"It's Bragg, not Gregg," Charly calmly corrected. "And yes, you are older and more experienced than me, but do you intellectually equal me? I've got an IQ of 167."
"Yeah?" Elliot breathed into his face. "Mine is 1-77. How do you feel about that?" Charly was not impressed, and with reason.
"It's not," Olivia said mockingly, walking past them with a file in her hand. "It's a mere 1-36. How do you feel about that?"
"You know what, Liv?" Elliot snarled, leaving off Charly and turning to her. She gave the file to John who thanked her. "It would be nice if you could shut your mouth for once."
Dr. Huang came out of the interrogation room area and walked past them. "Maybe you should have another think about those anger management classes I suggested," he said on his way out.
"I don't need your help!" Elliot shouted after him. "Or the help of any other shrink…"
The door to Cragen's office opened. "Stabler, in here now!"
While his partner was with the captain, Charly turned to Olivia and John.
"What are we working on right now?" he asked stepping over to them and peeking at the file.
"You are pretty curious," John stated without looking up from reading it, turning a page. He looked up. "Might come off as desperate if you're not careful."
Charly ignored the remark and Olivia filled him in.
"We're looking at three Rape 'n Runs," she informed him. "The culprit hits women with his cars, rapes them and then leaves. No one ever sees anything."
"Any suspects?" Charly asked, somewhat interested.
"We got one in the interrogation room, but our shrink declared he has some severe mental illness," she answered, pouring three cups of coffee. "Elliot stormed in before he could tell me, but we'll know once we've got the psyche report from Huang."
"Chinese people are typically bright," Charly said to himself, sipping at the coffee.
John closed the file, put it on his desk and took the coffee from Liv. "Probably severe depression."
Charly didn't ask. "The victims?" he questioned instead.
Olivia, with the coffee in her hand, walked over to a board. She pointed at three photos. The first one was of a pale young woman with ginger straight hair and a deep cut across her cheek. A mole was just over her lip. The second one was just as pale, her face framed with wavy hair. The last one had two cuts on her cheek and with blonde coils. All three had blue eyes.
He turned to Liv. "What does the suspect look like?"
Somewhat irritated Olivia led him to the interrogation rooms to show him.
Charly mustered the lanky boy, hardly out of his teens. He had shaggy brown hair and pastel skin. Freckles stood out grandly from his ill face.
He shook his head. "He's not our guy," he said.
Olivia was perplexed. "And you know that how…?"
Charly smiled smugly. "The culprit cut his victims; it signals that there's something about them that he doesn't like. That it's their face means he dislikes his face somehow."
"So…"
"The first one was the only one with a mole, and she had one cut, so he must hate his mole. The second one didn't have any cuts so obviously she was perfect because she didn't remind him of himself."
"And if your theory is correct, then there must have been two things on the third victim," Olivia said, half-heartedly. "Her hair colour and what else?"
"Her fizzy hair."
Olivia wasn't convinced. "But the second victim had curly hair, too."
"But not as much as the last one," Charly objected. "At least my theory is better than yours with him being obsessed with blue eyes."
"How did you –"
Charly smiled at her. "It is the best guess you could have taken from the few clues." His face grew serious. "Any forensic evidence?"
"No fluids, just anal tearing," Olivia said, again staring at the nineteen year old.
"Anal?" Charly exclaimed. A grin spread across his face.
"What is so funny about women being raped anally?" Olivia asked, to an extend worried about the sanity of the golden detective.
Charly grinned at her. "It can only mean one thing, Liv. Our culprit not only hates himself, but also has a history of anal sex."
"He was molested as a child," Liv concluded. "By a woman…"
"Better, still," her new colleague conjectured. "He's gay but refuses to accept it, and in order not to have to, he rapes women, to show himself that he is sexually aroused by it."
"It's far stretched," Olivia accepted, "but sounds plausible."
The same day the psyche report was finished, and Dr. Huang dropped it off so that he could also listen to the newest theory and say, as a psychiatrist, if it was reasonable. After hearing the details he thought for a moment, weighing the possible against the impossible.
"As a psychiatrist, I have to agree that it's realistic," he said after a while, "yet as a normal person, I have the same opinion as Olivia; it's far stretched."
Don Cragen, who had also listened, ordered Olivia and Munch to continue their original search while Charly should give the new theory a try.
"Where's Elliot?" Olivia asked as he retreated to his office.
"I sent him home," Don answered. "I also advised him to do something about his rage inconveniences."
Dr. Huang couldn't resist smiling.
"What brought you to the boy in the first place?" Charly asked John. Olivia had gone to drop the person in question to a psyche hospital as advised by Dr. Huang.
John thought for a moment, recollecting all the facts.
"Justin is working at a supermarket," he began. "All three victims had been there within two weeks of their rape, and he was the only one with shaky alibis for the three evenings. Furthermore someone told us that he always had a thing for blue eyed women."
Charly bit his tongue. "Didn't Dr. Huang give you a profile?"
John blew up his cheeks. "Unfortunately the rapes happened in three concurrent nights, and having established the connection instantly, Elliot and no one else thought of contacting him. Only when Justin was brought in did Olivia think there was something off about his behavior, and then she called Huang."
Charly nodded. "You doing anything for the next hour?"
"No, why?"
"Want to come to the morgue with me?"
"Who died?"
Charly looked at Munch. "Your "Justin" theory."
John had to admit that Charly, although way beneath his own age, was a very skilled driver. It seemed as if this boy – he wasn't much more at the moment compared to John's long career – got handed everything: looks, intelligence, and talents of all sorts. However, he was clever enough to not waste it; he'd proved that by becoming a police officer to spend his life using his many blessings for good.
Why they went to the morgue was a mystery to John, but he respected Charly, especially after the events in the last couple of hours. They'd been working the case for almost a week now and were only waiting for the next victim to turn up while frantically searching for new clues, and then comes along a kid and almost instantly finds a new lead to the real perp.
"I want to check something with Melinda," Charly explained as they got out of the car. John nodded, glad to have come with him rather than stuck to his desk wasting his time. He felt good about this new lead.
"Oh hey, Charly," Melinda Warner smiled seeing the young officer approaching. She'd just been studying some X-rays.
Charly smiled back. John hung back a bit, becoming interested in some tools to dissect just about anything while his colleague did the talking. He wasn't exactly used to this, and he wasn't sure if he ever would be, but he wasn't the one with the brains.
"The cut on the first victim reached about an inch or two into the skin, going through the whole cheek, and was about five centimetres long," Warner told Charly. "The third victim's first cut was similar, though on her forehead while the second one was parallel to it but not as deep."
Charly nodded thoughtfully. "The deeper the more the hatred… we're looking at a gay guy with blonde, curly hair and a mole over his lip, who denies his sexuality and his looks. He is self-conscious about the mole and either his hair colour or his hair structure while not quite as embarrassed about the other."
John, impressed, looked up." Taking any guesses which is which?"
Charly looked at him. "If it's an albino male, then I'd say his hair colour. If white, then more likely the structure."
Melinda threw John a meaningful look. "It's scary," she told him, and Charly grinned. "Sometimes you can't help but wonder if he is the culprit."
John looked at Charly, and jokingly asked, "You gay by any chance?"
Charly raised his arms and shrugged. "Not that I noticed, though I can't say that I haven't gotten it on with some males while in university."
The next day Elliot was back, as calm as ever.
"I thought the captain sent you home," Olivia said. She walked over to the board to put up a sketch of man with a mole and curly blonde hair.
"That our perp?" he asked, joining her. "Got a new victim with a description?"
Olivia looked at him. "No," she conjectured, starting to make coffee. "Charly deducted it from the clues he got from the three victims and their injuries."
"What, that boy can also see into the past?" Elliot laughed. "Come on, Liv. Don't you think that that's ridiculous?"
She looked up at him. "I think it's ridiculous we never had someone like him." She poured herself a coffee.
He gave her a sceptical look. "Did he figure out the sexuality too?"
"In fact, Elliot, he did. The guy we're looking at is gay, and he disallows it."
"Liv, you can't be serious," Elliot said, staggered. "Gregg's just pulling those stupid facts out of his sleeve."
She took a mouthful from the cup. "Unfortunately, it sounds much more realistic than your "blue eye" theory." She took another mouthful, swallowed and smiled at him. "And it's Bragg, not Gregg."
Charly entered the room and she walked over to him. Elliot, revolted, watched her go.
"Seems our new recruit has already found some friends," John acknowledged, walking past Elliot to pick something up from his desk. Then he went over to Charly, who, with Olivia, stood by the board discussing something.
"Shut up," Elliot said, leaving the precinct. On his way out he passed Dr. Huang.
"Don't even think about it," he hissed furiously as he walked by.
"I wasn't planning on it," Dr. Huang called after him, continuing on his way to meet Detective Bragg, Detective Benson and Sergeant Munch.
As he entered he saw Charly and John looking at a map of Brooklyn where all the rapes had taken place, and Olivia was bent over her desk on the phone.
"Dr. Huang," Charly greeted.
Dr. Huang pulled an envelope out of his brief case. "I just came here to give Justin's diaries back, and to tell you that I'm going off on a conference for a week, so you'll have to excuse my absence."
Charly took the envelope, opened it and took a look at the seven A5 diaries, all filled with neat yet shaky handwriting. "Kay, Doc."
"How about this?" John mused, drawing rough circles on the map. "The second victim was found a mile off the first one, who had one cut. The second one didn't have any, and the third one was literally found around the corner. She had two cuts, so perhaps the next one will be found two miles away."
Charly took a pen too. Olivia, finished with her call, stepped beside him.
"Which means," he said, "That if, she'll be found here." He put a curved line to mark all possible points. Olivia, crunching her brows, took his pen and connected all points.
"V," she answered.
Charly looked at her while John took a phone call. "Our culprit's name starts with a V?"
"Yeah, alright," John said into the receiver. Then he looked up. "Looks like we got another victim." He looked at the board. "Exactly where we suspected her to be."