Disclaimer: Dick Wolf and NBC own "Law and Order". I don't.
A/N: I LOVE writing crime fics. The first two I wrote, "Wall Street Wonder" and "Mission Driven" were completely my own ideas. This one, however, is based on real events. If you want to know exactly what is real and what I made up and altered, just PM me, and I'll be happy to let you know.
This fic was NOT INTENDED TO OFFEND ANYONE. I was actually baptized Catholic but now consider myself a Christian Unitarian. Just because Catholicism didn't work out for me, that doesn't mean it doesn't work for anyone else. I SEE AND RESPECT THAT. I'M NOT ONE OF THOSE PEOPLE WHO ASSUMES EVERYTHING ABOUT THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS BAD. Every religious establishment has its problems. I understand that. The RCC does do a lot of good things. I recognize that. Remember, I've been there. I used to be a member.
I would like to first dedicate this fic to all real-life clerics, Catholic and otherwise, who always stand for what's right, even when it gets them vilified, especially Father Conley.
For my girls June and Angie. Always.
For Linus Roache, Alana de la Garza, Sam Waterston, Jeremy Sisto, Anthony Anderson, S. Epatha Merkerson. L&O for freaking life, despite anything NBC says.
Thanks to Legalese for answering all my nagging legal questions. Ha ha!
Much, much, MUCH love and kudos, Abby C-:
Law and Holy Order
Setting: Post-"Innocence"
Chapter One
The Cadaver in 5E
Manhattan, NY
Saturday March 20
The bedroom was pitch dark. The young woman herself was a light sleeper. She didn't consider her husband a heavy sleeper, but she wasn't about to classify him as a light sleeper.
Her mind was fuzzy at first, but now that she'd been awake for a bit, it was clearer, and she was starting to feel alarmed.
Their next door neighbor was typically quiet and tended to keep to himself. She had to admit, he gave her weird vibes, but that feeling probably had zero merit. He was probably completely harmless.
So what the hell was going on there?
"Andy?" she said, grasping her husband's shoulder and gently shaking it. "Andy? Andy! Babe, wake up!"
"Whas goin' on?" Andy mumbled sleepily.
"Can you hear that? Listen!"
A silence came as her disoriented husband sat up in bed, like she was—and listened.
"I hear shouting—through the wall," Andy then said.
Suddenly—
Andy said, "Son-of-a-bitch!" as his wife said, "Oh my God!"
The shouting through the wall had become one person's cry of pain.
"Oh my God, what the hell?" the woman said.
"Fucking hell," Andy said, aghast, as there came another scream, followed by a few muffled thudding sounds.
An eerie, uncomfortable silence followed.
Andy had his arms wrapped protectively around his wife. He removed them, pulled back the covers, and got out of bed.
"Jess—baby, stay here, I'm gonna go see if he's all right," he said.
Jess grabbed his arm.
"Honey, don't, we don't know what's going on!" she said. "It sounds like they really got into it."
"I agree, and it worries me," said Andy. "I've got to go see if he's all right. I'll be right back, babe."
"Fine," Jess said reluctantly.
When he reached the hallway, he saw the couple that lived right across from him and Jess stepping outside their apartment, as well. One of that couple's next door neighbors, a grad student in his late 20s, emerged from his apartment, too.
"Excuse my language, but what the fuck?" he said.
"That's what we'd like to know," said the other man, nodding at his wife.
"I was gonna check on him. You guys, too?" Andy asked.
"Yeah," said the other man's wife.
"I think we should all go check on him together—just as a precaution," said the grad student.
"Good idea," said the other man.
The four of them approached the door of Andy and Jess Barton's next door neighbor.
Andy knocked.
"Mr. Dennehy?" he called.
No answer.
Andy knocked again.
"Mr. Dennehy, it's Andy Barton from next door and Rick Delaney and the DeLuca's from across the hall! We just wanted to see if you're okay!"
No response.
Andy knocked yet again, this time a lot harder.
"Mr. Dennehy?" he called.
No reply.
Andy tried to turn the doorknob.
"The place is still locked," he told the others.
Curiosity getting the best of her, Jess had come out of her and Andy's apartment.
"I'm gonna get my phone and call the landlord," said Mrs. DeLuca.
"Good idea," said Mr. DeLuca.
A little while later, Don Raymond, the landlord, reached the fifth floor, skeleton key in hand.
He knocked as a courtesy and said, "Dennehy, it's just Don Raymond the landlord here. You've got your neighbors and I really concerned, so I'm just coming in to see if you're okay!"
With that, he unlocked the door and went inside.
His tenant lay face down on his living room floor in a pool of his own blood, his skull heavily damaged.
"Jesus Christ!" Raymond exclaimed, immediately backing out of the room, willing himself not to vomit right then and there.
Some of his tenants had unfortunately gotten a glimpse of their neighbor, as well.
"Oh my God!" said Jess, as her husband said, "Son-of-a-bitch!"
"Fuck!" yelled Rick Delaney, the grad student.
"Call 911!" Mr. DeLuca told his wife.
Lupo and Bernard arrived on the scene not too long afterward, accompanied by the typical band of officers and CSU techs.
"Let me guess," Lupo joked wryly to the CSU techs currently kneeling down around the corpse, "blunt force trauma?"
"If I've ever seen it," one of them said, shaking her head.
Lupo then went over to where Bernard was. Bernard took out his notepad and a pen to start questioning the dead man's neighbors.
"Found a wallet!" one of the officers called, walking up to Lupo and handing him the wallet and an evidence bag for it.
"Thanks," said Lupo, taking them.
He opened the wallet and took out the man's New York state I.D.
"Conrad Dennehy," he read the victim's name aloud.
"All right," said Bernard. "Who wants to go first?" he asked the neighbors.
Andy and Jess Barton exchanged glances.
"I—I will," said Jess. "I'm Jess Barton—this is my husband Andy."
"Okay, Mrs. Barton, tell us what you heard, saw, everything you can remember."
Jess explained the situation from her point of view.
"About what time was it that you woke up?" asked Bernard.
"It was around a quarter 'til two," Jess replied. "The clock read one forty-seven, one forty-eight—I don't exactly remember."
"Okay," said Bernard. "What about you three? What time did you start hearing the struggle?"
"Our clock on our bedside table was around that time, too," said Mr. DeLuca.
Mrs. DeLuca nodded.
"That's about when it woke me up, too," said Rick Delaney.
"Can any of you think of anyone who'd want to hurt him?" asked Lupo. "Did he have any enemies that you know of?"
"I wouldn't know," said Delaney. "I hardly ever saw the guy. I try to socialize with my neighbors, but I may have spoken to him twice. He seemed like a loner to me."
"Yeah, us, too," said Jess. "He didn't seem to want to socialize with Andy and I, either. Maybe that's why he always gave me weird vibes—because he kept to himself so much."
"'Weird vibes'?" Mrs. DeLuca said. "Try creepy vibes." She then turned to Lupo and Bernard and said, "Our eight-year-old son Robbie is in second grade. Depending on who goes into work first, my husband or I will walk him down to the bus stop in the morning. Robbie and I passed Dennehy a few times, and I didn't like the way he would look at Robbie. He never said anything to him—he would just stare at him. It was so creepy. We never went near him, and we told Robbie not to go near him, either. I don't know, detectives…but he rubbed us the wrong way. I don't even know if he associated with anyone enough to have any enemies. But he obviously did somehow. Damn it, this scary…"
"Okay," said Bernard, finishing up taking down their answers. "Was it a man or a woman he was arguing with?"
"A man," Jess Barton replied.
"Did this man sound familiar to any of you?" Bernard asked.
The neighbors and landlord all answered in the negative.
"Has he had any recent visitors?" said Bernard.
"Aside from the guy that just bashed his head in? None that I know of," Rick Delaney answered.
The others agreed with him.
"Do you know if anyone on this floor had a problem with him? Has anybody been hanging around here at all who normally doesn't? Anyone who seemed suspicious to you?" asked Lupo.
The Bartons, the DeLucas, and Don Raymond all answered 'no'.
"He had to have done all his socializing somewhere else," said Rick Delaney. "I'm sure I speak for all of us when I say it looked like the man was just plain-out anti-social."
"All right," said Lupo. "Well, if any of you think of anything that might be of any help, you just give us a call down at the precinct," he added, handing out copies of his card to all of them.
They all said they would and took the cards.
"Thanks, guys," said Bernard. "Let's go see how CSU is doing," he added to Lupo.
Lupo nodded, and the two of them went back inside Conrad Dennehy's apartment.
"You guys find anything significant?" Bernard asked.
"The guy lived right next to the fire escape," one CSU tech replied. "That has to be how your perp got in. See those blood smears on the window sill? We haven't found any bloody fingerprints, so we're wondering if he wore gloves."
"Thanks," said Lupo.
He turned to Bernard.
"My gut's telling me we just caught a fun one," he muttered dryly.
"We're definitely due for one, aren't we?" Bernard replied in the same tone.
***DOINK!DOINK!***