A/N: This is a two-parter, written and set during Season 12, before "Rescue" (12x10) with references through "Penetrated." This has been sitting in the validation queue for more than two months over at SVUfiction, so for the first time ever, I'm posting it here before it's published there. Expect the conclusion within a few days. Comments are always appreciated.
And here, the obligatory disclaimer: no one on the SVU squad is mine.
"Laconic"
It's been a rough case (as if any of them are ever easy), and they've been quiet and short with each other (as if they ever get along anymore)—but this one's been particularly taxing, and their relationship has been particularly cold—and Olivia wants nothing more than to go home and forget the last two days ever happened. They haven't spoken for a full ninety minutes when Elliot noses the sedan onto the Taconic.
A woman had come in two days earlier, frantic that her nine-year-old nephew was missing. His parents, she said, were on vacation and had left the boy in her care. She identified herself as Marcia Golakos, sister of Karen Estes, the boy's mother, and gave them all the information they needed. The boy was Benjamin. She had a school photo of him from two years earlier. "He's got a buzz cut now," she explained as she handed it over. "Um, short. And that missing tooth? It's grown in now." Her hands shook as she used her pinky to point to his features. "Other than that, he looks exactly the same," she choked out.
Olivia placed a hand on her shoulder to try to calm her. "It's okay," she said. "Do you have any more recent photos? I don't mean with you, but maybe at home? Anything at all would be helpful."
"No," Marcia had sobbed in response. "No, I've only got that one."
Elliot eyed his partner as he brought over a cup of tea for the distraught woman. "Here, Ms. Golakos," he said as he set the tea down for her, "why don't you have a seat and tell us a little more about your nephew."
She gave them everything they asked for: Karen and Mark had been married for twelve years; Ben was their only child; his birthday was January 14. Mark had just gotten a promotion at work, and he and Karen had decided to finally take their honeymoon, since they hadn't had the money as newlyweds. They were in the Florida Keys. Marcia had the number at home, she could get it for the detectives if they needed it. Mark and Karen hadn't wanted to pull Ben out of school, especially since it was the beginning of the school year. Ben went to PS 75. He was in Miss Hartley's third grade. Karen and Mark had been gone for four days, weren't due back for another ten. Marcia hadn't called them yet; she didn't want them to worry. Ben might be playing a trick on her, after all, Marcia suggested. He was always fooling around. "Quite clever, he is," she said. And then: "Sometimes too much for his own good." Yes, now that she thought about it, now that she talked it out, she began to think that maybe he really was just playing a trick on her. She said they'd had an argument the night before about his bedtime. She had tried to make him go to bed at seven, she said. He had insisted her his bedtime was eight. When she went to pick him up at school, he wasn't there. She went inside to ask about it in the office, and the attendance secretary said he had never shown up that morning. "I walked him there myself," Marcia insisted, leaning forward in her chair next to Olivia's desk.
"I'm just... I don't know what to do," Marcia finally said when she had finished telling them everything. "Karen's gonna be... God, what do I tell her?"
"You tell her the truth, Marcia," Olivia said. "And we're going to figure out where Benjamin is, and then you tell her that. In the meantime, you'll need to file a missing persons report."
"I don't know how—"
"It's pretty straightforward," Elliot chimed in, speaking for the first time since he'd given Marcia the tea. "Just give us, in writing, everything you just told us, and we'll get the paperwork in."
"In writing? But I just told you—"
"We need it in writing, Marcia, so we can get help from other agencies, and so there's an official record of the investigation," Olivia said reassuringly.
Marcia still seemed reluctant. Anxious, maybe. "Come on, we'll get you set up with a room," Elliot said, helping her out of the chair and towards one of their conference rooms.
"And, Marcia, while you're doing that, we'll use what you've given us already to get started on our end, okay?" Olivia added. Marcia nodded. "I'll send an officer to your house to wait for Ben in case he shows up," she said, reaching for the phone.
"No!" Marcia suddenly said. "No, that won't be necessary—my, uh, my landlady's there," she stammered.
"Does she know Benjamin is missing?"
"Yes. Yes, I told her before I left to come here."
"Will she call you if he shows up?"
"Yes. She will."
Olivia nodded and put the phone down. Elliot got Marcia squared away with the forms she needed at the table in the conference room and joined his partner again in the bullpen.
"Liv," he said casually, turning his back to the woman in the conference room, "why don't you go ahead and send patrol over to her place... you know. Just in case." He shrugged his shoulders. "Who knows how long she'll be with that statement."
Olivia smirked. "You don't trust her landlady?"
Elliot made a face. "That's if she's got a landlady."
Olivia's jaw dropped—not much, but it did. "Why would she make that up?"
He laughed and rolled his shoulders again. "I dunno, why didn't she want an officer over there? Maybe she's in violation of the Sidewalk Law—maybe she's housing illegal workers—maybe she doesn't want us to find her meth lab. Who knows?"
Olivia rolled her eyes. "Well she wouldn't be responsible for the sidewalks..."
"Humor me, okay?" he said. "Could be nothing."
"You're right. And when it turns out to be nothing, you're buying me lunch for a week."
"You're going to eat lunch every day for a week?" He wished he could add, Sounds like I win either way, but that would mean admitting that he knew when she was eating and when she wasn't, that he worried about her, that he wanted her to take care of herself—that he wanted to take care of her when she refused to do so. But admitting anything like that was what got them into so much trouble several years ago, so he kept the thought to himself and smirked as he turned away.
She rolled her eyes again and got back on the phone with the dispatch office, asking them to send patrol units to both Marcia's place and Ben's parents'.
Cragen emerged from his office a few minutes later to ask for an update. Elliot was on hold for someone at PS 75 who might be able to confirm whether Benjamin Estes was a student there and whether he'd been absent that day, while Olivia was on the phone with dispatch again. "What are we looking at?" the Captain asked as he strutted over. "We think there's a case? I mean one for Special Victims?"
"Thanks," Olivia said into the phone as she hung it up and swiveled in her chair to face Cragen. "Patrol just arrived at Marcia's. No one there, but they'll wait it out until she gets back."
"What about the landlady?" Elliot asked from across their desks, dropping his receiver away from his mouth.
"No answer on any of the doors," Olivia supplied.
"Did we send anyone to the kid's house? Maybe he got lost and didn't know his aunt's address? Or he's with a friend whose parents don't know his folks are out of town...?" Cragen suggested.
"Yeah, patrol's headed there, too."
"And do we have any reason to believe this is our case?"
"It walked into our squad room, didn't it?"
"Olivia—"
"Cap, can't we just investigate until we find out it's not our case? Benjamin could be anywhere—with anyone."
Elliot hung up his phone loudly and scrubbed his hands down his face. "On hold for almost twenty minutes, just to have the same know-nothing come back on to tell me all the administrative staff is gone for the day."
"I'll go call the Chancellor's office, see if they can't get someone from the boy's school to give us a call." And with that, Cragen turned and slumped back into his office.
Elliot peered around Olivia and into the conference room where Marcia sat, still hunched over her papers. "What's she writing, War & Peace?"
"She's probably just being thorough," Olivia mumbled. Her phone rang. "Benson. Yeah? ...Okay, thanks. ...Let me get back to you." She dropped the phone back into the cradle. "The address Marcia gave us for Ben's parents doesn't exist," she told her partner.
Just then, Marcia emerged from the conference room, clutching her report. Olivia stood up to meet her.
"Marcia, you said your sister and her husband live on West 87th?"
"No, East. Did I say West?" she asked, seeming somewhat vacant. "They moved last year—sometimes I still say West." Olivia nodded understandingly and took the papers from her.
"Take my card," she urged. "We'll get this filed and start on it right away, but if Ben comes home or you need anything or you remember anything else, just call, okay? Anytime, doesn't matter."
Marcia nodded, thanked them, and headed out. Elliot's phone rang. Olivia called dispatch to send officers to the new address and then started entering Ben's info into their database.
"That was Miss Hartley herself," Elliot said when he hung up. "Ben Estes is one of her students, and he was absent today. She said it's unusual for him to miss. But what would she know, it's only been two months."
"El—"
"Got the names of some of his friends from class—and their parents. I'll start making the calls; maybe one of them knows where he is."
The two detectives began their preliminary footwork and had been at it for almost forty-five minutes when Cragen appeared again. "Where are we?" he wanted to know.
"Called three of the families on the list from Ben's teacher. No one's seen him, but they also all said their kids only knew him from class. He's never been to any of their houses, and they haven't met his parents. He was new to the school this year."
"Not too surprising, if his family moved," Olivia observed.
"Except PS 75 is on the West Side. Marcia said they moved to East 87th. Why do you move to the Upper East Side and suddenly decide to send your kid crosstown to school?"
"What are you getting at, Elliot?" Cragen pressed.
"I dunno," he said in his Long Island drawl. "Something just isn't right." Yes, Marcia had all the answers, but something about her behavior just hadn't sat right with him. He was reluctant to say that he didn't believe her, but he was definitely leery. "School choice aside, how are you a parent and not take your kid on vacation with you?"
"Belated honeymoon, El—not really a kid-friendly place," Olivia snapped, a little pissed that he was nitpicking Marcia's report rather than calling the other parents on his list.
"Okay. But... you go to the Florida Keys in the middle of hurricane season?"
"It's probably cheaper."
"And Marcia hasn't called her sister yet? Not even to get some clue as to where he could have gone?"
"She just lost her sister's kid, Elliot. Is that the first phone call you'd be leaping to make?"
"Okay, so we call the parents," Cragen said. "One of you got their number?"
"Straight to voicemail," Olivia replied. "Already tried."
"Try it again. Elliot, how many other parents do you have left to call?"
"Just one. Line was busy earlier."
"Try it again."
"Still voicemail," Olivia noted.
"You leave a message?"
"I did the first time, yeah."
"Still busy, Cap."
"Marcia said she had the hotel information at home. We could try that," Olivia suggested.
"Good. Get in touch with her," Cragen said.
"Now here's another thing," Elliot suddenly whined, grabbing a copy of Marcia's missing persons report. The outburst was enough to draw Olivia's attention and stop her from her task. "This 'argument' Marcia had with Ben last night? Now, I never said I'd win Parent of the Year, but there's no way they were arguing about these bedtimes!"
"What?" Olivia barked. It was one of the most ludicrous things she had heard Elliot say.
"I mean it. Who in their right mind tries to put a nine-year-old to bed at seven?"
Finally Olivia had had enough. She wasn't afraid to lay into him a little. "You know what, Elliot, not everyone knows these things. If you're not expecting to be a parent, or even a babysitter, and it's suddenly thrust on you, you don't know what time to make a kid go to bed any more than you know the Saturday morning cartoon lineup! You can't hold it against her that she thought he should go to bed earlier than his parents do!"
Elliot stared at her for a moment, struck dumb by her explosion. "Is this about Calvin?" he finally ventured.
"Hey!" Cragen shouted, hoping to cap whatever fight had just erupted.
"My point is," Elliot continued, speaking to the Captain rather than his partner, "I don't know a single normal nine-year-old whose bedtime is eight o'clock. Eight-thirty maybe. But not eight. No way that's this kid's bedtime, and no way Marcia tried to put him down at seven. That's all."
"This is your paternal gut speaking?" Cragen asked wryly as Olivia's phone began to ring.
Elliot grinned at the sarcasm. "I've been in child-rearing longer than I have law enforcement." Cragen chuckled and focused on Olivia, whose phone conversation had become somewhat alarming.
"I'm telling you, she left almost an hour ago. ...It's eight blocks from here. She was going eight—yes! ...No. Thank you." Olivia slammed her phone down and looked up at the two men who were waiting expectantly. "Marcia hasn't made it home yet."
"Call her," Cragen replied instantly. Olivia's fingers were already dialing the number she gave on her report. After a moment, her eyes snapped up to find Cragen's.
"It's not in service," Olivia mumbled. She checked the number again and redialed.
"Elliot, can you try to track down another number for her? Marcia..."
"Golakos. On it."
Olivia's phone started ringing again. Cragen stood with baited breath as she answered. "Benson. ...Really. ...Okay, thanks. ...No, it's fine, they can go. Thank you." She looked first at Elliot, then at Cragen, then at her own hands on her desk. "That was dispatch again. The officers over on East 87th haven't found any sign of Mark or Karen Estes. They even canvassed the block, asking neighbors if they knew them. Nothing."
"Cap, I can't find any public records for Marcia Golakos. Not even through DMV." Elliot and Olivia stared at each other over their desks.
"Who is this woman?" Olivia breathed.
Elliot nodded before adding, "And what about Ben Estes?"
A/N: Conclusion to come within a few days.