"Streetwise"
Another body was found in Central Park. One wearing 5,000 dollar earrings. Well, one of them was missing. She was a rich girl, collared once for a DUI so they found her parents quickly. They were in tears, obviously, but managed to tell them where Shelby was supposed to be the night before, and who she had been with.
She knew he was most likely thinking about his own daughters but he seemed calm this time. She was making some notes and saw him point at the photographs on the table in front of them.
'Are these recent?' he asked, picking them up.
'They were taken yesterday, right here in this room,' the father answered.
'May I? he asked, while sitting down beside her, across from the parents. There was one of Shelby, one of her with her two best friends and one with her boyfriend, Doug. He showed the last picture to Olivia, and she immediately knew why he did.
'They been having any problems lately?' he asked.
They told them they hadn't and that Doug was every mothers' dream.
'She doesn't look too happy in that picture,' Olivia said, but the parents assured them Doug would never hurt Shelby. They told them where to find him: at the ball, waiting for Shelby, and they left them to deal with their loss together.
...
'This,' he said while waving the photograph between them in the car, 'is not a happy couple.'
'No, I can see that. I wonder why the parents don't see it.' she mused while looking sideways before changing lanes.
'Maybe they don't want to see it. They are the perfect couple on the outside. I'm sure his parents are just as thrilled. Great dowry.'
She laughed but did not comment. It never ceased to amaze her how blind people could be when the truth was staring them in the face. Then again, wasn't she guilty of some partial blindness herself? Or he, for that matter? But there was no room for those thoughts anymore. Not now. So they might as well pretend to be blind to it and just move on. It wasn't the same anyway. It had not been the same for a while. She had kept a straight face, she was sure of it. But part of her had died on the spot when he told her his wife was pregnant. She knew he would be going back. That was just the kind of man he was. He wouldn't really be happy but he would take responsibility. And he had. Of course he had. His sense of duty and the overwhelming urge to prove to the world that he was not a failure gave him the strength to make that choice. If someone were to snap a picture of them together, they would both look miserable. But he was going to do this, whatever the cost. And she, his partner, would support him, whatever the cost.
She glanced at the photograph in his hand. Those two were so young and were already making choices for all the wrong reasons. She thought about the choices she had made in her life at that age, and then about Elliot. What if Elliot had not married Kathy? What if he had just supported her and the baby financially without committing to a life with them? Would their parents have let him? They never talked about that stuff but she wondered about it.
'Hey El.'
'Hmmm?' He looked like he had also been musing about something and looked at her wearily.
'How 'bout Kathy's parents? Were you a dream to them, too?'
There, she had asked it. He seemed a little shocked at the question.
'Wow, where did that come from?' he asked.
She feigned some indifference and shrugged while she said, 'Oh, I was just wondering. Was thinking about the influence of parents on their kids and I just thought of your history.'
'I see. Well ...,' he started and he laughed softly. 'It's not like they had much of a choice. I think her mother liked me but before they really got to know me, they had a grandchild on the way so ...' He made a helpless gesture with his hands. 'I guess they were stuck with me.'
'Yeah, I know what happened. But if that hadn't happened?'
He sighed and seemed to think things over before answering. His voice was timid when he finally spoke again.
'I'm not sure what my life would be like if I hadn't gotten her pregnant. I'm not even sure I would have married her at all.'
She felt like someone had just punched her in the gut and she had to look away from him. It wasn't the answer she was expecting to hear. She had just asked whether his in-laws had liked him. But he had taken the question much further, and hearing this admission from him was actually physically painful to her. While he was saying out loud that he wasn't sure he would have married Kathy, she knew he was really saying he was sure he would not have married her. Their entire marriage was based on their mutual sense of duty and responsibility. And when it was about to self-destruct, the same sense of duty and responsibility had dragged him back in. It wasn't like she hadn't know that, somewhere deep inside. But to hear him actually say it out loud was something else.
He was looking at her now, searching her face for some kind of reaction. There was sadness in his eyes. What could she say? She asked the only thing she could think of, realizing the very moment she said it that it was the one question she should not have asked.
'But you are happy with her now, aren't you?'
He was silent. He stayed silent and looked away. They had reached their destination and she wasn't sure what to do. She parked the car and shut the engine off, waiting for Elliot to make a decision. Was he going to answer her question or were they just going to get out of the car and not talk about it anymore? He decided on the latter.
'Let's go,' he said and opened his car door. She got out as well and they walked into the building together in silence.
...
After telling not one but two boyfriends that Shelby was dead, they walked back to the car. The second boyfriend was clearly not from a rich background, and he had told them he and Shelby had 'fooled around for a while' secretly on the back stairwell the afternoon before. He also showed them a video message he had received later that night from Shelby. She was in the park with Anna, one of Shelby's two best friends, who had apparently forgotten to mention that had been there with Shelby.
'Can you believe that?' Elliot sighed as they reached the car. 'Having sex on the back stairwell while her family and friends were inside?'
She laughed and quipped 'We were all young once El!'
He scratched the back of his head and looked at her over the roof of the car when he said, 'I guess I was never young then ...'
He got into the car and she paused briefly before doing the same. Of course he had never had sex on a stairwell. He was a kid when he got married and she really couldn't picture him and Kathy doing anything really adventurous. Although he did have five kids with her, so obviously, there was something there. You don't get kids by sleeping in separate bedrooms. And Eli certainly would not have been conceived if there wasn't some kind of spark between them. She sighed while sitting down behind the steering wheel. She did not want to think about her partner's sex life. At all.
...
Anna gave them yet another surprise when they caught her literally in the act with Doug. So much for being every mother's dream, she thought. They took them down to the station and each interrogated one of them. Both were now under suspicion but both would not admit to anything. Olivia finished up first and after a while, Elliot joined her outside the interrogation rooms.
'Doug's lying', he told her.
'Well, I like Anna for it El,' she replied. 'Girls can do crazy things when they're pushed.'
Standing closer to her, he said, 'When a woman cheats on her man, he can blow a gasket.'
Cragen walked in, asking about the second boyfriend. The DNA was a match but his alibi checked out, so Shelby wasn't raped after all. The fluids were from the quicky she had in the stairwell. She saw Elliot rub the back of his neck again from the corner of her eye and didn't look at him. Why on earth would that make him uncomfortable anyway? They dealt with much kinkier stuff in their line of work. The thought occurred to her that he might be thinking about her half-admission that she had, at one time, done the same thing as the happy couple. She pushed it out of her mind quickly though as they went back to work with their suspects.
They took a break to freshen up a little and she wasn't surprised when he followed her up to the cribs. After washing her face and hands she put some fresh deodorant on and put the can back in her locker. She leaned against her locker while Elliot copied her actions. She watched as he pulled his shirt up a little so he could spray the deodorant on and swallowed when she saw his abdominal muscles stretch. He put the can away and tucked his shirt back in, apparently unaware that she was looking at him.
'Hey Liv, you ever do something crazy because you were pushed?' he asked, referring to her earlier comment. He closed his locker and leaned against it with one arm, and finally looked at her.
Actually, she had done lots of things when she was young. Acting out was a way of expressing herself and to feel alive, away from her mother's mental abuse. She didn't feel like sharing all that with Elliot though, especially since he seemed uncomfortable with even the idea of her getting it on in a stairwell. She shared one small incident with him to satisfy his curiosity.
'I punched a girl after school once, after slashing the tires of her car,' she admitted.
'Really? What did she do to piss you off?'
'She seduced my boyfriend while he was on his way to see me.'
'Oops,' Elliot chuckled.
'Yeah, he never came. In every sense of the word.' she added dryly. She could swear she could see him blushing a little before turning away from her.
...
The case took them in a completely different direction and they were now questioning Josie, an eleven-year old girl living with a street family, who had pawned Shelby's earring. She wasn't talking at all though. Since she hadn't eaten in two days, Cragen told them to try and get to her with food. It didn't feel right to try and bribe a young girl but once they got into it, they were actually having fun. They piled all the food on the table in the interrogation room and started digging in. Elliot started with a pizza and Olivia with dessert. She went all out on the chocolate syrup and he handed her the sprinkles. He watched her eat and stopped chewing when she slowly licked some ice cream and chocolate from her lips.
'How is it?' he asked, grinning widely and making sure Josie was listening.
'Delicious,' she replied with her mouth full.
Then she asked Josie if she wanted something. They finally got her to talk and soon found out they should be looking for Cole, the 'father' of the street family. After Josie was taken to a shelter, they decided to finish their meal before heading out again to find Cole.
'Can I have some pizza too?' she asked him. He handed her one of the boxes and watched her take a bite. She closed her eyes for a moment, enjoying the warm, full flavor of the pizza after the cold, sweet ice cream she had eaten before. When she opened her eyes again, Elliot was still looking at her. She raised an eyebrow, sending him a question with her eyes. He looked down at his own pizza, or what was left of it, and started eating too.
They finished quickly and cleaned up before heading out again to find Cole. When they put on their coats, Elliot motioned to her that she had something on her face. She turned to him and asked where. He pointed to the corner of her mouth.
'Here,' he said. 'Let me just ...'
Her heart skipped a beat when he wiped the droplet of chocolate syrup off gently with his finger and then put the finger in his mouth to lick it off. He had touched her lip briefly and that simple touch had caused goosebumps to break out in her neck and all over her arms. It looked like his eyes were a shade darker and he was still looking at her mouth.
'Is there any more?' she asked, relieved that her voice didn't sound too shaky. She willed herself not to think anything at that moment.
He moved his face a little closer to hers while placing his forefinger under her chin to tilt her head up and then to both sides. He pretended to study her face carefully but she could see the amusement in his eyes. She laughed and flicked his hand away with hers.
'You prick,' she mumbled, still smiling and relieved that the uncomfortable moment had passed. She shook it off. Focus on the case, Benson. We have a job to do - nothing more.
...
Cole was nowhere to be found and Josie also turned up missing. They did find the 'mother' of the street family, Cassidy, who was completely panicking. She was certain Cole would kill the girl because she had spoken with the police. Just then, Fin told them Josie had turned up dead. Her eyes were gauged out and her cheeks were slit from ear to ear. Elliot forced Cassidy to look at the girl's body at the morgue and Olivia glanced at him from across the table. His face didn't show any emotion but she was certain he was feeling something underneath his stone cold exterior. Josie had only been a few years younger than his youngest daughter and she had seen something in his eyes when they interrogated the girl that she could only describe as caring. Cassidy threw up but still said she didn't know where Cole could be. He lost his temper then and scolded her for not taking care of her daughter and not standing up for her now. She could feel the heat radiating off him when he yelled at Cassidy and stood back while he tried to get the 'mother' to talk. When Casey Novak confronted Cassidy with the short stories Josie had written about her family, she finally gave up the location of more people Cole had killed, and the location where he might be, in exchange for a deal.
Once they found Cole, Elliot got into a heated argument with him about fatherhood. Olivia had watched them from behind the mirrored glass. A few things the man said had apparently stuck in his mind, and later on, after Cole had been booked, he asked her about it.
'Liv.'
She looked up from her paperwork.
'Do you think it's true, that in our society we are drones who work 'McJobs' and we aren't really free? And that we lock up our kids so they can't be themselves either?'
He was looking very serious and she blew out a breath slowly.
'Wow, he really got to you in there, didn't he?' She put down her pen and leaned forward. 'Do you think it's true?'
'I don't know, I ... You know, we have this view of the world, based on our own experiences and what we've been taught. But other people have different experiences and have been taught different things. Who's to say we are always right and they are always wrong?'
She didn't really know how to answer that question. It felt like he was addressing something universal. Who decides what is wrong and what is right? She thought he had his religion to answer those kinds of questions so she finally replied, 'I guess you should use the Bible to answer that.'
He nodded slowly, leaning back in his chair, hands folded in front of him in his lap and staring at the pictures on his desk.
'The Bible doesn't always give us clear-cut answers to our questions. It is a book of principles, the biggest principle being we should always act out of love.'
He looked at her now and she leaned back as well, almost as if she was trying to create some more distance between them.
'A lot of people will argue that what they did was out of love, even if we consider it criminal or immoral,' she mused.
'Right. So who is right? What is really criminal or immoral? Do we judge the act or the thought behind the act?'
She couldn't believe it was Elliot saying these things. He had always been hell-bent on upholding the law. The law was their beacon in this job and wrong was wrong, regardless of someone's intentions. He could not start questioning that fundamental part of what they did, or he would not be able to do his job anymore. She needed to give him something to hold on to.
'Elliot, we can only judge the act,' she told him. 'We can never be really sure about the intention behind it anyway. Maybe it should matter why people do what they do, but in the end we can only really respond to the visible act. And if that is against the law, it is wrong.'
He was thinking about it again. She could see conflicting emotions in his eyes and she couldn't help wondering if there was something more on his mind. Something he wasn't saying. She wasn't sure if she should ask him about it. They didn't usually talk about the heavy stuff, other than in general like they had up until now. His eyes met hers again and she could see sadness in them now. It was the same sadness she had seen when he had told her he wasn't sure he would have married Kathy if he had not gotten her pregnant. She felt a knot forming in her stomach. What was he really thinking about? What were these questions about wrong and right, and about acting out of love? Wasn't he the one who always acted out of duty and responsibility?
Then he nodded. 'Yes. The law. We can only follow the law.'
He got up to get his coat and told her he was going home. She watched him leave. He was bound by the law. They both were. In more ways than one.
...
