"What'd you find?" Carisi half-sits on Rollins desk, looking at the blonde across from him.
"Alexa hates Miyoko, she's convinced that Miyoko's the one who made the call that took away her son," Rollins types something on her laptop.
"Well, she's right about that," Carisi hands Rollins the file, "what else did you get?"
"Practically nothing, but I'm amazed that she still has custody of the blonde one," Fin flips through a file and shrugs, tossing it onto the desk.
"Benson and Nick?" Barba sits down at his desk and rubs his temples, sighing. Rollins cautiously walks over to the attorney,
"How about you?" She drums her fingers on the desk, "What's going on inside your head,"
"Well considering I haven't talked to my niece in nearly five years, I have no idea what she's like now,"
"You two don't seems to be on the best of terms," Carisi joins Rollins, looking down at the attorney, "do you mind telling us what happened?"
"Am I being interrogated?" Barba stands up, looking at the two detectives.
"No, we're just curious," Rollins shrugs, but Barba shakes his head as Benson and Amaro walk out of the third room.
"What'd you find, detectives," Barba walks away towards the center of the room.
"Alexa is convinced that Miyoko had something to do with Judah's disappearance, but that's probably biased," Fin shrugs.
"And Gregory isn't much better," Amaro cuts in, "He hates Miyoko almost as much as Alexa,"
"Hey Rollins, look up the child services report on Judah and his parents," Benson looks over Rollins' shoulder as she looks up the report.
"Uhh starvation, physical abuse, emotional abuse, most of the physical abuse was done by Gregory," Rollins looks up the the lieutenant, "they were aloud the keep Nico, their younger son, because there were no signs of abuse on him.
"So Gregory was sad about losing his punching bag," Benson sighs, "Usually all the children are taken away from the parents,"
"Well," Rollins scrolls down on the report, "considering Nico's the biological child of the two of them, while Judah only has his biological mother, Judah's father could have complete custody of him. Child protectives services wanted to keep him out of the system, plus Nico had no signs of abuse. There are regular home visits to the home, but nothing's come up,"
"When was the last visit?" Amaro asks.
"Uhh about two weeks ago," Rollins looks up at him.
"Okay, what did Alexa think about her son?" Benson asks.
"She certainly didn't like him, and she thought that the starvation was a reasonable punishment for whenever he acted up, but she would never beat her son," Rollins reads.
"Oh, what a saint," Carisi rolls his eyes.
"Well, she can go, keep the father here," Benson nods to Amaro, who goes into the second interview room and walks Alexa and Nico out.
"But what about my husband?" Alexa turned to Amaro.
"I'm sorry, but he'll have to stay with us, we'll call you if we have any news," he puts a hand on her back and walks her out.
"And María?" Barba asks, studying his shoes.
"I'm sorry, María?" Benson crosses her arms and looks at the attorney.
"That's the name my family gave her and that's the name I'll use," Barba's voice is sharp and cold, more so than usual.
"I see what you mean about them not being on the best of terms," Rollins whispers to Carisi, who chuckles softly.
"Well, she's obviously not telling us something," Amaro says, fingering though the file.
"Then she stays, you guys keep working. Barba, come with me," Benson orders.
Benson closes the door behind her, "Barba, what the hell is your problem?"
"What do you mean?" He turns to her, annoyed.
"This grudge against this… child! Where did it come from?"
"It's a family matter," Barba pinches the bridge of his nose.
"Well you can either explain it to me or you're off the case," Benson snaps, "we're being gracious letting you here."
Barba sighs, laying his jacket over a chair, "I didn't even know she existed until she came knocking on my door at age 10 with black eye saying, 'Papa hit me.' As you can probably guess I don't really get along with her or her father,"
"And nothing was done about it? Her father still has custody?" Benson stares at the ADA, shocked.
"She had been in the states for less than a week, it was the first time there wasn't any abuse of any kind, and the mother had recently died in Japan, so the let him off with a warning,"
"Did you see her after that?"
"Every now and then, she lived in the same building as me before I moved to Manhattan,"
"How did her mother die?"
"Accident, that's all her father told me,"
"And how old is she?"
"Just turned 17," Barba sighs.
"Well, Barba, you probably need to get back in that room and mend some wounds, we're going to need her for this case"
"No problem, Lieutenant," Barba's voice is almost mocking on the last word. He grabs his jacket and exits the room.
Barba walks into the room to find Rollins at the computer again, talking to the team, "So I pulled up Judah's medical records. He's had four broken bones since he came to America, which-"
"Woah, woah, woah," Carisi puts up his hand, "why wasn't this investigated?"
"Not sure, my best guess is the family is foreign, the doctors didn't want to dig too deep," Rollins spins in her chair, looking at all the detectives.
"Interesting, well we might have to arrest Gregory for assault," Amaro stands up and begins to walk to interview room two but Benson calls out to him.
"Nick, wait, if we start accusing him now then we won't get any information from him."
"So you just want us to wait until he tells us something?" Amaro asks, annoyed.
"Yes," Benson spins around towards Amaro, "yes, because if he had something to do with Judah's disappearance we need to prove it, and arrest him on the severest charge." Amaro sighs, irritated.
"I know Nick," Rollins rubs Amaro's upper arm, earning a glance from Carisi.
"Okay, well let's go talk to Gregory," Benson closes the folder and walks to the interview room, nodded to Amaro when he puts his hand on the door handle.
"So what are we looking for?" Barba turns to Benson, putting his hands on his hips.
"Signs of guilt, comments about the abuse, etc," she shrugs and watches Amaro and Rollins sit down across from Gregory.
"So, Gregory, you abused your stepson," Amaro laces his fingers over the desk.
"I never did, Alexa hurt him, not me," Gregory replies in an attemptive reassuring tone, but sounds as though he's trying to reassure himself.
"Yeah well we have x-rays that tell a different story," Rollins spins the file towards him, pointing at a broken elbow.
"I never beat him!" Gregory shoves the file away from himself and angrily glares up at the detectives.
"I don't want to wait here all day," Amaro uncrosses his arms tilts his head back in an annoyed gesture.
"Okay, maybe a give him a scruffin' every now and then, but nothing like his father would do,"
"What?" Rollins looks up, genuinely confused.
"Yeah," Gregory grabs the file from under Rollins' finger tips and points at an x-ray.
"The date on that is after Alexa lost custody."
Rollins and Amaro glance down at the date, sure enough it happened two months after Alexa's custody loss. Rollins glances at her reflection in the one-way glass and nods.
"Let's get the father in here," Benson uncrosses her arms and walks away from Barba.