They fast-forwarded through the redundant bits, the Captain obviously not wanting to watch the whole thing again. The lighting was bad and the camera work jerky, but it was clear that one of the attackers was a younger Joseph Lacey. The cop who two nights ago had been found shot in a warehouse and who was still in serious condition at the hospital.
Olivia spoke first. "So that's what Turner's hiding."
"We need to keep this quiet for now. I'm gonna send a copy to someone I know at the FBI. That girl's a minor; they might already have a copy. In the meantime. . ."
Elliot interrupted. "Rewind the tape. There, pause it." The frame was a close up of the girl, the side of her face pressed against a wood table. She had already stopped screaming, but there were tears falling out of her gray eyes, eyes that pleaded and seared even as the rest of her body had gone limp. Elliot approached the screen, one finger tracing a thin scar on her right temple, near the hairline. "That's Susan White.
She's a brunette now and she must have gained at least twenty pounds, but that's her. Works as a paramedic in Manhattan."
"How well do you know her?"
"She lives in my neighborhood. Maureen babysits for her," he said briefly. "I know her, but not well." The expression on his face seemed to belie his words, but his superior officer chose not to notice that.
"You and Olivia find her and talk to her. I'll have Munch call Baltimore PD. And I'll try to find out what I can from Turner's shop."
Susan White's Residence, Queens 11:15 AMThey pulled up in front of her house. Elliot had been inside once or twice in the three and a half years Susan had lived there, mostly to pick up Maureen when Susan had been too tied up with the baby to walk her home. He remembered the house as bright and comfortably decorated, clean though not always neat. A nice home for a nice little family.
He hadn't been lying when he said he didn't know Susan well. He liked her - - he had no reason not to. She was always friendly and he admired the way she took care of Timothy, her brother by her imprisoned mother. Between the mother serving 20 to life and the way she never spoke of anything that happened more than five or six years ago, he had guessed that her childhood had been less than ideal, but she seemed happy and well-adjusted, if a little reserved and awkward at times. Both he and Kathy had been happy about the way Maureen had gotten closer to Susan in the past year. There were worse role models.
"Is that her car in the driveway?" Olivia asked as they stepped onto the sidewalk.
He nodded in reply and rang the bell.
Olivia peered in the window. "Nice house."
"Yeah, she got some kind of settlement from the State of Maryland on account of her mother getting pregnant by a prison guard." He pressed the doorbell again.
"Maybe she's out for a walk."
Elliot held up his hand and pressed his ear against the glass. "That's Tim crying." He shouted out a warning then, a split second later, he kicked in the door. "Susan! Police!" He and Olivia did a brief room to room on the first floor, noting a bloody spot on the kitchen doorframe. They then charged up the stairs. A child's screams could be heard through a door blocked with a chair. Elliot threw the chair aside, but remembered to open the door slowly in case the child was near. A little boy, about three years old, stood there in footie pajamas, tears streaming down his face.
"I want Sissy."
Elliot holstered his gun and picked the child up as Olivia called for backup.