2 - PROFILE
I couldn't even wipe the blood off her face. The blood I had inflicted myself, staining her swollen, busted lip, and sticking a strand of her hair to her red-painted forehead. All I could do was watch her as she lay there, unconscious, with blood all over her face, and pretend that I got off on it in order to keep my cover. Despite all that she had been through, she looked like she was just sleeping, peacefully.
The static from the speaker removed me from my thoughts.
"That's enough beauty sleep," the voice said. "There, in the corner, there's water. Use some to wake her up."
I contained any reactions, simply standing up from the mattress, throwing a neutral look and a nod at the glass and walking towards a bucket that was half-filled. I took it, then walked back until I stood in front of her. I hesitated, waiting for any other instructions, but he said nothing. I took some water in my hand and sprayed it at her face.
She woke up, startled, and her eyes instantly focused on me. There was fear all over her features; she didn't know what to expect, and frankly, neither did I. I didn't have a plan, just an idea. But there was no way of knowing if it would work, or if the bullet would simply ricochet back at me. While I sat watching Olivia sleep, I was thinking that the perfect moment to try it was when he spoke, because I would be sure he was on the other side of the two-way glass.
I was scared to death, but there wasn't much else I could do. Even if I tortured her some more while he jerked off on the other side, or whatever he did while he watched, it would just buy us some time, but it wasn't like anything would change much in the next few hours. The odds would continue to be against us. And worse; he might get bored and decide to move to the next phase of his torturing agenda, which was already behind schedule. I definitely couldn't let him proceed to the next phase. Getting in here and securing her was the point of all this anyway; now all bets were off.
I stared at Olivia, hating having her frightened eyes on me and wondering if my fear was also showing. I took a deep breath and took the gun. She shut her eyes, resigned.
"Be careful with that, Elliot," the voice said. "We don't want the fun to end just yet. Show me what else you've got, use your bare hands."
She cried silent tears as he spoke, her eyes still closed, and I was glad she couldn't see me aiming the gun at her. I took a deep breath, turned as quickly as I could and pulled the trigger blindly at the mirror.
The ride to the crime scene was completely silent, and Elliot refrained from looking at Olivia as much as he could. Shame didn't begin to describe how he was feeling; he just couldn't believe he had lost control like that. He hadn't thought at all, he had only acted on what he had felt at the moment. He thought about it, trying to retrace it.
She had asked him about why he was avoiding going home, and that had made him question how much of it was avoiding home and how much was avoiding leaving her. He had also found out her relationship, which had been going on for a few months, was over. And then they had talked about how their partnership worked, despite its complications. He'd had a hard time avoiding staring at her, looking into her beautiful eyes. Eventually, he had stopped trying to. Next thing he knew, he was kissing her. Like he had always wanted. Like he had always feared.
He wanted to punch something. He had done the last thing he should have, something completely wrong, for more reasons than he could count. He knew that he had been pushing his luck, spending a lot of time with her, especially putting himself in situations like this, alone with her at a bar, after downing several beers. She hadn't made any effort to avoid it either; she had agreed to stay for more drinks, she had pushed personal topics to talk about, she had kissed him back, and God… she looked so good. Why did she have to look so good?
But he couldn't blame her. He was the one who had insisted for her to stay. He had encouraged the personal subjects just as much, and he had been the one to lose control and initiate the whole thing. But he wanted to, he wanted really badly to blame her, because that would not only absolve him of his error in judgment but also give him a good reason and a good strategy to stay away from her.
The silence rang loud in his ears as those thoughts kept screaming in his mind, so he thanked God when they finally arrived. Without a word, they both got off the car and started walking, side by side, towards the dead body lying on the ground in an alley. Elliot saw that Melinda Warner, the medical examiner, was already there, as well as the crime scene unit. Bright blue and red lights flashed at his face, hurting his eyes.
The temperature had dropped considerably, but maybe it was because it was almost three in the morning. That reminded Elliot that Kathy must have called a thousand times, but as he took his phone to check, he remembered drunkenly texting her that he had gotten a case hours ago. Well, now it was true.
"What do we got?" he asked impatiently.
"Jane Doe," Warner started, "late thirties, blunt force trauma to the head and several bruises and cuts throughout the whole body, including mutilation of her genitalia.
"Cause of death?" Olivia asked, visibly impacted by the description and the sight.
"Not confirmed yet, but I think that gash on her thigh is the winner. She must have bled out from her femoral artery."
"Tell me the other cuts were post-mortem," Olivia pleaded.
Warner shrugged apologetically. "Doesn't look that way. Some of them look older than the others, so my guess is he took his time torturing her. It seems we have a real sadist in our hands. She felt every single cut."
Elliot sighed, stealing a glance at Olivia, but looking away immediately as she was staring back at him.
After working the crime scene and canvassing the area for the rest of the night, Olivia and Elliot went back to the precinct. Elliot went straight to the cribs, choosing a bed and throwing himself in it, hoping to get some shut-eye to sleep off any remaining trace of the alcohol and get over the regret for his actions before morning hit the house officially with the beginning of the next day. He heard Olivia going for a shower, probably with a similar mindset.
Elliot closed his eyes, feeling instantly sleepy. As reality started to fade, thoughts of Olivia invaded his mind, with the vivid sensation of her lips against his mouth and her body pressed close to his. He could taste the kiss, as much as he tried not to, and he could remember exactly what her tongue had felt like against his, in an instant integration, both moving harmoniously as they sought to explore.
He tried to drive away those thoughts, tossing and turning in bed, but he kept listening to the sound of the water running in the shower, painfully aware that Olivia was in there, naked. He gave up trying to sleep, but stayed in bed; the sound of the water stopped. He could sense more than hear when she approached, and he felt his whole body tensing as he waited for the unavoidable moment when she would come into view, sitting down on the bed next to his. He could smell her shampoo, and it was intoxicating.
"Elliot," she called lightly. "We should talk."
He let out a heavy sigh. The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it, even though he knew that was the first thing she would try to do.
"There's nothing to talk about," he said, knowingly sounding harsher than he had intended, looking at a fixed point on the bunk bed above his and intently avoiding her stare. He heard her sigh, and waited for her protest. It never came. But she was still sitting there, burning a hole in the corner of his eye as he watched her with his peripheral vision. He replied to her inexistent protest anyway. "It was a mistake, and talking about it would be an even bigger mistake."
He waited; she wouldn't be satisfied with that reply. He was already preparing his next argument when she spoke.
"Okay. Glad to know we're on the same page."
He heard her steps as she left, closing the door behind her.
Later that morning, the rest of the team had already arrived and they were all gathered around the screens where all the information they had so far about the case was being displayed. The victim had been identified based on a missing person's report, and the time of death had been estimated as between 11 PM and 1 AM in the ME's preliminary report.
"Her name is Angela Stevens, she had been missing for three days," Olivia explained. "That indicates that the killer probably kidnapped her then tortured her for at least forty-eight hours. She was a psychiatrist and was reported missing by the shrink she shared her office with."
"So he tortured, raped and mutilated her before killing her?" Elliot asked, horrified, looking at the pictures. "That's got to be personal."
"Yeap," Olivia nodded, looking disgusted. "Warner estimates that the first injuries were the cuts and bruises all over her body. He probably spent a day torturing her with that. The next day, he raped and mutilated her. And then he finished off with the final, fatal cut on her thigh. She bled out."
"Any DNA?" Munch asked, looking hopeful.
"None," she confirmed with a sigh. "He left no trace whatsoever. No hair, no fibers, no prints. He used gloves and a condom."
"This guy knows about forensics," Fin pointed out. "Maybe he works with it?"
"Nowadays with the internet and books and TV shows about real crimes, everybody knows about forensics," said Munch, shaking his head. "That doesn't tell us much."
"So, all we know is that he's a methodic, sadistic son of a bitch with a grudge against our vic," Elliot said, crossing his arms and sighing.
"Huang will come over to help with the profile," Olivia said, shrugging.
"Actually," said Captain Cragen, emerging from his office, "somebody else is coming to help with the profile too."
The team exchanged puzzled looks among one another.
"Do tell," Munch demanded.
"Detective Eric Downey, from Brooklyn Major Crimes. We ran the MO through VICAP and it turns out that this was only the first victim in Manhattan, but there were already two in Brooklyn. This is now a joint task force." The Captain paused, then raised his hands as the detectives moved their mouths to start protesting. "I don't want to hear it . You'll collaborate with him the best you can and be thankful he even wants to share the case with us at all. 1PP will be all over this and they'll expect results, so make sure you don't waste any time with pissing contests."
Elliot knew that last remark was meant for him, but he didn't say anything.
That morning, Olivia started a theory that too much coffee after an all-nighter was worse than none, and yet, she kept trying to drink some more, hoping that, if the caffeine didn't help, at least the need to lift the cup to drink from it would give her something to focus on, forcing her eyes to stay open. All she wanted was to get away from the precinct, and there wasn't much that they could do for the case at the moment, but the captain had asked them to wait for the Brooklyn detective. Unlike the rest of the team, she was welcoming the presence of an outsider; at least it would be a distraction, for her and everyone else, because she couldn't imagine that her colleagues wouldn't have picked up on the awkwardness between her and Elliot; they were all trained investigators after all.
They were barely speaking to each other, only whatever was absolutely necessary for the case. Olivia had decided to go talk to him sooner rather than later about what had happened, knowing that he would completely dismiss it as a mistake, an error in judgment, something that could never happen again. Which it was. So she figured that there was no point in delaying that inevitable conclusion, and that the sooner they both acknowledged it, the sooner the awkwardness would dissipate.
Maybe the presence of this detective would avoid too many moments alone with him until the dust settled. Maybe it would also keep everyone's minds occupied so they couldn't pay much attention to any change in their relationship. Maybe it would make it easier to pretend that nothing had happened, pretend that it was just a drunken hallucination, as surreal as flying or being invisible. In Olivia's mind, kissing Elliot belonged to that same category of impossible events that would only appear in nonsensical dreams.
Giving it any thought at all was also out of the question. Olivia had spent way too many years convincing herself that something between them would never happen and that, if something ever came close to happening, she should not allow it under any circumstance, because there was absolutely no way on Earth that it might work.
So whenever the memories of that last look he gave her before lowering his eyes to her lips, the taste and coldness of the beer on his tongue as it touched hers, or the rock-solid feel of his chest against hers as he pulled her close came to mind, she immediately shoved them right back under the rug they had escaped from. She cursed herself again for not having left the bar when she had first decided to.
"Excuse me, I'm looking for Captain Cragen?" said a voice right next to Olivia's desk, and she felt her head heavy when she hoisted it up too quickly to look at the tall man it belonged to.
"Detective Downey?" she asked, standing up.
The man smiled. And it was a nice smile too. Olivia took him in as she politely smiled back; he was an over six-feet tall, green-eyed, nice-smiling and good-looking man in his forties, well dressed in a simple navy blue suit over a light blue shirt, and he held out his hand to shake hers.
"You must be Detective Benson," he said smiling. "I heard a lot about you, the work you do here… It's really impressive. I hear that nobody in the force is as soft on the victims or as tough on the perps as you."
Olivia had to laugh at the unexpectedness of his comment. "Where did you hear that?" she shook his hand sheepishly, avoiding his look for a moment, and then she noticed Elliot's chair moving from the corner of her eye as he sat back, watching. She cleared her throat and introduced him. "Detective, this is my partner, Detective Stabler."
"Oh, hi, nice to meet you, Detective," Eric Downey said, now offering his hand to Elliot, who reluctantly stood up and forced a quick smile, firmly shaking the man's hand without a word.
Luckily, Cragen approached them then, freeing Olivia from any need to apologize for her partner's manners or lack thereof. The captain introduced himself, and soon the whole team, including Huang, had gathered around the detective who, after the brief introductions, signaled that he wanted to get right down to business.
"Olivia, would you fill Detective Downey in on the details of our vic?" the captain asked, probably determining she was, among her colleagues, the friendliest toward the intruder.
After she presented the case, it was Downey's turn to show and tell. He displayed the pictures and profiles of the two Brooklyn victims. The MO was the same; forty-eight hours of torture, starting with aggression, then turning to sexual degradation and finishing with the fatal cut on the leg.
Besides the MO, the profile of the perp's victims was also very clear; the detective described them as single, independent, successful women in their late thirties or early forties, all of them very good-looking, but none of them in a serious relationship. Actually, he said their lives were pretty lonely, as none of them seemed to have much family and all they seemed to focus was work. Olivia couldn't help but identify.
"He is clearly a misogynist," Huang explained. "It's like he can't accept that these women don't depend on men, that they lead full lives without making the men around them the center of their world. Do we know anything about their fathers? It's probably safe to assume none of these women had a strong father figure, if they had one at all."
Olivia saw Elliot's head turning to look at her, like a motion-sensing camera, but she pretended she didn't notice. In her mind, she was toying with the idea of not having any men be the center of her life, wondering if that was really true for her and how far from the center of her world she could place Elliot. As soon as that thought came, she also thought about how she was nowhere near the center of his life; it was already crowded with five children and a wife.
"So he wants to show these women that a man can be in control of their lives?" Cragen asked.
"Quite literally," Huang answered. "But before actually taking their lives, I'm thinking he wants to break their spirit. I think the first day of torture is all about destroying their confidence. He hurts them physically, but I'm betting he also tortures them psychologically."
"How?" Elliot muttered, looking a bit skeptical.
"My guess would be by convincing them that nobody loves them, by reversing the notion of their independence as having no one to count on. If his problem with these women is that they don't worship men, he would try to turn it around and make them believe that they are the ones who have been rejected by all men in their lives."
"Starting by their fathers," Olivia added, attracting quite a few surprised looks, including Elliot's. She knew they would think that was a touchy subject for her; it was, but she didn't have to show it by shying away from it.
"That would be my guess," Huang confirmed.
"That's sick," Fin commented.
"We live in a sick world," Munch retorted matter-of-factly.
"What could be the cause of such hatred, and directed at such a specific profile of women?" Cragen asked. "Do they remind him of his mother? An unrequited love?"
"Probably both," Huang explained. "If he felt rejected by his mother, he's likely to mirror that in every other relationship with women. He probably unconsciously always sought women who were somehow unavailable, and they confirmed the rejection every time."
"Until he snapped," Munch said. "Got tired of taking no for an answer."
"That's all very interesting, Doctor Huang," Detective Downey commented politely, but in a final tone. "This guy is a sick bastard who likes attacking women. That's all I need to know."
