Lost
Mr McCoy, this is Captain Don Cragen. There's really no good way to tell you this so I'm just going to say it.
Jack McCoy watched the elevator numbers change, counting down to the first floor. He didn't feel any impatience at the slow progress of the elevator.
He didn't feel anything except a bitter cold too bone-deep for him to even shiver.
I've got real bad news. ADA Mary Firienze is in the hospital. Her super found her this morning in the garbage room. She was attacked. Beaten, tied up, raped.
McCoy's fingers are numb. His hands are suddenly cold as marble. He fumbles the cufflink, drops it. He is cold all over. "Are you sure" he asks Cragen, stupidly. Are you sure, because please, let it be a mistake.
Cragen answers him but McCoy is hearing a different voice.
We've found a car, Anita Van Buren says.
I'm sorry, Mr McCoy, we're quite sure, Don Cragen says.
Halfway across the foyer, McCoy realised he needed to call Arthur Branch. It took him two tries to sign out at the security desk. It took him three tries to dial Arthur Branch's home number.
Branch was outraged and appalled. McCoy would have expected nothing else. He listened to God damn, Jackand We've got to get this bastard, Jack and This is our office's top priority, Jack and agreed at the right moments as he made his way out onto the street and hailed a cab. Finally he managed to break into Branch's tirade and tell him which hospital Firienze had been taken to.
"I'll be there," Branch said.
"I'm on my way now," McCoy told him, and hung up.
As the cab threaded through the morning traffic McCoy tried to keep his mind focused on the case, on the Firienze case, but he kept seeing Mary Firienze hurrying for the elevator in One Hogan Place, blonde bob swinging, laughing as she dashed through the closing doors. Kept imagining blonde hair matted with blood.
Kept seeing a familiar face swollen and bruised, distorted by tightly wrapped tape, eyes bulging -
And when he rubbed both hands over his face to scrub that image away, it was replaced with Regan Markham staring at him in horrified disbelief. Saying Found her? Found her? But I saw her yesterday. Are they sure?
"We've found a car," Anita Van Buren said.
"Have you heard from Ricci?" Abbie asked, worry in her voice.
The cab pulled up at Mercy General and McCoy shoved some notes at the cabbie and got out without waiting for change.
It was easy to spot Mary Firienze's family in the waiting room: there were half-a-dozen cops in uniform or plain clothes sitting with them or standing near by.
McCoy caught Don Cragen's eye and the captain met him at the nurses' station. "How is she?"
"She's in surgery," Cragen said softly. "They're trying to stop the internal bleeding. Her head injuries are severe: if she makes it through surgery she'll be moved to intensive care and put in an induced coma. He hit her. A lot. Knocked her head on the concrete floor."
"Did they get any forensics before she went into theatre?"
"Rape kit, clothes, the duct tape she was bound and gagged with, all on their way to the lab. But the nurse said it looks like he used a condom."
"Any leads?" McCoy asked.
" Edward Walters. He made bail yesterday morning on a very similar charge because his victim died. One of our detectives saw him hassling another prosecutor in the courthouse, a female prosecutor."
" Regan Markham?"
"I don't have a name," Cragen said.
"ADA Markham told me this morning Walters "got in her face" yesterday at the courthouse." McCoy felt his anger at Regan Markham return. It is beyond me how she can have so little common sense. As if she's fucking bullet proof. As if she's different. As if it could never be her on the floor of a garbage room, in the boot of a car, in a bloody ruin on green carpet in a so-called 'safe' house …
" Mr McCoy?" Cragen asked. "Did you hear me?"
"Sorry," McCoy said. "What were you saying?"
"I said Elliot Stabler saw it go down. He's at the scene now but I'll put in a call and see what's what."
"If this bastard is picking his victims from the women who catch his eye in the court system you need to alert all your female officers who had contact with him, and the female lawyers who dealt with his case."
"Well, thank you, Mr McCoy, because that hadn't occurred to me," Cragen said.
"Captain, you can get as pissy as you want with me," McCoy snapped, "but I am going to take the same interest in this case as you would if it were a cop from the sixteenth fighting for her life. And that isn't going to change. So learn to live with it."
He turned away without waiting for Cragen to answer, and headed for the family group in chairs. There were familiar words to be said, and he said them, keeping his professional courtroom demeanour between himself and the Firienze family. Everything possible will be done. Their faces, blotched with tears, were hard for him to look at. The District Attorney's Office has made this our top priority. McCoy forced himself to meet Mary's father's gaze, her brother's. I will personally prosecute this case. He reached out and took Mary's mother's hand. We will do everything in our power to make the man who hurt your daughter pay.
He said everything he was supposed to say, and then McCoy couldn't get out of there fast enough. "Have someone call me when she comes out of surgery," he said to Cragen as he passed. "Or if anything changes."
We will do everything in our power to make the man who hurt your daughter Alex pay.
We will do everything in our power to make the man who hurt Toni pay.
We will do everything in our power to make the man who hurt Casey pay.
We'll make them pay, Danielle
Standing on the sidewalk, McCoy closed his eyes for a moment, saw duct tape saw smooth blonde bob saw bloody green carpet and matted red hair saw the trunk of a car …
He turned sharply towards the wall and bent over, vomiting up his morning coffee.
Making them pay. McCoy straightened up and wiped his mouth. He looked around for a cab.
As if that's possible. As if there's ever a price that could be high enough.
