A/N: A shout out to my anonymous reviewer. This chapter is a little longer hope you like it and thanks!
A/N2: This shout out goes to Sayuri-2012. Glad to have you back. :) If you haven't read any of her work, I suggest you do. :)
Chapter 4
"How bad is it Doctor?" Olivia asked the attending medical man on staff at the nearby Northern Westchester Hospital.
"Well the only way to give her an exterior physical was to sedate her. When the nurses tried to help take her clothes off she panicked. My guess is that English is not her first language because nothing we said made any difference. One of the nurses tried Spanish and that didn't work either.
"Once we were able to start the exam, the bruising we discovered has me very worried. I'm waiting for the x-ray results to come back but my guess is that we'll find multiple healed fractures and probably some new ones. Aside from being beaten, she seems to be in good shape. Someone was feeding her and taking care of her because she's not malnourished and she was clean. We're waiting on more extensive blood results to see if there is anything that we aren't seeing right off the bat," Doctor Bernstein explained. He stood at about six foot with short close cropped brown hair and appeared to be in his fifties.
"Thank you for letting Detective Rollins take the photos. We need to get these to our medical expert and the team in the city," Olivia smiled slightly.
"Well don't treat them as absolute gold. One of the nurses took hair samples for drug testing and noted that the patient's hair had been dyed. It may be brown now but my guess is that it was originally red or auburn, possibly blonde too. It's been dyed a lot so my guess is that they moved around a lot trying to disguise her. I hate to ask but what do you think happened to her?" The doctor wanted to know.
"Everything bad you can think of Doctor. I'm not exactly sure what we have here. My first thought was domestic abuse but now that she seems to have limited communication skills, I worry that she's been trafficked since she was a little girl. I have a call into a psychiatrist to see if he can help and I'm working on getting translators for possible communication attempts but I'm in the dark as much as you," Olivia admitted.
"Well as soon as the test results are in, I'll let you know what they have found. The gynecologist on staff should almost be finished with the internal exam," Bernstein gave a tight smile and then walked away. Olivia walked back to the two chairs that had been pulled up outside of the room where the patient was being examined. Rollins stood up and handed the Sergeant her phone. Olivia flipped through the photos and her heart sunk. Dark very recent bruises appeared on the woman's midsection, chest, arms, back, thighs, and knees. Lighter almost healed ones appeared on her face after the nurses had removed her makeup.
"What did Fin say about the tapes and records I asked for?" Olivia asked.
"He said TARU is trying to clean up the video footage and so far all the prisoner transports check out. Do we have a sicko on the force?" Rollins wanted to know.
"It's beginning to look that way. The paperwork that Chip was handed seems legit. The only glaring detail is that my signature doesn't actually match my real signature. Of course, no one up here would know that and if Warden Drysdale hadn't been alerted to his new prisoner's condition, our Jane Doe would have been in prison a long time before anyone said anything. The perp had to be betting on that," Benson heaved a sigh.
"Should we put a call into Lieutenant Eames? She may have knowledge of someone who has been trafficking women and drugs across the border," Rollins suggested.
"Let's hold off on that. We're not sure if she's been trafficked at all. Until we know what language she speaks, I want to keep this in house as much as possible. Let's run down what we do know," the Sergeant said.
"All right. We have a Caucasian female victim approximately five foot seven, weighing one hundred and thirty pounds. She has extensive bruising, possible broken bones, and no apparent language skills. She was put in prison by someone who knows the system and has managed to circumvent the usual channels of command. My thing is, why our precinct? I mean there are plenty of other SVU precincts in the city. Why ours?" Rollins puzzled.
"That is a very good question," Benson nodded.
"X-ray results are all in and I've taken a look at them," Doctor Bernstein approached the two detectives.
"How bad is it?" Rollins asked.
"She's had multiple breaks in her arms and her legs which have healed. There is a hairline fracture on her collarbone which has not healed and a few hairline fractures on her ribs. There is obvious remodeling of the ribs so my guess is that whoever beat her knew what they were doing," Bernstein told them.
"How do you figure Doctor?" Benson asked.
"Well given the bruising, my guess is that our attacker made every attempt to harm her without causing damage that would actually require a hospital visit. Broken bones can be set without ever visiting a hospital but when a broken rib is involved a hospital trip is usually required to make sure that nothing was punctured. The slight hairline fractures I found would be enough to cause pain but also enough to heal by themselves provided the patient was not forced into any physical labor. She's going to need to be under our watch and care for the next few days at least," the Doctor explained.
"How long until we can take her to the city?" Olivia worried that the longer they were delayed in getting to the city, the better the chance that the perpetrator would have skipped town. Just then the gynecologist, Doctor Hill, exited the room.
"You are the detectives correct?" She asked. The African-American woman had a frown on her face that told both the detectives the news they were about to get was not good.
"Yes, we are," Rollins nodded.
"Well she certainly has been assaulted. I found tearing and scar tissue. I'm going to send the kit to the lab," she explained.
"Have them forward the results to the precinct, please," Benson gave her a card.
"Will do," and with that the doctor headed off down the hall.
"I'd give us until at least tomorrow afternoon before you can take her anywhere but that's pushing it," Bernstein said.
"Sounds good Doctor. Thanks again for all your help," Benson smiled at him. He nodded and then took off down the hall.
"I'll call Brian. You call Fin," she turned to Rollins and said.
To Be Continued…