TREMORS

CHAPTER 4

This chapter will be taking us on a little side-trip with SVU and Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson. It is based on a case that my sister worked as a detective, although I am taking liberties with the story. You will see how Annie fits into it by the end of the chapter, and next chapter will bring Bobby in.

Thank you as always to my beta, Spook.

"How's your partner doing?"

Alex Eames and Tom Spencer were having dinner at Sal's. Bobby's enthusiasm for the Veal Parmigiana had convinced her to give the place a try, and it was now one of her favorite restaurants. She sighed and smiled across the table at her handsome date.

"He's bored out of his mind, and probably driving his wife crazy. He's always had a lot of nervous energy, but it's hard to pace when you're on crutches. I finally took pity on him and took some case files over there for him to dissect. And I'm glad I did, he had some good insights."

"When is he having surgery?"

"Monday. Then it'll probably be another two months, at least, before he can come back to work. And he may have to be on desk duty for a while."

"If he is able to come back…" Tom said gently.

Alex fixed him with a steely stare. "Bobby will be back."

Tom smiled at her and held his hands up in mock surrender. "OK, OK, Goren will be back. And how is your temporary partner doing?"

"Barek? She's good…if you can get past the talking to herself thing," Alex laughed. "She is really good, though. She's done a lot of research on profiling….not as deeply into it as Goren, but a lot. I'm glad the captain gave her a shot at Major Case, even if it is temporary. I think she'd make a good addition to the squad. Enough about my adventures with partners….let's talk about you. Tomorrow's your day to pick up your kids, right?"

"Right." Tom said, suddenly nervous. "I…uh…I actually wanted to talk to you about that."

"Talk about what," Alex asked.

"My kids, and this weekend. I was wondering if you would like to meet them? Maybe go to the zoo with us?" Tom watched her closely for her reaction.

"Meet your children?" Alex saw the nervous way he was looking at her and realized this was an important step for him. Meeting his children seemed like an important step for her, too. Was she ready for it? She put her hand on top of his where it lay on the table and smiled at him. "Are you going to pick me up or are we going to meet there?"

*******************************************************************

Annie, curled up on the love seat in the bedroom, looked up from her book. Bobby was sleeping and she hoped he stayed that way for a while longer. In the week since his surgery the enforced confinement had only gotten harder for him. And for her. For the two weeks before his surgery, she thought that he might go crazy. He had finally gotten the hang of going up and down the stairs with crutches, so he spent a good deal of time in his basement office. Annie was grateful for that. Access to his computer and his books had eased his boredom, as had the case files that Alex brought to him for consultation. Annie continued to work, deciding it would be better to take time off when he actually had the surgery. She had already requested a week off in July, and now she requested the week before it as well. Allie's eleventh birthday rolled around and they celebrated with a small party at a pizza parlor.

She went back to reading her book. The day before she had taken the children to camp. This week was to have been time for Bobby and Annie to get away together while the children were at summer camp. But Bobby wasn't ready for traveling. He wasn't able to get into the Mustang at all yet, and even the SUV was uncomfortable. The longest period of time he had been in the SUV since the injury was the day before the surgery when Annie drove him and the children to Carmel Ridge to visit his mother. He had talked to her on the phone every day, but she was becoming increasingly angry and insistent on seeing him. He finally asked Annie to drive him to Carmel Ridge and she had, against her better judgment. She was afraid the long drive would be painful for him and that the time with his mother might be upsetting to him. She was correct that he was in pain by the time they reached the psychiatric facility. Bobby and the children went in to visit and Annie spent the afternoon exploring the shops in a nearby mall, since Frances still refused to see her. She didn't know if she had been correct about the visit upsetting Bobby, since he said nothing about it, other than it was "fine". The children talked about drawing pictures with Grandma, reading with her, and taking a walk with her. But they didn't say anything about what Grandma and Daddy talked about and Annie didn't ask. She was concerned that the children already felt torn in this protracted estrangement and she didn't want to put them in the position of spying on their father and grandmother to assuage her own curiosity.

It was early morning and unusual that Annie was awake before Bobby. His surgery had gone well. An outpatient procedure, he had gone home later that same afternoon. He still needed pain medicine and was sleeping more than usual, but his physical therapy was going well. She heard him stirring as he awakened and got up to check on him.

"Good morning, Babe," she said, leaning down to kiss his forehead.

"Morning," he replied gruffly.

"Do you need pain medicine?"

"I can get it myself, if I need it," he said irritably.

Bobby sat up and ran a hand through his hair. He got up and went into the bathroom. Annie smoothed out the sheets and blankets while he was gone. When he returned she asked, "Do you want breakfast now? I'll go make something for you."

"I'm not hungry."

She sighed and climbed onto the bed next to him. Still sitting on the side of the bed, Bobby noticed a stack of books and case files on the table next to the bed.

"Did you stack these?" He turned to look at her.

"Yes. You fell asleep with them spread out over the bed, so I stacked them up when I came to bed."

"I had them arranged; I was researching something. Now I don't know where anything was," he said accusingly.

Annie refused to be daunted by his bad mood. "It's all still there, Bobby. I just stacked them up. You know, so I could get in the bed too."

He scowled at her for a moment as she looked back serenely. Bobby reached for the bottle of pain pills on the table and took one. Then he stretched out on the bed and put one arm over his eyes. Annie lay quietly next to him for a few minutes.

"You should eat some food with the medicine. I'll get you some breakfast, OK?"

"I said I'm not hungry."

"You are very grumpy this morning," she said rolling onto her side to face him.

He ignored her. Annie sighed and got up off the bed. She went to the bathroom and closed the door. Several minutes later, when she emerged from the bathroom Bobby was still lying with his arm over his eyes.

"It's time for your bed bath, Mr. Goren."

He sighed gustily and said, "Annie, I'm not in the mood….just let me…."

He broke off as he looked up to find Annie standing next to the bed, wearing a nursing cap and a white teddy that plunged down in front, revealing her cleavage. She was holding a towel in one hand and the other hand was placed seductively on her hip. They hadn't made love since he injured his knee and the sight of her in the sexy lingerie and the playful stance dispelled his gloomy moody. A smile spread across his face and he began to chuckle.

"Well, Nurse, as tempting at that offer is, I'm afraid that my….uh….my mobility…..is somewhat…restricted."

Annie smiled and sat on the edge of the bed, leaning across to rest one hand on the other side of his body. She brought her face close to his, her mouth a breath away from his and said softly, "Oh really? Now I was thinking that what we really need to do…." she sat up and reached into the drawer in the table next to the bed, "is to restrict your mobility even more." She lifted her hand to reveal Bobby's handcuffs dangling from one finger.

His breath caught in his throat as he looked from the handcuff's to her smiling face. His deep laugh rumbled in his chest and he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her to him. His mouth found hers for a long, searing kiss.

******************************************************************

Olivia Benson knocked on the door of the small house. Her partner, Elliot Stabler, was standing behind her. Behind him were two uniformed officers. Olivia and Elliot were detectives with the elite Special Victims Unit and had the bad luck to be on call on this night. The door was opened by a woman of about fifty. Olivia and Elliot both held their badges out for her perusal.

"I'm Detective Benson," Olivia told her, "and this is Detective Stabler. Are you," she looked down at her notepad, "Mrs. Lightner? Did you call to report some children left alone?"

The woman nodded and stepped back to let them in. They followed her inside. The house was small, the furnishings old and shabby, but it was clean and tidy. She led them to the living room; her husband stood up and turned off the TV when they entered.

After introducing themselves, Elliot said, "Why don't you tell us about these children?"

"Well, there's four of them. The mother—her name is Mary—she leaves them alone a lot. But as far as we can tell, she hasn't been home since yesterday afternoon. And she hasn't been home yet tonight, so we thought we better tell someone." Mr. Lightner explained. His wife nodded in agreement.

Olivia asked, "And you're sure that there isn't an adult with the children? Maybe she has a babysitter?"

Mrs. Lightner shook her head. "No, there's never anyone there but her and the kids, except sometimes when she brings a man home. But she don't ever have a babysitter. Anytime she leaves, those kids are all alone."

"Do you know how old they are?"

Mrs. Lightner scratched her head. "We don't see much of the kids, but best I can tell the oldest isn't any more than about six, and the baby must be around eight or nine months now…they're all real small."

"How many children are there?"

"Four."

"Four?! And the oldest is only six?" Elliot looked at them in surprise. Mrs. Lightner nodded and her husband shrugged.

"OK," Elliot said, "can you show us which house they live in?"

"Oh, they live here," said the man.

"Here?! In your house?" Olivia and Elliot exchanged glances.

"Well, yeah." Mrs. Lightner looked at them with annoyance. "That's what I told them when I called in. We turned our basement into a studio apartment a few years ago and we rent it out."

Now Elliot's annoyance was showing. "You rented a studio apartment to a woman with four kids?"

"It's big," Mr. Lightner said defensively. "And she needed a place to stay. We were doing her a favor. As long as she paid the rent on time we didn't care how many kids she had. But she didn't pay last month and she hasn't paid this month, so I told her yesterday that if she didn't pay by today she was gonna have to move out. We can't afford to support her and her kids."

Olivia was angry now, and she could see her partner was struggling to control his temper as he said, "So let me get this straight. This call you made tonight…it's because you want us to evict this woman without you having to go to the trouble of filing papers and going to court to do it. Is that about right?"

"Uh, well…no…um…I…I mean, it's true she hasn't been home. We…uh…we were just…doing our…uh….our…." the man stammered, trying to find the right word.

"Our civic duty," his wife supplied.

"Yeah," he said, more sure of himself now. "We were doing our civic duty."

Olivia shook her head. "And if we take the kids into custody, then you can just lock the mother out and not go through the legal hassle of having her evicted," she said with disgust. "Fine, you've done your 'civic duty'. Just show us where the children are."

"The door to the basement is in the kitchen." The woman, nervous now, showed them into the kitchen.

Elliot turned to the couple in disbelief. "There's a padlock on the door. You locked her out while her kids are in there?"

"No! We didn't put that lock on there, she did. Mary locks it every time she leaves." The fury in Elliot's face caused the man to take a step backwards. "I…I think she locks because she thinks we'll go through her things when she's gone."

The uniformed officers had said nothing since entering the house, but Olivia could see the disgust on their faces as they stood back and let the detectives handle this couple. More worrisome to her was the dangerous look on her partner's face. She moved to stand next to him and placed her hand on his arm, hoping he would hold onto his temper. Of all the horror they routinely saw in their jobs, the abuse of children was the hardest for Elliot to deal with. She let some of her own anger creep into her voice as she spoke to the Lightners.

"Mary put this lock on the door? And you don't have a key to it?" They both shook their heads wordlessly. "So those kids have been down there alone for over twenty-four hours and you haven't seen them?" Again they shook their heads in the negative. "And you waited until tonight to call the police?"

"Well, the oldest girl…I mean she's young, but she seems to take care of the others. So we didn't worry too much when Mary didn't come back last night." Mrs. Lightner told them.

"Do you have bolt cutters in your squad car?" Elliot looked at the officers. One of them nodded and turned to go to the car. Elliot looked back at the couple, not bothering to hide his revulsion. "Is this the first time she's been gone this long?"

"Well, no…"

"So," Elliot continued in a deceptively quiet voice, "you've seen these four little children left alone before, but as long as the mother paid you on time you didn't bother to do anything about it?"

Neither of them answered. The silence seemed interminable as they waited for the officer to return with the bolt cutters. Once she did, she cut the lock off and opened the door to the basement. Olivia noted that it was dark as they went down the stairs; the large room was lit only by the ambient light of the television. The television also supplied the only sound. Olivia hoped the silence meant the children were asleep. She didn't want to think what other reasons could explain why four children were so quiet with strangers coming into their home. Not wanting to startle them with the glare of the overhead light, Elliot located a lamp and turned it on.

They were not asleep. Seated on the fold-out bed of a sofa were three small children. They were all facing the television, but turned now to look up at the people invading their small home. None of them cried or spoke, they simply looked up at the adults.

Olivia glanced around the large room. There was a small kitchenette along one end, a large closet along the other end. The only furnishings were the TV, the couch, one large chair, and a large dresser next to the closet. There seemed to be layers of dust and grime everywhere and the dirty carpet had obviously not been vacuumed in weeks, perhaps months. Dirty clothes were lying on the floor. The stench of dirty diapers and mildew was almost overpowering. But there were supposed to be four children. Olivia looked for a crib but there was none. Where was the baby?

Elliot moved to kneel in front of the little girl who seemed to be the oldest. The girl and her two brothers were all very blond, with blue eyes and fair skin. Elliot was concerned that they were not just fair-skinned, but that they had a very unhealthy pallor. They were dirty, as were the pajamas they were all wearing. He smiled at the girl and held out his badge as he gently spoke to her.

"Hi there. My name is Elliot and I'm a police officer. This is Olivia and those two officers are Johna and Harlana. What's your name, Honey?"

"Judy," she said softly as she smiled back at him and reached for his badge. She held it in her hands, running her fingers over it and looking at it with wonder.

"How old are you, Judy?"

"Eight." Elliot and Olivia exchanged surprised looks. Her small, thin frame looked more like a six year old.

"What are your brothers' names?"

"Sammy and Mikey."

Olivia knelt next to her partner and asked the little girl, "Judy, do you have another brother or sister? A baby?"

The girl nodded solemnly and said, "Yes, Susie."

"Where is Susie, Honey?"

Judy turned and pointed to the head of the bed, where it met the back of the sofa. "I couldn't get her out."

Elliot got up and scrutinized the bed. A chill went through him as he saw a small hand jutting above the mattress. "Oh my God, Liv! She's caught between the frame and the sofa!"

They quickly but gently moved the children from the bed to sit on the floor, and they pulled the mattress off the bed. They found the baby lying sideways and wedged firmly between the frame and the cushioned back of the sofa. She looked up at Elliot with big eyes, but did not cry. He slipped his hand between the frame and the sofa, wondering how she had gotten in there. The cushion had very little give to it and he had difficulty just getting his hand and arm in there. He tried to get his arm underneath her to push her up from below, but she was lodged too tightly and didn't move. Two more units arrived and police filled the room.

It took an hour to finally extricate the baby from the sofa. In all that time, she never cried or even whimpered; she simply lay quietly watching the people trying to get her out. The three older children sat where they had been placed and watched somberly. Officers Johna and Harlana sat on the floor with them, talking to them softly. Judy told them that Sammy was six years old and Mikey was three. She wasn't sure about Susie, but did remember that she was born around Halloween, which would put her age around nine months.

Mikey was wearing pull-up diapers that were saturated with urine and stool. Harlana searched the room and finally found, in a dresser drawer, one pull-up diaper and two smaller diapers for the baby. Meanwhile, Johna had searched and found a washcloth that seemed relatively clean. She rinsed it out in the sink and they changed Mikey's diaper. His skin was red and excoriated where it had been in contact with feces for a long period of time. However, they could not find any cream to put on it and so simply put the clean diaper on for the time being.

The room was brightly lit with the overhead light now. Once they freed Susie, Elliot and Olivia were able to take a good look at the children. The baby's diaper was just as saturated as Mikey's had been and Johna changed it, noting that she, too, had severe diaper rash. They were all small for their ages, thin, undernourished. Elliot, thinking of his own noisy and rambunctious children, found it disturbing that these children were so quiet and passive. They didn't cry, didn't seem afraid of all the strangers, didn't ask for their mother, and didn't even ask questions. They quietly and shyly answered direct questions, although Mikey's vocabulary was limited. A cursory examination revealed that they had head lice and scabies, a fact that caused most of the uniformed officers to shift uncomfortably. When Olivia stated they needed to take them to the emergency room to be checked, all of the officers but Johna and Harlana refused to meet her gaze.

"Oh for crying out loud," Harlana said with disgust. "What a bunch of wimps! We'll take them all in our car. We'll put Judy up front and I'll sit in the back with the other three."

"Thanks, Officer," Olivia said, sparing her own look of disgust at the others. "Why don't you take two of them and El and I will take two?"

As they brought the children up the stairs into the kitchen, the Lightners were trying to get a look at the basement. Elliot firmly closed the door behind him and told them not to go down there or touch anything until it had been cleared by the police. He had one of the officers put yellow tape across the door, gave his card to Mr. Lightner, and ordered them to call if Mary showed up. Olivia got in the back seat of the car with Susie and Judy, while Elliot drove. Harlana climbed into the back seat of their squad car with the two little boys and her partner drove. It was after midnight when they headed for the emergency room.

******************************************************************

Annie sighed and took a drink of soda. It was only midnight and she dreaded the long night. Since Bobby had been off work with his knee injury, she had been picking up extra shifts when she could. But she hated the night shift the most. She couldn't adjust to the night time hours and it was difficult to stay awake, especially on slow nights like this. She looked at the clock again, but it seemed to be moving more and more slowly. Most of the other doctors and nurses who were on duty were in the break room, playing cards. She had joined in for a while, but was too tired to concentrate, so she got up to get a soda and wander around trying to stay awake.

She looked up as she heard the doors open and saw Elliot Stabler, Olivia Benson, Officers Johna Jones and Harlana Simmons entering with four small, and very dirty, children. She was familiar with the detectives, having worked with them when a rape victim was brought to the ER. She also knew Johna and Harlana from times they had been to the hospital.

"Well, what have we here?" She smiled at the children, who shyly returned her smile.

"Mom disappeared and left the kids alone, locked up in a studio apartment in the basement of a house. We need to get them checked by a doctor before Children's Services takes over."

Annie realized that her quiet night, and her struggle to stay awake, had just ended. She nodded and led the entourage back to a room, telling the receptionist to get the resident. She took them to a large exam room.

Dr. Scott came in, took one look at them, and said, "I can't examine them like that. Get them cleaned up first and I'll be back."

Annie sighed and turned to exchange looks with the officers.

Olivia said, "Elliot and I will stay and help. You two can go ahead and get back to your patrol."

Annie had been examining the children and now she said, "Wait a minute before you go, girls." She rummaged around in a drawer, and then handed some bottles to the two officers. "You may not have been in contact with them long enough to get them, but this is shampoo for lice and this is lotion for scabies. You will probably want to use those when you get home in the morning. Just don't tell anyone I gave these to you, OK? I just don't want you to have to wait and go to your own doctors."

They both rolled their eyes and thanked her as they took the medicine. Elliot told them to put out Mary's description to other units and to keep an eye out for her.

"Oh, don't worry about that," Johna said. "I can't tell you how much we want to find that….woman."

After they left, Annie turned to look at the children again. She smiled at the detectives as she said, "Well, let's get to work."

End chapter 4

12