Chapter 7
"Preliminary results do show blood on the knife. Unfortunately, it's so preliminary they don't know if it's human. She could have just used the knife to cut up a steak or something," Fin reported.
Having seen the very large and lethal-looking switchblade, Elliot doubted Lynn would have used it for anything other than serious business.
"But I do have something interesting on the photo." Munch said, holding it out. "E L D apostrophe S Marina. Sure it could be anywhere, but I figured I'd check out all the Marinas in New England and on Lake Michigan, locations around where we know Theresa lived. If the place is still in business then there're only a couple of matches. There's Berkeld's Marina down the Jersey Shore, near Wildwood, and Oscar Rhingeld's Marina just south of Chicago, in Indiana. Since we're probably not going to get budget approval for a flyer to the Midwest on this one, I thought we might want to start with the Jersey Shore."
"Maybe she can shed some light. Give me the photo," Stabler said. As Benson started to follow, he turned, "Give me a few minutes alone with her, Liv." At her somewhat doubtful look, he assured her, "Come on, I'm a pussy cat."
He entered the room alone. "Hi Theresa."
She didn't look up at him.
He sat down next to her. "We found this picture in your stuff. That's you, isn't it?"
She didn't look at the proffered photo. "I didn't say you could go through my stuff. And my name's not Theresa."
"We had a search warrant. Where was the photo taken?"
She folded her arms.
"OK, who's the guy you were with?"
She said nothing.
"Come on, who's the guy? Is it the guy who hurt you? You tore him out of the photo. Must have hated him pretty good."
She was still and silent.
"Lynn, Denise, Theresa - whatever you want to call yourself," he leaned closer to her, his large frame dwarfing her small one, his face close enough that he knew she could feel his breath against her ear. He kept his voice low and quiet. "We know what that bastard did to you. He doesn't deserve you covering for him, you know. Not after all those years of pain and torment. How old were you when he first raped you?"
She blinked at his last question, but then recovered. "I'm not Theresa, and I'm not covering for anyone. Leave me the fuck alone!"
"Where did you live before you came here?"
"Around."
"Who did you live with?"
"My father."
The father again, Stabler thought. Was it her real father or the sadist? Or, he thought for the first time, maybe the two were the same? "What's your father's name?"
"Bartell."
The same name she'd used, at least part of the time. "What's his first name?"
She shrugged. "I called him Dad."
"You don't know your father's name?"
She shrugged again.
"Where is he now?"
"Around."
"He your real father?"
She shrugged.
"And where's your mother?"
"Dead."
"What was your mom's name?"
She shrugged.
"Got any pictures of her?"
She shook her head.
"Is this your father's arm around you in this picture?" He held up the photo again.
She didn't respond.
"Jersey Shore's real nice, did you live out there?" He looked closely at her, doubting that she would respond to his question verbally, but he'd been a cop a long time. It was there, a slight twitch in the muscle of her jaw. Yep, Jersey it was.
"Stay put, I'll be back."
Stabler exited the room. Munch, Fin and Benson were watching from outside. "Yep, Jersey Shore. You guys mind checking it out?" he asked Munch and Fin, handing over the photo.
"Too bad I don't have my swim trunks," Munch said.
"It's Jersey, not Miami, be glad you don't have them," Fin said. "Yeah, we up for a road trip."
"Au contraire, my friend," Munch countered. "Thousands recreate in the lovely sands of the Jersey Shore every summer. The beaches are much better nowadays. Ever since New Jersey took our fair state to court to pay to clean up all our garbage washing ashore."
"Still don't mean that I ever want to see you in a bathing suit," Fin grunted and they departed.
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Benson picked up the packet of things from Lynn's apartment and entered the room. It was her turn, she'd told Elliot, asking him to wait outside. He wasn't pleased, but sometimes a tag-team approach worked. He sat down on the edge of the table and watched through the two-way glass.
"Hi Theresa," Olivia smiled and sat down.
"I'm not Theresa"
"Denise?"
"I like Lynn."
"OK. Lynn then. How are you doing? Can I get you anything?"
"Why am I here?" the girl asked. "I want to leave."
Benson put her hand on Lynn's arm. "I'm sorry, honey. We're just trying to help you. We want to catch the people that hurt you. The men in the diner, and, well, the man who was hurting you before."
"I want to leave," she repeated.
"I know you do. I just want you to know that we're on your side. We're only keeping you here to try to help you."
"I don't need your fucking help."
"I know you don't. You got by without anyone, through that hell for a long time. But now don't you want some help? Don't you want these guys punished for what they did to you? We can put them in prison if you help us."
"I just want to be left alone."
Benson smiled. "I know, honey, I know."
"I'm not your honey. Don't act like you care about me."
"I do care."
A snort was the only reply.
"Look here, I've got some of your things from your apartment. I thought you'd want to have them safe with you."
That was smart, Elliot thought, watching Olivia work through the glass. That box was mostly junk, but it seemed like everything the girl had in the world. Giving it back to her would surely generate some degree of trust. Everything had been photographed, dusted for prints, and catalogued, so giving it to her wouldn't harm the investigation.
The girl took the box and looked through it.
"Everything's there except the picture. Look here. Here's you locket." Benson reached in and pulled out the cloth bag, and opened it. "See, it's safe and sound."
Lynn's eyes grew wider at the sight of the gold necklace, and even through the glass, Elliot could see she shied away slightly, her gaze not leaving the hand that held the locket.
"I read the engraving on it. 'You'll always belong to me, Daddy.' That's nice. Did your father give you this?" She asked.
Lynn shrugged.
"My mother gave me this necklace, see?" Benson reached into her shirt collar and pulled out the pendant necklace she often wore. "I wear it a lot. Do you wear yours?"
Lynn shook her head. She was still looking at the locket clasped in Benson's hand.
"Does 'You'll always belong to me' have any special meaning?" Benson asked.
"No. Can I go now?" Lynn looked away.
"Let's talk some more."
Stabler watched from the window, taking note of Lynn's reaction to the necklace and Benson's questions about it. He wished Huang was still here to help him figure her out. She had certainly shut down after that, no longer looking at Benson or at the necklace. No longer responding to Benson's questions. She had her arms crossed and was looking down at the table. Something about the necklace had shut her down. He recalled the inscription. "You'll always belong to me." Now that was a message that could have a double meaning.
Was 'Daddy' the sadist? Was the locket a sign of his power over her - you'll never escape because you'll always belong to me. But if she had escaped him, why had she kept the necklace? Wouldn't she leave it behind as a symbol that she had escaped him? Maybe she'd take it with her as proof of her strength - to look at it and know that this man no longer had power over her. If only they knew who Daddy was.
It looked like Benson wasn't getting very far. The girl was back to smoking with sharp hostile movements. He watched and waited.
An hour later, Stabler was getting bored outside the interrogation room. Watching his partner continue to treat Lynn with kid gloves was proving to be coma inducing. The girl remained mute. He rubbed his eyes and took another swig of the coffee that had grown cold long ago. He thought back over the case. Abducted or otherwise gone missing at age six from a suburb of Chicago, turned up at age 17 working at a local greasy spoon. Mother disappeared, abductor God only knows where. Did she escape? Was she running from the man who had abducted her? The use of an alias indicated she was hiding from someone.
Medical evidence showed signs of physical and sexual abuse for most or all of those missing years, but they had no other info about her life at that time. Except a photo indicating that she'd been in New Jersey at some point - probably around age fourteen. She had no material possessions except a shoebox holding a few trinkets - no friends, nobody close to her. She said her mother was dead and she didn't know where her father was.
The girl was uncommunicative and uncooperative, and had tried to run. Did she not believe they were trying to help her? He scratched his eyelid, an unconscious gesture he made when he was concentrating. Only a few days ago she'd been attacked - raped in front of the patrons of the restaurant she worked at. She'd been treated inhumanly - forced to perform a sex act on a gun barrel, violated by that gun and by the man who held it, threatened with death several times… Yet she had been uncooperative every step of the investigation and seemed to have no concern that her attacker be caught.
That diner attack was brutal, he thought, but remembering the photos of the girl the medical staff had taken, it was no more brutal than what she had already survived, already endured. Was the diner rapist related to her previous life or just some random creep? The diner guy couldn't be the sadist kidnapper; witnesses put his age too young. A guy who kidnapped a girl ten years ago would likely be a lot older. How old, he wondered. It generally took violent pedophiles a while to work up the nerve and skill to pull off something like Theresa's abduction. The guy who snatched Theresa - if that's what happened - had left no trace. Elliot suspected he'd be in mid forties at least by now, an experienced pedophile - definitely not the much younger diner rapist. It didn't mean the diner rapist wasn't involved, though, but he had no idea how.
His mind turned back to his long frustrations with this case. He rubbed his forehead, thinking, looking at the girl behind the glass. She was tough… Hard… Uncooperative… She hadn't believed they wanted to help her.
Didn't she think she deserved any better than to be abused and assaulted? Huang had suggested as much. The girl had at least been to school, indicating she'd had some measure of freedom, and yet she hadn't obtained help for herself. What kind of hold did her abuser have on her? Was he still in the picture? It didn't seem so. She seemed alone.
The questions he had about this case far exceeded the answers. He'd worked a lot of tough cases in his days, so having more questions than answers wasn't an uncommon situation, but it was a frustrating one. He examined the girl through the window - slim and small, her brown hair tied up in a ponytail, wearing ill-fitting clothes that CPS must have found for her. He squinted, moving closer. He wanted to see her eyes - the eyes that he'd read as someone much older than seventeen when he'd first seen her in the diner. The distance and bad lighting of the interrogation room prevented him getting the view he wanted, but he remembered her eyes.
"Fresh coffee?" Cragan held a cup out to him.
Elliot shook his head to clear the jumble of thoughts from his brain, surprised at his boss's sudden appearance before him. "Thanks. I could use it." He took the cup and drank. Nothing like squad room coffee - if you liked your acid harsh and cheap, that is, he thought, although at least it was hot and a jolt of caffeine rarely went amiss in his line of work.
"Any progress?"
"Not really. Did you hear anything from Munch and Fin yet?"
Cragan looked at his watch. "No, I'll bet they haven't even gotten to the marina yet. It's going to take them a while to get across town, over the bridge, and that far down the coast. And it's Friday - there'll be weekend traffic."
"Did Huang stop by to see you?"
Cragan nodded. "I've got something back from the lab that you should hear. Let's pull Olivia out. Looks like they could both use a break."
Through the window, Elliot saw that Lynn was resting her head on folded arms on the table, ignoring Benson.
Cragan knocked on the door.
"Yeah, Cap?" Benson said, coming out and shutting the door behind her.
"The blood on the knife. It is human. No DNA matches so far, but the lab's still running checks."
"So she has stabbed someone," Stabler said.
"Or she cut herself on it," Olivia replied.
"No, no match to her DNA from the rape kit. The blood belongs to a male, type O," Cragan told them.
"She could have bought or found the knife on the street. The blood could be anyone's. Could be unrelated," she argued.
"Yeah, maybe." Elliot said, not trying to keep the doubt from his voice.
"She still keeping stum?" Cragan asked.
"Yep, totally shut down. Hell, I think she's asleep in there."
Elliot could tell that even his partner's normally unlimited patience was wearing slightly thin with Lynn.
"We knew it wouldn't be easy. Take a break." Cragan sighed. "Let's see if Munch and Fin turn up anything. Check back with forensics, too. Maybe they've got a hit on the DNA by now."
"Captain, she's been in there for hours," Olivia said. "I think we should send her back to CPS for the time being."
"She's our only source of information," Elliot argued.
"El, she's exhausted. She's only seventeen years old. How would you feel if it was Maureen or Kathleen in there?"
That was hitting below the belt. The thought of one of his girls in Lynn's place made him feel physically ill. "First of all, I don't appreciate that, Olivia – my kids are off limits. Second, if something, God forbid, happened to one of my girls, you can believe I'd damn well want her to cooperate with the cops to help them catch the guy."
"I didn't mean it that way, Elliot. I just means she's a kid and she's been in the box for hours."
"Olivia's right. We're getting nowhere," Cragan said. "Huang said she'd be a tough one. I think you're going to have to give her some time. Call CPS to come get the girl. You guys, take a break. Go home. Get a some sleep and something to eat."
Fifteen minutes later, Elliot sat broodily at his desk, alone in the squad room, shuffling through evidence reports hoping that something, anything, would come to light in this case.
"I thought you were going home." Benson's voice sounded as she crossed the room.
"I thought you were," he retorted.
"Well, I'm not. But I did get some dinner. Want some kung pao?" She lifted the bag she was carrying.
Elliot sat back in his chair and looked up at his partner curiously. He knew for a fact that she didn't much care for kung pao herself, but she had to know it was his favorite. And the bag definitely held more than just dinner for one. He smiled. "Sure. Smells good."
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Elliot took another bite of the kung pao from the white box. It was nice and greasy, just the way he liked it. Since his separation, he'd been enjoying even more unhealthy quantities of take-out food than a cop usually did. He'd have to get some more time in the gym, he thought, the waistband of his pants feeling just a bit tight. Or try a salad or something, he told himself ruefully, putting the box of half-eaten Chinese down on the desk.
"El, I'm sorry about what I said before. You were right, your family's off limits." Olivia said in between bites of her fried rice.
"It's OK, Liv. I know what you meant. I'm sorry for being so prickly about things. This case it just…"
"It gets to you," she finished for him.
"Yeah."
"How come?"
"I'm not sure. I mean, I feel sorry for her, for what she's had to have gone through."
"Yeah, but - "
"I know, I generally feel that way with all the victims. Something about this girl, though… She just puts me a little bit off balance. Messes up my timing or instincts or something. She's so openly hostile when all we want to do is help her."
"We've had hostile victims before," she reminded him.
"Yeah, but for the most part they had reasons to be hostile - to not want to work with us because they've been burned by cops before or something. But this is one case where we can really help this girl. But she's throwing our help away. Maybe she thinks she's not worth it, but then what does that make us worth?"
"You know you can't look at this rationally, not after what she's been through. She's bound to be… messed up. And what if she was burned by the system in the past? We have no way to know what happened to her. What if she tried to get away from this sadist that had her and some cop or other authority figure didn't believe her. You know how that could happen."
Yeah, he thought, he did. He'd seen it before - where someone being abused did try to get help only to be disbelieved or ignored by people who couldn't be bothered to give a damn. "Yeah, but she's smart. You've seen it. And she's independent and strong. I hate to see her still letting herself be a victim."
He walked over to the board, a wheeled bulletin board where they posted information and pieces of evidence from the case. It was a free-form technique that sometimes allowed them to make connections they might have otherwise missed. He'd stood before this board many times during many cases, but so far nothing new had been forthcoming in this one. It was all speculation. He looked at the sketches of the diner suspects, photos of her shoebox trinkets, the bloody knife, her bruises and scars… There must be something here that can help us, he told himself, angry because if there was something there, he sure wasn't seeing it.
A phone rang and Benson answered it.
As Elliot listened to the few words of her side of the conversation, the hairs on the back of his neck started to prickle. It was an instinct that had served him well in the past and he trusted it. Something was definitely happening. Maybe they'd finally catch a break on this one.
"What?" he asked when she put down the phone.
"We need to talk to Cragan."
In Don Cragan's office, Olivia briefed them both on her call from Munch.
"They found a guy at the marina that knew Lynn as Denise Bartell. She was living in Wildwood with her father Frank Bartell until about six months ago. He worked at the marina. That is his arm around her in the photo."
"Frank," Elliot murmured, remembering the neighbor's repeating of Lynn's unguarded words: 'How come I can never get rid of you, Frank?'
"Did they find Bartell?" Cragan asked.
Olivia looked at him. "Bartell's dead. They found his body in a shallow grave out of town a couple months ago."
"Oh my God," Elliot exclaimed. "That's why she's not hiding from her abductor. She's not scared he's going to come after her. She killed him. That's why she's more scared of us than of the bastard who raped her." Things were finally making some sense.
"We don't know that, Elliot," Cragan said. "Or do we? What do the Jersey cops say?"
"Well they've been looking for her as a person of interest. That's all Munch found out so far. But he's probably had a chance to get more information by now."
Cragan picked up the phone, dialed it, put it on speaker.
"Hi Captain," Munch's flat nasal voice sounded through the room.
"Just so I'm clear, this Frank Bartell was supposedly the girl's father, and he's been found murdered?"
"Yep. A hiker's dog dug him up. Grave in the woods. Their ME report says he'd exsanguinated. Been cut up pretty bad with a big knife."
"Like the one we got off her?" Elliot asked.
"They'll have to check to be sure, but the knife we found does look consistent with the size of the blade noted in their ME's report as the murder weapon."
That was that, Elliot thought, nodding. Lynn had to be the doer. She had the knife. She had the motive. Revenge? Escape? Either would do as well. Bartell was her 'Daddy' and must be the man who had abused her. Elliot had occasionally dreamed about killing pedophiles himself and if there was anyone that deserved to take a dirt nap it was this guy.
Munch was still talking. "Whoever cut him up did a number on him post-mortem. The ME said that it looks like the first blow caught an artery and killed him. The assailant kept stabbing even after he was dead. Definitely looks like a rage killing. More than a dozen stab wounds in total and…" his voice trailed off.
"And?" asked Cragan.
"Whoever killed him cut off his genitals."
"It's got to be her," Elliot said. "He raped and tortured her for years. If anyone had incentive to perform a sexual mutilation like that, it was her."
"We've got some DNA samples from their lab, we'll send them up to be run against the knife and the DNA we've got from her," Munch said.
It'll match, Elliot thought, certain of it. Lynn would possibly end up in prison for murder. The thought of her in lockup after the hell her young life must have been didn't sit well with him. She might get off, he told himself - some kind of post-traumatic defense. It would only take one juror being convinced that Bartell deserved to die to do it. He knew if he was on that jury and if he saw the photos of Lynn showing the evidence of her torment that he'd be hard-pressed to convict under any circumstance.
He willed himself to stop thinking about that. He was getting ahead of things. First get to the truth. Then make the arrests, if warranted. A trial, should there be one, was a long way into a distant and unpredictable future.
Cragan nodded. "Good. I feel more comfortable with our people working the forensics. One thing I want to find out is if the blood on the knife was his, was he her real father?"
"Doesn't seem likely, Cap," Elliot said.
"Yeah, but let's find out for sure." Cragan spoke into the speakerphone again. "Haven't the cops issued an arrest warrant for her? Why didn't we pick up on this?"
"They haven't. Seems that they thought the kid was probably a victim as well - apparently there's some evidence that she didn't dig the grave that they found, so they didn't consider her a primary suspect. They've been digging up half the woods around here to try to find her body, thinking some psycho killed them both."
That struck Elliot as a bit stupid on the part of the New Jersey cops. The multiple stabbings and genital mutilation definitely pointed to a crime of passion, not something a random killer would likely do. He knew if he'd been on the case he'd have looked at any family members or close friends right off the bat. Of course, he thought, the Jersey cops didn't know everything that he did. They most probably did not know what Bartell was.
