Chapter 25
An hour later the phone rang in the apartment and Elliot picked it up. Olivia looked up from where she was doing her home therapy exercises and saw the look on his face while he was conversing with the person on the other end. He certainly didn't look happy.
"What is it?" She asked as she sat up when he got off the phone.
"That was the Captain. There is no one left to claim Vivian's body except for Calvin. That name that was given to Social Services led to a grave in a Harlem cemetery," he said.
"Oh God," Olivia murmured.
"I have no idea what to do," Elliot admitted as he collapsed onto the couch. Olivia grabbed her crutches and heaved herself up off the floor before collapsing next to him.
"We have to get out in front of this. We need to be the ones to tell him that his mother passed away and we need to tell him that no matter what they say about her in the news that she always loved him," she said.
"How can we justify her leaving him and then not bothering to show up to a hearing she probably orchestrated?" He gave her a look.
"There's not exactly a Hallmark card out there that will fix that, I know, but we can't shelter him either. He's going to hear all about what Price is claiming she did. I can't even begin to imagine how he's going to feel about that. We need to tell him that we love him and that no matter what we're here to help. I will see if he wants us to handle the funeral arrangements," Olivia offered.
"Let's do it together. He needs us to be strong and we have to be united in a decision," Elliot took her hand and gave it a squeeze. She nodded and wondered just how one starts a conversation like that.
Meanwhile at the precinct, Tucker was snooping around. All the computer terminals inside the unit had been turned over to TARU and they had been combed for access dates of the databases. Desks had been searched for anything that implicated who had been writing down badge numbers. So far everything had amounted to a whole lot of nothing and the Lieutenant was reaching the end of his rope.
"How is it that everything on this case went so very smooth for our criminals?" He asked Cassidy.
"I have no idea. Someone had to slip up somewhere," the younger man pointed out.
"I agree. It's too clean. No way this whole thing gets put together so cleanly by two convicts, a mentally unbalanced woman, and a soon to be ex-police officer. One of them had to trip up somewhere," Tucker heaved a sigh, not sure what rock to look under next.
"Why don't we see what the phone records show for everyone in the unit? If they thought they were getting away with it then maybe they called one another," Cassidy suggested.
"They dumped the records on the phones that Price had on him. The calls all went to burner phones except the calls to Mindy Smith's phone. Price called her direct," the Lieutenant gave his partner a look.
"She doesn't have any ties to the NYPD, we checked," Brian reminded him.
"Yes but of our bunch only the mole and Mindy could have purchased the listening devices without drawing attention to themselves. That's where they slipped up. Let's go talk to Mindy again and let her know that if she thought larceny and harassment charges were bad, she should just wait until we charge her as an accomplice to multiple counts of murder and rape," Tucker suggested.
"If that doesn't get her attention, I don't know what will," Cassidy nodded.
To Be Continued…