Thought Police

Disclaimer: If you recognize it, it's not mine. This story is on an AU track.

Chapter 5: Play a Hunch

"Poor guy," Colby commented as he stepped into the passenger's seat of the SUV. "I see what you mean about the mess the local PD made. I would've probably wanted to hit somebody too."

"I almost did," Alex admitted, "and I didn't know about the innuendo. But there's another layer when it comes to Mike. Fifteen years ago, while he was on the job he lost his temper and threw a punch at a recently-acquitted suspect in front of a press barricade."

Colby winced. "How bad did that turn out?"

"He was lucky not to be thrown off the force," Alex replied bluntly. "As it was, they buried him in a remote precinct on Staten Island for a decade; he finally clawed his way out with the help of our old Captain - the same guy he works for in the private sector now. But some people never forget. In some circles, he's been painted with the rageaholic label ever since. Cops are pretty split on the issue; to some he's a hero, to others, he never should've kept his shield. I didn't want to find out the hard way which way these guys lean."

"Think that's what the defense in that trial threw at him?" Colby asked curiously. "He seemed like he'd been pretty rattled."

Alex shook her head. "No, I don't think so. If that had been it, he might have been irritated, but reminding him of that incident wouldn't be enough to throw him off. Mike's a lot tougher than that. But as to what it could've been -" She shrugged. "If he wanted me to know, he would've told me, and that's good enough for me. If it's not relevant to the case, I try not to pry too deeply into people's personal lives." She couldn't help a small chuckle. "Of course, it helps that my partner used used to do all the prying for both of us, and he barely had to ask a single question."

"The same one you were telling me about? The one who didn't like to drive?"

"Yeah, him." She smiled. "I could fill volumes with all the interesting things he did."

"Sounds like you could practically read his mind by the end," he commented with a smile.

Alex grinned, blushing a bit. "You could say that."

"Hey, no reason to be embarrassed. I had a partner like that once too. Nikki used to give us so much crap for it too. Referred to me as David's girlfriend whenever she got the chance." He laughed softly. "To be fair, we didn't exactly go out of our way to dissuade her. We once went to dinner as each other's dates to win a bet."

Alex laughed too. "Really?"

"Oh, yeah. And the ironic part is that the bet came up in the first place because Nikki was teasing David and me about not having a social life."

"What happened to him?"

A mock annoyed expression filled Colby's face. "Bastard left me for DC." Then he couldn't hold the facade anymore and grinned. "Nah, actually I was happy for him. He got his own team; I know he'd been wanting that for awhile. It's just...having my best friend on the other side of the continent, especially coming from a situation where I saw him pretty much every day, isn't always easy. What about you?" he added. "Did you leave your partner, or did he leave you?"

She chuckled. "He retired. He was...different, and the department wasn't exactly accepting of it. The brass was always looking over his shoulder, waiting for the moment when he was going to suddenly lose his mind or some such. Most of the department, except the people who worked with him directly, thought he was off his rocker. And don't get me started on the 'blue wall' crap - suffice to say, he didn't believe in it, and some people didn't like that. After a decade of things just getting progressively worse, I think he decided he'd had enough. I took the promotion after he left; that was enough to make me think it might be time for a change myself." She shrugged. "At least he still lives in the same city."

"You see him a lot?"

"I didn't, at first," she admitted. "It was kind of weird between us. It was like we didn't know how to define our relationship once we weren't partners anymore. It took seeing one of my friends take the plunge to make me admit that I, you know, had feelings for him." She blushed again, unconsciously running her left thumb over the metal band on her ring finger. "Now we have a six-month-old baby, we're engaged, and it feels strange to go through a day where I don't see him."

Colby whistled softly. "Wow. Mike mentioned a fiance but I didn't realize it was your partner. Makes sense, though. You talk as if you're all but joined at the hip already."

"I suppose I do. And no, Mike wouldn't say anything unless he was certain I was okay with it. He knows what kind of stigma can hang around when even ex-partners start dating, and he and Carolyn were only partners for a year, nothing like me and Bobby."

"Don't tell me. NYPD has anti-fraternization rules."

She nodded. "Yeah. I know the FBI doesn't, but our brass is pretty insistent still. I mean, on one hand I kind of get that failed relationships can lead to problems, jealousy, mistrust, that kind of thing, but why not just address those problems if and when they pop up?"

Colby shrugged. "Hey, I'm on your side. I mean, apart from everything you just said, problems can happen in any relationship between two people, not just romances. And I should know," he added. "For all we were close most of the time, David and I had a major falling-out at one point. It got so bad that officers from other units were commenting. Actually, come to think of it, Don and Liz were dating at the time. They broke up a month later, and I think everyone would still agree that any tension between them, at any point, was nothing compared to David and me for a few weeks in there."

Alex laughed. "I rest my case." Then her mind latched onto something else. "Wait - Don and Liz? Really?"

"Oh, yeah. They're the perfect example to illustrate the point, though, if you think about it. If you didn't already know they used to date, you'd never guess it from the way they interact. Surprise, surprise, two people who dated and broke up are capable of working together and even being friends."

The conversation was forestalled when Alex slowed, flicking on the turn signal, only to swear softly and lean on the horn a moment later when someone cut around her, preventing her from making the turn. She grinned at Colby anyway. "New York, where the rules of the road are just suggestions."

He laughed. "Oh, please, I live in LA, I'm used to it. Threw me for a loop at first, though," he admitted. "I'm a small-town boy by birth. The first time some guys at Quantico talked me into spending an evening in DC, I was an accident waiting to happen. My friends actually threatened to get me wasted so they'd have an excuse not to let me drive."

Alex was laughing too as she pulled into the parking lot. "Did they?"

"Didn't have to. I was enjoying the experience about as much as they were; I was happy to let someone else take the wheel for the night, even if it was my car, and ease into the whole 'city traffic' thing at a less...instantaneous pace."

"You want to talk instantaneous pace," she retorted playfully, "try being a teenager growing up in the city. I was dealing with this kind of traffic as soon as I started learning to drive."

"Oh." Colby gave an exaggerated mock shudder. "I don't even want to think about that."

They'd reached the front door at this point, and by unspoken agreement, they paused for a moment to collect themselves and focus back on the case. "Okay," Alex said once they were both mentally back to the issue at hand. "Let's see if this gets us anywhere."

xxxxxxxxx

"She put on a good show, but I don't think they were fooled."

The ADA's reply was forestalled when his phone rang loudly. "Hang on a sec." He grabbed up the receiver. "Barba." He listened for a moment, sighing audibly. "All right, fine. Send them up." He turned back to the Sergeant sitting across from him. "Apparently, the FBI wants a word."

"About what?" she replied after thinking over every open case they had. "I can't think of anything we've done recently that would've stepped on anyone's toes. Or anything that they might be interested in taking from us."

"No toe-stepping," a voice said from the doorway. "We promise."

The Sergeant turned in surprise, recognizing the voice. "Alex!"

The blonde woman smiled. "Hey, Liv. And you must be ADA Barba," she added to the man sitting beside the desk, extending a hand to him. "Lieutenant Alex Eames, Joint Terrorism. I'm sorry to bother you, but this really couldn't wait."

He took her hand, a confused expression crossing his face. "I thought they said you were FBI."

"I'm FBI," the man who had walked in behind her explained. "Agent Colby Granger. I think we may have confused the front desk staff a bit."

"ADA Rafael Barba, and this is Sergeant Olivia Benson." The man shook Colby's hand as he quickly introduced the two of them. "Take a seat. So, what is this about?"

"Mike Logan," Alex replied, taking the offered seat. "He said he was testifying for you."

Benson immediately sat up straighter. "What happened? Is he okay?"

"Has he done something?" Barba asked at the same time.

"He's fine, and no." Alex answered them both at once. "Listen, what I'm about to say...you need to keep it to yourselves, okay?" She paused to let them acknowledge that before continuing. "It's his girlfriend who's in trouble. She's missing, almost certainly not of her own volition. She's also an FBI agent; that's why the secrecy, and why we're involved. But we think it's possible that whoever took her may have found her by following Mike, and his taking the witness stand would have given someone a chance to pick him up. He said he took the stand twice?"

"That's right," Benson confirmed. "Once a few months ago, and once last week."

"So I'm asking you - both of you, since Olivia's here - did you see anything, anyone, that seemed out of place either time?"

Barba considered the question for a moment. "Nothing jumps out at me, but that doesn't mean much. The examination and the cross were taking up most of my attention, especially this last time," he added with a grimace. "I'm not sure I would've noticed anything short of an all-out brawl in the gallery."

"Which, according to what Olivia's told me, has happened," Alex quipped. Barba smiled slightly, and Colby gave a small chuckle, but the Sergeant in question didn't react. "Liv? You with us?"

"There was something," she said after a moment. "At that first trial. I didn't put much stock in it at the time, just thought it was a little odd, but...there was a guy in the gallery who I couldn't make sense of."

"Why?" Colby was leaning forward slightly, his interest piqued. "What was he doing?"

"It's what he didn't do that caught my attention. The ME took the stand right before Logan - that's how I'm positive this guy was there for his testimony - and there were some pretty graphic pictures involved, several of which were displayed to the courtroom. I've been working Special Victims for fifteen years and even I was taken aback. A couple of the jury actually looked like they might be sick, and a few of the people in the gallery excused themselves in a hurry. But this guy...he didn't react at all. Didn't so much as flinch."

"Did you get a good look?" Alex asked almost breathlessly. Could this be the break we need?

"Oh, yeah. Believe me, that non-reaction got my attention quick. I mean, I never suspected anything like this, but I thought he might be, you know, one of those sickos who gets off on hearing about other people's suffering, and those kinds of people...there's more than a passing chance that they'll end up committing crimes themselves. I wanted to remember what he looked like...just in case."

"Would you be able to give us a sketch?"

She nodded firmly. "Absolutely. Tell you what, let's save ourselves both some time and trouble. I was about to head back to the precinct anyway, I'll grab one of our sketch artists and send the finished product over to you as soon as we have one."

"Not my office," Alex corrected quickly. "We're working this one out of Major Case."

"Major Case, then," she agreed. "And let me know if there's anything else I can do to help."

"I don't think our case is going to cross over with yours that much," Alex said as she stood to leave. "But I appreciate the offer."

The Sergeant shrugged. "An officer's missing. As far as I'm concerned, when that happens, any cop who can help should. Besides," she added, "it's also important to Logan. He's been nothing if not committed to these cases, regardless of how much our needs cut into the rest of his life; the least I can do is help out on this." Barba shot her an irritated look, but she ignored it. "Come on, I'll walk you out."

Alex just barely waited for the door to close behind the three of them before asking the question burning on her lips. "What was that about?"

She sighed. "Suffice to say, the cross on Logan got a bit messy in this last trial."

"So he said," Colby chimed in. "But in my experience, that happens. And it doesn't explain why he'd be mad at the witness instead of the defense attorney."

"It's...complicated," Benson said after a moment. "His testimony was pretty solid on its face, so the defense dug pretty deep into his background to find anything they could use to muddy the waters. They ended up finding something that Barba wasn't aware existed. He was..."

"Less than thrilled?" Alex suggested.

"That's putting it mildly, but yes."

"You seem to be taking it a bit better," Colby remarked.

Benson shrugged. "It's not the best spot to be put in, I grant Barba that, but I don't think it hurt us any. But he's still ticked off about getting caught off guard that way."

"What was it?" Colby asked. "That thing Alex was telling me about where he punched a guy?"

Olivia looked perplexed for a moment, then chuckled slightly and shook her head. "The Crossley incident? No, we knew about that. We'd be pretty poor detectives if we didn't, it's still one of the first things that comes up if you google 'Mike Logan'. No, they had to dig pretty deep for this one, deeper than we had time to or thought we had a reason to."

Alex's eyes widened slightly as a final piece fell into place. "They didn't...they brought his childhood into it?"

Olivia nodded, closing her eyes slightly. "The evidence is heavily on our side, and the defense knew it. They're trying for reasonable doubt, but in order for that to even have a chance to work they have to find somewhere in the investigation to poke holes. So they tried to imply that Logan had biased the investigation towards the mother, causing us to focus on her as our lead suspect before we fully ruled out other possibilities."

"That's ridiculous," Alex said flatly. "I hope that when you said you don't think it hurt you, it means the jury didn't buy that crap."

"Didn't seem that way. What the defense apparently failed to take into account was that bringing up a witness' traumatic childhood would make the jury feel for him. Pretty much from the get-go it came across as the defense attorney bullying a sympathetic witness. Then Mike managed to get his game face back on and actually turned some of the questions around, strengthening his own position with his answers. And then, just to top it all off, Barba recalled my partner as a rebuttal witness to clear up what Logan had said to us and how we came to consider the mother a suspect; of course, being thorough and all, he made sure to point out that one had nothing to do with the other. When all was said and done, I think the defense came out of that exchange worse than we did. Which doesn't mean that I think it's all perfectly okay," she added. "It's hard enough for people who know that's what they're getting into. Blindsiding someone like that is a dirty trick in my book."

"It sounds like him saying he had a bad day was the understatement of the day," Colby commented, "even before his girlfriend disappeared."

"That was the same day?" Olivia said incredulously. "My God." She ran a hand across her face. "Would her name happen to be Carolyn?"

Alex and Colby exchanged startled looks before turning them on Olivia. "How..."

"Nothing sneaky or labor-intensive," she assured them. "I saw him in the hall after he testified. I went up to him to ask if he was okay, if he needed anything, and I heard him on the phone with her. It seemed like she was a real source of support for him - damn." She sighed audibly as the elevator door dinged open. "I'll get that sketch to you as quick as I can."

xxxxxxxxx

"Zero luck with the tourists," Lisbon reported tiredly. "And not for lack of trying. I don't think anyone saw McNeil at the pickup point. Probably intentional on the part of his abductor."

"Same story at the sister's house," Zach added as he and Serena walked in on the heels of the Austin pair. "They didn't notice anything, and if McNeil did, he kept it to himself. The only thing she mentioned that even might be of interest was that he was an economical traveler; he thought cabs were a waste of money, so he always did his touristing on the subway."

"We pulled camera footage from the station near the sister's house," his partner continued, "but if this guy made any attempt at concealing himself, which he probably did, he's going to be a needle in a haystack on those tapes."

"Maybe not." That was Alex, walking into the conference room with Colby. "It's thin, but we might have something. We tracked down a witness who thinks she may have seen someone following Mike, or at least paying unusually close attention to him. She's working on a sketch now; we should have it soon."

Lisbon glanced up from the chair she had slumped into. "You think they might've used the same guy?"

"It's possible," Colby replied. "Or the two of them might be connected in some way, in which case Charlie can work some of his math magic and find a way to pick out a guy following McNeil."

Alex gave a quick glance around at Colby's mention of the name. "Where is Charlie?"

"In his little room," Wylie said from the corner where he sat bent over his laptop. "Last time I looked, he was scribbling on a whiteboard and talking to someone on the video conference system. And before you ask, I could barely understand a word they were saying."

"Got to be someone at CalSci, then," Colby said with a smile. "That's pretty typical of Charlie in conversations with other experts. The technical terms start flying and anyone who doesn't have a PhD gets completely lost. Usually that's the part where the rest of us just let him work and trust him to come explain if he thinks there's something we need to know."

"Who, Charlie?" Don had walked in with Cho just in time to hear the end of his teammate's remark. "Yeah, Charlie using words that most people have never heard before is pretty common. He's only been doing it since he was about four. Which is even funnier because for all he uses words no one's heard of, he's got to be the worst speller in all of academia."

"Really," Alex said with a laugh.

"Oh, yeah. We once had an all-out debate over the spelling of 'anomaly' - me and Dad against Charlie. I had to get the dictionary to settle it. So," he added, "what did we need Charlie for?"

"We don't yet," Colby explained, "but we might in a bit. We've got a sketch coming of a potential suspect in the Barek kidnapping. I thought Charlie might be able to do that algorithm thing he did on that one case to match it up to a face."

Colby caught several questioning looks for his turn of phrase, but Don just chuckled. "Copy that. The algorithm thing he did on that one case." His phone beeped, and he glanced at it. "Hang on, that's Liz. Maybe they've got news. Eppes," he said into the mouthpiece. "Yeah? Really? Okay, stay with it, I'll get techs out there." He hung up hurriedly. "They found Carolyn's car."

xxxxxxxxx

"Talk about hidden in plain sight," Colby commented as they walked past yet another row of cars. "You could hardly pick a better spot to make a car disappear."

"Except for one thing," Alex replied, frowning. "Every car has to be processed first. I notified all the impound lots to be on alert for this car. How did they miss it?"

"Because it wasn't here officially," Liz replied as she ran up to them, indicating for them to follow her. "The lot was the target of a high-end burglary the same night Barek disappeared. Two cars that were on the lot were jacked, so the first officers on scene assumed that was what they were after; no one thought to check for cars on the lot that weren't supposed to be. But when we called the lot to double-check if they'd processed it, the attendant we spoke to happened to mention the break-in. When we heard it was the same night, Nikki got a hunch."

Colby looked incredulously at the rows of cars that stretched out before his eyes. "How did you find it in this mess?"

"We didn't have to search the whole mess," Nikki replied from where she was standing beside the car, watching the techs work. "Thank God. They only knocked out one security camera. Once we knew where the blind spot had been, we were able to search just that area. Didn't take us long to find the car."

"No luck on prints," one of the techs reported. "Every surface has been wiped clean. But we'll flatbed it to the garage, see what else turns up. Maybe they missed something in a seam or a crevice. At the very least, we might be able to tell where it's been from the tires."

"Anything you can find," Alex confirmed. "We're flying blind right now. Whatever you can pull together has to be better than nothing."

"Besides," Nikki added with a slight smirk, "with the math wonder kid on our side, a piece of dirt could crack the case."

"A piece of dirt? Really?"

"She's exaggerating," Don assured Alex, then seeming to consider his words. "Slightly. I don't think we've ever solved a case on a piece of dirt...a single security camera photo, though..."

"How about a sketch plus a piece of dirt?" Alex teased.

"Well, now that you mention it..."

In case anyone hasn't figured it out yet, yes, the trial Mike was testifying in is the trial from Little Girl Lost. The first trial was for the six men captured at the house, the second (where Mike's childhood was brought into play) for Linda.

The reference to Charlie doing an "algorithm thing" with a sketch is a reference to the Numb3rs episode Brutus; the argument over the spelling of "anomaly" was in Man Hunt. David and Colby's "date" was in Friendly Fire.

My original thought for the impound lot was to have the car have come in but not been flagged because someone mixed up the numbers on the plate (which actually happened in an SVU episode, to massive and horrific effect) but I decided it just made a better story for someone to break into the lot to leave the car somewhere no one would be expected to look for it.

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