Chapter Three
They had retreated to a corner of the club; it was still loud, but a little easier to hear each other.
"So, what do you like to do, Alex?" She was sitting very close to him, but now leaned in even further. He answered her question with a whisper in her ear. She pulled back from him, giggling, and playfully slapped his arm. "Naughty boy. I meant your hobbies."
"That is my hobby," he laughed. "Lorna, could you be persuaded to go somewhere a little quieter with me?"
"A little quieter, huh?" She looked him up and down. If you couldn't trust a guy like this, who could you trust? Besides, he was cute, and she liked him. "Ok. Just let me go tell my girlfriends I'm leaving."
"I'll wait for you outside." He smiled as she walked away. If he'd known she had girlfriends with her, he might have tried the other angle. Still, he was pleased with the results so far, and the night was still young.
*****
The task force casebooks had been passed out. Each detective now had copies of every interview, every photo, everything.
Goren was in the interrogation room, he had nine pieces of paper taped to the wall. On eight of them, he'd written down the name of one victim, her vitals. Anything he came across from the casebook, he wrote it down. Apart from the others, a lone ninth sheet listed the profile of the killer.
Alex stood in the doorway, watching him. After a moment, she walked in and sat down at the table, reading what he'd written. "Expect for the club, these girls have nothing in common."
"Kaitilin and Bridgette, from the SVU scene were at Club Jones, just not together, that we know of." Goren stopped writing and turned to look at Eames as he spoke. "Allison and Chelsey, Brisco and Green's first scene, they were both at Club Jones. But the other girls." He turned back toward the wall, taping the appropriate paper as he spoke. "Clarissa and Monica, the two- sevens' second scene, they lived together. Clarissa had told her mother she had a date the night she was killed, but she never mentioned the guys name to her." He turned around, pulling a chair away from the table, rotated it and sat, his hands gripping the chair back. "I think that the date was with the killer. I think he picked Clarissa up in a club, maybe not Club Jones, but a club. He finds out she has a room mate, so instead of killing her that night, he makes a date with her, and gets two birds with one stone."
Alex listened, it was possible, but they that didn't get them any further than they were.
Deakins stuck his head in right then. "We've got another one. Three girls this time."
*****
The SVU detectives were already then when Goren and Eames arrived. Olivia and Fin stood to one side, three purses at their feet. Each detective was searching through a wallet. Olivia found what she was looking for, and held it up. "Lorna Wade." She looked at the picture. "She's the one in the middle."
Fin had found the id in the wallet he had. "The one on top is Melissa Hayes. The one on the bottom is Katherine Willetts."
Goren and Eames stood opposite Munch and Stabler, looking down at the three dead women. They formed the letter I.
*****
"This girl" the ME tapped a finger toward Lorna's body, "she was strangled. The other two were stabbed, just like all the others. Numerous wounds, same weapon." She continued. "She and the Hayes girl both have ligature marks on their wrists. If I had to take a guess, I'd say they were tied up while he killed Willetts. And this girl," she pulled down the sheet, uncovering Melissa Hayes' face. "Her eyes are glued shut."
"Glued shut?" Olivia asked, looking from the doctor to Elliott.
"That's not all." The doctor moved to the gurney where Katherine Willetts lay. "Her eardrums are punctured."
Goren groaned, shrugging his shoulders in an expatriated circle and looked at his partner. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
*****
"But what does it mean?" Elliott asked. They had all walked out into the corridor.
"Does the 'I' have something to do with it?" Munch asked. "Is he saying that he sees, hears and speaks no evil? He's a religious freak."
"That doesn't jive with the other scenes. Unless we missed something." Ed answered. "And what are the chances of all of us missing something?"
Bobby stood off to one side, "I don't think it means anything." They all looked at him. "The 'I' means something, probably the beginning of a word. But the evil thing. He's just screwing with us."
*****
"Goren doesn't think it means anything?" Van Buren asked after Lenny and Ed had told her the events of the morning.
"The idea that he's messin' with us makes more sense than the idea that he's telling us something." Ed answered.
"Well, he's not usually wrong." Van Buren told them.
"You used to work narcotics together?" Brisco asked.
She nodded. "And Fin too. Not for very long, I came here shortly after Goren joined Narcotics. But I was impressed with him then, and I'm only more so now."
"We've got to go interview the Hayes family." Green prompted Brisco.
*****
"I suppose if there were seven victims, Goren would find a way to make it into the deadly sins." Munch deadpanned. "Or the dwarfs."
"Man, I told you, lay off." Fin warned, then ignored Munch's protests.
*****
Goren and Eames were at their desks when Olivia and Elliott walked in, followed by a woman in her forties.
"Detectives." Stabler said, getting their attention. "This is Alice Willetts, Katherine's mother." He indicated the woman standing next to Olivia. "We thought you'd like to hear what she has to say."
Goren and Eames looked up at Alice from their desks. She was in deep grieving, but she wanted to do all she could to help the police catch the sick bastard that had killed her daughter. "Katherine had a date last night. She told me she'd met the man at a club two nights ago."
Eames interrupted "Did she tell you the name of the club?"
"No, she didn't."
Eames cast a frustrated glance to Goren. Olivia took Alice's arm in her hands. "But she did mention the name of the man she was seeing." Goren and Eames sat up straighter in their chairs, unconsciously leaning forward.
"Oh. Yes. She said his name was Alex. Alex Eames."
*****
They thanked her for her help, and arranged for a black and white to drive her home. Stabler called Fin's cell, told him to head toward One PP. Olivia called Green, told him the same thing.
Eames had begun to search her memory. After all the years on the force, all the people she had interviewed, encountered, arrested. All the lives she had touched through her job. The profile didn't fit any of them, and at the same time, fit a lot of them.
They had arranged to meet in the first floor conference room at One Police Plaza. Much like on that first day, in the DA's office, the detectives again gathered around a large table. Only this time, Captains Deakins and Cragen and Lt. Van Buren were there as well. The mayor made a brief appearance, telling them it was of "utmost importance" for this killer to be caught. On his way out, he cast an obvious glance toward Eames. Word travels fast.
When the door shut behind the mayor, Deakins walked over to his favorite detective. She was at one of the tables, her elbows propped on the table, her head in her hands. "Come up with anything?" he knew as he said it that it was a stupid question.
"Yeah." Alex raised her head and looked at him. "A migraine."
"Well. Huang did say the incident might all be in his mind. And, there's really nothing telling us he knew your name before you were involved with the investigation." he tried to reassure her.
"I'd still feel better if I pulled some case files, just to see." Alex told him.
"Alright. We'll look at some of the files, but not you." He held up a hand to stop her protests before they started. "You're to close. You go talk to the Wade family." His proclamation made, Deakins walked away.
Alex looked over her shoulder, to where Bobby was standing. "He's right. You are to close. Go talk to the family and friends. Take Benson with you. Stabler and I will go over the files."
Grudgingly, Alex stood, and pulled her coat off the back of the chair with a flourish. Glancing at Olivia to make sure she'd heard, Alex walked quickly out of the room, Olivia a few paces behind her.
*****
"You think we'll find anything?" Elliott asked. He sat at Eames' desk, her pc warming up. Goren sat across from him, at his own desk, reading from his pc.
"No way to know." Goren answered distractedly, still reading from the screen. He finished the sentence, and turned to face Elliott. "The captain said there was a possibility he's using her name just because she's involved in the case."
Stabler cut him off. "But why hers? He'd have gotten our attention just as well if he'd used my name, or yours."
"Yes" Goren answered, loosely pointing a finger at Elliott. "But if he'd have used one of our names, we'd be looking at ourselves, no matter how remote the possibility. By using Alex's name, since she's a woman, he'd know we'd wouldn't waste time looking at her. Besides," Bobby turned back toward his computer, "I just read the newspaper articles. They don't mention Alex by name."
"So you think it is related to a case she's been on?"
Bobby gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It's possible."
*****
"She's been missing since Tuesday." Carolyn Hayes, Melissa's mother, dabbed a tissue to one eye, then the other.
"Did you call the police?" Green asked.
Melissa's father, Henry, nodded. "The officer didn't seem to worried. He seemed to think she was partying." His distaste for the word, and the notion was obvious. Carolyn began to cry again, he pulled her to him, murmuring in her ear.
After a few uncomfortable moments, Brisco spoke. "Do you know where she was going the night she disappeared?"
"She said she was meeting some friends at a club." Henry said. "Do you think that bastard had her all this time?"
Brisco and Green looked at each other, then back at Henry. Seeing that look exchanged, Henry didn't need the question answered. He lowered his head next to his wife's and held her tighter.
*****
Lorna Wade's sister was a little more help. "The Banger. That's where she was. She went there with two friends, Jessie and Sally."
"We'll need to speak to them. Do you have their numbers?" Olivia asked.
"I'm sure Lorna has them." she paused, realizing what she'd said, and corrected herself. "Had them, written down. I'll go check." She headed down the hall, already crying again.
Olivia stood up from the couch where she and Eames were sitting and moved to the window. "This is the part I hate the most."
"It's worse when you have to be the one to tell them." Alex replied.
Each detective stayed silent, both remembering victims and their families. They were both so lost in thought, each jumped a little when Lorna's sister came back into the room.
"Here. I found it on her dresser. Jessie and Sally are both in there." She handed Alex the address book.
"Thanks." Alex said and copied down the numbers.
*****
Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby saw Elliott suddenly sit up straighter and bring his face closer to the computer screen, reading more intently.
"What you'd find?"
"During her first year in vice," Elliott explained, quickly looking across the desks and then back to the computer, "Eames was involved in the arrest of a Matthew Kirkland, booked for solicitation."
"She used work decoy." Goren added.
"Yeah. She was working and Kirkland approached her, offered fifty bucks, and she busted him. File says he called his wife, and she refused to come bail him out, so he spent the night in jail. In the morning, Kirkland said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and wound up dead." He looked over at Goren. "The wife felt so guilty, she walked out in front of a bus." Bobby stood and walked over to Elliott's side of the desk, reading.
"This says their son, Andrew, was sent to child welfare after that." Bobby did the math in his head. "He'd be about the right age for our perp." He flagged his fingers at the keyboard, "See if there's anything else in there on Andrew Kirkland."
*****
"Yeah. I saw what he looked like." Benson and Eames had tracked down Lorna's friend Jessie. "I talked to him, actually. He hit on me, but he wasn't my type. So he moved on to Lorna. I don't think he realized we knew each other."
The detectives had purposely not introduced themselves by name. "Did he happen to tell you his name?" Alex asked, a little anxious.
"No, we didn't get that far in conversation."
"We're gonna need you to come down and meet with a sketch artist." Olivia said.
*****
"He's been arrested twice for assault. Knocked his girlfriend around a couple of times." Andrew Kirkland's mug shot looked back at them from the computer screen.
Benson and Eames walked into the squad room, Jessie right behind them. When they saw their partners hunched over the same computer, both women quickened the pace, leaving Jessie to catch up.
"What'd you find?" Alex asked arriving at the desk half a second before Olivia.
Both Goren and Stabler pulled themselves away from the screen when they heard her voice. They were each about to answer her question when Jessie walked up, curiously looking from one detective to another, her eyes crossing over the screen. And stopped. "That's him," she said simply.
They had retreated to a corner of the club; it was still loud, but a little easier to hear each other.
"So, what do you like to do, Alex?" She was sitting very close to him, but now leaned in even further. He answered her question with a whisper in her ear. She pulled back from him, giggling, and playfully slapped his arm. "Naughty boy. I meant your hobbies."
"That is my hobby," he laughed. "Lorna, could you be persuaded to go somewhere a little quieter with me?"
"A little quieter, huh?" She looked him up and down. If you couldn't trust a guy like this, who could you trust? Besides, he was cute, and she liked him. "Ok. Just let me go tell my girlfriends I'm leaving."
"I'll wait for you outside." He smiled as she walked away. If he'd known she had girlfriends with her, he might have tried the other angle. Still, he was pleased with the results so far, and the night was still young.
*****
The task force casebooks had been passed out. Each detective now had copies of every interview, every photo, everything.
Goren was in the interrogation room, he had nine pieces of paper taped to the wall. On eight of them, he'd written down the name of one victim, her vitals. Anything he came across from the casebook, he wrote it down. Apart from the others, a lone ninth sheet listed the profile of the killer.
Alex stood in the doorway, watching him. After a moment, she walked in and sat down at the table, reading what he'd written. "Expect for the club, these girls have nothing in common."
"Kaitilin and Bridgette, from the SVU scene were at Club Jones, just not together, that we know of." Goren stopped writing and turned to look at Eames as he spoke. "Allison and Chelsey, Brisco and Green's first scene, they were both at Club Jones. But the other girls." He turned back toward the wall, taping the appropriate paper as he spoke. "Clarissa and Monica, the two- sevens' second scene, they lived together. Clarissa had told her mother she had a date the night she was killed, but she never mentioned the guys name to her." He turned around, pulling a chair away from the table, rotated it and sat, his hands gripping the chair back. "I think that the date was with the killer. I think he picked Clarissa up in a club, maybe not Club Jones, but a club. He finds out she has a room mate, so instead of killing her that night, he makes a date with her, and gets two birds with one stone."
Alex listened, it was possible, but they that didn't get them any further than they were.
Deakins stuck his head in right then. "We've got another one. Three girls this time."
*****
The SVU detectives were already then when Goren and Eames arrived. Olivia and Fin stood to one side, three purses at their feet. Each detective was searching through a wallet. Olivia found what she was looking for, and held it up. "Lorna Wade." She looked at the picture. "She's the one in the middle."
Fin had found the id in the wallet he had. "The one on top is Melissa Hayes. The one on the bottom is Katherine Willetts."
Goren and Eames stood opposite Munch and Stabler, looking down at the three dead women. They formed the letter I.
*****
"This girl" the ME tapped a finger toward Lorna's body, "she was strangled. The other two were stabbed, just like all the others. Numerous wounds, same weapon." She continued. "She and the Hayes girl both have ligature marks on their wrists. If I had to take a guess, I'd say they were tied up while he killed Willetts. And this girl," she pulled down the sheet, uncovering Melissa Hayes' face. "Her eyes are glued shut."
"Glued shut?" Olivia asked, looking from the doctor to Elliott.
"That's not all." The doctor moved to the gurney where Katherine Willetts lay. "Her eardrums are punctured."
Goren groaned, shrugging his shoulders in an expatriated circle and looked at his partner. "See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil."
*****
"But what does it mean?" Elliott asked. They had all walked out into the corridor.
"Does the 'I' have something to do with it?" Munch asked. "Is he saying that he sees, hears and speaks no evil? He's a religious freak."
"That doesn't jive with the other scenes. Unless we missed something." Ed answered. "And what are the chances of all of us missing something?"
Bobby stood off to one side, "I don't think it means anything." They all looked at him. "The 'I' means something, probably the beginning of a word. But the evil thing. He's just screwing with us."
*****
"Goren doesn't think it means anything?" Van Buren asked after Lenny and Ed had told her the events of the morning.
"The idea that he's messin' with us makes more sense than the idea that he's telling us something." Ed answered.
"Well, he's not usually wrong." Van Buren told them.
"You used to work narcotics together?" Brisco asked.
She nodded. "And Fin too. Not for very long, I came here shortly after Goren joined Narcotics. But I was impressed with him then, and I'm only more so now."
"We've got to go interview the Hayes family." Green prompted Brisco.
*****
"I suppose if there were seven victims, Goren would find a way to make it into the deadly sins." Munch deadpanned. "Or the dwarfs."
"Man, I told you, lay off." Fin warned, then ignored Munch's protests.
*****
Goren and Eames were at their desks when Olivia and Elliott walked in, followed by a woman in her forties.
"Detectives." Stabler said, getting their attention. "This is Alice Willetts, Katherine's mother." He indicated the woman standing next to Olivia. "We thought you'd like to hear what she has to say."
Goren and Eames looked up at Alice from their desks. She was in deep grieving, but she wanted to do all she could to help the police catch the sick bastard that had killed her daughter. "Katherine had a date last night. She told me she'd met the man at a club two nights ago."
Eames interrupted "Did she tell you the name of the club?"
"No, she didn't."
Eames cast a frustrated glance to Goren. Olivia took Alice's arm in her hands. "But she did mention the name of the man she was seeing." Goren and Eames sat up straighter in their chairs, unconsciously leaning forward.
"Oh. Yes. She said his name was Alex. Alex Eames."
*****
They thanked her for her help, and arranged for a black and white to drive her home. Stabler called Fin's cell, told him to head toward One PP. Olivia called Green, told him the same thing.
Eames had begun to search her memory. After all the years on the force, all the people she had interviewed, encountered, arrested. All the lives she had touched through her job. The profile didn't fit any of them, and at the same time, fit a lot of them.
They had arranged to meet in the first floor conference room at One Police Plaza. Much like on that first day, in the DA's office, the detectives again gathered around a large table. Only this time, Captains Deakins and Cragen and Lt. Van Buren were there as well. The mayor made a brief appearance, telling them it was of "utmost importance" for this killer to be caught. On his way out, he cast an obvious glance toward Eames. Word travels fast.
When the door shut behind the mayor, Deakins walked over to his favorite detective. She was at one of the tables, her elbows propped on the table, her head in her hands. "Come up with anything?" he knew as he said it that it was a stupid question.
"Yeah." Alex raised her head and looked at him. "A migraine."
"Well. Huang did say the incident might all be in his mind. And, there's really nothing telling us he knew your name before you were involved with the investigation." he tried to reassure her.
"I'd still feel better if I pulled some case files, just to see." Alex told him.
"Alright. We'll look at some of the files, but not you." He held up a hand to stop her protests before they started. "You're to close. You go talk to the Wade family." His proclamation made, Deakins walked away.
Alex looked over her shoulder, to where Bobby was standing. "He's right. You are to close. Go talk to the family and friends. Take Benson with you. Stabler and I will go over the files."
Grudgingly, Alex stood, and pulled her coat off the back of the chair with a flourish. Glancing at Olivia to make sure she'd heard, Alex walked quickly out of the room, Olivia a few paces behind her.
*****
"You think we'll find anything?" Elliott asked. He sat at Eames' desk, her pc warming up. Goren sat across from him, at his own desk, reading from his pc.
"No way to know." Goren answered distractedly, still reading from the screen. He finished the sentence, and turned to face Elliott. "The captain said there was a possibility he's using her name just because she's involved in the case."
Stabler cut him off. "But why hers? He'd have gotten our attention just as well if he'd used my name, or yours."
"Yes" Goren answered, loosely pointing a finger at Elliott. "But if he'd have used one of our names, we'd be looking at ourselves, no matter how remote the possibility. By using Alex's name, since she's a woman, he'd know we'd wouldn't waste time looking at her. Besides," Bobby turned back toward his computer, "I just read the newspaper articles. They don't mention Alex by name."
"So you think it is related to a case she's been on?"
Bobby gave a one-shouldered shrug. "It's possible."
*****
"She's been missing since Tuesday." Carolyn Hayes, Melissa's mother, dabbed a tissue to one eye, then the other.
"Did you call the police?" Green asked.
Melissa's father, Henry, nodded. "The officer didn't seem to worried. He seemed to think she was partying." His distaste for the word, and the notion was obvious. Carolyn began to cry again, he pulled her to him, murmuring in her ear.
After a few uncomfortable moments, Brisco spoke. "Do you know where she was going the night she disappeared?"
"She said she was meeting some friends at a club." Henry said. "Do you think that bastard had her all this time?"
Brisco and Green looked at each other, then back at Henry. Seeing that look exchanged, Henry didn't need the question answered. He lowered his head next to his wife's and held her tighter.
*****
Lorna Wade's sister was a little more help. "The Banger. That's where she was. She went there with two friends, Jessie and Sally."
"We'll need to speak to them. Do you have their numbers?" Olivia asked.
"I'm sure Lorna has them." she paused, realizing what she'd said, and corrected herself. "Had them, written down. I'll go check." She headed down the hall, already crying again.
Olivia stood up from the couch where she and Eames were sitting and moved to the window. "This is the part I hate the most."
"It's worse when you have to be the one to tell them." Alex replied.
Each detective stayed silent, both remembering victims and their families. They were both so lost in thought, each jumped a little when Lorna's sister came back into the room.
"Here. I found it on her dresser. Jessie and Sally are both in there." She handed Alex the address book.
"Thanks." Alex said and copied down the numbers.
*****
Out of the corner of his eye, Bobby saw Elliott suddenly sit up straighter and bring his face closer to the computer screen, reading more intently.
"What you'd find?"
"During her first year in vice," Elliott explained, quickly looking across the desks and then back to the computer, "Eames was involved in the arrest of a Matthew Kirkland, booked for solicitation."
"She used work decoy." Goren added.
"Yeah. She was working and Kirkland approached her, offered fifty bucks, and she busted him. File says he called his wife, and she refused to come bail him out, so he spent the night in jail. In the morning, Kirkland said the wrong thing to the wrong person, and wound up dead." He looked over at Goren. "The wife felt so guilty, she walked out in front of a bus." Bobby stood and walked over to Elliott's side of the desk, reading.
"This says their son, Andrew, was sent to child welfare after that." Bobby did the math in his head. "He'd be about the right age for our perp." He flagged his fingers at the keyboard, "See if there's anything else in there on Andrew Kirkland."
*****
"Yeah. I saw what he looked like." Benson and Eames had tracked down Lorna's friend Jessie. "I talked to him, actually. He hit on me, but he wasn't my type. So he moved on to Lorna. I don't think he realized we knew each other."
The detectives had purposely not introduced themselves by name. "Did he happen to tell you his name?" Alex asked, a little anxious.
"No, we didn't get that far in conversation."
"We're gonna need you to come down and meet with a sketch artist." Olivia said.
*****
"He's been arrested twice for assault. Knocked his girlfriend around a couple of times." Andrew Kirkland's mug shot looked back at them from the computer screen.
Benson and Eames walked into the squad room, Jessie right behind them. When they saw their partners hunched over the same computer, both women quickened the pace, leaving Jessie to catch up.
"What'd you find?" Alex asked arriving at the desk half a second before Olivia.
Both Goren and Stabler pulled themselves away from the screen when they heard her voice. They were each about to answer her question when Jessie walked up, curiously looking from one detective to another, her eyes crossing over the screen. And stopped. "That's him," she said simply.