Chapter Four

Staten Island, New York; September 17, 2005

"Help me understand how a beautiful, college-educated pre-school teacher winds up dead and dumped in the woods in the middle of the night." Ray was clearly frustrated, looking at the evidence board over and over again.

Olivia sympathized with him; Denise's boyfriend had an air-tight alibi - the cameras at his workplace vouched for him, and neither him nor her mother could tell them where she might've gone the night she died. They had absolutely nothing to go off, and they didn't even know where to start.

"Giacomelli, Benson," their Captain called while entering the squad room. "You have about fifteen different messages from Arthur Kill."

"Why are inmates trying to reach out to us?" Olivia wondered out loud while reaching for the slips of paper while glancing over to see her partner offer her nothing more than a shrug.

One after the other, flipping and flipping, Olivia realized just what was going on: a bunch of criminals hoping to get a deal by trying to offer up information about the murder. It spread across the news rather rapidly - school teachers didn't end up raped and strangled on a normal basis.

"On, come on," Ray sighed after she informed him of what she believed while taking his seat from across his partner. "Here, pass some over to me. The faster we can get through them, the sooner we don't have to look at them anymore."

And that was what they did.

Ask yourself how a nice school teacher ended up in the woods. "This guy's pretending he knows more than he actually does."

Wanna know how she was killed? "Already do, you piece of filth."

"Woah."

Ray's head immediately shot up at Olivia's sudden reaction. "There's a beer can hanging from the tree next to where the body was found."

Ray and Olivia could see the colours draining from each other's faces. Son of a bitch.

Manhattan, New York; September 16, 2005

"What do we have?"

Late-night calls were never a preference for Elliot, but crime never revolved around the schedules of those trying to stop it.

"William Boyd; 56. A truck driver called 911 after he felt his car hit something - I guess he was scared he had hit the poor guy himself." The reporting officer looked as if he could've used a few hours of shut-eye himself, but the body splattered across the highway had probably destroyed any inklings of relaxation. "We found the ID in his truck"

"Do we know the cause of death?" A newly-shaved Nick asked the officer.

"Gunshot wound to the chest."

"So why call us?" Elliot asked, sounding much more annoyed than he had intended to, but there was a limit he could take. One too many incidences of officers calling the wrong unit had gotten under his skin.

"Well, uhh, if you take a closer look…"

While CSU was busy dusting off the prints of the victim's vehicle that had been parked on the side of the highway, Elliot and Nick found Melinda Warner near the body, with a rather surprised look in her eyes.

"A bit late into the night for genital mutilation, but it's definitely gone."

After a brief pause between Elliot and Nick glancing at each other, Nick was the first to speak.

"Someone must've been angry at him."

"It was cut off immediately after he was killed," Melinda continued to speak as she got herself back up to her feet to face the two detectives. "Body's still warm; I'd put the time of death around two hours ago."

"We found a gun in his truck, but it doesn't seem to have been fired at all today." The officer continued to fill in the two detectives. "We also found a tire iron just a few centimetres away from him."

"A tire iron," Elliot repeated, looking puzzled. "Was he trying to help somebody?"

"He parks his car at the edge of the highway, leaves his gun in the truck, gets a tire iron out…" Nick recited the facts that were given to them. "He was killed by somebody he knew."

"Left the gun behind because whoever the perp was was someone he trusted," Elliot added on, looking around the vehicle. "He could've been lured here."

"And there was virtually nobody around, making it the perfect place to do it."

Nick and Elliot paused once again, but this time, a new wave of realization hit the both of them.

He was set up.

Staten Island, New York; September 17, 2005

"Dewayne Lee Harris," Olivia began to tell her partner what she dug up about their apparent know-it-all inmate. The tip hadn't just been shocking to the two detectives, but also to their Captain - who had demanded that the two of them go up to Arthur Kill to see just what the hell he knew. "He was picked up the day after Denise Harris's murder for a robbery charge."

"Can't blame a guy for not wanting to be in jail for 24 months," Ray responded, clearly not content with having to negotiate with a criminal. "How did he end up in solitary confinement so quickly?"

"He's been misbehaving in prison, according to two of the prison guards I talked to."

Olivia felt her skin crawl as she approached the steel door that had been holding back the criminal. She hadn't even seen his face yet, yet she knew this was a man who was willing to manipulate anything and anybody to get whatever it was that he wanted, and she needed to make sure he didn't have that satisfaction.

The steel door had a small rectangular gap on its face, but it was all she needed to get a glimpse of the man being held in the room. "Detective… you got my message."

"I sure did, Dewayne." Olivia stood quite close to the door so that she would be able to hear him through all the metal holding him back, but her mind was trying to betray her body and make her leave. She didn't want to be here. "You wanna tell me how you know about the beer can story?"

"You like the beer can story, Detective?" His voice was dark, gritty, and looming. "I got others from where that came from."

"Like what?"

"Nice try, ma'am," Dewayne chuckled with a voice that could've rumbled the ground they were walking in. "You want to know more? Get me a deal."

"How do we even know what you'd tell us would pan out?" Ray chimed in from behind his partner. He had been standing against a wall, trying to observe Dewayne's affect from the distance.

"You're here, aren't you? That means the beer can panned out."

Son of a bitch. "How did you know about the beer can, Dewayne?"

"A little birdie told me."

"I don't hear any birds chirping."

"I was there, alright?"

Olivia couldn't believe what she was hearing. "You were there when this woman was brutally raped and beaten?"

"Save your sense of morality, Detective. I knew what I was doing, and I saw the guy did it."

If she couldn't feel the anger Ray had been emitting throughout her whole interaction with Dewayne, she was definitely feeling it now. "Do you have a name?"

"Can you get me a deal?"

"You're the one who called us, Dewayne."

"Unless I see something in writing, I ain't telling you shit."

Fuck. He wanted to think he had them, but Olivia wasn't ready to bite. "Come on, Dewayne. They got you doing two years for robbery. I can take my sweet time and come back later when you actually feel like talking - unless you give me something now."

Score one for Team Staten Island SVU.

"Cappuccino."

"What?"

"Cappuccino, two sugars. Maybe then you'll believe me when I tell you I killed that girl."

Turning her head back around to look at Ray, she noticed just how baffled, angry and frustrated he had been at the same time. Dewayne wasn't just like any other convicted felon looking to make a deal. This wasn't a case where a working girl exposed the names of her pimps and madams. This wasn't a predator who knew the names of powerful people to toss over in order to save their own skin. Dewayne may have just been in for robbery, but they both knew.

There was so much more to be uncovered, and they didn't even scratch the surface.

"All you want is a cappuccino?"

"Nah, I want out. But you and I can both start with a cappuccino."