Disclaimer: Not mine. Don't sue, I haven't got any money anyway!
Fin turned the plastic bag over and over in his hands, contemplating first the now familiar words on the front of the business card. They still provoked a feeling of confusion and anger. But it was the words on the back, the words scrawled hastily in a shaky hand, with light grey pencil that got to him the most. They were bizarre - "IN PLACE OF YOUR CONSCIENCE". They made no sense, and noone had been able to work out what they meant yet either. It seemed likely that someone Stabler had helped put away was hell-bent on revenge, but something didn't quite fit.
"Making any sense of it?"
He looked up at his partner and shook his head grimly. This case was so big they'd managed to draft in a detective from Narcotics - Lawson, green and inexperienced, but an extra man nonetheless. Still they were getting nowhere.
"Not yet." Fin grudgingly admitted. "You?"
Munch shrugged, a gesture as natural as breathing to him. "Jehovah's Witnesses called at Griffin's house two days ago. Day before she was killed...."
"They called at Whitfield's too."
The older detective shook his head. "They already called in. Good alibis and very helpful. Everything's being checked, but....it wasn't them."
"What about the door-to-doors?"
"Quick Clean. They do all kinds of domestic items, but their main source of income? Door-to-door vacuum sales." Munch explained.
Fin rolled his eyes. "Fascinating. Let's check it out." He caught his partner's eye. "Already being done?" He recieved an affirmative response and muttered obscenely under his breath.
Chances were that this would turn up nothing, but they had to check the company and its representatives out, tick them off the list. And there was always a possibility that they might strike lucky. It had been two days since the Griffin murder (one and a half since the discovery of her body in the early hours). Judging by the gaps between the murders so far, they had two days left before another body turned up. Not enough time. Fin tapped his fingers impatiently against his desk, a habit Munch had snapped at him more than once about. Frustration. Things just weren't moving fast enough for him. For any of them, he reminded himself.
"Guys? How's it going?" Cragen called from his office doorway. He looked tired and drawn, his detectives noted.
"It's not." Fin countered shortly.
The Captain chose to ignore that. Instead he walked slowly across the room and picked up the note. He read over it twice, thoroughly and sighed.
"This is ridiculous." He muttered. "The note's deliberately vague, this guy wants to piss us all off."
Munch looked up. "Someone getting on your back?"
"Look, John, apart from Elliot's old cases and Raymond Ziegler - who happens to be missing - we have nothing. And people are worried." Cragen said.
There was a silence, during which each of them thought along the same track. If it turned out that Ziegler wasn't involved, wasn't guilty of any of the three murders - that left only Stabler as the connection. And that could be the murderer's way of messing with the case. His name had only come up after the leaks to the press. Which in turn meant that it could have been any one of them in his situation.
"OK. OK." Cragen muttered tiredly. "Guys, I want you to check in with Forensics too, see if we can't hurry them along a little bit. I'm going to be trying to get us some more manpower."
"Politics." Fin snapped under his breath darkly.
"Diplomacy." His boss countered.
The detective had the good grace to look abashed. He conceded the point. Someone needed to take care of that side of things, so the investigation could run as smoothly as possible. Cragen did it well - he had the experience - he knew that. Fin didn't envy him the task.
Cragen was already halfway out the door when he turned back, a solemn expression on his face. "Let's hope we get a break soon."
* * * * *
Benson and Stabler were having only a marginally better time. Their task to find the elusive Raymond Ziegler was difficult, leading them all over the place. A few questions in Holli Griffin's local Starbucks had revealed that he wasn't a well-liked man. Apart from one lone man, all his co-workers had loathed him. Which was nothing, incidentally, to how the managers felt about him. Ziegler's break-up with Griffin had lead to her gaining an injunction against him, providing his bosses with a perfect excuse to fire him. That had been six months ago.
The lone friend of Ziegler's was Wayne Phillips, a nervy man who had been operating the espresso machine when they'd walked into the identikit coffee shop. He had apparently gone drinking with Raymond two or three times a week every week while the latter was employed at Starbucks, and a couple of times after he was fired. According to some of the other employees, Ziegler had been something of a bully, enjoying the fact that he could behave how he liked to Phillips, and the guy would stick by him. They'd been a little sympathetic to the obviously downtrodden espresso- operator.
Olivia quickly formed the opinion that although he wasn't a particularly pleasant man, he was fairly harmless. Just as quickly, she reformed the idea to include the fact that he was a manipulative weasel. Phillips had been unwilling to provide them with any information pertaining to the whereabouts of his old friend until they had pointed out that he could be prosecuted for protecting Ziegler. Phillips had given up an old home number.
That had led the detectives to a run-down old apartment building. It was the kind of place that made you glad you were doing OK, and made Elliot glad he was bringing his kids up in good circumstances. Rats and cockroaches infested most of the floors, and somewhere round the front entrance, there was a wasps nest. It stank, of urine and damp - yellowy- green streaks of mossy substance creeping and snaking wetly up the walls. Round the doors, on the steps, a group of disaffected youths smoked and talked, having nothing else to do. The arrival of the detectives silenced them, but only for a moment.
As it turned out, Ziegler had been kicked out five months ago. Before being fired he'd been scraping by with the rent, with his girlfriend's help (that part piqued their interest), but afterwards he'd fallen far enough behind that he'd been kicked out. Apart from the old lady living next door to Ziegler's old apartment, noone seemed to know anything. She had informed Benson that the girlfriend, known only as "Evie", a pretty young Hispanic woman, worked in the nearest McDonald's - had done for some time.
That was why they were standing outside the plastic-filled fast-food restaurant. The manager had refused to let them in, insisting that their presence would make his staff and customers edgy. Considering some of his clientele, that was probably true. Instead they had settled themselves outside the restaurant, driving away customers whilst not actually on his premises. After a fit of apoplectic rage, the manager had agreed to let Evie talk to them, as long as they did finally leave.
Benson and Stabler waited patiently outside, smiling at passing groups of teenagers - some innocently passing, some on their way home from school, and yet more who probably weren't so innocent. They were acting as cop-like as possible. To be honest, they were both getting a kick out of it too.
"All right I'm here. You nearly got me fired by the way."
A woman had emerged from the restaurant, clad in McDonald's uniform. Evie. She was indeed tiny - absolutely no more than five feet two inches, to the top of her plaited head. Her hair, neatly tied back, twisted in an attempt at decoration, was reddish-brown, the colour of rust and autumn leaves. She was so slight. Her arms were folded, signifying her annoyance, and the way her eyes flitted from object to object, not making eye contact with the detectives suggested an unsettled nature. Or a guilty conscience. Neither of the detectives wanted to know if it didn't pertain to their case.
"Evie. I'm Detective Stabler, this is my partner Detective Benson." Elliot said calmly. He looked sideways at his partner. She nodded at him to proceed.
"Stabler and Benson. That's what I'm calling you huh?" Evie said sourly. "Well," she sighed, with more than a hint of exhaustion, "I ain't talking to you round here. Let's walk."
They followed her lead, walking down the street making every attempt not to draw attention to themselves. Evie was an expert at this. She faded so easily into the background. Olivia began to worry about her without even meaning to. She was a woman trying so hard to survive that her life was being chipped away. Much like the women she worked with so often, in fact, in her place at the SVU.
"So, what do you want?" Evie asked, after a while.
"We need to find Raymond Ziegler."
Olivia was surprised he'd been so blunt, but then Evie seemed to appreciate. With a wrinkle of her small features, she expressed her revulsion.
"He's an asshole." She spat, with unexpected venom. "He hit me, and I don't have anything to do with him anymore."
"He hit you?" Elliot repeated in surprise. She nodded her adamant confirmation. "Yeah. Just once, but it was enough. Broke a tooth. Asshole."
"Do you know where he is now? It's really important." He asked, softening his tones enough to make her see how genuine he was.
Evie stopped in the street, ignoring the annoyed cry of some drunken jerk who brushed roughly past her. Olivia was not surprised to see her partner cast said jerk an angry look. 'He can be so protective sometimes' she thought, smiling inwardly.
Evie sighed reluctantly. "Yeah, well I know where he worked last time I spoke to him. Ricky's Autoshop. Y'know, the one with the burnt-out Lincoln outside?" She got two nods of recognition. "And that's all I know. Please don't bother me at work again."
She turned to leave the detectives, only to be stopped by Stabler. He reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a card with his name and number on it, and silently handed it over. Evie smiled briefly, the only positive emotion they had seen from her, and took it.
"She's got brains anyway." He said quietly. Olivia raised a questioning eyebrow, so he explained. "She left Raymond."
Fin turned the plastic bag over and over in his hands, contemplating first the now familiar words on the front of the business card. They still provoked a feeling of confusion and anger. But it was the words on the back, the words scrawled hastily in a shaky hand, with light grey pencil that got to him the most. They were bizarre - "IN PLACE OF YOUR CONSCIENCE". They made no sense, and noone had been able to work out what they meant yet either. It seemed likely that someone Stabler had helped put away was hell-bent on revenge, but something didn't quite fit.
"Making any sense of it?"
He looked up at his partner and shook his head grimly. This case was so big they'd managed to draft in a detective from Narcotics - Lawson, green and inexperienced, but an extra man nonetheless. Still they were getting nowhere.
"Not yet." Fin grudgingly admitted. "You?"
Munch shrugged, a gesture as natural as breathing to him. "Jehovah's Witnesses called at Griffin's house two days ago. Day before she was killed...."
"They called at Whitfield's too."
The older detective shook his head. "They already called in. Good alibis and very helpful. Everything's being checked, but....it wasn't them."
"What about the door-to-doors?"
"Quick Clean. They do all kinds of domestic items, but their main source of income? Door-to-door vacuum sales." Munch explained.
Fin rolled his eyes. "Fascinating. Let's check it out." He caught his partner's eye. "Already being done?" He recieved an affirmative response and muttered obscenely under his breath.
Chances were that this would turn up nothing, but they had to check the company and its representatives out, tick them off the list. And there was always a possibility that they might strike lucky. It had been two days since the Griffin murder (one and a half since the discovery of her body in the early hours). Judging by the gaps between the murders so far, they had two days left before another body turned up. Not enough time. Fin tapped his fingers impatiently against his desk, a habit Munch had snapped at him more than once about. Frustration. Things just weren't moving fast enough for him. For any of them, he reminded himself.
"Guys? How's it going?" Cragen called from his office doorway. He looked tired and drawn, his detectives noted.
"It's not." Fin countered shortly.
The Captain chose to ignore that. Instead he walked slowly across the room and picked up the note. He read over it twice, thoroughly and sighed.
"This is ridiculous." He muttered. "The note's deliberately vague, this guy wants to piss us all off."
Munch looked up. "Someone getting on your back?"
"Look, John, apart from Elliot's old cases and Raymond Ziegler - who happens to be missing - we have nothing. And people are worried." Cragen said.
There was a silence, during which each of them thought along the same track. If it turned out that Ziegler wasn't involved, wasn't guilty of any of the three murders - that left only Stabler as the connection. And that could be the murderer's way of messing with the case. His name had only come up after the leaks to the press. Which in turn meant that it could have been any one of them in his situation.
"OK. OK." Cragen muttered tiredly. "Guys, I want you to check in with Forensics too, see if we can't hurry them along a little bit. I'm going to be trying to get us some more manpower."
"Politics." Fin snapped under his breath darkly.
"Diplomacy." His boss countered.
The detective had the good grace to look abashed. He conceded the point. Someone needed to take care of that side of things, so the investigation could run as smoothly as possible. Cragen did it well - he had the experience - he knew that. Fin didn't envy him the task.
Cragen was already halfway out the door when he turned back, a solemn expression on his face. "Let's hope we get a break soon."
* * * * *
Benson and Stabler were having only a marginally better time. Their task to find the elusive Raymond Ziegler was difficult, leading them all over the place. A few questions in Holli Griffin's local Starbucks had revealed that he wasn't a well-liked man. Apart from one lone man, all his co-workers had loathed him. Which was nothing, incidentally, to how the managers felt about him. Ziegler's break-up with Griffin had lead to her gaining an injunction against him, providing his bosses with a perfect excuse to fire him. That had been six months ago.
The lone friend of Ziegler's was Wayne Phillips, a nervy man who had been operating the espresso machine when they'd walked into the identikit coffee shop. He had apparently gone drinking with Raymond two or three times a week every week while the latter was employed at Starbucks, and a couple of times after he was fired. According to some of the other employees, Ziegler had been something of a bully, enjoying the fact that he could behave how he liked to Phillips, and the guy would stick by him. They'd been a little sympathetic to the obviously downtrodden espresso- operator.
Olivia quickly formed the opinion that although he wasn't a particularly pleasant man, he was fairly harmless. Just as quickly, she reformed the idea to include the fact that he was a manipulative weasel. Phillips had been unwilling to provide them with any information pertaining to the whereabouts of his old friend until they had pointed out that he could be prosecuted for protecting Ziegler. Phillips had given up an old home number.
That had led the detectives to a run-down old apartment building. It was the kind of place that made you glad you were doing OK, and made Elliot glad he was bringing his kids up in good circumstances. Rats and cockroaches infested most of the floors, and somewhere round the front entrance, there was a wasps nest. It stank, of urine and damp - yellowy- green streaks of mossy substance creeping and snaking wetly up the walls. Round the doors, on the steps, a group of disaffected youths smoked and talked, having nothing else to do. The arrival of the detectives silenced them, but only for a moment.
As it turned out, Ziegler had been kicked out five months ago. Before being fired he'd been scraping by with the rent, with his girlfriend's help (that part piqued their interest), but afterwards he'd fallen far enough behind that he'd been kicked out. Apart from the old lady living next door to Ziegler's old apartment, noone seemed to know anything. She had informed Benson that the girlfriend, known only as "Evie", a pretty young Hispanic woman, worked in the nearest McDonald's - had done for some time.
That was why they were standing outside the plastic-filled fast-food restaurant. The manager had refused to let them in, insisting that their presence would make his staff and customers edgy. Considering some of his clientele, that was probably true. Instead they had settled themselves outside the restaurant, driving away customers whilst not actually on his premises. After a fit of apoplectic rage, the manager had agreed to let Evie talk to them, as long as they did finally leave.
Benson and Stabler waited patiently outside, smiling at passing groups of teenagers - some innocently passing, some on their way home from school, and yet more who probably weren't so innocent. They were acting as cop-like as possible. To be honest, they were both getting a kick out of it too.
"All right I'm here. You nearly got me fired by the way."
A woman had emerged from the restaurant, clad in McDonald's uniform. Evie. She was indeed tiny - absolutely no more than five feet two inches, to the top of her plaited head. Her hair, neatly tied back, twisted in an attempt at decoration, was reddish-brown, the colour of rust and autumn leaves. She was so slight. Her arms were folded, signifying her annoyance, and the way her eyes flitted from object to object, not making eye contact with the detectives suggested an unsettled nature. Or a guilty conscience. Neither of the detectives wanted to know if it didn't pertain to their case.
"Evie. I'm Detective Stabler, this is my partner Detective Benson." Elliot said calmly. He looked sideways at his partner. She nodded at him to proceed.
"Stabler and Benson. That's what I'm calling you huh?" Evie said sourly. "Well," she sighed, with more than a hint of exhaustion, "I ain't talking to you round here. Let's walk."
They followed her lead, walking down the street making every attempt not to draw attention to themselves. Evie was an expert at this. She faded so easily into the background. Olivia began to worry about her without even meaning to. She was a woman trying so hard to survive that her life was being chipped away. Much like the women she worked with so often, in fact, in her place at the SVU.
"So, what do you want?" Evie asked, after a while.
"We need to find Raymond Ziegler."
Olivia was surprised he'd been so blunt, but then Evie seemed to appreciate. With a wrinkle of her small features, she expressed her revulsion.
"He's an asshole." She spat, with unexpected venom. "He hit me, and I don't have anything to do with him anymore."
"He hit you?" Elliot repeated in surprise. She nodded her adamant confirmation. "Yeah. Just once, but it was enough. Broke a tooth. Asshole."
"Do you know where he is now? It's really important." He asked, softening his tones enough to make her see how genuine he was.
Evie stopped in the street, ignoring the annoyed cry of some drunken jerk who brushed roughly past her. Olivia was not surprised to see her partner cast said jerk an angry look. 'He can be so protective sometimes' she thought, smiling inwardly.
Evie sighed reluctantly. "Yeah, well I know where he worked last time I spoke to him. Ricky's Autoshop. Y'know, the one with the burnt-out Lincoln outside?" She got two nods of recognition. "And that's all I know. Please don't bother me at work again."
She turned to leave the detectives, only to be stopped by Stabler. He reached into his jacket pocket, drew out a card with his name and number on it, and silently handed it over. Evie smiled briefly, the only positive emotion they had seen from her, and took it.
"She's got brains anyway." He said quietly. Olivia raised a questioning eyebrow, so he explained. "She left Raymond."