Title: Till Death Do Us Part (13/15)
Author: KatRose
Disclaimer: Simply put, Dick Wolf's, not mine.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None that I can think of
Author's Notes: The dates for this story are all 2004. I also have to thank kukrae for all her help, wisdom, cheerleading and browbeating me into getting this story written.
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CHAPTER 13
PASEK ERMLER'S APARTMENT
GREENWICH VILLAGE
2 PM
Munch showed the doorman their badges and asked, "Have you seen Pasek Ermler today?"
"I did this morning. Or I think I did," he responded.
"You *think* you did?" Fin asked incredulous.
"Well, there are a couple of guys that come in and out of here with him all the time. It could have been him or one of his guys. I wasn't really paying attention."
"What time was that?" asked Munch.
"Around noon."
"Any idea where he was headed?"
"I figured work, but then again he doesn't sit down for friendly chats much, so I could be wrong," the doorman answered sarcastically.
Fin just rolled his eyes at the man and walked out the door.
WHITE NIGHTS
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN
3 PM
Fin and Munch marched in through the front door and demanded to see Pasek Ermler.
"He's not here at the moment," Heather Hatagov said, coming from behind the bar. "Can I help?"
"Where is he?" Fin asked.
"I don't know. What's this about?" Heather was fast losing patience with these men.
"We're detectives with the Special Victims Unit and we need to find Ermler now," Munch stated firmly. "Now where is he?"
"Detectives? Special Victims Unit? What are you talking about?" she asked, confused.
"Do you know where Ermler is?" reiterated Fin.
"No, I don't. Now what's this about?" she asked as firmly as Munch.
"He's under suspicion for the rape and murder of seven women. Including one that went missing yesterday."
"Ermler? You must have the wrong man," she stated.
"Can you provide him an alibi for yesterday and today?" Fin asked.
"No. But he's taking care of some business for my husband."
"Where?"
"I don't know. I just know that he's not been in the city since yesterday afternoon."
"As alibis go, that's a pretty flimsy one," Munch said. "What business and where?"
"I don't know. How many times do I have to tell you that?" Heather was getting aggitated with their insistence that she knew something she didn't. "If you have nothing else you need from me, I suggest you leave." She turned on her heel and left the bar with regal grace. Munch and Fin standing there wondering how they managed to get dismissed so well by a will o' a wisp woman.
Fin got on the phone to Elliot explaining that they didn't have any idea where Ermler was. Elliot shared what little they got from Kwan. In the middle of their conversation Munch's phone rang.
"Munch," he said. "Good. We'll head back over there."
"What happened?" Fin asked.
"We got the warrant for his apartment, but not the club."
"Why not the club?"
"Something about no evidence to support that any of the activity happened at the club and since Hatagov is a well-known and respected businessman, they didn't want to aggrevate him unnecessarily."
Elliot heard the exchange over the open line. "Damn! Do you want us to meet you at the apartment?"
"No," Fin responded. "It's closer for us to meet the guys at Ermler's and for you guys to come here."
"Okay, will do."
PASEK ERMLER'S APARTMENT
GREENWICH VILLAGE
3:45 PM
Fin and Munch entered the building foyer with a train of uniformed policemen behind them.
"We're ba-ack," Munch said to the doorman. "We have a warrant to enter Pasek Ermler's apartment. Key please."
"I can't do that, but I can go with you and let you in," replied the doorman as he came around the desk and pushed the elevator button.
A few minutes later the entourage was standing outside the apartment door waiting for a reply to Munch's, "Police, open the door!" When no one responded, they had the doorman use his key and told him to go back downstairs.
"You," Fin said to two cops, "take the bedroom over there, we'll head over this way."
They searched for almost an hour without finding much. A calendar and phone book yielded nothing of interest, but they bagged it anyway. It wasn't until one of the uniforms dropped a book that anything else was found.
"What's that?" Fin asked seeing a piece of paper float across the room.
"Dunno," said the cop. She bent over to pick it up and looked at what it said. "This is weird, it says: 'D@WN7'. Any idea what that means?"
Munch took the note while Fin picked up the book it had dropped from.
"It feel from what looks like his diary," Fin said. "Do you know what part of the book it fell from?" he asked the cop.
"Sorry no. I was trying to put them back up on the shelf when that one dropped."
"Well, it doesn't look like an Internet address, no dot com," Munch said. "Could the at symbol be a bad O and the 7 just be bad penmenship?"
"Down?" Fin said. "What fool would write that into a diary?" Fin continued to flip through the diary.
Munch continued to mumble to himself. "D at WN. D at W … D at White Nights! It's gotta be White Nights."
"And the D?" Fin asked.
"Don't know, but maybe it's enough to get Elliot and Livia into the club."
"Got it!" Fin exclaimed. "That fits right in here," he pointed to a torn sheaf of paper in the book. "That's today's date."
"Then the 7 has to be a time. This should be enough now."
"Guess your big brain hasn't stopped working," Fin said to Munch, "yet."
WHITE NIGHTS
GREENWICH VILLAGE
5 PM
Elliot hung up his phone and turned to Olivia. "Novak said that exigent circumstances will allow us to go inside even without the warrant."
"Good, let's go. Fin and Munch should be here soon, right?"
"Yep. In fact," he said looking in the mirror, "they're pulling up now."
They all marched into the club with guns drawn. They encountered employees preparing for the nightly events ahead.
"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.
"Police," Elliot said. "Where's Ermler?"
"Not here," the man replied.
Elliot indicated to Fin and Munch to head towards the back of the club and that he and Olivia would take the upstairs. Some of the uniformed cops that arrived with Fin and Munch detained the other employees so no one would get in the way, flee or try to contact Ermler.
Fin and Munch headed into the kitchen area along with two of the other officers. They questioned everyone they saw about Ermler's whereabouts. They got the same answer from everyone, "He's not here."
"This is getting old," Fin said to the head chef. "We know he's here or will be shortly. Where's his office?"
"In, in the back," the man stuttered. "But he's not there."
"If he wanted to be alone and not disturb anyone where would he go?" Fin said, getting in the man's face.
"Basement?" he answered hoping the detective would just go away.
Fin opened the door to the basement and flicked on the lights. "You two stay here," he said to the officers. "We'll call for help if we find anything."
Upstairs Elliot and Olivia peeked their heads arounds corners and turned on lights as they went. So far they'd only seen a few employees and no sign of Ermler.
"Is Pasek Ermler here?" Olivia asked a shaken up waitress.
"No," she answered. "I haven't seen him for a couple of days."
"Is there any place here that would be quiet and private?"
The shifting of the woman's eyes towards the back of the loft area before she said, "No," seemed to indicate otherwise.
"You watch her, we're going back there," Olivia said to the officer with them.
Elliot and Olivia held their guns in front of themselves as they followed the wall into the back area. The further in they got, the lower the light and the darker the wall color. Olivia leaned up against it and felt it give.
"Elliot," she whispered, "the walls are padded. Nice sound-proofing." Elliot nodded in understanding and crept further down the hall.
The first door they came to was unlocked and after the standard prep of one aiming high, the other low, he flung open the door. They encountered a room decorated like something out of a sadist's dream in black and red and leather and chains. The chains were attached to the walls and the ceiling with leather straps and whips hung from convenient hooks close to the action.
"This was not listed in their business plan," Elliot said to Olivia after they made sure no one was hiding in the armoire.
"I wonder if they're all like this?"
"I wonder how many they have?"
With that they started back down the hallway to the next room. They repeated the exercise another four times with no success. By this time they were feeling more than a little discouraged, but knew they couldn't give up yet. The last door was on the left, just before the emergency exit door. Olivia took up position between the doors to prevent any escape by Ermler.
Elliot felt the doorknob and found it locked. He whispered, "I'll kick it in and you go for the drop." She nodded her assent.
On the silent count of three, Elliot rammed his booted foot into the space next to the doorknob. The force jarred the door, but it didn't break. He repeated the action three more times before the door finally flew open.
"Freeze!" he shouted. "Police!" Olivia followed him into the room keeping her gun trained in front of her. She swept high and low looking for Ermler.
Elliot saw Mudri chained to the wall. Her face was a mess of cuts and bruises and both her eyes were swollen shut. The rest of her wasn't much better off. What little of her that wasn't exposed was covered by leather straps that kept her legs pried apart and her arms held out at her side. She looked like a grotesque version of the DaVinci drawing 'Vitruvian Man'.
Olivia was temporarily distracted by Elliot's sudden stop when he saw Mudri. That distraction cost her her balance as she was shoved from the right into the door as someone ran past her towards the emergency exit.
"Elliot!" she yelled, "He's getting away!" Olivia quickly righted herself and dashed after the fleeing figure.
Elliot got on the walkie-talkie barking orders. "Someone come up here to take care of Ms. Barichev and call a bus, she's going to need major help! Fin! Munch! Ermler went out the emergency exit. Olivia went after him. Get some people at the top and the bottom to block any escape!"
Voices flew over the radio agreeing and answering. To an outsider the resulting actions would have looked chaotic, but to the trained officers and detectives, it was all just part of the job.
Elliot stood just outside the door and listened for which direction Ermler and Olivia had gone. Hearing footsteps below, he quickly followed. What he found at the bottom surprised him. Olivia was on the ground and her own gun was being trained on her. She didn't look happy, but at least she wasn't hurt. The look on her face was pure anger and disgust. What surprised him was who was holding the gun.
"Liv, you okay?" he asked, never taking his eyes off Dede Rayner.
"Yeah," she said, angrily wiping the blood off her lip. "I tripped when she shoved me backward."
"Dede," Elliot said slowly coming down the stairs. "You don't want to do this. Put the gun down."
"Yeah, right!" she shouted. "Like I'm going to get a fair shake after this. If I'm going down, so is she!" She used the gun to punctuate her words.
"Dede, just put down the gun and we can talk about this. I'm sure we can work something out," he coached.
"Nothin' doin'," she replied. "I'm going to back out of here and you're going to let me go. Otherwise your partner's going to get a bullet between her eyes."
Olivia's eyes had never wavered from Dede's face the entire time. She decided now was the time to ask the question running around in her head, "Why Dede? Why these women? Why hurt them?"
Dede's attention was diverted from Elliot to Olivia. "Why?! Because they're the ones responsible for taking Jonathan away from me! If not for these Russian BITCHES, Jon and I would be happily married with kids and a home. Instead, I'm helping find THEM rich, successful husbands that won't even look twice in my direction. The better question, Detective," she spat, "would be why not!"
A movement caught her attention and she looked up to see Elliot creeping down the stairs quietly. "Stop! I'll shoot her, don't you doubt it."
"I'm stopping," he said, placating her. "No need to shoot."
"Throw your gun down here," she demanded.
"Sorry, I can't do that."
"Not even for your beautiful partner here?"
"Department rules. Never give up your gun. But I will put it back in the holster." He followed his words with the appropriate action. "I'll keep my hands were you can see them."
"Where are the rest of the cops?" she asked, hearing noises coming from the hallway in front of them.
"Probably coming in here."
"Tell them to stop or I'll shot Detective Benson here!"
Elliot slowly pulled the walkie talkie out of it's holster at his waist. "This is Detective Stabler, stand down. I repeat stand down."
Fin's voice came back, "What's doing?"
"We've got a situation back here. So back off and stand down."
"Copy that."
"See, no more worries. It's just you, me and Detective Benson. Let's see if we can work this out," he said in a quiet voice. "I don't want any of us to be taken out of here in a body bag."
Olivia had slowly worked her way up from the crunch position on the floor to actually sitting up. It also brought her a little closer to Dede and the gun.
"Dede," she said calmly, "I can see why you'd be angry with these women for taking what you didn't have, but why the torture first? Why not just kill them?"
"Because they deserved to feel the pain I felt. They needed to know what it felt like to be ripped apart from the inside out. To have the heart of who they are dessimated and destroyed!"
"How does Pasek fit in?" Olivia asked.
"Pasek?! That fool!" Dede cackled. "He's nothing more than dog panting after a bitch in heat. He didn't want me, any woman would do." Her voice cracked. "If he'd only …"
"If he'd only what?"
"Nothing. Nevermind!" Dede turned her head towards Elliot. "Detective Stabler, I want you to back up two steps. Right now!" Elliot complied, but went no further.
A small noise from behind Dede startled them all. It was all the distraction Elliot needed. He quickly drew his gun and pulled the trigger hitting Dede in the side. Olivia's gun dropped at her feet as she swung into a kneeling position grabbing the gun on the way. Dede pulled a knife from the back of her pants and drew back to throw it at Olivia. Olivia's gun went off, hitting Dede's left thigh suddenly dropping her to the ground. The knife dropped harmlessly behind her.
In the sudden quiet following the two deafening gun shots, the sound of pained panting echoed throughout the hallway. Olivia crawled over to Dede to staunch the flow of blood as Elliot called for the paramedics to come on back. Elliot finished coming down the stairs and saw a second person on the floor.
"Liv!" he shouted, jumping over Dede's prone figure at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh my God! It's Heather Hatagov!" He ran over, peeling off his jacket to cover her until medical help arrived. "Heather?" he asked. "Heather? Wake up."
"Elliot, how is she?" Olivia asked, still keeping pressure on Dede's leg wound with one hand while handcuffing her to the stair support with the other.
"I don't know, she's not responding. But she's breathing." He grabbed the walkie-talkie and yelled, "We need another medical team back here! We have a civilian injured. Two gun shot wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen!"
The clatter of gurney wheels coming down the hallway stopped his shouting so he turned back to Heather. "Heather, open your eyes. Come on, you can do it."
The medics arrived and determined that Heather was worse off and started to treat her first. This didn't sit well with Dede. "Hey! I'm bleeding all over the floor here! I demand some attention!"
Olivia smirked and said, "I don't think that'll be a problem, Dede. You'll have all the attention you could ever want. We've got over forty cops out there vying to give you *attention*. There's a DA waiting to get her hands on you. And that's not even mentioning the family and friends of the women you raped and killed. I think you'll get all the ATTENTION you could ever want."
Olivia was relieved shortly afterward by the arrival of a second paramedic team. "We'll take over here," the leader said virtually shoving Olivia out of the way.
Cragen arrived on the scene right behind the second paramedic team. "You guys know the drill," he said holding out his hands for their guns. They handed them over understanding the need for it. "Munch and Fin are locking down the area. You two need to give your statements. Elliot, go with Jones here. Olivia, you're with Garcia."
"I think I need to wash up first," Elliot said. "My hands are covered in blood."
Olivia looked down and replied, "Mine too. Washroom's right behind you." She indicated the door that Heather had probably come out of just before the shooting started.
"I'll use the kitchen sink instead," he said looking sadly at the prone body of Heather Hatagov. The frantic actions of the medics didn't bode well, but still he hoped.
Olivia waited for Elliot to finish and walk off with Jones before going in to wash the blood off her hands. She turned to Garcia and said, "Ready."
He sat down at the steel counter and pulled out his notebook. "Ok, Detective."
Olivia described the order of events up to their entrance into the room occupied by Mudri and Dede. "After Detective Stabler finally got the door open and went through, I stood in the doorway to block any escape attempt."
"How'd she get by you?" Garcia asked.
"I swept the room left to right and didn't see her, only Mudri against the wall. I was in the process of turning to check the corner nearest the door when she shoved me and fled out the fire exit. I immediately gave chase down the stairs. I lost sight of her in the shadows at the bottom of the steps and slowed down some to let my eyes adjust. That's when she swung at me with something hard … I think it was a serving tray … and I went down. That's when I lost the gun."
"Go on," Garcia said.
"In that moment, she grabbed the gun before I'd even finished my roll back to a sitting position. That's when I heard Stabler come down the stairs. She had my gun aimed at me and she told him to stop."
"When did you realize it was Dede Rayner you were chasing and not Pasek Ermler?"
"When she told Stabler to stop. Up until then I hadn't actually seen the face of who I was chasing."
Garcia continued to listen to Olivia's recitation of events. When he asked about Heather Hatagov Olivia replied, "I didn't see her standing back there in the shadows. I heard a noise that I thought was just a box shifting on the shelves or perhaps a rat scurrying on the floor. It must have been her shoe scuffing the ground or perhaps her jacket rubbing against the door frame. Dede turned, Stabler fired. Dede dropped my gun when Stabler's bullet hit her. I grabbed it and aimed it at her hoping not to need it. She grabbed a knife from the back of her pants and drew back to throw it at me. I shot her in the leg to drop her without killing her. The knife fell behind her."
Olivia paused to collect her thoughts. "I kicked the knife away, called for the medics and proceeded to put pressure on her leg wound because it was bleeding profusely. Stabler jumped over us stating that we had another victim. That's when I found out that Heather was back there."
"How long was it before help arrived?"
"Only about a minute or two after we called 'all clear.' The medics did a quick triage and took care of Heather first since her wounds appeared more serious. I handcuffed Dede to the stair support so I could concentrate on stopping the bleeding instead of holding her down AND staunch the blood. Once the second team of paramedics arrived, I stepped back and allowed them to do their thing. That's when Cragen arrived and had the area locked down."
"Ok, Detective Benson. I'll give my notes to Captain Cragen on our way out."
Garcia went back into the hall to give Cragen his notes before leading Olivia out of the building. Cragen watched from the hallway as Olivia walked away followed by two uniformed officers. He heard over the radio that CSU had finally arrived. He would be glad to turn over Elliot and Olivia's weapons to them. He wanted to get back to the station just in case his people needed him during the IAB interviews.
Author: KatRose
Disclaimer: Simply put, Dick Wolf's, not mine.
Rating: PG
Spoilers: None that I can think of
Author's Notes: The dates for this story are all 2004. I also have to thank kukrae for all her help, wisdom, cheerleading and browbeating me into getting this story written.
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CHAPTER 13
PASEK ERMLER'S APARTMENT
GREENWICH VILLAGE
2 PM
Munch showed the doorman their badges and asked, "Have you seen Pasek Ermler today?"
"I did this morning. Or I think I did," he responded.
"You *think* you did?" Fin asked incredulous.
"Well, there are a couple of guys that come in and out of here with him all the time. It could have been him or one of his guys. I wasn't really paying attention."
"What time was that?" asked Munch.
"Around noon."
"Any idea where he was headed?"
"I figured work, but then again he doesn't sit down for friendly chats much, so I could be wrong," the doorman answered sarcastically.
Fin just rolled his eyes at the man and walked out the door.
WHITE NIGHTS
MIDTOWN MANHATTAN
3 PM
Fin and Munch marched in through the front door and demanded to see Pasek Ermler.
"He's not here at the moment," Heather Hatagov said, coming from behind the bar. "Can I help?"
"Where is he?" Fin asked.
"I don't know. What's this about?" Heather was fast losing patience with these men.
"We're detectives with the Special Victims Unit and we need to find Ermler now," Munch stated firmly. "Now where is he?"
"Detectives? Special Victims Unit? What are you talking about?" she asked, confused.
"Do you know where Ermler is?" reiterated Fin.
"No, I don't. Now what's this about?" she asked as firmly as Munch.
"He's under suspicion for the rape and murder of seven women. Including one that went missing yesterday."
"Ermler? You must have the wrong man," she stated.
"Can you provide him an alibi for yesterday and today?" Fin asked.
"No. But he's taking care of some business for my husband."
"Where?"
"I don't know. I just know that he's not been in the city since yesterday afternoon."
"As alibis go, that's a pretty flimsy one," Munch said. "What business and where?"
"I don't know. How many times do I have to tell you that?" Heather was getting aggitated with their insistence that she knew something she didn't. "If you have nothing else you need from me, I suggest you leave." She turned on her heel and left the bar with regal grace. Munch and Fin standing there wondering how they managed to get dismissed so well by a will o' a wisp woman.
Fin got on the phone to Elliot explaining that they didn't have any idea where Ermler was. Elliot shared what little they got from Kwan. In the middle of their conversation Munch's phone rang.
"Munch," he said. "Good. We'll head back over there."
"What happened?" Fin asked.
"We got the warrant for his apartment, but not the club."
"Why not the club?"
"Something about no evidence to support that any of the activity happened at the club and since Hatagov is a well-known and respected businessman, they didn't want to aggrevate him unnecessarily."
Elliot heard the exchange over the open line. "Damn! Do you want us to meet you at the apartment?"
"No," Fin responded. "It's closer for us to meet the guys at Ermler's and for you guys to come here."
"Okay, will do."
PASEK ERMLER'S APARTMENT
GREENWICH VILLAGE
3:45 PM
Fin and Munch entered the building foyer with a train of uniformed policemen behind them.
"We're ba-ack," Munch said to the doorman. "We have a warrant to enter Pasek Ermler's apartment. Key please."
"I can't do that, but I can go with you and let you in," replied the doorman as he came around the desk and pushed the elevator button.
A few minutes later the entourage was standing outside the apartment door waiting for a reply to Munch's, "Police, open the door!" When no one responded, they had the doorman use his key and told him to go back downstairs.
"You," Fin said to two cops, "take the bedroom over there, we'll head over this way."
They searched for almost an hour without finding much. A calendar and phone book yielded nothing of interest, but they bagged it anyway. It wasn't until one of the uniforms dropped a book that anything else was found.
"What's that?" Fin asked seeing a piece of paper float across the room.
"Dunno," said the cop. She bent over to pick it up and looked at what it said. "This is weird, it says: 'D@WN7'. Any idea what that means?"
Munch took the note while Fin picked up the book it had dropped from.
"It feel from what looks like his diary," Fin said. "Do you know what part of the book it fell from?" he asked the cop.
"Sorry no. I was trying to put them back up on the shelf when that one dropped."
"Well, it doesn't look like an Internet address, no dot com," Munch said. "Could the at symbol be a bad O and the 7 just be bad penmenship?"
"Down?" Fin said. "What fool would write that into a diary?" Fin continued to flip through the diary.
Munch continued to mumble to himself. "D at WN. D at W … D at White Nights! It's gotta be White Nights."
"And the D?" Fin asked.
"Don't know, but maybe it's enough to get Elliot and Livia into the club."
"Got it!" Fin exclaimed. "That fits right in here," he pointed to a torn sheaf of paper in the book. "That's today's date."
"Then the 7 has to be a time. This should be enough now."
"Guess your big brain hasn't stopped working," Fin said to Munch, "yet."
WHITE NIGHTS
GREENWICH VILLAGE
5 PM
Elliot hung up his phone and turned to Olivia. "Novak said that exigent circumstances will allow us to go inside even without the warrant."
"Good, let's go. Fin and Munch should be here soon, right?"
"Yep. In fact," he said looking in the mirror, "they're pulling up now."
They all marched into the club with guns drawn. They encountered employees preparing for the nightly events ahead.
"Can I help you?" the bartender asked.
"Police," Elliot said. "Where's Ermler?"
"Not here," the man replied.
Elliot indicated to Fin and Munch to head towards the back of the club and that he and Olivia would take the upstairs. Some of the uniformed cops that arrived with Fin and Munch detained the other employees so no one would get in the way, flee or try to contact Ermler.
Fin and Munch headed into the kitchen area along with two of the other officers. They questioned everyone they saw about Ermler's whereabouts. They got the same answer from everyone, "He's not here."
"This is getting old," Fin said to the head chef. "We know he's here or will be shortly. Where's his office?"
"In, in the back," the man stuttered. "But he's not there."
"If he wanted to be alone and not disturb anyone where would he go?" Fin said, getting in the man's face.
"Basement?" he answered hoping the detective would just go away.
Fin opened the door to the basement and flicked on the lights. "You two stay here," he said to the officers. "We'll call for help if we find anything."
Upstairs Elliot and Olivia peeked their heads arounds corners and turned on lights as they went. So far they'd only seen a few employees and no sign of Ermler.
"Is Pasek Ermler here?" Olivia asked a shaken up waitress.
"No," she answered. "I haven't seen him for a couple of days."
"Is there any place here that would be quiet and private?"
The shifting of the woman's eyes towards the back of the loft area before she said, "No," seemed to indicate otherwise.
"You watch her, we're going back there," Olivia said to the officer with them.
Elliot and Olivia held their guns in front of themselves as they followed the wall into the back area. The further in they got, the lower the light and the darker the wall color. Olivia leaned up against it and felt it give.
"Elliot," she whispered, "the walls are padded. Nice sound-proofing." Elliot nodded in understanding and crept further down the hall.
The first door they came to was unlocked and after the standard prep of one aiming high, the other low, he flung open the door. They encountered a room decorated like something out of a sadist's dream in black and red and leather and chains. The chains were attached to the walls and the ceiling with leather straps and whips hung from convenient hooks close to the action.
"This was not listed in their business plan," Elliot said to Olivia after they made sure no one was hiding in the armoire.
"I wonder if they're all like this?"
"I wonder how many they have?"
With that they started back down the hallway to the next room. They repeated the exercise another four times with no success. By this time they were feeling more than a little discouraged, but knew they couldn't give up yet. The last door was on the left, just before the emergency exit door. Olivia took up position between the doors to prevent any escape by Ermler.
Elliot felt the doorknob and found it locked. He whispered, "I'll kick it in and you go for the drop." She nodded her assent.
On the silent count of three, Elliot rammed his booted foot into the space next to the doorknob. The force jarred the door, but it didn't break. He repeated the action three more times before the door finally flew open.
"Freeze!" he shouted. "Police!" Olivia followed him into the room keeping her gun trained in front of her. She swept high and low looking for Ermler.
Elliot saw Mudri chained to the wall. Her face was a mess of cuts and bruises and both her eyes were swollen shut. The rest of her wasn't much better off. What little of her that wasn't exposed was covered by leather straps that kept her legs pried apart and her arms held out at her side. She looked like a grotesque version of the DaVinci drawing 'Vitruvian Man'.
Olivia was temporarily distracted by Elliot's sudden stop when he saw Mudri. That distraction cost her her balance as she was shoved from the right into the door as someone ran past her towards the emergency exit.
"Elliot!" she yelled, "He's getting away!" Olivia quickly righted herself and dashed after the fleeing figure.
Elliot got on the walkie-talkie barking orders. "Someone come up here to take care of Ms. Barichev and call a bus, she's going to need major help! Fin! Munch! Ermler went out the emergency exit. Olivia went after him. Get some people at the top and the bottom to block any escape!"
Voices flew over the radio agreeing and answering. To an outsider the resulting actions would have looked chaotic, but to the trained officers and detectives, it was all just part of the job.
Elliot stood just outside the door and listened for which direction Ermler and Olivia had gone. Hearing footsteps below, he quickly followed. What he found at the bottom surprised him. Olivia was on the ground and her own gun was being trained on her. She didn't look happy, but at least she wasn't hurt. The look on her face was pure anger and disgust. What surprised him was who was holding the gun.
"Liv, you okay?" he asked, never taking his eyes off Dede Rayner.
"Yeah," she said, angrily wiping the blood off her lip. "I tripped when she shoved me backward."
"Dede," Elliot said slowly coming down the stairs. "You don't want to do this. Put the gun down."
"Yeah, right!" she shouted. "Like I'm going to get a fair shake after this. If I'm going down, so is she!" She used the gun to punctuate her words.
"Dede, just put down the gun and we can talk about this. I'm sure we can work something out," he coached.
"Nothin' doin'," she replied. "I'm going to back out of here and you're going to let me go. Otherwise your partner's going to get a bullet between her eyes."
Olivia's eyes had never wavered from Dede's face the entire time. She decided now was the time to ask the question running around in her head, "Why Dede? Why these women? Why hurt them?"
Dede's attention was diverted from Elliot to Olivia. "Why?! Because they're the ones responsible for taking Jonathan away from me! If not for these Russian BITCHES, Jon and I would be happily married with kids and a home. Instead, I'm helping find THEM rich, successful husbands that won't even look twice in my direction. The better question, Detective," she spat, "would be why not!"
A movement caught her attention and she looked up to see Elliot creeping down the stairs quietly. "Stop! I'll shoot her, don't you doubt it."
"I'm stopping," he said, placating her. "No need to shoot."
"Throw your gun down here," she demanded.
"Sorry, I can't do that."
"Not even for your beautiful partner here?"
"Department rules. Never give up your gun. But I will put it back in the holster." He followed his words with the appropriate action. "I'll keep my hands were you can see them."
"Where are the rest of the cops?" she asked, hearing noises coming from the hallway in front of them.
"Probably coming in here."
"Tell them to stop or I'll shot Detective Benson here!"
Elliot slowly pulled the walkie talkie out of it's holster at his waist. "This is Detective Stabler, stand down. I repeat stand down."
Fin's voice came back, "What's doing?"
"We've got a situation back here. So back off and stand down."
"Copy that."
"See, no more worries. It's just you, me and Detective Benson. Let's see if we can work this out," he said in a quiet voice. "I don't want any of us to be taken out of here in a body bag."
Olivia had slowly worked her way up from the crunch position on the floor to actually sitting up. It also brought her a little closer to Dede and the gun.
"Dede," she said calmly, "I can see why you'd be angry with these women for taking what you didn't have, but why the torture first? Why not just kill them?"
"Because they deserved to feel the pain I felt. They needed to know what it felt like to be ripped apart from the inside out. To have the heart of who they are dessimated and destroyed!"
"How does Pasek fit in?" Olivia asked.
"Pasek?! That fool!" Dede cackled. "He's nothing more than dog panting after a bitch in heat. He didn't want me, any woman would do." Her voice cracked. "If he'd only …"
"If he'd only what?"
"Nothing. Nevermind!" Dede turned her head towards Elliot. "Detective Stabler, I want you to back up two steps. Right now!" Elliot complied, but went no further.
A small noise from behind Dede startled them all. It was all the distraction Elliot needed. He quickly drew his gun and pulled the trigger hitting Dede in the side. Olivia's gun dropped at her feet as she swung into a kneeling position grabbing the gun on the way. Dede pulled a knife from the back of her pants and drew back to throw it at Olivia. Olivia's gun went off, hitting Dede's left thigh suddenly dropping her to the ground. The knife dropped harmlessly behind her.
In the sudden quiet following the two deafening gun shots, the sound of pained panting echoed throughout the hallway. Olivia crawled over to Dede to staunch the flow of blood as Elliot called for the paramedics to come on back. Elliot finished coming down the stairs and saw a second person on the floor.
"Liv!" he shouted, jumping over Dede's prone figure at the bottom of the stairs. "Oh my God! It's Heather Hatagov!" He ran over, peeling off his jacket to cover her until medical help arrived. "Heather?" he asked. "Heather? Wake up."
"Elliot, how is she?" Olivia asked, still keeping pressure on Dede's leg wound with one hand while handcuffing her to the stair support with the other.
"I don't know, she's not responding. But she's breathing." He grabbed the walkie-talkie and yelled, "We need another medical team back here! We have a civilian injured. Two gun shot wounds, one to the chest and one to the abdomen!"
The clatter of gurney wheels coming down the hallway stopped his shouting so he turned back to Heather. "Heather, open your eyes. Come on, you can do it."
The medics arrived and determined that Heather was worse off and started to treat her first. This didn't sit well with Dede. "Hey! I'm bleeding all over the floor here! I demand some attention!"
Olivia smirked and said, "I don't think that'll be a problem, Dede. You'll have all the attention you could ever want. We've got over forty cops out there vying to give you *attention*. There's a DA waiting to get her hands on you. And that's not even mentioning the family and friends of the women you raped and killed. I think you'll get all the ATTENTION you could ever want."
Olivia was relieved shortly afterward by the arrival of a second paramedic team. "We'll take over here," the leader said virtually shoving Olivia out of the way.
Cragen arrived on the scene right behind the second paramedic team. "You guys know the drill," he said holding out his hands for their guns. They handed them over understanding the need for it. "Munch and Fin are locking down the area. You two need to give your statements. Elliot, go with Jones here. Olivia, you're with Garcia."
"I think I need to wash up first," Elliot said. "My hands are covered in blood."
Olivia looked down and replied, "Mine too. Washroom's right behind you." She indicated the door that Heather had probably come out of just before the shooting started.
"I'll use the kitchen sink instead," he said looking sadly at the prone body of Heather Hatagov. The frantic actions of the medics didn't bode well, but still he hoped.
Olivia waited for Elliot to finish and walk off with Jones before going in to wash the blood off her hands. She turned to Garcia and said, "Ready."
He sat down at the steel counter and pulled out his notebook. "Ok, Detective."
Olivia described the order of events up to their entrance into the room occupied by Mudri and Dede. "After Detective Stabler finally got the door open and went through, I stood in the doorway to block any escape attempt."
"How'd she get by you?" Garcia asked.
"I swept the room left to right and didn't see her, only Mudri against the wall. I was in the process of turning to check the corner nearest the door when she shoved me and fled out the fire exit. I immediately gave chase down the stairs. I lost sight of her in the shadows at the bottom of the steps and slowed down some to let my eyes adjust. That's when she swung at me with something hard … I think it was a serving tray … and I went down. That's when I lost the gun."
"Go on," Garcia said.
"In that moment, she grabbed the gun before I'd even finished my roll back to a sitting position. That's when I heard Stabler come down the stairs. She had my gun aimed at me and she told him to stop."
"When did you realize it was Dede Rayner you were chasing and not Pasek Ermler?"
"When she told Stabler to stop. Up until then I hadn't actually seen the face of who I was chasing."
Garcia continued to listen to Olivia's recitation of events. When he asked about Heather Hatagov Olivia replied, "I didn't see her standing back there in the shadows. I heard a noise that I thought was just a box shifting on the shelves or perhaps a rat scurrying on the floor. It must have been her shoe scuffing the ground or perhaps her jacket rubbing against the door frame. Dede turned, Stabler fired. Dede dropped my gun when Stabler's bullet hit her. I grabbed it and aimed it at her hoping not to need it. She grabbed a knife from the back of her pants and drew back to throw it at me. I shot her in the leg to drop her without killing her. The knife fell behind her."
Olivia paused to collect her thoughts. "I kicked the knife away, called for the medics and proceeded to put pressure on her leg wound because it was bleeding profusely. Stabler jumped over us stating that we had another victim. That's when I found out that Heather was back there."
"How long was it before help arrived?"
"Only about a minute or two after we called 'all clear.' The medics did a quick triage and took care of Heather first since her wounds appeared more serious. I handcuffed Dede to the stair support so I could concentrate on stopping the bleeding instead of holding her down AND staunch the blood. Once the second team of paramedics arrived, I stepped back and allowed them to do their thing. That's when Cragen arrived and had the area locked down."
"Ok, Detective Benson. I'll give my notes to Captain Cragen on our way out."
Garcia went back into the hall to give Cragen his notes before leading Olivia out of the building. Cragen watched from the hallway as Olivia walked away followed by two uniformed officers. He heard over the radio that CSU had finally arrived. He would be glad to turn over Elliot and Olivia's weapons to them. He wanted to get back to the station just in case his people needed him during the IAB interviews.
