Title: When the Rain Falls
Author: Sadie
Summary: A woman is dead and there are no suspects. Then one of their own is gunnGreen down as well.
A/N: This is my first L&O story. I don't know the characters real well because I can't find a decent L&O website and the show doesn't describe their personal lives much.
Also, I've never been to New York so the street names might not make sense. And despite what the show does, I don't intend to use their last names first except in the case of Briscoe and Green, it just makes more sense that way. I still don't know Eames' first name on L&O CI because of it.
If you haven't read Dead Line, the new L&O novel, read it! It is really good!
Disclaimer: Law & Order is a Wolf Films production in association with Universal Network Television. In other words, it doesn't belong to me which I'm sure you already guessGreen because if it did, I probably would not be writing fanfiction.
The woman's body lay in the alleyway between two apartment buildings. The body had two gunshot wounds, one in the left shoulder and the fatal wound blossomed in crimson blood on her upper chest.
"Victim's name is Charlotte East, thirty three years old, accountant at Patriot Accounting, lives on 61st street, no boyfriend that we know of." Lennie Briscoe told his partner, Ed Green.
"Okay," Green replied, writing it down in his little notebook. "Any witnesses, suspect description, anything?"
"Yup. That kid over there," Briscoe pointed to a boy about seventeen or so,"heard the shots, saw her go down, but didn't see the perp."
"Huh, that so?" Green spoke again. "Okay, so where was the kid standing? Did he tell you that?"
"No, but we're taking him down to the station for more questions. I know that kid knows more then he's tellin' us."
"Let's see, says here your name is Peter Simeon, you're seventeen years old, senior at JFK High Scool, you have a job at a burger joint, what else do we need to know about you?" Briscoe began the interrogation.
"You don't. Look, I thought you just wanted to know what I saw." The tall teenager had stringy shoulder length hair, four earrings in his left ear, and wore Goth-like clothes.
"We do. That's why you're gonna quit the smart aleck attitude and give us what we want or we lock you up til you do." Green said.
"Jeez, man, you don't have to threaten me." Green's words seemed to have put some fear into Peter's eyes, and some respect into his attitude.
"Good. Then it'll be much easier for both you and us. Now, can you tell us exactly what you saw earlier this evening? And don't leave anything out."
"I won't, I won't." Peter seemed to be thinking of what he should say when he quit talking.
"Hey, you gonna talk or not? We can still arrange for you to stay in custody if you wanna be silent." Briscoe told the kid.
"I want a lawyer."
Peter's words seemed to shock the two men. "Why do you need a lawyer? You're not a suspect, just a witness." a very surprised Briscoe asked.
"Not safe to say anything without one."
"Sounds to me like you've watched too many crime shows." Green muttered as he and Briscoe stepped out of the interrogation room.
"Yeah, really. There is something more to this, much more, then the punk is telling us." Briscoe answered. "Let's go back to the street where the body was found, see if anyone else saw or heard anything."
" 'kay, let's go." The two men headed down the hallway toward the elevator, stopping briefly at Lt. van Buren's office to tell her that Peter Simeon wanted a lawyer.
The brisk spring air blew against the two detectives as they walked down 61st street. "Here's what we know so far, that the victim is named Charlotte East, the C.O.D. was a gunshot wound to the upper left chest and we have a witness who is also a potential suspect in custody." Green read from his notes. "Not much to go on."
"Okay, well, it's a start at least." Briscoe pulled his black coat tighter around himself. "Here's where the body was found. Did the M.E. tell us how long ago she was killed?"
"Hmm, let me see." Green flipped through his notebook. "Yeah, here it is. She died between four and eight hours ago."
"Okay, so she laid here, in a public alleyway for four to eight hours and no one noticed? Something's off with that."
"Yeah, I agree with that. Maybe someone in one of these buildings saw something or heard her scream or something. After all, these are twelve story buildings with at least 200 people in each building, you can't tell me no one heard anything or saw anything." Green said.
"People only see and hear what they want to see and hear, Green. Haven't you learned that?" With that, the two men went into the first building to begin their questioning.
"This is not my day," Serena Southerlyn thought as she packed her leather tote with files and loose papers to take home to her apartment. It really hadn't been a good day, starting out with the pouring down rain in the morning, missing the subway so she was late to work which made her boss, Jack McCoy, rather unhappy because it made the both of them late for court, and then to top the cake, they lost the case and the murderer they had been prosecuting was now free to roam the streets as he pleased. She looked at her watch and sighed. She had just missed the subway again.
"Hey, Jack, do you..," Serena peeked into Jack's office hoping to see him there, still working at his desk, so she could borrow the money for a cab. But he wasn't there. "And of course I forgot my wallet, what else could go wrong today?" she said silently to herself.
She walked down the hall, toward the elevator, then inwardly groaned as she read the sign on the elevator door, "Out of Order". Sighing, Serena headed for the stairwell, "After all, the stairs can't be out of order," she thought wryly.
Once downstairs in the main lobby, she went out the big double doors that graced the front of One Hogan Place, into the brisk spring air that seemed even colder now that darkness was falling over the city and it was raining lightly as she walked quickly down the street northward to her apartment building. Unfortunely her building was eleven blocks away which seemed like eleven miles by the time Serena got to the ninth block.
She shivered in the cold air. "Must be at least twenty five, thirty degrees." she thought, instinctly pulling her heavy black peacoat tighter.
A loud bang sounded out in the cold air and caused her to drop her leather tote. "Dang, dang, dang," she said as she knelt to pick up the papers that had fallen out of it. Another bang caused her to grip her left shoulder in pain. She pulled her fingers away and gasped as she saw the blood on them. As she was trying to move farther away from the street another gunshot rang out, this time hitting her left upper arm.
Crying and confused, Serena saw a blurry figure fleeing across the street. She struggled through the pain to look as closely as she could at the fleeing figure as she logically knew it would be important later.
"Hey, Briscoe! We got a call over at 42nd, another woman gunned down. No word on her condition." Green called out to Briscoe, who was at the other end of the hallway. They had made it through all twelve floors of the first building and were now on the fourth floor of the second.
"Does she have a name?" Briscoe joined his partner.
"I wasn't given one. Only that we had to get our butts over there as fast as possible."
"Good thing we've got a car tonight then." Briscoe said. He liked to drive through the city at night even though he'd lived in NYC all his life.
"Nineteen streets don't seem far until you're in a hurry." Briscoe exclaimed, as he tried to maneveur the car through the never ending traffic.
"Yeah, you're tellin' me," was Green's quick answer.
Arriving at the crime scene, the two men were startled to recognize the victim. "Hey, isn't that ADA Southerlyn?" Green asked, quietly, looking at the young blond woman on the bright orange gurney. She was surrounded by EMTs who were rushing to stop the bleeding before she lost her life.
"Believe so." Briscoe answered. "One of our own has been hurt. Now it means war.
So, what do y'all think? Is it worth continuing or should I trash it? Actually, since I don't have a very good track record of finishing stories, just starting them, don't answer that. Please read and review and tell me the truth about the story, nicely please! Sadie