Title: When the Rain Falls
Author: Sadie
Summary: A woman is dead and there are no suspects. Then one of their own is gunned 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 (altho I did find one, it just hasnt been updated since May) and the show doesn't describe their personal lives much.
Also, I've never been to New York so the street names and/or the names of places (i.e. the hospital) 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 the police, it just makes more sense that way. I only just learned Eames' first name (Alexandra, but usually Alex, for those of you who don't know either) on L&O CI because of this practice. I'm not a lawyer nor do I work for the police, I don't know how everything works within those departments.
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 guessed because if it did, I probably would not be writing fanfiction.
Pendray - Thanks! And I only just found out her name through a website I found :)
wander shadow - Thanks! I haven't been watching the show all that long so I thought I might be wandering away from the real characters a bit.
Chapter Three
"No, sir, I'm sorry, but Miss Southerlyn is not awake yet." Joe Manning, a nurse at New York memorial, patiently explained to Briscoe for the fourth time in a hour.
"Well, can you check? I know she can't be questioned as soon as she wakes up, but Miss Southerlyn is an important source of information in this murder investigation. We need whatever she can tell us." Briscoe persisted.
"I understand that, sir. But she did have a rather long surgery so she was under anethesia for quite some time. It'll take even longer for her to sleep it off."
"You didn't answer my question. Can you check on Miss Southerlyn for me?"
Joe sighed and then answered, very patiently, "Yes, sir, I will check for you. Please hold." He put the phone down, pressed the button to keep the line open, and left the nurses station to check on the patient.
On the other end of the line, Briscoe didn't look very happy. "Just how much of that anesthesia did they pump into that woman? She went into surgery at nine, it is now four in the morning, she should have slept it off by now!" he complained to Green.
"Keep in mind that she might have slept it off and now is just sleeping. Most people are still asleep at four in the morning. Here, drink some coffee." Green answered. He had worked with Briscoe for several years and knew that the longer the shift, the more irrational Briscoe became. "It's not like we can go barging in there anyway, she's an ADA, which means she gets special treatment, the whole kid gloves thing."
"It means we'll deal with Jack McCoy and Arthur Branch, that's what it means. They're the ones she works with, the ones that we'll have to work with to get to her."
"Sir? Sir, are you still there?" the nurse's voice squaked from the cell phone Brisoce had laid on the arm rest between the two men.
Briscoe quickly scooped the phone up and answered, "Yeah, yeah, I'm still here. Is she awake?"
"Well, sir, she is still asleep, as well as being heavily sedated for the pain. Even if you came in right now, I couldn't let you in, visiting hours don't start until seven. It would be better if you waited until then anyway, she'd be more alert and not as sedated." Joe was a very patient man, even after dealing with Briscoe during the wee hours of the morning, he didn't sound exasperated.
"Okay. At seven sharp, my partner Ed Green and I will be there. Got that? Don't give Miss Southerlyn anything that'll make her sleep past seven." Briscoe was getting annoyed. The only witness they had was a sullen teenager and the only people who could tell them anything were Charlotte East, who was dead, and Serena Southerlyn, who was too whacked on pain medications to tell them anything.
It was early in the morning, so early the sun was barely peeking over the great buildings in the New York skyline when Ethel Spade walked out of her apartment to catch the subway to go to work. Ten minutes later she was dead, lying in an alleyway a block away from her apartment building.
Briscoe and Green, who had already been working for over fourteen hours on this case, got the call. "Muller Avenue, let's go," Green said, flipping his cell phone shut.
"Another victim like the last two?" Briscoe asked.
"You got it."
"Three victims in less then 24 hours. This guy is really something." Briscoe commented as he drove through the early morning streets of New York, the city that never sleeps.
"Yeah, you're tellin' me." Green settled back against the seat, ready for another hard day, despite the lack of sleep.
The pain. It hurt so much. Serena moaned as she slowly woke up from her medicated sleep.
Her cries also woke Jack, who had slept the night in the chair beside her bed. "Serena? You need a nurse or something?" he asked, as he tried to oriente himself with the strange surroundings.
"Wha, what the heck are you doing here?" Still half asleep, Serena looked confused as she looked around the hospital room, her eyes falling on Jack.
"I was called." Jack answered simply. "They said you had been shot, and were in surgery."
"Oh." Serena shut her eyes again.
Thinking she had gone back to sleep, this time a natural sleep, Jack settled back. A few more hours of sleep sounded good to him,too, and he was too tired to move anywhere anyway.
"Hurts. Have something?" Serena's voice, still heavy with sleep, asked into the dim room.
A bit confused about what she was saying it took Jack a minute to rouse himself enough to understand her. "Yeah, sure." He pressed the nurse call button, rather certain Serena would be sound asleep by the time the nurse arrived, which she was, and Jack gave the nurse a small smile and waved her away so he could go back to sleep,too.
"All right, Mr. Simeon. You've caused us a great deal of trouble tonight and I'd like to get this over with. So let's get on with the interrogation at last." van Buren said, walking into the room about an hour after she dropped off Whitney Mayes.
"Go on, Peter. Tell her what you saw." Whitney encouraged.
"Okay, what I would most like to know is why you waited for hours before you called the police." van Buren started the questions.
"I was scared, lady! I didn't do it, all right!" Peter answered, indignantly.
"All right, all right, calm it down. We'll go back to that. Did you see Miss East being shot?"
"No. I heard the gunshots. Thought it was someone's car backfiring. Then I saw this guy, about 6'3 or so, running really fast."
"Okay, that's good." van Buren wrote it down. "Can you tell me anything else about this 6'3 guy? What was he wearing, did he run with a limp, anything like that?"
"A denim jacket. I remember it because it was black, with brown sleeves. Never saw one like that before." Peter continued.
"That's great. Anything else?"
"Not about the guy."
"All right. What else did you see?" van Buren was running out of patience for this kid.
"Go on, Peter." Whitney encouraged him again.
"After the guy ran away, another guy came over and dragged whatever her name is into the alley." Peter answered quietly.
"Really? Well, Peter, I'd like it if you'd stay here for a little while longer because we're going to have more questions for you but if you'd like you could go into the lobby. They've got vending machines and things like that there." van Buren wanted to keep this kid under police watch as long as possible.
"I think that's a good idea, Peter. You're the only witness in this investigation and that's important." Whitney told him.
"Yeah, sure, whatever." A night without any sleep hadn't improved his behavior any.
"Ms Mayes, I'd like to speak to you privately, if I may." van Buren turned her attention to the young lawyer.
"Sure." Whitney replied.
van Buren beckoned her into the hallway, where they could still keep an eye on Peter but talk privately. "That kid knows more then he is telling. I think he is protecting someone." she stated plainly.
Whitney sighed. "I think he is,too. But I can't make him tell me anything. You know that as well as I do."
"All too true but I've been notified that Miss Southerlyn is awake and ready for questioning. Maybe she can tell us something we can use to get the truth out of him."
"Let's go for it!" van Buren had to admire the young woman's enthusiam for her job.
Briscoe and Green arrived at the hospital nearly two hours after seven, which annoyed Briscoe. It did, however, make Joe Manning grin when he realized who they were and what time it was. "Detectives, good morning," he said with a huge grin on his face.
"Yeah, yeah, good morning to you,too. What room is Miss Southerlyn in?" Briscoe snapped. Green suppressed a smile, no sleep did not a happier Briscoe make. It was going to be a joy working with him today.
The two walked briskly down the hall toward Serena's room, eager to get answers to the questions they had wanted answers to for hours. They wanted to get the perp before yet another victim was murdered. So far, only one person had survived the killing spree, and that was Serena.
"Let's hope she actually remembers something." Green remarked.
"She's an attorney, she has spent her whole dang blasted career remembering things! Of course she'll remember something." Briscoe was in no mood whatsoever to be reckoned with. He only hoped he was right.
"All right. I'm going to be your attorney, okay, Serena?" Jack told her.
"uhuh," she replied, too whacked on pain meds to notice that her boss was seeing her in nightclothes.
"She'd probably agree to anything right now," Jack thought. He knew the detectives were coming to question Serena and had tried to explain it to her but he doubted she really understood.
A rapid knockknockknock sounded from the heavy door. Jack got up from the chair, in which he had been sitting all night, to answer it.
"Detectives Briscoe and Green, may we come in?" Briscoe didn't actually wait for an answer and came in anyway.
"Detectives, I really feel it would be better if you waited til later. Serena isn't ready for questions." Jack tried to convince them otherwise.
"We were told she could be questioned now," Briscoe replied, moving toward the chair Jack had vacanted moments before.
"Truthfully, McCoy, we can't wait til later. There's been another victim, and Miss Southerlyn is, more or less, the only person who can tell us anything before there is a fourth victim." Green stood by the door.
Jack sighed. Serena would never forgive him for this, once she realized what had happened anyway. "Ten minutes, no more. Then you'll come back later. She really can't handle more then that." he reluctanctly said.
"That'll be fine. That's all we need for now." Green answered.
Next up is Serena's own interrogation. I don't mean to make her out as a weakling but I would think, after being shot twice, the pain would be immense, thus a person would probably be whacked on pain meds for a while. Please read and review! Sadie