.Terry und Sven.

St. Vincent's Hospital
Tuesday, July 6th

Elliot stood from the seat where he had been waiting with Olivia for the doctors to finish treating Terry Franklin. After Paul Jordan had viciously beaten the other boy and Elliot had finally managed to pull the enraged teenager away, Olivia had frantically called for an ambulance while checking to make sure Terry was still breathing. He had been pale and unconscious but it didn't look like any irreparable damage had been done.

"Hey, doc. How's the kid doing?" Elliot asked the doctor exiting the patient's room.

"Terry's got a couple broken ribs, a fractured collarbone and a concussion. One of the rib fragments just barely missed puncturing his lungs and he'll take some time to recover from this, but you know kids," the doctor replied with a shrug, "He'll bounce back soon enough."

"Is it okay if we ask him a couple questions?"

"Sure, as long as he feels up to it," the doctor answered. "Now, I've got another patient to check in on so, if you'll excuse me…" As he walked away, Elliot and Olivia entered the hospital room. Terry was stretched out on the hospital bed, propped up into a sitting position by a couple pillows behind his back. He looked at the detectives with a confused expression and asked in a tired voice, "Do I know you?"

"Well, you probably don't remember us," Olivia answered, "but we were present at the hotel when Paul attacked you."

"Oh, yeah. You were the one who pulled him off me," the eighteen-year-old boy said, gesturing weakly at Elliot.

"Yeah, but do you know why he attacked you?" Elliot said, moving to stand by the bed.

"No, no." Terry shook his head weakly and with a slight wince as the action pulled at the area surrounding his damaged collarbone. "I remember him yelling something at me but when he started bashing my head against the floor, I kinda couldn't hear anymore and everything's still really hazy."

"That's to be expected after the head trauma you experienced, but we need you to answer some questions for us about another incident. Are you okay with that?" Olivia asked.

"Uh, I guess so," Terry sighed. "Will it take long?"

"Hopefully not. Now, our detectives found your fingerprints in Eve's room. Can you explain how they got there?"

"Eve's room?" The teen looked confused, but then he perked up with an expression of surprise. "What? My fingerprints?"

"Yes, can you tell us what you were doing in her room?" Elliot asked, staring at the boy seriously.

"I dunno. I've only been in her room once before but that was a couple of weeks back, ya know?"

"And what were you doing there?"

"Listen, man! I didn't touch her!" Terry stated defensively. "I wouldn't! Paul would kill me! You saw how the bastard beat the shit outta me earlier! If you hadn't been there, he would've killed me! I wouldn't harm a hair on her head. I wouldn't do nothing with a girl unless it was consensual, you know? And I definitely wouldn't kill one!"

"It's okay," Olivia said soothingly, "We believe you. Just tell us how your fingerprints got into her room."

Terry took a deep breath and started speaking, the strain apparent in his tone betraying how uncomfortable it was for him to speak to the detectives. "It was a couple weeks back, like I said. Paul, me, and Eve got drunk when their parents were away on a trip. We partied it up some, played some games, and after Paul passed out, me and Eve started talking and one thing kinda lead to another, ya know, and eventually we made it to her room, though I don't exactly remember how…" His brow wrinkled as he tried to recall the hazy details from that night.

"That's okay, just tell us what happened next," Olivia reassured him.

"Well, I wanted to fuck and it started lookin' like it was gonna go down that way, but she said 'no.' Said she didn't want to mess around with her brother's friends and repeat her mistakes or some drama shit like that." Terry shrugged. "I was disappointed obviously, but I passed out a little bit later so it's probably better that we didn't or else Paul could've found me naked in her bed in the morning."

"I thought you said you wouldn't touch her because of her brother," Elliot said, his tone slightly accusing.

Terry shrugged again. "Well, man, as I'm sure you've experienced, drunk people don't exactly keep a level head when little details like that get in the way of a quick fuck."

"How are we supposed to know that you didn't want to after that night though?"

"As long as I'm sober, I don't-didn't have any thoughts like that about her," Terry answered. "And if you need it, I'll give you a sample of my DNA to clear me, although I was with my girlfriend all yesterday."

"If you'll give us her name and address, we'll go see her and check about that."

"All right." Terry took the piece of paper they gave him and wrote down the information.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Olivia said as she and Elliot turned to leave the room, "I'm sure we won't have to get in touch with you again."

Elliot sighed in frustration as they walked down the hallway of the hospital. "It seems like everyone in this case has an alibi to cover their ass. At this rate, we're going to run out of suspects."

"There's still her boyfriend to consider. Munch and Fin should be talking to him right now and hopefully, they'll be finding out something useful."

…

"Is this house where Sven Adler is being housed?" Munch asked the man who answered the door of the house he and Fin had been directed to.

"Yes, I'm Walter Simmons," the man replied politely. "Can I help you gentlemen?"

Munch showed the man his badge. "I'm Detective Munch and this is my partner, Detective Tutuola. We're investigating the murder of Eve Jordan and we need to speak with Sven."

"Right, of course. Please come in." Walter gestured them into his home and into the living room. "Make yourselves comfortable and I'll go get Sven, although he's quite shaken up about Eve's death and so his English might suffer somewhat because of it." He left the room, presumably to locate the exchange student.

"His English is suffering," Fin repeated, "Well, that's great. You don't happen to speak German, do you?"

"Kind of," Munch answered and smiled slightly at the look on Fin's face. "I'm Jewish, remember? So I speak a bit of Yiddish. The language is basically German but with some variation between the two."

Fin stared at Munch for a moment and then shook his head. "Old man, you always seem to have one more trick hidden up those sleeves of yours."

"If I didn't, you know how boring these cases would become?" Munch said with a smug smile now fitted snugly across his face.

"You are the police officers?" a tall teenaged boy asked as he stepped into the room. He spoke with an audible, although not heavy, accent, having pronounced the last syllable as "sears." His physical features were a startling twin to the picturesque Aryan master race that had been promoted in Nazi Germany, however closer inspection revealed that his hair was bleached blonde as his natural dark hair was beginning to show at the roots. The youth stood awkwardly, obviously uncomfortable with their presence and his face was pale, accenting the dark circles that were visible under his eyes.

"Yeah, take a seat." Fin gestured to the chair across from the couch where he and Munch had seated themselves.

"Herr Simmons said you want to talk to me about Eve," Sven stated calmly, pronouncing the 'w' as a heavy 'v'.

"Yeah."

"Am I a suspect?" he asked bluntly.

Fin debated on how to answer and settled for, "We're not sure yet."

The boy sighed and sunk back into the chair he was now seating in. "What do you want to know?"

"When did you last see Eve?"

"Sunday night. We saw ein film und had lunch together."

"We heard that you two weren't getting along so well."

Sven looked at his hands for a moment. "It was a silly disagreement."

"About what?"

"Ein party that night. She wanted to go but I did not und I told her not to. There was alcohol there und Eve did not like to miss out on drinks but when she did drink, she did not think right und I was worried she was going to do something bad."

"Like cheat on you?" Fin asked.

Sven nodded stiffly. "Among other things."

"Where were you yesterday?" Munch spoke up from where he had sat silent for the past few moments.

Sven looked at him woodenly. "Here."

Munch leaned forward, his eyes locked on the German boy. "Can anyone corroborate that?"

He looked confused. "'Corroborate?' I do not know this word."

"Was anyone else here with you?" Fin explained, glancing at his partner for a moment.

"Nein, meine host family was away," Sven replied and stared at Munch with a hostile expression. "You think I killed her?"

"You've got no alibi," Munch answered calmly.

"I do not like what you imply, Schwein," Sven growled.

"Maybe it's because you don't like facing the truth."

The fair-haired youth jumped to his feet, exploding with a quick, "Beiss mich!" before storming out of the room.

Munch stood. "I think you could file that reaction under 'righteous indignation.'"

Fin followed Munch as he exited the house. "What'd he say?"

"'Bite me,'" Munch answered. As he opened the door to the car, he said, "Let's go talk to Amos about this party that Eve went to. I'll bet that her killer was there."

"What if Amos didn't go?" Fin asked, getting in the car.

"C'mon Fin. You know teenagers. They never miss a party."

Couple of things I feel I need to write here. First, this fic should be cleaning up soon, probably no more than four chapters left.
Second, the accent of the German kid… I didn't write it into his speech because that would get real messy and it'd end up looking really strange. Unfortunately, I've only met one person ever who was German and spoke not-so-good English and so I don't know if the substituting some German words for English as he talked is okay for portraying a not-so-good English speaker. o.o If that makes sense…