I don't own SVU characters – only Cassandra and all other original characters! Hope you'll continue to read and review!
When Elliot and Olivia arrived on the scene, there were already cops from Homicide there investigating. As they crossed the wasteland where Samantha's body had been dumped, both felt a slight feeling of guilt, as if they should have done more to protect her. Warner was already there and she looked up as she heard them approaching.
"You know her?" she asked.
"Samantha Baxter," Olivia supplied, "She was Felicity's friend. What happened to her?"
"Almost identical to Felicity," Warner replied, "She's been forcibly raped and then struck over the back of the head with a brick," she moved Samantha's leg to expose her knees, "Gravel."
"He made her kneel," Elliot said.
"Looks like it."
"Anything else?"
"Your boy didn't wear a condom again, so if it's Mark Watson, the DNA should match from Felicity."
"What kind of idiot is this guy?" Olivia exclaimed.
"If it's him," Elliot said.
"Well, who else wanted to shut Samantha up? She's already told us that Watson assaulted her. Looks like he finished the job this time." She looked down at Samantha's face, peaceful in death.
"Let's hope this give the Senate committee enough of a reason to let us arrest Watson," Elliot replied grimly.
"Let's not give them the chance to say no," Olivia said, "let's go get him right now."
"Liv, we can't do that. Not without a warrant."
"Elliot, he murdered Samantha and probably Felicity too. How much more do you need?"
"Look, I'm as frustrated as you are," her partner replied, "but we need to do this by the book if we want to make to stick. Let's go back to the precinct, see what the other's have got and call Alex, ok?"
Olivia nodded, "But we can't let him get away with it this time."
"Don't worry, we won't."
SSSS
"About what happened in the club," Fin said as he and Cassandra made their way to Samantha's apartment.
"It's fine," she replied quickly, "If anything, I should be apologising to you."
"I came on a little strong," he continued as if he hadn't heard her, "I shouldn't have…I mean, where I put my hand…you know…"
"Fin, honestly, forget it," she insisted, "I'm the one who practically jumped on you. We were doing it for show and it got a little out of hand, no big deal." She stole a look at him, "You don't regret it, do you?"
"No, I'm just saying…"
"Because, I think it had the desired effect," she rushed on, "I think it made us more believable towards Ricky." She failed to mention that Ricky had seen right through them, "Like you said, if you didn't touch me all night it would look suspicious."
Fin looked at her, "Long as you're ok with it."
"I'm fine," she replied brightly, "Hey, why don't we go get a cup of coffee later? You know, debrief?"
"Ok," he replied as they reached Samantha's door, "Why not?" He slotted the key the Super had given them into the lock and pushed the door open. The apartment was meticulously tidy, with not one thing out of place, hardly a typical student flat.
"You've got to give her credit," Cassandra said, wandering into the bedroom, "It's tidy."
"When I was her age, I lived in a pigsty," Fin said, "dirty laundry, dirty dishes, papers everywhere…"
"As opposed to now where you're Mr Houseproud?"
"Don't knock it til you've seen it," he said, coming in to join her, "I suppose you lived in a palace."
"Hardly," she replied wryly, "My father didn't become Senator until I was eighteen. By that time I was already at college. They call it the Senator's mansion and I don't even have a room."
"Thought only Governors got mansions?"
"This is my father we're talking about," she reminded him, "he's hardly going to settle for a two-room walkup in Queens." She opened the drawers next to Samantha's bed, "No contraceptives."
"Not all women are well prepared," Fin said, walking into the bathroom and checking the cabinets, "None in here either."
"Not all men carry them," Cassandra said, "Sometimes, if we women didn't think ahead, none of you would get any action." She glanced around, "No sign of a struggle."
"Bed's not made," Fin noticed, coming back in.
"Now that is a typical student thing," Cassandra replied. She wandered over to the small desk at the window. It was covered with books and papers, spidery handwriting over every square inch of space. She picked up a full, blank notepad that was sitting on the chair, "Top page has been torn off."
"Could be for anything."
"Sure, but the lab could take a look anyway," Cassandra put it into an evidence bag, "Anything else you want to bag?"
"Nothing that would seem to indicate a connection to who her killer was. Don't even see anything relating to Ricky or Mark."
"Well, Ricky was with us, so once Warner can give us a time of death, we'll be able to either eliminate or incriminate."
SSSSS
"Warner says Samantha was killed round between nine and eleven," Olivia said, "That rules Ricky out. He was in the club during those hours."
"That leaves Mark," Cragen said. "We know his whereabouts?"
"Helpfully, no-one's seen him since we let him and Laquisha Thomson go," Munch replied, "They've not been back at her apartment or his."
"So where are they?"
Munch shrugged, "Relaxing at one of New York's many fine hotels?"
"Is Mark still the best we have?" Elliot asked.
"Well, he's the only one to be connected to both Samantha and Felicity," Olivia replied, "They were both killed in the same way, it has to be the same killer. Mark already confessed to sleeping with Felicity. Warner's running the DNA from Samantha to see if it's a match."
"If it is, we bring him in. I don't care what the Senate Committee has to say about it," Cragen said, shooting a look at Cassandra, "Did you talk to Samantha's parents?"
"Her mother's an alcoholic, claims she hasn't seen Samantha in years. Didn't seem to cut up about it," Elliot said.
"Not that we could really make out much of what she was saying given that her lips were practically glued to a vodka bottle the whole time we were in," Olivia added.
"Ok," Cragen said, "the only other person connected to all of this is Ricky Brown. Elliot, Olivia, bring him in and talk to him. Maybe he knows Mark's whereabouts, not to mention the fact he spoke to Samantha the morning she died. Right now he's up to his neck in it. Cassandra," he turned to her, "is your father back in the city?"
"I've no idea," she replied, "he's been avoiding me ever since the whole Mark Watson thing first came up. He won't answer or return my calls."
"It would help if we could find out what the Committee's thing is with Watson," Cragen continued, "they don't seem to be breaking ranks and telling anyone here, but your father might tell you."
"You want me to pump him for information?"
"Kind of like the rat turning on itself," Munch injected sardonically.
Cassandra ignored him, "I'm not sure if it would help. I doubt he'll tell me anything now that I'm on the case."
"Try and get in touch with him," Cragen urged, "Munch, Fin, go through Samantha's phone records, see if she was making any calls we should be aware of. Check her bank records too. Someone must know something about this girl."
SSSSS
"I didn't kill nobody," Ricky said when he was sat in the interrogation room, "I didn't kill Felicity and I didn't kill Samantha."
"No-one's suggesting you did, Ricky," Olivia said, "we just want to know what you can tell us."
"What makes you think I can tell you anything?"
"You're Mark's friend. You were at the party with both Felicity and Samantha. There's a lot of dots joining to you."
"You can't trick me into saying anything," he said, "I'm not stupid. I see through your little games."
"Games?" Elliot echoed.
"Like sending the senator's daughter into the club. That was really dumb. I mean, who in the right mind wasn't going to recognise her?"
Elliot and Olivia exchanged glances, "So you clocked her then, huh?" the former said.
"Man, it was so obvious. She looked a bit rattled when I told her, mind you. You really should use more experienced undercover officers in future."
"Going back to Mark," Olivia re-steered the conversation, "Do you know where he is?"
"You're trying to pin all this on Mark, but it won't work."
"Why's that?"
"It just won't. Mark's untouchable."
"We think he killed Felicity and Samantha after having sex with them. We also have a statement from Samantha saying he roughed her up the morning she died," Olivia said, "That's quite a lot of evidence pointing towards him."
Ricky sat back in his chair and surveyed them, "I'm telling you, you can't touch Mark, and he knows it."
"Where is he?"
"Sorry," Ricky crossed his arms, "Now, if you want to ask me anything else, I think I'd like a lawyer."
SSSS
"Why didn't you tell us Ricky had rumbled you?" Olivia demanded.
Cassandra, her cell phone pressed to her ear in an attempt to track down her father, turned and looked at her, "What?"
"Ricky says he knew you were a cop."
"So what if he did?"
"He also said you looked pretty concerned when he told you he knew. Why didn't you say that he had guessed?"
Cassandra snapped her phone shut, "What would have been the point Olivia? It wouldn't have changed the fact that we didn't get anything."
"It matters because you kept it from us!"
"All it would have done would have gone further to cement my reputation in here as a shit detective and forgive me if I don't want that," Cassandra lowered her voice, "I am trying really hard to make all of this work and I don't need grief from you guys."
"Next time, you tell us everything," Olivia said, "We're a team, that's how it works."
"Fine," Cassandra dialled her father's number again, "Dad, it's me, again. Please call me back. I need to talk to you. It's important."
SSSS
By knocking-off time, Cassandra was exhausted. Save for the twenty minutes shut eye she had grabbed in the crib in the early part of the afternoon, she hadn't slept for nearly two days. The words in the file in front of her were starting to make no sense whatsoever and when a tech from the lab had called to say that there were imprints on the notepad stating a time and a place and signed 'M', she had had to ask him to repeat it three times. In the corner of the room, the others were standing talking. She knew they were talking about her, but she no longer cared. The sooner they arrested Mark Watson and handed him over, the sooner she could get out of this hellhole.
"We can't," she heard Fin say, "It ain't right."
"Can't what?" she said loudly, "Can't throw Cassie off a bridge?"
"Don't tempt me," Munch responded.
"We're going to get something to eat. You fancy coming along?" Fin asked her.
Whether he had forgotten her earlier suggestion of coffee, or was merely hiding it from the others, Cassandra didn't know. The easiest thing would be to refuse, to go home to her apartment and spend another evening in front of the TV watching reruns. It would be harder to sit across a table from Munch and attempt polite conversation. She knew he didn't want her to go, and that clinched it for her.
"Sure, I'd love to," she stood up, smiling slightly at Munch's sigh of dismay.
They ended up in Fabio's, an Italian bistro downtown. Initially, the conversation stayed on safe topics: the weather, the Yankees, how unrealistic the latest episode of NYPD Blue had been ("If Sipowicz was in our house, Cragen would have killed him by now," Olivia had said). Cassandra stayed as quiet as possible, chipping in at various points, but doing nothing to antagonise anyone else, apart from Munch who still looked at her as if she were a deadly pariah. Eventually, however, the conversation rolled back around to the case.
"We have got to get Watson," Elliot said as the waitress cleared away their plates, "there's been something going on between all of them and it's already led to two murders."
"I'm surprised Ricky has asked for Witness Protection," Munch said.
"He didn't seem worried," Elliot said, "In fact, he seemed cocky. Said Watson was untouchable." He looked over at Cassandra.
"Why look at me?" she demanded.
"You tell us. In fact, tell us why you didn't tell us that Ricky made you in the club."
"Elliot…" Olivia began.
Cassandra felt all eyes upon her. Defiant, she met their gazes, all except Fin's, "Like I told Olivia, it didn't seem relevant at the time."
"You two knew about this?" Munch demanded.
"Do we have to go down this road again?" Cassandra asked, "I made a mistake, I'm sorry. But even if I had told you, what difference would it have made to the case?"
"It's not about the case," Elliot said, "It's about teamwork."
"Yeah, yeah. I've already had the ra-ra speech from Olivia, I don't need to hear it again," Cassandra looked down at her crumpled napkin.
"Obviously you do, otherwise you wouldn't keep screwing up. Otherwise you would tell us things we need to know. I mean, first you turn up at Laquisha Thomson's apartment by yourself, then you don't tell us about Ricky. What else haven't you told us?"
Cassandra looked up again, "There's nothing, I swear."
"Why should we believe you?" Munch said.
"Because I'm part of the team."
"You're funny. This girl's funny," Munch turned to his partner.
Instead of backing him, however, Fin leapt to Cassandra's defence, "Just leave it Munch, ok?"
Munch paused, "What's got you going all of a sudden?" he glanced at Cassandra, "Or should I say, who?"
"Don't start on him," Cassandra said, "this is clearly between you and me, John, it always has been. You don't like me, I don't like you, it's as simple as that. You've treated me like crap since the moment I came here. I admit that I've screwed up, but you haven't let up on me at all, not even once. I don't know what it is I have to do to make you see that I'm on your side!" She willed herself not to cry, but tiredness, and the pressure of the case overwhelmed her, and tears pricked at the corners of her eyes.
"Ah yes, I see, it's the classic crying technique," Munch said, "I've been married lots of times honey, I know all the tricks."
Cassandra threw her napkin down, stood up and stormed past Olivia's chair, grabbing her jacket from the coat-stand on the way past. She threw open the door to the restaurant and hurried out into the night air.
For a moment, there was an easy silence at the table.
"Way to go," Fin said.
"What? What did I do except speak the truth?" Munch said.
"You went too far."
"Excuse me?"
"You've bullied her ever since she came here," Fin said angrily, "She's right, you haven't given her one chance."
"Oh I see, so you're the expert now, are you? What's she doing for you, Fin? Did she do a little 'undercover' work in the club last night?"
Fin got up from the table, grabbed his jacket and fled the restaurant after Cassandra.
"Great," Olivia said, "Who's next?"
SSSS
"Cassie, wait!" Fin caught sight of her at the corner of the block, walking quickly, her head down, "Wait, damn it!"
She pulled up and turned around as he came towards her, "Why are you following me, Fin? I don't need any more aggravation."
"I came to see if you were ok," he replied, "Munch had no right to say what he did."
Cassandra shrugged, "I can't change his mind if he hates me. I just wish I understood why he hates me so much." She took a deep breath, pushing her tears back. She wasn't going to cry, not in front of Munch, Fin…not anybody. "This whole thing just hasn't been worth it. I should never have listened to my father. I should never have agreed to come here."
"Look…do you wanna go grab that coffee?" Fin said.
Cassandra thought for a moment, "Sure you want to be seen with me? Munch'll never forgive you."
He grinned at her, "I'll take my chances, come on." He took her down the street a few blocks to a small coffee shop. An elderly couple were the only other customers, and Cassandra and Fin slipped into a booth near the window. "Don't let Munch get you down," he said as the waitress brought the coffees, "He's all talk."
"Maybe, but it's the way he talks. It's like, he doesn't care who he offends so long as he gets his opinion out there. I mean, he'd never even met me before two days ago and he already had an opinion on me. He hasn't even let me change it." She took a drink of coffee, "although maybe I've just lived up to expectations, that's all." She looked across at him, "You seem to get on ok with him. What's your secret?"
"If I told you, I'd have to kill you," Fin replied knowingly.
"Great, thanks."
"He'll warm up."
"When? In time for my funeral?"
"See, you're even starting to pick up his humour."
"Don't," she shuddered, "Next you'll tell me that we'll end up dating."
"Well, he is in line for a new wife."
Cassandra laughed, "What about you?"
"What about me?"
"Well, I don't know much about your private life."
"Yeah, cause it's private."
Cassandra was struck by his sudden change in tone, "Sorry. I didn't mean to pry."
Fin softened almost immediately, "No, I'm sorry. I guess I try and keep the job and my personal life as separate as possible. It's easier that way."
She smiled, "I suppose I'm just naturally curious about other people. It seems like the world and his wife knows all about me. My father's done enough of the 'happy family man' interviews."
"Tell you the truth, I had to ask Munch who your father was when Cragen first told us you were coming."
Cassandra looked at him wide-eyed, "You're kidding, really?" He nodded, "I'm shocked. I thought everybody knew the great Senator Richard Whelan." Her tone was slightly bitter.
"Doesn't sound like you get on as well as you'd like people to think?"
Cassandra shrugged, "Let's just say that being an important political figure has always been the most important thing to my father. Anything else comes second. He plays on things for public support and sympathy. Like my mother's death. It's all part of a game plan for him."
"When did she die?" Fin asked.
"My senior year. My father always says crap like 'it was Linda's spirit that guided me into politics.' Please. Makes me want to vomit."
"Please don't," he replied, "I don't do well with puke." He paused, "I guess any potential boyfriends must have to be pretty tough to go up against him, huh?"
"He's never been that interested in who I've dated," she replied honestly, "I guess maybe if he thought I was serious about somebody he might be interested."
"You're, what, thirty, and you've never been serious about somebody?" he was surprised.
"Have you?" she shot back.
"We're not talking about me."
"Maybe we should be." She stopped and took a deep breath, "I'm sorry. There I go again." She laughed, "Forty-eight hours with no sleep and about a hundred cups of coffee talking."
"It's fine. I'm used to tough women."
"Really?" she leaned forward, "Tell me more."
Fin leaned forward towards her, "What do you want to know?"
Cassandra opened her mouth to respond, when her cell phone started ringing. Pulling back, she took it out of her pocket, "It's my dad – finally. Hello?" Fin sat back, "Yes Daddy, only like a hundred times. Ok. Sure, that's no problem. Nine-thirty. I'll be there. Ok, ok, bye." She hung up, "Well, he's finally agreed to see me. Maybe I can get something about Watson out of him." She gulped down the last of her coffee, "Sorry Fin, but he wants me to meet him at some party downtown, I'm really going to have to run." Regret flooded through her. Damn her father! Just when she was starting to get on with someone!
"No problem," he replied, secretly irritated at the Senator's timing.
"Thanks for the coffee, and for listening," she said, standing up, "I'll return the favour some time."
"I'll hold you to that," he replied, "Goodnight Cassie."
"Night Fin." She held his gaze for a moment, before lifting her jacket and heading back outside to walk the two blocks to where she had left her car. Climbing in, she looked at herself in the rear view mirror and gave herself a shake, "Snap out of it, Cassie. It ain't never gonna happen." She turned on the engine, pulled away from the kerb and headed towards the address her father had given her. It was some sort of political benefit apparently. Indeed, what else would it be?
She pulled up outside at nine-twenty five and turned off the engine. Some people hated lateness. Senator Whelan hated people being early. If she turned up before nine-thirty on the dot, he would be pissed. She leaned her head back against the headrest and closed her eyes briefly. Realising she would be in danger of falling asleep, she jerked them open again and started fixing her hair in the mirror.
As she did so, two figures appeared on the sidewalk a few feet away from her car. They had their backs to her and were clearly arguing. Intrigued, Cassandra watched them, wondering what they were discussing. To her amazement, when one turned side on, she realised it was her father. He looked anything but pleased, his face tight and drawn. His companion was talking loudly and angrily, but she couldn't make out either who he was, or what he was saying. As she watched, her father reached into his suit jacket pocket and pulled out a fat brown envelope. He passed it to his companion, who stuffed it into his own jacket.
"What the hell…?" Cassandra said to no-one in particular. She continued to watch as her father turned and climbed the steps back up to the door of the party and disappeared inside. His companion loitered in the street for another few moments, before turning and heading up the sidewalk towards her.
Cassandra watched in shock and amazement as he drew nearer to her car, sliding down in the seat so he wouldn't see her. It was none other than Mark Watson.
