CHAPTER TEN
After dropping off Rivky, Zippy, and Devorah with Cragen, Olivia hurried over to her partner's desk. Elliot looked at her.
"So?" Olivia prompted.
"So…we don't know who it was, but I think that now we can try it as a hate crime."
"Hate crime?" Olivia repeated. "You just said we don't know who it was. How can it be a hate crime?"
"Because we just looked inside her notebook…the one she had gone to pick up that night. This was written on the inside cover," said Elliot, slapping a photograph down on the desk and looking disgusted.
Olivia picked up the photograph and felt her heart skip a beat. On the inside cover of Rivky's notebook, the words "DYKE KIKE" were scrawled in what looked like permanent marker.
"Is this for real?"
"Well, yeah," Elliot sighed. "As if these girls didn't deal with enough at home, someone's bullying Rivky at school."
"That's some pretty harsh language for a middle-schooler," said Munch, who had come up behind Olivia.
"That's what I was thinking," said Elliot. "But kids these days are growing up fast."
'Yeah, but in a private religious school like that? Half the time the kids aren't even speaking English," said Munch. "But it couldn't have been anyone at the school."
"What makes you say that?"
"Well, word choice. 'Kike' is a derogatory term for a Jew. Why would a Jew call another Jew a kike?"
"For the same reason black people call each other niggers," said Fin, joining the group. "It's stupid, but it's like a bonding experience or something. Young girls call each other bitches and whores more often than they use each other's names."
"But still," said Munch. "They're Orthodox. It just doesn't fit. It's like someone Amish committing a hate crime against another Amish person. It just doesn't make sense."
"Where's Huang? He'd know," said Olivia.
She went off to fetch Huang. Elliot gave Munch a Look.
"What?" asked Munch.
"This is driving you crazy, isn't it?" he asked.
"Why, because I'm a Jew?"
"Yeah."
"No, it's driving me crazy because I can't figure out who did it."
"But doesn't it shake your faith a little?"
"Elliot, I'm not like you. It shakes my faith in humanity more than my faith anywhere else."
Olivia returned with Huang. He was holding the photograph, brow wrinkled.
"What's the diagnosis?" asked Fin.
"I'm tempted to say it's a hate crime, but it doesn't make sense to target a young girl like that," said Huang.
"Unless the creep's a pedophile."
"Well, yes, but still…all you're focusing on is the Jewish aspect. There's another half to that note. Whoever wrote it called her a dyke…very offensive term for a lesbian."
"Rivky's not a lesbian, she has a boyfriend," said Olivia. "Devorah said so."
"Still," said Huang. "Look into it. See if there could have been a misunderstanding."
