Author's Note: Thanks, as always, for the reviews. They are much appreciated. Please keep 'em coming.
Allegiance
Chapter Nine: Aftermath
CSU had been called to the subway station. Cragen was busy talking with the Transit Police officials near the train. The detectives waited by the benches on the platform while Ron Sanchez and his team worked the train.
Munch sat with Olivia on one of the benches, and Fin leaned up against a support column.
Elliot couldn't bring himself to sit. He felt too restless, too pissed off to relax right now, so he kept pacing back and forth. They had already looked at the security tapes and got nothing. The cameras at the Houston Street station caught the sniper getting on the train, but the bastard was too smart; he kept his head down, never allowing the cameras to get a shot of his face, which was well hidden by the hood he wore.
All Elliot kept thinking about was how he almost had the son of a bitch. At one point, when he was chasing the sniper down that alley, Elliot almost could have reached out and touched him. 'I should have just shot the bastard!' he angrily thought.
"Elliot," Olivia said wearily, "please sit down! You're making me tired just watching you."
"Sorry," he muttered. "It's just…" He shook his head, unable to find the words to express his rage.
"The bastard who shot at you and Casey was just within our grasp, and he got away," Fin said softly. "Believe me, I feel your frustration, man."
"We all do," Olivia told him.
"And we want him just as badly as you do," Munch added. He abruptly leaned forward. "You know, there's something that's been bothering me. Why did he go back to Verges' house today?"
When Elliot thought about it, he nodded. "That's a good question. What was he doing back there?"
"He forgot something?" Olivia suggested.
Fin shook his head. "CSU tore that place apart, if there was anything he left behind, they would have found it."
"Unless we're talking a hidden compartment," Olivia said. "That's how Beauchamp hid his rape tapes from CSU's first sweep of his house. We could be dealing with the same thing here."
But Fin didn't appear convinced. "I dunno…."
"Look, regardless of whatever theories we can come up with, the fact remains that he was back there today," Munch persisted. "Which means there might still be something at Verges' house that he wanted."
"Something really important," Elliot added. He glanced at Olivia and gave her a slight shrug. "Our car's still parked there, so we have to go back anyway."
"Might as well take another look at the place," she said in agreement.
Cragen came over with Sanchez, who had plastic bag in his hand. He held it up for the detectives to see. "A .45 caliber bullet," he said. "It was shot through the lock on the rear door of the last car. We dug this out of the ground in front of the train."
"What about fingerprints?" Elliot asked Sanchez.
"Got plenty of those," Sanchez said bleakly. "In fact we've got too many. That door's probably been touched about a hundred times since the train first rolled out of the yard this morning. I've got nothing you can use in court."
"All right, I guess we can wrap it up here," Cragen told Sanchez. "Thanks, Ron."
"Anytime." Sanchez walked back to the train.
When Elliot told Cragen about their plan to look over Verges' house once more, the Captain nodded. "But I want you guys back at the One-Six by two o'clock," he told them. "That's when Huang will be over. I asked him to give us a profile of this guy, so we can try and figure out who we're dealing with."
'A scumbag, that's who we're dealing with,' Elliot thought darkly. He wisely left that thought unspoken. "Good idea, Cap," he said, glancing at his watch. It was just after eleven now, that gave them just under three hours to search the place. "We'll see you back at the barn at two."
When they arrived at Verges' house, they initially dove into the search with gusto, turning the place upside-down in an effort to try and find some sort of a hidden compartment, or a safe in the wall—someplace out of the way where somebody like the sniper might have stored something important. The four of them broke up and searched separately.
Elliot was tossing a guest bedroom on the second floor when his cell phone began to ring. He glanced at the screen and saw the call was from Danny Laughlin, a fellow detective from the One-Six. Yet when he answered the call, the caller turned out to be Casey. Elliot realized that Danny was on protection duty for Casey today, and she must have asked to use his phone.
"Are you all right, Elliot?" she asked, sounding agitated.
"Yeah, I'm fine," Elliot said, startled. "What's wrong, Casey?"
"I saw you on the news. Well, I didn't see you personally on the news, but they mentioned a disturbance in the Canal Street subway station, and that there was gunfire involved, and that detectives from the SVU were also involved, and I couldn't help but wonder if you were…." She paused to catch her breath. "Oh God, Elliot, I thought you might have been hurt."
"You of all people should know better than to listen to the news," he told her. "Those TV buzzards always make everything out to be ten times worse than it actually is. That's how they get their ratings."
"I know, and I'm sorry. It's just that I'm cut out of the loop here, and the damn TV news is all I have."
"I realize that, hon. Look, the fact is that we were chasing him—the sniper." Elliot proceeded to give Casey a brief update on the events of the day. "And if anybody should apologize here, it's me," he added. "I had the bastard, Casey. In that alleyway, I was almost close enough tograb him, and yet I let him get away."
"Don't be so hard on yourself, Elliot," she said. "If nothing else it sounds like you gave him the scare of his life, and I'm certainly glad to hear that. Look, I'll let you get back to your search." There was a hesitation, then she whispered: "I love you."
"I love you, too," he replied. "I'll talk to you later."
As Elliot put his cell away, he glanced up and saw Olivia standing in the doorway. "Casey ok?" she asked.
He nodded. "She heard about us on the local news. They said there was gunfire in the subway, and we were involved."
"And those media slime balls made it out to be an underground massacre, right?" Olivia said with disgust. "What's Casey doing watching the local news, anyway? She should know better."
"Yeah, that's what I told her. But remember that Casey's in protective custody, Liv," he explained. "She's cut off from everybody and her everyday life."
"We thought we heard you guys in here," Fin said, as he and Munch entered the room. "You find anything?"
"Nah," Elliot replied, with a wave of his hand. "Nothing."
"Yeah, same here," Fin said dejectedly.
"I get the sinking feeling that if there was any kind of a hidden compartment here, we would have found it by now," Munch said.
"Look," Elliot said, with a glance at his watch, "it's almost one. Why don't we start back now? This'll give us an hour to stop off along the way and get something to eat."
"As long as it's not McDonalds," Munch said. "Because they're a part of the conspiracy with thebeef industryto promote—"
"Oh, Christ, here he goes again," Olivia moaned, as she buried her face in her hands. "Somebody please make him stop!"
"Yo, John," Fin said, grinning. "Give it a rest, huh?"
"Fine, fine," Munch said, miffed. "But that's just the problem with the people in this country. We've become too slack about accepting the truth because it's too uncomfortable. But sometimes a little discomfort is just what we need."
"Ok," Fin said as they all strode out the room, "so you can walk back to the One-Six. How's that for a little discomfort?"
"You just don't get it, do you?' Munch said.
"Oh, I get it, John," Fin retorted. "I just don't get you, man!"
Munch and Fin kept squabbling even as they walked out to the street.
After he and Olivia got into their car, Elliot started it up and then sat back. He grinned broadly as Munch and Fin drove by them in their squad car; they were still bickering at each other.
"Those two never give it a rest, do they?" he said, still smiling.
When there was no reply, he glanced at Olivia and saw that she was fast asleep in the passenger seat. It wasn't unusual for his partner to take catnaps in the car like this during the day—he even did it sometimes whenever she drove—and so Elliot let her sleep.
As Elliot drove, he recalled the days when Alex Cabot was their ADA. A tall thin blonde, Alex was often cool to the point of being icy. Yet she was a decent woman at heart who was a true warrior when it came to fighting for the SVU in court. Elliot thought back to all the times when he saw Olivia with Alex, and tried to look at those moments in a new light—basically, he tried to see what he had so blatantly missed: namely the fact that his partner and Alex were lovers. He always assumed that Olivia and Alex were just very close friends, like sisters. And just because two women were close didn't automatically make them lesbians.
This revelation about Olivia and Alex didn't bother Elliot in the slightest. While he was a devout Catholic,Elliot was also a human being who had been exposed to a great deal of the harsh side of life during his years as a cop. And he had come to realize, over the years, that people needed to take comfort in the arms of another, regardless of who they were, or what gender. People needed a little love, and he certainly understood that. Hell, that's exactly what he and Casey did last night.
Casey.
He missed her terribly, and it was great to at least hear her voice again. He still couldn't shake the disappointing feeling that he had let her down today. Elliot replayed the chase in the alleyway in his mind, and was aggravated to recall how close he was to the sniper. If only he had been faster, if only he had thrown something at the bastard, if only…if only...
'The next time I get that close to the bastard, I won't hesitate,' he swore to himself. 'I'll just shoot the scumbag dead.'
It suddenly occurred to Elliot that he wasn't scheduled for protection duty this evening. His heart sank as he realized he wouldn't be seeing Casey at all today.
'Oh boy, you've got it bad,' he thought with a shake of his head. He wondered if he and Casey were moving too fast. He had the terrifying thought of introducing her to his kids as his new girlfriend. But then he realized that his kids already knew Casey from her visits to the house for consultations with him on cases, and they all liked her well enough. But would they accept her as the new woman in their father's life?
'Let's just take this one day at a time,' he told himself. 'And for now, before I can even think of having any kind of normal life with Casey, we've still got a sniper to hunt down.'
When he parked the car at the precinct, Olivia was still sound asleep. Elliot very gently nudged her with his elbow. "Hey sleeping beauty, up and at 'em!"
"Wait!" She awoke with a start. "Wait till he's aboard!"
He frowned at her. "Wait till who is aboard what?"
Removing her seat belt, Olivia sat up, blinking the sleep out of her eyes. "Um…nothing."
"That must have been some dream," Elliot said with a chuckle. He glanced at his watch and saw that it was still only 1:25. "If you're hungry, we've still got time to get something."
"That's ok," Olivia said with a shake of her head. "I've got a yogurt in the fridge upstairs, I think. Besides, I'm not that hungry, anyway." She stared at him and softly added, "I should have told you."
"About what, the dream?"
"No, you big lug, I mean about Alex and me," Olivia said. "You were right before. You're my partner, I trust you with my life, and yet I never allowed you in that part of my life. I should have told you."
Elliot reached out and squeezed her hand. "You did tell me after all."
"Only because I was jealous of you," Olivia admitted. "Of what you had. Plus the fact that you're with another ADA, it reminds me of what I lost."
"It must be hard for you, what with Alex away in witness protection and all," Elliot said.
"It's a super bitch," Olivia said with a heavy sigh. "Knowing that the one you love is out there, somewhere, and she loves you just as much, and you don't know if you'll ever see her again. It makes it hard to move on, you know?"
Elliot nodded his understanding. "Still, you are moving on.Speaking of which, how did it go with Eric last night? You obviously didn't see him after dealing with Beauchamp, right?"
"Yeah, hecalled me. He said he understood perfectly, and we're on again for tonight." She shook her head slightly. "I still feel like I'm betraying Alex. But Eric is really nice. I don't know, I guess I'll just have to take it slow and see how it goes."
"That's all anybody can really do," he said, as they got out of the car.
Once inside the One-Six, they strode past the holding cells on their way to the SVU squad room. Charles Beauchamp glared back at them from behind the bars.
"Your lawyer didn't get here yet?" Olivia said with a smirk.
"Oh she'll be here," Beauchamp said smugly. "And then I'll be seeing you real soon…Olivia."
That last comment made them come to an abrupt halt in the hallway. Olivia turned to Beauchamp and asked, "Are you threatening me?"
"I only said that I would be seeing you real soon once my lawyer gets me out of here, that's all," Beauchamp replied smoothly. "Did either of you hear a threat anywhere in there?"
"Whatever," Olivia said, waving a hand at him.
She turned and continued walking down the hallway, and Elliot followed for a while, until he stopped suddenly. "You go on ahead, Liv. I have to use the men's room."
She didn't believe him for a second. "Elliot, let it go. He's just trying to do what he does best: bully women around."
"No, I really have to go," he said, backing away from her. "I'll meet you in the squad room."
Olivia anxiously shook her head. "Please don't do anything stupid."
"I promise I'll unzip before I relieve myself," he said over his shoulder as he walked back down the hallway.
He walked straight past the men's room and got the key for Beauchamp's cell from the jailer.
Beauchamp stared at him warily as Elliot opened the door to his cell and stepped inside. Elliot then walked straight up to Beauchamp, and kept walking, pushing Beauchamp backward until he had the man with his back up against the wall.
"W-What are you doing?" Beauchamp said, startled.
"I just want to tell you something." Elliot stood face to face with Beauchamp and spoke in a cold, deathless whisper. "If you're ever dumb enough to go after Olivia, you're gonna have to come through me, first. Understand? And if you ever grow the balls to come up against me, you won't last five minutes. Got it, Charlie?"
Beauchamp merely stared fearfully at him.
Elliot turned around and walked back out of the cell. He closed the door and then glanced over at Beauchamp, who stared back at him as if he were insane.
'Now that's more like it,' Elliot thought with a satisfied smile.
After bringing the keys back to the jailer, Elliot strolled down the hallway to the SVU squad room, which was a beehive of activity. George Huang was there; he chatted with Munch and Fin. Cragen stood speaking with a dark haired woman whom Elliot had never seen before. In both her dress and the way she held herself, the woman had the professional air of somebody who worked within the legal system. Elliot had her pegged as a lawyer.
And over in the corner, Elliot saw Olivia speaking quietly with Detective Alex Eames. Goren, Eames' partner, wasn't present. When Elliot drifted over to the women, Olivia gave him an anxious glance—to which he responded by giving her a slight shake of his head, his way of saying that there was nothing to worry about.
"Hey, Stabler," Eames said with a smile.
"Eames," he said in greeting. "Where's your partner?"
"Running down some leads," she replied. "You really weren't kidding when you said you had a lot of enemies, were you?"
Elliot shrugged. "What can I say? I'm a popular guy. Why, you find anybody who might have hired the sniper?"
"Well, it's just that we've noticed you that guys have brushed up against the Russian mob a few times," Eames said. "But this really doesn't look like their handiwork—that's what Goren'sout doing right now, in fact, just trying to confirm whether or not they actually did put a hit out recently."
Elliot recalled the cases where he and Olivia tangled with the Russians, including that truly memorable time—one that he would really like to forget—when U.S. Marshals arrested them both. "That was a long time ago," he said. "And we didn't actually do anything directly to the Russians in those cases to piss them off enough for them to want to kill me."
"Still I wouldn't mind going over some of your old cases with you," Eames said. "Y'know, go over them one by one, and get your input on whether any of them might be a likely suspect."
"Sure thing," Elliot said. He wasn't really sure if it would pan out, but what the hell: they had nothing better to do.
Cragen came over with the dark-haired woman whom he spoke with. "This is Alexandra Borgia from the D.A.'s office," he said. "She'll be prosecuting the sniper case, as well as handling some of Casey's workload in the interim. These are my detectives Elliot Stabler and Olivia Benson, and Detective Alex Eames from the Major Case Squad."
"How do you do," Borgia said with a nod.
"Pleased to meet you," Olivia said, with a slightly pained look on her face. "So you'll be prosecuting the sniper, when we get him."
"Actually, I'm working with Jack McCoy on the sniper case," Borgia corrected. "I'm the second chair on that. But I'll also be prosecuting SVU's cases on my own in the interim."
Elliot nodded with approval. He was glad to see Branch, the District Attorney, had decided to call out one of his big guns for the sniper case, and Senior ADA Jack McCoy was his howitzer.
'Now all we have to do is just catch the son of a bitch!' Elliot thought miserably.
Once everybody was introduced, the meeting began. The detectives went over the events of the day while Huang, Borgia, Eames and Cragen all listened intently.
When they were finished, Borgia quietly said, "This guy sounds scary."
"He's definitely a professional," Huang said, thoughtfully. The dapper Chinese-American psychiatrist leaned up against a table. "Where any other person would have panicked, being pursued as he was so intently by the police, this guy kept his cool throughout your entire chase. But something else intrigues me: the point that Detective Munch brought up, as to why he went back to the house in the first place. He was putting himself at great risk by doing that."
"Yeah," Elliot said. "We thought he might have went back to get something. But we searched the house again—and this was after CSU originally turned the place upside-down—but we found nothing."
"I'll call Siper and ask for her people to toss the place again," Cragen said.
Huang shook his head. "It doesn't sound like he went back there to retrieve something. Elliot, I've heard a theory that you might have been the target. Did you get the impression that he might have been there because of you?"
"What? He was stalking me?" Elliot said. "It's possible. But if he wanted to take another shot at me, he had the perfect chance and didn't take it. Hell, Liv saw him long before I did."
"And we don't know how long he was standing there before I saw him," Olivia said, looking rattled.
"But that's exactly what I'm talking about," Huang said. "If he wanted to kill you, Elliot, he could have—yet he didn't. He's greatly interested in you for some reason."
"For what purpose could he be stalking Elliot, then?" Cragen asked.
"Could be for psychosexual reasons," Huang remarked. "He could be fixated on Elliot for some reason, attracted to him."
Elliot groaned inwardly at that. He really didn't have anything against Huang personally; he just wasn't very fond of the psychiatric profession in general. In his experience, shrinks always had a tendency to either state the blindingly obvious, or come up with a theory that was far crazier than the perp whom they spoke about.
'But still, why was he shadowing me?' Elliot wondered. 'If he didn't want to shoot me, and if he didn't leave anything behind, then what's the point of following me to the crime scene? Unless he still wanted to finish what he started with Casey, and….'
"Oh shit," Elliot muttered. When everyone glanced at him, he said, "Maybe he knows that I'm part of Casey's protection detail, and he's spying on me in the hope that I might lead him to her. To the safe house."
"That sounds more likely to me," Cragen said. He abruptly nodded, as if coming to a decision. "Just to be on the safe side, I'm having Casey moved to a new safe house tonight."
"A perp tailing cops," Fin said with amazement. "Man, this dude is one cold mother!"
"A regular ice man," Munch commented.
"In fact, not only am I moving Casey, but I'm also gonna switch the protection detail around," Cragen said. "Tomorrow's detail will watch her tonight."
Olivia looked up at him, startled. "I'm on the detail for tomorrow, Cap."
"Then that means you're babysitting Casey tonight," Cragen said. "I'm hoping that the more we jumble up our schedule, the more we'll confuse the sniper."
Olivia simply let out a disappointed sigh as she slumped back in her seat.
'Oh man,' Elliot thought, as he gave Olivia a pained look of sympathy. He knew she was meeting Ericagain tonight—until Cragen had just changed her plans.
A blond woman strode into the squad room. She was dressed to kill in a business suit and carried a briefcase. "May we help you?" Cragen asked her.
"Alexis Norton," the woman said. "I'm Charles Beauchamp's attorney. I understand that your regular ADA is not available. So I guess that means we'll be postponed—"
Borgia abruptly stood just then and smiled sweetly at her. "Alexandra Borgia, D.A.'s office. And no, your client's case will not be postponed, it will be moving forward as planned. And I plan to nail him to the wall."
"I see," Norton said, looking annoyed. "Is there someplace here where we can discuss the particulars?"
"How about we move this into my office?" Cragen offered.
When the threesome was in Cragen's office, Munch said, "Alex Eames, Alexandra Borgia and now Alexis Norton. We're being invaded by women named Alex!"
"We're slowly taking over the world," Eames deadpanned, "one city at a time."
Elliot erupted into laughter along with Munch and Fin at Eames' joke. But when he glanced at Olivia, he saw that she was not laughing. She abruptly got up and left the room, holding her cell phone in her hand. Elliot stared helplessly after her. 'Shit,' he thought. 'Now she's got to cancel yet another date.'
"Detective Stabler," Eames said, holding up a handful of files. "Since we've now got some free time, you care to go over some of your old cases with me right now? Even if you might not be the sniper's target after all, I'd still want to checkthese, just to be thorough."
"Sure," he said, giving Olivia one last sympathetic glance. 'If this guy breaks her heart,' he thought darkly, 'I'll break his neck….'
To Be Continued...