[ Trinity Children's Home
Sunday, July 18th ]

Olivia rang the doorbell of the orphanage and she and Elliot only had to wait a few moments before a short, stout woman answered it. They showed the woman their badges as Olivia introduced them. "Hi, I'm Detective Benson and this is my partner, Detective Stabler. We're investigating the death of one of the nuns who visited here and we were hoping you might be able to help us out."

"What? Who died?" the woman ushered them into the building, her expression concerned.

"Sister Abigail."

"Oh, that poor woman. The children will be devastated." The woman shook her head sadly. "My name's Wendy Thompson. I'm mainly the one who runs this place."

"Nice to meet you." Olivia said as both her and her partner smiled politely at the woman. "How well did you know her?"

"Fairly well, I'd like to think. Whenever she came over here, we talked about anything and everything. She was quite the conversationalist."

"Did she talk to any of the children?" Elliot asked.

"Yes, quite often."

"It okay if I talk to them?"

"Oh, sure. Go right ahead."

Elliot left Olivia to continue talking to Wendy while he stepped into a common room of sorts where children of assorted ages played, talked or occupied themselves in some other manner. Elliot crouched down by a little girl who was playing with a doll by herself. She was wearing a dress with a floral pattern and she had long blonde hair that was curly and bounced around her face when she moved her head. He smiled at her and in a friendly tone said, "Hey there."

She kept her eyes on the doll in front of her and showed him no response.

"My name's Elliot. Do you know Sister Abigail? One of the nuns who comes here?" He was careful to keep her existence in the present tense when he spoke of her. He didn't want the children to know that the woman was dead as it would upset them.

She remained quiet although he saw from the corner of his eye other children glancing his way as they eavesdropped.

A boy who looked to be about nine years old marched up to Elliot and grabbed his arm, tugging him away. He had a stubborn look on his face, hardened by his dark brown eyes, and his brow was furrowed with annoyance. "Marie won't talk to you. She won't talk to anyone. I'll talk to you though."

Elliot shifted his gaze to the boy. "What's your name?"

The boy let go of Elliot's arm and jabbed his thumb into his chest, announcing proudly, "I'm Marcus!"

"Do you know Sister Abigail?"

"Yeah, she's really nice. She brings us toys and candy and other cool stuff. The other nuns only bring us clothes." Marcus' nose scrunched up in disgust and Elliot remembered the days when he was a child and hated getting clothes as gifts and he nodded with a smile.

"Toys are definitely better than clothes. What do you talk to her about?"

"Anything. She likes talking."

"Does she ever talk about her life at the abbey?" Again, from the corner of his eye, Elliot saw the other children slowly creeping closer to the stranger in their midst, encouraged by their friend's interactions with him.

Marcus looked disgusted again. "Sometimes, though it's boring stuff. She just talks about all that church stuff they do."

"What about the people there?"

Marcus shrugged. "Dunno. Can't remember." The look on his face became eager. "Do you have any candy?"

Elliot knew he didn't but he patted his pockets for show before shaking his head. "No, I don't. Sorry."

"Oh." Marcus turned and wandered off, obviously finding Elliot no longer worthy of his time. The other children drifted away as well and Elliot quickly found himself alone with the little girl again. He looked at her and found her pale blue eyes staring at him.

The girl, Marcus had called her Marie, stood up and walked close to him, leaning in until he felt her breath tickle his ear. "Abby said she thought he was cute." She spoke in the barest whisper, as though what she was telling him was a something governments would seal away in files marked in big red letters 'Top Secret'.

"Who?" Elliot found himself whispering back in as low a tone as she had spoken.

"Him, the one she talks to."

"Who though?"

The girl pulled back and stood, staring at Elliot for a long moment with eyes that seemed to unknowingly mourn the death of the nun. Then she sat back down on the ground and returned to playing with her doll. The detective stayed crouched on his heels beside her, waiting to see if she had anything more to say but she remained as silent as when he had first arrived.

"Elliot?" He looked up to find Olivia staring at him.

He stood and felt his legs practically groan in protest as they were shifted from the position they had grown accustomed to. "Yeah?"

"Get anything?"

Elliot shook his head. "The little girl said something that might've been worthwhile, but I couldn't get much out of her."

Wendy came up behind the two detectives as they began moving towards the door that they had come in. "Oh, little Marie spoke to you, Detective Stabler?" She shook her head sadly, making a tsking sound. "That poor child's not all together. She's a little slow. She probably doesn't know what she's saying. I doubt that it means anything."

"Did Sister Abigail spend a lot of time with her?" Elliot asked.

"Yes, actually." Wendy looked a tad perplexed. "She talked to that child constantly, although she barely ever got a response from the poor little thing."

"Thanks for your time," Elliot said with a smile as he and Olivia exited the building. The door snapped shut behind them and Olivia looked at him as they stood on the sidewalk outside the orphanage.

"What'd the girl say to you?"

"She said 'Abby said she thought he was cute.'"

Olivia lifted an eyebrow. "What does that mean?"

"I have no idea. I tried to get her to tell me who 'he' was but she only said 'the one she talks to.'"

"You think it means something?"

Elliot sighed, looking around. "I don't know, Liv. It could mean a lot of things. Or else it could mean absolutely nothing. There's just no way to know right now"

"Maybe it'll make sense later," Olivia said, trying to make her partner feel more optimistic."

"Yeah, maybe…" Elliot took a breath and slowly let it go. "So, where to next?"

Olivia started walking down the street. "Well, there's a homeless shelter that the sister frequented. It's just a couple blocks over this way so we've gotta go check it out."

"Sounds like fun," Elliot said sarcastically as he followed his partner.

…

"So you barely spoke to the sister at all?" Elliot asked the man who was the closest person to someone in charge of the shelter.

The man nodded. "She came with the others, did her thing and left. That's it. Even the sisters try to get out of this place as fast as they can."

"I can't imagine why," Elliot murmured, gazing around the crowded cafeteria. He could smell the occupants' unpleasant aroma as soon as he had stepped in the door.

"Well, we don't exactly cater to New York's finest," the man groused. "I have stuff to do. I think we're done talking, so excuse me." He walked back into the kitchen area, presumably to check on the dinner that was being prepared.

"You here about that nun that was killed?" a man teetered up to them. He was skinny and his eyes were wide. His bleached hair was plastered to his skull and he had a frozen grin stretched across his face. It was an expression you would expect to see in a painting of Death. "I saw it on the TV, on the news this morning," he continued. "You here about her?"

"Yeah." Elliot turned to look at him. Olivia was standing back, assessing the man. "You knew her?"

"A bit, you could say. She was a real nice lady. Always talking. I like to talk too, so we got along just fine. We'd talk whenever she was here. She was a mighty fine woman."

"What would you talk about?" Elliot felt his hopes climb somewhat but he knew not to let them up too high. The man was obviously hyped up on amphetamines and people on speed liked to talk a lot but usually it was all shit.

"Whatever was on the news, whatever games were going. We talked about anything. Yup, she was a real fine woman. Too bad she was a nun, if you know what I mean," the man winked at Elliot and began to leer at Olivia in a most unsavory way. "Yeah, she was a fine piece of ass. Kinda like your girl there." He licked his lips.

Elliot took a sudden step forward and grabbed the man's shirt roughly. He leaned in close to the speed freak, whose eyes were impossibly wide only now it was with fear, and growled, "Don't look at her like that anymore if you like your face the way it is." He shoved the man away in disgust.

The speed freak lifted his hands up to fend off the blows he expected would come raining down any moment. "Hey, hey, man! She's yours, I got it! I won't look! No need for violence! I'm gone! Gone!" He continued muttering as he backed away, finally turning and scampering off in terror.

Elliot turned to Olivia, a small smile on his face. "Yeah, definitely my favorite part of the job. Shall we go?"

"Sure, and I've got some good news for you."

"What?" Elliot held the door open for her and they walked out of the building. "You sneak off and find someone who actually has some information while I was talking to that junkie?"

"Nope, this is the last place we had to visit."

"Great. I think I prefer that news."

"Yeah, now you can go home to Kathy and the kids." Olivia smiled as he started to protest. "Come on, Elliot. It's late, we've spent the whole afternoon and most of the evening checking out these places, there's nothing left for us to do tonight. Just drop me off at the precinct and go home."

"Well," Elliot thought about it as they started walking back to the car, "you are kinda right… there is really nothing else for us to do tonight…"

"Just drop me off and I'll report to the Captain. It's not like we have news he's not expecting to get. This was a bit of a long shot anyway."

"Okay, I give in," Elliot said, smiling his thanks at his partner. "I'll go home."