Disclaimer: I do not own SVU. I promise.
CHAPTER FIVE
DOINK-DOINK
Elliot and Olivia sat in Maria's living room. She had a new UltraVoice and was curled up on her sofa under an afghan.
"Maria," said Elliot. "I know this is hard, but is there anything else you can remember? A smell, a texture?"
"I don't know. I wasn't thinking about it. The bag or shirt or whatever it was – on my face – I smelled that. It was corduroy, I think."
"Corduroy?"
"It smelled like it. It felt like it."
Maria's mechanism simulated a female voice well, but it was still slightly off-putting to see this polite young woman having to use a machine to do her talking for her.
"Okay," said Olivia.
"Old corduroy."
"Old," Olivia told Elliot, who wrote it down. "Now, there's something else we need to ask. We know that your ex-husband has been released from the psychiatric facility he'd been in."
"He what?" Maria said, eyes wide.
"You didn't know?"
"No, I didn't. When did he get out?"
"About five months ago."
Maria's eyes filled with tears and she got up. She crossed to her window and turned back around.
"Do you think he could have done this?" asked Elliot.
"I don't know. Maybe," said Maria. "But then, I didn't think he'd try to kill me either."
Elliot went to Maria and looked her right in the eye.
"When he said what he said last night," he started gently. "Did it sound like your ex-husband?"
"I don't know," said Maria. "I just – I don't know."
"Really think. Is there anything else we can look for?"
"Someone with a cold. He sneezed and sniffed before he left the room."
"Okay. Is there anything else you can think of? Anything at all."
"No," said Maria, and she lay back down on the couch.
Olivia and Elliot got ready to leave. At the last second, Olivia turned back to Maria.
"You're doing great. Really," she said.
"Thank you," said Maria's machine.
DOINK-DOINK
"We checked out those attending the lecture. There were 800 or so, give or take the few who had comp. tickets, security, employees, and so on," said Munch as he and Fin slapped down a load of papers on Elliot's desk.
"How many were men?" asked Caroline.
"467."
Caroline groaned and put her head on her desk. Munch chuckled.
"Do we know how many of them were physically capable of committing a rape?" asked Elliot.
"They didn't exactly type 'paraplegic' on their tickets, so no," said Munch. "But we can find out where they sat."
"Well, what good does that do?" said Caroline.
"Elementary, my dear Caroline. We find out who sat in the front row, back row, aisle seats, and handicapped section and that should narrow it down. If they weren't able to walk, they couldn't sit in the middle of the row."
"Ah. Gotcha."
"And if they couldn't sit in the middle of the row, they couldn't commit the rape."
"Yeah, I got that, Munch, thanks."
Caroline's phone rang. When she answered it, her face suddenly lit up.
"Cathy! How are you? Are you there yet? Okay, I'll be there to pick you up then. I can't wait to see you!"
Munch wondered who Cathy was. She must have suddenly been the bearer of unhappy tidings, because Caroline's face fell slightly and her voice lowered.
"No, they haven't said yet…because they haven't said yet. Just give it some time, okay? And no matter what, it'll be fine. Okay. Okay, I'll see you in a couple hours. Bye."
Caroline hung up and smiled at Munch.
"My sister," she explained. "She's on her way into town. I just finished setting up her bed and stuff. We're sharing my bedroom…I can't wait. She's so excited to be coming."
"Well, bring her by. I'd like to meet her," said Munch.
"Oh, you'd love her. She's hilarious and liberal and a conspiracy theorist, too. But don't you dare think about hitting on her."
"I know she's nineteen. I'm not that desperate."
"No, you are that desperate. I'm just saving you from potential embarrassment since she's a lesbian and it's not worth trying."
Munch didn't know what to say. Caroline grinned.
"Just looking out for you," she said.
