CHAPTER TITLE: "Storm Warnings"

PAIRINGS: None specified

SEASON: Late Season Four. Alex Cabot is still around and the Stabler marriage is still, well, stable-ish.
RATING: M
WARNINGS: Language, some disturbing imagery, mention of rape.

SUMMARY: Dipping a little deeper behind the quiet genius of one of the less publicized members of the justice system

DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter 1

AUTHOR'S NOTES: I'm really trying to update more than weekly, but am super struggling this time. Please read 'n' review? I could really really use any suggestions or comments or even the flaming tomatoes with this one :D

"Storm Warnings"

Monday Jan 13th

3:25 pm

Chaumont Ranching Community

Residence of Marcus Cain

The Chaumont Ranching Community was typical rural New York. She'd been to places just like it hundreds of times, but Melinda Warner never got tired of how refreshing the countryside was to look at. Unlike the buzzing technology and the sharp angles of the architectural canyons of the inner city, the air here was quiet and the land was open and graceful. Gentle hills rose here and there throughout the landscape like lazy waves that refused to break upon land. Acres of green housed stables in which award wining thoroughbreds and magnificent mares were bred, and sprawling estates of granite and ground to roof pillars spoke whispers of a time when people had ideals and father fought son to uphold their own side of them. From the helicopter she and the two members of the SV unit who'd accompanied her here were in, one could almost believe the 20th century had not yet touched these lands. The ME was loathe to have to have the fantasy broken.

Red and white danced a bizarre tango of light as the Chinook's blades bent grass parallel to the ground and it set down next to three fire engines some 30 yards away from the still smoldering remainder of Marcus Cain's mansion. Tutuola was the first out. Reaching up, he took Warner's bag from her in one hand, helped Olivia jump down with the other, then offered the same hand to Melinda. He handed her black case bag back as she hopped out. The three of them bent low against the powerful beat of the helicopter's blades and jogged towards a huge white Pierce supertruck with government seals and ATF and EXPLOSIVES INVESTIGATION emblazoned on the side in vivid blue. The team leader on the scene was a young but burly man named Jason Bridger, and he extended his hand to Warner as the trio approached.

"Doctor Warner," he greeted pleasantly over the thump of massive rotors as the chopper lifted off and went back the way they'd come to refuel. He had worked cases with her before.

"Jason," the dark-haired woman returned, gripping his hand in a firm shake. "Detectives Fin Tutuola, Olivia Benson." She introduced her companions. "Manhattan Special Victims."

"Pleasure." He shook both their hands in turn. The wind from the blades died, the thumping faded, and he lowered his voice to a more normal decibel for speaking. "Can't say I'm glad to see you. Hate to have had to drag you up here. Watertown's just not specially manned enough to handle arson and sex crimes simultaneously."

"We're glad to help," Olivia said sincerely. She was glad to get away from the squad room, be useful, and to get out from under Elliot's overprotective shadow.

"You been briefed?" He directed at whomever decided to answer first.

Melinda nodded. "On the way." They'd been told of the conditions and now all three of them were dressed in reinforced waders and loaned out heavy NRT field jackets. There was no wind, but it was the middle of January and the air was bitter and clear.

"What can you tell us?" Asked Fin.

Bridger gestured with his arm and the foursome started walking, picking their way through black puddles and charred earth. "Fire started at around 11:45 this morning. Least that's when the house alarms went off. By the time the fire department got here the house was fully involved. They couldn't do much more than surround and drown. Was too windy for foam, not that it'd have done any good anyway. Nigel hit on CS2 about an hour ago."

"Nigel?"

"Arson dog," Bridger said with appreciation at the handsome black lab Warner could now see poking his head out the passenger window of an idling police sedan. "Carbon disulfide. Lucky for us, he don't hit on alcohol. There's about a thousand gallons of bourbon out here."

"Hell of a lot of hooch for just one guy," Fin remarked.

"Cain collected. Cigars, wine, vintage stuff, you name it. If it was worth cash, he wanted it." Bridger was pointing at things now. Lumps of furniture remains and dark pools of dangerous debris whose haphazard looking positioning meant nothing to either Olivia or Tutuola. "Fire started on the main floor, living room, and fifteen foot flames engaged the upper floors and roof. It was a fast, hot, fire. Upper floors would have fallen first, ground floor walls later, which is why you're seeing the insulation and beams and shit here."

The toe of Warner's steel reinforced boot caught on the edge of the carcass of a sofa that had been tossed aside by the NRT crew clearing the scene and Fin caught her elbow to right her. "Where was the body found?" She asked.

"Right over here." Jason directed them to a cordoned off area of black. "Basement is ground level."

"How deep?" The ME inquired of the thousands of gallons of pressurized water that had been dumped on the fantastical home and had done nothing to save it.

"Depends on where you're stepping. We've had the pumps going for hours now and the water level's barely dropped two feet." They stopped at the yellow tape. "Right above us is where the master bathroom would have been. We think she was there when the fire started. No one's touched her since she was found," he informed them all, though looking at Warner.

"In situ?" She asked. Or, 'as is'.

"Yes ma'am. Nothing's been moved."

"Where is Mr. Cain?" Olivia asked as Warner stepped under the tape. It'd been bugging her since first arriving. She wouldn't look at the remains of the stables near the back of the property.

"No one knows. He wasn't here though. Car wasn't in the garage, no known numbers other than the home phone."

"None of his neighbors have missed him?" Fin asked.

Bridger shrugged. "Those the local PD've talked to said they never knew when he was home or not. Bit of a recluse. Liked his privacy." The agent looked over his shoulder as, over the sound of dripping water and the pumps disgorging their filthy cargo onto the ruined front lawn, his name was called. "I'll leave you to it," he said with a nod and then was gone.

"What d'we got?" Fin lifted the tape and Olivia crouched down next to Warner after ducking under it.

"Well I can understand why they thought she'd been sexually assaulted." She lifted the sheet that had been draped over the body to preserve it until she arrived.

"Jesus," Benson muttered, stunned at what she saw.

Milky dead eyes of what had once been a human being stared sightlessly at the mid-winter sky. The eyes were a washed out dull gray because whatever their original color had been had been cooked out of them. What might have been a glass shower door had toppled over the body, saving at least part of it from the flames. The hands and arms were gone, but leather boots had protected the girl's feet. What was left of her buttocks and pelvis was nude and the shirt melted into charred flesh had obviously been ripped down the front. Bits of what had probably been a curtain of some kind were snarled through dark red hair that drifted out around her partially burned away face in soupy dark water, framing what had probably been rather striking features in an eerie halo of desecration.

"Any idea of her age?" Olivia asked after a moment.

"I wouldn't want to swear it in court until I examine her more closely," Warner said. She put away a measuring gauge. "But because of the width of the cervical orbit here," she pointed. "I am willing to swear she's never given birth." She paused for a moment, considering. She looked up at her the two officers then shook her head. "I'm betting younger than the estimate we got over the phone. A lot younger," she speculated and hoped that the carbon monoxide had gotten to her before the flames had touched her skin. "Thirteen? Fifteen at most."

"Shit," Fin murmured. Not a lot bothered the ex-narcotics officer. Except, Warner had noticed over the years, when it was kids. He turned away and ducked under the tape.

The two women let him go and were silent. Warner continued her external exam. Time of death would be impossible to determine. Calculating it by comparing the internal body temperature against the temperature of the environment was useless for two reasons. One, the body had just been burned through and two, it was lying in a puddle of freezing fetid water. Neither reading would be accurate. All she could note with certainty was that she'd been alive when the smoke had hit her. She had to have been; soot was clogged in her nostrils and, from what the doctor could see of the partially open lips, her mouth as well. A victim did not inhale smoke if they weren't breathing. Skillfully moving gloved hands over charred flesh, Melinda examined the girl more closely as best she could under the conditions. The skin near the left upper occipital orbit was split as was the skin at the crest of the cheekbone below it. This part of her face had been closest to the searing glass that had fallen against her. One had to be careful not to jump to any assumptions in situations like this - you could easily mistake disfigurations like these for injuries of violence if you were not familiar with the artifacts of fire. Skin behaved as any other elasticity based organic matter would when heated...it would expand as it cooked and then split. Like chicken baking in the oven. She worked carefully, jotting down notes and photographing what she could to preserve evidence that would not survive the trip back to her morgue.

4:50 pm

Olivia continued to stare out over the blackened wreckage of Cain's life here. Bridger was some distance away turning the disaster site into a classroom for his soon-to-be Certified Fire Investigators. There was a faint ringing and it was several seconds before the detective realized it was coming from the inside pocket of the heavy down jacket she'd been loaned. With minor difficulty she dug it out with her one arm and flipped it open. She ducked her other ear closer to her slinged shoulder so she could hear.

"Benson."

"Liv."

"Elliot." She put her thumb over the mouthpiece. 'Elliot' she mouthed at Fin who'd looked at her with the question in his expression. "Hi," she said back into the phone and turned her back to the crime scene to speak to him.

"All right, I'm going to need some help over here," Warner began saying. The ensuing lifting and bagging directions she began issuing some of Bridger's men faded onto Benson's mental back burner as she focused on the phone call.

"How's it goin up there?" Stabler rested one hand on his hip as he spoke. He could hear the sound of pipes, engines, other people slogging through water. A dog was barking faintly.

"Devastated, Elliot," she said, her voice slightly disjointed as it came across through her mobile. "There's nothing left. Place is completely destroyed. I can't even look at the stables."

"What's the word on the body?" He had to move his hand from his hip to his ear just to hear her against the sounds of the squad room around him.

"Warner's still looking it over. They've moved it to the bus. She's younger than the guys up here'd estimated to Cragen. We're thinking not even out of high school. Fin's pissed."

He nodded though she couldn't see. "Uh huh. How're you doin?"

A static-broken sigh. "Elliot--"

"Just askin." He backed off as fast as he could. He could hear her annoyed eye-roll through the phone line and was secretly pleased. He worried, and it bugged the living hell out of her. He crossed toned arms over a broad chest. "Listen, John and I are doin some digging back here on this guy, Cain. John's in a fantastic mood, by the way. The heat's still off. Thanks for ditching me for him. I hope it's freezing."

Huff. "Point?"

"Nadda. No one seems to know anything about him prior to about three years ago, when he moved to Chaumont. We're gonna need more to go on h--"

"Just a sec." It sounded like she pulled away from the phone a second. He looked at the clock as he heard her say something to someone near her. He couldn't hear what was said. "Yeah, El. Hold that thought. I'll get back to you." He heard the 'beep' before he'd even opened his mouth to protest.

"Yeah," he said sardonically to the dull toning receiver in his hand. "I'll just wait here." He none too gently clattered it back onto its cradle and rolled his neck in irritation.

Olivia flipped her phone closed and turned her attention back to Fin and the agent who had initially drawn her away from her conversation with her partner. "What's up?"

"We got problems." Fin's expression was dark, his left hand clenched in his right fist.

"My excavation team just found something in what used to be the den you might be interested in," Bridger said. Lifting a leather gloved hand, the agent beckoned over one of his officers. Brackish black water sloshed over already rancid smelling waders as the younger man half-trotted over to them.

Olivia tugged an errant strand of her reddish-brown hair behind her right ear as she took what the other man offered out to her. She stared at it, not comprehending...or not wanting to. Then her posture sagged in a grief she couldn't readily articulate. "God," she murmured. "Call Cragen," she sent wearily at Fin, who nodded and pulled his own phone out. She re-opened her flip phone and dialed Elliot while she looked out across the now darkening landscape and watched as Warner directed the contingent of Bridger's men she'd commandeered to help her.

"Stabler."

"Yeah, El. It's me."

"Nice of you to c--"

"Shut up Elliot." She didn't have the time or the patience for his bad attitude right now. "It's getting dark, I'm tired, and yes, it is freezing. You're wasting your time looking for this guy around here," she informed him. "Call Raleigh PD."

"Raleigh?" He puzzled from the other end.

"Yes, Elliot. North Carolina."

"I know where the hell Raleigh is," he snapped back. Her mood was rubbing off and only making his already foul mood worse. He began flipping through a phone directory on his desk. "Why am I calling them? Warner thinking that body is some missing persons case of theirs?"

"No." Olivia looked down and ran her gloved fingers over the tarnished soot-slippery metal of the item in her hand. "ATF just found a badge." She closed her fist around said badge and looked angrily around her as if she might spot the asshole responsible for the carnage nearby and bring him down with the look alone.

"Cain's a damn cop."

Tuesday Jan 14th

7:20 am

Precinct

Elliot looked across the path down the middle of the squad room at the person sitting in the desk just opposite him there. Her own eyes were aimed at the television in the corner. News of the Chaumont fire was the top story. They were nosy and efficient bastards and everything about Cain's life was on display. They'd dug up everything. He'd worked homicide in Raleigh for thirty years and three years ago had retired and moved to Chaumont to pursue his affair with horses and racing. He'd not wanted his career to follow him, so he'd had his old department seal his records, had changed his appearance, and told everyone he'd met in Watertown he'd been worked on an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico just off New Orleans.

As the case had been Watertown's first and then passed on to the Special Victims Unit with the discovery of the girl's body, the two jurisdictions had, together, done the rest of the digging and fortunately, what Elliot was looking at now was not made available to the media. Cain had had enemies. He'd helped put dozens of convicted felons away in his time...most of them hard-core killers well on their way to going serial. For every friend those he'd pulled off the street made in prison, he'd made another enemy. Speculation based on more evidence recovered was that one of these dangerous alliances had taken their sick perception of justice into their own hands.

"Sick."

Stabler looked up. Several officers from around the precinct had stopped or paused to watch the news story as they passed the television. It did not seem to matter where in the world it was, if a member of any type of law enforcement met with tragedy, the pain reverberated.

"It's just sick."

"Welcome to life, Jay," John muttered no looking up from the folder on his desk. "Here's your psychopath for the day. Do not pass Go, do not collect two-hundred dollars."

"How you can you be so fucking callous?" Officer Jay Wheylan turned from the screen to stare at Munch. "A cop gets his house torched just because he arrests someone decades ago and you crack jokes? He probably didn't even figure it out, just slapped the damn handcuffs on and called it a day."

"I'm not callous. I'm realistic."

Wheylan was middle aged and fit. Single as far as anyone knew, and fairly well-liked. He worked what they called the 'Bust-Beat.' If a bust went down, they went with. Prostitution, narcotics, counterfeit, firearms, they helped with it all. He'd seen his share of evil. Even still, Olivia knew sometimes things just caught up to a person and most times, what and when didn't make sense to everyone. She was a little gentler in her response to the man.

"It's what happens, Jay," she said quietly. "We just do the best we can. Let's just be grateful Cain wasn't home when it went up, ok, and not dwell on the specifics."

Wheylan didn't seem at all placated by this. Huffing a glare at the television and muttering a dark insult John's way, he stormed from the squad room. Elliot knew that look. That storm would take a while to blow over.

No one, however, not even the most cynical, could have anticipated what else at that very moment was being uncovered in the morgue just across the parking terrace.

7:20 am

County coroner's building, office of M.E. Warner

The Y incision on what was left of the body from Chaumont was made swiftly and expertly. Doctor Melinda Warner was the last person the people of New York who came through her doors would ever speak to in a language that mattered. She had held countless conversations with the dead before now, and the discussion she was about to have no would be no different. Attention to detail would be absolute, the margin for misinterpretation reduced to zero, and the secrets uncovered in the ensuing morbid question and answer would reveal things more than just valuable to the living left behind.

The PERK before the scalpel had graced ruined flesh had been meticulous. Warner had leaned over the remains with tweezers, a Luma-Lite, a stack of Post-It notes, and a handful of plastic baggies at her disposal. Fibers that didn't belong to the shirt the girl was wearing were collected with tweezers and debris near her hairline, Melinda'd adhered to the glue of the back of a Post-It and sealed the sticky note inside a baggie. There were no hands from which to collect skin or hair which might have become lodged underneath fingernails in a struggle. She had been raped, of this Warner had been sure. The tearing of the skin around the vagina and deep tissue bruising of the cervix was unmistakable evidence of that particular act of violence. Sexual assault was no longer a theory, it was fact.

What Warner found inside was nothing she had not expected. The liver was pliable and healthy, the lungs were clear, save the smoke she'd inhaled before she'd died, and the pericardium was strong and intact. The gastric contents consisted of a thin brownish liquid, and the stomach itself was shrunken and tubular, suggesting she'd not eaten anything solid within 12 hours prior to her death.

Next a clean incision was made at the hairline moving from temple to temple across the forehead. The skin of the girl's face was folded down and over her chin like a Halloween mask and Warner gently began to palpate around the facial bones. The hemorrhage she'd seen near the left temporal area of the eye had origin now. There was blood in the back of the girl's throat and on the left side of her head was a spiderweb fracture the size of Warner's palm. She had been struck in the head, most likely with some kind of blunt and angular object. She had been alive when the smoke had reached her, and this is what had eventually killed her, but this head injury had completely incapacitated her first. Whether the sexual violation had occurred before or after she'd been struck was unclear.

The girl had spoken. Warner had listened and she her diagnosis. The only thing she could not tell the courts was the girl's identity because thus far Marcus Cain could not be reached for questioning. She pulled the clear plastic safety goggles down and let them hang by their strap around her chest.

"Christine, you want to suture this for me?" Warner rubbed at the small of her back and asked the lab tech that had been dictating during the entire post.

"Sure Doctor Warner." Christine Harper was olive-skinned, twenty-five and extremely gifted. She'd only been employed by the state now for two years, but she had made her mark and Melinda was glad to have her.

Unlacing the bloodied yellow protective gown and pulling stained latex gloves inside out on themselves, Warner wadded them up and tossed both items into a biohazard bag.

"Doc?"

Warner turned to the other member of her staff helping her this morning. Dante was older than Christine and had been with Melinda for years. Ever since she'd taken over from her predecessors here. He was just as gifted as Christine, but had more of a compassionate side to his clinicism than the other woman did.

"The tox screen and the rest of the labs came back about twenty minutes ago," he reported as he began taking the instruments off the tray an sanitizing them. "They're on your desk."

"Thank you Dante." Warner offered one of her customary gentle quiet smiles and headed back that direction. Because of the nature of the case, the tests had been expedited and the results rushed. The people upstairs must have worked through the night to get them back to her so fast. She folded into her chair and flipped through the folders.

The tox screen confirmed one of the suspicions that had already been niggling the back of Warner's mind. The tissue samples had tested positive for Rohypnol, more commonly known as the date-rape drug. Every other test came back negative. The girl had been clean. No evidence of drug abuse or alcoholism. Next Warner held up the DNA file.

And frowned.

She'd seen this pattern before.

Thanks to the DNA record Raleigh PD had faxed the night before, she now had that profile sitting in front of her. She compared the two. Laying the two x-ray film looking profiles flat on her desk, Melinda picked up her phone and rested her elbow on the wood. A moment later an irritated male voice answered the other end.

"Stabler."

"How much do you love me?"

A pause. "Depends. What can you give me?"

"Cain's Jane Doe's identity for starters."

Elliot dropped his feet from his desk and sat up straight. "Doc, I'm gonna have your children."

Olivia's head jerked around to look at him. The expression on her face mirrored the expression now being worn on the faces of John and Fin. None of them had a sure way of knowing to whom he was speaking, though, because of the word 'doc' they could about guess. They watched him for several seconds as he listened to whatever Warner was telling him and then gazed at him expectantly after he hung up.

"That was Doc Warner. We know who the body in Marcus Cain's master bathroom was."

"Well?" Cragen, who had now joined them, nodded his head as if Elliot needed permission or an invitation to inform them.

"Who?" Olivia pushed almost at the same time.

"His daughter," Elliot stated blankly, though anyone who knew him could sense the anger underneath. "The girl is his daughter."

Silence hung around them for a second. Then Captain Cragen sighed.

"Christ."

End Part 2