CHAPTER TITLE: "The Leading Edge"
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.
SUMMARY: A storm was brewing on the horizon, but forecasts are almost never accurate. Almost.
DISCLAIMERS: See Chapter 1
AUTHOR'S NOTES: So sorry for taking so long to update. Thanks go to my friend Tammy for giving me the mental laxative I needed to clear the blockage Ideas are still brewing, am I good to go to keep going with 'em?
"The Leading Edge"
Wednesday
Jan 15th
9:40
am
Precinct
"Captain." Fin watched as Cragen strode into the squad room from his office. He had a numb-ish look on his face and probably could have done with taking an Ativan last night and just not come in at all today. In all likelihood, he hadn't even gone home. "Look like you could use a crash up in the crib," he said of the four cots they had in a room upstairs. His brow creased. "How late were you here last night?"
"Uff...Is it morning?" The older man asked rubbing his face with both hands.
"Nine and a half bright and happy hours into it." Munch announced merrily as he came into headquarters, shook snow from his coat and draped it on its hook on the wall.
"And you're exactly.." Cragen looked at his watch. "...forty minutes of that late." He finished looking at Fin reprovingly as though Tutuola were responsible for keeping tabs on his partner after hours. "I trust you have a suitable explanation." He put his hands in his pockets and waited.
Glowering darkly, his eyes furrowed, Fin flung a handful of the mini M&M's he'd been nibbling on at John in reproach as his older partner took his seat.
"Indeed I do," John said and leaned back in the rolling chair. Unfazed by the hail of candy bullets, he nonchalantly swept a green M&M off his desk and laced his hands over his stomach. "Buddy of mine from homicide has a cousin in homicide down in North Carolina. He was going to pull some strings, see if he could charm his way into getting Cain's former boss to open up about the guy. He owed me a favor. Called just as I was out the door. Was on the phone with him before coming in."
"Mr. Popular," Fin muttered, still annoyed.
"I tried to call ahead with the head's up, but the line's been busy all morning," John continued unabated.
Cragen nodded. "I've been in phone meetings with Raleigh PD since five," he explained. "They want the girl's body transferred."
None of the men said anything. Legally it wasn't right, the case was theirs. Had become theirs when Watertown PD had called them onto the scene and then handed rights to the body to Warner. But...the kid was the daughter of one of their cops. They were each considering how it would affect them if situations were swapped and another state had just told them the sexually assaulted body of one of Elliot Stabler's daughters had been found in the gutted remains of his home.
"What did your buddy have to say?" Cragen moved on and away from that topic. "Why didn't anyone down there know about this daughter?"
"Because Cain never told anyone but his captain that he'd ever had kids. Name's Angela, by the way," John supplied. "His marriage was blown; he and his wife had divorced just before he'd moved up to Watertown."
"Anyone think it's a bit messed up that no one's heard from mom yet?" Fin asked. "Ex-husband's home goes up in flames and she don't even call to see if he's okay?"
"Wasn't the mother. Step-mother. A real drop-kick apparently. Didn't like the daughter at all, was never home, cheated left and right," John elaborated. "She moved to Florida after the divorce and no one's heard from her since. Biological mother died from ovarian cancer when Angela was three. She lived with a friend's family while dad was working. Those who saw her with him, he told she was his niece."
"Bizarre," Cragen mused. To each his own. "No other family?" He pumped for more information.
"Marcus only had one sibling. A brother. Died when he was twenty-five. Parents are dead, no other children but Angela." John shrugged. "Considering the line of work he was in, he wanted Angela kept as tight a secret as possible."
"Dig." Cragen pointed a finger at John. "A child kept that secluded doesn't just wind up with her head bashed in and lying sexually assaulted in her dad's master bathroom. Let's find out who leaked this secret and to whom." The media, thankfully, was withholding the release of Angela's identity pending contact with Cain.
"I don't think it was aggravated sexual assault."
The men's eyes turned to the doorway, where Melinda Warner strode through holding a manila envelope in one hand and still wearing her coat from the trek across the parking terrace. "I tried to call, but couldn't get through."
John chuckled as Cragen frowned.
"It might not have been rape either," she went on and handed the folder to the captain. "Statutory definitely, but not forced sexual intercourse."
"I thought you said.."
"Oh I know what I said," Melinda said with a small smile. "But after Elliot's phone call I examined her again a little more closely to confirm the story before I got the samples from Watertown. The tearing I found can just as easily be explained by skin splitting from the intense heat because, and I'm sorry gentlemen," she looked at all of them, "no man is that big. The cervical bruising was most likely caused because he was a little thicker than she was wide."
"Wait." Cragen held a finger at her. "What story, what phone call?" He turned to look at Elliot for an explanation ... and for the first time this morning noticed that both his desk and Olivia's were empty of their detectives. "Where the hell are they?" He flustered.
"It was the exciting conclusion of my story," John said with a sardonic smile. "Was just getting to the good part when I was so politely interrupted." Warner just returned the smile he tossed her way with just as much snark. "They left at seven. Watertown called Olivia about six-thirty this morning when a man came into their station after hearing about the fire. Elliot called the station and when he couldn't get through to your office, he called Warner, and then me at home. Angela had a little love affair. The man was her boyfriend, eighteen. He admitted to being there that morning, and having had consensual sex with her. Watertown's sending Romeo's DNA samples, and Starsky and Hutch are on their way up to finish interviewing him."
There was a pause, and then Cragen huffed a confounded breath. "Why am I always the last to know?"
3:25
pm
Adirondack
Northway (Interstate 87)
They had just spent two hours interviewing the boyfriend of Cain's dead daughter...and the fact that they were in another county's precinct was about as eventful as the trip had gotten. Nothing Derick Allen had told them had thrown up any red flags. Since they got no reception through the canyon, they'd called Cragen before leaving to fill him in.
The man was so devastated when he'd learned of the fire that the first question he'd asked when the Watertown detectives had interviewed him was what he had to do to prove his story so they could concentrate faster on finding the real person responsible. He and Angela had been seeing each other for about two months. He'd not known she was underage because she hadn't told him and they'd not been together long enough for him dig that deep. They'd kept the relationship a secret, Angela's idea, and their courtship consisted of late nights spent sneaking out windows and meeting in lucrative locations. He admitted freely to having had sex with her the morning of the fire. Early morning, he'd said, around six. Cain was away and they wanted time together without subterfuge. They'd made breakfast together afterwards and then he left the house at twenty to eleven to be to work at eleven-thirty. The local police had already called his employer and Derick had shown up on time and in normal spirits. The local crime scene investigation unit was still combing both the remains of the home and Derick's apartment for anything they could use to poke holes in the story.
The drive to and from Watertown was about three hours longer, but much prettier than the flight in the Chinook had been. The highway wound its way lazily through the Adirondack Mountains and a recent snowstorm in this region had left the world a blazing white blanket that, other than on pavement, would not thaw for months. The late afternoon sun glared harshly off the sides of hills that rose gradually but gracefully away from the road and even though the light didn't grace the road, Elliot and Olivia had to keep their sunglasses on and the car's visors down.
"Breger sent the DNA profile to Warner before we came?" Olivia broke the silence in the car cautiously - Jamie Breger was Watertown's police chief.
"Yep."
She stole a glance to her left. Elliot was staring straight out the windshield, his jaw tight, his shoulders tense. She couldn't put her finger on it, but something was wrong with her partner. He'd been quiet and withdrawn the whole way up and now here on the drive home and she didn't want to spark an argument she wasn't prepared to win. She looked back out her own window. Glanced at her watch. "It's creeping up on four, you wanna stop and grab something to eat?"
An irritated sigh. "No."
Olivia rested her elbow on the edge of the window and rubbed her forehead with two fingers. It was like playing 20-Questions; she had to initiate any talk and had to pry every answer out of him. She waited five minutes and then spoke again. "How're Kathy and the kids?"
"Liv.."
"It's another hour and a half back to Manhattan, Elliot." Benson looked back at him and was losing patience. "I'm just trying to make a little conversation here."
"Don't make conversation," he snapped.
"What is with you?" She asked.
"Nothing." He worked his jaw, a vein pulsing in his temple.
"Okay y'know what?" She shifted in her seat to face him a little more square. "I'm sick of sitting here like I'm the only one in this car. It's been an hour and you've not said a word. Not about the case, not about anything, and when you DO answer me it's in single syllable sentences. Either pretend you can stand being in the same car as your partner, or stop the damn car and I'll call a cab."
There was a pause. And then Stabler sighed and rubbed his eyes under his sunglasses. "I'm sorry," he muttered, and meant it. He'd not meant to be snappish and confrontational, least of all to her. "I'm just...I dunno, wound up."
"You think?"
He looked her way, at the annoyed and slightly wounded look on her face, and suddenly felt bad. Here they were in the middle of a two and a half hour car ride that was probably hell on her shoulder, and he'd been too wrapped up in his own self-angst to consider that the drive was just as uncomfortable for her...and made worse so by his attitude during it. He offered a sheepish smile and reached out to turn the radio off. Not that either of them'd been paying attention to it.
"Internal Affairs paid me a visit last night," he began, his attention now back in the present. "At home even."
Olivia frowned. "Why? What do they have to do with this investigation?"
"Nothing," he replied. "That's just it. Has nothing to do with what's happening here. The psych rep wanted to talk about other cases. Past cases. John Hawkins, Fenyak, y'know, bunch of old cases that'd gotten me really worked up." He looked briefly to his right...and his eyes narrowed. Olivia had an odd look on her face and she was staring out the windshield instead of in his direction.
"What about them did they want to talk about?" She asked slowly, still not looking at him.
He watched her for a second, unsettled by her sudden change in demeanor, then looked away and shrugged. "How I'd handled them. During interrogations and stuff. Guy was a real asshole, too. Gave me this self-righteous spiel about anger management and all this other crap."
Benson nodded, but turned and looked out her window and didn't say anything.
"They're talking bi-monthly evaluations," he added with a disgusted snort.
She hesitated, then said softly, "Maybe that's not such a bad idea as it sounds."
"What?" His gaze bounced between her and his focus on the road in front of him. "What does that mean?"
"Doesn't mean anything," Olivia objected quickly. Argument sparked; she was in it for the long haul now.
He frowned. "You think I need counseling?"
"No, I..."
"That's it isn't it?"
"I didn't say that," Olivia protested. "I'm just saying, maybe twice a month isn't that bad a suggestion. Generally," she added as if it might help her case to broaden the scope. "Hell, maybe the whole precinct should get shrunk out that often. They're there for a reason."
"Yeah whatever," Elliot retorted and focused again on the road. "They don't do squat, and I get enough of them once every three months." He paused for a moment, his brain churning. "You hate the rat squad as much as I do, Liv. Why're you suddenly going to bat for their smug agendas?"
Olivia laughed. "I am not 'going to bat' for them. I just said--"
"...that you think I need to be psychoanalyzed," he interrupted her with maybe a little too much stinging accusation to his tone.
"That's not fair. You're putting words in my mouth."
"Then why'd you bring it up?"
"Elliot--" She shook her head and paused to take a breath. Speaking of tempers...one detective was about to lose control over hers. "Let's just drop it okay? It was just a comment. You're getting defensive now and when you get like this nothing I say gets through. We've still got an hour, I don't want to fight."
"I just wanna know wh--"
"Stabler I swear to God, if you say another word I'm getting out of this car and walking."
Elliot stared again out the windshield and Olivia turned her face to her window. Twenty minutes passed and Stabler glanced at the clock on the dashboard. "It's four-thirty." His voice was quiet, his turn to be cautious. "We stopping for dinner?"
"No."
5:10
pm
Precinct
The two parted ways the moment they set foot in the station and they couldn't get away from one another fast enough. Elliot went straight back towards the squad room, Olivia made a bee-line for the break room. They hadn't stopped for dinner. She'd not eaten since breakfast that morning and she could feel her blood-sugar plummeting towards China. She pulled some change out of her pockets and a second later was pulling an orange juice and a Snicker's bar from the vending machines.
"Detective."
She straightened, 'dinner' in hand, and smiled. "Hey Jay."
Jay Wheylan from the Bust-Beat..the officers on the squad had been nicknamed 'BBs' by the precinct..opened the fridge and pulled out a can of soda that had a sticky note with his name on it taped to the side. It fizzed and hissed as he popped the flip lid.
Olivia sank into one of the chairs at the dinky card-table in the corner. She'd eat here; she couldn't fathom being in the same room as her partner right now. "Calling it a night?" She asked as the other officer punched his pin number into the clockout program on the little computer on the desk against the wall.
"Yup. Mom's birthday," he said and smiled. "Taking her and dad out for dinner."
"Nice." She peeled the wrapper back on the Snicker's.
"How's the arm?" He nodded at it, still strapped in its sling.
She looked down as if she'd forgotten what was wrong with it - it'd been strung up for so long now, she felt anyway, it didn't surprise her she'd gotten that used to it. "It's good," she answered, deciding she didn't have the energy to be perturbed with another person asking over it. "Doctors should cut me loose in another couple days," she added and opened her orange juice.
Wheylan nodded firmly. "Good to hear. You scared people."
She quirked an eyebrow. "So I've heard." She closed her eyes and drank deeply.
He stared at her a second, then cocked his head. "No offence Detective Benson, but you look like you could do with calling it a night yourself."
Olivia chuckled and swallowed another mouthful. "None taken. That bad?"
A somewhat shy smile spread across his handsome features and he nodded. "Long day?" He pulled out a chair and sat across from her. He was in no hurry - he'd just clocked out.
She shook her head and rolled her neck. "And I'm only half-way through it."
"Chaumont case not coming together?"
"Not the way we thought," she replied and took a bite of the Snickers. God, she knew she was hungry; it tasted fabulous. She popped an Ibuprofen she'd had waiting in her suit jacket pocket, wanting the numbing more for her head than her shoulder as prescribed.
Wheylan shook his head. "You know, it all makes me so damn angry."
"What's that," Olivia obliged wearily between chewing. Her nerves were slowly untwisting.
"The fact that the perp always goes after the cop!" A flush crept up his neck. "I mean think about it. We don't really do anything. We look at the scenes, we rough a few people up in the interrogation rooms..."
"We put guys like this behind bars all the time, Jay it just takes time. We'll find him."
"Yeah, but that's what I'm talking about!" He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table, like he was about to share some deep secret with her. "We put them away, physically we shove them in...but we're not what gets them there. We wouldn't put half the perps away that we do if we didn't get our information from people like Warner and the science geeks next door. Autopsies, CSU, we always get our cases solved from them first, basically spoon-fed to us. All we cops do is slap the handcuffs on and recite legality. I'm not the only one who thinks this."
Olivia looked at him silently for a second. She'd never thought about it like that before. He had a point, but.. His vehemence on the subject was a little unsettling. "We can't know what goes on inside the heads of the assholes we lock up," she finally said hoping to placate his passion. "Maybe it's because they don't see what goes on behind the scenes, all they see is the person involved directly. The cops, the prosecutors." She shrugged and drained off her orange juice. "We're a team. It's what we get for doing what we do. Part of the job."
"I wish we could make the perps see that though, y'know? Make 'em realize we get our information from other sour--"
A hand slapping on the doorframe of the break room interrupted his rant and the two looked to their left to see Elliot skid to a stop and lean in. "Hey Jay, sorry," he apologized for his intrusion and looked at Benson. "Can I talk to you a second?"
Taking the cue, Jay stood and pushed his chair in. "Detectives," he nodded at them both in turn and then left the room.
Olivia spoke first. "Elliot, I'm not in the mood."
"Liv, can the estrogen will you? Raleigh PD just called Cragen. They got a hold of Cain an hour ago, on a plane from Miami; he just landed. He'll be here in ten minutes."
Argument forgotten and animosity vanishing for the moment, Olivia tossed her empty juice can in the trash and jogged after Elliot through the station back to the squad room. Her Snickers lay half-eaten and abandoned in the middle of the table.
5:45 pm
Interrogation
Room 1
Marcus Cain was fit for his age. Tanned arms were tone beneath a casual blue Polo; a black lambskin jacket sat next to him on the table. His short sandy brown hair was graying handsomely at the temples and round glasses over startling blue eyes were a perfect balance to his long face. He did not look like a man in his fifties.
"Mr. Cain, I am so sorry for your loss." Donald Cragen set a Styrofoam cup of coffee on the table.
Olivia and Cragen both sat across from him in the interrogation room. Olivia because out of the four detectives working the case she was by far the most openly compassionate, Cragen because he was a father about the same age and professional position as the stricken man before them. He'd been away on vacation and couldn't be contacted because he hadn't wanted to be. The only phone number he could have been reached at, he'd left with Angela. He'd already identified his daughter's body, what was left of it, and now the hard questions would come. As callous as it sounded in cases like these, grieving would have to wait.
Olivia spoke next, gently. "We're doing everything we can to find the person responsible," she promised him honestly, because they were. "But we're short on solid leads. We need your help."
Cain took a breath. "The uh...God, I didn't even know she was seeing anyone." His thoughts were disjointed. They let him ramble in whichever direction his mind took them. "This Derick...there's no way he's responsible?"
Cragen had been on the phone with Warner when Elliot and Olivia had returned from Watertown. "The DNA our ME found inside Angela matches the samples from Derick Watertown PD sent us," he explained. "His story's ringing pretty sincere. CSU's not been able to find anything in his possession that might account for her head injury and nothing else has been recovered to tie him to the fire. Because of the age issue, Watertown can hold and book him on a statutory rape charge...but he's looking less and less like our arsonist."
"After my partner called your captain, he told me he'd said you had enemies," Olivia took over. "Is there anyone you can think of specifically that might have had a big enough grudge against you to go after you and your daughter?"
"I uh..no one knew about her." He looked up and smiled sadly. "I wanted to keep her safe. She was only going to be staying with me for a couple of months, just visiting, then she was going to go back to North Carolina. She had horses down there too. She loved riding."
"Anyone you can think of, no matter how insignificant you think it might sound, would be helpful." Cragen skillfully but carefully steered the man back towards a topic that might get them closer to solving this.
Marcus sniffed and took a shaky sip of his coffee while he thought. He set the cup down. "There uh...yeah, there were a couple maybe. Andrew Hedges. Jordan Biers."
Cragen turned to look out the one-way glass. Elliot jotted the names down, then handed the pad to Fin who nodded, handed one name to John, and both men went quickly back out into the squad room.
"You know," Marcus was continuing, his voice oddly distorted through the intercom on the wall. "Most the guys we lock up down there are too seasoned to care about serving time. Been in and out of prison most their lives. It's the young ones, the first timers, that get vindictive. And over such stupid petty charges..." His composure suddenly shifted and, like rocks on a hill balanced too precariously, slid away from him. He slid his glasses off and put his hand over his face as his shoulders started to shake.
Cragen looked at Olivia who nodded back. This interview was over. "Mr. Cain, I assure you we'll look into this," Don said firmly. "We've got our best people on it. The names you've given us could prove invaluable."
Marcus Cain didn't seem to care. He put his glasses back on. "Did she suffer?" He asked quietly as all three of them stood and made for the door.
Elliot watched Benson share a look with the captain. "No," she answered truthfully. "She was already unconscious. Doctor Warner assured us that regardless of the head injury, the carbon monoxide would have overcome her first. She wouldn't have felt anything."
They left the interrogation room and stopped next to Elliot as Cragen walked the man out through the rest of the precinct. "God I feel so sorry for him," she sighed.
Elliot nodded. "I feel worse for the son of a bitch responsible once we find him," he murmured. Olivia chuckled softly.
"Maybe we ought to sic Jay on him."
"Jay?" Elliot puzzled and looked at her quizzically.
"Mm. Our little conversation in the break room? He's still pissed over this case. He'd probably rough the guy up worse than even you," she ribbed.
Elliot knew she was teasing him good-naturedly, but for some reason, probably because the two had been all but at each other's throats most of yesterday and all of today, it rubbed him wrong and he took it personally. He just shook his head and didn't respond as they moved out into the squad room proper.
Fin was leaning back in his chair rubbing his eyes with the heels of both hands and John was just hanging up his phone when Cragen came back in. "What've you got for me on those names?" He asked neither man directly.
"Nadda," Munch replied, standing and going for his coat. "Raleigh's system is down. The servers crashed about an hour ago. Their network administrators are still working on it, but they don't think it'll be back up anytime before tomorrow morning."
"Fantastic." Cragen shook his head and the rest of his detectives went through their own various end-of-day rituals. As frustrating as it was to be this close only to be pushed back, all they could do was wait until morning.
Two steps forward, one step back.
End Part 3
