I'd read that letter at least twenty times in the past week and I still hadn't found anything to get me anywhere. I probably should have just handed it over to CSU for them to see if they could get anything, but something kept me from doing it. Probably some deep-rooted fear that if anyone found out what all of this had to do with me, I'd be taken off the case. That was the last thing I wanted. But that damn letter was starting to get on my last nerve. I'd been lying on my back staring up at the ceiling for the past hour with the envelope sitting on the bedside table next to the clock, doing nothing. For some reason, I couldn't make myself move...and then the phone rang, and I reached for it automatically.
"What?"
"Good morning to you too, sunshine." Olivia replied sarcastically. "What happened to that envelope we got from the crime scene?"
"Why?" I asked, sitting up and leaning against the headboard. Olivia sighed.
"Because it's evidence and you had it last," she replied. "You didn't lose it, did you?"
"I have it," I replied, reluctantly. "You don't need it now, do you?"
"It'd be nice," Olivia said dryly, "We don't exactly have much else to work from."
"I know," I said. "I'm on my way in now...I'll bring it with me."
"Fine. See you in a few." A click let me know that she'd hung up. I cast a look a look towards the clock and red digits glared back at me. It was 7:45. I'd fallen asleep in my clothes from the day before, so I changed, and then I grabbed my keys and walked out the door.
The precinct was just as busy as it always was, even that early in the morning. The squad room was no exception. Olivia was sitting at her desk when I walked in, talking to Elliot; I dropped the envelope in front of her and went to sit down. She looked over at me and frowned.
"You don't look too good." she said. I gave her a look. She'd been saying that in various ways since the day we'd found Makayla Lawrence, and it was getting old.
"I'm not getting into this with you," I told her. "You've got the envelope, I'm in the squad room, what more do you want from me?" She didn't answer and I turned away. Behind me, I could hear Elliot asking her what my problem was, but she didn't answer him, either. Instead, she got up and walked over to the board.
"We know Makayla stayed after school to take a test, and then she was supposed to go to a friend's," she said, speaking more to me than to anyone else. "She was supposed to stay at that friend's house at five-thirty, but she never made it..."
Obviously she'd never made it. The ironic thing was that this friend lived only a few houses away. Makayla had almost been home.
"This wasn't someone the Lawrences knew," I said, cutting Olivia off as she continued on. She gave me a startled look.
"How do you know?" she asked. I sighed and rose to my feet, coming to stand beside her.
"If Makayla had been approached by someone she knew, she wouldn't have fought. There wouldn't have been any defensive wounds," I said. "What reason would she have to fight someone she trusted?"
The phone rang, startling us out of our conversation, but Elliot had already picked it up. He hung up about two minutes later and turned to face us.
"That was Warner," he said. "She found something." Olivia and I exchanged glances before moving to retrieve our coats from our chairs and leaving the squad room.
The medical examiner's office was cold, but it was probably just me. Olivia looked at me as we walked in and sighed.
"You sure you want to do this?" she asked.
"I wouldn't be here if I wasn't," I replied shortly. "Let's just find out what there is." I pushed past her and walked in; Melinda gave me a startled look as she looked up, before glancing back at Olivia. I saw her shrug out of the corner of my eye, and nothing was said about it.
"What've you got for us?" Olivia spoke before I could open my mouth to do so; I cast an almost annoyed look at her and she pretended not to notice. Melinda glanced at me again before sighing and uncovering Makayla's body.
"I'm assuming you know that she tried to fight her attacker," she said, and both of us nodded.
"He drugged her," Melinda told us. "I was wrong about the time of death. Have you been by her school yet?"
"Yes," said Olivia, again speaking before I could. "We have. Her teachers said she left at around four o'clock."
"When I performed the autopsy, I found that she'd been drugged," said Melinda. "From what the defensive wounds tell me, she fought her attacker as best she could...he must have taken her straight from the school."
I'd figured as much. Olivia, on the other hand, looked startled, and I knew why: this completely changed the scope of our investigation. We'd already figured out that it wasn't someone the girl had known, but this changed everything.
"Then why did it look like she'd been dead for at least twelve hours when we'd found her?" I asked, before Olivia could say anything. Melinda sighed.
"There were signs that she'd been kept in a freezer," she said slowly. "That would have done it. From what I can tell you now, she'd only been dead only about nine hours."
"That would have put her death at around ten o'clock that night." I shook my head in disgust. "Bastard had four hours to do whatever he wanted to her."
Silence fell. I could tell that Olivia was staring at me, even though she was standing behind me. She'd seen me react to cases like this before…but never like this.
"Call us if you find anything else," she said quickly, before grabbing me by the arm and pulling me out before I said anything else. Melinda watched us go, a puzzled expression on her face as we disappeared from her view. Once we were outside again, Olivia turned so that she was facing me. Neither of us said anything for a long moment.
"I'm going to ask you one more time if there's anything wrong," she said, "And I want a straight answer. What's going on with you?"
"Nothing is going on with me," I told her. "And I really wish you'd stop asking. I'm just…I'm just having a hard time with this case, that's all. I'll get over it."
"You'll get over it?" She gave me a skeptical look, one that told me in no uncertain terms that she didn't believe me. "We've had child cases before, Munch. Why is this one so different?"
"It's not," I replied. "It's not different. Hell, it's not anything. It's just a case that we're working, and it has nothing to do with anything else. Now can we please get out of here?"
I didn't wait for her to answer. Instead, I grabbed the keys that she was holding and walked off without a word. A few minutes later, I heard her footsteps behind me.
"You know, I'm starting to rethink taking up with you on this," she remarked. "Maybe it'd be best if you just handed it…"
"No," I said bluntly, cutting her off. "Forget it. I'm not handing it off to anyone; this is my case to work, and no one else's."
The startled look that crossed her face only served to prove that my words had come out more harshly than I'd meant them to, even if I didn't really think so. A ringing sound jolted us back to the present; we both looked down to see that I'd dropped the keys…my hands had started shaking while I'd snapped at her. She bent down to pick them up and eyed me intently.
"I'll drive," she said firmly, and instead of putting up an argument, I nodded, allowing her to take me by the arm again so that she could pull me towards the car.
"Liv…I'm sorry," I said, as we left to head back to the precinct. "I didn't mean to snap at you, I just…"
"I think you should go home," she said, cutting me off. I looked at the clock on the dashboard. It wasn't even 9:30 yet. I shook my head.
"I think you and I should go and get coffee," I replied. "I haven't had any yet. Might make things better."
"I doubt that," Olivia muttered. Her eyes were on the road before us and I had the feeling that she wasn't really talking to me, so I didn't say anything. Instead, I closed my eyes and sat there, wondering why it was taking so long to get to the precinct when I felt something being pushed at me. I opened my eyes to find that we were sitting in a parking lot and she was handing me a cup of coffee.
"Thanks," I said, and meant it. She offered up a faint smile and leaned back in her seat, looking over at me.
"You know I'm here if you need to talk about anything, right?" she asked, sounding almost uncertain. I looked at her over the rim of the cup and nodded.
"Yeah, I know," I said. And I really did. The only thing was that she was the last one I wanted to talk to about any of this. I didn't really wan to talk to the other person I had in mind, either, but I doubted I was going to be left with a choice.
"We should head back to the precinct," I said finally. "Tell the others what we know, see if they've heard anything…"
Olivia nodded absently in agreement; we left the parking lot and she turned in the direction of the precinct. I said nothing, content to just stare out the window and watch the city passing us by. When we finally did get to the precinct, Olivia walked in before I'd even moved to get out of the car. I watched her go, grateful for the chance to be alone even though I didn't really want to be.
My cell phone rang a few minutes later. The number was a familiar one, and I sat there, listening to it, the sound muffled by my pocket as I debated on whether or not to answer it. It rang for a seventh time before I fished it out and flipped it open.
"So, Munch, were you gonna bother telling me about this, or were you just going to leave me hanging?"
"What, I don't even get a 'hello' now?" I asked in reply. A derisive snort sounded in my ear and I could just imagine Abby on the other side of the line, rolling her eyes.
"Don't start with me, all right?" she asked. "I go online to find out what's been going on in New York lately, and the first thing I see is your latest case."
I'd forgotten about that…the fact that Abby and Rose would both go online every now and then to read the latest news from New York. It only made sense that Abby would know about it…and it only made sense that she'd be pissed that I hadn't bothered to say anything.
"We don't even know if it's the same thing, so calm down," I told her. "There's only one victim."
"For now," Abby scoffed. "You wait. There'll be another one before the month is out."
"You don't know that," I said. "This could be completely unrelated, or it could be a copycat, or any number of things."
"Who's really going to take the time to look up something like this, huh?" Abby demanded. "Honestly, John, are you high?"
That was among some of her favorite things to ask when she thought I was being an idiot. I rolled my eyes, got out of the car and headed into the precinct before replying.
"No," I said, "I'm not high. And for the record, I'm not drunk, either, so don't ask. I just think this is a coincidence." Abby snorted again.
"You can tell yourself that all you want," she said, "I don't think it's a coincidence. I also think that you're going to end up needing the old case files, so…"
"If we do, I'll let you know, all right? Don't feel like you have to drag yourself up here just to make sure I'm doing my job."
"Don't you snap at me. This isn't just your case, so don't act like it is, and I would appreciate if you'd let me in on what's happening."
"Why? You're in Baltimore, I'm in Manhattan. Two different jurisdictions the last time I looked."
"Do you really think I give a care about that? You know as well as I do that Baltimore's not going to release any of their files unless they send one of their own up."
"They've already got one of their own up…" I trailed off as I realized exactly what I was saying; Baltimore didn't have one of theirs up here…I wasn't theirs anymore. Abby noticed my sudden silence and I could almost see her smirking.
"Yeah, smart one," she said, "Last time I checked, you weren't murder police anymore."
"Once a murder police, always a murder police, you said it yourself," I retorted. "I'll let you know if we need any of the files, but until then…"
"I get the point," said Abby, "But don't think I'm not going to be calling you again."
I knew better than to think that. She and Rose had called at least once every day since I'd left Baltimore. If we hadn't been as close as we were, I'd have told them a while ago that the whole thing was annoying, but we were, and it wasn't. In fact, at that moment, I was glad that Abby had just decided to up and call me, because otherwise, I doubted I would have told her anything.
"I know you'll call again," I said finally, stopping just short of the squad room. Voices drifted out towards me, making it harder to hear, but Abby replied anyways.
"Try not to screw this one up, huh?" she asked, almost too quietly for me to hear. As tempted as I was to fire off a sarcastic retort, I didn't; she'd blamed herself for far too long about the last time, when really, it had been my fault, and I knew it, so I kept my mouth shut for a long moment before sighing.
"I won't," I said, "I promise. I'll talk to you later, all right?" Abby sighed.
"Yeah," she said, "I'll talk to you later." A click told me that she'd hung up, before it became evident that she was upset, but I wasn't stupid. I knew she was upset about this resurfacing. And I knew exactly why.
By the time I sat down in the squad room at my desk, I was already going mentally back in time.