Chapter Six: Sketchbook

16th Precinct

Manhattan SVU

7:27 P.M., March 15, 2006

Olivia found her partner slouched against the wall of the handicapped stall, his chest and underarms soaked with perspiration. She had been elected to go into the men's room and check on him because if he needed to talk she was the one he would most likely open up to, and if he was pissed off, well, he'd never hit a woman.

"You ok?" she asked tentatively.

He smiled at her wanly. "Hell, no."

"Those are some, uh, pretty freaky pictures." She held out a hand to him.

"No shit." He took her hand and let her pull him to his feet. Exiting the stall ahead of her, he went over to the row of sinks beside the urinals and rinsed his face with cold water.

Patting himself dry with a paper towel, he muttered gruffly, "Let's get back to work."

"Elliot," the captain said as he sauntered into the squad room.

He walked right by his CO. He was on a mission.

"Ok, people, this is what we need to do," he said, taking command of the situation as if Cragen wasn't there.

"Elliot."

He ignored the compassionate tone. "Munch, get some uniforms out to my mother-in-law's house, then call security at Hudson. Tell them to find Maureen and tell her to pack a bag. She's coming home."

"Elliot!"

"Make sure they know to stay with her until someone shows up. Liv, she's comfortable with you. I want you to go get her."

"Elliot!"

He wheeled on Cragen screaming. "WHAT, DAMMIT?"

"I'm taking you off this," Don said. "She's getting to you. We've already checked on your family. They're all safe, and Maureen is packing as we speak. I've sent a uniform to get her because we need Liv here."

"I'm not quitting this case," he said.

"You can't work it effectively in this state. We'll take care of it for you."

"No. No." He got in his captain's face. "NO!"

He turned to walk away and then wheeled round again to snatch the drawings from Cragen's hands. He shuffled through the pictures, there were twenty or more, and held one up for them all to see, "Look at this. LOOK at this! Dickie was seven years old here. I remember that day because he asked me to come speak to his class. He was in the second grade.

He held up another drawing. "Maureen was only twelve or thirteen here. She only wore braces for that one year."

Another sketch. "Kathleen's friend was pregnant. I was kicking soccer balls at her to help her practice and trying to talk to her about sex at the same time. She got fed up with the clumsy way I was trying to subtly compare sex with soccer, told me she was a virgin, and stomped away.

"This picture of my dad and me in front of the tent used to hang at the top of the stairs in my parents' house. It's the only damned time he ever took me camping, and I caught an eight-pound bass! By then we'd used up all the film, though, so I never did get a picture of me with the fish.

"This family portrait is on my dresser in my bedroom at home. It's the only copy there is because we kept the proofs. How the hell did she get all of these pictures?"

"We'll send a CSU team to your house, Elliot," Don told him. "We'll figure it out."

Elliot acted like he hadn't even heard his boss. "This freak has been stalking my family and me for years. I don't know why, and I don't know how I missed her, but she's decided to show herself now, and dammit, I'm gonna get her. I AM! Not you, not the squad. ME!"

"DETECTIVE STABLER!" Cragen shouted.

Elliot stood ramrod straight, breathing heavily, and looked at his captain with fury in his eyes.

"You're not doing anything until you've got your head on straight again," Don said sternly. "I don't care if you have to beat the hell out of the punching bag in the workout room, hit the showers, take a nap in the crib, or get yourself a cookie from the snack machine. As long as you let her tie you up in knots, you're off the case. We've taken care of your family. They're all safe. You're no good to us like, and you're more than likely going to make a mistake that will get someone hurt. Once you get it together, we'll talk, but until then, I'm putting you on ice."

Elliot fixed his CO with a murderous glare, but he didn't argue. Knowing that now was her chance, Olivia grabbed his elbow and pulled him out of the squad room.

"Come on, partner," she said gently. "Let's go talk."

16th Precinct

Manhattan SVU

7:52 P.M., March 15, 2006

Elliot slowly sipped the scotch Cragen had poured for him. It would certainly raise a few eyebrows that an alcoholic police captain kept a bottle of booze in his desk, which he shared with his detectives but did not partake of himself, but at times like this, it was a comfort to have it there.

"Did Kathy sound all right?" Don asked.

Elliot pressed his lips into a firm straight line and nodded. "Yep. She's confused and pissed off, but she understands that it's serious, so she's cooperating."

"That's good. And Maureen?"

"I wish they hadn't scared the hell out of her, but she's doing ok." He took a sip of his drink, gave his captain a frustrated smile. "She's changed her major. To criminal justice."

He drained the glass, shivered slightly at the burn it caused in his throat.

"Now what?"

"I want you to take a closer look at all of those pictures," the captain said. "See how many of them you recognize. She has obviously devoted a lot of time and effort to you, maybe there is some kind of larger context here that we're missing. Only you can tell us that."

Don came around the desk and Elliot rose out of his chair, still a little shaky. The captain put a steadying hand on his shoulder and they exited the office together.

"Has anyone else spoken to her?" Elliot asked as he passed through the open door.

"Nope. You did a pretty good job of concealing you reactions until you got out of the interview room. Huang's been observing her. She's still drawing. He thinks, when you're up to it, you should be the one to go back in and talk to her."

"Great," Elliot said in a tone of dread.

"If you don't think you can do it, just say so."

"Let me see how I feel after I go through the drawings, ok?"

Cragen nodded. "All right."

16th Precinct

Manhattan SVU

8:31 P.M., March 15, 2006

"I think I'm done," Elliot said with obvious relief as he tapped the pictures into a neat stack.

Turning his head to the captain's office, he called excitedly, "Cap! Come have a look at this."

A moment later, Munch and Fin had also gathered round his desk, and a uniformed officer had relieved Huang in the observation room so he could join them.

"These," he tapped a thick stack of drawings, "I recognize all of them. They're moments I remember, birthday parties, school plays, twenty years of marriage and police work."

"You think she's been stalking you that long?" Fin asked.

Elliot shuddered at the suggestion and looked in the direction of the interview room. "I can't think of any other way to explain it," he said. "But is she old enough for that?"

Munch pursed his lips and nodded. "She could be, but just barely."

Elliot shook his head as if to clear it of thoughts he didn't want to acknowledge. Then he held up a thin stack of pictures. "These five are different, they're generic. I can't place them as part of any specific event, but together, they tell a story."

He laid the first one down. It showed him on the phone, jotting down information from a caller. The close observer could see tiny bite marks on the cap of the pen. The scene happened hundreds, if not thousands, of times a year.

"I take a call," he said.

Then he was grabbing his jacket off the back of his chair and heading out of the office, again, something that had probably happened a dozen or more times in the past week alone. "I need to go somewhere."

He saw Fin glance at the jacket draped over his chair and said, "It's the same one. She could have easily seen me wearing it in court today before she came here."

The next was of him and Olivia entering a darkened building through a loading dock. They both had their guns drawn. There was a truck parked to their left and a grocery cart beside the door.

"This one's pretty specific," he said, "but I don't ever remember it happening. That logo," he pointed to a circle of stars with a chunk cut out of it by an axe, "it's a Price Chopper."

"So, it's probably not in the city," Munch said. "All we have in Manhattan are the little mom and pop groceries and bodegas."

"Soon as we're done here, you need to start checking your files for anyone who has anything to do with that chain," Cragen told Liv.

"Right," she nodded.

"Obviously, I've spotted someone."

He showed them the picture Veronica had drawn while she was talking to Munch. It showed him standing beside a large shipping crate, his attention focused on something outside the boundary of the drawing, his gun up and ready to fire. There was a six-digit tracking number stenciled on the crate beside his head.

"Well, I'll be damned!" Elliot muttered.

"What is it?" Cragen asked.

"That number, 071833, it's my dad's birthday. July eighteenth, nineteen thirty-three."

"Elliot, this woman has obviously done her homework on you," Huang reminded him, in case he should get carried away again.

"She probably knows his favorite kind of jelly donut," Cragen added to help in the effort to keep his detective from falling apart again.

"Oh, I know that," he replied casually. "It's just, why would she pick that, given what she knows about him and me?"

He didn't notice or deliberately ignored the confused looks of his colleagues. "And he liked crullers with his coffee. So do I."

The last picture was of his lifeless corpse on the floor beside the paneled wall. "And someone has obviously spotted me."

For a long moment, no one said anything. Then Cragen broke the uneasy silence with, "Ok, let's find out who this woman is. Liv, Price Chopper, right?"

She nodded smartly, and they all went back to work, leaving Elliot to contemplate the meaning of the drawings.