"We have a break." Carisi announced. "Amanda Doe is Stephanie Foster. Lives in Queens, works financials at Hyrum Fiberoptics. Me and Rollins gonna run over now and get a run down."
"Good, go." Olivia said with relief. "Get her personals, inform the family." She went to her office.
"Ya know, I've been in this unit how long, and I still don't understand what goes through a person's head to make them do something so evil to another human." Carisi remarked as he and Rollins left the squad room.
"I'll tell you what Olivia told me way back when I was greener than leprechaun vomit: 'Don't try to figure it out. You'll never sleep.'" Rollins remarked.
They drove across the East River to Hryum Fiberoptics.
"Has anyone here had a problem with Stephanie, has she filed any complaints, had any filed about her?" Amanda questioned.
"Honestly, we have about four hundred employees and I leave financials to the smarter folks than me," Joey King, the manager of Hyrum Fiberoptics said, leading them through the stark corridors of his business, "I'm more of a heavy-weight meat-head." He laughed quietly. "I'm good for the heavy lifting. Playing Santa Clause at the office Christmas party."
Amanda and Carisi smiled.
"Are there any outsiders that might have a connection? A bank or tax firm?" Amanda continued. "Anywhere she might have come across anyone who she had a problem or had a problem with her?"
Joey King shook his head thoughtfully. "Go talk to Deneen Franklin, she was Amanda's supervisor. She'd have more information on a day-to-day than I would."
"One last thing, can we get a list of all of your employees?" Amanda requested. "We'd like to try and cross reference them, try and see if we can find her killer."
"Of course. I'll have my assistant get the print-outs for you." Joey King agreed. "Come by my office before you go."
"Stephanie was a bright girl, very capable, very smart," Deneen Franklin said, "that's her desk over there; take a look around if you want. She was very private."
"Did she mention at all seeing anyone, you know, a boyfriend, girlfriend, lover?" Carisi inquired.
"She mentioned someone had been bothering her, you know, watching her, keeping an eye on her, but she never mentioned who." Deneen answered. "She was in the middle of telling me but security came in doing a quick sweep. They do routine sweeps with the dog. Ever since the company outlawed drug tests they've had to come up with new ways to search employees for illegal drugs."
"Thanks." Carisi said. "Amanda, anything in the desk?"
"Nothing of merit," Amanda said, "she had a sweet tooth. M&Ms, Butterfingers, Reeses Cups, Malted Milk Balls. I'm surprised she wasn't diabetic."
"Everyone has their vices." Carisi remarked. "Let's go grab those files from King and get back."
"Where's Benson and Tutuola?" Carisi asked Officer Lincoln Mayes, finding the squad room empty.
"Got a call, another victim." Mayes answered. "Same MO, body found in Washington Heights."
Carisi and Rollins exchanged a look.
"We can start going over these names." Rollins said. "Get some of them crossed off. It should be easy enough, she worked nights doing the auditing so we can rule out anyone whose shifts never coincide with Stephanie's. And since she worked nights there's a pretty good chance she never dealt with vendors, banks, tax men, most day shift employees."
"What makes you say that?" Carisi asked.
"Separate entrance for the factory workers. Different parking lot, different break room, bathrooms. Factory floor workers would have no reason to come into the main offices, and a nightshift financial auditor would have no reason to go onto the floor. They don't operate at night so no one's on the floor." Amanda explained.
They worked for the next hour or so crossing off names and highlighting names of persons of interest.
"How many do you have?" Amanda asked.
"Uh, thirty-seven." Carisi answered.
"I've got sixteen." Amanda said. "I crossed off all the obvious ones, factory workers, outside vendors, security, and management. Management doesn't work nights, so, it couldn't have been the lovable meat-head, Joey King."
Carisi smiled. "Good, he seems nice. I'd hate for him to turn out to be a slime ball." He took a sip of coffee. "So he probably did it."
"Statistically speaking." Rollins agreed with a laugh. "Guess Christmas is gonna be late this year."
Fin and Olivia strode in.
"Hey, what's up?" Amanda greeted.
"Beth Doe, early-twenties, raped, beaten, etc etc." Olivia responded. "They're popping up all over Manhattan with no explanation."
"We went to the Stephanie's office. She worked nights so it narrows down the suspect pool a little. But we don't even know if it was someone from work. It could just be an opportunist." Carisi said.
"Well, it's more than we have on Holly Doe or Beth Doe."Olivia remarked.
Fin grabbed his ringing desk line. "SVU, Tutuola."
"How many persons of interest at her place of work do you guys have?" Olivia asked.
"About fifty." Amanda answered dishearteningly.
Olivia sighed and ran her hands over her face roughly. "This is driving me insane."
Fin hung up. "Got a possible ID on Holly Doe."
"Let's go." Olivia said.
"It's her, it's Delilah." Mrs. Gabriel breathed painfully. "It's my daughter." She turned away from the screen.
ME Burke turned the two-way monitor off.
Olivia helped Mrs. Gabriel to a chair. "Mrs. Gabriel, had Delilah been complaining about anyone harassing her or causing her trouble?"
"No." Mrs. Gabriel breathed in disbelief. "She was doing so well."
"Had she had problems?" Olivia asked gently.
"Uh, drugs, for a brief time. Heroin and meth." Mrs. Gabriel answered. "But she got clean and she's been clean for six years. She got a great job. She's been doing sort of an all-encompassing position as a gopher and a secretary. Mostly he digitizes her boss's paper files. She's only been there a few months but she was already being trusted with more and more responsibility." She covered her face and sobbed. "I was planned an Eight Birthday for her."
"Eight?" Olivia questioned.
"It's the funniest thing," Mrs. Gabriel said with a wet laugh, "she was a leap year baby. We always joked that she was years younger than she really was because her real birthday only fell once every four years. By sheer coincidence her sobriety date falls on her actual birthday this year." She wiped her eyes. "We usually celebrated her birthday a day early. Her doctor wanted to record her birthday as February 28th or March 1st, but I wouldn't let him. That's a special date for a special girl."
Olivia touched her arm gently. "Do you know if your daughter new a woman by the name of Stephanie Foster, or maybe Hyrum Fiberoptics?"
"No." Mrs. Gabriel answered. "I'm sorry, no."
"I've gone over Stephanie and Delilah's records, no connections. Stephanie lives in Queens, Delilah lived in Jersey. Only connection is dump sites in Manhattan. And nothing yet on Beth Doe." Fin said.
"I got something." ME Burke said, hurrying in. "We got lucky. Beth Doe, real name: Josephine Bartlett."
"Upper-class name." Rollins remarked. "Does the vic match the name in style?"
"Only barely." ME Burke answered. "Josephine Bartlett, twenty-six, coordinator at Pulaski Foods, a company that sells foods to companies, schools, prisons."
"How did you get the ID?" Olivia asked.
"I swear I had examined every inch of her and I was about to send her out when I noticed a very, very old surgical scar on her right knee. Opened her up, found an implant in her knee from a shatter replacement." ME Burke explained. "Got the serial number, got the ID."
"Burke, I love you." Olivia stated.
Bruke grinned. "Careful, Lieutenant, don't let my head grow too large, I'm already an ugly SOB." He handed her the file. "Good luck. Catch this guy. I'm overworked. I miss Warner."
"Where the hell is she?" Fin asked.
"She's taking a sabbatical. Going to classes at City." ME Burke answered. "Have you guys found a connection yet?"
"So far, you." Fin joshed. "Hey, you gunning for overtime for us all?"
Burke grinned. "You wish it was that easy."
Olivia smiled. "Thanks, Burke."
"See you guys next time." Burke said. He strolled out with a backwards wave.
Olivia looked at her squad and grinned. "Anyone else just wanna eat him up? He's the cutest little guy. I hope Noah grows up like him. Doesn't let the job get to him, still able to smile and joke."
"Speaking of Noah," Amanda said, "I need to call my own sitter and ask about my girl."
"Is she still coughing?" Carisi asked, following her to her desk, "because it might be the croup."
"What's the croup?" Amanda asked.
"Fin." Olivia said. They went to her office. "Stephanie was found in Battery Park but she lives in Queens, works in Queens. Delilah was found in SoHo but she lives in New Jersey, works in Brooklyn. Josephine, found in Manhattan Valley, lives in Brooklyn, works in The Bronx. No connections. They don't go to the same gyms, or the same banks, they run in totally different circles. Stephanie was a quiet, kind introvert. Delilah was a recovering addict doing her best. Josephine we know nothing about at the moment other than job and death."
"We've had these cases before." Fin said.
"And they never get solved." Olivia interrupted. "I refuse to allowed these women to rot in the ground without ever seeing justice. We have a serial killer on the loose who likes young, pretty blonde white women."
"You wanna put out a warning, cause some DC Sniper level tension in the city?" Fin questioned. "Be a run of blondes hitting up the nearest hair color wall at CVS. Finally gonna get to see some fine blue eyed beauty with bright green hair." He cackled and became serious. "We can't solve 'em all, Liv. It's just not possible."
Olivia stared at him determinedly. "I refuse to believe that. Between you and I we have two of the best closure rates in the department. Our unit is under scrutiny to solve these cases and solve them quickly. One victim is too many, three is unacceptable."
Carisi knocked at the door and poked his head in. He made an apologetic face. "Uh, hey Lieutenant, got another vic."
Olivia slammed her palms down on her desk, knocking over a photo of Noah. "Shit!" She looked at Fin. "Let's go. Carisi, I want the employment records of all of the businesses these girls work for. I want you to cross-reference every name, every position, every...every fart. Everything. There's a connection, we're missing it. We're better than this." Her voice broke and she looked away to steady herself. "It will be unacceptable if we don't solve this one."
They went uptown to Washington Heights.
"When I said I'd be seeing you guys soon I was hoping it's because my birthday is coming up and you're all invited to my birthday party." ME Burke greeted.
"Well, we're just here to rain on your parade." Fin responded. "Same as always?"
"Raped, sodomized, beaten, throat slit." Burke answered. "And-"
"No ID, no semen." They all said together.
Olivia knelt over the body. "Who's doing this? Who did this to you?"
"...for always, as long as I'm living my baby you'll be." Olivia finished singing and kissed her son on the forehead. "Do you know how much I love you?"
"Forever and always?" Noah answered with a shy smile, chewing on the edge of his comforter.
"From here," Olivia said, touching his headboard, "all the way," she went to the window, "to the furtherest star you can't even see."
Noah grinned and pulled the covers over his face.
Olivia gasped playfully. "Where's Noah?" She crept around the bed. "Where's my baby?" She went to the door and crossed her arms in pretend consternation. "Ed?"
Ed Tucker came down the hall. "What's up, babe?"
Olivia cocked her head. "Have you seen Noah? He's about," she held her hand up to her knee, "yay high, yay wide, brown hair, brown eyes, killer smile. Greatest laugh ever?"
Ed pursed his lips and snuck into the room. "Hmm, ya know, I think I saw a person of interest in this case earlier, he was putting Legos in his nose."
They knelt on either side of his bed and shushed each other.
"Maybe...if...I...", Olivia started tickling the lump under the covers, "oh my goodness, what is this?! What's in my baby's bed?"
Noah pulled the covers back, wide grin on his face. "It's me, mommy!"
Olivia looked at her boyfriend with incredulousness. "Found him."
"Right where we left him." Ed said with a smile.
They tucked him back in.
"Maisie brushed her teeth, did Noah brush his?" Olivia asked.
"Yes." Noah answered.
"Maisie washed her hands, did Noah?" Olivia asked.
Noah nodded seriously.
"Alright, well Noah and Maisie are ready for bed." Olivia said.
"To bed, I said, to bed." Ed intoned. "G'night, kiddo."
"Night, Tuck." Noah said in a sleepy, raspy voice.
"Night, buddy." Olivia said.
"Night-night, mommy." Noah said. He snuggled against his pillows and closed his eyes.
Olivia looked at Ed and nodded towards the living room. "Want something to drink?"
"I already popped the cork on a very nice red." Ed answered.
"My man, my man." Olivia sang quietly. She sat down and stretched her legs out. "Oh man, this case, this case."
"Break it down for me." Ed requested.
"I don't even begin to know how." Olivia said.
"Begin at the beginning, keep going through the middle, go all the way to the end, and then stop." Ed joked. He lift her feet and put them on his lap.
Olivia peered at him from under her hands. "I should never have let you watch Alice in Wonderland."
"C'mon, maybe I can help." Ed insisted. "Fresh mind."
"It's just the most impossible case." Olivia admitted.
"Sometimes I imagine as many as six impossible things before breakfast." Ed remarked. He smiled and handed her a glass of red. "Have a sip."
Olivia took a long sip. "The more you drink from a bottle marked poison it's bound to disagree with you at some point." She drained the glass. "This case is bothering me, and not just because of it's intricacies. There's just this strange feeling over it all. Like an ill-wind. Almost reverse Mary Poppins. 'Winds in the east, mist coming in, like somethings happening about to begin'."
"Can't put my finger on what's in store, but I feel what's the happen, all's happened before." Ed concluded. "People often wish for a magic solution to a problem but seldom look for the magic."
"I have four women, none of them connected to each other in any way I can figure." Olivia began as Ed started massaging her sore feet, "each killed the same way, raped and sodomized the same way, beaten the same way. All dumped similarly: neglected areas where someone risks coming across the body but not really. It could have been days before any of them were found, or it could have been as quickly as it happened for each of them. Once he's done with them he doesn't care."
"He has a rage in him." Ed observed. "It's not enough to rape them, sodomize them, humiliate them, he wants them to suffer. If he just wanted power, sex, he's rape them and leave them. If he hated them he'd just kill them after. No, this is something deeper. Slitting their throats so deeply he also decapitates them? No, that's personal. Almost like he'd decapitate them if he could so they disappear."
"But it's only blonde women." Olivia said. "White, blonde women."
Ed stared off into space. "If they had blue eyes I'd almost say is it's Aryan-looking women being killed. Might look for a Jewish perp, or even a self-hating Aryan."
Olivia closed her eyes. "I don't know."
Ed rubbed his hand up her calf. "Prickly."
"Hmm? Oh, that's just my soul." Olivia remarked.
TBC