A/N: Thanks again for all your wonderful reviews! It always brightens my day when I see a review alert in my inbox. And I've needed some brighter days lately. It's a good thing I actually finished this story, because classes start tomorrow! Yikes! Hope I'm not too OOC with this chapter. I've tried to make the story as much like an actual case on the show as possible, but throwing in the romance angle. Hope you enjoy!

Oh, and special virtual cookies to anyone that can figure out from this chapter why I chose April 20 as the date of the crime.

Chapter 3

45 E. 87th Street
Friday, April 20

Detective John Munch leaned over the concrete barrier and gave a low whistle. "Guy must've had nerves of steel."

"Maybe you could take some lessons from him," his partner, Detective Odafin "Fin" Tutuola, quipped. O'Halloran's lasers had led back to this building, a business across the street from the synagogue. From the trajectory of the shots, the tech was sure that this was where the shots had originated.

"Cute." He turned to Vizcarrando, who was bending down next to the wall. "Anything?"

She stood up with a smile. "He policed his brass."

"So what are you so happy about?" Fin retorted.

"He left us a boot print." She pointed to the concrete roof, and the two detectives bent down to take a look. Munch squinted a little over his dark glasses. Sure enough, he could clearly see the outline of the tread imprinted on the concrete.

"I make it to be a man's size ten," the CSU tech continued. "I'll get the photo back to the lab."

Fin leaned over the edge of the barrier again. "Clear view to the playground. That can't be an easy shot."

"It's not. He'd have to have a hell of a scope to see that distance." Munch ran his hand through his graying hair.

"High-powered rifle with a scope. Are we looking at a professional?"

"Detectives!"

They whirled around to see a uniformed officer leading a short, balding man in a business suit toward them. He was wringing his hands together.

"This is Mr. Johnson. He owns jewelry store on the first floor."

"This is just terrible," Johnson muttered. "Terrible. Little kids being gunned down, right across the street from me. This isn't supposed to happen in this neighborhood."

"When did you get here this morning?" Fin asked, pulling his notepad out of his jacket pocket.

"Around eight, like I always do, to open up."

"So you didn't see anything?"

"No." He sighed and rubbed his hairless head. "I just saw all the police cars. I heard about those poor boys from one of the neighbors."

"Do you have security cameras for the exterior?" Munch asked, folding his arms across his chest.

He nodded. "I'll get those tapes for you."

"We'd really appreciate it." Munch motioned to the uniform. "Go with him."

As Johnson and the uniform disappeared around the corner, Fin glanced at his partner. "You think those tapes'll give us somethin'?"

"I love watching movies in the morning."

Elliot sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. He'd just finished interviewing the boys from the playground, and he'd had enough of tears for one day. This always exhausted him – interviewing traumatized children. George Huang, their psychiatric consultant, helped a little, but it was always the same story. Some of them clammed up, refusing to talk about what they'd witnessed. Others had no idea what they'd seen – their imaginations filled in details that might or might not be true. Children didn't exactly make good eyewitnesses.

Struck by a sudden thought, he pulled out his cell phone and checked the time. Just before ten. He flipped it open and dialed a familiar number.

It rang twice before she picked up. "Novak."

"Hey, Casey, it's Elliot."

"I heard," she said simply. "It's all over the news. The shooting at the Hebrew school?"

"Yeah." He sighed again and rubbed his tired eyes.

"What've you found?"

"I'm, uh, interviewing witnesses now. They aren't exactly giving me much help. But O'Halloran confirmed that the shots came from across the street, probably with a high-powered rifle."

"Impressive. How's the boy that was wounded?"

"Liv called a couple of minutes ago. He's still in surgery."

There was a pause on Casey's end of the line. "How are you?" she asked quietly.

Elliot couldn't suppress a tiny smile. She knew him too well – the cases with children were always hard for him. He always saw his own children lying on the ground bleeding. "I'm okay."

"Would you tell me if you weren't?"

He chuckled. "Probably not."

He could hear Casey's sigh over the receiver. "They're calling my case for arraignment. I have to go."

"Knock 'em dead."

"I will." She paused for a minute. "You'll find him, El."

"Thanks for the vote of confidence." He smiled, even though he knew she couldn't see him. "I'll call you later."

"Bye." He heard the dial tone in his ear, and he flipped his phone shut with another sigh.

"Elliot."

He turned around to see Cragen standing behind him, a stack of papers in his hand. "We finished with the interviews, Cap," he said, leaning back in his chair. "None of the kids saw anything except the blood."

"I had the rabbi pull all of the threatening letters they got." He waved the stack of papers.

Elliot's eyes widened. "Damn."

"And that's only for the past six months." Cragen handed Elliot half of them. "Doesn't exactly narrow our list of possible suspects, does it?"

The detective thumbed through the wad of paper. "American Nazi party, Free Palestine – who the hell are these people?"

"Anti-Semitic, anti-Israel bigots," Cragen answered with a wan smile.

"Some of these have business addresses on them."

"Munch and Fin are going over video footage from the business across the street, and TARU is pulling red light cameras from the vicinity. Call Liv and go talk to these guys."

Precinct 16
Friday, April 20

Munch stuck the forefingers of both hands under his dark glasses and rubbed his tired eyes. He and Fin had been going over the security footage from the jewelry store for a couple of hours while Elliot and Huang finished interviewing witnesses. His vision was starting to blur.

"Who'da thought there would be so many people on the street at seven a.m.?" Fin said suddenly, breaking the silence.

"City that never sleeps, my friend."

Fin sighed and shifted his chin to his other hand. Suddenly he sat straight up in his chair. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Munch glanced back and forth between his partner and the television.

"That guy."

"What guy? I saw about twenty guys."

Fin glared at his partner and grabbed the remote. He pressed the rewind button, and the figures on the screen moved rapidly in reverse. After just a couple of seconds, he pressed play again. "Watch."

Munch leaned forward a little and squinted behind his glasses. Finally, as the timestamp on the bottom of the screen read 7:32 a.m., he saw a man wearing boots pass by the security camera, a large dark bag slung over one shoulder. "Well, I'll be damned."

"I'd say that bag's big enough to carry a long-range high-powered rifle."

"Just after the shooting too. Pretty good bet he's our guy."

"Too bad we can't get a face off this."

"No, but it's good enough for a vague physical description."

Fin nodded. "Sure as hell better'n nothing."

Offices of Free Palestine
967 E. 120th Street
Friday, April 20

"Sorry, Detectives." Jamie Rawlins, a pretty brunette woman in her thirties, smiled at Elliot and Olivia as she carried a stack of books to a desk on the other side of their spacious office. "We're a little busy today, planning a party."

"To celebrate two Jewish boys getting shot?" Olivia asked, crossing her arms in front of her chest.

Rawlins stared at the other woman for a moment before shaking her head. "We don't advocate violence, Detective Benson. We just exercise our First Amendment rights to freedom of assembly and freedom of speech."

"If you don't advocate violence, care to explain this?" Elliot pulled out a copy of the letter he received from Rabbi Horowitz. "'All Christ-killers will burn in hell. Free Palestine of the Zionist occupation.' What's that about?"

"Our ideology. Last time I checked, having a belief system isn't illegal."

"Ms. Rawlins, a little boy is dead." Olivia's brown eyes bored into the other woman. "Another one is clinging to life."

The other woman sighed. "It wasn't us. We believe that the Jews should leave Palestine. We get signatures to take to the U.N., to try to get them to disestablish Israel as a nation. We don't shoot children at schools. Look, Detectives, from what I've heard, it sounds like this guy was rogue. The groups that we associate with us prefer a peaceful way of expressing our beliefs."

"Really?" Olivia gestured to the Nazi flag hanging on the wall behind Rawlins. "That doesn't seem very peaceful to me."

"Only because you're an agent of the Zionist government. You've been brainwashed."

"Pot calling the kettle black." Elliot leaned against the desk behind him. "If you're so peaceful, you wouldn't mind us taking a look around, would you?"

"I most certainly would. I know my Constitutional rights. You have no probable cause. I guarantee you, Detective, it wasn't one of the people in my group. They don't even own guns."

"Could you point us to a group that might advocate violence?"

"Pick up any skin-head on the street. It wasn't us. We might hate the Jews, but we would never kill them. Especially little kids. I have two boys of my own, same age." She put her hands on her hips. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a lot of work to do."

Olivia and Elliot shared a look and started walking toward the door. On impulse, Olivia turned around. "Ms. Rawlins, what exactly is this party for?"

"Hitler's birthday."

The two detectives glanced at each other, and Elliot rolled his eyes. "Thank you for your help, Ms. Rawlins," he said as he opened the door for his partner.

Olivia took a deep breath as they stepped outside into the noisy Manhattan street. Her stomach was twisting and turning, and she exhaled slowly, feeling the knots of utter disgust start to loosen. After doing her job for eight years, few things disgusted her. But seeing such blind hate… it almost made her sick to her stomach.

"Liv?"

Her partner's voice broke into her thoughts and she glanced up at him. Elliot's handsome face contorted in concern.

"You okay?" he asked.

She nodded and swept a stray strand of dark hair out of her eyes. "Yeah, I guess so." She smiled as he put his hand on her shoulder and led her to their car. "So what now?"

"I don't think she was involved, but I'm not willing to let her group off that easy."

Olivia raised an eyebrow at him. "So are we gonna pay your girlfriend a visit?" A grin spread across her face as he glared at her.

"Cute." Olivia was the only person that knew about their relationship. They'd agreed that it would be best to keep it out of work, afraid it would affect their cases. "She should be out of arraignment now."

Office of ADA Casey Novak
Friday, April 20

"Casey, all we're asking is for a subpoena for their member list." Olivia sighed exasperatedly. "One kid is dead, another one is clinging to life."

"I know, and I wish I could help you." Casey folded her arms across her chest and glanced at Elliot for some back-up. Her boyfriend looked at her apologetically, caught once again between his lover and his partner. The attorney sighed. "As much as I hate it too, the First Amendment gives them the right to assemble peacefully. Since you have no evidence to the contrary, I have no probable cause to subpoena their records."

"Can't you try?"

"It's not going to work, Liv!" She combed her fingers through her strawberry-blonde hair. "I'd get laughed out of the chambers of any judge in the country. I know you're outraged – I am too! But I can't legally do anything until you find me some damn evidence!"

"You didn't see that kid, covered in blood. He would have been in incredible pain if he were conscious. You didn't talk to that Rawlins woman."

"I'm sure if I had, it would have turned my stomach too. But the Constitution, which I've sworn to uphold, guarantees them the right to free speech. I can't do anything against that without evidence that there's some sort of criminal activity going on."

Olivia opened her mouth to protest, but she caught Elliot's glare and closed it with a snap. She quickly turned on her heel and stormed out of Casey's office.

The younger woman sighed and rubbed her forehead. "I wish there was something I could do," she said softly.

"I know," Elliot replied, stepping closer to her. He reached out and gently placed one large hand on her shoulder. "She's just frustrated."

"So what's new?" Casey quipped, eliciting a laugh from Elliot.

"Hey, El?"

Elliot turned to see his partner standing in the doorway, her mouth agape and tanned face pale. "What?" he asked, suddenly concerned.

"The hospital just called me." Olivia swallowed hard. "Isaiah Jaslow just died from his wounds."