Loose Ends and New Beginnings
Summary: See ch1
Disclaimer: Not mine
A/N: Hey look, I got this update up really really soon, unfortunately, don't get used to it lol! Thanks for all the reviews, I love em!!
Discovery
Olivia was silent for the entire ride over to the judge's brownstone. She kept blaming herself, even though deep down she knew that she did everything she could have done. She almost died to save that man's life.
"Stop blaming yourself." Elliot said, not even having to take his eyes off the road to know what was going on.
Olivia shook her head and smiled. "I hate it when you do that." She said.
"What? Read your mind?" He asked, gazing at her quickly before turning his attention back to city traffic. "It may not even be the same perp." He said, trying to comfort her.
"Why would more than one person want to kill him? We searched this man's life El. He didn't do anything, and there have been no recent threats on his life." She answered.
"Let's just wait till we get to the scene to jump to any conclusions." He said, putting his hand on her thigh as added comfort.
Olivia responded by sighing, and turning her gaze out her window.
When they arrived at the scene, Warner was already examining the body.
Olivia was the first to approach the cautioned off house. She flashed her badge at the cop who was standing at the perimeter. "I'm Detective Benson; this is my partner, Detective Stabler, what do we got?" She asked bending low to get under the tape, with Elliot right behind her.
"Neighbor called this morning after seeing a guy dressed in jeans and a white tee-shirt, covered in blood, leave. Woman said she called the house a few times, and when Judge Anderson didn't answer, she got worried. One of our guys went in to check things out, and found the Judge dead. We woulda called it into homicide, but after seeing the… foreign object… we decided to call you guys." The cop said as he led Elliot and Olivia into the living room of the house.
"Thank you." Olivia said, dismissing the cop, and excusing herself and Elliot to talk to Warner.
There, in the middle of the floor was a body covered with a white cloth. Warner was bent down taking notes. There was a blood pool on the carpet under him, but nothing else could be seen.
Warner dropped the cloth, and rose to meet them.
"Welcome back. How was Hawaii?" She asked before filling them in.
"Warm." Olivia said simply. There was something not right going on, she could feel it from the time she sat in Jusge Anderson's courtroom to testify for Lizzie.
"It was good to get away from all of this and relax for a change." Elliot added trying to make up for his wife's terseness.
"Well, I'm glad you had fun. From the sound of it you two had a better week then our Judge." Warner said.
"What happened to him?" Olivia asked.
"Well, without examination, I would say the cause of death was a single bullet to the head, probably inflicted after the sodomy." She said.
"Someone sodomized him?" Elliot asked, unsure as to why anyone would do that. "You only do that if you have a pretty personal vendetta against someone."
"You're the cops, I just report the findings." Warner answered.
"I don't understand, we searched through this guy's background; we talked to him. He told us no one had a problem with him." Elliot thought out loud.
"Everyone has secrets." Warner mumbled as she went back to examining her body.
"Yeah, looks like Judge Anderson's got him killed." Elliot muttered. "Let's look around." He suggested to Olivia, who was already scanning the room.
Elliot started looking around the entry way to try to figure out how the killer got in, while Olivia took to the living room.
"Looks like forced entry." Elliot called, noting the scratch marks on the keyhole. "Looks like our perp jimmied the lock."
Olivia was only half listening. Something was bothering her about this case. Her eyes fell on the mantel of the Judge's fire place. There was a row of photos in mismatching frames. Most of the pictures contained images of the good Judge with various blondes that were so young, they could have been his daughter.
"Someone was a playboy." She muttered as she examined each photograph. When her eyes fell on the last picture in the row, her breath caught in throat. "Elliot." She called over her shoulder.
Elliot knew that tone; he had been partnered with Olivia long enough. It was the tone that indicated that she had found something.
He made his way across the first floor to join Olivia in front of the mantel. "Hmm, Judge Anderson liked em young." He noted seeing the pictures.
"Why does he have this?" She asked, staring at a picture frame that she held in her hands.
"Have what?" He asked, peering over her shoulder. In the frame he saw a familiar image. It was of him and Olivia during their first dance at their wedding. They both looked so happy as they gazed into each other's eyes.
"I didn't even know he was there." Elliot noted.
"Why would he have this?" She repeated.
"Maybe because he was grateful that you saved his life." Elliot suggested. He didn't seem to be all that concerned.
"You don't find it strange that a dead judge has a picture of us from our wedding on his mantel?" She asked.
"The man was never married, and had no kids. Maybe he got tired of only looking at superficial girlfriends when he looked through his pictures." He said.
Olivia just shook her head, something just did not add up. "I'm gonna keep looking around." She said, returning the photo to its spot among the blonds.
She cautiously made her way to the second floor, searching for anything that would indicate what had happened in that house.
She soon came upon the master bedroom, and went in slowly. She scanned the tops of the dresser and night stand. Olivia noticed that there was nothing cluttering up any of the spaces in the room other than a few more pictures of very young, good looking women. She made her way to the closet.
Upon first inspection, Olivia could tell that this man had been a little anal. His walk in closet was organized to a tee. Hanging on the higher rack of the closet were all his shirts. All the dress shirts were hung together, then came casual sweaters; then long sleeved shirts, then short sleeved shirts. On the rack under the shirts were all his pants, also hung in categories. Everything was color coded. Shoe boxes lined the back of the closet, each with a picture of the shoe they contained on the outside.
"Find anything?" Elliot asked, peering into the room from the door way.
"Besides the fact that this closet is more organized than our whole apartment?" She asked.
Elliot opened one of the drawers on the Judge's dresser. Judge Anderson's drawers were as organized as his closet was. All the clothes were folded neatly and in color order.
"Wow, if I hadn't seen his collection of girlfriends, I would have said this man really needed a hobby." Elliot noted.
Olivia made her way through the closet. As she looked around she noticed that there was a shelf at the top. She grabbed a chair from the room to stand on so that she could examine the shelf. She found boxes labeled as, "stamp collection", "Mom's China", "Christmas Decorations", etc. Then she saw something in the back that didn't have any indicating marks on it. She reached back, and pulled it down.
She opened the box with her gloved hand, and was confused as to what she saw. "I've heard of guys keeping panties of their conquests, but ID cards?" She asked, more to herself than to Elliot.
The box contained college IDs of various women. "He really did like them young." She mumbled.
Elliot continued searching through the judge's room when heard Olivia gasp, and a box hit the ground.
TBC... review!!! Sorry for the cliffhanger, but I couldn't resist, although, I'm pretty sure that most of you know what is going to happen!!!