2.
Olivia didn't even know how many hours had passed, her head fallen back against the damp brick wall, handcuffs clinking on the pipe as she shifted her weight. Between her stuffed nose and the bile rising in her throat she was finding it difficult to breathe, and she struggled to suppress the panic attack that she'd been holding back since she was strip-searched at intake. Ellen Wiseman, the attorney from the union, would be arriving soon, but Olivia didn't need a lawyer to tell her she was screwed.
There was a woman cuffed to another bench a few feet away—someone else who'd be in danger in the bullpen, Olivia guessed. She wondered idly what the woman had done, realizing that she already assumed her guilty.
She was in the Tombs. Where she had sent countless perps over a dozen years. Tucker, ever brusque, ever nasty, had passed her to the bored, suspicious officers on duty—she was a murderer, another dirty cop. Tucker's voice echoed in her head: "Because you wanted to be caught." She'd been pushed through dirty and labyrinthine hallways, dark and rancid rooms, with the officers booking and printing and searching her impassively; already she wasn't one of them anymore.
The fierce buzz and the sound of the cell door opening made Olivia's pulse quicken in alarm. She kept her eyes closed, but felt someone stop in front of her. "I always thought it'd be your partner I'd find in here one day," said a snake-oil salesman's voice.
"Keep walking, Langan." She thought of all the times that she and Elliot and Alex had discussed over beers their disgust with Trevor Langan, with his uncanny affinity for the scum of the earth. Having him see her here was too much. She broke eye contact and struggled to keep her voice under control. "Wouldn't want to keep one of your skel clients waiting."
When Langan told her he was here to represent her, his retainer paid by "concerned friends," Olivia's mind rushed. Who among her friends could possibly afford Trevor Langan?
Alex. It had to be. Alex must have seen the case file, the privilege of an ADA, and if she'd bothered to buy an attorney like Langan for Olivia, it had to look bad. Alex, Olivia thought, must believe what Tucker believed—that the cruelty and pressure of the job had become too much for Olivia, that she had broken at last. Alex knew more than anyone about what Olivia had seen, the ways she had suffered, particularly in the last three years; Tucker's argument, the line that would now be pursued by Public Integrity, must make sense to her. It hit Olivia, the real meaning of Trevor Langan's presence in this cell, on this bench beside her: Alex thought Olivia capable of mutilating a man and taking his life out of misplaced fear.
"… how arraignment works," Trevor Langan continued smoothly. Olivia stared at him, realizing her humiliation had only just begun. Langan hardly had time to get another word in before her wrists were cuffed together once again, before she was being steered down the winding, nauseating passageways to the holding cell—the goddamn holding cell, she didn't want to think about it, she didn't want to think about it—outside Judge Ridenour's courtroom.
Olivia's eyes scanned the spectators as the court officer steered her to the chair next to Langan, but the gallery contained not a single familiar face. ADA Fritz from Public Integrity stood calm and quiet and centered, looking so much more respectable than smooth, oily Langan that Olivia wanted to run away, or collapse, or maybe that was just the fever.
She wrapped her arms around her torso. Alex thought she was guilty; she'd bought Langan for her, done her duty, and now she could get out of the way and just watch Olivia get her just desserts, relieved that this murderer was no longer her lover. Elliot was—Elliot was working the case, probably, said the small rational part of Olivia's brain. Investigating the Death Knights, who just then were piling into the gallery behind her. Already Munch, Warner, the Captain would have given up on her, but Elliot would still be searching.
Her warm thoughts of her partner were interrupted when Fritz requested remand. Langan was so quick on his feet that for a few sweet seconds Olivia felt relief, like she was in good hands. She was grateful, for those seconds, for Alex's support, for the man whose skill had allowed so many nasty, relentless perps to walk before. He could do it again.
But even Langan was no match for Fritz's simple truth. There was nothing spurious about positive DNA identification. Olivia saw the decision in Ridenour's eyes before he even lifted his gavel. And really, Olivia considered, he was right. Her mouth opened and closed, soundless, helpless. She had no family whatsoever, just blood on her hands and a motorcycle gang more than ready to kill her.