A/N: I think they're finally going to start getting somewhere after this chapter, but that's about all I've got for now, so there you have it.
The last thing any of them had wanted to do was go through a lineup, but that was exactly what they had to do. Kathleen was exempt from this, given the fact that she was the one who'd given Tony Martin up in the first place. That left Dickie, Elizabeth and Maureen to try and identify at least one of the people who'd stormed the family homestead. It wasn't exactly the easiest task in the world.
"They all look alike," Maureen remarked, when it was finally her turn. The twins had both gone before her. She didn't know who they'd identified, but she could only hope that it had been the right person. "It's hard to tell."
"Take your time." Beside her stood a figure that she recognized, that of one ADA Casey Novak, whom she'd met a few years back. Her presence was somewhat reassuring, but it wasn't enough to completely dissuade all of the nervousness. "I know this isn't easy for you."
She was right, Maureen thought, wryly. It wasn't easy. She hadn't wanted to come to the precinct in the first place, but it had been the twins' determination to do at least something to help that had brought her here. She glanced through the two-way mirror again and sighed.
"The only one I've ever seen before is number four," she admitted. "That's Kathleen's ex-boyfriend, Tony Martin. He...he was there that day."
"You're absolutely sure that it was him in the house?" Casey asked. Maureen nodded.
"Yeah, I'm sure," she said. "We all heard Kathleen talking to someone at the front door. She told him to go screw himself, and the next thing we knew, he'd knocked her backwards and come into the house with a few other guys."
"Did you recognize any of the other men who came in with him?" Olivia asked, and Maureen jumped, having forgotten somewhere along the line that her father's partner was in the observation room as well. She shook her head.
"No. I didn't recognize any of them, but...my boyfriend called, right after they started asking where the twins were. One of the guys looked kinda like he was running everything...he was the one who told me to tell Rob that we had family from Baltimore visiting, so I wouldn't be able to make it to the lunch date we'd set up."
"And you didn't recognize this man, either?" Casey asked. Maureen shook her head again.
"No. He was too busy staring at Mom to pay much attention to anything else. He kept talking to her, said it was amazing how much she'd changed, and how she wasn't going to get away from him this time."
"Are we done here?" Behind them, Tony Martin's attorney spoke impatiently. "I've got to prepare my client for arraignment, Ms. Novak, so if we're finished..."
Casey cut her off. "We're finished, Margo," she said. "You can take your client." She leaned forward and hit the intercom button on the wall. "Everyone but number four, you're free to go."
The group inside the interrogation room disbanded. Only Tony remained behind, a furious expression crossing his face as Margo Fuller stepped into the room to speak to him.
"He doesn't have to know who identified him, does he?" Maureen asked, and Olivia shook her head.
"Not right now, no, but he's going to find out when it goes to trial," she said. "There's not really anything we can do about that. In the meantime, all you and the others have to do is wait."
"That's all we've been doing," said Maureen, realizing too late how that had sounded. A guilty expression crossed her face. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have said that; I know you guys have been looking for us all this time, but..."
"It's all right," said Olivia, "I know what you meant. It would have gotten me frustrated too."
"Do you guys have any idea where my mom might be?" Maureen asked. Olivia and Casey exchanged glances before looking back towards the younger woman.
"Everything's pointing to the theory we have that your mother might be in Baltimore," Olivia said finally. "We're not sure that she's actually there, but we're working with their police department to see if anything turns up."
Maureen nodded, absently, and glanced back towards the now-empty interrogation room.
"You know, I heard her talking, the last night that Dickie and I were still gone," she said, without looking either Casey or Olivia in the eye. "She was talking to the guy who'd been running everything when he and Kathleen's boyfriend and his idiot friends stormed the house."
"Did she say anything that could help us identify this guy when we find him?" Olivia asked.
Maureen nodded again. "She called him Sam,' she said. "And she was talking about Dad and John. Something about two police departments going for blood if anything happened to them. All Sam did was laugh and tell her that if anything did happen, and someone figured out it had been him, he'd already be long gone. And then he said he owed John one for helping her get away in the first place."
It matched a lot of what they had already learned from Baltimore, concerning the fire, Phoebe Mitchell's death and the discovery of another little girl in an alleyway not far away from where the fire had been set.
"Did you hear anything else, Maureen?" Olivia said finally. "Anything at all? Even if you don't think it's relevant, it could help."
Maureen stared down at the ground. "Sam told Mom that it was going to end where it had begun," she said. "That they were going back to where they'd been when a girl named Phoebe died. He said if they were lucky, they might even see all the cops who were involved the first time around."
Silence fell when Maureen didn't say anything else. Olivia looked over at Casey, who nodded, and she left the room.
"All right," she said, quietly, once the door had swung closed behind Olivia. "That's all for now, but I have to ask you whether or not you'll be willing to testify in open court when it comes to that."
"Oh, I'm willing," said Maureen, pulling her coat on as she spoke. "Whatever you guys need, let me know."
Elliot had been sitting in one of the interview rooms, on and off the phone with Fin, who was down at One Police Plaza with the Major Case Squad and relaying everything to Baltimore. When the door opened, he didn't notice, until a hand landed on his shoulder, causing him to jump and nearly upend a cup of cold coffee across various files.
"I wish you wouldn't do that, Liv," he said, without turning around. "How did it go? Is Maureen all right?"
"Yeah, she's fine. She and the twins just left, I think they were headed out to the island," Olivia replied. "They all identified Tony Martin as one of the people inside the house that day."
Elliot sighed. "You know, I can't help but think that this is partly my fault," he said. "The boyfriend Kathleen had before him, well, he was bad enough, but Tony...I thought if she learned the hard way, I wouldn't have to push her anymore. I didn't think the hard way would be anything like this."
"Elliot, listen to me," said Olivia, sitting down beside her partner and tugging the file he was holding away from him. "Go out to Staten Island. Talk to them. Not necessarily about all of this, but about anything. Favorite flavors of ice cream, favorite colors, whatever. Sitting here in the squad room isn't going to help them."
"I don't know what will, Liv," Elliot replied. "I look at them and I look into their eyes, and I see nothing. Absolutely nothing. There's no light anymore. It's like they're all just going through the motions."
His voice broke on the last word, and he took the file back from her. "This is all I've got. If I can put away the bastards that did this to them..."
"Are you hearing yourself?" Olivia asked, quietly. "Elliot, that's not going to help anything. We can nail these idiots, and Casey can hang them in court, but do you really think it's going to bring the light back?"
Elliot shook his head, miserably, and said nothing, staring down at all the files again. His cell phone rang, but before he could reach for it, Olivia took it off the table, flipped it open, and flipped it closed. He glared at her.
"That could have been one of my kids, Liv," he started, but she cut him off.
"It was Fin," she replied. "Trust me, El, I wouldn't have hung up if it had been one of your kids. Fin might be a little pissed off when he calls back, but he can deal with it."
She trailed off and waited for Elliot to say something else; when he didn't, she went on.
"I know you want to think that you can save the world, El. I really do, but right now, it's not the world that needs saving," she said. "I know you get why they don't want to talk to you, but it doesn't mean they don't need you."
"And they have me. They've got all of me; they've always had all of me. I know why they don't want to tell me what happened to them, but they can't even look at me anymore. It's like they're afraid of what they're going to see if they look me in the eye."
"Then give them a reason not to be afraid," said Olivia, pulling the file away from Elliot again, but holding it out of his reach this time. "Stop being Detective Stabler for a minute, all right? They don't need you as a cop, they need you as their father. Leave nailing the bad guys to someone else for a change and give them someone to lean on."
Silence. It was different than the lecture that Erin had given him, but it was still a lecture, and one that made a lot of sense, at that.
"What if it doesn't work?" Elliot said finally, without looking Olivia in the eye. "They've had each other and their mother and no one else to lean on for so long already...what if they don't need to lean on me anymore?"
"Elliot, trust me," said Olivia. "They need you. They're always going to need you. It's probably not always going to be obvious, but it'll be there. All you have to do is look."
On the table, Elliot's cell phone rang again, and again, Olivia reached for it and flipped it open.
"Hey, Fin, you're gonna need to call my cell phone from here on out," she said. "Elliot's heading home."
She flipped the phone closed again and tossed it over to him, a faint smirk crossing her face as he nearly dropped it.
"Nice move, Stabler," she said, and pointed to the door. "Go on, get out of here already."
There was the sound of violin music drifting out from the open kitchen window, fast-paced and obviously meant to cheer people up when he showed up at the house on Staten Island. In between notes, he could hear the sound of a piano, being played by someone who was trying to keep up, but couldn't; that, the sound of laughter, and a familiar voice floating out as well.
"Kat, slow down, you're going too fast. I can't keep up with you anymore!" A pause, and then more laughter as a wrong note on the piano was hit. "Seriously, slow down."
The violin slowed down, then, as Elliot took his shoes off in the garage and opened the door that led inside and straight to the kitchen. Elizabeth's voice came drifting again from the living room, where the piano was.
"You're doing that on purpose. Go at a normal tempo, will you?" she asked, and then, "Never mind. Just play a different song."
Standing in the kitchen near the table, Kathleen rolled her eyes but started up with another song, grinning when she saw Elliot in the doorway, watching.
"Hey, Daddy," she said, by way of greeting. "How long have you been standing over there?"
"Only a few seconds; I just walked in. Where's everyone else?" Elliot asked in reply. "Upstairs?"
"Maureen's looking for her flute and Dickie's out back with Eli," Kathleen replied. Elizabeth came sliding into the kitchen on sock feet, an open soda can in one hand, and a music book in the other.
"Hi, Dad," she said, and then, "Hey, Kat, think you can play anything in this one? I found it inside the bench."
"I don't know, let me take a look at it," Kathleen replied. "Don't spill that on the piano, you'll mess up keys."
"Yeah, yeah..." Elizabeth trailed off and looked in her father's direction, frowning "You're off work early. What's up?"
"Nothing's up. I just felt like coming home. How long have you two been in here playing?" Elliot asked, taking the open soda can from her and taking a sip out of it. She swatted at him and took it back.
"That's mine, get your own," she said, already opening the fridge to pull another can out. "Here. How long have you been home?"
"Not long. Kat, you said Maureen was upstairs?" said Elliot, but before Kathleen could answer, another voice came.
"Not anymore. I found it, guys. You find anything that all of us know how to play yet?" Maureen asked, coming into the kitchen from the stairs and holding up her flute case. "Hey, Dad. You're back early."
"Since when is..." Elliot paused to look at his watch as he came to sit at the table opposite Kathleen, and then continued. "Since when is seven o'clock early?"
"Since three years ago," Maureen replied, absently. "Liz, where'd you find this book?"
"In the piano bench," Elizabeth replied, pulling open a bag of dried apples. "I think it's for piano duets, but maybe we could figure something out." She took a handful of apples and turned to her father. "Dad, you want to play with us?"
"Sure, why not?" said Elliot. "That is, if you don't mind sharing the bench with me."
Elizabeth grinned. "'Course not," she said. "Come on, we'll even let you pick the song."
She slid out of the kitchen again, nearly falling over right before she crossed over into the entryway and disappeared from view.
"I swear she'd lose her head if it wasn't screwed on," said Maureen. She picked up the music book that Elizabeth had left behind and sighed. "Erin's going to be home soon. Think she'll mind?"
"No," said Elliot, getting to his feet and moving to go after Elizabeth. "She won't mind. She might even join us."
The door leading to the backyard opened and closed, loudly, and then there was Dickie's voice, drifting in from the living room.
"Hey, why'd you guys stop playing?" he asked. "I think Eli was finally starting to fall asleep."
"A miracle in itself," Kathleen replied, following after her father into the other room. "We stopped because Dad came home. He's going to play with Liz."
"Oh, cool. What're you guys going to play?" Dickie shifted the half-asleep bundle he was holding in his arms and sat. "Anything I know?"
Maureen smirked. "Probably not," she said. "You know, you could always go grab your...what do you play again?"
"I play the drums, Maureen, and I seriously doubt they're going to fit in here with that piano," Dickie replied, smirking back at her. "You guys play. I'll just sit and listen."
"Yeah, and no comments from the peanut gallery, either," said Elizabeth, leaning back on the bench to swat at him. "Just sit there."
"I lack the ability to remain silent," came the reply. Elliot laughed.
"I think all of us do," he said, "But it doesn't matter. Let's find something to play, and maybe later, we can talk."
Down in Baltimore, however, talking was the furthest thing from John Munch's mind, if only because the file he was holding onto had rendered him momentarily speechless.
"You can't be serious," he said, looking down at the file and then up again. "Do you have any idea how close Stan and I came to nailing this guy back in '93?"
"I know," said Kay. "Believe me, I know. Case was a redball, wasn't it?"
"Yeah, it was. We had Granger and Barnfather breathing down our necks for weeks, not to mention Gee..." John trailed off, shaking his head in disbelief. "This is starting to feel like the Charm Bracelets case all over again."
"But it's not," said Kay, cutting him off before he could go on. "And besides, this isn't even your cold case come back to bite you; it's Gee's."
"That can't possibly be settling well with him," said John.
"Of course it's not," Kay said dryly. "I talked to him yesterday; got the feeling that he feels guilty. Like if he and Pearson had nailed Sam Garret back in the '70's, this wouldn't have happened."
"He's got no reason to feel guilty. Garret wasn't even a suspect back then, and even if they had nailed him, he'd have been out of prison by now," said John. "Hell, even if Stan and I had nailed him in '93, he might have been out."
"I doubt it," said Kay. "You had a first-degree murder case against him, and then he skipped town."
"Don't remind me." John trailed off for a moment and sighed. "Everything about him says he's never worked with accomplices before, but this time, he chooses a bunch of kids to work with? Why?"
"Maybe they figured they'd take the fall for him. If he was convincing enough to get them to follow him, then it's likely they wouldn't say anything to the cops about him, and even if they did, he'd just disappear like he did the last two times." Mike came walking into Kay's office, holding up a file as he did. "Jen and I tracked down everywhere Garret worked while he was here in Baltimore."
"Yeah? What'd you turn up?" Kay asked.
"He used to be a schoolteacher," Mike replied. "That's why his prints were on file in the city's database, but they ended up in ours because of a fire at the school he taught at."
"Any proof he set the fire?" John asked. Mike shook his head.
"Nothing that could've been used to hang him," he said. "The fire was started in the teacher's lounge and spread down that entire hall before the fire department could get it out. The Arson squad back then took prints as a precaution, but none of them ever matched any evidence found outside the school."
"So, what's the point of telling us all of this, Kellerman?" Kay asked. "If the prints didn't match..."
"The point is that Sam Garret was a teacher at the school Katherine Annello was going to. The fire was set about two days before she went missing," Mike replied. "And you know what's even worse?"
John and Kay exchanged glances, not sure that they really wanted to know, but both of them knowing they had to.
"What?" John asked finally. Mike opened the file he'd put on Kay's desk and motioned to the class photo inside.
"This was Sam Garret's class in 1976," he said, pointing to one of the students in the front row, closest to Garret. "That little girl right there is Katherine Annello. He was her teacher."