T Minus 2 Days, cont'd
In his time with the unit, Munch generally came down on the logical, if paranoid, side of things. He was also more often that not the mediator when someone like Elliot or Fin was ready to take someone apart. But in Elliot's absence that morning, Munch had gone a bit crazy at the library, accosting staff and patrons alike, demanding to know if any of them could identify books Howie had been interested in. He had a group of college students lined up, wide-eyed and terrified, as he ranted about how the government would watch them and never leave them alone unless they helped the investigation. Lake was doing his best to soothe anyone whose attention he could steal away from Munch's tirade.
By the time Elliot had arrived, the students were pretty well rendered mute and Lake's attempt to comfort them was falling on deaf ears. With Lake and Munch preoccupied, Elliot snuck past them and grabbed Angela Andrews. He'd tried being a jerk with her and hadn't gotten far. Instead, he opted for nice, smiling and telling her repeatedly how much help she'd been. Although it hurt like hell for him to fake a good, happy mood, he comforted himself by remembering that any price was worth finding Olivia. Luckily Angela was charmed enough by his smile that she forgot his previously foul attitude. She started rattling off specific names of things Howie was interested in and, even though they seemed to encompass every scientific topic ever researched, Elliot wrote them all down.
He was just heading up to the second floor, ready with his list to search the stacks for anything that met the requirements Angela had given him. And then he realized that finding prints on the books in the library of a college would be about as helpful as the ones of the dumpster. "Uh, Angela?"
She twirled a piece of her graying hair in her fingers and smiled. "Yes?"
Elliot suddenly realized she had mistaken his attempt to placate her as flirting and that she fully expected an invitation of some sort. The knowledge made him blush and stutter in confusion, which only served to convince her further. Finally he found words. "Do you have a list of students and employees with library cards? We'll need to rule out people with a legitimate purpose."
Batting her eyelashes, she giggled, a sound that grated on Elliot's nerves. "I can give you a list of everyone on file, but it'll be really long." She smiled again. "How about if I email it to you?"
Against his better judgment, Elliot took out a business card and scrawled his email on the back of it. The last thing he wanted was to ever hear from the woman again, especially not with Olivia's apparent jealous bent. But as the thought came to him, he had to smile. He wouldn't mind having a paranoid, jealous Olivia reading his email. Of course, Angela assumed the smile was meant for her.
Elliot ignored her and headed for the stairs, only catching part of Munch's tirade about black helicopters. And in that instant, he once again realized how far away Olivia was, because she would have shared a good, hearty laugh with him over Munch's paranoia and then said something to him about some imaginary unmarked car that wasn't really waiting outside for him, which would set Munch in a tizzy for hours until he discovered that she'd made the whole thing up.
For the first time in his visits there, the second floor periodicals weren't crawling with students. Apparently Munch and Lake had swept them all down to the first floor. Elliot had to smile at their usefulness, as it left the second floor, with the desks and books of Howie's, free for the police to search. O'Halloran was against the far wall. Elliot could see him talking to a couple of people. Still irritated about the other man's insinuation that Olivia had faked her disappearance, Elliot concentrated on the stacks, grabbing anything that looked right with his gloved hands.
Half the row later, Elliot began to realize that the number of surfaces and items they would need to print was simply outside the realm of possibility. He was holding a pile over a foot high and there were about twenty rows left. He set the pile on the floor and decided he'd just have to talk to O'Halloran. Waiting for them to print all the books and magazines in the library would take them most of their natural lives.
"Elliot!"
His first instinct at O'Halloran's voice was to remind him they were in a library and advise him to keep his voice down, until he remembered that he really didn't give a shit. "Hey." He looked around, noticing the entire last two rows of tables and chairs were crawling with techs, lifting probably hundreds of thousands of prints. "Find anything?"
O'Halloran nodded at the desk behind him. "Munch said this was the table you found Druskin at twice, so I concentrated on this one, all the prints lifted from right here are being flagged high priority." He motioned around. "But I figured we should probably check the rest too, right?"
Elliot sighed, wondering if anyone had finished checking the records of the prints they'd gotten from the dumpster. For a moment, Elliot wished Olivia had a car she could have been abducted from. At least that would help limit the search area. "Yeah, great."
"Munch said you might know some of the books Druskin was reading." O'Halloran had his little fingerprint kit at the ready, reminding Elliot of some little boy wanting to play detective.
Rather than scoffing at the man's eagerness, Elliot shrugged. "The guy's a science nut. He likes everything to do with science."
One of the ever-helpful techs joined in uninvited. "This is the science library. Everything here is about science."
O'Halloran nodded. "And I don't think anyone has ever cleaned anything." He indicated the back of the chair between them, covered with so many prints that it was impossible to tell where one ended and the next began.
Elliot snarled at the simple reminder that while Howie's prints were undoubtedly somewhere in the building there were a million other people's prints there too. "We're never going to find him."
Munch's thin frame sidled up to Elliot. "Oh, but we will, my friend."
With a glare and a step away, Elliot rolled his eyes. "Now who's taking the happy pills? The only thing you've ever been hopeful about in your entire life is the idea that you'll eventually die."
"That's very true." He motioned around. "Although who wouldn't welcome death with the thought of otherwise having to catalog and fingerprint an entire college library?" With vaguely reassuring shrugs from both Elliot and O'Halloran, Munch smiled. "Besides, I think we have a good place to start."
"What, Munch?" Elliot wasn't in the mood to play.
With a twisted grin and abundant flourish, Munch produced the Encyclopedia of Female Reproductive Anatomy from behind his back. "We might get something if we cross reference prints from this table with this jerk off for nerds manual."
Elliot flinched, finding Munch's words exceedingly cruel, knowing Munch hardly had any idea of how painful his choice of words would be to Elliot's ears. Munch was just that way, his cynicism having an uncanny way of hitting the nail on the head often enough to make a person wonder if he didn't spend his free time reading a crystal ball. Munch was being Munch; an idea that reminded him of a conversation he'd had with Olivia, apologizing for ever having been such an asshole that she might think he'd discuss her desire to have a baby with Munch. He must have really hurt her, more than once, for her to have even considered such a thing. He shook his head, adding item number 4029 that he needed to apologize to Olivia for when he found her.
Munch and O'Halloran were discussing something, but Elliot had tuned out. His lack of sleep, the way he'd mixed up night and day, the fact that he pretty much hadn't eaten since Olivia disappeared, it all seemed to work together in that moment, allowing him to relive that second meeting with Howie almost as though it were on a video screen in front of his face. He grabbed the book from Munch's hand, flipping madly through the pages, finally finding the one he was looking for. He motioned at the bottom right hand corner of the open book.
"His hand was here. Right here." He thrust the book at O'Halloran. "Run this one first."
Munch looked at Elliot, narrowing his eyes as he tried to read him. Finally, he shook his head. "You're not right, Stabler. You're just not right."
Inspired, Elliot went back to the rows of journals, searching his memory for anything familiar about them. He couldn't swear by any of it since he was well aware he could have as easily had a complete breakdown as actually remembered any of them, but he returned to O'Halloran's side with a thick, yet manageable stack of magazines. "Check these too."
O'Halloran nodded. "After the eye candy for geeks page 496, right?"
Elliot nodded. "Right."
By noon, the detectives, even Munch who'd eventually managed to find a few like-minded individuals who were teetering on the edge of paranoia that were enthralled with Munch's stories and encouraged him to explain them at length, were back at the house. The crime techs had called so many times, reporting the names every ten matches they had at O'Halloran's insistence, that eventually Lake had plugged a headset into his phone and kept the line open. As he got names, he would run them through the system or call them out to someone else if he was busy.
At Cragen's urging, Elliot had returned to the remaining boxes of photos from the Mackey, continuing to search for a needle in a haystack. Munch was working on the rest of the names from the dumpster. Cragen and Fin, along with a few detectives borrowed from other departments, were working other cases, trying to keep up the appearance that they were paying far attention to all their other cases.
By four, Elliot was incredibly sick of looking at pictures of himself. For all of Kathy's declarations that he was the most self-centered, egotistical slimeball to ever walk the Earth, he was fairly certain he never wanted to see another picture of himself as long as he lived, not even if Olivia or his kids were in it. Still, he resolved that he was going to keep looking because he had to, because Olivia wouldn't stop looking for him.
A few minutes after seven, Munch announced that they'd finally reached the end of the prints from the dumpster. He also unhappily acknowledged that for all the names they'd found, none had been more intriguing than Marcus Avery. Although he squeezed his eyes closed and refused to allow himself to be let down, Elliot felt something breaking inside. The quiet announcement sounded like a door slamming to him, as they lost one good opportunity to find out what had happened to Olivia.
His phone rang, jarring him from his thoughts, causing him to jump so much in his seat that he nearly knocked over the soda can he'd been drinking from for the better part of the afternoon. He wasn't in the mood to talk to anyone and would have ignored it, except that he couldn't take the chance of missing an important piece of information about Olivia.
He flipped open his phone without even looking at the screen, knowing that it wouldn't read 'Liv' and therefore wasn't going to say anything he wanted to see. "Yeah, Stabler."
"Hi, Elliot."
For almost twenty-five years, for half the time Elliot had lived, Kathy's voice had been welcome. Soothing after a stressful day, comforting after the most trying of days. But in more recent times, it had started to hurt, both as a reminder that he'd failed and as evidence that he'd inadvertently hurt her so badly that she was really out to get him.
"Hey, Kath."
There was a long pause, during which it was obvious they were both hoping the other would break the silence. Eventually, Kathy cleared her throat. "How's it going?" The words were barely out when she tried to change them. "I mean the search. Did you find Olivia?"
Feeling like he was letting someone else down, his shoulders collapsed forward, his hands catching his face. "No. We can't find her. We haven't – I mean –"
"Don't, El, it's ok." She was silent, recognizing how terribly lost her ex-husband was without his partner, smarting from the sting that she'd been right about some of it, even if not about all of it. "I – uh – You're not picking Eli tonight, are you?"
His heart dropped into his shoes. Fuck if he wasn't really the biggest dumbass to ever live. He'd been staring at pictures of his kids, including his youngest, all afternoon and evening, and yet he'd still managed to forget his son. Rather than the explosion of rage he or Kathy might have expected on any other day, tears pricked Elliot's eyes. He loved his son and he didn't want to lose him. And he suspected forgetting entirely about having visitation with him wasn't going to win him any points with the psycho lawyer Kathy'd hired. Once Olivia was home, Elliot knew he'd be indescribably angry at himself.
"I'll be there in a half hour, Kathy. I just got tied up with something." He wasn't sure why he was bothering to make excuses; since the divorce, he didn't need to bother any longer.
"No, El, it's ok. Stay there. You're probably working around the clock anyway." Her tone was understanding, but their lawyers had trained him to distrust it.
"It's my week. I'll be there in a bit." Even as he said it, he knew Kathy and her buddy Tom were going to crucify him if they caught on to the idea that Elliot was taking Eli right back to the office. Maybe he could set the carrier on Olivia's desk to remind him of what a fuck-up he was, letting down the two people who needed him most.
"Elliot, I wanted to see if you could switch weeks with me anyway. I have an appoin – um – a conference next week. I'll take him this week, you take him next week." Kathy's lie was obvious even to someone who hadn't known her since she was young teen.
Even so, he appreciated the attempt. "Are you sure? I can get him. It's not a problem." He figured Cragen was going to kick him out soon. He'd been remarkably well-behaved all day, if he discounted the fact that his breakdown had happened first thing. He was pretty much too tired to have a tantrum anyway.
"Besides, Olivia will be back by then and you'll be able to talk her into doing half your paperwork, right?" Her hopefulness conveyed the idea that she continued to worry about the woman whose life had intersected hers countless times in a decade.
But rather than appreciating Kathy's honest emotion, Elliot was crushed by her words, unable to stop the tears that actually spilled at the idea. "Jesus, Kath, if she's not – I don't know – I can't –" Luckily the lump in his throat cut off any further attempts at speaking. Unfortunately, it was after his waterworks had caught the attention of everyone in the room.
"Focus on finding her, El. She deserves your full attention." Kathy's voice sounded reassuring, emotional, honest, but Elliot was torn. Kathy was fighting him tooth and nail for every single minute with their baby, her lawyer continually escalating the fight to the point where Elliot wasn't even sure how they'd gotten along enough to have Eli in the first place.
He swallowed, swiping angrily at his tears, trying to make words come out. But he couldn't get anything further than a whispered plea of her name, begging her not to kick him while he was down, entreating her to not take his son when someone had already taken his partner.
"I fired Tom, Elliot." She made a sound, something halfway between a sob and a laugh. "He tried to tell me that I owed him an extra four thousand dollars for the PI's services since you demanded the pictures. He'd only charged me a hundred to hire the guy in the first place, so I asked him what cost so much." Kathy paused to clear her throat. "My god, El, he said there were thousands of pictures, that the guy had been following you and Olivia and the kids and I realized Tom really was an ass. That PI should be in prison."
Elliot would have laughed that he and Kathy had finally found common ground. But he couldn't say a word at the risk of the tears resurfacing.
"We can work this out. I'll work with your lawyer. We can split him fifty-fifty while he's so little. It might be more complicated when he starts school, but that's years from now, El."
He found words, words that he managed to force past his dry throat. "Thank you."
"You shouldn't thank me, El." She stopped for a long time, but there was something in her tone that told him she wasn't finished. And finally, she continued. "I was mad, more at myself than you, for letting you go, for letting you get away. I didn't want to lose you, but I sure as hell can't live with you." Her voice changed, reflecting the smile that Elliot couldn't see. "Give me a call if you when you find Olivia, ok?"
He couldn't quite believe his luck. How could he get so lucky for Kathy to drop the damn grudge she'd been holding for so long and allow him to share custody of Eli? "Night, Kathy." Hanging up the phone, Elliot looked up, his eyes immediately moving to meet Olivia's, expecting her to be at her desk, wanting to share his good news. And the icy cold truth instantly hit him, reminding him that he'd already lost Olivia and therefore no amount of good luck would cause him to break even.
He turned his eyes back to the pictures, opening the last box and pulling a stack onto his desk. He had to find her. His words to Kathy, his inability to comprehend facing another day, another week, another anything without knowing where Olivia was, had been true. He needed to keep his mind on Olivia; once he found her, he could consider anything else.
It was quarter to eleven when he flipped to the last picture in his stack. And for the second time that day, he was sure he was going to have a stroke. "Son of a bitch!" He didn't even know how he got there, but he was in Cragen's office, throwing the picture on his desk.
Cragen's mouth fell open as he took in the image, shock causing a delay in his response. But he found his way to his feet, shoving past Elliot, calling out to Munch and Lake. "Go pick up Avery. Now." He swallowed hard, sharing the hideous guilty feeling that they'd wasted all their time on Howie when they'd been on to Avery in the first place.
Elliot snatched the picture back from his boss, falling into his seat and staring at the angry, vengeful face of Mark Avery, his eyes locked on Olivia's. Even in the dim light, the pale color of her skin reflected her surprise, her recognition, her fear. But there was one thing Elliot didn't understand. The time stamp on the photograph put it less than twenty-four hours before her abduction, the evening before everything had gone to hell.
Avery had seen her, had recognized her. And Olivia knew the man was outside her apartment.
Elliot couldn't figure out why she hadn't told him, why she hadn't trusted him. She'd obviously been in danger and she hadn't wanted his help.
