"In the Criminal Justice System, the people are represented by two separate yet equally important groups, the police who investigate crime, and the district attorneys that prosecute the offenders, these are their stores."
It was a busy night in New York City and most of it's citizens were either at home or enjoying the nightlife, in the case of two of them? It was the latter.
"Oh come on Jessie, it'll be fine." Jessie's male companion said as he lead her down the streets towards a new night club that had opened in the city, Jessie was less than convinced though.
"Drinking the night before my college test? Oh I'm sure that'll go down great with my professor!" Jessie responded as she rolled her eyes before she continued to follow him down the street. "I'll only have one drink, that's it!"
"That's the spirit!" Her male companion responded with a grin before they neared an alleyway. "It won't be that far anyway, just a bit further."
"I hope so, my feet are killing…" Jessie was interrupted when another young woman came bolting out of the alleyway without looking where she was going and subsequently barged into her knocking both women to the ground. "HEY! Watch where your….."
Jessie stopped when she saw the state the other woman was in, a look of panic on her face and her clothes covered in blood, her male companion spotted this as well and walked up to her. "Hey are you alright?"
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" The young panicked woman responded as she jerked away from him before she bolted down the street leaving the young couple confused.
"What was her problem?!" Jessie wondered as her male companion helped her up. "Let's just head home Tyler, not really in the mood to do anything after that."
"Yeah, we can go that night club another day, but where did the blood on that girl's clothes come from?" Tyler wondered as he got closer to the alleyway, Jessie ventured closer and Tyler stopped in his tracks, all colour draining from his face as he saw a woman's corpse in the alley, the woman was casually dressed and had long dark hair in a ponytail but the corpse was bloody and there was a knife lying next to it. "Oh my god!"
"Please tell me you have your phone on you?" Jessie asked and Tyler shook his head, Jessie looked around before seeing a patrol car driving by and waving them down. "Officer please, you have to help us! There's a dead body in that alley!" Jessie explained to the police officers once they got out of the car and they shared a look.
"Tom, you get their statements, I'm going in for a closer look." The older officer informed in his colleague who nodded before they went about their work.
"Okay miss, I understand this is stressful but I need you to tell me everything you can." Tom told Jessie and she nodded before recounting the events up until they found the body. "This girl that barged into you, can you describe her?"
"I didn't really get a good luck at her but she was a bit shorter than me, young, couldn't have been older than eighteen or nineteen at a guess, messy black hair, blue eyes, had a typical "rock chick" look, you know?" Jessie responded after thinking for a bit as Tom took down the notes. "Her clothes were bloody and she had a panicked look on her face, I don't want to assume anything but…"
"TOM!" The older officer's voice interrupted Jessie and the younger officer looked up to see his partner's shocked face. "You'd better call it in, we've got an officer down!"
*sometime later*
By now CSU had closed off the crime scene and Lennie Briscoe and Ed Green were quickly on the scene.
"Victim's name is Rebecca Gallagher she's been a patrolmen for the 212 for a few years now." Another officer explained to Lennie and Ed as he lead them through the alley. "No sign of robbery and right now the only suspect is the teenaged girl who was seen running from the scene not long before Rebecca's body was discovered."
"Right, we'll put an ATB out for teenaged rock fans in the city, that should narrow it down." Briscoe responded sarcastically as they were lead to the body where the medical examiner was doing some preliminary work. "What's the word doc?"
"Victim has been dead less than an hour, it's likely she expired right before the body was discovered." The medical examiner explained as he looked over Rebecca's body. "We'll know more once we get her to the lab but I'd put good money on the stab wounds being the cause of death, I count at least twenty to her torso just by looking at her."
"In other words, this was personal." Ed nodded in response right before another patrol car pulled up and Lt. Anita Van Buren came out. "Don't know what to tell you Lt, someone had it out for Officer Gallagher and right now our only suspect is the girl who was seen fleeing the scene."
"If she fled the scene there's a good chance this girl is in the system already, the police chief wants this case closed ASAP so the public feels safe knowing that a cop killer is behind bars." Anita responded with a frown before she turned to one of the other officers who were talking too Jessie and Tyler. "Did she have any family?"
"Not much that I know off, the only person she talked about was her ex-husband Jason." The older officer responded as he shook his head before Jessie spoke up.
"I didn't realize it at first but the girl who barged into me? She looked like she could pass for a relative of that dead officer, like a daughter or something." Jessie chimed in but the older officer quickly shook his head.
"That's impossible, even if Rebecca had any children with Jason they'd be pre-schoolers by now, the girl you described was in her late teens/early twenties." The older officer said dismissively at which point Lennie chimed in.
"Relative or not we're not going to find this girl just by standing around here." Lennie responded before he turned to Jessie. "Do you think you can describe this girl to a sketch artist?"
"I can try, but I've got a test at Hudson tomorrow and this is taking up enough of my time already." Jessie responded with a sigh and Anita shook her head.
"We'll get it over and done with as soon as possible but solving her murder is a bigger priority than your test." Anita responded with a frown and Jessie quickly nodded in agreement. "Officer? Get this girl down to the precinct so she can work with a sketch artist, the rest of you, start searching for the girl who fled the scene."
"I get the feeling this is going to be a long week Lennie." Ed commented as he and Lennie started leaving the crime scene. "Hopefully we can find this girl soon."
"Yeah, and hopefully she'll be forthcoming with a confession, or at least who the killer was." Lennie responded as the two officers left the scene.
*elsewhere in the city*
Whilst the police were going over the crime scene, the girl they were looking for had just returned to her apartment.
"Shit! Shit! As soon as they find my juvie record I'm in big fucking trouble!" The girl thought as she looked at her bloodied clothes in the mirror she took several deep breaths as she thought her plan through. "I need to ditch these clothes, I need to get out of here, Rebecca would know what to do but she told me to not call her whilst she's on shift." She thought before she felt her cell phone ringing and she answered. "Hello?"
"Kirsty, it me, have you seen the news?" A male voice rang out on the other end as Kirsty made her way through the apartment. "There's been a cop killing."
"So?" Kirsty scoffed as she made her way into the living room. "There seems to be a murder every other week in this city, cop or not, and that's one less cop to give me shit about the mistakes I made three years ago!"
"You don't get it Kirsty because the cop was Rebecca." Her male companion responded and Kirsty stopped dead in her tracks, all colour draining from her face. "And a girl matching your description was seen fleeing the scene."
"That wasn't a girl matching my description, that was me!" Kirsty responded as she started to panic before plopping down on the couch. "Look, I need to get rid of these clothes and I need to get out of this apartment before the cops show up, how quickly can you get here Mike?"
"I'm still on shift at the pizzeria and my shift isn't finishing for another hour." Mike responded and Kirsty ran a hand down her face. "And I get the feeling that you won't have an hour."
"Do what you need to, I'm going to get rid of these clothes and fix up my appearance a bit, my hair was still as long and messy as it was before so that'll be a start." Kirsty decided before she stood up and went to the bedroom. "Mike, are you sure about this? Because right now I'm the only suspect in a cop killing."
"I said I'd be there for you no matter what and I meant it." Mike assured her and Kirsty grinned as she started to calm down. "See you in an hour."
"See you." Kirsty responded before she started getting changed. "I'll worry about what I'm going to do with these clothes later, I just know that I can't be here when the cops show up."
*the next day, back at the NYPD*
Whilst that was going on the cops at the NYPD where hard at work going over the evidence that they had gathered so far.
"ME confirmed that the Cause of Death was the stab wounds." Ed commented as he read through the report to Van Buren and Lennie. "None of the initial nineteen wounds hit an artery but the last one did, either she was attacked in a frenzy or this was personal."
"Office Gallagher was off duty, the only ones who'd know that she was a cop would have to be her co-workers and her former collars and I'd rather not think of another member of this police department killing this officer." Anita responded as she shook her head and there was a knock at the door. "Are we any closer to IDing the girl who was seen fleeing from the scene?"
"We put an APB out but without a name we're not going to be able to find her that easily." Lennie responded before the office door opened and an assistant came in.
"We hit a hit on a fingerprint on the knife, looks like it might be the girl who was seen fleeing the scene." The assistant said before handing the report to Lennie.
"Kirsty Mason, eighteen years old, foster kid." Lennie commented as he read through the file and Ed leaned in for a look. "Her fingerprints are on file from an arrest three years ago but given that she was a minor those files will be sealed by now."
"I'll talk to Serena about getting those files unsealed, if this girl has a violent past it'd be more than enough to bring her in for a chat." Van Buren nodded as she reached for the phone. "In the meantime, this girl obviously went through the foster care system, see what you can find out from CPS." Van Buren added and the two detectives left her office without a word.
*at CPS*
"Detectives, I'm sure you understand that we are overworked and understaffed." The social worker said as he lead the two detectives into his office. "We do what we can for these kids but some are bound to slip through the cracks."
"We understand that but we're just trying to locate one girl." Ed responded as he handed over Kirsty's file to the Social Worker who quickly went through it. "Our files said that she was a foster kid who got arrested three years ago?"
"Kirsty Mason? Yeah, she was a handful." The social worker sighed as he pulled up his file. "Bright girl but she has some deep-seated anger issues, she never took the fact that she was given up for adoption well."
"Can you say why she was given up for adoption?" Lennie asked and the social worker checked his files.
"Mother was a high school student who got pregnant after a wild night with a jock, she didn't want to go through with an abortion so she opted to give the kid up so she could focus on her studies." The social worker explained as he turned to the detectives. "Her mother's name isn't listed, either she requested anonymity or someone screwed up, her dad's not in the picture either." The social worker added before he checked the file again. "I can get you her current address but I must ask, is she in any trouble?"
"A police officer was found murdered and a girl matching her description was seen fleeing the scene in a panic and with blood on her clothes." Ed explained and the social worker quickly shook his head. "We know she has a record and you just said that she has anger issues."
"Her record was for nonviolent crime and her anger issues were under control when I last spoke to her." The social worker explained as he gave them her address. "Which was right before she turned eighteen, I had to break the news to her that she was being turned lose by CPS."
"Are you saying she's homeless?" Lennie asked and the social worker shook his head.
"No, she had been living in an apartment since her sixteenth birthday, she never told me how she was paying rent but in the two years since then she has not faced eviction." The social worker responded as the two detectives stood up. "It's a shame, so many potential families found her anger too much to handle, who knows how she could've turned out if someone had taken her in."
"I guess we'll never know, thank you for your help." Ed thanked the Social Worker before the two detectives left his office. "What do you think Lennie."
"I think that girl had better pray that whatever's in her file supports what the Social Worker said." Lennie responded as he shook his head and Ed nodded in agreement, "Her address is about two blocks from the crime scene, if she ran there then she couldn't have gotten far."
"Let's go check it out." Ed responded before the two detectives left CPS.
