Think, she told herself. Just think.
She was alone here; Velasco was still on his way to the crime scene and the Sarge said it was time for the two of them to spread their wings - actually, grow up was what he'd said - and they were supposed to lead this investigation themselves, just the two of them. And she wanted it, holy shit did she ever want to take the reins and run with this one and show the Cap what she could do, but she'd been on scene for fifteen minutes and already it felt like everything had gone to shit.
The unis were canvassing; they'd started that themselves, with no instruction from her, and it was good, really, that these guys knew what they were doing, that their response had been so organized and efficient, but it meant that from the second she arrived she'd felt like she was sorta useless. The forensics guys were swarming around and it was starting to rain and the ME was rushing, had taken a liver temp and estimated that the poor naked girl who'd been dumped in this alleyway had been dead about four hours, but it was cold out so maybe a little less, and she hadn't been killed here because her throat had been cut but there was no blood on the ground beneath her or on the walls around her.
The unis had an answer for that, too; they already had a suspect in hand, and they were being kinda smug about it. Yeah, he was here when we got here, one of them said. Prick tried to run but Danny here was a track champ. Old man never stood a chance.
And now Muncy was standing in the rain, hands on her hips, looking at the old man. He was late fifties, sixty maybe, but he was big, bulky, muscular, like he had a physical job or he spent all day in the gym or both. He was bald and he was face weathered, and decent looking, and he was strong and arrogant in a way she found attractive - in younger guys - and wished she didn't. He was wearing jeans and heavy boots and a leather bomber jacket, and he was soaked to the bone and utterly undaunted by it.
"You got a name?" Muncy asked him suspiciously. The unis had delivered the guy into her custody and stepped away, were now huddling under an umbrella sipping coffee from paper cups and talking too softly for her to hear. The crime scene techs had brought the coffee with them but they hadn't brought enough, and Muncy hadn't scored a cup and she was kinda miffed about it.
"Do you?" the guy fired back, grinning, apparently unbothered by the cuffs binding his hands behind his back. He was rocking on his heels, and he turned his face up to the rain, for a moment, like a child might do in snow, like he found something worth enjoying about a damp, chilly night in New York City, in an alleyway that smelled like garbage with rats scuttling in the shadows and a cop frowning at him.
"Detective Muncy," she said, flashing her badge at him. "SVU."
"That's good," he said, and sounded like he meant it. "Listen, call your Captain. My name is Elliot Stabler, I'm on the job, undercover. She'll tell you."
The fuck is this? Muncy wondered. The mention of her Captain made her uneasy, and she wasn't inclined to trust Stabler. She'd dealt with plenty of UCs, working in Gangs, and most of them were reckless, and half-crazy, and a lot of them were far too comfortable with lying.
"Oh yeah? What's the color of the day?"
It wasn't like she could just take his word that he was a cop; he'd have to prove himself. The color changed at morning roll call, 8 a.m. every day like clockwork. It was currently about 2 am on a Saturday night or Sunday morning, whichever way you wanted to look at it, so the color hadn't changed yet. The answer she was looking for was blue.
The guy's smile faded, and he shook his head.
"Friday's was yellow," he said. "I was supposed to be off this weekend, I don't know today's."
What the fuck kinda UC would have gone walking out into the night not knowing the color? If he'd been called up his CO should have told him. He was right about Friday, and he knew that SVU in Manhattan was run by a Captain, run by a woman, and he seemed confident, but what if it was all a front? What if he was trying to buy some time, hoping Muncy would step away from him to make her call and he could make a break for it, get a head start on the track star uni who'd caught him the first time? There were a lot of different ways a man might learn about the Captain of the SVU. Hell, he might have been telling the truth about being a cop but he might have been dirty, and he'd been found standing over the body of a dead girl dumped in an alley, so Muncy wasn't exactly inclined to believe him.
"Who you working for?" Muncy asked him warily.
"Your Captain knows," the man insisted. She didn't like that either; if he was legit, why wouldn't he answer?
"Listen, I need you to let me go, if the guys I'm working find out I've been picked up I'm fucked."
Stabler - if that was his real name, he might have been lying about that - didn't look too antsy, but he was earnest, insistent, and she didn't trust him. What if this guy had killed a cop, she thought suddenly; what if he was pretending to be Elliot Stabler, what if he'd gotten the color of the day and the Captain's info from some poor schmuck who was dead in a gutter somewhere? What if he was hoping that the Cap would vouch for her friend and he'd get turned loose before anybody realized he wasn't who he said he was?
"I'm gonna take you in," Muncy decided. "You can tell me your story at the station while I run your prints."
"Look, just call your Captain." The guy's calm facade was starting to crack a little, and Muncy liked that. Let him be nervous. He fucking should be.
"Yeah, I'm not gonna get her out of bed for you," Muncy told him smartly. It was late and the Cap was supposed to be off all weekend, was supposed to have a chance to rest and spend some quality time with her son, and the Sarge had given this case to Muncy and Velasco. She wasn't gonna fuck this up, wasn't gonna go crying to mommy the second shit got weird. I got this, she told herself.
A slow, smug grin spread across the guy's face, and she stared him down, wondering what about her statement had changed his attitude.
"Whose bed do you think she's in right now?" he asked, raising an eyebrow insinuatingly at her.
And Muncy really, really didn't like that, didn't like him looking at her like he knew something she didn't, like he thought she was in the dark, like he thought she was young and clueless. Older guys on the job had been looking at her like that since the day she started, and it always made her want to fight. The thing was, though, his question had thrown her because she didn't know the answer. She'd assumed Liv was tucked up safe at home in her own bed, alone, the way she always seemed to be. As far as Muncy knew Liv wasn't seeing anybody at all, but the Captain was a beautiful woman with a high profile and nearly three decades on the job, and cops were the worst for gossip. What if there was a man, a man Muncy didn't know about; what if there were rumors swirling she hadn't heard yet? What if there was a grain of truth to those rumors; what if Liv was fucking somebody, somebody she maybe shouldn't have been? Just what was this guy trying to say?
"You know what," she snapped. "Fuck it, fine, I'll call her. I'll put her on the video so she can see your ugly mug and she'll tell me if you're lying or not." And that way Muncy would be able to see if Liv was alone in bed, wherever that bed might have been. Maybe it wasn't respectful, but the guy had piqued her curiosity, and this was a two-birds-one-stone deal she didn't want to pass up. She was getting cold from the rain, and she was ready to get this guy out of her hair. The Cap wouldn't have to be on the phone long, and then she could right back to sleep, or whatever the hell else she was doing at 2 a.m.
"Sounds good to me," the guy said easily.
He sounded pleased, and that shook Muncy's confidence even more, the fact that this guy seemed so damn sure. Maybe he wasn't lying, she thought with her stomach twisting uncomfortably as she fished her phone out of her pocket; maybe he was Elliot Stabler, maybe he was a cop, maybe he did know Liv, but even if he did, it wasn't like Liv was gonna tell Muncy to let him go. Liv could confirm who he was but that didn't clear him. Probably Liv was gonna tell Muncy to take him in anyway, she told herself, and that would show this arrogant prick.
She made the call, holding the phone up with the camera facing herself, wanting to see Liv, to talk to her, before she turned the screen towards Stabler. It rang a few times and she was starting to wonder if maybe Liv wasn't gonna answer, but then the Cap picked up right before it went to voicemail.
"Muncy?" Liv grumbled sleepily. The screen was dark, for a second, and then there came a soft shuffling sound, and a light flicked on somewhere, and then Muncy could see her. The Cap was definitely still in bed, but she was holding the phone close to her face, and Muncy couldn't see much else. Just the Captain's dark eyes, still half-closed and tired, her dark hair hanging loose around her face. She wasn't wearing any makeup, and the pillows behind her were white and unassuming. There was no other sound, no gentle snoring or sheets rustling; it seemed like Liv was alone.
"I'm sorry to wake you but we got a little problem here, Cap," Muncy said. "Velasco and I caught a case, dead girl in Harlem. We got a suspect on scene. He says he knows you."
That made the Captain perk up a little.
"Who is it?"
"Says he's on the job, UC. Says his name is Elliot Stabler."
"Oh, for fuck's sake," Liv grumbled. She'd recognized the name at once, and that seemed to swing the odds in Stabler's favor. "Is he still there? Lemme see him."
Muncy dutifully turned the phone around, and Stabler grinned, ducked his head so that the Cap could see his whole face.
"Hey, Liv," he said. "I'm sorry to wake you up."
Damn it. So he was Stabler, then. He was exactly who he said he was, and Liv knew him. That made Muncy wonder what else he knew, though. Whose bed do you think she's in right now; did the guy know something Muncy didn't? The Cap had always seemed so…lonely, for lack of a better word. Working long hours, raising her kid alone, with the help of her saint of a nanny, her eyes always warm but sad, somehow. Liv was an island unto herself, really; the only person who seemed to reach her was the Sarge, but they'd known each other twenty years. Was that how long it took, Muncy wondered, for the Cap to let someone in to her heart?
"You should be," Liv said on the phone, but she didn't sound too upset about being woken up in the middle of the night. "You ok?"
"Yeah." His voice was warm and almost gentle, and his eyes were soft, looking at her with rain sluicing down over his bald head. "Don't worry about me."
"I always do," Liv told him in a low voice. Always, she'd said. Like this guy was someone she thought about, someone who mattered to her, someone who'd mattered to her for a while, and Muncy didn't know what the fuck that was about because until five minutes ago she'd never even known Stabler existed. "Give me back to Muncy."
"Right here, Cap," Muncy said, turning the phone back around so she could see Liv's face. The Captain didn't look happy, exactly, but she didn't seem too bothered by the events of the evening, didn't even really seem agitated that her friend was handcuffed at a crime scene beside the body of a dead girl.
"Look," Liv said with a sigh. "You picked him up because he was near the crime scene, right?"
"Yeah." The unis said he'd been standing over the girl when they found him, and there were a million reasons he might have been there, and not all of them were nefarious. Muncy's first reaction had been to assume the worst, but Liv seemed to have gone in the opposite direction. Which one of them was right, and how the fuck was Muncy supposed to know for sure?
"He's telling the truth." Liv's voice was firm, and brooked no argument. "That's Elliot Stabler -" Muncy had figured that much out for herself - "he's UC for OCCB. And unless your girl died in the last hour or so, he's got an alibi."
"How do you-" Muncy started to ask the question before she'd had a chance to think all the way through. It didn't make sense; the Cap had been asleep, how the fuck would she know what this guy had been up to?
"He was with me, Grace. He's been with me all night."
Oh, shit.
Stabler had the biggest shit-eating grin on his face and the Captain looked a little sheepish and all night, he'd been with her all night, and she was probably in his bed right this very moment, and Muncy had been on the verge of taking her boss's - what? Lover? Boyfriend? Fuck buddy? - whatever-he-was down to the station for booking and interrogation. Part of Muncy was wishing the ground would just open up beneath her feet and swallow her whole to save her from this humiliation, and part of her was kinda impressed with Liv, keeping a secret like this, getting some, getting some from a big, burly, cocky asshole with broad shoulders and a nice smile. But how did Liv know this guy? How had she even met some random UC for a unit they never really crossed paths with? Was Muncy supposed to recognize this guy's name? She hadn't; she couldn't recall ever hearing anything about him before.
And why had Liv kept it a secret? Fin didn't talk about Phoebe much but Muncy knew she existed. Velasco had made several dark comments about having given up on the dating scene and everybody knew Muncy was married to the job, too busy to go looking for some strange herself. They were colleagues, sure, and they were professional, but they were also people, who spent most of their waking hours side by side with one another, and they talked about things. Hell, Muncy had met Liv's kid. So how come Muncy didn't know Liv had a boyfriend?
"He's still a witness," Muncy said slowly, scrambling for a way to save face while Liv looked at her pityingly.
"Take his statement, and then let him go. We know where to find him if we need him."
I bet you do, Muncy thought glumly. She still didn't like it, but it seemed like the guy really did have an alibi, and she'd been given her marching orders.
"You're the boss," she said.
"Night, Liv," Stabler called cheerily, leaning forward so the phone would pick up his voice.
"Asshole," the Captain answered, and though Stabler couldn't see her Muncy could see that Liv was smiling. "Stay out of trouble. You know I'm gonna call Bell as soon as I hang up."
Who the fuck is Bell? It chafed, finding herself caught in the middle of their conversation like this, like she was helping two teenagers pass notes back and forth in algebra.
"Yeah, I know. Tell her I gotta get clear of the scene and I'll check in with her as soon as I can."
"Will do. Muncy, you call me if you need me."
"Yes, ma'am."
And then Liv hung up, and Muncy was left alone with Stabler, who looked way too damn pleased with himself. With Stabler, the guy who was fucking her boss, the guy who had apparently been fucking her boss just a few hours ago. A sudden, not altogether unpleasant vision of the two of them naked together flashed through Muncy's brain, and she had to give her head a little shake to clear it away. They were kinda hot, though. For a couple of old people.
"You got something to say?" Muncy asked Stabler, pushing at him so that he'd turn around, so she get her hands on his cuffs and take them off, turning him away so she didn't have to look at those sparkling blue eyes or the mouth he kissed Liv with. There were some things she was better off not thinking about and the Cap's sex life was top of the list.
"You did good," he said. "I don't blame you for not trusting me."
"You coulda told me you had an alibi," Muncy grumbled. She fumbled with the cuffs for a second but then they came free, and she clutched them while Stabler turned back around, rubbing absently at his wrists
"Would you have believed me without talking to her?"
The question revealed a certain insightfulness, even if she resented him for it. Stabler, he was as old as Liv, older maybe, and that meant he'd been on the job for a lifetime, and that meant he knew all the things Muncy was still trying to learn. He knew how the game was played and apparently he knew how people ticked, and he'd read her like a book, and found the quickest to path resolving the mess he'd found himself stuck in, and he'd been right on all counts, and Muncy just felt like a fool.
"No," she allowed. "Now, will you give me your statement?"
He did, explained to her what he was doing in this part of town, how he'd gotten a call out in the middle of the night, how when he got to the alley it was deserted apart from the vic, how he'd been checking to make sure she was dead when the unis turned up. He staunchly refused to give her any details about his case, but explained that the Captain was in contact with his Sergeant, that she knew all the relevant facts. Muncy was gonna just have to take that part on faith.
"Thanks," he said when he was done, when Muncy stowed her little notebook in the pocket of her blazer, when he was preparing to leave. "It's been fun."
"Fun?" Muncy asked incredulously. He'd been handcuffed and accused of murder and he'd been forced to call his girlfriend to bail him out and from the sound of things the guys he was investigating were responsible for the vic in the alley and had set him up to take the fall. It was cold and raining and they all would surely have been much happier at home in bed and this guy thought he'd been having fun?
"Yeah," he said. And for all that he was old enough to be her dad, there was something almost boyish in the way he smiled. He seemed…nice, despite the arrogant comments he'd made, and Liv liked him enough to fuck him, and Muncy kinda thought she could see why.
"You remind me of her," he added. "Liv Anybody ever tell you that?"
"No."
No, no one had ever said that to her, but now that he had, Muncy kinda wished more people would. It would be nice, she thought, to be the kinda person who reminded people of the Cap. Liv was brave and confident and damn good at her job, and everybody loved her. Hell, even Duarte - who thought she was just another bleeding heart, too soft to do what needed to be done - seemed to like her. He wanted to get into her pants at least. Oh shit, Munch thought, does Stabler know about that?
"Well, you do," Stabler said firmly. "You even kinda look like her. Like she did back in the old days. That blazer, the ponytail," he gestured towards her hair. There was nothing similar in the way Liv and Muncy usually styled their hair but he'd said the old days, and she was wondering now just how long this guy had known Liv, and just what Liv had been like, way back when. Maybe she'd been happier then. Maybe she was trying to be happy again.
"And you got her bad fucking attitude," he added, grinning.
"That any way to talk about your girlfriend?" she fired back, but she was smiling, too.
"Hey, I meant it as a compliment. Take care of yourself, Detective Muncy."
He offered her his hand to shake, and she took it.
"Stay out of trouble, Elliot Stabler," she told him.
"I can't promise you that."
No, she thought, I didn't think you could.
But that was the end of it; Stabler turned away, and walked off into the night, and Muncy had no choice but to let him go. Her mind was full of questions, but somehow she didn't think she'd seen the last of him. She had a case to solve, after all, and Liv knew where to find him.