It was the Sarge's idea.
If it had been up to Muncy, she wouldn't have done it, wouldn't have called the Cap at 2:00 a.m. when Benson was supposed to have the whole weekend off, wouldn't have raised her hand and asked for help - however much she might have needed it - on one of the very first nights she'd been trusted to handle shit on her own but they were running out of time and the Sarge said call her. If it had been up to Muncy, the Cap would've slept all weekend and they'd have dealt with this come Monday, but the Sarge said call her, so Muncy did.
The whole thing was, after all, really fucking weird.
It started Friday night around midnight, when Muncy was called out to a scene. Dead girl, naked, her body hanging from a window in an abandoned warehouse. That part wasn't weird - dead bodies were just part of the job - but what was weird was the way she'd been displayed. The perp had bound her hands to a long bar positioned behind her back, so that when he hung her out the window her arms were stretched out to the side like Christ on the cross. He'd draped a white sheet across her shoulders, and from the ground the effect was unsettlingly angelic. Angelic, that's how she'd looked, with her long blonde hair and the wing-like visual of the sheet across her outstretched arms, and that was weird, and the whole thing got weirder because when Muncy arrived on scene there was one witness waiting for her. Just one guy, sitting calmly on the curb. He was older, 50s, early 60s maybe, with thick grey hair and keen blue eyes, and he was wearing a tweed blazer with elbow patches like an English professor in a movie. The man was clean, and his clothes were well-kept, and he was perfectly polite when Muncy spoke to him.
Perfectly polite, except that he refused to give his name, or provide any explanation for his proximity to the dead girl hanging from the window. For twenty-four fucking hours he refused to answer any questions at all. His prints came up clean and while he courteously submitted to a DNA swab that hadn't returned any hits, either, and the forensics team was doing their best but there was no evidence on the girl or the ropes used to display her. No fingerprints, no hair. Her windpipe had been crushed, probably by the same bar the perp had tied her hands to, but that meant there was no knife to find, no GSR to test for. No way to prove whether Mr. Tweed Jacket was the one who'd killed her, and no real reason to think that he had, except that he had made no attempts to leave the station since he'd been picked up. He just sat, calmly, quietly, in the interview room, and gave no answers to any of the questions he'd been asked. The fucker had even taken a little nap, and though he'd thanked the Sarge earnestly when Fin brought him a cup of coffee he had not asked for anything, not a soda, not a phone call, not a sandwich. He just…sat there.
And that was why the Sarge decided to call the Captain on Saturday night. They couldn't hold the guy indefinitely without charging him, and they had nothing to charge him with, no evidence, no motive, not even a fucking name, and the Sarge thought maybe the guy would talk to Liv. Something had to give; all attempts to identify the victim had failed, and there were no other witnesses. Nothing, just a girl with no name and Mr. Tweed Jacket, and a ticking clock hanging over Muncy's head.
The Captain didn't seem to be too angry about the late night phone call; she'd said she was on her way and turned up an hour later with a thermos full of coffee in her hand and her hair caught behind her head, all business. The Sarge brought her up to speed, and then she squared her shoulders and marched into the interview room to face off with the suspect while Muncy and the Sarge watched through the window in her office.
At first, the Cap didn't say anything at all. She leaned back against the window, looking at the guy, but not asking him anything. She'd brought her coffee thermos with her but no other props, no evidence file - not that there was anything to put in such a file - not even a notebook. Nothing for her to play with or use to intimidate the man. Just her, and him; it was to be a battle of wits. As she stood there, silent, watching him, she took a long slow sip of coffee, and a smile curved slowly across the man's face as he watched her right back.
"Well," he said after a moment. "You must be the boss, then."
This guy wants to play Hannibal Lector, Fin had told the Captain before she went into the interview room. He wants to show off how smart he is. He wants us to think he's interesting. That much they'd figured out, so far. Muncy had done her best Clarice Starling but the guy had seemed bored with her, had refused to engage. Not so now; he was watching the Cap with very apparent interest.
"What makes you say that?" Liv asked curiously.
The guy wanted to show off and she had just given him the opportunity to flex a little, and he seemed genuinely pleased by her question.
"A number of things," he said. "First, your age. The Girl Scout I was talking to earlier is obviously still just a detective, and the older gentleman with her is a Sergeant. The NYPD is hierarchical in nature, and a squad like this would have a number of higher-ranking officers. The Sergeant isn't the top of the ladder, he's, what, second in command? He'd report to a Lieutenant, or a Captain if one was available. He never left the Detective alone with me, but you're in here all by yourself, and you are, I think, too…mature to not have advanced in some degree. You wouldn't also be a Sergeant, there wouldn't be two of you in the same command, so it stands to reason that you must be a step above him. And then, of course, there's your clothes."
"My clothes?" the Captain repeated. She was wearing a plain white t-shirt under one of her least flashy black blazers, plain black trousers, plain black boots, and none of it was particularly remarkable to Muncy.
"They're understated," he said, "you don't dress for attention, but the stitching, the fabric, the fit of your blazer…designer, aren't they? And your boots, real leather. The jewelry, too - you chose subtle pieces, can't be doing police work while you're dripping in diamonds, but your necklace, your ring, those are expensive. A Detective's salary wouldn't stretch to accommodate your wardrobe. But a Captain's, perhaps?"
"Very good," the Cap said approvingly. "My name is Captain Benson. This is my squad."
"A pleasure to meet you, Captain Benson. Please, join me," he motioned towards the vacant chair across the table from him, as magnanimous as if he were at home and inviting Liv to dinner. "I think we're going to get on very well."
The Sarge had been right to call Liv; the suspect had taken to her right away, and a nervous sort of anticipation began to bubble up in Muncy's gut as she watched the Captain make her way quietly across the room. They were right on the edge of something here, she thought, right on the edge of all the answers Muncy herself had been trying and failing to find for the last twenty four hours. Who this guy was, what he'd done to that girl, why, it was all right there, sitting locked up tight behind his bright blue eyes, and if Liv could get him to talk, they'd fry him.
"You know my name now," Liv said as she took her seat. "Will you tell me yours?"
"Since you've given me your last name, I'll give you my own in turn. That's only fair, isn't it?"
"Quid pro quo?" Liv suggested, raising an eyebrow at him.
"For every answer you give me I'll give you one in turn. Yes, I think that's fair. My last name is Lawrence."
"Well, Mr. Lawrence. My first name is Olivia."
"Richard," he said, and held his hand out for a shake. In the office Muncy darted behind the Captain's desk; she'd brought her laptop with her, and she opened it up now, beginning a furious search for any information she could find on a man named Richard Lawrence.
"Your people must be at their wit's end, Olivia," he continued conversationally, "since they pulled you out of bed and away from your husband in the middle of the night."
What the fuck is this guy talking about? Muncy wondered as her fingers flew across the keys.
"What makes you think I'm married?"
"The game has begun, Olivia. Now I will answer your question, and you shall have to answer one of mine, see?"
"You'll tell me why you think I'm married, and then I'll tell you whether I am. Seems fair."
Here we go.
"It's apparent you've come straight from your bed," Richard began to explain. "You took a quick shower, you didn't have time to wash your hair but the ends are wet. And you tried to cover that fresh love bite on your neck, but some of your makeup has transferred to your blouse. You must have been in quite a hurry to see me."
Muncy looked up sharply, peered through the glass, but Liv was too far away for Muncy to see the supposed love bite for herself. She still looked, though, curious, because as far as she knew Liv didn't have a man, but even if she did Liv didn't really seem like the type to let him leave marks on her. That did get Muncy thinking, though. Made her wonder what sort of man the Cap would spend her time with, made her wonder, not for the first time, just where Noah had come from, and why his dad wasn't in the picture.
"None of that says husband, though, does it?" the Cap pointed out, giving no outward sign that the man's observations had flustered her.
"I was getting to that," he said, grinning. "I have a very well developed sense of smell, Captain. Over developed, one might say. It makes me remarkably choosy about food and the company I keep. I can't bear to set foot on the subway, and cabs are often no better. I spend a great deal of time walking in the fresh air. Though I suppose fresh might be a misnomer, this entire city is positively vile, in a constant state of rot. I do dream, sometimes, about moving somewhere less malodorous. But to answer the question - I can smell him on you, Olivia."
"Oh, what the fuck," the Sarge said, disturbed. Muncy shared the sentiment.
"Not just his sweat, but his…ah…how to put this delicately? Well, I suppose, having worked for so long in special victims you aren't particularly delicate, are you? You're probably very much accustomed to crude language, and sometimes crude language is the most effective medium through which to convey one's meaning, isn't it? Forgive me, then, for being crude, but I can smell his cum on you."
Inside the office Muncy promptly choked.
"He came inside you, didn't he?" Richard continued without pause while Muncy's brain popped and whirred like a carnival ride, overwhelmed with questions and an unpleasant sensation that felt remarkably like guilt. There were some things a girl wasn't supposed to know about her boss.
"You tried to clean yourself up, but you were in such a rush, and it's lingering, just a little, isn't it? That little piece of him still inside you, you carry him with you, even now. And that is why I said husband; you are a mature woman, a powerful woman, and so I think you are not very reckless, and having worked so long investigating crimes of a sexual nature I would think you would be especially cautious with your own body, and so wouldn't allow just any man such a liberty. You don't wear a wedding ring, but that's not unusual, given your profession. This is Saturday night, not Friday, and you were in your own home, as evidenced by the fact that your clothes are clean and neat, not wrinkled as one would expect if you'd worn them earlier in the day or carried them over in a bag, and you let your man mark you, you let him bite your neck and you let him have you without a condom, and that speaks of trust, and a certain degree of possessiveness. Yes, I think he is your husband, and I think that makes him proud. I think he wants other people to know that he's claimed you."
"We gotta get her out of there," Muncy said. The cameras were always on in interrogation, a measure intended to protect the rights of the accused but also to cover the ass of any officer conducting an interview, and that meant that every foul word Richard Lawrence had just said and every shift of Olivia's facial expression in response had now been recorded for posterity. The guy was being gross, was clearly getting off on his little fantasy of how Olivia had been spending her night before she turned up at the station, and if this was how he started the conversation chances were good it was only going to get more offensive, and more personal, from here. Muncy could only imagine how uncomfortable Liv must be, hearing this guy talk about her that way; the very idea that he could smell…it wasn't possible, right? It couldn't be possible, that he could with just a whiff determine not just that Olivia had been having sex but how. The thought was a disturbing one, a gross invasion of privacy, and Muncy didn't want to entertain it. Even if a small part of her was desperately curious to know if he was right, to know if the Captain did have a man, after all, a man she'd hidden from everyone at work.
"Liv's a big girl," Fin said. "If she doesn't want to be in there, she'll leave."
"That answers my question, then," Olivia said. She'd asked why Richard thought she'd been with her husband, and they all had that answer now.
"And now it's time for me to ask one," Richard replied. "Am I right in my assumptions, Olivia?"
"No," the Cap answered coolly. "I'm not married."
"Oh, very good," Richard crowed, amused at having been wrong, not bitter. "But I am right about the rest of it, yes? You were in your own bed, and you let your man have you without a condom."
"Is that your next question?"
"Why not? Yes, that's my next question."
"Yes, you're right about the rest of it."
How about that, Muncy thought faintly. It didn't feel right, knowing that about Olivia. Knowing that when Muncy had called her the Captain had been fucking some guy, knowing that she'd let some guy do…that. It felt like learning too much about her own mother's sex life, and she wished she could unknow it. Liv was still cool, still calm, not shifting in her seat, was still returning Richard's gaze steadily, despite having just revealed to him - and to Muncy, and to the Sarge - what she'd been getting up to on her time off. Muncy stole a glance at Fin, but he didn't seem too worked up either, didn't really even seem surprised to learn that the Cap had a boyfriend. Maybe he knew about the guy already; Fin and Liv were old timers, and good friends, and they'd been through a lot together. It stood to reason that if anybody was gonna know about Liv's boyfriend it would be Fin, but it smarted, just a little, the thought that Muncy was still too fresh to be brought into her colleagues' confidence.
"That means it's my turn to ask a question, Richard. Where do you live?"
It was a good way to help identify him; he'd given his first and last name but Muncy's search had turned up too many hits to sift through. If they could get an address on the guy, they could confirm whether or not he was telling the truth, and they'd be one step closer to finding out why he'd killed the angel girl. It wasn't like Liv could just come out and ask him did you kill her; Richard was enjoying his little game, but he was unlikely to continue playing along if he felt the Cap wasn't engaging with him in good faith. She had to tread carefully, and she was doing a good job, so far.
Inside the room Richard shook his head, tsk-ing disapprovingly.
"Too broad, Captain," he said. "Suppose I should take your question at face value? The universe, Captain. The world. The United States of America. The state of New York. All technically sufficient to answer, yes?"
The Captain cocked her head. "Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man," she said, which made absolutely no sense to Muncy at all. "Stephen Dedalus. His list built up from the specific to the broad, Richard. Maybe you can take us from the broad to the specific."
"An NYPD Captain who knows her Joyce," Richard said, clapping his hands together in apparent delight. "You are full of surprises."
"What are they talking about?" Muncy asked Fin, confused.
"Liv's mom was an English professor," he explained. "She knows her books. And freaks like that love when someone knows what they're talking about."
It occurred to Muncy then that she had never, not once, heard the Cap talk about her parents.
"Very well, Olivia. From the broad to the specific. The universe. The world. The United States of America. The state of New York. Queens County. Jamaica Hills. I think that's specific enough for now."
"Muncy, have we got -"
"I got a hit on a Richard Lawrence in Jamaica Hills," she confirmed before the Sarge could even finish asking the question.
"Ok, let's get some unis out there, and get Carisi on the phone. We may not have enough to search his place yet but it's the ADA's call."
Muncy reached for her phone, rushed to do as he asked while the interview continued, the sound of voices still filling the Captain's office.
"What are you doing in Manhattan, Richard?"
"Ah, ah, Captain," he said, smiling. "I have just answered a question for you. Now it's my turn. Those are the rules of engagement, yes?"
"They are," Liv allowed.
"Very well. Here's my next question - do you have children, Captain?"
"Yes."
"Clever girl," Richard laughed. "Answer only the question you have been asked, and no more, you have learned your lessons well. Trust a policewoman to know better than to volunteer more information than is necessary. I'll have to use more questions to discover how many children, won't I? Well, we can save that for now. It's enough to know you have at least one. Now, as to your question, I was in Manhattan on Friday evening to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I find those meetings aren't particularly anonymous if they are attended by one's friends and neighbors. Much better to travel a little further afield, and achieve true anonymity."
"There's a church near the crime scene," the Sarge mused. "See if you can find a website or something. They may advertise their meeting. We find out who runs it, we can confirm whether this guy was there."
"Do you think there's any chance he's just crazy?" Muncy asked. "Like maybe he just saw the girl hanging there and decided to fuck with us, like maybe he doesn't have anything to do with this at all?"
"It's possible," Fin allowed. "But my gut tells me he's our guy."
Muncy's gut was telling her the same thing.
It was Liv's turn to ask again; she'd asked what he was doing in Manhattan, and he'd traded that information for the revelation that Liv was a mother. What would the next question be? They needed to pin this guy down, needed to find out what his background was, who the girl was, needed something, anything that might help them understand what the fuck was going on, but Liv could only get her answers one at a time, and only for as long as Richard was willing to play along. She couldn't risk pushing too far, or offending him. The whole thing was starting to make Muncy feel kinda dizzy.
"Are you married, Richard?" Liv asked.
Muncy was still running her searches while the unis made their way to the suspect's home and Carisi was dragging himself out of bed to come join the party in the Cap's office, and so far she hadn't found any evidence that their guy was married. It hadn't been top of her list of questions, but the Cap had asked, and Muncy was curious why, and curious what the answer might be.
"No," Richard said. He wasn't like Liv, though, sticking only to the question he'd been asked and offering no more; this guy liked to extemporize. He seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice, very much.
"I was in love, once," he said. "Madly, desperately. You know what that's like, Olivia." He shot her a leering sort of look, no doubt still thinking about her man, and what she'd done with him earlier in the night. "I asked her to marry me, but she chose to become a nun instead."
"So instead of marrying you she became the bride of Christ," Liv mused. "That's tough to compete with."
Richard frowned, apparently displeased with the comparison.
"I read you wrong," he said. "I am not too arrogant to admit my mistakes. You've told me already that the man who got to bed you tonight is not your husband, and I wondered for a moment if perhaps that was because you are carrying on an affair. I see now; you aren't married at all. That is not a question," he added quickly, a little grumpily. "My question is this: is your man married to someone else?"
"Oh, this guy is good," the Sarge said suddenly, sounding almost impressed.
And that didn't make any sense to Muncy at all. What was that supposed to mean? What about Liv could possibly have made the guy think her lover was married, and why would Fin react that way to the question? What did Fin know that she didn't? Probably a whole hell of a lot. Liv didn't answer the question right away, and that set alarm bells to ringing in Muncy's head. Surely Richard was wrong, she thought; surely the Cap wasn't fucking a married man.
Was she?
"Tell me the truth, Olivia," Richard prompted her. "I'll know if you're lying, and if you lie to me now I'll have no reason to continue our little game."
"Yes," Liv said softly.
"Good girl," Richard told her.
"Sarge," Muncy said slowly.
"Listen," Fin answered. "It's…complicated. Don't worry about it right now."
The Captain had just admitted to fucking a married man on tape and the Sarge already knew about it and he didn't want Muncy to worry?
"Seriously, Sarge, what the fuck is going on?"
"Look, don't go all sideways on me," Fin grumbled, while Liv stared at Richard in a stony silence. "The guy, Liv's guy, his wife died not too long ago. He's not married, any more, but he was for a long time, and that's not something you just forget. Liv said yes because it feels like the truth, even if it's not."
"How the fuck do you know all this?" Muncy demanded.
The Sarge shot her a look that seemed to say don't be stupid, Munce.
"You're not married," the Cap said suddenly, drawing Muncy's attention back to the interview room. There wasn't a lot important happening on her laptop just now so Muncy stood up, crossed the room to stand next to the glass, and looked in at her Captain. Liv didn't look angry, or scared, wasn't blushing or fidgeting, and for a moment Muncy took advantage of the opportunity to simply look at her. To look, and see not just her boss, not just her commanding officer, but the woman Liv was. A beautiful woman, to be sure, with her big dark eyes, her soft mouth; a tired woman, too, dragged away from her comfortable bed and her married-but-not lover and her child, forced to sit across the table from a man who was almost certainly a murderer, a man who was probing at her, forcing her to expose her own vulnerabilities in exchange for the information only he could give them. A beautiful woman, whose life was steeped in blood.
Doesn't she ever get tired of it all? Muncy wondered. Muncy wasn't tired of the gig, not yet, but Liv had been doing this job a hell of a lot longer than Muncy had, and it seemed like she had a hell of a lot more secrets than Muncy did. They must get heavy, Muncy thought, all those secrets.
"You're a recovering alcoholic, you live in Queens," Liv continued, recounting the little information she'd gathered about Richard so far. "What do you do for work, Richard?"
"I used to be a professor," he said. That tracks, Muncy thought. "I taught British literature at Hudson."
"Explains your fondness for Joyce," Liv observed.
"But not yours," Richard answered. "I never achieved tenure, and I have spent the last few years working as a private tutor for several very well-off families who have chosen to home school their ungrateful little brats."
That made him a frustrated academic, then, one who felt he'd never reached his true potential, and perhaps blamed the world for that rather than accepting his own shortcomings. And a drunk, and a lonely bastard whose one true love had chosen the church over him. It was starting to come together in Muncy's mind, the potential pathology behind the crime. A plausible explanation was not the same as evidence, though.
"Tell me, Olivia, your lover. Is he your child's father?"
"No."
"But you have sometimes wished he was."
A strangled sound escaped from the Sarge and Muncy turned to look at him quickly, but his gaze was fixed on Liv, and there was no explanation for Muncy in his expression.
"That's two questions, Richard. You owe me an answer first."
"Very well. Ask away."
"The girl we found. Have you seen her before tonight?"
The room went very, very quiet. So far the exchange between Olivia and Richard had been lively, tit-for-tat, back and forth like a game of tennis, enthusiastic, both parties engaged and enjoying themselves, to varying degrees, but Liv had just touched on the matter of the murder for the very first time. She'd done it carefully, hadn't pushed too hard or asked for details of the crime itself, but she had pointed the conversation towards death, and Richard seemed to take a moment to consider it. If he changed his mind about sharing his information, if he decided he'd had enough fun toying with the police and had no intention of confessing to his involvement, this would be the moment when he'd shut the conversation down, and then they'd be fucked.
"Yes," he said, very softly. Just that one word, no further explanation this time. "And your answer, Olivia?"
"Yes," she said, her voice as low and soft as his had been.
Yes, Richard had just admitted to seeing the dead girl before tonight and yes, Liv had just admitted she wished her boyfriend was Noah's dad and Muncy's stomach began to churn unpleasantly at the implications of both those facts. How awful must this be for Liv, she wondered, having to sit there, knowing that this interview was being recorded, knowing that other people would hear? Having to reveal something so personal, something that must have hurt her? It wasn't fair; a sudden urge to protect her Captain bubbled up inside Muncy, but there was nothing she could do. The Cap had made her choice, and Muncy was powerless to stop it.
"I know this is confusing," the Sarge said suddenly, gently. "And I don't like it any more than you do. But she's not…she's not saying anything people don't already know."
Liv had just said a number of things Muncy didn't know, though. None of it made any sense.
"Where have you seen her?" Liv asked next. "The girl."
"The choir at St. Anthony's. She is a marvelous soprano."
"That's the church," Muncy told the Sarge. "The church near the crime scene, the one where the AA meeting is."
"You find a way to contact the church?"
"I called the number on the website but it's the middle of the night, no one answered. I sent a uni over there, I told him to wait until someone shows up."
"I'm afraid what I am about to ask may seem a bit uncouth, and so I apologize in advance, Olivia. But having noticed it, I'm afraid I can't let it go unremarked upon. There's a scar on your breast."
"Oh, hell no," the Sarge said suddenly. Even as the words left his mouth he burst into action, launched himself away from the window and towards the door to the interrogation room with terrifying speed. It happened in an instant, his transformation from stoic and reserved to kinetic and raging. His hand was on the door in the space of a heartbeat, but inside the room Liv raised her own hand, as if she knew he was moving, as if she was asking him to stop.
"Fin," she said, called out to him, even though she could not see him, even though she could not possibly have known what he was doing. "We're fine in here."
Her words had frozen the Sergeant in his tracks; it was clear he wanted to come to her aid, and equally clear that he would heed her command, no matter how much he might have wished he could put a stop to Richard's questions. But why, that was the thing Muncy couldn't understand, the thing that left her feeling peevish, wishing she could stomp her foot in frustration. So the Cap had a scar; why would it make Fin react that way? How had Liv known that he would jump up to defend her?
"An unusual place for a scar," Richard mused. "An intimate place to be injured."
"Is there a question?" Liv asked him cooly.
"I was getting to that," he said. "From the shape of it, I'd say it was a burn of some sort. A cigarette, perhaps? That is an injury I would think was caused by someone who wanted you to feel shame. And so this is my question: do you feel shame, looking at that scar? Remembering what he did to you?"
Remembering what who had done? Muncy wondered. She'd never really noticed a scar on the Captain before, but then she'd never really sat and looked at Liv's tits for any length of time. If Liv had ever been hurt she'd never talked about it. That seemed to be a running theme, Muncy realized; Liv never talked about her parents, and she never talked about her man, and she never talked about the violence that had been done to her. How deep did it go? How many secrets was Liv keeping? And why had Muncy never thought to ask? Should she have asked?
Fin didn't have to ask. Fin knew. Fin had probably been there, she thought, for whatever it was that had been done to Liv. Fin probably remembered things that Muncy was suddenly grateful she had never known.
"Sometimes. Not often. It was a long time ago."
That was hard to hear. Hard to hear the Cap admit to feeling shame for anything, let alone feeling ashamed that someone had hurt her. But it was the sort of thing they heard from victims all the time. No wonder Liv was so good with them, the victims; Muncy hated herself for even thinking it, but maybe Liv was a victim, too.
"What does your man think of them? Do you copulate in the dark so he doesn't have to see? Does he avoid touching you there? You have such beautiful breasts, it would be a waste if he never touched them."
Fucking creep, Muncy thought.
"He isn't afraid of some scars."
Technically the Cap shouldn't have answered him. Richard had asked if she felt ashamed, and she answered, and it should have been her turn to ask a question, but she was getting caught up. She was too quick to defend her man, too quick to defend herself, and rebut Ricahrd's insinuation that she was somehow less attractive on account of the scars. If Liv was losing her handle on the interrogation they'd have to bring her out of there; they couldn't let Richard run the interview himself. They needed him to be the one giving secrets away, not Olivia.
"Interesting that I asked you how he feels about your scar and you told me how he doesn't feel," Richard mused. "Perhaps you don't really know yourself what he thinks. Perhaps you don't want to know."
The man knew what he was doing; he had found a weakness, a vulnerability he could exploit. Casting aspersions on Olivia's man, on his strength, on her connection to him, left her desperate to explain herself, and as long as she was answering his questions she wasn't asking any herself.
"He blames himself for it. For not protecting me. He always will."
The way Liv talked about her man, Muncy kinda got the feeling he wasn't a new fling. Not just a warm body for Liv to hold on a Saturday night, not a new lover she was just getting to know and might get bored with later. It was Richard who'd pointed out the intimacy in letting her man fuck her bare, but it was Liv herself who revealed how much her mystery man meant to her. Her man who had been married for a long time and was now a widower, her man who she'd sometimes wished was Noah's father, her man who blamed himself for not protecting her from something that had happened a long time ago. How long, Muncy wondered; how long had Olivia been in love with someone else's husband?
"Do you blame him for that?"
"Sometimes."
"Jesus," the Sarge said quietly, hanging his head as if in grief, as if Olivia's confession that she sometimes blamed her man for the violence that had been done to her had cut him to the quick.
"How many is that now, Richard?" Olivia asked. "Three, four questions I've answered for you?"
"Good girl," he said. "You've remembered our arrangement, you're trying to regain control. I believe that was three questions. I asked how your man felt about your scar and you volunteered two answers."
"Three questions, then," Olivia said. "The girl tonight. Does she remind you of the girl you loved?"
"Yes."
"In what way?"
"The hair, of course. My Hannah had hair like that, long and blonde. Like spun gold. Rather different from you, though I must say you are a striking looking woman. An orchid is no less beautiful than a rose, though they differ."
"Richard-"
"And the voice. Hannah had the most beautiful voice. Like the song of angels, when she spoke. The cloister she joined was extremely conservative; she took a vow of silence. I've always thought that was the most ironic loss. Why would God give a woman a beautiful voice, and then order her not to use it?"
"I'm not the person to ask," Liv said. "The girl from the choir, did you speak to her tonight?"
"Yes," Richard said, smiling. He looked…relieved, almost. Like he was happy to be talking about her, about that poor dead girl he'd strung up from the window. "She often came to help set up the meetings. Father Ben, he's the priest who runs the meeting, he said she was considering taking her vows, and she'd decided to help out more around the church while she prayed on her decision."
"Did that make you angry?"
"Oh, no, Olivia, you've asked your three questions. You owe me an answer before we continue."
"I'm getting pretty sick of this shit," Muncy grumbled.
"How do you think she feels?" the Sarge said bluntly. "That guy's in there pushing every button she has. But she's getting close now, Munce. It's almost over."
Please, God, Muncy thought. Please let it be almost over.
"My next question, Olivia, is this. Why do you devote yourself to a married man? Can I tell you what I think?" he rushed to continue before she had the chance to respond, eager once more to show off how well he felt he could read people.
"He's married, I'll bet he has kids. He's a wonderful father, isn't he? That's why you wish he was your child's father. You've seen him with his own children, and your child's father isn't around. And you never had a father at all, did you? Still chasing daddy's love and affection all these years later."
Beside Muncy the Sarge was running a hand over the back of his neck like he wasn't surprised by the insinuation, like he'd been expecting it, almost, like he was waiting to see if Liv was about to explode.
"I'm not going to dignify that with a response-" It was the first time Liv had refused to answer one of Richard's questions; clearly the man had gotten under her skin, and Muncy couldn't blame her for that, except why would thoughts of her father make Liv bristle when so far she had shared much more personal, more damning details without hesitation?
"That is a cowardly deflection," Richard chided her then. "If you'd had a father you'd be defending him now. Just admit it. Somewhere deep down you're still just a scared little girl wishing daddy loved you."
Olivia just stared at him in a stony, unrelenting silence, but it didn't seem to bother him; Richard actually seemed pleased that she was angry.
"Do you call him daddy?" Richard asked, grinning. "Your married man. Do you call him daddy in bed? Some people do, you know, that's nothing to be ashamed of."
There was a part of Muncy that really, really wanted to know the answer to that question, and a part of her that really, really didn't.
"That's beneath you, Richard," Liv said coolly. "Do you really want to waste a question on that?"
"No," he agreed. "No, I'll ask this instead. The man who hurt you. The one who left that scar on your breast - and others, I'm assuming? No, no, that isn't my question - did you kill him?"
"No," Liv said. "I tried, but in the end he killed himself."
"How did you try, Olivia? What did you do?"
"Tell me the girl's name."
"Emily Wilson."
"I beat him bloody with a metal bar."
Jesus.
It wasn't something Muncy had really ever thought about, the question of whether the Cap had ever killed anyone, but she had known deep down the answer was probably yes. The Cap had been a cop too long, in a job too dangerous, not to have shot anyone. That almost didn't bear remarking on, the idea of Liv shooting someone, but beating him? Beating him, almost to the point of death, with a bar? A bar like the one that had been used to crush their victim's windpipe? It was unsettling in its violence, not the act of a decorated and respected officer backed into a corner and following the rule of law but the lashing out of an animal trapped in a cage. It was horrific, and it was Liv.
"You are just full of surprises, aren't you?" Richard said approvingly. "You present yourself so elegantly, Olivia. You're well dressed, well spoken, well read. You clearly have the respect of your squad, they're the ones who brought you in here, one can only assume because they knew you alone would be compelling enough for me to talk to. You've achieved the rank of Captain, which means you must be well respected by your peers; the NYPD hierarchy is a political bunch, and you would not have advanced so far if the good old boys weren't charmed by you. You're calm, you're rational, you're clever. But there's something of the junkyard dog in you, isn't there? You'll bite when provoked. And you're frightened and hurt and lonesome enough to spend your heart on a man who's bound to someone else. You'll take any piece of love you can find, won't you? Just looking for an owner who'll pet you and tell you what a good girl you are."
"And here I thought you were civilized, Richard," Olivia said. "That was uncouth."
"Am I wrong?"
No, Muncy realized with a feeling like heartbreak settling in her chest. She'd fallen for it, she thought; she'd fallen for the dream of Saint Olivia, the one good cop, the kindest, gentlest, fairest boss Muncy had ever had. Muncy had been snowed, because she hadn't seen it until now, hadn't seen all the ways that Olivia was hurt, had been hurt, hadn't seen all the rust beneath the shiny Captain's bars. She could see it, now; Richard's questions had stripped the gilt away, and revealed the Captain's grief.
"I know how to survive," the Captain said. That was right, Muncy thought. Whatever had happened to her, however she'd been scarred, she'd survived that. If Richard was right and Liv had no father of her own she'd survived that, too. She'd survived a quarter century in SVU, and she was still breathing, and her man was still with her, and whatever else Liv was, she was a survivor.
"My turn, Richard," she said then. "Did you kill Emily Wilson?"
Apparently Liv had had enough of playing the game.
"Yes," Richard said, but he offered no further explanation. "Do you hate yourself a little for fucking a married man?"
Muncy's head was spinning. The guy had just confessed to committing the murder, but he was still fixated on Liv and her fucking boyfriend. He had just admitted that he'd killed someone, and he still wanted to know more about Liv. And Liv couldn't stop the interview there; it wasn't enough, just him saying yes. They'd need him to provide details, details only the killer would know. They'd need him to provide proof, and that meant Liv was stuck playing quid pro quo with him.
"Yes," she said. "How did you do it?"
"Too broad, Olivia," he said disapprovingly. "Try again."
"How did you get her alone?"
"I've been thinking about it for a while. Planning, one might say. She was cleaning up after the meeting, I stayed to help her put away the chairs. We got to chatting. Why do you continue to sleep with someone else's husband, if you are ashamed of it? Do you just love him that much?"
"Tell me about-"
"No," Richard said sharply. "You owe me an answer. If you don't like that question, let's try this one. Does he love you, Olivia?"
"Yes."
"No hesitation," Richard said slowly. "You won't admit that you love him, but you'll affirm his love of you without question. It would really be something, I think, to know that one was loved so completely."
The guy had a point, Muncy thought. It was clear that whatever was going on with Liv and her man was complicated, like Fin said, but Liv knew she was loved, and Muncy couldn't help but wonder what it would feel like, to be loved that way. To be loved so much that she knew it without question, even when her own feelings were in doubt, confused with shame and grief.
"What happened when you finished putting up the chairs, Richard?"
"Let's see," he said, ignoring Olivia's question completely. "Married, but he loves you. Married, but he feels possessive of you, wants to claim you. Married, but you feel safe with him, don't you? Married, but you let him have you bare. What has he done, to earn a woman like you? Whether you'll admit it or not, you love him. What did it take, to make you love him?"
"Is that what this is all about?" Olivia asked. "All of this, everything you've done, everything you've said…you're still just wondering why Hannah didn't love you enough to marry you?"
"I did everything right!" he burst out suddenly. "I did everything, precisely the way I was meant to. I had the job, the education, the home, the girl. I could provide for her, I could have made her happy! We could have had children! You have children, Olivia, or a child at least; what convinced you that you'd found the right man to father your children? Or, I suppose you didn't, did you? You didn't find the right man. You said you wished your lover had fathered your children, presumably instead of whatever degenerate you ended up coupled with. What makes your man worthy of that role, in your eyes?"
It seemed like he really wanted to know; he seemed desperate, somehow. Desperate to know what it was Olivia saw in her lover that no one had ever seen in Richard himself.
"He's a good man," Olivia said simply.
"Oh, for goodness sake -"
"He's brave, and he's strong," she elaborated, trying to keep Richard calm. "He'd kill anyone who tried to harm one of his children. He'd kill anyone who tried to harm me. But he's gentle, too. He listens. His heart is kind, and he is good, Richard. Maybe Hannah saw your heart, just like I see his. And maybe she didn't like what she saw."
A pitiful sound, almost like a sob, bubbled up from the back of Richard's throat, and he covered his face with his hand for a moment while Liv leaned back in her chair, taking a long sip from her coffee thermos like there was nothing at all strange about a grey-haired man crying across the table from her. She had done her job well; she'd broken him, Muncy thought. Somehow Liv had seen straight through to the heart of him, had seen the thread connecting all of his many questions, and understood what maybe even Richard himself had not.
It was sorta reassuring to Muncy, though, hearing Liv talk about her man like that. Hearing her say that he was good, that he was kind, describing him in a way that made him seem like a decent guy. However complicated Liv's feelings about him might have been, however long he'd been married, he wasn't someone else's husband any more; he was single, now, and free to love her, if she'd let him. And she seemed to want to let him.
"A few more questions, Richard," Liv said in a gentle voice as Richard began to bring himself back under control. "Tell me how you killed her."
"It was easy," he said. "You saw her, she's just a little thing. I knocked her out in the meeting room, and dragged her next door to the warehouse. I found the bar there, and pressed it down on her throat until she died. She did try to fight me, but I had the advantage of weight. It didn't take very long. Everything I needed was right there in that room, the rope, the bar, the sheeting, it was like…it was like it was meant to be."
"Why did you do it?"
"Why did you sleep with your man, the first time? Why did you cross that line, when you knew that it was wrong?"
"Because I loved him. Because I wanted him."
"It's the same for me. I…I wanted her. And I knew I would not ever be able to have her. And now no one ever will. I was with her, when the light left her eyes. I was the one who touched her in ways no one else ever had, or ever will. She's mine, now. No one can take her from me."
"And all this, Richard? You could have just left, but you waited for us. Why? Did you want us to arrest you?"
"I have cancer," he said grimly. "And no health insurance, and no money. I don't even own my own home. My life is over, Olivia. I've no money to retire on, and even if I did have a little something I'd have to spend it all on chemo. That's the future that waits for me. Die now, or die in five years, and spend every minute of it miserable and worried about money. But this way…the way I displayed her body, that will fascinate people. People will want to know about the sort of man who could commit an act like that. They will want to know about me. I'll get healthcare in prison, and a bed, and food, and I'll never have to worry about money again, and biographers will be banging down the door wanting to know my life story."
"You killed her as a retirement plan?" Liv asked, and it sounded to Muncy like the thought disturbed her.
"What else was I going to do?"
"Jesus," Muncy muttered. It was too awful to contemplate.
"You screwed up, Richard," Olivia said slowly. "Look around you. There's no press here. There's no one waiting to tell your story. Her picture won't be in the paper tomorrow. Her family will bury her body quietly and you'll fade into obscurity. No one will ever know about you."
"You will," Richard said relentlessly. "Even if you try to hide this from the press, even if you try to bury me, I'll always be in your head. I'll be in your nightmares, Olivia."
He said it desperately, almost eagerly. The man seemed terrified of obscurity, terrified of the thought that his whole life was worthless, and he needed to believe it, Muncy thought. He needed to believe that someone would remember him.
Liv wasn't going to give him the satisfaction.
"You have no idea what my nightmares look like," she told him grimly. "On the scale of horrors I've seen, you don't even register. You don't frighten me, Richard. I feel sorry for you, but not afraid. The things that scare me would break you clean in half."
And then she rose to her feet, and turned her back on him.
"I'm going to bring you a pad of paper," she said as she began to walk toward the door. "You can write down everything you've just said to me."
"We aren't finished, Olivia," he said, rising to his feet.
"Oh, yes we are," she told him darkly, and then she opened the door, and stepped out into the office, and behind her Richard let out a roar like a wounded animal, pounded his fists fecklessly on the table. Liv didn't even flinch, just closed the door and shut out the sound of his tantrum.
"You ok, Liv?" Fin asked her.
"Yeah," she said, smoothing her thumb across her brow the way she sometimes did when she was agitated. "Where's Carisi?"
Carisi arrived, and the unis searched Richard Lawrence's house, found it filthy and crammed with detritus; the man was a hoarder, apparently, and much fixated on the concept of angels, and he'd done his homework, about various ways to kill people, about the prison system. His house was littered with books on the topics. Sometime around dawn Father Ben arrived at the church and confirmed much of Richard's story to the uni who was waiting there; yes, that poor girl was named Emily Wilson, yes, she'd helped with the meeting, yes, Richard Lawrence had been there, and paid too much attention to her. Muncy took Lawrence down to booking herself, and had only just returned when a stranger appeared in the squadroom.
The man was tall and broad-shouldered, handsome in a square-jawed kind of way, bald and a little intimidating; he was big, and there was a certain self-assured arrogance to the set of his mouth, to the pace of his walk, like he knew precisely who he was and what he was doing and would not let anyone stand in his way. He was wearing a well-tailored blue suit, with a vest and everything, and he was carrying two takeaway coffee cups from the expensive cafe down the street.
"Fin!" he called out as he entered the room, and the Sarge went to him at once, and the man juggled the coffee cups so he could reach out and shake the Sarge's hand. There was a familiarity to the way they smiled at one another, to the way the Sarge welcomed him as an equal, and Muncy watched their interaction with interest.
"You here to see Liv?" the Sarge asked.
"Yeah," the man answered easily. "It was a late night, just wanted to bring her some coffee, let her know I got Noah off to his dance class all right."
"She trusts you with Noah, that's a big deal."
"I know it," the man said. "I'm not gonna screw this up."
"Good," Fin said. "Look, she's in her office. She's had…a weird night. Be good to her, man."
"Always," the stranger said, and then he turned and made his way towards Liv's office.
That's gotta be him, Muncy thought, watching the man marching confidently away. The guy knew she'd been called out late, and he'd taken Noah to dance, it had to be him. The man who had fucked Liv the night before, the man she loved, the man with the dead wife, the man Liv wished had fathered her child. Liv's good man, Liv's brave man, Liv's strong man. He looked like all of those things, Muncy thought. And he'd promised to be good to her, always.
"Who's that?" she asked the Sarge anyway, watching as the guy walked into Liv's office, as he offered her one of the coffees. Through the window Muncy could see Liv take the cup, but Liv didn't drink it; instead she set it down on her desk, and threw her arms around her man's neck, and he pulled her in close, and held her tight.
"That's Stabler," Fin said.
And just like that, it all made sense. Muncy knew who Stabler was. The Cap's old partner, the one Duarte used to talk shit about. The guy had been splashed all over the papers, first when his wife was killed, then during the Wheatley trial, then for turning rat and busting the Brotherhood. Every cop in the NYPD had an opinion on Stabler, just now, and Muncy had heard the rumors, had heard people whisper that Liv had fucked him, back when they were partners. Until now she hadn't believed it, hadn't thought Liv really had it in her, to break the regs like that, but Liv had just confessed the truth of it herself. It didn't seem like a sin now, though. After everything Muncy had heard, after everything Olivia had said, after seeing the way they were together, the way he held her, it was hard to look at them, and see anything but good.
"He seems nice," she said.
The Sarge laughed.
"He's a real son of a bitch," he said. "But he loves that woman."
Yeah, Muncy thought, still watching him through the window. It looks like he does.