Chapter 21
"Mr. Carisi, you cannot tell me that you need to get into all these buildings without more evidence of why. Certainly not because I married you and the lovely Detective Rollins," Judge Colin McNamara gave him a look. The two were meeting in the judge's chambers after hours. The elder man had a soft spot for the younger man, especially since he'd been approached to marry the couple.
"Your Honor, I left Amanda and our son in the hospital to come down here. I would not have done that if I did not think what the SVU detectives found wasn't enough," the ADA told him.
"Are they doing ok?" The judge asked, strictly off the record.
"Thankfully, Amanda is doing well. Turns out the original thoughts of her giving birth at thirty weeks were a little off. The doctor said that it was closer to thirty-two weeks. Still, it's too early and there are still a lot of risks. The doctors say that Dominick's jaundice will go away and his immune system will get stronger but they don't want him to come out of the NICU for at least a few weeks. They won't give us anything more definitive than a few weeks. There's a lot of tests that they need to run on his heart, lungs, and digestive system," Carisi explained.
"You certainly must be serious about these warrants to have left them. Run it by me again," McNamara told him.
"We have proof that Louis Howey was at the scene where Darlene Cox's body was found. He told the neighbors that he was related to the man who used to own the house. In fact, he told them that he was the nephew of Mr. Bailey, who had passed away. We have multiple parking tickets that put him near the empty lot where Diane Powell's body was found. Her daughter, Makayla, was found in a pre-dug hole in the cemetery. Since the Powell ladies were kidnapped together, we believe that Howey killed them both. Darlene's daughter is still missing but since the Cox's were kidnapped together as well…" Carisi trailed off.
"You think that Nicole is dead too," the judge said.
"Yes sir. SVU found evidence of the building locations listed in the warrants at Louis Howey's office. He was using is city issued computer to research properties, where we think he stashed Nicole but it gets worse," the ADA handed the elder man the folder of the photos that had been found on Howey's flash drive.
"You think the reason that Howey was keeping track of all of the buildings was because he had other victims in them," McNamara surmised.
"Yes, and it's possible that he is hiding in one of them now. That's why we have to hit all of them at the same time. Howey has completely dropped off the map. NYPD has had his picture on the news. They issued alerts to bus and train stations along with airports. It is like he was swallowed up by the earth. The server down at the building department proves that he's been keeping track of the first building since twenty-fifteen. We think that his first victim is there because he slipped up and saved the file. He was more careful with the other buildings but the server told us that in the last few weeks, since its last backup, Howey had been accessing the locations for at least ten hours apiece. There is no good reason that his boss could think of for that in the normal course of his workday," Carisi told him.
"Extra hours after his coworkers left?" The judge asked.
"More than likely sir. When the techs were checking his desk for fingerprints and DNA so they could enter it into the system… they found…" there was no easy way to say this, so Carisi heaved a breath and said, "they found a rather large sample under his desk. Seems the maintenance team couldn't get under his desk while he was occupying it." The judge shook his head.
"Ok, you have your warrants. No digging under the floors – just whatever is out in the open. You'll have to get separate warrants once you find more suspicious circumstances inside the buildings," McNamara had given them a window, albeit a narrow one.
"Thank you, sir," the ADA said.
"Now go be with your family and let NYPD do their jobs," the judge told him.
"Yes, sir," Carisi smiled. He left the judge's office with the signed warrants in hand and quickly called Captain Benson.
"Liv, we got them. No digging yet but you find me more and we can go for more. I'll drop these off at the precinct," he said.
"I'll rally the troops. Excellent work Sonny. Keep us posted on Amanda and little Dominick," she told him.
"Will do," he promised.
To Be Continued…