Chapter 5: What We Didn't Expect

The Leon M. Goldstein High School for The Sciences
1830 Shore Boulevard
Brooklyn
11:00 AM

A bad traffic jam on the Brooklyn Bridge resulted in Sergeant Tutuola and Detective Slootmaekers arriving at the Leon M. Goldstein High School for The Sciences later then they intended.

Located in Brooklyn's ironically named Manhattan Beach and just a roughly 8–10-minute walk from the eponymous beach itself, the 9th through 12th grade high school emphasized a vast scientific and technological curriculum, as the school's name implied.

Tutuola and Slootmaekers parked their vehicle and were making their way onto the Goldstein campus when Tutuola's cell phone rang. Noticing that it was Kat Tamin calling, he quickly answered.

"Yo Kat!" Fin answered, "What's up?"

He listened intently for a few seconds. "Oh okay," Fin said, "Well, you only can do what you can do, right? Okay. Do me a favor and fill in the others and I'll tell Jet. We just got to Brooklyn a little while ago. Cool. Thanks."

The sergeant hung up his phone, at which point he was met by an eager look from Slootmaekers. "What was all that about?" she asked.

"Kat told me that she and Bell met up with Zoe Harris," Fin explained, "She says that she's pretty much done with the whole 'Perry Gilbert' situation. She told them that she'd be happy to help if she can, but for the most part, she's adamant about keeping her distance for now."

Slootmaekers nodded. "That's certainly understandable with what she went through," she replied, "Unfortunately, it does set us back a little bit."

They soon found Mia Harris instructing a diverse-looking group of about half a dozen summer school students, who sat on the lawn in front of the school's main building. The 5'6 22-year-old Mia was a redheaded and blue-eyed white woman dressed in a purple Hudson University t-shirt, khaki slacks, and a pair of black Converse sneakers. Her medium-length red hair was put back in a neat ponytail.

The young assistant teacher looked up to find the 2 detectives standing nearby, at which point Tutuola and Slootmaekers held up their NYPD shields. Thrown off a bit, Mia readdressed her group with a stammer.

"Uh," Mia stammered, "Okay friends! You'll have to excuse me for a little bit here. I have to go talk to some folks for a few, so why don't you work on your rough sketches for next week's robotics project?"

Her students did as instructed while Mia stepped away and walked up to the detectives. "Can I help you officers?" Mia inquired.

"Mia Harris?" Fin asked.

"Yes," Mia replied.

"I'm Sergeant Tutuola," Fin explained before gesturing toward Slootmaekers, "This is Detective Slootmaekers. We're from the NYPD."

"We'd like to talk to you about Enzo Ricci," Slootmaekers said.

Mia nodded with recognition when the young detective mentioned the name. "Perry's boyfriend," she said, "Sure. I know him. Did something happen?"

"Mister Ricci was stabbed in his apartment early this morning," Slootmaekers replied.

Mia's eyes went wide upon hearing this. "Oh jeez," she said, "Is he going to be okay?"

Slootmaekers nodded. "He made it through surgery," she replied, "He's very lucky to be alive at all."

"I see," Mia said with a deadpan tone, "Well, to be completely honest, I was never his biggest fan. He was never very nice to Perry."

"How so?" Fin asked.

"They argued a lot," Mia dryly explained, "About every little thing. It seemed like she couldn't even burp without him flipping out."

Although they had caught on to Mia's unanticipated change in affect and the possibility of her not being entirely truthful, the 2 officers nervously chuckled in response.

"I see," Slootmaekers said, "Did she say anything about him getting physical with her at any point? I mean, did you see any bruises or black eyes? Anything like that?"

Mia shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. "No," she replied, "Nothing like that. She never mentioned anything like that to me.

Tutuola and Slootmaekers traded looks before turning back to Mia. "Alright then," Tutuola said as he produced his business card from his pocket and handed it to Mia, "I think we're all set for now. If you remember anything or you have any other questions, you can feel free to give me a call at the Sixteenth Precinct in Manhattan, okay?"

Mia glanced down at the card for a moment before looking back up to Tutuola and Slootmaekers, at which point she gave a dry nod. "Will do," she said.

Tutuola and Slootmaekers then turned and started walking back toward their car. "Did you catch that?" Fin asked, "Her personality completely changed when we mentioned that Enzo survived."

"Totally," Slootmaekers replied, "I'd put her high on the suspect list."

Tutuola's cell phone then chimed, at which point he looked at it. "It's a text from Benson," he told Slootmaekers, "She wants us all to meet back up at SVU."

Manhattan Special Victims Unit Squad Room
16th Precinct
12:30 PM

Per the request of Captain Benson, the joined squads met up at the Manhattan Special Victims Unit. The elite NYPD unit was based out of the 16th Precinct, which neighbored Tamin, Beck, and Ming's precinct just several blocks away.

Detective Stabler and Lieutenant Beck had returned from Staten Island to find Detective Tamin, Sergeant Ming, and Sergeant Bell already there with Benson. Meanwhile, Sergeant Tutuola and Detective Slootmaekers returned from Brooklyn about 20 minutes later.

"Sorry we're late, Liv" Fin said, "A moving truck got overturned on the Brooklyn Bridge. They just finished clearing the roadway as we were leaving Manhattan Beach."

Benson held her hands up in retort. "No problem," she said, "Things happen. Were there any injuries?"

"No," Slootmaekers replied, "The driver got stuck upside down in his seatbelt, but our ESU and the FDNY were able to get him out just fine. The paramedics took him to the hospital just to be on the safe side."

Just then, Assistant District Attorney Carisi came into the squad room. He held a large cardboard file box under his right arm, and he also held what appeared to be a pair of memo books in his left hand.

"Hey," Benson greeted, "What have you got for us, Carisi?"

Carisi set the larger box down on a desk between Stabler and Beck before answering. "I did what you asked and reached out to Nick Amaro," he replied, "He sends both his regards and his sincerest apologies for not being here in person. His forensic firm has him up in Plattsburgh on a conviction integrity case. He did send me two of his memo books from Perry Gilbert's case."

Stabler lifted the lid off the file box. "What's all this?" he asked.

"All that is every piece of pertinent material from Perry Gilbert's case after she was sentenced by Judge Linden in Family Court," Carisi said, "I personally dropped a subpoena for her records twenty minutes ago."

Benson smiled at that. "Ah-ha," she replied as she went over to examine the box for herself, "Nice initiative, Counselor! What've we got?"

Beck opened one of the first folders from the box and began reading the reports contained within. "Perry Gilbert was adjudicated as adjudicated as a juvenile delinquent and remanded to the Creekmore Psychiatric Center," she said, "However, it says here that due to them not having a bed available at the time, Perry was sent to the Rockland Psychiatric Hospital up in Orangeburg instead."

Carisi nodded. "Amaro's updated notes say that she stayed there until age eighteen in Two-Thousand-Nineteen," he said, "As we all know, Nick had retired from the department by that point, so when he heard that she was getting released, he asked a private investigator friend of his from Mott Haven to do some light surveillance on her."

"Did the guy come up with anything?" Fin asked.

Carisi shrugged. "Not a whole lot," he candidly replied, "Perry took a forty-five-minute bus ride from Orangeburg to Port Authority. The investigator got eyes on her there, and Mia Harris met up with her about ten minutes later. Mia drove them to a pizza place on Broadway, where they stayed for about an hour before they left and Mia drove Perry out to her folks' place in Prince's Bay. Mia left a few minutes later and Perry stayed there for the rest of that night. That's when he decided to terminate the surveillance."

"That clicks with the information I was able to dig up on them," Slootmaekers said.

"Perry's records do say that her mental state seemed to vastly improve by the time she was discharged from Rockland," Beck added, "I'm seeing phrases here like 'exemplary patient', 'lack of references to any prior delusions'..."

"That's all well and good, Lieutenant" Tamin interjected, "But if Mister Carisi's theory about Perry's manipulative tendencies is correct, she could've been playing the powers that be just so she could get out sooner."

"I agree with you there, Kat" Carisi replied.

Tamin's mouth dropped open for a second at that. During her time at SVU, the appetent Tamin and the by-the-book Carisi were very rarely on the same page about anything.

Noticing this very evident moment of awkwardness, Carisi nervously smirked. "In any case, though" he continued, "As we all know by now, Perry was released from Rockland at age eighteen in Twenty-Twenty-One. She got hired as a dayshift front desk agent at the Park Milano Hotel and has been there for about a year now."

Beck nodded. "Which catches us up to what Elliot and I found out during our foray to Staten Island earlier," she said, "Mark and Barbara Hedley got pretty anxious when we mentioned that we were looking for Perry."

"They were chomping at the bit to get away from us," Stabler added, "Basically, they couldn't get in their cars and drive away fast enough."

Tutuola then cleared his throat. "Not to go too far off topic," he said, "but there's something I don't get. What was Enzo Ricci's arrest warrant for in the first place?"

"He allegedly punched a bar bouncer in Chinatown two weeks ago," Ming recalled, "When he failed to show up for his arraignment, the judge issued a bench warrant. When the squad detectives found out his address was within our precinct, the Fifth Precinct passed it off to us."

Tutuola nodded. "Has anybody asked that bouncer where he was when Enzo got stabbed?" he asked.

"I reached out to him earlier," Tamin replied, "Yes. He said he was at a hotel on Canal Street to see his grandmother who was visiting from Hong Kong. I checked with the hotel manager, and he confirmed that he had been there until about six o' clock this morning. The manager remembered that the guy's grandma needed a lot of help walking, and he thought it was cute that her grandson was so patient with her about everything."

"Okay," Benson cut in, "I think we get the picture. But I guess the question is, where does that leave us as far as viable suspects are concerned?"

Just then, Deputy Inspector Eames entered the squad room. She was now dressed in a black leather jacket with a gray cotton blouse underneath, gray slacks, and black leather boots. "Hey everybody," she said, "Sorry I'm so late to the party."

"No worries, Inspector" Benson replied, "What's up?"

"After we talked to Enzo at the hospital," Eames began explaining, "I asked the Crime Lab techs to recheck his apartment window for any additional evidence. They did find about half a dozen latent prints on the outside of the window. Two matched the building superintendent, who told me that he installed the window himself long before Enzo and Perry ever even moved in."

"Anything else?" Fin asked.

"Yes," Eames replied, "Two things. One, CSU found four other prints on the window, but the examiner told me that, based on the pattern, the perp wore leather work gloves, and the position indicates that they opened the window from the outside to get in. Finally, I called around to all the Chinese restaurants in and around Eighth Avenue. The manager at Uncle Wong's down the block confirmed an order placed by Enzo and paid for with his credit card. The food was delivered and signed for at exactly Nine-Twenty-Seven p.m. according to the receipt."

"So," Stabler said, "His story seems to be holding up. I'm with Liv on this, though. Where exactly does that leave us?"

Captain Benson then looked around at everyone in the room, waiting for someone to put in their two cents on the situation. "Wait a minute," she said, "Fin. You said that something was off about Mia when you and Jet talked to her in Brooklyn, right?"

"She seemed to be making stuff up as she went along when we asked for her take on the whole 'Perry-Enzo' thing," Fin candidly replied, "Her affect became dry as a damn desert all of a sudden."

"I noticed that, too" Slootmaekers commented, "It's like her real personality got clicked off like a light switch. I can't say as I've ever seen that before."

"I have," Benson said before taking a beat to think. "Alright," she continued, "Let's continue sifting through all these case reports until we all clock out at the end of shift. Tomorrow, someone should take another run at Mia Harris."

"I have an idea," Stabler chimed in, "When we do, let's switch players. Liv, why don't you and I kick it old school and go 'Good Cop-Bad Cop?"

Benson chuckled at the thought. "Gee," she said, "I wonder who the bad cop's going to be?"