1998
March
Manhattan.
Olivia took a third day off of work to go through her mother's things one last time and put an end to Serena's life. She walked to the apartment on the phone.
"Cremation," she spoke to Melinda. "As long as everything is cleared…just get rid of it all…I'm not keeping anything….I guess keep the jewelry."
She jiggled the keys and walked into the first floor apartment, where she and Elliot had already started boxing everything the day before. The two bedroom first floor townhouse is the last place her mother moved to. They moved almost every year until she was in High School. Her mother never seemed to like the neighborhoods they lived in. There was always something wrong. The apartment above was too loud. The school was too dirty and the teachers were bad. The park had too many sketchy people. The kids in the neighborhood were drug dealers. The man across the street looked at her funny. Serena barely made enough money for them to live in a city residence, but somehow she came up with more security deposits than grocery trips. There was nothing Olivia wanted to take from this house, because a house and the things inside of it, never really ever felt like home to her. Not even the pictures of her childhood, though before Elliot left for work this morning he gently encouraged her to keep some things.
"I'm actually at her apartment now," she continued on the phone with Melinda. "If I could light a match and walk away I would." She opened the door to her mother's bedroom, which was already boxed up, and started taking everything to the living room for the donation pickup.
"Just make sure you take every photo. Photos are priceless," Melinda answered.
"Elliot says to take all the photos too. It's just really hard for me, Melin. I don't have the same warm fuzzy feelings most people have when they look at their childhood photos. All of the photos I ever want, I have already. Most are from High School on. And there are very few pictures of my mother in these boxes. She didn't like being photographed. So every picture is me in frilly outfits from the 70's that she'd get at the flea market and she'd sit me up in front of the dining room wall or a Christmas tree or next to her car, and make me stand there and smile or not smile. In fact, most pictures I am not smiling. And we never went anywhere. Not one vacation to a beach or the grand canyon. No summer camps. No sleep overs. No hotels. We didn't go to church or community activities. Once a year she'd take me to Coney Island with the summer college kids that she taught. It was the highlight of summer, and possibly the only thing I remember doing with her that was fun."
"Well, I'm sure you're adorable in the frilly outfits."
"I look like a sad doll, until middle school, where I then got fat for a minute and chopped my hair off in the worst way. I don't know that I need to remember that these eras."
Melinda couldn't help but laugh a little, because she knew the feeling all too well. "You say that now, but later you could want them. My daughter loves to look at my old pictures. The toys I got at christmas. The hair and the clothes. It's her favorite thing to do. If not for you, take some things for your kids to see. It might help you find the comedy in your past."
Olivia rolled her eyes. "And what if I don't have kids and then these boxes just eat up precious space in my tiny closet."
"You're marrying a Catholic, Olivia," Melinda jabbed.
"Just because he's Catholic doesn't mean I'm about to get on my knees and have 6 babies," she trailed off as she grabbed the box of pictures. Her three year old face sat at the top of a stack. She was in a red dress and her hair was in tight brown curls around her face. It was the day her mother was supposed to take her to see Santa.
"Liv, you're in a dark head space right now, but trust me, you'll regret not having the pictures someday. You can't create new memories until you make peace with the old ones. Your past is a part of you. It will guide you to new traditions. Make you appreciate what others take for granted."
Olivia's mind flashed to this past Christmas. She had dinner with the Stablers. Elliot's large family had plenty of children in it. Between his two sisters and Kathy and Joe, there were twelve children in all, ranging from 6 to 16, and they ran around Bernie's house adding such joy and excitement. Kathy and Joe's children were the youngest. The twins, Elizabeth and Dickie, were six and Maureen was ten, and they seemed to gravitate towards Elliot the most, since he helped watch them from time to time. Olivia showed them how to play her favorite card game "Oh Rats", which was a G rated title for "Oh Hell", and she quickly became their new favorite unofficial aunt.
She smiled a little thinking about it now. It was a fun night. Olivia had been a little overwhelmed at first with all of the people introducing themselves and talking over top of each other, but it was also something she'd always imagined being a part of. A large family. They all said grace and there was a feast on a big table that everyone helped prepare, and cookies, and backgammon tournaments and card games, and his family was loud and they were loving, and there was a lot of laughter. Even if they were normal simple people who talked about sports and the neighborhood, and mundane everyday life things that Olivia had never found herself thinking about or talking about. They were welcoming, and it was lovely.
By the end of the night little Elizabeth was getting tired and she curled up on Olivia's lap and touched her hair. "You're pretty," she softly spoke. Ten minutes later the sweet child was fast asleep, and Olivia's heart felt full. Elliot watched her from across the room, while he roughhoused with the other twin, Dickie. She could see it in the way he looked at her that night. He would have impregnated her with his eyes from across the room if it were an option, and those kids were so dang cute, she probably would have let him. Melinda was right, Elliot has thought about being a dad, and he'd be a great dad. They'd be pretty damn good parents, when she really thought about it.
"Maybe you're right…I'll box up the photos…for people that aren't even alive yet. But that doesn't mean I'm going to church."
"Ow, girl I can't believe you haven't talked about babies and church yet. Y'all are a damn mess. Better do that before the vows. I'll leave you to it. Your mother's ashes will be ready for pick up by end of day. Do not let her sit here too long, please. I do not want to be haunted by Serena tomorrow when she's mad that you never came back."
"Yes Ma'am," she clicked the phone off.
She immediately began filling up boxes with the last of her mother's things and setting them in the living room for goodwill to take away in the morning.
When she was finished she grabbed the box of photos and headed out.
"Goodbye, Mom. This is the last time you have to move."
The moment she got to her car, Cragen called her in, and she happily dropped everything to be back at work. The precinct was all a bustle.
Fin and Munch were in the middle of an interrogation. Alex was back and forth between Cragen's office and interrogation. Elliot was talking loudly into the phone. And there was an unusual number of foot traffic from officers, IAB, therapists, and delivery people.
"No, I need you to look up a plate number," Elliot repeated himself. "Yeah, that's what I said the first time." He then held the phone away from his mouth. "Why are you here," he asked in a grumpy tone, as she dropped her bag into her desk drawer and pulled her glock on.
"Cragen called me in."
He was clearly in the middle of something. "License… PLATE…. NUMBER."
Cragen was ready for Olivia before she could even hang her coat.
"Liv," he poked his head out of his office and waved for her to come in. "Glad you could come in today."
"Not a problem. Busy in here."
"Woman in Albany went missing and they think she's in the city, so we've now been brought in to help. Half our rooms are being taken over by local yocal cops. It's a nightmare."
"I saw that case on the news."
Elliot slammed his phone from behind them and followed Olivia into Cragen's office. "License plate number," he slipped the info into Cragen's hand and stood nearby with his chest puffed out and his arms crossed.
"Thank you," Cragen nodded. "So, on top of that. Caroline Rooney's rape case goes to court tomorrow morning, and Alex is running into a big hole. I have Caroline here, she's hit a wall when it comes to going over things. But I think you might be able to help. She's waiting for you upstairs with Wong."
"Okay…fill me in with the updates."
Cragen stood up from his desk. "Elliot, please go through that while I get this plate to IAB"
"Yep."
Elliot let him pass and then flipped the bulletin board over where Fin and Munch had put Caroline's case details on.
He pointed to Caroline's timeline. "Caroline's account of the evening, which you know. Hi, by the way," he stood on top of her, shoulder to shoulder, and his eyes were checking in on the state of her day. She briefly acknowledged him with a rub to his arm, and nodded back the board for him to continue.
"I'm fine."
He jumped back in without missing a beat. "We have one rape. Two DNA samples. Caroline Rooney, raped in this Midtown brownstone construction sight. We have several shoe prints. And labs came back with two semen samples on Caroline's rape kit. One match was in the system. Caroline has also IDed him. Michael Titkos," He pointed to a mugshot of Michael Titkos. "Michael or Mickey, he likes to be called, is pleading not guilty. Says that he was paid to do the job by a man and Caroline that he met on a sex website called "Some like it rough". Mickey was told the woman wanted to be raped, and the mystery man, who's aol Screen name is 'HighSpeedDemon' paid to watch."
Olivia shook her head at how congluted a simple rape case suddenly became. Cragen was back in his office, a whirlwind. He lifted a brow. "I swear the longer I do this job, the crazier it gets."
"Technology opened our world up to things we never wanted to know about," Olivia responded.
Elliot agreed, and continued. "Caroline, we have come to discover has a thing for rough sex talk online." He points to photos given to them by Mickey. "Mickey has an aol messenger thread with Caroline in a "Some like it rough" community sex site with pictures and threads with detailed sex including rape and beatings. But she also had a thread going with 'HighSpeedDemon'. She has had a slew of online…relations..flings?"
"Just because she likes it rough online, doesn't mean she deserved to be unexpectedly raped in the real world. I saw the horror in that woman's eyes. She did not plan that attack."
"I get that, but why expose yourself to pervs on the internet that you don't know and can't even see. You would think if violence were your fetish, you'd want to trust the person," Elliot judged.
"You can get raped and attacked by perves you're related to", she corrected him. "Maybe she's ashamed of her fantasies. Lot's of women hide their real erotic fantasies from the partners they sleep with every day."
"Really," he looked at her with question on his face, wondering if she was hiding anything erotic from him.
She uncomfortably looked away from him and touched her hair ignoring his reaction.
Cragen interrupted. "Mickey has more than enough proof that he thought this was an extension of online foreplay. He has also cooperated with us on tracking this 'HighSpeed Demon'. Gave us a description of the man, where and how he met him for payment, and gave us the cash that he was paid with. Despite our best efforts, this man is still a mystery. His online chat has been silent since the rape. And for all we know, he's moved on and is working up to other women."
"Did you track his IP address," she asked.
"IP address came up in an internet cafe near Caroline's office building," Cragen answered. "He paid with cash and lucky for him, the cafe's security camera never worked."
Olivia pointed to a sketch on the wall where there was a drawing of a man in a baseball cap and a scarf around his face. "Boy, I hope Mickey gave you more than this horrible sketch of eyes for less time on his sentence?"
Cragen cleared his throat. "It's been great contention with Alex as well. But he did provide us with other details. Mickey met the man in New Jersey to go over the job outside of a dive bar near the train station called 'End of the Line'."
Olivia then pointed to a photo of the crime scene. "Why is there a red circle in the photo of this room?"
"That's where HighSpeed left his DNA," Elliot looked in disgust. "According to Mickey, the guy liked to watch. He hung back and wore a black mask over his face. Caroline didn't even know he was there, but here's what is not adding up. Caroline and Mickey both say that Mickey left the scene right away. Immediately after he finished. The subway time stamps confirm that. Which means this guy either left with him or left after him. But Caroline doesn't have memory of any of it. We also have not found Caroline's ID or keys."
Olivia looked at the pictures deep in thought. "And you googled 'HighSpeedDemon'."
"First thing I did," Elliot answered. "Nothing really comes up. A lot of things about the speed demon, but that could mean anything."
Cragen pulled them back to Caroline. "We need Caroline to remember what happened that night. Between the sex site and this shadow of a man, Alex is pulling at threads to keep this case afloat. Munch and Fin have both tried to talk to Caroline several times and each time she shuts down."
Olivia stared at the eyes in the sketch and picked up the evidence bag that held the orange utility knife inside of it. She hadn't been fully convinced of her father's innocence. Were those his eyes? Was this his utility knife? "I'll see what I can do," she started to leave and then stopped. "Whose idea was it…to use that utility knife? Do we know where it was bought?"
"Elliot," Cragen looked to him.
"Ah…Mickey told us this man brought him the clothes and the knife. Said it was part of the act."
Cragen gave her a quizzical glance. "Something come to mind?"
She hesitated and then disappeared from his office. A moment later she had several files in her hand.
"From 1965 through 1981 there were a string of rapes throughout the manhattan area at and around schools mostly, but also construction sites. They called this guy the box cutter rapist. He always wore a coverall. He always used a box cutter or utility knife. He would come up behind the vic. He was right handed, so he would place the blade on the neck…and cut on the vein…just enough to leave a permanent mark and panic his victim. He would then rape them and take their ID. Some victims reported a stalker later on after he takes their ID's. Most did not. But I wonder if that's because the victims were afraid to turn the stalking in or if he only chose to stalk victims with children."
Cragen could see this was bigger for her than he realized. "How do you know he stalked the ones with children?"
Olivia's mind, fresh from thinking about how her mother moved from place to place and that one thing Hollister said to her 'I love all of my children.' He had to have been stalking her and her mother. And her mother knew. She knew this whole time. "My mother was one of these victims and her rapist…my biological father…stood in this precinct last week and told me things about my childhood that I myself had forgotten about. I have no hard evidence that he raped my mother. I don't even know for certain if he is my biological father. Everything is hearsay. But something about this case has nagged at me from day one. And things that he said…"
Cragen sifted through the files again. "Okay….let's say it is your father. Why would he target Caroline?"
"I…I don't know. That's the thing…I mean…HighSpeedDemon…sex sites…he had to bring in Mickey, because a motorcycle accident left him paralyzed in his left side. His motor function is off, but he said he had reconstructive nerve surgery. Would that be able to fix his…dysfunction?"
"Tell yeah, what…I'll take any lead you got, even if it's wrong," Cragen slapped the desk with the file in his hand. "Elliot do a little research on Olivia's dad. See where he had surgery. Call up the doctor's office and get some information on how to fix your erection."
Elliot's eyes grew wide for a moment. "Interesting choice of words."
"Whatever," Cragen waved. "Olivia, get up there and pull as much information out of Caroline as you can. We're missing something about this HighSpeed guy."
The hours passed by. Olivia sat down with Caroline and got very little out of her, but what she did get out of her felt like victory.
"Elliot," she ran down the stairs. "Caroline works for the same company as Hollister. But not in the same building. He works at this midtown office and she works at the downtown office."
"Okay," he dropped his pen. "How'd we miss that?"
She grabbed keys and motioned him to follow her. "Well, you wouldn't have known. Nor Fin or Munch. And I wouldn't have caught it early on in the case even if she had said the company name, but we were going through her entire day step by step, and she said the name, and it clicked. She'd been sharing her computer with the team of people working on their audit. He could have seen something on her computer. Caught her sex site at some point and flagged her down."
"Where are we going," he pulled the keys from her hand and jumped in the front seat of the Sedan.
"New Jersey. I have to call Alex, hopefully she can get a warrant for his DNA."
"That's a stretch, Liv. There's not enough for a warrant here. We can certainly question him, and by we, I mean, I. You cannot go near this case if he is indeed your biological father."
"I…but I can get him to say things that he wouldn't say to you" she glared at him.
"Doesn't matter. Liv, get out of the car. Go get Munch or Fin. You can't go to New Jersey with me."
She banged her head against the seat. "Eh…Okay."
In a matter of minutes. Fin was jumping in the car, and Olivia stood in the garage wrecking her brain. She then knew what she needed to do. She walked to Hollister's midtown office.
