Shaken 3/?
Title: Shaken 3/?
Pairing: SVU A/O
Rating: PG - ish (for violence)
Disclaimer: Alex and Olivia are not my characters. I try to do them justice (no pun intended), though.
Spoilers: For this chapter... Fallacy
Summary: This story opens immediately after the ending of Fallacy, so it starts out intense. They help each other make sense of the world of SVU, and their roles in it. They inspire, and grapple with grey areas of their lives and jobs.
AN 1: Thank you to ncruuk for beta-ing this story 3 years ago, and to scatterthebones for critiquing the first few chapters recently with such depth. And, I care about your engagement as a reader, so your critique is welcome as you read :)
AN 2: I started working on this story 3 years ago, but then RL got incredibly busy and I wasn't able to write. I will try my best to finish posting it this summer! But beware... if August rolls around and it's not done, there will be huge time gaps between chapters.
Chapter Three
It was early Wednesday morning and already the squad room was bustling as Captain Donald Cragen hung up the phone and stepped out of his office to break a new case to his detectives.
“Don’t make yourselves too comfortable.” He eyed Detective John Munch, who was taking off his jacket. “Rape victim at St. Luke’s Hospital - the one by Riverside. Black woman, looks like she’s in her early 20s. She’s unconscious, no i.d.. Stabbed in the gut and left for dead. Benson, Stabler, I want you at the hospital. Munch, Fin, she was found in Riverside Park an hour ago. Go over the crime scene, see what you can find.”
“On it Cap,’” Detective Fin Tutuola said, promptly putting on his black leather jacket and taking his braided ponytail out from underneath the collar as he tossed car keys to Munch.
“Any idea of motive?” Elliot Stabler asked, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head.
“None. But the hospital says she’s marked up pretty bad. Whoever did this to her probably wanted her to suffer. Lucky a couple of early morning joggers heard her crying in the bushes.” Don rubbed his chin. He hated the first calls. For years he’d been taking calls reporting new rapes and murders, and he never got used to them.
“Could be premeditated.” Olivia sat on the edge of her desk, one foot resting on the seat of a chair. She crossed her arms as she looked at Cragen and asked, “how long before the joggers found her?”
“EMT guesses around twenty minutes. She lost consciousness in the ambulance, probably due to blood loss.”
“Twenty minutes is a long time.” Elliot’s tone suggested an ‘another-day-at-the-job-of-depravity’ attitude as he shook his head over how humans can treat each other. He got up to leave. “You driving Liv?” Olivia nodded and, along with the other detectives, headed to the elevator.
***
“We’re looking for a rape victim.” Olivia leaned over the ER desk and showed her badge to a nurse. “She was brought in about an hour ago.” The nurse looked up and pointed them through the double doors at the back of the waiting room.
“Hi, we’re looking for a rape victim,” Elliot said as he and Olivia fell into step with a nurse just leaving an examining room and walking down the corridor. “Early 20s, black female… we’re NYPD.”
“I think I know the woman you’re talking about.” The nurse was a young man with a handsome face. “She came in, in bad shape. She’d lost a lot of blood, almost bled out.”
“That’s probably her.”
“Doctors are in surgery with her now.”
Andreas Olivia noted from the i.d. card hanging from his neck. Judging by his accent Olivia wondered if he was from Mexico or some other Latin American country.
“When did she go into surgery?” Olivia made mental notes as they walked briskly down the corridor.
“A little over an hour ago.”
“You got a rape kit?” Elliot asked.
“That’s protocol. There were fluids.” Andreas stopped to check on the I.V. fluid levels and comfort of patients in the hallways who were resting on moveable beds, waiting to go to x-ray. It was busy for a weekday morning.
“OK. Is she going to make it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Any way you can find out?”
“Know of anything that might help us identify her?”
“And, can we have the rape kit? We’ll run it to the lab.”
“Whoa… look, I don’t know.” Andreas held up his hand in an attempt to slow the inundation of questions. He greeted a patient and checked his chart and drip bag. “Why don’t you both have a seat and I’ll find out more?” Olivia and Elliot nodded. Andreas ushered them to two chairs alongside the window near the surgical unit, and the detectives thanked him.
“Welcome to Wednesday morning.” Elliot sat down and sighed as he stretched his arms and adjusted his posture. The wooden chair he sat in, with its’ itchy industrial-type burgundy cushion, had held many people as they sat anxiously waiting for news about a loved one.
Olivia sat down beside her partner and took off her winter coat. “Someone sure beat the hell out of her.” Morning light came through the plexi-glass window and reflected off the white floor tiles. “You know, Cheryl was gang raped last night,” she said, recalling that the last time she had been in a hospital ER and seen someone who’d been beaten like hell was the previous evening.
“Really?” Elliot sat up straighter and turned to look at his partner. “Is that who the vic was on that page from Bellvue?”
“Yeah.”
“You take the call?”
Olivia nodded, staring straight ahead at the crisp, sterile white walls, and then glancing over at the bustling nurses’ station. Her intertwined fingers rested on her stomach and she tapped her thumbs on the fabric of her shirt.
“Weren’t you off the clock?”
“Yeah, but Cabot seemed upset after the case so I stopped by to see if she wanted to get a drink. I got the call at her office, and asked her to come with me to Bellvue.” She was quiet for a moment, and swallowed. “We could barely recognized her.”
“Christ. Alex must’ve felt like shit.” Elliot put his hand on his knee and also looked ahead at the wall.
“She did. I feel awful… I can’t imagine if I’d been Alex.”
“It wasn’t an easy case. She o.k.?” Elliot was concerned.
“Cheryl or Alex?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know about Cheryl. Alex and I got a drink afterwards and talked for awhile. She was pretty shaken up. She’ll see what she can do to get Cheryl transferred.” Olivia now absently played with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Transferred where?”
“I have no idea.” Olivia glanced over at Elliot, shrugging her shoulders. They both knew any prison Cheryl might go to would be dangerous. “But if there’s a better place out there for her, Alex’ll find it.”
“Yeah.” Elliot laughed slightly, appreciative of the Attorney’s perseverance and determination. “It’s why I’m glad she’s on our side.”
They both sat quietly for a few moments, intuitively giving each other space. Olivia had stayed up thinking about Cheryl, and past cases, after she'd dropped Alex off. Now she was about to find out the traumas this new victim had endured. Elliot and Olivia watched as busy nurses went to and from their work station monitoring patients and talking with doctors. A janitor was sweeping the spotless hallway. Intuitive communication had developed between them because of the intensity of their jobs. They had each others’ backs because they trusted each others’ morality and instincts. Olivia crossed her legs and took a breath. Elliot looked at his watch and fought back a yawn.
“You need some coffee?”
“Yeah, why? You saw a vending machine?” Elliot raised his eyebrows.
“In the ER waiting room.” Olivia got up and put her coat down on her chair. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
As Olivia headed over to the vending machine she started constructing possible theories about the current case. She dispensed change into the vending machine slot and watched coffee pour into the white paper cups before picking them up and making her way back to Elliot.
“He come back yet?” Olivia handed Elliot his cup and sat back down.
“Thanks… who, the nurse? No.” Elliot took a sip of coffee, grimacing slightly at the taste.
“Busy day.”
“Yeah.” He paused for a second. He’d also been theorizing. “I wonder what the Captain meant when he said she’d been ‘marked up.’ Like, bruised?”
“Or maybe stabbed a few times. What was she doing at the park that early? Jogging? Going to work?” Olivia sat back down, putting her coat on her lap.
“I doubt the perp actually committed the crime in the park.” Elliot looked at Olivia.
“You’re thinking it’s a dump job?” Olivia turned to look at him, quizzically.
“Yeah. It was getting light out and I just don’t see him taking the risk of getting caught. Plus she must’ve been near a trail if joggers found her.” He looked back at the wall and stretched his legs.
“He probably thought it was early enough that no one would find her until she was dead. He could’ve raped and stabbed her off in the woods though, and then dumped her body.” Olivia took a sip of her coffee.
“But why would he bring her to the trail then?”
“Good point. And why wouldn’t she have any i.d.?” Olivia brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
“Perp probably took it. But why’d he take it if he actually knew her?” Elliot tapped his finger on the arm of his chair and then turned to look a Olivia as he asked the question.
“Souvenir?" Olivia shrugged. "That could mean he’s a serial rapist. Maybe he didn’t know her, then.”
“Let’s check the system when we get back, see if there are any other open rape cases with the same m.o..” Elliot scratched his head. “Maybe she just didn’t carry i.d.”
“It could also be gang related. Some kind of retaliation.”
“Or an old boyfriend who wanted to hurt her…” Elliot’s last thought drifted slightly as Andreas approached them.
“Thanks for waiting.” Andreas smiled and sat down beside Elliot, resting his clipboard on his knee and turning to face them both. “Sorry it took so long, we got slammed this morning.”
“It’s o.k.,” Olivia replied. “What information do you have?”
“Well, she’s still in surgery. The doctor thinks she’s going to make it, and you’re right - there’s no i.d.. She was stabbed twice in her lower abdomen. The wounds punctured her intestines, and she almost bled out internally.”
Elliot cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead, and Olivia took a deep breath as she looked at Andreas.
“If she’s still in surgery...” Elliot looked up at the clock above the nurses’ station. She’d been in surgery almost two hours. “How bad is it?”
“Any time the intestine is punctured it’s serious.” Andreas nodded, looking directly at the detectives. “The punctures in her intestinal wall need to be sutured, but the actual stab wounds need to remain open so that the wounds can drain, or else she’ll get an infection. And, she has other injuries.”
“What other injuries?” Olivia leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.
“She was cut multiple times all over her body. When I was in there, it looked like they all require stitches.”
“What?” The detectives’ eyes widened.
“That's probably what they meant when they said she was marked up,” said Elliot, fitting pieces together.
“Yeah, they probably focused mainly on the rape and stab wounds when they called you. Nothing else was life-threatening.”
“That many cuts… she was being tortured.” Olivia said, looking directly at Elliot.
“That’s what I’d guess, too. I let her doctor know you’re here, and he’ll come talk with you right after the surgery. They’re almost done.” Andreas stood up to leave.
“Great, thanks for your help.”
“Sure. I really hope you find the guy. I’ll be around, just let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”
“Hey, we can drop the rape kit at the lab if you get it ready for us,” Elliot said as Andreas started walking back to the nurses’ station.
“No problem, I’ll leave it at the nurse’s desk for you.”
Olivia crossed her legs and Elliot got up to pace. The new information was odd and unsettling.
“It’s definitely looking like she knew him. Or else our guy really hates women.” Olivia's hand now rested on the arm of her chair. The rays from the morning light streamed through the window, touching her hair, her hand, and Elliot’s empty chair.
“What are you thinking… boyfriend? Husband? Father?”
“I’m thinking someone with a lot of rage.”
Fifteen minutes later a man in scrubs and a white lab coat walked over to them. “You are the detectives from the NYPD I take it?”
“Yes. I’m Detective Stabler, and this is Detective Benson.”
“Hello. I’m Dr. Narayan. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand and the detectives shook it as they exchanged introductions. “Please follow me. I want you to come see the victim.”
Olivia and Elliot glanced at each other and Olivia got up. Their shoes squeaked slightly on the tiled floor, and they threw their coffee cups away, as they followed Dr. Narayan into the post-op room. The doctor pulled back the green curtain that was being used as a makeshift wall. “She’ll probably wake up in a few hours. She lost a lot of blood.” He then pulled back the sheet covering one of her arms. There were bandages on the woman’s arm, and her face showed that she’d taken a beating. She was connected to drainage tubes and hooked up to an I.V., and you could hear the steady beeping of the machines monitoring her vital signs.
“She’s lucky the joggers found her. She would have died if she’d been out there for much longer.”
Olivia walked around to the other side of the bed and gently pulled back the sheet covering her other arm. There were bandages on her shoulder, and she could make out, through her gown, the outlines of bandages on her chest. The doctor continued, ”you can see these are all fresh wounds, but there are also a number of scars on her body from wounds inflicted years ago.”
Olivia saw scars on the woman’s shoulder and looked up at the doctor and then to her partner, slightly puzzled. Elliot, also surprised, took a step towards the victim and looked more closely to observe the older scars. “Years ago?” he asked.
“Yes. These old wounds are all over her body also. The attacker cut over many of the previous scars - opening old wounds, I guess. I think it’s pretty obvious that there is a meaning behind her attack, since it’s so calculated. I’ve…” Dr. Narayan’s professionalism melted for a moment and the man who had stitched up the woman before them, and therefore born witness to the marks of violence her body carried, gently covered the unconscious woman’s arm again with an expression of concern and shocked bewilderment on his face. “…never seen anything like this. Who knows what this woman went through.”
“So, her attacker has known her for years.” Olivia’s brown eyes softened as she replaced the sheet over the woman’s other arm.
“Perhaps, but judging from the old scars she has not been attacked for at least four years.”
“A D.V. case? She left her husband, and he found her four years later?” Elliot wondered. “Or child abuse?”
“He must be a very vindictive husband, or father. I don’t know much about forensic medicine, but it looks to me as though her attacker was marking her - then and now.” The machines hummed steadily in the background.
“So, the weapon was definitely a knife.”
The doctor turned more fully towards the detectives. “Yes. Very sharp, with a smooth blade.”
“How many times was she cut?” Olivia and Elliot’s gazes gravitated back to the victim.
“27.”
***
“Each case a little more horrific than the last.” Elliot said as he crossed his arms around his chest while he and Olivia picked up the rape kit from the nurses’ station.
“El,” Olivia said as a nurse handed them the kit. “We should get this down to the lab. I’ll stay with her, if you take it down.”
“OK. I’ll check to see if anyone’s filed a missing persons report when I get back, and if there are any open rape cases with the same m.o..”
“Call me if Munch and Fin came up with anything, too.” Elliot nodded. “And I’ll call you when she wakes up…” Olivia absently patted Elliot’s shoulder.
“Will do.” Elliot put on his coat and grabbed the rape kit before heading out.
Olivia walked back to the chairs by the surgery unit. She noticed a tree by a stone fountain right outside the window. No one was sitting out there yet, or wishing for anything, since it was still March and the pipes would freeze if the water was turned on. She pulled out her phone. “Alex, hey…”
Alex was sitting at her desk looking over a file. “Olivia, hi. What’s up?”
“We just caught a new case.”
“The one Don called me about? A woman found in Riverside Park, raped and stabbed?”
“Yeah, but it gets worse.”
“Why, what’s going on?” Alex put down her file and leaned back in her chair.
“Looks like she was tortured years ago, and her attacker cut open her old scars - literally.”
“Oh god.” She cringed.
“Yeah. She should wake up in a few hours.” Olivia looked further out the window at the apartments across the street.
When Don had called Alex he’d said it was a tough case. “Any leads?” she asked, picking up her pencil and tapping the eraser on her desk.
“Not yet.” Olivia leaned against the armrest of the chair she had sat on earlier, and put her hand on her corduroys. “Elliot’s dropping off the rape kit at the lab and then he's gonna check out the Missing Persons database. I haven’t heard from Munch or Fin yet. They’re at the crime scene.” There was a slight pause and Olivia’s mind wandered to the previous night. “Any news about Cheryl?”
Alex put her pencil down and gazed at her desk. “She’s touch and go. I called Morty, and we both think that there are grounds for a case against the prison. When the prison staff failed to protect her, her eighth amendment rights were violated. A similar case was argued before the Supreme Court in 1994 and won, so there’s precedent.”
“Huh. Well, at least that’s something. Are you going over to Bellvue after work?”
“Yes. I’m meeting Morty there.”
“Would you call me before you leave? I’ll try to come with you, and I’ll let Sarah know we’re coming.”
“Cheryl’s sister…” Alex remembered seeing her at Cheryl’s trial. “OK. And you can fill me in on the case afterwards.”
"Sounds good."
"See you later, then."
And they both hung up the phone.
Pairing: SVU A/O
Rating: PG - ish (for violence)
Disclaimer: Alex and Olivia are not my characters. I try to do them justice (no pun intended), though.
Spoilers: For this chapter... Fallacy
Summary: This story opens immediately after the ending of Fallacy, so it starts out intense. They help each other make sense of the world of SVU, and their roles in it. They inspire, and grapple with grey areas of their lives and jobs.
AN 1: Thank you to ncruuk for beta-ing this story 3 years ago, and to scatterthebones for critiquing the first few chapters recently with such depth. And, I care about your engagement as a reader, so your critique is welcome as you read :)
AN 2: I started working on this story 3 years ago, but then RL got incredibly busy and I wasn't able to write. I will try my best to finish posting it this summer! But beware... if August rolls around and it's not done, there will be huge time gaps between chapters.
Chapter Three
It was early Wednesday morning and already the squad room was bustling as Captain Donald Cragen hung up the phone and stepped out of his office to break a new case to his detectives.
“Don’t make yourselves too comfortable.” He eyed Detective John Munch, who was taking off his jacket. “Rape victim at St. Luke’s Hospital - the one by Riverside. Black woman, looks like she’s in her early 20s. She’s unconscious, no i.d.. Stabbed in the gut and left for dead. Benson, Stabler, I want you at the hospital. Munch, Fin, she was found in Riverside Park an hour ago. Go over the crime scene, see what you can find.”
“On it Cap,’” Detective Fin Tutuola said, promptly putting on his black leather jacket and taking his braided ponytail out from underneath the collar as he tossed car keys to Munch.
“Any idea of motive?” Elliot Stabler asked, leaning back in his chair and putting his hands behind his head.
“None. But the hospital says she’s marked up pretty bad. Whoever did this to her probably wanted her to suffer. Lucky a couple of early morning joggers heard her crying in the bushes.” Don rubbed his chin. He hated the first calls. For years he’d been taking calls reporting new rapes and murders, and he never got used to them.
“Could be premeditated.” Olivia sat on the edge of her desk, one foot resting on the seat of a chair. She crossed her arms as she looked at Cragen and asked, “how long before the joggers found her?”
“EMT guesses around twenty minutes. She lost consciousness in the ambulance, probably due to blood loss.”
“Twenty minutes is a long time.” Elliot’s tone suggested an ‘another-day-at-the-job-of-depravity’ attitude as he shook his head over how humans can treat each other. He got up to leave. “You driving Liv?” Olivia nodded and, along with the other detectives, headed to the elevator.
***
“We’re looking for a rape victim.” Olivia leaned over the ER desk and showed her badge to a nurse. “She was brought in about an hour ago.” The nurse looked up and pointed them through the double doors at the back of the waiting room.
“Hi, we’re looking for a rape victim,” Elliot said as he and Olivia fell into step with a nurse just leaving an examining room and walking down the corridor. “Early 20s, black female… we’re NYPD.”
“I think I know the woman you’re talking about.” The nurse was a young man with a handsome face. “She came in, in bad shape. She’d lost a lot of blood, almost bled out.”
“That’s probably her.”
“Doctors are in surgery with her now.”
Andreas Olivia noted from the i.d. card hanging from his neck. Judging by his accent Olivia wondered if he was from Mexico or some other Latin American country.
“When did she go into surgery?” Olivia made mental notes as they walked briskly down the corridor.
“A little over an hour ago.”
“You got a rape kit?” Elliot asked.
“That’s protocol. There were fluids.” Andreas stopped to check on the I.V. fluid levels and comfort of patients in the hallways who were resting on moveable beds, waiting to go to x-ray. It was busy for a weekday morning.
“OK. Is she going to make it?”
“Don’t know.”
“Any way you can find out?”
“Know of anything that might help us identify her?”
“And, can we have the rape kit? We’ll run it to the lab.”
“Whoa… look, I don’t know.” Andreas held up his hand in an attempt to slow the inundation of questions. He greeted a patient and checked his chart and drip bag. “Why don’t you both have a seat and I’ll find out more?” Olivia and Elliot nodded. Andreas ushered them to two chairs alongside the window near the surgical unit, and the detectives thanked him.
“Welcome to Wednesday morning.” Elliot sat down and sighed as he stretched his arms and adjusted his posture. The wooden chair he sat in, with its’ itchy industrial-type burgundy cushion, had held many people as they sat anxiously waiting for news about a loved one.
Olivia sat down beside her partner and took off her winter coat. “Someone sure beat the hell out of her.” Morning light came through the plexi-glass window and reflected off the white floor tiles. “You know, Cheryl was gang raped last night,” she said, recalling that the last time she had been in a hospital ER and seen someone who’d been beaten like hell was the previous evening.
“Really?” Elliot sat up straighter and turned to look at his partner. “Is that who the vic was on that page from Bellvue?”
“Yeah.”
“You take the call?”
Olivia nodded, staring straight ahead at the crisp, sterile white walls, and then glancing over at the bustling nurses’ station. Her intertwined fingers rested on her stomach and she tapped her thumbs on the fabric of her shirt.
“Weren’t you off the clock?”
“Yeah, but Cabot seemed upset after the case so I stopped by to see if she wanted to get a drink. I got the call at her office, and asked her to come with me to Bellvue.” She was quiet for a moment, and swallowed. “We could barely recognized her.”
“Christ. Alex must’ve felt like shit.” Elliot put his hand on his knee and also looked ahead at the wall.
“She did. I feel awful… I can’t imagine if I’d been Alex.”
“It wasn’t an easy case. She o.k.?” Elliot was concerned.
“Cheryl or Alex?”
“Both.”
“I don’t know about Cheryl. Alex and I got a drink afterwards and talked for awhile. She was pretty shaken up. She’ll see what she can do to get Cheryl transferred.” Olivia now absently played with the sleeve of her jacket.
“Transferred where?”
“I have no idea.” Olivia glanced over at Elliot, shrugging her shoulders. They both knew any prison Cheryl might go to would be dangerous. “But if there’s a better place out there for her, Alex’ll find it.”
“Yeah.” Elliot laughed slightly, appreciative of the Attorney’s perseverance and determination. “It’s why I’m glad she’s on our side.”
They both sat quietly for a few moments, intuitively giving each other space. Olivia had stayed up thinking about Cheryl, and past cases, after she'd dropped Alex off. Now she was about to find out the traumas this new victim had endured. Elliot and Olivia watched as busy nurses went to and from their work station monitoring patients and talking with doctors. A janitor was sweeping the spotless hallway. Intuitive communication had developed between them because of the intensity of their jobs. They had each others’ backs because they trusted each others’ morality and instincts. Olivia crossed her legs and took a breath. Elliot looked at his watch and fought back a yawn.
“You need some coffee?”
“Yeah, why? You saw a vending machine?” Elliot raised his eyebrows.
“In the ER waiting room.” Olivia got up and put her coat down on her chair. “I’ll be back in a minute.”
As Olivia headed over to the vending machine she started constructing possible theories about the current case. She dispensed change into the vending machine slot and watched coffee pour into the white paper cups before picking them up and making her way back to Elliot.
“He come back yet?” Olivia handed Elliot his cup and sat back down.
“Thanks… who, the nurse? No.” Elliot took a sip of coffee, grimacing slightly at the taste.
“Busy day.”
“Yeah.” He paused for a second. He’d also been theorizing. “I wonder what the Captain meant when he said she’d been ‘marked up.’ Like, bruised?”
“Or maybe stabbed a few times. What was she doing at the park that early? Jogging? Going to work?” Olivia sat back down, putting her coat on her lap.
“I doubt the perp actually committed the crime in the park.” Elliot looked at Olivia.
“You’re thinking it’s a dump job?” Olivia turned to look at him, quizzically.
“Yeah. It was getting light out and I just don’t see him taking the risk of getting caught. Plus she must’ve been near a trail if joggers found her.” He looked back at the wall and stretched his legs.
“He probably thought it was early enough that no one would find her until she was dead. He could’ve raped and stabbed her off in the woods though, and then dumped her body.” Olivia took a sip of her coffee.
“But why would he bring her to the trail then?”
“Good point. And why wouldn’t she have any i.d.?” Olivia brushed her bangs out of her eyes.
“Perp probably took it. But why’d he take it if he actually knew her?” Elliot tapped his finger on the arm of his chair and then turned to look a Olivia as he asked the question.
“Souvenir?" Olivia shrugged. "That could mean he’s a serial rapist. Maybe he didn’t know her, then.”
“Let’s check the system when we get back, see if there are any other open rape cases with the same m.o..” Elliot scratched his head. “Maybe she just didn’t carry i.d.”
“It could also be gang related. Some kind of retaliation.”
“Or an old boyfriend who wanted to hurt her…” Elliot’s last thought drifted slightly as Andreas approached them.
“Thanks for waiting.” Andreas smiled and sat down beside Elliot, resting his clipboard on his knee and turning to face them both. “Sorry it took so long, we got slammed this morning.”
“It’s o.k.,” Olivia replied. “What information do you have?”
“Well, she’s still in surgery. The doctor thinks she’s going to make it, and you’re right - there’s no i.d.. She was stabbed twice in her lower abdomen. The wounds punctured her intestines, and she almost bled out internally.”
Elliot cleared his throat and rubbed his forehead, and Olivia took a deep breath as she looked at Andreas.
“If she’s still in surgery...” Elliot looked up at the clock above the nurses’ station. She’d been in surgery almost two hours. “How bad is it?”
“Any time the intestine is punctured it’s serious.” Andreas nodded, looking directly at the detectives. “The punctures in her intestinal wall need to be sutured, but the actual stab wounds need to remain open so that the wounds can drain, or else she’ll get an infection. And, she has other injuries.”
“What other injuries?” Olivia leaned forward and rested her elbows on her knees.
“She was cut multiple times all over her body. When I was in there, it looked like they all require stitches.”
“What?” The detectives’ eyes widened.
“That's probably what they meant when they said she was marked up,” said Elliot, fitting pieces together.
“Yeah, they probably focused mainly on the rape and stab wounds when they called you. Nothing else was life-threatening.”
“That many cuts… she was being tortured.” Olivia said, looking directly at Elliot.
“That’s what I’d guess, too. I let her doctor know you’re here, and he’ll come talk with you right after the surgery. They’re almost done.” Andreas stood up to leave.
“Great, thanks for your help.”
“Sure. I really hope you find the guy. I’ll be around, just let me know if there’s anything more I can do.”
“Hey, we can drop the rape kit at the lab if you get it ready for us,” Elliot said as Andreas started walking back to the nurses’ station.
“No problem, I’ll leave it at the nurse’s desk for you.”
Olivia crossed her legs and Elliot got up to pace. The new information was odd and unsettling.
“It’s definitely looking like she knew him. Or else our guy really hates women.” Olivia's hand now rested on the arm of her chair. The rays from the morning light streamed through the window, touching her hair, her hand, and Elliot’s empty chair.
“What are you thinking… boyfriend? Husband? Father?”
“I’m thinking someone with a lot of rage.”
Fifteen minutes later a man in scrubs and a white lab coat walked over to them. “You are the detectives from the NYPD I take it?”
“Yes. I’m Detective Stabler, and this is Detective Benson.”
“Hello. I’m Dr. Narayan. Nice to meet you.” He extended his hand and the detectives shook it as they exchanged introductions. “Please follow me. I want you to come see the victim.”
Olivia and Elliot glanced at each other and Olivia got up. Their shoes squeaked slightly on the tiled floor, and they threw their coffee cups away, as they followed Dr. Narayan into the post-op room. The doctor pulled back the green curtain that was being used as a makeshift wall. “She’ll probably wake up in a few hours. She lost a lot of blood.” He then pulled back the sheet covering one of her arms. There were bandages on the woman’s arm, and her face showed that she’d taken a beating. She was connected to drainage tubes and hooked up to an I.V., and you could hear the steady beeping of the machines monitoring her vital signs.
“She’s lucky the joggers found her. She would have died if she’d been out there for much longer.”
Olivia walked around to the other side of the bed and gently pulled back the sheet covering her other arm. There were bandages on her shoulder, and she could make out, through her gown, the outlines of bandages on her chest. The doctor continued, ”you can see these are all fresh wounds, but there are also a number of scars on her body from wounds inflicted years ago.”
Olivia saw scars on the woman’s shoulder and looked up at the doctor and then to her partner, slightly puzzled. Elliot, also surprised, took a step towards the victim and looked more closely to observe the older scars. “Years ago?” he asked.
“Yes. These old wounds are all over her body also. The attacker cut over many of the previous scars - opening old wounds, I guess. I think it’s pretty obvious that there is a meaning behind her attack, since it’s so calculated. I’ve…” Dr. Narayan’s professionalism melted for a moment and the man who had stitched up the woman before them, and therefore born witness to the marks of violence her body carried, gently covered the unconscious woman’s arm again with an expression of concern and shocked bewilderment on his face. “…never seen anything like this. Who knows what this woman went through.”
“So, her attacker has known her for years.” Olivia’s brown eyes softened as she replaced the sheet over the woman’s other arm.
“Perhaps, but judging from the old scars she has not been attacked for at least four years.”
“A D.V. case? She left her husband, and he found her four years later?” Elliot wondered. “Or child abuse?”
“He must be a very vindictive husband, or father. I don’t know much about forensic medicine, but it looks to me as though her attacker was marking her - then and now.” The machines hummed steadily in the background.
“So, the weapon was definitely a knife.”
The doctor turned more fully towards the detectives. “Yes. Very sharp, with a smooth blade.”
“How many times was she cut?” Olivia and Elliot’s gazes gravitated back to the victim.
“27.”
***
“Each case a little more horrific than the last.” Elliot said as he crossed his arms around his chest while he and Olivia picked up the rape kit from the nurses’ station.
“El,” Olivia said as a nurse handed them the kit. “We should get this down to the lab. I’ll stay with her, if you take it down.”
“OK. I’ll check to see if anyone’s filed a missing persons report when I get back, and if there are any open rape cases with the same m.o..”
“Call me if Munch and Fin came up with anything, too.” Elliot nodded. “And I’ll call you when she wakes up…” Olivia absently patted Elliot’s shoulder.
“Will do.” Elliot put on his coat and grabbed the rape kit before heading out.
Olivia walked back to the chairs by the surgery unit. She noticed a tree by a stone fountain right outside the window. No one was sitting out there yet, or wishing for anything, since it was still March and the pipes would freeze if the water was turned on. She pulled out her phone. “Alex, hey…”
Alex was sitting at her desk looking over a file. “Olivia, hi. What’s up?”
“We just caught a new case.”
“The one Don called me about? A woman found in Riverside Park, raped and stabbed?”
“Yeah, but it gets worse.”
“Why, what’s going on?” Alex put down her file and leaned back in her chair.
“Looks like she was tortured years ago, and her attacker cut open her old scars - literally.”
“Oh god.” She cringed.
“Yeah. She should wake up in a few hours.” Olivia looked further out the window at the apartments across the street.
When Don had called Alex he’d said it was a tough case. “Any leads?” she asked, picking up her pencil and tapping the eraser on her desk.
“Not yet.” Olivia leaned against the armrest of the chair she had sat on earlier, and put her hand on her corduroys. “Elliot’s dropping off the rape kit at the lab and then he's gonna check out the Missing Persons database. I haven’t heard from Munch or Fin yet. They’re at the crime scene.” There was a slight pause and Olivia’s mind wandered to the previous night. “Any news about Cheryl?”
Alex put her pencil down and gazed at her desk. “She’s touch and go. I called Morty, and we both think that there are grounds for a case against the prison. When the prison staff failed to protect her, her eighth amendment rights were violated. A similar case was argued before the Supreme Court in 1994 and won, so there’s precedent.”
“Huh. Well, at least that’s something. Are you going over to Bellvue after work?”
“Yes. I’m meeting Morty there.”
“Would you call me before you leave? I’ll try to come with you, and I’ll let Sarah know we’re coming.”
“Cheryl’s sister…” Alex remembered seeing her at Cheryl’s trial. “OK. And you can fill me in on the case afterwards.”
"Sounds good."
"See you later, then."
And they both hung up the phone.