Fic Post: Law and Order SVU - Lolita's Memories (Chapter 3)
Series: Lolita’s Memories
Chapter Three: Goosebumps
Fandom: Law and Order: SVU
Pairing: Olivia/Alex
Rating: Adult
Genre: Casefile/Romance/Friendship/Femslash
Timeframe: Post-Spooked up through the end of Turmoil.
A/N: This takes place in the Shadowed Superhero fanverse. You don’t need to have read that story for this to make sense, but there will be references to it and other stories in this fanverse, which can be found at my writing community, vega_voices.
Disclaimer: If Law and Order BELONGED to me, you think I’d be writing fic? So no. Dick Wolf and his crew own it all, I am just taking Elliot, Olivia, Fin, and others, out to play. Now, if Mr. Wolf is looking for someone to write his L&O novel tie-ins … I’m totally there. Just sayin.
Summary: But there were cases other than Dickie’s potential disappearance on her desk. Nikki had to be re-interviewed and she had more girls coming in to give statements against Jackson and even Alex wanted her official statement on record, which of course only added to her own guilt. How many girls could have been saved if she’d just spoken up?
Olivia watched Elliot disappear into the elevator and every instinct told her to follow, to chase him to the car and ride with him to Queens, and talk him down from his fears and his anger. Since Lizzie’s coming out, Dickie had been almost impossible to handle and Elliot did not like his son’s current best friend. Chances were that Kathy was overreacting and Dickie was off being a dumb teenager (God knew she’d had her fair share of officers pick her up while she was hanging out under bridges.) But she didn’t want Elliot’s frustration with his son to boil over into something no one wanted to see. Instinct told her to follow him, to be there for him. Procedure kept her rooted where she was and she knew full well that Kathy would not appreciate her showing up along with Elliot. She could do more from here and they couldn’t do anything until Elliot came back with an update.
“How did arraignment go?” Cragen balanced on the edge of her desk, a look on his face that she’d long ago dubbed “concerned father.” It was one he reserved solely for her and she appreciated it considering how much grief she had personally given him over the past eleven years.
“Remanded, thank god.”
“Now the hard work begins. More evidence to process and girls to track down.”
“You’d think it would be the other way around.”
“We almost never have this much evidence going in.”
Olivia sighed and glanced back toward the door. She needed to be with Elliot, not sitting uselessly at her desk. But she couldn’t do anything either. Wouldn’t Lizzie know where he was?
“He’ll tell us what we need to know,” Cragen said softly.
“Let me make a call before we take it any further.” She picked up her phone and punched in Lizzie’s number and the call went straight to voice mail. Maybe this was worse than they wanted to think. Another sigh and she hung up and looked up at her boss. “I’m worried.”
“I know.”
“Excuse me? I was told to talk to a Detective Benson?”
Olivia turned around and rose to her feet. A young woman, no older than seventeen, stood before her. She wore the eternally exhausted look of the single mother and on her hip was a little girl, no more than a year old. “That’s me. How can I help you?” The look in the girl’s eyes was familiar. Too familiar.
“My name is Catherine Montoya. I’m here to report a rape.”
“Of course.” Olivia leapt into action and guided the girl to an empty interview room. She grabbed a stuffed animal for the baby to play with and closed the door behind them. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Catherine shivered as she set her daughter down on the floor to play.
“She’s beautiful. How old is she?”
“Kara’s sixteen months.”
“You seem young yourself.”
“I’m seventeen.” Catherine sighed. “Look, I don’t know … I mean …it happened a while ago.”
And it clicked. “Catherine Montoya,” she repeated softly. “You were a student of Jeffery Jackson’s.”
“Yes.” Catherine glanced down at the baby on the floor. “And she’s his daughter.”
Olivia closed her eyes, suddenly back in her own hell, realizing her own pregnancy, so scared to tell anyone. With effort, she opened her eyes and tried to smile at Catherine. “Tell me everything.”
***
Elliot spent the drive back to Queens arguing with the image of his rebellious son. Their acceptance of Lizzie’s sexuality had only seemed to drive Dickie even further away from the family circle. He wanted to suspect drugs and sex and everything else kids were supposed to be suspected for but in his heart he knew his son was a good kid.
Give him a break, El. He’s lost a good friend this year, another was raped, and his sister came out to the family. And this friend of his that you don’t like might not be as bad as you think he is. Of course he’s angry. He has every right to be and he’s even going to say stupid things about victims.
He hated Olivia’s sense of logic. He hated it because he knew she was right. He hated it because she didn’t have kids and didn’t know from Adam how to raise them but he knew she’d be a better parent than he could ever be. He’d only succeeded in continuing his father’s cycle of near-neglect. Olivia would actually break her mother’s cycle of abuse.
Not for the first time, he allowed himself to wish that Eli had been hers. Not that a child of theirs would have kept them together, but he would have liked to see her become a mother - even if it was to yet another one of his kids. In his most drunken stupors he still dreamed of whisking her away to a new life and starting a life that didn’t involve the NYPD, sex crimes, or the memories of their parents hanging over their heads. In those moments he wasn’t married to Kathy and Olivia wasn’t still in love with Alex. In those moments, he knew he was at his most pathetic and if Olivia knew what was running through his mind, she’d kick his ass and then send him home to Kathy with a note explaining his transgressions pinned to his jacket lapel.
Maybe when they found Dickie, he’d let Olivia talk to him. He was worried he’d kill his son.
Leaping from the car, he raced inside to find his hysterical wife talking to an all-too-calm detective from the Queens missing persons unit.
Maybe something was wrong after all.
***
It was the third statement she’d taken since returning from court. Girl after girl, all of them with identical stories. She’d never needed a drink so much in her life. And she still hadn’t heard from Elliot. That alone was enough to make her twitchy. She logged the latest tape into evidence and left a message for Alex that they needed to talk to the DA about amending the charges against Jackson. Again. Maybe they’d jumped the gun with arraignment and maybe they needed to try a different approach if they wanted to nail him for everything.
She sighed and rubbed her head, willing away the headache. Water and Tylenol and she’d be okay and able to keep going because she knew the second Elliot stepped through the door, they’d have something else to worry about.
And she’d have to find a way to keep him off the case if Dickie really was missing. She wasn’t going to have some technicality screw up arresting someone if there was a problem. And knowing Elliot, he’d be impossible to wrangle. Maybe her best route was to just let him explode and handle it and see where the pieces fell. How often had he backed her up when by law he probably should have arrested her for interfering in an investigation? He’d stood with her when she’d been chasing after Simon and never once blinked. Never once.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, hating how her rationalizations always won out in the logic-battle. Elliot never questioned, at least not about backing her play. How often had she tripped him up? But he was always there for her. Always. Her arguments, ones she knew she’d give, would still fall on deaf ears. Guilt was driving him and guilt was a far more powerful motivator than love ever hoped to be. Elliot loved his children but that didn’t stop him from working late hours and missing important dates and even sleeping with her when it could ruin everything. But guilt turned him into father of the year. Superman flying through the clouds, eyes fixed on the target. If he could save the day this time, they would forgive tomorrow’s transgressions.
It wasn’t wrong. It was who he was, who his father and his grandfather and his mother had raised him to be. There were moments when Olivia had to accept that Elliot was far more screwed up than she ever had been - and right now the man she lost her virginity to was on trial for statutory rape.
But there were cases other than Dickie’s potential disappearance on her desk. Nikki had to be re-interviewed and she had more girls coming in to give statements against Jackson and even Alex wanted her official statement on record, which of course only added to her own guilt. How many girls could have been saved if she’d just spoken up?
Movement caught her eye and she stood as her boss approached her. “What do we know?” She asked softly, registering the worry on his face.
“Elliot hasn’t checked in yet. But I need you over at Rikers.”
“Why?”
“Jackson wants to talk to you, Olivia. Alone.”
Her blood ran cold. “Cap, it could screw everything up.”
“He won’t talk to anyone else but you.” Cragen shrugged but his voice left no room for argument. “Get over to Rikers. I’ll page you if there’s information about Dickie.”
***
The chill of Rikers Island never really left her bones. She hated it, as well she knew she should. The clang of the gates of the cages, the catcalls of the prisoners, the way the cement absorbed the sound her shoes made against the floor. Unarmed in a world full of animals, she walked, shadowed quietly by a guard who could take down any problems in two seconds flat, but it still made her nervous.
In truth, Sealview was never far from her mind.
In control of her choices or not, stepping through the bars into the interview cell still sent shivers up her spine. Here she could escape. But knowing that didn’t stop her heart from beating faster or her eyes from glancing around to make sure no surprises could spring at her from the shadows.
Having her cuffs tucked into the clip on her belt gave her a perverted sense of pleasure. At least this time she was in charge.
Jackson looked up at her from his place at the table. Still composed and in control, his eyes watching her as they always had, undressing her. Making a decision, she smirked and settled on the edge of the table, looking down at him. “It’s a different view from this position, isn’t it?” Bravado would save her.
“Do you still like to do it on tables, Olivia?”
“We aren’t here to talk about me, Jeffery.”
“But we are.”
Were they? Had she agreed to this meeting because she wanted him to apologize or talk her out of her own statement? Did she want to ask why he’d gone after other girls or if he ever thought of her? Why was she here? Really? They had their indictment and their case and Alex was preparing to amend the charges against him. She’d only filed so quickly to get him off the streets.
“We’re here to talk about Jenny Arbor,” Olivia didn’t move. Her position of power over him was all she had holding herself together. “Which I don’t know if you should do without your lawyer.”
“But Olivia, what fun is that? To ruin the build up to the climax but including another person? Tell me, does your pretty blonde lawyer friend like to do it on tables too?”
“I thought you didn’t want to include a third person, Jeffery.” She smirked at him. “So what happened? Chasing after teenage virgins got boring so you had to up the stakes?”
“Now, now, Olivia. This isn’t about me. This is about you. After all, you came didn’t you? You want to know why I singled you out. The question is still there in your eyes.”
“What I want,” Olivia leaned in very close, so close she could feel how her breath warmed the skin on his neck, “is for you to tell me why you killed Jenny Arbor. Was it because she was pregnant or because the baby wasn’t yours?” Jackson stiffened and she chuckled and didn’t move her position. “Were you angry, Jeffery? Did she tell you she was keeping the baby? Did she stand up to you? Did she finally tell you no? Did she start dating someone else and reject you? Or was it that your first time with her was rape? And don’t lie to me. We have your pictures. All of them. We have the picture of Jenny on your desk, tears running down her face, her blouse torn. I have everything I need to put you away for the rest of your life, and that’s without even getting to the murder charge.”
“You begged me for it.”
“I didn’t know any better, Jeffery. Tell me,” she controlled the instinct to push his head forward onto the table, “did Jenny beg you to stop?” She’d pushed the button she needed to and Jackson swung at her. Olivia ducked out of the way and quickly subdued him on the table. She pressed down, pulling his arm tightly back behind him. “You’d better think twice about assaulting a police officer, Mr. Jackson,” she sneered out his last name. “Now, is there anything you want to tell me?”
“She wanted it!” Jackson coughed out. “You wanted it!”
Olivia huffed and stepped back. Her phone buzzed and she checked it - Cragen needed her back at the house. Elliot was on his way back. She rolled her eyes at the pitiful excuse of a man in front of her. She wanted to threaten him but it wasn’t in her. “I think we’re done here.” She nodded to the guard and stepped out of the cage without looking back.
***
There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to get her through this interview, let alone the whole of the investigation she was facing. All her files, her personal life, everything being examined by the bar association. She was a good lawyer. This was fallout from Casey’s hasty decisions and Sonia’s idiocy. But she still needed to endure it.
Suddenly she had new appreciation for Olivia’s hatred of IA.
“This is not your first time through the revolving door of ADAs who have worked Sex Crimes.”
“I prefer to call it Special Victims. We’re dealing with victims here, not just crimes.”
“How admirable of you.” He kept sneering and Alex had to push the shiver away. She had better things to do than subject herself to the asshole sitting on her couch. “Tell me about the case you are currently trying.”
“Nikki Kline. Raped by a popular football player and facing the usual fallout when a girl accuses the popular jock of doing something he shouldn’t have.”
“And your detectives did everything by the book?”
“Yes.” Alex kept herself from twitching. Elliot and Olivia were never completely by the book, but it was what made them such good detectives.
“Are they always by the book?”
“I thought you were investigating me, not the detectives assigned to this unit.”
“No, that’s a job for IAB. Something I understand happens with them regularly.”
“Do you have a point?” Alex rubbed her neck. She had work to do.
“You just seem to let a lot slide with their professionalism. Is there a reason for it?”
The red flag of goose bumps up her spine told her to be careful. He was fishing. “I told you,” Alex kept her voice carefully controlled, “things work a little differently in Special Victims. We work with more living victims, we work with children. We define professionalism differently, but we always stay within the realm of the law.”
“The letter anyway. Tell me about the case you just indicted this morning.”
“Jeffery Jackson.” Alex sighed, having to again erase from her mind the image of Olivia at fifteen. “A high school English teacher who has been found to have had sexual relationships with hundreds of students over the course of his career.”
“Including Detective Benson, correct?”
Alex swallowed the bile in her throat. “Yes.”
“And yet you’ve allowed Detective Benson to remain on the case?”
“Detective Benson is not the officer of record. Detective Stabler is the lead on this case and was called to the scene along with Sergeant John Munch. Detective Benson was on an overtime cycle and tied to her desk until the end of the pay period.”
“Which happened to be around the same time as the arrest of Jackson.”
“Yes.”
“Did Detective Benson ever interview Mr. Jackson?”
“On a couple of occasions, but always with supervision or at the request of the defendant.”
“And has her past colored her part of the investigation in any way?”
“Not that I have seen.” She rubbed her neck.
“Come on, Alex. You expect me to believe that the man who raped her at the age of fifteen hasn’t affected her reaction to this case?”
“Yes.” She glared down the asshole. “I do.”
“And what about your relationship with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Has your relationship with Detective Benson made you less effective in prosecuting this case?” He sneered at her. “Think really hard before you answer, Counselor.”
Alex swallowed. He knew. Somehow. “Detective Benson and I are not in a relationship.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth, but they were true. She and Olivia hadn’t redefined what they were doing. Right now it was comfortable and casual and meant everything to them but they weren’t ready to classify it as a relationship yet.
“You are lovers, correct.”
What little blood was left in her body drained completely out of her. “Yes,” she said softly, knowing that lying would only get her in more trouble.
“A rather large breach of ethics, wouldn’t you say, Alex? Especially if your relationship means that you are letting her conduct slide.”
“There is nothing in any policy that states we cannot be lovers.”
“You checked?” She could hear his unvoiced laughter.
“Yes.”
Alex fixed him with a glare. “How did you find out?”
“Your secretary saw the two of you leaving late the other night, which in and of itself wouldn’t raise any issue if the two of you hadn’t been spotted in a lip lock outside the Washout Café earlier in the week. I’ve done my digging. There were rumors of your involvement before your stint in witness protection and now that you’re back with sex crimes, it seems that you’ve just picked up where you left off.” He opened a notebook, “Late nights here in your office with Detective Benson, one of your colleague’s lives in the same neighborhood as the Washout Cafe and saw the two of you, emails back and forth to each other. If you were trying to keep this out of the gossip mill, you really messed that up.”
Alex leaned forward, suddenly angry. “My sexuality and my sex life is none of your business and if you use it in this inquiry, I’ll have your ass for sexual harassment of me and of Detective Benson. If you leak a rumor or do anything that could hurt her on the job, I will personally have yours. Are we clear?” When he didn’t react, she rose to her feet and stood over him. “Now, what did you want to know about the way I handle my cases? What was it you were asking about the Nikki Kline case?”
TBC …
Chapter Three: Goosebumps
Fandom: Law and Order: SVU
Pairing: Olivia/Alex
Rating: Adult
Genre: Casefile/Romance/Friendship/Femslash
Timeframe: Post-Spooked up through the end of Turmoil.
A/N: This takes place in the Shadowed Superhero fanverse. You don’t need to have read that story for this to make sense, but there will be references to it and other stories in this fanverse, which can be found at my writing community, vega_voices.
Disclaimer: If Law and Order BELONGED to me, you think I’d be writing fic? So no. Dick Wolf and his crew own it all, I am just taking Elliot, Olivia, Fin, and others, out to play. Now, if Mr. Wolf is looking for someone to write his L&O novel tie-ins … I’m totally there. Just sayin.
Summary: But there were cases other than Dickie’s potential disappearance on her desk. Nikki had to be re-interviewed and she had more girls coming in to give statements against Jackson and even Alex wanted her official statement on record, which of course only added to her own guilt. How many girls could have been saved if she’d just spoken up?
Olivia watched Elliot disappear into the elevator and every instinct told her to follow, to chase him to the car and ride with him to Queens, and talk him down from his fears and his anger. Since Lizzie’s coming out, Dickie had been almost impossible to handle and Elliot did not like his son’s current best friend. Chances were that Kathy was overreacting and Dickie was off being a dumb teenager (God knew she’d had her fair share of officers pick her up while she was hanging out under bridges.) But she didn’t want Elliot’s frustration with his son to boil over into something no one wanted to see. Instinct told her to follow him, to be there for him. Procedure kept her rooted where she was and she knew full well that Kathy would not appreciate her showing up along with Elliot. She could do more from here and they couldn’t do anything until Elliot came back with an update.
“How did arraignment go?” Cragen balanced on the edge of her desk, a look on his face that she’d long ago dubbed “concerned father.” It was one he reserved solely for her and she appreciated it considering how much grief she had personally given him over the past eleven years.
“Remanded, thank god.”
“Now the hard work begins. More evidence to process and girls to track down.”
“You’d think it would be the other way around.”
“We almost never have this much evidence going in.”
Olivia sighed and glanced back toward the door. She needed to be with Elliot, not sitting uselessly at her desk. But she couldn’t do anything either. Wouldn’t Lizzie know where he was?
“He’ll tell us what we need to know,” Cragen said softly.
“Let me make a call before we take it any further.” She picked up her phone and punched in Lizzie’s number and the call went straight to voice mail. Maybe this was worse than they wanted to think. Another sigh and she hung up and looked up at her boss. “I’m worried.”
“I know.”
“Excuse me? I was told to talk to a Detective Benson?”
Olivia turned around and rose to her feet. A young woman, no older than seventeen, stood before her. She wore the eternally exhausted look of the single mother and on her hip was a little girl, no more than a year old. “That’s me. How can I help you?” The look in the girl’s eyes was familiar. Too familiar.
“My name is Catherine Montoya. I’m here to report a rape.”
“Of course.” Olivia leapt into action and guided the girl to an empty interview room. She grabbed a stuffed animal for the baby to play with and closed the door behind them. “Can I get you anything?”
“I’m fine, thanks.” Catherine shivered as she set her daughter down on the floor to play.
“She’s beautiful. How old is she?”
“Kara’s sixteen months.”
“You seem young yourself.”
“I’m seventeen.” Catherine sighed. “Look, I don’t know … I mean …it happened a while ago.”
And it clicked. “Catherine Montoya,” she repeated softly. “You were a student of Jeffery Jackson’s.”
“Yes.” Catherine glanced down at the baby on the floor. “And she’s his daughter.”
Olivia closed her eyes, suddenly back in her own hell, realizing her own pregnancy, so scared to tell anyone. With effort, she opened her eyes and tried to smile at Catherine. “Tell me everything.”
***
Elliot spent the drive back to Queens arguing with the image of his rebellious son. Their acceptance of Lizzie’s sexuality had only seemed to drive Dickie even further away from the family circle. He wanted to suspect drugs and sex and everything else kids were supposed to be suspected for but in his heart he knew his son was a good kid.
Give him a break, El. He’s lost a good friend this year, another was raped, and his sister came out to the family. And this friend of his that you don’t like might not be as bad as you think he is. Of course he’s angry. He has every right to be and he’s even going to say stupid things about victims.
He hated Olivia’s sense of logic. He hated it because he knew she was right. He hated it because she didn’t have kids and didn’t know from Adam how to raise them but he knew she’d be a better parent than he could ever be. He’d only succeeded in continuing his father’s cycle of near-neglect. Olivia would actually break her mother’s cycle of abuse.
Not for the first time, he allowed himself to wish that Eli had been hers. Not that a child of theirs would have kept them together, but he would have liked to see her become a mother - even if it was to yet another one of his kids. In his most drunken stupors he still dreamed of whisking her away to a new life and starting a life that didn’t involve the NYPD, sex crimes, or the memories of their parents hanging over their heads. In those moments he wasn’t married to Kathy and Olivia wasn’t still in love with Alex. In those moments, he knew he was at his most pathetic and if Olivia knew what was running through his mind, she’d kick his ass and then send him home to Kathy with a note explaining his transgressions pinned to his jacket lapel.
Maybe when they found Dickie, he’d let Olivia talk to him. He was worried he’d kill his son.
Leaping from the car, he raced inside to find his hysterical wife talking to an all-too-calm detective from the Queens missing persons unit.
Maybe something was wrong after all.
***
It was the third statement she’d taken since returning from court. Girl after girl, all of them with identical stories. She’d never needed a drink so much in her life. And she still hadn’t heard from Elliot. That alone was enough to make her twitchy. She logged the latest tape into evidence and left a message for Alex that they needed to talk to the DA about amending the charges against Jackson. Again. Maybe they’d jumped the gun with arraignment and maybe they needed to try a different approach if they wanted to nail him for everything.
She sighed and rubbed her head, willing away the headache. Water and Tylenol and she’d be okay and able to keep going because she knew the second Elliot stepped through the door, they’d have something else to worry about.
And she’d have to find a way to keep him off the case if Dickie really was missing. She wasn’t going to have some technicality screw up arresting someone if there was a problem. And knowing Elliot, he’d be impossible to wrangle. Maybe her best route was to just let him explode and handle it and see where the pieces fell. How often had he backed her up when by law he probably should have arrested her for interfering in an investigation? He’d stood with her when she’d been chasing after Simon and never once blinked. Never once.
She sighed and leaned back in her chair, hating how her rationalizations always won out in the logic-battle. Elliot never questioned, at least not about backing her play. How often had she tripped him up? But he was always there for her. Always. Her arguments, ones she knew she’d give, would still fall on deaf ears. Guilt was driving him and guilt was a far more powerful motivator than love ever hoped to be. Elliot loved his children but that didn’t stop him from working late hours and missing important dates and even sleeping with her when it could ruin everything. But guilt turned him into father of the year. Superman flying through the clouds, eyes fixed on the target. If he could save the day this time, they would forgive tomorrow’s transgressions.
It wasn’t wrong. It was who he was, who his father and his grandfather and his mother had raised him to be. There were moments when Olivia had to accept that Elliot was far more screwed up than she ever had been - and right now the man she lost her virginity to was on trial for statutory rape.
But there were cases other than Dickie’s potential disappearance on her desk. Nikki had to be re-interviewed and she had more girls coming in to give statements against Jackson and even Alex wanted her official statement on record, which of course only added to her own guilt. How many girls could have been saved if she’d just spoken up?
Movement caught her eye and she stood as her boss approached her. “What do we know?” She asked softly, registering the worry on his face.
“Elliot hasn’t checked in yet. But I need you over at Rikers.”
“Why?”
“Jackson wants to talk to you, Olivia. Alone.”
Her blood ran cold. “Cap, it could screw everything up.”
“He won’t talk to anyone else but you.” Cragen shrugged but his voice left no room for argument. “Get over to Rikers. I’ll page you if there’s information about Dickie.”
***
The chill of Rikers Island never really left her bones. She hated it, as well she knew she should. The clang of the gates of the cages, the catcalls of the prisoners, the way the cement absorbed the sound her shoes made against the floor. Unarmed in a world full of animals, she walked, shadowed quietly by a guard who could take down any problems in two seconds flat, but it still made her nervous.
In truth, Sealview was never far from her mind.
In control of her choices or not, stepping through the bars into the interview cell still sent shivers up her spine. Here she could escape. But knowing that didn’t stop her heart from beating faster or her eyes from glancing around to make sure no surprises could spring at her from the shadows.
Having her cuffs tucked into the clip on her belt gave her a perverted sense of pleasure. At least this time she was in charge.
Jackson looked up at her from his place at the table. Still composed and in control, his eyes watching her as they always had, undressing her. Making a decision, she smirked and settled on the edge of the table, looking down at him. “It’s a different view from this position, isn’t it?” Bravado would save her.
“Do you still like to do it on tables, Olivia?”
“We aren’t here to talk about me, Jeffery.”
“But we are.”
Were they? Had she agreed to this meeting because she wanted him to apologize or talk her out of her own statement? Did she want to ask why he’d gone after other girls or if he ever thought of her? Why was she here? Really? They had their indictment and their case and Alex was preparing to amend the charges against him. She’d only filed so quickly to get him off the streets.
“We’re here to talk about Jenny Arbor,” Olivia didn’t move. Her position of power over him was all she had holding herself together. “Which I don’t know if you should do without your lawyer.”
“But Olivia, what fun is that? To ruin the build up to the climax but including another person? Tell me, does your pretty blonde lawyer friend like to do it on tables too?”
“I thought you didn’t want to include a third person, Jeffery.” She smirked at him. “So what happened? Chasing after teenage virgins got boring so you had to up the stakes?”
“Now, now, Olivia. This isn’t about me. This is about you. After all, you came didn’t you? You want to know why I singled you out. The question is still there in your eyes.”
“What I want,” Olivia leaned in very close, so close she could feel how her breath warmed the skin on his neck, “is for you to tell me why you killed Jenny Arbor. Was it because she was pregnant or because the baby wasn’t yours?” Jackson stiffened and she chuckled and didn’t move her position. “Were you angry, Jeffery? Did she tell you she was keeping the baby? Did she stand up to you? Did she finally tell you no? Did she start dating someone else and reject you? Or was it that your first time with her was rape? And don’t lie to me. We have your pictures. All of them. We have the picture of Jenny on your desk, tears running down her face, her blouse torn. I have everything I need to put you away for the rest of your life, and that’s without even getting to the murder charge.”
“You begged me for it.”
“I didn’t know any better, Jeffery. Tell me,” she controlled the instinct to push his head forward onto the table, “did Jenny beg you to stop?” She’d pushed the button she needed to and Jackson swung at her. Olivia ducked out of the way and quickly subdued him on the table. She pressed down, pulling his arm tightly back behind him. “You’d better think twice about assaulting a police officer, Mr. Jackson,” she sneered out his last name. “Now, is there anything you want to tell me?”
“She wanted it!” Jackson coughed out. “You wanted it!”
Olivia huffed and stepped back. Her phone buzzed and she checked it - Cragen needed her back at the house. Elliot was on his way back. She rolled her eyes at the pitiful excuse of a man in front of her. She wanted to threaten him but it wasn’t in her. “I think we’re done here.” She nodded to the guard and stepped out of the cage without looking back.
***
There wasn’t enough coffee in the world to get her through this interview, let alone the whole of the investigation she was facing. All her files, her personal life, everything being examined by the bar association. She was a good lawyer. This was fallout from Casey’s hasty decisions and Sonia’s idiocy. But she still needed to endure it.
Suddenly she had new appreciation for Olivia’s hatred of IA.
“This is not your first time through the revolving door of ADAs who have worked Sex Crimes.”
“I prefer to call it Special Victims. We’re dealing with victims here, not just crimes.”
“How admirable of you.” He kept sneering and Alex had to push the shiver away. She had better things to do than subject herself to the asshole sitting on her couch. “Tell me about the case you are currently trying.”
“Nikki Kline. Raped by a popular football player and facing the usual fallout when a girl accuses the popular jock of doing something he shouldn’t have.”
“And your detectives did everything by the book?”
“Yes.” Alex kept herself from twitching. Elliot and Olivia were never completely by the book, but it was what made them such good detectives.
“Are they always by the book?”
“I thought you were investigating me, not the detectives assigned to this unit.”
“No, that’s a job for IAB. Something I understand happens with them regularly.”
“Do you have a point?” Alex rubbed her neck. She had work to do.
“You just seem to let a lot slide with their professionalism. Is there a reason for it?”
The red flag of goose bumps up her spine told her to be careful. He was fishing. “I told you,” Alex kept her voice carefully controlled, “things work a little differently in Special Victims. We work with more living victims, we work with children. We define professionalism differently, but we always stay within the realm of the law.”
“The letter anyway. Tell me about the case you just indicted this morning.”
“Jeffery Jackson.” Alex sighed, having to again erase from her mind the image of Olivia at fifteen. “A high school English teacher who has been found to have had sexual relationships with hundreds of students over the course of his career.”
“Including Detective Benson, correct?”
Alex swallowed the bile in her throat. “Yes.”
“And yet you’ve allowed Detective Benson to remain on the case?”
“Detective Benson is not the officer of record. Detective Stabler is the lead on this case and was called to the scene along with Sergeant John Munch. Detective Benson was on an overtime cycle and tied to her desk until the end of the pay period.”
“Which happened to be around the same time as the arrest of Jackson.”
“Yes.”
“Did Detective Benson ever interview Mr. Jackson?”
“On a couple of occasions, but always with supervision or at the request of the defendant.”
“And has her past colored her part of the investigation in any way?”
“Not that I have seen.” She rubbed her neck.
“Come on, Alex. You expect me to believe that the man who raped her at the age of fifteen hasn’t affected her reaction to this case?”
“Yes.” She glared down the asshole. “I do.”
“And what about your relationship with her?”
“What do you mean?”
“Has your relationship with Detective Benson made you less effective in prosecuting this case?” He sneered at her. “Think really hard before you answer, Counselor.”
Alex swallowed. He knew. Somehow. “Detective Benson and I are not in a relationship.” The words tasted bitter in her mouth, but they were true. She and Olivia hadn’t redefined what they were doing. Right now it was comfortable and casual and meant everything to them but they weren’t ready to classify it as a relationship yet.
“You are lovers, correct.”
What little blood was left in her body drained completely out of her. “Yes,” she said softly, knowing that lying would only get her in more trouble.
“A rather large breach of ethics, wouldn’t you say, Alex? Especially if your relationship means that you are letting her conduct slide.”
“There is nothing in any policy that states we cannot be lovers.”
“You checked?” She could hear his unvoiced laughter.
“Yes.”
Alex fixed him with a glare. “How did you find out?”
“Your secretary saw the two of you leaving late the other night, which in and of itself wouldn’t raise any issue if the two of you hadn’t been spotted in a lip lock outside the Washout Café earlier in the week. I’ve done my digging. There were rumors of your involvement before your stint in witness protection and now that you’re back with sex crimes, it seems that you’ve just picked up where you left off.” He opened a notebook, “Late nights here in your office with Detective Benson, one of your colleague’s lives in the same neighborhood as the Washout Cafe and saw the two of you, emails back and forth to each other. If you were trying to keep this out of the gossip mill, you really messed that up.”
Alex leaned forward, suddenly angry. “My sexuality and my sex life is none of your business and if you use it in this inquiry, I’ll have your ass for sexual harassment of me and of Detective Benson. If you leak a rumor or do anything that could hurt her on the job, I will personally have yours. Are we clear?” When he didn’t react, she rose to her feet and stood over him. “Now, what did you want to know about the way I handle my cases? What was it you were asking about the Nikki Kline case?”
TBC …