A Woman Undone: Part 49/?
Hiiiii!!!!!!!!!!! First off - I dedicate this post to huntkitty for her gracious inquiry as to where I'd been a few days ago. A mod deleted it because she considered it "off topic," but at any rate, thank you huntkitty for your kindness. To everyone else, I thank you for your patience. The writing has really been coming along, so I'm very excited to share this update with you. I'm off to eat some dinner now, but my first stop after coming home (after talking my baby, that is) was to post this much awaited part 49! Enjoy everyone and I hope all is well with you!
Part 49
Richard stood on the outside of Alex’s office looking around him to see if anyone else had seen the door slam in his face. Seeing that no one was paying attention, he laughed quietly to himself as he straightened out the cuffs of his sleeves and turned to walk down the hall. He certainly wasn’t used to such disrespect, especially from Alex, and he honestly didn’t even see what he’d done that was deserving of it. In his mind, all he had tried to do was give her his opinion about the two of them going head to head in court. It wasn’t a warning or a threat of things to come - in his mind it was an observation. Shaking his head, he exited the building and hailed a cab. After giving the driver the address back to his office, he thought about the evening to come, and for the first time since they’d moved in together, he dreaded seeing Alex at home tonight.
Alex immediately called the DA to inform her of Tennyson’s decision before she sat down in her chair with her elbows on her desk while she massaged the sides of her head. This was truly the day from hell, its list of complications growing longer and longer the more interaction she had with people. Her headache deceasing somewhat, she reached for her cell phone and flipped its lid open. Seeing the voicemail sign flashing on the screen, she pressed the one button to retrieve the message. Hearing Olivia’s voice brought a smile to her face, even though the words “we need to talk” usually never meant anything good. She listened to the message and immediately her mind started going through all the possible reasons that Olivia could have to come talk to her: the Tennyson case, the Palmer case (a kidnapping turned homicide that was causing everyone enormous headaches), Richard, Robin, the question of ‘us’, and then of course there was Madison. Alex shook her head as she thought back to seeing Madison approaching Olivia and Robin while they were eating lunch. Undoubtedly, Olivia was now aware of Madison’s conversation with her, and even if the detective was coming to see her about a totally unrelated subject, that conversation was bound to come up.
Alex put her phone aside after listening to the message and focused on the details of the Tennyson case. Lewin’s words kept echoing in her head, ‘I don’t want you trying this case if you’re doing it to boost your ego or to one-up your fiancé.’ As much as she had tried to convince both the Bureau Chief and the DA that her reasons for trying this case had nothing to do with Richard, she still hadn’t really even convinced herself of that matter. The aggressive, competitive, eager side of her still wanted Richard to eat the words that he said to her today and either completely make a fool of himself in court or come begging to her to make a deal - a deal that she would probably deny before it was even laid out on the table. It wasn’t that she thought he disrespected her abilities or her choice to be on the prosecuting side or anything like that. She wanted him to respect her job and the choice she made to work for the DA’s office. That’s what she wanted from him, and his entire speech that he had just made in her office threatening her and warning her that she might lose proved to her that he didn’t respect her job and that he still thought it was a complete waste of her time and talent. As a prosecuting attorney for the District Attorney, Alex’s main goal was to squeeze Tennyson until he either squealed or lost, but sitting there at her desk thinking about the sleaze and the sleaze’s attorney, she thought to herself that if she should have the opportunity to squeeze someone else in the process, that certainly would bring a smile to her face.
Alex sat at her desk going over photographs and all the reports including the medical examiner’s reports, the CSU reports, and the detectives’ own reports from interviews and interrogations. As much as Alex wanted to say that this would be an easy win, she knew that unless the detectives found the murder weapon or indisputable forensic evidence among Tennyson’s possessions, there was a good chance that Richard could convince a jury that the evidence they did have was circumstantial. As she thumbed through the papers in front of her, her cell phone rang on her desk.
“Yes, Richard?” she said very much annoyed that he was bothering her again so soon.
“Are you going to want to meet with my client tomorrow after the arraignment?” he asked.
“I don’t know. Do I have a reason to?”
“Oh c’mon, Alex,” he scoffed into the phone, “Have you ever known me to give up so easily?”
“Richard,” she snapped, “If you’re not calling to negotiate then you’re calling to intimidate, and if you’re calling to intimidate then you’re calling to irritate, so what do you want?” When he didn’t respond right away, she leaned back in her chair, holding the phone to her ear. “You think you’ve got me, don’t you? You think you’ve got this case in the bag.”
“All you have is a bunch of circumstantial evidence, Alex. Everybody saw him pick those two women up in his limo, and everybody knows his reputation for philandering.”
“Yeah, and he’s using that as his alibi,” she argued back.
“You don’t know if he did it,” Richard said in defense of his client. “There’s nothing to prove that he’s the one who killed them. All you have is evidence of rough sex.”
“And you don’t know if he didn’t do it.”
“That’s not what this is about,” Richard said trying to calm his voice down. “It’s never been about whether my client’s guilty or not, and it’s not about whether the people are right or not. It’s about facts. Evidence. And you don’t have any.”
In the midst of their heated argument, the phone on Alex’s desk suddenly rang.
“Richard, hold on,” she said before picking up the other phone and saying hello. “Okay,” he heard her say to the other caller with no hint of whether she was receiving good or bad news. “I’ll be right down.”
She hung up the phone on her desk and put her cell to her ear to wrap up the call with Richard. “You know that piece of evidence you said I don’t have? Well, I have it.”
“What?” he said in complete shock.
“You’ll get it in discovery, but then again, you already know that,” she said before abruptly ending the call with a smile on her face. Alex raced out of her office and down to the precinct to get confirmation of the ‘smoking gun,’ so to speak. She was so eager to hear firsthand what the detectives had discovered that she wasn’t even worried about seeing Olivia. Her professional mindset had completely taken over.
* * *
Olivia sat in the passenger seat of the squad car as Elliot weaved his way through the busy traffic of the city back to the station. Finally, a break in the case had been found, and nothing could have pleased the detectives more. They both sat in their seats, quite content with the afternoon’s discovery, and both were certain that the ADA would be pleased as well. It wasn’t very often that they could bring something this incriminating to her doorstep that wasn’t a full out confession of the crime. The cases always needed more evidence, and as such, Cabot was always at their doorstep asking for more. It was a headache of a job sometimes, but since her talk with Alex, Olivia had once again begun to believe that even the smallest amount of justice was worth the effort.
Olivia smiled to herself as she thought about Alex’s passion for her work. She admitted that the young ADA was sometimes a pain to work with, but that aside, they all had one common goal, and that was justice for the victims. Alex wasn’t their enemy, and even though it was frustrating to hear her say the words, “It’s not enough,” at the end of the day she was on their side. She wasn’t just some hotshot fresh out of law school looking to pay her dues and to make a name for herself. She actually cared about the work she was doing. She actually cared about the people she worked with, about the detectives…about Olivia.
“How are things going between you and Cabot?” Elliot asked his partner, interrupting her contemplative thoughts.
“They’re not really” Olivia answered dryly, very surprised that he was asking so suddenly, like he had been reading her mind.
“Oh, is it…over?” he asked unsure of how he should word it.
Olivia looked at her partner and slightly lifted the corners of her mouth. “Call it a hiatus,” she answered with a small laugh.
“Is that why Richard’s friend was at the precinct today?” he asked focusing his eyes on the road but looking at her quickly to catch her reaction.
“Robin?” Olivia said as she loosened the shoulder strap of her seatbelt and repositioned herself in her seat. “She’s, uh,” she laughed nervously not really knowing what to say, “She’s an interesting person.”
“Interesting as in, she’s not your type,” Elliot said, not even bothering to say it as a question.
“Right,” she answered staring straight ahead, becoming increasingly uncomfortable with where this conversation was headed.
“You’re for more of a different type,” her partner stated.
“Right,” she said again, still staring straight ahead.
“You’re more for Alex.”
“Right,” Olivia answered immediately before realizing what she had just said. “I mean, uh, Alex is more the type I’d go for, not Alex specifically. You know what I mean,” she stuttered trying to quickly back her way out of this situation.
“Right,” Elliot said with a wide grin as he nodded his head.
Olivia slumped in her seat feeling completely vulnerable and transparent sitting there next to her partner.
“Liv, can I ask you something?” he asked with a certain gentleness in his voice.
“Yeah,” she replied knowing exactly what it was that he was going to ask her.
“If you’re interested in someone like Alex, then why are you with someone like Robin?”
“Because I can’t wait forever for Alex,” she answered him with no attempt to take back her words.
Elliot looked over at her as he parked the car at the station. “The Robins in the world are overpopulated,” he said, “But the Alexes, well, there’s only one. And you know what they say.” He stepped out of the car, leaving his partner to think about his words.
“It’s always worth waiting for the one,” Olivia said in her head. “That’s what they always say.”
She got out of the car and followed Elliot inside. Somehow she could feel Alex’s presence in the building even though neither she nor Elliot had called her to inform her of what they’d found. As soon as she turned the corner and walked through the double doors, she saw the ADA leaning against a desk with her arms folded talking to Cragen. When the Captain saw his two detectives coming in, he nodded to them, causing Alex to quickly turn around.
“Hi, counselor. I take it your boss is allowing you to try this case?” Elliot asked as he walked over to his locker.
“Yep, I hope that’s good news,” she joked.
“It’s definitely good news,” Olivia said smiling as she stood next to her.
“So what have you got?” Alex asked them, very eager to hear about the latest developments.
“Blood,” Elliot answered as he threw his belongings into his locker and closed the door.
“The victims’ or the perp’s?”
“Both,” Olivia said as she sat on her desk across from Alex with her foot resting on her chair. “We found Sadie’s blood on the backside of one of the seatbelts in his limo.”
“Bastard murders her, walks out of her apartment with her blood on the front of him, and worries about seatbelt safety. Arrogant, dumb prick,” Elliot said angrily.
“And Dominique’s?” Alex inquired.
“We found her blood on the bottom of one of his shoes,” Olivia told her. “He’d scrubbed it clean, but not clean enough. We found both shoes in the garbage can at the end of his driveway waiting to be taken out.”
“Bad week for the garbage man to not show up,” Elliot scoffed.
“And where’d you find Tennyson’s blood?” Cragen asked.
“In Dominique’s bathroom sink in the bedroom,” Elliot said from his desk.
“She must have hit him or something,” Olivia offered as an explanation. “We’re guessing a nosebleed - nothing visible. He probably hit her once to knock her out before he ran to the bathroom to drip it over the sink.”
“Yeah, and he scrubbed that too,” Elliot added, “But I’m guessing he’s used to a housekeeper cleaning his bathroom because he certainly didn’t do a very good job.”
Alex nodded her head as she pushed off of the desk and walked a few paces forward with her arms still crossed. “Well, his blood isn’t really a deciding factor especially since Richard’s going with the ‘rough sex’ defense, but their blood?” Alex switched her gaze back and forth between Olivia and Elliot and smiled. “Well done, detectives.”
Olivia looked over at Elliot before looking down at the ground. Alex had never given them praise like that in any of the cases they’d worked in the past. It was just expected that they’d do their jobs, Alex would do her job, and all three of them would work together to get a guilty verdict. There wasn’t really a time or a place for sentimentality, so for the ADA to actually compliment them was a rare, but noteworthy, occurrence.
“Thank you, Alex,” Olivia said wholeheartedly as she tilted her head to the side, unable to stop herself from admiring the woman’s beauty.
Alex stared back at the beautiful detective, but only for a brief second before Cragen drew away her attention.
“Without a doubt, Tennyson’s attorney is going to want to make a deal. Are you going to give him one?” he asked.
“Richard isn’t the type to walk into an arraignment just so his client can plead guilty. He’s too arrogant for that,” Alex said as she paced a few steps back and forth in front of them. “No, he’s going to want to fight this one out in court. I just know it.”
“So it doesn’t matter to him that we have indisputable, incriminating evidence against his client?” Olivia asked, standing up and putting her hands on her hips. “Just so he can protect his own ego, he’s going to go into court and force his client to plead not guilty?”
“Well, it’s Tennyson’s decision too,” Alex reminded her. “But he’s also got one hell of an ego. He actually personally requested that I be the prosecuting attorney for this case because he thinks it will be advantageous for him later.”
“Richard’s idea, no doubt?” Olivia asked, her irritation with this man growing more and more.
“Maybe, I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. The point is, this case is going to trial, and we have to be prepared,” Alex stated firmly.
“Be prepared, counselor?” Cragen asked with a worried look on his face. “Be prepared for what? Why do I get the feeling that this is going to turn more personal than professional?”
“Because it’s Richard, and I know how he plays,” Alex answered him with a sigh.
“You think he’s going to go for personal attacks?” Elliot asked as he stood up from his desk to join the circle that had formed among his colleagues.
“Wait,” Olivia stepped in, “What do you mean personal attacks? Like what?”
Alex took a deep breath and tried to reassure Olivia with her eyes. “Richard can’t exactly argue against the evidence we’ve got although he’s certainly going to try. I’m guessing what he’ll probably do is try to make you look incompetent or try to find holes in your investigation, anything that wasn’t done by the book - illegal search warrants, violation of his client’s rights, anything like that.”
“Well, then we should be covered, right?” Olivia asked looking at all three of them.
“You tell me, detective,” Alex said. “Has anything gone on that I haven’t been told about?”
“What are you implying, Alex?” Elliot asked with a slightly raised temper. “You think that we’d fuck up and then hide it from you to cover our own asses?”
“That’s not what I’m saying, detective. I just want to make sure that there’s not going to be any surprises.”
“Well if there are, it’s going to be your fault because we did everything by the book, and we did it pretty damn well,” he said aggressively as he stood in front of her with his arms crossed.
“Detective!” Cragen reprimanded him before turning to Alex. “Counselor, what are we looking at here - the worst case scenario?”
“We could lose,” Alex quipped though she didn’t mean it to sound so rude.
“Wait a second, Alex,” Olivia said stepping towards her so that they were almost touching, “Are you telling me that there’s a chance that Tennyson could walk even after everything we found today?”
“I think it’s a very slim chance, Olivia, but if Richard finds one small mistake in our investigation, even the tiniest hole, I guarantee you he’s going to drive a semi-truck straight through it.”
“So what do we do?” Cragen asked her trying to get the whole picture in his mind.
“You make sure everything was done exactly by the book, and I’ll make sure to bury him into the ground,” Alex replied with confidence.
The four of them laughed and nodded their heads each other, feeling a little better about the trial to come.
As they all started to disperse to get other work done, Alex gently grabbed Olivia by the arm and pulled her aside. “If something came up or changed, you would tell me, wouldn’t you?”
Olivia looked deep into her eyes, conveying a silent message to her that both Alex’s words and her own words held a double meaning. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about tonight,” she whispered.