Part 2: Because LJ has a character limit.....sheeesh
Elliot showed up a few hours later, after Olivia had cleared almost two dozen cases worth of back paperwork. He called as he pulled into the precinct parking garage, giving her some time to crutch into the kiddie interrogation room.
The boy was tall for his age, with a neat, short haircut. He had the ubiquitous white polo shirt and navy blue pants that was the school uniform for nine tenths of all institutions. Elliot took his backpack off at the door, ushering the child in, and giving her the ‘look’ which signified that he and the public defender they requested to ‘observe’ the interview would be behind. Legally they couldn’t interrogate a minor without representation, be that a parent, legal guardian, or in this case, public defender.
Officially he was still the ‘victim’ in the case, therefore the rather harried looking man from the public defender’s office was there but confused. They needed every word of it as admissible evidence, however, and the boy had to have legal representation.
Olivia showed the kid the tape recorder, “We’re going to have to tape this, just for the lawyers, ok?”
“Sure, whatever,” the kid shrugged.
“What’s your name?” she asked, ostensibly taking note of his name in her little notebook, in reality she already noted that the interview was taped, the notes were for her observations on his behaviour.
“William,” he replied promptly, eyes immediately shifting around the room, noting the locations of various toys. Olivia noticed he was much more interested in the accessories than in the interview.
“Ok William… you go by Billy, Will, anything?” She asked, seeing that he wasn’t as intimidated by the police experience as most children usually were, but seemed somewhat bored.
“William,” he said emphatically, giving her a frowning glare, which she noted in her book as unusually hostile for an allegedly abused child.
“Alright, my name is Olivia, William, can you tell me about what happened.” It was like flipping a switch, in a flash he turned from a bored slightly surly six year old, into a chin-quivering, damp-eyed, victim.
He said all the right words; it was a perfect, textbook explanation of a teacher abusing a young, impressionable child. Perfect in every respect except that Olivia was getting the creeps by just being in the same room as the child. She could see what Elliot meant; it was far too perfect a story.
“Ok, I think I understand what happened.” The child gave her a measuring look, she could practically see his thoughts: he was wondering how much more convincing she would need before she believed him. So Olivia asked him a question he wouldn’t anticipate. “Why don’t tell me about yourself?”
He looked at her, surprised, and she noted; slightly suspicious. He was sitting in the chair across from her, which itself was unusual. Most of the abused children who ended up here tried to crawl practically into her lap.
“What do you want to know?” he asked, raising Olivia’s suspicions that he was saying what he knew people wanted to hear.
Children were usually remarkably open; they hadn’t learned the ways of subterfuge like adults. This one was an accomplished liar. It was enough to fool a person that wasn’t exposed to hoards of people who lied for their lives and were damned accomplished. Billy here hadn’t learned the whole trick yet, his was still a rough skill, but she estimated that in a few more years he’d be hard to spot.
“Tell me about your parents, how do they make a living… your Dad do dock-work or construction, does he drive trucks…?” She knew that Billy went to a private school in the city, which was an expensive proposition; therefore she knew his father wasn’t likely to be employed in menial labour.
“My Father doesn’t drive a truck!” William exclaimed loudly, getting highly defensive, “He works with money… lots of it.”
“So he works on Wall St.?” Olivia asked, but deliberately provoked him by carefully folding and putting away her notebook. His eyes followed her hands, realising that he was not getting the response he wanted from the detective.
“He works in a bank, a big bank,” Billy fidgeted, “Don’t you want to ask about Mr. Murales?”
“No, I… I think we covered that well enough,” she made her tone deliberately condescending. “We’ll conduct at thorough investigation into the accusation, I promise.”
“It’s not an accusation!” the kid stood up, getting angry, “He molested me!”
“Billy… you do know that making a false accusation is a crime, right?” Olivia asked.
“William! My name is William!” the little kid practically screamed, “And Mr. Murales molested me!”
He reached over and yanked on the kiddie chair that Olivia was using to prop up her knee, she gave a cry from the pain, and watched as he tipped the chair, deliberately bending her leg backwards and smashing her kneecap into the bottom of the table with all the force of weight that his small frame could muster.
Elliot was in the room second later, restraining the child, who had started screaming obscenities and threats of bodily harm towards Olivia. All the injured detective could do was slide off her kiddie chair weakly, curling into a tight ball and whimpering over her abused joint.
Of all people, Casey Novak burst through the door and took Olivia’s head in her hands, murmuring reassuring nonsense; she threaded her hands into Olivia’s thick, auburn hair, and started stroking her reassuringly. Olivia didn’t realise that she was crying from the pain until Casey’s free hand wiped tear tracks off her cheeks with a spare thumb.
Olivia couldn’t help but curl into the warm embrace, she instantly could feel that something was seriously wrong with her knee, and it scared the bejeesus out of her; Novak had an arm around Olivia’s back, one hand threading into her hair. She was wearing a skirt, so Novak had tucked her legs off to one side. Olivia relaxed her shoulders, leaning into the embrace, one of her hands by Casey’s hip, the other still hovering near her knee.
“Is there anything I can do to get your mind off the pain?” Casey asked, anxiously, “Until we get paramedics in here, I mean…”
“Dress in drag and do the hula,” Olivia grunted through gritted teeth, “Damned kid, where in hell did he learn to talk like that?”
“I don’t know and frankly don’t care. He’s going down for deliberately assaulting a police officer.” Casey moved the midget table and half chairs out of the way with a slow push from her legs, settling the detective more squarely on her lap, “I’m not too sure about the drag, though, really not my style.”
“Really? You’d be adorable,” Olivia wound the hand that had been on her knee into Casey, gripping her thigh firmly, trying to block out the pain, “Tell me the paramedics will be here soon.”
“ETA five minutes,” Elliot was back in the room, “That doesn’t look good, Liv.”
“Thanks, I would have never noticed.” True to promise, a few minutes later the Fire Department showed up, bundled the detective off, and the squad room quieted down, but Casey got the impression that no one would forget that Olivia was taken down by a six year old with an attitude.
She accepted Elliot’s hand up, once the firemen had lifted Olivia bodily onto the gurney. They had shared identical looks of concern when Olivia had submitted silently to treatment, for Olivia submitting silently to anything was uncharacteristic. Elliot had actually slung an arm around Casey’s shoulders in a quick, manly, hug with unspoken thanks for keeping Liv calm and comfortable while she was waiting. Then he followed the paramedics, intent on not letting his partner out of his sight.
Casey went back to her office, drafting charges against a six year old for the assault of a SVU detective. It wasn’t until she was about halfway through that she realised the ridiculousness of the action. Even if she could get a conviction, what were they going to sentence him to: juvie? Forget it, the defence would push for counselling and house arrest, if anything, and no jury would send a six year old away, even if he had broken Olivia’s kneecap.
Her clerk showed up, a twenty something law student, eager as all hell. Casey handed him the papers, remembering her clerkship, not-to-long ago. She was grateful to Mary Conway-Clark for more than the simple job experience of clerking. The Judge had been an invaluable mentor for the young law student, helping her acclimate to the city, getting her involved in the DA’s office, and being a surrogate mother when things became overwhelming and she really, really, needed that hug of reassurance.
Casey knew she was relatively inexperienced in the field of violent crime, but it was a sharp learning curve between the personal attention of Arthur Branch and the scathing, unvarnished critique of the various members of the NYPD. Her time with white collar crimes had given her the mechanics of how to do her job, but it hadn’t prepared her for the realities of cases with no real answers and no good outcomes.
Still, she liked her detectives; the SVU was a small unit, with white collar crimes she’d never dealt with the same detectives twice. She also wasn’t the only representative of the people in white collar crimes. There had been an Executive ADA when she worked white collar, he took most of the high profile, high risk cases. Casey was left with relatively simple prosecutions, which was good for a Junior ADA, but when she requested transfer to a more ‘active’ group, she’d wanted homicide or, as an outside request, narcotics.
Instead she’d been assigned to Special Victims. It was a strictly volunteer unit, not unlike SWAT, but instead of the glory of weapons and tactics, she was struck with the hardest cases for an ADA in violent crimes to prosecute: those with living victims.
Among cops, those who chose to deal with the ‘special’ victims were considered a bit off; dedicated, no doubt, but still a bit strange. None of the cops, uniformed or detective, really wanted to deal with the reality of crimes against kids. Neither did they want to hold the hand of a rape victim as she fought the trauma to give them a vague description of her attacker.
Despite the thankless stress, Casey was proud to be associated with the SVU. It was an acquired taste, but now that she knew what was out there, what was going on, she couldn’t imagine working elsewhere.
Casey called Olivia later that evening, listening in good humour as the detective griped about the latest set of restrictions the medical profession placed on her movements, but she didn’t see her until that Thursday, when she’d scheduled Olivia as a prosecution witness for a rape/murder case from months ago.
The case wasn’t hers; it was one of the few still leftover from the previous ADA, Alexandra Cabot. It made Casey more than vaguely nervous that she got her job because its previous occupant was killed ‘in the line of duty’ so to speak, but someone had to step in to Cabot’s Manolo Blahniks. After her first case, she was positive that it wasn’t something she could do, but the heart-wrenching cases had a strange draw and after a few she couldn’t imagine handing off a case to just anyone, they were hers, for all the heartache and now she wouldn’t give it up for the world.
Her door knocked, Casey looked up and saw the unmistakeable struts of two aluminium crutches on each side of the door.
“It’s open Olivia,” she called out, re-arranging the manila envelopes on her desk.
Some attorneys were completely anal retentive about how their cases were laid out, in the literal sense. Casey was an alphabetizer, Alex Cabot had been a categorizer; the first job her clerk had been given was the job of re-doing the entire filing system. She was sure it made her popular, but she’d needed to put her own mark on the office, even if it was only the filing system and the changing diplomas on the wall.
Benson, Olivia was tucked neatly into the drawer on personnel, under the appropriate coloured tab, as her name was a ‘B’ she was first on the list, even before Cragen. She pulled the folder, smoothed it out, and looked up.
“How’s the knee?”
“Sucks to be me,” There was a huge, ugly black plastic monstrosity attached to Olivia’s leg, from calf to mid thigh. “I know denim isn’t exactly the dress code, but it’s about the only pair of pants I can wear to court that won’t get torn to pieces by this thing.”
“My God,” Casey got up and walked around her desk to take the crutches out of Olivia’s hands as she sat in one of the ‘guest’ chairs. “What the hell is that?”
“Knee immobilizer,” Olivia grunted, “Billy bent my knee backwards, almost killed my ACL/MCL. As it is, they want to have an orthopaedic surgeon take a look at it which I do not like the sound of; I have an appointment in a few hours.”
“You are going to be ok for duty though, right?” Casey leaned the crutches against one of her law bookcases, sliding one leg and a hip onto the side of her desk. She was in her trial getup, black skirt, and a long suit jacket, which at the moment was on a hanger, dangling from one of the shelves on the bookcase, the jacket fell to the same length as the skirt, but she was determinedly bright: her blouse was a bright royal blue.
“Two months, optimistically,” Olivia grunted, “Assuming it’s not a partial tear, which would require surgery. Officially I’m on medical since both incidents occurred here and one of them was by a suspect. Benefits are great but I’m going to go crazy from nothing to do.”
“I can’t believe it,” Casey tried to imagine what Olivia would do for a few months that didn’t involve the SVU and failed, “Well, I put through the paperwork to get that kid arrested, but you know the system, a six year old, family court, first time offender…”
“I know,” Olivia tossed her head, shaking hair out of her face. “Nothing I can do about it though.”
“Well if you need entertainment, I have plenty of DVD’s….” Casey tried to smile away the obvious frustration and anger on the detective’s face. “Really, though, if there’s anything I can do, call me, ok?”
“Thanks,”
“You have your notes on the case?” Casey asked, knowing Olivia would rather take her mind off of things by working than brooding, “Because this one wasn’t one of mine, I’m kind of flying blind.”
“It’s pretty straight forward, as far as that goes. She cries rape, we pull him in, he makes bail, and we catch him in the act while he’s beating her head in.”
“How’d you get tipped off?” Casey made notes on a fresh sheet of legal paper; they’d worked together on enough trials, now, that she knew what questions she wanted to ask the detective, she was making the notes in case the defence pulled any surprises on the rebuttal.
“Cell phone,” Olivia shrugged, “I gave her my card.”
“Ok,” They spent a few more minutes on the pre-trial prep, but it was, as Olivia stated, a fairly straightforward case. Casey stuck the yellow sheet of paper into the appropriate envelope, and the envelope into the stack she was toting into the courtroom. “You ready?”
“As I’ll ever be,”
Olivia accepted Casey’s hand and tugged herself to one foot and balanced, holding onto the back of the chair as the ADA handed her the crutches. It hadn’t been a week and she already hated the damn things, that didn’t bode well. Casey slipped into her jacket, buttoning and smoothing it in all the necessary places, and grabbed her briefcase.
The detective didn’t always have the time to actually sit and watch the judicial process grind, she usually slid in before her testimony was required and just skated in to watch the closing arguments or hear the verdict.
It was a different kind of justice than Olivia was used to seeing, inevitably she compared Casey’s trial persona to that of the lawyer she knew best, Alex. Her old friend was a very cool customer, her cases ran with a sleek sort of style, it was more Alex’s way to force ‘yes’ or ‘no’ questions, making a suspect incriminate themselves slowly and irrevocably.
Casey was much more into letting the suspects give themselves enough rope for her to hang them with, she asked short questions, preferring that people elaborated on their own, so that the jury didn’t hear lawyers talking, they heard real people, the witnesses.
Alex remained detached until she was out of range of the opposing counsel; Casey let herself express those emotions in open court, even Olivia found herself getting drawn in to Casey’s impassioned reconstruction of the scene. It sounded much more dramatic than the dorm room probably ever deserved, but if it helped get the conviction, then drama would work.
As she described, the case was fairly open and shut, there was overwhelming evidence, the defence lawyer should never have let the case go this far, but from the looks of the defendant, or more particularly his parents, they were willing to go to trial on the slim chance that the ADA or the police would screw up and have the case thrown out of court.
That wasn’t going to happen.
“The prosecution calls Detective Olivia Benson, SVU.” Casey announced, she looked back and Olivia had to return her cheerful smile. The detective waved a crutch at the Judge who acknowledged her presence with a raised eyebrow, apparently news of Olivia’s injury hadn’t made it all the way to the bench yet.
Casey opened the little partition into the trial area and helped Olivia to the stand, waving off the bailiff, with an impatient hand. She held the crutches as the detective took her seat, then leaned them up against the railing of the witness box.
The ADA frowned for a second, and then addressed the judge, “Your Honour, can we have another chair or a stool brought in, I know the Detective needs to keep her leg elevated.”
“Of course. Bailiff…” Olivia knew this judge; he was a lonely republican, conservative as all hell. His witness box always smelled vaguely of Old Spice, which wafted from the judicial seat in waves, depending on how long the trial had been going on. He was notorious for torpedoing SVU cases because the situations brought before him offended his sensibilities.
“There we go,” Casey’s voice was soft, so that the microphone didn’t pick it up; she lifted the knee with one arm, settling it onto the small stool with the other, taking care to be gentle, “You comfortable?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
“Excellent,”
The bailiff came forward with the court copy of the Bible, and Olivia swore to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God.
“Good Morning Detective,” Casey was positively bouncy, she was clearly enjoying herself, and why not; the defence was handing her the conviction.
“Morning Counsellor,” Olivia was a little self conscious on the stand; she usually adhered to a much more formal dress code for trials. Judges tended to approve; it made them feel as though the witnesses were taking the proceedings seriously.
She was in jeans, a black button-up, and her leather jacket. Olivia knew she looked fine; it was just with Judge Conservatism breathing down her neck, she would have preferred to look a little more, well, conservative.
“Would you please tell the court how you came to be at the decedent’s dorm room at the time of her death?” Casey leaned back against her table, both hands braced on either side of her hips. She looked like a trial shark: heels, bright blue blouse, and a skirt with a slightly longer cut than she usually wore. Apparently conservatism was catching.
“We, my partner and I, received a call from Our Mother of Mercy, a young woman came in and said she’d been raped.” Olivia sighed, it was a harrowingly familiar story, “It was the decedent, Collette O’Flaherty. We took a rape kit, we questioned her, and she identified the defendant as her rapist.”
“Then what happened?”
“We brought him in, he was charged, arrested, arraigned, and he made bail. About an hour later, I got a call on my cell phone from the decedent, that the defendant was harassing her. By the time we got there, he’d progressed from harassment to homicide, and she was very clearly deceased.”
“Objection, Your Honour: speculation.” The defence attorney was at least trying; Olivia had to give him that much credit.
“What speculation? Detective Benson was there!” Casey exclaimed.
“Overruled,” Judge said wearily, sounding very much like he’d prefer to be elsewhere.
“Continue please, Detective,” Casey was now standing from the rebuttal.
“The defendant then proceeded to throw the textbook he was using to beat Collette’s head in at me,” Olivia remembered the large, slimy red smear it had left on her jacket. She lost more clothing that way. “It was covered in blood.”
“Pleasant,” Casey wrinkled her nose. “Just to be absolutely clear detective, is the man you saw killing Collette O’Flaherty in this courtroom.”
“It’s the defendant.”
“And is he also the man who assaulted you with the bloody textbook?”
“Yes he is,” Olivia recognised the defence lawyer, not individually, but his type. He knew that barring a bizarre travesty of justice, his client was destined for jail. It was still his job to cast as much dispersion on the prosecution and its case as much as possible, but nine times out of ten it ended up a mudslinging fiasco.
“I see you had a mishap, Detective,”
“Yeah, a complaining witness assaulted me during questioning,” Olivia chose her words very carefully; speaking about an open case was only ever done in the most general terms possible.
“Looks like he did a number on you, how long will you be in the brace?”
“Two months,” she could see Casey on the cusp of asking what the hell this line of questioning had to do with the case at hand.
“And when my client allegedly assaulted you with a textbook, what kind of damage did it do?”
“None,”
“So this alleged assault that my client is charged with, did no damage, and for all intents and purposes he could have been tossing the book anywhere, right?”
“I think I know when someone is throwing things at me. But it doesn’t matter, assaulting a police officer is assaulting a police officer, regardless of whether or not it does damage.” That was an argument she heard all too often, but she believed firmly that to start quibbling about who, doing what, to whom, would only end up with an increase of assaults on officers.
“So my client, if convicted would face the exact same amount of jail time as the individual who put you in that cast, right?”
She felt a bit of glowing fire in her belly, she knew what this guy was driving at, he was going to get one hell of a surprise, “No, he wouldn’t.”
“I thought you said assault was assault, detective,” he replied smugly.
Casey gave Olivia ‘the look’ over the shoulder of the defence attorney, telling her silently that playing games in court was not recommended.
“It is,” Olivia replied easily, “However the ‘individual’ in question was an emotionally disturbed six year old, who couldn’t manage a more mature expression of frustration than violently lashing out. Your client is a twenty-four year old, college educated adult, who by all accounts ought to have slightly better impulse control than a kindergartener. But to answer your question, one of them will be tried as juvenile, therefore if convicted, there’s no way your client and my assailant would have the same sentence.”
The entire court seemed frozen. Casey was smothering a smile, unsuccessfully. Even the Judge seemed to have woken from his usual torpor at Olivia’s outburst.
“No further questions.” The attorney retreated back to the safety of his table, ignoring the heated whispers of the kid’s parents, who were seated behind him.
“Your Honour, the prosecution rests.”
The gavel pounded, and Casey came up to the witness box, moving the little stool out of the way, and giving Olivia a hand up. “Next time you feel like editorializing on the stand, warn me first, ok?”
“He opened it up,” Olivia took the proffered crutches, “Don’t worry, I can handle those kinds of lawyers.”
“That’s not what I worry about,” Casey gathered her trial materials, and held the half gate for her detective.
“Then what?”
“The competition.”
Olivia just laughed, Casey joined her, and the day felt a lot better.
It was a few days later, Olivia was on the firing range at the Police Academy on East 20th. Her temporary duty assignment was as an instructor, not of new recruits, but for officers already in Patrol, Transit, or the Port Authority. She was temporarily transferred to the Academy, under command of the Captain of the Leadership Development Section.
The mission of LDS was to provide leadership training for NYPD sergeants, lieutenants, and civilian supervisors when they were first promoted and also for in-service training. The classes were designed for three basic functions: knowledge, skills, and attitude. Commanding officers needed overall knowledge based on NYPD procedures and regulations, and specific areas of expertise. Training was both promotional and in-service through two units, Uniformed Promotional Training Unit (UPTU), and the Management Training Unit (MTU). Olivia was temporarily assigned to the UPTU- fun times.
Olivia’s issue wasn’t with the assignment, it was actually pretty plum considering who else was in SVU: Elliot was her senior partner, Munch had already retired from one city’s police department, he had years of experience on her, and Finn had less time with the unit, but was much more thoroughly versed in the other varieties of violent crime and narcotics.
If they had actually wanted someone from SVU, it wouldn’t have been her.
There were three other, higher ranked, officers who were her co-instructors. They were stereotypical good ‘ol boys, practically identical down to their cheap, dark suits; colour-of-the-day ties; and thin, badly starched white button ups.
Then there was Olivia Benson, ten years younger, in jeans, pullover, and leather jacket; sporting crutches, rapists, child molesters, and a gender gap so profound she couldn’t even see the missing link. It was a statement of fact that she wasn’t easily intimidated, but the very idea of working with the primordial soup of the NYPD drove her to the firing range.
She couldn’t stand, but had requisitioned a folding chair, and after emptying a few dozen rounds of ammunition, slowly and methodically, she felt a lot better. In a pause to reload, she heard her name being called and set her nine millimetre down, making sure the magazine was ejected and the slide was clear.
“Long day?”
Olivia took the earmuffs off and heard the distinctive *click* of heels on concrete. It was Casey, and she gave the ADA a small, weary smile. She frequently used the firing range as a catharsis, consequently Elliot left her alone when she headed to the basement of their precinct, but at the moment Olivia was relaxed enough to not mind the company.
“Very long day.”
“I heard Elliot say that if you lasted a week without snapping of those Neanderthals in half he’d eat his holster.” the attorney was, as always, impeccably dressed, in a light charcoal pantsuit with thin, red pinstripes and a red silk blouse. She must have been out with one of the detectives, though, because it would take a peculiar errand for the lawyer to be out here in this part of the city.
“He’s optimistic,”
“That bad, huh,” Casey set her briefcase down next to Olivia’s crutches.
“It’s not even their fault, really,” Olivia felt compelled to defend her profession, “I mean ten, fifteen years ago a man couldn’t rape his wife. Legally the marriage contract was consent ad infinitum, that’s the atmosphere these guys walked pavement on; it’s just hard to make them see anything different.”
“They think ‘special victims’ is a PC creation to appease the unwashed liberal horde.”
“Exactly,”
“I don’t envy you,” Casey couldn’t help but stare at the large, black weapon which was so much a part of her detective friend that sometimes she forgot it was there.
“Have you ever…?” Olivia gestured with her chin to the handgun.
“When I was a kid, I used to go hunting with Daddy. I’ve never used a pistol, but I know how to handle a gun.” Casey shrugged, completely blasé about a grown woman still referring to her father as ‘Daddy’, “I had, well still have I suppose, a nice little Winchester .308. I haven’t been out with him a while though, not since I moved to the city.”
“That baby is a Sig Sauer P226, nine millimetre, with a fifteen round magazine.” Olivia lifted the black pistol showing Casey the magazine, which was about half full, before sliding it home and ratcheting the slide, “It was the standard issue for the FBI before the entire world switched to Glocks. These are just paper cutters, target bullets, but I usually load in Glaser Safety Slugs.”
“Safety Slugs?” Casey asked, the name sounding odd.
“They’re hollow-points, copper jacket, filled with 330 pieces of #12 chilled lead shot suspended in liquid Teflon. Instant one shot kills, no matter where you put the bullet. I don’t think anyone has ever survived a direct hit.” Olivia shrugged, “It’s called a safety round because the bullets fragment on impact, no ricochets and no possibility of passing through a wall and hitting a bystander. They have their issues, but we do enough shooting in apartment buildings that I don’t want anything to happen accidentally.”
“Aren’t those bullets illegal?” Casey asked wryly.
“No,” Olivia frowned, “But expensive. I have a friend in the FBI; she sends me a box from the Hostage Rescue ammo locker every year for Christmas. I don’t think I’ve ever used more than a few on duty.”
“Thoughtful,” the ADA remarked, eyeing the weapon with a great deal of respect. “You don’t mess around with that thing.”
“Not in the slightest.” Olivia waited, knowing the question that was in Casey’s mind. “I’ve had to use it twice; both times to save a hostage. The perps were dead before they hit the ground.”
“I didn’t ask,” the attorney protested.
“You wanted to, it’s ok. They were both ruled clean shoots.” The detective offered the pistol, butt first, “You want to give her a try? We’re at a range, after all.”
“Me?” Casey looked at the gun, which seemed much larger and more intimidating the closer it got, “You don’t mind?”
“You’re around us often enough, you should know how to handle a pistol, God forbid something happens….”
“Like Alex,” Casey was immediately contrite as Olivia’s head turned sharply, looking downrange, “Sorry, it’s just been on my mind lately. I don’t particularly like that I was placed here because the previous ADA was killed doing her job; makes me nervous.”
“I don’t like it much either,” the detective realised how that must have sounded and quickly backtracked, “Not that you’re… I mean, I don’t have a problem with you, just... I’d rather Alex wasn’t… shot.”
“I understand,” Casey took the Sig, surprised at the weight, “It’s big.”
“Yeah, fifteen round magazine makes it pretty wide around the grip, there aren’t an enormous amount of women who can control something well with that much ammo; we tend to have smaller hands.” Casey noticed that Olivia had curled her own hands in on themselves, somewhat self consciously, “You’d probably be better off with a revolver, a nice little double action, .38 special or .357 magnum depending on how much recoil your wrist could take.”
She took the gun back, showing the other woman the finer points of how the semi-automatic pistol worked. Once she’d covered the basics of range safety, how to grip, and how to fire, Olivia scooted the chair sideways and back, offering a clear line of sight to the paper target downrange.
It felt like the gun was exploding in Casey’s hand after the first shot. The recoil jerked her aim far wide of where it had been, but she still managed to cut paper. There were six more shots left in the clip after the first, the trigger pull was a lot less severe, and if it hadn’t been for the slight unwieldy nature of the grip, she was pretty sure that she’d have made it inside the rings.
“Not bad,” When Casey gave the detective a complete double take, Olivia shrugged, “Seriously, I know a lot of people who probably couldn’t even cut paper on the first clip.”
“It’s hard to control,” Casey ejected the magazine into her hand, set it and the pistol, with a clear slide, on the small counter, “And heavy.”
“Yeah, she’s a handful,” Her voice sounded very fond, “Your hands are small, I could see you with a nice, snub nosed .38 special. For a self-defence situation, if you need more than a handful of shots you’re in serious shit. Revolvers are easy to use, easy to take care of, and they don’t jam when you need ‘em.”
“Sounds like personal experience,” Casey observed.
“I used a police issue .38 when I was first on patrol.” Olivia set about taking apart the Sig and cleaning it, “Good gun, reliable, easy to handle, I loved it.”
“Why don’t you use it anymore?”
“I was giving chase on foot, once, it was uh, over on Harlem River drive, and I turned a corner into about three of them,” Olivia’s hands worked on near autopilot as she carefully cleaned and oiled her weapon, “They had nine millimetre Berettas, fifteen shot clips each; I had six in the chamber and another twelve in the speed-loaders. I came very close to never making Detective, but I had backup coming and they couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn. I went out and bought this baby the next week. It cost me an arm and a leg but I never looked back.”
“I can’t decide if I should get a gun or if I’d just shoot my own foot off trying,” Casey watched neat hands reload the magazine, these were not the little paper cutting target bullets, even her untrained eye could tell the difference.
The tips of the cartridges looked like little blue pencil erasers, beyond the tip was the copper jacket and behind that was the shot suspended in Teflon, “I know a lot of ADA’s who prosecute violent crimes get concealed carry licences, I go back and forth on if it’s a good idea or not.”
“The thing about concealed carry, at least in my opinion,” Olivia clarified, “Is that unless the person carrying is absolutely comfortable with shooting the gun and the idea of using the gun on a person, carrying is useless. Shooting is a perishable skill, it doesn’t do any good if you’re carrying and don’t have the hands to make the bullet hit.”
“Would it have helped Alex?” Casey asked softly, seeing a slight pause in the action as the detective finished readying the magazine.
“She was carrying,” Olivia said softly, “But I don’t think the thought ever crossed her mind to draw the gun. It was a drive by, caught us all by surprise.”
“So carrying might not help,”
“If someone’s determined enough to want you dead, there’s not much that can be done,” Olivia started re-assembling the pistol, “Tell you what, I’ll be shooting pretty much every afternoon for the next three months. I can set up in the precinct so we can give a few of the guns we have there a good spin and see if something speaks to you.”
“Sure, if it’s not too much,” Casey happily accepted the invitation, but then thought about the time frame, “Three months? Oh no, I take it the surgeon…”
“Yeah,” Olivia grunted, holstering her weapon, the ADA picked up the crutches, letting Liv lever herself out of the chair, “Sucks to be me, but it’s either surgery or a permanent limp.”
“At least it can be fixed.” Casey grabbed her briefcase, slinging it over one shoulder, “It would be hell to be completely taken out by a kid like that.”
“Elliot would never have forgiven himself,” Olivia tossed the empty box of ammo into a convenient trash can, “He asked me to question the kid because he knew being stuck in the squad room with nothing but paperwork would have driven me nuts.”
They walked out companionably, Casey suspecting that Olivia had a great deal of experience on crutches as she was very adroit at things like stairs and curbs, without looking like she was trying very hard.
They made it to a bus stop, where she and Liv had to part company; it was a few minutes until the next line came in, so Casey waited.
“What’s your schedule look like?”
“I’m seeing my physical therapist from six until ten, I got class from ten until three-ish, with a lunch break, and then I plan on heading to the range for a box of ammo until it’s gone.” Olivia leaned back against the bus sign, balancing effortlessly with one crutch, “I’ve got a few regular appointments with Doc Huang, I have to see the orthopaedic surgeon every week for a month after the procedure, and I know I still have court dates to make. I have a date with everyone but a date for the foreseeable future.”
“So you can squeeze in a real date, then?” Casey was amused at the slight but noticeable double take at that phrase, but the detective seemed to take the teasing in stride. There were rumours around the station house that Olivia switch-hit, so to speak, and even though Casey’s tone and manner made the statement a joke, she was actually curious how the detective would react.
“Sure,” Liv readied her crutches, seeing her bus heading that way, “When?”
“Friday?” Casey asked hopefully, “Dinner, friend of mine who partner’s at that doctor’s office uptown invited us over.”
“That incredibly over-the-top office you dragged me to that was so not on the city’s HMO plan?”
“Yeah, that one,” Casey had the grace to blush at the description of the office, “I clerked for his mother, Judge Clark, back in the day, I get freebies.”
“Gimme a call,”
The bus roared off, giving a face full of diesel exhaust to any unfortunate soul left behind.