Summary: This is technically an AU: We know that OZ is definitely in NY, and Stabler’s wife Kathy hasn’t left yet. This is set around OZ Season 5. A child prostitution ring leaves Elliot with new answers to his own origins, and redefines a new meaning for family. I suck at writing Summaries, but this is one of my better pieces of fanfic, so enjoy.
Disclaimer: I do not own these characers, despite my obsessive use of them in fanfic. I wish I did, but I don't. They are the property of others with far more power and money than I.
PLEASE BE AWARE THAT THIS IS DARK-FIC, AND MAY CONTAIN GRAPHIC DESCRIPTIONS OF RAPE, SODOMY, SEXUAL/CHILD ABUSE, AUTOPSIES, MENTAL/PHYSICAL TORTURE. IF YOU FIND ANY OF THIS MATERIAL OFFENSIVE, PLEASE DO NOT READ.
P.S.- I've come to realize that as this story takes place over the course of several days that will become weeks, I'm introducing the date at the beginning of each day so you have an idea of when everything is going on in relation to everything else.
P.P.S.- Anyone who may rival me in being an insomniac and a chronic T.V. junkie may notice a few new, but familiar faces cropping up in the next couple of chapters. I'm a HUGE fan of CSI:NY, and LOST. (WHO ISN'T A FAN OF LOST, REALLY?) You may notice a few guest appreances from CSI:NY investigators and, like in the chapter, CSI:NY M.E. Sheldon Hawkes. There really isn't any reason to have Jack Shepard from LOST in there, but I was getting greedy with my favorite characters, and I just loved the idea of having them all in the same canon. They're not there are a plot focus, it's still OZ/SVU, but it's interesting to have them pop up once in a while. Tara*****
Chapter XIX – Supressio Veri
Augustus Hill:
“You could say that life up here in OZ is simple. Every day, the routine is the same. We make our beds, brush our teeth, eat our food, work, and a little bit here and there on the side until we can wake up the next day and do it all over again.
It’s like when you were a kid, you know, and your moms was all “do this, and do that.” Life was simple then, wasn’t it. You didn’t have any shit to worry about because no matter what, your momma set the routine, and everything was as predictable as the next moment could be.
Flash forward a few years, you’re a teenager, some punk kid thinking he knows everything he could possibly fucking know, and then…BAM! Some piece of shit whacks you the fuck out of the comfortable routine you called an existence and drops you in this motherfucker. Then, you’re molded, indoctrinated in a whole new existence. Fuck the old routine, this is a brand new thing to wrap your mind around. Because, in it all, at least your old fucked up schedule gave you the choice to change. Here, there’s no choice to do anything. Hell, I’d fucking give being a Catholic a chance if it would get me out of here for a few hours for church, even if it’s just to do something different for a change.
When we were little kids, the thought never even entered your mind that the world could be different than how it was then. You and your little friends were always going to stay the same, wrestling, playing, building stuff.
My momma used to say, “Boys will be boys.” What the fuck does that mean? It means that when I asked for a G.I Joe doll when I was 5, my old man punched me upside the head and told me that girls play with dolls. I was getting a fucking action figure. Who the fuck cares? All I wanted was a new toy to pass the time with, just a new distraction.
Except that now, GI Joe’s kinda a defunct thing, you know? In OZ, we make our own distractions, throw our dicks around; because, you know, boys will be boys, and we still steal each other’s toys.
11.08.2006 Radio Dispach Unit 2-13A, 56th Street 2:56 p.m.
“Emergency Assistance, this is Latisha. What is your emergency?”
For a moment, there was static. She mentally counted down five seconds before repeating her question, first sucking down a gulp of steaming coffee. Double shifts sucked, but the overtime was fantastic. As she finished swallowing, she heard the first sounds through the earpiece, and turned her full attention to straining for more sounds. Louder this time, she asked again.
“Do you have an emergency?”
The voice that answered was tiny, and rushed, made even smaller by the fact that it was obviously a child’s. Moving closer to the network of blinking lights and screens facing her, she flipped a switch, automatically recording the sounds in her earpiece.
“I don’t know where Keith is.” Her hand shot into the air as she answered the voice, calling the attention of her supervisor. “Honey, my name is Latisha, can you tell me your name?”
There was a pause as the little voice seemed to consider the question for a moment. “I’m not supposed to give my name to anyone, especially not to strangers.”
She smiled, and motioned for her supervisor to grad a headset. “I’m not just anyone, sweetie. I’m a policewoman, and if you can give me your name, we can help you better. Is that ok?”
She waited several minutes as the background noise got louder. Turning up the volume on the system, she asked again, continuing to wait. Her supervisor Mark removed his headphones. “I think we lost him. Give it another few-“
“Wait! I hear something! Honey, are you there? Can you give me your name?”
“If I do, you won’t tell, will you? My mom’s going to be really mad.”
“Don’t worry, we won’t tell your mom anything. We just want to know what kind of trouble you’re in.”
A note of indignation crept into the little voice. “It’s not me! It’s Keith! I didn’t do anything. Keith’s gone. His mommy don’t even know where he is!” There was another moment of silence as this statement seemed to sink in. “I wasn’t supposed to say that. Don’t say anything, ok?”
“I won’t. I promise. Can you tell me your name?”
“I’m Stevie.”
“Stevie, can you tell me where you are?”
“I’m in my school.” Mark nodded and motioned for her to keep talking. He was facing the computer. “Give me two seconds for a location.”
“Can you tell me the name of your school? What grade are you in?”
“I’m in first grade. I’m in Mrs. Lafferty’s class.” The tiny voice assumed a proud note. For a moment she glanced at the faded picture of her own son, smiling gap-toothed at her from a dated school photo on the desk. She smiled.
“That’s great! What school are you in?”
“PS 361.”
Mark flashed her a thumbs up sign and began dispatch.
“Tell me about Keith, Stevie. Do you know where he is?”
“No, I came in today and he was gone. I even brought a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. He loves peanut butter and jelly. I always share with him. But he wasn’t there. Then I went to his house and his mom yelled at me. She said that he wasn’t there and that she didn’t care where he was and told me to go away…She was really mean. And she smelled really bad.”
Latisha grabbed for a pen and pencil and scribbled a question to Mark as she continued to talk. Who should I call?
He scribbled back. This may turn out to be nothing. But we can’t hand this to Vice. We’re still not sure that there’s really a vic.
She thought for a moment, even as she continued to keep the boy talking. Give SVU a call. If there is something to this, the boss is definitely going to find it a “special victim.”
Mark picked up the phone. “I’ll make the call.”
She turned her full attention back to the caller. “Stevie, honey, we’re asking the police to help you find your friend, okay? Just keep talking to me, honey.”
Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary 2:56 p.m.
“Are you threatening me?”
Elliot’s predatory grin was enough to carry the message. “Look McManus, you can do this the hard way, or the easy way. Right now, I’d suggest the easy way. You wanna bitch, go ahead, just wait till O’Reilly comes in to throw insults around. He has to listen to them, I don’t.”
He could see the effort, and some part of him relished the man’s internal struggle. No wonder this place was a hellhole. This idiot couldn’t run anything for shit. A split second’s decision brought him back to himself, and the man he really was; for the moment, his brother’s shadow gone.
“You got kids?”
McManus looked momentarily taken aback at the change of topic. “No.”
“Too bad. Being a parent, I’ve had 20 years of insight into how a kid’s mind works, and I can say right now, you’ve got a problem.”
Tim settled himself back in chair with the air of a man who had all the right answers for all the right questions. “These men aren’t kids.”
Elliot leaned forward. “Really? Then how come you’re treating them like kids?”
Tim smiled indulgently. “We don’t treat these men like children unless they act like children. I’m trying to educate them, mold them to a schedule that works. If they misbehave, they’re punished, and they lose privileges. That’s the way the real world works.”
“I don’t know if they teach you the difference between Earth and Utopia in college, McManus, but last time I checked, this sure wasn’t fucking paradise.”
“Your point?” McManus looked bored.
“My point is that you’ve got a pretty big age gap between your inmates. Especially in Emerald City. Maybe the stuff you’re dishing works for these little kids you have in here, but it’s not going to work for the adults. They’ve been here too long, and they know exactly what they can get away with.” He paused, waiting for the information to sink in. “Ryan O’Reilly’s just outside that door, so I’m going to make it short and sweet. You are NOT going to put me in the hole. You’re going to rule that I was trying to protect Miguel Alvarez, and you’re going to send me for counseling.”
“Even if I was going to do that, Sister Pete isn’t here. What the hell are you going to be doing while you’re going to ‘counseling’?”
“I’m going to ask the Warden for access to the Nappa files.”
Tim scrubbed his hands against the three or four days-growth of beard on his face. “What’s Nappa got to do with it? And for that matter, why the hell have you assigned yourself Alvarez’s personal bodyguard? You’re not here to do anything but be a stand-in for Keller while he makes his real world debut.”
Elliot sucked in his breath and his annoyance and pushed ahead anyway. “I don’t know for certain. O’Reilly seems to think that Alvarez has made himself a target somehow. Apparently he has some information about Nappa that the Italians don’t want him to have. O’Reilly and I were trying to pull them off them when S.O.R.T. came down on us. The least I can do while I’m here is clean up your mess.”
“So it would seem, Elliot. But you’re not running Em City, I am.” Tim was quiet for a moment, thinking. “I can move Pancamo and the wise guys to the hole for a month, but that’s only temporary. I can drag Alvarez in here and ask him what the fuck is going on. If he doesn’t tell me, I’ll drop in solitary until his memory becomes clear.”
“Don’t do that. He’ll clam up, and the kid has a mental history. Let me get in with O’Reilly and Alvarez. I’ll also ask Beecher about it. Maybe he knows what’s going on.”
“Do you trust Beecher that much?”
Stabler cracked his sore knuckles. “Oddly enough, I do. He’s the only person that I can completely trust in here. When I get out of here, he’s going to kick my ass for getting involved in a fight that wasn’t mine. I’d be surprised if he doesn’t give me shit for sticking my nose where it doesn’t belong as soon as I get back.”
“He’s right. That’s what gets you dead in here.”
“I had to do something. This is my life. It’s what I do. You’ve got your job, I’ve got mine.”
“Hey!”
Elliot turned back to look over his shoulder.
“I was wrong.” There was no eye contact, but the gesture was still clear.
“Thanks.”
McManus thought this over as he gestured to Murphy, who was watching intently outside. The C.O. came in, moving O’Reilly into the newly vacated chair.
Stabler fought the hold as Murphy propelled him out of the room. “Fuck him up, O’Reilly! Fuck you McManus!” Inside he breathed a sigh of relief. Same shit, different day.
Earlier that day, Manhattan, 1:19 p.m.
He thought that he’d feel different, walking through those doors again, but it was hard to search for the sense of déjà vu he thought he’d be expecting when everything seemed so…permanent. The same chipped peeling letters in the elevator directed him to the correct floors, the broken and discolored replacement tiles in the hallway led him down the same path.
Nothing had really changed, nothing ever really stayed the same. He was in front of the double glass doors before he knew it, and in the middle of his daydreaming, an officer in blue pushed the door out too quickly, and cracked the bridge of his nose. So his introduction back to offices he hadn’t seen in over 6 years was more than a little undignified.
Stumbling into the door, he tipped his head back as the rush of blood that threatened to pour out of his nose streamed suddenly back down his throat. Choking for a moment on his own blood, he moved wildly past the first pair of desks, gesturing frantically for the rookie cop to leave him alone. Collapsing down on the first available surface, he grabbed for a wad of tissue paper, sticking it up his nose with abandon. He breathed his first sigh of relief as the rush of blood slowed to a trickle, and finally halted, staining his hands, his shirt, and his face.
Opening his eyes, he regretted, not for the first time, the horrible trick of genetics that had left him with the capacity to blush, even now. And blush he did, surrounded by unanswered phones and memos, as every detective in the entire room turned to stare at the spectacle agape.
A long, lean figure in black stepped into his field of vision as everyone else moved back to the real world. “It’s not even your first day back in the office, rookie, and you’re already bleeding.”
Cassidy threw up a hand in self defense. “Just leave off, Munch, okay. I’m fine. Just tell me why I’m here.”
“I would, but the blush you have going makes you look like you’re done baking, so go to the john, clean yourself up, and then I’ll give you all the details. Just make it quick, we have to head over to the school in ten.”
“School? What-“
Munch leveled a stare down at him. “We can go now, but even a rookie knows that interviewing a seven year old while you’re covered in blood isn’t wise. Go, and meet me downstairs in ten, no…nine minutes.”
Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary 5:00 p.m.
Given the recent events, Miguel wasn’t more than a little surprised when the feeling of smooth warm hands on his skin didn’t give him the reaction he might have hoped for. He sucked in a breath at the touch, pulling air through his teeth, trying to avoid mewling in pain. It came close, though.
“You look like you may have a hairline rib fracture, Miguel.” Dr. Nathan pointed to the tiny almost imperceptible smudge across the 5th rib on his X-Ray. He traced the tiny line with his finger, moving carefully so that he didn’t shift too suddenly.
He shrugged, carefully. “There’s nothing you can do about it then, right?”
“Well, for right now, there’s nothing you can do about the bruising.” She moved gentle fingers across the dark purple and green bruises spreading from his side to his sternum. “But, I can gently brace the area across your ribs with some taping and an ACE bandage. I’d also like you to stay here overnight for observation so I can monitor you for breathing problems.” She indicated his breastbone on the X-Ray.
“This area of your chest lies right over the pericardial sac, and your heart. Since it’s relatively hard to bruise that area, there’s no way of telling if you’ve received any damage until your heart rate and breathing have been monitored for a few hours.” She started when he grabbed her wrist.
He let go almost immediately and tried to give her a winning smile. “Please, Dr. Nathan. Please don’t make me stay. Just let me go back to Em City. I’ll be just fine, I promise.”
“Miguel…”
He sat up slowly, pulling on his shirt as he went.
“Believe me, Doc, I’m in a much better place in my pod at Em City than I’ll be here.” His eyes flicked to a bedridden Italian, moving quickly back to her.
She followed his glance. “I know I’m going to regret this, but…tell Ryan I said ot keep an eye on you. You can’t be doing anything strenuous for several days until your ribs have had time to heal. Remember to take it easy.”
For a moment, some of the old Latin humor was back. “Believe me, Doctor Nathan. I’m very easy.”
Her head snapped back from the bag she was rummaging through. His face wasn’t turned to her; he was facing away, still drying the dish he held in his hands. The picture of domesticity he presented was a stark contrast to the blacked over window that he faced.
She sighed. “Chris, we’ve been over this. NO more questions about me; this time we spend together is going to be about YOU. I mean it.” She sincerely hoped that she sounded like she meant business. In some perverse way, that lately had become less foreign to her than she would have liked, she wanted to talk about it, wanted to head him say all the filthy lustful things he could say aloud with no shame.
He didn’t look at her, just continued to move slowly around the kitchen, drying and putting dishes and pots carefully away. “You want coffee, Sister? Instant’s crap, but it’s better than nothing.”
“I’d love a cup.” She waited quietly as he moved around the small space, opening and closing cabinets and setting water on the stove to boil.
“Do you cook often, Chris?” His shoulders tensed, then relaxed.
“I haven’t cooked anything in a few years, but I used to cook for Bonnie all the time. She loved to eat, that woman.”
Pete smiled. “I can imagine…Do you remember who taught you? I can read all the recipes I want in the world, but nothing I make ever comes out tasting like something wonderful.”
He set a pair of empty cups and saucers by the stove to wait, and as she glanced up at him, she started slightly in shock. Over his shoulder one of the cabinets in front of him had been rearranged to perfect, almost military order. Boxes and cans had been set on top of one another in perfect rows, and each label was turned perfectly forwards. He closed the cabinet and opened a silverware drawer at his waist, where dozens of individually wrapped sets of plastic dinnerware were stacked in rows of three. As he took two packages away, he spent the next few minutes realigning the stacks, filling in the empty spaces.
She had been so busy looking at the drawer that she hadn’t seen his eyes follow her own gaze, and as she schooled her features back to blankness, he slammed the drawer shut. She jumped.
She barely noticed the running water in the sink as he washed his hands, using a tiny nail scrubber to reach under his fingernails. “Sex is something I think about a lot, you know. It’s dirty. It’s messy. Everyone’s sweaty and covered in each other, and the pleasure is so intense, even though the dirt is overwhelming. At any other point in your day you’d be disgusted to be covered in so much crap, but now when you’re lying there, all sweaty and fucked up, you’re so god damn happy to be there that you don’t give a shit. It’s easier than always being clean.” The scrubbing grew faster now, and she moved away from him, bumping into the chair at the table.
“You always have to be clean, that’s the first rule.” The scrubbing hands became a blur in the sink, now tinged with the faintest traces of pink.
“George!”
He was there in an instant, taking in the sink, listening as Keller’s body began to slowly rock back and forth next to the sink. “Cleanliness is next to Godliness, you know. God doesn’t like little ones who don’t take the care to be clean.”
Huang pulled a syringe gently out of his pocket, and uncapped it in one hand. “Chris, it’s Dr. Huang, and Sister Pete. You’re safe here, Chris. No one is going to hurt you. Don’t worry.”
The words bounced off the broad back like so much air, and the voice continued, even as the scream of the steam kettle on the stove added its own punctuation to the noise.
“Obey God. Obey The Sir, Obey The Holder, for they are God.” The syringe found its mark in the back of Keller’s neck. They rushed to catch him before he hit the floor, still murmuring, with eyes wide open and unseeing.
Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary 5:05 p.m.
The steaming water hit his face with a welcome burn. He jumped quickly from one foot to the other as the spray hit his balls with a painful smack. Quickly dialing the knobs, his finally found a temperature that didn’t sting as much. Moving his newly bandaged arm up out of the spray, he focused single-mindedly on soaping himself.
Later, he would he smack himself with the focus of hindsight at his own stupidity, but the roar of the spray in his ears drowned out the soft patter of bare feet on slick tile, and his head hit the wall with a force that left his ears ringing.
The soft voice in his ear was momentarily unidentifiable, but the accent was Italian, grating in his ear with a distinct guttural Brooklynese.
“What’s your problem, Keller? Trying to protect the little finoccio, ah? Is he giving you his ass?”
Elliot pushed as hard as he could against the wall, finally dislodging himself enough to whirl quickly and grab for whatever flesh he could reach. Grabbing a handful of the soft skin right underneath the other man’s armpit, he tossed him headfirst into the wall under the spray. Stepping away from the crumpled body on the floor, he grabbed for his towel and shoved his feet into his boots. Turning back, he turned the cold water on full blast, and as the man sputtered back to conciousness, Elliot smiled.
“Tell your boss that I don’t like being threatened, you little shit. And if you ever think you’re going to sneak up on me again, I will fucking DROWN you, do you understand me?” The body didn’t move.
Crouching, he pinned his arm against the throat of the Italian, who gasped for air, choking on the icy water that flowed in instead.
“Please! I understand! Please!” The words were little gasps, practically soundless, but Elliot loosened his hold. Grabbing his razor and soap, he stalked out of the bathroom.
~~~
Beecher barely looked up from the skin mag he was reading, hand moving slowly inside his pants as Stabler burst into the pod. He smirked.
“Hi, honey, you’re home. Feel like fucking your wife into the mattress?”
Elliot ignored him as he moved around, shrugging into his clothes as he dried off his chilly wet skin. He pretended not to notice Beecher’s eyes on his cock, and even with his pants on he felt more vulnerably naked than he ever had in his entire life.
“It’s an interesting feeling, isn’t it?” Toby’s voice was lower, but still mocking.
“What?”
“It makes you vulnerable, having someone watch you all the time.” His hand still moved slowly under his clothes, and Stabler dragged his eyes away from the back and forth rhythm.
“Every time you’ve every checked out a woman, every time you’ll ever check one out again, undressing her with your eyes, wondering what she looks like naked, there’s maybe that moment when she notices, and feels so dirty inside. All because you were looking at her. You didn’t need any words to make her feel like a whore. In the reflection she sees, she already is one.”
Stabler grabbed a boot and a wet cloth and sat down on the bunk, spit shining his boots. “Quit with the fucking mind games, Beecher. I’m too tired to deal with this shit.”
There was nothing for a few moments but the sound of his spitting on the cloth and the faint squeak of cloth on leather as he rubbed it to a shine.
“It’s true, though. Every moment in here, in your tiny box of glass, you’ll only have your mind to hide your shame.”
“I’m not ashamed of anything, Beecher. Shut the fuck up and go jerk off somewhere else.”
“Ring around the rosy, a pocket full of posies, ashes, ashes, we all fall down.” The grin under the blue eyes was alarming and hypnotic, spouting nonsense with the same soothing rhythm of a snake’s eyes, moving back forth in the fatal dance.
Elliot couldn’t take his eyes off the insanity before him. With the vague feeling of swimming father underwater than he could handle, the roaring in his ears grew louder. He vaguely registered that Toby was moving closer to him, holding his gaze with a smile that belonged in a nuthouse. His mouth was still spewing faintly familiar rhymes and quotes, with a simple staggered cadence. Their faces were closer now, almost touching. Holding Toby’s gaze was almost painful, as his eyes tried to focus on both blue orbs at once.
He could feel warm breath on his face, and even as the lips continued to move, the words became blurred in his ears. He could even feel the barest touch as the lips touched his while forming words.
His eyes fluttered shut and his head tilted to the side.
(Crack!) The slam on the glass started him out of his reverie, and his head whipped around to the glass door of the pod. O’Reilly was grinning at him, smirking as he grabbed for the pod door and shoved his head inside.
“Keller. You and me, laundry room. Now. We gotta talk.”
Elliot nodded and stood, shaking the last of his insanity away from him. His eyes skittered towards Beecher, and stopped just in time. He made his way outside, and didn’t look back.
Augustus Hill:
“The human body is an awe inspiring thing. Capable of so much and yet so little, the vast network of tissue, blood, and bone that supports adult human life is barely capable of life sustaining breath at birth. Moments from the time it’s born, most of the animal kingdom have mobility and instinct to provide them with the basic tools for life.
We’re human, creators of the pyramids and the cities of the Roman Empire, architects of skycrapers and minute silica computer chips. We live, breathe, and die trusting that our brains, and not our bodies will protect us from harm.
The struggle for every bit of adaptability that separates us from the animals is what brings us so close together. For every choice we make to rely on the tools we can create, God reminds us that we are still flesh. We are bone, meat, gristle on the tongues of far greater creatures. We exist in the sole pursuit of the knowledge that choice is the only thing we really have. Even man-gods die.”
Oswald Maximum Security Penitentiary 5:16 p.m.
He couldn’t have told anyone why it was still on his mind. The half furtive half annoyed glance Keller had given him as he’d banged on the glass was a fleeting joy, second to the instinctive nature of his adaptability for survival. He scrawled a graphic caption under the chalk image he’d drawn of McManus bent over a desk, pants around his ankles. He ignored the idiots outside, tuning in and out as his senses preferred, wasting time. Coloring in the final touches on his even more graphic cartoon of Murphy, he flipped the chalkboard down.
“Holy shit!” He jumped back, startled as his gaze caught icy eyes.
Keller smirked at him. Fishing in the pocket of the grey sweatshirt, he pulled out a cigarette and offered it to Ryan.
“What do you want, O’Reilly? I really don’t have all fucking day.”
“Relax, K-Boy, it’s not like you have a busy schedule to keep or anything.” The succor of the smoke in his lungs was a comfort. The brief lighting of the cigarette in his mouth gave him just enough time to recover and focus his thoughts.
“The Aryans are up to something.” He sucked down a drag.
“Keller snorted. “The fucking Aryans are always up to something. That doesn’t explain this.” He leaned back on one of the desks and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Yeah, it does. There’s something going on, and you know it too. That little incident in the gym’s been fucking with me. There’s just too many coincidental “incidents” that don’t add up. There’s no reason for you to stick your neck out for the little spick. Why’d you do it?”
Chris smirked. “It’s not like you were effective. He needed it, and I was there. End of story.”
Ryan’s head was beginning to hurt. He was missing something, something really important, he just couldn’t put his finger on it. He babbled, stalling for time. “The kid’s worse than dealing with Cyril. He goes crazy at night, can’t fucking stay out of trouble for two seconds.”
“Is there a point to this, O’Reilly?”
“You can go back to sucking face with your bitch in a sec, ok? I want to know why the fuck the Italians think Alvarez is worth the trouble.”
“You’re not as slick as you think you are O’Reilly. I have no beef with the Italians. They wouldn’t have tried to fuck me up if I hadn’t stepped into the ring to defend your newest pet.”
“Fine by me, Keller. Just remember that when your shit’s going down, you’re going to need someone like me, and if we toss both our shit into this, I have the feeling that we’re going to have the best chance of coming out with our skins.”
Chris snorted, flipping O’Reilly the finger as he turned to leave the room. “You can dance however many times you like, with whoever you want. I’m not getting drawn into this with you. I helped Alvarez because the odds weren’t there. There’s no call to kicking the shit out of a kid who hasn’t done anything. I’d do it again. It doesn’t mean I have to call out on anyone’s side.” He slammed the door into the wall as he left, kicking one of the desks out of the way.
Ryan flipped his board over again, doodling idly, touching up the pornographic cartoon of Murphy and McManus. The chalk snapped in his hands, smearing white talc all over.
“Fuck!” He spit into his hands and wiped them on the sides of his pants, checking idly for any other dust particles.
Suddenly, the clouds cleared, dawn broke anew, and the world stopped for Ryan. He stared intently at his hands, searching for the faint mark he knew would be there; the tiny puckered bit of whitish flesh at the base of his left ring finger. It was almost indiscernible from the rest of his skin, the tiny bits of pigment slowly filling in the gap as though it never had been. But, if he looked close enough, he could still see it, the tiny circlet where his wedding ring to Shannon had laid, covering skin that wouldn’t be seen again until they’d dropped him into OZ.
He was out of the door before he could remember moving.
Office of the New York City Medical Examiner Sheldon Hawkes, 1 Police Plaza
The seat-of-the-soul debate has been going on for some four thousand years. It started out not as a heart-versus-brain debate, but as heart-versus liver. With the rise of classical Greece, the soul debate evolved into the more familiar heart-versus-brain, the liver having been demoted to an accessory role. We are fortunate this is so, for we would have otherwise been faces with Celine Dion singing "My Liver Belongs To You," and movie houses playing The Liver is a Lonely Hunter. Every Spanish love song that contains the word corazon, which is all of them, would contain the somewhat less lilting higado, and bumper stickers would proclaim, "I [liver symbol] my Pekingese."
- How to Know if You're Dead, Stiff, by Mary Roach
He still scrubbed his hands like a surgeon, 30 smooth circular brush strokes up and down both of his hands, wrists, and forearms, on both sides. There was something comforting to the ritual. It maintained the semblance of purity in what was otherwise a messy, smelly, job.
Pulling on a pair of tight fitting rubber gloves, Dr. Sheldon Hawkes pushed open the door to the morgue, the sudden gust of chilly air making the flesh on his bare arms stand up in goosebumps.
Human tissue is probably the most versatile tissues ever studied by man. Due to a high fat content and non-soluble oils, it can take years for human skin to lose elasticity, and even as it dries into leather, still retains a hard waxy patina of skin fat, slick to the touch.
The scalpel blade slid slowly into the tissue, careful to stay the prescribed eighth of an inch above the xiphoid process. Her hand never wavered, but the fine sheen of sweat on her forehead trickled into her eyes, and the sting burned. She stopped and waited for her heart to stop hammering. The smell no longer bothered her after years of cutting into dead and dessicated tissue, but the scene was still appalling. She fought down the bile in her throat.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to take care of it? I can, you know. You’ve had a crazy day as it is.” Hawk gripped her hand gently over the incision.
She grimaced. “I can handle it, Hawk. You know I can. This case just freaks me out a bit.”
He looked puzzled. “Come on, Mel, you’ve been doing this even longer than I have. What’s so special about this one that’s making you tremble like a first year deiner?”
“I don’t know, really. We spend hours each day cutting all kinds of people open. We tear apart children, and parents, and the old as well as the young. Every single one of them eventually dies, and goes on to some greater purpose.”
“Hopefully.” He glanced back at the boy on the table.
“Yes, hopefully. Each one has some special glimpse of heaven at the end of the road, some sure knowledge that maybe, just maybe, even though their suffering was great in this world, they’ll be protected in the next. But, these kids…how can we ever know if even heaven will be enough to save them?”
“I don’t know. But we can at least try to find the answers.”
She sucked in a deep breath and continued the cut, following the line of the sternum carefully down as it sliced completely through the abdominal wall. A soft sweetish smell began to stifle the air, not unlike raw meat. Sheldon took his place on the other side of the table, moving in tandem with her to peel back the remaining soft tissues and muscle on either side of the Y.
“Give me a brighter light over here Hawk.” He moved to pull the ultra bright overhead lamp above the table. The extra brightness helped illuminate the exposed rib cage, and he grabbed for the autopsy notepad as she began to dictate.
“There are at least four recent breaks to the left fourth, fifth, and sixth pairs of ribs. There is also one distintictive healed break to the right 6th rib. The bone has been completely cracked through, and there is no sign of any formative healed tissue around the break.”
Dr. Hawkes leaned over the cavity, inserting one gloved finger underneath the bone to pry it gently away from the lung tissue. “It didn’t pierce the lung. Lucky break, so to speak, but the blunt force trauma would have been enough to prevent adequate air from entering the lung cavity. There wasn’t any presence of patechial hemorrhaging, though.”
“It’s definitely an odd presentation, though. The break was fresh, and almost certainly incapacitating. Even standing straight would be nearly impossible as the rib pressed on the underlying tissue.”
“I’ll pull a blood sample from the subclavian artery. I’ll send it to the lab for a tox screen. If he was physically incapable of standing, then blood pumping to all organs would have pooled at the bottom of the body after death if he were lying prone. Almost all post mortem blood bruising is in the lower extremities.” He bent lower, trying to examine the surface of the skin more closely.
“If he was standing, then why aren’t there any ligature marks? Why isn’t there any lividity proving that he didn’t just stand there and take it?”
“Maybe he did.” He peeled back the eyelids, searching the surface with a small penlight, looking for the telltale red splotches of color that would indicate asphyxiation.
Melinda didn’t want to contemplate that option, not with the tiny body of another broken child just a few feet away.
~~~
The otherwise quiet observation room was packed with two groups of people, quietly talking amongst themselves. They stopped speaking as they noticed his approach.
“Hi everyone, it’s been a very busy morning, so we’re going to have to move this along as quickly as possible. I’m going to have to assume that introductions have already been made. Detective Taylor?”
Mac Taylor was not a man for pleasantries. Referencing from a small manila casefile, he began. “This morning, Detective Bonasera and I –“ He motioned to the woman at his side. “-were called over to the Meatpacking District by Homicide. They’d found two boys, wrapped in plastic painter’s sheeting, about to be dismembered by one of the warehouse employees. We currently have the man in custody, but he has invoked his right to counsel, and will not answer any questions about the children, or how they came to be on his table, about to go under the knife.”
“Why call us?” Cragen asked, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets against the cold.
“We’d just received an alert from your M.E. to be aware of any strange occurrences or similarities. That’s why we’re here. Both of these boys presented unusual levels of abuse and trauma, far worse than anything I’ve seen in my career.” Bonasera clenched her jaw even as she said the words, biting back further comments.
Finn grimaced. “There’s gotta be a law against watching this twice in a few days.”
She gestured to the observation glass. “We can watch through here. Dr. Warner is already conducting the autopsy with the aid of our resident Dr. Hawkes. So far as we know, any trace has already been collected. Is there anything else, Mac?”
“Nope. I know Stella’s got it covered. I’ll be back at the scene processing. We’ll see if we can find anything else.”
Cragen shook his hand. “Thanks for your help. This whole thing has been eating my guys alive for a week now, and we appreciate any help we can get.”
Mac turned before leaving. “I know that this has become a personal issue with many members of the department. We’d appreciate it if you kept us up to date so that we can assist. We’ve already tried contacting the Bureau, but we were referred directly to you.”
Don nodded. The stale air of the room made him acutely aware of the sweat of strain rolling down his back. “To the best of our knowledge, this case has roots. We’ve been uncovering related cases that go back as far as 30 years on this one. The demographic is completely nonfunctional. Someone has been buying or stealing boys from underpriveledged homes, and God knows where else for thirty years. Each boy was between the ages of one year and fifteen years. All of them were catalogued as runaways by the system. We’ve been trying to match any known organizations or kiddie slave rings with no success. Our shrink has the feeling that it may be the work of one man, but we’ve found no evidence to support it.”
Finn grabbed his arm. “They’ve found something.”
~~~
The second tiny body lay under a morgue sheet, the torso exposed. The smell was overwhelming, but Sheldon didn’t notice. He tapped his body mike and gestured to the SVU detectives on the other side of the glass. “Can you guys hear me?”
He watched as they nodded and pressed closer to watch.
“External examination reveals a young prepubescent male, pelvic girdle and chest plate indications say that he’s probably 8 to 10 years old. White, with brown hair, and…blue eyes.” His fingers pulled the eyelids up gently, using a small light to peer down at the iris.
Warner examined the feet gently, pulling each toe apart. “He has small lateral cuts on the pads of both feet.”
The tiny body was covering bruising of all sizes, some with the distinctive fan shape of fingertips pressing in the muscle underneath.
“This is the interesting part.” Dr. Hawkes lifted the head upwards gently from the examination block. Between them both, they turned the body over, splaying the neck forwards with the jaw jutting out, straining the neck forwards so that all could see.
Melinda switched on the overhead projector, making their minute manipulations easier for the observers to see in the room beyond.
Moving the flexible camera scope closer to the mottled skin, she brushed away the fine stray hair at the base of the neck. She spoke softly into the microphone.
“We’ve already observed the typical piercing and reconstructive surgery that also presented itself in the other boy. What we didn’t see was…this.”
The soft hair had covered a fine thin ring, similar to the one that she had seen in the earlier exam. The small band of metal spun smoothly in a shell of fine silicone. The tubing ran just beneath the flesh and presumably into the cavity between the muscle of the neck and the third vetebrae. The skin around the shell was bruised, raw, and scabbed.
“Whatever else we know, we do know that this boy was only implanted a couple of days ago. There may be a slim chance to this, but if you can find out where he came from, it may be the first solid piece of evidence.”
She caught the captain’s glance as he pressed the button on the two-way system. “Where do we start?”
She spun the smooth coldness in her fingers until the light from the overhead illuminated the tiny engravings, magnified for their view on the screen above. The laser cut script legend slowly came into view as Sheldon turned up the magnification on the lens.
Hawk squinted. “Keith. His name is Keith.” Adjusting the magnification on the swivel neck of the camera in his hands, he angled the smooth surface of the ring against the light, bringing into sharp relief the laser etched numbers and name.
~~~
Captain Cragen shook off the rising bile in his throat and swallowed down his emotions. “Finn, get on the phone to Munch and Cassidy. Find out of the kid they’re looking for is the same boy on that table.”
Finn was already dialing. Anticipating the ring on the other end of the line, he inclined his head towards his Captain. “If this is the kid…what kind of timeline are we looking at?”
Don reached forward and pressed the intercom button. “Melinda, Finn and I are going to go check in with John and Cassidy. We’ll be back for the results later. If I’m right…we may know where this boy came from.”
~ Hussy & Wicked 2/2004 ~ Everything here is purely fiction and the product of someones dark twisted fantasy. Any actual persons mentioned are not known or affiliated with this site or its Web Mistresses no matter how much we may wish! Any stories involving real persons are purely just that, stories and a product of the author's own fantasies. No events are claimed to be true nor are they meant to be taken as a reflection of that person's actual life, personality, etc. In other words, we strongly state this is all FICTION so do not sue! The fabulously "wicked" graphics are all the product of Wicked. ~
