16th Precinct

Special Victims Unit

2:41 A.M., March 16, 2006

"How's the head?" Munch inquired as he came stumbling bleary-eyed into the squad room. Things had settled down there shortly after Elliot and Olivia had left, and once they had received word from Cragen that their colleagues were ok, he and Fin had both staggered off to the crib for another hour's sleep so they would be fit to drive home.

"Sore," Elliot replied, "but they got all the wood chips out without having to shave it so I can't complain. Thanks." He looked at John and then at his partner as she handed him a cup of coffee and so included them both in the word.

"Did they give you a shot of antibiotics?" Fin asked.

"Right in the ass," he nodded.

"Not an image I want in my head this late at night Stabler," Olivia quipped.

He grinned at her and said, "Admit it, Liv, you want my body."

"Pfft! As if. I get enough of looking at your ugly mug all day at work. Why would I want to see the other end, too?"

"I guess Veronica was wrong," Munch said.

Elliot and Olivia exchanged glances. They had agreed on the way back to the station that there was just no way they could explain all the events of the evening in an official report, so they decided together that it would be best not to tell anyone.

"I'm here, ain't I?" he asked instead.

"You know what yesterday was, don't you?" Munch asked, as if someone should. When he got blank looks all around, he told them, "The Ides of March."

Olivia nearly spewed her coffee at that, which got a smirk from Munch, but Elliot and Fin were still in the dark. Catching her breath, Olivia looked from one of them to the other and said, "Come on, you guys, the assassination of Julius Caesar."

Fin and Elliot were less than impressed.

"An ominous day indeed," John said portentously.

"Come on, John, you, the professional skeptic, don't believe in that clairvoyant crap and omens, do you?" she asked.

"If it's crap, why did the CIA spend over twenty million dollars between nineteen seventy and nineteen ninety-five to fund remote viewing programs to spy on the Soviets and other foreign powers?" Munch challenged them.

Elliot painfully, carefully scratched his head. "Uhh, to cover up something even more sinister and insidious?"

John opened his mouth as if to respond, and then closed it when he realized there was no response to what Elliot had said. To disagree would go against his nature as an obsessed conspiracy theorist. To agree would mean retracting the argument he had just made in support of psychic powers.

Fin smirked at his partner and said, "It's about time somebody shut you up."

John glowered at him, but he ignored it.

"So, how's it going with Veronica?" Liv asked. "Did she tell Huang anything useful?"

Fin shook his head. "About two minutes after you left, she stopped crying, smiled at him, said everything was going to be all right, and walked away. We didn't have anything to hold her on, so we couldn't stop her. I'm sorry, Elliot."

Elliot made a face and shook his head. "It's all right. If she's really that fixated on me, she'll turn up again. In twenty years, we never knew she was there. I don't think she's really dangerous."

"Well, that's a turnaround," Munch said.

"Yeah, well, that's what happens when you get half a packing crate buried in your skull, I guess."

"Oh, hey!" Fin interjected, suddenly remembering something. "I never did figure out who she is, but get this. There's a mansion at East 67th Street and Fifth Avenue, in sight of Central Park called Austin House. Nobody by that name has lived there for over fifty years, but the last Mr. and Mrs. Austin to raise a family there had a daughter named Veronica."

"You're kidding me!" Elliot grinned in surprise.

"I'm serious as a heart attack," Fin told him, putting his mug on the corner of his desk to be rinsed when he returned to work in the morning. "Take care of yourself, Elliot, Liv. Both of you get some rest."

"Millie called back about the paper," John said while Fin was slipping his coat on. "It has an unusually high rag content. Made it easy for her to identify the manufacturer. Thing is, they quit making it during World War II and switched over to wood pulp because scrap fabric was being collected for the war effort, and they never started making it again afterward. That paper was last manufactured in February of 1943."

Fin was nearly out the door, so Munch gulped the last of his coffee and said, "Hold up. I'll walk you out." Turning to Olivia and Elliot, he said, "Glad you made it back. See you in the morning, guys."

Elliot and Olivia waved him off, and then turned to face each other across their shared desks.

"Why don't you try to catch a few hours in the crib?" Liv asked. "I can type up our reports and you can review them in the morning."

Nodding, Elliot said, "In a while. Right now I'm too wound up to sleep."

Liv shrugged as if it was all the same to her and said, "Suit yourself. Mind if I get started on the paperwork? I'd like to get some sleep tonight."

"Yeah. You go ahead."

After Olivia booted up her computer and began typing, he took the five drawings that predicted the evening's events out of a folder in his desk drawer and sat studying them as he drank his coffee, unaware of the concerned looks his partner was giving him as she worked. He chewed his lips thoughtfully and stared at each drawing in turn, willing them to speak to him. Finally, as if he had made some decision, he scooped them together, tapped them into a neat stack, and slipped them back into their folder and into the drawer again. Then he sat there with his arms folded for a while, just staring at his desk blotter.

Worried about what thoughts might be swirling around inside his head, Olivia asked gently, "You all right?"

"Hmmm? Oh, yeah, fine," he said distractedly. Then he focused on her and said, "You've always been straight with me about who you are and why you're here."

"Yeah. It's not something I like to advertise," she said, knowing he would understand that she was referring to being a child of rape, "but once I got to know you, I felt like, given how much time we're together and the work we do, you had a right to know. Why do you mention it?"

Darting his eyes about in a furtive glance to make sure no one was still working in their area of the squad room, he still decided that he wanted even more privacy and moved to sit in the chair beside Olivia's desk that was usually reserved for witnesses and sometimes victims who came in to give their statements.

"Elliot, what is it?" she asked in concern.

He found it surprisingly difficult to meet her eyes.

"I don't know why . . . I never trusted you with . . . my truth," he began awkwardly.

"You don't have to do this, El—"

"My dad," he interrupted her before she could finish his name, and then he stalled. He fidgeted in his seat, crossed and uncrossed his arms, sighed, and bit his lip.

"He . . ." He pressed his lips into a thin line and stuck just the tip of his tongue out between them, took a deep breath and let it out. "Umm."

Olivia took pity on him and placed a hand on the arm he was resting on the edge of her desk. He stared at it for a long moment, and when he still couldn't speak, she said sympathetically, "I know, El."

He looked at her in surprised and said, "You do? How?"

"I haven't been doing this job for seven years for nothing, you know," she said. "It took me a while to put it together, but from the compassion you show the child victims, the way you're crazy in love with your own kids and the idea of being a dad, and, well, your temper, too, I eventually figured out that your dad wasn't a very nice man."

His eyes drifted to stare at a spot on the floor right in front of him. She watched compassionately as he searched for something to say. His Adam's apple worked up and down several times, and finally, he said, "He had this . . . braided leather belt that he used. It left a pattern on my skin. Even in the summer . . . sometimes I would wear long sleeves and jeans . . . to hide it for him."

He fell silent again for a bit and then abruptly asked. "Why would I do that, Liv? Why would I hide it for him?"

The confusion and hurt Olivia heard in his voice tore at her heart, and she gave his arm a gentle squeeze. Wanting to make it better, and knowing that she couldn't, she tried to explain it for him anyway.

"It's hard for a child to understand why a parent who is supposed to love him would hurt him, Elliot," she said. "There has to be a reason, you think, and you look for an explanation. When there isn't one, you become convinced that it's somehow your fault. You were hiding it for yourself."

He pressed his lips together thoughtfully and slowly nodded, accepting her reasoning.

"What Veronica said, about him being sorry, do you think that was true?" he wondered half to himself.

She hesitated not sure if he wanted her to reply, but when he looked at her, his eyes searching her face, she answered.

"I don't know what your dad was like, except for what you've told me," she said, "but if he ever loved you, he's sorry."

He frowned at her, and then nodded, apparently finding something he could hold on to in her answer. After a moment, he sighed, stood up and stretched, and said, "Yeah, well, I'm going to grab a few hours in the rack. Tomorrow isn't far off."

As he walked past her desk, Olivia gave him a pat on the arm and said, "Sleep well."

"Yeah, thanks," he smiled back at her and headed off to the crib.

Austin House

East 67th Street & Fifth Avenue

7:54 A.M., March 16, 2006

Elliot knew it was way to early to be calling on the idle rich, but working people were usually up and gone by this time. Maybe there would at least be a butler or someone around to tell him about Veronica Austin.

As luck would have it, the lady of the house was already up and Elliot found himself waiting in a spacious vestibule for her to arrive. He admired the marble floors and artwork on the walls and shook his head when the manservant hung his coat in a closet that was more spacious than his kids' bedrooms at home, not that they used them much anymore.

"Detective Stabler, Madame," he heard the deep, cultured voice present him.

Then a surprised young woman gasped, "I really didn't think it would be you."

"Natalie?" Elliot frowned in shock. "Natalie Bell?"

"You remember me!"

"Of course I do," he said, and as she approached him with open arms, he welcomed the hug and responded in kind when she gave him a peck on the cheek.

"It's Natalie Bell-Roeper now, by the way," she told him. "I've been married for almost a year."

"I seem to remember hearing about that," he said. "Congratulations. I hope you have many happy years together."

She looped her arm through his and led him into a large gallery space with a sweeping spiral staircase on one side.

"I sent you an invitation. Didn't you get it?"

"I did," he nodded, "but work's always busy."

"I understand," she said, "but I do wish you could have been there. If not for you . . . "

She didn't need to finish the thought. She'd been kidnapped for ransom as a child. Her parents had paid the money, and the kidnapper had skipped without telling them where she was. Elliot and Alphonse had tracked the guy down, but Elliot been the one to rescue her. Alphonse had been too fat to get into the hole where she was buried.

"So, what brings you here after all this time?" she asked after a quiet moment.

"Actually, I was looking for someone, and my search brought me here," he said. "But I'm sure there must be some mistake."

"Well, mistake or no, why don't you join me for breakfast? Cook has made fresh crullers and coffee."

Elliot grinned, past the point of questioning the coincidences. "All right," he agreed. "Lead the way."

They ate in the formal dining room on the second floor and then crossed the parlor to the living room.

"So, who is this person for whom you are searching?" Natalie asked as she kicked off her shoes and curled up on the sofa.

Eliot glanced around the elegant space, feeling suddenly unkempt after a long night and too little sleep, but he froze when his eyes rested on a portrait on the north wall between two windows.

"Her!" he gasped.

"Who?"

He stood and crossed the room to look at a painting of a lovely young woman with abundant waves of auburn hair, full red lips, and a creamy complexion.

"Detective Stabler, that's impossible!"

"No. I spoke to her last night."

"You couldn't have, Detective," Natalie said in amusement. "That's my great-grandmother, Veronica Austin-Bell. The doctors say she died of pneumonia in the winter of 1945, but family lore has it she died of a broken heart. My great-grandfather, Matthew Bell, was shot down over the Sea of Japan on Christmas Eve in 1944. He was a Marine Corps fighter pilot. She was only 36 and my grandfather, Nathan, was just thirteen. He was raised by an aunty on his father's side."

He turned to her. "Oh. I see. Was she artistic?"

"I beg your pardon?"

"Could she draw, paint, sketch?"

"She was a very talented artist," Natalie said proudly. "Come back into the dining room and I'll show you some of her work."

Three sketches of almost photographic quality hung in a corner near the sideboard. One was of a boy and his father posing with a sizeable bass. They both looked delighted. On an impulse, he asked, a little shyly, "Could I have this picture?"

Natalie peered from the sketch to Elliot, looking from one to the other several times.

"The child rather looks like you, doesn't he?" she asked. "But you can't have been born yet."

He was silent, enraptured by the sketch.

"Detective, are you quite all right?"

He nodded and said softly, "Yeah. This just reminds me of a camping trip I took with my dad when I was a kid."

"Well, we have trunks full of her work in the attic," Natalie told him. "My grandfather said she was a bit compulsive, and always had her sketchbook with her so if an image popped into her head, she could get it on paper before it was lost. You may have it if you wish, but only if you tell me why you're so interested in my great-grandmother."

Helen O'Hara's House

Corona, Queens

2:32 P.M., March 16, 2006

"Elliot!" Kathy Stabler said in shock. It was her day off, but the last thing she expected was for her ex-husband to show up at the door. "What are you doing here? I thought the danger was over."

"It is," he assured her, "for most of us."

Frowning, a little frightened, she asked him, "Elliot, what is that supposed to mean?"

He pressed his lips together, indecision suddenly plaguing him.

"El?"

"I'm worried about Kathleen," he blurted. "I'd like us to search her room, together."

"Elliot!" She was shocked and offended.

"We'll be done before she gets home from school," he said. "If I'm wrong, she'll never know. If I'm right she needs our help."

He was so sincere in his concern for their daughter that Kathy couldn't think he was judging her for the way she was raising their children without him. All he wanted was for them to be safe.

"She's in my sister Susan's old room," she said, standing aside and letting him lead the way.

vvvvvvv

"What are you doing here?" Kathleen shouted when she came up the stairs to find her parents standing in her bedroom. "Haven't you ever heard of privacy?"

Olivia's tips from growing up with an alcoholic mother had been useful. They had found three fifths of gin and over two-dozen mini bottles stuffed in shoes, purses, even the big, leafy philodendron that sat in the windowsill.

Elliot didn't say a word. He just stepped aside so she could see the collection of booze they had discovered. For a long moment, there was nothing but stunned silence, but it was finally broken by Kathleen.

"Daddy, Mom, I'm so sorry," she wept. "I've been . . . I've been so sad, and it felt so good at the party. It just got harder and harder to stop."

Elliot moved toward her, and she collapsed in his arms, weeping. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

He scooped her up and moved to sit on the bed where he rocked her in his arms and hushed her like he had when she was a baby. Kathy sat beside him and stroked her hair.

"It's all right, Sweetheart," they told her. "We're going to get you help. You don't have to do this alone."

Eventually, she fell asleep. They tucked her in, and Elliot placed all the bottles in a paper bag so the twins wouldn't see them when he carried them out. He visited with them, played a few hands of Go Fish, fixed a leaky faucet for his mother-in-law, and talked to Maureen when she called. Then Kathy walked him to his car.

"I was worried about Kathleen," she told him, "but I had no idea what was wrong. How did you know?"

"It's a long, long story," he said. "I'll tell you sometime, but not tonight."

She frowned, he smiled. "Come over for dinner on Sunday," he offered. "Leave the kids with your mom, and we can talk. I'll tell you all about it then."

"You want to talk?"

"Yeah, I think I remember how."

He laughed at her confusion. "Just say you'll be there, maybe around five?"

She nodded. "Ok."

He was still holding the bag full of booze in one hand, but he wrapped the other arm around her and pulled her close for a kiss.

"Love you. See you Sunday."

"Uh, yeah, love you, too."

He couldn't stop grinning as he drove back to Elmhurst. Who- or whatever she was, Veronica had been right. Talking with his wife really had been easier than he expected. Maybe someday, they could have something together again. Maybe, just maybe, Veronica had saved his life in more ways than one.

The End