Apologies to everyone for yet another Law and Order:SVU crossover. You must think I'm fixated on it. I'm not, really, I'm not, it's just that it was the best fit for the story I wanted to write. please let me know what you think. Thanks.

Tangled Webs

Detective Joss Carter's POV

Carter tried to disguise her urgency as she strode through the SVU squad-room. She acknowledged the greetings of those detectives who recognised her but did not stop. She was here to meet and talk with only one person and that meeting could not be delayed.

"Carter, over here."

A familiar female voice carried across the room. Carter saw that its owner was standing in front of what appeared to be a window but what was actually, Joss knew, a one-way mirror allowing those outside to see into the interrogation room beyond without being seen themselves. Hiding her relief, Carter headed towards where Detective Olivia Benson was standing.

"Olivia. It's been a while." Carter's eyes flickered over the other female detective's shoulder, trying to see into the interrogation room, but her line of sight was blocked by the other woman. The smile she gave her colleague, however, was genuine. She and Olivia had never worked together but they both went back to the time when the number of female detectives in the NYPD could be counted on the fingers of both hands and that formed a bond.

Olivia Benson smiled back, just as genuinely. "Too long." She replied. "They're keeping you busy over at the Homicide Task Force and working with the Feds as well."

Carter shrugged. "No more busy than you people in sex crimes and you've had your moments with the Fee bees too from what I hear." She said. "So …our guy?"

Olivia took a half step to her side allowing Carter to see into the room beyond. What she saw did not surprise her but that did not stop her heart from sinking all the same. She had been hoping against hope that it was all a gigantic mix up. The man sitting there, being harangued by two of New York's finest was all too well known to her. The unnaturally erect posture, the round rimmed glasses, with their thick lenses, the faded check shirt and shapeless mousy coloured cardigan. There was no doubt that the SVU were holding Norman Burdett, alias Harold Finch, alias Harold Wren, alias …, well, who knew?

She watched as a heavily built black detective with a shaved head and a younger Hispanic interrogated the man and swallowed, convulsively. Underneath his unassuming exterior, she knew Finch had a core of steel and a genius level intellect so they were unlikely to break him or trick him but the longer they held him, the longer they dug into "Norman Burdett's" life and background, the more chance there was of them finding something that didn't add up, not to mention that, of his other identities, Harold Wren, at least, had a separate life and job and would, presumably, be reported missing if he didn't turn up for work at Universal Heritage Insurance when expected. If that happened and someone were to identify that Harold Wren, Insurance Underwriter, and Norman Burdett, Paralegal, were actually one and the same man, everything could unravel for Harold Finch very fast.

60 minutes earlier

Her cell rang and she glanced down at the caller ID…number unrecognised, so probably John or Finch. She put the cell to her ear.

"Yes?"

"Finch is in trouble." The voice was as soft and calm as usual but with an underlying urgency.

She tensed at the words, her mind flicking back to the time the computer expert had been kidnapped. She glanced across the squad room and caught Fusco's eye. He put down the sheaf of crime scene photographs he had been studying and lumbered across the room towards her.

"John." She said out loud to confirm her caller's identity to her partner. She kept her voice steady. "What sort?" She asked.

"Cop trouble. He's been taken to SVU for questioning."

"How do you know?"

"I was on the phone with him. I heard his doorbell ring. He kept the line open while he went to check who it was. He said that they were flashing badges and it would be suspicious if he didn't answer. I heard two voices, a man and a woman over his phone. They identified themselves as SVU cops and asked him to come to the precinct with them to answer some questions about the abduction and murder of a neighbourhood girl. That was four hours ago. He's still there. They consider him a suspect."

"This isn't connected to something you're involved in?"

"No."

"What can Fusco and I do?"

"He's kept the line open but sound quality is poor so I'm not getting the full picture. I need you to insert yourself into the investigation and find out what's going on. What evidence they think they have on him."

Carter frowned, briefly. "I can try, John, but I'll need some sort of reason for butting in."

The voice on the other end became even more urgent. "Find one. His cell battery won't last forever and we need to keep eyes on him."

"Given that this is Harold Finch we're talking about, what name was he using?"

"Burdett. Oh, and tell Lionel to meet me at the Burdett address. He and I can check what's happening there and work the kidnap/murder angle."

"OK." The call ended and she quickly briefed Fusco on the situation. Her partner nodded and disappeared off, leaving her to solve the problem of how she was going to get herself involved with the SVU investigation. With a sigh, she thought she might as well confirm that their man was actually being held. She had typed the first two letters of Finch's alias into the computer before she snatched her hands back and deleted the entry with one click of her mouse. This thing could go south very quickly and, if it did, someone from I.A.D. might become interested at the timing of her sudden resurgence of interest in "Burdett". Not for the first time she cursed the ridiculous circumstances that John and Finch's activities put her in. She would have to do this the slow way. She sighed as she opened the NYPD databases and began paging through reports and requests for information as fast as she dared. She came across what she was looking for several, frustrating, minutes later – a report from SVU that they were interrogating one Norman Burdett, a suspect in the kidnapping and murder of Kirsty Mangano, a sixteen year old high school student.

OK, so she'd confirmed what she already knew. Now, how to get her foot in the door? Inspiration hit her. She checked the primary on the case and noted it was Olivia Benson, better and better. Carter picked up the land line phone and dialled an internal number.

"Olivia, its Joss Carter. I've been checking the reports and I see that you're holding Norman Burdett as a suspect in a kidnap/murder. It's not a common name and I was wondering if it's the same guy who was a witness in one of my open cases, a robbery at evidence lock-up. What does he look like? Short, wears glasses, walks with a limp...Yeah he sounds like the same guy. I always thought he wasn't telling me everything he knew. He seemed like a very meek guy when I interviewed him. The sort who's be very easy to intimidate. I always wondered if they'd threatened him to keep him quiet. Yeah, this could give me some leverage. Sure, I'll come over; maybe we can help each other."

End Flashback

"So, what can you tell me about Mr. Burdett and his involvement in this robbery?" Olivia asked.

With an effort Carter pulled her mind back to the present. "He's a paralegal. He was present at lock-up researching a case when four armed and masked men burst in and held him and the staff at gunpoint while they stole a single piece of evidence relating to an old case. Two of the thieves ended up dead, killed by an unknown shooter but the other two got away. A while later, the stolen evidence, a kitchen knife, ended up stuck in a hit man. It was the same knife he was alleged to have used to kill Marlene Elias."

"Carl Elias' mother?" Olivia's voice betrayed her shock. As Carter nodded, she glanced into the interview room, towards the man being harangued by her colleagues. "If he knows something he's not telling you, maybe its understandable." she mused, "There are plenty of gangsta's out there who would keep their mouths shut as well."

Carter nodded. "But you can see why I'm interested. What do you have on him?"

Olivia collected her thoughts. "Kirsty Mangano was found dead by the city garbage disposal department at 0617 this morning. Her body had been left out in the street covered by garbage bags. They lifted the bags to throw them on the truck and exposed her body. ME says she'd been dead for six to seven hours, cause of death was strangulation. We're searching the area and Burdett's house for whatever was used as a ligature. Parents said they thought she was sleeping over with a friend, friend says Kirsty got a text and cried off at the last minute. She doesn't know who the text was from but Kirsty had been hinting that she was seeing an older man for a coupla weeks now."

"Was she raped?" Carter asked.

"She'd had sex a short time before she died but the jury's out on whether or not it was rape or consensual – in as far as a sixteen year old can legally consent."

"So, rape or statutory rape." Carter mused. "What pointed you towards Burdett?"

"She was found round the corner from his house and the trash she was buried under came from there. Also, he seems to fit what little we know and can guess about the older boyfriend and the circumstances surrounding the murder, in that he's an older single man living alone. Add to that, a witness came forward saying he saw Burdett talking with Kirsty on a number of occasions, the last time only a few hours before her death. If he didn't kill her he may be the last person to see her alive."

Carter had a brief flash of gallows humour as she wondered at the amount of garbage Finch seemed to have accumulated in this, part-time, identity. Perhaps he had it specially made-up for him? Aloud she said, "Seems a bit thin."

Olivia nodded. "The real reason we brought him in was to avoid a riot. Our witness shouted his mouth off in front of the entire neighbourhood and they were already getting out the tar and feathers when we went round to pick him up. We either need to prove he's the doer or completely exonerate him. If we let him go while the mob is still after his blood, the next case you guys in Homicide pick up could involve him as the victim."

Carter glanced back into the interrogation room. "Well Finch, it looks like another of your cover identities just got burned." She thought. Aloud, she said, "How are your guys doing in there?"

Olivia turned up the audio and they tuned into the on-going interrogation.

T.B.C.