Chapter Text
10 Months Earlier
It was the middle of the day when Olivia got the call. She was out with Elliot, canvassing for witnesses, when Cragen called. Their complainant in another case, Roberta Clarke, was set to take the stand in a few days. Only she had been stabbed and was in critical condition at the hospital.
In too many ways, Roberta was a standard case. She had a successful career as an English and philosophy professor, specializing in nineteenth- and twentieth-century aesthetics, though she’d never quite been able to explain what that meant in a way that made sense to Olivia. Almost fifteen years ago, after taking a position at Hudson, she and her husband, James Grant, had relocated to New York, away from everyone Roberta knew.
Dr. James “Jimmy” Grant, was a veterinarian who’d used his wife’s ties to academia to tack on a side gig as a veterinary medicine professor. Though he spent his days teaching others to save animals, love gave way to beatings and devotion turned to coercion. Roberta had been living with it for years, seemingly resigned to her fate. When Grant joined the First Covenant of the Resurrectionists, a Christian sect that maintained it was most definitely not a cult, things got worse. Grant believed he had sole authority over his wife. Everyone around him echoed that message back.
According to Roberta, her husband’s complaints were many, though she'd seen them as her own faults rather than as problems he had invented. Grant demanded she leave her professorship and pursue a more family-oriented lifestyle. At the very least, he thought she should change her area of specialization. He berated her for being late coming home from work, for not cooking well enough, for the fact that they could not conceive, despite all fertility testing finding no faults with Roberta.
So when one of her colleagues had asked about the bruises, Roberta finally spoke up. When that colleague suggested going to the police, Roberta had been practicing agreeing with her husband for so long that she didn’t have the words to say she wasn’t ready. That was how Olivia met her.
It was Alex who got through to her, eventually. Each time Roberta broke down crying, saying she didn’t have the strength to testify or that she didn’t want to see her husband suffer, it was Alex at her side, talking her back from the ledge. When Roberta’s friends from church told her she was better off keeping private matters private, Alex was there reminding her that the church was her husband’s world. Alex was always patient, always giving and forgiving. Roberta listened to her.
In the quiet sanctity of her office when they were alone, Alex had voiced doubts to Olivia about the lack of physical evidence and the very real possibility that Roberta would crack under pressure. But, the next day, she'd looked Roberta in the eyes and promised her they would see Grant pay for what he did.
Alex couldn’t do anything now.
Before Elliot could finish saying, “You go. I’ll finish up here,” she was on her way to her car and dialing Alex’s number. The phone was heavy in her hand as she waited for Alex to pick up.
This was the sort of call Olivia would always volunteer for, preferring to be the one to guide Alex through tragedy if such tragedies arose. But that didn’t make it any easier. On either of them.
Alex answered with her usual professionalism, no doubt expecting to be asked for a warrant or informed that someone had gone off the rails again and she was going to have to clean up after their mess. She was silent as Olivia spoke, silent for a moment afterwards. Olivia was beginning to think the call may have been dropped, but then Alex said, only, that she was on her way and hung up.
It was a random stabbing, the officer at the hospital told Olivia when she arrived. A robbery gone wrong. They had the perp in custody, bloody knife in his hand. He was high and paranoid and desperate for money and confessed to it all before he’d even been processed. The case was as open-and-shut as it could be. For everything Jimmy Grant had done to his wife, it would seem he had not done this.
Olivia was still processing the information when Alex burst onto the scene, dressed for work. Skirt suit and heels screaming professionalism even as her face boiled with panic and… rage?
“What the hell are you doing here?” Alex bellowed.
It took a moment for Olivia to track her eyes, but there he was: Jimmy Grant, face placid. Gone was the smug smile he’d greeted them with so many times. Gone was the feigned shock and indignation. For the first time, Olivia believed she was seeing the real Grant. Grieving and matching Alex in his fury.
He and Alex were on a collision course. Olivia walked quickly to intercept them.
“Where is my wife?” Grant yelled.
“Surely you know,” Alex replied. “After what you did to her, were you hoping she was headed straight to the morgue?”
“I didn’t do anything!”
Olivia wedged herself between Alex and Grant, a light grip on Alex’s arm as a warning. Neither of them seemed to notice her presence.
“You must think you’re so clever. You couldn’t take the chance of her ruining your reputation in court. Couldn’t bear the thought of her getting on the stand and telling nothing but the truth about what you did to her. What you’d still be doing to her if you had your way. But she was getting away, so you had to take action.”
“I am her emergency contact!” Grant protested. “I came as soon as I heard. I just need to know if my wife is alright.”
“She would be, if you hadn’t stabbed her.”
“Enough!” Olivia interrupted. In that moment, she wasn’t sure if she was more afraid for or of Alex; her face was red, arm muscles tense under Olivia’s hand as she only just let herself be restrained.
Alex turned her glare from Grant to Olivia. “Arrest him. If she’s still alive, he’s violating the protective order. We can nail him for the stabbing later.”
“Roberta was stabbed?”
“Dr. Clarke seems to have been the victim of a random stabbing,” Olivia explained to Grant. She turned to Alex and said, voice as calm as she could make it, “We already have a suspect in custody.”
The whole room seemed to fall silent for a moment, the hustle and bustle of the hospital around them continuing on mute. Then Grant spoke.
“How? How did this happen?”
Olivia answered, though the question may have been rhetorical. “Right now, it seems like a robbery gone wrong. Roberta was on her way home—”
“That wasn’t her home,” Jimmy snarled. He turned his attention to Alex. “She hasn’t been home since you got your claws in her.”
Alex pushed back, “You couldn’t have her alive, so now no one can. Was that your thinking? Or were you just trying to scare her? You better hope your thug-for-hire is loyal enough that being charged with attempted murder won’t make him talk.”
“I loved my wife!”
“I don’t think you know what love is.”
“I would never hurt her.”
Grant’s voice faded into the background as Olivia watched a woman in scrubs speak to the uniformed officer Olivia had spoken to earlier. She watched the officer as he pointed at her, made eye contact with him as he shook his head. No good news could come of this.
“Everyone take a breath,” Olivia interrupted as Alex all but pressed up against her in her continuing tirade.
The woman approached them slowly, obviously not excited about entering into the middle of whatever was going on between Grant and Alex.
“Detective Benson,” the woman said. Alex and Grant both stopped. Instantly. “I’m Doctor Murad. I have some news about Roberta Clarke.”
“You can say it in front of me,” Grant butted in. “I’m her husband.”
“Soon to be ex-husband,” Alex corrected. “Although not soon enough.”
“And you are?”
“Assistant District Attorney Alexandra Cabot. I represent the state of New York in the case against this man. Roberta Clarke is my complaining witness.”
Dr. Murad seemed to weigh her options. When she looked at Olivia, Olivia nodded, trying to encourage her to continue. It would be better if they all heard the news at the same time and from the source. Tragedy wouldn’t fix anything, but it was at least an equalizer.
“I’m afraid it’s not good news,” Dr. Murad said. “Roberta lost quite a lot of blood before she got here. She went into cardiac arrest in the ambulance, and again during surgery. My team managed to resuscitate her, but she’s showing no signs of brain activity.”
“But she’s alive?” Grant asked as Alex confirmed, “She’s brain dead.”
Dr. Murad folded her hands together. Her eyes flicked rapidly between the three of them as she spoke, “I understand this is distressing news. Do you know if Ms. Clarke had a will or a healthcare directive? I’ll be needing to speak to her next of kin.”
“Dr. Clarke,” Alex whispered, the fight gone from her voice.
“I’m her husband,” Grant said. “I’m her next of kin.”
A twisted smile blossomed from Alex’s grief. “And how I do regret not being able to speed up your divorce proceedings,” she said. “But I know from my line of work just how life-threatening leaving an abusive partner can be. Roberta and I took some interim measures to ensure your control over her was over. You’ll find all the paperwork is in order. Regardless of their marital status, Dr. Grant has no legal standing over the fate of Roberta Clarke. Roberta’s mother is on her way here. You’ll want to speak to her.”
“Her mother?” Grant stammered. “They were barely on speaking terms?”
“Because you systematically eroded every relationship in Roberta’s life other than the one she had with you. If you hadn’t had her killed, you would’ve found a great many aspects of her life were changing for the better.”
“I would never hurt Roberta! I didn’t have someone attack her! Could you show a little compassion? My wife is dying!”
“Your wife is dead,” Alex spat back. “I’ll show you all the compassion you ever showed her.”
Dr. Murad interrupted gently. “Will her mother be here soon? There are decisions to be made about life support and organ donation.”
Grant grabbed the doctor’s top. “You can’t let them kill my wife.”
Olivia felt her body leap into action, ready to pull Grant off Dr. Murad and slap him in cuffs for an assault charge he definitely wouldn’t be able to beat. But the doctor stayed calm and Grant hadn’t done enough yet.
“Mr. Clarke, take your hands off me or I will have no choice but to call security.” He did as she asked, not bothering to correct the doctor about his title or name. Dr. Murad stood tall and unfazed. She adjusted her scrubs. “Your wife is brain dead. I am sorry for your loss, but neurological death is permanent and irreversible.”
The hospital beeped incessantly around them. Any one of those noises could have been maintaining the last breaths of Roberta Clarke, any of them could have been synced to her breathing. Olivia felt the stale hospital air enter her lungs. Permanent and irreversible. The weight of those words hung on them all.
“Helen Clarke is catching a plane," Olivia explained, remembering the doctor's earlier question. "I doubt she’s in the air yet. I can try and get a hold of her.”
Dr. Murad nodded. She opened her mouth to speak, but Grant growled, “That woman doesn’t have the faintest idea what Roberta would want.”
“And you do?” Alex laughed sharply with a faint hum of satisfaction beneath her anger. “You only ever cared about what you wanted.”
“And you only ever cared about making a case. I’ll have your license for this—”
“I’d like to see you try.”
There was a half-second when Olivia thought Grant was going to attack. Olivia watched the muscles in his arms seem to twitch in slow motion, the blood rushing to his head and pounding against his skull. His eyes darkened. His breath stilled. As much as he could with Olivia standing in his way, Grant stepped closer to Alex.
“You will regret this,” Grant whispered. “This isn’t over.”
And then he left.
When she was sure he’d gone, Olivia turned to Alex. All at once she seemed calm and exhausted and ready to kill. Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but Alex wouldn’t let her.
“I’m fine,” she said. Clearly a lie.
Now
It is Olivia’s unshakable belief that it is best to catch a hotel room murder in the morning. Invariably, an early discovery means the body was found promptly by housekeeping, so decomp is minimal, the time the perp has had to run and hide reduced. And even better if the hotel is well-maintained. Olivia thinks this one is, recognizes its name, and is happy to have her suspicions confirmed by clean, well-lit hallways and staff who seem genuinely shaken by the occurrence of a murder instead of vaguely indifferent. The place has cameras, she sees. The cameras will hopefully hold evidence.
Yes, Olivia is hopeful, though cautious, walking into room 317.
“What’ve we got?” Elliot asks, holding the crime scene tape up so Olivia can duck under.
The flash goes off. A young tech, Martin, stands at the foot of the bed photographing the victim. Melinda Warner is closer to the body. Their victim is on her back, naked, face lightly bloody, spread on the bed with a bright pink dildo in her mouth. Olivia can see why they called SVU.
“Vic’s female, probably late twenties, early thirties,” Warner announces, no greeting necessary. “No obvious cause of death and I won’t know anything for sure until I get a chance to look at her more closely, but broken blood vessels in the conjunctivae of the remaining eye suggests asphyxiation.”
Remaining eye? Olivia steps closer. Sure enough, that is an empty eye socket on the left side of the woman’s face. Hence the blood.
“She choked on the dildo?” Elliot asks.
“It’s possible, but unlikely. It looks like it was added after the fact.”
The victim's hair is short and dark with a slight wave to it where it gets longer along the top of her head. One brown eye, no traces of makeup. There's no bruising on her throat. If she asphyxiated, she must've been smothered. Olivia steps back, swapping places with Elliot. She has seen enough for now.
“Your perp also took her eye,” Warner explains. Not that that explains anything. “Or at least we haven’t found it yet. I’d guess he used a small knife. It’s strange. The cuts are straight, even, no hesitation. Like what you’d expect from someone with a medical background. But there doesn’t seem to be any medical logic to where the cuts are placed. There’s easier ways to remove someone’s eyeball.”
“Was she alive when he did that?” Elliot asks.
“Oh, no. The enucleation was post-mortem.”
Olivia takes the rest of the scene in in pieces, trying to make it fit with the body on the bed. Drops of blood on a pillow. A small purse on the desk, a dress on the floor. The absence of luggage. The absence of surgical implements.
“Worth running the MO through VICAP,” Elliot suggests.
Warner shrugs, “I certainly haven’t seen anything like it.”
Olivia hasn’t either. Serial killers take trophies all the time, but an eye is fairly unique. Difficult to take and, she imagines, difficult to keep once taken. Their perp might need access to a jar of formaldehyde unless he’s got a thing for dried, shrivelled up organs. Which wouldn’t be the strangest thing she's seen.
“Was she raped?” Olivia asks.
“No signs of vaginal or anal trauma,” Warner says. “Until I get a better look at her mouth, I won’t be able to tell you whether or not she was orally sodomized.”
Elliot nods and wanders towards the window. “Third floor’s a little high to climb in and I’m not seeing any signs of forced entry. So she probably knew her killer. Or trusted him enough to let him in.”
Olivia pokes her head into the bathroom and turns on the light. Nothing of note. Nothing she can see, anyway. They’ll have to check the sink and shower drains closely in case their killer washed his hands or a knife afterwards. But there are no visible signs of blood. The complimentary soap has been unwrapped, so there might be DNA on that. But the shampoo and conditioner sit on the sink as if they’ve never been moved; the shower looks dry. She turns off the light and makes her way back to the others.
“Do we know anything about the victim?” Olivia asks.
Martin answers, “The room’s rented to one Violet Paget. Paid cash. That’s all we’ve got for now.”
Olivia dons a pair of gloves and opens the purse. “Wallet’s still here.” She slides a driver’s license out. The victim’s, if the likeness to her photo is any indication. “This isn’t Violet. Says here her name’s Penelope Drieder. She’s thirty-one, Brooklyn resident.”
“So either a fake name or Violet’s still out there,” Elliot says.
Olivia rummages through the rest of the wallet as Elliot speaks, cards, coupons, and receipts mixed up with more than two hundred dollars cash. “Oh, hold on.”
A second driver’s license. This one belongs to Violet Paget. The picture on it is not identical to the other, but it’s definitely the same face. Olivia holds it up to the body and then shows it to Elliot.
“Credit card is for Penelope Drieder. The ID’s the only thing in here that says Violet on it.”
“Fake name, fake ID, paying cash when she has a credit card. Must be something to hide,” Elliot says. “Maybe she was having an affair.”
“Who bothers to get a fake ID for an affair?”
“Maybe the husband’s the paranoid type.”
Olivia frowns. “If I were her, I’d be more worried about him going through my wallet and finding a driver’s license with a fake name than about him calling local hotels and asking who’s checked in.”
She studies both licenses carefully. All the information is the same except the name. It’s bizarre. It would make it easy to pretend if questioned—no hesitation over the address or date of birth—but it’s a pretty flimsy cover. Nothing you'd want to use if you were really hiding.
“Based on her address and all she’s got with her,” Olivia says, “I think an affair’s a lot more likely than a vacation.”
Elliot looks around the room and nods. “So what? She threatens to end it? He kills her?”
“Then what’s with the dildo?”
He shrugs. “It’s one way of shutting her up.”
Olivia begins going through the wallet’s small stash of credit card receipts, all crumpled together. She unfolds each carefully. Groceries, mostly, and small amounts of them. A can of beans, a box of cereal, a jar of tomato sauce. The purchases of someone frugal and single, Olivia thinks. Barely enough food for one.
“Maybe it was her husband,” Elliot suggests. “He followed her here, caught her in the act but the boyfriend managed to run away.”
“No wedding ring on her finger,” Warner says, holding up the victim’s left hand. “No tan line either.”
When Olivia looks over, she notices a mark on the hand Warner is holding. She sets the wallet and receipts down.
“Let me see that,” she says, walking over.
Warner obliges and twists the dead woman’s hand so Olivia can get a better view.
“Some sort of stamp,” Warner says. “An axe. Worth checking out the clubs in the area, might be one of theirs.”
Not just any axe. The purple ink is faded, but not so much so that Olivia can’t make out the axe’s two heads against their victim’s graying skin.
“No need,” she announces. “I don't think she has a husband. Or a boyfriend. That’s the stamp they use at the Nightwood. It’s a lesbian bar not too far from here.”
The room goes silent for a moment.
To stop any speculation, Olivia adds, “We had that case a few years back, Dory Forrest. Her roommate worked there.”
Elliot shrugs like he might or might not remember, but, regardless, the answer seems to satisfy everyone. Or at least satisfy them enough not to ask any follow-up questions that aren’t about the case.
“Could still have a husband,” Elliot says. “Wouldn’t be the first.”
A uniformed officer Olivia doesn’t recognize pokes his head in the room. “Detectives. We’ve got the security footage.”
Elliot stands up with a stifled groan. “Maybe that’ll help clear things up.”
They take the elevator down to the hotel’s security office. Raymond Sargeant, the head of security, is waiting for them when they step out. He has the bulk—both height and girth—one would expect for the profession, but wears a clean-cut suit instead of the uniform Olivia sees on the actual guards. She’s not sure if his ears are actually big or if it’s just an optical effect of his almost-shiny bald head.
“Detectives,” Sargeant greets, hand held out.
His handshake is aggressively firm, though clammy. As if he’s got something to prove. As he shakes Elliot’s hand, Olivia sees the watch on his wrist. Expensive looking. Either he’s good at his job, overpaid, or doing something on the side.
Sargeant smiles big and broad. “My team is here to assist in whatever way we can,” he says, then ushers them down a maze of hallways.
The security office is a dark, cramped room. Olivia imagines they are not normally trying to fit this many people in it. She, Sargeant, and Elliot join another security guard in front of a large screen. Yet another guard watches over their shoulders.
“We pulled the footage from yesterday,” the guard at the controls announced.
When Olivia leans forward, she can just make out the name on his uniform: Darren. He’s white and thin and maybe forty-five. She can’t imagine he would be of much use in a physical altercation, but he seems at home behind a computer. The hotel’s security is fully digital, not tape like she’d expected.
“According to the front desk,” Darren begins, “Room 317 gets processed in their system at 8:47pm.” He speeds footage along.
“Slow it down,” Elliot says as Penelope, AKA Violet, enters the lobby. Darren complies.
They all watch as Penelope heads straight for the reception desk. Her clothing looks to be the same dress from the hotel room floor. There’s no luggage, nothing they can make out at a distance that wasn’t left in the room with her body.
“Do you recognize the person working the desk?” Olivia asks Sargeant.
He nods. “That’s Clara. I’ve already called her in. She worked the three to eleven last night. I’ve got Theresa, our eleven to seven, coming in as well.”
They all watch as Penelope leaves the reception desk. Darren clicks and the angle changes, following her to the elevator and, eventually, to her room. A family of four walks in and is gone in a blur of limbs and faces. Penny’s door opens again.
“9:14,” Darren announces before anyone asks. Hardly any time at all.
He clicks through the angles to follow Penelope as she takes the same path as earlier in reverse. He keeps it on the lobby, speeding up again. The lobby is never quite dead, but its flow slows with the passage of time as the evening trickles into night.
“There she is again,” Olivia says.
It seems to be Penelope Drieder in the bottom corner, entering through the front doors. A woman follows close behind, a flash of blond hair. They enter one after the other, but keep their distance. It could be a coincidence, or they could be together but hiding it.
“Do you have another angle?” Olivia asks. The other woman’s face is never towards the camera.
“Not for the lobby,” Darren says. He clicks around. “Give me one second.”
The scene shifts back to a hallway. There is someone near Penelope, but no head. The outfit is the same as the woman in the lobby: endless legs in dark pants, a white sleeve behind a dark vest standing just outside the range of the camera. She could be intentionally avoiding it, Olivia thinks, as Penelope reaches for the elevator button. If they’re dealing with a serial killer, she would have likely done her homework. But that’s a lot of speculation for half a body and some blurry footage.
Neither woman moves in the moments it takes for the elevator to come. They walk swiftly when it opens. And then the other woman is not avoiding the camera after all.
“Is that…?” Elliot starts to ask.
“I can get you the angle from inside the elevator,” Darren announces.
A few clicks. The backs of two heads standing in the elevator.
Darren narrates for seemingly no one, “And then rewind it a second.”
Walking in reverse, the bodies turn. Penelope Drieder. The blonde with her.
Elliot’s voice from nowhere.
“Liv.”
She stares at the screen. A trick of the lens, Olivia tells herself. Her mind is filling in gaps and making connections that aren’t there.
It can’t be.
“You recognize her or something?” Darren asks.
The two women look at each other as they get in the elevator. Not strangers. Definitely not. It seems to take years for the elevator to arrive at the third floor. They both look both ways as they exit, as if crossing the street. The footage is too grainy, but Olivia swears she knows the look in the other woman’s eyes as Penelope takes her hand and leads her into the hotel room that would soon become a crime scene.
“Liv,” Elliot says. Again. Needlessly. “That’s Alex.”