Locum - Recap

As the scene opens, a woman of indeterminate age appears, eyes wide,
to have drowned in a bathtub. The scene cuts to a child playing piano.
When we next see the submerged woman, her face is rising out of the
water.

The mom (Pamela Burton) yells down to her daughter, “You sound like a
rock star!” The child mutters “Love you too, mom.” Mom then commences
critiquing every note the child hits, until she stops playing. The mom
hears a bump, and goes to the door, but there’s a chair under the
handle, and she can’t get out. The piano bench is overturned, and
music is scattered everywhere. The mom calls her daughter’s name
several times, but Mackenzie does not answer. The mom becomes more and
more upset, finally screaming “if you touch my baby, I’ll kill you!”

She throws something out the window to catch the attention of any
passersby, and yells for anyone to hear to “call 911”. The scene then
cuts to her interaction with Elliott and Olivia questioning her. She
answers that she didn’t see him, as he had locked her in the bathroom.
When asked if she knew who did it, she got a manila folder from the
desk, stating “One of these men”. There are pictures of sex offenders
contained in the folder, all of whom live in the immediate
neighborhood.

Her husband then arrives home, and after hugging she tells him “I
can’t go through this again”. The father states that their other
daughter was abducted 10 years ago. Elliott asks if that case was ever
resolved, and the father answers no. He then says to his wife “She’s
still out there”. The mom asks the detectives if it’s not possible
he’s been watching all along, and came back for Mackenzie.

Mrs. Barton states the she always keeps the front door locked and
dead-bolted. Olivia states that there was no sign of forced entry, and
asks if anybody else has a key. The dad says no, and Elliott asks if
anything is missing. The mom asks what it matters, shouldn’t they be
out there looking. Olivia says an Amber Alert is already issues, but
any small details might lead to them finding her daughter. While
investigating, they find that her backpack and best shoes are missing.

On Olivia’s request, Mrs. Burton goes to find her billfold to see if
any credit cards are missing. She states that they are all there, but
$200 is missing from yesterday’s trip to the ATM. The detectives ask
her if she was absolutely certain there was anybody in her apartment.
She said yes, but upon further questioning by Elliott, she admits she
never saw or heard anyone.

Mr. Burton asks the detectives what they are accusing his wife of, and
Olivia answers “nothing”. Olivia then asks if Mackenzie has ever run
away before and the mom answers strongly never; someone took my
daughter.

Detective Tutuola Sgt. Munch are in the building security room,
watching a video of a young girl leaving the building in a serious
hurry, running into a delivery man and knocking all his packages out
of his hands. She is positively ID’d as Mackenzie Burton. Tutola says
it’s obvious she left alone. When the screenshot showing her as
leaving alone is shown to her parents, the father reacts in anger
while the mother continues to blame whoever took their older daughter
ten years ago. The family is new to the area, so Mackenzie has made no
friends, and she is home-schooled. When Elliott says it’s possible she
needed a little space, the mother erupts again,

Mrs. Burton claims Mackenzie is never online without being supervised,
but Mr. Burton reluctantly admits that Mackenzie was on the night
before, while he was watching the Mets game. Pamela has a keylogger
program on the computer, so she recovers the information and finds
that Mackenzie is willingly planning to run away with a man who says
he can’t bring her there, or “Maria would kill us both”. Mackenzie is
supposed to meet Eddie at noon the next day, at Grand Central.

Because it’s such a huge place, the police and parents split up to try
to find her. The mom calls Mackenzie’s name over and over, nonstop
while everybody else questions staff about stopping trains,
identifying Mackenzie’s photo, etc. Mrs. Burton misidentifies a young
Muslim girl as her daughter, based on the backpack and shoes.

Mr. Burton tells Det. Stabler that they should be looking on the
trains, but Elliott assures him that other officers are doing exactly
that. Elliott sights Mackenzie and calls for backup. Mr. Burton calls
Mackenzie's name, and naturally she runs in the opposite direction -
right into Elliott’s arms. Her dad then proceeds to slug Eddie,
knocking him to the ground while Mackenzie yells “Don’t you hurt him!”
Olivia asks him if he’s okay, and when he says yes, she promptly
places him under arrest. His name is Eric, not Eddie. He states that
he just met Mackenzie, thought she was a runaway so he bought them
sodas and he was going to convince her she should go home.

When they question Mackenzie about Eddie D, she answers “bite me”. Her
dad tells her stop it, and her mom says she should answer him. She and
her mom squabble over the fact that Pamela read her email, and Munch
interjects that there is no such thing as ‘private’ email. Mackenzie
then positively identifies the gentleman being questioned as Eddie D.
After more squabbling, Mrs. Butler says she wants a female detective,
‘the nice one’.

The scene cuts back to Olivia calling Eric an idiot. She shows him the
transcript. He claims he doesn’t even know anyone named Maria. Olivia
taunts him into anger, but he still claims he would never hurt a
child. He says he is a member of “COAP”, Citizens Organized Against
Predators. Olivia assumes he does this so that he can get unsupervised
access to kids. He claims that his sister was raped, and when she was
16 she killed herself, so what Olivia is accusing him of, he would
never do.

The confrontation is interrupted by Captain Cragen, summoning them out
of the interrogation. He informs them that Mackenzie gave a positive
ID of Eric to be Eddie D. Stabler is surprised, Benson is not.
Stabler states Eric was ‘making goo-goo eyes’ at Benson. The Captain
states that because Mackenzie is only ten, the DA is going to want a
full confession. Olivia is pulled from the questioning to go finish
interviewing Mackenzie at Mrs. Burton’s request. Since they have the
IP address, Munch and Fin were sent to get the customer name.

When Stabler gets back in, Eric starts questioning him about Liv not
wearing a wedding ring; is she seeing anyone. Elliott tells him to
drop the act, because Mackenzie gave him up, admitted that he was her
online boyfriend. Eric indicates disbelief, and says the detectives
had to have tricked her into saying what they wanted to hear, and
Mackenzie is a messed-up kid. Elliott tells him to give it up and he
refuses because Mackenzie’s abuser is still out there.

Mackenzie tells Olivia the Burtons are not her real parents, she’s
adopted. She said she’d been in a bunch of foster homes before she was
adopted. Olivia asks if that’s where she met Eddie D, and Mackenzie’s
jaw drops. Liv says she’ll take that as a yes, and starts throwing
possibilities out there to see if she can get another reaction. When
asked if he was her mentor, Mackenzie requests a definition and then
answers yes, he taught her things; but she taught him more. Liv asks
what, and Mackenzie says ‘how to wrestle’. She says they wrestled a
lot, and yes he hurt her but that’s because “Duh, it’s wrestling.
That’s what you’re supposed to do.” She said they wrestled in the
bedroom, but wouldn’t say whose bedroom.

Fin tells Marie that they traced a solicitation of a minor to her
account. She sees Eddie’s picture and says she doesn’t know him. Munch
finds a comic book that says Eddie Dangerous on the cover. Marie
brings the guys out to the garage, where a bunch of kids are watching
TV and calls out Wesley. He says Eddie D is his screen name, and
‘Mack’ is his best friend. Marie is a foster parent of 15 years, and
she said Mackenzie was the worst. Wesley says Mack was the best, and
Marie was always mean to her for no reason.

Mrs. Burton asks why Mackenzie lied about the man in the train
station. She said she couldn’t snitch on Wesley, if Marie found out,
she would kill him. All of the uproar happened just because Mackenzie
missed her foster brother, whom her mother would not let her see. Mrs.
Burton said it was because they wanted to give Mack a fresh start. Mr.
Burton apologized to the captain for wasting their time. Mrs. Burton
made Mackenzie apologize, and she did, very begrudgingly.

Eric asked Liv out, and she turned him down. He tried to charm her,
but she refused to change her no to a yes.

Mack left a note for Liv. She said she can’t talk with her parents
there “they hurt me, they put things inside me, please help me.” The
Captain said maybe she was just making drama so she could gain freedom
from her helicopter mom. They decided to pull the cold case to find
out if the parents were cleared in the older daughter’s disappearance,
but still needed a way to free Mack so they could determine if her
claims were valid. Since she was a runaway, that justified a visit by
home services.

While the parents show the caseworker around the apartment, Liv checks
with Mack. Mack tells her there is a computer chip in her arm, and
that’s how they will always know where she is. Liv thinks it’s just a
shot, and they told her that to scare her into behaving, but Mack says
no, it’s real and she’s not lying. Liv feels it and believes it is a
computer chip in Mack’s arm. They go to RFID - radio frequency
identification (like they put in dogs, as Liv says). The doctor says
he won’t put the chip in a child without their permission. Mack said
she gave permission because if she didn’t, they’d never let her go
outside again. Mack says to Pamela “You don’t even like me. You just
want Ella back.” She runs from the room, her father shouts her name
after her, but Olivia is the one to follow her. She tells Mack that
while she doesn’t think putting the chip in was right, she also
doesn’t believe that the Burtons would do anything to purposely hurt
Mack.

Mack grabs a doll that looks like her and throws it at Liv. Liv
assumes they had a doll made to look like Mack. Mack says no - they
had the doll made to look like Ella, and they made her look like Ella,
too. Mack had a picture of Ella, they make her wear Ella’s clothes.
Mack is normally a blond. The Burtons gave her a nose job as well, it
really hurt.

Liv confronts the Burtons with everything she has learned, and they
seem to have an excuse for every one. However, Mrs. Burton
accidentally retorts “I love Ella!” Liv corrects her but Mack says no,
she got it right the first time. Mrs. Burton tells Mack she loves her,
and lets Liv know that she will take away Mack “Over my dead body”.
Liv leaves at Mr. Burton’s insistence.

Elliott questions an officer who states that the Burtons’ alibi didn’t
hold up. There was no little red-haired girl that Ella went to play
with, as they had stated. He believes that the Burtons killed Ella.

Liv interrogates Mr. Burton while Elliott does the same to Mrs.
Burton. Pamela described her, Kevin never saw her. Pamela is obviously
a nervous wreck, by her own admission, but her husband can’t or won’t
believe what shape she’s in. Kevin described his wife as full of
happiness, before they lost Ella. He says they were so much in love,
and you don’t recover from things like this. Pamela says there was a
man with a camera, who took Ella’s picture the day before and he had
the redheaded girl lure her away. Elliott asks Pamela where Ella’s
body is and she gets very upset, referring again to the man with the
camera, and how the police didn’t believe her, because they think
she’s crazy. She says the information is in the file.

Munch and Fin go question the photographer. He shows them the photo
album, and the girl Mrs. Burton described is in there, sitting on the
back of a pickup truck. The photographer doesn’t know who she is, but
he does know the police never saw that picture. Mickey the
photographer didn’t get any identifying information on the girl or the
truck. They used the facial recognition system to try to find the
redhead, who was found in an underage porn raid in ‘02, when she was
16. Her name is Darla Pennington, and they question her about Ella.
She says she doesn’t know any Ella.

Benson and Stabler ask her why she’s protecting ‘him’, since he
abducted her and forced her into porn. She said he didn’t, that she
left home when she was 15 and did what she had to do. Elliott says
she’s had three pops for prostitution since then, and that if she
doesn’t cooperate, they can find her in violation of her probation.
She tells him to go ahead. Elliott accuses her of killing Ella and she
finally admits that she tried to save Ella from “my father”. Her dad
told him to ask her to play, and when he got Ella he made her be his
slave. He killed Ella when he caught her trying to escape.

The detectives go to the land where Darla’s dad, Dale lives. They tell
him they are going to charge him with kidnapping and murder, and he
says good luck with that. As he’s being cuffed, Liv sees a flash of
something, and she and Elliott go investigate. They find a young woman
who asks where they are taking her husband. Liv says “Ella”, and the
young woman’s eyes widen. Liv tells her she’s safe now, and they start
leading Ella away. Ella is cleaned up and returned to her parents.

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