Chapter 1
"Odd. Very odd." The immortal ME, Dr. Henry Morgan, muttered and knelt on one knee, head bowed as his eyes roamed the length of a black female's nude, lifeless body at the edge of the Hudson River. He held her hands in his gloved hands and spread her fingers, examining them. "No sign of shriveling so she couldn't have been in the water very long." He gently touched the small puncture on her chest that looked recently formed and frowned in confusion. "Very odd, indeed."
"Why would she have been skinny dipping in the dirty Hudson?" Jo knitted her brow and shook her head.
"Think she might have fallen overboard from some pleasure boat or something?" Hanson speculated. "Everybody got drunk, didn't notice that she'd left the party?" He shrugged as Jo gave him a 'Really?' look.
Henry sighed and stood up. He pulled off his gloves and brushed the dirt and sand from the knee of his pants leg.
"C'mon, Henry, what do you see?" Jo asked impatiently.
Before he could form a reply, Assistant ME, Lucas Wahl, suddenly squatted down, cradling his camera in one hand. "Gunshot wound?" Lucas asked. "It looks kinda like your chest wound."
"No, this wound was not caused by a bullet." He furrowed his brow and studied the scar closer. "More like the result of an ice pick having been jammed into her chest." He emphasized his words by play acting a swift, downward, jabbing motion. "Death would have come to her within minutes, if not instantaneously. The ice pick would have penetrated her heart."
"Oh, gross. Poor lady." Lucas groaned and snapped a few photos of the scar. "But wouldn't the internal hemorrhaging have caused her body to swell?"
"Yes. Very good, Lucas. Once the ice pick was removed, the wound would have closed up, not allowing the resultant hemorrhaging to escape." He sighed in frustration.
"So, why isn't she swollen?" Jo asked.
"Good question, Detective," Henry replied. "The sooner we get her body back to the morgue, the sooner we can examine it and try to come up with some answers."
Jo's phone buzzed and while she answered it, Hanson's phone buzzed and he answered his. Jo closed up her phone, her eyes wide with disbelief, her face paled. "There's another body. Another nude woman. East River near the park." she managed to stammer out.
Hanson closed up his phone and eyed them all incredulously. "Got a nude body of a Hispanic male at the base of the bridge, East River."
Two unis ran up to them and breathlessly informed them of another nude body of a man a few yards away to their left. The screams of several onlookers caught their attention. They turned to see several people pointing to what appeared to be a nude body washing ashore right in front of them. The two detectives and two ME's were rendered speechless. All they could do was stare at each other.
Jo was the first to shake off her haze. She phoned Lt. Reece to apprise her of the growing situation and the need for backup. She closed up her phone again and groaned when the first of the TV news vans rolled up.
"Keep those vultures away from here." She instructed the two unis who nodded and quickly moved to secure the scene and control the crowd.
Hanson jogged over to inspect the body that had just washed ashore. Henry instructed Lucas to accompany Hanson, which he did. Two more black-and-white's rolled up and uni's jumped out of them. Hanson motioned them over and spoke to them, pointing to the body, then to the crowd and TV news van. They nodded and joined their uniformed colleagues in controlling the crowd and securing the two scenes.
Jo caught up with Henry just as he'd knelt to examine what turned out to be the nude body of an Asian male.
"Look, Jo." He pointed to a deep laceration on the lower, left side of the man's torso that appeared to be newly healing and old at the same time. The scar was similar to one his father had had on his right, upper arm; a wound he'd suffered in a sword fight in one of the battles during the uprising in the colonies of the 1770's (the American Revolution).
"What made that wound?" Jo asked.
"A sword." Henry quietly replied as he silently pondered this strange turn of events with multiple nude bodies turning up near these two waterways and two, so far, with only a single scar that looked to be in the first stages of healing and ... old ... at the same time. Similar to his own scar on his chest.
"A sword?" she repeated, confused. "Who fights with swords anymore?"
He stood up, looked at her and sighed. "It may well be a very old wound, Jo," he said quietly as he placed a hand on his chest. He nodded slightly as her eyes widened, realization spreading across her face.
She lowered her voice and stepped closer to him. "If you're implying what I think you are, then ... why are they ... dead?"
He inhaled deeply and swallowed. "I have no idea." He looked down at the 20-something man's body again. Had these people been immortals who had found a way out? If so, had they found it voluntarily or involuntarily? Was this possible? It was only one of the burning questions he'd had for more than 200 years. Although he no longer wanted to die anytime soon, he couldn't help but be intrigued by the possibility that there was a way out that could maybe be ... controlled?
Jo and Henry turned to see Hanson and Lucas approaching them. The four of them met halfway between the two most recently discovered bodies. Hanson scratched the back of his head and failed to meet the couple's eyes. Lucas' eyes, as well, were downcast, an air of reluctance about him.
Henry brushed it off and proceeded to share his initial observations of both the young black woman's and young Asian man's nude bodies, including his suspicions regarding their unusual scars. "Well, Lucas, what did you find after examining the body that just washed ashore?"
Lucas nervously exchanged a quick glance with Hanson. "Seems to fit the pattern with these others, Doc. White male, late 30's to early 40's, no visible marks or scars on the body other than a strange scar at the base of the skull that looks recent and old."
Henry frowned and peered over at the man's body, now covered by a black tarp. "What caused the wound, in your opinion?"
"A foot, perhaps, like someone stomped on the back of his neck. Maybe a bat or - "
"Or maybe the butt of a rifle?" Henry ventured.
Lucas looked at him in awe. "Yeah. Yeah. That might be it."
Henry took a few steps in the direction of the man's body, then turned suddenly to face all of them. "Of course, these are only initial observations and suspicions. Once we get them all back to the morgue and complete our autopsies, we should have more definite answers." He marched off towards the coroner's vans and Lucas hurried to fall into step with him.
Hanson watched the two ME's walk away, a concerned look on his face.
"What is it, Mike?" Jo asked. She watched him turn towards each of the three bodies, then faced her again.
"I think you know already, don't you?"
She at first looked surprised, then her features grew somber. She nodded slightly, her eyes cast downward as they walked the short distance to their cars.
"I mean if these people were at one time like the Doc ... and now they're dead ... "
She suddenly didn't want to hear anything more and picked up her pace away from him and to her car. "See ya back at the precinct, Mike."
"Sorry, Jo," he called to her. "Jo - "
She held up a hand but didn't look back at him.
vvvv
Dinner at the Morgan residence was a somber affair. Abe eyed his father suspiciously. His eyes dropped to the half-eaten lasagne (Mom's special recipe) on his plate. Jo's empty chair didn't help the palled atmosphere any. Abe dropped his fork back down onto his plate and leaned back in his chair.
"Okay, Dad, what's eating you? And where is Jo? Not like her to miss dinner, especially my famous lasagne."
Henry closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Sorry, Abraham. Dinner is delicious, thank you."
"You're welcome," he said unblinkingly. "Why isn't Jo here?" He sat forward in his chair and pointed an accusing finger at his father. "You guys have a lover's quarrel or something? You didn't blow this, did you, Dad?"
Henry blew out a sigh of frustration and tilted his head. "No, Abraham. We didn't quarrel and I didn't 'blow' it, as you say." He looked at her empty chair and lowered his eyes to his plate. He pushed it away from him and sighed again. "She's doing her job, following up clues on several apparent drowning victims."
"I saw the news, Dad," he said dryly. "They didn't drown, did they?"
Henry shifted uncomfortably in his seat then met his son's gaze with a grim stare. "It doesn't appear that they drowned, no." He rose from his seat and walked slowly towards the kitchen entrance, then turned and walked back, his hands shoved down into his pockets. "They ... may have been like me, Abe."
"Immortal?" he barely whispered.
Henry nodded, staring off into space. "Yes."
"But how ... how did they wind up dead?"
He chuckled a bit and lowered his head. "That's what Jo asked me earlier. I'll tell you what I told her: I have no idea."
"But this is remarkable. They found a way out, a way to end their long lives." He studied his father's troubled features. "Isn't that what you say you've been searching for since, like, forever?"
He chuckled mirthlessly again. "I understand what you're asking, Abe, but now that I'm happy with Jo and we're about to be married, my colleagues - friends, actually - know of my condition and accept me, I find that living is all I want to do now. Leaving this world anytime soon no longer appeals to me."
"Soooo, you're worried that ... ?"
He suddenly became more animated. "I'm worried that these people, these other immortals, may or may not have been helped along to their individual ends. If I weren't sure of where Adam is, I'd say that he had a hand in this." He sat back down in his chair and pursed his lips. "What if there is someone out there targeting people like me with the sole intention of ridding the world of us?"
Abe shook a finger in the air and then laid it against his lips. "I would say that you've been dealing with murderers and murder victims a little too long. It's coloring your judgment." His eyes shifted back and forth as he gathered his thoughts. "What if their time simply ran out?"
Henry's brow furrowed and his eyes darted around the room. That possibility had never even occurred to him.
Abe shrugged as he continued. "Who says that immortality does not have an expiration date on it? If they were like you, they probably only knew when it started, but not how or why."
"That's an interesting theory, Abraham, but you're right; I have been dealing with murder suspects and their victims for a long time. My gut tells me that there are more sinister forces afoot than simply the cycle of life having caught up with them naturally." He rose from his chair again and grabbed his outer coat and scarf. As he hurried down the stairs, he called out, "Don't wait up for me. I'll be late."
"Where are you going?"
"Back to the morgue for some answers!"
Chapter 2:
The 11th Precinct the following afternoon ...
"How many so far?" Lt. Reece asked Mike and Jo as she paused to sign off on a supplies requisition. She released the clipboard and handed the pen back to a uniformed officer and turned her attention back to the two detectives.
"Four, so far." Mike replied.
"So far?" Reece raised her eyebrows. "Sounds like you're expecting more."
"Well, there were five, initially, but the Hispanic male who washed up under the bridge in the East River has been ruled a suicide by drowning. Plus, he wasn't nude; just shirtless and shoeless." Mike explained.
"We're definitely hoping to keep the number of nude bodies with strange scars down to the four we've already recovered." Jo added. "Both Henry and Lucas have been at it almost day and night trying to find a COD for any of them."
"No COD for any of them yet?" Reece asked, surprised. "The frustration of not knowing must be killing Morgan. No pun intended."
The three of them had walked from the detectives' desks to Reece's office door. She turned and asked, "Have you managed to ID any of the four yet?"
Jo and Mike exchanged uneasy looks. "Um, yeah. Could we ... ?" she motioned with a quick nod that she preferred the privacy of Reece's office to continue their reporting.
Reece nodded, turned around and went and sat behind her desk. Mike and Jo entered the office, closing the door behind them, and sat in the two smaller chairs facing her. She waited for one of them to speak. When they didn't immediately, she lowered her head and stared more intently at them.
Mike cleared his throat and fidgeted before speaking. "We found public records on each of them dating back only five or six years, like in Henry's case. None had a criminal background, though, except for," he scoffed, "numerous arrests for public nudity near both the Hudson and East Rivers." He glanced apologetically at Jo. "Like in Henry's case."
Reece reacted with slightly raised eyebrows and an almost inaudible sigh. "Have you found any ... older records on any of them?"
"Yes, we have for the black female," Jo replied. She consulted her small, blue-lined notepad.
"The, uh, records are spotty on all of them, but they date back as far as the early 1900's for her, tentatively identified as Hattie Fields born 1902, in Pine Bluff, Arkansas." She glanced up to catch Reece's stiffening at that fact. Jo consulted her notes again.
"In 1934, she was a widowed mother of three who took up with a man named Paul Nation, who murdered her, orphaning her children. He'd shoved an ice pick into her heart because she wanted to end the relationship." She licked her dry lips and looked up from her notes. "By all accounts, she should be nearly 115 years old, but her body is that of a woman in her early to mid-30's."
She flipped the pages of her notepad and forced her voice to remain clear and calm. "The Caucasian male whose body washed ashore is tentatively identified as David Gregson, born 1909 - "
Reece put up a hand to stop her. "How old were these people supposed to have been?"
Mike jumped in to answer, sensing that Jo needed a bit of a break. "Hattie Fields, 114; Gregson, 108; the Caucasian female, Margaret Greene, 132; the Asian male, Ming Tong," he looked up from his notes and sighed. "Still working on it but we've managed to find immigration records where he came through Angel Island, that match him. We need professional genealogists to pull up anything further back on him."
"And to confirm the records we've found already," Jo added.
"Tong could be the oldest of the four. The Doc is convinced that his scar was caused by a curved sword like a saber. He's consulting with The Frenchman on just what type of weapon could have caused that scar. That would help to pinpoint when the guy met his first death." He still couldn't believe that that kind of language could fall so easily from his lips: first death. Even after knowing of Henry's condition for more than a year and having no qualms about him as both a colleague and friend, it was still a bit startling to be reminded of it.
"No outside genealogists, we can't risk exposure of Dr. Morgan's condition. And I'm not ready to visit the funny farm - are you?" She looked from one to the other and they shook their heads and smiled a bit. "We need someone who can most definitely be discreet and one person comes to mind."
"Abe," Jo said. Mike nodded in agreement.
"So. We enlist Abe's help in the genealogy department and you two keep looking for a connection between these four who may have managed to avoid Father Time's touch longer than normal." They both nodded.
"Okay. Get to it, you two." Reece said. She proceeded to make a call and they knew the meeting was over.
Once back in the bullpen, they huddled around Jo's desk and realized that they didn't have a clue of how to go about connecting the four.
"Well, they all had jobs," Mike said, frowning. "They all spent money."
"Follow the money," Jo said, nodding.
"Good a place to start as any," Mike agreed, pushing his chair backward and rolling back to his own desk.
"One of these days you're gonna hurt yourself doing that," Jo smirked.
"Uh, look," he pointed a playful finger at her, " I got only one Mom and she lives on Long Island. She don't work here."
She crossed her arms and rolled her eyes at him but couldn't help laughing a little. The little bit of levity was good for them both. She shook her head and turned to her computer as he mugged at her and laughed a bit, too.
vvvv
At the same time in the morgue ...
Assistant ME, Lucas Wahl placed the last of the four back into the freezer and locked the outside latch. He walked over to Henry's office and stopped at the door. Henry sat behind his desk with his elbows on his desk, his forehead resting on his raised, clasped hands. Lucas cleared his throat to get his attention.
"Yes, Lucas," Henry asked as he looked up at his young assistant. The weariness in his voice matched the tiredness in his eyes.
"They're all back in the freezer." He said quietly.
"Good. Thank you, Lucas." Henry rested his forehead on his hands again. "You've been a big help today."
"Thanks, Doc, but I don't feel like I've done much since we weren't able to come up with any answers about how they died."
Henry suddenly straightened and sat up in his chair, his eyes darting around the room as he 'brainflashed' as Lucas called it. Lucas happily noticed the familiar change in his boss' demeanor that always preceded an 'Aha moment'.
"No answers yet about how they died but what about how they lived?" He quickly rose from his chair and exchanged his white lab coat for his outer coat and scarf. As he donned them, he walked toward Lucas and explained that they must take a closer look at their personal lives in order to find out how they all seemed to have suffered identical deaths at the same time and in relatively identical areas.
"But isn't that what the detectives do?" Lucas asked.
"Yes!" Henry gleefully exclaimed as he situated his scarf around his neck.
"So we're gonna conduct our own little investigation?"
"Yes!" Henry gleefully exclaimed again, turning his dazzling smile to him.
"Uh, I dunno, Doc. Remember how much trouble we got in when I took that pugio dagger out of the Evidence Lockup for you?"
Henry pursed his lips and stared at him from under furrowed brows. "Yes, I remember, Lucas, but we still have our jobs here because Lt. Reece realized that those were extraordinary circumstances we were dealing with."
Lucas nodded, "Yeah, copy that." But he was still not quite convinced he wanted to bend the rules again so soon. Or ever.
"Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures, Lucas." Henry continued with his piercing stare. He slowly nodded and grinned in sync with Lucas as he gradually accepted the idea of his immortal boss and him partnering up to solve this latest mystery.
"Yeah. Sure. Why not? You and me. Batman and Robin. Sherlock and Watson. Hart to Hart. Oh, wait, that would mean I'd be Jennifer Hart, a woman - which I'm not. And all she did mostly was yell out for Jonathan to protect her, which I can carry my own water - "
Henry frowned and suddenly turned and briskly began walking out of the morgue.
Lucas quickly shifted gears to follow him. "Okay. Not relevant. Where we goin'? Oh! Following you, right." Henry punched the elevator button and gave a pointed look to Lucas. "And - shutting up." He clamped his lips together and nodded, suddenly feigning great interest in the elevator doors.
Henry smiled inwardly at his antics. His affection for him had grown but he felt that the good-natured young man, although highly intelligent, lacked self-discipline and still needed a certain amount of guidance and direction. And he knew he could trust Lucas to help him unfold this mystery of the four dead immortals.
Mike called out and motioned Jo over to his computer screen with one hand as he worked his mouse with the other. Jo quickly joined him and peered at the screen over his shoulder.
"Hattie Fields aka Harriet Fields aka Harriet Fielding aka Harriet Fieldings." He turned his head slightly toward Jo, keeping his eyes on the screen and said, "Looks like she didn't really wanna give up her married name. Maiden name was Cook per a 1927 marriage record I found on ." He placed his cursor at the top of the browser and clicked on another open tab.
"You're sure that's her marriage record?" Jo asked.
"Yeah. Her parents' names are a match for the 1900 census record I found with all three of them in the household with two younger siblings. The man she married in 1927, Martin Fields, is listed nearby on the same page with a grandmother and an uncle." He grinned a little and muttered, "This stuff is fascinating."
"Yeah, and Abe is supposed to be doing this." She waved off his mock glare and sighed. "Okay, so the Hattie Fields I found in 1910, born in Pine Bluff was not her?"
"No. You gotta look at death records for the siblings, death records for a couple of her kids ... like that. Anyway, maiden name was Cook. She was born in Rankin County in Mississippi, Dec 1899. Subsequent census records match up for all of them up to 1940. By then, though, she's listed as Hattie Cook, a 34-year-old aunt to the three kids she'd had with Fields." He smiled haughtily at her.
"Because she was supposed to have died in 1934 and couldn't still be documented as their mother. I wonder if they knew?" she barely whispered.
"Who? Knew what?" he asked, distracted.
"Her kids. I wonder if they knew that their mother was immortal?"
He finally turned and looked directly at her. "Gee, I don't know, Jo. Guess we'll never know." He turned back to the computer screen. "If they did, they probably took the secret to their graves. They'd be pretty old themselves if any are still alive."
He clicked another open tab at the top of the browser. "Anyway, that was the old, this is the new. Or, rather, the newest." The screen displayed banking and credit card records for one of her aliases, Harriet Fieldings. "Looks like that was the last alias she used. It matches DMV and birth records for her, at least what was most recently in the system for her," he added. He scrolled down some more and stopped at a transaction that showed a payment made three weeks prior to something called Essence of Life.
"This has gotta be some kind of scam. There was an infomercial that came on TV about 1:00 in the morning that Karen used to watch. Essence of Life," he scoffed. "Git your past life regressions right here," he scoffed again, mimicking the slick voice of an oldtime snake oil hawker. "The guy behind it all, James Wyndham, is a Tony Robbins wannabe. A real hinky version of him. Anyway, he claims he can regress people, open up their minds, take them back to their past lives, and ... "
Jo chuckled. "And what?"
"According to what he's shoveling, help them to tap into the 'essence' of each of their past lives, the best parts so they can use that to squish together ... a ... better ... you in the present ... I don't know, it was just a bunch of crap!" It was obvious that the whole thing disgusted him. "More like just open up your wallets, empty your pockets. Guy's got nothing worth buyin'," he huffed.
"Okay," she drew out. "So she got scammed before she died. What's so remarkable about that?" She frowned and asked, "Wait, you think she may have confronted him, demanded her money back or something and he killed her instead?"
"Doc didn't find any COD for her or for the others," he reminded her. "What's remarkable is that David Gregson's bank records show cancelled checks made out to Essence of Life, as well. Last check he wrote was three and a half weeks ago." He glanced over at her computer screen then back at her.
She quickly sat back in her seat and brought up Margaret Greene's bank records. Mike followed her and took a viewing position behind her. As the information displayed on her screen, she shook her head and smiled.
"Essence of Life. Last payment made three weeks ago." She leaned her head against her fingers and shook her head. What in the world could have happened to these people, she wondered. And was Wyndham responsible for their deaths?
"So they were paying on different dates but when did their actual sessions take place?" Mike pondered. They looked at each other and came to the same conclusion.
"Let's pay Wyndham a house call," Jo said.
"We need a warrant," Mike stated.
"I'm on it," Jo replied.
"And a good night's sleep first." He directed her attention to the wall clock and the late hour, 11:40 PM.
"Oh. Well." She shrugged and grabbed her purse and jacket, closing down her computer. "Tomorrow, then. Bright and early."
Mike nodded, shut down his computer, and armed into his jacket. "Bright and early."
vvvv
Across town at Abe's Antiques ...
Lucas Wahl's long form lay asleep and snoring in the sitting room. His ankles propped up on one of the arms, while his feet stuck out over the edge of the arm. It had been a long day working with Henry in the morgue as they'd failed to find a COD for any of the four dead (suspected) immortals. After a hearty serving of Abe's leftover lasagne, he'd spent the next few hours pulling up public records on them via Henry's new laptop (purchased at Jo's insistence to help bring him into the modern era). The long day and the home-cooked meal had literally knocked him out.
Henry smiled at him for a moment, then covered him with a comforter from the spare bedroom. They'd made good progress toward piecing together the last known addresses and work places of the four mysterious cadavers in the morgue and a list of possible relatives and co-workers. He and Lucas agreed to start tomorrow by visiting and interviewing a man named Paul Fields in Queens, believed to be a grandson of Hattie Fields/Fieldings.
Abe had been able to use his own laptop to gather some documentation of a genealogical nature that helped piece together a sparse family tree for each of the four, including military and vital records. Ming Tong's suspected long history, prior to four years ago, remained elusive. Abe had shuddered a bit at Henry's suggestion that he accompany him when he visited The Frenchman to get her expert opinion of what type of sword had possibly made the wound on Tong's torso.
"She could possibly give you some tips on pulling up Tong's ancestry and help verify if he is indeed the same man who in 1915, passed through Angel Island, the Ellis Island of the West Coast." Henry had urged. He stifled his laughter when Abe's eyes grew wider and he silently mouthed "No way" to him.
Satisfied that Lucas was properly bedded down ... well, as properly as he could be under the circumstances ... he decided to call it a night, too. He paused at Abe's bedroom door and was met with silence. He gently pushed the door open to make sure he was properly bedded down, too. Abe was fast asleep and the sight wrangled a deep yawn from him. He shook his head and closed the door back. When finally he made it to his own room, he stripped down to just his boxers and crawled beneath the covers, nestling his head into the pillows. He missed Jo, but at the same time, was glad she had not shown up to spend the night. They hadn't made their engagement public yet and if both she and Lucas were there in the morning, it would make for an awkward situation. Sleep overtook him with dreams of Jo and him admiring the city lights of Paris below from the top of the Eiffel Tower.
vvvv
At approximately 6:30 AM, search warrant in hand, Jo, Mike and a half-dozen uniformed officers arrived at James Wyndham's newly-renovated, $15M luxury rental on Bleecker in the heart of Greenwich Village. One uni stood guard at the entrance, another plodded down the alley to the back exit and stood guard there. The two detectives flashed their badges at the security personnel behind the counter in the center of the lobby and a uni remained there. The other three unis rode the boutique elevator with them up from the renovated lobby.
"So this is what running a scam buys ya these days in New York, huh?" Mike huffed sarcastically as he took in the opulence.
"Apparently, so," Jo dryly replied.
The doors opened onto a full floor loft with tons of windows and light. A huge open space greeted them with nearly 20 desks. Empty desks. It was obvious that two of the three large rooms were being used as offices; the third, as living quarters.
"James Wyndham, show yourself! This is the NYPD! Show yourself!" Jo yelled loudly. "We have a warrant to search these premises!" She listened but was met with silence. "James Wyndham, this is Det. Jo Martinez of the NYPD!" More silence.
Jo motioned for them all to spread out. "Clear" rang out from different corners across the large loft. Jo crept into the living quarters with her weapon drawn straight out in front of her. She worked her way through the kitchen and past a bathroom that was larger than her own master bedroom and master bath combined. Focus. She shook her head. Focus. She heard Mike yell out "Clear" behind her. As she neared the bedroom, she sensed a presence. She swung in with her weapon aimed and was met with the sight of the man she knew to be James Wyndham, pointing a gun at her with shaky hands.
"NYPD! Drop the gun, Wyndham! Drop the gun now!"
"It, it wasn't my fault. Th-they weren't supposed to, to, to die," he stammered out, the gun shaking more. "They didn't re-respond like my other clients."
"Drop. The. Gun!" she ordered him again.
"Yes, yes, allright. Allright." He lowered the weapon and let it drop onto the bed.
"Hands above your head!" He complied and tightly shut his eyes.
"On the floor, face down!" He once again complied.
"Hands behind your back! Lace them!"
"Allright, allright, Officer. I'm, I'm not resisting," he sobbed.
"Jo!" Mike yelled out.
"Back here, Mike! Bedroom!" She slapped the cuffs on him and waited for Mike to join her. He did, along with the three unis who quickly took charge of Wyndham and the weapon he'd tossed onto the bed. She stepped aside as the unis read him his rights at her instruction.
After a thorough search of Wyndham's residence, evidence was uncovered connecting him to each of the four victims and they brought him in for questioning regarding their deaths.
vvvv
Henry and Lucas stood on the doorstep of a 1920's wood frame bungalow. Henry rang the doorbell and they waited several moments. Henry's eyes danced over the neighborhood and he fondly recalled when most of the houses were new back in the 1920's.
"Shouldn't we give it another ring?" Lucas asked.
Henry smiled and pressed the doorbell again. After a few moments, they heard the faint shuffle of footsteps on a hardwood floor that gradually became louder as someone approached the door. An elderly black woman in her late 70's or early 80's pulled the door open only as far as the chain lock allowed.
She eyed the two men up and down suspiciously. "Yes?" she asked, frowning.
"Good morning, Madam," Henry politely began. "My name is Dr. Henry Morgan, I work with the City as a Medical Examiner. This is my assistant, Mr. Lucas Wahl."
"And?" she asked, this time with a great deal of impatience.
He clasped his hands together in front of him to hide his nervousness and cleared his throat to respond. "We have reason to believe that a Mr. Paul Fields lives here. We'd like to speak with him about ... a recently deceased relative of his." He stumbled over the last few words, then cleared his throat again and added, "Hattie Fieldings."
He noticed the subtle but definite change in her demeanor that fleetingly passed. He was impressed by how quickly she'd managed to regain her composure. Something he'd also learned to do over the last two centuries out of sheer necessity in order to keep his condition or certain aspects of his life secret. He was also certain that he'd heard a second set of footsteps approach the door and stop just behind the elderly woman. The footsteps of a person with a stronger, quicker gait.
"He ain't here. You need to leave." She began to shut the door but was prevented to do so when someone else's hand grabbed the doorknob.
Henry raised his head to look behind the woman as a taller man in his mid 40's peered at him and Lucas. The man bent down and whispered something to the woman and he gently pryed her hand from the doorknob. He kissed her on the cheek as she turned away, shaking her head. He pushed the door slightly forward, removed the chain lock and opened the door more fully.
"I'm Paul Fields. What is it you want to know about my ... about Hattie?"
"Ah, yes, for starters, why no one came to claim her body?" Indeed, why no one had come to claim either of the four bodies.
Paul's eyes met Henry's in a deep gaze then he lowered them and his eyelids fluttered a bit. He laughed softly to himself and rubbed his chin as if considering something. He finally seemed to reach a decision and opened the door, motioning for them to enter. "Come on in, gentlemen."
vvvv
"My client," Elgin McTavish announced, "has willingly agreed to make a statement in exchange for immunity." The well-dressed, balding man with a white mustache and mingly gray, close-cropped goatee sat tall and straight in his chair and exuded great confidence - and sleaze, Mike thought to himself.
"Immunity? Your client," Mike pointed out, "is the only suspect we're lookin' at in the possible murders of four people."
"They weren't murdered!" Wyndham groaned and banged his fist on the small table. He yanked his arm away from his lawyer's hand. "They simply ... died." He shrugged and shook his head.
"Has any of your other customers ever died during your sessions?" Jo queried.
"No," he replied, his hand covering his eyes.
"Well, why don't you tell us what happened to them before they simply ... died?" she asked.
McTavish placed his hand once again on Wyndham's arm and informed him, "You don't have to answer that. They haven't offered you a deal yet."
Wyndham looked helplessly at Jo, then up at Mike. He sighed and made great efforts to rein in his emotions. "Look. I hypnotize people as part of their therapy, okay? Guide them through past life regressions."
Mike made a loud huffing sound but said nothing after Jo gave him a look. She returned her attention to Wyndham.
"Go on."
"All my other customers, as you call them, successfully retrieved buried memories of their past lives and were able to harvest the positive energies and best personality traits from each of them and incorporate them into their daily lives in the present." His eyes darted back and forth several times from Jo then to Mike. "You don't believe me," he stated.
"Of course, we don't, it's a bunch of crap!" Mike yelled, leaning forward into Wyndham's face, both hands on the table. "Admit it. Fieldings, Greene, Gregson and Tong all realized that you'd taken their hard-earned money and sold them a bunch of hot air."
"No," Wyndham shook his head in vigorous denial.
"Each one came back and confronted you, demanded a refund - "
"No!" Wyndham protested louder. "It wasn't like that. It wasn't like that at all."
"What happened, then?" Jo cut in, giving Mike a chance to cool down.
Wyndham exhaled a sigh of frustration. "Look, they came back, like your partner said, but ... not for a refund." He rubbed his forehead and inhaled deeply. "They didn't have past lives to regress to," he explained. "They had past deaths that they revisited and relived. Once I got the ball rolling, so to speak, by what I thought was regressing them to their first past life, it became clear that they had only lived one life but had experienced many deaths." He shook off his lawyer's hand again and turned to face him.
"Look, I have to tell someone. I don't care if you still refuse to believe me or if they (nodding his head toward the two detectives) think I'm crazy." He shifted in his seat to face Jo again. "This is what happened to them."
"Okay. They began to live through their past deaths again. How did they wind up dying?" she asked.
"Well, like I said, once I regressed them or got them to the point of reliving their most recent death, it snowballed on its own into them reliving each death before that and before that until ... until they reached their first death that they claimed had made them ... immortal." He whispered the last word, his eyes wide with amazement at the utterance, at the mere thought of something like that being real. He looked pleadingly at Jo then at Mike.
"They wanted me to stop it but I didn't know how. They felt like they were really going to die for good if they experienced their first death again." A nervous laugh escaped from him as he looked at the two detectives. "Don't you see? They must have just been crazy. Nobody is immortal! Nobody lives forever! It's just not in the cards for anybody." He leaned back in his chair and calmed his features, and slowly clasped his hands before him on the table. "I did not kill them. I didn't do anything wrong," he stated calmly and defiantly stuck his chin out.
McTavish cleared his throat and adjusted his tie. "Well, there you have it. You have no evidence that my client did anything other than confer with and comfort these people who were obviously deranged with an odd fixation on immortality. They simply worried themselves to death, nothing more, nothing less." He stood and picked up his briefcase and slung his overcoat over his other arm. Wyndham slowly stood, as well. "Either charge my client or we're leaving. Now."
Mike glared at Wyndham and his lawyer. Jo sighed and reminded Wyndham not to leave town. The two men moved to exit the room when Wyndham paused and turned around to face Jo, who to him seemed more approachable. He'd given up on trying to effectively communicate with Mike, the "bad cop" of the two.
"Talk to Hattie's ... Ms. Fieldings' cousin, Paul Fields. He works as a security guard in my building and he's also the one who referred her to me in the first place. He'll tell you that I'm speaking the truth." He emphasized again that he was not responsible for any of their deaths, then turned to join his lawyer, both of them eager to exit the precinct.
Jo crossed her arms and gave Mike an "Aha" look with a raised eyebrow. He crossed his arms and returned her gaze with a dark frown.
Chapter 4
Paul Fields silently studied his clasped hands as he sat in his small bungalow's sitting area while Henry and Lucas silently studied him. He suddenly looked up at them and said, "Forgot my manners. Can I get you gentlemen something to drink? Coffee? Tea? Milk?"
They responded over each other, Lucas in the affirmative, Henry begging off.
"Nothing for either of us, thank you." He eyed Lucas, who frowned a bit but leaned back into the plush cushions of the loveseat. Henry turned his attention back to Fields.
"Mr. Fields," he began, "are you in fact Ms. Fieldings' grandson?" He felt the direct approach was the best. No time for beating around the bush. Fields and the elderly woman were hiding something, he was sure of it. Their exact relationship was first and foremost in his mind.
Paul at first looked surprised by the to-the-point question, then his features calmed into what could be called relief. He tilted his head a bit and squinted his eyes at Henry for a few moments, then lowered his eyes and a smile pulled at the corners of his mouth.
"Hattie was my - "
"Paul, don't you tell those people anything about Hattie!" The elderly woman shouted with an unexpectedly strong voice as she shuffled as quickly as she could from the hallway into the sitting area. She looked disapprovingly at the two ME's and pointed a wrinkled finger at them.
"You two don't need to be asking any more questions about her!"
Paul rose from his chair and put his arms around her shoulders and brought her in close for a hug. He rested his chin on top of her head. "It's okay, Albertine, it's okay. She's gone. There's nothing anyone can do to hurt her now." He pulled away from her and gazed fondly into her eyes and kissed her on the forehead. He looked at Lucas and then Henry, his gaze lingering there, and said, "For some reason, I feel like we can trust them."
She shook her head and tears began to well up in her eyes. "We promised her," she said chokingly and sniffled.
"I know," he softly replied. "We made that promise while she lived. She's gone now." He glanced at Henry again. "It's okay to tell someone now." He kissed her on the top of her wavy white hair secured in a bun at the nape of her neck. She pulled away from his embrace and slowly shuffled back down the hallway, shaking her head and sniffling.
Paul, visibly shaken, sat back down in his chair. He took a couple of deep breaths and blinked back tears as he finished his earlier, interrupted response. "Hattie was my ... mother." He washed his hand over his face and cleared his throat, shifting in his seat. "I am ... was ... her oldest child. I was born in 1928, about a year after she and my father were married." He struggled to continue. "Albertine," he said, motioning behind him toward the hallway, "is my baby sister." He looked at the two men to gauge their reactions and frowned a bit when it wasn't what he'd expected.
They were shocked - but not surprised. The similar circumstances surrounding Henry's peculiar condition allowed them an easier digestion of the astounding revelation. But the questions only multiplied in their minds.
"She's your baby sister?" Lucas asked, his astonishment level quite a bit higher than Henry's, despite knowledge of his condition. "Wait, 1928? So, you're (Paul nodded up and down) but your sister (Paul shook his head from side to side)." Lucas frowned and mouthed a silent O. "But how?"
Paul jumped up and paced the small area behind his chair. "Man, if I knew that, I'd be the richest man that ever lived!" He chuckled heartlessly and leaned against the back of his chair. "Who wouldn't wanna live forever, right?" He scoffed. "Yeah, people think they want to," he added softly.
"That's why you didn't come to either identify or claim her body," Henry surmised. "You thought that she would simply be reborn in the river and return to you, right?"
Paul ran his hand over his short, black, wavy locks. "Man, I don't know what I thought. Maybe, at first," he said, looking at Henry. "Then ... as time passed and the news still reported her and the other three as still being in the morgue ... " His voice trailed off. "I didn't know what to do."
He retook his seat and shook his head, frowning. "It's all my fault, anyway."
"Your fault?" Henry asked, confused.
"If I hadn't hooked her up with that - that - crook Wyndham!" He breathed heavily, shutting his eyes tight. He groaned but the breach had been made; he might as well spill all of the rest of his secrets.
"I referred her to 'Essence of Life', a program run by James Wyndham in the building where I'm employed as a security guard. Every day, people walked in and signed the register to visit his office. A lot of them came in looking sad, mad or tired of life, tired of living. Practically all of them left with a kick in their step, you know what I mean? They looked happier, healthier; read for the world," he scoffed.
"Hattie ... my mother ... was never happy about her life. She always said it was unnatural for anyone to have lived as long as she had but never age. You see, in 1934, a man she'd taken up company with for a while, didn't want their relationship to end, so he ... "
" ... killed her," Henry finished for him.
Paul's eyes were round with wonder. "Yeah," he nodded. "Shoved an ice pick into her heart while she slept. And us kids sleeping in the next room!" He breathed heavily again but managed to continue. "Idiot made so much noise climbing out of the window that it woke me up and I went into her bedrom to see what was going on." His face crumbled into sadness at the memory. "She just lay there, looked like she was asleep but she was swelling up. It scared me. I started shaking her, "Mama, Mama, wake up," but she didn't. Then, she just ... vanished."
"I ain't never told nobody this." He blinked at them with tired eyes, emotionally drained. He took another deep breath. "After she vanished, I just cried. Wound up outside on the porch, crying when she walked out of the woods dripping wet, a dirty old bedspread that someone had tossed out, draped around her body." He gave a heartfelt laugh this time. "I just ran to her and threw my arms around her. Didn't have sense enough to be afraid of her."
Lucas and Henry sat in awe of his tale. Reborn in water, Henry thought. He felt oddly validated by hearing that someone else had had the same death-life experience as he.
"What happened after that?" Lucas asked, enthralled.
He breathed in deeply and exhaled loudly. "We moved from Mississippi to this house." He looked around at the dwelling. "Been here since 1934. Neighborhood was a lot different then. We lived in the back rooms and Mama took care of the house for an elderly white couple. They grew to like her so much that they left her the house when they died in 1948."
Henry smiled at the memories Paul was sharing. Hattie's miraculous death and rebirth were one thing, though. He cleared his throat and asked, "How did you come to be ... like your mother?"
He scoffed. "Well," he breathed out, "One night in 1974, I tried to break up a fight between a David and a Goliath. Goliath was winning big time. Crowd of people standing around letting this little guy get pummeled by a big galoot, a bully. I knocked that big guy on his butt, helped the little guy up and we were walking away to get him some medical help when I felt this pain in between my shoulder blades. That yellow-bellied sucka had stabbed me in the back! Didn't even have the guts to face me like a man! And do you think anyone helped me?" He shook his head. "No. Everyone, including the little guy I'd just stood up for, scattered like rats from a sinking ship!" His eyes shifted side to side. "Next thing I knew I was treading water in the East River."
"Naked," Henry added, matter-of-factly.
Paul nodded, a slight smile on his lips. "As the day I was born," he laughed.
"Well, that should have made you a little happy that both you and your mother could have ... " Lucas' voice trailed off when he realized that Paul's mother was no longer there to share their everlasting lives together.
"Yeah, after a while, after all the confusion in my mind settled down a bit. Mama and I had an agreement. We would look out for each other. Always. Literally." He shook his head and motioned toward the hallway again. "See, Albertine's twin brother, Albert, died in 1978. As far as we know, neither of them were able to catch what I got from Mama. But I'll never leave my baby sister. Her husband died 15 years ago and they never had kids. I think she was afraid to," he softly added.
"You ... never married?" Henry asked.
"When I was very young, in my early 20's. That lasted about as long as the blink of an eye. And ever since ... ever since that night I died and came back to life, I just ... nah, marriage is out of the question." He eyed both of them. "What would it look like, my wife getting older, then looking older than me. Eventually." He sighed. "Wouldn't be fair to her."
Henry stiffened and swallowed, his throat suddenly dry. Lucas chanced a sympathetic glance at his boss.
"Uh, will you be coming down to claim her ... remains?" Lucas asked in an effort to steer the conversation away from anything that might place doubt in his boss' mind about ever getting closer to a certain hot detective.
"I don't know, Man, I, I guess so." He covered his eyes with his hand and sighed.
The doorbell rang and startled all three men. Paul rose from his chair and peered through the window, pulling the sheer, white curtains to the side a bit. "Hmphf, looks like cops," he muttered to himself. He moved away from the window and to the door. Just as he moved away from the window, Henry and Lucas saw Jo and Mike on the doorstep.
The two ME's shared a look of apprehension as Paul opened the door and Jo's voice lilted in, identifying Mike and her and requesting to speak to him about his cousin, Hattie Fieldings.
Paul gave a little grunt and allowed them inside. He motioned to the small sitting area and said, "Kind of a full house in here, Detectives." He motioned behind him to a larger room. "Why don't we move this party to the living room?"
Jo and Mike did a double take when they realized that Lucas and Henry were seated in the small sitting area. The four locked eyes with each other but the two ME's broke the gaze first, sheepishly lowering their eyes.
Henry could still feel Jo's piercing gaze. He swallowed and timidly raised his eyes to meet hers again. "Ah ... I can explain," he smiled weakly.
vvvv
The crime-solving foursome thanked Paul Fields for his cooperation and left the house. Any ruffled feathers Jo or Mike may have had regarding Henry's and Lucas' unexpected presence at Fields' residence had been eventually smoothed over once he'd shared more information with the detectives about his involvement with Essence of Life. It further helped when both ME's shared with them what Fields had told them about his startling family history.
Jo paused in front of her car and turned to Henry, her shoulders still a bit hunched. "Really, Henry? Dragging poor Lucas out here with you, though?"
Henry frowned a bit and replied, "As a Medical Examiner, I'm sure you are aware that I have every right to conduct interviews with surviving family members in order to piece together true events that may have led up to the victim's demise. And I take exception to your referring to me as 'dragging' Lucas down here with me. He is my assistant, after all," he pointed out.
"Henry, you are not a detective. Lucas worships the ground you walk on, of course, he's not going to refuse to wade into uncharted waters with you. He doesn't know any better. You do!" she pointed a finger at him.
"I beg to differ on that count, as well. A pathologist is a detective in the sense that all possibilities regarding someone's death must be explored, especially - "
"No. No," she shook her head vigorously.
"- ESPECIALLY," he raised his voice over hers, "in the absence of any reason for a cause of death," he finished.
"Your office coordinates with the NYPD, it doesn't take the lead in any investigation," she explained. "If you have a lead, you must inform us, keep us in the loop. You shouldn't be prancing off - "
"Prancing? Detective, really."
" - by yourself. What if Fields had been a violent sort? Neither of you are licensed to carry guns in your line of duty. What about that, huh?" She stepped closer to him, placing her hands on her hips.
"Awww, no, no, no. You two having a lover's spat? And when you haven't even started dating each other yet?" Lucas groaned, spreading his arms out.
"Lucas!" they both loudly admonished him and then turned back to each other.
"Okay, okay," he replied, backing away and putting both hands up as if to shield himself.
Henry pursed his lips and studied Jo. She raised an eyebrow and stared back defiantly at him. He sighed and relented.
"Lucas and I will return to the morgue. You and Mike ... continue your investigation without our interference."
She tilted her head a little and blinked her eyes expectantly at him, her eyebrow still raised.
"And ... any clues or leads will be shared with the NYPD forthwith."
"Forthwith," Mike muttered and shook his head.
"It means - " Lucas whispered to him.
"I know what it means," he rasped back. He threw up his hands and announced loudly for Jo's benefit that he was getting into the car. He climbed into the passenger side and closed the door loudly, still eyeing the verbal combatants through the windshield.
Jo sighed and relaxed the tenseness in her shoulders. "No, Henry, I'd like you to accompany us to question David Gregson's widow, Janet." Fields had shared that bit of information with them which confirmed a marriage record they'd found for the couple, dated 1988, when Janet had been 33 and David, an ageless 41.
Her request surprised him, even though he had accompanied her or both detectives numerous times to question suspects or those who could possibly shed light on their various mysteries.
"Alright. I'll be happy to," he smiled. He smiled broader when she smiled back. He walked over to her car and climbed into the back seat while instructing Lucas to return to the morgue to prep Hattie Fieldings' body for tomorrow's visit from Paul Fields.
"Will do, boss. And ... " he grinned toothily and gave Henry a thumbs up.
Oh, Lucas, Lucas, Lucas, he lamented to himself.
During the ride over to Janet Gregson's Jackson Heights townhouse, he watched Jo's hands grip the steering wheel and imagined them wrinkled with age spots. He watched her lustrous head of hair bounce over her shoulders as she turned her head to view traffic through the windshield or the side or rearview mirrors. He imagined how her lovely mane would look greyed and thinned out. He swallowed and fought to keep the bile down that threatened to spill up and out of his mouth.
Why, all of a sudden were these old doubts and fears about a permanent relationship with Jo (or any woman, for that matter) rearing their ugly heads? They'd talked it all out and all his fears had been allayed when he'd proposed to her on Valentine's Day and she had joyfully, tearfully accepted. Indeed, there had been enough joy and tears to go around for both him and Abraham. No. He was not going to let those old fears ruin their future happiness. If Paul Fields decided to live a long, lonely, single existence, that was his choice. He breathed in deeply to calm his fears and felt them fall by the wayside as he recalled the moment that he'd proposed on one knee and Jo had accepted. He clung to that. They loved each other deeply and he clung on hard in the face of what was turning out to be one of the more difficult cases they'd had in a long time.