"Did you know any famous people?" Jo took a sip of the whisky Henry had provided.
"No, not particularly," he said. "I met Ernest Hemingway in Paris, worked with a few men who are famous in medical circles."
"Did you even go to medical school, ever?" Another sip.
"I have actually gone to medical school a number of times, in a number of different countries. I do like to keep current, of course, I've gone to conferences and I read a number of journals," Henry said. "Would you like something to eat?"
"How do you pull that off? Do you make up your name, get a social security number or something?" She shook her head to the offer of food. She stared into the middle distance, thinking only in questions.
"When I first started, it was actually quite simple. After a few years, I only needed to move ten or twenty miles away. Then I would have to move a few hundred miles. Technology is, as you imagine, making the process of this new identity harder every year."
"There are always people," Jo said, "who will give you a new name, new identity. Criminals, usually."
"That was not a question," Henry said. She thought he sounded like he was smiling but she had no intention of looking at him.
"Does the lying ever wear you down?"
"Yes," Henry said. "But then I had Abigail in my life, and Abraham."
"Is it weird to watch your son get older than you?" She had finished the glass of whisky Henry had poured for her. She leaned forward and poured herself another.
"Not really," Henry said. "I don't think of myself as the age I look, you understand. I think of myself as very old."
"Really old," Jo said. She stood up. "I am going to call a cab. I don't want to drive home and I don't want to see you."
"But you will," Henry said. It sounded tentative.
"I'm sure," Jo said. She wasn't sure why, but she was sure.
zzz
Naturally, there was a body. She didn't call Henry but he was there. "Hello, Detective," he said. He smiled.
Since they were alone with the dead guy, she said, "How many of your teeth are veneers? When you come back to life, is it with the new teeth?"
He looked up and said, "I have, indeed, had a number of my teeth replaced, and replaced again. Yes, when I come back from the dead, I do have the veneers in place. And before you ask, my haircuts also stay the same as when I just died, I do not go back to the same haircut I had the first time. Thank goodness, as I had what I would now judge, in Lucas's words, unfortunate facial hair."
Hanson walked up with a patrolwoman so she kept her questions to herself.
zzz
After the autopsy, when Lucas and Hanson stepped away, she said, "Have you ever been autopsied?"
"No," Henry said. "As my body disappears the moment I die, there has never been a body to autopsy."
"You've never been experimented on," she said.
"No," Henry said. "Though that was not a question. Adam told me he was captured by the Nazis, he was experimented on."
"That sounds awful," Jo said.
"He hated them," Henry said. "I loathed them as well, frankly."
Lucas walked up and said, "Frankly, this test result is loathsome." He smiled and waited for Jo and Henry to respond. She sighed.
zzz
She went to the shop after the first round of interviews, people who knew the victim, all possible suspects. Henry opened the door and smiled again. "Actually, I was thinking about it, and I only retain three of my original teeth."
She didn't smile but she thought about it. She said, "How many women have you slept with?"
Henry looked down and then back at her. He said, "I never counted but it's far less than you would think. I was married for 30 years. Also, I am not very good at flirting."
Jo did smile at that. "I think you are."
"I am not," Henry said. "Ernest Hemingway stole my girlfriend away."
"Yes, that absolutely proves your point," Jo said. She turned around and left.
zzz
In the morning, she picked him up to drive him to the scene of the second murder. They sat in silence. Then she said, "How many times have you died since I knew you?"
"A few times," Henry said. "I used to die much more often."
"How weird is it that you just said that sentence?"
Henry said, "Not very weird for me, though I understand hearing that sentence and believing it is a shift for you."
"Why aren't you mad I keep asking these questions?" She glanced at him. He looked like himself. Calm.
"They've all been very logical questions," Henry said.
"The one about your teeth?"
"I have to say, I've wondered about that myself. The first time I broke a tooth I was so hoping it would grow back, but instead, there I was pulling myself up from the bog, tooth still needing to be fixed," Henry said. "I really do appreciate how dentistry has improved since I was young."
"We fluoridate our water," Jo said.
"But not everywhere," Henry said.
Then they were at the second scene and Jo was finished with her questions for now.
zzz
Her next three questions were all about mechanics of his immortality and Henry answered by saying the exact same thing: "I have no idea." Not in a rude way, of course, it was Henry.
After the killer confessed and Hanson led the poor sucker away, she said, "Now that I know, you'd jump in front of bullets for me, right?"
"Certainly," Henry said. "It would be my honor. But I also hope I could count on you to make sure no one noticed my subsequent disappearance if they were fatal. Or take care of my bills if I end up in the hospital paralyzed."
She said, "Wouldn't you just want me to kill you, then?"
"Dying where people can see or where there is a record of my existence necessitates creating a whole new life, you see," he said. "So, no, I might not want."
She nodded. "Good point."
"I have had a lot of time to think about it," Henry said. "You are still in your first week."
zzz
She agreed to dinner with Abe and Henry. She said, "You two can just talk like you would normally. You know, about the dead thing."
"I don't usually call it the dead thing," Abe said.
"Right," Jo said. "The coming back from the dead thing."
It turned out very little of their usual conversation was different, but she did hear about more of Henry's deaths. She also saw the way Henry smiled when Abe called him "Dad."
That smile helped to thaw a little of the ice she had felt around the whole world since Henry had told her. She couldn't be asked to accept something so obviously made up as real. But maybe it was.
It definitely was. She had proof a hundred times over at this point.
zzz
If her husband had been like Henry, she would have welcomed him back into her life. She would have, she would still shred everything about herself to move somewhere no one would know Sean. She made plans for it in her head as she drove, imagining Sean with her, the two of them in Venezuela, maybe.
Maybe, someday, she'd do it for Henry.
zzz
"How many more years do you think you'll be Henry Morgan?" They were standing outside the shop, talking at midnight. She had called, he'd answered. She watched a man across the street, smoking furiously as he walked. She wished she'd smoked. It would be nice to have something to do with her hands.
Henry said, "I hope for a long while. But I never know."
She looked at him. Apparently, whatever force that chose who to make immortality loved beauty. He was a very attractive man.
She knew him. She was sure he was a good man. "You are a good man, right?" This time she asked looking him in the eye.
"I hope I am," Henry said. "I try to be."
She smiled at him. She found something to do with her hands, taking his and squeezing. "I think you are," she said.
He kissed her and stepped back. She said, "200 years old and that's all you got?"
Henry said, "I have much more. But perhaps we should save it for an actual date?"
zzz
Their date went horribly. They awkwardly ate across from each other at some place Mike had recommended. Apparently, Karen had been thrilled to hear Jo and Henry were finally going out and had a lot of ideas about how it should go. Mike had passed them on mumbling.
"The food is excellent," Henry said. It was the first words either of them had said in ten minutes.
She said, "Yeah, so what's wrong with us?"
He laughed. "I don't know. I find myself unable to think of anything at all to say besides what I already have. You look beautiful," he said.
"You said that. Thank you," she said. "The pressure is on here. Maybe we're buckling."
"I think we're better than that," Henry said. "Should we talk about murder?"
"Or not," Jo said. "Music?"
"I prefer classical," he said.
"Not exactly my favorite," Jo said. She laughed. "Back to murder then?"
Henry said, "Do you know how many times I've been murdered? I could count for you."
His stories got them over the hump to the highly recommended cheesecake, but they were stuck again in awkward land as they walked out.
Jo said, "Your place or mine?"
"Should we continue?"
"Well, I do look beautiful and I think if maybe we power through this part, it will get easier?" She wasn't sure but it sounded possible.
"You do look beautiful," Henry said, smiling and looking beautiful.
They hailed a cab to her place. He took her hand while they rode. His hand was warm and so, suddenly, was the cab, the whole world. He said quietly, "I'm not exaggerating about how lovely you look."
"Thank you," she said, practically whispering.
zzz
"Do we need something, um, condom?" She had pushed Henry against her front door as she closed it, kissing him and pulling him against her by tonight's damn scarf. He had responded as though he'd been waiting decades. Now his hand was at her waist.
"I didn't bring a condom," he said. "But it would be useful."
"Condom," she repeated in an imitation of his accent. "I have some in the bathroom. We should make sure we get there."
"But not quite yet," he murmured against her neck.
"Why are you wearing so many layers?" They had left a trail of clothes up the stairs to her bedroom.
"I didn't anticipate we would be here tonight," he said, smiling. They were both finally naked, falling back onto her bed, laughing again.
She felt like joy, like giggles and stupid smiles from the weight of him on top of her, how hard he was against her thigh, the smell of both of them.
She said, "Is this where you show me the much more you've got after all these years?"
"Yes," he said.