Henry and Jo arrived at Wyndham's luxury loft, now a crime scene. They identified themselves and worked their way past the yellow crime scene tape and on into the living quarters where Wyndham's body still lay on the sofa, covered with a sheet. The sight of his lifeless form was upsetting enough to Henry but not as upsetting as seeing his son being questioned in connection with his death. His and Abe's eyes met briefly but long enough for fatherly disapproval to be met with contriteness. Henry's expression softened as he sighed and clasped his hands in front of him.
Jo caught the exchange and leaned over sideways to Henry and whispered, "Talk to Tillerson. I'll talk to Abe." She pulled her lower lip in and stepped away from him towards Abe.
He turned and saw Tillerson squatting on the side of Wyndham's body and approached him.
"Dr. Morgan," Dr. Tillerson cheerily greeted him without looking away from the corpse. "Checking up on me?" he asked good-naturedly, covering the corpse's face back up with the sheet. He then stood back up.
"No, no," Henry replied, smiling a bit and lowering his head. "Although the deceased and I had only recently met, my, uh, cousin," he indicated by nodding his head towards Abe, "was apparently the one who made the 911 call."
"Really?" Tillerson, surprised, glanced quickly at Abe, then back at Henry. "Your cousin believes in this past life regression stuff?" He pulled off his gloves and deposited them into a waste receptacle on the side of the sofa near Wyndham's feet. The mildly surprised look on the face of Tillerson's assistant did not go unnoticed by Henry.
Tillerson and Henry stepped back out of the way so the body could be zipped up into a black, plastic, body bag and transported back to the morgue. He gave last minute instructions to his young assistant, Miriam Dwyer, and turned back to Henry. "I hear the guy was a scam artist." He scoffed and added, "I'm no detective like Martinez or Sherlock like you, but his killer is most likely one of his clients."
Henry chose to ignore Tillerson's earlier question about Abe's beliefs in Wyndham's services. "His killer? he asked. "Have you determined a preliminary COD?"
"Poisoning," he replied confidently. "Ethylene glycol, I suspect."
Henry frowned, clasping his hands behind his back. "A colorless, odorless substance found in anti-freeze; very dangerous once ingested and frequently fatal."
"And the sweetness of it could easily hide, undetected in a beverage," Tillerson added and tipped his head towards the pitcher of cucumber water on the counter of the kitchen island and the near-empty drinking glass.
Henry knew that by ingesting the poisonous liquid, Wyndham could have suffered severe organ damage, including kidney failure. However, he'd recalled reading from a recent medical journal that if the one working kidney was already damaged, death could come all the sooner. Which is what may have happened to Wyndham. Tillerson, in his opinion, was a capable ME, but he now wished that he could perform the autopsy himself.
Henry also knew that Tillerson was wrong about Wyndham's abilities but he dared not share his opinion with him. However, his assumption that one of Wyndham's clients may have been the killer seemed more plausible. Which one, though? He recalled with a tinge of sadness their brief encounter in the morgue the previous evening.
"He might have been able to last a little longer if both of his kidneys had been working. Well, gotta go, Henry," Tillerson said." They shook hands and he left. Odd, he thought to himself. How would Tillerson know about Wyndham's one kidney without an autopsy? He pushed the concern to the back of his mind, chalking it up to the fact that Tillerson had had a much longer time to examine the body than he had.
"Uh, hey, Henry," Abe smiled nervously and cautiously approached him. "What a shame," he said, motioning towards the bloodstained sofa that still showed the impressions of Wyndham's recently removed corpse.
Henry knitted his brow and stared intently at his son. "Abraham," he sighed and shook his head disappointedly.
Abe quickly held up both hands and said, "Before you say anything, I was just here to ask questions."
"Questions," Henry nodded, considering. "About what?" he asked, raising his eyebrows.
Abe laughed nervously. "Let's, uh, let's discuss this somewhere else, okay? I'd kinda like to get outta here now." He jiggled his eyebrows up and darted his eyes repeatedly towards the sofa.
Henry grunted and pursed his lips. He raised a finger to Abe and walked over to consult with Jo. When she informed him that she expected to be there a little longer, he told her that he would leave with Abe.
"Don't be too hard on him," she advised him with a smirk. He frowned when she told him, "I know that look. Whatever he was doing here, I'm sure that he was just being a good son and gathering information that he thought might help his father." She raised her eyebrow, emphasizing the last word.
A smile slowly washed over his face and he rolled his eyes. "I'll take that into consideration." They shared a parting smile and she turned her attention back to the crime scene. Disapproval once again showed on his face as he walked back to rejoin Abe. He dipped his head and extended his arm towards the door. "Shall we?"
"Oh, I don't like that tone of voice," he groaned, walking ahead of Henry as they left the loft.
"And well you shouldn't," Henry informed him. He followed behind Abe and bit his tongue in an effort to ward off the smile threatening to usurp his stern expression.
As the elevator doors closed, Abe's exasperation spilled over as he took in his father's look of disapproval. "Will you just cut me some slack, please, and stop looking at me like that?" He folded his arms across his chest and grunted. "Never liked that look."
vvvv
During the drive back to the shop, Abe explained his reasons for having visited Wyndham and shared with his father what the hypnotherapist had told him about the immortal client (now mortal) he'd met five years earlier.
"As he was dying, he spilled his guts to me, literally," Abe said, locking the car door and joining Henry at the shop's door.
"Hmmm ... this unknown man was upset at having lost his immortality as a result of Wyndham's treatment," Henry stated thoughtfully.
"I'd say that was a pretty strong motive for murder," Abe pointed out.
"Yes, I suppose there are those who would value something like that," Henry softly replied.
"Something like - " Abe couldn't believe his ears. "Henry! There are those who would give their weight in gold, to have 'something like that', as you call it!"
"And yet, you visited Wyndham to find out how or if he could help me to regain my status as a mortal human being," Henry countered.
"Well, yeah, because I know you want to grow old with Jo ... not ... lose her like you did Mom." Abe's voice had grown gradually quieter.
Henry grimaced slightly but said nothing. Abe broke the awkward silence between them.
"But if I were you," he said, pointing a finger at him, "I'd be happy just to marry a wonderful woman like Jo and live my life one day at a time with her no matter what the future holds."
vvvv
Monday morning in the precinct ...
"What do we have in the poisoning case, Detectives?" Lt. Reece asked, studying the bulletin board with his photo, DOD, TOD and COD.
"James Edward Wyndham II, 52, divorced, ex-wife, Lillian, deceased ten years ago; skiing accident. A son, James III, is a freshman at BYU." Hanson looked up at Reece. "He's flying in tomorrow to formally ID and take possession of the body." He lowered his eyes to his notes again. "Sixteen-year-old daughter, Meikel, has been living with an aunt and uncle in Salt Lake City, Utah, for the past couple of months where she's in her junior year of high school. From what we found in his papers at his home, he planned to chuck this guru business and join them as soon as his loft was sold. He'd planned to help his twin brother, John, run his restaurant again in Salt Lake." After having witnessed Wyndham's remarkable accomplishment of using hypnosis to bring Hattie, David, Ming and Margaret out of their limbo and back to their mortal lives, Hanson now felt guilty for having ever doubted his claims set forth in his late-night infomercials.
"Trace evidence revealed that his pitcher of cucumber water had been tampered with," Jo stated.
"Naturally," Reece laughed humorlessly, "since somebody dumped a big swig of anti-freeze into it."
"And, it appears that that same person may have known that he had only one kidney to fight off the toxicity," Jo added.
"Do we have a suspect?" Reece asked.
"Yes," Jo reluctantly replied, quickly glancing at Hanson. "Paul Fields. Unis are bringing him in as we speak."
Reece frowned and asked in a low tone, "Him? He was ecstatic when his ... Cousin Hattie was revived by Wyndham." Jo and Hanson both shrugged. "And what can the justice system really do to him if he's ... " She blew out an exasperated sigh. "I sincerely hope it wasn't him." She continued in a more normal voice. "I hear Tillerson's the ME. How's Henry handling that?" Reece asked, a slight smile on her face.
"Ants in his pants," Hanson replied with a smirk. "Apparently, he doesn't feel that Tillerson is putting all he's got into the autopsy. He's achin' to dig his hands in there. Literally."
"Well, you know Henry," Reece smiled, "dot every 'i', cross every 't'. I doubt if he thinks that anyone else could do that as well as he can." Her smile faded. "Let me know when Fields arrives." The two detectives nodded and Reece departed to her office.
vvvv
"Fields?" Henry's voice, full of indignance, boomed out of his office and carried into the morgue. "Why, that's utterly ridiculous!" He listened to Jo's response on the other end of the call. "Yes," he replied. "Yes. I most definitely want to be present when the two of you question him." The call ended, he placed his desk phone's receiver back into its cradle and quickly stood up to remove his white lab coat and hang it on the coatrack. "Lucas? Lucas!" He called to his young assistant as he marched two-fisted, arms swinging, towards his office door.
"Yeah, Doc." Lucas stood in the doorway, wide-eyed and concerned at the urgency in his boss' voice. Henry beckoned him closer. "Uh, yeah, what's up? You leaving?"
Henry's tone was hushed but the look on his face was pure cloak 'n dagger to Lucas. "Paul Fields is being brought in for questioning in the Wyndham murder case." He paused to look over Lucas' shoulder and walked quickly past him to close the door. He walked back to Lucas and continued. "Keep your eye on Dr. Tillerson. It seems that in this particular case, he has chosen to abandon his usually stellar practices for the more slipshod ones employed by Dr. Washington. As much as it behooves me to question the authenticity of a heretofore respected colleague's work, I feel it is necessary in this instance." The look on Lucas' face confused him. "What is it, Lucas? Do you understand?"
"Well, ya kinda lost me with 'behooves'," he slowly replied. "I mean I've heard it before or read it in a Dickens novel," he stroked his chin thoughtfully then grinned and snapped his fingers. "It means you're ... upset!" He sighed and waved his long arms around and explained, "Sorry, Doc. It's just that when you get excited you start tossin' those Austen-y, Mr. Darcy-ish words around and it's sometimes hard to understand what you mean ... " His grin faded when he noticed the dark cloud on Henry's face. Suddenly it hit him. "Whoa, wait, you don't think Dr. Tillerson is covering something up, do you? That he had something to do with Wyndham's death, do you?"
Henry pursed his lips and sighed regretfully.
"Whoa, you do. Wow." Lucas took a soldier's stance and raised his hand to his brow in a salute. "You can count on me, Doc."
Henry's shoulders rose and his chest expanded as he inhaled deeply, then exhaled, deflating himself. He turned to leave his office and mused, At home, I have to deal with Abraham's horseplay. At work, I must deal with Lucas' shenanigans. He shook his head but couldn't help but smile because he loved his son to no end. And a strange mix of fatherly/big brotherly affection for his young assistant grew stronger each day.
