I hope you're not disappointed with how I resolved the case...

The next morning Jo resumed her interview with Filipe Lopez. The darkness of last night's conversation with Henry still weighed heavily on her, but she couldn't let that pull her down, she still had a job to do.

"Listen, Mr Lopez," she said in her most understanding tone, "being quiet is not going to help you."

Filipe looked at her for a second, then looked down again at the table top in front of him.

"You understand that at the moment you are our main suspect in the murders of both your brother and his girlfriend."

It had no noticeable effect on him.

Jo sighed. She was reaching the end of her patience – and her whit. "Mr Lopez?"

Still nothing. Even his lawyer started to look exasperated now.

The door opened and Henry stepped in. He quite likely had been watching from the observation room on the other side of the mirror. At this point, Jo didn't care.

"Good morning, Mr Lopez," Henry said amiably.

Filipe looked up for a moment, registering the new arrival.

"This is Doctor Henry Morgan," Jo introduced him. "Mr Yankovich, Filipe Lopez's lawyer."

Henry absentmindedly nodded at Yankovich. His concentration was fully on Filipe, as he bowed down, propping himself up on his knees to bring his eyes level with Filipe's. "Mr Lopez, Filipe," he said gently. "I know you didn't kill your brother. Nobody in their right mind could do it, not like that. And even though at the moment you are doing your very best to appear like you're out of your mind, I know you're not."

Filipe's gaze went to Henry again, as if his eyes were moved by some external force.

"I know you loved Romano. Did you call him that? Romano? Or did you have a nickname for him?"

Tears came to Filipe's eyes, spilled over. A moment later he was racked by quiet sobs.

"So why don't you just tell me what happened? Ensure justice for your brother. He was the younger one of you two, wasn't he?"

"I loved him," Filipe stuttered. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

Jo's eyebrows shot up in shock. No... This couldn't be! She had been so sure that Filipe hadn't done it. She found her disbelief mirrored in Henry's eyes.

"Mr Lopez," Yankovich said urgently, "don't answer any more questions."

"But we promised," Filipe went on, undeterred, "and he broke the promise, and I pushed him, and he hit his head, and I thought ... I didn't mean to hurt him. I thought he was dead!" Filipe flopped forward onto the table, crying loudly into his folded arms.

For a little while Jo just let it happen, and with a bout of jealousy studied Henry, who still stood next to her, propped up on his knees, his eyes unwaveringly trained on Filipe. Why did people automatically trust him? She had tried to go the way Henry had just walked, so had Hanson, but to no avail. Filipe had sat there, keeping his silence. Now Henry did it, and Filipe sputtered like a broken faucet. It was not fair.

"Mr Lopez?" Henry finally asked and crouched down next to Filipe, crossing his arms on the table, mimicking him to a point.

Filipe looked up.

"What made you think you killed Romano?"

"He wasn't moving, and I couldn't wake him up. And there was so much blood coming from his head."

"So what did you do?"

"Don't answer that."

Again, Filipe ignored his lawyer. "I called Edita."

"Mr Lopez, I strongly advise you to stop talking now."

"She said she'd take care of it." New tears came, and new sobs. "I was so thankful that she was there, and that she didn't blame me or anything, that she didn't call the cops on me. I don't know, I was totally out of it." His nose started to run, he wiped it with his bare hands, getting snot all over his face. "I didn't know she'd push him... God, how could she? She claimed she loved him! How could anybody do such a thing to someone they say they love? That's not..." More sobs interrupted him.

"You didn't know what she did until we told you?" Jo asked. She liked Henry and begrudgingly accepted his talent, even in the interrogation room. But she was not going to let him take over completely. She was still the detective here.

He shook his head. "I called her, after you showed up at the shop. And she told me ... told me that she was trying to make him disappear. And then you tell me I hadn't killed him, that he wasn't really dead. I did not kill him, I didn't kill Mano." The tears he cried now were tears of relief.

"But you killed her, Edita," Jo asked for clarification.

"Don't answer that," Yankovich immediately advised.

Filipe looked at him, then over to Henry, as if asking if it was okay to answer. – Damn him and his trust-evoking personality.

"She was mine," he said softly. "And then, last month he told me about this fabulous woman he'd met, and showed me a picture, and it was her. I told him, she was mine, I'd met her first, but he wouldn't give her up." He rubbed his face with one hand. "I gave him a chance to let her go, and gave him another one. We had a deal, if ever we should like the same girl, we'd both take a pass, and move on. I told her it was over. He didn't. He kept seeing her."

Jo knew the rest of the story before Filipe told it, with many sobs and tears and stuttered words: Filipe had called Romano out on it, Romano had persisted on the continuance of his relationship with Edita, Filipe had pushed him. And in his emotional state – feeling betrayed by his brother and feeling desperate over the assumed murder – he had called the only other person privy to the situation.

"What about Edita?" Jo asked.

"Don't answer that."

But Filipe still wasn't listening to him. "I killed her," he said in a cold voice. "She deserved to die. When I confronted her about Mano, she had the audacity to say that now we could be together again, I didn't have to honour the agreement anymore, because.. She didn't care for either of us. She deserved to die."

Yankovich shook his head in silent defeat. Filipe was every lawyer's nightmare.

Jo stood up. "I'll have your statement written up. I'll be back in half an hour to have you sign it."

Filipe nodded absentmindedly, Yankovich sent her a reproachful glare. Henry followed her outside.

"Damn," she said, once the door closed behind her.

"The tragedy of people jumping to conclusions," Henry said sombrely.

Jo sighed. "On some days this job sucks more than on others."

Henry finished writing up his notes of the day, when he saw Jo coming across the morgue towards his office.

"Join me and Hanson for a drink?" She stuck her head inside the door.

"Celebrate the closure of the Lopez-case?" he asked, already snapping the folder shut and getting his coat and scarf.

"Celebrate is not the first word that comes to my mind, but... yeah, kinda."

"Can I come too?" Lucas called over Jo's shoulder, looking hopeful like a six-year-old in a candy shop.

"Sure, why not," Henry allowed.

Jo rolled her eyes once, but otherwise accepted Henry's decision.

"Just only one drink, though," Henry continued.

"That's okay. I doubt that Hanson and me will have much more than that."

"Whatever's cool with you guys is cool with me," Lucas assured.

They ended up staying at the bar until it closed at three in the morning. They had stuck to lighter drinks throughout the night, beer and even alcohol-free drinks, but after eight hours, they were drunk, nonetheless.

"Come and stay at my place?" he asked Jo, after Hanson and Lucas had climbed into a taxi they shared.

She didn't even consider it. "I love your couch, Henry, but I think I'm better off in my own bed."

"Presumably," he quickly admitted. He didn't want her to feel obligated. He hailed a cab for her, but when it halted next to them he didn't want to let her get in, because...

"Something wrong?"

"No, why would anything be wrong?"

She raised her arm, and he saw that he had at some point grabbed her coat, holding it in a tight fist.

"New found phobia of taxicabs," he answered. It was worse when he was drunk.

"Really, I never noticed. Since when?"

"Since I died in one." She'd demanded he'd not to talk about his deaths, but she also always wanted the truth, so...

She blinked a couple of times. "I could have done without knowing that, but I guess I appreciate your honesty."

He nodded. "No more lies."

"No more lies," she agreed. "But that doesn't mean unfiltered truth, okay, Henry?"

"I'll try. But this is why I gave up alcohol for a few decades. It makes me chatty."

She laughed softly. "Even more than usual?"

"A lot of things make me chatty," he admitted good-humouredly.

"Right, now that we've cleared that one up, let go of my coat, the man's waiting." She pointed at the cabbie.

But Henry couldn't. His fingers simply did not follow his command. "It's easier to reason myself out of the fear when I'm sober." Why was he telling her that? No unfiltered truth, she'd asked that of him not a minute ago, and already he went against her wish.

"Okay then. How about we walk instead? It's not that far, the fresh air might do us some good. And then I can take a cab from your place."

You can try, he thought, but said: "Thank you." He waved the cabbie away with an apologetic smile.

They walked in silence. Jo linked her arm with his, and it made walking a lot easier, because that way they could conveniently steady each other. It was also warmer. The nights were still rather chilly this time of the year.

"Will I ever know the full truth about you?" she asked when they were almost at his house.

"Yes. You will know everything about me, everything that's of importance, and probably a great number of things that are not of importance." There was no doubt about that in his mind - barring the unlikely possibility of her dying within the next couple of days.

"I like the straightforwardness in your tone," she said. "I've grown sick and tired of you hiding things from me."

"So now you want the truth?" he teased.

"I always want the truth," she declared testily. "I just wish you wouldn't put it quite so bluntly. Think before you speak next time."

"I'll try and be more sensitive in future," he promised. "Any plans tomorrow?"

She stopped, and because their arms were linked, he was forced to stop as well.

"It's one last thing," he told her softly. "One last thing, and then everything else will be colouring out the contours. No more big surprises, no more big revelations. Promise."

She said nothing, just looked at him, her expression hidden by the shadows of the night.

"Say something?" he pleaded.

She shook her head. "Just wondering what this 'one thing' might be. I mean, I know I just asked, but... How much weirder can it get? You already told me you're over two hundred years old. You told me you die on what seems to be a weekly basis or so, and after dying teleport over to the East River. And the weirdest part about all of this is: I actually believe you. That's why I have to wonder: What can there still be that will top that?"

"Why would it have to top anything?"

"Because if it didn't, you would have told me before you told me about the immortality."

She had a point. "Right."

"So why not just tell me now and get it over with? Why wait until tomorrow?"

"Because you asked me to think before I speak. So I thought and realised it'll be better explained if you just see it."

TBC