Back in the 11th's bullpen, Reece's two top detectives, Martinez and Hanson, sat at their desks and she at hers. Her gaze moved from one to the other and, satisfied that they were both delving into their individual sets of paperwork, she sighed and resumed working on her own. Movement out of the corner of her eye drew her attention back to the detectives. She watched as a sallow-faced young woman with long, black hair paused momentarily near Jo's desk until her eyes fell on Hanson. Recognition flashed across her face and she rushed over to his desk. She clutched the strap of her shoulder bag as she seated herself in the chair next to it. Moments after she began to speak to Hanson, he motioned to Jo and she left her desk to join them. Although visitors in the woman's emotional state were not unusual - it being a Homicide Unit, after all - the Lieutenant felt concerned. She left her desk, as well, and walked out of her office over to them. As she drew closer, she heard the woman's distraught voice.

"Everything seemed to happen so fast," she was saying. "I just ... lost it," she added, hanging her head and shaking it.

"Where, uh, did all this take place?" Hanson asked her, his pencil poised over a blue-lined notepad. He wrote down the 85th Street address she gave him and looked back up at her. He repeated the address and she nodded, confirming it was correct. "And you're sure he's dead?"

"Yes!" the woman, Ruth Carlton, loudly responded. "I told you, I shot him several times. The gun just kept going off over and over and, and ... " Her voice choked on a sob.

"Okay," Hanson told her. "We'll go check it out. In the meantime, I'm afraid you'll have to remain here."

"Guess I'm under arrest," she stated then sniffled.

"No, we're just gonna go check things out and take it from there," he explained. "But for now, we gotta hold you for a while." She nodded as he motioned for a uni to come over. "Officer Greaves will take you down to holding." While the officer took charge of her, Hanson tore off the page with the address on it, folded it, and pushed it into his inside coat pocket.

"She, um, seemed to recognize you," Jo said. "Who is she?"

"She looks familiar to me, too," Reece said. They both waited for Hanson to reply.

"Ruth Carlton," he replied. "Her restaurant catered our Christmas party last year," he explained further.

Reece nodded, recalling the savory food items from the relatively new eatery, CeeBee's, and asked, "Who's the alleged vic?"

"Says it's her boyfriend and business partner, Chad Boseman," he replied.

Reece sighed and. somberly watched Jo and him head out of the bullpen.

"We should take Henry along," Jo proposed as they rode the elevator down to the lobby.

"We don't need him," Hanson tersely replied. When Jo opened her mouth to protest, he quickly added, "Not until we check this out first."

Jo decided to use reverse psychology on him. "Okay. I guess it doesn't matter if another ME, say, Dr. Washington, shows up," she said with a feigned, disinterested shrug. She held her laughter when Hanson put his hand up to his forehead and closed his eyes.

"Call, him!" he told her, relenting. He lowered his hand and frowned at her as she called Henry on her cell phone. "He would be the best," he muttered under his breath.

vvvv

Reece had put out a call for the nearest patrol car to secure the scene. The detectives were met outside the door of the couple's Jackson Heights apartment by a perplexed uni, Officer Tracy Madison.

"We found nothing, Detectives," Madison told them as she followed them across the threshhold into the living room of 4D. "No body, no blood, no weapon." She motioned a hand around. "Sure this is the right address?" she asked.

Hanson, astonished, snatched the small piece of paper out of his pocket and studied it. "Yeah, it's the right one," he affirmed and handed the paper to a wide-eyed Jo.

She read it and folded it back up, biting on her lower lip.

"Maybe she's a, you know, head case," Hanson speculated.

Jo looked around at the photos as Henry often did when in the home of a potential witness or suspect. None of them seemed to jump out at her except for the fact that their would-be suspect and victim appeared to be very happy in each one displayed in a collage that hung on the wall next to the fireplace. "They look happy in these," she pointed out. Although a seasoned detective herself, she felt that Henry's powers of observation were greatly needed here.

"Yeah. Maybe," Hanson replied as his wary gaze rested on the photos then danced from one item to the other in the room. If this had been even a day before he'd met Dr. Henry Morgan and gotten introduced to his way of nit-picking through a crime scene, he would have written the woman off as some kind of kook and had her shipped off to Bellevue for observation. But the very thorough ME had taught all of them, including him, that simple might be easier but not always the best way to work a case. Okay, Doc, you win, he told himself.

"What are you thinking?" Jo asked him.

"Let's have a longer look around," he replied. "I'll start in the bedroom. You take the bathroom." She nodded and headed toward it down the hallway while he instructed Ofc. Madison to secure the crime scene.

"What, uh, where, Detective?" she asked, perplexed. Her eyes darted quickly over the room then imploringly back at him.

"Just ... keep everybody out," he told her. Madison nodded and began to close the entry door. He placed his hand on the door to prevent her from closing it fully and said, "Get CSU down here to dust the place." When met with a questioning attitude again, he said, "Just do it."

He headed to the bedroom to look for what, he wasn't sure. But if he didn't know any better, he was channeling the thoughts and actions of his enigmatic ME colleague. At least, he hoped he was. Ruth Carlton had seemed so upset and so sincere in her claim of having killed Chad Boseman. Not that he wanted the guy to be dead, more that he didn't want the woman to be a nut case.

'Simple is easier, Doc, but I'm tryin' it your way today.'