Disclaimer: Credit to Jonathan Nolan, Greg Plageman, and the POI writing team. Bolded sections are straight from the episodes.
QUEENSBRIDGE PARK
Chapter 15: mid, after Mors Praematura
"Laskey, it's Simmons. Go see your pal Morozov. I think he needs your help."
After getting the call, Officer Mike Laskey goes to Spark's Deli, whose owner Morozov pays HR for protection. But the shop is locked up. He goes around to the alley at the side of the deli.
"Who are you? Where's Morozov?" he asks a young man standing there, wearing an apron.
"Exactly what I called you here to talk about," says Simmons, getting out of the car parked in the alley. "When's the last time you counted the money you got from Morozov?"
"You think he's been skimming?" Laskey says incredulously. "Boss, I've known Morozov my entire life. He values HR."
"Laskey, you're a rookie, so I'm gonna let you off with a lesson this time. You need to learn the difference between knowing someone and trusting them. See, this kid," he points at the young man wearing the apron, "I can trust. Because he values HR? No. It's because he's scared of us. You got it?"
"Yeah. Thanks for the lesson, boss."
"Oh, that ain't the lesson. Old man Morozov made the mistake of pulling a gun when I called him out as a thief," Simmon says, pointing to the trunk of the car. He tosses the keys to Laskey. "There's a shovel in the backseat. Six feet, kid. Don't skimp."
It's nearly one in the morning when someone frantically pounds on the backdoor of Elena Cassidy's house.
Dropping the romance novel she'd been lost in, Elena sits bolt upright on her sofa, and Bailey does the same on his bed near the fireplace. She reaches over and grabs a poker, but Bailey runs to the backdoor.
"No, Bailey!" Elena hisses.
The dog scratches at the door as whoever's there continues to pound on it. Bailey looks at his mistress expectantly. He's not alarmed, like he would be at any intruder.
Also, intruders usually don't knock.
"Ellie! Ellie, please, it's Mike. Please let me in."
The poker clatters onto the table as Elena jerks the door open. Mikey, pale as a ghost and shaking, takes one step into her kitchen before he starts to pitch forward.
Elena tries to catch him, but he's much taller and heavier, so they both end up on the kitchen floor. She can feel him trembling as she takes hold of his shoulders to keep him upright.
"Mike! Mikey! What's wrong? Are you hurt? What —?"
"Oh God, Ellie. They killed him. And I had to bury him. I never thought ... I thought they helped people ..."
'W-What? Mike, wait ..."
But Bailey, like the very good boy he is, is already nosing the door shut.
"Mike!" She shakes him a little until his eyes focus on her. "Who? Who did they kill?"
"Old man Morozov from Spark's Deli."
"Morry?!" Elena exclaims. She and Ken used to stop by that deli all the time, supplementing their free sandwiches with candy when they were younger, and then alcohol and cigarettes when they had been older.
"He pays — paid this group for protection. But they didn't protect him. They're the ones who ended up killing him."
Elena's eyes are wide as she looks into his. "Why ... why did you have to bury him, Mike?"
"They told me to —"
"No, why did you have to bury him?" she stresses.
"I ... I work for them," Mike admits. And Elena feels the room tilt at his confession. "I thought I was helping protect people."
Elena lets go of him. He slumps back against one of the cabinets.
No, Mikey couldn't be HR! She'd agreed to help Joss so that he wouldn't fall into their clutches.
"Why did you become a cop?" she asks in a voice of forced calm.
The question surprises him. He looks at her. She's as pale as him.
"You said it was just something you have to do," she remembers. "Why? Have you been working for them all this time?" Her voice rises in volume and pitch. "Is HR the reason you became a cop?"
Mike stares at her. "I never said who 'they' are, Ellie."
And so Elena Cassidy finds herself standing in her kitchen, brandishing a fireplace poker at her best friend.
"Bailey, come here," Elena orders, and after a moment of confusion, Bailey darts to his mistress' side.
Laskey hasn't moved from where he's sitting against her cabinets.
"What are you going to do, Ellie?" he asks quietly. "Poke me with that?"
"I should call the police," she says, not changing her stance.
His eyes widen in panic. "No, you can't! So many cops are HR —"
"Including my best friend!"
Mike looks up at her imploringly. "I would never hurt you, Ellie. Ever. But they would."
Elena doesn't lower the poker.
Mike's shoulders slump. "Yes, I enrolled in the Academy because HR told me to. I've been working for them since before I was even a cop."
"Why?" she demands. "What do they have on you? How did they force you?"
"They ... didn't," he admits. "It sounded like such a great thing. Helping people. Helping clean up the streets. Standing up to the gangs. Knowing you were part of something big, something important."
"Yeah, that's what real cops do, Mike," Elena points out harshly. "Good ones, clean ones. Cops like my dad."
"Things are different from when your dad was around, Ells. The force is different. It's all about who you know and who you can trust."
"And how's that working out for you?" she can't help but ask bitterly. "Is there anyone you can actually trust, Mike?"
"Carter, my partner," he says at once. "She knew the truth about HR, tried to warn me, but I didn't listen."
"Trust her, then," Elena urges. "She visited me a few months ago." He looks up in surprise. "That's how I know about HR, Mike. She was worried that they were going to recruit you. She wanted me to look out for you." She laughs humorlessly. "Which I did a great job of."
Mike drops his head into his hands. "I'm sorry, Ellie. I've made such a big mistake. I don't know what I'm going to do."
"Tell Carter," Elena encourages. "She ... seems like someone who could help."
Mike nods. "I'll tell her first thing in the morning."
After Mike leaves her house the next morning (she'd made up the sofa for him, since he was in no state to go home to his fiancee), Elena dials the only number on her burner phone.
"Elena," Carter greets.
"Mike's HR, but he wants out, Joss," Elena blurts out. "They'd recruited him before he went into the Academy. He told me everything last night. They made him bury someone, a store owner we've known since we were kids. I told him you could help. Please help him."
This is nothing Carter doesn't already know, since she'd bluejacked Laskey and Elena's burner phone, but she's glad Elena had told her. Her instincts about Tommy Cassidy's daughter had been correct.
"I will help him," Carter says. "All he has to do is ask."
A pale and shaking Laskey gets into Carter's patrol car. His hand is trembling as he hands her a cup of coffee.
"How was your night, Laskey?" she asks. "Sleep good?"
"My name is Mikhail Lesnichy."
Carter turns to look at him.
"There are twelve of us Russians on the force."
"Huh. So HR is seeding the NYPD with cops they know will be loyal and cementing their deal with the Russian mob in the process. What about the money you got from Morozov?"
"HR's stockpiling it. I don't know what for, but whatever it is, they have millions."
"Hmm," Carter frowns. She gives Laskey another glance. "It gets worse than last night, you know."
"What's worse than burying a friend?"
Elena stares out at the choppy grey waves of the East River as she half-heartedly throws a stick for Bailey to fetch. They've been doing this for fifteen minutes now, and good old Bailey hasn't complained about his mistress' awful aim and general lack of enthusiasm.
"Don't you have —?"
Elena whips around, raising the stick like a cudgel, and John steps back neatly just in time to avoid getting struck across his pretty face.
"... something more human-friendly for fetch?" John finishes. He gives her a look of concern. "Are you all right, Elena?"
"Are you all right?" she exclaims. "I'm so sorry!" She drops the stick before she can harm anyone else, then jumps back in surprise as Bear leaps up to catch it.
"Bear!" scolds Harold.
Elena lands wrong on the heels of her boots, and nearly twists her ankle and falls backward, but a strong arm shoots out and keeps her upright.
"All right?" John asks when she's regained her balance. He doesn't let go.
"Yes, sorry, I don't know what's wrong with me today," she says, completely flustered now.
He takes in her pale, drawn features and the dark circles under her eyes that her makeup is doing a good job of covering.
"Why don't we sit?" he suggests, leading her to the nearby bench.
"Oh, Miss Cassidy, your hand," Harold laments, catching sight of the slightly bloody scratches across her palm from where the stick had cut her without her notice. He produces a pristine handkerchief from ... somewhere and hands it to her. "Bear, no," he scolds again, drifting away discreetly to where the two dogs are chasing geese.
John waits for her to take a seat before joining her on the bench.
"I really don't know where my head is today," she says apologetically, clumsily trying to wrap Harold's handkerchief around her hand.
John reaches over and takes the material from her, efficiently folding it into a long strip and then tying it neatly around her palm. She looks at his work appreciatively.
"Thank you."
"You should wash and bandage that as soon as you can," he advises.
That brings a small smile to her lips. "Yes, doctor."
"So, Miss Cassidy," he said, parodying Harold's formality, "what's wrong?" The last part is all John, though — concern and kindness and that troubling ability of his to see right through to her.
The memory of pale, shaking, scared Mikey collapsing in her kitchen last night flashes through her mind.
"Elena."
She flinches again when his hand covers her cold one. She tries to cover up the motion to make it look like she was just raising her hands to push back her hair. But from the way he's regarding her like a spooked animal, she doesn't think she's done a very good job.
"Oh, it's just wedding stuff," she says, wishing it was true. She'd much rather be fighting Ken's mother about centerpieces than worrying her best friend is in trouble with HR.
Well, Reese has discovered one thing: Elena Cassidy is truly a terrible liar.
He knows without a doubt now that something is wrong, and it isn't wedding stuff. But he doesn't know how to help if she doesn't tell him what's wrong. And she's not about to confide in John from the park.
So he'll just have to bluejack her again.
He'd lost the connection the day he'd lost her trail outside of City Hall (he still hasn't figured out how that happened). So when Finch returns to exchange polite pleasantries with her, he stealthily bluejacks her phone again.
But it's the other phone, the one she'd been talking on that day outside City Hall, that he's really interested in.
"It seems I'm always stealing one of your articles of clothing," Elena says ruefully, glancing down at the handkerchief around her hand. "John, I still have your coat from the day the hurricane hit. I should've given it to you when you drove me home."
Reese can feel Finch's eyes on him, since he'd never told him about the day she'd gotten sick at the park. "It's okay," he assures her. "You had other things on your mind."
"Yeah, a hangover."
"You can give it to me next time." He can still feel Finch looking at him.
"Oh! That reminds me, did John pass along my wedding invitation, Harold? I'd like for you both to come, if you can."
"How generous of you, Miss Cassidy. I certainly hope we can attend."
"It's December 7th, at the New York Public Library." She glances up at John, so she misses the look of surprise and delight that crosses Finch's face at her wedding venue. Reese thinks if Elena wasn't already engaged, Harold might make an offer himself.
"You know, I think I'll hold your coat hostage until I get your RSVP," she tells John.
The corner of his mouth quirks upward. "You do that."
She grimaces as she glances at her phone. "I have to go fight with my mother-in-law over place settings, so see you next week?"
"See you then, Miss Cassidy."
Reese finally meets Finch's eyes once she's out of earshot.
"You know, Mr. Reese, I invented the bluejacking app to aid us with Numbers, not to satisfy our curiosity about women we meet at the park," he says disapprovingly.
"I don't know how many women you meet at the park, Finch, but I only meet one," Reese quips.
"Mr. Reese ..."
"Your 'Miss Cassidy' has a second phone, a burner phone," he reveals. "That's the one I was trying to bluejack."
"She's not my Miss Cassidy," Finch points out. "If she's anyone's, she's —"
"Her fiance's," Reese says shortly. "And the future Mrs. Kenneth Parker has a burner phone that I couldn't bluejack."
Finch raises his eyebrows. "Because someone else has already done it," he realizes.
"So Elena has a burner phone, that someone else is tapping, and she successfully gave me the slip the other day. Doesn't that seem suspicious to you, Finch?"
"What?" Finch exclaims. "Let's put aside for a moment the question of why you were following Miss Cassidy the other day," he says with a stern look. "But she managed to evade you?"
"I don't know what she's mixed up in, Finch. But I don't like it."
"If it was something that's put her life in danger, the Machine would have given us her Number," Finch reminds. "So until we get it, I think —"
"I'm not waiting around until her Number's up, Finch," Reese says decisively.
Finch's brow furrows. "John, we can't ... try to save someone who isn't in trouble," he says, picking his words carefully. "If we start just randomly choosing the people we want to help, we would waste time and resources on them while ignoring those who truly need our help."
"So you're saying we should ignore all these signs she's in trouble, because it's inefficient?" Reese interprets, a dangerous edge to his voice.
"No, I'm asking you, where would we draw the line? Why wouldn't we start following that woman there, or that couple over there?" Finch asks, randomly pointing out people in the park.
"That's not the same. We don't know them. We know Elena. She's —"
"She's what, John?" Finch is finding it hard to strike the right balance between compassion and logic. "You said it yourself. She's the future Mrs. Kenneth Parker. She's not ..." he trails off hopelessly. "She's ... just an acquaintance."
Reese's expression is inscrutable. He turns and whistles for Bear and begins striding to the car, leaving Finch to limp after them.
