Sorry for the shortness of this chapter but I'm trying to "think" this thing out to a semblance of believableness (if that's even a word). Thank you for your patience.

Chapter Text

The last time that Jo had seen Erik Haas was when she had gotten him to confess to killing his father earlier that year. He had waived his right to a jury trial and pleaded guilty. After only two months into serving his 15-year sentence, it had visibly aged him. Not that he looked grayer or more wrinkled from the passage of time, it was the sallowness of his already fair complexion from minimal exposure to daylight. His blue eyes, set deeper into the under-eye hollows, had lost their sparkle. It meant that he'd seen too much that wasn't nice or good in this place and it drew her attention away from his gaunt appearance but only for a moment. She watched him sit down across from her at the small table in the prison's library where he was working that day. A burly, unsmiling guard hovered nearby but even she didn't feel safe with him there.

"Detective Martinez," Erik greeted her. "I didn't expect to see you here. Anywhere, for that matter."

"Same here," she replied. It wouldn't do for her to ask him if he was all right; she could see that he wasn't. And, whatever the problem or problems were, she had to admit that she didn't want to know. She decided to be a coward about that. He was a convicted murderer serving his time and this, unfortunately, was part of the punishment. Before arriving, she knew that she had to leave her emotions, any sympathy for him, at the door. But she had to know if he knew anything about the others who'd worked with his father in the return of stolen artifacts to their rightful owners.

"Since you're probably not here to spring me," he half-joked, "I can only assume it's because you want to talk about my Dad."

"Yes," she replied and dove right in. "Can you remember anything he might have said about the other people who were working with him besides Julian Glausser?"

"No," he replied, shaking his head. "Dad kept all of that to himself. Big secret between him and his friends and not to be shared with his own son," he said bitterly.

"Yes. That's what you told us before," she said. "Did Julian say anything to you at all to indicate that his life might be in danger if he tried to sell any of the stolen artifacts?"

"No, he … he only said that some of the items could never be returned to their rightful owners because it was impossible to find them all so why not sell them. He said that only the crazy people believed otherwise." He paused, his mind traveling back to that time. "My Dad wasn't crazy, just obsessed with doing what he thought was the right thing."

"Then, Julian was talking about someone else," Jo prodded.

Erik shrugged. "I suppose so. But you wouldn't be here if you hadn't come across something new. Maybe if you tell me what it is, it will help trigger a memory for me."

"Julian fought back with his killer," she said. "A tiny piece of skin dug out of his ring during the autopsy yielded some strange DNA results."

Erik pondered for a moment, scratching the back of his head. "Well … going back to Julian's comment about 'crazy people'," he began, "I do recall him saying that he would be glad to sell the stuff and get it off his hands once and for all. That he wouldn't have to visit Bellevue anymore."

"Bellevue," Jo repeated, frowning. "Had he been seeing a therapist there?" she asked.

"Could have. I just don't know. It just seems that crazy and Bellevue go together," he reasoned. He unfolded his hands and placed his palms on the table, leaning toward her.

"Look, if any of this turns out to be helpful in solving his case, do you think you could, uh, put in a good word with the Warden for me? See, usually, I work in the laundry and in the library only sometimes. I'd really like working here in the library permanently." A spark of hope flashed in his blue eyes.

"Well, I can't promise anything," Jo replied. Shouldn't promise a thing since she and Hanson were investigating a cold case without having informed their boss, Lt. Reece. "But I'll see what I can do." She stood up, nodded to the guard, and he accompanied her out of the room and she left the prison.

Once back at the precinct, she shared with Hanson what she had learned from Erik. Hanson stated that it wasn't much and she reluctantly agreed. But no matter how much of a long shot it was, they decided to pay Bellevue's psychiatric department a visit, anyway. Just as they began to leave, Lt. Reece called to them and instructed them to come into her office.

Several thoughts ran through their minds as they entered her office and stood in front of her desk. Reece sat down and rested the fingertips of one hand atop a file folder in front of her. Their heart rates ticked up for fear that she had found Glausser's file in Jo's desk and she was on to them.

vvvv

Abe was glad he'd decided to open the shop after all. Working would help to keep his mind off of things and give him time to figure out how to help Dad. But nothing was coming to him. The phone conversation before dawn with Lucas and the one later that morning with Dad had deeply disturbed him but he hadn't allowed either of them to know how much. Jo and Hanson reopening the Glausser murder case could pose serious consequences for the Immortal. And yet, he had decided to return and pretend to help solve the case by surreptitiously navigating them away from any real resolution. That move could get him into even hotter water than his secret being revealed. Obstruction of justice, withholding evidence, aiding and abetting … things like that were frowned upon by the criminal justice system. For the first time since he had learned about Dad's condition and of his occasional need to run to stay safe, the irony was not lost on him that Dad now felt the need to stay and weather this storm and he felt the need to run.

vvvv

"Let's talk about a couple of unsolved cases," Reece said as she looked from one detective to the other. "Have a seat," she said. As they sat down, Reece opened the file folder. Both detectives thought to themselves, "We're screwed" . However, Reece's next words surprised and relieved them but only temporarily.

"One of our Techie's, Lacey, found something interesting that appears to connect the Xander DeSoto and Julian Glausser murders," she said and handed the file to them so that they could review the reports. Reports that Lacey had painstakingly compiled but they were already too familiar with.

"Wow, uh, how did this come about?" Jo was able to finally find her voice to ask.

"I personally review every unsolved case myself," Reece began, "hoping to see if we missed something. In the DeSoto case, there was a mixture of blood on the murder weapon. The lab successfully separated and identified most of it as DeSoto's but the other, just a trace, produced very strange DNA results. At the time, it was thought that the Lab simply made a mistake. However," she continued, "when the same results popped up in the Glausser case, it was apparent that the Lab was either consistently incompetent in processing this particular DNA or … we have a serial killer with some very strange blood out there."

Their reactions weren't exactly what she had expected and she frowned as she studied them. "Had the same thing crossed your minds, as well?" she asked.

"To tell you the truth -," Jo began before being cut off by Hanson.

"- we didn't know what to think, either," he said, finishing her response for her. That was actually the truth although mixed in with a lie in an effort to cover for his partner who was covering for their ME.

Surprised, Jo looked quickly at him and then back at Reece but the guilt she felt only allowed her to briefly hold her gaze. Here she was yet again holding the truth back from her boss about something odd that Henry had done. And not only that, it appeared that Hanson had chosen to jump into the lying pit with her. It was sometimes hard to be a cop. It wasn't supposed to be this hard to be a friend!

"We, um, only just recently learned about this," Jo said, not wanting to divulge anything further but still needing to pad their lie with another layer of truth.

"Well, that's all we can do," Reece quickly said. "We investigate leads whether they pan out or not." She instructed them to keep the file with the reports and wished them good luck as they left her office.

They walked back to their desks but their feet felt so heavy. Guilt, Jo concluded. And a kernel of growing anger at Henry for having caused both of them to feel the need to lie for him. Hanson held the file that Reece had given them. He sat down at his desk and eventually opened it even though he didn't expect to see anything inside of it that he and Jo hadn't already discovered.

Jo looked over at him and said she was ready to leave for Bellevue whenever he was. When he didn't reply, she got up and walked over to his desk where he appeared to be engrossed in the contents of the file.

"What is it?" she asked.

"Remember the case where we pulled Raj Patel's cab out of the drink?" he asked.

"Yeah," she replied.

"And we were able to connect him and that autopsy victim, Smight , because they'd both been vaccinated for Hep B," he continued.

"Because they both had worked at Bellevue," she said, understanding where he was going with this train of thought.

"Maybe our mystery killer with the scary blood was required to get the same vaccination," he speculated. "Based on what you said Erik Haas told you, he could be either a current or former employee at Bellevue."

"Ready to take a run over there now?" she asked with a slight smile.

"You bet!" he enthusiastically replied.

vvvv

"Pretty sure we need a warrant for this," Hanson said as they entered the hospital.

"Maybe we'll get lucky a second time," she told him. "Henry's therapist, Dr. Farber, works here and he was very helpful the last time we were here." She filled him in on how Farber had shared confidential medical information on a psychiatric patient who turned out to be a man named Clarke Walker.

"Wait a minute, the same guy the Doc killed when he broke into his home last Christmas?" he asked. She nodded, yes. "Wow. And you think he'll just turn over some more information again without a warrant? I mean there are HIPAA laws, Jo."

"What HIPAA doesn't know won't hurt her," she joked.

"Not a him or a her, Jo," Hanson protested. "We could get into real trouble doing this. And he could, too!"

"Relax," she urged him. "We'll be fine.

They now stood in front of Dr. Farber's office door and Jo knocked. The door was soon opened by an attractive African-American woman about the same age as Lt. Reece. "Can I help you?" she asked.

"Yes," Jo replied. She and Hanson displayed their badges and ID'd themselves. "The last time I was here, this was the office of Dr. Lewis Farber."

"Oh, well, I'm Dr. Latrice Palmer. This is still his office but I'll be working out of it until he's able to return to work," she informed them.

"You said 'able to return to work'," Jo said. "Is he out ill?"

"Guess you'd have no way of knowing but he was attacked in the subway last month. H e's been a patient here ever since in Room 310 ."

They thanked Dr. Palmer and hurried over to the hospital's patient-housing wing and went to the 3 rd floor Nurse's Station where they ID'd themselves.

"We're here to see Dr. Farber," Jo told the nurse.

"If you're here to try to get any information out of him about who attacked him, you're out of luck," Nurse Hampton said. "He's unable to communicate with anyone."

Curious and concerned, they listened as the nurse provided more information about his condition. Then they thanked her and slowly entered Farber's room. As they drew near to his bed, they were shocked and dismayed to see him flat on his back with an oxygen mask over his nose and mouth. He lay with his arms on top of the covers and straight by his sides, the rise and fall of his chest and his open eyes the only indications that he was still living.

Jo felt just awful seeing him like that. She'd only met him once but he had struck her as being nice and polite. Henry had proudly addressed him as being a fellow Englishman. She wondered who could have done such a terrible thing to him to cause him to be paralyzed and unable to speak, all the while wide awake. Sadly, she realized, they weren't going to be able to question him. She drew closer to him not knowing what to say to him but feeling strongly that she should. If he was aware of things like they'd been told, then he would probably recognize her from that one visit.

"Dr. Farber," she began, "I'm Det. Jo Martinez with the NYPD. I don't know if you'll recall but I visited your office just before Christmas last year with my ME, Dr. Henry Morgan. You helped us by giving us information on one of your patients, Clarke Walker." She cleared her throat and continued. "I just wanted to say it's a shame what's happened to you and that I hope you get better soon."

There was no detectable movement from him, not even a blink. It mortified her that the man didn't appear to have the ability to even blink! She swallowed and stepped back to the foot of his bed where Hanson stood, frowning at him. Apparently, he, too, was mortified by the man's condition.

"Let's go," she told him.

"Sure," he replied. " Gimme a minute." He stooped down and peered into the plastic wastebasket next to the bed. With a blue glove, he retrieved a bloodied cotton ball attached to a bandaid from out of it and dropped it into a small, plastic Ziploc bag. He then walked back to the foot of the bed and positioned his cell phone in front of Farber's chart. "Cover me," he told her.

"What are you doing?" she gritted over her shoulder but stepped back to block anyone's view of him.

"Just cover me," he told her again and then he snapped pics of the chart's three pages. He straightened up and quickly pocketed his phone. "We can leave now."

They quickly left Farber's room and exited the hospital. As they buckled up, Jo asked him why he'd photographed Farber's chart.

"I'll know better once we get the pics blown up," he told her. "But it looks like Farber has the same blood type as our mystery suspect, AB negative. I thought it was worth a shot to get it documented."

Jo scoffed. "Farber?! You think he might be our suspect?" She laughed out loud. "Why, he's one of the most soft-spoken, most mild-mannered men I've ever met!" She laughed more, shaking her head as if to shake off Hanson's reasoning for his actions.

"Why, then, did you want to go see the guy?" he challenged her.

"I thought maybe he could point us to another of his patients or co-workers the same as he had pointed us to Clarke Walker," she replied.

"Anyone's a suspect, Jo," Hanson reminded her. "And ya gotta wonder - what did he do that was so horrible that someone thought they had to lay him low like that?"

She didn't reply although she still couldn't wrap her head around Farber being anything other than what he had appeared to be: a mild-mannered psychiatrist with an English accent crisper than Henry's. "Have it your way," she finally told him. "Drinks are on me next time if I'm wrong."

Hanson chuckled and replied, "You're on."

VVVVVVVV