"Jack!" Adam Schiff walked into the Visitors Room at the Halfway House. "When did you forget how to duck?"
Jack McCoy flushed at Schiff's gentle scolding.
The Attack at the Park had happened four days ago. Drs. Kennedy and Skoda were in agreement. Jack wasn't allowed to go back to work until a week had passed.
We want to make certain you're all right, Jack, Skoda had explained. You were concussed, and head wounds can be tricky things…
So, here Jack was, with nothing to do until Skoda said he was well enough to continue his Community Service.
Thank God for Adam and Claire…
Claire Kincaid had picked him up from the hospital the day before, driven him to the house, and now Adam was here, chess kit in hand.
Neither was very good at the game, but it passed the time, and Jack treasured the time he was able to spend with the man who had once been his boss.
Before everything had gone to hell…
""You look like you've gone a few rounds with Marciano," Schiff chided him gently.
"I was lucky," McCoy smiled as he helped Schiff set up the chess board.
It could have been worse…
Liz Rodgers had visited him, showed him the skull x-rays that had been taken when he had been brought to the hospital.
It almost looks like you were struck with the flat of a blade, like a sword, she had said. If the angle had been slightly different, he could have sliced the top of your skull right off…
That little snippet of information had left McCoy feeling rather shaky.
Talk about a close shave…
…..
Lieutenant Anita Van Buren was having trouble processing what the FBI Agents-Monica Reyes, in particular-were telling her.
"Elves…" she regarded Reyes severely. "Running amok in Manhattan, and killing defenseless…Neanderthals?"
"Now…We don't know what the victim is," John Doggett hastened to reassure Van Buren. "And we won't know until the DNA scan comes in."
"Besides," the ever-scientific Dana Scully put in. "The subject in question is far more likely to be an atypical specimen of H. Sapiens. The Neanderthals died out hundreds of thousands of years ago. It's the killer we need to find; and the witness's account was far from satisfactory."
"Give Jack a fuckin' break!" Mike Logan spoke up from the other side of Van Buren's office.
"Guy was concussed, and on all sorts of meds, both psychotropic and pain killers, so he was out of his head just a little when we talked to him."
Van Buren's phone rang, and she picked it up, leveling a stern glare at the FBI Agents.
"Van Buren speaking."
"Lieu?" Detective Ed Green. "We've got another Central Park killing, and…it's just like the other killing. Killed by an arrow, and…it's another one of those…Neanderthals."
…..
Shit…
Detective Mike Logan looked down at the body, at the arrow protruding from its chest.
Shot in the back, just like the first guy…
Its hair was red instead of blond, and it looked to be a little older than the first.
"We have ourselves a serial killer," Van Buren announced calmly. "And a…specialized one at that."
"Yeah, but…" Green looked down at the victim. "Where are these guys coming from? One troglodyte might be the result of a birth defect. But two?"
"I'll want access to the Morgue and its labs," Agent Scully spoke firmly. "Science will provide answers to this."
"An answer to Elves running amok in Manhattan and killing Neanderthals?"
Mike Logan shook his head.
Somehow he knew he wouldn't like the answers this woman might find.