Scene: ME's office. Curtis and Barry are running some tests.

Curtis: "I heard about the way you took care of that toddler to take his medicine. Well done, but now you have a problem."

Barry: "They stopped selling McRibs again?"

Curtis: "Fool. Dr. Hunt is a highly competitive perfectionist. You criticized her as a mother and as a doctor. One or the other is bad enough. Both together, she's gonna be watching you for mistakes like a hungry dog looking for table scraps. Screw up and you're a dead man."

Barry: "She's not that scary. You and Ethan are just wusses."

Curtis: "Just you wait. That woman wields a mean scalpel. She knows her anatomy. I don't want arterial spray all over my lab."

Barry: "I'll try to stay out of reach."

(Megan walks in.)

Megan: "New Guy. Road trip."

(Barry exits with her)

Barry: "I sit by the phone every night, but you never call any more. It makes me feel unloved."

Megan: "Good. That's exactly the feeling I was hoping for. Maybe you'll learn to answer your phone like a normal person."

Barry: "Acting like a normal person seems dishonest."

Megan: "Acting, not lying."

Barry: "I suppose that might be OK..."

(end scene)

Scene: walking on the street, after being at the crime scene. Megan has again told a witness that she knows he did it and she will prove it. Bud and Samantha are walking behind them.

Barry: "Dr. Hunt? I was wondering if I could persuade you to refrain from making statements to witnesses and potential suspects?"

(Bud and Sam exchange glances)

Megan (testily): "Why would you want that, Mr. Gray?"

Barry: "Because you suck at it."

(Bud and Sam, look at each other, turn back)

Bud: "You know, I think I left my pen back at that house..."

Sam: "Better take me with you or you'll forget something else..."

Barry: "Yogi! Boo-boo! Where are you going? Picnic basket's this way!"

(they look at each other)

Bud: "Yogi?"

Sam: "Boo-boo?"

(Barry turns back to a livid Megan)

Megan: "I suck at it? I suck at it? Where do you get off telling me I suck at it, Mr. Gray?"

Barry: "Pretty much the same station where you suck at it. It causes problems in the interviews. Doesn't it, guys?"

Bud: "We are not getting involved in this until it gets physical. Maybe not then. You poke the bear, you deal with the claws yourself."

Barry: "You've got them scared of you, too. Geez, and they have guns. With bullets and everything."

Megan: "Don't change the subject. Why exactly do you think I suck at it?"

Barry: "You still act like the world's foremost expert surgeon or something. That's great when you have a scared patient that needs to be reassured that they are in capable hands. Not so good when we are looking at suspects. You show them our cards, don't get anything in return. Puts them on their guard. It's bad for business."

Megan: "I do not do that. Bud, tell him I don't do that."

Bud: "Well..."

Megan: "Oh, so now you're on his side?"

Bud: "I'm not on anybody's side. Sam and I are going to go back to the station and write our reports. Come on, Sam."

(Bud brushes past Barry)

Bud (sotto voce): "You had to poke the bear. Poke, poke, poke."

(they leave)

Megan: "So, Mr. Smart Guy. You think you can do a better job talking to witnesses."

Barry: "I just think you need to hold your information a little closer until the proper time to disclose it. When we have somebody at the station and were trying to get him to crack, that's a great time to smack him with how much you've deduced. Until then, it just gets him to clam up."

Megan: "All right, next time we go out, you conduct one of the interviews. We'll see how well you do."

(end scene)

Scene: Next time. Barry is suddenly speaking with somewhat of a drawl. Talking to one of the witness/suspects, say a woman over 45. Megan occasionally looks on.

Barry: "You don't mind if I just hook up this little piece of equipment to your husband's computer, do you ma'am? This disk does some kind of fancy analysis to see if it was infected or anything. Then we can chat a while."

Woman: "Would you like some tea?"

Barry: "Now, that would be most kind of you, ma'am. Could you spell your name for me, please? It's embarrassing if I get details like that wrong, and I just get no end of grief from my co-workers."

Woman: "Olafsen. O-l-a-f-s-e-n."

Barry: "You're just so helpful. Now if you could tell me a few things about you and your husband's employment history, how long you've lived here, what the neighbors are like, things like that..."

Woman: "Certainly."

(fade to later)

Barry: "Well, I think that's about all the questions I have for now. Looks like that fancy equipment didn't find much of anything. I'll just disconnect it and be out of your way. Thank you for all your assistance today, ma'am. I'll be sure and call you if I think of anything else."

Woman: "Anything I can do to help."

(Barry puts his equipment in a bag, and exits with Megan.)

Megan: "OK, Slick, what's with the phony accent?"

Barry: "It's a real accent. I lived in Virginia for years. It's quite useful when interviewing potential suspects."

Megan: "Why?"

Barry: "Because people around here think that anyone who speaks with a drawl must certainly be a slow-witted backwoods hick. They drop their guard and get all kinds of chatty. They don't expect Gomer Pyle to make a back-up image of their hard-drive for analysis at the lab."

Megan: "All right. There might be something to your interview technique."

Barry: "You still have considerable medical skill."

Megan: "Admitting that I can do something right?"

Barry: "Well, since we had a moment alone together..."

Megan: "A moment alone together? You're not going to get all mushy on my, are you, Barry?"

Barry: "Of course not. That was meant in the spirit of "no witnesses around to see me be almost nice to you." I'll deny everything."

Megan: "Don't bother concocting an alibi. Nobody would believe me, anyway. Why don't we swing by and pick up Lacey again? We've been arguing again, and she seems to like you."

Barry: "Young people have no taste."

Megan: "I didn't say that."

Barry: "No, but I heard you thinking it."

(cut to picking up Lacey)

Lacey: "Hi, New Guy. Good to see you again. (frostily) Good afternoon, mother."

Megan: "Lacey and I have been disagreeing lately about curfew and bed time. Care to referee?"

Barry: "This sounds like a vampire argument."

Megan: "What's a vampire argument?"

Barry: "Do not enter unless you're invited in."

Lacey: "I'll invite you. She treats me like a little kid."

Megan: "Well, if you act like one, I'm going to treat you like one."

Barry: "Whoa. Cease fire. I presume this is about mom wanting to set a bed time, and Lacey wanting some independence?"

Megan: "Yes. How did you handle that with your kids?"

Barry: "We didn't argue about it. Megan, what's your parenting goal?"

Megan: "I want her to go to bed at a reasonable hour."

Barry: "That really sucks as a goal. When you to a class reunion sometime, when everybody is sitting around bragging on their kid in medical school or law school, are you going to trump them all with 'My child goes to bed at a reasonable hour?'"

(Lacey laughs)

Megan (crossly): "Of course not."

Barry: "The goal is to have a happy, successful, independent adult at the end of child-raising. Agree on that and other goals like academic success. You can measure whether she is on track to achieving that by grades. If her grades are good, and she makes it to school on time, why pick a fight with Lacey on something stupid like bed time?"

Megan: "It is possible you may have a point."

Lacey: "You must have been a really cool dad."

Barry: "Remember, Lacey: the early bird gets the worm. Although personally, I always thought worms for breakfast was a poor incentive plan."

Megan: "Go to your riding lesson. We'll talk about it more tonight."

Lacey: "Bye, Mom. Bye, New Guy. Thanks."

Megan: "You have a crazy parenting style."

Barry: "It worked."

Megan: "Your wife actually went along with this?"

Barry: "Pretty much. We worked to help the kids learn to make their own decisions, and make good ones. That also means letting them fail some times in minor things, so that they learn consequences, too."

Megan: "But it's really hard to stand by and watch that."

Barry: "Yup. Tough being a parent."

Megan: "I think I'd like to meet your wife and hear her version. Or is it ex-wife?"

Barry: "Deceased wife. Cancer, a few years back."

Megan: "Sorry. I didn't realize."

Barry: "It's OK. Just means the rest of the world has to put up with me, without her to act as a buffer."

Megan: "Gee, I never met her, but I really miss her."

(end scene)