Author's Notes: This story is set at the end of the season finale, "The Last Death of Henry Morgan". But for the sake of my own sanity and concentration, I thought of abandoning the original timeline and making the events occur now but ... no ... scratch that. That episode aired May 2015 so we begin there.

vvvv

Det. Jo Martinez stood at the entrance of the antiques shop where her enigmatic, unofficial partner, Dr. Henry Morgan, lived with his elderly roommate, Abe. Through the large display window and glass door, she had seen the two men in a battle of wits over a game of chess, as they often liked to be. At that moment, though, she felt she was in a battle of wits with the secretive ME after she'd handed his pocket watch to him and he'd claimed it had been stolen. Now she held up an aged, black-and-white polaroid photo of a smiling couple with a baby. The man in the photo held a striking resemblance to Henry. Who were the woman and baby, though?

"I, um, also found this," she had told him. She stared intensely at him as his fake but dazzling smile faded and quiet panic overtook his expression. And something else she saw that looked like ... relief.

While she, Henry, and Abe stood at the door, the shop's landline phone rang. Abe left to answer it but not before saying "Tell her" to Henry.

"It's a long story," he finally replied to her.

She opened her mouth to tell him that however long it was, she was ready to listen but she never got the chance. Her phone rang and she reluctantly retrieved it from her pocket and answered what was a call from her official partner, Det. Mike Hanson.

At the same time, a frantic Abe nearly shouted, "Henry! Henry! You gotta take this call!", shaking the phone's receiver as he held it out to him in a two-fisted grip.

Henry looked uncertainly from Jo to Abe then back at Jo. He conveyed an apologetic look to her and hurriedly went to take the receiver from Abe. The look of concern on Abe's face and Henry's brow furrowing deeper, drew Jo further into the shop as she gathered the information from Mike about a homicide. As she drew closer to them, Henry glanced at her and she could see the color draining from his worried face.

"Yes," he told the caller. "We'll be there as soon as we can." He hung up the phone the same time that she ended her own call and he hurried over to the coat rack to grab his coat and scarf, putting them on.

"That was Mike," she told him. "We got a body. Who was that?" she asked. The looks on their faces were beginning to alarm her.

"A friend," Abe quietly replied. He appeared to be too troubled to provide any further information.

"What's going on, Henry? Is Abe's friend all right?" she asked as Henry rejoined them.

"No, she isn't," Henry replied. His worried expression spoke volumes. "There's been a murder."

vvvv

Jo and Henry rode mostly in silence in her car from the shop to what turned out to be the same crime scene they had been apprised of by their respective calls. Crime scene. To Henry, those two words, unfortunately, seemed to fit quite well with Abe's two-times ex-wife, Maureen Delacroix. She had never struck him as being the vicious, murderous type. Just one who may have allowed her emotions to overtake her rational train of thought like when she'd shot Abe (accidentally, Abe had always maintained). Still, it dismayed him to have to finally meet her face to face in his official capacity as Chief Medical Examiner at a crime scene involving her.

The worry and anxiety for her had been etched into his son's face and he hated to have left him back at the shop instead of taking him with them. Even though he had more misgivings than his son did about his former daughter-in-law, they both still wondered how she could have managed to get herself in the middle of something as dire as this. But Abe firmly believed that it was all just some kind of misunderstanding (again) and everything would be cleared up in no time.

Neither Jo nor Henry, though, was able to totally push their earlier, interrupted conversation at the shop out of their minds. Jo's unanswered questions were lodged in her throat, making it difficult for her to utter very much about whatever was really going on with Henry. Maureen was another matter. And in her capacity as a detective, she would seek some concrete answers.

Henry, on the other hand, found the silence a welcome breath-catching moment before what he knew would be an intense question-and-answer period. But he knew that he would ... should ... eventually satisfy her curiosity with honest answers. Would she believe them, though? A huffing sound escaped him and he shook his head, frustrated with himself for his own cowardice regarding sharing his secret with anyone other than Abe. If he had somehow found the courage to tell her before this, maybe she wouldn't have become so angry and frustrated with him. Maybe she would have believed him, accepted him. Maybe by now, they would have -

"Henry, do you know anything about Abe's friend? Her lifestyle, friends. In your opinion, would she be capable of killing someone?" she asked, swallowing her frustration over not being able to question him about his own mystery. "Abe looked really upset."

Did he know anything about Maureen? He unpursed his lips before reluctantly replying, "She's actually his ex-wife."

Jo gasped and glanced over at him, then back at the road in front of her. "Wow, um, I never knew he'd been married."

"Twice, as a matter of fact," he told her. "Both times to her." He unwillingly gave in to a smile when he saw her eyes widen in surprise and amusement.

A chuckle left her and she asked, "Are they still married?"

"No. They're also divorced - twice," he replied, bracing himself for her reaction.

"Well, I've heard of people remarrying the person they had previously divorced but ... divorced twice, married twice?" she asked, amazed.

He calmed his features and sighed before speaking again. "Jo, this has really upset him."

She nodded as they arrived at their destination and parked. "That was pretty obvious." She turned off the car and said, "He must still have feelings for her."

"Yes," he replied. Personally, he'd always felt that Abe could do better than the flamboyant woman who regarded her small derringer as more of a bejeweled cap pistol rather than the deadly weapon it really was. Whatever his own thoughts or feelings were about the woman, it was clear that Abe still held her in special regard. "Hopefully, we can get to the bottom of things quickly and reveal the truth behind it all."

"Hmmm. The truth," Jo replied, side-eyeing him. "Always the best thing," she added, causing him to cringe.

They were in front of the upscale Barclay Hotel on East 48th Street. After parking the car, they spotted Maureen being examined by an EMT. As they drew closer, they were both shocked at the amount of blood on her expensive-looking, blue-sequined evening dress and velvet jacket. Jo shot a sideways worried look at Henry then back at Maureen. It was important to keep her cool and question this woman, special to Abe, as she normally would.

As Henry drew closer, he noticed something very telling about the placement of the blood on her clothing. Although aware of Jo's worried glance at him, he remained focused on Maureen. They both were surprised but thankful to see Hanson, dressed in a much nicer suit than he usually wore to the office, already on the scene. Hanson walked over to them and shared his concerns in a lowered voice.

"Guess I'm a witness or something," he told them.

"Witness?" Henry asked. "What did you see?"

Hanson inhaled deeply and let it out before replying. "Karen and I hadn't long been seated at our table. Not often we get out, just the two of us," he began. "Right after we ordered, she (motioning to Maureen) walked by with a man later identified as our victim, Durwood Scanlon." He dipped his head toward a body a few feet away on the sidewalk covered with a black tarp.

"They arrived shortly after you did?" Jo asked.

"No, they were leaving," Hanson replied. "I was able to catch her attention and they stopped at our table. Seemed like a nice couple like they were happy to be with each other."

"Just being friendly or did you or your wife know either of them?" Jo asked.

"Maureen Delacroix," Hanson spread his hands as he replied as if that was all he needed to say. "She's a legend."

Henry knew about her career in the early 1960s when she and her two older sisters sang in a girl group called the Candy Canes. A bit before Jo's time, though, he realized. Hanson's time, too, for that matter, and he was surprised to learn that Hanson was obviously a fan of hers.

"Of course, I wasn't aware of them that much when I was growing up," Hanson explained, "but after their music was used in that 90s movie about the kid who fell off the whale-watching boat and turned into a dolphin, there was a resurgence in their popularity."

"I know that movie," Jo said, her mouth hanging open a bit. "I always felt kinda sorry for him, though. Falling into the water and drowning, dying, actually. Then being transformed into a fish." She shuddered at the thought. Both she and Hanson appeared oblivious to the slight look of startled dismay that passed briefly over Henry's face.

Would she feel sorry for him if she learned of his own transformation? Would she also shudder in disgust? Her voice cut into his troubled thoughts.

"Before you say anything, Henry, I know that dolphins are mammals - not fish." He mutely nodded with a lip-pressed smile.

"So the music in that movie ... that was her singing those songs?" she asked, not caring which of them supplied the answer.

"Along with her two older sisters," Henry contributed. "But we mustn't appear starstruck when we question her. We still have a victim to whom she's well connected."

Jo and Hanson sighed, nodding in agreement. "Did there appear to be any tension between Scanlon and her?" she asked Hanson.

"No," Hanson replied. "Like I said, they appeared to be real happy with each other."

"No sign of any tension between them, then," Henry stated more than asked.

"Nah, nah," Hanson quickly replied. "Well ... maybe not bad tension, if you know what I mean," he added, lowering his voice and raising an eyebrow. "Like they were on their way to find a private place to, uh, release said tension."

Henry chose to ignore the insinuation, instead remaining focused on Maureen. "Did you or your wife hear anything, any screams, or sounds of a fight or argument after the couple had left the hotel's ground-floor restaurant?" he asked Hanson.

"Screams, yeah, lots of 'em," he replied. "I ran outside in the direction of the screams and found the vic on the ground bleeding to death from a bullet to the head," he said, tapping his index finger to the center of his forehead.

"Where was she?" Jo asked.

"Crouched over him. Said she was giving him CPR," he replied.

"Obviously, it didn't do any good," Jo dryly remarked.

"Kneeling down over him to give him CPR would account for how the blood had gotten onto her clothing," he surmised.

The EMT removed the blood pressure gauge from Maureen's arm, packed it away, and stood up just as the two detectives and their ME walked up. Maureen sat at the back of the emergency vehicle with dried tears on her pale, dazed face. She raised sorrowful eyes up to look at the three of them, her gaze meeting Henry's.

"You're Henry," she said in a soft voice of clipped, British English. "We finally meet. How is your father?"

Jo and Hanson exchanged a wide-eyed look of surprise and then slowly slid their eyes over to Henry, anxiously awaiting his response.

He gulped before he finally replied, "If you're referring to Abraham, he's fine although quite concerned about you - but he's not my father. My father died a long time ago." At least that was the truth, he told himself, noting the looks of slight disappointment on Jo's and Hanson's faces - although they were both happy to get even that little crumb of information out of Henry - and the slight scowl of confusion on Maureen's.

"That old dog! I always thought that you were his son!" she hissed.

Doing his best to ignore the curious looks from Jo and Hanson, he gulped again before replying. "We've ... known each other for so long that sometimes he treats me that way." That was actually true. There were times when he'd sought advice and comfort from his more worldly son.

He hoped that the flimsy explanation may have put a sock in any further questions about his relationship with the elderly man. His son. Although forced to lie from time to time in order to keep the secret of his condition, it always left him feeling guilty. And this half-truth troubled him even more because Jo had heard it; he hadn't wanted to add more to the web of lies he'd already woven for her.

"Oh. My mistake." Maureen shuddered a tired breath in and out and sniffled. "Poor Woody. Poor Woody."

"I assume you're referring to Mr. Scanlon, the victim," Jo said. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"We ... we were standing and ... waiting for a cab," she told them. "Well, he was hailing for one and I was signing an autograph for a fan."

"A fan," Jo repeated. "Where is this fan? Maybe they saw something, too?"

"Oh, I, I don't know," Maureen replied. "There was a gunshot and everything happened so fast!" She let out a frustrated sigh but continued. "All I could think of was to help Woody. He was bleeding so much!" She looked up at Henry again and said, "First I tried pressure to stop the bleeding, then CPR. Abe taught me, bless his soul. Said he'd learned a lot of things like that from his father, who was a doctor, I suppose."

Henry felt an unexpected swell of pride when she mentioned that. He'd often wondered if his son had really paid attention to those mini-medical lessons.

Jo, on the other hand, mentally filed that little tidbit away about Abe, in many ways nearly as mysterious as his roommate, Henry. A doctor, she thought to herself, glancing at Henry. What a coincidence. She turned her thoughts back to Maureen, now sobbing.

"Nothing I did helped!" Her sobs consumed her as she looked helplessly down at her blood-stained hands.

It was obvious to them that she and Scanlon had shared much more than just friendship. Their sorrow for her, however, was less important than the questions they needed to ask her. Time was of the essence in any investigation.

Henry moved closer to Maureen then sat down next to her. "Abe is very concerned about you right now," he quietly told her. "And I'm truly sorry for the loss of your friend, Mr. Scanlon. Is there anything else you can share that might help us catch his killer?"

Maureen chuckled nervously and wryly noted, "I thought that I was pegged as his killer. That's the way I've been being treated so far."

"There are witnesses to confirm that the shot came from a passing car," he said. "The nature of his wound indicates also that he was shot from a distance." Because of her fragile emotional state, he chose not to elaborate any further.

Jo stepped forward and told her that her clothing would have to be surrendered as evidence and that she would have to submit to DNA testing.

"Of course," Maureen replied, wiping tears from her cheeks. "I've seen enough crime shows to know that."

vvvv

"Interesting," Henry said as he leaned over the stainless steel table on which the blood-stained dress and evening jacket lay that Maureen had worn when Scanlon had been murdered the night before.

Lucas covered a yawn and apologized. "Sorry, Doc. Didn't get much sleep last night."

"Hot date?" Henry asked, still giving most of his concentration to the blood-stained clothing.

"I wish," Lucas chuckled wryly. "Worried about if I would still be working here or not after ... " his voice trailed off.

Henry straightened up and cast a concerned but grateful look at him. "After you defied Det. Martinez's order not to give me the pugio." Lucas nodded and Henry sighed.

"I have yet to properly thank you for that," Henry quietly admitted to him. "And I must apologize for having put your job and livelihood in jeopardy."

"Figured if it was that important to you," Lucas said, shrugging, "then it was important that I should get it to you. Hope everything worked out okay." It was more of a question. By now, he had hoped that his very learned boss had spilled the beans about the significance of the pugio and where he'd taken it to that night. 'Just a bean or two, Big Guy, to help crack the code on you?'

"It was important," Henry confirmed. "And everything worked out much better than expected." He genuinely wished he could tell the young man more. But he felt that Jo should be first to hear any of his long story.

Turning his attention back to the clothing, he told Lucas to get the samples they'd taken from it over to the lab. Lucas left with the samples just as Jo and Hanson entered the morgue, exchanging greetings with him and Henry.

"What can you tell us about this?" Hanson asked, eyeing the blood-stained clothing.

"Well, as you can see, it's pretty obvious that there is a great deal of the victim's blood on it," Henry replied.

"Uh, yeah," Hanson said in a half-smirk. "Obvious."

Henry chuckled and dipped his head before explaining further that the stains were consistent with someone having knelt in a pool of blood and leaned over Scanlon's bloody body.

"See, if she had been standing in front of him - "

"Which she wasn't, according to eye witness accounts that back up her story," Jo said, interrupting him.

"Quite correct," Henry concurred. "The initial impact of the bullet into his skull would have caused a massive out spurt of bleeding that would have hit her squarely - " He abruptly stopped, noticing how queasy both Jo and Hanson looked. "My apologies, detectives, for the graphic nature of the description of the victim's fatal wound. If you prefer not to hear them, the details will be in my report."

"No, it's, uh ... " Hanson shook his head and flopped a hand up then down. "No matter how gruesome, you always seem to describe things with no more emotion than if you were reading the contents off the side of a box of cereal."

"Just doing my job by trying to explain that the immediate blood loss would have stained her clothing in a different pattern if she had been standing closer to him and had fired the shot that killed him," Henry explained while trying not to appear so defensive. "And no trace of gunshot residue was found on either her or her clothing." He looked at them both and stated, "Maureen was not the shooter."

"Doesn't mean that she didn't set him up," Jo proposed. When met with the looks of disappointment on both men's faces, she said, "Just throwin' it out there. Certainly something that we have to consider."

"Surveillance camera footage is being rounded up as we speak," Hanson said, not liking what he was hearing from Jo but reluctantly agreeing that she was right. "We should be able to start goin' over them this afternoon."

Moving a few feet over to the corpse of the victim stretched out on a stainless steel autopsy table, foursome took up positions on either side with the detectives on one side and the MEs on the other. Henry explained the obvious to them beginning with the entry wound and the resultant damage the bullet had done.

"We were able to extract a .22 caliber bullet from the wound," Henry told them.

"A small caliber handgun?" Jo asked Henry.

"That is correct, Detective," he replied.

"About a million registered to gun owners in New York alone," Hanson wryly stated.

"The fingerprints we lifted from the bullet might help to narrow it down to one specific owner," Henry proudly informed them, hands clasped in front of him as he rolled his shoulders back. Lucas, back from the lab, opened a folder and took out two photos of the fingerprints and handed one to Hanson and one to Jo.

"Well, this ought to speed things up for us," Jo said as she and Hanson studied both photos. Hanson took both photos and said he'd go run them.

"Thanks, Doc," he said as he left the morgue.

"We were on our way over to Ms. Delacroix's hotel to question her again," Jo told Henry after he instructed Lucas to package the clothing back up. "Looks like my official partner is gonna be a little busy for a while. Would my unofficial partner wanna come along? I mean especially since she's so close to Abe."

No, he didn't want to come along for just that reason. But he reluctantly agreed to since he had promised his son that he would do all he could to help solve this case. "Please. Lead the way, Detective," he told her with an outstretched arm.

His smile was a little too forced to Jo but she chalked it up to the uneasiness behind their interrupted conversation prior to receiving the call about this case. She felt that she'd been patient long enough and it was fading fast although she was trying her hardest to remain focused on their latest case. What in the world could her unofficial partner be hiding? And would any revelations lead to charges being brought against him? She sincerely hoped not. Especially after having covered for Lucas and him only a few hours before she'd shown up at the shop.

Certain things she'd done in the past in an effort to protect Henry and those close to him now threatened to come back and bite her in the butt. Such as when she'd omitted from her report that Henry had dared the gas station owner, Ryan Morris, to shoot him instead of her in the Tyler Forrester murder investigation. And the Jason Fox murder investigation found her once again lying to Reece and falsifying her report. Henry had deliberately stepped in front of not one but two speeding cars in an attempt to catch a suspect. But her report indicated that he was inadvertently in the path of both cars. At the time she had concluded that he had been trying to make up for having killed Clarke Walker several weeks earlier. But even divulging that to Lt. Reece may have put a halt to him joining her in field investigations. So she'd covered for him. And she was doing it again now about the pugio. She sincerely hoped that he would clear the air with her about that soon to keep them both out of some deep doo-doo.

The steering wheel in her tight grip began to feel moist from the sweat on her palms. As much as she was trying to stay focused on the current case, it was becoming harder and harder to contain the anger, frustration, and hurt that had built up inside -

"Jo! Truck!" Henry yelled, startling her out of her thoughts. She instinctively slammed on the brakes and the car came to a stop within inches of the 18-wheeler in front of them. They both took a few moments to collect themselves. "Perhaps I should drive," Henry breathlessly suggested. He didn't want her anger-fueled, distracted driving to cause either of them to get seriously injured or lose their lives.

"You're not authorized to drive this vehicle," she replied and resumed driving once the truck in front of them began moving again. "Just like you weren't authorized to have that pugio from Evidence Lockup yesterday."

Her words stung but he knew that she was right. And even though she had also been right when she'd told him in the middle of the museum yesterday that she deserved the truth, the time was simply not right for that conversation. He really did want her to know the truth about him. Everything. But they had to first concentrate on solving this murder case involving Abe's ex-wife, Maureen.

"Jo, I can understand your frustration with wanting answers from me about the photograph, about the pugio, but - "

"It's a story for another time, right?" she dryly remarked, interrupting. "Isn't that what you always like to say?" She brought the car to a stop, parking it in front of Maureen's hotel on Park Avenue.

vvvv

They'd entered the hotel and ridden the elevator up to the 30th floor mostly in silence. Now they took turns questioning Maureen as they sat in the seating area of her luxury hotel room. Three, large, floor-to-ceiling windows spanned the length of the side wall providing breathtakingly panoramic views of the city. Maureen, freshly showered and wearing white, silk pajamas and quilted dressing gown with pink fur trim on the cuffs and collar, sat in an armchair across from Henry and Jo, who sat on the couch.

"We were wrapping up negotiations for our next several tour dates and the taping of a PBS special," she told them. "We also had plans to take a vacation before the tour began. And just like that - everything's turned to ashes."

Her face, freshly scrubbed and devoid of any makeup, was remarkably unlined for a woman of her perceived age. Her cheekbones and jawline were still as well-defined as a woman half her age. The only real signs that pointed to a septuagenarian existence were the sagging and protruding vertical neck muscle bands or turkey neck, and the wrinkles on her hands. Great strides had been made over the years in plastic surgery, Henry noted, so that face and neck lifts had become easier to perform. They had even become so routine that even those with tighter purse strings and smaller purses could afford them - on credit. But not much progress had been made in minimizing the wrinkles on a person's hands.

Nevertheless, she still had the regal bearing of a queen holding court. Under the weight of her grief, she sat straight and tall in her chair. Her long, red mane held the fragrance of honey and lavender as it draped over her right shoulder. Having stepped into backless slippers, she sat with one leg over the other. Her red-painted toenails peeked out from under bands of pink fur. Shoulders squared and chin out, her hands gripped the arms of her chair as if propelling herself past this emotional upset, ready to upright her throne of life back onto its solid foundation.

"Had he quarreled with anyone recently?" Henry asked. "Received any threatening phone calls, emails, or letters?"

"Oh, always," Maureen replied, waving a hand dismissively. "There are always differences of opinions to be dealt with to keep this rocker on the roll. It goes with the territory, this life of entertainment. This business of entertainment. It's called creative differences. I hardly believe that anyone we've ever dealt with would kill him over a difference of opinion on a production number or which guest spots were best for promos when hitting the talk show circuit." She flung the music business jargon around like it was nothing. But they were, surprisingly, able to keep up.

"We'll still need to interview everyone in your, um, entourage just to rule them out," Jo said. The older woman sighed and nodded. "Including former employees. Especially those who left under less than amicable circumstances. Also, if you could supply us with a list of people Mr. Scanlon may have had disagreements with, that would be helpful, too," she added.

"Paul can provide you with all of that information," Maureen told her. "Paul Scofield. He's ... he's my manager," she clarified and closed her eyes, touching her fingers to her forehead.

"Where can we reach him?" Jo asked.

Maureen pointed to the shiny, black, baby grand piano near the panoramic windows. "He left some new business cards he'd just had printed," she said. "On top of the sheet music," she told Henry as he went to retrieve a couple.

"We thought that Mr. Scanlon was your manager," Henry said as he pocketed one business card and handed the other to Jo.

"No, no, he was my ... " She laughed nervously, tilting her head to the side as if calling up fond memories. "My inspiration. My breath of life. He helped me to stay above the petty squabbles of the production and PR staffs." The tinge of mirth left her and her shoulders drooped a bit. "Suppose I should have paid more attention to who had daggers in their eyes," she muttered.

"We'll let ourselves out, Ms. Delacroix. And ... sorry for your loss," Jo told her. She thanked her, they all stood up, and Maureen followed them to the door anyway.

"You know, my instincts are usually pretty spot on," Maureen said as Henry stepped into the hallway to join Jo. He turned to her with raised eyebrows in anticipation of her next statement. "All the years I've known Abe, I'd begun to suspect that you were his son from the way he talked about you - the few times that he did. I was certain that you and he were father and son."

Henry nodded, pursing his lips as she closed the door. Feeling the need to escape Jo's inquiring eyes, he motioned toward the elevator at the end of the hallway and they began heading for it. Jo frowned curiously as she walked in front of him and just as they reach the elevator, Henry reached from behind her and punched the call button. They entered the elevator and Henry worked hard not to squirm and gulp under Jo's raised eyebrow glare. Neither of them said a word and Jo exited the elevator first when it arrived at the lobby level and the doors opened. She strode toward the building's exit, her thick curls bouncing with each determined step. She eyed him warily as they got into her assigned vehicle. He just barely managed to buckle up before she screeched away from the curb into traffic. He recalled what Hanson had told him when he'd noticed Jo's upset state during the case involving the pugio.

"Whatever you did to tick her off, Doc, just apologize and quick. Believe me, it doesn't get better from here."

Notes:

Slight references to "Forever" 2014-2015 TV show episodes

S01/E07 New York Kids; S01/E11 Skinny Dipper; S01/E12 The Wolves of Deep Brooklyn; and S01/E22 The Last Death of Henry Morgan.