![handcuffs303207_1280.png](https://files.peakd.com/file/peakd-hive/deeanndmathews/gsPNRHbf-handcuffs-303207_1280.png)



There were two kinds of cuffs – three, really – in the world.

Henry Fitzhugh Lee, in his police captain, had all three in mind the day after the Skylark Massacre.

He had spent time with Homicide's best officer – Lieutenant James Hummel, and Hummel and Homicide were on top of things.

By the close of the day, Captain Lee and Lieutenant Hummel had a better idea of who they would put those handcuffs on … the question was, getting the data necessary to get the people involved.

The day closed, however, with Captain Lee and Lieutenant Hummel sitting in Merton's, and you could always tell how exclusive a restaurant was by how clean the waiter's cuff was on his shirt and uniform.  Bussers brought out the food, not the waiters who attended – there were no accidents at Merton's such that a waiter would need to get a splash of this or that on his cuff.

Captain Lee had invited Lieutenant Hummel to dinner to confer over certain investigative points not suitable for the junior investigators just yet, and it was at Merton's because of Captain Lee's deep gratitude for how Homicide had included the men from his precinct in the work of the day.

But speaking of Merton's … Captain Lee at last got home to the Rosewood Apartments in time for dessert, and brought a pint of lemon gelato for his beloved Maggie Thornton, and over dessert invited her to Saturday breakfast at Merton's.  She said yes, and so the plans were made … the gelato was sweet and her company was sweeter still.

Which brought Captain Lee to the idea of the third meaning of cuff … he knew that Mrs. Thornton's Milano family was planning a big Italian wedding in June, but to his own surprise, Captain Lee now thought that he wanted to be married sooner … he so wanted to melt into his beloved's embrace and forget the week for the night … part of this was just the stress of the whole thing … of wanting to make love to a living woman to put the image of all those dead ones who could never be loved by anyone again out of his mind.

Add to that the discovery that there had been at least two women involved in killing all those others … the evidence that the Blue Ridge precinct and Homicide had uncovered and put in order together had proven that … the mere presence of Maggie Thornton helped to deal with the shock and trauma of that, but Captain Lee's longing for a full, immersive experience of her caused him to head for his own apartment earlier than he would have liked.

It was of the utmost importance, before and after his marriage, that he not get to seeing his beloved as a mere painkiller.  There were other skills and methods he had to maintain to deal with that, and one of them was not getting too far behind on his rest and in creating a relaxed environment for himself to do that.