The fifth series of the crime drama spin-off
focusing on an elite group of New York cops

continues. This week, Detectives Logan and
Barek probe the deaths of two sisters who
suffocated after being paralysed and wrapped in
plastic. Their investigation leads to a nurseturned-
voodoo healer who may have placed a
curse on Logan.
The Major Case Squad is confronted with the
shocking double murder of Sarah and Kristy
Jackson, two sisters who have been found
swathed in plastic in the apartment they shared. All
the evidence indicates the pair were paralysed
prior to being cocooned. “No wounds, no bruising,
no sign they struggled – and they were alive when
they were wrapped in plastic,” says ME Rodgers.
Logan and Barek learn that Sarah was a graduate student conducting research into rituals surrounding death. She spent a lot of time with Jack Strong, a helper who worked with terminal cancer patients. Hauled in for questioning, a nervous Jack swears that he had nothing to do with the murders, but Logan is intrigued to discover wooden artefacts resembling cocoons hidden in Jack’s coat. “Remind you of anything?” he asks Barek. Unfortunately, there is not enough evidence to hold Jack in custody and he is released.
Convinced that Jack knows more than he is letting on, Logan and Barek delve deeper into his background. They learn that he worked for a woman named Elizabeth Alexander, who recently died of cancer. Jack was recommended to Mrs Alexander by Lydia Wyatt, a nurse who looks after private patients. Lydia’s behaviour and her history of moving from job to job soon arouse the detectives’ suspicion.
It transpires that, aside from her day job as a nurse, Lydia works as a voodoo healer. People from her neighbourhood queue up outside her apartment for advice. “I help believers negotiate with the spirits to fix their health problems,” Lydia says, before giving Logan a thinly veiled threat: “Be careful, detective, you don’t want to be sick.”
The cops believe that Lydia is at the heart of the case, noting that local people are too scared to talk about her. They also think that Jack Strong is a disciple of her voodoo arts and was passing on her secrets to Sarah Jackson. Did this get Sarah and her sister killed? Before they can put the pieces together, matters take a shocking twist when Jack drops dead in the street. Witnesses recall seeing him “zombie-walking”, and Rodgers is unable to determine the cause of death.
Logan is too sceptical to believe talk of a voodoo curse, but he cannot hide the fact that, since interviewing Lydia in her apartment, he has broken out in a rash and developed a fever. Has Lydia cursed him too? “What I don’t believe won’t hurt me,” is Logan’s blunt response. Barek takes her partner to see another voodoo expert, who soon diagnoses him with nothing more severe than a reaction to poison ivy. It would seem that Logan came into contact with the substance when he was tricked into picking up a tainted candle in Lydia’s apartment.
The voodoo expert also suggests that the three victims in the case – Sarah, Kristy and Jack – may have been dosed with puffer-fish poison, which has a paralysing effect on its victims. Forensics tests soon confirm this theory, but Logan and Barek need further proof to arrest Lydia. Their best hope lies with Robbie Paulson, another care worker who may be Lydia’s accomplice. But the awkward and insecure Robbie is convinced that Lydia has special powers. Can they break the healer’s spell over her apprentice and get him to come clean about the murders?