"Perspective. You couldn't speak for him, to tell your friends if he was remorseful or not, whereas he could tell me that much himself. I can't fault your friends and lovers for wanting to defend you from what appeared to be a threat."

At the mention of Erik being 'in good hands', Chris laughs.

Realizing that Max doesn't have the context for what's so funny, Chris discloses, "Funny you should say it that way. My hands... are the hands of a coroner."

And Erik is, to some degree, more dead than normal. (But this could just be an instance of weird humor from someone used to seeing a lot of death. That happens, too.)