Castle strutted in to the police station and into the elevator that would take him to the floor the homicide department was on. He had been home to change and see Alexis off to school and on his way back in he had picked up some coffee for Beckett and himself, since he knew she wouldn’t have stopped to do it herself yet.
Leaving the elevator, he saw Ryan and Esposito arguing over a doughnut at their desk and Kate sat at her desk holding her head in her hands over some papers. “Morning!” he greeted her cheerily as he handed over the coffee he made a tradition of providing every morning.
“Thanks,” she smiled, bringing it to her lips and taking a deep inhale of the beverage. “Ooo, cinnamon?”
“Figured you could do with a little something special,” he told her as he sat in his usual seat next to her desk. “Can’t have you falling asleep now, can we Miss Party Girl?” he teased as he sipped his own drink. “Oh, and breakfast!” he produced a wrapped croissant from his coat pocket for her. She smiled softly at him and muttered her thanks quietly, placing the offered food next to her computer and went back to looking over the little information she had found on their new acquaintance Lt Col. John Sheppard.
“What you looking at?” She chuckled at his question and turned the computer monitor so he could see it.
The screen showed John’s picture, his name and date and place of birth. Beneath all that was large, bold, red lettered word: Classified. He looked at her curiously, waiting for her to scroll the page down or something. “That’s it?”
“That’s it,” she confirmed, her brow furrowing in frustration. “Well, that and the phone call I received less than a minute after entering his name on the system telling me to cease and desist my line of enquiry.”
“Seriously? But he’s a suspect,” Castle still looked amazed at what he had seen.
“General O’Neill of Homeworld Security seems to think otherwise,” she sighed, annoyed at being blocked with no explanation.
“Homeworld? You mean Homeland right?” He asked.
“Nope, Homeworld. I asked the very same thing. Apparently it is a new classified department of the government.”
“Classified?” His eye shot to hers, lighting up at the idea. “Should you even be telling me this?” he whispered.
“Don’t worry, Castle. No-one’s going to arrest you for knowing,” she let out a little laugh. “Although they might arrest you for telling,” she looked at him pointedly to which he held up his hands in defence. “General O’Neill said it was on a need to know basis, and in my opinion, being heavily involved in this case, you need to know,” she told him, making Castle feel very privileged that she trusted him that much. A shout from across the room broke the moment that drew their attention to their fellow detectives who were rough housing like idiots, drawing a small crowd of spectators. “They, however, do not need to know,” she told him with a wry grin. Seeing he was about to burst out laughing at the pair she gave him the sternest look she could muster, making him shut his mouth with a click. “You know this means you can’t tell anyone else, right?”
“I know, I know,” he sank back into his seat, disappointed. “Kinda takes the fun out of it though,” he grumbled in to his coffee.
“Fun? Castle, this is a matter of National Security. If you tell anyone they will arrest you and throw you in a cell for the rest of your days, do you understand?” she told him seriously, waving a pen at him to emphasise her point, to which he had the decency to look at least a little sheepish.
“So, uh, what happens now?” he asked awkwardly.
“Well, the Captain’s talking to General O’Neill right now,” she told him, nodding toward Captain Montgomery’s office, where he was on the phone with John stood looking worried and anxious next to his desk. “And those two,” she pointed at Ryan and Esposito whose rough housing was drawing to a close by the looks of it. “Are supposed to be bringing in Mrs Wallace for questioning,” she raised her voice so they could hear her across the room and game them a pointed look.
“Hey! We found her!” Ryan defended as he pushed Esposito’s face away and finally stole the last doughnut.
“Yeah! Uniforms are picking her up now,” Esposito chipped in, then smacked Ryan around the back of the head.
Kate rolled her eyes and pushed away from the desk to stand in front of the murder board with her coffee. Castle stood next to her as they leant back against her desk in tandem, eyeing the board carefully.
The deceased’s picture was stuck in the middle, his name and profession written underneath. On the left, under the headline of suspects, there was John’s picture and name and Simon’s wife’s. On the right were the unexplained aspects of the case, including the gun found at the scene and the ring found in Doctor Wallace’s hand. The centre of the board had the timeline drawn along it with the known movements of their victim and currently the only suspects they had spoken to; John Sheppard. Beneath that there were the crime scene photographs, both overviews and detailed shots.
“Do you think he did it?” Castle asked quietly.
“I don’t know. I think it’s pretty convenient that he just happened to be at the murder of his current girlfriend’s ex. I’ve had suspects remain at the scene before to try and throw off the cops,” she explained.
“Best place to hide is in plain sight, huh?”
“Right, but now the government’s calling to protect their man and I can’t find any information about where he’s even been for the last three years! Not an address, a posting, even a credit rating! It just reeks of government cover-up!” She pushed away from the desk, clenching her hands in frustration.
“Wow! That is so cool!” Castle said reverently as he gazed at the board.
“No, Castle, it’s not cool!” she turned to him and berated him slowly. “There’s a man in there who could be getting away with murder and the government are covering for him! No one should be above the law!”
“You’re sounding like you’ve already found him guilty.” Castle pointed out carefully, watching her face change from frustration to resignation. “Look, I know we don’t have all the facts and that jealousy right now seems like a great motive, but I gotta tell you,” he paused to look at the man he had met less than twenty four hours ago, whose primary focus since they’d met at the crime scene had been finding Elizabeth. “I really don’t think he did it,” he told her gently and watched her lean back against the desk, rubbing her hands over her face.
“You’re right, Castle,” she looked back up at the board. “We have other suspects. I just…” she stopped and gritted her teeth. “I hate the old boy’s club, y’know?” Their eyes locked in a moment of understanding, which started to morph in to something that felt a little awkward.
“Beckett? Castle? I need a word,” Captain Montgomery leaned out of his office and waved them in. Kate seemingly couldn’t get away from their moment, which left Castle clearing his throat and feeling a little at sea. He followed Beckett into the office and smiled at John who was still on the phone. He didn’t return the smile, listening intently to the voice on the other end.
“What’s happening, sir?” Beckett asked as they stood in front of the Captain’s desk.
“Yes, sir. I understand,” John hung up the phone and rubbed his face with his hands.
“You are to liaise with Colonel Sheppard and combine resources in order to solve Doctor Wallace’s murder and Doctor Weir’s disappearance,” Montgomery told them.
“What about Colonel Sheppard’s status with the case, sir?” Beckett asked, feeling the old boy’s club coalescing around her.
“I have been assured that there is proof to corroborate his whereabouts during the timeframe we are considering. I need you to focus on any other leads, ok? I don’t need to remind you that the first forty-eight hours in a kidnapping are critical. Work together,” he told them emphatically, indicating both Beckett and Sheppard. “And find these people.” Kate cast John an annoyed look, before nodding reluctantly to the Captain. “Right, get to it people!”
John followed Beckett and Castle out of the office and back to her desk after shaking the Captain’s hand. “Castle, you wanna show Col. Sheppard the murder board?” She asked as she sat down.
“Hey, look,” John stopped him before he could and spoke to them both. “I know we only met yesterday, but I need to just say…thanks, for trusting me.” They all shared a restrained smile and after an awkward moment, Castle led him through the murder board, quickly removing his picture and name from the suspects list. John carefully scanned the board, looking closely at the pictures at the bottom while Castle explained the papers they had also recovered from the house.
“Beckett!” Esposito called from across the office. “Mrs Wallace is here.”
“Right,” Beckett stood and picked up a folder and pen as she made her way over to the boys. “Find out if the victim had any disagreements at work or with his neighbours.”
“What neighbours I say, did you see another house from his?” Ryan joked as he and his partner grabbed their coats and left by the elevator.
“Colonel Sheppard, why don’t you stay behind the glass for this one?” He started to protest but she cut him off. “Let us do our job and we’ll get you answers, all right?”
They split up and Kate and Beckett shortly found themselves sat across the table from Simon’s wife, Lisa. She was still young, maybe late twenties or early thirties. Her blonde hair was long and silky, her nails perfectly manicured and her make-up was so perfect that Castle wondered whether she had a make-up artist working for her. Her low cut top quickly dragged his eyes downwards and threw him a little off kilter as her ample bosom heaved in front of them. She had a Louis Vuitton handbag on her lap and her hand was in the bag while she was making mushy coo-ing sounds.
“Mrs Wallace,” Kate greeted. “My name is Detective Beckett and this is Richard Castle. We’d like to talk to you about your husband.”
“No way! The Richard Castle?! I can’t believe it! Simon had tickets to go to your party last night. I so wanted to go, but he said that he didn’t want to be there long and that if I went we’d be there for hours. Yeah, like that’s true!” the dolled up woman rambled.
“Mrs Wallace,” Kate interrupted.
“Please, call me Lisa,” she told them. “Oh and I don’t go by Wallace anymore, I’m using my maiden name now; Forrester.”
“Why is that…Lisa?” Beckett hesitated over what to call their suspect, figuring that calling her by her first name might engender some kind of trust and comfort, making her more likely to give them useful information.
“Well, because Simon and I aren’t together anymore. I mean, we’re living together, but we’re seeing other people,” she reassured them, eyes flitting over Castle teasingly.
“You mean you were, don’t you?” Castle corrected.
“What do you mean?”
“Well, with Dr. Wallace dead you’re free to see other people aren’t you?” The stunned looked on her face quickly told him that she had not been told of her husband’s recent demise. “I’m sorry…”
“Simon’s dead?” her voice held a sob in it, hand coming up to cover her mouth in shock. “Wait, is that why I’m here?”
“Where were you last night between the hours of ten thirty and twelve?” Beckett asked in a very matter of fact way.
“Hang on a minute! You think I did it?” she exclaimed. “You think I killed Simon?”
A yap suddenly erupted from her bag and the small head of a smooth coat Chihuahua popped out of the top making both Castle and Beckett jump back from the desk. It growled at them but made no move to leave the bag and Lisa immediately started stroking and talking to it to calm it down.
“We need to pursue all possible avenues of our investigation, which also means we have to exclude people,” Kate reassured her. It seemed to work, as the panic slowly slipped from her face and she sat back in her chair.
“Ok,” she said timidly. “So, last night? Last night I was with Boris. He was so lovely, bless him. I cried for more than an hour that I couldn’t go to your party, Mr. Castle. I’m a big fan, ever since Gathering Storm.”
“Oh, well, thank you Lisa…” he began to accept her praise but caught the glare from Beckett out of the corner of his eye and quickly remembered to stay on point. “Right,” he cleared his throat. “So, uh, I assume Boris can confirm where you were last night?”
“Oh yes,” she confirmed. “I was there all night,” she took great relish in telling them that, directing her flirtatious gaze at Castle again.
“Your nails are beautiful, Miss Forrester,” Beckett complimented. “But you don’t strike me as a woman who walks around with a broken nail, not even for a day. So how did that come about?”
Lisa looked down at the hand she had left on top of her bag, showing the broken nail on her left hand. She slowly brought it down to her lap to hide it, looking a little embarrassed that someone had seen it. “I broke it last night. Stubbed my finger on a door.”
“What door?”
“I don’t know, my car? Why? What does it matter?”
“It matters now because you just lied to me, didn’t you,” Kate challenged her, looking her directly in the eyes as Lisa’s darted between the two of them. “We found your nail when we searched the house.”
A look of horror came over the woman’s face at the thought and she leant forward, making her bag growl before she put the bag on the floor. “Ok, this is what happened. I went over there to talk to Simon, try one last time to get those tickets. He said he would let me have them last week, then yesterday morning he text me and said I couldn’t! So I went over there yesterday afternoon to see what was going on and he was acting all weird again, more than usual; rushing around, talking to himself. I could barely get a conversation out of him, but he said he needed them for something important. And yeah, that made me angry. I yelled at him, called him a jerk and slapped him. That’s when I lost the nail; I remember because I thought to myself: ‘Damn I need to make an appointment for tomorrow.’ Anyway, I yelled at him a bit more, he kept being crazy and I left. Went straight to Boris’.” She sat back after finishing her story. “Oh God, that’s the last time I’m ever going to see him isn’t it.”
There was a brief silence as they allowed her to assimilate that fact, before Kate spoke again. “Were you and Dr. Wallace getting divorced, Lisa?”
“No, like I said, we were living separate lives,” she sniffed, fishing a tissue out of her hand bag and dabbing underneath her eyes.
“So why not get divorced? What’s the point?” Castle asked.
“My dad’s a senator, he’s thinking of running for president and his advisors told us that a divorce might be considered damaging to his reputation,” she explained, sniffing as she spoke.
“And having an affair wouldn’t?” Beckett asked, perplexed.
Lisa shrugged and looked coy, “I was always careful not to be seen. So, uh…can I go?”
“One last thing,” Castle stopped Beckett from finishing the interview. “You said he acting more weird than usual. What did you mean by that?”
“The last few weeks he’s been more and more antsy,” she said with another shrug.
“Antsy?” Kate chipped in, trying to encourage her to reveal more information.
“Yeah. First he started making weird journeys to and from work. Then he went through a stage where he didn’t want to go out, not even to work. Now that was weird, I mean Simon always loved his work, he was really dedicated, y’know? Anyway, his dad came over probably two weeks ago and they had a talk and Simon went back to work. So I thought it was some sort of personal thing that had been bothering him. Except then he had this really expensive security system installed, tracking devices in his cars, laptop and cell phone. Then one day when I went out, I noticed this black car parked at the end of our driveway which I thought was odd, because, y’know, there’s hardly anything nearby. So, anyway, when I got back it was in our driveway and two guys in suits were leaving the house. When I got in, Simon was a wreck, like he was in shock or something and after that…” she threw her hands up in the air. “I have no idea. He just went more and more off the rails; wouldn’t sleep, wouldn’t eat. Just worked and talked to himself. Now, I swear, that’s all I know, can I please go? My appointment’s at half nine,” she held up her hand with the broken nail.
“That’s all for now, but we’ll need to take some details from you, so just sit tight for now,” Beckett told her as she and Castle rose to leave the room.
They met with John behind the glass and looked in on Lisa. “What do you think?” she asked the Colonel.
“I think she’s prissy, but I don’t think she did it,” John sighed, disappointed to have met a dead end.
“I don’t remember finding a nail at the house…” Castle observed.
“We didn’t, but she didn’t know that,” Kate smiled proudly.
“Then how did…”
“I saw her hand on her bag, and knowing the type of woman she is, she wouldn’t go any length of time without having it fixed,” she shrugged. “I knew she was hiding something so I took a gamble and hoped that two and two made four, not five.” John chuffed a laugh as she explained.
“Right,” John started, rubbing his face with his hand and sounding tired. “What did we learn from that tête a tête?”
“We learnt that over the last few weeks Dr. Wallace had been behaving more and more erratically. He received a visit from some men which sent his behaviour spiralling even more,” Beckett summarised as they all walked back to her desk. “We also learnt that he needed that ticket to the party last night, so why did he need to be there so desperately?” They came to stand in front of the board, casting their gazes over it.
“Well, when I saw him leaving Elizabeth he seemed to be in a helluva rush,” John told them.
“Do you know what he talked to her about?”
“No, she didn’t say, but it seemed to shake her up too,” John told her. “I’d just gone to get our things to leave and when I came back he was rushing out of the door and she said she wanted to go after him. I offered to drive her and wait, but she insisted on getting a taxi,” John looked away, looking embarrassed and frustrated at the same time. “I should have gone with her, damnit!”
“Hey, look,” Castle interjected, trying to calm the other man. “You couldn’t have expected this to happen.”
John sighed out his frustration, but kept his eyes downcast, which Beckett took as a hint to move the subject on. “Right, so obviously he was trying to tell Dr. Weir something important, but what?”
After a slight pause, Castle spoke up, “Lisa said he was dedicated to his work. Maybe there was something happening in the company. Do we know what he was working on?”
Beckett looked in the case file and flicked through the leaves of paper, “Says here it’s classified.” She looked up at John, to try and make a point, while Castle returned to looking intently at the board.
“Hey! Why would I automatically know what everything ‘classified’ means?” John defended, making her feel a little foolish, as he went back to looking at the board.
“Say, uh, do you have a picture of Dr. Weir?” she asked quietly. “For the board, I mean.”
“Yeah,” John replied quietly as he took his phone out of his pocket. He brought up the picture he’d taken last night of Elizabeth and himself, smiling sadly as he thought about the fun they’d had before all this happened.
“You wanna Bluetooth it to me?” Beckett asked, taking out her own phone. “Just put zero in for the pairing.”
“Thanks,” John replied with a small smile and sent the picture over.
“Hey, guys?” Castle asked, looking intently at one of the crime scene photos. “What was the ring we found in his hand?”
“You found a ring?” John asked. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Yeah, it was a three stone diamond and emerald ring set in white gold,” Kate read from the folder. “We found it in his right hand. Why?”
Castle turned the picture sideways, eyes following Simon’s arm as it lay towards the bookcase and reached for the magnifying loop that lay on Beckett’s desk as she moved to stand beside him. John moved to take the picture of the ring off the murder board. Castle levelled the loop over the part of the picture he needed, a bookshelf from the far right of the room and she got close enough to see it too.
“This is Elizabeth’s,” John told them quietly. “She was wearing it last night.”
“Are you sure?” Beckett questioned, trying not to deafen Castle since she was so close to him.
“Yeah, it was her mothers,” he walked over to them. “She loved it, hadn’t taken it off since we got back home.”
“Look at that, there’s a book here written by Cora Diamond,” Castle announced, suddenly realising how close Beckett was really standing to him. They were practically cheek to cheek, her hand on his shoulder for balance and he could feel the warmth of her breath as she breathed.
“She left me a message,” John sounded far away as he realised what it meant. She knew he would find it and she was relying on him to find her.
“Right, Castle,” she pushed away from him and moved to the murder board. “I need you to read through that book and see if there’s anything that we can use. John,” she took the photo of the gun off the board and handed it to him. “Have you seen this gun before? Can you tell me anything about it?”
“You want me to read through this book?!” Castle cried out. “Do you realise what you’re asking? This isn’t exactly light reading, in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever read through anything like this before! I have no idea how long that will take!”
“Oh shut up, Castle,” she told him mildly with an amused look. “I’ve seen you skim read longer books in a few hours before, you’ll be fine.”
“But…”
“There’s a reason she left us the ring and it’s in that book. Get on with it,” she told him categorically. He looked flustered, like he was about to reply, but thought better about it when he saw the dangerous look on her face. He huffed and pointed his finger at her, looking like he couldn’t find the words before making a swift exit. She laughed before she turned back to Sheppard who had been watching their interchange with amusement. “Sorry about that,” she walked behind her desk and sat down with a small smile. “He can be a little bit of a child sometimes.”
“Hey don’t worry about it!” he grinned. “I’ve got one of my own,” he joked about Rodney, making her laugh and easing the tension that had been building between the two of them since they had met at the crime scene. “Umm…there’s a symbol on the butt of the gun that looks familiar, but I can’t be sure. I need to send this to Rodney, see if he can recognise it, that ok?”
“Is he in on this government cover-up too?” she asked, probing for a little bit more information. Not even what he told her verbally, she was watching him as she said it and as he replied to try and get a gauge on him. He smiled at her enigmatically before taking the picture of the gun and walking away.