497. Chapter 497

After Demons

Episode 4.06

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: I ain't afraid of not owning no Castle. Rating: K Time: See above.

"Perfect." Kate said.

Castle looked around them. "If you think this is perfect, you need a good interior decorator.

Kate glared at him. "It's perfect because it's right across from Julie Rossi's apartment, not because it's lacking in furniture and…any sign of good taste."

Kate busied herself setting up the camera tripod, the camera with the telephoto lens. "Now we're ready. Anders says he only met Mrs. Rossi once at a company Christmas party and couldn't be the boyfriend we suspect she had, and therefore couldn't have killed Mr. Rossi to be with her. Sooner or later he'll show up and we'll catch him in the act."

"Catch him with his pants down, so to speak." Castle said with a smile.

I walked right into that one. Kate thought, hiding her smile from Castle. "So why are you so interested in coming on a boring police stakeout, Castle? For you, this must be even worse than paperwork."

"Because of the ghost that's here."

Kate shook her head. "Didn't the murder at the McLaren mansion a couple of months ago teach you anything? There are no ghosts."

"There were no ghosts in the McLaren mansion. Or at least, none made themselves apparent. But, this duplex is different. There have been sightings."

Kate decided that maybe, just maybe, if she said nothing, Castle would stop talking. No such luck.

He went on. "June 9 1962. Four days short of her thirteenth birthday, Mary Beth Poole goes missing. No body is ever found and no arrests are ever made. But, since then, tenants have reported seeing a slender blonde girl, dressed in early 60s fashion walking through the duplex as if looking for something or someone. Sometimes she even talks to people."

"Then why doesn't she ever tell them where here body is and who killed her?" Kate asked reasonably.

"Maybe she doesn't know. Maybe that's what she's looking for. Anyway, I'm going to go look around." Castle left the room.

"Thanks for the help on the surveillance." Kate said sarcastically.

She set up a folding chair and looked through the lens. She was all set. All she needed was the perp to show up and she'd be done. Two hours later she was getting stiff. She stood up, put her arms over her head and stretched. As she did, she felt a hand rub her ass.

"Castle!" She whirled around and found that she was alone in the room. Just a muscle cramp or something.

Several times, Castle came back to report breathlessly that he'd found….absolutely nothing. But that didn't stop him from going off to look some more.

When their shift was almost over, Kate heard footsteps behind her. "Castle, Karpowski and her partner will be here in a bit, we should…" Kate turned around but Castle wasn't in the room. For a split second she found herself looking into the eyes of a blonde girl. Then she was gone.

I'm just tired. I hallucinated, that's all.

Kate went home and slept, but before going to the stake out again, she stopped by Records and checked the missing persons' report for Mary Beth Poole. The facts were as Castle had stated them. There were two suspects, her father, George Poole, who was known to drink heavily and to have a violent temper. And a neighbor, Gus Temakis. Temakis had been seen following Mary Beth and had a trove of pornography in his apartment. The alibis of both men were similar. They had been home alone. The police hadn't been able to break either alibi. There was also an old and faded photo of Mary Beth. Kate couldn't tell if it was the girl she had seen. The girl I hallucinated. She corrected herself.

The next night, Castle and Beckett set up their stakeout again. Although Kate paid very close attention to everything in the duplex, nothing untoward happened that night.

The next day Kate went back to the cold case files, but she found nothing.

Again, she and Castle went back to the stakeout. For eight hours they watched for any sign of the alleged lovers, Anders and Rossi. However, as she was leaving, she saw the girl again, this time pointing down. "There." She said clearly.

"Castle?" She turned around and saw that Castle was talking to a uniform. He couldn't have seen a thing.

The next night she told Castle it was his turn to man the camera and went downstairs. The girl pointed down and said "There." What's there?

"There" was a basement. And, for a second, there was a light blue scarf by a brick wall. Then it disappeared. Kate shook her head. She knew she was hallucinating, but…"

She went to her car and got all the tools she had. She broke through the wall.

"Castle," she called upstairs. "We've solved a murder."

In fact, two murders were solved that night, as they found out when they got back to the precinct.

Espo smiled as he told the story. "We followed Mrs. Rossi to a nice hotel in midtown. Sure enough, she books a room as Mrs. Smith. Not ten minutes later, Anders shows up. We have them a half an hour to get comfortable and walked in on them."

"Did Anders confess?" Kate asked.

Ryan smiled at her. "No. Mrs. Rossi confessed. She's claiming her husband was violent and she acted in self defense. We'll see how the DA feels about that."

"And how did you manage to solve a fifty year old case. Detective Beckett?" Captain Gates asked.

She shrugged. "Just a hunch, sir."

"I'd call it good police work." Gates said with a smile.

Kate nodded. She could hardly tell the truth.

A review of the Poole case showed that both suspects, the father and Temakis were dead. No evidence linking anyone else to the crime was found. However, Mrs. Poole was still alive, although in a nursing home due to a stroke. Kate decided she needed to tell Mrs. Poole what they had found.

The nurse at the home wasn't too encouraging. "Mrs. Poole was declared mentally incompetent some years ago after the stroke. She's really not with us."

Kate went in to talk to the woman anyway. She introduced herself and explained to Mrs. Poole what she had found. The whole time, Mrs. Poole stared at a point over Kate's right shoulder and smiled.

"I felt I needed to tell you what happened." Kate smiled and turned to leave.

"Mary Beth! Where have you been? It's so good to see you again." The old woman said quietly. "Yes, Sweetie, we should thank Detective Beckett and Mr. Castle."

Kate was almost to her car when she realized she'd never mentioned Castle.