563. Chapter 563

After Driven

Episode 7.01

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Kidnap me and put me in a tent in Maine, I still won't claim to own Castle. Rating: K Time: See above

Ryan quickly checked the morgue and turned to his partner. "She's alone." He whispered.

"Not for long, I imagine. What are you and your partner up to?" Lanie called out.

"Um, can we come in and talk to you?" Ryan asked.

"About what?"

"Castle."

Lanie thought for a second. "Okay. Better you two talk to me rather than talk to each other and come up with all kinds of dumb ideas."

Ryan and Esposito exchanged glances. "Dumb ideas?" Ryan whispered.

The three sat in the back of the morgue where they wouldn't be interrupted or overheard. "What do you two want now?"

"What happened to Castle?" Espo asked.

"How would I know? Aren't you two supposed to be some kind of detectives?"

"We are some kind of detectives." Espo shot back.

"What my partner means, is we're not sure we understand all of the technical, medical details." Ryan said, trying to appease Lanie. "Could you explain what you found to us?"

"Using words of one syllable or less, I assume?" Lanie glared at Espo. Ryan smiled hopefully. She shook her head. "Castle had dengue fever antibodies in his body."

"Could Castle have gotten dengue fever here? In the US?" Ryan asked.

Lanie shook her head. "Like malaria, dengue fever is a virus carried by mosquitos and transferred when the mosquito bites you. Those mosquitos can't live outside the tropics. I checked medical records going back thirty years. The only cases of dengue fever ever reported in the US were people who contracted the disease in the tropics, immediately flew home and became symptomatic once they got back. Plus a guy working in a medical research center who was accidentally infected by the virus while working on a cure."

Ryan frowned. "Could Castle have been deliberately infected here, then?"

Lanie stopped and thought. "I suppose it's possible, but why?"

Espo shrugged. "I don't know. Everything about this case makes no sense. Deliberately infecting him makes as much sense, or as little sense, as anything else."

"That makes less sense, Espo." Ryan said. "The fake Jenkins went to a lot of trouble to make it look like Castle stayed the whole time in Maine. Why infect him with a disease he couldn't have gotten in Maine?"

Esposito shook his head disgustedly. "For no reason that makes sense, just like none of this make any sense."

"What about the gunshot wound?" Ryan asked. "That also makes no sense. Castle is supposedly camping on the beach, not bothering anyone. Why shoot him? That just raises a red flag."

"So Castle escaped. The dinghy had three bullet holes in it." Espo said.

"But, the bullet wound in Castle was several weeks old, and the boat was at sea for a week or so, according to the Coast Guard."Lanie told them.

"So, Castle tried to escape and got shot. Later, he tries again and this time they only hit the boat."

Lanie shook her head. "There's another possibility, Javi. Castle tried to escape and they shot at him four times. One slug hit Castle and the other three hit the boat. Then, later, Castle tries to escape and gets away clean. Neither Castle or the boat is hit."

"And the boat ends up eighty miles off the coast of Delaware! Who would take a dinghy out into the Atlantic?" Ryan suddenly smiled. "Lanie, can you tell how long it had been since Castle was exposed to dengue fever?"

She shook her head. "No, just that he had the antibodies for it when we got him back. His medical records and bloodwork was negative for those antibodies previously. Why?"

"Suppose Castle has dengue fever after they took him…wherever. They take him back to Maine and he's still sick. Castle makes his break for it and gets in the boat, but he's too sick to just go a couple of miles down the coast to the next town and ask for help. He's passed out, feverish and the boat eventually drifts to where the Coast Guard found him."

"What about the gunshot wound, bro? And the bullets in the boat?"

Ryan shrugged. "He got shot wherever they took him and later the boat got shot up when he made his escape. I don't know, Espo. We have a lot more questions than answers."

"Well, I have another question, Detectives." They both looked at Lanie. "Why did the fake Jenkins stay around anyway?"

"Evidence that Castle was there the whole time." Ryan said.

Lanie shook her head. "The little camp site was evidence enough that he was there. Fake Jenkins had to have known that Castle's bullet wound would get noticed as well as the bullets holes in the boat would contradict the story that Castle just went camping."

Espo shrugged. "All he had to do was convince Beckett and the two of us and he was home free."

"Jenkins knew, absolutely knew, that no other cops would come around? He knew that no reporters would show up and ask the real Jenkins about Castle? No locals would ever ask the real Jenkins all about his famous camping neighbor? He couldn't have known that. Javi, it makes no sense for fake Jenkins to stay there just to add some more evidence that Castle was there. If fake Jenkins never goes to the trailer, eventually real Jenkins shows up an all he knows is that everyone says some famous writer was camped by his place. There's no good reason for fake Jenkins to have let the three of you see him. It's unnecessary. And dangerous since you could and did find out he was a fake. That the whole story was fake."

Ryan and Esposito thought about that for a while. "Maybe," Ryan began, "there are two sets of players here. One group takes Castle. They tell him, oh, something like, Beckett's life is in danger, and you have to come with us. He goes willingly and later finds out he's been set up. Fake Jenkins isn't involved with that. He's…trying to find out what really happened to Castle and gets surprised by us. So he plays like he's just an innocent bystander."

Lanie smiled at him. "Or, fake Jenkins gets involved figuring that someone will come along later and find real Jenkins, revealing the whole "Castle went camping" story to be phony. And we start looking for what really happened."

"So is fake Jenkins a good guy or a bad guy?"

"Bro, until he proves different, I'm treating him like a bad guy."

Ryan nodded slowly. "But, all we have are a lot more questions and damned few answers."

Lanie scowled at the two detectives. "That's what you do, isn't It? Get answers? Now get the hell out of here and do your jobs."

They left to get some answers.