835. Chapter 835

After An Embarrassment of Bitches

Episode 4. 13

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Royal? Fetch Castle and bring it to me. Rating: K Time: See above.

This is the city, New York, New York. There are eight and a half million people who call the city home and another million or so who come to the city every day to work or play. Most of them are good, law abiding people. But there are some that are not. That's where I come in. I'm a police dog.

I was working the day watch out of homicide. The boss is Captain Beckett. My partner is Rick Castle. My name is Royal.

It was hot in New York. The kind of heat that runs up your paws and makes your tongue loll out of your mouth. I was laying in front of a fan because the air conditioning was on the fritz again. Suddenly Sergeant Esposito came in to see the boss.

"We have a live one, Captain. A murder in Tribeca. It's Kay Cappuccio's place. The vic is her business manager."

Kate nodded and stood up. "It's been a while since I got out from behind a desk, Espo. Castle and I will go with you."

Now Captain Kate Beckett wasn't the kind of captain that sat behind her desk all day long, trying to think of ways to get One PP to notice her. She was still the best detective in all of the city, maybe all of the world. Secondly, when it came to cases involving beautiful females, Javier Esposito did not operate with his mind, but with another piece of his anatomy, further down. The captain figured she might want to ride herd on Espo. I said nothing, of course. Why piss Espo off?

"Royal, get Castle, Boy. We have to go."

Okay, being called "Boy" was a little demeaning, but considering the things they called each other in bed at night, I could live with it. I ran to get Castle and hustled down to the garage and took my place on the floor of the passenger's side front seat. The air conditioning in the car felt good.

When we got to Kay's place, I caught her scent at once. Lolita! I know, she's a bitch, but we had rolled all over each other on the carpet when Kay wasn't around back in the day. Plus things hadn't ended well with us. Kay's reality show got cancelled for some show about redneck hunters and Kay had to downsize her operation. Just as well, I suppose. The easy life is okay for a while, but it can get old on you really quick. You want to do something with your life that means something. Both Rick and I had found that out. Lolita and I smelled each other's butts for old time's sake, but I let her know that I was a working stiff now. I had to keep things on a professional level.

Uniforms, CSU and Dr. Parish from the morgue were already there when we arrived. I found myself a corner and settled in to listen. You'd be surprised what you can find out by just laying low and keeping your ears open.

Her business manager was some jamoke called Benjamin Law. According to Dr. Parish, he'd been shot in the head with a small caliber handgun found in the room with him. The only other person in the place, according to Kay, and her security set up, was Kay herself. I didn't have to try to tell anyone that the gun was Kay's, as she owned up to it herself.

Rick was always the one with the ideas. He asked if it were possible that Law had killed himself and that the recoil of the gun had tossed it across the room. Captain Kate shot that idea down. "It's a twenty two, Castle. There isn't that much recoil, and there's are no powder burns or stippling around the wound. His arms would have to be ten feet long to kill himself and leave no powder burns."

About that time, Kay's mouthpiece showed up and told her to clam up. Good advice, if a little late. Things weren't looking good for her. Just to show her there were no hard feelings, I went over to her and goosed her with my nose like I used to. She reached down and patted me on the head and rubbed between my eyes. She wasn't as good as Kate was, but who is?

We went back to the precinct where they set up the murder board. I've been trying since forever to get my humans to put up smells as well as those pictures and writing stuff they seem to prefer. You'd think that a race capable of inventing the Frisbee could do something about smells, wouldn't you?

Things got worse for Kay the next day when her phones and financials came in. We sat in Kate's office and went over them. Okay, math isn't my strong suite, so the humans went over things.

"This is pretty clear." Sergeant Ryan said. "Law was robbing Kay Cappuccio blind. He had been for a couple of years."

Kate nodded. "We'll have to go over his financials as well and try to find where her money went. She's probably going to need it to pay her lawyers."

"No probably about it." Castle said. "Her phone records show a lot of calls to her banks and investment brokerage houses. Law was stealing from her, Kay got suspicious, checked up on him and they had it out. Maybe she can plead self-defense."

They brought Kay and her team of lawyers in for questioning. In spite of the evidence against her, Kay said she didn't kill Benjamin Law. She did say she had gotten worried about her finances, but hadn't been able to figure out the financial double talk she got from her banks and what not. It made me glad that I kept my wealth in dog treats under my bed.

Then Dr. Parish came in with something she wanted to talk to Kate about. We all trooped out into the hallway where Dr. Parish told us that she'd found an odd substance on the pistol. It turned out to be dog saliva.

I knew right away what had happened. I went looking for her and found her by the elevator, trying to figure out how to get that little room to move. No such luck.

I told her that I'd figured it out and that the humans would catch on pretty quick as well. She confessed. She had been chewing on the wooden grips of the pistol and got her claws wrapped around the trigger. Then BOOM! She had no idea what had happened. It was an accident she told me. I shook my head. One way or another, Lolita was headed for the Big House for the rest of her life. It was a damned shame.

As it happened, things worked out all right. Lolita must have made some kind of a deal with the cops because the last time I saw her, Kaye was loading her into a limousine. It seems Law had stashed all of Kay's money away and she got almost all of it back. She was in the chips again.

And me? Kay did ask me if I wanted to come back like the old days, but I couldn't do it. I'm a police dog. So, you'll find me down at the 12th Precinct ready for whatever New York City throws my way. I do give Kate Beckett a goose for old time's sake now and again.