1047. Chapter 1047

After A Death in the Family

Episode 1.10

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Really? Rating: T Time: See above.

Castle's face lit up with a smile when he saw who was at his door. The smile disappeared when Beckett glared at him. She pushed past him and into the loft.

"You have no reason to smile, Castle. I'm still furious with you."

"Then why are you…"

"I need to see whatever crap you got after you got my mom's file. Where is it?"

"I didn't think…"

She cut him off quickly. "No, you didn't think. Not one damn bit. You didn't think of anyone but yourself, did you?"

Castle would have liked to argue with her, but decided this was definitely not the time or the place. "Everything's in my safe in my office. I'll get it for you."

He walked into the office and opened the safe. She was right behind him, still glaring. He handed her the files he'd gotten. She elbowed him out of the way and sat down at his desk.

"Why do you need those?" He asked.

The glare intensified. "I had to tell Captain Montgomery about why we we're over. He said that any so-called new evidence should be looked at by the NYPD. He wanted to call you to bring it in tomorrow, but I said I'd get it."

That confused Castle. "Why would you…"

"Castle, will you just shut your damned mouth. Please! For once in your damned life can you just do what I ask you to do?"

The first thing Beckett saw was a copy of her mom's file. "How in the hell did you get a copy of her file?" She demanded.

Determined to protect Esposito, Castle shrugged. "Don't get too mad at the guys in records. Everyone in the precinct knows I'm not a cop…"

"You certainly aren't." She snapped.

"So, they know I can't sign in with my badge number and a case number and all that, so they just let me walk on in."

Kate made a mental note to have a long talk with the records personnel.

She was surprised at the next three documents. They were autopsy and police reports for three other murders. She had assumed that Castle's "evidence" was one of his idiotic theories involving werewolves in the CIA or extraterrestrial vampires. Three other people had died around the time her mom had died and they had died in very much the same way, a knife blow to the kidney. She couldn't call that a coincidence. The last document was a report from a forensic pathologist named Clark Murray. Dr. Murray had written to Castle that he was certain that the murders had been committed by the same person. Beckett was shocked. Castle had found something. Maybe.

She grabbed Castle's laptop and went on line. She had no trouble finding plenty of information on Dr. Murray. He was one of the top forensic pathologists in New York. She looked up the names of the other victims. One name had rung a bell and the internet confirmed it. And more.

She pushed herself away from the desk and looked at Castle. "Dr. Murray is quite impressive. And I thought I recognized one of the names. The two lawyers, Diane Cavanaugh and Jennifer Stewart, knew my mom. They were part of a campaign called Take Back the Night to get drug dealers out of the Washington Heights area. I couldn't find anything at all about the dead courthouse documents clerk, Scott Murray, and the name means nothing to me. But my mom met hundreds of people in the legal system. They could have known each other or she wanted some document from him." Kate sat there trying to make sense of the new information.

"What are you going to do?" Castle interrupted her.

"I'm going to turn this over to Montgomery. He's already told me I'm getting nowhere near it. He'll ask detectives from another precinct to look into this."

"So, you're not going to investigate this?" Castle said, disbelief tingeing his voice.

"No." She said. Then added, "You are."

"You're letting me do this all on my own?" He said with a big grin.

She glared at him again. "Of course not. Now, make us a copy of all of this and call Dr. Murray for an appointment as soon as possible."

The next day at lunch time, the two met Dr. Murray.

"There's little more I can tell you other than what's in the report, Detective. I did make a representation of the blade used, using tomographic imaging. It was of a type used by Special Forces in Gulf One."

"You think there's a military connection?"

"Possible, Detective. But they made hundreds of thousands of these things. Most ended up being used to gut fish or to whittle on some front porch. I did look for similar killings in the Tri-State area, but found nothing. And, a professional probably wouldn't always use a knife. Depending on the target…."

"He might use a pistol or a sniper rifle or an assault rifle or anything." She finished for him.

As they left Dr. Murray's office, Kate turned to Castle. "Remember, when we get back to the precinct, I'm still furious with you about looking into my mom's murder. I do not want you to act like we're investigating the murders against orders."

"How should I act?"

"Just act like you always do. I'll be furious with you in minutes in any case."

The case quickly went nowhere. The only living relative of Scott Murray was an alcoholic who had trouble remembering anything. They couldn't find any next of kin or even friends for Jennifer Cavanaugh. However, they were able to find the daughter of Jennifer Stewart.

Beckett pulled up a few houses away from their quarry. "Now remember, you're Richard Castle, the novelist, doing research on unsolved murders for a book. You do not know Kate Beckett or her mother. Do you have that?"

"Sure. Who are you again, Miss?"

Beckett glared at him.

"I just remembered who you are." He said, exiting the car. "But I'll have forgotten by the time I get to the front door."

Beckett used a pair of binoculars to keep track of Castle's progress to the front door. The door opened and a tall, attractive blonde opened the door. She was wearing a shorty night gown and an even shorter robe over it, not very well secured. She knew Castle would have trouble keeping his mind on his job.

By the time Castle returned an hour and a half later, Beckett had gone beyond angry and enraged to furious.

"Did you have a good time?" She snarled sarcastically when Castle got in the car. She reached for the keys to start her car. Castle stopped her.

"We aren't going yet."

Beckett wanted to shoot him. "What is it? Do you want me to go in there so you can have a three way?"

Castle shook his head. "Sandra has fifty-six bankers' boxes of her mother's legal papers in her garage. I negotiated and paid ten thousand dollars for them. And, I called my car service. They're arranging for a truck to come by and pick them up. They'll go to the loft. I have plenty of storage space downstairs. We can study the records at our leisure."

Kate turned red with embarrassment. "I'm sorry." She looked away from Castle.

"Did you really think I'd want a three way with you and Sandra?"

Kate managed to shake her head, although she had had thoughts along those lines.

"Why would I want to include Sandra if I had you?"

She made no reply and just sat there until the truck arrived.

Reading through the boxes of records took time as both of them read through each box. Castle because of his ability to sometimes piece together odd bits of information into "the story", and Beckett for her knowledge of her mother.

Beckett showed up at Castle's loft when they were about to start on box twenty-eight. She was met at the door by Martha.

"Katherine! You look awful. And you're quite late. It's almost nine o'clock. What happened."

Kate yawned. "An attorney is trying to suppress a confession I got. It's an open and shut case, so all the attorney can do is make trouble over nothing. I need to go help Rick."

"You'll do nothing of the sort. We ordered out for Chinese tonight. It'll take a few minutes to heat it in the microwave. I'll bet you haven't eaten a real meal for days."

Kate tried to object, but Martha took her by the elbow and led her to the kitchen. In minutes Kate was having a delicious dinner.

"Thank you, Martha. I really needed that."

Martha nodded and smiled. "You certainly did. You need to come by and have a good meal more often. Now go see Richard."

When he sat down in his office, she saw Castle was smiling at her.

"What?" She asked.

"You didn't stand a chance against my mother. I'll have to ask what her secret is and use it against you."

"Her secret is that she's a lady. Good luck trying that, Castle."

They read on through box after box, getting nowhere.

Kate was just picking up the last report from box forty-one when Martha came into the office. She took the report from Kate's hands and put it back in the box. "Katherine, you're exhausted. If you try to read that report, you'll be asleep with your head on the desk in no time. I don't know why Richard allows you to do this sort of thing."

Castle looked at his mother. "Why I allow….?"

Your text here

Martha shushed him into silence.

"Katherine, you're going upstairs to the guest room to have a good night's sleep. I have a new toothbrush for you in the bathroom and an old tee shirt of Richard's for you to sleep in. Now come along."

Kate allowed herself to be led upstairs, into the bathroom and then into bed. Her last thought as she fell asleep was to wonder what it would be like to be sleeping with Castle.

They had read the last report in box fifty-six. They were done.

"That's it." Castle said. "We've read everything. There isn't one word in there that would explain any of the deaths."

"What now?" Kate asked.

"I'm going to have copies made of the files and put them in two different storage facilities. And I'll have everything put on DVD's and put in my safe deposit box at the bank. Maybe someday we'll find a piece of evidence that we can match with something here and have something."

"Dammit!" Kate said, hitting box fifty-six. "Damn it all. All that work! All those hours and we get nothing."

Castle stood up, grabbed Dr. Murray's work and went to his safe and began opening it. "We have this. It shows a connection between four murders. That's something."

Kate rushed to him. "Castle, let me take those home with me. I want to look them over again."

"Why?" He said, opening the safe. "We've looked over them a million times."

Kate grabbed at the arm holding the report. "I said give them to me."

"Beckett, you're starting to go down the rabbit hole. You aren't getting these."

Kate grabbed him and turned him around, reaching for the reports. He held them up out of her reach.

Kate kneed him in the balls as hard as she could. Castle bent at the waist then stumbled two steps to his desk and threw up in the waste basket. When he looked up, he saw Beckett staring at him with a look of shocked horror on her face.

"Are you all right?"

"Do I look all right?" He gasped.

Kate grabbed the report, put it in the safe and locked it. "I'm so sorry, Castle. I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to."

"If that's what you kick like when you don't mean it, I'd hate to be kicked when you mean it." He wheezed.

"What do you have in your bathroom?' Kate asked, getting under Castle's shoulder and heading there.

"Bathroom? Soap, shampoo, towels…. Do you feel the need to clean up?" He asked, sarcastically.

"In your medicine cabinet."

"Oh. Just over the counter pain killers."

"Really? I thought you'd have a whole surgical suite."

Kate got him to the bathroom and got out a bottle of pain killers. She poured a glass of water for him. "Take these. It's the best you have. You might want to wash your mouth out with mouth wash." She handed him a bottle of that as well. "I'm so sorry, Castle. I really am. You were right. I was headed down a rabbit hole. Thank you for stopping me."

He was about to make a nasty comment when he saw that Kate was on the verge of tears. He shrugged. "It's okay."

"It's not okay." Kate led him back to the bedroom and put him on the bed. She began unbuckling his belt.

"What are you doing?" He asked

"Checking you out."

"Haven't you done that already?"

She would have glared at him if she hadn't been so upset. "Lift your butt up."

When he did, she pulled down his pants and boxer shorts. "You look okay. No sign of bleeding or bruising." She ran her hand over him. "Everything feels normal." She grinned. "In fact, it seems to be reacting normally.'

"You do have that effect on me, Beckett." He teased.

Then he felt Kate move her head and all of a sudden, he was engulfed with Kate's warm, wet mouth. He groaned.

"I'm sorry. Did that hurt?" She asked, pulling back.

"Believe me, I wasn't groaning because it hurt. Far from it."

She went back to work on him. In spite of his injury, he climaxed within a few minutes. Kate moved back up and rested her head on his chest. "I'm sorry, Castle. You were right from the beginning. You were right to look into my mom's murder and I was wrong to get mad at you. Do you forgive me?"

"Of course."

"You're not just saying that, are you?"

"Beckett, I can't imagine what you went through at nineteen. The person I blame for this is the guy who killed your mom. No one else."

They lay on the bed for a half an hour or so, then Kate got up. "I should leave before Martha and Alexis get back. I'll clean up the mess in your office before I leave." She kissed him lightly and went to the office, then left.

After she was gone, Castle suddenly realized that she hadn't given him her usual warning that he was not to do or say anything that would lead to them having sex.

Was that intentional or did she just forget?

To be continued in After When the Bough Breaks.