103. Chapter 103

Chapter 103

Monday evening in the Castle household went by in a haze of love and fun and laughter…all in the pleasant aftermath of comfort food. It lasted until Jamie finally wore himself out, crawled into his mother's lap, and promptly fell asleep. They took his shoes off and, in a rare parental moment, agreed to just put him to bed in his clothes. Standing with arms around one another, his parents watched him sleep for a couple of minutes before going back downstairs.

Kate followed Castle to the kitchen where he poured them each a little wine. As they sipped the wine, he took her hand sympathetically, kissed it, and announced, "Here's how the rest of tonight is going to go. You're going to tell me all about your terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. Then we're going to watch a couple of episodes of some really stupid TV show…which can be Nebula 9 if you're so inclined…" Kate swatted his arm, and he laughed. "But I'd recommend a comedy. And then you're going to take a leisurely shower, wash the bad day away, and get some sleep."

"Good plan." She gave him a sweet, lingering kiss and, putting her wine glass down on the counter, asked, "Are you ready? This could go on for a while." He nodded and sat down at the breakfast bar to listen while she told him about her first day at the fifty-first. She started quietly, leaning with her elbows on the counter in front of him, then she gradually advanced to pacing as she spoke, and finally worked her way up to a full-fledged rant. During the verbal flood, he responded with appropriate comments, anger, and disgust; and when it wound down, he stood up and enveloped her in an embrace that left no doubt she was loved.

Giving in to the comfort of his large, warm body holding hers, she wrapped her arms around his waist and said, "I know it has to be humiliating to be told you're getting new people because your precinct is performing so badly, but it feels like more than that. It looks like he's trying hard to goad me into something he can write up as insubordination. It isn't going to happen, though. I've dealt with a lot worse than him. But even though I can understand the anger, I can't excuse the feeling of a vendetta for just being there. It isn't like I asked for this assignment. The bright spot today was that we found a few people who seem friendly, but we we're still being cautious about what we say for a while...even though they didn't seem to like Bronson much more than we do."

"How about Jamie and I come by at the end of your shift on Friday and take you to dinner? Cheer you up a little bit? And I can get a look at this poor excuse for a captain…who's picking on my wife."

"Sure. Just don't come in early. This is nothing like the twelfth." She looked up at him, a little smirk of a smile showing. "And don't go all caveman on me protecting your woman."

"It might not be easy," he teased. "I love my woman."

"Gotta hold my own without you most of the day, Castle."

"Got it. Do you feel better getting it out of your system?" he asked softly before kissing her forehead.

She nodded against his shoulder and asked, "So what are we watching?"

"Your choice. Something that always makes you laugh."

She chose a romcom that reminded them a little of themselves in their early days at the precinct, laughed throughout it, then continued the plan.

Castle followed her into the shower but didn't start anything other than getting clean and goofing around to make her laugh. They dried each other off with soft, fluffy towels, he shaved while she dried her hair, then they snuggled close and drifted off to sleep.

"I don't think I moved all night," Kate mumbled into her husband's chest when she woke up the next morning.

"Me, either," Castle answered, also sounding barely awake. "Jamie was great yesterday…happy, fun. But he was going non-stop. Not even a short nap. No writing done at all. I'm gonna have to send Gina one of my two back up chapters before I have another one to replace it."

"Good plan you had there, Writer-Man. If you can't get any writing done today, I'll take care of Jamie and dinner so you can tonight. Gotta replace that chapter. You never know when you'll get desperate again."

There were sounds of stirring from the baby monitor…indicating that Jamie wasn't awake yet but probably would be soon.

The alarm sounded, and she turned it off, dragged herself into a sitting position, and swung her legs over the side of the bed. "I have to go back there again, don't I?" she pouted.

"'Fraid so, Sweetheart," he answered, propping himself up on his elbow.

"I'm beginning to see the merits of having a sugar daddy," she answered, flopping backward toward him for a quick kiss before she sat back up on the edge of the bed.

"Any time you're ready, my wealth awaits."

Looking over her shoulder, she said, "I'll start the coffee, Mr. Money Bags."

"That's one way to earn your keep. I can think of others," Castle teased, reaching out to squeeze her backside. He fully expected the pillow that was thrown at his grinning face as Kate headed toward the kitchen chuckling.

xxxxx

Since she had things to do at the precinct before working hours began, Kate left a little early but made time to snuggle a still sleepy Jamie for a few minutes before she left.

Having stopped on her way home and picked up the white board and a few other supplies, she almost had it put together when Esposito came in; and he helped her finish it.

The entire team was there a little early, and Beckett took the work they had done on the Oswald case from her bag and put it on the desk.

"You took it home?" Sully questioned quietly. "Why? We didn't have anything else to add."

"I honestly don't know. I just didn't want to leave it here. We haven't written up the witness statements yet, and there's some 'only one copy' information in there. It could be recreated if necessary, but I'd rather not have to." She shrugged. "I guess I don't feel too trusting yet." After a sigh, she admitted, "I know. It sounds…"

"It makes us sound a little paranoid, but I understand," Ryan answered.

The general feeling of concern…or paranoia or whatever…had already led them to keep their conversation quiet and inconspicuous. Resigned sighs issuing from all of them, a few minutes before the beginning of their shift, they started transferring information from the legal pad to the murder board.

Egan came in just barely ahead of being late and disappeared almost immediately as they were working together at the board. He was back in a couple of minutes; and shortly after that, Bronson was standing beside Egan's desk.

"Where did you find that?" he demanded harshly, obviously addressing Beckett about the white board. His loud and unreasonable approach to the situation now had the attention of everyone else there, whether they were actually looking at him or not.

"At the office supply store on my way home after work yesterday," Beckett answered calmly as she finished an entry on the board. "I asked my husband to call in the order so I could just stop and pick it up. Since we needed one; and as you pointed out, we weren't sure how long the new one would be delayed, I took the initiative and bought my own. So there's no need to use the new one when it comes in. And I'll leave this one when I'm finished here so you'll have a spare if any more get broken."

After confronting Beckett with an irrational outburst about a whiteboard, Bronson was the center of attention in the bullpen and didn't have a single argument to fall back on. She had spent her own money, had shown no disrespect, had made no accusations, and had even promised to make a gift of the new board to the fifty-first when she left. The captain looked furious, but he turned without another word and went back to his office. Egan glared at her.

Beckett's team inwardly gloated behind their poker faces and finished adding what they had to their brand, spanking new murder board.

Quietly, as if it were part of their entries to the board, Ryan said, "My paranoia wonders why his question was 'Where did you find that?' not 'Where did that come from?' or 'Did the new boards already come in?" There were small sounds of agreement in response.

Records for Darlene Oswald were now in their possession, and they were working through those while the restaurant owner, Mr. French, was working with the sketch artist. They were presented with the drawing of a face; and armed with that piece of evidence, Ryan and Esposito took their copies to the victim's neighbors and to surrounding businesses, etc. in search of an identification.

Beckett interviewed Mr. French again but found nothing else about the murder. He did, however, have a possible surname for Darlene Oswald's mother. He smiled when he stood to leave and told the team they should try his restaurant for lunch one day soon.

"We might do that," Beckett answered.

Willis French waxed serious before he left, telling Beckett, "Find whoever did this and put them away. Darlene was a sweet girl, always willing to help people out. And she was ambitious. She planned to make something of herself. A lot of people are going to miss her."

"We'll do everything we can. If you think of anything else, please give me a call," she said, giving the restaurant owner her card. "Thank you for your time and cooperation. We appreciate it."

He nodded and waved sadly on his way out.

Now that they had access to Darlene's records and had time to scrutinize them, Ryan discovered that a surname matching the one Mr. French had given them was the beneficiary of her insurance policy. Her mother had remarried and moved out of the Bronx.

Sighing deeply beforehand, Beckett went to the captain's office. "Excuse me, Sir. We found next of kin for our victim. Sully and I need to drive to Westchester to inform her mother."

"Fine," he said grudgingly. "But it only takes one of you. Leave him here."

On her way back from delivering the heartbreaking news to Darlene's mother and asking some questions, she had a first name for the man in the sketch. When she was close to the precinct, she got a call from Mr. French saying that the man he saw was back. He was sipping coffee and said he'd order when his friend arrived."

"Don't approach him yourself. Do everything as you normally would. I'm about five blocks away, so I'll be there soon." She called Sully and asked for backup, and he and Esposito were on their way out before they closed the call.

When Beckett arrived on the restaurant's block, Sully and Esposito were pulling the car into a parking space. She found one close by, they made a quick plan, and then went inside. Sully and Esposito sat down at a table next to their subject, and Beckett approached him. Inconspicuously taking her badge from her waistband, she showed it to the man at the table and asked, "May I sit here?"

The young man sat up straighter and nodded. "What's this about, officer?" he asked nervously, speaking quietly as if he were embarrassed.

Beckett spoke to him quietly as well. "Is your first name Scott?"

"Yes. How did you know…"

"Do you know a woman named Darlene Oswald?"

"Darlene? Wait. Whatever it is you think she did, I'm sure she didn't. She's never been in any kind of trouble. Neither have I. If you want to talk to her, she should be here any minute. She's supposed to meet me here for lunch, but she's a little late."

"At this point, you aren't in any trouble, either, but we do need to talk to you. We're hoping you can help us with an investigation, but it might be better to discuss it at the precinct. Afterward we can bring you back here or take you home if necessary. It's only a few blocks from here. "When he hesitated, she said, "It has to do with Darlene, and it's important. We'd really appreciate it."

Scott sighed, nodded, took out money for his coffee, and left it on the table before walking out with her. Sully and Esposito were right behind them, and Beckett introduced them. "Their car is right here. You ride with them. My car is around the corner, and I'll be right behind you."

They took Scott to the conference room to talk, and he honestly didn't seem to know that Darlene was dead.

"I don't understand why you didn't want to wait for Darlene," he said, seeming genuinely confused. "You could have talked to both of us."

"Scott, I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but Darlene was murdered."

"Murdered? No."

We thought you might prefer to hear that when you weren't in a room full of strangers having lunch."

He propped his elbows on the table and ran his hands through his hair, holding his head with a hand on each side of it. With a sheen of tears in his eyes, he asked, "When? How?"

"Between six-thirty and nine Sunday night. Blunt force trauma…a head wound." Beckett answered gently. "We're hoping you can help us figure out why someone would kill her. Other than the murderer, it looks like you were probably the last person to see her alive. Can you think of anyone who might have wanted to hurt her?"

"No. Everybody loved her. She was bright and bubbly and kind and full of good ideas…"

"How did you know her?"

"We met at college…business classes. We had planned to start a business and had made it far enough to be looking at real estate not far from here. We found what looked like the perfect place; but when the realtor showed it to us, it looked like somebody was living there…you know, like a street person or something. The realtor was upset that the stuff hadn't been cleared out. She assured us that no one was using it now and that it would be removed quickly."

"Were there any difficulties or hard feelings anywhere in the business dealings up to this point?"

"No. Everything was going smoothly."

"And where were you between six-thirty and nine on Sunday night?"

"You don't think I would…"

"It helps to eliminate as many people as possible. That's all," Beckett answered.

"We stood on the street and talked after the realtor left. That was about six-thirty. We both still have fulltime jobs, and the realtor was willing to meet us on Sunday. The place looked like it would be perfect once we fixed it up, and we were pretty stoked. It felt like we were getting close to what we'd been working for all this time. I had to leave to meet some friends for dinner, but Darlene said she wanted to stay and look around the outside. She sounded like she just didn't want to leave yet. If I'd stayed with her..."

"We'll need you to write down your friends' names and where you went that night. Again, elimination purposes. Part of the process of finding the right suspect." She pushed a pen and a small legal pad across the table to him.

As he picked up the pen, he assured her, "If it'll help you find who killed Darlene, my life is an open book."

After a few more questions, Beckett thanked Scott, and Sully took him home.

"I don't think he had anything to do with it," Beckett said.

"Me, either," Esposito agreed, and Ryan nodded.

Calling the list of neighbors the uniforms had provided them the day before netted the detectives more information about the victim, including confirmation that she and a partner were well on the way to starting a business; but it gave them nothing useful as far as the murder.

Sully and Beckett went to talk to her coworkers while Ryan and Esposito went to look around at the building where Scott Rhodes said he had left Darlene on Sunday night. Behind the building, they found a door that was locked, but they almost missed a smaller door in the far corner of the building with a lot of posts and rebar and plywood propped near it, effectively hiding it from view. That one was unlocked. They let Beckett know where they were, cleared the building, and looked around, finding evidence of a squatter, mostly in a room that couldn't be seen from the one window in the front. Then Ryan called Beckett again. "We need to call CSU, Beckett. There's definitely been a squatter here, but it looks like it's present tense. There's nobody here right now, but there's blood. This may be where she was killed. We're gonna wait for CSU, but we'll want backup." They talked specifics as they moved to have sight of the unlocked back door until their backup arrived.

An unmarked car was stationed on the street where there was a good view of the back doors, leaving the boys more comfortable about bringing CSU in through the front. Knowing they would need to be there as soon as CSU had an area clear, the two detectives stood watch for their new colleagues as they did their work.

By the time CSU had cleared the first area, Beckett and Sully were there too, and the four detectives moved in to do their jobs. Returning to the precinct, they entered the bullpen with Beckett saying, "Cortez is sending a couple of uniforms to canvass the area around the building to see if anybody knows who's squatting there."

"Looks like she was probably killed there." Ryan speculated.

"And then taken a block away and dumped?" Sully asked.

"If it's the guy who was living there, he considers it his home. He probably didn't want to live with a dead body in it," Esposito answered. "And didn't want anybody finding that unlocked back door."

Going to the murder board, Beckett recorded their new information from the morning and they began to talk theory, bouncing thoughts back and forth.

"It makes no sense for Scott Rhodes to have killed her. We can follow up on the realtor and the paperwork they filed to see if anything stands out, but I doubt we'll find anything."

"Me, either. So we wait for CSU results before we bring him in again?"

"That's my vote."

"If that turns out to be Darlene's blood, the two probabilities are that the squatter killed her or somebody else killed her there to make it look that way."

"I could see that the guy would be upset that he'd have to find another place to stay, but how would he know about the plans? Scott mentioned that there was evidence someone had been there, but he didn't mention seeing anybody."

"That back door was unlocked. He could have heard their voices and stayed where they couldn't see him…caught the whole sale conversation."

"If he'd kill for that, he could be dangerous when he finds out his belongings are missing."

"Yeah. That's probably everything he owns."

"It's sad."

"Guess we'll have to wait for CSU to process the fingerprints."

It wasn't long before they had fingerprints that linked to a Benjamin Lawrence Nash, Army veteran. After lunch, the uniforms who were canvassing around the building let them know that several people were pretty sure it was a homeless man everybody knew as Benny. On his lucid days, people would give him odd jobs, and otherwise he had a small core of people who gave him a little cash now and then. There were times he seemed to be in a haze…living in his own world, though. From what he wore and little bits of random conversation during his good times, they thought he was probably a military veteran. They said they felt bad for him, that he kept to himself a lot…was unpredictable and probably had mental health issues but had never been violent.

"It fits the fingerprints," Esposito said sadly.

Beckett gave him a sympathetic look as she returned their attention to the case. "We need to get an APB out on Mr. Nash. The people who gave us the information about him haven't seen him in a couple of days."

It was late on Thursday afternoon before Benny Nash was found and brought in, and Beckett had Esposito accompany her for the interrogation.

"Mr. Nash…"

"Just Benny," he said, fidgeting in his seat. "Mr. Nash isn't me anymore," He seemed to be nervous and barely holding on to reality.

"You were Army?" Esposito asked calmly. In response, Benny just nodded. "Me, too," Esposito answered. "You saw some bad stuff, didn't you?"

Benny nodded again and rocked back and forth a little bit in his chair.

"You're here because we have questions about a murder, Benny."

The man nodded and continued the slight rocking. He said he didn't know Darlene, but he did know who she was when a picture was shown, Beckett started to show him the crime scene photo, but Esposito stopped her with a non-verbal request to allow him to do it.

"Sometimes bad things happen here, too. This is one of them." Pushing the picture across to Benny, he asked, "Do you know how this happened to Darlene?"

Benny looked at the picture, still rocking, then looked away immediately. "I didn't mean to hurt her. She found my door and came inside after they all left. I heard them. I was just trying to tell her…" His voice faded away.

"What were you trying to tell her?"

"That it was my home, and they were going to take it away...throw out all my stuff. But she didn't understand. She said I could have my stuff and they'd find me a shelter until they could find me another place, but she didn't understand," he insisted, becoming a little agitated.

"What didn't she understand?" Beckett asked softly.

"Too many people. There's noise in my head...always bad noise in my head. When there are lots of people, there's more noise…and I get scared. And sometimes it makes me want to hurt them, but they aren't doing bad things." He made a keening sound that seemed to fit the rocking motion. "I don't want to hurt anybody. If I went home…just me…the noise wasn't so bad anymore." He paused for a long moment. "She was always nice to me…gave me money sometimes…brought me things to eat sometimes…made me cookies at Christmas. I thought she'd understand, but she didn't." He became more agitated. "I kept trying to explain about the noise, but she didn't understand. I can't… The shelters…there's noise… And little places scare me. Need space…quiet places…room to move around. I didn't mean to hurt her, but she kept talking...and I couldn't make her understand. And I needed my home so I wouldn't hurt anybody. I was so frustrated…and I picked up something and hit her. It's why I needed my home…with nobody there. I didn't mean to hurt her."

The keening started again, and they gave him a moment before Esposito asked, "Did you move her body to the next block?"

He nodded again. "After dark… I wanted somebody to find her. More people near there," he answered.

"You killed her, Benny," Beckett told him. "We're gonna have to take you to a small place for a little while, and then we'll take you to somebody who does understand as soon as we can."

Esposito walked with Benny and waited as he was processed, then walked him to holding with the officer who was assigned to him and said he'd be back to check on him later.

Beckett had Ryan make a copy of the interrogation tape and then went to the captain to let him know they had a confession and to fully explain the situation.

"You going soft on me Beckett?" Bronson answered unsympathetically.

"I'm just presenting the facts. He needs to see the department shrink before we talk to the DA about charges. I don't see it going past manslaughter, and he may not be deemed fit to stand trial. Here's a recording of the interrogation. You can decide for yourself where things stand." She placed a stick drive on his desk before she walked away.

After a visit from a department psychologist, Beckett and Esposito met with the doctor, who recommended hospitalization until Benny could be more fully evaluated.

"Can you recommend a VA facility with a good mental health department?" Esposito asked. "I'm just asking to send him where he's with people who know how he got here. We see too much of this. Coming home isn't always easy. You see things, have to do things that…" There was a deep sigh. "Just saying, a man serves his country and comes home and he's reduced to this. It's not right."

Beckett briefly rested a supportive hand on his arm, and the psychologist promised he'd do the best he could.

As they walked away, Beckett said, "This one's hitting a little too close to home?"

"There but for the grace of God, and all that, you know?"

Beckett nodded and allowed him to sort out his thoughts as they walked back to the bullpen in the companionable silence of old friends.

The paperwork was filed, Benny was taken to a VA hospital that night, and their first case at the fifty-first was closed.

xxxxx

Beckett went home to her two Castle men and unwound from the day's stresses, and she gave back to them as much joy and comfort as they gave her.