31. Father, father

“What did you say to my dad?”

“Uh?” Castle says articulately. Say what, Beckett? She sounds equal parts shocked and pissed at him.  Or maybe at her dad.  “What do you mean?”  They’re just getting into her car.

“I asked if we could have dinner and he could tell me about the law firm and he insisted you came too.”

Castle sits there with his jaw on his lap. Her father did what?  “Uh?” he says again.  All his normal words and brain function appear to have run away.  If he had any sense, he’d be following them.

“Did you give him that idea?”

“No!” Absolutely not.  Never. Oh, hi Jim, will you help me get your daughter into my arms even though she’s doing her best to drive me away?  That’s a really likely way to help his cause.  “I went to tell him that I wouldn’t put him in my book.  I told you that.  He told me his story and asked me where the game store was.  Nothing else.”

There is a strange noise permeating the car. It sounds as if Beckett is growling.  When he glances over at her, she’s clamped her teeth into her lip and looks like she’s about to scream.

“I do not need this,” she mutters blackly. “I can’t deal with this.”  Suddenly, all her tension is back.  She’s obviously had a very unpleasant thought.  Castle worms a hand over to hers, and skates over her fingers, aiming for reassurance.  She doesn’t react.  “I don’t need another thing to worry about.”

“Worry about what?”

There’s a pause. He’s still rubbing lightly over the back of her hand where it rests on her leg.  “Dad,” she says, and stops that short.  Castle waits, unusually quietly.  Nothing more arrives.  They pull out into the traffic, which gives Beckett an excuse to concentrate on something else.

“So what do we do?”

“Go,” she says. She doesn’t sound exactly overjoyed.  “I need that gossip.”  There’s something else there, but he isn’t entirely sure what it is.  It almost sounds like she’s picking the better of two bad options.  He’d pick at that thought till he’d uncovered the meat of it, but they’re almost to the right spot, and, under the shadow of the case, Beckett’s pulled herself back to normality.

The relatives are cool and collected. At least, they are right up to the point Beckett asks if Asher had any enemies.  The aunt dissolves into tears.

“No. No-one.  He had a nice girlfriend, a good job, friends.  He had everything.  Everyone loved him.”

“What about his running? Did he have a club?”

“No. He said it calmed him down.  Work was really demanding.  All those targets.  So he always ran the same route so he didn’t have to worry.”

“What sort of attorney was he?”

“Corporate. He didn’t” – her husband breaks in –

“He hadn’t had a chance to specialise yet. He was only twenty four.  He had everything in front of him.”  Beckett freezes for the tiniest fraction of a second, and then recovers.

“Could you give me the names and addresses of his girlfriend and his close friends?”

“Yes. As much as we can.”  Castle knows that this will be for cross-checking with the phone.

“Thank you. Was there anyone at work that he talked about a lot – good or bad?”

They look identically blank. Beckett lets the silence stretch out.

“He mentioned his boss occasionally, but I don’t remember anyone else.”

Beckett takes meticulous notes of the names and addresses. While she’s doing that, her phone chirps with a text, but she doesn’t look at it until they’ve left the Washingtons’ apartment.

“Is that Lanie?” Castle asks hopefully.

“Yes. We’d better go by the morgue.  She’s got results for me.”

Beckett doesn’t sound as excited by that as she normally would. Castle thinks back to the earlier thought that she was choosing dinner with her dad as a least-worst option, and rapidly concludes that Beckett is still at odds with Lanie and is ensuring that Lanie can’t make anything of it – for now.  He wonders whether to don his vest, and then decides that this would be a little provocative.  He’ll just have to dodge the flying subtext.  Though this is Lanie.  Subtext is far too subtle if she’s decided she wants to make a point.

Asher Washington is laid out on a slab, opened up. Beckett gazes down at the corpse, and then at Lanie.  “What’ve you got for me?”

Lanie regards Beckett beadily. “Single GSW to the shoulder.  .308 calibre.  Shattered the bone, but didn’t kill him.  Shock probably knocked him down.”

“So what did kill him?”

“Drowned. Slush in his lungs.  But I think he had a little help with that.  See these bruises?”  Castle and Beckett nod in unison.  “Someone held him down.”

“Held him down?”

“Yup. Long enough for him to drown, then left him there.”  Lanie continues with technical detail for a few moments.  “Tox was clean.  Hadn’t had so much as a Tylenol.”

“Anything else?”

“Nope. No tattoos, no notable marks.  Clean as a whistle.”

“Okay. Thanks, Lanie.”  Beckett starts for the door.

“Where are you going?”

“Back to the bullpen.”

Lanie puts herself between Beckett and the door. “In that case I’ll see you later.”

“I’m busy. Seeing my dad.”

Lanie’s mouth flaps wordlessly.

“She is,” Castle says helpfully.

“I am,” Beckett says bluntly. “So I need to get back.  I said I’d see you Friday.”

“Yeah,” Lanie says very sarcastically. “You did.  Right about the point you wouldn’t say anything about anything.   You need to talk to someone.”

“I am not having this discussion. I’m certainly not having it on work time and in public.”  Beckett has developed an icy anger which Castle has not previously seen directed at Lanie.  She stalks out.  Castle turns to follow and is stopped by Lanie.

“What’s going on? She’s been weird since Monday.”  Castle looks convincingly and stupidly blank, and shrugs.

“No idea. See you later,” he says hurriedly, and escapes, quickly enough for it to be clear he’s not swapping secrets with Lanie.

Beckett is not looking forward to Friday. She’s not looking forward to this evening, either.  When Castle exits the morgue at some speed and slides into the car, she’s staring at the sidewalk, thinking that her life would be massively easier if her father wasn’t matchmaking and her so-called best friend wasn’t trying to play psychiatrist.  They’ll both be disappointed in her: and she’ll end up picking up the pieces for her father and trying to avoid seeing the disgust in Lanie’s face.

A large, warm hand lands over hers and completely envelops it. “You okay?” Castle asks.

“Yeah. I’m fine.”   But his hand is very comforting.  She doesn’t shake him off, as she had earlier: for a brief moment lets his strength flow into her.  “Let’s go.”

Back in the hubbub of the bullpen progress is being made. Espo and Ryan have split up the friends between them, and are cross-referencing at near-light speed.  Beckett’s got the girlfriend and is running her down.  Social media is such a wonderful help to cops.  She’s fairly sure it wasn’t why Facebook was invented, but she’s not complaining.  In fact, Asher’s Facebook is also a good place to look…

“What the hell?” she emits.  “Guys, get a load of this.”

“Wow.”

Asher had been wearing a GoPro. That’s…quite unusual.  Especially since it hadn’t been on the body.  “Did unis pick it up on the search?”

“No.”

“Hmm.”

Not only had he been wearing it, but he must have been a bit of a geek, because he’d been sending a series of shots to his Facebook page. The final clear photo is timed at 5.03a.m.  After that it’s shots of slush, up close and not personal, every five minutes.  The same slush.  There are three slushy photos.  Then there’s nothing more.

“Well, that gives us time of death,” Ryan says. “5.03 to 5.08. That’s a lot better than Lanie can do.”

“Not quite. It gives us time of shot, within a five minute window.  Time of death will be around 5.18 to 5.23, plus a few minutes.”

“Oh. When the camera stopped transmitting.”

“Yes. It’s pretty dark around then.”

Espo jumps in. This is his specialist subject.

“Need to be a pretty good shot to hit a running man in the dark when it’s winter, even if it’s not a kill shot. We need to cross-check who Asher knew who could shoot.”

“What’s your odds, Espo?”

“If he didn’t slip on the snow, an’ if I had my rifle, at up to 600 yards ten outta ten, even in the dark. Wouldn’t want night vision.  Spoils it.  But there ain’t many like me,” he finishes smugly.  Beckett lets the arrogance pass.  Espo earned that arrogance long since, out in the desert.

“So we’re talking about a pretty good shot, then,” Castle says.

“Yeah. We oughta check ranges, that sorta thing.  Someone who can shoot that well is gonna be practicing somewhere and he’ll have been noticed.”

“Might be a woman, Espo,” Beckett says dryly.

“Ain’t many like you out there, either.” Castle flicks a surprised glance at Esposito.  “Beckett can shoot straight.  Can’t beat me, but she don’t do badly.”  She grins ferally at Espo, who grins back, and just for a moment it’s two predators together against the world.  “Second best in the bullpen.”

“I’ll beat you one day,” she says, bravado sparking. “And I’ll publish it in every paper in New York State.”

“Su-ure you will, Beckett. Only if I’m shooting from a sickbed.”  Beckett laughs.  This is an old, familiar argument that they’ve been having since the day they teamed up and Espo told her that girls can’t shoot.  She’d taken him up on the competition, and though she’s never beaten him and never will, their comradely vying had improved her scores and marksmanship to be second-best to him in every case.  Some days, that’s all she’d had to cling to: going to the range with Espo to give her something that required total concentration on the days after her father had needed her, once he got dry.

“I’d like to see that,” Castle says. “Can I try too?”

“You?” comes in stereo.

“Me. I’ve done a bit of shooting.”  Beckett and Espo exchange glances, and another of those predatory smiles.

“Okay. Maybe when this case is over.”  She looks up at her board.  “Let’s see what we’ve got.  Corporate attorney and runner, shot with a rifle, then drowned when that didn’t quite work.  Head cam missing.  Shooter was pretty good but nothing like Espo.”

“Prob’ly not ex-Forces, then.”

“Guess it’s time for the grunt work. We’d better get on with it.”

And they do. For the next couple of hours it’s heads down.  Even Castle appears to have caught the bug, although it mostly manifests in the provision of coffee and intense concentration on his phone.  Beckett is, he knows, using the need to chase leads to forget about all the other issues surrounding her.

“Beckett.”

“Uh?”

“We ought to be going. You said you’d be at your dad’s at six-thirty.  It’s after six already.”

Oh. Is it?  How did that happen?  “Thanks.”  She looks at her pile of papers, picks it up wholesale, and stuffs it in the drawer.  The computer is equally condignly dealt with.  “There.  Done.”

“You goin’ home, Beckett?”

“No, to see my dad. Remember?  Legal gossip.”

“Oh, yeah. See you tomorrow.”

“Night, boys.”

“Night,” Castle echoes her.

The drive up to the Upper West Side becomes increasingly quiet as the cross-street numbers rise. Castle tries to make conversation, but after the third completely non-relevant response from Beckett he stops bothering and simply observes.  Beckett is retreating back into a brightly polished, smiling, superficially attractive shell which most people would think was entirely appropriate for seeing their family.  Castle recognises it instantly as the same one he had seen when he’d dragooned her round for dinner at his, recalls her wish that no-one would need her, and switches his observation skills to high.

“Hi, Dad.”

“Jim.”

“Hello, Katie. Rick.”  Beckett’s eyes widen momentarily at the informal addresses between her father and Castle.  That is… not necessarily a good thing.  She doesn’t need them teaming up.  It’s just…squicky.  Which is an absolutely horrible word which doesn’t belong in any adult’s vocabulary but is the only one she can think of which fits.  As if seeing her father wasn’t a fragile enough construct, now she has to worry about what Castle’s undisciplined mouth might give away, and worse, what he might spot.

She doesn’t remember that she’d told him, deep dissolved in vodka, that she’s tired of being needed, of everyone wanting to lean on her; that she wants to disappear.   Therefore, she isn’t aware that he’s already on alert.

“I made us all dinner,” Jim says cheerily. “Chicken and salad.  I got us an apple tart and cream for dessert.” 

“From Fairway?” Beckett says hopefully, regarding the tart on the counter hungrily.

“Yes, Katie. From Fairway.”

“Good. I love their tarts.”  Castle resolves to feed her one, every so often.   He watches Beckett with her father, and detects a tiny brittleness in her voice.  She’s trying very hard to show her father she’s delighted.

“Dinner will be ready in a moment. You can ask your questions over the meal, Katie.”  Jim grins.  “Do you want to read me my rights first?”

“Dad!” Beckett sounds deeply offended.  Jim grins even more widely.  Castle moves around the small apartment, as neat as his daughter’s, but more decorated.  There’s a photo of Beckett in dress uniform.  More surprisingly, there’s a wedding photo.  Beckett is really very like her mother.  Another reason for Jim to dissolve into alcohol.  She must have been a constant reminder of what he’d lost.  While he’s been thinking, the table has been set, water glasses and jug put out, and Jim is placidly tossing salad.

“Which firm did you say it was?”

“Schickoff & Schultz.”

“Mm. Can’t say as I’ve really come across them.  I haven’t heard anything bad about them, either.  Sorry, Katie.  No gossip.”

“Nothing?”

“Nothing.”

Castle watches with appalled interest as Beckett turns slightly and is clearly struggling not to say why didn’t you tell me that at lunchtime?  She swallows it down, clears her face of ire, and says lightly, “Shall I put the salad out?”  If it had been anyone except her father, Castle thinks, they’d have been cut off at the knees for pulling that trick.  Or at the neck.

“Can I help?”

“I think we’re good, thanks. You could pour.”  Castle does as he’s told, as Jim puts chicken on plates and Beckett distributes them about the table.

Conversation is stilted. Castle can’t think of a topic that he’s comfortable introducing, and Beckett, having received no useful information at all, is trying to talk about the lousy weather and how much she hates the snow because she can’t run without falling over.

“It’ll be gone soon,” Jim points out. “Then you can go running as much as you like.  Take care, though.”  Castle would have said the same to Alexis, in much the same tone.

“You say that every time,” Beckett says, with that same brittleness as earlier, covered by a cheerful grin. “I’m not six, you know.  Not even sixteen.”

“You’re not. But you’re still my daughter and I’m allowed to nag you.”  Beckett’s hand is below the table, finger twisted into the belt loop of her pants.

“I carry a gun,” she points out. “I even know how to use it.”

“Not the point, Katie. I’m your dad and I have nagging rights.”

“Isn’t that supposed to be bragging rights?” It’s perfectly Beckett, if you can’t see her hand.

“Those too.” Castle snickers, despite the discomfort of the evening so far.  Beckett glares at him.  Jim snickers at Beckett’s glare, and the two men snicker in tandem.

“So, Rick,” Jim grins. Castle abruptly starts to worry.  “That game you convinced Katie to buy for me…”

“Yes?” he says suspiciously. Beckett has tensed up even more.

“Fancy a game now? We’ve only played it with two.”

“Castle’s had lots of experience,” Beckett says quellingly. “It wouldn’t be fair.”  That sounds like Beckett wants to leave, but can’t or won’t simply say so, likely for fear of upsetting her father.

“Scared you’ll lose, Beckett?” Castle says automatically.

“I beat you last time,” she snaps back.

“You have this game too, Rick?”

“Oh, that was Beckett’s set.” He realises what he’s said when Jim raises an eyebrow and Beckett pins him with an absolutely appalled glare.

“When was that, Katie?”

“I bought it the same time I got yours. I liked it enough that I thought I’d have it too.”

“And when did you beat Rick?” Castle is reminded that Jim is a lawyer.

“Last night,” Beckett says, neutrally. Jim smiles happily.

“That’s nice. You took my advice.”  He fusses around finding his own set and setting it up, thereby missing – though Castle certainly does not – Beckett’s frown.  It seems very like Beckett is not happy about whatever the advice was, which Castle surmises is related to her dealings with him.  Castle’s feeling that Jim is broadly supportive – at least unless his daughter gets hurt – takes firm root.

The game covers a multitude of sins of omission, Castle discovers. Omission of a huge number of conversational topics, starting but emphatically not finishing with family, friends, social occasions, work, and what Beckett (whom he simply cannot think of as Katie) does in her time off.  The last is hardly surprising.  Beckett doesn’t seem to have time off.  Unfortunately, he also notices that Beckett is resolutely cheerful.  Nothing comes out of her mouth – nothing has come out of her mouth since they came in the door – that isn’t positive, bright, cheery and designed to ensure that her father knows absolutely nothing about how she really feels.  As far as her conversation with her father goes, she’s living a Mary Poppins life, practically perfect in every way. No-one ever helps Beckett, she had slurred.  But she’s not letting her father see that she might need help.

Her father’s easily explained: that’s because she supports him, and doesn’t think that he can support her – or thinks that putting any strain on him will have bad results. So she doesn’t tell him anything.  She lets the boys see a little – just the tiniest crack, because she’s had to, to make the team function around her need to support her father at all times.  For the same reason, Montgomery knows, and maybe a bit more because he was there before, when Jim was drowning in rye whiskey and Beckett was burying her pain in work.  Maybe Lanie knows a little more than the boys – and again Castle wonders what had gone down at that aborted lunch.  And he, Castle, knows a lot more than any of them but only as a story.  He hasn’t lived any of it.

But now her father’s beginning to suspect that his bright, blazing, beautiful daughter isn’t as brightly burning as she should be; as she’s trying to make him believe.