32. Please forgive me

“Come on,” Jim encourages his pieces as they progress around the board.

“I told you Castle would win,” Beckett notes.

Castle is indeed winning, though not as easily as he would have liked. Jim’s sharp legal mind is clearly as quick to absorb game strategies as his daughter’s, and Castle is having to put in some effort to stay definitively ahead.  Beckett, on the other hand, seems to be almost entirely indifferent to whether she wins or loses.  Sure, she’s making all the right noises of disgust or delight, but it’s the same smooth superficial shell which she had assumed as they arrived, and it’s all an act.  She is, very subtly and very surprisingly, ensuring that she loses – and therefore that one of he or Jim wins – as quickly as possible without it being spotted.  Castle’s conviction that Beckett really, really wants to go home – or leave here – is strengthened.  He considers his options, and decides that the general discomfort of the evening and Beckett’s underlying tension should not be increased or prolonged.  It then doesn’t take him long to win.

He looks at his watch and fakes startlement at the time. “I’m sorry,” he apologises, “but I need to get home.  Sorry to break up the party – and deprive Beckett of her chance for revenge.  Thank you for dinner.”

Jim looks a little rueful. “I forgot you would have to get home.”

Beckett bestows a hug on her father, which Castle notices is not precisely the sort of bear hug he’d expect or deliver with Alexis, in either direction. It seems that just as Beckett is constrained around her father, he is likewise constrained around her.  “See you Sunday, Dad,” she says.  No-one would believe that she wasn’t entirely enthusiastic about the idea.  No-one, that is, except Castle.  The same brittle stress fractures are in her voice as have been there all evening.  He wonders how it can be that Jim doesn’t notice, and then chides himself for stupidity.  Jim will never have heard any other type of voice from her since Beckett left Stanford.

Castle expects Beckett to slump, or breathe a sigh of relief, or in some way relax, as soon as they leave. That simply does not happen.  He does not, however, expect talking or explanations, and receives neither.  They get into Beckett’s car; she maintains her smooth shell; she drives him home and drops him off.

He doesn’t ask where she’s going. He knows.

Beckett parks at the Twelfth, waves casually as she passes through the entrance and gets into the elevator, and attains her desk; where she takes out her papers and switches her computer on. A pile of new papers are skulking on her desk.  Only once the accoutrements of her wholly successful career are assembled around her does she allow herself to breathe deeply, dissolve the shell, hunch her shoulders for a moment and then straighten them again – and then go to brew herself a coffee.

She examines her murder board, which has acquired some new decoration which she regards appreciatively, fitting this new information into the murder-map in her head. Ballistics is still awaited – she growls: she wants those results run through the databases as soon as possible – but time of death is confirmed at 5.30 a.m., stomach contents are consistent with not having eaten breakfast – dinner, yes, pasta with a healthy quantity of green vegetables and fruit – and there are some interesting new photos of the friends and relatives.  What there is not is any indication of who might have shot Asher Washington, or why.  She sips slowly and, as if she were brewing good coffee, allows the information to percolate through her mind.

Back at her desk with another cup of coffee and a dog-eared packet of M&M’s which she had found at the back of her drawer (she is carefully not looking at the sell-by-date, although it is extraordinarily unusual that these have hidden from her for more than a day or so: candy is normally gone in a flash), Beckett begins to review the new papers. They include the results of the phone contacts cross-checking, which throws up nothing untoward – unis can do a first follow up of all of them except the girlfriend, with whom Beckett will deal tomorrow.  It’s too late now.

She works her way down the pile, processing and fitting more and more tiles into the mosaic of her thoughts to build a picture. Right at the bottom of the papers, some time later, are the results of the call records. Pay dirt!, she thinks, and also makes a mental note to chew Ryan out for not making sure this was on the top of the pile where she would see it at once.  She’s not inclined to give him leeway for not expecting her to see it tonight: since she’s always in before him she would still have had to fight through the rest of the pile to find it before he rolled in.  After that, however, she’ll praise him lavishly for his work – as he also deserves – in finding this series of calls.   The same number had called Asher three times the previous evening, and been answered all three times, and then at 5a.m. this morning.

Beckett thinks rapidly. If Asher’s phone had been with him while he was running, it’s most likely that he would have stopped running to answer it – everyone does, and lawyers more than most.  And that would have given his killer a shot at a stationary target.  But Asher didn’t have the phone with him and so the shot was – well, taken on the run, as it were.  Her lips twitch with the black humour.  So, a much harder shot, and a semi-miss, necessitating the next step, suffocating or drowning Asher in the snow and slush of Hamilton Fish Park. 

She riffles back through the papers for the ME’s report. The bruising pattern on the shoulders – ooohhh, and on the back: that was apparently a knee – indicates a reasonably – so she thinks – wide hand span.  She puts her own hand on a convenient ruler to try to get an idea of scale.  Hmm.  Her span is actually not too much smaller.  The photo shows that the finger-markings are not unusually widely spaced, which militates against her searching for a tiny keyboard player with a multi-octave stretch.  She won’t rule it out – no assumptions at this stage of a homicide investigation – but it’s not a hot prospect.  She thinks some more.  Castle has large hands, she thinks abruptly, and taps out a text. What’s your hand span if you were pushing someone down?

She’s scowling blackly at the lack of a ballistics report and the complete absence of fingerprints on the body, when her phone rings. This time she looks at it before answering.

“Beckett.”

“My hands are seven inches wide, without really stretching, if I were pressing down on someone’s shoulders. Why?”

“Checking up,” Beckett says uninformatively.

“You’re working the case without me. That’s not fair.”

“I had a thought. Don’t make me regret asking for your input.”

“You should let me” – but the electronic scream of a call waiting interrupts that statement.

“I have to get this,” Beckett says. “Night.”

The call is from O’Leary.

“Beckett, you know that guy – Berowitz – you picked up the other night?”

“Yeah?” Her heart plummets.

“Beat cops picked him up again. D’you need him before I call his wife?”

“No,” she says, forcing her voice not to shake. “No.  Call his wife.  I don’t need him any more.”  Don’t call me. He’s not my problem.  Orders. (But it isn’t quite orders.  She’s just choosing to interpret it that way.)  He’s Julia’s problem.  But she knows that in the very near future her phone will ring and it will be Julia, failing to cope, needing support, needing someone to cling to; she knows that she’ll listen, repeat all her advice; she knows Julia won’t listen to her.

And she knows that, in consequence, tonight she’ll keep on working until she buries her guilt that she can’t or won’t go over to the Berowitzes.

So it transpires, exactly as she had expected. She eventually falls into bed at well past midnight, though at least this time she had gone home.  She had considered the break room couch, being nearer, but remembered just in time that she doesn’t have a full change of clothes here.  She has no desire for another discussion with Montgomery.

Her late night had enabled her to reach the bottom of the cold case pile. Those hadn’t gone away simply because a new body had dropped.  No such luck.  However, she thinks smugly, the whole pile is sitting in the out-tray waiting to be returned to whichever unlucky cops were originally responsible.  Not only that, but she has prepared the leave request upon which Montgomery had insisted, albeit with gritted teeth.  Still, she’s done it.  She’s requested to take all her days at Easter, carefully avoiding spring break week, just when he’ll also have to balance all the other non-parental requests.  Serve him right.  On those satisfying notes, she finally finds sleep.

In the morning, she’s not exactly in bright and early. Early, yes.  Bright is not precisely the word.  She’s still tired and consequently a little fuzzy-headed, and she aims straight for the coffee machine.  The first cup doesn’t touch the sides.  The second is a little less desperate.  The third actually contains some milk.  She heads for her murder board and spends some quality time sitting on the edge of her desk contemplating her evidence and swinging her feet thoughtfully.  Then she starts to scribble on a handy pad of paper.  When Esposito appears, she’s ready.

“Yo, Beckett.”

“Hey, Espo,” she grins. Espo instantly looks nervous.  “I was thinking.”  And now he looks downright scared.  “Did you get anything from ranges, shooters, that sort of thing?”

“Not yet. I put calls out all over, but no-one bit.”

“Keep pushing. That number Ryan found – and why’d he hide it at the bottom of the pile? – did we start tracing it?”

“Started. No result last night, but maybe he’ll get a hit this morning.  He was waiting for the triangulation off the towers, to try to get a location.”

Beckett explains her theory about the 5a.m. call. Espo hums as he works through it.

“Makes more sense, that’s for sure. Don’t know anyone who’d set up to shoot a running target.”

“Unless they were skeet shooting,” Castle says happily from behind them. Beckett jumps.  Espo starts.  Castle proffers coffee to Beckett, and is impervious to Espo’s half-scowl.

“Skeet shooting?”

“It’s possible,” Esposito says. “But then he might have hit clean.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” Beckett says with irritation. “Where’s Ryan?  I want that number run down.”

Fortuitously, Ryan appears almost upon the word. Less fortuitously, so does Montgomery, who casts an all-encompassing glance around, notes the cold case files with a raised eyebrow, and more pertinently their location piled high in the out-tray; enters his office and clearly discovers the leave request right at the top of his in-tray.

“Detective Beckett, what is this?” he says, dangling it between a finger and thumb tip in case it should explode.

“My leave request. The one which you asked for, sir.”

“Denied,” Montgomery snaps. “Resubmit, taking at least four of your ten days within the next two weeks.”  Beckett’s mouth opens.  “If you argue, Detective, you’ll be taking them starting right now, followed by another four unpaid and a write-up for dissent.”  Her mouth snaps closed.  Nobody around her dares to say a word as she stalks to her chair and begins to stab at her keyboard.

Ryan and Espo decamp to their desks and Ryan, at least, starts to run down the number Beckett wants. Castle plops down into his normal chair and discreetly inspects Beckett as she glares a pair of scorched holes into the screen.  Five minutes later she collects a sheet from the printer, slashes an infuriated signature across it, and stalks across the room to deliver it to Montgomery.  On the way back, she stops at Ryan’s desk.

“You got that number yet?”

“I’m on it. Soon as I get it, you’ll know.” 

She turns to Esposito, with a sharp swish and flick of the tail of her jacket.

“Anything popped on shooters?”

“Not yet. Still running down ranges.” 

Beckett makes a noise whose overtone and pitch might be equalled by an F-15 at full after-burn. Fortunately it’s not at the same volume.  The precinct windows wouldn’t survive.  She turns on her heel and removes herself from the vicinity of the bullpen with a machine-gun rattle of clacking heels.

Castle looks at her form poised in the break room doorway and decides to give her a moment. It would all have worked out beautifully, if Ryan hadn’t high-fived Esposito and bounced up from his desk to go chasing after her.

“Beckett! I got it!”

“The number?”

“Yeah. Dumbass didn’t use a burner phone.”

“What are you waiting for? Go pick him up.”

“Don’t you want to know who was calling?”

“Who?”

“His uncle.”

“What?”

Ryan shrugs. “That’s who the phone’s registered to.”

“Go get him. Both of them.”  She turns round.  “Espo, start checking those ranges for Carson Washington.  Or Estelle.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I’m going to see if I can find out if Asher had a will, and what his parents’ wills said.” She’s dialling as she finishes the sentence.

Ten minutes later, she’s smiling ferally at the phone as she swipes off. Ten minutes later, by which time the tapping of her fingernails has dug small crescents in her desk, her e-mail pings.  She opens the attachments, curses under her breath, and flicks back to the e-mail. 

“Thank God. There’s a Cliffs Notes summary.”

Castle springs out the chair to come round and read over her shoulder, leaning on the desk and only just preventing himself touching Beckett. She’s working.  Later, however, he’s going to see when she requested that leave.  He’s got a plan or two.

“Asher inherited from his parents – but it was on trust till he was twenty-five. We didn’t get that from the earlier search.  He was paid a certain amount per month – explains how he could afford the rent – but he wouldn’t get the rest till his birthday.  Trustees were – ah.  The aunt and uncle.  Hmm.  Wonder if they were skimming?”

“And if Asher died, all the cash went to them,” Castle says, reading down the rest. “Pretty standard clause.”

“Ryan needs to run their financials. He can do that while I’m talking to them.”

“While we’re talking to them.”  Beckett rolls her eyes at him.  “What?  I know about wills.” 

The interview is nasty, brutish, and very short – all on the part of the aunt and uncle. They lawyer up in five minutes flat.

“There’s nothing at all to be done about that,” Beckett growls, as the Washingtons depart.

“Mungojerrie and Rumpelteaser,” Castle says.

“Uh?” Beckett’s mind has already moved on to how to break them.

“Cats. TS Eliot’s Practical Cats, to be precise.  Notorious cat burglars.”

“Is this relevant to anything at all?”

“You quoted it.”

“If I did it was accidental. Burglarious fictional felines have nothing to do with this case.  Focus, Castle.”

At that point Espo breaks in before the discussion turns into an – er – catfight.

“Beckett, they both shoot. Membership at the Westside Rifle and Pistol Range at 20 West 20th.”

“Yeah?” A little crease forms between her brows.  “Both?”  In the single word there’s the note that means she’s running shifts of possibilities and variants.  “But that means” –

“that either of them” –

“could have shot him,” they say together. Esposito muffles a snigger.

“Right,” she raps. “Ryan!”

“Yo, boss?”

“Financials. Fast as you can.  Espo, get down to that range and find out how good this pair are.”  She bares her teeth in something that is definitely not a smile.  “Castle, later on we’re going to get them back and sucker them.  If they double teamed, then we’re going to find that Uncle Carson’s got a perfect alibi, and Aunt Estelle doesn’t.  No-one ever expects that the woman’s the better shot.  Once we’ve got financials and the range’s story, we’ll have enough for a warrant.  That can be executed while we’re interviewing them.”  Another tigerish flash of teeth.  “Got them.”

“Got who?”

“The Washingtons, sir.”

“Good work. Explain.”  Beckett does.  Montgomery matches her shark-like smile.  “Okay, Beckett.  Get the warrant typed up as soon as you can and make it happen.”  He pauses and regards her in his most Captainly fashion.  Beckett has a single instant in which the smile starts to slide off her face and realisation replaces it like snow turning to slush and flowing into a drain.  “As soon as this case is done, you take your first days, and don’t be here till Monday.  The rest of your leave request is granted.”

He smiles seraphically at the assembled team and wanders off to his office, leaving the Beckett bombshell to tick-tock down to detonation. At least, that’s what Castle expects.

She can’t react. She can’t explode.  Standing and screaming obscenities in the middle of the bullpen is not who she is.  She’s coped with all the rest of her life by locking down and never letting her feelings show and she can and will do it now.  She pulls all her emotions back down inside her head and looks round at the three men. 

“Right. I want my days off,” she says.  “So let’s get this done.”  Before anyone can say anything, she disappears in the direction of the one place none of them can follow.

The restroom is cool and quiet. Beckett breathes deeply and runs the water till it’s cold, then soaks her hands to the wrists in it: using the chill to cool her own hot-running anger.  She stands there, still and silent, for several moments, until she’s calm enough to go back.  She doesn’t want time off.  She doesn’t want to be at home: prey to the possibilities that Julia will call; that Lanie will force her way in; that her father will make his expectations clear – clearer; that Castle might use it as an opportunity to push her further and faster than she’s capable of dealing with.  He always pushes, and whatever he might have said the other night about – in summary – accepting the situation, she doesn’t believe that he won’t push the pace.  He’ll want more, he’ll want too much, and she has very little left to give.  And yet the warmth of his hand over hers in the car yesterday, and the warmth of his big body around her on other occasions, had helped: had let her find her own still centre and start to refill her reserves.

She dries her hands, and walks back out into the bullpen, perfectly composed.