114. This is what I do

They slide into the back of the room in which Merowin is instructing a group of extremely bored-appearing young people, who Beckett pegs as freshmen realising that chemistry is not their bag. Certainly the ill-concealed winces at their questions indicate that Merowin doesn’t think much of their knowledge and understanding. He breathes a long sigh of relief as they leave, and then realises that there are two people, not students, striding up to him.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD.”

“Rick Castle, her partner.”

“Are you Michael Merowin?”

“Yeah, I’m Dr Merowin. What’s this about?”

“We’d like to ask you a few questions about Riccardo Belvez.”

“Oh, John’s new hotshot who’s gonna start as soon as we get the grant. Him?”

“Yep, him. Did you know him?”

“Not really. Heard about him joining. If it gets us the grant, great.”

“So you didn’t know him well.”

“Nah. He was coming in from New Mexico, and I’ve been East Coast all the way.”

“Mm,” Beckett says, in a way Castle recognises. “How long have you been in Professor Terrison’s group?”

“Since post-grad. Five years, now. I’m the senior researcher.”

“Seems a bit strange you didn’t know Dr Belvez, then. I thought that he was getting a bit of publicity?”

“We don’t get publicity. We’re not celebrities.” Merowin casts a scathing glance at Castle. “We do much more important work than writing formulaic thrillers. Our formulae change lives, not that we get paid for it.”

Beckett and Castle exchange glances. That’ll be worth a look. Some chemistry is much more lucrative than others. Of course, it’s often highly illegal, too. The rattling shaving foam is clearly in both their minds.

“So you didn’t know Dr Belvez?”

“I just said so, didn’t I?”

“So why did you call him so often?”

“What?”

“We have his phone records. Your number comes up a lot. That’s a lot of talking to someone you didn’t know.” Beckett looks hard at Merowin. “Want to reconsider?”

“No,” Merowin says defiantly. “You got it wrong.”

“Okay,” Beckett says casually. “Better come down to the station with us, then, till we get it checked out.”

“What? I can’t go down there. I’ve got a synthesis running. It’ll be ruined. That’s two weeks’ work that’ll be wasted. You can’t make me.”

Beckett simply stares at him. Castle preserves a poker face, and watches Merowin crumble.

“Okay, okay. I thought if I said I didn’t know him you’d go away. I haven’t time to take a trip to the cop shop. I can’t afford this experiment to go wrong. Sure I knew about Ricky Belvez. John interviewed him and he was gonna transfer. So he called me, ‘cause I’d been here longest and he reckoned I’d know all the practical stuff, like where to live cheaply, show him around a bit, introduce him to the rest of the group.”

“Mm?” Beckett hums encouragingly.

“And so I did. No point pissing off John’s new blue-eyed boy. He sounded pretty grateful for the heads-up, too. So I thought he might not be so bad. Anyway, he kept calling, and it was okay. I thought we could be pals, maybe, and anyway we have to work together” – he clearly remembers – “would’ve worked together – and it’s not good to be on the outs when you’re doing complex syntheses.” He grins, suddenly. “A bad mental atmosphere doesn’t really contaminate the experiment, but you sometimes wonder.”

“Did he mention any other friends, or girlfriends?”

“Or boyfriends?” Castle adds, remembering the hostility of the landlord. Beckett nudges his knee with hers without being obvious.

“Um…” Merowin flicks his eyes away, and back again.

“Boyfriend?” Beckett follows up on Castle’s question.

“Yeah…”

Merowin is clearly unhappy with the admission.

“Do you know his name? Address?”

There is a small but definite flicker.

“You do, don’t you?” Castle is sympathetic, but firm. “C’mon, Mike” – Beckett wouldn’t have done that, but man-to-man it seems to work – “you said you were getting to be pals, and if you’d been working together successfully you’d both have benefited. Help us out here.”

Merowin’s eyes flicker around, and don’t find any help in the Periodic Table on the wall, nor in the stick-and-ball models in bright colours. Beckett stays absolutely quiet, and nudges Castle to keep him wordless too when it looks like he might fill the silence.

“Troy,” Merowin eventually manages. “Troy Bolton.”

Castle bursts into laughter. “You’re kidding, yeah?”

Beckett looks entirely blank. So does Merowin.

“Guess you don’t have children?”

“No.” There’s a slight edge on that which makes Beckett wonder if Merowin even has a girlfriend. Or a boyfriend. “I’m single. What’s the deal?”

“Troy Bolton is the star of High School Musical, beloved of pre-teens everywhere. Set in New Mexico, in fact.”

Beckett wonders instantly if the name was a fake. It’s just too coincidental. Castle is clearly thinking the same, and his eyes are sparkling. He so loves mysteries and conspiracies.

“Did he mention any other names?”

“Not that I remember.”

That’s a relief. If there had been other names from stupid teen musicals (not that she’d ever admit that she went to see it, one evening when she just needed something totally mindless, and anyway the songs were good) she would have had to go outside and scream. Or burst into song, perhaps.

“Do you know anything more about this Troy Bolton?”

“I think he lived in Queens.”

“Why?”

“Ricky said he might look for an apartment there.”

“Oh? So you didn’t know he already had one in Brooklyn? He’s been there for two months already.”

Merowin’s mouth drops open very unattractively. “Two months? He said he would get here next week.”

“He did?” This just gets more and more confusing. Merowin nods. “Okay. Thank you. If you remember anything else, call me. Anything at all.”

They leave, confused.

“Back to the Twelfth, Castle. This is weird. Let’s see if there’s anything sensible back in the bullpen.”

Back in the bullpen there is Beckett’s murder board. The so-called Troy Bolton is added. Espo has located Leon Belvez – in Albuquerque, New Mexico. He is indeed Riccardo’s brother. He is also not a chemist, but a linguist, teaching in a high school. Much to Castle’s disappointment, it is not called East High. Beckett details Esposito to talk to him, seeing as Espo claimed linguistic skills earlier, which does not go down brilliantly, and glares until Espo does as he’s told. He huffs off, swearing in Spanish, or possibly Army.

“What do you got, Ryan?”

Castle winces at the English. Beckett elbows him, ungently. Ryan grins extremely widely.

“You’ll like this, Beckett.”

“What is it?” she says impatiently.

“We found a laptop.”

“Where?”

“I tracked through the camera footage, and Belvez had been around the campus, late Sunday. So I got uniforms to have a look, and one of the buildings had lockers. CSU had the keys from the apartment sweep, and they took over. Still waiting for the rest of the results, but they opened up the laptop for me.”

“Good work. What d’you find?”

“A lot of stuff that means nothing to me. Formulae like the ones in his apartment.”

“Any e-mail?”

Ryan’s smug grin widens. “You bet. Some of it was standard stuff: spam, back and forward about the move to NYU with the department, though he was writing as if he was still back in Albuquerque which was totally weird, his tenancy. Landlord was harassing him a bit about visitors. Belvez wasn’t having any of it, an’ told him to back right off.”

“Can’t be the landlord,” Castle says. “Where would a Brooklyn landlord get lab-grade carbon monoxide from?”

“Right. Though we’d better check that he doesn’t have some relative at NYU. If we don’t, he’ll turn out to be first cousin to a lab tech. Ryan, after you’ve finished downloading, you get on with that.”

“Yo. Anyway, there was some pretty non-standard stuff. All in chemistry-speak.”

“With John Terrison or Michael Merowin?”

“No. Not with anyone in the research group at NYU. Not with New Mexico State, either.”

“So who with?”

“Well,” Ryan says slowly, grinning.

“Get on with it,” Beckett says dangerously.

“A woman called Karlen Petersen.”

“So?”

“So Karlen Petersen is a lab tech at NYU.”

“Access to carbon monoxide.”

“Yep. She signed for the last delivery.”

“What’s her connection?” Beckett’s eyes are sparking with the knowledge of a trail to follow.

“Dunno yet. Thought you might like to do some work.” There’s a growl. Ryan pales slightly. “Thought you might like to do the interview,” he adds hurriedly. The growl diminishes. Marginally. Castle grins over Beckett’s irritated head.

“Okay. Back to NYU, Castle. Ryan, you keep looking for any correspondence with a Troy Bolton.”

“Or any names from High School Musical,” Castle says, and then has to explain in detail, to Ryan’s ever increasing horror.

“That is so not cool, bro. You shouldn’t know all this.”

“Pre-teen daughter, back then. Of course I know all this.”

“Are we going to interview this Petersen woman, Castle? Or would you prefer to stay here and continue educating Ryan about teen movies?”

Castle scuttles after her, looking blue.

“What about lunch?”

“Lunch?”

“It’s lunchtime.”

“Crime fighters do not stop for lunch. If you hadn’t been showing off to Ryan, we might have had time to grab a sandwich.”

Castle grumps all the way to NYU about his falling blood sugar levels and the risk of collapse. Beckett ignores him. Just as they get out the car she hands him a candy bar. “There,” she says, and pats him on the head, as if he were a child.

“That’s so sweet, Beckett. You must really like me.”

She wriggles uncomfortably, and then finds her snark. “No, I just want the complaining to stop.”

“What are you going to eat?”

“I’m not hungry,” she says.

Castle casts her a sceptical glance, and doesn’t comment. Yet. He’ll make sure she has something, later. Somehow.

Karlen Petersen is not around today. It’s her day off. On the other hand, Beckett persuades an address out of her co-worker, who doesn’t seem to like Karlen much and is only too happy to tell the cops where to find her, and off she and Castle traipse in the general direction of Queens.

“Queens,” Beckett says musingly. “That’s where Merowin thought that Belvez was looking for an apartment.”

“Are you thinking that actually he was asking about Karlen Petersen?”

“Maybe. Seems a bit unlikely that this was coincidental. There’s a lot of misdirection going on here, and it all seems to be emanating from Belvez.”

“Deliberately throwing people off his trail. He must have been part of the black science ops at Area 51. Developing alien technology to improve our lives.”

“Oh, God. Here we go,” Beckett sighs. “There are no aliens. Therefore there is no alien tech. Therefore this is one of your insane theories. Can we stick to theories that might be even vaguely plausible? Just for once?”

Castle knows she doesn’t mean it. How could anyone not include the possibility of alien tech? It is just not possible that anyone could not believe. Except for Beckett, professional disbeliever and cynic.

Which is, he abruptly realises, why she’s so desperate for evidence and reasons around her father’s actions. She can’t believe without evidence, and she’ll take any scraps and clues that she can get. Now, does that mean that she’s looking for evidence to believe him – or to believe her own misconceptions? He thinks, and hopes, that it’s the first. She was so upset when she thought he wouldn’t forgive her, surely she wants to gather the evidence to believe her father?

Maybe that’s why she’s not hungry; why she questioned him so intensely; why she’s throwing herself back into this case. Maybe after they’ve seen Karlen they should stop for the day, have something to eat – even if Beckett hardly eats anything, and talk about nothing. He’s pretty sure that Beckett, having talked last night, won’t want to talk about much this evening.

Karlen Petersen is not in. This is very annoying. Beckett and Castle humph their way back to the Twelfth, for rather different reasons. Castle is bored, and had wanted to know about anything that might validate his alien tech theory to amuse himself by annoying Beckett, all of which was spoilt. Beckett had wanted to follow up her lead, and solve the homicide. Neither of them are happy. It would not be said that both of them are sulking, but only because anyone suggesting that Beckett might be sulking would shortly be bleeding out on the sidewalk. Castle is quite definitely pouting. Sulkily.

They get into the bullpen and practically flounce into their respective seats, in synchronised discontent.

“Yo, Beckett. Get anything?”

“Total washout. Wasn’t at work, wasn’t at home,” Beckett growls. “Waste of time. Tell me you boys did better.”

Ryan and Esposito look at each other in a very you-no-you way. “Um… no,” Ryan admits.

“What have you been doing all afternoon?”

“Working. ‘S not our fault that everything we looked at was useless. My eyes are square with looking at the camera footage again.”

“An’ I’ve got RSI from searchin’ the bank and phone records.”

Beckett does not appear sympathetic.

“Anyway, until we get something more there’s no point staring at the same old data. We’ve ripped it apart every way there is.”

“I agree,” Montgomery says from behind them. “Go home for the night and look at it fresh tomorrow.” He flaps his hands at them, shooing them towards the elevator. “That means you too, Beckett. Out.”

Beckett hits the elevator with a distinctly disgruntled flip of her hair. She can feel linkages idling just outside her knowledge, and she wants to push on till they fall into place. However, Montgomery is frowning at her and even as she steps into the elevator she can feel his beady eye ensuring that she’s really leaving. She humphs.

“What’s up?”

“I can feel it. It’s right there, and Montgomery packed us off.” She makes a frustrated growling noise.

“Let’s go get dinner. C’mon. Favourite burgers, favourite shakes, comfortable booths – it all says Remy’s to me.”

Beckett doesn’t look massively enthusiastic. However, she doesn’t object. They amble to Remy’s – well, Castle ambles. Beckett strides, and has to wait for Castle every second lamppost. After six lampposts, he puts an arm round her to keep her with him, and speeds up his amble slightly in return.

“No hurry, Beckett. Slow down. Hurrying like that will upset your digestion. You wouldn’t want a stomach-ache, would you?”

“I don’t think walking at a pace that would barely beat an arthritic tortoise to the next cross-walk counts as hurrying.”

“Enjoy the day. Experience the atmosphere” –

“Of truck exhausts, pollution, noise and sirens?”

“You have no soul,” Castle pouts. “Here am I pointing out the beauty of the evening and you’re sucking all the romance out of it.”

“The Lower East Side is not romantic.”

Beckett realises her error approximately half a second too late.

“You want romance, Beckett? Let’s do that, then. Nice restaurant, you can dress up, I’ll even give you flowers.”

“No, thanks.”

There is a pause.

“I keep thinking I should ring my dad,” she says flatly. Castle stops dead. “But I’m scared to.” There is a noticeable gap before they start to move again.

“Um…” Castle says, unproductively. He thinks that’s a terrible idea – as expressed. He also thinks that another Dr Burke-moderated meeting of Beckett and her father might be a really good idea, however. He steers Beckett along the sidewalk to Remy’s, pondering. Beckett is also pondering, rather than, say, pulling out her phone and diving headfirst into another disaster. The impending discussion may go better with food, and even if it doesn’t, he’s hungry.

“What do you want?” he asks, when they’re safely stowed in a quiet booth near the back.

Beckett looks as if her first answer is nothing, but then considers. “Vanilla milkshake, please.” She doesn’t mention anything further. Castle doesn’t query it, and without further ado orders for both of them (and, unusually, is not growled at for doing so).

“So, why do you want to ring your dad?”

She shrugs. “To get his side of the story? Hear it all again when I’m not so wound up I can’t deal with any of it? See if I can tell if he’s lying this time?” She drinks her milkshake, and looks at him. “If I don’t listen to him I’ll never get anywhere.”

“Okay,” Castle says, deliberately slow and a touch doubtful, in the hope that she’ll ask him what he thinks.

“Don’t you think I should call him?”

“Um,” Castle emits, still trying to make sure that Beckett is quite definitely asking him for his views and not just looking for a rubber stamp of her thoughts.

“Castle, what do you think?” she snaps. “I need a second view here. Friday didn’t exactly go to plan, did it?”

Well, that’s pretty clear. As is Beckett’s tone. Oh well, he can only die once. Though pain can be made to last for a very long time indeed.

“I don’t think you should call him.” Her mouth opens. “I think you should do another joint session with Dr Burke and him instead.” It shuts again, with a decided click of her teeth. Another large quantity of milkshake disappears. She wipes her mouth before Castle can point out the milkshake moustache.

“Repeat Friday?” she says with disbelief.

“Not exactly. Friday you were upset before you even began” – he doesn’t remind her why – “and it got all the truth out on the table but neither of you really got past it. If you did it again, then you’ll be calmer and you’ll have headspace to listen to him. And you’ve had a chance to think about what he said without him around, but it might be better to have a bit longer anyway.”

“Huh,” Beckett says. It sounds more like that might be an idea than you are insane. This is a major win. Some of the tension has dropped out of her shoulders. She steals one of his fries, and then another. When she reaches for yet another Castle traps her thieving fingers, summons a server, and orders another portion of fries. He doesn’t let go till the fries arrive, and then pushes them under her nose.

“Eat, Beckett. I’m not giving up any more fries to your ravenous ravaging raids.” Beckett fixes him with a quizzical semi-glare.   “I’m not. I need my strength.” A quirked eyebrow joins the quizzicality. Castle smiles lazily. Beckett brings a fry to her lips and the tip of her pink tongue welcomes it into her mouth. The lazy smile turns predatory. Beckett simply smirks, and follows up by tonguing salt off her lips. Such preliminaries done, she demolishes almost the entire remainder of the fries in extremely short order, leaving only two. Castle’s fingers creep towards them, and are removed. Shortly eating the fries is not at all upon his mind. Beckett is eating the fries, with a wholly unnecessary amount of sucking on the end, slowly taking them between her lips, licking her lips slowly and erotically after the fry has disappeared into her mouth, and then repeating with the final one. Castle watches this hypnotic performance with absolute attention.

“I think it’s time we went home, Beckett.”