Richard Castle, once a playboy party animal with frequent appearances on page six, once a best selling author of mystery novels, now a barely remembered blind man makes his way through the streets of New York.

His white cane moves smoothly in front of him, the GPS on his phone telling him to turn left so he does and walks straight into the twelvth precienct.

He pauses to ask the first officer he can find what floor homicide is, then makes his way into the elevator.

He smooths his finger over the braille numbers till he finds the number four then with a sigh he presses the button and waits.

The ride seems to take forever, but everything seems to when you're blind.

Once he hears the ding and the doors open his cane once again starts to move as he exits the elevator.

He carefully feels with his cane and finds a wall in front of him and to his right so he turns left.

He moves slowly, his cane clicking against desks until he hears someone startle and jump.

"My apologies for startling you. Are you a homicide detective?"

The woman at the desk studies the man beside her, his sunglasses and white cane explaining easily why this man is bumping around.

"Yes, my name is Detective Kate Beckett"

he extends his hand to shake hers, which she does graciously.

"I'm Rick Castle and I want to report a murder I heard take place earlier today. I called 911 but I'm afraid the dispatch believed it to be a crank call"

Kate looks up as her partner Kevin Ryan walks over with a chair and noisily sets it down behind Castle.

He reaches back and feels the arms before easing himself down with thanks.

Beckett is once again studying the man before her

"alright, what makes you think you heard a murder take place Mr. Castle?"

Castle fiddles with his cane a bit, all too used to being questioned about things.

"My neighbor Darcy, well she lives in the apartment a floor beneath me. She was going to take me out to find a birthday present for my daughter so I was out in the hall near her door. I heard loud yelling, the crashing of things breaking, her crying out in pain after a very audible slap. Then I heard two gun shots and smelled the odor of a recently fired gun. Then I heard her door slam and foot steps. Whoever it was noticed I'm blind I guess because he only stopped a moment then ran passed me and down the stairs. I tried to get into her apartment but he must have locked it when he left and she isn't answering her door or the phone. I think she's dead Detective Beckett... oh, he grabbed my arm before he noticed I was blind"

with this he slid off one arm of his coat with great difficulty to reveal a full hand print in blood on his left arm

"I felt something wet so I got my coat from upstairs before I came down in case it started to rain, to protect whatever is there"

Beckett wasn't sure what to make of his story, already planning on doing at least a wellness check until he revealed the bloody hand print

"Mr. Castle, I'm going to need you to stay where you're at. I'm going to call for our M.E. to come up here. She will either carefully cut the sleeve off your shirt or take the entire shirt, that will be up to her. So you know what's going on, the person who grabbed you left a bloody handprint on your arm. It could give us DNA and even fingerprints depending on the type of fabric"

Castle nodded a few times at that and finishes taking off his jacket

"I had thought as much, I knew that if he left a handprint there was a lot you could get from it. Came up in my research before I was blinded"

Beckett smiled a bit at his reference to his old life

"you did the right thing Mr. Castle, hold on a minute"

She called down to the morgue and got Lanie to come up to the bullpen, unwilling to expose anyone to Pearlmutter if at all possible.

"Okay Mr. Castle, while she makes her way up here what's the possible victim's name?"

Castle clears his throat a bit

"Please, call me Rick and her full name is Darcy Flemming, she moved here last year from Sacramento. She was an aspiring play actress, my mother was helping her with that. She worked at the Starbucks three blocks from the apartment complex to pay her bills. She lived in the third floor loft... the first two floors have various apartments but the third and fourth floors are open lofts. She's about five foot three, very slim I think she's under weight. my daughter told me she has black hair and brown eyes. This happened about two hours ago, it took me a while to get here. Is there anything else you need?"

Beckett just blinks as he takes her through every question she was going to ask without her having to ask at all

"Just a few Rick, how were you and Ms. Flemming aquainted?"

Castle signs a bit thinking it comes from his old rep

"she's a friend or... was a friend. She'd help me out if mother and alexis were busy or if I wanted to get gifts for them"

Beckett continued to write everything down as he said it

"alright, now do you know of anyone who would want to hurt her?"

Castle was quiet but obviously thinking with the way his brows furrowed together in thought

"her ex boyfriend, Travis Carmichael, had a pretty short temper and didn't take getting dumped well. Her boss Thomas Fields had been making unwanted inappropriate advances on her at work. There was a guy working in props at the play she was working on, I can't remember his name, but he got kicked off the play for grabbing her breasts one too many times. I can't think of anyone else, maybe the people in the play could help more. She was working on an off off off broadway version of a midsummer's night dream"

he cleared his throat a bit

"I'm sorry I can't be of more help"

Beckett wrote it all down then stopped mid word and stared at him

"Rick, you've led us to the victim, given us a time of death and description of the murder, supplied a bloody handprint for us to use to possibly identify the killer. Given us multiple sources where we can get more information and or suspects and finally you've supplied us with three suspects. Short of dragging the killer in hog tied I don't think there's more that you could have done"

Castle furrows his brows a bit thinking about all that then nods a bit

"if you think so, I'm happy to do whatever I can. Darcy was a very sweet woman"

With that he supplied the address for the building and stood up.

"Could you... could you let me know what happened? Don't worry I wont go to the press or anything I just... I want to know what happened to my friend. I'm on the fourth floor... also if you have more questions of course"

Beckett couldn't help but smile at his deep concern for his friend and hoping that the gun shots were just a warning and that she was just knocked out of something similar.

She watches as Lanie arrives and with skilled gentle hands cuts his sleeve up to the shoulder then carefully goes around his arm removing the sleeve.

Then gives his shoulder a squeeze in thanks before hurrying down to the lab.

Castle pulls his jacket back on and smiles a warm unknowingly charming smile at the Detective that makes her heart stop momentarily in her chest.

She pushes it aside and thanks him for coming in with assurances that they'd be checking on Darcy within the hour.

She watches as he leaves and once he's in the elevator she gets Ryan and Esposito headed over to the SoHo apartment complex to find out if a murder had indeed taken place.