A/N Hey, guys) First of all I want to thank everybody, who reviewed my first story or paid attention to it in any other way. May special thanks goes to Twisha and an anonymous guest reviewer, for their very detailed comments. Here is the first chapter of my detective story. Hope you'll find it interesting and share your thoughts with me.
Now i'm going to do what everybody here seems to do -
Disclaimer: I don't own this wonderful show and I'm really amazed with everything being done by AWM and his team.
Nothing to lose
By Stacy Rogers
Prologue:
He was walking down the street, going nowhere in particular. You could say he wasn't in much of a hurry. In fact, He was in no hurry at all.
Well, now he had a fucking lot of time, hadn't he? Being fired from your job gives you far more free time, than you can ever handle. So, he was just wandering along the streets, gazing at random people, who obviously had jobs to do and homes to come to.
Yeah, right, now he even had no money to pay for that shithole, his host had been calling an "apartment". And, knowing his history, none of his friends (well, he didn't have too many) or relatives (not very numerous either) would be eager to share a roof with him. So, in one word he had nothing.
That's right. Some kind of a "hit-the-road-Jack" with nothing to lose…Damn poker.
Chapter One – The beginning
It was a fine Monday morning. One of those occasional mornings in March, when the sky was clouds-free and the whole day promised to be just wonderful.
Despite an early hour, Richard Castle was already up and in his kitchen, working some magic on the pancake batter and humming something tuneless under his nose.
"Has anyone ever told you, how sexy you look, when you're cooking?"
Kate was leaning on the kitchen counter, wearing a sleepy smile and one of Rick's old t-shirts.
"I don't know, really. You might have mentioned it once or twice"
Castle put the spatula aside and gave his wife a soft kiss.
"Why are you up so early, anyway? I'm supposed to be the early riser here."
"Well, I have been writing for a couple of hours and then I figured it would be good if I cooked us a little breakfast, for two. After all, it's been a while."
Saying this, he filled her mug with freshly brewed coffee and put it on the counter, in front of her, along with a measurable stack of pancakes and a bottle of maple syrup.
Kate smiled.
"Thank you. That's sweet"
"Speaking of our not-so-frequent alone time lately…" He made a pause, while swallowing a portion of his own coffee "Castle, I'm sorry. I know, I've screwed our last weekend because of the caseload, but…"
Her husband didn't let her finish.
"What I'm trying to say is – I've just e-mailed Gina two brand new chapters of "Blinding Heat", so no deadlines at least for two weeks. And if you don't catch a case today, than tonight we could go out somewhere" He trailed off, waiting for her reaction.
Just as she pushed aside the pancakes and coffee, to give him a proper kiss, her cell phone decided to ring.
The story of their relationship – all the interrupted moments.
When they arrived at the crime scene in the Uptown Manhattan, they found themselves in a rather creepy place. It was an old apartment building, with ancient-looking doors, dark corridors and shaky staircases, where you could get neither an elevator, nor a phone; but if you were running out of money, you would be glad to find some kind of a shelter here.
By the time they entered the victim's apartment on the second floor, CSU had already started working and Dr. Lanie Parish, ME, was hovering over a dead body with no obvious injuries of any kind.
It was a tall, skinny man, thirty-something years of age, dressed in simple jeans of no particular color, an old but neat and clean button-down shirt and a dark-brown tie, which explicitly clashed with such an unpresentable outfit. He was sitting at a small table in the center of the room, on a massive wooden chair with a battered squashy seat, both items being all but the only furniture visible.
The man's eyes were closed, mouth shut, his hands resting on the table, palms facing the surface of the table. His head was leaning on the back of the chair, legs crossed.
If Beckett hadn't known better, she would have thought that the guy was just taking a nap.
As soon as they exchanged their "hellos" with Lanie, Beckett turned to the question, which had arisen in her head the moment she saw the victim.
"So, what's our COD?"
"Well, there was no fight, he wasn't hurt or injured in any possible physical way. She inhaled deeply and thought for a moment, before continuing "He did have a surgery, though and not too long ago. On his liver"
She slightly pulled the victim's shirt up, her glove-clad hand indicating a thin long scar on the right side of the body.
"Considering this, you would say our cause of death could be quite natural, but there are some signs that let me to suggest a poison or something, except it definitely wasn't an injection. To say anything else for sure, I'll need to make an autopsy first. May be the CSUs will find, you know, an empty phial, or blister or any other kind of pack, which could help to identify the origins.
"In the meantime, we've identified the man himself" Esposito approached them, handing an ID to his boss. "Name's Sidney Warner, 35, used to work as a cab driver until six months ago, but after some sort of accident his company got him fired. Ryan is still questioning the neighbors at the moment, but nothing interesting so far. Lived alone, didn't talk much to anybody, as in didn't talk at all, never made friends, didn't leave his apartment most of the time and didn't have any visitors, either. May be that's why his body hasn't been found until today, when a delivery guy brought him a registered letter from his real-estate company.
"So, that means, we have no witnesses?" Beckett inquired.
"You see, nobody was interested in him, so nobody noticed anything significant. But we have Mrs. Christine Bullfinch, an old lady living door to door with Warner. She was actually woken up by the sound of his door slamming shut around 2 a.m., Saturday night."
"So at least, it will help me to set the time of death more accurately, when I get him back to the morgue" Lanie cut in.
"And if we have a murder, that indirectly confirms poisoning." Kate stated thoughtfully
"Now, Espo, when you and Ryan are finished here, try to find his next of kin. Castle and I are going -"
"Castle?"
Her partner wasn't beside her anymore. Instead, he was standing at the opposite wall, his gaze fixed at a small wooden shelf, containing some sort of glassware.
"Castle? What is it?"
"Twelve!" he said, suddenly getting very excited and she couldn't help but think how cute her husband was at the moment, when he started pacing around the room.
"What twelve?" Esposito asked, confused
"There are twelve wine-glasses on the shelf. And as you say, he had no visitors, then why would he have twelve glasses, not 1 or 2, or let it even be 6, but 12 wine-glasses?
The writer was obviously willing to find a mysterious story there.
"They might be something left from his past. We can't say for sure he wasn't a hellbender. He had problems with liver, after all" Beckett made a suggestion
"Then why keep them so close at hand? Like he could use a wine-glass any moment?
Castle picked one of the glasses from the shelf, as if demonstrating.
"Really, he didn't need one, not after his surgery, even assuming he was a drinker in the past."
Esposito just shrugged, not seeing the big deal. "Well, bro, don't you think he was just enjoying the view? All the happy memories?"
"Yeah, Castle, this might be a bit odd." Beckett decided to get back to the case. "But it doesn't help us to solve the murder.
"Tell you what else is odd?" Castle turned to Esposito "When exactly did you say Warner got fired from his job?"
Esposito checked his pad again.
"Six months. Why?"
"Then how did he make it through all this time, paid for this apartment, if he had no job and most definitely no money? Nobody found him until this morning, meaning nobody cared about him enough, meaning he couldn't get them from any primary sources. Somehow our poor, jobless friend even found some money on his health. I bet, the operation was beyond his financial abilities."
Beckett finally felt the familiar excitement. The one that pulled them together so long ago.
"He had some patron with a lot of money."
"And he might have something to do with the murder"
Castle stopped his pacing just in front of the body. Lanie, having dropped her activities, was watching him like an amused spectator.
"If there is a murder. I'm actually a medic here, Writer boy!"
"One more "odd sock". Castle continued, clearly too concerned to notice the last remark.
It may be nothing, but still-I don't think a tie like this will ever match his shirt"
Any ideas what all of this might mean? :) And now my head is really buzzing with all the details... I take my hat off to Castle, and not only him.)