New York, New York ... so good they named it twice. The Big Apple. Home to some of the most staggering buildings in the world, as well as some of its greatest tragedies. And here, in the old garment district, in a factory where once rows of young women sitting at industrial sewing machines turned out plaid shirts to clothe a million people, was the body.

A shaft of early morning sunlight moved slowly across the floor, illuminating the corpse as if on the stage, only he wasn't going to get up and take a bow. His limbs were contorted, twisted, his eyes wide open, staring at nothing. All around him the dust was churned up, disturbed by his death throes. He had not died well.

The workman standing in the doorway turned quickly away, pulling his cellphone from his pocket and dialling 911, while his colleague used his to take photographs of the corpse.

---

New York, New York, so good they named it twice. The Big Apple. Home to some of the most staggering buildings in the world ... and Richard Castle was of the opinion that this one in particular was one of the most staggering. Ever.

He leaned back on the stone bench (part of an exhibit, but nobody had told him he had to move) and looked up. There was something about the Guggenheim Museum that had always appealed to him, a symmetry that satisfied something in his soul. Maybe it was the way it seemed to reach up to heaven, visible through the glass ceiling, or perhaps it was merely the chutzpah of the man who insisted it be this way, and no other.

"Penny for them."

Rick refocused in front of him and smiled at his daughter, her trademark red hair caught up in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. "Not worth it," he said, sitting straighter.

"I thought every word that fell from your brain was worth its weight in gold," Alexis said, dropping onto the bench next to him. "At least, that's what Paula says."

"If she could get her ten percent of my thoughts, she would," Rick admitted somewhat ruefully of his book agent. "As it is, so far, they're still my own."

She smiled. "So what were you thinking?"

"About how beautiful this place is."

Alexis looked up. "It is. But better than the Chrysler Building?" she asked, knowing he could wax lyrical about the architecture of New York for hours if left unmolested.

"Not better. Different." He grinned, this time reigning in his natural tendency to pass on useless information. "And perfect for nefarious happenings."

"Nefarious?"

"Maybe I should have Nikki Heat chase one of the suspects up to the top floor. Then, just as he's about to be caught, he slips, tumbles, falls to a messy and permanent death." His eyes followed the phantom victim, flinching as it hit the ground.

"Death usually is permanent," Alexis pointed out.

"Unless you're Stephen King."

"Granted. But didn't you do that in The Dying of the Light?"

"Running the risk of repeating myself, you mean?"

"Or plagiarising."

"Can one plagiarise oneself?" he mused, half closing his eyes. Then he grinned. "Not sure, but it sounds sexy. And just a little bit painful."

She punched him on the arm. "Dad, can you drag your mind out of the gutter for just a while?"

"Well, sweetheart, I'll try, but I can't promise anything."

Alexis sighed theatrically. "I suppose I'd better take what I can get. Besides, while we're here, there's an exhibition of sixteenth century engravings I want to see." She took hold of his hand and stood up, dragging him to his feet with her.

"Alexis ..."

"You said this was our day," she said meaningfully, poking him in the chest with her forefinger. "You said we could do whatever I wanted."

He rubbed at the spot. "I know. And we are. But I was thinking more of maybe that new paintballing place in Queens, or maybe the movies ..."

"Dad, the last time we went to see a film you fell asleep five minutes in."

"I didn't!" At his daughter's look, though, he amended it to, "Okay, maybe I did. But I'd been up late for a week trying to solve that homicide with Beckett."

"Hmmn." She debated not letting him off the hook that easily, but he was making that half smiling, half pleading look again. "I suppose we could. But I still want to see the engravings first."

Rick held out his arm. "Your wish, my lady, is my command."

She looped her hand over. "And you should have invited her to come with us."

"Who, Kate?" Rick scratched his ear. "I don't know if museums are her thing."

"If you don't ask, you won't find out. Anyway, I'm sure they are."

They strolled towards the circular ramp. "Maybe. She's certainly well read. All of my works, for a start."

Alexis chuckled at her father's apparent self-absorption, something he'd taken pains to cultivate over the years. "Next time, then."

"Next time," he promised, smiling at her. "So, the engravings, then ... lunch?"

"Dad, it's not even eleven yet."

"Late breakfast, then."

"You had toast and cereal."

"Which I only got to eat half of because you wanted to get going."

"You overslept."

"I'm hungry."

Alexis sighed. "Fine. Engravings, then food, then we –" She stopped as music began to play from inside her father's jacket. "Dad, I thought you turned that off?"

"So did I." Rick pulled his cellphone from his pocket and stared at the caller display. He smiled. "It's Maggie." Ignoring the looks from the other visitors to the museum, he pressed receive. "Mags. How are you?"

"Tired." Maggie Maguire, known to her many readers as A J Maguire, sounded like she was about to collapse.

"You okay?"

"No. Yes." She sighed. "I'm fine, Rick, just ... I just got off the plane, and I'm exhausted."

"Plane? Where are you?"

"New York."

"You're here?" Rick looked at Alexis, whose face lit up.

"Maggie's here?" she echoed.

"Seems like." He spoke into the phone again. "How come you didn't let me know you were arriving?"

"It's all complicated and last minute. Some idiot's accusing me of plagiarising his novel, and my agents want a face to face meeting, and ... Rick, can I drop my gear at your place?"

Odd how little coincidences could happen, he thought to himself. There they were, just talking about plagiarising, and here was Maggie … "Of course you can. I'm not home, but just ask Eduardo to let you in. Your old room's ready."

"No, I'll find a hotel. I just need to –"

"No. Mags, don't be crazy. You're staying with us."

"You know what happened last time ..."

"That wasn't my fault. Or yours, for that matter." He was referring to the affair with Petra Bentley, but didn't let her answer. "So that's settled. And don't worry – when I get home later we can discuss strategies."

"You know, I'm too tired to argue." Still, she sounded relieved.

"When's your meeting?"

"4.00 pm."

"Then try and grab a couple of hours sleep. We'll be back later."

"Thanks, Rick." Now the relief was obvious.

"Hey, what are friends for?" He hung up and looked at Alexis. "Seems like we're having a house guest for a few days."

"Great!" She bounced a little. She'd always loved Maggie, having known her all her life, partly because the author was a wonderful woman, and partly because she always seemed to bring out the best in her father. "Maybe we should –"

Rick's cellphone rang again, and this time one of the custodians glared at him. He held up a finger to indicate he'd only be a second, then answered. "Beckett."

"We've got a body."

He couldn't help the tilt to his lips. Detective Kate Beckett had never been one for small talk, and that didn't seem likely to change. "It's Saturday."

She paused for perhaps a microsecond. "So?"

"Why are you working? Aren't you supposed to have the day off today?" Ah, maybe he shouldn't have let on he kept track of her comings and goings.

Still, this time she didn't react. "We've got people off with the 'flu so I said I'd cover."

Feeling a slight tickle in his own throat, Rick cleared it quietly. "And you've caught a murder?"

"A body," she corrected him. "We don't know how he died yet."

Rick looked at his daughter. "I'm sort of in the middle of something right now ..."

There was a silence for maybe ten seconds, then Kate said, her voice somehow managing to convey the expression he just knew was on her face, "Well, I'd hate to interrupt a date with something as mundane as a dead body –"

"I'm with Alexis. We're at the Guggenheim." He couldn't help the smirk. "Why, are you jealous?"

"About you going to a museum?"

"That I might have been on a date."

"Castle ..."

Alexis was touching his arm. "Dad, it's okay," she said quietly. "If you need to go, I can head home, make things ready for Maggie."

He covered the mouthpiece to the phone. "Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure. And we can do this another day."

He smiled at her. "What did I do right to be blessed with a daughter like you?"

"Not sure. Perhaps it was a mistake."

"Probably." He spoke into the phone again. "Where are you?"

"Why? I thought you were busy."

"For a dead body?" The smile widened into a full-blown, Castle-patented grin. "Never."

---

He sneezed.

"Gesundheit," Kate said absently.

"Thanks." He felt around his pockets for a handkerchief but came up empty. He sneezed again.

"If you're going to contaminate my crime scene, you can wait in the car," Lanie threatened, down on her heels next to the body.

"Do I get the window open a little?" he countered.

"Only if I get to take you to the vet after."

"Ouch." Rick could feel a third sneeze about to erupt and he tried to stop it, only that just made it worse, turning it inward and threatening to erupt from other orifices.

"Oh, here." Kate handed him a Kleenex.

"Thanks." He blew his nose.

Kate favoured him with one of her disapproving looks, then continued slowly forwards.

"Don't worry, bro," Ryan said, waving his hand with his own tissue in it. "You're not the only one. It's the dust."

Rick looked around. Ryan was right, although whether dust was quite the proper word for something that lay an inch thick in places was debatable.

"So what do we have?" Kate asked, all business.

"Dead body is a John Doe," Lanie said, making notes on her pad as she spoke. "No wallet, no jewellery, no cash."

"A mugging?"

"It's possible. But there's no external signs of trauma, no stab or gunshots wounds ..."

"Are you saying this was natural causes?" Kate indicated the position of the body, limbs twisted.

"No. Just that I don't know what killed him yet."

"It looks like poison," Rick commented, holding his nose so the dust couldn't get up it. "There are some alkaloids that have this sort of effect. Painful, too."

"I'll be testing for them." Lanie leaned forward. "One odd thing, though." She used the tip of her pen to lift the body's sweater. "His underwear is damp."

Kate's eyebrow raised. "Damp."

Rick lifted his head. "You mean he –"

"No, I don't," Lanie interrupted him. "There's no smell, and whatever it was had no colour either. I'll have to wait until I get him back to my table to try and make sense of it."

"Only one set of footprints," Ryan commented, sounding more than a little bunged up.

"His," Esposito added, looking up from his position by the corpse's feet. He pointed down to the distinctive trainers on the corpse's feet. "The design on the sole's identical."

"It looks like a fight," Rick said. "The dust's all disturbed."

"He probably did it himself," Lanie said, standing up and signalling to her ME colleagues that they could remove the body. "CSU have taken a whole slew of photos, but I doubt they'll be able to see much more than we can."

"So no ID, no visible wounds …" Kate shook her head. "I guess it's up to you."

"It usually is. I'll get anything to you as soon as I can."

"Thanks."

Lanie glared at Rick. "Are you just going to stand there?"

"Oh. Sorry." He got out of her way then turned to Kate. "Have I done something to upset her?" he stage-whispered.

"Over and above being you?"

"Yes."

"Not that I'm aware of. Perhaps she had a late night."

"You weren't out together?" He let his mouth curve. "On the town? Painting it red?"

"No. I already had a date."

Now he was intrigued. "Ooh, the firefighter again? Tall, dark and loathsome?"

Kate strode out, heading back to her car. "No."

"A new man? Or – dare I suggest it – a new woman?"

She glared at him over her shoulder. "As it happens, it was a date with a hot bath and a good book."

"I thought you'd finished Heat Wave."

"I do read other things."

"Really? Like what?"

"Aren't I allowed some secrets?"

"No."

The bickering continued as they left the building, leaving Esposito smiling, and Ryan sneezing yet again.