Disclaimer: Don't own'em
A/N: Yeesh, let's try this again. Not sure what I did, but I tried to upload a chapter and ended up deleting the story (am also in a place with lame and frustrating internet for a bit, which may have been a conducing factor … or perhaps I am just a noob at this website). Sorry to those who put the previous posting of this story on alert. My bad.
This story takes place sometime in season four. Everything up to and including Head Case is fair game.
I cannot write the ending to this story, in terms of the relationship between Castle and Beckett. I'm stumped. Kate is stubbornly refusing to fall into Castle's waiting arms. As you read, perhaps you can tell me what you think of her progress, and Rick's, and Alexis'. Your input/feedback is much appreciated, especially as I'm still trying to get a handle on the characters, and will be implemented if it strikes a chord.
Thank you to those of you who reviewed Trickery. You're the reason I'm writing this one, so the following is dedicated to you.
The Art of Living 1/8
Castle stumbled out of his bedroom, rubbing his palm over sleep-crusted eyes. He caught sight of Alexis sitting at the breakfast bar, hunched over what was no doubt a ridiculously thick textbook. One day, he thought groggily, it would stop surprising him that he'd fathered a daughter who was so studious. It was Saturday, for goodness sakes.
"Good morning, daughter," he mustered up some cheer, even though he hadn't had breakfast yet. "What time is it?"
"Ten to noon," she replied, without turning around.
That effectively snapped him fully awake.
"Ten to noon! Why didn't you wake me?" He made his way towards her. "You had the whole day planned out. Starting with strawberry smiley-faced pancakes at 8AM. You know," he felt beholden to add, "it's a sign of how much I love you that I was willing to wake up at 8AM on a Saturday."
The joke netted him barely a shrug from his daughter. Which set the dad-alarm blaring.
"Pumpkin?" He laid a kiss on her temple. "What's wrong?"
She didn't look up from her ridiculously thick textbook on – he peered at the book over the top of her head – organic chemistry. Ick.
"I'm sorry I overslept," he offered.
She heaved a gusty sigh and looked up at him with those big blue eyes that invariably turned him to absolute mush.
"It's not that." She was wearing her sad face.
"Then?" he asked, dad-alarm now on full red alert.
"Ashley didn't skype me last night."
Oh. He blinked. Boyfriend trouble. What a minefield to have to navigate on a Saturday morning before breakfast. Couldn't she have tossed him something easier? Like wanting a puppy?
"Did you try calling him?" Castle asked. That seemed reasonable.
"He wasn't online." She fingered a corner of her textbook, all listless. "And he wasn't answering his phone."
"Oh." Think, Castle. Think.
"I sent him a text last night too," she continued, sighing as she rested her chin in her palm. "But he hasn't answered yet."
"Honey," he coached himself to tread lightly. "First semester college can be very demanding. And at a school like Stanford-"
"So demanding he can't find the time to send me one text?" Hurt flashed in her eyes.
"Well..."
"You told me that when it comes to love," she interrupted, "you have to follow your heart and not your head."
"And I remember those being very wise words?" He didn't mean for it to come out as a question. Or to look like a deer in headlights as he said it.
"Well, right now my head says that he must've had a good reason, but my heart is..." She trailed off, struggling to find adequate words.
"Hurt?" Castle suggested. He wrapped his arms around her in a tight bear hug.
Alexis nodded, leaning her head against his shoulder.
"I'm sorry, pumpkin," he soothed, silently thinking he could throttle Ashley for making his little girl so sad. "Anything you want to do today, name it. Laser tag. Fencing. We can go to the park and chase pigeons. You love doing that."
"I loved doing that when I was three," she pointed out. He could hear her roll her eyes, even though he couldn't see it.
"You're still three to me," he murmured into the red of her hair.
"I don't want to do anything." She pulled out of embrace. "I just want to sit by myself. And read about organic chemistry."
He frowned at the sad, stubborn look on her face. She should get out. "Honey, just because things are not going so smoothly with Ashley at the moment, doesn't mean you have to sit around and mope. No matter how tough it gets, if you love each other, it'll work out."
Any attempts he wanted to make at getting Alexis to go out were cut short by the sound of his phone ringing. He pulled it out of his pajama pocket and glanced at the screen. Beckett.
He looked at his daughter.
"Take it, Dad," Alexis insisted. He hesitated, but she turned those big sad eyes on him and he was nothing but a puddle on the floor.
He sighed heavily as he answered the phone.
"Good morning, Detective," he said trying not to sound as miserable as Alexis looked. "What Beckett-flavoured goodies are we having today?"
The sun was out, New Yorkers were bustling on the sidewalks and the air was crisp. The street Castle and Beckett were walking along was populated with five-storey brownstones, in a neighbourhood that was just entering its gentrification phase. Older buildings knocked elbows with shiny new designer conversions in the age old cycle of decay and renewal. The otherwise peaceful block was lit by the red-and-blue of police sirens, and part of the sidewalk was criss-crossed with yellow crime scene tape.
"You should've seen her," Castle said, turning to the brownstone Beckett pointed out. It was one of the more rundown ones on the street. "She looked so sad."
"Well, long distance relationships can be quite the adjustment," Beckett offered, leading him through the front entrance and up the stairs to the top floor. "It's going to get tougher, before it gets easier."
"She didn't even want to go out today. I offered to chase pigeons in the park."
"Something every teenage girl wants to see her dad do in public," Beckett said wryly.
His poor daughter, Castle thought. Sitting at home all alone and sad. "I don't like seeing her moping. Alexis is a doer. Not a … moper."
"It's normal, Castle."
"You've had a long distance relationship?" He asked eagerly. Female insight was needed here.
"I went to college in New York. The guy I was dating at the time went to Ohio State. Football scholarship. We called each other daily for an entire week, and then I got sucked into classes, and he into his training schedule."
"What did you do?"
"I spent a Sunday alternatively crying on my mom's shoulder, eating ice cream, and cutting every picture of him out of my high school yearbook."
Castle stared at her, stopping in his assent of the stairs at the rather vivid image she had conjured up. "That seems awfully-"
"Therapeutic," she informed him pointedly. She kept climbing up the stairs. "Then I got over it."
"Just like that?" He hurried to catch up with her.
"A classical music junior may have helped." She shrugged, but there was that teasing tone in her voice.
"Classical music junior?" Castle tried not to think of Alexis on the rebound. Or hyperventilate at the thought of Alexis on the rebound. And then an important detail caught his attention. "Wait. High school jock? Classical music major? Is there anyone who's not your type?" And then he moved onto an even more significant point: "I bet you haven't dated a famous mystery-novel writer yet. I humbly offer my services to round up your experiences. I'm also ruggedly handsome," he magnanimously sweetened the pot. "It's a two-for-one deal."
Beckett rolled her eyes. He thought he caught her wearing that amused, indulgent smile he loved so much, but then they were entering the apartment at the top of the stairs and Kate was all business.
"Hey, Lanie," Beckett said, "What have we got?"
Castle looked around at what was clearly an artist's studio. The skylights, though old and weathered, let in a good amount of light. Canvases of all sizes rested along one of the walls, while built-in shelves of paints and paint-related paraphernalia occupied the two others. In the middle of the room, in front of an unfinished canvas, lay a body. It took Castle a moment to register just what he was seeing.
"We have a 31-year old male." Lanie informed them. "Cause of death is-"
"Is that paint?" Castle interrupted excitedly.
"Green paint," Lanie confirmed with what passed for patience where she was concerned.
Castle couldn't look away. The victim's head was completely covered in green paint. So was his entire body, from his bare feet to the tips of his hair. Paint lay pooled around a large part of the floor surrounding the body, looking like it had alternately been poured and splashed.
"It's like the Green Lantern died," Castle couldn't help but comment.
"This one's human," Lanie pointed out.
"Hal Jordan was human" Beckett and Castle said at the same time. And then looked at each other; the latter with a grin, and the former with an amused frown.
"Honey," Lanie said, "You are spending too much time with writer-boy here."
Castle preened at the idea of rubbing off on Beckett. Even though Lanie had called him writer-boy.
Beckett, for her part, got back to the matter at hand. "Cause of death?" she prompted.
"Like I was saying," Lanie gave a pointed look to Castle. "31-year old John Crombie died of-"
"That's John Crombie?" Castle cut her off in surprise. He looked at Beckett. "He's the biggest thing in New York's art community these days."
"Interrupt me one more time," Lanie threatened. Castle mimed zipping his mouth shut.
"Cause of death is drowning," she said while shaking her head at him.
"Drowning?" Beckett repeated. "You mean asphyxiation?"
"Nope, I mean drowning. When I open him up, his lungs are going to be full of green paint."
Castle grimaced. "Not the Green Lantern then."
"I'm guessing someone held his head in that can of paint right there," Lanie used her pen to point out the can that was lying by Crombie's oh-so-green head.
"No footprints?" Beckett asked Esposito, who was just entering the room. Her eyes were engaged in a quick survey of the ground
"No," he replied, nodding in greeting to Castle. "It's weird. No footprints, no wheel marks, nothing."
"So the killer drops the paint after he commits murder?"
"To cover his tracks!" Castle leaped into the conversation, rather pleased with his play on the literal and the figurative.
Beckett looked around the room, clearly ignoring his wittiness. "Why throw paint on the floor? If he-"
"- or she -" Castle helpfully cut in.
"- wanted to destroy evidence, why not use paint thinner or bleach?" She gestured towards the shelves containing those very items.
Good question, Castle thought.
"Maybe," Esposito offered, "He - or she -" he added for Castle's benefit, "isn't the brightest colour on the palette."
"Feed the birds," Castle put out his hand in recognition. Esposito complied, very pleased with himself as they exchanged grins.
Lanie was the one who rolled her eyes at the two of them. Beckett was too busy examining the crime scene.
"Maybe," Castle suggested, "Our killer removes his shoes after drowning his victim. His socks wouldn't have paint on them."
"And then he pours green print over his shoe prints." Beckett continued his train of thought.
"Thereby," Castle couldn't help but say it again, "covering his tracks." Still made him grin. So clever.
"Make sure CSU checks the paint cans for prints," she glanced at Esposito. "And where does that lead to?" Beckett gestured towards the doorway behind her.
"It's a door to nowhere," Ryan said, entering the room from the front doorway. At the four confused looks he received, he elaborated, "that door opens onto what used to be a fire escape. Building here is in pretty bad shape. Fire escapes fell into disrepair a few months ago. Unusable. Building owner removed them. This here," he indicated the room they were in, "is a violation of half a dozen fire codes."
"So it doesn't lead to nowhere," Castle cut in, and at Ryan's confused frown he explained: "The door; it leads outside."
Ryan looked at Castle, wearing an expression of betrayal. "Dude," he said, hurt, "it doesn't go anywhere," he insisted. "So it's a door to nowhere."
Castle opened his mouth to rebut, but Beckett headed him off at the pass.
"Any witnesses?" She asked Ryan, but not before exchanging an amused glance with Lanie.
"Uniforms are canvassing the building next door, but so far nothing. His assistant found the body." Ryan flipped through his notepad. "One Amanda Coleridge; she says that it wasn't unusual for the vic to be here at all hours, painting. The studio alarm was deactivated at exactly 3:03 this morning, so that is the exact time Crombie got here. She walked in an hour ago - the door alarm confirms that too. It records every time the door is opened or closed, even when the alarm is deactivated"
"Alright," Kate said. "Let me know if anything comes from the canvas. Do you have a time of death?" she asked Lanie.
"I'll have one for you as soon as I get this guy back to the morgue. If I had to guess, I'd say sometime after midnight. Can't tell much of anything with all the paint covering our vic."
"Because," Castle repeated, because it was still clever except no one but him seemed to recognize the fact, "the killer covered all his tracks."
Beckett gave him that look she reserved for when he was being particularly unhelpful. Castle grinned. Finally. Mission accomplished, and it only took him like a million tries.
"Does Crombie's assistant know what he was up to last night?" Beckett asked Ryan.
"Nope," he shook his head. "Crombie had a meeting with his agent over lunch yesterday. After that, nothing."
"You know what I don't get?" Castle said, eyeing the studio with a critical eye, "Crombie was a rising star. His last set of works all sold within a week. The Met is interested in him. Why would he still paint in a dump like this?" He poked at the crumbling plaster around a window.
"Not everyone needs a bat cave to get their work done, Castle." Beckett replied, that irresistible teasing smile of hers very much audible in her tone.
"You're just jealous of all my cool toys." He mustered his dignity. Bat cave. Although it would be super cool to have an underground tunnel leading to his lair. And his building's parking garage didn't count.
"Vic's assistant says this is the place he got started in," Ryan took the opportunity to cut in. "It's where he was painting when he caught his first break. He considered it lucky."
They all looked down at the green body lying in front of them.
"Not lucky enough," said Castle.
Castle set Beckett's coffee down on her desk before settling himself comfortably in his chair. He smiled at that furrow of concentration between her brows. She absently reached for the cup as she flipped through the file in front of her.
"A painter who drowned in paint," he mused, hands clasped in front of him, "it's sort of poetic."
At Beckett's raised eyebrow, he amended: "In a very macabre sort of way."
"Lanie called," she informed him. "Time of death is between 1AM and 4AM. And he definitely drowned in green paint."
"That leaves the killer an hour, from the time Crombie entered his studio."
"Right," Beckett acknowledged, looking up from the file and leaning back in her chair. "So, the vic arrives at his studio around 3AM."
"Which is perfectly normal according to his assistant."
"It is," she agreed. "It's pretty well-known that Crombie didn't really keep to a schedule."
Castle frowned. "You knew Crombie?"
"Not personally. But like you said, he was an up-and-comer in the art scene. I've been to a couple of his showings."
"Ah, of course." He was just a bit disappointed that he hadn't thought of it earlier. "I've seen the books in your apartment. Detective Kate Beckett," he grinned at her, "aesthete."
"Crombie was renowned for his insomnia and irregular work habits." She spoke without acknowledging a word of what he'd said, which Castle noted with an ever-widening smile, was something she did pretty often. "He grew up in a rough neighbourhood. One of the few to make it out. Got his start in graffiti."
"Street art, you mean," he corrected.
"I mean graffiti." Her eyebrow raised in a minor challenge.
"One person's rubbish is another's art." Ah, he thought gleefully, the chase is on. He settled himself in for a nice clash of words with Beckett.
"And defacing property is a charge of criminal mischief, art or no art."
"Like you've never done anything mildly illegal in your life."
"Nothing you'll ever hear about."
"Now I'm intrigued." Debate forgotten, he turned his body fully towards her, leaning one elbow on her desk and resting his chin in his palm. "Do share with the class."
Beckett said nothing, staring intently at the murder board, while he stared intently at her. He would not be the first to cave. He would not be the first to cave. He would not-
"Come on!" Castle wheedled. "I showed you mine!"
She spared him a glance. "When you were under suspicion of murder. And you didn't show me," she pointed out, "I pulled your files."
"Please," he scoffed. "You never really believed I did that." He was all confidence. "You were playing bad cop - which, by the way," and here the thought of Beckett playing cops and robbers with him overtook all other sensibilities, "you can play with me anytime you want."
Beckett rolled her eyes. "Castle, focus."
He stared at her, getting a bit lost. Beckett in her dress blues, slapping cool, gleaming cuffs on his wrists. Using a bit more force than necessary-
"Focus on the case, Castle." She pushed herself out of her chair and moved closer to the murder board. "We have a window of opportunity of one hour. The alarm was de-activated at 9:36PM the night before, and then re-activated at 10PM. We need to establish where Crombie was between 10PM and 3AM."
"Anything from Crombie's family?"
Beckett shook her head. "He was a foster kid, in the system from the age of eight when his mother was killed during a convenience store robbery. No family to speak of. Esposito is running down his known contacts from his graffiti days, but that was years ago. He could be well clear of that life."
"From spray painting walls in the dark of night, to being exhibited at the Met," Castle joined Beckett by the murder board. "Quite a story."
"Hey." They both turned at hearing Ryan's voice.
"We followed up on what Amanda Coleridge said," Ryan continued, approaching the murder board with Esposito at his side. "Asked her about Crombie refusing to paint anywhere but at his rundown studio. Turns out the rest of the brownstone has been completely vacated. Owner was offered a deal by a big-shot developer to turn the building into luxury lofts. Paid out all the other tenants to break their leases. Crombie was the only one who refused to budge."
"The owner, by the name of David Carter," Esposito followed up, "has been trying to push Crombie out for the last six months."
Castle glanced at Beckett, and saw that the wheels were clearly turning in her head.
"It gets better," Esposito said, also catching the look on her face. "Turns out the developer was getting a little bit impatient with Carter. Was just about ready to pull out of the deal. We're talking about a loss of millions for Carter."
"And then Crombie is suddenly found murdered in his apartment," Castle nodded as he worked out the story in his head. Not the most creative of motives, but certainly one that fit.
"That is awfully convenient." Beckett's eyes glinted in the silent victory of a predator who finally finds a prey.
"When it comes to real estate in New York," Castle said, "people have killed for a lot less."
"Come on, Castle," Beckett grabbed her coat from the back of her chair. "Let's go apartment hunting."