Creepy Snowman
By Dana Keylits

He approached the huddled group of NYPD detectives with caution, unsure if Kate had forgiven him for his snowball prank this morning, and noticed they were concentrating on an area of the ground beside a massive six-foot tall, lopsided snowman. Standing just behind Kate, he hesitantly reached out to tap her shoulder, and then withdrew his hand, deciding instead to simply ask, "what's with the Snowman?"

Esposito looked up sharply, asking, "what do you mean, what's with the snowman?"

"You're all standing around a snowman," Castle explained.

"Forget the snowman for now," Kate instructed angrily, giving him that look; that look that told him he was in major trouble. "We've got bigger problems than a frickin' snowman." She pointed at an area of bloody snow about two feet away from the snowman's black boots and shot him a raised eyebrow, "see that blood?"

He nodded, eyeing the huge pool of blood that made it appear as if the snowman had taken an axe to someone's head. "Well," he started, gesturing towards the snowman, "...do we know he didn't do it?"

Esposito rolled his eyes, ignoring the writer's lame joke, and commented, "a huge pool of blood that, according to Lanie is enough loss to kill a person, a snowman, and no body - what the hell?"

Castle inched closer to the snowman, and noticed something was slightly off, was it the way it was leaning forward, like someone had hastily built it? Was the snowman's snow just slightly the wrong color? Or, was it the way the hat sat on his head, reminding him of Frosty the snowman?

"Does this snowman look just a little bit off to any of you?"

Kate made a face, her gaze alternating between Castle and the giant snowman; she raised one hand and asked, "what's your crazy theory this time, Castle?"

He gazed into the snowman's coal black eyes, made out of real coal and deeply set into the giant head. "I don't know," he replied, "...I just think something about this snowman isn't quite right."

Esposito snorted before joking, "what crazy snowman theory are you gonna lay on us now, bro? That he's a snowman from outer space?"

"A Stay Puft-Marshmallow-like snowman who's come to conquer New York, Ghostbusters style?" Ryan added, guffawing as he glanced at the snowman.

"No," he explained, taking a pen and picking at one of the snowman's eyes. He popped the huge piece of coal from its place on the snowman's face, and then smugly looked at his comrades. "I was going to say that maybe he isn't a snowman at all."

They all gasped as they saw a human eye looking out at them from inside the snowman's head.

"Oh my god, they hid the victim inside the snowman!" Lanie observed.

Kate peered into the snowman's face and then back at Castle. She leaned away from the snowman and whispered, " This almost makes up for your little prank this morning."

A/N: For some reason FFNet says this story is 520 words (before I wrote these authors notes), but my word processor says it is 499. I'm going with the count my word processor gave me. :-)