Disclaimer: I do not own Castle (or Firefly, where the title comes from)
A World Without Sin
Chapter 1: Benny
"Beckett." She answered, standing, automatically sliding into her jacket and patting her pocket to check for keys.
"Castle," she nodded in the direction of the elevator she was already heading toward.
"Boys." She snapped out, rattling off an address over her shoulder, eyes darting back and forth as she listened to the details before snapping her phone shut and slipping it into her jacket.
"What have we got? Castle asked with excitement tingeing his voice as he caught up to her.
She glanced up at him, opened her mouth, shut it and shook her head, looking back toward the elevator doors.
A long moment of studying her carefully blank face gave him nothing. Panic began filling him as she stepped into the elevators and turned to face the doors a moment before he stepped in, and he caught sight of her too-shiny eyes and clenched jaw.
"What is it?" a pause "Beckett?" The panic started to seep into his voice. Beckett *never* cried. Almost never. Unless it was personal.
In response, she shook her head again and took a deep breath. Exhaling sharply through her mouth, she put on what Castle called her "cop" voice, harsh and professional, yet he could hear the tenor of emotion running under the words. "Two officers down. And a third…" she trailed off, looking up at the elevator lights and blinking furiously.
"Who was it?" Castle asked quietly, a knot of dread filling his stomach. Over the almost three years of shadowing the nearly unshakable detective, he had formed acquaintances if not friendships with most of the officers at the Twelfth.
"Gary Lewis and Richard Benaldi. Gomez called it in."
"Vice." He stated, surprised.
Wordlessly, she nodded, stepping off the elevator, leaving him to trail behind.
The car trip, blessedly short, was made in silence, Castle's mind racing with questions and possible scenarios that he chose to focus on instead of the gnawing grief that had his throat threatening to close up. Not that he knew the men particularly well, but he knew them. They came regularly to the Old Haunt, played a mean game of pool and preferred old scotch. Just last month they had toasted Richard "Benny" Benaldi in congratulation of his brand-new baby boy: a now fatherless baby boy.
As they turned down the street, Castle was unsurprised to find it filled with the flashing lights of half a dozen police cars and multiple ambulances. What did surprise him was the HAZMAT vehicle.
Parking down the block, they stepped out and leaned against the car for a moment, taking in the scene. Eventually, Beckett took a breath and pushed away from the car, stepping forward. Castle fell in step beside her, bumping into her slightly and leaning into her side. Closing her eyes at the contact, she inhaled deeply, leaning into him, then straightened her shoulders. Opening her eyes, she nodded once, not quite looking at him or acknowledging his support, but there was an almost-smile on her face, or rather, a slight lessening of the frown.
Beckett flashed her badge at a nervous looking young officer as they stepped across the line into the crime scene. The building they were heading towards was a brownstone walk-up. The neighborhood was old, but relatively clean with flowerpots in several of the windows. Halfway to the building, Castle caught sight of the back of an ambulance.
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"Hey Beckett, isn't that…"
Her head swiveled around.
"Gomez. Yeah." She responded, turning sharply and all but running toward the vehicle.
Out of the corner of his eye, Castle saw Ryan and Esposito walking toward the steps of the building, only to be directed away by yet another nervous looking beat cop toward the hazmat truck. Confused, Castle snapped his attention back to the scene before him.
Gomez was a stocky, dark Latino man with a buzz cut and a well trimmed goatee. Castle had first met the man while working a case where Vice and Homicide's cases had overlapped, and had found him to be an intelligent quiet man with an eye for detail. He was currently sitting on the tailgate of the ambulance with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders and shaking violently.
"Gomez." Beckett said softly, as if trying not to spook him. He had a glazed look in his eyes as he stared down the street. "Gomez." This time a little sharper. "Gomez, look at me!" He blinked once, then looked around, dazed, finally focusing on the officer standing in front of him. "I need you to tell me what happened. Please."
"I." He broke off, mumbling in Spanish and crossing himself, eyes up on the cloudless sky, finishing with a broken, "Forgive me."
Beckett grabbed his hands, holding them steady and waited for him to resume eye contact. "I need to know," she whispered.
Gomez blinked back his tears and took a shaky breath. "I shot him. I…"
Castle saw Beckett flinch and tighten her grip at his confession, her face tightening into a blank mask.
Gomez gasped, then repeated it, tears working their way down his face. "I shot him. He killed… Oh, Benny!" and the floodgate opened, words pouring out of him, stumbling over each other. "He killed Benny with a kitchen knife and I… It was supposed to be a sting – cocaine dealers, but everyone was dead when we got their. No violence, just looked like they'd all gone to sleep on the floor, at the table. Bags of white powder everywhere, piles of powder on the table. We assumed they overdosed and started processing the scene.
"We were almost finished when Lewis comes out of the kitchen. Blood everywhere: on his hands, his face, his clothes, dripping off the knife in his hand. I hadn't heard anything. I'd been on the other side of the apartment. I asked him where Benny was, and he lunged at me. And I… I shot him, in the shoulder, just trying to take him down, didn't want him to… but he kept coming, so I shot him again. I killed him. I killed my partner. Forgive me, oh, please!" He crossed himself again and broke down sobbing.
Beckett's hands had tightened around his as he spoke, but now she gently released them, stumbling backward into Castle, who reached out an arm to steady her.
"We need to get inside," she gritted out as she turned, striding purposefully toward the building.
Castle's mind raced as they once again headed toward the crime scene. The story Gomez told left Castle incredulous and wondering if maybe he – or Lewis? Had inhaled some of what they were supposed to be processing and had a bad trip. But not cocaine. PCPs?
At the door, they were stopped and directed, as Ryan and Esposito had been, to the station that hazmat had set up. Once there, they were assisted into baggy white suits that reminded Castle of the footed pajamas that Alexis wore when she was little, except those had been fuzzy and green, and hadn't crinkled when she walked.
"Why?" Castle began, gesturing at the seemingly excessive precautions.
"It's not cocaine." Beckett replied tightly.
"PCP?" he queried
Beckett shook her head – a gesture that was lost as she pulled the hood down over her head, checking that it was secure before turning and performing the same task for him.
"Then wha-?"
"They don't know." Her voice was muffled by the suit.
Awkwardly in the ungainly suits they made their way up the steps, through the front door and the plastic barricades to an open door on the left. A suited figure stood outside the doorway, leaning heavily against the wall.
"Ryan?" Castle asked, as they went to pass him.
Ryan slowly opened his eyes, his face pale and sheened in a thin layer of sweat. He took a few deep breaths. "Sorry. It's… it's bad in there. Benny and I were in the same class at the Academy and…" He shook his head before turning to follow the pair back into the room.
Two steps in they froze. Bad didn't even begin to describe it. It was awful. Everything was white except the blood. White walls, white ceiling and tile floors, white florescent lights shining down on everything. A table occupied the space at the center of the room. A thin residue of white powder coated its surface.
A male with short blond hair that Castle guessed to be in his late twenties sat slumped onto the table, head resting on folded arms, looking for all the world like he was sleeping peacefully. Only the pallor of his features and his open, sightless eyes betrayed the truth.
He was dressed in a lab coat and white scrubs, as was the figure stretched out by the far wall lying in a patch of sunlight, pale red hair glinting in the light.
The other body in the room sprawled face down beside the table, dressed in a dark police uniform. A trail of red footprints lead out of what Castle assumed – correctly – to be the kitchen. One arm was caught under him, the other clutched a bloody butcher's knife.