The Victims

It had been a slow day. A slow week, too. Jeff kept himself busy with, well, busy work. He just finished dusting the displays at the front of the store for the third time that week. He had gone to the back to retrieve additional charging cords; they were available in colors now. 'Oo, how exciting.' he thought. His enthusiasm and excitement had overflowed that morning. Yeah, right. He knelt down in front of the spinning display stand, sighed, and was concentrating on how to organize the multitude of colored cords when he heard a quiet cough. Someone was clearing his throat so the technician would be aware of his presence.

He stood and turned toward the sound. A broad smile blossomed on his face. "Mr. Castle," he said while extending his hand, "it's so good to see you again, and so soon."

Castle pursed his lips. "Jeff, how have you been?"

He raised his eyebrows. "Since, last week?"

Castle sighed. "Funny."

Jeff's light brown eyes sparkled as he asked the question that he knew he already had the answer. "What brings you in today?"

Castle pulled his lips tight over his teeth. He knew that the young salesman was having a good time at his expense and if he were honest, he would normally acknowledge the humor of the situation. "I, uh, need a, uh, new phone," he said quietly. He pulled the latest casualty out of his pocket.

Jeff shook his head. The phone was smashed, almost folded in half. The incarnation that this one replaced had a hole in it. Jeff would have sworn that it was a bullet hole, but that was ridiculous. Richard Castle was a writer. What was it that he did that destroyed so many cell phones? This would be his sixteenth. "So," he said as he waited for an explanation. Castle averted his eyes. Jeff went to work trying to figure out how to retrieve the data so it could be transferred. "Mr. Castle?"

Castle turned his attention toward the young man.

"What do you have against cell phones?"

"I don't have anything against them."

"Why do you destroy them?"

"It's not my fault," he shrugged, "they just sort of get in the way."

"Sir, you're a writer," Castle acknowledged the fact and waited for him to continue. "Well, it's hardly a dangerous profession. How does this," he held up the twisted phone, "keep happening?"

Castle swallowed and looked vaguely uncomfortable. "I'm, um, I'm just hard on my phones, I guess." His arrangement with the police was not a secret, exactly. They did have a spread in Cosmo and other magazine and newspaper articles since then. The article said that he was working with the police. He had even said so on National television.

"Hard? Hard on your phones? You totally obliterate them. That's not hard. You're almost a cell phone serial killer." Jeff smiled at his cleverness.

Castle's eyes lit up. "Really? A serial killer?" An amused grin graced his face. "That's funny." He thought about it. Jeff was right; he was a cell phone serial killer. "Look, you just go get me the latest replacement and I'll tell you the story when you get back."

Jeff nodded and made his way to the back room. The standard order was for the latest IPhone incarnation, black, and largest gig available storage. If nothing else, Mr. Castle's inability to keep a working phone kept their sales numbers up. He was their best customer.

Jeff came back out to the counter and set to work, retrieving data from the destroyed hunk of technology.

"You still want to know?" Castle asked.

"Are you kidding?"

"Okay. Just the times I needed to replace it for damages, right?" He grinned and Jeff acknowledged him with a preoccupied head nod. "The first time I needed a new phone it was because I had burst into a burning apartment. A bomb just detonated and my partner was inside. I crushed the phone as I broke down the door." Castle watched the younger man intently who had stopped working to stare at him.

"No way."

"Way. The second time I was playing with liquid nitrogen and froze it. I froze my watch, too." He smirked as he remembered the science experiments. He froze and shattered everything he could get his hands on. Jeff's eyebrows had disappeared into his hairline.

"The third time, I lost it," Jeff wasn't impressed. He had heard that numerous times before. "While digging up a grave." He explained further at the look of disbelief on Jeff's face. "It wasn't a real grave; there was buried treasure from a jewelry heist."

"The fourth time, I was trying out a steam-punk outfit and it got crushed in the gears and hydraulics." Jeff was openly laughing now. "Hey, don't laugh; I could have been trapped forever in that get up."

Castle got quiet, but continued, "The fifth time, it was stolen by a serial killer." He didn't pause, wanting to move past memories of Tyson as quickly as possible. "The sixth time, it was killed by an electromagnetic pulse just before we were kidnapped by unnamed government agency men who wore black while we were investigating the possibility of UFOs." Jeff stole a glance at the writer and decided he was telling the truth.

"The seventh time, it was exposed to radiation and subzero temperatures. I can't say any more about that. It's classified." Jeff was incredulous, Castle was matter-of-fact.

"The eighth time, it was," he looked down and hesitated, "it was covered in blood. It fell out of my pocket when my partner was shot."

"The ninth time, it was crushed under the heel of a mercenary bank robber when I was held hostage."

He squinted his eyes, trying to remember the next. "Oh, the tenth time, it was crushed by a rogue CIA agent, who actually turned out to be the good guy trying to prevent a cataclysmic event. The eleventh and within a day that I had number ten replaced, our car was pushed into the Hudson." He nodded. "Water damage." Jeff had stopped working and was just sitting listening to this impossible list.

"The twelfth time, my phone was taken by Irish mobsters who threw it down a storm drain, along with my wallet."

"The thirteenth time, it was shot by a CIA operative." He scowled, "but he replaced it, so I guess that one doesn't count."

"Okay so that makes the thirteenth time, um, I lost it snowboarding in Colorado. I probably should have left it at the lodge, but it would have been handy when I crashed...if I hadn't lost it."

"The fourteenth time, it flew out the window when I was in a car accident." At Jeff's concerned expression, he added, "I was okay, but the driver died of an airborne toxin."

"The fifteenth time, it was only scratched. A guy jumped me with a sword." He grinned, again, "I won, but then that other thing happened which resulted in the hole." Jeff could see that the writer was not going to elaborate any further.

"The sixteenth time, well, this is it." He held up the mangled wreckage of his phone. "You don't want to know this one." He smiled; he was a mystery writer after all. Sometimes, things should remain a mystery.