"Hey Beckett…" Castle said arriving in the alley where the body was and holding out a cup of coffee.
"Thanks Castle" Kate said, accepting the cup and taking a long drink, "so our vic was found this morning by a student who takes this alley as a shortcut to the subway to get to school".
The approached the body, "we don't have an ID yet but we're going to check DNA, Lanie has already taken her to the lab, and we're just looking for the murder weapon".
"Found it!" Kevin called out, appearing from behind a dumpster.
"Great, send it to the lab for prints," Kate said.
The next day Kate stared at the report for the prints and wished desperately she was anywhere but there. Castle had decided to sit this case out, since it had looked like a random stabbing, to get some writing done. The printout read in big block letters PRINT MATCH: RICHARD EDGAR CASTLE.
"There's no way" Kevin said point blank, "it's a mistake, no other evidence is going to match up"
Kevin was wrong, the longer they investigated the more evidence they found against him, a necklace given to Tessa purchased by Richard Castle using a cashier's check, a picture of him at the bank getting that cashier's check, his financials matching that and a text message from the day before to Tessa, saying he would see her tomorrow. Finally after they'd gotten a search warrant and gone to Castle's apartment they found a photograph of him and Tessa from high school and a missing knife from a kitchen set which matched the one from the crime scene.
With a heavy heart Javier arrested his friend for the murder of Tessa Morgan, read him his rights and then took him to the precinct.
Meanwhile, at the precinct a young woman was speaking with the missing persons detectives.
"How long has your fiancé been missing Ms. Cooper?" the detective asked.
"I haven't seen him in 3 days," the young woman said softly.
"And you didn't report this before?" the man asked.
"He… fell out with his family a long time ago, he was going to go and see them again after work 3 days ago, I figured that maybe he was just talking with his family, but when he didn't come home this morning I knew something was wrong"
"Alright, Jeanette was it? We're going to need some details, and preferably a photo of your fiancé and then we'll start looking for him, we'll find him alright?" the young detective said.
"Thank you" Jeanette said.
"Espo, that's not me!" Castle exclaimed, "it looks like me yes, but I swear it's not me, I haven't even been near a bank in weeks, or a jewellery store, and yes I did know Tessa but I didn't kill her!"
"Nice try Castle," Javier spat his ex-friend's name, "we have all the evidence, you're just making it harder on yourself. It's only going to be worse for you if you don't confess. Writing about it not enough for you anymore?"
"Espo I'm telling you it wasn't me, come on! We've known each other for four years, you know me!"
"I thought I did, but I guess I was wrong" Javier spat and left the interrogation room.
Meanwhile the detectives from missing persons were following a very small lead. They'd found video footage from an ATM camera across from the school where their missing man Jonathan Rodgers worked as an art teacher, of him getting into a car with 3 other men and he did not look willing.
"Hey!" one of the detectives, Chris, called out, "uniforms spotted the car from the video over by an abandoned warehouse".
The detective who'd taken the missing report, Daniel, grabbed his keys and headed for the car.
Ten minutes later the detectives were pulling up in front of the abandoned warehouse. Lights were on inside and pressing their ears to the door they could hear voices.
"Apparently it's not so abandoned" Chris said. Daniel grinned at his partner and kicked in the door. They'd managed to catch the bad guys by surprise and in no time had them cuffed and in the cars to be taken to lock up. Daniel then went over to their missing man, who was sitting in the corner, tape gagged.
"Jonathan? We're here to take you home" he told the man, removing the tape.
"They killed her!" Jonathan exclaimed, "that's, that's why they took me, because they wanted to make it look like my brother did it! They used me to withdraw money from my brother's account and buy a necklace and take a knife from my brother's apartment, to make it look like he killed her, but he didn't, they did! You can't let my brother go to jail, he doesn't deserve it"
"Relax Mr. Rodgers, we'll take you back to the precinct, you can meet up with your fiancée and we'll get your story sorted out with the murder in question" Chris said.
"Espo, Ryan, come on, Gates wants us to go downstairs, apparently missing persons just found some guy who claims that his kidnappers took him and used him to make it look like Castle murdered Tessa but, in actual fact the kidnapper's did it. We need to go check it out" Kate said heading for the stairs.
The three detectives jogged down the stairs and emerged on the missing person's floor. Sitting in two chairs by a desk were a girl in scrubs and a man-
"Castle?!" Kate exclaimed, "How the hell did you get down here?"
"Detective Beckett, meet Jonathan Rodgers, he claims that his kidnappers killed Tessa Morgan and used him to make it look like your suspect had done it," Chris explained.
"You've got to believe me detective," Jonathan pleaded.
"Why don't you start from the beginning Jonathan," Kate said, a small bubble of hope forming in her chest.
"I had just finished work on Friday, I'm an art teacher at a local high school, I was heading out to my car, when these three guys grabbed me. They told me that I had to do what they said or they would hurt Jeanette," he squeezed his fiancée's hand, "I didn't know what they wanted with me at first. They drove to a branch of the Bank of America, and told me to go and ask for a cashier's check in the amount of $12, 280.00 from the bank account of Richard Castle. At that point I thought they were just using me to steal. Then after I got the check, they took me to a jewellery store and instructed me to purchase a necklace inside. They said I would know which one because the price was the exact amount of the cashier's check. Once I had done that, one of the guys took the necklace and grabbed a taxi. The other two put me back in the car and we went to the abandoned warehouse for the night. The next day they took me to an apartment building. They told me to go inside and ask the doorman for the spare key, tell him I'd forgotten mine and then go up to the apartment and take one of the big kitchen knives. So I did. Then they took the knife and drove to Tessa's apartment. They waited there all day, until she came out around 8 and they grabbed her. They drove to a dark alley, and made me watch while they killed her, stabbed her with the kitchen knife".
By this point Jonathan was in tears, "the worst part was that she knew me, she'd thought I was gone for so long, and when she realized that I wasn't my brother, that's when they finally killed her".
"So you knew Tessa Morgan?" Kate asked quietly.
"Yes, she went to high school with me and my brother, she was my prom date in junior year, right before I got into drugs and everything went to hell. My brother still has our prom photo, I saw it in his apartment" Jonathan said, still crying.
"Mr. Rodgers, what is your brother's name?" Kate asked quietly.
"It's Richard Alexander Rodgers," Kate's heart sunk.
"But he changed it to Richard Edgar Castle".
Rick fidgeted in the interrogation room of the twelfth precinct, still cuffed to the table. They'd been gone and extremely long time. He still couldn't understand how this had happened. How they could have all this evidence against him, when he hadn't actually done it. Sure he'd known Tessa Morgan but, they'd known each other since high school.
He'd met Tessa Morgan when she'd transferred to his high school from somewhere in Florida. She'd immediately joined his group of friends, and in particular she'd found herself falling for one particular person. Jonathan Edgar Rodgers, Rick's two minute older identical twin brother. Jonathan and Tessa had been great together right from the beginning, they'd dated for almost two years, and even attended junior prom together. It was the summer between junior and senior years that things went bad.
Tessa had gone back to visit her family in Florida, and Rick had been accepted to a writing workshop for high school students held at Harvard University. Jonathan's friends had all scattered, so he'd made some not so desirable new friends over the summer. Those new friends had gotten Jonathan into drugs and alcohol and by the time Rick and Tessa came back from vacation to start senior year, Jonathan was too far gone. Only two weeks into the school year Jonathan left school and ran away from home.
Martha, Rick and Tessa looked for him for months and months, until a police officer showed up on their doorstep. He'd told them that he was from the narcotics division of the NYPD and that they'd recently been investigating a meth lab in the city, it had unfortunately blown up, but they had good reason to believe that Jonathan had been inside, they'd handed Martha a half melted chain with a small silver tag engraved with the words Alex and Ed. It was then that Rick had to accept that Jonathan was gone.
They'd held a nice memorial service for Jonathan and every person in their class at school began volunteering at a local center which helped drug addicted teens to kick their addiction and go back to school so they could get jobs and get back their lives. Over the years most of their class mates scattered and they tried to volunteer in their new cities, but Tessa and Rick still went to the addiction center in New York City every Sunday to volunteer with the teens.
Now Tessa was gone too. Rick couldn't understand why someone would want to kill sweet Tessa Morgan, or why they'd want everyone to think that he had done it.
Rick wished that he could take the book off of his shelf in his bedroom. It was a small, leather bound book, the first one he'd ever written. He was 12 years old and it had rained for a solid week in New York. He and Jonathan had been bored and so they'd decided, when they grew up they were going to work together, because how could they not do everything together? They'd gotten a head start and wrote The Adventures of Alex and Ed. Rick had written the story and Jonathan had provided the brilliant illustrations for the book. He'd kept that book and whenever he needed to think back on better time with his brother he read through that book.
The door to the interrogation room clicked open and Kate came in a neutral look on her face and a key in her hand.
"You're free to go Castle, we found the guys who did this, I'm sorry that I didn't believe you" Kate said, unlocking the handcuffs.
"It's alright Kate, you were just doing your job, and to be honest, if it was me, I looked pretty damn suspicious" Rick said reaching out to grasp his girlfriend's hand.
"We figured out why that was too, and while you still have to explain to your girlfriend what you were doing texting another woman without telling her, there's someone that would like to see you waiting in the hall," Kate said tugging him to the door, "and by the way at some point you had better explain him too".
Rick followed Kate confusedly into the hall. Then he saw who was standing there.
"Hey Alex," Jonathan said quietly, "long time, no see".
"Ed?" Rick asked softly.
"Yeah little bro, it's me" Jonathan said.
Not even caring that he was in tears in front of half of the precinct Rick hugged his twin brother. This was the best day he could remember having in a long, long time.