Fairytale of New York
AU. Inspired by the ABC show Castle. You don't have to watch it to understand the storyline. This idea's been in my head for a while now, so I finally decided to put it down on paper. It will incorporate lots of ships, so it doesn't matter what one you actually follow, 'cos there all going to be here. I own nothing. Not OUAT, nor Castle. Enjoy!
Detective Emma Swan wakes on a gloomy New York Monday morning to the sound of her phone blaring her ringtone.
Caller ID: David Nolan.
"Swan." She says sleepily.
"Mornin' sunshine." He says into her ear, too cheery for a Monday. "Murder calls. Central Park."
"I'll be there in fifteen." She replies, promptly hanging up the phone, not wanting to stay talking for another second. When it comes, to laziness on a Monday morning, Emma Swan was the queen. She rests the phone back down on the table beside the bed before rolling back onto the pillow, closing her eyes again, only to have then reopened by the sound of a different ringtone.
"Humbert." Her companion answers the phone after one ring. "Yeah, Dave, I'll be there in ten."
Emma sits up, holding the olive-green sheet to her chest as she does so. Her hair was all over the place, a reminder of the night before. Her co-worker, Detective Graham Humbert, stood before her now, shirtless, revealing all of his toned glory. This string of one-night stands had been going on for months now, and so far, neither had become attached, so their relationship, as far as anyone at the 12th Precinct is concerned, is still merely professional. It had started after one particularly tough case had been closed, albeit not in the most desirable way, and they had found comfort in each other's company. It was only meant to be a one time thing, but it had evolved to the point to where they used sex to blow off some steam after a long day at work.
Emma reluctantly pulls herself out of the bed she had shared with Graham last night, grabbing her clothes off the floor and quickly dressing.
"Don't you think Mary-Margaret will notice you are in the same clothes you were in yesterday?" Graham asks his colleague, still unsure if Emma's best friend had figured out what had been going on with them in the past few months. "You did have lunch with her yesterday."
"Spare clothes in my car." Emma replies, grabbing her phone off the side table, and crossing the small apartment to collect her purse from the couch, where the festivities had begun last night. "See you at the crime scene!" She shouts, heading hastily out of the door, shutting it behind her.
Graham pauses for a minute after Emma had left, then returns to his small bedroom where the double-bed is left in a crumpled mess, making him smile at the thought of last night's events. He spies something black out of the corner of his eye, peeking out from under the bed. Being the great detective he is, he determines that Emma Swan had left his apartment in such a haste that she forgot her bra. Chuckling, he throws the undergarment into his chest of drawers, and continues to get dressed.
"What do we got, David?" Emma asks, ducking under the crime scene tape, being careful not to spill her coffee while doing so. She had changed into a purple tank top, black blazer and black jeans, keeping her black ankle-boots on.
"Not in the mood for pleasantries I see, Swan." David begins, regretting what he said immediately after Emma shoots him a don't mess with me before I've finished my coffee look. "Okay." He continues, raising his eyebrows and avoiding eye contact. "Laura Bonny. Twenty-six. Two joggers found her at approximately seven-fifteen this morning. Looks like she was stabbed to death. A lot. But of course, we have to wait for Snow to get here. She's going to love this." He smiles, calling the Medical Examiner by the pet name he had coined for her when they first met. As payback, Dr. Mary-Margaret Blanchard opts for calling him by the nickname she came up with for him. 'Charming.'
"Why?" Emma asks the newest detective in their merry band of three. David had been in the Special Forces before joining the NYPD. He arrived a few months after Graham did. While the other detective transferred from Narcotics, Emma had passed her detective's exam with flying colours, being given the grand title of Homicide Detective just over three years ago. At age twenty-six, Emma was the youngest cop that ever made detective, and since then, she was reigning queen of the homicide division, with the highest case closure rate out of all the homicide detectives in the city. It was a title that Emma treasured almost as much as her adopted son, Henry.
"Oh, you're gonna want to see this." He smiles with the excitement of a child in a candy store.
He leads Emma towards a huge oak tree in the middle of the field. At the base of the gigantic plant, there lay Snow White, the front of her otherwise pristine white dress was stained with red. "Snow White." Emma observes. "You're right, she really is going to love this. Especially with you going on about it all day." She finishes sarcastically, handing David her coffee and crouching down to examine the body. The blood was stained around the abdomen, but the strange this about the victim- aside from the fact that she was dressed as Snow White- was that there were no tears or rips in the costume, indicating stab wounds. "Did anyone touch the body?" Emma asks.
"Nope." David answers simply. "Graham! Welcome to the party!" David greets the other member of their team.
"Is it a costume party?" Graham inquires with a laugh, spotting the body.
"I wish. Then I could have slept in." David replies. Emma and Graham share an awkward look, that David doesn't see, because he is too busy admiring the beauty of the Medical Examiner who just strutted on scene. "Snow." David chuckles lightly, unable to keep in a laugh.
"Now, Detective Nolan, is that any way to behave at a crime scene?" She asks in a mock motherly tone. When she sees Emma and Graham giggle slightly together just behind David, she gives in. "What's so funny?" She says, stepping forward, past David.
"Nothing." Emma replies quickly, not turning around so that she doesn't burst into a fit of giggles when she sees David laughing behind her.
Mary-Margaret pushes past the remaining two snickering detectives, finally laying her eyes on the body.
"Oh, very mature, you three. Snow White. Ha Ha. I get it" She says, raising her hands, one of which holds a clipboard, before crouching down beside the body to get a closer look. "Judging by the amount of blood that is here," she continues, avoiding the fact that the victim bears a striking similarity to her, "I'd say she was killed elsewhere, then her body was placed here."
Emma reacts immediately to the statement, turning to David and saying, "Canvas the area. See if you can find that crime scene." David nods, walking away, shaking his head.
Mary-Margaret continues her statement while Emma gives the order to David. "Looks like she was dressed post-mortem, due to the lack of tears in her dress." She pauses. "Lavidity indicates that she was killed at approximately two to four am this morning."
"Okay, so she wasn't here long." Graham concludes, causing a few women around to swoon at his Irish accent. "I'll start a canvas. See if anyone heard or saw anything." He finishes, sticking his hands in the pocket of his suit pants, and walking away. Emma can't help but stare at the man. His suit was impeccably tailored, his vest fitting him in all the right places.
After Graham was out of Emma's sight, she re-focused her attention on her best friend and the corpse.
"I'll have to wait until I get her back to the morgue to examine her wounds." The ME says, gesturing to two men to start packing up the body. "You okay, Ems?"
"Me? Yeah. I'm fine, just tired. That's all." She reassures her friend, hoping she doesn't ask her why she's tired. Thankfully, they're interrupted as CSI Ruby Lucas walks up to them, carrying an evidence bag.
"I found this in the bushes over there, Emma." She says, gesturing to the cluster of greenery to her left. "It has traces of blood on it. Human." Ruby's area of expertise was blood and DNA analysis, specifically blood spatter patterns.
Emma takes the bag out of Ruby's outstretched hand, holding it in front of her face closely so that she can inspect the writing on it. It was a page out of a book. Luckily for Emma, the book's title was printed at the top of the page. Once Upon A Time. Scanning over the writing, she realises it's a page out of a novel that Mary-Margaret had recommended to her a few months ago. What was that author's name? Godammit, why can't I think of it?
"Hey, Maggie?" Emma called after her friend. "Remember that book you loaned me a few months back?"
"Which one?" She counters.
"Once Upon A Time." The blonde girl answered, and her short-haired friend nodded. "Who was the author of that?"
"As far as I remember, his name was Killian Jones." She replies. "Why?"
"I think that this is a page out of that book." Emma answered, handing the ME the piece of paper encased in a plastic bag.
She stands tapping her foot as Mary-Margaret reads both sides of the paper. "It is. A chapter about Snow White hiding out in the forest from her evil stepmother."
"This chapter is on Snow White?" Emma repeats. "Ruby," she calls, beckoning her dark-haired friend closer. "Take this back to the lab and run it for prints and DNA. Thanks."
"I'm gonna ride back to the morgue with the body. I'll call you if I find anything." Mary-Margaret states, spinning gracefully on her heel and turning towards the coroner's van.
Emma, now standing alone at the crime-scene, decides to head back to the precinct to gather information on the victim. As she leaves the crime scene, her phone rings. "Swan." She answers hastily, not even bothering to look at the caller ID.
"Swan. It's Captain Mills. The victim's family is waiting for you at the precinct." Her captain tells her.
"Okay. I'm on my way back to the precinct now. I'll be there in five." She finishes, ending the call.
After talking to the victim's sister and brother, Emma had only uncovered one useful fact about Laura Bonny. She had a boyfriend that no-one knew about, except her sister. Her sister, Anne, didn't know his name, but she thought that Laura had broken it off with him a few days ago, and he wasn't too happy about that. Other than that, Laura led a very boring life; she worked as a secretary for the Assistant DA while she was putting herself through law school. Her job and school combined, she didn't have a lot of time for a social life. Which is why Emma's sitting here, alone at her desk, combing through Laura's e-mails and phone records, while Tech Operator Aurora Williams was at her fiancé, Philip's, desk, helping her out by going through her financial records. Aurora used to be made fun of for her name, until she met Philip, who rather liked it and called her 'Beauty'. After that, no-one really mocked Aurora for her name, because everyone stopped calling her by it when her friend, Det. Jamie Mulan, who shared her pain for inheriting a fairytale name, started calling her 'Rory'. Since then, nearly everyone in the precinct almost forgot Rory's real name.
"Emma." Rory calls from across the room. "I think got something."
Emma struts across the room, stopping at Det. Philip Smith's desk, and looking down at the computer screen.
"You see here," Rory gestures to the screen, "every day for the past two weeks, Laura had been going to a coffee shop on Central Park West, same time, every day. One p.m."
"And?"
"And, the point is that that's nowhere near where she worked or lived." Rory concludes. "It's worth checking out."
"You're right. Thanks Rory!" Emma shouts heading for her desk, grabbing her coat, her phone ringing as she does so.
"Swan." She answers, slinging on her blazer.
"Emma?" A woman answers in an Australian accent. "It's Belle. I have the results of the victim's toxicology report."
"Great. I'll stop by on my way to Central Park West. Thanks Belle." She ends the call, immediately dialling Graham's number.
"Humbert." He answers.
"It's Emma. Belle had the tox report ready on Laura Bonny. And I got a lead. Meet me at the crime lab in ten."
"'Kay. I'll see you there." He states, hanging up.
"Hey Belle." Emma greets the toxicology specialist, entering the spacious crime lab on the 36th floor of one of New York's skyscrapers, with Graham in tow. "What did the tox screen show?"
"Hey guys." She reciprocates. "Well, she had no alcohol in her system, but I did find ketamine in her system."
"She was drugged." Graham concludes, and Belle nods in response.
"My guess is that whoever abducted her sedated her, and then took her to wherever he killed and re-dressed her. Speaking of dresses, Ruby's working on the dress she was wearing now. She said she should have something within the hour." Belle replies.
"Tell her to call me if she finds anything." She says, turning to her partner. "For now, you and I are going to get coffee. Thanks Belle!" She calls, walking towards the elevators, pulling Graham by the hand.
Emma and her partner enter the door of the coffee shop, immediately heading up to the counter. Emma, taking charge as she always does, holds up her shield, the numbers 3366 embossed on the bottom.
"NYPD. I need your help with something." She asks the female barista, who is currently making googly eyes as Graham.
"Sure thing. Anything to help the boys in blue." She replies, her eyes still locked on Graham's face. Emma, seeing that she can so nothing to regain the woman's attention, lets Graham take the lead. Once.
"Have you seen this woman in here before?" He inquires, holding up Laura Bonny's DMV photo. "She would have been in here everyday for the past two weeks, at around one pm."
The woman looks at the photo for a brief second, flicking her eyes back to the handsome Irishman a split second later. "Yeah, I've seen her around. She was here with some guy."
"A guy?" Emma asks, intrigued.
"Yeah." The woman says, tearing her gaze from Graham's to meet Emma's. "I think he's some famous dude. Real cute, too. Got an accent, as well, quite like yours, sweetheart." She says, looking back at the other Detective's, batting her eyelashes flirtatiously. "They got into a pretty heated discussion a few days ago. Haven't seen him in here since."
"You said he was famous?" Graham asks, smiling at the woman. At the office, the man was the resident McDreamy. Right now, it was sickening for Emma to watch, not because she was jealous or anything, but because it was really, really, uncomfortable to watch. But hey, if it gets them their first suspect, she's all for it.
"Yeah. A writer. I think his name is Killian Jones." The barista replies.
"Killian Jones. Thank you, uh, I didn't catch your name..."
"Hollie. Hollie Marks." She answers, scribbling down her number on a napkin, handing it to Graham. "Call me." She winks, prompting Emma to not-so-subtly roll her eyes.
"Well, thank you, Hollie." Graham smiles, turning to leave, and Emma follows.
When they are safely clear of the coffee shop, Emma bursts out into a fit of giggles.
"What?" Graham asks.
"Are you going to call her?" Emma looks at him funnily, trying not to laugh again. Trying.
Graham knows that he and Emma aren't exclusive, and with Emma's clear amusement, he wasn't about to accuse her of being jealous. "No." He replies, crumpling up the green piece of tissue. "We got the information, didn't we?"
Emma nods, holding back tears of laughter. "That's ten."
"Ten?"
"Ten girls who have given you their numbers during a case. Since the start of this year, Graham. This year. It's February." Emma laughs. "And, as I recall, one of them was married, and another turned out to be a guy."
Graham smiles. "I can't help my smouldering looks and irresistible personality."
"Yeah, Graham, your personality earns you the numbers of countless women every week." Emma laughs sarcastically, dialling a number on her phone.
"Who are you calling?" He asks.
Emma hushes him by putting a gloved finger to her lips.
"David? I need you to run down a guy for me." Emma asks the third detective on their team through the phone. "Killian Jones."
"That author that Snow likes?" David's muffled voice counters. "Yeah, I can do that. You want me to bring him in?"
"Nah, me and Graham are out anyway. Just text me his address and we'll pick him up. Thanks David."
A few minutes later, Emma's phone buzzed, indicating an incoming text message.
"Upper West Side. Let's go." Emma says, reading the text message out loud.
When they arrive at the huge loft in a five story-apartment block, Emma takes the lead as she always does and knocks quickly at the door. When the man- presumably Killian Jones- answers the door, Emma struggles to maintain her composure. Okay, the barista said that he was cute, but Good Lord. The man was an Adonis. His tousled ebony hair, his hint of a beard ghosting his jaw line, and his eyes. Oh God, his eyes. They were like sapphires, burning a hole in her soul as he stared into her own green ones.
"Can I help you?" He asks, as Emma still stares, positively gobsmacked.
"Uh, yes. Are you Killian Jones?" Emma asks, finally finding the composure to speak.
"Yes. Can I help you with something?" He counters.
"Uh, NYPD. I'm Detective Emma Swan and this is Detective Graham Humbert. We need you to come down town for a few questions." She answers, still struggling to stay standing as his eyes stay locked onto hers.
"What's this about?" He asks, standing fully out from behind the door, almost causing Emma to faint in all his glory. He was dressed simply in a white t-shirt and black jeans, but the shirt was so figure-hugging, Emma could easily see that the man had a six-pack, at least. "You here to arrest me, love?" He smirks, winking at the same time.
Great, Emma thinks, He just had to open his pretty little mouth and say something like that.
"Not exactly." She replies sternly. "We need to ask you a few questions about Laura Bonny."
"Laura?" He asks, slightly surprised. "Has something happened to her?"
"Yes. She was found murdered in Central Park this morning." Emma says, her tone slightly sympathetic.
"Bloody Hell." He exclaims, his hand covering his mouth. "Yeah, I'll come with you. Let me just grab my, uh, jacket."
He disappears into the loft, returning seconds later sporting a leather jacket that looks like it cost as much as the two detectives make in a year. It makes him look good, though, Emma thinks.
They drive to the precinct in silence, Emma driving, per usual, Graham and Killian in the back seat.
When they arrive at the 12th, Emma and Graham led the writer upstairs to the interrogation room.
"Please, take a seat, Mr. Jones." Emma says politely, gesturing to the chair facing the gigantic mirror that faces into the room. Emma is the writer's lone companion in the room, with Graham and David positioned behind the mirror, listening intently to the interrogation.
"Why am I in an interrogation room?" He asks, his arm slung over the back of the chair.
"You should know," Emma counters, "you've seen your fair share of them. Drunk and Disorderly, Disturbing the Peace, Indecent Exposure...quite the rap sheet you've got here, Mr. Jones." Emma reads, smiling at the author.
"What can I say," he replies coolly, "I'm a man of many talents. But if you read further, you'll see all those charges were dropped, and that an incident involving yours truly hasn't occurred in years."
"Until today." Emma retaliates, drawing a photo of Laura Bonny at the crime scene out of the folder she has in front of her, showing it to the writer.
His facial expression changes immediately. His cocky grin disappears from his face, replaced with a frown. "Gods. What the hell happened to her?"
"Why don't you tell me?" Emma asks confidently, earning a puzzled look from Killian. "We found this at the crime scene." She continues, presenting the sheet of paper to him. "Do you recognise it?"
"Of course I recognise it! It's a page out of my book!" He exclaims. "You don't think I had something to do with her murder, do you?"
"A waitress at a café on Central Park West says she saw you having a 'heated discussion' with the victim in the days before her death. Can you explain that?" Emma asks him, not answering his question.
"Yes. Uh, Laura was a friend of mine. She was helping me with some research I was doing." He replies shakily. "We had a slight disagreement about some of the information I was writing about."
"A 'slight disagreement'? I think it was more than that, Mr. Jones." Emma responds. "I think..." She whispers, leaning closer to her opponent. "...that you and Ms. Bonny were in a relationship. And when she broke it off, you killed her." She continues bluntly.
"What? No!" Killian exclaims. "Laura and I were friends, like I told you. She was helping me research the history of piracy."
"Piracy?" Emma replies, slightly taken aback by the subject. "Why would a law student know anything about pirates?"
He chuckles. "Her name is Bonny. She's a direct descendant of Anne Bonny, the greatest female pirate that ever lived. She was giving me insight into her ancestors' history as a pirate, for a side project I'm working on." He answers. "But, I will tell you this, Detective Swan, she did have a boyfriend, but to my knowledge, broke it off a few days ago."
"Do you happen to know this boyfriend's name?" Emma questions.
"No. But I suggest you check her apartment. I remember seeing a photo of him somewhere around there." He smirks.
Emma get up off her seat, strutting to the door, feeling Killian's eyes follow her out.
"Did you check out his alibi?" Emma asks the two men emerging from the observation room, heading into the break room.
"Yeah." David says. "It clears him. He was playing poker with the mayor and Judge Markham until 3am this morning."
"Great." Emma replies. "I was looking forward to throwing his smug ass in jail."
Graham laughs before saying, "I'll grab Belle, go check out her apartment."
"Yeah, call me if you find anything." She tells her colleague.
"I'll go cut writer boy loose." David says as his partner leaves.
Emma nods before heading back to her desk with her coffee. She sits there quietly as Killian Jones walks, cool as a breeze, out of the precinct, his eyes locked on her the whole time.
Hope you guys liked it! I'll have another chapter up later this week. Happy New Year to all of you guys! Review? :3