Despite having their victim's ID, getting in touch with his next of kin proved to be more difficult than Beckett had hoped. His home phone had gone to voicemail the first two times she called, forcing her to leave a message with her name and a request for Mrs. Zabel to contact her.
Now, almost two hours later, she watched LT lead a slight, raven-haired woman with a baby on her hip through the bullpen. Thankfully, the officer's tall, broad body managed to shield Zabel's wife from seeing the majority of the murder board before Kate had a chance to talk to her.
She met them at the door to her office, holding out a hand to the shorter woman. Karen Zabel nodded, slipping bony, thin fingers into Beckett's grip.
"Mrs. Zabel, I'm Kate Beckett. I'm sorry I couldn't come to you to do this, but thank you for coming in."
"It's about my husband, isn't it?" Karen asked, taking her hand back to heft the child in her arms higher on her hip. "What happened to Ari?"
Sorrow settled heavy on Kate's shoulders. So often, she had to be the one to tell someone that their loved one was gone. She had to be the one to turn someone's carefully constructed life upside down. It never got any easier.
Ushering her inside, Beckett gestured to the couch.
"Why don't we talk?" she murmured, watching the woman's hopeful expression fall at the unspoken confirmation.
Karen sank onto the cushions, pressing her face into her confused child's arm. Helpless, Beckett watched her shoulders shake for a moment before she turned to swipe the tissue box from her desk.
"I'm so sorry for your loss," she said after a moment, holding out the box to the other woman. "I hope you don't mind me asking you some questions. I hate to do it now, but the longer we wait, the harder it becomes to catch the person who did this."
Mrs. Zabel sniffed, taking a handful of tissues. "Oh, Ari," she breathed. "What happened to him?"
"We found him this morning outside the Waldorf Astoria hotel. He had been shot. Do you know any reason why your husband would've been at the hotel?"
It was a somewhat awkward way of asking if Karen thought her husband was having an affair or was doing something seedy, but it had to be done.
Zabel shook her head. "No, no I don't."
"When did you last see your husband?"
The baby in Karen's arms squirmed, voicing his – her? – displeasure at being confined.
"Yesterday afternoon. He picked up the kids – our two oldest – from school and then he went to work. He works, worked, at the Department of Sanitation – emergency preparation. He checks the salt trucks and the plows, you know, making sure they're ready to be deployed in a snowstorm."
Beckett nodded, writing that down to check into later.
"He was supposed to work overnight, but his boss called and told me he left during his shift and never came back. He asked if I had seen him. And then I checked the phone after dropping the boys off, and you had called, and–" she broke off, burying her face in her crumpled tissue.
Dipping her head, Kate gave her a moment. There was no easy way to recount what was essentially your husband's last day on earth.
"Did he check in with you at any point last night?"
Karen sucked in a deep breath. "He called at 8:30 to say goodnight to the kids, and then he called again around 11:30 to say goodnight to me. That's when I usually go to bed."
Well, that narrowed down the time of death window. Not by much, but if they could place him at work around that time, it would help.
"Would you mind giving me your husband's work information? I'd like to have my detectives talk to his boss about his shift last night."
"Yeah, yes of course."
Beckett smiled, grabbing a pen and a notepad from the corner of her desk. Reaching out, Karen fumbled a bit before grasping it and pulling it onto her lap to write.
The baby had other ideas. He kicked his feet, curling his fingers around the pen and yanking it off the paper.
"No honey, not now," Karen chided, twisting to put distance between the child and the new toys.
"Here," Kate started, holding out her hands. "I can hold him for you while you write."
"Oh, thank you. I swear he's not usually this fussy, but…"
But he was sensing his mother's discontent, she guessed.
"Of course." Kate stood, doing her best not to look too awkward as she took the child from his mother. She did well with the Ryan children, this one would be just fine.
Plus, it was good practice.
Realizing he was in unfamiliar arms, the boy fussed a little louder, but didn't cry.
"It's just for a minute," she told him, bouncing the way Sarah Grace had always liked when she was that age. "Just while mommy writes."
That seemed to do the trick. Either that, or the necklace she wore really was that enthralling.
Karen looked up, her sad smile emphasizing the lines around her mouth. "If you don't mind me asking, when are you due?"
Beckett stopped. It wasn't the first time someone had eyed the swell of her belly, but it was one of the rare times that someone actually had the guts to ask about it. Most people tended to err on the side of caution and keep their questions to themselves.
"May," she answered, glancing down at her stomach, trying to see what the other woman was seeing. "My husband and I are looking forward to it."
"I understand. Ari and I… well we thought we were done at two, but then Peter came along." Grief marred her face once more. "He loved the boys so much."
"I know he did, Mrs. Zabel, I know. And we will do everything we can to bring the person who did this to him to justice."
Karen nodded, her smile dazed but grateful. Beckett understood that look well; her assurance didn't begin to fix things, but at least it was something.
"Yo, Beckett, got something interesting for you."
Kate looked up from her computer and the ridiculous email Castle had forwarded to her, beckoning Esposito inside. Once Karen Zabel and her son left, she had handed over Aram's work info to the boys, asking them to make some calls to check on the wife's story while Vikram searched for the camera footage they needed. So far the analyst was still working.
"What do you have?"
"Talked to Zabel's boss down at Sanitation. Said he was a good guy, hard worker, no beefs with anybody and nobody had a beef with him as far as he could tell."
She nodded, lacing her fingers in front of her on the blotter. "Okay, but that sounds like the exact opposite of interesting. That sounds like we're still at square one, having gone nowhere."
"Ah, that's where the interesting part starts. Over the last three months, he'd noticed some changes in Zabel's behavior. He was coming into work exhausted, like he hadn't slept most of the night. Still got his stuff done, but he was tired."
"He did have a small child at home. Maybe the baby was teething? The wife said she goes to bed at 11:30, maybe he'd been taking the late night feedings?"
Javi nodded in consideration. "Well there was the exhaustion, but then Zabel started requesting extra shifts last month. You would think if he was so tired, he wouldn't be trying to work more, right?"
She had to concede that point. "Yeah, that's a little odd. The wife didn't say anything about them having financial trouble."
"Ryan's running that now. And we're checking to see if Aram had a second job at the hotel that his wife didn't know about."
Beckett nodded. "Good. What else?"
Esposito tapped his notepad. "That's it. Boss said that last night was the first time Aram had bailed on a shift, so that made him even more concerned, but he thought at first that maybe there had been a problem with one of the kids and Zabel had just forgotten to sign out or let the night supervisor know. When there wasn't any sort of communication this morning, he called the wife."
"Okay. So we need to find out why our victim left work and how he ended up at the Waldorf."
Her detective nodded. "I'll check his MetroCard activity. Maybe we'll get a hit there."
"Good." She watched him dig his phone out of his pocket. He tapped the screen a few times before pocketing the device.
"Lanie got the toxicology results back. You want me to head over there before I check that?"
The mention of Lanie's name reminded her of the faraway look in her friend's eye that morning. Maybe a trip to the morgue was in order.
"No, I'll go. Get on filling the timeline in while you're running your searches. I'd like to have someone to interrogate soon."
As soon as Esposito was out of her office, Beckett got to her feet, pocketed her cell phone, and grabbed her jacket.
Esposito must have warned Lanie that she was coming, because her friend was ready with a folder as soon as she stepped into the autopsy suite.
"Hey girl, wasn't expecting a house call."
Quirking a smile, Kate lifted a shoulder. "I have the boys running a few things down, so I thought I would come see what you found."
Lanie smiled, though Kate saw it didn't quite reach her eyes. "Test results were negative for drugs, positive for alcohol. He wasn't legally drunk, but he was well on his way there."
Her brow furrowed. "So he left work to get drunk? That doesn't seem like the guy his wife and his boss gushed about."
"That's more your area than mine, don't you think?"
"What about his health? Did you notice anything there? Anything that might explain some of his recent behavior?"
Lanie's flinch didn't go unnoticed, but Kate kept her mouth shut for the time being, waiting her friend out.
"His lungs were clear, and his heart looked to be in good shape. Nothing in his stomach to indicate illness. No pills, no bleeding ulcers, nothing at all other than some popcorn and peanuts."
"Bar food," she mused, feeling her stomach flutter at the mention of snacks. The kid was making her hungry today.
Lanie nodded. "Given his BAC, I'd say that's a safe guess."
"So maybe he was at the hotel bar?" She reached for her phone, typing the thought to Castle for his opinion. He was at a book signing – or he should've been by then, but he liked when she kept him in the loop.
"Don't ask me, I just slice and dice."
"You do more than that," she assured, nudging her friend with her elbow until the ME's lips lifted and a smile cracked her face. "What's going on, Lane? You're not yourself today. Talk to me?"
Lanie shook her head, stepping away to push one of her carts to the side. "Not right now. I can't right now."
Kate's stomach dropped. That didn't sound good at all. "Okay. How about dinner tonight? Castle won't be home until late, so it'll be just us. I'll pour you a glass of wine and gaze longingly at it." That earned her a real smile. "We can talk then?"
After a few seconds of contemplation, her friend nodded. "Yeah, let's do that. Thanks, Kate."
"Good. I'm going to try to leave by six, but I'll let you know if I need to stay later. Let me know if you get held up, too?" Her phone buzzed in her palm, stalling anything else Lanie might have said. "That's the guys, I have to go."
Lanie nodded. "Go on. I'll call you later, let you tell me what to bring tonight."
"Just you," she said, knowing her friend wouldn't heed that. Lanie had been in New York for a long time, but there was still too much southern charm in her to think about showing up for dinner at someone's house empty-handed.
"I'll bring dessert."
Yep, she knew it.
The boys were waiting for her at Esposito's desk when she stepped off the elevator, looking pleased with themselves.
"Okay, what has you jazzed up?" Beckett asked, glancing at the murder board for clues to their good mood.
She watched them share a look, waited them out as they silently decided who would be the one to tell her whatever it was they had found.
Finally Ryan spoke up. "So you know I was checking our victim's financials to see if there was any strange activity, or anything that might indicate financial trouble."
"Uh huh," she said, letting her head bob. She was following so far. "And?"
"I went back almost a year to establish a baseline a what was typical for them. Everything was normal until a few months ago when, twice a month, large sums started disappearing."
Interesting. She gestured for him to continue, propping against Javi's desk. "Extra bills? Maybe he was shopping early for Christmas for his kids?"
"I hope not, because if that amount is what you're expected to spend on your kids for Christmas, I'm screwed," Ryan muttered. "They were cash withdrawals every time."
"Made at the First Republic Bank's 24-hour ATM," Esposito jumped in, looking gleeful. "Which is just down the street from the Waldorf Astoria."
"And get this," Ryan added. "He made a withdrawal last night at 10:30."
So that placed him at the crime scene. "Did we find that money on him?"
Two heads swiveled simultaneously. "Nope."
"Lanie said he wasn't drunk, but he was well on his way there. I thought maybe he was going to the bar to drink and forget his problems, but if he was taking out money…"
"Maybe he was going for another reason?" Ryan supplied. "I'm glad you mentioned that, because Javi here found something else that's quite interesting."
"Oh?" Kate lifted an eyebrow, taking the folder Esposito handed her.
"So you know I was checking Zabel's MetroCard to see where he was going, and wouldn't you know it, twice a month, I tracked him leaving either home or work and making his way to either Grand Central or Lexington and 53rd. Each time, he got on at 51st just after 2 A.M. and made his way home."
"So we've confirmed he was going to the Waldorf regularly. Good." Now they just had to find out why. Maybe it was time to talk to hotel staff.
Espo nodded. "There's more. Leo the bellboy? Mister 'I was just coming in for my shift'? Got on at 51st at just after 2 A.M. nearly every time, too. He and Zabel swiped within seconds of each other. Except last night, when he swiped his card at around 12:30."
Well, she certainly understood what had put the self-satisfied smirks on their faces. She was already feeling the bubbling excitement of getting somewhere on this case. "That's right in our TOD window. Now, how much do you want to bet he lied about knowing the victim?"
Both detectives nodded, high fiving in a display of celebration.
"Bring him in."
