Curly Kate and Doc
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: This here's cattle country, sheepherder….Oh, wrong line. I don't own Castle. Or cattle. Rating: K Time: Sometime after Once Upon a Time in the West.
Author's note: I recently took a trip to Tombstone, Arizona. I had an idea while I was there, and this is the result.
Captain Gates called a uniform in and Mrs. Wisnewski left.
"Mr. Castle, I've asked Sergeant Polanco at One PP to expedite your concealed carry permit."
"You did? I thought you didn't approve of…"
"I don't. But I disapprove of vendettas against my officers even more. Whatever I may think of you, Mr. Castle, I know you'll do anything to protect your wife. So, you may take the pistol you've hidden in the right bottom drawer of your wife's desk out and wear it."
Castle decided he'd best do nothing but nod.
"Detective Beckett, you'll need to find the two Wisnewski brothers, and the man who shot Charles Wisnewski. Him being there just as Charles showed up can't be a coincidence. He must be connected to the Wisnewski brothers somehow. Perhaps part of a prison gang?"
When Rick and Kate got back to her desk, Ryan was waiting for them. "Espo is with Tori Ellis. She has the surveillance tapes from the diner."
They hurried to the video room to find Tori and Espo watching a video.
"You guys are in luck. The nephews of the diner's owner work there on weekends and are a pair of first class computer jocks. They've upgraded the surveillance system so you won't get the usual blurry black and white video you usually get, instead it looks like a hi def color TV. Take a look. This was taken from behind Beckett, showing Charles Wisnewski's face."
They watched as Charles approached Kate with his pistol out and Kate struggled to ger her raincoat open to reach her own gun.
"I've got a lipreading program so we can see what he said. They listened as a mechanical voice said, "How does it feel, Beckett, to know you're looking at death? How does it feel, bitch?".
Rick took Kate's hand in his. "You have no idea how that makes me feel."
"I can guess. About like I felt."
"Now, we'll look at the shooter from the other camera." They saw the man step out of the kitchen with a pistol in each hand. He was tall and rather slender with dark hair and a thick mustache.
"That's a good suit." Castle said. "I can't tell what the material is, but it's very well cut. Probably a bespoke suit."
Then the man fired.
"Whoa!" Castle said. "There was something wrong with his guns. Look at that smoke. Do you think the guns were dirty? Maybe had a lot of oil to smoke like that?"
Espo shook his head. "Can you give me a close up of the gun in his right hand, TorI?"
When the close up was up, Espo nodded. "That's a Colt Model 1873 Single Action Army revolver. They were designed to fire black powder cartridges. That's why there's smoke. Can you show me the other gun, Tori?" He stared at the other weapon. "Not a Colt Single Action, but they're both nickel plated with ivory grips. I'll have Sergeant Petrov look at it. He's a gun nut and knows every gun ever made."
"Can you read his lips, Tori?" Kate asked.
They got a close up of the man's face and the same mechanical voice said, "I'm your huckleberry."
"I'm your huckleberry?" Rick and Kate said together.
"What does that mean?" Ryan asked.
"He's a fruitcake." Espo grunted. "I called Petrov. He'll be up in a second."
Petrov did arrive in seconds. He was a tall, bulky uniform who could have retired, but preferred to stay on the job. He looked at the video.
"You got that right, Espo. That's the Colt Peacemaker. That is, a model 1873 Single Action Army revolver. And the other one is a Colt 1877 double action revolver. Just as a guess, I'd say it's a .41 caliber pistol."
"Where would someone get old guns like that?" Kate asked.
"Oh, Colt still makes the 1873 SAA, it's popular with a lot of shooters. And there are companies that make reproductions of the other Colt. You can get all kinds of reproductions of old guns. There are Civil War reenactors, American Revolution reenactors, Mountain Men reenactors, but most of those are in the West, plus people who just think they're fun to shoot."
"Let me run the whole video." Tori said. "Maybe you'll see something we missed."
Petrov frowned after watching the video. "That is odd. The guns made today are made with modern materials and are designed to be fired with modern smokeless powder cartridges. Those look to be more or less brand new. There'd be no reason to use old black powder cartridges."
"No reason at all?" Kate asked.
"Well, if he really thinks he's some kind of Old West gunslinger, he might want to use period ammunition. There's not a lot of it for sale, but you could reload modern brass cartridge cases with black powder easily enough, and he'd probably use lead slugs, not modern copper jacketed slugs."
Kate shook her head angrily. "Great! So, I have someone who thinks he's Wild Bill Hickock running around Manhattan shooting people."
"He probably doesn't think he's Wild Bill." Petrov said. "Hickock used Colt Navy .36 caliber revolvers. Now Billy the Kid favored the double action Colt."
"He could think he's the whole Wild Bunch and he's still a pain in the ass." She turned to Espo and Ryan. "Find out who sells these reproductions locally and see if they've sold these pistols. And Tori, please run that through facial recognition."
Kate's phone rang. After listening she stood up. "Lanie has a preliminary report for us."
"What do you have for us, Lanie?" Kate asked as soon as she walked through the door.
"And good day to you, too, Mrs. Castle. And I'm fine thanks, and you?"
"You'll have to forgive her, Lanie." Rick said. "She gets cranky when someone tries to blow her head off. I get more than cranky."
Lanie nodded. "Point taken. No surprise, COD was multiple GSWs. Whoever did this was pretty good. Any of the three shots in the chest would have been fatal in well under a minute and the shot to the head killed him instantly. Two guns were used…"
"One was .45 caliber and the other was a .41." Kate finished for her.
"You've been reading ahead. The slugs are odd."
"Let me guess, they're solid lead slugs, not copper jacketed like modern bullets."
"Are you planning on doing my job for me, Sweetie, because if you are, I'm out of here."
"And last, but not least, there was an odd residue on the slugs. As if they were fired with black powder."
"You don't need me at all, do you?"
Kate laughed and explained what had happened.
"So, someone thinks he's Wild Bill Hickock and is running around shooting people?" Lanie asked.
"Not Wild Bill." Castle said. "Wrong kind of pistol. Maybe Billy the Kid."
That got Castle a glare from both women.
When Kate and Rick got back to her desk, Espo was waiting for them.
"We're in luck. Reproductions of old guns aren't that popular in the city. There are only six places that sell them. Three here in Manhattan, one in Brooklyn and two in Queens."
"Okay, Castle and I'll take the ones in Manhattan. You and Ryan get the other three. This must be like a vacation for you, Espo. Getting to go to a gun store on the job."
"I'll try not to buy out the whole store. And, Tori made us screengrabs of the shooter to show around."
The first store that Rick and Kate went to did not carry a lot of reproductions.
"Not much call for them, Detective. Most people want modern weapon. If you're going up against some home invader with an AK 47, you don't want a hundred-year old gun in your hand. I've never carried the old double action Colt and the only Colt Peacemaker I've sold is to a production of Annie Get Your Gun, you know, the musical."
The second store had sold a number of the two Colts, but a check of the records showed that every sale was to a cop.
They had slightly better luck at the third store.
The store manager nodded when shown the photo of the suspect.
"He looks damned familiar. He's not a regular customer, though."
"Did he buy either of the two guns, or black powder ammunition, or reloading equipment?" Kate asked.
"I don't remember him buying anything. Then again, I don't recall that he specifically didn't buy anything. I just think he looks familiar. Let me ask some of the other salespeople."
Two of the salespeople thought the gunman looked familiar, but none of them remembered where and when they might have seen him.
They arrived back at the precinct a little ahead of Ryan and Espo.
"No luck, Beckett." Ryan said. "No one recognized our perp or had sold the guns or ammo. But Espo did fall in love with a cute, sexy…Glock."
"I hope you'll be very happy together, Espo. "Kate teased.
Just then, Gates stuck her head out of her office.
"Bad news, Detective Beckett. The alias and moniker data base came up with one hit on "huckleberry". The Huckleberry Kid is an eighty-nine year-old con man dying in a hospital in Oregon. Got his nickname from selling a truckload of huckleberries that didn't belong to him when he was a kid."
"Thanks anyway, sir."
Just before they left for the day, Tori came by Beckett's desk.
"I've run the photo of the suspect through every database there is and came up empty."
Rick nodded.
"If he's delusional, he might be an otherwise solid citizen. You know, the kind that when he's finally arrested, the neighbors all say what a sweet and quiet man he is."
Kate rolled her eyes. "Do try to make me feel better, Castle."
Once back at the loft, Castle put his arms around Kate.
"What do you say about planning a little vacation after this is over? Someplace nice and sunny."
Kate giggled. "You can't stop trying to get me into a skimpy swim suit, can you, Castle?"
"You mean I can't stop trying to get you out of one."
She kissed him softly. "Does that mean I have to put on a bikini before we go to bed tonight?"
"No, but think about the vacation idea."
They would vacation in someplace sunny, but not as they had imagined it
When they arrived at the precinct the next morning, they found Tori Ellis and a man they didn't know, waiting for them.
"Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle?" Tori said nervously. "We may have something for you."
"Sure, Tori." Beckett said with a smile. "Sit down, you and your friend…?"
"This is Danny Moretti. He works in IT at One PP. I was wondering if he had access to any databases for facial recognition that we didn't. But when I showed him the photo, he recognized the guy at once."
"Don't be so nervous, Tori." Rick said. "No one is going to punish you for going straight to One PP, especially not if you found the guy. Who is he?"
"Doctor John Henry Holliday." Moretti said.
"Do you have a current address?" Kate asked. "Does he have a jacket?"
Moretti looked pained. "Detective, he's Doc Holliday, the Old West gunfighter. The gunfight at the OK Corral? I have copies of all the proven photos of Doc Holliday here. It's a 99.9 percent match with your shooter."
Rick smiled. "That is so cool. Beckett got saved by a legendary gunfighter."
Kate twirled around in her chair and glared at him. "It is not cool, Castle. This is not Doc Holliday, who's been dead…."Kate stopped, unsure of when he'd died.
"Since November 8, 1887." Moretti said.
"But we have facial recognition, Beckett. You were saved by Doc Holliday. Face it."
"I was not saved by a long dead man. I was saved by some crazy who had plastic surgery to look like Holliday. That's the only thing that makes sense."
"By the way, "Moretti said, "Doc was partial to both the Colt single action Army revolvers and the 1877 Colt double actions. They were what he carried at the OK Corral. They were nickel plated and had ivory grips. And "I'm your huckleberry." is a line from the movie Tombstone. In the movie, Doc Holliday said it. It means something like, "I'm your man." or "I'll handle this for you."
Kate turned to Rick. "See, Castle. He doesn't think he's the real Doc Holliday, he thinks he's the film version."