Fetch
"God," she gasps, then steps in to get a closer look. "That's... creepy." The hair is hers, but it's flat to the curve of her skull. Same collarbones, strangely, and the idea that Beckett can recognize her own collarbones is highly disconcerting.
Pieces of flesh are missing though - the cheeks, shoulders, fingers, whole toes - most likely from being in the Hudson, and it has the overall effect of something... undead.
A zombie with her own face.
She straightens up and glances around the room.
Perlmutter has clouded eyes, too close-set to read, and beside him is another police officer that Beckett doesn't know. LT and Ramirez from her house are still with them, and Gates is standing at the head of the metal autopsy table with her arms crossed over her chest.
"Is it Tyson?" Kate finally asks. Lanie and Esposito would know, understand this awful sensation washing through her.
That could be me, should be me, they all saw her and thought - for a terrible moment - that was me.
"Tyson. Jerry Tyson," Gates says, coolly. Her lips are pursed. "Is that what you're going with?"
Kate lifts her gaze from the body - it is entirely absorbing, the whole thing, how accurate it is, uncannily so - and what she sees on her Captain's face makes her blood run cold.
Suspicion.
"Sir? It's - a working theory," she gets out. "A body double - Tyson was proficient at the misdirect, the sleight of hand he could perform with willing but unknowing accomplices. And with a plastic surgeon like Dr Nieman-"
"No, detective. It's not plastic surgery. We've looked."
Her stomach flips. "What - is it?"
"It's a dead woman named Kate Beckett."
Hot shame flashes up through her so fast she can't control it, but she swallows it down and shakes her head. "That's not possible."
"It really does seem quite impossible," Gates says quietly. "And yet."
"No, that's - this is ridiculous. What tests did you perform? Fingerprints? It looks like fish got to her first."
"You said it. Too damaged for fingerprinting."
Kate reaches forward. "Okay, wait, this woman doesn't have a bullet-" She jerks the sheet back, some small relief at that missing - key - difference. "No bullet wound. She wasn't shot."
"No," Gates says quietly. "This woman was never shot."
It occurs to Kate that Captain Gates never met her before - before the bullet that defines so much of her life now. A bullet that pushed Kate out of the city to hole up in the woods for months where no one could reach her. She cut herself off from everyone - the boys, Lanie, even Castle. It was years ago, but-
She has no alibi. No proof of herself to Gates.
No, this is crazy. "Okay, look, I have a tattoo on my hip that my Dad can-"
She has a tattoo. She has Kate's tattoo.
No, no, wait. Okay. Lanie's dead doppelganger did too, right? The one she told no one about. It's on Kate's medical records, probably, most likely. A tattoo is easily duplicated.
"Yes," Gates says, her voice cold as steel. "She has a tattoo. And - quite a lot of medical points match as well."
"DNA? If Tyson was behind this, some kind of final screw-you, then he could have easily hacked the criminal database and set this up-"
"Easily hacked," Gates says. A raised eyebrow.
Beckett is awash in disbelief - aimed directly at herself rather than the body on the table.
"No DNA for Kate Beckett is on file." Perlmutter stuffs his hands into his lab coat pockets. "Dental x-rays are a match."
Kate scrapes a hand through her hair and holds it on top of her head, panic trying to claw up through her guts. After the hearing that ruled the Nieman case a righteous kill, after the three-day mandatory leave pending a psych eval, this is not anything she can deal with steadily.
She thought Tyson was over.
"Dental x-rays," she says, shaking her head. "No DNA on file? That doesn't - wait. You contacted my dentist without my permission-"
"Whose permission?" Perlmutter scoffs.
Kate's jaw drops. And then her indignation flares up, solar and righteous. She takes a step forward, finger jabbing in the air towards the dead woman. "That is not me. That is a very interesting mystery, and one I will get to the bottom of, but that is not me. I don't care what the supposed dental records say-"
"They say it's a match," Perlmutter dismisses. "Same corrected overbite. Same crooked back molar that grew in nearly sideways-"
She did not have a crooked back molar. "That's not right," she sputters. "Those are the wrong dental records. Obviously. That's what's happened here. I don't have a crooked molar."
"You don't, but she does. And so does this." Perlmutter turns and slaps an x-ray up against the lightbox, flicks it on with a twist of his fingers. The thing buzzes as it lights up, sudden greys and blacks flaring along the ghost-like impressions of teeth in an angular jaw.
Her jaw/not her jaw.
Crooked back molar.
Perlmutter uses a grease pencil to circle it, as if he's a guest lecturer adding a flourish to his presentation, a touch of triumphant self-satisfaction as he turns to face her. He hates that Castle is back at the precinct, doesn't he? He hates her for marrying him.
He doesn't respect her at all.
He smirks. "That is Kate Beckett."
"You have got to be kidding me." She stares at him, but he gives nothing away. "It's - wrong. A mix-up. Something. DNA. What about the DNA?"
Captain Gates steps up to the autopsy table, garnering Kate's attention. "We don't have you on file-"
"That's ridiculous," she mutters. "I'm on file. Something must have - Tyson got to it, I'm sure. Part of his scheme. Look, we'll get - I'll pay for an outside lab to do DNA. My dad is out of town, but he'll be more than happy to help clear this up. Familial match will put this to rest."
"Of course," Gates says, nodding serenely, spreading her hands as if to pacify her. "That makes good sense."
Kate glances over her shoulder at Perlmutter but the man's face is blank, the lightbox throwing his features in strange shadow. She glances to the officers in the autopsy suite with them, LT and Ramirez, the one she doesn't know.
"Oh, my God. You think - you think she's me. You think-"
"We don't know what to think," Captain Gates says calmly. "We're going to get to the bottom of this. But in the meantime, Detective, I'm reassigning all your open cases-"
What?
"-and giving you this one. This is all you."
"You're taking me off every case?"
"You'll have Ryan. And Mr. Castle, I'm sure. If he still - I can't afford Esposito; he'll be available for poaching, but that's about as much as I can give you."
Ryan. She's been demoted. Basically. Demoted because of a dead woman on the slab who looks like her and has - somehow - dental records matching those given by her own dentist.
This is insane. "I will get to the bottom of this." She sets her jaw as she glances down at the autopsy table.
Her only homicide case. Two detectives one one case and she'll have to use her own resources to solve this murder.
"Wait," she says, eyes lifting to Gates. "This is a homicide, right?"
Gates slides her eyes to Perlmutter. Kate spins around to confront him, but Perlmutter looks sour, mouth twisting.
"I haven't been able to rule it as such. We're waiting on the toxicology report to come back. There's been a backlog."
This is insane.
The dead woman is a dead ringer, but she is not Kate Beckett.
