Again, thanks for all the fabulous comments.

One or two of you have expressed a desire to see the songs I pair with each chapter at the beginning rather than the end of the chapter. I hesitate to do that. It was actually my original intention to try matching music that times out well from a certain point in each chapter, but so far it's an experiment that has only worked out with the first and last chapters because there aren't many scene transitions. For everything else, the music selections have really only gone with a scene or two, and clash with the rest of the chapter. This one is actually a good example of the problem: some characters you'll encounter early on deserve, shall we say, something along the lines of "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo, but it sounds ludicrous with the rest of the scenes.

While I'm on the subject of music, most of these songs can be found on YouTube, but there will be one or two of them you'll have to look up on Grooveshark. I'll warn you when those songs come up.

Chapter 3: C is For…

They needed a lead. They needed it fast.

Castle had spent the last several hours digging around for next-of-kin. He'd learned their vic had graduated near the top of his law school class at Yale, did his undergrad at Virginia and had gone to high school at Bergtraum. He'd also learned he had been on scholarship through most of college, and that his father had left him a flat and about 300,000 dollars when he died. He'd learned all kinds of new things, none of which were relevant at all.

Beckett was digging through the case files. As it happens, he'd been defending Vinny Ferini, the head of one of the five mafia families. The 32nd found evidence to implicate him in a sloppy murder, and the DA had been only too happy to prosecute. She'd heard of the case, but knew nothing of the details. The documents she'd been provided helped in that respect, but didn't give any clues as to why George Landau would have been killed.

"The lawyer defending a mafia kingpin? Come on, Beckett! That has 'mob hit' written all over it!"

She shook her head, her eyes never leaving the pages on the table. "There's no reason to kill the lawyer, Castle. If one of the other families were going to sabotage the case, they would have gone after Ferini."

"Yeah…but…" Castle paused. She glanced up from the paperwork to see him frown.

"Maybe Ferini ordered it."

She looked back to the files. "Why would you kill your own lawyer?"

His response came with a raised eyebrow and a grimace. "You should have seen what Gina got in the divorce."

She knew it was a cruel thing to do, but she smiled anyway.

"Yo Beckett! I think we have something!"

Ryan and Esposito were wearing matching smirks, and that usually meant they'd hit paydirt. But ever since Castle had started shadowing her, they'd developed a habit of making their report a sort of tandem story.

Clearly, the writer had rubbed off on them.

"What did you find, boys?"

They looked at each other briefly before Esposito started. "So get this: Landau was pulling huge amounts out of his bank account every couple of weeks, always as a cash withdrawal."

"We couldn't figure out what he was doing with it or where it was going…you know, because it was cash," Ryan continued, "but then we had an idea. Landau doesn't have a car, and it turns out he kept every receipt. Apparently he's the kind of guy that actually itemizes his deductions and keeps his receipts. He kept cab fares in their own specialized file."

"On each of the days a big wad of cash came out of his account, he took a cab to West 135th, an address that belongs to a known bookie named Ruben 'The Cookie' Salazar."

Castle's face scrunched up. "The Cookie? Really?"

Esposito held up the rap sheet, his index finger right next to the field that read "AKA: 'The Cookie.'"

"I couldn't make that up if you paid me, Castle."

The writer grunted. "I couldn't make that up, and they do pay me."

Beckett rolled her eyes as she walked back to her desk and grabbed her coat. She grabbed his, as well, and tossed it at him before he managed to completely turn around. He caught it with his head.

"Come on, Castle. We're going to make The Cookie crumble."

Castle groaned from beneath a layer of wool. "The lameness of your pun makes me think we need to stop and get more coffee first."

The neighborhood wasn't exactly the safest. 135th street was halfway up Manhattan Island from the station, and though the 12th couldn't claim to have the easiest beat ever, it was nothing compared to the special kind of hell inflicted upon the 32nd. That hell was known to the rest of the world as Harlem.

West 135th ran straight through the heart of the most crime-ridden area on the island. Buildings had been hastily constructed and left to deteriorate a long, long time ago. Their particular destination was a dingy glass storefront in a languishing brick box on a street full of hungry architecture.

Kate knew her car screamed "cop" in this neighborhood. Thankfully, neither she nor castle looked like the typical Harlem cop. She parked a block over, and they walked the rest of the way.

"Holy crap, he's huge! They should have called him the cookie monster!"

Ruben Salazar's joint looked worse up close, especially in the brightest part of day. They could see him through the window, looking at least 150 pounds heavier than his last mugshot. He had one person with him, a tall man dressed in a loose-fitting black suit.

They were already watching the pair before they walked in the door.

"Easy, Castle."

"I'm just saying, the man is intimidating in that "I'll sit on you to make you flat, then eat you like a pancake" way. And…I'm being literal. You know I'm being literal, right?"

She plastered a smile on her face. "Shut. Up."

She opened the door and walked in first. Castle obligingly stopped talking.

The interior was dim, its floor-to-ceiling shelving lined with junk. An old, dirty lamp without a shade, a music box without a lid, an old-style oscillating fan without the blades…there wasn't a thing of value in the store, yet everything had a bright yellow price tag advertising the low low price of way too much.

"Oy Chiquita! What can Ruben do for yous?" His voice was a little higher than she expected, though she wasn't surewhat she was meant to expect from the man. He was dressed in a huge Hawaiian print shirt and white pants. He'd completed his look with a straw hat on the top of his smallish, pear-shaped head. His beady little eyes made no secret of leering at her.

She felt Castle come up close behind her, probably in a misguided effort to protect her. She imagined he'd caught the expression on the heavyset man's face, and the fact that his tongue had just slipped out of his mouth for a moment. She rolled her eyes and flashed her badge.

"Kate Beckett, NYPD. I need to ask you a few questions, Mr. Salazar."

The leer and tongue disappeared immediately. They were replaced by a strangely comical look of outrage.

"I don't have any business with cops. My friend here, though, he likes cops. You can talk to him."

The man in the suit, who weighed about the same as Salazar for completely different reasons, stepped forward quickly with his left hand out.

"Whoa! Peace treaty!" Castle yelled, but the man was already on the move. Beckett wasted no time with the burly bodyguard: as he neared, she grabbed his outstretched arm and pushed back in her favorite takedown maneuver. The man's face was on the dingy glass counter before he could think.

"Owow!" he yelled. "Okay! Sorry! Boss say deal with it!"

"Pendejo!" Salazar yelled. "What the hell I pay you for?"

"Sorry boss. I can't use my hand good."

"Why not?"

"I broke it! Remember?"

"That's no excuse! I tell you that last week!"

"It really hurts, Boss. Make the cop lady let go?"

Kate listened to the exchange with an exasperated look on her face. She glanced back to Castle, whose face was closer to perturbed surprise.

She'd come across a lot of stupid crooks in her time as a cop, but rarely did they make her fear for the future of the human race the way these two did. And in less than one minute? It was a new land speed record.

She let the man loose and backed up.

"I need to know what your association was with George Landau."

Salazar frowned. "Don't know 'im."

He lifted an eyebrow. "His cab receipts and bank records say something else."

The battered bodyguard returned to Salazar's side just as the man made some kind of squeaking noise.

"Records! The man paid me cash!"

Kate's other eyebrow went up in surprise. Even his bodyguard turned his head and gave him a funny look.

"Really," Castle said under his breath, "you're that dumb?"

"Hey, shut up white boy! It's not illegal to make the books!" He raised a menacing sausage-sized finger toward him, which might have fallen a little short of menacing and strayed toward pathetic.

Kate pinched the bridge of her nose. The bad grammar and broken English was giving her a headache.

"It's bookmaking," Castle replied. "And it's a felony."

She waved him off. "Just tell me about George Landau, Mr. Salazar."

"Well, he's late."

Castle snorted behind her. She reached back, grabbed his wrist, and pinched until she heard a tiny, "ow."

"Late on his payments?"

"Yeah…two months. Owes five grand."

She frowned. "He's also dead."

The fluffy man frowned back. "Oh."

"Where were you this morning between between 4 and 7?"

Kate looked down for a second to fetch her notepad. When there hadn't been an answer after a few seconds, she looked back up.

Salazar and his henchman were looking bashful, exchanging glances. Her eyes narrowed, and for a moment she wasn't sure she wanted that answer, but then the Hawaiian-covered Hispanic turned back to her.

"Look, Chica, I don't kill anyone. I don't get paid like that. We just…scare 'em a little is all."

"Did you…scare George Landau?"

The bodyguard glanced at Castle. "He was on our list, but he didn't make it no higher than next month."

Kate looked again over to Castle and actually smiled when his hands turned to claws and his face looked upward in irritation.

Salazar flapped his hands around a little. "The ecosystem, you know? Everybody's late."

She squeezed Castle's wrist to stop him before he spoke. Maybe this'll work better in a more familiar language.

"Gracias por su tiempo. No dejan la ciudad, por favor."

The two looked at each other quizzically, then back at her.

"Look, Lady, I may look it but I don't speak it."

She reached over and slapped her hand over Castle's mouth before he could retort.

"Thanks for your time. Don't leave town," she growled. Then she grabbed Castle by the arm and dragged him out.

"He doesn't speak it? What language IS his native language? It's obviously not English! They butchered it! Both of them! Don't those men ever read?"

"I'm pretty sure Salazar can at least read names and numbers."

"I don't understand how! The man was one rung on the evolutionary ladder above a lemur! And he's bowing the ladder!" Castle's hands were waving around dramatically in a perfect imitation of another member of his family. She was grateful for the space in her police-issue interceptor – it allowed him to channel his mother without abusing the driver. "Listening to those two try to string together a grammatically correct sentence was like reading really, really bad fanfiction."

Kate frowned. "Bad what?"

"It…uh…nevermind. But on a related note, didn't Salazar look to you a little like an upholstered Jabba the Hutt? He made my skin crawl. Especially when his tongue popped out."

That made her smile. "You'll get used to all those pretty men staring at you one day, Castle."

He shivered visibly. "Eugh. But seriously, those two didn't do it. We're back to square one."

Her mouth twitched a little. "I dunno. I think the bodyguard was capable of it."

"Capable?" Yeah, but only at full strength. He's clearly not left-handed, and he didn't break his hand today."

She smiled. "What makes you so sure?"

"His cast was new-ish, but not freshly set. It was dingy around the corners, corners he would have needed to press against Landau's clothing to get a good grip on him. I got a good look at his hand when you had him pinned against the counter – very nice move by the way. Blood doesn't wash off plaster. You have to take bleach to it."

"You know this because…?"

"Seriously? Didn't you ever have a broken arm as a kid?"

She rolled her eyes. "No."

"Well…rest assured, blood does not come off plaster with soap and water. Plus, it was a thumb cast. You can't twitch a broken thumb without pain shooting up your arm."

She was always amused by his lines of logic. The truth was, if she suspected either one of them was capable of Landau's attack she'd have put them in cuffs and thrown them in the back seat, and Castle would be lecturing them on proper grammar instead of spinning theories.

But she didn't tell him that. "Maybe you're right," she conceded. "We'll have to talk to Audrey Millican. See if she can think of anything that might help us."

They rode in silence for a few minutes. Castle decided to break it.

"Blazing Heat will be out soon. The publisher wants me to do a book tour."

Her heart fluttered for a moment, reliving the heartbreak from that summer he spent in the Hamptons with his publisher. "Oh?"

"Yeah…it'll be a month or so. Over the summer."

"Any stops finalized yet?"

"Oh, the usual. Philly, Chicago, Miami, Dallas, LA. Gina's arranging it like a vacation tour because she wants to go along. "

She was taking a sip of her now lukewarm coffee. She had to hope that, if he caught her flinch, he'd pass it off as a reaction to the coffee and not his words.

But no such luck. He'd gotten way to good at reading her.

"What?"

She shook her head. "Don't worry about it. Burned my mouth."

"Like hell," he insisted. "You flinched when I mentioned Gina."

"I said don't worry about it, Castle."

He did as she asked, and she felt a tad guilty. She didn't want to tell him how the idea of Castle running off for anything reminded her so vividly of that summer he was gone. He didn't want to admit to him that in his absence, that darkness she'd kept at bay for so long had started creeping back into her life after seven years of peace.

She was only too happy to receive a text from Ryan just then: the paralegal was on her way to the precinct.

"Come on," she sighed, "Let's go talk to Millican."

The interrogation room was a bleak place to tell someone their coworker had been murdered. Castle always hated it when he or Beckett had to break something tough in there. The room held no comfort, offered no compassion, and was as cold as the truth it traditionally served.

Audrey Millican was a particularly pathetic example of those poor innocents subjected to this room. She'd been trying not to cry for ten minutes, and had been successful on and off for about three and a half. Beckett had long ago planted a box of tissues on the table.

The woman was about 23, blonde, pretty in a way he may have appreciated earlier in his life, and shorter than Beckett by almost a head.

And she had been almost no help at all.

"Please, Miss Millican," Beckett pleaded. "If you could remember anything…anything at all about his recent behavior, or something about one of his recent cases, that would help us tremendously."

The woman shook her head with a forlorn look on her face. "I'm sorry, Detective…I just don't remember anything out of place."

Beckett sighed and leaned back in her chair. Castle watched her face. He could tell something was bothering her…he thought at first it was the conversation from the car, but he knew better. It wasn't something so easy. This was a complicated frustration, one he rarely saw on her face.

Their lack of evidence was eating her alive.

"Look, Audrey," he said, turning on the charm almost without realizing it. The tactic succeeded in drawing her attention away from the tissue box, away from the tears, and to his face. "Can I call you Audrey?"

A ghost of a smile crossed her lips. "Sure."

"We're really struggling here. We need anything to look into, even if it's minor. Even if it's about his case—"

"Oh, but I can't say anything about that," she replied.

"I know that," Castle replied sympathetically. "But maybe there was something weird about it? Something that irritated him?"

He was grasping at straws, and pulling them out of his ass. He just wanted her to stop crying and start thinking. Her face contorted for the briefest of seconds. To his shock, she started talking.

"Oh, my gosh! Last night!"

Castle looked over at Beckett, who was already looking at him with one eyebrow raised over her magically multicolor hazel eyes. "Last night?" she cued.

"Well, there was something that happened last night. I hadn't really thought much about it, though – it sort of happens a lot. He came across some things in old police reports. He kept flipping through them like he'd found something. When I asked him about it, he kept telling me to hang on. Then he just said 'I'll see you in the morning,' and left."

"Do you know which files he was looking at?"

"No. No, he took them with him."

He watched Beckett frown, and could guess why. CSU and a bunch of uniforms had found a lot of paperwork: a set of police reports was not on the list. "Were those reports critical to his case? Do you know?"

She shrugged. "I suppose they could have been, but like I said I never saw them."

Castle leaned over to Beckett, an idea popping into his mind.

"Maybe that's what the killer was after," he whispered. She looked down in thought, but said nothing to him.

"Thank you for coming in, Miss Millican. I think we're done."

Beckett rose to leave, and Castle immediately did the same. They both reached over and shook the young woman's hand.

He was about to start for the door when he saw a light go off in Audrey's eyes.

"Oh! Wait! I forgot!"

Beckett turned to face her one more time. "Yes?"

"He was on his cell phone as he left. It looked serious."

Castle and Beckett looked at each other. "Do you know what it was about?"

"Oh…no," she replied, looking confused for a second. "But he doesn't have a girlfriend, and I've never heard him mention family. It might have been about the case. You guys will have access to his phone records, right? I don't know what if anything it has to do with those old reports, but maybe the person on the other end does."

/chapter 3

Notes: I'm showing my gamer's roots with this one, but part of this chapter pairs well with Kefka's Theme by Nobuo Uematsu. I recommend the search, "Kefka's Theme Remastered." It should be the first thing that comes up...and you should immediately know which part of this chapter it pairs with. Gotta warn you, it gets stuck in your head. It's been in mine for three days.

I contemplated using the Hamster Dance...but I think Beckett might have shot Salazar if I had, and God forbid that thing get stuck in my head. I'd shoot myself.