The Beckett
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I did not own Castle. Rating: K Time: A century or so in an AU future.
Author's note: This is a sequel to chapters 751, 908 and 956 to 957 of After a Deadly Affair. Kate Beckett is the chief, and only, law enforcement officer at the small scientific colony on Mars. Author Rick has come to Mars ostensibly to write about the colony but actually to see his daughter, Dr. Alexis Castle.
"I had eight suspects for you. People who'd gone out an airlock and took way too much time to get where they were supposed to be going. But I managed to find an alibi for four of them."
"I think we should decide who has a good alibi, Pumpkin."
"Okay, Dad. Here's the video of the four leaving their varying domes and here they are building a Martian snowman for Christmas." The video showed a sort of man-like creature being made from stones and then sprayed with white paint. A knit cap and a pipe made out of old metal parts finished the figure. The four danced around their 'snowman" for a few minutes, then left.
"I found the video on what passes for social media around here. The time and date stamps haven't been altered."
"Okay, brilliant daughter, you win. Who's next."
"Someone leaving Dome 16 with their nametag and company logo obscured."
The video showed an environmental suited figure leaving an airlock.
"I've already figured out who it is. The width of the hips shows she's a woman and comparing her to the known height of the airlock, she's at least 6'3''. Which leads us to Heidi von Kleist, employed by the Max Planck Society for the Advancement of Science, headquartered in Munich, Germany. She left her quarters in Dome 16 seven days ago and was gone for nine hours before coming back to her own dome. She could easily have gotten to Dome 24 and she has plenty of computer skills." Alexis frowned. "That reminds me, the colony's computers are ridiculously easy to hack into. The ones controlling the video cameras are too simple to be believed. Do you think someone planned it that way?"
Castle smiled. "Are you suggesting a vast, shadowy interplanetary conspiracy? Perhaps one involving ancient Martians? I like the way you think, Pumpkin."
"Don't give up on the conspiracy too soon, Dad. I found something else. Starting about a month ago, the video feed from various the airlock cameras started to fail for perhaps thirty seconds to a minute. Look."
Alexis showed a video taken at an airlock. You could see a shadow approaching then nothing but static for 41 seconds, then the picture came back. By that time the person, whoever he or she was, had left the dome. Three minutes later, someone was shown exiting the airlock.
"Someone's getting everyone used to the cameras going out for a little bit." Alexis said. "Maybe we could check who was shown going out and eliminate them as suspects."
Kate shook her head.
"If I was smart, and everyone on Mars is very smart, I'd make sure I was seen going in or out a couple of times so no one would suspect me."
"Good point, Kate. Perhaps I'll have someone else identified when you get back."
Heidi von Kleist was an impressive woman. She was a good six feet, three inches tall and was two hundred and fifty pounds of solid bone and muscle. Her blonde hair was cut short and she would be called a handsome woman, not pretty or beautiful.
"How may I help you, Frau Castle?" She asked in accented but clear English.
"We're investigating the murder of Renee Collins in Dome 24. Perhaps you're aware of it?"
"Ja. Bad news travels fast. But why do you want to talk to me?"
"You left your dome within the window of opportunity of the murder and didn't come back for nine hours. Plenty of time for you to have killed Renee Collins."
"I did not kill anyone!" She barked. "Who told you I did?"
"No one. We're checking everyone who left a dome and was gone long enough between six and eight days ago to have committed the crime. Will you tell us where you went?"
Von Kleist blushed. "Do I have to?"
"You're a murder suspect. You don't have to talk to us at all, but if you won't talk, we'll just ask everyone in the colony until we get someone who will talk. Is that what you want?"
She shook her head.
"I have a husband back on Earth. I love him, but I've been here for over two years. I get lonely and in need of….sex."
"And you were with?" Kate asked.
"Professor Sato, of the University of Tokyo Particle Physics Laboratory. They have their own small laboratory dome out beyond Dome 4."
"And you were…having a sexual relationship with him?" Kate asked as kindly as she could.
"Ja." She said very quietly.
"I'll need to confirm that you were together. We'll talk to Professor Sato."
"He'll deny it. He's also married but his wife is here on Mars. They hardly ever have sex, but he loves her. She's an expert on Martian geology and has been at the Valles Marineris, the Grand Canyon of Mars, for two months. That's why we could…You know."
"We'll still have to…"Kate began.
"Would this help?" Von Kleist asked, taking a data chip from her lab coat pocket and handing it to Kate. "I leave my camera on and place it where we can be seen. I don't wish to blackmail dear Hiroshi, I just want something to remember when his wife comes back."
Kate put the chip in the reader of her tablet. Professor Sato was barely five feet tall and von Kleist was carrying him around with one arm while he was having sex with her. As the video went on it was obvious that the two were very acrobatic.
"We'll need to check the part when the murder took place and check the date/time stamps."
"Can I have it back? Or at least don't release it to the public. I don't want anyone to get hurt."
Kate thought for a second. "As long as your alibi holds, I won't make the video an official part of my report. I can return it to you, but you should know that affairs have a tendency to be found out."
"When will Mrs. Sato be back?" Castle suddenly asked.
"In six months." Heidi said with a big smile.
Once they had left von Kleist's quarters, Kate turned on Castle. "Why were you interested in when Mrs. Sato comes back?"
He shrugged. "Just thinking. If Collins somehow found out about the romance, Sato could have killed her to shut her up. But if she's not coming back for six months, he wouldn't need to kill her in any rush."
"We'll have Alexis check for Sato's location when we have her check the time/date information on the video."
Castle came to a sudden stop. "What? You don't actually plan to show that to Alexis, do you?"
Kate managed to keep from grinning. Her husband was so over protective of his daughter.
"Castle, she's an adult. She knows about sex."
"Don't say that!" He yelled, putting his hands over his ears.
"We'll talk about it later." Kate conceded.
When they returned to their quarters, Alexis had news for them.
"We can take von Kleist off of the suspects list."
"How do you know that, Pumpkin?"
"I ran her face through facial recognition and got a hit. Some guy named Sato has been posting some awfully racy stuff on social media."
"You saw that?" Castle squealed.
"That means Mrs. Sato is going to find out." Kate said. "We'd better be ready when she comes back. No telling what she'll do."
"No problems. "Alexis said with a grin. "She has her own social media site. She's over at the Valle Marineris with two other women and seven men. Look at this." The computer screen showed what appeared to be ten people having sex. "It's a little hard to tell who's doing exactly what to who, but if you slow it down…"
"Don't you have any evidence for us?" Castle yelled. "Suspects?"
"Oh, sure. There's a guy called Barton Nolan over in Dome 10. Works for International Physics Solutions. He goes out of his dome regularly, stays out for up to eight hours and then comes back into Dome 10 without going anyplace else. One time was in the middle of the TOD window."
"We'll go see him." Kate said, taking Castle's hand and leading him out before he could say anything to Alexis.
Barton Nolan flopped back on his bed as soon as Kate introduced herself. The skinny young man had a wispy beard and a bad complexion. His clothing was rather ratty as well.
"I knew you'd be coming for me. Okay, you got me. I did it."
"Mr. Nolan, if you're going to confess to murder, I need to read you're your rights." Kate said, reaching in her pocket for the laminated card she always read from.
Nolan jumped up. "Wait! Murder! No! I haven't murdered anyone."
"Then what are you confessing to?" Castle asked.
"This." Nolan took two hand rolled cigarettes from his pocket and handed them to Kate.
"And that's….?"
"Weed. Pot. Grass. Mary Jane. It's marijuana. I thought that's what you were busting me for."
"We're investigating the murder of Renee Collins. Have you heard of that?"
Nolan shook his head.
"She's one of the people putting up the farm dome. Dome 24. She was found murdered there. The video camera at the airlock was hacked so there's no video of the killer. We're investigating people who went outside and whose whereabouts can't be accounted for. That's you? Where were you between six and eight days ago?" Kate demanded.
Nolan shrugged. "Either here or working. Or outside, getting stoned. I drive one of the rovers a couple of clicks away and light up."
'Why?" Kate asked. This wasn't normal for the type of workaholics Mars attracted.
"Why? Do you know what this place is like? I'm a freaking genius. My IQ is so high it can't be accurately measured. I got three PhDs by the time is was twenty-five. Who else can say that?"
"My daughter got her third when she was twenty-four." Castle said, unhelpfully, in Kate's opinion.
"Whatever. I was one of the five people who founded Lunar Labs when I was a damned undergrad. The other four bozos decided to sell out for a couple of billion. It was chump change! I told them that, but would they listen? No! All they could do was talk about being billionaires."
"My sympathies." Castle said sarcastically. The sarcasm was wasted on Nolan.
"And then I came here. I have to work for Doctor Lysenko. He must have gotten his PhD out of a cereal box. And Dr. Carruthers? She's worse. She must have to look up the word "physics" when she has to write it down. She has to take off her shoes to count past ten. And the people in the home office in LA are even worse. Do you know who they are?" Nolan answered his own question at once. "A bunch of damned MBAs. Can you believe it? People with lousy master's degrees telling me what to do. I've made the company tens of millions of dollars and what do they do? They bitch to Lysenko and Carruthers that I haven't made billions or swept all the Nobel prizes. And then they bitch at me."
"Did you expect to get the Nobel Prize for literature?" Castle asked nastily.
Nolan shook his head. "How could anyone in their right mind give a prize for scribbling at the same time as ones for physics, chemistry and medicine?"
Kate quickly took Castle's hand and held it tightly to keep him from hitting Nolan.
"So you go out in in a rover and get high when things get to be too much?"
"Yeah."
"Do you grow your own?" Kate asked.
"Sure. Do you see any pot stores around here?"
"Do you know either Renee Collins or Michael Dempsey? They were the crew setting up the farm dome."
Nolan laughed. "What? Me hang around with a couple of FFA rejects? Some dummies with master's degrees? Not likely."
"So how did you grow your little farm if you didn't get help from them?"
He smiled at Kate. "Nice try. I got the dirt from Bao Chen. She brought dirt and some stuff from Earth to grow some damned flowers. It turned out that instead of a green thumb, she was more like a plague of locusts. Everything died. She gave me the stuff. I grow it in my office. I've got my bosses convinced it's some kind of experiment. They are so-o-o-o dumb."
"Can you prove where you were at the time of the murder?" Kate asked.
"No. But you can't prove I wasn't in the rover." He checked his watch. "Time for me to go to work. We're done here."
Once they'd left Nolan's, Castle stopped. "Care to bet on who the next murder victim on Mars will be?"
Kate refrained from laughing. "He is full of himself, isn't he?"
"One thing. Could we find out who took out a rover at the time of the murder? We could bust his alibi that way."
Kate shook her head. "The rovers themselves have a GPS system, so we could tell if a rover was gone during the murder. But taking a rover out is on the honor system. Mars colony assumes that if you want a rover, you need one. And most people don't need to go any further than they can walk. He's right, though. We can't prove he wasn't in the rover, and he can't prove he wasn't in Dome 24 committing murder."
When they got back, Alexis had news for them.
To Guest: This story takes place several hundred years from now. The exact year is immaterial. The Martian north and south poles have frozen water, and frozen carbon dioxide. Recently scientists have found frozen water under the north pole. I'm assuming either there is more water near the colony, or an aqueduct from the poles. I haven't made any decision on how long the journey from Earth to Mars and back would take, but certainly less time than any current day near future trip. If Earth is able to support a fairly large scientific colony on Mars, I'd assume that Earth is neither overpopulated nor polluted. NASA has suggested that ice could be used to protect any Martian settlement from solar radiation, but I've assumed that some sort of advanced technological solution has been found by the time of the story.