"Didn't you say something about a daughter? Is she here now?" Beckett hisses, worried in a way easily distinguished from the more exhausted fear that she likes to hide with righteous indignation.
They're still sitting on his bedroom floor, a tentative partnership formed just moments ago, but it's a fair question, something easily answered before they start poking at three unsolved murders.
"Yes, I have a daughter. No, she's not here now." Castle reassures her with a smile first, then explains. "Her name is Alexis, and she and my mother went out for dinner and a show, likely topped off with Broadway gossip and other assorted late-night girl talk at my mother's loft. Alexis is a senior in high school and a saint for accompanying me across the country when my ex and I divorced, though I think her decision was more about getting a taste of New York City than about helping her dad through a rough patch."
"Do you think she'll be able to see me, too?"
He shrugs. "I kinda doubt it's a genetic thing. Like I said before, I'd guess it's about my being able to help you solve this case."
"And you won't tell her about me?" she asks.
"I hadn't thought about it one way or another. I mean, I'm pretty open and honest with her, but it's also not exactly my business to tell. If you'd rather she not know, I can keep it a secret." His head tips with curiosity. "What about your family? You only mentioned your father, so was there no significant other? Any siblings? Kids?"
"No husband or boyfriend or kids or siblings. Just my father," she responds. "Kind of pathetic, I guess, but I think the 12th had become family as much as anyone else."
"Well, that brings up the next question: Do you want your team to know you're here? Or am I supposed to start investigating while nobody can know there's a ghost in my apartment? Keeping that quiet will be hard, but it may be necessary. The only reason you're willing to listen to my crazy theories is because you are the ghost."
Beckett's glare is sharp and he almost wonders whether she drew blood. "Stop calling me that. We're not living out some campfire story or a late-night horror flick."
"Well, you're not really living at –" he stops himself, probably too late, and has the good sense to look sheepish and gesture for her to continue.
"Jumping into this case as an outsider is going to be difficult, but I'll prep you with information about Ryan and Esposito so you can play to their personalities. You can't tell them anything about my involvement because it's absurd and there's no way two detectives I've helped train will believe I've come back from the dead." She tilts her head and his attention is caught by the deep crease between her eyes. "I may be able to give you some reason to care about me, too. A story about an officer from my past you can use as an excuse for wanting to help, some good reason why you're sticking your nose where it doesn't belong. Without that, they may not talk to you at all."
He's eager to get started, but a poor attempt at stifling a yawn reminds them both that it's late and at least one of them needs legitimate sleep; they only continue talking long enough for him to get the basics, a way into the first conversation he needs to have.
After that, they work out some ground rules in a bizarre battle for the territory they both claim as their own, Castle respecting her need to grieve for the private space she'd lost some time after her last breath, while Beckett agrees to stay out of the bedrooms and bathrooms now belonging to him. She's unable to touch, move, or reorganize any of his things, and it probably wouldn't have been a concern of his anyway, but he's pretty sure she needs some element of control, some boundaries in a world now otherwise lacking them.
Besides, he's grown used to sleeping alone.
Castle snaps the door shut behind her once she disappears down the hall and then scoffs at his own high hopes; sleep will be hard to come by after the night he's had and he can only imagine the hours he'll spend staring at his ceiling, preparing to work case that has probably been cold for weeks for a woman who has been dead even longer than that.
The 12th precinct isn't familiar to him and he's not known by anyone stationed there, but Castle's still a cop and it's not hard to wind his way past a few suspicious glances and a question or two, landing himself in the middle of the 4th floor bullpen shortly after his arrival. He has the day off, but a quick scan of the area finds Detectives Esposito and Ryan at their desks; with any luck, they'll be willing to hear him out.
Stepping toward what appears to be an intense game of paper football, Castle clears his throat just after Ryan scores and he offers his badge with something of an apology. "Richard Castle. I hate to interrupt, but I work homicide out of the 1st and I was hoping to talk to you guys for a few minutes about an old case of yours."
Esposito doesn't seem thrilled to cut the game short for a stranger, work-related or not, but Ryan nods toward a chair. "Sure, we've got a few to spare. What case?"
"Kate Beckett."
Just two words, a common enough name, broken off gently at the end of the second t, but the sound has Esposito twice as pissed and his partner fidgeting in a way that must make him a blast on stakeouts. For a moment, Castle wonders whether he's already blown his chance, but he forces himself to remain steady for the interrogation he deserves.
"Unless you're ready to hand us her killer, you might want to reconsider tossing Detective Beckett's name around so casually," Esposito growls. "Talking about her isn't high on our list of things to do today."
"I get it. I really do," he swears. "And I know it's been a while since she was killed, so it makes no sense for me to show up now, but I feel like I need to be here and I want to help in whatever I way I can."
"Help with what? We had no leads and our new captain closed the case," Ryan explains. "It's done."
Finally settling into a seat, Castle wheels as close as he dares before he launches into his lie, recalling some of what Beckett had shared with him the night before. "Yeah, I figured it was closed, but look, I recently transferred here from the LAPD and I knew a friend of Detective Beckett's out there. Mike Royce? He was working as a bounty hunter here in the city for a while, and I'm not sure whether she ever mentioned him to you, but he was a good guy who took some wrong turns and got himself killed not long before she died. Anyway, I heard a lot of stories about her from him and I guess I feel like I can't just sit back and do nothing now."
"Yeah, we met Royce on a case, know about what happened to him. But we still don't you," Esposito snaps, his eyes narrowed as he looks to Ryan to back him up.
And while Beckett had explained that Ryan was going to be the easier of the two to convince, the partnership doesn't crack. At least not yet. "Yeah, man. We're sorry, but you're showing up too late to do much anyway. One more set of eyes isn't going to help when there's nothing to see. A lot of manpower was spent on too many dead leads and Gates will knock us back to traffic if she catches us looking into the case without a legitimate break."
"But I know you guys had to be close to her, right? Like brothers," Castle pushes, angling for some emotional pull. "There's no way you've completely let this go. You have to be revisiting this on your own time, intent on getting the justice she deserves."
Esposito leans in, his voice raw. "Don't pretend you understand anything about our relationship to Detective Beckett or the kind of justice she deserves. It hurt bad to lose our captain, but losing Beckett fucked us up, and there is nothing we wouldn't do to make everything right again. The problem is that we don't have shit to go on and a California cop who never even met her isn't gonna do anything but get us busted in our own precinct. Maybe you're a nice guy, but just do us a favor and forget about this. We'll call you if we ever need a tour guide in Hollywood."
Rising slowly, searching for an honest plea that won't betray the woman waiting for him at home, Castle chances one last approach before he leaves. "Look, you're right that I never had the honor of meeting Detective Beckett when she was alive. I'm a stranger from the other side of the country and you guys are her family, so I don't blame you for being pissed that I'm here. But I've come across pictures of her, read articles, and heard stories for months, and now – god, it's like I can actually see her, and maybe it just feels like it's hitting too close to home for me, but I really want to help solve this for her. For all of you."
He tosses his card onto Ryan's desk, silently imploring him until he finally shuffles away without another word. They can call if they change their minds about letting him in, but he's not sure he can stare down the pain clouding their tired eyes. Instead, he'll go home and face the pain in Beckett's.
She's disappointed, of course, but there's very little surprise when he recounts his brief meeting with Ryan and Esposito. Castle supposes he'd gone to the 12th with higher hopes than she'd dared; naivete tends to have that effect.
"But you said Ryan was eager to please, a puppy who got along with everyone and would be open to the help of a stranger," he whines, angry that he was stopped before he could even start. "I barely said anything and Esposito was damn near ready to rip out my throat."
"I said Ryan was going to be more open than Espo," Beckett clarifies. "But the eager-to-please part of him also makes him less likely to defy his captain's orders if he thinks there's a real chance of getting in trouble for it."
"Do you know her, this Captain Gates?"
Beckett chews at her lip, an anxious tell he's observed far too many times already. "No, I don't, and I'm not about to pull her into a mess that already involves unknown levels of NYPD corruption. Still, it might not be a bad idea for you to pull up the basics about her so we at least know who's bossing the boys around. We may need her help eventually."
A quick nod acknowledges her request. "And what's our next step in getting cooperation from your team? It's going to be hard to work this without knowing what's in the case file and you can only help so much. Should I wait until the guys are separated and try to talk to Ryan alone? Swear my involvement will remain a secret and hope his loyalty to you outweighs his desire to color between the lines?"
"Yeah, that might work. For now, let's set that problem aside and I'll fill you in on more of the background. To really understand this, we've got to go back years."
"To your mother's case?"
"What led up to her murder and all the dominoes that fell afterward," she confirms as they pace side by side in his living room. "Maybe talking it out will give us some ideas about how to drag Ryan back in. I understand him not wanting to break rules, but it sounds like he was even more cautious than I'd anticipated, so we'll have to figure out a way to convince him. A way for you, the Hollywood tour guide, to convince him."
Castle goes to nudge her shoulder with his, the frustration he'd carried home dulled by her teasing, but catches himself when he remembers they can't make contact, saving them both the embarrassment of him tumbling into the space her body doesn't actually occupy. She spends the next several hours explaining the history of the deaths of Johanna Beckett, Roy Montgomery, and herself, giving up on any attempt to smother her annoyance when he interrupts to ask questions that she apparently plans to answer in her own time. And while it's true that she has plenty of time to spare, he has to be back at work in the morning, so as sun goes down and he's still being educated - sated only by unhealthy snacks he grabs while she speaks - he's ready to call it a night.
A sharp knock at the door ends the conversation before he can.
"Are you expecting someone?" she whispers, though he's pretty sure nobody would be able to hear her anyway.
"No, but duck into my room just in case and I'll see who it is. Maybe it's a friend who doesn't know Alexis decided to stay with her grandmother for another night. Or someone delivering a pizza we didn't order."
Silence carries Beckett away and Castle hurries to the peephole, his mouth agape when he sees the face on the other side of the door. He's even more shocked when he opens it and reads the initials of three homicide victims scrawled on the side of the file boxes held in front him.
JB. RM. KB.
Everything he'd wanted from his unannounced visit to Beckett's precinct that morning, all the paperwork they need before they can start an investigation of their own. And help from where he hadn't expected it.
"Detective Esposito, come on in."