Author's Note: Thanks to all who have read and reviewed thus far. One more chapter until the SG-1 team appears.
Kate finally left for home an hour or so after she chased Castle out. Typically for when she was working on a particularly tough case, she spent a good half-hour lying in bed trying to sort through everything. Finally, she used a deep-breathing exercise to clear her head and drop off to sleep.
Six hours later, she woke suddenly. This happened from time to time, so rather than curse at the fact that she'd woken an hour before her alarm was due to go off, she merely sighed, got up, and began her morning routine.
Two hours later, she was seated in front of the murder board, her mind once again chasing leads in circles. She heard footsteps behind her, and a cup of espresso appeared from over her right shoulder. "Thanks Castle," she told the writer as he sat down next to her.
"Anything new?"
She shook her head before taking a sip from the cup, which was lightly sweetened by hot milk. While Kate liked her no-fat latte with two pumps of vanilla, she preferred her espresso close to unadulterated. "I'm stumped," she admitted. "I still think that this Connor is our best bet, but I don't want to rule anything out until we talk to the ex-girlfriend and the other employee."
She looked over at Castle, who was nodding his head in agreement. He'd just opened his mouth to say something when Esposito walked up. "Casey Connelly just arrived, Boss. She's in the lounge."
Kate nodded her thanks and headed for the indicated room, Castle trailing behind her. "Ms. Connelly? I'm Detective Kate Beckett." She offered her hand to the young woman.
"I found your message last night when I got home. What's happened?"
Even if she'd not already known it, Kate would have quickly figured out that the person sitting in front of her had just recently arrived from a long flight: medium-length red hair slightly disheveled and clothing that had been straightened hastily. Surprisingly, though, her green eyes were clear and alert.
"Ms. Connelly, we understand that you were in a relationship with Victor Robinson-"
"What's happened to him?" The young woman cut Kate off.
"Can you tell us why you two broke up?" Kate persisted. She hated doing this, especially as she was 99.99% sure that the girl didn't have anything to do with the murder. But she had to be 100% positive.
"We realized that we just weren't as good a fit as we'd first thought."
"How so?" Castle queried.
Connelly shrugged. "Little things. Vic did a lot of volunteer work, and it started to follow him home."
"What do you mean?" Kate had a feeling she knew where this was going.
"Well, he spent time in the hospitals, playing with the kids and showing surgery patients how to cover up their scars. He'd also go out of his way to help someone who came into the shop with a hard-luck story."
"Like Connor?"
If Casey was surprised by their knowledge, she hid it well. "Like Connor," she agreed. "I'm all for helping others," she continued, "but Connor was…creepy."
Kate deliberately avoided Castle's gaze. "What exactly do you mean by 'creepy'?"
The younger woman shrugged again. "I dunno. I didn't like how he was always looking at everyone, like he was wondering what we'd taste like. And he was so quiet. And when he did talk, his voice was always raspy…" She trailed off. "What does this have to do with Vic? Why won't you tell me what's going on?"
Kate was sure now. "I'm sorry, Ms. Connelly. We found Vic's body a few days ago. He was murdered."
The young woman deserved a lot of credit: she didn't break down completely. Her breath caught, and her eyes misted. A couple of tears trickled down her cheeks as she glanced away. She took three deep breaths and turned her attention back to the detective. "How?"
"We're still looking into that," Kate replied. "Is there anything else that you can tell us about Connor?"
The younger woman shook her head. "I haven't seen him since before I broke up with Vic." She blinked a couple of times, and then swiped at her eyes when that didn't work. "Have you told his brother?"
Castle nodded. "He's in town to clean out the apartment."
"Good." Connelly's head dropped for a few moments. "Do you need anything else from me?" she finally asked.
"You're free to go," Kate assured her. "But please stay in town until we talk again."
The other woman met her gaze. "Of course," she responded, gathering up her coat. Less than ten seconds later, she was gone.
While Beckett talked to the ex-girlfriend, Javier Esposito was seated at his desk, searching the police databases for anything on Stanley Edison, when Ryan spoke up. "Got him. Stanley Edison, currently employed as a costume designer at an Off-Broadway theater."
"Got an address?"
"Yep," Ryan held up a slip of paper. "I'm driving!"
"Whatever," Javier rolled his eyes as he pulled on his coat. If Ryan wanted to deal with the lunch-hour traffic, that was fine by Javier.
When they finally arrived at the theater, Ryan was grumbling about his fellow drivers. Javier just smirked at his partner and led the way up to the stage door. "NYPD," he told the doorman, flashing his badge. "I'm looking for Stanley Edison."
"Try the backstage area," the doorman said. "Straight ahead."
"Thanks," Ryan replied, leading the way. Javier nodded his thanks as he passed before switching his focus to not running into anyone. The whole offstage area was a scene of organized chaos: actors and actresses running everywhere in various states of dress, often without make-up, people in black who had to be stage crew moving furniture from what appeared to be a storage area, a couple of people running after actors, still pinning costumes. Javier thought briefly about grabbing his partner's jacket to keep up with him, but no sooner had he thought this than they arrived on-stage. "I think that's our guy," Ryan said.
Javier saw who his partner meant: standing in the middle of the stage, gesturing so wildly that he was in serious danger of hurting someone with that clipboard, was a young man engaged in a heated discussion with a much older woman.
"I'm telling you it WON'T WORK," he told her as the detectives got closer. "That fastest way for the bed to get where it needs to be it should start stage right and get pulled across to center stage!" He gestured again with the clipboard, nearly catching Ryan in the nose.
"Watch where you swing that thing, Edison!" the woman barked. "Sorry gentlemen, but this is a closed rehears—Kevin? Kevin Ryan?"
Startled, Javier looked over at his partner just in time to see Ryan's face drain of color. "M-m Mrs. Stuart?"
Javier looked back and forth between the two. "You know her, bro?"
"I directed Kevin in four separate high school theatre productions," the woman, Mrs. Stuart, said. "He had talent too. Then he decided to become a police officer."
"Actually," Javier broke in, "he's a detective. As am I." He held up the badge. "NYPD. We need to talk to Mr. Edison."
"Wait wait wait. You're telling me that Vic Robinson is dead?"
On each of the last four words, Stanley Edison's voice went higher and higher so that it actually cracked on the last syllable. Kevin Ryan winced in pain before he responded. "Yes Mr. Edison. Can you tell us where you were two nights ago?"
Edison looked confused. "I was right here, in the middle of a dress re—wait wait wait, you don't think I had any thing to do with this do you?"
"Now why would we think that?" Esposito asked.
"Look," Kevin spoke up before Edison could get going again. "We spoke to the other employees at the costume shop. They seemed to think that the two of you didn't get along so well."
Edison brought the clipboard towards his own face so fast, Kevin was sure he was going to hit himself. Amazingly, the clipboard stopped just short of his forehead. "They would." The voice was muffled but audible.
"What do you mean?" Kevin pressed.
Edison's eyes appeared over the clipboard, scanning their surroundings. The men had moved down to the seats so that they could have a semi-private conversation. Finally convinced that no one was around, Edison lowered the clipboard away from his face. "He rejected me."
"Excuse me?" Kevin asked, just to make sure he'd heard correctly.
Unfortunately, Edison mistook this as interest. "I know, right? How could he reject me? How could anyone reject me?"
Thankfully, Esposito cut him off mid-rant. "So what happened after Vic rejected you? You two fight?"
Edison slumped in his chair. "I kept trying to talk to him, try and make him see that we'd be great together. But he wouldn't listen. Then he stopped working the same shift as me. Then he stopped speaking to me altogether…" He gave a dramatic sniff, prompting Kevin and Esposito to exchange a look. "Well, let's just say that when I heard Amy was looking for a stage manager, I jumped at the chance to leave the shop."
"Really," Kevin commented, "because according to Ms. Goldman you were fired for not doing your job."
"That bitch," Edison said. "She never liked me. Did you know we were up for the same manager position two years ago? She got it, but I know she didn't like the fact that I was still around. She's been looking for an excuse to get rid of me ever since."
Kevin repressed the urge to roll his eyes. "Have you seen Vic Robinson since you left the shop?"
"No," Edison replied. "I've been here," he gestured towards the stage with the clipboard, "since the day after I left, sometimes twenty hours a day. My apartment's only a few blocks away. I haven't had any reason to go back to the costume shop."
"Okay Mr. Edison," Esposito said. "We'll be in touch." The stage manager practically ran back on stage, while Kevin followed his partner back through the backstage area and out onto the street.
"What a drama queen," Kevin commented as the pair of them climbed into the car.
"Yeah, but I'm pretty sure he's harmless," Esposito stated. "He was way too surprised to hear the Vic was dead."
"Yeah," Kevin agreed as he maneuvered the car into traffic. "Looks like this Connor character is still our best bet."
"Beckett will be glad to hear that. Speaking of characters," Esposito turned to look at his partner, "what's this about you doing theatre?"
Kevin groaned.
Ryan's and Esposito's interview with the ex-employee was the last productive thing the team managed that day. As Rick left, Beckett was still making phone calls, trying to find the whereabouts of Connor Jones. If it hadn't been his turn to cook dinner, Rick would have offered to stay.
Actually, he would have skipped the offer and just stayed. If he'd offered, Beckett would have insisted that he go, and where was the fun in that? Besides, he told himself as he took the elevator up to his apartment, it was valuable research for the character of Nikki Heat. Sure, the first book was almost done, but he had a terrific idea for a second….
Thoughts of the plot for a potential second Nikki Heat novel could only occupy him for so long, and by the time he'd started dinner, he'd gone back to thinking about the current case. Unlike most of their previous cases, it had been pretty obvious from the first that the mysterious Connor was responsible for the victim's death. But what kind of horrendous weapon could turn a person into a mummified corpse in a matter of hours?
"Dad!" Alexis's voice brought him back to reality. "Dad! Guess what!" The teen was running towards the counter, waving a paper in her hand.
"What?"
"I got an A!" She ran around the counter and wrapped her arms around him in a hug that knocked the wind out of him.
"Ho! Congratulations sweetie!" He wrapped his arms around her. "See, I told you you'd do fine."
Alexis pulled away from her father. "How's the investigation going?" she asked as she set her bag on the table and headed for the cupboard where the dishes were kept. "Any new leads?"
"Not really," Rick told her as he stirred the pasta. "Ryan and Esposito managed to track down the former employee who had a problem with the vic-"
"The vic named Vic?"
Rick looked over to see her innocent face. "Oh I have taught you well."
She grinned in return and began to set the table. "So what was this guy's problem with the vic?"
"Well apparently, the ex-employee, who's now a stage manager, asked our victim to be his boyfriend."
"I thought you said the victim had a girlfriend."
"Oh he did. He rejected the stage manager, who apparently became rather huffy about the whole thing. He was fired by the shop manager for basically being a drama queen about the whole thing. Pasta's ready," he told her.
"So that leaves you with the creepy guy, right?" Alexis asked as she served herself.
Rick nodded as he piled food on his own plate. "Beckett's still trying to track him down."
"And she sent you home because you were annoying her," Alexis stated, lifting a forkful of food to her mouth.
Rick shot her an innocent look, but the knowing glance he got in return meant she knew better than that. "Maybe," he replied, deciding it was time for a subject change. "How was school today?"
As his daughter related all the latest high school gossip, Rick had to smile. It was nice to know that, even with missing suspects, weird murders, and unknown motives, he still had a (somewhat) normal life to come home to.
