Chapter 7

As soon as she heard that Castle had been arrested, Kate and her husband's lawyer rushed to the station to pick up the writer. The lawyer went to the interrogation room where Rick was being questioned by Valgo. She introduced herself:

"I am Mr. Castle's lawyer and from now on, this interrogation will be done in my presence! Where are you at?"

"We were just getting started!" Said Valgo. "I just asked your client if he had ever met Miss Julian."

"I hadn't met Miss Brandon before the confrontation following my libel suit."

"Fine!" Continued Valgo "Then how do you explain the fact that Miss Brandon said she filmed the night you spent together in Las Vegas?"

"Detective," interrupted the lawyer, "my client won't answer your question because Olivia Brandon didn't want to show this video and, as far as I know, this video you're talking about hasn't been found, right?"

"No, it hasn't been found!" Answered the policeman. "Mr. Castle, do you recognize this knife?"

The policeman handed Rick the sealed bag containing the knife used to kill Olivia.

"It doesn't seem familiar to me! Why ?"

Mr. Castle, it was that knife that murdered Olivia Julian. And your fingerprints were found on it!"

"I repeat that Mr. Castle had nothing to do with Miss Julian's tragic murder," said the lawyer, "so if you found his fingerprints there, it must be a mistake."

"Then", asked Valgo, "if Mr. Castle wasn't killing Miss Brandon, where was he?"

"Look," Castle defended himself, "normally around 8:00 p. m. I'm at home in my office or with my wife."

"Do you have any witnesses?" Asked Valgo

"I don't know, but I know I was at home like every night."

"So I guess," said the policeman to the writer to try to destabilize him, "you have no way of proving your alibi."

The interrogation concludes with the fact that the police officer did not believe the author's version. So they decided to keep Rick in custody.

So Kate decided to be with her children. They had taken food from the Chinese because, in addition, she had learned from the nanny that she had been fired by Alexis, who had come to support her brothers and sisters. When she entered the living room, she saw directly that her three children were eating with their sister. When she approached them, Alexis began to ask her:

"So? Did you manage to get him out?"

"No, they don't believe in his alibi so they say he has to prove that he was here at the time of the crime."

"You know what, I have an idea to prove his alibi. If Dad was here, then he was necessarily on his computer so he either modified a document on his Word Processing, or he consulted a web site. All you have to do is check the history of Internet connections and the history of changes in his future novels."

So they both went to check Rick's computer and as they had expected, around 10 p.m. a chapter of Rick's new novel had been modified. Unfortunately, it still had to be proven that it was Rick who wrote this. To do this, Alexis decided to call Jake, her English tutor when she was in high school, who had since become a doctor of literary style. He answered:

"Hello, Dr. Jake Carter, who is calling?"

"Good evening, I'm sorry to bother you. It's Alexis Castle. I would need your help to demonstrate that a text was written by my father. Do you have some time?"

"I'll always have time for you, miss Castle. Furthermore, I heard what happened to your father and I feel sorry for you. Send me the texts you want me to compare and I will give you the results as soon as I can."

After sending a sample of Rick's text and the text written during the time of Olivia Brandon's death, Alexis came back at her home and Kate went to bed after asking her children to do the same. The next morning, when Kate noticed that Rick had not returned during the night, she had a hope that vanished. She picked up her phone and saw that she had two missed calls: one from the lawyer and the other from Alexis. She decided that she would answer it after breakfast. So she went into the kitchen and since none of her children were awake, she decided to run a little bit to clear her head. She ran for about an hour and then came home and decided to call the lawyer:

"It's Kate. I saw that you called me. Anything new?"

"Yeah, but I'm not sure you'd want to hear it on the phone. Kate, they transferred him to Rikers Island for pre-trial detention last night. I know, you're tired, but in two days there's a hearing to see if they're keeping him in jail or not."

"Can you see if we can get a visit with him?"

"I'll check it out. In the meantime, know that I managed to put him in a cell with another of my clients who owes me a favor and who will have everything protected for your husband."

"Thank you for everything you do for us."

"I'll call you if I hear anything, but you know, I'm doing my job."