Chapter 7 - Hotel
Half an hour later Kate parked the Crown Vic out the front of the hotel that Billy Benson had been living at. She was feeling better since their second meal and the conversation in the car about getting married had also taken a load off her shoulders. They hadn't discussed the wedding or a date for a while and Kate hadn't raised it because they also still needed to discuss the topic of moving in together. She did want to lose the privacy and seclusion her apartment offered her. Today that subject had yet again been nicely avoided. Kate had dwelled on it as she had eaten lunch at the diner. They both ate burgers with fries and cola. That was the meal that also entirely resolved the hangover and cleared Kate's head.
Kate passed the keys to the concierge but told him to keep the car close. Realistically she was surprised the hotel had a valet service and as a precautionary measure she checked his identification badge pinned to his suit lapel to ensure he wasn't about to take off with the new unit that she had finally been given.
Surprisingly, the hotel was reasonable and clean. It was an establishment where one could rent a room cheaply by the hour or for an extended stay. Kate figured one could in reality rent any hotel room for an hour depending on one's budge. Castle for instance, could afford a hotel on the upper side for an hour. He wouldn't be seen on this side of town if it weren't for him being her partner.
On their way through the entrance Kate phoned Ryan to find a place to meet the boys. They walked into the foyer and manoeuvred their way past what seemed to be a team of female hockey players who were trying to reach the elevators first. They let the girls go ahead then rode alone in a second elevator to the fourth floor in silence.
On the fourth storey they found the boys waiting outside the room. They were tossing a rubber ball to and fro.
"Enjoy your lunch guys?" Kate asked as they took the final steps to the men. She looked them up and down. Esposito, in addition to the sessions they had at the Precinct's gym, had been spending more time at the gym with Lanie. His muscles were becoming quite defined as Lanie had pointed out to Kate recently during one of their girl chats. She tried hard to dismiss it, but a smile crept over her face as she imagined Lanie telling her about how perfect Espo's buns were now he was pushing weights. She sobered and put on the poker face. It wasn't the time to dwell on BFF chit chat about the men they slept with.
Rick caught her expression. "What?"
"Nothing. Just thinking to myself Castle." She murmured back.
"It was good. You would have loved it. Ryan had a vegie burger and I had a juicy beef burger while we read the Ledger." Esposito finished his statement with his eyes on Rick daring the writer to retaliate.
Rick's expression turned serious and he glared at Esposito. He could see Ryan smirking, his attention directed at Castle as he said.
"Yeah, great meal. Amazing who you read about in the newspaper too."
Rick put a finger to his lips to silence the guys who snickered.
Kate decided to play along with Castle now she knew the boys were threatening him, "That reminds me Castle, I need to contact the photographer to order copies of the ones taken at the wedding of us." Kate looked at Rick who seemed horrified, then to the guys. Her brow furrowed and she looked at them like a school teacher who had caught the kids doing something wrong. "What's going on?" She demanded of all of them.
Esposito replied first, "What you talking about Chica? Nothing's happening."
"How did I end up working with three men?" She inquired.
"You were lucky?" Ryan replied and heard the snickers from the audience.
Rick continued, "Come Beckett. Can we get past this and go in the room. I have a hangover headache I would really like to nurse it with a glass of good quality Scotch." He grinned at his fiancé well aware he was skating on thin ice with her because she definitely knew something fishy was going on between the men.
Ryan used a key to access the hotel room Billy Benson had rented while he had been in New York. Their guns ready they entered the room and searched it rapidly for any occupants. Once they were satisfied they met by the bed and looked about them. The room was basic, but neat. A packed suitcase was at the end of the bed still open and waiting to be finalised. With gloves on the group of four scanned the room. They searched through every drawer, underneath all the furniture.
After sweeping under one side of the bed, Kate moved to the suitcase and started to shuffle through the layers of folded clothes. Everything was in black. She was conscious there may be needles concealed. A few t-shirts, a couple of sweaters, few pairs of jeans and plenty of underwear. Her fingers felt the hardness of the file first. She pinched the edge of it and pulled out a file.
"Castle," she summoned only loud enough for him to hear. He finished his search beneath the other side of the bed before he rose. He was at her side almost immediately waving a wallet under her nose. She held up the file to show it to him then laid it on top of the clothes and opened it up.
"You first," Rick offered and dropped the wallet on the bed near the suitcase. He leaned over her left shoulder observing as Kate sifted through pages and pages of hand written notes, printed material until she finally flipped to the photographs. She picked them up and looked through them with Rick watching.
"Each picture is of Tony Perri." She murmured.
"He's taken a lot of photos Beckett. The collection is almost an inch thick."
She slipped her finger between photos to hold them open. "There were images taken from the apartment Benson rented when the tree was full of leaves Castle."
"There's also some of Perri on the streets, at work, in a park and in a night club. It seems that everywhere Perri ventured, Benson took photographs. Benson has had surveillance on Perri for months," Castle lifted out a sheet of paper with handwriting on it. He read it, scanning the information quickly. "This guy was trying to find something."
"We are thinking along the lines that Benson was hired to assassinate Perri." Kate begun, looking at Rick, "But what if, like we said earlier, that it was Benson who wanted Perri terminated?" She suggested and looked over her shoulder to Ryan's eyes to see whether he agreed too. She handed the photographs to Ryan for him to look through.
Rick shrugged his shoulders watching Ryan and Esposito as they flicked through the pictures, "It's a possibility. Maybe Perri owed money to Benson and he's not telling us."
"We all know he's shifty," Ryan said, "I have Benson's laptop here. We can get the techs to go through after they're done with his cell phone."
Kate nodded and glanced about the tired hotel room, wondering what it would be like to be holed up in a place like this for so long. Least he had had the laptop to keep himself occupied, "Hopefully, Gates will pull us off this case and we can get back to what we're meant to do," she remarked, "Solve murders."
"C'mon Beckett, where's the fun in that? It's different looking for the reason rather than the murderer."
"Perhaps. What have you got?"
Rick reached to the wallet and picked it up flipping it open. The wallet belonged to Billy Benson. It held the standard plastic cards and about $200 in cash. No photographs or personal notes. Rick dropped it in a bag, zip locked it and passed it to Ryan who inspected its outer casing.
Kate left the suitcase and wandered the entire hotel room noting that in the bathroom Benson still had his toiletries laid out on the vanity. A single toothbrush was beside the toothpaste. He had planned to return to the hotel room, to finish cleaning up before he would leave.
"How long had he been staying in this room?" She asked anyone who was listening.
As she predicted, it was Ryan who replied. "He's been here four days. He been coming and going from this joint for about nine weeks."
"When he could have stayed at the apartment?"
"No finger prints in the apartment. CSI said it was clean." Ryan replied.
Rick interjected, "Yeah, but I bet we would find them here."
"I do too." There aren't any latex gloves in the trash. He was living here normally." She commented looking in the bin by the bathroom sink. "He was expecting to get out of here today. We need to find who he was going home to."
"Forensics will be up here once they've finished with the car." Esposito said.
"I'll take this wallet back to the Precinct and see what we find in it." Ryan replied. "We'll also go through the file."
"Great idea. We'll drop by to visit Lanie at the morgue. She has something."
Exactly one hour later Castle and Beckett stood across the autopsy table from Lanie Parish peering down at the body of Billy Benson. The autopsy had been completed and the body was stitched and cleaned. Benson's caved in head didn't look half as bad as it had at the scene of his sudden demise.
Regardless, Kate kept her eyes up to Lanie as she peeled back the cotton sheet exposing the dead man's face.
"So?" Kate inquired, anxious for Lanie to break the silence. "What happened?"
Lanie breathed in, casting her eyes over the body of the man who had died in his early thirties. She then looked between Castle and Beckett who both held their usual expressions of anticipation whenever they entered the morgue to view a body, "I heard you two figured out Mr Benson here accidentally fell from the balcony because of a treadmill?"
"Mmm. That's right." Kate replied, "What did you learn?"
"That he wasn't pushed and he wasn't involved in a fight or scuffle with anyone else immediately before his death. He definitely fell by accident."
"And, how have you proved that?" Rick wanted to know the answer because to him the answer was clear at the scene. It made sense that he had unexpectedly fallen from the rail to his ill fated death. It was the logical way to think about it. However, Rick was interested in hear why Lanie thought the same thing based on what forensic evidence she had found on the body of the deceased man.
"Well, he didn't sustain any typical injuries of a fight. What killed this man was the impact to his skull and he also broke his neck at the C1 vertebrae. He severed his spinal cord at this point." She touched her gloved hand at the base of the dead man's skull.
"If he cracked his head on the pavement, the moment he hit the ground from the height he fell, he would have hit with more than eighteen hundred pounds of pressure. That could easily snap his neck." Rick commented screwing up his nose in disgust.
The women looked at Castle, both inquisitive to know how he knew that but neither dared to ask. He usually didn't need encouragement to tell a story. Rick saw the girls were silently questioning his resources and shrugged his shoulders. "I saw it on a sports science program about how dangerous cheer leading can be. A lot of cheerleaders die."
"Okay. So he hit the ground with eighteen hundred pounds of pressure on impact. He broke his neck." Lanie confirmed.
"And skull." Rick pointed to the guys crushed in head. "That undeniably took a bit of a beating."
"That too," Kate said.
"Also, his blood works did not indicate any elevated levels of cortisol or adrenaline to support the theory that he was involved in a fight for his life. In fact he was quite the opposite. This man was remarkably calm and at rest in the minutes prior to his untimely death. If he was going to shoot someone it was a calculated and a well planned task. He certainly was not anxious about it. He was trained to do the job. The CSI guys also said there was humidity this morning and he could have simply slipped on moisture on the railing."
Kate gave the body one final glance, "Mmmm … so the evidence indicates he was planning to kill Perri for reasons we are yet to find out, if we ever do. He was personally motivated or was paid to terminate Perri."
"Until the second he slipped and fell." Rick added and shrugged his shoulders when both the girls glared at him for stating the obvious. He decided he needed to provide some useful information. "So also based on what Espo has indicated this guy was probably a sniper in the military at some stage, but he's not a known assassin."
"That's my guess." Lanie confirmed giving Rick a smug look as he did in return.
Kate heavily breathed out in frustration, "So it's definitely not a murder we have on our hands."
"I'm sorry Honey, but although is intentions were wrong, his death was due to an accident." Lanie concluded as she pulled the sheet over the body of Benson.
Beckett and Castle breathed a collective sigh of relief that body viewing time was over. Neither of them enjoyed that part of the job and they preferred it if Lanie phoned in her findings.
Kate glanced at Rick and said to him, "I need to go speak to the Captain, see if I can persuade her to pull us off the case."
Rick sighed in exasperation, "C'mon Katie, this case is fun. Let's poke around a bit more until Gates finds out and takes us off it."
Both the women stared at each other momentarily then looked at Rick with death stares. He glanced between both of them, "Do you ladies practise this death stare stuff when you have girl time together?" He smiled, "You're so good at it, both of you," and with that Rick Castle turned and walked from the morgue to the corridor leaving the women alone to think about his comment. He heard their girlish laughter which caused him to smirk.
In the morgue, Lanie completely covered the body with the blue cotton sheet, "What's with the picture of Castle with those two women hanging off him in today's Ledger, Sweetie? You know about that?"
Kate smiled mischievously, glancing back to the door to ensure Rick didn't return, "You've seen it huh?"
"Good Lord Girl, of course I have! Everyone is talking about it. Friends of yours have been texting me to ask if you two are still together. We have bets going that Castle is going to be in the dog house when you find out."
Kate released an uncontrolled spurt of laughter in the form of a very loud, "Ha!" She shot a quick look to the door to see if Rick didn't come back in response to her noise. She leaned over the body and stated with a whispered voice so Castle wouldn't hear, "I already know about it Lanie. I'm pretending I don't know to see what Castle does."
Lanie's eyes narrowed momentarily at her best friend, finding it odd and suspicious that she wasn't all huffy and puffy about the picture in the paper, "You are such a sneak, Kate Beckett. You would usually be pissed off at Castle for that."
"I know right?" She snorted in amusement and followed Lanie to her desk where they were further away from the swinging doors that led to the corridor.
"Javy has been going on about it all day. Driving me mad with the texts."
"I figured the guys have been threatening Castle that they will tell me unless they get the use of his Ferrari."
"They are doing exactly that Honey." Lanie held up her phone to show Beckett the picture of the two boys holding the Ledger opened to page 6."
Kate peered at the picture releasing a laugh, "Mmmm… just wait till I get hold of Espo."
"I would love to see that."
"Castle believes I haven't noticed his odd behaviour. He's been concealing it from me all morning."
"He told the boys that you already know."
"What?" Kate glanced to the doorway. "No. He's bluffing. He thinks I don't know. He's been concealing the paper all morning."
"Are you sure about that Kate?"
"Yes. It's hilarious for me to be able to beat Rick at his own game."
"Well he's got the boys bluffed that you know. They've been waiting to see your mood to see whether Castle is telling the truth. After you met them at the hotel room the bets were raised all round. Espo thinks you would have been in a foul mood if you had known about the girls."
"I've been in a foul mood with hangover, the picture doesn't bother me."
Lanie looked at Kate in surprise, "Really Honey?"
"Yeah, I'm cool about it. Castle says I was taking phone numbers from guys last night so I guess we're even." She held up her phone. "I have extra contacts in my phone today that I don't recognise."
Lanie laughed, "You go girl. Well, Esposito wants the Ferrari for a week."
"No. It's Castle's car. Well I will continue to play along." She smiled mischievously, at which point Lanie rolled her eyes. Kate continued, "They are good pictures of us. I ordered prints this morning, all of them. I'm gonna tell Castle at dinner tonight that I placed an order for all of them. He told me earlier he has ordered the pictures taken of us." She threw a couple of quotes in the air.
"He's very sharp, Kate, don't you think he will figure it out?"
"No, no. With my order coming in as well, I will be able to watch him squirm tonight and then try to intercept the mail over the next few days. Will be fun."
"Kate Becket, you are really a sneak. But that doesn't answer my question. Who are the women?"
"Oh yeah…" She smiled and hooked her hair behind her ears, "Ummm… according to what I remember because I was quite arrrr… well I was totally pissed. Castle introduced me to one of his ex's named Mandy and it was her BFF." She shrugged her shoulders indicating she didn't care less about who the stranger was. She looked down and lifted her necklace out. She held up the impressive diamond engagement ring she normally wore on her finger. "I have this and he's not going anywhere." She let the chain go and felt the rings slide down her chest.
Lanie rolled her eyes, "Yes, he is crazy about you."
"I know. Let us know if you find out any more." Kate said as she backed up a few steps then turned and walked out of the morgue to meet with Richard. She found him leaning against the wall his right arm folded over his chest, a grin worn well over his face. He was texting someone and was completely unaware Kate was in the corridor when he chuckled, "Oh Espo, you jackass. You think you're so smart."
She wasn't sure what he was talking about but the sight of him caused her heart to momentarily pick up its pace for a couple of beats, her chest to hum with delight. In fact, every cell of her being, her soul, buzzed and came to life with his presence. It all felt too good. She stopped before him but leaned into his space.
He looked over her whole face, analysed her expression before a wise smile spread over his face, "You know don't you," he rhetorically asked of her, "and don't lie to me."
"Know what?" She creased her brow, lifted her fingers to the collar of his shirt that she pinched. A guilty expression took over her face.
"C'mon Beckett," he pressed using a tone that told her not to insult his intelligence.
"Oh." She glanced between his eyes and lips she wanted to kiss, "You mean that picture of you in the Ledger hanging over those tramps? Of course I know. I saw the pictures on line."
"Oh." He was a little surprised she so readily admitted it, then instantly added, "I'll make it up to you."
"If you want to, but I'm not worried. They're not the woman who sleeps with you every night," she purred.
Rick smiled with pride. She was finally getting over her insecurities with him and other women. "True. I guess I'm the lucky guy."
She grunted, shrugged her shoulders and bit her lip. She was ready to drop the subject. "Can we continue having fun with the boys? They're waiting to see my reaction."
Rick grinned keen to continue the charade especially now he had Kate on his side. Together they could really get the guys. "Sure."
"I'm going home Rick. I'm beat." She said dropping the subject.
"You look it." Rick glanced to the time. It was a little after 6.00 pm and that had been on the go since dawn, "I'm ready to call it a day." He looked right then left, saw they were alone and stood up straight, "Are you staying with me tonight, Katie?" He put his hands to her upper arms and pressed his lips to her forehead.
"What you got in mind for dinner? There's nothing in my fridge."
He smirked and stroked back strands of her hair, "When is there ever something in your fridge?"
"Rhetorical?"
"Yes."
"Any preferences?"
"Haven't thought about it. What are you thinking?"
She smiled, shook back her hair and bit her bottom lip momentarily, "How about we buy take out on the way home…"
He screwed his nose up at that idea, "I know. How about I prepare our dinner while you take a bath. I'll make your favourite."
"Deal, so long as we can get some wine on the way home."
"Absolutely, if you think you can drink wine tonight." He held out his arm for her to hook hers into.
"Yeah, I should probably give that a rest huh?"
"I'm going to have my two fingers of Scotch if that helps you."
"I might join you with that," she replied as they walked back to the Precinct to collect her belongings.
In the elevator Rick mumbled. "You really want to keep playing along with this game with the boys?"
"I think we should."
Rick grinned and clapped his hands, "Let's do it. Do you know or don't have a clue?"
Kate screwed up her face in thought then smiled at Rick, "I don't have a clue. Let's go with that."
"Yeah! Cool. So then you should know the boys have left a copy of the Ledger on your desk."
She nodded, "Okay."
The doors of the elevator opened and Kate stepped out ahead of Rick. She commenced her usual stride down the corridor to her desk with Rick catching up with her. The moment she arrived at her desk she sighted the paper haphazardly left on her desk. It was folded and part of the picture of them was exposed. She glanced to Ryan and Esposito who quickly looked away. Knowing she had their attention she picked up the paper.
"What are you doing Kate? We have to leave. Grab your bag." Castle ordered.
"I need to see whether any of the photos of us taken yesterday made it to today's Ledger."
"No. No. We didn't get in it. Maybe they will be in tomorrow's edition. Where is your purse?" He held her leather jacket open for her to put on. She obeyed and slipped her arms into it.
They heard the snickering from all around them in the bull pen and noticed people glancing about. Kate felt it and decided to really roll with it. She put on her bossy voice. "Did you look?"
Rick gave her a glare as he pulled her hair out for her, thinking she put on that tone just a little too well. If he didn't know she was putting it on for their audience he would have sworn it was authentic. Acting as well as Beckett did, he replied, "I did at breakfast in the diner."
"He promised me we would make the paper."
"You were intoxicated. He probably said lots of things. I'm surprised you actually remember the pictures being taken." Castle waited for Kate to grab her purse, watching her fluff about with her elephants and pens on her desk.
"I wasn't that intoxicated." Kate stated as she picked up her bag and commenced her stride along the corridor. Together, they walked towards the elevator listening to the banter going on behind them. Once they were inside the box and were going to the ground floor, they leaned on the back wall. Kate laughed. Rick smirked and said, "Well played, Beckett."
"I thought so. Did you see them?"
"I did. I was so proud of you when you put on the bossy tone."
"What bossy tone?"
"Arrr… Never mind. Did you see the money changing hands?"
"Yuss!" She held up her hand and they slapped a high five in the air. "So much fun playing them at their own game."
"We'll have to plan it for tomorrow."
The strong jet of hot water spraying against his shoulder blades and neck helped ease the stiffness in Castle's shoulders and upper back. He groaned in pleasure and tilted his head back so he was beneath the shower for a little while. He then reached for the shampoo and lathered it in his hair. Sunday and the long day working had taken its toll on him. He wanted to relax with a drink on the couch for awhile before he cooked dinner. He had left Kate minutes earlier at the kitchen counter. She had gotten busy sorting through mail they had collected from her apartment on the way home. He rinsed his hair and soaked his head beneath the stream of water.
His frayed nerves jumped when he heard a high pitched squeal. It was quickly followed with noisy laughter coming from the office. He smiled because he knew what Kate had found. She must have finished sorting her mail and was placing it on the desk where they would deal with it later. She had seen her prize. He'd held off on saying anything all day, particularly because he wondered whether she actually remembered what had happened the evening before when they had been at the bar with friends for a couple of hours. When Kate Beckett had a bit to drink she was a very funny and an oddly outgoing person. She also loved to sing in front of an audience. Sober, she wouldn't so much as entertain the idea of performing on stage but once she'd had a few drinks it was a different story.
Last night, before he had gone to bed he had placed the trophy on the middle his desk hoping she would have noticed it that morning when she was dressing for work. Now, he was surprised she was as noisy as she sounded because being the end of the day she had been quite weary. She had been looking forward to a bath when they had arrived home.
"Castle!" She called as she entered the bathroom. She tapped on the glass with her nails. He wiped away the steam and smiled at her glistening happy eyes. She was wearing a sloppy joe and loose shorts.
"What is it Baby?"
"Look! I won the Karaoke!" She laughed and flashed him the trophy of a microphone. It wasn't much bigger than her hand but still, it was a trophy. "How crazy is that?"
"And you don't remember a thing about it, my wannabe pop star," he laughed. "Now I can tease you when you start on me about looking like that space cowboy from the TV show."
"Well, you do look like him. Did I sound ok?"
Rick laughed, "Which song? Remember, we had to drag you off the stage."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. You also made friends that night. Did you notice a few extra names in your contacts list today?"
"Well now you say it, yes I did. I thought you were messing with me."
He smiled at her, wondering whether she would ever realise how much he protected her. He let her put the phone numbers in her phone but had ensured she didn't give her number out to anyone. She had been hit on so many times on Sunday evening. He and one of his old pals had been constantly keeping her safe. "Put down your trophy and get in here, Beckett."
"I won the Karaoke, Castle." She sung and pumped her little trophy in the air.
"I know you did. Hurry up already."
"I'm going to have a bath."
"Oh no. Shower tonight," he corrected, "I want to get that position right."
Kate stared at his alluring expression for several seconds as she thought about the image he'd just seeded in her mind. He smiled and lowered his gaze to her chest. She instantly put the trophy on her vanity in a place she would keep it to look at when she was putting on her makeup. She stripped herself of her clothing then stepped into shower straight into his arms.
