Chapter 9

Dammit, that voice. He did not need to hear her voice tonight, he hadn't had nearly enough scotch yet. And of course, the very first thing she brought up was Tom. 'Focus Castle. You have a job to do here, get on with it.'

"Thank you Mr. Mayor, Captain. Detectives, good evening to you. Pumpkin, are you there?"

"Of course Daddy. What's going on?"

"How much has Grams told you guys?"

"Dad, she said you were a Lieutenant in the Navy police, and that you were stationed in Florida. And that you fell in love and lost whoever it was in just a few weeks' time. That you were forced to take leave, met Mom, found out later she was pregnant with me, and decided to leave the Navy and come back to New York. I already knew you let Mom go to California as long as I got to stay with you, so that wasn't really new."

"Bobby, Bob, are you in the study with the board? Can you see the pictures?"

"Yeah Ricky, we're here."

"It's her, isn't it? The woman. It's Anna. See that mark on her leg, the one that looks like a tattoo? It's my baby girl, isn't it Bobby?"

"Oh God, Ricky. Oh wow. No wonder you were so torn up about all this."

"Dr. Parrish there with you guys?"

"I'm here Castle, what's up?"

"Dr. Parrish, Mother tells me you still haven't been able to find anything on prints or DNA or the like, correct?"

"That's right."

"Don't feel bad, Lanie, there's nothing there to find. I doubt she was ever put in any system of any kind, so you wouldn't find her. And that 'tattoo' isn't a tattoo, so it wouldn't be much help either."

"Rick, what do you know about this? What about the torture, we can't even identify the cause of that."

"Detective Beckett," how could two words sound so much like a censure? "you won't find that either because it's not what you think you're looking for. Anna wasn't tortured, not on purpose anyway and not as an adult-"

"Castle those marks are pretty distinct."

"Distinct perhaps, but misleading. Everyone comfy?" Castle didn't wait for a response before continuing. "I guess it's story time now. Just let me grab another bottle of scotch."

"Richard-"

"Mother."

"Very well, Dear. You were saying..."

"Detectives, I know how much caffeine boosts your crime solving superpowers. I'm sure Mother or Alexis would be happy to start some coffee if you'd like. Okay now, boys and girls, I guess it's time for me to stop stalling and get on with it. As Mother has explained, I was a Navy MP beginning in 1988, eventually gaining the rank of Lieutenant. Mayor Weldon and I served together for much of that time, stuck in and around the 'Glades in Florida. It's a bit of a murky subject, but at the time of course large portions of the 'glades were merely unincorporated territory. Both the local Florida government and the good ol' US military shared some responsibility for the area. I can't go into most of the reasons why, but I'm sure you all know that the military has to do it's training somewhere, and it's not always out in the open. We'll leave it at that. It will come as no surprise to you Detectives, that the same conditions that make for good covert training conditions also lend themselves to...somewhat less than legal activity as well. Lieutenant Junior Grade Weldon, now known as Mayor Weldon, and myself were assigned to investigate and interrupt these activities. There was another group, a more-or-less local government group that called themselves the South Florida Patrol Division. They weren't officially sanctioned by anyone, but local authorities sometimes figured they'd take whatever help they could find and have been known to turn a blind eye a time or two. Incidentally, one of the founders of the South Florida Patrol Division was also married to the niece of the local District Attorney. Occasionally our cases would overlap with these guys, but for the most part we just tried to stay out of each others' paths." Through the speaker, the group could hear Castle pouring himself another scotch and taking a deep breath.

"Dad, are you okay?"

"I'm working on it Pumpkin. Thanks." Castle steeled himself and continued. "We got wind of a large meth operation deep in the 'glades, and far too close to one of the Navy's training grounds for comfort. Bob and I, and the rest of our team, eventually tracked it down and were preparing to move in for a late-night raid when this South Florida Patrol Division – SFPD – moved in. We stopped them just before they blew our cover, and...words were exchanged. This was their 'big moment,' the case they planned to use to make themselves fully legit. We were able to stop them doing anything stupid and blowing months of our preparation, but something else blew instead. The meth lab went out in a blaze of glory, right in front of all of us. We moved in immediately, and in the process of clearing the area I stumbled upon Anna. She was hidden in an adjacent building, a dorm where the workers most likely slept when they weren't processing the meth. She was so tiny, less than 6 months old they said when the medics checked her out. Everyone else had been in the lab, she was literally the only one left. And that was only because her family cared so little about her that they neglected her and left her unattended. There were no hospitals nearby besides the base, and the medics said she seemed fairly healthy, just a bit undernourished. I took her back to housing with me...had some leave due so I took it and called Mother to come visit me. Two weeks, I had little Anna. Every hour of every day she was right there with me. I petitioned the courts for custody. My lawyer thought I was a shoo-in. I mean, I was stable, had a solid career, well-paid, and I had been the one to find and rescue her after all. Got her up to almost-normal weight, too. She was healthy, she was engaged. When we first found her, she would hardly even cry. The first time she really let loose and howled, I thought I was gonna cry."

"You did cry Richard."

"Thank you Mother. You weren't exactly unaffected yourself, were you? Anyway..." Castle trailed off, and it almost sounded as though he sniffled. "You remember, Bobby? You remember what that judge told me?"

"I remember Ricky. Never forget that day."

"The court denied my petition. The judge agreed with the DA – why was the DA involved, you ask? - I'm getting there. The DA...the damn DA sa-" his voice broke and he once again trailed off. "Bobby, you wanna take over a minute?"

"The good-for-nothin hot-shot DA wanted to give the baby to his favorite niece. So he used every point Ricky's lawyer made in his favor, against him. Last thing he said while Rick was on the stand was "Mr. Castle you're a cop, and a Navy cop at that. From all accounts you're a good cop, but you really have no idea what it means to be a father.'"

Demming's words rang out in Beckett's mind: 'You should go back to your writing Castle; you have no idea what it means to be a cop.' Oh, this was so not good.

"Rick and I sat there in that courtroom until the Bailiff made us leave. That was the last time he called me "Bobby" until the other day, too. They made him give up Anna right away. No-good DA was trying to make a name for his family in bigger and better circles than just his own local district."

"Like I said earlier," Castle's voice was stronger now. "His niece was married to one of the founders of SFPD, and they were trying to establish themselves as a force to be reckoned with. The DA made a big public spectacle about his nephew-in-law's raid on the meth lab, calling it a "menace" and him a hero. Made it sound like he was the one that rescued the baby, and I had just taken care of her as some part of my assignment as an MP. In addition to the Superhero and the DA, there was a doctor in the family – the DA's brother in fact. Lanie, you still listening to all this drivel?"

"I'm right here Rick. Whatcha need hon?"

"Lanie, the reason you haven't had any luck with ID is that they managed to keep her out of any official channels, once my petition was denied. Doctor Granddad took care of any medical needs, Uncle DA got the records sealed from my petition, and they managed to keep the paper trail to a remarkable minimum. Remember, this was the Everglades, and deep inside at that. I tried over the years to keep up with her, to find out what had happened. Other than using her "adoption" - which was never made official, by the way, because they would have had to leave a paper trail for that – as a smoke screen to boost his family's name, neither the DA nor his nephew-in-law really seemed to stay involved in Anna's life. SFPD took off like wildfire for a while, but rather suddenly closed it's doors a few years later. The man they gave my little girl to slipped away quietly, leaving behind his family and his now-shady company."

"Castle," Kate hesitated, "how do you know for sure this is the same person?"

"Lanie," he addressed the ME, he just couldn't bring himself to talk directly to Beckett yet, "that tattoo. What did it look like to you?"

"It was hard to say Castle. I mean, with all of the old and new scarring, some in the same area as the tattoo, it was pretty messed up. But...well, it was small. A badly done circle, maybe, with some kind of design inside."

"When I found Anna, there was a charm bracelet by her bedding. A small heart-shaped charm had landed on her leg. It's not a tattoo, Lanie, she was basically branded by the hot metal."