On her last day with the signal crew she was sunburned, in better shape, and had a new appreciation for the work of traffic cops everywhere. She was now resigned to the constant verbal abuse and guessed she had been cursed at in every language on the planet. Her hair was no longer a problem because after 2 weeks of disaster, she had accepted her stylist recommendation for a modified butch. Her uniform got had no such reprieve. Every day it reeked of sweat, grime, and auto fumes.
On her first day back at the precinct, she met with Captain Sotan to learn that she would now be a glorified clerk for the entire precinct taking care of any menial task that any of her fellow officers felt they were too busy to accomplish. After briefly learning about her new duties, he escorted her over to a tiny alcove spot where only a single desk would fit. It had a phone, a computer terminal, a blotter, an out box and an overflowing inbox. Her job was to get as many things as possible out of the inbox every day. If she had questions regarding any of the requests, she was to contact the referring officer and follow their instructions period. Independent thinking was not on the agenda.
The height of the pile before her indicated that no division was going to be shy about utilizing her services. Fulfilling all these requests seemed like a daunting task, and she wondered if her often expressed disdain for paperwork at the 12th played any role in how this job was structured. The first week was spent getting to know the personnel she would need to interact with. The property clerks, administrative assistants in the DA office, and judicial staff were not a happy bunch, and she usually got a cool reception because her call usually meant more work for them.
On the last day of the first week she had to call the Medical Examiner's office, and much to her surprise, Lanie answered the call. When Lanie realized who the caller was, everything turned frosty. 'You should call Perlmutter; I would only talk with you if it was recorded. My whole life was upended because of your silly investigation. Javier, Kevin, and I are still paying off the lawyer, and your mess has left us shunned by most of our colleagues. We just keep our heads down and pray IA never darkens our door. The new captain, probably on orders from Gates, has gone regulation crazy, and the boys are being kept on a short leash.' With that little tirade off her chest, Lanie slammed the phone down, and Beckett was once again was left speechless by another harsh rebuke from someone she once considered her best friend.
Over the next few weeks her work life settled into a tedious series of fetch, read, collate, review, and summarize for whoever made the request. It was not something to look forward to, and there was absolutely no personnel interaction that wasn't strictly work related. She was sure that if she keeled over at her desk, her colleagues would still add to the inbox ignoring her lifeless body. The traffic assignment, her new endless life in clerical hell, and the short talk with Lanie were starting to make her doubt her usual self-confidence about how her work ethic would win over all her detractors.
A new bump in the road came when a letter from Castle's lawyer stated that the rather muted publicity about her demotion had none-the-less violated her non-disclosure agreement, and the second payment would not forthcoming. Her lawyer was quite willing to fight this unilateral decision, but she opted not to. Her bank account was still quite flush, and the added cash was not worth the probably public fight to get it.
The last straw in the continuing car wreck of her work life came quite by accident.
Somehow, someone at central dispatch had put her on the call list for the homicide unit. When the call came around 4:00AM, she could hardly believe her ears as she was told to dress at the station and report to the scene ASAP. She hoped this was the beginning of a thaw with her precinct colleagues, and her expectations were quite high on the way over.
When she arrived at the scene, something was off. There in the thick of things with 2 of her precinct detectives was Kevin Ryan. A cascade of thoughts entered her mind as she tentatively hoped that their chance meeting might lead to a slow reconciliation on that front. She soon learned that was not the plan. Apparently their victim was a person of interest in a case currently being worked at the 12th, and he was here to provide liaison services for his home unit.
When they collectively recognized her, Kevin motioned for her to join them. Without any word of greeting, he began by instructing her to begin the usual canvas on the floor immediately. She was about to start when she realized the early hour and suggested a later start time in order to gain more cooperation. Kevin was in no mood for second guessing, and said, 'Officer Beckett start the canvas now and you know do all the floors in the building. You can never have too much information. Then in a raised voice he continued, 'Now get started - are we clear, Beckett?'
As she turned to leave all she could muster was, 'Yes Sir'. When Perlmutter arrived about 10 minutes later, he was greeted by a crying Beckett leaning up against the building near the main entrance. This rebuke was a real body blow because of all her former friends she thought Ryan was the most likely to understand why she had done what she did. That obviously was a foolish hope, and her isolation from her friends, Castle, Alexis, and Martha was now fully exposed. She went home that night and followed her usual routine except she openly wept in the tub while considering what a mess she had made of everything.
The canvass took an extra day to complete because Ryan's whim expanded the number of contacts from just 6 to over 30. Calls were made the following day to set up visits with those not questioned that first morning. Those interviews were short and not very helpful. Most were not happy about a police intrusion into their busy lives and wanted her out of their face as soon as possible. When the reports were finished, she sent them off to her detective colleagues with a copy for Ryan as well. She wondered how he would react to seeing her name in his inbox.
With that completed, she resumed her inbox battle, and though everyone knew she was temporarily preoccupied, that didn't mitigate the size of the pile awaiting her attention. That Friday after work she took her bike and rode to her newly remodeled cabin. The rest of the weekend was spent considering what to do next.
Gates promised that her work life would be hell, and though she had tried to persevere, nothing she did seemed to remove the stigma of blatant contempt from her fellow officers. On the home front her dad was not happy about her seeing Doctor Burke who he felt had coddled to the point of being both expensive and ineffective. He liked Dr. Duffy's blunt approach and wanted her to forsake all the baggage in the city and resume sessions with him. On the Castle front, he seemed to have disappeared from the tabloids, and the only news she could find was that he had severed his relationship with Black Pawn and was temporarily living out in California.
With her work life shattered, no hope for renewing past friendships, and little progress from the sessions with Dr. Burke, it seemed like a change of venue might be an excellent idea. The cabin was winterized, and she could buy a beater car for those days when the bike was an unsafe choice. With more than half of the divorce settlement still in the bank, she was confident that money would not be a problem for the foreseeable future.