Who Are You?

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: No me tenga Castle, comprende? Rating: K or sometimes M. Time: Season seven.

Chapter 10

"Beckett, can we talk?" Roz Karpaowski stood at Kate's desk, looking uncomfortable.

"Sure, Roz. What is it?" Beckett leaned back in her chair.

"Um, can we talk privately?"

"Sure. The interview room?" Kate rose from her chair, wondering what was on the other detective's mind.

Once in the room with the doors shut, Roz still looked uncomfortable.

"Roz? You wanted to talk."

"Yeah. Um, every month or so, I have some female cops over, we have a couple of drinks, maybe order some pizza, bitch about our love lives…"

"You do know I'm married, don't you?" Kate asked gently, still wondering where this was going.

"One of the women who comes over is Melody Miller. She's a Special Agent with the DEA here in Manhattan. She told us a story about a month ago."

"About the dead cops or the dead drug dealer?" Kate was starting to get interested.

"No. She told us a story about something that was supposed to have happened in New Mexico."

The mention of New Mexico, where the mysterious Fed was supposedly from, really got Kate's attention. "And?"

"Melody said there was this pair of DEA agents, a man and a woman, who got kidnapped and taken into Mexico. They were both tortured and the woman was repeatedly raped. After about three days, their naked bodies were dumped out in the desert, just inside the US."

Roz stopped as if expecting Kate to say something.

"That's terrible, but how does it affect us?"

"All of the Feds and local cops went crazy. They…..may have overstepped their authority in trying to find out who the killers were."

"That's a matter for the authorities in New Mexico."

Roz nodded. "Normally, but Melody said they found out who the kidnappers were. A crew of six Mexicans. A professional kidnapping crew. The crew had no intention of crossing the border again and they had no real evidence to give to the Mexican authorities to ask for extradition. So they hit a stone wall. Nothing they could do."

Kate nodded. "We've all been there."

"But the DEA guys in New Mexico decided they did have an option. They had this gun for hire, a real cold blooded killer who'd killed four teenaged Mexican drug mules who had decided to steal the drugs instead of handing them over to their bosses. They offered him a deal. If he'd go to Mexico and kill the kidnappers, all the evidence against him would just disappear. He agreed and two weeks later six headless corpses were found in the desert just inside Mexico. Just after that, the Post Office found six severed heads in a package addressed to the US Attorney in New Mexico. There was no return address, naturally, but it was sent from Mexico."

"What happened?" Kate asked, now horrified.

"Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"Beckett, the DEA guys knew what they were doing. There was no evidence whatsoever that the DEA had conspired to obstruct justice, that they had destroyed evidence, or that they were involved in any way with an extra-judicial murder. Oh, sure, there were lots of rumors, like the one Melody heard, but no evidence. According to Melody, the local DEA boss decided he'd keep their hired gun around. Use him as a one man police death squad."

"What does this have to do with us?" Kate asked, sure that she knew the answer already.

"Melody said the guy was in his thirties, about six one, two twenty to two forty, and built like a weightlifter. Brown hair and eyes, shaggy hair and beard. He carried a modified 1911A1 Colt, fitted with a suppressor. Sound like anyone we know?"

Kate cursed. "Roz, don't tell anyone about this. Not anyone, until I can talk to Gates. She should be back from One PP in another hour or so. Castle, Ryan and Espo should be back by then, too. And you stick around, Gates will probably want to talk to you."

The first to show up were Ryan and Esposito who had been trying to track down anyone in the Izquerida family. Epso, who had done most of the talking to the family briefed her.

"The widow, Elisabeta Izquerida, went back to Miami after her husband died. She has family, including one of her husband's brothers, in Florida. The son is finishing up a law degree at Yale and the daughter is at Penn, studying finance. And, if we want to talk to any member of the family, we'll need a warrant and a nice big room so all of their attorneys can attend. We won't get anything out of them. We've tried to track down anyone who might have been close enough to Izquerida to know about the hit, but no luck so far."

"Keep at it." Beckett said. "But we have another problem now." She explained to her two detectives what she had been told by Karpowski.

"Shit. No wonder the Feds wanted him as far from New Mexico as possible."

Just then, both Castle and Gates exited the elevator. Kate stood up. "Sir, we need to talk."

Once inside Gates' office, Kate told the Captain what Karpowski had told her.

Gates frowned and shook her head. "I that's true and our alleged Fed is actually some hit man, why would the US Attorney been so dead set against our talking to him?"

"It could have been a ruse." Castle said. "They want him out of New Mexico, so they pretend they don't want to give him up, so we'll want him all that much more. Meanwhile, hoping he'll get his head blown off in New York so they don't have to deal with a big scandal."

"Or maybe the opposite, sir." Kate said. "They could want to use him to bring down the rogue DEA agents he worked for. Maybe they have more than just the rumors that Karpowski mentioned. Getting him to New York would keep him away from anyone in New Mexico that would want to silence him."

"And we're assuming that McCarty didn't land a job with some Federal Agency and has a New Mexico driver's license just as part of his cover." Castle added. "This whole thing about a tame DEA killer may be just an urban legend."

Gates shook her head. "Thank you, Mr. Castle, for adding another unhappy layer to our problem." Gates leaned back and stared at the ceiling. "I'll have to think of some way to approach the US Attorney about this without implying that the whole Department of Justice is sanctioning death squads. Don't say anything about this to anyone. Not anyone at all."

Back at Beckett's desk, Castle leaned over and whispered to her. "Is it my imagination, or are we growing less popular around here?"

"It's not your imagination, Castle. I'll admit that there are dirty cops and that some sort of Internal Affairs is necessary, but no one likes them. They seem to see everyone as guilty until proven innocent and they seem to enjoy busting cops way too much. And we're now working for IA."

"And I bet Lieutenant Bergdahl isn't the softest, cuddliest IA cop around."

Kate smiled. "Not by a long shot."

Mick Johnson called them later that afternoon. "Good news. I planted a couple of stories that the reason you can't find this McCarty guy is because he's hiding out with a ton of money he stole from drug dealers. Give's you guys a better reason for not finding that dirt bag. I got some other stuff to do. Later."

Castle shook his head when the phone call was over. "He calls himself a dirt bag?"

Kate smiled. "The secret to being undercover is never, ever get out of character. He's Mick Johnson now and no one else." She looked at her watch. "We should go home now. Do you want me to cook?"

"I love it when you talk culinary." Castle waggled his eyebrows and Kate giggled.

Rick was fumbling with the keys to his loft when the door was opened. A stocky Hispanic man opened the door, then smiled. "Hey, Rojita, your folks are here." He opened the door widely. "Come on in, we're just about to have dinner. Su casa es mi casa, or something."

Alexis, Martha and five young men were in the kitchen, mixing, chopping, slicing and dicing, mixing and cooking.

"Who….?" Rick began.

"These are Alexis' friends I told you about." Kate whispered in his ear. "I guess they're making dinner."

Martha waved Rick and Kate over. "Come on in. The boys are cooking with tequila." She lifted a glass in a toast. "Or cooking on tequila."

Vince Peake smiled at Rick. "Alexis took us to a Mexican place in Nuevo York. Not bad, but not like the good stuff that Tuco and Flaco can cook."

"My mamacita insisted that I know how to cook if I was going in the Army. She said I'd never get any real food otherwise." Flaco said.

Peake handed both Rick and Kate bottles of beer. "Cervesas por ustedes. It's Corona beer. Pretty good."

"Better than no beer at all." Said the African American.

Flaco looked up at them. "We're making some of the usual Tex-Mex tourist type foods, tacos, burritos and such. But we'll make you some machaca, birria, and menudo. "He turned to Peake. "Doc, tu cuchillo, por favor? "

Doc removed a good sized knife from his boot top and handed it over. He looked sheepishly at Rick and Kate. "I'm a combat medic. I have to cut away clothing, web gear and all kinds of shit. And it can be used as a scalpel."

"Useful on cardiac surgeons?" Kate muttered, but everyone was too busy with the cooking to notice.

Alexis and her friends told Martha, Rick and Kate to go enjoy their drinks while they cooked. Rick and Kate snuggled up together. "You said one of them called Alexis Doc's girlfriend?" He whispered in her ear."

"I don't think it's gone that far, yet. But you never know. He's not like any of Alexis' other boyfriends."

Rick nodded glumly. "I'll say he's not. I'm not going to have much luck intimidating him, am I?"

Kate laughed. "Oh, if you get me, Espo, Ryan, LT and a few others, we might just attract his attention. As long as he doesn't have any of his friends with him, that is."

Everyone admitted the meal was fantastic. As they ate, the Rangers told mostly funny stories about their service and when the meal was over, they did the dishes and put them away.

Later that night Rick and Kate cuddled in bed together. "Something wrong, babe?"

Castle said nothing for a while. "I was just getting used to Alexis having boyfriends. Now Alexis has men friends. I don't think Vince Peake will be the one, but sooner or later, she's going to meet a man and they'll fall in love and my little girl will be gone."

Kate kissed him. "Let me tell you something. I'm still my dad's little girl and I always will be. Don't worry."

"I will you know. But what if she ends up marrying a male version of Meredith? Oh, god. What an awful thought. I couldn't stand it."

"We're lucky that Alexis is the smart one in the family. She'd never marry anyone anything like Meredith."

Castle stared at the ceiling for a few minutes. "Alexis is very lucky to have you as a mom."

That stunned Kate. "You think she sees me as a mother figure?"

"Not as a mother figure, but as her mom. You're a better mom than either Meredith or Gina ever were. I just wish I'd married you the night we met."

Kate giggled. "Instead of "Where do you want it" you'd have said, "Will you marry me?" Be serious, Castle."

"I am. Oh, I know, it might have taken me a while to get you to see things my way, but we could have been married within a year or so of meeting. "

Kate laughed, kissed Rick and laughed some more. "Good night, Mr. Castle. "

The next morning Ryan and Espo were waiting for the Castles.

"We may have one. A guy named Eduardo Nunez heard we're looking for anyone who knows about the killing of the three cops. His sister called us just ten minutes ago and wants to set up a meet."

"Where?" Kate asked,

"Spanish Harlem. The bad part."

"There's a good part of Spanish Harlem?" Castle asked.

"Creeping gentrification, bro. Old buildings are being torn down and new condos going up. Trendy clubs and boutiques are opening up for hip young Manhattanites. Someday soon, the only crimes in Spanish Harlem will be income tax evasion and insider trading."

"The mind boggles." Castle said, shaking his head with mock sadness.

Two patrol cars met them at Nunez's apartment building. Another was out back in case he decided to run and not talk.

"You guys know Nunez?" Kate asked the uniforms.

"Long time heroin addict. Been fairly clean for the last year. Gets methadone at a local clinic, but he's broke, in his late forties, a high school dropout with no job skills. Hard for a guy like that to stay clean."

"Some do. Maybe he's a lucky one."

They went to the third floor and knocked on the door. A rather disheveled looking woman answered. "You the cops? You're too damned late. Too damned late."

"Where is he?" Beckett demanded, pushing her way into the apartment.

"Bedroom." The woman pointed.

They found Nunez sprawled on his bed, alive, but seriously stoned. A candle, a spoon, syringe and a bag of white powder was on a table beside him.

"Call an ambulance. Get CSU over here." Kate snapped. "We'll arrest him for possession and take him to the hospital."

The sister reached for her brother.

"Don't touch him. Everything is evidence."

"I just want to get his wallet. He has money. He owes me."

"Wait? A heroin addict who didn't spend all of his money on smack? Where did he get it from?"

"Do I get his money?" The sister looked stubborn.

"How much does he owe you?"

The woman shrugged. "He has about thirty dollars on him. Maybe a bit more. I've been supporting him. It's mine." She whined.

"Castle, do you have a fifty?"

"For you, Beckett, of course." Castle waggled his eyebrows.

Kate glared at him. "For her."

Castle sighed dramatically. "She's not really my type."

The glare got more intense and Castle handed over a fifty.

The woman tucked the bill in her bra. "A man called Ricky Perez came by. He was Eduardo's dealer in the old days. He said he wanted to see how Eduardo was. I thought Eduardo was clean and I needed to go to the tienda, the store. When I came back just five minutes ago, Eduardo was like this."

One of the uniforms spoke up. "We know this guy Perez. He's got a regular street corner not two blocks from here. This time of day, he's either on the corner, dealing, or he's at a little bodega to have a beer and some snacks."

The four police cars pulled up at the corner to find a smiling Ricky Perez waiting for them. "Good afternoon, officers. Isn't this a fine day? And how are you?"

Espo braced Perez against his car. "We got a tip that you gave some heroin to a guy."

"Me? Give drugs to someone? Never happen. Please, search me. You'll find I have no drugs."

Epso took him at his word and searched him. "He's clean." He said angrily when he was done.

Perez looked around. "So, I got no drugs on me and you got someone says I have drugs to someone? Doesn't sound like much of a case to me."

"Read him his rights." Kate told Espo. "We'll take him downtown and see if he remembers anything."

Perez immediately asked for an attorney who told his client to say nothing. And nothing is what he said.

After the interrogation, such as it was, Beckett talked to Captain Gates. "Ms. Nunez left before Perez went into the bedroom, so she can't testify that she saw Perez give her brother any drugs. Nunez can testify, but all we have is the word of an addict against a convicted drug dealer. The DA is never going to prosecute that. What worries me is who sent Perez to give the drugs to Nunez. The sister called the station precinct this morning to set up the meet. That means there were only a few hours for someone to find out that Nunez wanted to talk about our case and get Perez over to shut him up for a while."

"You think we have a leak?" Gates said with a frown.

"Sounds reasonable."

"Talk to the sister again and then talk to Nunez when he's down from his high. Maybe we can figure something out."

Rick and Kate interrogated the sister who was no help. She insisted that her brother had come in late last night saying he had information that the police might want and wanted his sister to call the police the next morning to set up a meet. She stuck to that story and Rick and Kate gave up.

They were met by Ryan and Espo when they had released Ms. Nunez. "Bad news. Eduardo Nunez died in the ER. We asked Lanie to do the autopsy, but I'll bet she finds that he was given pure smack. Strong enough to kill him."

Kate gathered her team at her desk. "I talked to Gates earlier. I think someone in the department tipped off whoever was taking money from the drug dealers back in the day. That someone moved quickly to silence Eduardo Nunez."

"Dirty cops still at it?" Ryan said. "That sucks."

"Just keep your mouths closed about every part of this case. Don't even talk about it unless you're sure no one can over hear you, and….."Bugs." Kate shook her head. "We could be bugged. Find a bug sweeper and check your phones, your police cells and your personal cells. And check around your desks. I'll go tell Gates what's going on."

"Beckett, I know a guy."

"You always know a guy, Castle." She said with a smile.

"You have Espo going around looking for bugs, it'll be all over the precinct and then all over the NYPD. I know a guy that can do the sweep and keep it on the down low."

"How soon?"

"It would be better if we did it tonight, after most people have left."

Much later, there were only two other detectives in the bullpen, laboriously typing out reports using only two fingers. The elevator door opened and a young man with several bags of food stepped out.

"Hi, Mr. Castle. Working late tonight?"

"Afraid so, Jerry." Castle smiled.

"Bad for you, but good for my dad, I guess. There are just the six of you here? I gotta lot of food."

Beckett turned to the other two detectives. "Guys, Castle bought us some late night snacks. Want some?"

Nobody had to ask them twice and the six all gathered at Beckett's desk for some very good gourmet sandwiches, potato salad, and cookies.

"Um, Detective Beckett?" Jerry asked. "Can I use the bathroom?"

"Sure, the closest one is down the hallway there. And we have lots of food, you can stay for some, I hope."

Jerry quickly set up his gear in a stall in the men's room and checked for bugs. And bugs he found. He came back, enjoyed his meal and then sat with Kate and her team.

"You have bugs in your landline, but that's it. Your cells are okay and there are no bugs anywhere else on this floor. I'll check your cars when I leave and call Mr. Castle."

"Should we take out the bugs?" Rick asked.

Jerry shook his head. "If you take them out, they'll know you're onto them. Better leave them in and don't say anything you don't want other people to know. They may get suspicious, but that's better than broadcasting what you're doing."

Jerry called later to tell Castle that the cars were clear, but told Castle he'd leave some high tech bug detectors at the loft for him and Kate and for Ryan and Esposito. He also suggested that he check the loft and both Ryan and Esposito's places. But, the only bugs found were in the detective's landlines at the precinct.

"So what's that mean?" Rick asked Jerry the next evening at the loft.

"Probably not a full blown professional job. They were in a hurry. But, I did check the bugs, left them in place, of course. They're Chinese made and expensive, and the Chinese sell them directly to their customers. No way to get the Chinese to identify who those were sold to."

"That sounds professional to me." Kate said.

"I'd guess whoever did it had an access problem. Couldn't get in your home or at your cell phones because you have your phones with you all the time. I'm a little surprised they didn't bug your cars. But maybe they just haven't gotten around to it. Keep checking with the bug detectors I gave you."

Once Jerry had left, Kate took Rick's hand. "We've known all along that this was about dirty cops, babe."

He nodded slowly. "I just hate to think someone could get access like that."

"You can get in the precinct without going past the desk sergeant if you're a cop and know what you're doing. Then, just show up during the graveyard shift, and pretend to leave notes on our desks while you plant the bugs. If no one's around, you don't even have to pretend."

The next morning they got to work early and found Ryan and Esposito trying not to stare at the closed door to Gates' office.

"We have company, bro."