Chapter 10
Castle emerged from his office and crossed the room to go and answer the knocking at the door. As he was walking past he looked over to the living room and smiled at the sight of Kate and Alexis sitting on the couch watching an episode of Temptation Lane.
"I'll get the door, shall I?" he called out.
"Thanks Dad." Alexis replied waving her hand but her eyes were glued to the TV. Kate too was focused on the show.
Castle chuckled to himself as he headed to the door. Opening the door he was a little surprised to find Jim Beckett standing in front of him.
"Jim, what a pleasant surprise." The two men shook hands.
"Good to see you again, Rick."
"Come in, come in." Castle waved him in and closed the door.
Castle escorted Jim towards the living room.
"How is Kate?" Jim asked in a low voice.
"Good. Getting better." Castle assured him. He looked over to the living room and saw that both Kate and Alexis had not turned to see who had arrived.
"Though at the moment I doubt you'll get much of their attention."
"Oh?"
"A Temptation Lane marathon." Castle explained.
"Ah." Jim nodded his head in understanding. He chuckled softly. "I know it well, her mother was the same."
The two men exchanged a look that said that they did not understand what their women folk saw in goings on of that soap opera that made it addictive viewing for them, and probably never would.
"Kate, you have a visitor." Castle announced.
Kate turned her head to find her father standing in the living room beside Castle. Her face broke into a big smile.
"Hey Dad."
"Katie."
"Hello Mr Beckett." Alexis said with a smile.
"Alexis." Jim returned the smile.
Kate started to get up from the couch but Jim waved her down as he reached her. Leaning down he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before he settled himself on a nearby armchair.
"Can I get you anything, Mr Beckett?" Alexis had risen from the couch.
"I'm fine thank you."
Alexis made her excuses and headed upstairs. Castle wanted to remain but he realised that father and daughter needed some alone time.
"Well I'll leave you two to it." He announced.
"Rick, you don't need to leave on my account." Jim said.
"I have to go back to work." Castle motioned with his hand in the direction of his office. "Must finish the chapter otherwise my publisher will flay me alive."
Jim nodded his head in understanding. He watched as Rick left the living room and disappeared into his office. Jim turned his attention back to Kate and smiled at her.
"So tell me, Katie is he taking good care of you?"
Kate rolled her eyes at her father's question. Jim gave her a serious look.
"Yeah, Dad he is taking good care of me."
Jim nodded his head. A grin appeared on his face.
"Just checking."
"Dad." Kate huffed.
Castle emerged from his office an hour later feeling with pleased with himself. He had finished the chapter in less time than he thought it would take. All that remained was to do some revisions which would not take him too long and then he could email the chapter to Gina.
He saw Kate and her father in deep conversation that was punctuated with ripples of laughter. He headed into the kitchen and made coffee for all of them. A few minutes later he brought the coffees over to the living room and passed them out before he claimed the spot on the couch that Alexis had vacated.
"Katie has been telling me you've been telling her another of your Minstrel stories." Jim announced.
Castle grinned and shrugged his shoulders.
"If you don't mind, I would like to hear some of it."
"You would?" Castle was a little surprised at the request.
"We both would." Kate added.
"Well I wouldn't want to disappoint my fans." Castle chuckled.
The remark earned Castle a roll of Kate's eyes but he beamed back at her as returned to the story he had been telling.
"... Richard the Minstrel found himself before a shop that specialised in the sale of antiques. As he dismounted from Derrick, the Minstrel saw a number of interesting items set out in front of the store. He began to inspect them with the critical eye he had for such wares. His own abode was filled with tasteful antiques he had acquired over the years. Some were of great monetary value and others were valuable to the Minstrel because of the amusement they gave him.
As the Minstrel continued to cast his critical over the objects on display he could not help but wonder why the fair Detective Beckett had asked him to meet here. As he had been getting ready to set forth on this new day to the station house to assist the fair Detective Beckett in solving the crime of the murder of Melanie Cavanaugh he had received at his door a dispatch orderly who had passed the missive from the fair Detective summoning him to this very store.
Upon hearing the arrival of a horse the Minstrel drew his eyes from the interesting antiques. He broke into a welcoming smile when he espied the fair Detective Beckett. The fair Detective dismounted and joined the Minstrel in front of the antique store.
"Good morrow, my dear Detective, how does thee fair on this fine morning?"
"I am well, Minstrel." The fair Detective replied, gracing him with a small smile.
The Minstrel regarded the fair Detective and could not help but notice that she looked a little tired as if she had not slept long overnight. He suspected immediately that after sending him home the day before she had remained in the squad room going over the evidence that they had gathered thus far well into the night. Truly he had witnessed it for himself such actions from the fair Detective before, staying in the squad room into the early hours of the morning reviewing evidence and reports of an especially difficult case.
"May I inquire as to why we find ourselves in front of this store that sells antiques of various quality?" The Minstrel asked.
"I thought it would do us well to speak to Charles Wyler esquire." The fair Detective Beckett informed him.
The Minstrel nodded his head in understanding. His curiosity now assuaged.
"Ah, yes indeed." He said. "Sam's best friend."
The Minstrel bowed his head and motioned with his hand in the direction of the front door of the store. The fair Detective gave the Minstrel a roll of her eyes and shake of her head at his theatrical display of chivalry but she also gave him a small smile before she walked through the front door.
The first thing the Minstrel noticed about the store was that the better quality items were in the store rather than in front of the shop. His eyes fell upon an ornate teak writing desk. For a moment he wanted to linger at the desk and examine it carefully but he knew that he was not here on a shopping expedition. He quickly walked up to the fair Detective who approached the owner of the establishment.
Charles Wyler esquire was a tall man aged in his early to mid forties with short black hair and a thin moustache. He was dressed in black shirt and matching trousers whose cut suggested that the antique business was a lucrative enterprise. A thick gold chain around his neck and bejewelled rings adorning several of his fingers also lent great weight to the idea that he was a successful antiques dealer. He was at this moment making notes on a clipboard, noting some recently arrived stock.
Wyler glanced up from his work and saw the approach of the fair Detective Beckett and the Minstrel. He broke into a welcoming smile.
"Good morrow, Lady, Sir." Wyler said in greeting. "How may I be of assistance?"
"Charles Wyler esquire?" The fair Detective said.
"I am he." Wyler continued to smile.
The fair Detective Beckett produced her shield and held it before Wyler's face. The smile faded from the man's face.
"Detective Beckett New York Constabulary." The fair Detective said, then motioned in the Minstrel's direction. "And this is Richard the Minstrel."
Wyler looked from the fair Detective to the Minstrel and back to the fair Detective. A concerned, curious look settled upon his face.
"How may I assist the constabulary?"
"We have some questions to ask of you concerning Melanie Cavanaugh."
Wyler nodded his head saddly.
"I read in the Ledger that her body had been found. Very sad." Wyler sighed.
"Master Wyler, the detective investigating Melanie's disappearance said that you had told him that she had gone to a former boyfriend in Philadelphia." The fair Detective said.
Wyler nodded his head. "I only told him what Sam had told me."
"Sam told you?" The fair Detective's eyebrows rose upwards.
"It is where she had gone previously, before the wedding and a few times after."
"But you are not sure that is where she ventured?"
"It is the only thing that made sense." Wyler's attention was drawn to a small statuette sitting on a table. He fingered it for a moment before he looked up to the fair Detective. "Melanie was a good woman but she was troubled, you know? Sometimes, when things got hard, she would go out and score. Then she would come home high, and accuse Sam of ruining her life. He'd given her everything."
"Do you recall the name of this former boyfriend?" The Minstrel inquired.
"Kevin Henson." Wyler replied immediately. He made a sour looking face before he continued speaking. "If something happened to Melanie, he would be the one who would know."
The fair Detective nodded her head. She cast a glance in the direction of the Minstrel but from the look on his face she could tell that he had no further questions to ask of Master Wyler.
"Thank you for your time, Master Wyler."
The fair Detective turned and started for the door. The Minstrel with the task at hand completed paused to cast his eyes over some other writing desks that had caught his attention. He started to move towards them.
"Minstrel, are you coming?" The fair Detective Beckett called out.
The Minstrel stopped heading towards the writing desks and changed course. Quickly he trotted to catch up with the fair Detective. The writing desks would have to wait for another day he consoled himself.
XXX
Sir Roy of Montgomery the Sheriff stood at the desk of the fair Detective Beckett. The fair Detective and the Minstrel were also standing. Sir Roy was studying a sketch that the fair Detective had passed over to him. The sketch was of Kevin Henson. The picture was of a man in his thirties with a face which had endured a lot of wear and tear.
"So this is Kevin Henson?" Sir Roy mused aloud.
"Yes, sir." The fair Detective responded.
Sir Roy looked up from the picture he was studying and focused his gaze upon the fair Detective.
"Kevin Henson, Melanie's former boyfriend." The fair Detective reported. "He is currently serving a year in prison for opium peddling in South Jersey. He went into prison just after the last payment was made on the storage room."
"He stops payment, storage man finds her body." The Minstrel added.
"Truly quite a coincidence." Sir Roy remarked.
The fair Detective picked up a sheet of paper from her desk and passed it to Sir Roy.
"As it happens Henson was on the outside when Sam Cavanaugh met his untimely demise."
Sir Roy looked up from the paper he had been handed and regarded the fair Detective.
"Me thinks a journey to South Jersey is in order, detective."
"Yes, sir."
Sir Roy returned to his office leaving the fair Detective and the Minstrel looking at each other.
"Not another trip to the wilds of Jersey?" The Minstrel whined.
The fair Detective herself was not all that enamoured to find herself having to journey out to the province of New Jersey in the space of two days but she schooled her fair face not to reveal her true feelings.
"If luck is riding with us, Minstrel we should return by nightfall." She informed him as she gathered her things and headed out of the squad room.
The Minstrel let out another whine and made to catch up with the rapidly disappearing fair Detective.
XXX
The closet thing to a prison Richard the Minstrel had ever been in was the holding cells that he had been thrown in for various minor infarctions of the laws of one municipality or another. On entering the confines of a genuine penitentiary was a sobering experience for the Minstrel. He could not imagine being confined behind these high walls for any length of time. It made him quiet.
At the reception area the fair Detective Beckett handed over her weapons and asked for an interview with Kevin Henson. The guard behind the front desk waved her and the Minstrel to one of the chairs in the waiting area.
As they sat down the fair Detective could not help but notice the Minstrel's quietude. She cast a raised eyebrow in his direction.
"You are awfully silent, Minstrel?"
"I am fine, my dear Detective." The Minstrel replied, forcing a smile upon his face.
The fair Detective's eyebrows rose a little higher, silently telling him that she did not believe his words.
"Truly, I am fine, me dear Detective." The Minstrel assured her. "Tis not everyday one gets to visit a incarceration facility such as this. And it takes a little getting used to. One can't help but think of all manner of misfortune that could befall a ruggedly handsome minstrel."
"Do not fear your pretty little head, Minstrel I am here and will protect you." The fair Detective patted his knee and smiled.
The little jape and friendly gesture was a balm that lessened the tension the Minstrel had been feeling from the moment he had passed through the front gates of the jail. A warmer smile appeared on the Minstrel's face.
"Consider this field trip as a research expedition for the tome you are writing." The fair Detective added.
"Truly an interesting thought you pose, my dear Detective." The Minstrel said, brightening. "Mayhap I could include a prison scene somewhere in the book?"
The fair Detective Beckett was curious about the story the Minstrel was writing about a character based on her. Of the times she had tried to illicit information about what he was writing all he would hand her were small titbits merely to whet her appetite. More often than not such morsels merely annoyed her.
A guard came around front the front desk and approached the fair Detective and her companion.
"Detective Beckett?"
The fair Detective Beckett was drawn from her reveries. She rose to her feet and the Minstrel did the same.
"Please follow me."
XXX
The fair Detective Beckett and the Minstrel were seated side by side at the table in the small bare interview room. Across from them on the other side was the man they had come to speak to, Kevin Henson. Henson was in his mid thirties, scrawny looking with a pale complexion that comes from spending too much indoors away from the sun. His face was a road map of the ravages of time and his addiction to narcotic substances had exacted. He was dressed in a sleeveless shirt that had not been washed in many a day. His arms were a canvas of a myriad of lurid tattoos.
Henson was holding a picture of Melanie and studying it with a sad expression upon his face. After some moments he slowly set the picture down upon the table and looked across to the fair Detective.
"Have you ever been in love, Detective?" Henson said. "Compels you to do crazy things."
"Like kill someone?" The fair Detective offered in an even tone.
Henson allowed a small humourless grin appear on his lips as he regarded the fair Detective. He did not need to think long and hard to draw the conclusion that this detective suspected him being the perpetrator of Melanie's death. The news of Melanie's death had affected him deeply but he would not show his pain to the rest of the world. He would mourn his former love in his own way, away from the eyes of the world. He sat up straighter in his chair and folded his hands together on the table. He fixed the fair Detective with an even gaze.
"Mel and I, when we were together, time just stopped. But even the first day." Henson paused and slowly shook his head. "We both knew well it would never work out. Lord knows her parents would never allow their little girl to end up with the likes of me."
A wistful expression spread across Henson's face as the memories came back to him.
"Sometimes..." Henson sighed as he continued, "sometimes when we were alone together, sometimes we almost believed."
"She was going to leave Sam." The Minstrel said. "That is the reason she came to see you."
Henson turned his gaze to the Minstrel. He nodded his head.
"She had learned that he was having an affair." Henson said. "She feared that he would leave her and take the little ones and keep them because of her narcotic addiction. She wanted me to go with her, take the little ones and just vanish."
"And pray what did you do?" The fair Detective inquired.
"I put her on the next coach back to the city."
"You sent her away?" The Minstrel said with some surprise.
Henson shrugged his shoulders. He unclasped his hands and fingered the picture of Melanie in front of him. He looked up at his two interviewers.
"What Melanie wanted I could not give her." Henson informed them. "The very next day I found the nearest rehabilitation facility and had myself incarcerated. I surmised that if I could get clean...That is where I was when she disappeared. When I was released, Melanie was dead."
The fair Detective Beckett cast a glance in the direction of the Minstrel. He held her gaze and saw that his expression and thoughts were mirrored in those green eyes of hers. The fair Detective turned back to look at the prisoner.
"Pray tell how you could be sure that she was dead?"
"She stopped sending letters." Henson explained, his face clouding with sadness. "if she was alive she would have still written."
XXX
From the moment they had departed from the prison, the fair Detective Beckett had set a furious pace in her race to get back to the city. Eventually and out of necessity they had slowed their steeds to a walk to give the animals time to recover from the fast galloping.
They had walked about a mile in silence each lost in their own thoughts. The Minstrel cast a glance in the direction of his fair companion. He could not help but wonder that this eagerness to return to the city that the fair Detective was displaying had a little to do with the case they were investigating and a little to do with the fear of having to spend another night in a tavern with him. This skittishness of hers he found not offputting at all. He found it an adorable trait.
Truth be told the Minstrel had fond memory of that night they shared a bed, and would do so for many a day. While he vowed to not speak of that chaste episode of nocturnal slumber he had shared with the fair Detective it did not preculde him from thinking about it.
However, now was not the time to dwell upon such thoughts. The Minstrel's thoughts returned to the case at hand and he put voice to them breaking the silence that had descended between him and the fair detective.
"An affair certainly explains a lot." The Minstrel intoned. "Sam kills Melanie, or he and his lover kill Melanie together."
The fair Detective Beckett turned her gaze upon the Minstrel and raised an eyebrow at him. "Pray tell who kills Sam?"
"The lover." The Minstrel returned. "When Sam backs out after all she's done for him. Tis not as if she could go to the constabulary if he broke his promise."
The fair Detective could not help it, she rolled her eyes and shook her head at the Minstrel's theory.
"How do you conjure such things, Minstrel?"
"I can not claim credit for this, credit goes to them, Sam and his lover."
"Verily, you speak 'guy', Minstrel, do you not?"
The Minstrel nodded his head. He made to open his mouth but clamped it shut. He was ready with some stories to tell when he realised that such stories would not be appropriate at this moment in time. He nodded his head again.
"If Sam had a lover, would his best friend know about it?"
Understanding flooded across the Minstrel's face as he realised where the fair Detective's line of questions were leading.
"My very word, my dear detective, his best friend would surely know." The Minstrel smiled.
The fair Detective Beckett nodded her head. The Minstrel saw a look of determination settle upon her fair face as she tightened her hold on the reins. The Minstrel groaned inwardly as he realised what was to come. Yet this time he was not about to be left choking on her dust or dodging clods of dirt kicked up by her departing horse. Just as the fair Detective was about to spur her steed into a gallop the Minstrel dug his heels into Derrick's flanks. Derrick leaped forward and galloped away leaving the fair Detective much surprised and chagrined at being left behind. The Minstrel was several furlongs away before she started after him in a race to be the first to reach the city.
XXX
The fair Detective Beckett and the Minstrel emerged from the rear entrance to Wyler's Antiques Emporium into the rear loading yard. The fair Detective paused to seek out Wyler. She espied him at the far end of the yard standing beside a wagon supervising the unloading of a shipment of oak panelled bureaux. Wyler was making a note on a clipboard as each item was unloaded from the wagon and carried into the storage area.
The fair Detective Beckett marched toward where Master Wyler was standing. The Minstrel was right beside her keeping in step.
"You lied to us." The fair Detective Beckett declared on reaching Wyler.
Wyler looked up in surprise.
"Your pardon, Detective?"
"A word to the wise, Master Wyler" The Minstrel said, trying not to grin. "It would not do well for you to lie to Detective Beckett."
Wyler wore an expression of confusion as he looked from the smirking Minstrel to the determined looking fair Detective.
"I know not what you mean." He said hesitantly.
"Did you not think mayhap it was relevant your friend Sam had an affair about the time Melanie disappeared?" The Minstrel asked. "Did you not think that this small morsel of information should have been passed to the constabulary?"
Wyler shrugged his shoulders.
"Truly that was long ago." Wyler replied. "And Melanie was murdered a long time ago. What is the point in dragging everyone through the mud? Have not their children been through enough? Do they not deserve some peace?"
The fair Detective Beckett's green eyes flashed with anger. She took several steps towards Wyler.
"What they deserve, Master Wyler is to know what happened to their mother."
The Minstrel looked at the fair Detective surprised at the heated anger he had heard in her voice. He had seen the fair Detective angry many times before. Usually the cause of that anger was due to something he had done or said and usually it was more irritation than anger. This burst of emotion that he had witnessed was different.
Wyler too had been surprised by the fair Detective. He had taken an involuntary step backwards and a look of fear flickered in his eyes. He regarded the fair Detective for a moment and maybe more not certain if she would physically assault him or not. The hard glare that she directed at him quickly made him realise that he had little option but to tell her what she wanted to hear.
"Elizabeth Forte." Wyler announced. "Elizabeth Forte is her name. She worked with Sam at his counting house..."
At the completion of this segment of the tale Jim decided that it was time to go. He rose from his chair and leaned down to kiss Kate good-bye, promising to come by again soon. Castle rose to his feet and escorted Jim to the front door.
The two men stood in the open doorway.
"Thank you, Rick." Jim said.
"For what?" Castle could not help but look confused.
"For taking care of my little girl."
"Thanks aren't necessary." Castle shook his head.
"She looks a lot better than I expected."
"And she will look even better."
Jim nodded his head.
"Jim, you're welcome here anytime, day or night."
XXXXX
What do you think of this latest effort of the Minstrel?
Con