Author's Note: First off, I'd like to thank Quillcox for their review. Welcome to the story! I'm glad you like it. I'd also like to thank phnxgrl for her review. I won't be spending too much time on the Hunger Games portion of the case, but it did give me something interesting to work with. And now, without further ado, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

Chapter 11

Beckett headed down to autopsy right after she checked in the next morning. Lanie was just finishing up with their victim. She looked up and nodded before making the last stitch to close him up. Stripping off her gloves, she grabbed the chart and stifled a yawn.

Beckett smiled. "Didn't get much sleep last night?"

Lanie shook her head. "Nope. Where's your man?"

"Still asleep when I left." Beckett looked at the victim. "Doesn't look as bad now that he's been cleaned up."

"Don't let his outsides fool you. He suffered massive internal hemorrhaging from the beating he took. Without immediate medical treatment, he didn't stand a chance."

"Was a weapon used?"

Lanie shook her head. "Just hands and feet. Mostly hands. From the bruises, I'm guessing just one guy did all the damage. And before you ask, none of last night's participants were responsible."

Beckett looked up. "How do you know?"

"Before I left, I asked one of the CSU's to get the impressions of every participant's fists, as well as photos. None of the bruises match." Lanie handed over her report. "I know you'll verify that, but my professional opinion says that your killer wasn't in the crowd last night."

"Could it have been Tobias Pierno, the Gamemaker?"

Lanie shook her head again. "No, I got his impressions too."

Beckett nodded. "Thanks, Lanie."

Lanie yawned again. "No problem. I think I'm gonna go and crash for a couple hours."

Beckett smiled. "Get some sleep." Beckett headed back upstairs to get the board started. As she stepped off the elevator, she was greeted by a wall of noise. The bullpen was crowded with last night's participants who were giving their statements to a collection of detectives and cops. Beckett started slowly threading her way through the crowd to her desk, where Castle met her with her usual cup of coffee.

Ryan beckoned them into the Conference Room. "Mr. Pierno came through with the GPS data from last night's game."

Tobias pointed out the locations on the screen. "This is the Cornicopia, Cleopatra's Needle. I had Weston Locken from Manhattan and Todd Merrill from Queens as officials there. Paul Bronson from Manhattan and Kathleen Tran from Staten Island were at the East 85th entrance looking for the Borough Two tributes. Borough One was supposed to report to the West 86th entrance, where I'd stationed Dana Baird from Staten Island and Annika Hall from the Bronx. Hillary Boiteux from Brooklyn and Kenny Manzon from the Bronx were covering the East 65th entrance where Borough Five was assigned to report. Borough Three reported to the West 77th entrance where Bruce Edison from Queens and Valerie Shaver from Brooklyn were waiting. And Borough Four met at the West 66th entrance."

"Who was there?"

"Right, sorry. Um, Danette Bremmer from Manhattan and Jerica Anderson from Brooklyn."

"What about the players?" Castle was still looking at the screen.

"These two are Borough One. You can tell by the first digit in the code number. Borough Two are here, Borough Three here, Borough Four here, and Borough Five here. The officials are the code numbers that start with six."

Beckett nodded. "And this is at the start of the game?"

Tobias nodded. "Just before nine; that's when the game starts. If no one gets the flag to their checkpoint by three in the morning, there isn't a winner that week. Usually the game is over by eleven. Last night's game went a little long."

Ryan hit play and the GPS dots started darting around the screen. Six sets of dots remained stationary at the various checkpoints, the other five moved through the park. Occasionally two pairs would collide with each other briefly, but team five was never apart when this happened. Eventually the pair split up; one headed to the Hecksher Playground and the other stayed at the ball fields.

Tobias suddenly sat up. "Wait, go back a little."

Ryan rewound the playback. "Something wrong?"

"One of the GPS dots dropped out. There." Tobias pointed as the dot showed up again. "That's Timothy Ha, Borough Four. I didn't notice it last night, but watching it again I did. Play it forward in real time." Ryan obliged. "And it drops out right…there."

Beckett glanced at the time-code. "11:36pm. Before the victim's T.O.D. and not far from him. Esposito, if they're still here, pull him and his partner aside for questioning and get his GPS unit checked out."

"Copy that." Esposito stood and left the room.

"Let's keep watching."

Ryan started the playback again. The dot that headed to the playground started heading back to the Bandshell when it suddenly changed direction and started heading to the Borough Five checkpoint. When the dot reached the point where the victim's body had been found, the dot stopped moving. The other Borough Five dot had meandered near the ball fields for a while before heading to the rendezvous. After hanging out around there for a while, it also headed toward Borough Five's checkpoint. Eventually that dot collided with the victim's dot, and then rushed to the checkpoint.

"Well, that confirms 'Rue's' story. And everyone else has an alibi."

Castle turned away from the screen. "Something happened in that park. The victim was heading toward the rendezvous when he changed directions. He ran into someone. Someone that scared him."

Beckett nodded. "And that someone wanted him dead. Mr. Pierno, do other members of your club go to the park to watch the games?"

"They're not supposed to. I instituted the GPS system to try and cut down on that. Other members can watch the games online. I know it's not the same as in the movies, but at least they get to see some of the action."

"So it's possible some are watching up close and personal?"

Tobias shrugged. "I guess it's possible. Here, the list of past and present members." He held up a flash drive. "The names are in the order they joined. Most haven't been active in months. I hope this helps."

"Thank you." Beckett handed the drive to Ryan. "Get started on this. Start with the locals and spiral outward. Enlist whomever you can to do the canvass."

"You got it, boss."

Beckett shook Tobias' hand. "Thank you for all your help. If we need anything else, we'll let you know."

"And I'll be happy to help. Richard was a friend. Please, find his killer."

"We'll do everything we can." She watched Tobias leave before starting the board. "What do you think of him?"

"He's a little young for you."

"That's not what I'm asking."

Castle smiled. "I think he's smart, but he's not the killer; too soft. Whoever attacked Richard was upset. The attack practically screams rage, and I think it was personal. Most of the blows were to the head. Tobias didn't do it personally, and a hired killer wouldn't display that much rage."

Beckett nodded. "I agree. None of last night's competitors did it either. Lanie compared impressions of everyone's fists to the bruises and they didn't match." She started putting up the photos.

"So why'd you have Esposito track down the one with the faulty GPS signal?"

"That's to prevent the defense attorney from casting suspicion onto someone else. If we can prove he had an alibi, and that the lost signal was due to mechanical failure, the defendant won't be able to use him to muddy the waters." Beckett finished putting up the crime scene photos and started writing some notes.

Esposito walked in. "Annabeth Soyka alibied her partner. They both say they never separated during the game. I'm having I.T. process his GPS unit now."

"Good." Beckett capped the pen. "Go help Ryan with the list of members. I want to talk to anyone who's still in the Tristate area."

"On it."

Three hours later, they decided to take a break for lunch. Of the nearly five thousand names, four thousand of them were still in the Tristate area. None of them wanted to make thousands of phone calls to set up interviews, so they decided to call in Tobias' help again. The records he had given them were fairly detailed, which would be helpful to narrowing down the list. The problem was some things were in code.

Beckett made the call while Castle went to make the lunch run. "Mr. Pierno, it's Detective Beckett. I'd like to ask you a few more questions."

"Sure. What do you need to know?"

"I've been looking over the spreadsheet. You're notes are very detailed."

"Thank you."

"I was hoping you could explain a couple of them."

"Sure."

"There's a column labled '#XP.' What is that?"

"Number of times played. And '#W' is number of wins."

"What about 'DP'?"

"Dates played. Sorry, that's a different document, I should have included it. I'll email it to you if it's small enough. I may have to message you another flash drive."

"Out of curiosity, why do you keep all of this information?"

Tobias chuckled. "The hardcore players like to know their stats. I guess it's like any athlete wanting to keep track of what they do."

"Thanks for your help."

"Anytime."

A uniform handed Beckett the I.T. report on the GPS unit. "Thanks." She opened the folder. "I.T. says the battery died. That's why the signal cut out."

Castle walked in with the lunch. "Easy enough answer. Here, I got Italian." The boys grabbed containers and the group moved back into the Conference Room.

Beckett sat down and opened her Chicken Penne. "I've been thinking about the tracking system. We only had CSU canvas the area around the scene. We need to go back and reconstruct the events in the park last night."

Esposito nodded. "Follow the path 'Thresh' and 'Rue' took, see if we can find anything that might have belonged to the killer."

"Maybe Gates will approve you calling in a few extra sets of eyes."

Beckett swallowed. "What are you thinking about, Castle?"

"I'm thinking we should call in some Police Academy Recruits. They can follow the paths the other players took. It could help us figure out which players may have seen something useful."

"I'll run it by her. Calling CSU back out there will probably upset her though. She may not be willing to pull in the recruits."

Ryan shrugged. "I don't see why not. Extra sets of eyes in this weather can be really useful. Not to mention it will give the recruits a chance to get some fieldwork under their belts before they graduate."

"The biggest problem is that most of the park was left open to the public. Only a small section was roped off as the crime scene." Beckett pointed on the map on the board. "Until this morning, we had no idea that almost the entire park was used for the games. There's no way we can close the park now."

"Beckett's right. Whatever evidence we find now is tainted. But that doesn't mean we can't use it to identify the killer." Esposito balled up his napkin and lobbed it into the trashcan.

Beckett shrugged. "I'll go ask."

A/N: Thanks for reading! Leave me a review!