CHAPTER TEN
THE elevator doors were just about to close, when Castle heard Esposito yell, 'Yo,' and he quickly put the newspaper he was holding under his arm between the space of the closing door, making the elevator doors jar open again.
"Thanks, Castle," Esposito said as he, and Ryan entered the elevator from the parking garage. Castle just nodded his head, knowing that today wasn't going to be a good day at work for either of them, especially Beckett, when she would have to turn her cases over to McKenna.
"So, how pissed do you think Beckett is going to be?" Ryan asked, exchanging looks between his friends.
"On a scale from one to very?" Esposito asked. Out of all of them, he had worked with Beckett the longest, and knew how attached she got to murder cases, wanting to see them close, so no one would have to live with the burden she did without knowing who had hired Coonan to kill her mother.
The elevator doors opened on the fourth floor, and as soon as Castle stepped off, he could see Beckett's coat lying on her seat. He figured she was in the Captain's office, begging for more time. If there was one thing Beckett wasn't, it was a quitter. She would stop at nothing to get what she wanted.
He was about to make his way over to Beckett's desk, when the door to the break room opened, and Beckett stepped out with a coffee in her hand. She had just taken a sip, when she noticed her boys had arrived.
"Beckett," Castle said, surprised to see her coming from the break room, not looking anything like he had imagined. 'Could Esposito have been wrong about her being angry?' He thought.
Beckett smiled back at Castle. "You guys are just in time." She ignored the confused glances the three men exchanged with each other, and faced the opposite side of the room, where McKenna and Johnson were beginning to make their way toward the four of them.
"You're awfully in a good mood, considering we are about to hand our cases over to dumb and dumber," Esposito said, once he and Ryan had joined Beckett and Castle.
"Who are you, and what have you done with Beckett?" Ryan added, asking the question the three men all had on their minds once they noticed Beckett's rather unusual calm manner.
"You're not planning on punching McKenna again, are you?" Castle whispered in her ear.
Beckett didn't answer any of their questions, and instead waited until McKenna was standing inches away from her face.
"Hello, Katherine," McKenna said. "Great day today, isn't it? There's something different about the New York air when the city knows murder cases are about to be solved."
Castle couldn't help himself, and accidentally blurted out, "Ha!" Before receiving glances from everyone around him.
"Out of respect, I thought I'd make this transition easier on you. Hand over all the files on all the cases, and we will be out of your hair in no time."
Beckett slowly started to nod her head, as if she was complying with McKenna's request, and after a moment of silence, she said, "No."
"What?" McKenna said, sounding a little shocked. "I don't think I heard you."
"I said, no. N-O. No."
"See," McKenna started, semi-laughing. "That's what I thought I heard. But, incase something happened to your head from last night to this morning, the Captain clearly stated that the case was ours."
"I remember," Beckett said.
"Good. Then hand the files over."
"On condition that we didn't find any piece of new evidence."
"Exactly," McKenna stressed.
"On. Condition," Beckett repeated, this time more slowly.
McKenna laughed, and then said, "There is no way you found new evidence. And even if you did, there is no way you could have found it for three separate cases."
Beckett smiled a chilling smile, one that Castle had not seen before; one that had made him feel slightly uneasy; one that wasn't Beckett's smile at all.
"Who said they were separate?"
Esposito, Ryan, and Castle exchanged looks. Beckett had failed to clue them in on this new piece of evidence.
"By the looks on your friends faces, I think you're bluffing," Johnson said, to which McKenna agreed by nodding his head.
"Nice try, Katherine."
"I'm afraid she isn't bluffing," Came Captain Montgomery's voice, as he stepped out of his office. "Detective Beckett found crucial piece of evidence. The three murder cases stay with her and her team."
"This is a fucking joke," McKenna said, his anger showing.
"Language," Castle reminded, only to have McKenna give him the death stare.
Montgomery ignored McKenna, and turned to Beckett. "Another body was found. Can't be sure they connect, but you will work it, for now, as if it does. If there is no evidence suggesting it links, to the others, you hand it over to Detectives McKenna and Johnson."
"Got it, Captain," Beckett said, taking the post-it note with the address of the crime scene on it."
"McKenna, Johnson, don't you two have work to do?" The Captain asked, as he headed back to his office. McKenna looked at Beckett one more time, before he stormed off angrily, leaving the four of them standing in the bullpen.
"I'm confused," Ryan said.
"I'll fill you in on the way to the cars," Beckett responded.
"WHY didn't you call me?" Castle suddenly asked, after a long ride of silence in the car.
"I didn't want to bother you," Beckett responded. "And besides, I thought you were at home 'drowning' a fifth of scotch."
Castle let out a small laugh, remembering that was his original plan. "I guess if I was drunk, it would have defeated the purpose of telling me."
"Kind of," Beckett said, reciprocating the smile Castle had.
"For the record though, in case you start to think I'm an alcoholic or something, I was not drinking."
Beckett let out her own laugh, and then turned the car down a narrow stretch of dirt road. She recognized Lanie's medical examiner van, and the crime scene was already cordoned off.
She parked her car behind the van, like she always did if there was space, and for a brief moment, before she got out of her car, she observed the scene. It was a little bit outside the city, and the land looked as if it had been farm land at one point, but now abandoned and secluded. There were copious amounts of large bushes placed throughout, and not far from the crime scene was a heavily wooded area. In a way, if done right, this place would be a perfect place to hide and burry a body without anyone finding it.
The two of them got out of the car at the same time, and they walked underneath the yellow tape. Lanie, along with Esposito and Ryan (who had beaten them to the crime scene again), were standing over the body.
The victim was a male, Caucasian. Probably in his late twenties. He was dressed casually, as if out on a date. His clothes were bloody, and a single shot in the middle of his forehead - execution style - appeared to be his cause of death.
"Any I.D?" Beckett asked first.
"Jackson Burke," Ryan answered, showing Beckett and Castle his driver's license. "28. Intern at Mercy."
Beckett turned to Lanie, and then asked, "C.O.D?"
"Looks like a gun shot wound to his head. I'll know more when I do the official autopsy."
"Think this one is connected to the others?" Beckett said, to which Lanie shrugged.
"Won't be able to tell unless we get the tox back," Lanie replied.
"Anything else you can tell us now?" Esposito asked.
"Poor kid was tortured. He has various burn marks on his torso. Eighteen of them."
At first, Castle just nodded his head with the others, a habit he had picked up watching cops intake information, but then he stopped, and quickly looked up at Lanie. "I'm sorry, how much did you say?"
"I counted eighteen burn marks," Lanie repeated.
Ryan looked over at Castle and asked, "Something odd?"
"More like even." This caused everyone to look at him. "Besides the first three being M99'd, what did they all have in common?"
"Eighteen marks on their bodies..." Beckett said, realizing what Castle was getting at.
"Victor Shawn, the first victim, had eighteen small pin pricks on his arm that Lanie magnified because she thought it was strange," Castle said.
"And our next vic, Cassandra Owens, was stabbed eighteen times," Esposito added.
"Wait - our second last vic, Layla Woo, she choked on her own vomit, and was M99'd, but there wasn't eighteen distinct marks on her," Ryan said.
"Actually," Lanie began. "You four have been busy, you haven't had a chance to come down to the morgue. Those torture lesions on her body, there was exactly eighteen deep slices."
"This whole time the connection was staring right in front of us, and we missed it," Beckett said, having a moment of doubt cross her mind. 'Would McKenna and Johnson had put two-and-two together before us?' She thought.
Castle saw the look in Beckett's eyes. "Don't cut yourself up over this. It doesn't fit the profile of a serial killer. The victims are completely random from gender, to race, to age, and no two are killed the same."
"Castle's right, Beckett," Esposito added. "Not even criminal psychologists would say we have a serial on the loose."
"I'ma take the body back now," Lanie started to say. "Rush to the tox. You guys will know within the hour. I'll also send up a picture of the burn marks,"
"Thanks Lanie," Ryan said.
"We should head back to the precinct," Beckett added, getting out of her disappointment with herself, and going straight back to business. "See if those eighteen marks have a pattern to them."
A pizza, and numerous amounts of coffee later, the four of them still couldn't see the connection, or the significance of those eighteen markings. Lanie had phoned about two hours ago, confirming that Jackson had indeed been drugged with an M99, and she also said that his time of death was somewhere between 3:00 to 6:00 am.
"We've been staring at these pictures for over an hour," Esposito said. "Maybe there is no significance."
"There has to be," Beckett said, getting up from her chair and moving closer to the white board to demonstrate her point. "These markings are all specific, as if they were planned out. They aren't just random markings."
"Do you know how many symbols there are in this world? We may never find out it's true meaning," Castle said. "At least not before he/she kills again."
"Agreeing with Castle on this one. Maybe the killer has a mental disorder, or maybe that's his signature. Random dots," Ryan added.
"But it's not random - that's what I am trying to tell you guys. This guy wants us to play. He's placed bodies in open places where people would find them, and he is sending us a message. Does that sound random to you? I don't care if I'm playing connect the dots for the rest of my life, I am going to find this meaning." Beckett quickly turned her back to the guys, staring at the board. A quick silence fell over the Bullpen.
"That's it," Castle suddenly said. "Connect the dots. Hand me a picture, will you?"
Ryan took Cassandra's picture off the board and handed it to Castle, as the three of them watched him lean back in his chair, holding the picture up high as if he were looking at the sky. A small smile appeared on his face, and then he quickly fixed himself up, grabbing a marker off the desk and connected the dots. When he was done, she showed it to the three detectives.
"Look familiar to any of you?" Castle asked.
"Well, I'll be a son of a whore," Esposito whispered.
Beckett was right. The killer was sending them a message. Looking straight back at the detectives was the constellation markings of Orion.
