A/N: Sorry for not posting this yesterday. I was almost done with it, but started to feel really ill. Anyway, thank you so much for your reviews. I'm glad you're all still enjoying the story.
"How the hell did he do this?" Kate muttered to herself. "Ryan, where are we with that serial number?"
"Still waiting on the lab for results, I'm afraid."
Beckett sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. They had barely any time at all before Gates' patience with her and the lack of evidence would run out and the order to release Alan Woods from lockup would come.
"Okay, we know why Woods would want to get rid of Rachel – if the affair ever got out, it would have been the end of his marriage and his career would have been significantly damaged, but what's his motive for killing the Cleavers? It was obviously premeditated – he had the presence of mind to take the gun with him, which he didn't when he went to Rachel's apartment."
"Maybe he didn't mean to kill Rachel," Esposito suggested, "and just grabbed the knife from her apartment."
Nodding, Beckett considered the idea. "Let's get down to the apartment. There was nothing in the CSU report about any missing knives. Lanie's model she made from the wound doesn't match a kitchen knife – she said it was similar to a craft knife, didn't she?" As she spoke she slung her printed scarf around her neck and pulled her brown leather coat from the back of her chair and pushed her arms into it, flicking her hair out from under the collar when it got caught. "Ryan, can you stay here and do some digging into the Congressman's financials and movements. If that's not the gun used in the murders of Monica and James Cleaver, maybe he bought a replacement."
"You got it," Ryan replied, already dialling the necessary numbers to get hold of their suspect's bank records and recent credit card charges.
Back at Rachel's father's apartment, cleaned of gruesome blood spatters and her wedding planner's body, Kate was able to really appreciate the place. If it weren't for the shadow of death that now hung over the place, she was sure that it would be no difficulty to sell. Whether it was Rachel or her father who had decorated the place, it was expertly done with simple pieces and traditional furniture, quaint detail mixed in with the illustrious grandeur of the light fittings.
"Just spoke to the building's owner. Nobody's been here since CSU left so everything should still be here," Esposito announced as he entered the front door a few minutes after her.
"Great," she murmured, drifting about the apartment in search of some kind of lasting memory of Rachel.
"I'll start with the other room."
She nodded, almost too lost in thought for Javi's words to register. Every picture displayed on top of the sideboard or on the windowsills, she paused to pick up, recognising Rachel in some of them by her impossibly light blonde hair despite how much her face had changed as she grew up.
"Beckett?"
Following the sound of Esposito's voice, Kate moved about the apartment and came to a stop in the master bedroom where her partner stood beside a pile of cardboard boxes that, although packed and full, had been cut open.
"Think maybe this is what the knife is? An old packing knife?"
"Could be," she agreed. "Lanie did say the handle was made of wood – it left microscopic pieces in the wound. Search all the drawers." Heading back out, Kate left the bedroom for Esposito to check and focused on all of the kitchen drawers herself. Unfortunately after covering the whole apartment, neither she nor Espo had recovered what they believed was their murder weapon – not that they expected a guy like Alan Woods to be stupid enough to leave evidence behind, even if he did wipe it clean.
Before the left though, Beckett stopped in front of the door. "Just run this through with me a second, okay?"
"What?"
"Run the crime through with me, you know like me and Castle do sometimes. I'm Rachel; you're Alan-"
"-Why do I have to be Alan?"
"Fine," she sighed, "I'll be Alan-"
"-But I don't want to be the girl-" he broke off at Beckett's flat stare. "Fine. I'll be Rachel."
"Okay, so you're here at your father's apartment, you're packing up stuff to prepare it for sale and I come over."
"Why?"
"Good question," Beckett said. "Why… Well we know Rachel was serious about reconnecting with her daughter, that she'd realised the importance of family, so maybe she wanted things with Alan to be serious."
"Or maybe," Esposito proposed, getting the hang of the way she and Castle would bounce off each other to build a picture of events, "she wanted to break things off with him."
"So, he turns up and he's unexpected. It's a short meeting, they don't drink or eat together – there are no glasses or dirty dishes out."
"So they argue and it gets violent. He grabs her and shoves her back onto the couch, knocking it down and giving her the fingers shaped bruises on her upper arms and the ones on the backs of her legs."
"He tries to kick her while she's down, so she raises her arms to try and block them but he catches her head," Beckett continues, walking around the room. "She's dazed and on the ground. He needs to end it and get out, so he spins around and grabs the knife…"
"From the top of the piano!" Espo exclaims. "It's the only surface close enough. If he'd walked into the kitchen to get it, Rachel would have had time to get back up, time to defend herself." She nods as he explains. The flat surface of the grand piano really is the only place that makes sense.
"Let's get CSU onto that piano, dust it for prints and fibres. While we wait, let's show around Woods' picture; see if anyone saw him here that night or if he'd been here before."
"Anything?" Esposito asked as he and Beckett met outside the apartment technically still owned by Terry Winters again.
"Door man recognised him," she answered with a jubilant grin. "He started coming round February this year every few weeks, usually late at night and dressed in, wait for it, running clothes."
"Our guy in the black hoody," Esposito said, instantly making the connection that she already had.
"Shame so many months have gone by. We know that Woods didn't hold on to the gun from the Cleavers' murders, so he probably would have chucked the packing knife too and I doubt we'll ever find that now. I'm still going to pin him for this though."
"CSU are almost finished with the piano by the way."
She nodded and the both of them re-entered the apartment, waiting silently while the Crime Scene Unit continued snapping high-resolution photographs of the top of the piano until the lead investigator turned to speak with them.
"We have recovered a few latent partial prints, my guys are just collecting them and then they'll be analysed in the lab. We'll let you know if anything is flagged in the system-"
"-I've got a suspect in lockup and we're running low on time we can carry on holding him for. His prints are in the system since they were taken when we arrested him, can you organise one of your guys to run a comparison between his prints and the partials you found here?"
"I'll do it myself, Detective," the investigator promised before returning to supervise the few suited men who were swabbing the surface of the piano for further trace evidence after the partial fingerprints had been lifted with clear tape.
"Okay, let's head back to the precinct and see where Ryan is with Woods and his 625."
"Is he in the breakroom?" Kate asked as they stepped off the elevator and noticed almost immediately that Ryan was not sat behind his desk where they had left him. Crossing to the open door of the breakroom, Esposito checked before shaking his head at Beckett.
"I'll check with Tory, see if he's with her," Espo volunteered, leaving her in the bullpen to wait for either one of the boys to return.
Shucking her coat, Kate folded it over the back of her chair before sinking down into it and pulling her phone out.
"You free?" she texted Castle, almost forgetting to put three kisses at the end before she sends it. It took a few moments for her husband's reply to come through saying he was signing books but he could ask Paula for a break if she wanted to talk. "No, don't worry about it. I'll talk to you later, Babe. Miss you. xxx" Her phone was still in her hands when Esposito returned and shrugged his shoulders at her to show he was just as clueless as she as to Ryan's whereabouts. It vibrated as she received another text.
"Ryan?" Esposito asked.
Beckett shook her head. "Castle. I'm gonna get a coffee, you want one?"
"Sure," Javi answered, seating himself at his own desk while Kate rose and entered the breakroom to read the text message in privacy while she brewed two coffees – a black roast for Esposito, and a vanilla latte for herself since there was still vanilla flavoured creamer in the fridge.
"If you're sure…" was Rick's reply that caused a soft smile to grace her features. His concern was truly touching.
"I'm sure. Got to get back to work anyway."
Depositing Esposito's mug of coffee on his desk, careful to avoid the stacks of paper that he often let overtake the space, Kate looked up expectantly as a ding signalled the elevator stopping on their floor.
"Oh, hey guys," Ryan mumbled as he approached them at his desk. "Find anything at the apartment?"
"Partial prints, no murder weapon though the doorman did ID Woods as the guy in the black hoody he escorted out of the building right around Rachel's time of death window," Beckett reported. "How are things going on this end? Where were you?"
"Checking in with the pawnbrokers in Harlem. I traced Woods to an ATM in the area the day after the Cleaver murders."
"And?" Kate asked eagerly.
Ryan held up an evidence bag containing a silver, black-handled revolver. "A Mr Garetty who runs a pawnshop on 106th Street bought this Smith & Wesson 625 from a man who 'refused to give his name and looked remarkably familiar'. He was able to positively ID Woods."
"What about the second gun?"
"Bought it from another pawnbroker a few streets over. I just got the results back from the crime lab too. He had the serial number on the replacement faked."
"We got the son of a bitch," Beckett said with grim satisfaction.
"Detective Beckett, you must be here to release me," Woods cockily remarked as she came into view of his cell in holding.
"Actually, Congressman, I'm here to take you back up to interrogation. You know, people aren't going to be calling you that for much longer. See we found new evidence and have some questions I don't think even you will be able to talk your way out of." While Woods swallowed and tried to control his expression and exude an air of relaxed confidence, she unlocked his cell and led him out, walking one step behind him all the way up to the interrogation room. As they moved, officers stopped to watch the disgraced politician and the station lieutenant stepped alongside, taking charge of Woods and cuffing him to the table once they reached the room Kate would be operating in that afternoon. She stood outside for a few moments, hoping to make Woods sweat and worry over what kind of evidence she might have found and compiled. After sharing a look and nods with Ryan and Esposito, she entered alone with just the folder of evidence paperwork and sat down opposite Woods and his lawyer, who had been shown in while she was still stood beside the door. Remaining silent, she opened the folder and slid the only blank piece of paper inside it across the table to Woods before taking a pen and placing it on top.
"What's this?" he scoffed.
"It's for you to write your confession to three counts of murder on, Alan."
"Funny, you don't look like a priest to me. I don't think I need to confess to anything, especially something I didn't do."
"You did a good job trying to cover it up, Alan, but unfortunately for you we did a better job finding the evidence. Did you know you left fingerprints on the piano at Rachel's father's apartment?"
"They could be from weeks ago. I used to meet Rachel there some evenings while she was stuck packing up her dad's stuff and trying to sell the place."
"That's true, but unfortunately for you, our initial search of the apartment uncovered a receipt for a professional deep clean from a week before Rachel's murder," Kate replied, checking the relevant evidence sheet to be sure she had the dates right. "So, they're obviously a lot more recent than you want us to believe."
"It still doesn't prove I killed her."
"You're right, it doesn't. We'd need the murder weapon – an old packing knife – to prove that. So what did you do with it, Alan?"
"I don't know what you're talking about. If this is all the evidence that you have, I think my lawyer here would agree that you don't have anything on me at all."
Beckett sat back, surveying her murderer before raising her hand and signalling, since she knew both of the boys would be watching in the observation room behind the mirror. A few seconds later, Ryan opened the door and handed her the evidence bag which contained the gun which had been used to shoot Monica and James Cleaver. At the sight of it Alan Woods visibly swallowed, clearly biting the inside of his cheek.
"Recognise it?"
Woods said nothing.
"See we just got the test results and ballistics back on this 625. I'm sure you're not surprised to know that the serial number on this gun matches the one on your gun holder's licence or that there are large amounts of gun powder in it, showing it was recently fired, or even that the bullets pulled from Monica and James Cleaver's bodies were definitely fired by this gun. So, are you ready to confess now, Alan?" Uncrossing her legs, Kate leaned across the table and nudged the blank sheet of paper closer, making sure the action caught Woods' eye.
"Don't say anything," his lawyer advised.
"I know you did it, Alan, but what I don't know is why. What had the Cleavers done? Why did they have to die?"
"They knew about Rachel-"
"-I would like a moment alone with my client," the lawyer said loudly, but Woods just continued to speak.
"She'd told them about us when they saw us together at one of my campaign parties and when she died they kept calling and asking how I was doing and whether I knew anything. They just wouldn't stop. And then they found out that Rachel had wanted to break things off. I loved her, I was going to split up with my wife for her and she just wanted to end it all. I tried to talk her round, it's why I was there but she just said that what we were doing was wrong and she wouldn't listen. I didn't understand how it was wrong. I didn't mean to- i-it just happened and then it was too late. I don't even remember grabbing the knife. All of a sudden it was just there, in my hand, and Rachel's blood was everywhere and she wasn't breathing."
Kate breathed a deep sigh of relief as she pulled the interrogation room door closed behind her. It had never felt better to solve a case. There had been times when she had been convinced that they wouldn't be able to catch their guy.
"Well done, Detective. Great work. I want you to take the week off," Gates said as she passed by.
"Thank you, Sir," she replied, feeling shaken despite how glad she was that they had finally been able to give Rachel the justice she deserved. She would be required to present evidence when the case came to court, she was certain, but for now the case was over. Except for one last thing.
A/N: So, what do you all think of the way the case turned out? Let me know!
