The knock on the door of the small apartment building on Clayton was answered by a tall, thin young man about Steve's age with long dark hair and a thick mustache. "Yes?" he challenged them with a frown.

Smiling genially, the two detectives held out their I.D.'s. "This is Inspector Keller. I'm Lieutenant Stone, Mr. Castle. We spoke on the phone yesterday?"

There was a short, unmoving pause then the man's eyes widened slightly. "Yes… yes, of course, I'm sorry." He backed up and opened the door wider, inviting them in. "I, ah, I don't get many visitors, I'm sorry."

"That's all right," Mike said smoothly, pocketing his badge as he moved further into the small apartment, Steve on his heels.

Castle shut the door and turned to them, gesturing towards the blue naugahyde sofa against the far wall. "Please." He chuckled nervously, crossing around them quickly to pick up the discarded, disemboweled newspaper whose scattered pages were lying on a number of surfaces. "Sorry, I live alone…" he apologized feebly as he snatched up a large glass ashtray sitting on the arm of the sofa, but not before both cops spotted a couple of roaches. The distinctive smell of pot hung heavily in the air but neither visitor made any pretense of noticing it.

As the detectives took a seat on the now empty couch, he disappeared briefly to deposit the crumpled paper and ashtray in the kitchen then sat on an overstuffed chair nearby.

"We won't take up much of your time, Mr. Castle," Mike began genially. "We just want to ask you a few questions about your time with the Church of Satan, and with James Scott?" He had decided to cut right to the chase, so to speak, to see what kind of a reaction the mention of Scott's name would elicit. He wasn't disappointed.

Castle's nervous but open expression disappeared in a split second, replaced with a look of pure anger. "What about him?" he spat out.

Unruffled, Mike leaned forward as he took off the fedora and set it on the cushion beside him. "We know you left the Church of Satan to follow Scott out on his own, is that correct?"

"Yes." The intense brown eyes snapped from the older detective to the younger one and back.

"Mr. Castle, we talked to Annie Devereaux yesterday."

His eyes softened and he smiled slightly.

"She told us about the ranch and about your time there." Mike paused and almost chuckled. "It's, ah… it's obvious from your reaction to Scott's name that your time with him became - and ended, from what we assume – how shall I put it? Not to your liking?"

Castle snorted, but it was no longer with derision but rather disappointment. "He seemed to have good ideas, Jimmy did – at least at the beginning. Then he started getting all weird… and dark. He started carrying around this book and reading from it… it was a book about Charles Manson. That started to scare me… it started to scare everybody. That's when we all decided to get out… to get outa there before he turned us into his Tex Watsons and Patricia Krenwinkels."

"It's a good thing you did," Steve offered quietly and Castle met his eyes and nodded.

"So, ah, so what is it that you guys want to know?"

"Well," Mike began pleasantly, "we're investigating what could possibly be the murder of one of the former member's of Jimmy Scott's breakaway church –"

"Who?" Castle interrupted, his eyes wide and suddenly terrified.

"I'm afraid we can't divulge the victim's name as yet, next of kin and all that," Mike continued smoothly, "but we need to find out all we can about James Scott and the church he started… and especially where that church was located. All we know right now is that it was in the lower Central Valley, north of Vacaville. And we were wondering –"

"If I could tell you where it is?" Castle finished the detective's question smoothly and both cops froze. Before either could respond, he nodded once, sharply. "You bet I can. I'll help you do anything to nail that skeezy bastard. And if you're going to ask me if I think he's capable of killing anyone, the answer is yes. Without a doubt."

Mike leaned back and looked at his partner. He snorted slightly and dropped his head; when he looked up at Castle again, he wore a small grateful smile. "Mr. Castle, you have just made our day."

The long-haired young man smiled. "Call me John, Lieutenant. I've been waiting to tell someone about The Reverend Jimmy Scott for a long time but I didn't think anyone would believe me."

"We believe you," Steve offered with a short laugh. "Don't worry, we believe you." He slipped the notebook out of his pocket and flipped it open, then slid out the pen that was clipped onto the spiraled coil at the top.

"I can tell you exactly where the first ranch is, no problem, but I'm a little vague about where the other two are," Castle said almost eagerly, leaning forward.

Steve stopped in mid-motion. Mike had frozen as well for a split second; as he leaned slightly forward his voice was almost a whisper. "The other two?"

Castle's eyes snapped from one cop to the other, finally settling back on Mike.

"Yeah, you guys don't know about the other two. I mean, Jimmy was trying to be just like Charlie so –"

"Of course," Steve interrupted, almost as if he couldn't stop himself, and saw Mike's blue eyes, frowning suddenly, snap in his direction. With an almost imperceptible shake of his head in disbelief, he continued, "The Manson Family had three ranches at their disposal; the most famous being the Spahn ranch. But there were two others…" He could see Castle nodding in agreement. "Barker and, ah…?"

"Myers," Castle offered.

"Yeah, yeah, Myers." Steve looked at his partner. "It's in the book, I should've caught it," he said softly, a hint of apology in his voice.

Mike reached out and touched his knee reassuringly then turned his attention back to Castle. "You say you can give us directions to the first one, the main one, right?"

The young man nodded. "Yes, sir."

"Please, call me Mike."

Castle shook his head. "No, sir. I may look like a hippie, and I may have spent some time in the Church of Satan, but my parents brought me up right and I don't call anyone… ah, anyone my father's age, anything other than 'sir', Lieutenant."

Mike had begun to smile and when Castle finished, he shot an eyebrows raised, wide-eyed look at his partner.

"Thank you," he said to Castle with an easy, disarming chuckle. "John, I'll get you to give us those directions in a second but… when we talked to Annie yesterday, she told us that you know Stan Kowalczyk. Is that right?"

Despite the seriousness of their conversation, Castle's smile was spontaneous and genuine. "Stan? Yeah, I know him well. He's a great guy. Why?"

"He was with you at the Church of Satan and with Scott?" Steve asked, getting his head back in the game.

"Yeah, the whole time. He even stayed with Jimmy after the rest of us left." He frowned suddenly. "Why?"

"Oh, no particular reason," Mike said quickly with a smile, "we're just trying to get a picture of what was going on there at that time, that's all?"

Castle stared at the older detective; both cops could see him making the connections. "It's Stan, isn't it?" he asked finally, his voice quiet with a tone of sad inevitability. "It was Stan who was murdered, wasn't it?"

Mike glanced at Steve before closing his eyes briefly and nodding. Castle's eyes snapped shut and his face momentarily crumbled.

"And you think Jimmy did it, don't you?"

"It's beginning to look that way," Steve confirmed.

Castle sat perfectly still for a couple of seconds then leaned forward. They could sense a change in his demeanor as he met Mike's stare unflinchingly. "What else do you need from me, Lieutenant?"

Mike leaned forward, equally focused, now all business. "We want you to not only give us directions to that first ranch, but we need you to draw us a layout of the property with everything you can remember. Can you do that?"

"Anything you need."

"Good."

Steve glanced at his partner then asked Castle. "John, do you think Jimmy used Stan's money to buy the ranch?"

Castle's eyes darkened and he nodded. "Oh, yeah, without a doubt. Neither of them talked about it, but it was pretty obvious… well, to me, anyway… I knew the… the 'spell' that Jimmy had over Stan… I didn't understand it, but I could see it."

Steve nodded, balancing the notepad on his lap, ready to write down the directions to the ranch. Castle leaned towards him.

"When was the last time you saw Jimmy?" Mike asked.

"The day I left the ranch," Castle said with a soft chuckle, shaking his head, as if realizing how lucky he had been.

"Do you have any idea where Jimmy Scott is right now?"

"No… sorry, no I don't. When I cut ties with his… church, I didn't want anything more to do with him. But I can tell you one thing… if he's alone, and he probably is now that Stan…" He stopped and swallowed heavily. "If he's alone, he wouldn't stay up at the ranch… he has to have people around him. He'd come back to the city, back here, and try to find new… disciples… it's in his blood…"

# # # # #

"I want to find out where those other two 'ranches' are before we go up there," Mike said, doing his topcoat up to ward off the chill as they crossed the street towards their car.

Castle's directions to the main ranch were detailed and both detectives felt it would be fairly easy to find, even though they didn't have route numbers or road names. Castle told them he had paid no real attention to road signs when he was driving back and forth to the ranch; he just knew the route by heart. But he also remembered enough markers – farms, barns, fence posts, gnarly trees – to make navigation relatively foolproof.

"And how are we gonna do that?" Steve asked with a snort, turning up his raincoat collar against the cold drizzle before opening the driver's side door. "We wouldn't even have found the first one if it wasn't for Castle."

"I know," Mike growled as he got in the passenger side. "If there still isn't any word about that when we get back to the office, I have a hunch."

"You do? Care to share?" Steve asked with a chuckle as he turned the car on and shifted into Drive.

"Not yet, smiley, not yet," the older man chuckled as the car accelerated down the street.

# # # # #

The overhead fluorescents in the inner office were the only lights on in the Homicide office. Mike moved the empty pizza box to the top of the filing cabinet and brushed the crumbs off the top of the desk as Steve reentered with two steaming mugs of fresh coffee. He put them down then retreated to his own desk, returning with an armload of files.

Within seconds, they both had settled into their respective chairs; Steve picked up the top file and handed it across the table. Mike, who had put his reading glasses on, flipped it open, his eyes beginning to scan the information on the top page.

Steve rifled through the stack and pulled out a large file near the bottom. He leaned back in the guest chair, crossed his legs and opened the file, taking out a thick stack of stapled papers. "Okay shoot."

"That's the list of land deeds?" Mike asked, glancing up.

"Umh-humh," Steve nodded.

"Okay, look for the last name of Carlyle…"

Steve frowned slightly. "Carlyle…?"

"Yeah, Carlyle."

With a slight shrug, the younger man's eyes, aided by a finger, slid down the list rapidly. Mike waited patiently. Steve flipped the page over and started again from the top. About two thirds of the way down, his finger stopped. "Here – got one. A 'J. Carlyle'." He looked up.

Mike smiled slightly, gesturing with his chin. "Keep going."

Frowning, Steve turned his attention back to the list. Two pages later his finger stopped again. "Another one…" He glanced up and Mike nodded encouragingly. He kept going. On the next page he stopped again. "Here's a third one." He looked back up.

Mike leaned forward, forearms on the desk. "That's it," he said quietly, "we've got them all."

Frowning with his own slight smile, Steve tilted his head. "How in the hell…?"

Mike pointed down at the file on the desk in front of him. "Stan's dad married an Irish girl…"

Steve tilted his head with a smirk. "Carlyle…"

"Umh-humh."

"And her first name begins with a J?"

"Not hers," Mike shook his head with a smile, "his father's – Jerzy."

Steve's smirk turned into an impressed grin. "You never cease to amaze me…"