DISCLAIMERS: If I owned 'Castle,' let's just say we would've seen a whole lot more at the end of 'Law and Boarder.'
SUMMARY: The investigation steps into high gear; Beckett and Castle continue putting together their wedding party.
A/N #1: There will be references made to 'Dial M for Mayor.' This wasn't my favorite S-4 episode, but after re-watching, I discovered a lot of untapped material.
A/N #2: How great was the strip poker scene? While I won't be writing a post-6x21 story, I will add something in this story somewhere. I have one game in particular in mind.
A/N #3: I also realized that I misspelled the mayor's last name in Chapter 10. It'll be right this time.
A/N #4: There is a spoiler for the finale. It deals with a certain picture that was posted of a certain woman in a certain dress. All I'm sayin'.
Chapter 12: Surprising Secrets
It was chilly on the beach. Kate was warmly dressed in jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, athletic shoes on her feet. She had left Castle soundly sleeping in their bed to get in her morning walk. It was chilly but most of the light snow from the day before had thankfully melted. As she walked with her hands in the pocket of her hoodie, her mind was on her wedding and not on the case, for once.
She thought about her wedding dress, wrapped in a garment bag in a closet in her old apartment. She wondered if it was the right dress for a spring wedding. When she had been with the girls on Monday, she had spotted a beautiful dress. Her heart began to pound when she saw it, but at the same time, she didn't want to appear ungrateful to Matilda King for giving her the dress that she already had. The dress that made her unrecognizable to herself when she'd looked at her reflection in the mirror.
She couldn't talk to Castle about the dress. He wasn't even supposed to see it. She decided to talk to Lanie. Her best friend always gave her wonderful advice, although she hadn't always listened to it.
Farther down the beach, she spotted Mr. Riley, Castle's closest neighbor, walking with his dog. She smiled watching him toss a tennis ball for the shepherd/lab mix. The dog would fetch the ball and return it to his master over and over. It reminded her of when she'd had Royal for that short time. Mr. Riley smiled as he approached Kate with the dog at his side. "Morning, Ms. Beckett. I didn't know you and Rick were here. Hopefully the weather will start improving soon."
"I hope so," she smiled; kneeling down as the dog came bounding over to her. "Good morning, Bo." She laughed as the huge dog began licking her face.
"Bo, come on. Let's go home and get breakfast," Mr. Riley called the dog, which reluctantly left Kate's side. "Tell Rick I said 'hey.'"
"I will."
***CCC***
"Fine, Gina," Castle was on his cell phone when he heard the French doors open. He smiled when Kate walked over and kissed him on the cheek. "I'm at the Hamptons house, so you'll need to move the meeting back. Why am I at the Hamptons house? I'll fill you in when I get there. Move the meeting back and text me with the time. Bye."
"You have a meeting?" Kate asked, beginning to feel slightly panicked. She wasn't sure she wanted to be alone in this big house by herself.
"Yeah. It was supposed to be at 11, but there's no way I'll be able to get dressed and get there in time, so Gina's going to push it back a couple of hours. You should come with," he suggested, walking to her and pulling her close. "Oh, you're cold. I'm serious, Kate. Come with me."
"Castle, I have no desire to sit in a meeting with you, your ex-wife/agent and your publisher. And I also don't want to wait for you in the reception area, bored out of my mind."
"Well, I don't want you staying here alone. Maybe I could drop you off at the morgue so that you can visit with Lanie."
"Yeah, I could do that," she agreed. "I wanted to talk to her, anyway."
"Good, then it's settled. I'm going to jump in the shower and get dressed, and then we'll take off. We'll eat breakfast along the way."
"Rick?" She called out to him, stopping him at the bottom of the stairs. "Could I get in with you? I need to wash my hair and . . . I don't want water in my face. I need some help."
"Come on," he held his hand out to her.
A little over an hour later, they were in Castle's Mercedes, heading to the city for the day. "Thank you," she smiled at him.
"Always," he smiled at her. "See, I told you that it's possible for us to take a shower together without sex getting in the way."
She laughed at that. Castle had awakened her sometime in the middle of the night, and they had engaged in slow, sleepy sex. She wasn't even sure how awake she had been, although her orgasm had been exquisite. "What time did you wake me up this morning?"
"Why, Det. Beckett, I have no idea what you mean," he teased, his blue eyes twinkling. "I don't know. I woke up and you were looking so beautiful . . . I couldn't resist. You had an objection?"
"No," she blushed, her face growing hot. "No objections at all. I just never realized snoring and drooling was such a turn-on for you."
Now it was Castle's turn to laugh. "So, I was thinking about making paella for dinner tonight. So, when we head back to the house, we'll stop in town to do some shopping."
Kate felt like groaning. She loved paella, but it was so time consuming to make and it always resulted in a ton of leftovers. The last time he'd made it; she had taken leftovers in to the boys and even offered some to the captain, who had accepted graciously, commending Castle on his culinary skills the next day. "Does it freeze?"
"Yeah, why?"
"Because the last time you made it, we had leftovers for days."
"Okay, while I'm in my meeting, I'll rethink our dinner options."
"Thank you. Let's save paella for when we're back at the loft with your mother and Alexis."
***CCC***
"Where are we on our suspects?" Capt. Gates asked, coming around the corner off of the elevator into the bullpen.
"Both Bill Moss and Vulcan Simmons have agreed to come in with their attorneys. Moss is due here at any time and Simmons will be here this afternoon," Ryan announced.
"Terrific. Esposito, I want you in the interrogation room with me when I interview Mr. Moss. Ryan, I have turned a bag of scraps over to Ms. Ellis. See if you can help her piece something out of the mess."
"Yes, sir," Ryan agreed.
Attorney Bill Moss arrived with his own 600 dollar an hour mouthpiece half an hour later. Gates and Esposito showed them to an interrogation room where both men were offered coffee. Gates them put a small microphone in the middle of the table and turned it on. "Before we begin, Mr. Moss, I need to read you your rights."
"I'm waiving them. Ask me whatever you need to," Moss said as his attorney nudged him. "It's all right, Frank. I know why I'm here."
"So, you're not denying that you made a threatening call to Det. Kate Beckett?" Gates asked him.
"I wasn't threatening her; I was warning her. I was trying to warn all of you. You people have no idea what you're looking into."
"Before my client says anything more, I'd like to know what you're offering," Moss' lawyer, Frank Webster, spoke up.
"We don't make deals, Mr. Webster. That's up to the D.A. and right now, she's not offering anything. So, your client can tell us what he knows and I'll pass that information along to the D.A. or I can charge him with making terroristic threats to a police officer."
"I told you, I wasn't making a threat," Moss repeated.
"Start talking, Mr. Moss. Are you still representing Jordan Norris?"
"No, I only represented him long enough to get him out of your police station that day before he started talking."
"Who asked you to represent him?"
"Ben Moss. He's my father. He operated a political Super-PAC. He's got dirt on Sen. William Bracken. I think that Bracken had him arrested for paying his driver to try to assassinate him, but he claims that he had nothing to do with that. He says that he was framed."
"Why did your father call you about representing Jordan Norris?"
"Because Bracken is a heavy hitter. He's running the entire drug operation in Washington Heights from the friggin' U.S. Senate. He's a dangerous man, Captain. Far more dangerous than you can possibly realize. If Norris were to start talking, heads were going to start rolling."
"The mayor?" Gates asked.
"No, not Weldon himself, but the majority of his staff. If Bracken had succeeded in bringing Weldon down, then you'd kick Mr. Castle out of your precinct. He wanted Det. Beckett to back off of her mother's case. He knew that if she dug deep enough and hard enough, she'd find the evidence necessary to at the very least bring him in for questioning."
"Does your father have anything on Bracken?" Esposito asked.
"My father groomed Bracken for his political career. But he's also the type of man who believes in insurance. He has a number of recordings."
"Why should I believe you?"
"Because I'm the one who killed Laura Cambridge," Moss suddenly announced.
"Bill, what're you doing?" His lawyer was incredulous. "Captain, may I have a moment with my client?"
"Of course. While you're conferring with your client, I'll put in a call to the district attorney," Gates got up and left the room with Esposito right behind her. "Well, that was interesting."
"He fits the description of the man who stole the hard drive from Dial a Goddess," Espo remembered. "Six feet tall with dark hair."
"We need to find out if he still has the hard drive if he is indeed Laura Cambridge's murderer. I'm going to call the D.A."
***CCC***
"Girl, I just saw you a few days ago," Lanie hugged Kate tightly. "What brings you down here?"
"Castle has a meeting at Black Pawn, and he didn't feel comfortable leaving me alone at the house and truthfully, the idea kind of made me all jumpy inside. I wanted to talk to you, anyway. Lanie, I don't want you to be a bridesmaid," her friend looked suddenly crestfallen, so Kate quickly continued. "I want you to be my maid of honor. You're my best friend, after all."
"Oh my god, I feel like I just got promoted," Lanie once again hugged Kate, this time bouncing up and down in excitement.
"Uh, getting a little nauseous here," Kate warned as Lanie stopped bouncing. "Also, when you and Alexis were trying on dresses, I saw a dress, Lanie. Don't get me wrong. I love the dress that Matilda gave me. But, this dress," her face got dreamy as Lanie smiled. "Lanie, it's so beautiful. It's just so . . . girly."
"Well, let me clock out for a little while and we'll go take a look at this 'girly' dress," Lanie smiled at her friend.
Lanie and Kate got into Lanie's car as the newly appointed maid of honor drove to the bridal boutique they had visited just a few days earlier. The salesgirl smiled when they entered the store. "Ms. Beckett, it's nice to see you again. Have you changed your mind about the bridesmaids' dresses?"
"No, the dresses are perfect," Kate smiled. "You had a wedding dress when we were here on Monday. It was sleeveless and had a full skirt. Do you still have it?"
"Kind of a flowery crocheted bodice?" The girl asked as Kate bit her lip and nodded hopefully. "I think I know the dress that you're talking about. I'll be right back."
Kate clasped her hands in front of her, trying not to pace nervously waiting for the girl to come back. Moments later, the salesgirl returned with a plastic wrapped white dress. She placed the dress on a rack and removed the plastic as both women gasped. "Oh, yes," Kate sighed. "Lanie, what do you think?"
"Girl, I haven't seen the dress that Matilda gave you, but I can tell you that if Castle sees you in this, he will die. Can she try it on?" Lanie asked the young woman.
"Definitely. Come with me."
Lanie was sitting out front waiting a short time later when a vision that she didn't even recognize as her best friend came walking out from the dressing room with the young woman right behind her. "Oh, Kate," Lanie breathed.
Kate stood in front of the tri-mirror and looked at her reflection staring back at her. If anything, this dress was even more perfect than the one she'd tried on for Matilda King. The skirt was full, swirling around her. She couldn't wait to dance her first dance with Castle in this dress. She couldn't wait to walk down the aisle on her father's arm to him in this dress. She blushed slightly as she thought about him removing this dress from her body before they made love for the first time as man and wife. "It needs a few alterations," the girl moved around Kate, tucking the material with her fingers at Kate's slim waistline. "But we can have it altered before your May 12th date."
"How much is this dress?"
"This particular dress is $18,500."
"Dollars?" Lanie squeaked.
"You can put down a deposit to hold it and pay the rest before the wedding."
"Kate—"
"Lanie, I want this dress. I don't want anybody else getting my dress. Let's fill out the paperwork for it," Kate smiled.
"Come on, I'll help you get changed and then we'll get started."
Half an hour later, they were driving back toward the morgue, Kate with a satisfied smile on her face, while Lanie was still in shock. She'd watched enough of those wedding shows on cable to know that weddings were big business, but twenty grand for a dress? "Kate, not that it's any of my business, but that's a lot of money to spend on a dress that you're only going to wear once."
"When my mom died, I got part of the money from her life insurance. It was put in trust until I was 25, but it's allowed me to supplement my salary when I needed it to. I think that my mom would want me to have the dress of my dreams to marry the man of my dreams, don't you think?" She looked at Lanie with tears in her eyes.
"Yeah, she would. Let's grab a quick bite before I have to get back."
***CCC***
"He's claiming that he killed Laura Cambridge?" D.A. Denise Lucas was in Capt. Gates office.
"That's what he's saying," Gates confirmed.
"Has he offered evidence to back up his story?"
"Not yet. His lawyer shut him down the second that he confessed. He asked to talk to him and I came out here to call you."
"I want to hear what he has to say before I offer him anything," Ms. Lucas said as Gates nodded. "Let's go talk to him and his attorney."
Moss and his lawyer were still speaking quietly when Gates and the D.A. walked back into the interrogation room. "Mr. Moss, this is D.A. Lucas."
"Before I offer you any type of a deal, Mr. Moss, I want to hear what you have to say about the murder of Laura Cambridge. I also want to know what you might know about the conspiracy behind the murders of Johanna Beckett and her colleagues."
"My father would know more about the conspiracy than I do. I just know what he's told me and its all hearsay."
"Tell me about the murder of Laura Cambridge," the D.A. instructed the attorney.
"Jordan Norris had confessed over the phone to Ms. Cambridge about the plot to frame Mayor Weldon for embezzlement. His phone was being tapped which was how it was learned that he'd talked. I received a call telling me that I needed to 'take care' of Ms. Cambridge before she went to the media or the mayor with this information."
"Who called you?"
"Ms. Lucas—"
"Who called you?" She repeated.
"Senator William Bracken. The money that was funding the Reading Train Foundation had come courtesy of Future Forward. And Future Forward is being funded by drug money."
"Is there proof of this or the call that he made to you?"
"Unfortunately, no. That's how he's managed to do what he's done for so long. He's careful and he makes sure that he covers his tracks extremely well. He also has other people to do his dirty work for him. It makes it that much harder to trace things back to him."
"Tell me about Ms. Cambridge's murder."
"After I got the call, I saw Ms. Cambridge at the library fundraiser. She had made arrangements to speak to Mayor Weldon privately. I couldn't allow that to happen. He wouldn't allow that to happen. So, I signed out a car from the motor pool and I approached her. I told her that something had come up and that the mayor had asked me to give her a ride home. I lied to her and told her that he'd promised to call her the next day. I drove to where she was found. When she asked me why I had stopped there, that was when I strangled her. I then abandoned the car and took a cab back to my apartment. When I learned that the police had gone to Dial a Goddess, I figured that there had to be incriminating evidence on their computers. So I pretended to be from the gas company and I stole the hard drive."
"Do you still have the hard drive?"
"I do."
"I'm going to need that drive."
"What are you offering in exchange?" Mr. Webster asked.
"Voluntary manslaughter, seven to fifteen. If he turns over the hard drive and helps us to get the other players."
"Bracken's the only other player that I know of and if I help you take him down, you might as well shoot me right now."
"What do you know about Vulcan Simmons?"
"I don't know anyone by that name."
"That's bullshit and you know it," Esposito spoke up. "You knew that Future Forward is being funded by a drug operation out of Washington Heights. If you knew that, then you know that Vulcan Simmons is the head of that operation. That's common knowledge in New York and has been for years."
"Fine, I know who Simmons is, but I've never personally met with him."
"Mr. Moss, if you keep screwing with me, I'm going to move the charges back up to Murder Two, and that's 25 to life, in case you've forgotten," Ms. Lucas leaned over the table, getting in Moss' face.
"I know about the house in Scarsdale. I know that Simmons tried to kill Det. Beckett. Hearing that she's still alive isn't setting too well with him."
"What about Elena Markov?" Gates asked. "Have you ever met her?"
"No."
"So, if I told you that Elena Markov was Bracken's little hired monkey, this would be news to you?"
"I've never heard of her, but like I said, Bracken uses others to do his dirty work. He hired Dick Coonan to murder Johanna Beckett and her colleagues, Hal Lockwood to take out Raglan, McCallister, and Montgomery. When Lockwood failed to kill Beckett, he hired Cole Maddox to shoot her at Montgomery's funeral. And for the record, all of this is on recordings that my father has."
"Do you know a Michael Smith?"
"He was a lawyer in a rival firm. He retired a long time ago. I never really knew him, I just knew of his reputation."
"After I hear what's on the hard drive that you took, we'll play Let's Make a Deal. Until then, you're going to be held in a holding cell."
"Frank, the hard drive is locked in the safe in my office at home. My wife can get it for you."
"Bill—"
"Just get the drive," he said tersely.
***CCC***
Kate and Lanie were sitting in the M.E.'s office, sipping on decadently thick shakes from Remy's when Castle walked in. "Hey, Castle," Kate smiled happily as her fiancé stepped up to her and kissed her. "How was your meeting?"
"Incredibly boring. You look like you've had more fun today than I have."
"I found a dress," she smiled mysteriously.
"A dress? Wait! I thought that you already have a dress."
"I do . . . I did. I found another dress. A dress that I like better," she continued smiling.
"I called Alexis after I left my meeting. We're going to meet with her at the loft before we head back to the Hamptons. I thought that we should both talk to her about what we discussed yesterday."
"Okay. So, do you want to go now?"
"Yeah, she gets out of her last class soon, so she said that she'd meet us at home."
"Lanie," Kate stood up and held her arms out to her friend, "thank you so much for today."
"Girl, you know that you're welcome. Don't even give Writer Boy here a hint of what that dress looks like," she whispered in Kate's ear. "Make him dream about it."
"I won't," Kate smiled brightly at Castle before hugging Lanie. "I'll call you tonight."
When they arrived at the loft, Alexis was already waiting for them. "Dad, Kate!" She hugged both of them tightly. "Should you guys be in the city?"
"It's okay," Kate assured her. "Your dad had a meeting and he didn't want to leave me alone."
"What did you want to talk to me about? Am I going to be a big sister?" She teased, grinning at her father and his fiancée.
"As appealing as that idea is, the answer is no," Kate returned Alexis' grin. "Your dad and I were talking last night. Alexis, as much as I'd love for you to be a bridesmaid, I think that it would be only right that you stood up at the altar with your father."
"As what?"
"Well, you've always told me that I was your go-to guy. How about if you serve as my best man?"
"What about Ryan and Esposito? I thought that you would ask one of them to be your best man?" Alexis was confused.
"I thought about that, but I'd have to choose between them, and I really don't want to have to be put in that position. Besides, you're far more responsible than either one of them," he added as all three of them chuckled.
"So, what does the best man do?"
"You hold onto Kate's ring for me, you organize the bachelor party, you serve as host at both the wedding and the reception, and you keep the groom calm the day of the wedding. Oh, and you get to decorate the car." He gave her a broad grin at the last bit of information while Kate just rolled her eyes. She could just imagine the number of cars Castle had decorated in his younger days.
"You also get to make a speech at the reception," Kate added.
"I have to say something?" Alexis gave them both a horrified expression. "Can I just re-run my Valedictorian speech?"
"You will come up with something just as meaningful," Castle assured her. "So, what do you say?"
"Kate, are you sure? I don't want you to feel left out."
"Sweetie, I have plenty of wedding party on my side. Please don't worry about me."
"In that case, I will gladly be your best man," Alexis hugged her father, as he embraced her just as tightly.
Kate smiled while she watched them. He always managed to make fatherhood look so sexy. She couldn't wait to start that part of her journey with him.
***CCC***
"What have we got?" Ryan asked Tori Ellis, who was painstakingly piecing together tiny scraps of paper.
"I hated jigsaw puzzles when I was a kid and now I remember why. I've managed to piece together another partial money order with part of the same numbers that were on the money order that we already have. So, it traces back to Bracken. But, other than that, I don't have anything else."
"Ryan?" Ryan turned to find LT standing there. "Simmons and his attorney are here."
"Thanks," Ryan turned to Tori, who waved him off. "I'll be back to help you when I can."
Ryan stepped out into the bullpen where Vulcan Simmons and his attorney were waiting for him. "Detective, let's get this bullshit over with," Simmons said in his deep bass voice.
"Fine. Follow me," Ryan walked down the short hallway toward Interrogation Room 2 as the two men followed behind him. After setting up the video camera and the microphone, Ryan entered in his name, badge number, the date, and the names of the other parties in the room before looking into the hate-filled eyes of the man sitting across from him. The man who had allegedly tried to kill one of his friends just a week before. "Mr. Simmons, what do you know about Senator William Bracken and Future Forward?"
"On the advice of my attorney, I'm invoking my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination," Simmons sat back in his chair while Ryan felt like reaching across the table and punching him in the throat.
Follow me:
Twitter: at Caskett1960
Tumblr: Caskett1960
Facebook: Cindy Wylie