Ian

Chapter 14

Castle slid into the passenger seat of Kate's unit and looked at his watch. Barring another disaster on the highway, he should make it home not too long after Ian did. Kate started the car as Castle attempted to sort through the details of the case. "Usually if a husband is abusing a wife or cheating on her, you'd expect her to take him out. But that couldn't have happened here," Castle mused. "Assuming that Sam's killing wasn't random, there's someone else involved. But who?"

"Castle, we may get to that, but Melanie is still our primary case. Sam probably did it, but we still have to prove it. Ben Davidson seemed to think the detective who investigated Melanie's case dropped the ball. I really need to talk to him."

"Is he still on the job?" Castle asked.

"If you consider working as the sheriff in a small town in New Jersey on the job, yes.

"Are you going to call him?" Castle inquired.

Kate considered for a moment. "Just to set up an interview, hopefully for tomorrow. I want to look him in the face, watch his body language. If he's the slacker Davidson suggested he is, I should be able to see it. Either way I should be able to pick up more details on Melanie's case."

"Will you call me when you have the trip to Jersey nailed down?" Castle queried.

With an incredible shake still a sweet memory on her tongue, Kate idly wondered what Castle knew about food along the New Jersey Turnpike. "Sure, Castle. I'll let you know."

After climbing the stairs to the upper level of his loft, Castle found his son bending intently over his drawing board, but Ian looked up when his father came to the open door of his room. "Hey, Dad. How are you feeling?"

"Less like I've been run over by a semi. I'm about down to a Cooper Mini," Castle replied. "How'd your history test go?"

"It was okay Dad. When I looked at the test paper, the dates didn't make any sense, but then Mrs. Singer read them to me and I remembered what they all were. I could even see the battles and stuff in my head. I wanted to draw them and Mrs. Singer suggested that might be a good project later for extra credit, but for then, she just had me speak all my answers into a digital recorder. She put what I said on a USB drive for Mr. Kaplowitz."

"Are you drawing battles now?" Castle asked.

"No, Mrs. Singer has to clear that with Kappy first," Ian explained. "This is more stuff about my new villain, Pie Eater." Castle choked at the name, but Ian was too absorbed in his creation to notice. "He's decided he wants to steal a whole pie factory by transporting it to a pocket universe, but he doesn't have enough energy to to run his dimensional rift generator, so he's trying to cause the formation of a micro black hole to power the thing. The problem is, his calculations are off and if Dweeby doesn't stop him in time, he'll cause a tear in the time space continuum that could swallow half the planet."

"Sounds exciting," Castle commented, "but are you wedded to calling him 'Pie Eater'?"

Ian gazed at his father, confused. "Why?"

"Um, the name has some connotations that - we can discuss at a later date. But they have nothing to do with the consumption of foodstuffs," Castle responded.

"So something about sex, right?" Ian closed his eyes for a moment, replaying a scene in his head. "Booger made a joke about pie in Revenge of the Nerds. I didn't get it. Is that what you mean?"

"Something like that. It just might be better if you called your villain something else, especially if you want to share him outside this loft, Castle suggested. "But while we are on the subject of foodstuffs, I was thinking about ordering in from Comfort Corner tonight, unless you'd rather go for something from The Golden Palace."

"Comfort Corner is good, Dad," Ian decided, "especially if they have some of those giant cookies."

"Well if they don't," Castle offered, "I should be able to talk them into putting a batch in for us. We are very good customers."

Ian descended the stairs as soon as he heard the doorbell, but his father was already generously tipping the delivery girl and asking her to thank the chef. Castle held up a paper bag showing a few telltale grease spots. "Cookies fresh out of the oven. Feels like they're still warm. Meatloaf was the special of the night, with mashed potatoes, gravy, and green beans."

Castle put the food down and Ian automatically got a bottle of ketchup out of the refrigerator. After quickly putting out plates and flatware, they settled themselves far enough apart at the table to allow Castle some extra leg room. "So Dad, did you find out who your corpsicle is?" Ian asked as he liberally coated coated his meatloaf in what he considered his indispensable condiment.

Castle scooped a mound of mashed potatoes onto his plate and poured warm gravy on them and his own ketchup-free meatloaf. "Uh hm, but it just opened up more questions. Detective Beckett and I should be meeting with someone tomorrow to address some of them."

"Ian's fork stopped in mid-air. He stared at his father. "You're avoiding giving me details, which probably means there's something you think might be upsetting about the case. I'm pretty tough, Dad. I know the world is full of crappy things. Some of them happened to kids I go to school with."

"Right. Well the woman who was murdered left two kids, and then their father was murdered too. There's a good chance the father killed the mother."

"Are the kids okay?" Ian asked.

"I think so. They're with their grandparents. I saw them playing on the lawn, just for a minute, but they looked happy," Castle related.

Ian poked thoughtfully at his own mound of potatoes. "That's a good thing, right?"

"I certainly hope so," Castle responded. "I certainly hope so."

There wasn't much going on in the little town of Cape Layla on the Jersey Shore. It still was too cold for the beach and until the temperature rose, most of the tourists enjoyed the exciting atmosphere of nearby gambling mecca Atlantic City, more. Still the five thousand or so year round residents had enough minor skirmishes to keep Sheriff Sloan employed, if not busy. He proposed meeting not at his office, which he described as an over-sized broom closet, but at a local restaurant, citing better coffee and excellent fried clams. Kate and Castle availed themselves of both, Kate silently noting that the coffee from the machine Castle had installed in the break room was superior to what she was drinking with the sheriff.

"I don't know what to tell you, Detective," Sloan insisted. "Melanie Cavanaugh showed all the signs of a runaway housewife. She had a drug history and there was supposed to be a boyfriend somewhere, according to the husband. He told me there were times that Melanie came home very late, and the doorman confirmed that."

"Wait a minute," Castle interrupted, "Melanie's parents told us Melanie thought Sam was having an affair."

"It's possible they both were," Sloan admitted. "I didn't really check much on the husband. He wasn't the one who was missing. But I did talk to a friend of Sam's, Charles something. It's in my case notes. Big black fellow. Has a moving and storage company. He said that neither of them was happy in the marriage. So I would imagine it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect affairs on both sides. Of course, I didn't know Melanie was dead, so thinking she took off with some guy was the natural conclusion. If the husband was stepping out on her, it wasn't really relevant at the time." Sloan dipped a clam into tartar sauce and popped it in his mouth. "I'm sure you know how many outstanding missing persons cases there are in the city. If we heard hoof beats, we didn't have time to look for zebras. We stuck with horses. Homicide cops like you, Detective Beckett, have a much lower case load. You get to dig a lot deeper." Sloan reached for another clam.

"Sheriff Sloan," Kate assured him, "digging deep is exactly what I intend to do."

"So what did you think of Sloan?" Castle inquired, as Kate began the drive back to New York.

"I think he was trying hard to excuse a lazy ass investigation," Kate declared. "But he did give us a lead, especially since our witness at the construction site thought the guy dumping Melanie's body was strong and black. We need to check out Charles."