Rick strode into the bull pen, determined not to show anything out of the ordinary, nodding a greeting at Karpowski and Velasquez for verisimilitude.

"Morning." He put down one of the two takeaway cups of coffee down on the desk next to Kate's hand.

"Morning. Sleep well?"

"Fine." He sat down in his normal chair.

Her eyes narrowed slightly as she picked up her cup. "Do you want to try that again?" she asked.

"Try what?"

"Telling me what the problem is."

"There's no problem." He sipped his coffee, feeling the heat burning a welcome warmth down into his belly.

"Okay." Kate did the same, then went back to the file. "How's Maggie?"

"Fine, I guess."

"You guess?"

"She didn't come home last night!" His lips tightened shut but it was too late. Damn. He berated himself. He hadn't meant to be this easy to crack.

Kate sat back in her chair, cradling the paper cup in her hands. "Really."

He made himself shrug. "I'm not worried. I expect she stayed with Congreve."

"Could you get a bit more venom into his name?" Kate shook her head. "I don't think I quite got how you really feel about him."

He pointedly ignored her, just took far too large a mouthful of coffee, almost gagging in the process before he could swallow it down. He didn't dare look at the amused expression on her face.

The morning had started out so well, too. Alexis had woken him on her way out to school, and he'd staggered into the kitchen to be met by the sight of his mother in full warpaint, ready to go off and spend the day with Chet.

"Morning, darling." She turned the page in the Ledger. "You look like something the cat dragged in."

"Late night."

"So I gathered. What time did you fall into bed?"

He walked around her and stared into the fridge before closing the door again and turning to the percolator. "I got in about two," he admitted. "I fell asleep on the couch, and the paper arriving woke me, so I suppose I got to bed around ... four-thirty?"

She pushed the cream and sugar towards him. "Then you're going to be needing this."

"Thanks." He made a mug just the way he liked it, then glanced towards the stairs. "Maggie still asleep?"

She gave him an odd look. "I'm not sure." Folding the Ledger carefully back into shape, she added, "Shouldn't you be getting ready for the office?"

"The office." Rick shook his head even as he stretched. "That makes me sound like any normal person."

"You? Normal?"

He rubbed his hands over his face and chuckled. "Not since I was about five."

"Not even then, believe me." She held out the paper. "Here. There's an interesting article on a body pulled from the Hudson."

"Really?" He took it, carrying it to the couch where he sat down, mug in one hand, paper on his knees.

"Mmn. Norman espouses his view, yet again, that there are water-breathing cannibals living at the bottom of the river."

Rick grinned. Norman Grayson, the resident kook columnist on the New York Ledger, could always be relied upon to bring a somewhat skewed viewpoint to the day's news, and happened to be one of his mother's old flames. "Maybe he's right."

"There are more things in heaven and earth ..." Martha intoned, picking up her coat and purse. "Damn, I forgot my gloves," she added, heading for the stairs.

"Give Maggie a shout, will you?" Rick asked, leaning backwards enough so he could see her. "Tell her I want to talk to her."

Martha paused. "Richard ..."

"What?"

"Maggie didn't ... come back last night."

He turned in his seat. "She didn't ... Mother, you were supposed to be looking after her."

"I think James Congreve was doing that all too well." Martha crossed the apartment to stand over him. "She ... went off with him. When the press junket ended."

Rick's open mouth closed with an audible snap. "I see."

"No." She leaned down, her hand on his shoulder. "I don't think you do. Why don't you give her a call?"

"Why don't you give her a call?" Kate's voice, unwittingly echoing his mother, drew him back to the present.

He wiped a couple of drops of coffee from his chin. "If she wants to talk to me, she can."

Kate sighed. "No wonder you and your relationships never go anywhere." She got up to face the murder board.

"My relationships?" He followed her. "You want to give me advice on my relationships?"

She held up a hand. "I wouldn't presume."

"Well, for your information, my relationship with Maggie is just fine."

"Good." She crossed her arms, tapping her chin with her finger.

"It's fine," he insisted.

"I'm glad for you."

He dropped to the edge of the desk. "Or it will be. Once I apologise again."

She looked at him. "Castle, it wasn't all your fault. I should have ... I knew how much it meant to Maggie for you to be there for her. I should have made sure you were. I suppose I've ... got used to you tagging along all the time."

"Thank you for damning me with that faint praise."

Her lips twitched. "And I wouldn't worry. Maggie's forgiven you for two marriages and God knows how many girlfriends ... I think she'll forgive you this."

"I hope so."

The fervency in his tone made Kate look at him strangely, but whatever she had been about to say was interrupted by Esposito.

"Yo," the dark faced detective said. "We've got the details on Sarah Richardson's last call." He handed six stapled sheets to Kate, the last entry circled in yellow highlighter.

"Made just after she left the precinct," Kate said quietly. "Who to?"

"One William Bonney."

"Billy the Kid?" Rick couldn't stop himself in time.

"That wasn't even his real name," Kate said, not even bothering to glance at him.

"Except this one was also known as Billy the Kid," Esposito added, holding out a rap sheet. "Petty theft, joy-riding, possession ... if he didn't look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth he'd be doing time."

Kate had taken the sheet, and Rick moved to see over her shoulder. "I see what you mean," she said, studying the face in front of her.

Rick stared at the mug shot. "I know him."

This time she looked at him. "You do?"

"Not the name. The face." His eyes screwed up as he tried to remember. "Billy ... Billy ..." His face cleared. "Elysium."

"What?"

"He works as a waiter at Elysium. I saw him when I went to ... visit ... Duncan." His voice trailed off at the expression on her face.

"Duncan Monaghan."

"Yes." He tried pre-emptive meekness. "I only saw him for a minute."

"And?"

"Duncan said he lives with his mother, and is a distant cousin." He shrugged. "That was it."

She gazed at him a moment longer, making him squirm a little, then she turned back to Esposito. "Bring him in. If nothing else he was the last person to speak to Sarah – he might know where she was heading."

"On it." He strode back to his desk, collecting his coat and Ryan on the way.

Kate was staring at the murder board again. "Have you spoken to Monaghan yet?"

"About the 1963 end? No, not yet."

"Then don't."

He was surprised. "I thought you agreed he was a good source."

"Maybe too good." She took a deep breath, holding it for a long while, before saying on the exhalation, "There's something about him I don't trust."

"You haven't even met him."

She glanced sharply at him. "And if I had?"

"You'd trust him even less," Rick admitted.

"I'm not saying he's involved personally, but ..."

Rick knew to trust her instincts – he'd had plenty of evidence over the past couple of years that she knew what she was talking about, and it wasn't just because she was a well-trained cop. "No problem." He smiled.

She looked him up and down. "Feeling better now?"

He chuckled. "Nothing keeps me down for long."

Kate's phone rang. "I've noticed," she said drily, picking it up. "Beckett." She listened for a moment, her eyes not straying from Rick. "Sure. Now?" Again a pause. "Fine. We're leaving now." She hung up and picked up her coat. "Come on."

"Where to?"

"Lanie has something for us." She led the way to the elevator.

"Can I drive?"

"Have I ever said yes?"

"Not yet."

"Then let's not break the habit."

"Okay, Lanie what do you ... oh." Kate paused, surprised to see both MEs they worked with. Lanie Parish and Sidney Perlmutter were standing side by side, equidistant between two covered tables.

"Are you planning some kind of double act?" Rick asked, a smile on his face.

"Coincidence," Lanie insisted. "That's all."

Perlmutter just crossed his arms.

"O-kay." Kate composed herself. "So ... why the call?"

Lanie glanced at Perlmutter then pulled the top of the sheet back on the gurney next to her. "Sarah Richardson. Cause of death, extreme blunt force trauma, i.e. being hit by a truck."

Kate looked down at the corpse, once again struck by the way most bodies – if they weren't actually decaying in some way – always looked like they were just asleep, even with the abrasions from hitting the road. Her mother must have looked like that – not that her father let her do the identification. Then her eyes drifted to the stitches closing the autopsy incisions, and she forced her mind back to business. "Did it cause all these injuries?"

"No." Lanie moved the sheet to one side, revealing Sarah's arm. "All of the fingers on her left hand were broken pre-mortem, probably by being bent backwards." She let the sheet drop. "Her left ear-drum's perforated too."

"Someone hit her?"

"Hard."

"So she was tortured."

"I'd say so."

"She couldn't tell them anything," Rick put in, his head slightly on one side.

"What makes you say that?" Kate asked, her eyebrows raised slightly.

"The amount of injuries." He nodded towards Sarah's hand. "I'd tell them whatever they wanted if they broke even one of my fingers, wouldn't you?"

For once Kate didn't jump in to agree. Rick might sound like he was a coward, but that wasn't her experience at all. Instead she said, "Maybe she managed to get away before she could give it up."

"Not something I can help you with, honey," Lanie put in.

"Anything else?" Kate asked.

"Not from me." Lanie took a step back, allowing Perlmutter centre stage.

The other ME swept the sheet from the second table, in turn displaying a skeleton laid out like a very bad case of anorexia.

"It looks like one of those forensic programmes," Rick murmured to Kate.

"It's just bones, Castle." She noted the glint of gold in the jaw. "I take it this is from the cab of the truck."

Perlmutter nodded. "Male, approximately thirty years old, and before you ask, no, no chance of any usable DNA."

"I wasn't going to." Kate moved closer. "And I'm presuming he drowned. Or can't you tell that?"

"No."

"I didn't think so."

"No. I mean he didn't drown." Perlmutter picked up one of the vertebra lined up under the skull. "He was stabbed, in the throat, from the front."

Kate's jaw dropped, but it was Rick who spoke.

"You're joking."

"I don't joke," Perlmutter said.

"You know, I thought that about you."

"So he was dead before the truck went down?" Kate mused.

Perlmutter nodded. "That would be my opinion."

"Cleaning house?" Rick countered. "Keeping costs down?"

Kate shrugged then turned to the MEs. "Are you sure the damage couldn't be attributed to tides? Or when the truck went down?"

"I'm sure," Perlmutter said firmly.

"I agree," Lanie put in. "Whatever killed him went deep enough to nick the front of the cervical vertebrae. I checked with the divers who collected the bones; there wasn't anything in the cab that could account for that kind of injury."

"What would?"

"Something sharp. An ice-pick, maybe, or a long thin knife."

"So we've got another murder," Rick said softly.

"To add to the list." Kate shook her head. "Which seems to be getting longer by the day." She looked at the two colleagues, keeping the sigh inside. "Thanks."

"Whoa, now, wait there, girl," Lanie said quickly. "We're not finished."

This time Kate let the sigh flow from her lips. "Don't tell me there's another corpse."

"No, same one." Lanie looked surprisingly smug.

"Well, don't keep me in suspense."

Perlmutter picked up a file, holding it out. "Here."

"What's this?"

A smile almost twisted his lips. "Take a look."

Kate opened the folder. "Is this ..."

"Mr Bones."

Rick pointed at Perlmutter. "You made a joke."

"Castle." Kate got his attention. "You will want to see this."

He peered at the contents and his eyes widened. "That's ... amazing."

"You get what you pay for," Perlmutter commented. "In my day we had to wait weeks for it to be done by hand." He did the almost-smile again. "And they'll be billing you."

"That's fine, fine," Rick said distractedly. He was staring at what was probably a computer generated image, but so lifelike he almost expected it to blink. A man in his thirties, black hair, brown eyes, a long nose and surprisingly delicate cheekbones, with a scar over the right eye in the shape of an inverted Y. His lips were parted, showing the gold canine. "Black hair?" he asked, just for something to say.

"The forensic artist determined from the shape of the skull that his ancestry was probably European, but not Nordic," Perlmutter explained. "There's another option with brown hair in the file."

"And the scar?" Kate inquired.

Perlmutter picked up the skull. "Probably when he was a child," he said, touching a mark on the bone. "He hit or was hit by something that left a specific contusion. Any harder and it would probably have cracked the bone, but it would definitely have broken the skin."

Rick was still staring at the face, and a trickle like ice water made its way down his back. "I've seen him before. I think."

"Like Billy Bonney?" Kate asked.

"Who?" Lanie wanted to know but was ignored.

"I don't know." His brow furrowed. "It's just a feeling."

Kate waited for a moment to see if he was going to come up with anything else, then turned back to the MEs. "Thank you, guys. This has been very helpful."

"No problem," Lanie said, smiling. "But try not to turn up any more bodies, okay? I've got enough people out with the 'flu."

"I'll try not to." Kate led the way out of the lab into the corridor, just as her cellphone chirped at her. Slipping it from her pocket she thumbed it to answer. "Yes."

"Yo, Beckett." It was Esposito. "We're at Bonney's place, but he's not here."

"How about Elysium? Castle says he works there."

"We called on the way. They haven't seen him since yesterday afternoon."

"We can try for a warrant for his apartment, but I doubt we'll get it. There just isn't enough evidence to suggest he's involved." She thought for a moment. "Head to Elysium anyway. Talk to the other waiters. They might have some idea where he could be."

"Will do. And tell Castle he wasn't quite right. According to his neighbours Bonney doesn't live with his mother – she's in a private care facility in Queens."

Kate closed the call then related the findings to Rick.

"Can't we get a court order for his phone?" he asked when she'd finished.

"With what evidence? A hunch?"

"Sarah called him. Her last call."

"And maybe she was ordering take out." Kate shook her head. "It's not enough, Castle."

He understood, even if he didn't like it. As an author he could cut corners, make his hero almost omnipotent, and somewhat amoral when it came to rules of evidence. He could make it easy. Only Kate wasn't a fictional character, and those corners could make the difference between a conviction and a killer walking free. "Then we keep looking," he said.

"It's what we do."

'We'. He liked that.

His own cell rang, and he felt a weight lift from his shoulders as the caller ID showed Maggie's smiling face. "Hey, Mags," he said warmly. "I was going to call you."

"Um, it's not Maggie. It's James Congreve."

The hairs lifted on the back of his neck. "Then what –"

"I think you'd better get around to my apartment. Maggie's sick."