Slaying the Beast
Chapter 25
The skin of Castle's face whitens as he listens to the call from Colby Chesmire. Kate reaches for his hand. "What's wrong, Babe?"
"Colby says that Simmons' operation has been taken over. There's a new distribution center for the concentrated version of fentanyl, that's killing people left and right. But the kicker is, the power behind it is still flowing out of DC."
"Maybe Colby got it wrong. Bracken's in prison. His funds have been frozen."
"Maybe not all of them. He has lawyers, right? They must be expecting to be paid, and he gets to talk to them. Or Bracken might have a partner. With as many strings as he was pulling all over the world, someone else could have been involved. Colby thinks whoever is running things now is highly placed, maybe as highly placed as Bracken was, just quieter."
"Highly placed men in Washington are rarely quiet, Castle."
"Kate, what if it isn't a man?"
"What are you getting at, Castle?"
"Think about it, Kate. Who's been in on our investigation? Who's known Bracken pretty much from the start but was willing to throw him under the bus when we got on to him? Who still has her committee seat?"
"Susan Collinwood. Castle, if it's her, she's one hell of an actor."
"Kate, politicians are essentially actors in a different venue. They convince people to go along with their stories and get paid to do it. The tremors, the shaky voice, all hiding a woman of steel. It's better than Clark Kent's glasses."
"Castle any disguise would be better than Clark Kent's glasses. I could never figure out how Lois Lane could be that clueless. But you're right. It all fits. Susan sees their entire drug empire in jeopardy. So she leads us toward Bracken. Maybe she even asks him to order Simmons to kill George Mercer. Maybe Mercer knew too much about her. Collinwood bets, and correctly, that we can take Bracken down. With him out of the way she reconstitutes New York operations, only this time she gets to keep all the profits."
"We have to stop her, Kate."
"How, Castle? There's no dead body. We don't have a case. Drugs are Narcotics' responsibility, along with the DEA, and we don't have a shred of proof of Collinwood's involvement, to offer either of them."
"But when a public figure falls from grace, it isn't always the result of a criminal investigation, at least not at first. Sometimes the press is way ahead of the prosecutors. Colby got a story, and he may get another Pulitzer out of the series he's writing about Bracken. If he covers the Collinwood angle too, it will blow things wide open."
"You have a point, Castle. The families of drug victims would have enough standing to bring civil suits. That would mean discovery. The U.S. Attorneys, Adam Briggs, even some investigative committees in Congress could issue subpoenas. But Colby will need more than our conjecture about Collinwood to write about, won't he?"
"He will," Castle agrees. "Kate, we may not be able to do anything official, but Collinwood thinks she pulled the wool over our eyes."
"She did."
"Well, she doesn't need to know we've brushed it back. Chances are if the drug operation in New York is all hers now, she may spend more time here, to make sure she's maximizing her cash flow. I'm sure that we can find one way or another to interact again with the senator. I believe that I read that Susan in a theater fan. I may even be able to enlist some help from Mother. Actor vs. actor. Collinwood will never know what hit her."
Kate's cell buzzes. "Castle, there's someone else who may never know what hit her. We have a body."
Perlmutter looks up from the corpse in his perpetual state of aggravation. "Time of death was sometime last night, Detective Beckett. With the temperatures we've been having, I won't be able to be any more exact than that until I get her back to the lab."
"No I.D. either," Ryan adds.
Castle gazes down at the victim. "I know who she is. Her name is Chelsea Meadows."
Kate scrutinizes what seems to have not long ago been an attractive woman. "How did you know her, Castle?"
"It was not an acquaintance I remember with fondness. She was a wedding planner. She had a reputation for wrangling bridezillas. She earned it. Gina hired her for our wedding. Believe me, that was not an easy gig."
Kate visualizes the brittle blonde she saw briefly at Castle's book party and had several phone conversations with when Castle attempted to hide from his ex-wife/publisher at the precinct. "I would imagine it wasn't, but being able to pull off a wedding is hardly a motive for murder."
"I can think of some grooms with buyers' remorse who might disagree with you."
Kate hunkers down next to Perlmutter. "Do you have a cause of death?"
"Stabbed, right in the heart. From the appearance of the wound, the killer twisted the knife, too." With a disturbing grin, Perlmutter mimes the action he describes.
"Twisting a knife in the heart. There's a story there," Castle speculates.
Kate rises to face him. "But the question is, who's telling it. How much do you know about Chelsea Meadows, Castle?"
"Not a lot. I stayed away from Gina's marital maneuverings as much as possible. My opinion wouldn't have counted for much anyway. You know, Alexis probably knows more than I do. Gina was always trying to engage her in the process. I guess she figured things would be a lot easier if she could be partners in crime with her future stepdaughter."
"How did that work out?"
"At the time, Alexis was more interested in ceremonial lightsaber competitions than wedding ceremonies, but I believe they did consult on colors, especially the colors they imposed on me. To this day, I have a hard time looking at turquoise tuxedos, even on a Las Vegas stage where they belong. But Alexis had one something like mine very briefly for her Ken doll before she turned him into a Jedi warrior. Wearing that thing made me feel like Ken and I were missing the same parts of our anatomy."
"I'll make a note of that, Castle."
His eyebrow quirks as he muses on why Kate would care about his choice of wedding attire. But this is not the place or time to explore the question. "Alexis will be home from school in a few hours. It is one of the rare days when she doesn't have any extra-curricular activities. If you want to talk to her, you can do it then. In the meantime, I seem to recall that Chelsea has a mother, also in the business. Last I heard, Chelsea had never tied the knot herself, so her mother is most likely her next of kin."
Kate nods. "Then we should talk to her first. God, Castle, after all this time, I still hate having to do this, break the news to the family that someone they love is dead. You'd think I'd be used to it my now."
"Kate, if you were," Castle murmurs, "you wouldn't be the compassionate woman that you are. I'll be there for you; you know that, right?"
"Yeah, Castle. I do."
A/N If you are interested, I have a new The Rookie one-shot called "Treacherous Trail." Henry comes to visit.