Chapter 26
Famous Last Words
Part 2
Beckett was on the phone co-ordinating the plan to stop the bus with the boys. I was holding the phone to her ear while allowing her to use both hands on the steering wheel as we sped towards the location of the bus. The boys had already called in back up. They had even called in air support to locate the bus. Thankfully it did not take the guys in the chopper long to locate the bus and send us the location.
Trying to stop a moving bus on a busy New York street is not as easy as it is portrayed in the movies or on TV. It is very much heart in mouth stuff, let me tell you. You have to hope that the street is pretty clear of traffic, you have to pray that the other drivers on the street have enough sense to get the hell out of the way, which does not always happen. And you have to hope that the bus driver has sense enough to obey the command of the police.
We had found the bus and set off after it. A marked police cruiser pulled ahead of us and using the bullhorn got the driver to pull over. A second marked police car followed the first. The command to stop had been heard by the driver and he screeched to a halt. Both marked cruisers blocked off the bus while other cars surrounded the bus.
Beckett jumped out of the car with her gun drawn. She was already wearing her vest, having put it on before we had gotten into the car after we had left the Busch's studios. I too got out of the car and I was wearing my Writer's vest but I remained by the car. Beckett had ordered me to remain by the car and this time I was not about to argue with her. From where I was standing I had a good view of the bus and in particular the people on the bus. They were looking more than a little concerned about the bus having been pulled over by a posse of police.
Beckett raced up to where the boys were standing. Esposito held up a photo of our suspect for Beckett to inspect.
"Alright, got it." Beckett told him.
Beckett with her gun at the ready climbed into the bus. Esposito and Ryan were right behind her, also with their guns drawn and ready to use them if the need arose. Beckett stared down the length of the bus.
"Hands where I can see them now!" She shouted.
"Nobody move!" Esposito added.
Hands were quickly reaching for the ceiling of the bus. Concern had turned to fear at having three armed cops storm the bus. As ordered nobody moved. Beckett slowly inched her way down the aisle looking from one passenger to another, studying the faces carefully before moving on to the next passenger. The women she did not take too much interest in except to make sure they did not pose a danger to her or the boys. There were a couple of rough looking faces that she paid careful attention to before moving on.
Beckett spotted one of the passengers who was sitting midway in the bus. He had his head bowed and had a hood drawn up as well as a scarf. Beckett moved to the passenger and pulled the hood back to reveal a man wearing makeup and hair done up to look like Hayley Blue. This was our suspect, Franco Marquez. All of a sudden Franco leaped up from his seat as if he was going to attack Beckett.
I saw what happened next. This was a real heart in the mouth moment. I held my breath with my heart pounding when I saw Franco leap out of his seat. Beckett saw the attack coming and side stepped him and knocked him down to the floor. Esposito swiftly moved in and put the cuffs on him.
Hauling Franco to his feet Esposito dragged him off the bus. Ryan helped his partner. Franco complained long and loudly as he was shoved unceremoniously into the back of a police cruiser.
Beckett climbed down from the bus a minute later and I was able to start breathing again. I did not realise how worried I had been for her until that moment she had made her reappearance. She looked unharmed after her encounter with Franco.
Holstering her gun Beckett started walking over to her car. I could not help myself but I had to ask her if she was alright. She assured me that she was and that she was pleased the take down had gone smoothly. I might have asked her a few more times if she was alright on the ride back to the precinct till I annoyed her and she threatened to shoot me. I quickly refrained from asking again.
I will concede I might have been acting a little irrational, Beckett after all is a detective, who is trained to handle such situations like the one that had unfolded in the bus. Also she had as back up two other highly trained detectives. Still I had been concerned for her.
An hour later Franco Marquez was sitting in the interrogation room across from us. He was a reedy looking character who wore make up trying to make himself look like Hayley Blue. His hair that was coloured just like Hayley did not look like it had been washed in several days and maybe longer. He looked rather pathetic really. I put his age in the mid twenties.
"You guys are stupid!" Franco shouted at us. "I loved Hayley. She was my soul mate! Why would I kill her?"
Now when you're a main suspect in a murder investigation, I don't think it is the smartest of ideas to call the police who are questioning you, stupid. Then again Franco did not look like he was the sharpest tool in the shed.
"Why did you run?" Beckett asked.
"Huh! When I heard how you found her, I knew you would think. 'She wrote the song about me, so of course I must have k..."
"Where were you after midnight last night?" Beckett interrupted.
"She played a set at the Bitter End last night." Franco informed us. "A brand new song. It was a total surprise. Like, there was no email blast or nothing, so I wasn't there."
"I asked you were you were, not where you weren't." Beckett said tersely.
"Someone recorded the concert and posted it online. It's gone totally viral already. So, that's where I was. At home in my room, listening to Hayley's final show."
"You say 'final show' like you knew that it was going to be her last." I told him.
"I did know." Franco insisted. "So did Hayley. She knew last night she was gonna die."
Franco reached into his pocket and pulled out his phone. He opened it up and pulled up a video he had stored on it.
"Listen." He said as he pressed play.
Beckett and I peered at a grainy, dimly lit recording of Hayley Bluey sitting by herself on a small stage playing a guitar.
"Her new song." Franco said.
"The hands were dealt will never disappear. Death, she grows near."
Franco reached over and closed the phone then looked up at us.
"'Death, she grows near'. She knew he was going to kill her last night. And he knew he could frame me when he did."
Beckett frowned at that.
"Who are you talking about?" She demanded.
"I know I'm not supposed to, but...The restraining order...I followed her. I came round the corner, he was yelling at her. He said he was going to kill her."
"Who said?" Beckett said, raising her voice. "Who did you see?"
"Zack Metzger. Her guitarist." Franco announced.
It was obvious Franco Marquez was not our killer but Beckett got his statement down on paper and then handed him over to a uniform to deposit him in a holding cell while his alibi was checked out.
XXX
Half an hour later found Beckett and I standing in the bullpen as Esposito approached us with a file in his hand.
"Zack Metzger, guitar god." Esposito announced as he handed Beckett the file. "Juvie records are sealed, but he's got half a dozen priors as an adult."
Beckett opened the file and scanned the information on the cover sheet.
"A couple of them are domestic assaults, too." Esposito added. "He likes to hit women."
Beckett lifted her head from the file to look at Esposito's grim looking face. She returned her gaze back to the file. I peered down at the file and at the photograph of Zack. What I saw did not impress me all that much.
"Look at this guy." I remarked. "If I was a woman, I'd just hit him back. Does he look like a killer to you?"
"Everybody looks like a killer to me, Castle." Beckett replied. She glanced up from the file and flashed a quick smile. "Job requirement."
I could not help it but I had to ask her. I moved a little closer to Beckett.
"Do I look like a killer to you?" I asked.
Beckett looked up from the file again. "Yes. You kill my patience."
Ouch. As come backs go, this one was a pretty good one. I could not help but notice that when Beckett turned to look at Esposito she must have rolled her eyes or made a face because Esposito's response was to grin.
At that moment Ryan came strolling into the bullpen and came and joined us.
"Hey. So...I just took a report from the receiving officer at the 20th Precinct." He announced. "He recognised Hayley from the news."
"And?" Beckett prompted.
"He says Hayley showed up at their door to file a report the day she went missing."
"About what?" I asked.
"He doesn't know." Ryan said. "She asked to speak to a detective. By the time the receiving officer found one, she's skipped out."
"There's only one reason you go to he cops, to report a crime." Esposito remarked.
"Or to get help because you think you're in danger." Beckett added.
XXX
Beckett and I headed to Zacks apartment only to find that he was not there. A friendly next door neighbour informed us that Zack was out rehearsing with his band. The friendly neighbour also told us that the rehearsal place was an old warehouse on the New Jersey side of the Hudson. Thankfully the friendly neighbour even supplied us with an address. We thanked the friendly neighbour and set out for New Jersey.
It did not take us long to find the place. It was one of the few remaining old river front warehouses. It should have been condemned a long time ago but nobody had gotten around to calling in the wrecking ball. It was like the odd man out amongst all the gentrification taking place all along the river.
Beckett drove onto the pier and straight through the open doors. We came to a screeching halt. Beckett got out of the car slamming the door loudly. I was not far behind her without the banging of the car door.
Needless to say our arrival put an end to the rehearsal session. Zack escorted us to a quieter part of the building. Zack was about five seven, thin with a waxy complexion and sunken eyes. He was dressed in jeans and a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up. The perfume he was giving off was a little on the overpowering side and certainly would not be found on the after shave counter of any high end department store.
"We heard what happened to Hayley. It sucks, right?" Zack said without much emotion.
"Can I get you a tissue?" I said sourly.
When I had taken a look at his photograph back at the precinct I did not like him much, then when Esposito said that he hit women, I liked him even less. Seeing him now face to face, I thought of him even less than I did before.
"We have a witness who saw you guys fighting." Beckett informed him.
"So?" Zack said, unconcerned.
"So, she's dead now." Beckett said tersely.
I did not need to be a rocket surgeon to know that Beckett didn't like Zack any more than I did.
"Well, I did not kill her."
"You sure about that?" I said. I could not help but notice that both his arms resembled a human pin cushion with all the needle marks that dotted his skin. "You sure you didn't get a little high, maybe pull a Hulk smash on your band mate?"
Zack felt a little self conscious about displaying his needle marked arms and he quickly rolled down his shirt sleeves.
"Yeah, I'm sure." He said.
"Where were you between midnight and 3am on Sunday night?" Beckett asked.
"We had a gig." Zack replied. "Gillespie's, sweet sixteen over on 82nd. We finished around 1:30. We packed up and were out by two. Me and Nick shared a cab to Williamsburg. I paid by credit card." He stared at Beckett.
"We done?" He added.
"Wow. Sweet sixteen parties." I said a little sarcastically. "When Hayley was with the band, weren't you opening for Pink?"
Yeah, I'll put my hand up. I was trying to needle the guy—no pun intended. Like I said, I didn't like him much. Well, I got a reaction out of him.
"What do you guys want me to say, okay?" Zack said angrily. "She screwed all of us when she had her little meltdown and decided to go solo. Do I hate her? Yes! Did I kill her? No!"
"What did you guys fight about?" Beckett asked.
"Her being a selfish bitch." Zack shot back, still brimming with anger. "She found out that we were holding auditions for her replacement, and she had those d-bag producers send us a cease and resist letter."
"Or a cease and desist letter." I corrected him.
Beckett shot me a glance and I could see the amusement dancing in her eyes.
"We made the reputation for The Blue Pill, but she owned it." Zack continued. "So what? She has a meltdown and disappears off the map, and we can't use our damn name? Hell, we can't even get arrested now."
"Poor choice of words." I said in a low voice.
Beckett's phone started ringing and she quickly answered it. Zack glared back at me and I just stared back at him.
"Okay..." Beckett said and then rang off and then looked at me. "Hayley's sister is on her way to the morgue to identify the body."
She started walking but paused beside Zack and gave him one of her glares.
"Don't leave town." she told him.
I moved up to Zack after Beckett walked off.
"But feel free to bathe."
XXX
Beckett and I arrived at the morgue to find Perlmutter and several morgue attendants standing around in the corridor. Perlmutter was on the phone demanding that security come down there right away. From within the freezer room there came a lot of noise and the muffled sound of a woman shouting.
"What's going on here?" Beckett asked as she approached Perlmutter.
Perlmutter put the phone down and turned to look at Beckett.
"Hayley Blue's sister, Sky is having a very emotional reaction to her sister's death." He informed us.
Emotional reaction was putting it mildly, I would have said a meltdown judging by the shouting that was coming from the room.
Beckett took charge of the situation and moved to the door that led into the freezer room, I was right behind her. She slowly pushed open the door and peered in.
"Look at me when I'm talking to you! Who's dead now, huh? You are!"
Sky was a bedraggled looking young woman, with a similar hairstyle to that of her now deceased sister only darker. She was dressed grungily. I could not tell exactly how old she was but if Hayley was the elder sister then Sky would not have been much older than about twenty, but like I said it was hard to tell, she looked a lot older. She was unsteady on her feet as she shouted down at her sister. I did not need to see the half empty bottle of alcohol in her hand to know that the young woman was drunk.
"Sky?" Beckett said gently.
At the sound of Beckett's voice Sky turned around quickly, lost her balance and landed on her backside. Recovering from the shock of the landing Sky looked up at Beckett.
"What do you want?" She demanded. "Cause I'm talking to my sister."
Beckett took a few steps into the room. I remained by the door. I knew that Beckett could handle this situation. I had seen her do it before.
"I'm Detective Kate Beckett. I'd like to ask you a few questions, if that's okay."
In Sky's other hand she held a rather large knife. She regarded Beckett for some moments, swaying a little.
"You a cop?" Sky asked.
"Yeah." Beckett replied. "Is that a knife?"
"Am I breaking the law?"
"Yeah."
"Bad?"
"Pretty bad."
Sky nodded her head a little as she considered her situation. Then she turned the knife in her hand pointing the handle in Beckett's direction and then held out both her arms outs.
Beckett moved over to where the young woman was sitting. She knelt down and removed the knife and the bottle of alcohol from her hands.
"Do you want to know a secret?" Sky asked. "I think I might have killed her."
With the weapon safely out of reach Beckett started to help Sky to her feet. I left my position at the door and came over to help get Sky off the floor. I had thought Sky may have taken other substances apart from alcohol but as I was helping her to her feet I could not be sure. Sky looked at me with her glazed eyes and demanded to know who I was. Beckett did the introductions but my name did not register with Sky. I guess she was not much of a reader.
Beckett and I emerged from the freezer room with Sky between us. Perlmutter looked relieved that the situation was over and he could get back to work. I could not help but notice there were a pair of security guards hovering behind Perlmutter. The medical examiner did take a moment to thank Beckett for getting Sky out of his work place.
We could have interviewed Sky in one of the rooms down at the morgue but Beckett decided it would be better to take Sky back to the precinct and talk to her there.
XXX
The moment Beckett put Sky into the back seat of her car Sky fell across the seat and promptly fell asleep. During the ride back to the precinct I kept looking behind to check to see if the girl was alright. Thankfully she was and she did not stir.
Sky had sobered a little during the ride back to the precinct and she did not fight us as we took her up to the Homicide floor. We took her to the interview lounge. I went over and poured her a cup of coffee. Beckett sat down opposite her and I sat next to Beckett.
Beckett waited a few minutes for Sky to take a few sips of her coffee before she started the interview.
"How did you kill her?" Beckett asked, finally.
"I told her to do the world a favour and drop dead." Sky replied. "And she did. It's funny, she usually doesn't listen to me."
"Why would you tell her to drop dead?" I asked. "She's your sister."
Sky looked up from her coffee.
"She was an ass."
"When did you see her last?" Beckett asked.
"I don't know." Sky said and shrugged. "Wednesday, Thursday. What day is it today?"
"Where'd you see her?"
"She found me selling a bracelet that she bought me for my birthday."
Beckett nodded her head slightly. "Do you know where she was staying?"
"No. Not since she left Bree and Ian's Church of the Holier-Than-Thou." Sky shot back with a slight sneer on her face. "She said she was going off the grid. She didn't even have a phone. Secret Agent Clean and Sober Hayley Blue."
Sky paused and took a sip of her coffee.
"Why'd she leave their place?" Beckett questioned.
Sky looked at Beckett.
"She always leaves." She said.
"You said she was looking for you last week." I said.
"Yeah." Sky nodded. "She had something to tell me. Something important."
"What?" Beckett asked.
"I don't know, because I told her to go screw herself.. I mean, I really don't need her trying to fix me or trying to save me, or making promises that she knew she wasn't going to be able to keep."
"What promises did she make?" I inquired.
"She said that I could come back." Sky replied. "She said that we were going to be a team. But I had to get clean. 'You gotta clean up, baby girl. You're gonna end up dead.'"
Sky paused as she looked from me to Beckett.
"Hmm, thus irony. How I was supposed to get clean when she couldn't even do it?"
Beckett frowned as Sky's words struck her.
"Wait a minute, she was using again?" Beckett said.
"Yeah. She was with Tony the day after I saw her."
"Who's Tony?"
"My dealer." Sky informed her. "She was handing him a wad of money."
At the end of the interview Beckett wanted Sky to stay for a little while but Sky was having none of that. She wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible. I too thought that the girl was in no condition to be walking the streets of New York and tried to convince her to stay for a little while but she got prickly and was ready to put up a fight that we had no choice but to reluctantly let her leave.
XXX
Emerging from the interview room Beckett and I headed back to her desk to do some work and for me to watch her doing some work. After about ten minutes I felt the need to for a shot of caffeine. Getting to my feet I asked if she wanted a coffee but Beckett she shook her head.
I headed to the break room. As I was making myself a coffee I was thinking over what Sky had said. Suddenly something occurred to me and I wanted to share it with Beckett. I grabbed my coffee mug and quickly scurried back to Beckett's desk.
As I approached Beckett's desk I caught sight of her putting her phone down and there was a stunned confused look on her face.
"I was just thinking." I announced as I sat down in my chair. "If she was using again, that would explain why she left her producers, but not why she was killed, who killed her, or why she was killed."
As I had been talking the expression on Beckett's face had not changed from that stunned confused look.
"What I just said was not confusing enough for your face to do what it's doing."
Beckett suddenly became animated again. She waved a hand in the direction of her desk phone.
"That was Perlmutter." She said. "The tox results just got back from the lab. There were no drugs in Hayley's system. She was 100% clean and sober."
"Then why was she giving a wad of cash to Tony the drug dealer?" I asked.
Beckett reached over and picked the bowl of M&Ms that she had on her desk and placed the bowl between us. She grabbed a handful of the candies and popped them in her mouth. I did the same and leaned back in my chair.
Sometimes when we are both stumped by something one or both of us will reach for the bowl of M&Ms and munch on them. If there's no M&Ms available then gummy bears will suffice. After several handfuls of M&Ms each had been consumed neither Beckett nor I could come up with answer to the question I had asked.
We were not too concerned not having answer to the question. You see Beckett had gotten from Sky before letting her go, details about Tony the Drug Dealer, where he could be found and so on. Armed with that information she had ordered Ryan and Esposito to go and round him up. Within an hour or two we would find out from Tony the Drug Dealer why Hayley Blue had given him a wad of cash.
Ninety minutes later the boys brought in Tony the Drug Dealer. He was a tall African American man aged in his early twenties with an attitude. He did not take too kindly to being asked by the police to come in to answer some questions and from what the boys had said after they had dumped him in one of the interrogation rooms, he had put up a bit of a fight hence his arrival in handcuffs.
Tony the Drug Dealer steadfastly refused to answer any of our questions until his lawyer arrived. Beckett and I left the interrogation room and waited for the arrival of the lawyer. The man finally turned up an hour later.
Beckett strode into the interrogation room followed by a uniform with me bringing up the rear. Beckett went to stand at the table directly opposite Tony the Drug Dealer. I took up station beside the two way mirror. The uniform went to where Tony the Drug Dealer was sitting and told him to stand up.
Beckett told him that he was not under arrest. The look of surprise on Tony the Drug Dealer's face lasted until the handcuffs came off. The uniform, with his task completed left the room. Tony the Drug Dealer was all for walking out the door as well. Actually he was heading for the door with his lawyer. He stopped and turned to look at Beckett after she asked him why he sold drugs to Hayley Blue.
Naturally enough Tony the Drug Dealer denied he sold any drugs to Hayley. Beckett came back
by throwing at him that she had a witness who had seen her handing over a large wad of cash to him. Tony the Drug Dealer did not have a happy disposition at the best of times from the looks of things and he certainly he was not happy at being accused of selling drugs to a singer who ended up dead.
"She didn't want drugs." Tony the Drug Dealer said angrily. "She wanted a gun."
"A gun?" I said, with a fair bit of surprise. Beckett too was surprised at what Tony the Drug Dealer had just said.
"And not a punkass .22, either." Tony the Drug Dealer added. "A .38. She wanted to put a hole in a brother. Seeing as she's dead, I say I did the right thing. The girl was scared."
"Of what?" Beckett asked.
"Didn't say, and I didn't ask. She just wanted a gun."
Beckett knew she was not going to get anything else from Tony the Drug Dealer so she motioned that he could leave which he did, and so did his lawyer.
XXXXX
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Con