Chapter 26- Odd Man Out
"What in the world just happened in there…?"
Castle looked away from his equally off-guard partner's furrowing expression and back through the narrowly slit door window. Even through the thick steel door between them and the adjoining room, he could still hear DeWitt screaming a near incoherent string of curses. Oliver was still towering over him doing the very same thing he'd been doing for the past five minutes: pushing down on both of the man's shoulders with what looked to be all of his strength to keep their suspect in his chair.
"I don't know. That was…" Beckett paused and sighed. One of her hands came into view and made a quick twisting motion. Castle turned slightly away from the door, and not a moment later, she quickly shuffled her way towards him and slid in between his chest and the door.
"Unexpected?" Castle said lowly as he peered over the back of Beckett's head and into the room.
"Yeah." She whispered back. "Are you alright?"
…Taking his continued silence for further curiosity, Beckett resumed her explanation. "I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that you had anything to do with these murders- I think you're genuinely certain that we're MP. But here's the thing: these other guests you were expecting- you know, the ones you wanted to shoot at instead of us? They had something to do with these murders, and from what we can tell they killed these two people because of something they knew. And you know what? Something tells me that since you were ready to kill them… they think you do, too.
"So you were there for a reason, right? Did it have anything to do with this man?"
Ever so deliberately, her darkened brown eyes stayed on Marcus as her hand slipped underneath the front of the very top file labeled 'Confidential'. And time seemed to slow to a crawl as the glossy, airbrushed photograph of a smiling Senator Burbury came into view for every occupant in the room to see.
Castle would have been lying to himself if he said that he hadn't dreamed up a few scenarios for this very moment ever since they were on the plane back to New York. Visions of Beckett in her truest and most terrifying element were plentiful: she, a righteous arbiter of justice looming like a Fury over the trembling form of Marcus DeWitt, and he, finally cracking and spilling the secrets of Rathborne like a dam bursting under the ferocity of a raging surge. He envisioned names, dates, vindication in so many ways. But as they say, reality can often be stranger than fiction.
Not a single thump of a heartbeat passed before a rush of angry tears poured from their suspect. A glimpse of a thirsting fire woke behind DeWitt's swollen and bruised eyes. And they grew darker.
Darker.
And then, all hell broke loose.
"Where…" the rest of DeWitt's words fractured apart, slipping under the static of a thickening growl lodged somewhere in his throat.
"Where did you get this?"
Beckett sighed and shook her head emphatically. "Marcus, do you-"
"WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?"
Before Castle felt his body instinctively flinch away from Marcus' deafening roar, the large man burst from his chair-
-along with the bolted down chain that was supposed to be binding him to the floor.
"Whoa! Whoa!" Castle eyes widened in alarm as the table separating them from their suspect soared into the air like a wave breaking on a rock. Stumbling back and toppling over his chair as he shot up, he looked up, struck with panic, as two very large and very determined looking hands were already hurdling towards his face.
He closed his eyes, turned his face, bracing himself for the imminent impact. But it never came. A loud crack sounded in the room, and he shot open his eyes just in time to see the blur of Beckett's balled fist following through along Marcus' jaw. The poor bastard hit the floor, sprawling like a ragged doll over the upturned tabled before his eyes had time to close.
In a flash, the ogre and Brooks burst into the room, their guns drawn and zeroed in on the back of DeWitt's head. Both of the agents were yelling- at who, or for what, he wasn't sure. But the next thing Castle knew, Brooks had him by the arm. He felt his whole body lurch backward, being forced towards the door as his gaze flickered between the unconscious suspect and his partner, who was scrounging over the floor, tiredly picking up the littered-about files.
"I'll be alright once you tell me where you learned to throw a hook like that."
"Oh?" she whispered back, a smile floating somewhere in her voice. "You liked that, didn't you?"
Giving a small smile, he opted for a little silence and looked on as Oliver unceremoniously hoisted DeWitt back up and plopped him down in his chair. Judging by the sudden flinch that crossed his face when a new pair of chain-linked cuffs was slapped on his legs and feet, they weren't exactly treating the man with the utmost care to say the least.
"Something's not right here, Castle." She suddenly whispered back to him.
"Yeah," he nodded. "I can't believe he's actually conscious already."
"No…" he could practically feel her eyes rolling through her reply. "I mean with this guy."
"With DeWitt?" He replied.
"Yeah." She began. "Not about his involvement or anything, but his behavior. I mean, we go in there and he is nothing but attitude. He won't cooperate; he won't give a straight answer."
She turned her head slightly to the side; just enough for Castle to catch the troubled look in her most obscured eyes, and continued. "But, we show him a picture of Senator Burbury and he blows up. What are we missing here?"
"Nothing?" he ventured. "He just gave himself away. He knows Burbury. That's as good of a lead for questioning as we could ask for."
"Yeah, I know. But it's something else." She sighed. "Apart from the little… episode he just had. Something about his behavior is bugging the hell out of me."
"Beyond the whole getting caught while faking his death thing?" He said, giving her a quick, urging tap on the shoulder. Mentally thanking the cosmos for their peculiar psychic moments as he felt her body shuffle a little closer to his arm still bracing against the door, he craned further over her to get a better view inside the room.
"Well," he whispered close to her ear. "I have to admit that when we got here, I didn't expect him to be so…"
"Stable?" she offered.
Before Castle parted his lips to respond, the door suddenly flew open. Both he and Beckett jumped out of the way as Brooks barged out with a fitful look in his eyes. "Alright, get back in there. I'll keep Agent Oliver on the other side of the door just in case he snaps his new set of jewelry as well. And please, find out what in the hell just made him go nuclear, okay?"
"Yes, sir," Beckett gave a quick motion with her hands and strode back into the room. By the time Castle had shut the door behind him, Beckett was already back in her seat, arranging the stack of files in front of her and placing the single manila folder back in front of DeWitt.
"Do you mind telling me what that was all about, Marcus?" she intoned, raising a single brow.
He remained silent.
"You know him, don't you?" Castle remarked.
"Where did you get this picture…?" DeWitt's sudden question came out just above whisper. But even as hard to hear as its words were, there was something that was vastly different in his tone from the cocky hubris they had first walked in on. At first glance, he would have assumed nothing had changed. The permanent smirk was still there, even the eerie calm had settled back into his expression once more. But he hadn't looked up to them; he hadn't taken his eyes off of the photo of Senator Burbury yet. The smirk was beginning to look more and more like a snarl the longer he looked.
Looking to his left, Castle met the frustrated eyes of his partner, but just for the briefest of moments. He wasn't going to budge, he saw the acceptance of that in Kate's eyes, but he had a feeling that she wasn't about to either.
"I'll tell you where we got this picture once you tell me if you know him." She said.
"I do, I know him."
"How?" Castle replied.
DeWitt finally looked up, but with a strange glint of disbelief lighting up his face. "No, I'm not answering that. You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Try me." She shot back.
For a moment, DeWitt looked between her and the file close to his chest. He began biting his lip, and with a pointed glance to the door, he softly nodded.
"He's dead, isn't he?" It wasn't so much a question, but a hollow affirmation.
"How did…" Castle glanced to Beckett and back to Marcus. "How did you know that?"
"I might have been living in a cave for the past two decades, but saw plenty of the world before that, sir. Look, I know y'all are just doing your job." He looked up to both of them pointedly, and strange chill went up Castle's spine. "But, if I tell you why I know that man, both of you will be dead within the next hour."
"Ah, an ominous warning." Beckett shrugged and leaned back in her chair. "Try harder. That's already an occupational hazard of mine."
"Huh," DeWitt gave a strange chuckle as he stared at Beckett. "You guys really aren't MP, are you?"
"No we're not." Beckett nearly growled out. "You're right about one thing though. He is dead. That's why we have his picture and that's why we're here."
"I didn't kill him, lady."
"It's Agent Rook, and I didn't ask if you did…" she coolly replied and locked eyes with the massive man.
"So you're telling me that you flew all the way down to Savannah to interrogate my ass about a backwoods county commissioner?" DeWitt said with an incredulous laugh.
"Try Senator." Castle corrected.
And with those words, DeWitt visibly paled.
"Wait. Wait!" Marcus shook his head almost violently so. "You're telling me that he's a Senator?"
"He was- was a Senator. He had two-terms in office before he was gunned down. And from what I hear, he was an up-and-comer in the Foreign Relations Committee," Castle said with a small nod. Was this man really shocked more about the revelation that Burbury was a Senator than the fact he was murdered? Beckett was absolutely right: this man's behavior was far too gone to read properly.
But that was the problem, wasn't it? What signs telling of withheld knowledge could he look for? Dilated eyes? Sudden, erratic muscle twitches? All the tell-tale giveaways he'd ever seen Beckett invoke in the guilty couldn't apply here. There had been many moments over the course of his career that he'd imagined impregnable suspects. He'd even wondered what it would feel like to be in the throes of hair-pulling heights of frustration over nowhere interrogations. But, this was something else entirely. How do you possibly question a man on a week old murder that presumably hasn't seen the light of day in over twenty years?
"A Senator?" Marcus repeated. "No, no you're joking."
"I guess that answers if he knew him or not," Castle whispered over to Beckett, who gave an almost imperceptible nod in agreement.
"Do you know if he had any enemies, Mr. DeWitt?" she asked, pointedly tapping the tip of her finger on the picture.
A glimmer of that cockiness flashed once again in his eyes.
"He was a politician." He said slowly as though he were talking to a toddler.
"He was a clean politician." Castle piped in.
To his heightening befuddlement, the proverbial pendulum between them stilled when DeWitt suddenly stopped. The large man made no move to respond; his expression didn't fade or falter under any reflex. Marcus merely stared right back at him with a discerning scrutiny so unsettling that he absently wondered if this man had ever met Gina.
"Are you sure?" DeWitt said in a strange, soft tone, cocking his head slightly to the side.
"His records certainly seem to say so," Beckett argued as she opened the folder that had contained the dead Senator's picture and tilted it towards her chest. "Do you have reason to believe it's not correct? I can read it all out for you if it'll jog your memory."
"My memory is fine, Agent. It is particularly flawless where that man is concerned." DeWitt shook his head.
She paused, her eyes studying the man across from them intently. "Care to elaborate?"
Somewhere in the back of Castle's mind, he wondered where Beckett was taking this. It was obvious that DeWitt wasn't going to give an iota of information on Burbury. Every question about the Senator bounced off the man like a rubber ball- like a highly seasoned veteran of interrogation tactics. What could possibly make a man like that crack, he mused. What would they have to… wait.
Wait…
In a flash, Castle snatched the leather notebook that was currently resting on Beckett's lap. He ignored the strange glance she gave and promptly closed his eyes. As he blindly felt around in the right pocket of his jacket for a pen, certain details from their conversation with DeWitt so far leapt in his mind in vibrant, meticulous imagery. The way he slouched- the picture of total insouciance- at their arrival, the confusion marring his expression as indelibly as the bruises on his face about their identity. There were true moments of shock appearing here and there. He was a breathing example of every emotion he expected from a modern day Rumpelstiltskin. But something was missing, something that should have been there in all its blinding transparency the whole time.
Grief.
"Again, Agent Rook, I'm not going to-"
"-Does it involve Rathborne?" Beckett's abrupt accusation cut like a knife through the man's languid voice as well as Castle's inner musings.
Castle opened his eyes just in time to see DeWitt's freshly bruised jaw promptly dropping in shock. However strongly he wanted to relish in the beauty of Beckett's ability to throw a good curveball, he didn't want to waste another moment. With a click of his pen, he quickly scribbled down the single piece of information that would turn any crack DeWitt had in his steely armor into a full-blown crater.
Kate, he doesn't know that his brother is dead.
Sliding the notebook back onto her lap, he watched as her eyes dip down and the slowly fill with a strangely somber hue of realization. She tilted her gaze to him for a moment, and then he saw nothing but woefully veiled fury. Not at him, he was sure of that. But if he had to wager, it was probably solely directed to Brooks for inadvertently making her the bearer of bad news. It came as no surprise to him when she slowly closed the notebook and returned her attention back to Marcus.
Though not without the glower of contempt still burning in her eyes.
Well, he thought, maybe that omission about Vong wasn't an accident. Perhaps the elderly agent intended it to be leverage. But he knew Beckett, he knew her well. Hell and high water would have to come before she used a victim. Under every circumstance they'd ever found themselves staring down, he had never seen her resort to emotional sabotage. She was bigger than that- smarter than that by a mile. Most cops would take this sort of information and blast it right through a perp's heart because it got results, because it was the easy thing to do. But for her, victims weren't carrots meant to be dangled on a stick. As the difficulty of most of her cases showed, she didn't care for easy. The virtues of Right and Just were the anchors of her heart, and she solved the toughest of cases in spite of that fact. It's what made her so extraordinary, so intoxicating.
So undeniable.
Yet, this wasn't an ordinary case. There were things on the line with this one; things he dared not even put a voice to because she hadn't. He might be foolish at times, but he wasn't a fool. This was personal to her. So by proxy, by lessons learned, it was sacred to him. He'd seen firsthand what lengths the murder of her mother stretched her to, how single-minded she would grow. These… these monsters were responsible for that, and he knew all too well that simple fact blurred the lines between justice and vengeance enough to err away from the high road.
But if all else failed what would she do? Was this piece of information going to be her last resort?
"Excuse me! But who in the hell are you two?" He hissed quietly, sharply; his unblinking eyes rapidly darting between Beckett and the door.
"Don't stall, Marcus." Beckett paused, letting her warning sink its way in before she took a moment to cast a baleful grin. "Does your memory have anything else on a man named Paul Krashinko?"
"Who?" His puzzled looked seemingly compounded.
"Paul Krashinko," she repeated. "Both of them were found murdered in Senator Burbury's home seven days ago."
"Murdered by whom?" DeWitt responded with a look of genuine interest finally making its way across his face for the first time of the day.
"A hitman," Beckett simply shrugged. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Any idea who it might be?"
"How would I know?" he spat. "Did you miss the part where I've been in hiding since Miami Vice was on T.V.?"
"I don't know." Beckett gave a small scoff. "Maybe you would know because Senator Burbury had a messenger on his way to you?"
"Listen, I don't-"
"Maybe it's because that messenger had known ties to another member of Rathborne?" She cut in as she slammed her hand down over Burbury's file. "Does Dick Coonan ring a bell too?"
"Stop…"
"Maybe it's because you threatened to kill my partner if we didn't leave that particular messenger alone? Cut the crap and stop dodging!" Beckett hissed as she shot up from her chair.
"Hey!" he shouted. "Just stop right-"
"I am not finished!" Beckett roared.
The effect was immediate. The look in Marcus' eyes resembled less of a cocky soldier and more of a man looking upon to the angel of death. Her withering gaze, though latched deathly still on the slouched man across from them, grew colder in fury as a small, familiar piece of paper appeared in her hand.
"Read this aloud. Now."
"They died in the desert, and there..." DeWitt's voice faded away before he looked straight up to her. "What is this?"
"That was the message." Beckett said flatly.
"I don't get it." DeWitt was silent for a moment. He stared down to the note, his brows furrowing almost to the point of a scowl. "What does it mean?"
Castle frowned. He really didn't know? Okay, things were really beginning to get confusing. Why in the world would Burbury send a note that meant nothing to its intended receiver? Hell, he thought, why would Vong risk his life to keep this message alive if his own brother couldn't decipher it? Surely there was an explanation for this, something that made sense- after all, as a proud author he would be dishonoring his entire profession if he didn't at least try to tidy it up. Two people wouldn't risk their lives for a red herring. Before Beckett could reply, he quickly placed a hand on her forearm. The moment she turned to him with a set of inquisitive eyes firing off what had to be at least a few harmless threats at him, he turned to Marcus and smiled.
"Well, we were hoping you would know." Pointing down to the piece of paper, Castle continued. "Senator Burbury went through a lot of trouble and broke a few laws to get this to you."
"Then I hate to break it to you, but this means absolutely nothing to me." He replied.
"Look at in this way," Castle tapped his finger over the word 'They'. "Don't look at it as a phrase. Get that idea out of your head and focus. Think carefully about every single word, alright?"
"Okay…" DeWitt said hesitantly.
"Now," The author paused. "Does any word jump out at you? Can you connect something you remember to any word on this paper?"
Castle sat back and patiently waited for any sort of reply. For a few minutes, Marcus' eyes danced over the nearly unreadable scrawl until his cuffed hands suddenly appeared on top of the table. A single finger extended towards the paper and stopped.
"Well…" DeWitt sighed heavily. "This one, the 'Desert'. But for obvious reasons, of course."
"Please explain it," Castle said calmly.
"Well, it's where I faked my death- in Kuwait during Gulf War One."
He died in Kuwait; Castle desperately churned the phrase over and over in his mind. He died in the…
"That's it!" Castle suddenly blurted out in a high, squeaky yelp. Completely ignoring the fact he sounded like a giddy toddler, he ran his finger across the first half of the phrase. "You died in the desert- 'They died in the desert'- Marcus, the sentence is talking about you."
Beckett looked down to the unrepentantly smiling author with wide, unexpectedly proud looking eyes. But then, DeWitt suddenly cleared his throat bringing both of their attention back to him.
"No it isn't." DeWitt shook his head then slightly shuffled in his chair. "I said I died there, that says they. I don't know anybody else it could be talking about."
"No one?" Beckett stressed. "Was there anyone else in your unit that was killed?"
DeWitt shook his head slowly.
"Okay…" Castle muttered. "What about the other half of the phrase? Anything from them?"
"No."
"So let me get this straight," Beckett reached down and grabbed her notebook off of the floor and placed it in the center of the table. "You faked your death, you've been in hiding for two decades, and we have this message that is obviously intended for you that you know nothing about. Yet you wait for it in your childhood home- the one place even a cadet would think of to look for you- for what? Just to randomly shoot at anyone that comes your way?"
"I told you, I thought that you two were MP!" he yelled.
Without warning, Beckett slammed her hand on the table.
"No, you didn't! You gave yourself away the moment you started blowing holes through our vehicle." Planting both of her hands on the table, she leaned forward like a menacing wolf. "What was it that I heard you scream to my partner again… stay the hell away from my brother? Does that sound about right?"
Beckett didn't give him time to respond in the slightest. "You were expecting more than just a messenger that day, weren't you? You were expecting members of Rathborne because they needed to see that messenger as badly as you did."
"Did you honestly think a case of mistaken identity would be a good enough of an excuse for me to forget that you tried to kill us?" She paused and stood straight up, not even bothering to look down as her notebook fell to the floor. Castle nearly dropped his pen as he noticed a sudden hitch in her breathing accompanied by an unidentifiable chill sweeping over his skin.
"You nearly killed my partner, Marcus," her whisper was barely loud enough to even hear, but the tone- seldom had he ever heard her sound so… raw. "For that alone I will do whatever it takes to make you talk."
Castle's eyes shot up to her, half filled in concern, and half overflowing in awe. Holy sh-
"I'm not lying!" he exclaimed. "I am not lying."
As truthful, as panicked as he sounded, his words fell on deaf ears.
"You weren't waiting for the Military Police. You were waiting for them, for Rathborne, so you could kill them."
The moment Beckett's parting shot left her lips, DeWitt practically exploded.
"So what if I fucking was!" he screamed so loudly that Castle couldn't help but flinch away. "All of Rathborne, all of them deserve it!"
That definitely got their attention. So he knew them, but he hated them. Castle momentarily paused to wonder if the feeling was mutual. They weren't exactly the types of folks that let people privy to their existence live if their body count was any indication. But why was this man before them an exception? It was safe to say that Burbury was killed for going rogue against his friends, but if the Senator knew this man was alive and well enough to free Johnny Vong from prison to find him, then why was Marcus convinced that Rathborne was coming for him as well? Was it, as the old saying goes: the enemy of his enemy was his friend? Scribbling down a haphazard copy of DeWitt's words, Castle decided to jump in the pleasant conversation.
"Do they know you're alive, Marcus?" Castle asked as calmly as possible, hoping it would settle both of the other occupants down a little.
Beckett slowly sat back down and fell back into her expectant posture. "We're waiting."
"Okay, okay!" He took a few heavy breaths before hanging his head. "No. Rathborne doesn't even know I exist as far as I know."
"Then why were you expecting them in Savannah?" Castle replied.
"Because…" Marcus sighed. "Because I received a letter."
"A letter…" The momentarily lost author repeated.
"It happened 11 days ago," he elaborated and gave a small nod, "I woke up to the sound of someone lightly knocking on the door. So, being a little precautious considering my state of mortality, I took a gun with me to the door. Up until that point, only one other person knew I was alive- my brother. All of my friends are dead, so there was no one alive that knew that I would even be at Rose Hill, and I wasn't going to take any chances. I opened it wide- the barrel of my .357 leading the way to greet whoever came calling. But no one was there, and I looked down…"
Marcus glanced back to the door for a moment before continuing. "And there, right at my feet, was a single plain white envelope. But the real shocker, I mean the thing that really dropped my stomach through my shoes, was that it was addressed to me."
"I opened it up without a second thought. And it said only one very explicit thing: Mr. DeWitt, stay where you are until I find out more. I'm sending someone your way to explain."
"That's it?" Castle waited a moment, casting his eyes between Beckett and DeWitt, waiting for the other shoe to fall. "Come on, seriously?"
"That's it." Marcus shrugged. "Look, my brother has gotten himself into a lot of very stupid things since I went underground. He came knocking one day at Rose Hill and told me that he'd made a deal with the devil and he didn't know how to get out of it."
Finally, Castle thought. Finally they were getting somewhere.
"He said that he ran into a guy that made him an offer to help pay for his motivational DVD's. I asked what he wanted, and Michael told me that he wanted just a small fraction of his packaged product to piggy-back drugs from Hong Kong. I told him flatly not to do it, but the stupid bastard had already agreed… How's that for irony, huh? Selling opium from a Get Rich Quick scheme."
Marcus' expression grew somber, disappointed. He shook his head slowly before continuing.
"So being the big brother that I am, I stuck my neck out of the cave so to speak. I decided to make a few anonymous calls to the Feds. You know, to take the drug game down before it could even suck my brother in more. And for a few weeks, it worked. But then, I got a call."
Then DeWitt pointed towards the picture of Alvin Burbury.
"From that guy."
"Seriously?" Castle exclaimed loudly, but he was pretty positive he heard Beckett too.
DeWitt nodded in confirmation. "He said to stay out of it, the Feds wouldn't help and to let my brother do his own thing unless I wanted some very bad things to happen to both Michael and me. I told him that he couldn't touch us, or me. And the next thing I knew? The window I was standing beside blew apart and I had a bullet passing through my shoulder."
Castle blankly stared at the man across from them, unable to form any sort of reply.
"Somehow they'd found me. How? I don't know." DeWitt looked to Beckett straight to her eyes. "But that's when I knew this wasn't some normal cartel. That's when I knew Michael had gotten himself into something no force on this Earth would get him out of alive."
"So… fast forward to a few weeks ago and before then, I hadn't heard a peep out of my brother. I figured that the 'organization' had finally caught wind of me again and was sending my brother for something, but beyond that, I don't have the foggiest idea of what went down."
"Why would you want them to think you're dead?" Castle asked, thoroughly intrigued.
"I'm not answering that." DeWitt shot back immediately.
"Would it have something to do with their opium triad?" Beckett inquired.
"How much do you know about that?"
"Plenty," Beckett nodded and motioned between her and Castle. "We took it down right before I killed Coonan, your brother's boss."
"Hold on… I need to process this." DeWitt shook his head; a look of shear disbelief covered his face. "Wait, so… how long has Coonan been dead?"
"Two years," Beckett replied automatically. "He's the only reason we even know about Rathborne's existence."
"Two years and they haven't come for your life?" DeWitt shook his head vigorously. "No, I don't believe you."
"And I don't believe you, yet here we are, breathing and talking about a drug cartel…"
"Well, I hate to break it to you, Agent," Marcus said, "but if that's all you know about them, then you two seriously don't know what kind of world you've just stepped all in."
"But your brother, Michael, certainly did. Didn't he?" Beckett shot back.
"You think peddling opium is big?" Dewitt scoffed loudly. "What Michael was doing a drop in the bucket compared to what his higher ups did and still do."
"Is that what Michael told you? Then tell us, what do they do?"
"You're asking the wrong questions here, lady." DeWitt shuffled a few of the pictures around the table.
"Am I? Beckett promptly slapped a picture of Dick Coonan down followed by the now familiar manila folder holding Burbury's call history. "Your brother went to jail because of this man. But guess who got him released? Your old pal, Burbury. He died because of the phone call he made to get Michael out of jail. So what is it, Marcus? What would make a Senator sacrifice his life for a man who was a part who was part of a now completely defunct drug trade?"
"You're wrong…" he shrugged noncommittally. "He's dead because of the friends he chose."
"He's dead because he was trying to stop this organization from doing something that involves you."
"The drug syndicate- the whole parade from Afghanistan to Hong Kong- was nothing more than a front." Beckett narrows her gaze as she looked squarely at the defiant man. "But what I want to know, DeWitt, is what would possess a group of people to create something as high profile as a major drug operation as a façade for something else."
"Agent Rook," Marcus drawled lazily and propped hands on the edge of the table. Bruises still pocked his jaw and forehead, a deep, jagged gash tracing the length of his right brow, flecked in blotched tinges of pale skin and dried blood- yet Castle couldn't help but note that the large man in front of him was perhaps the most relaxed one in the room. "Have you considered that you are making things too easy?"
"Easy?" Castle piped in, throwing his hands in the air. "What, pray tell, is easy about that kind of stagecraft? It's reckless to even consider, and somehow they pulled it off. That's not easy by any stretch."
"What I mean is that you're looking at it far too rigidly." Dewitt's words were accentuated with a small swipe of his hands as far as the chains would allow over the smooth metal surface of the table. "It's not your fault, you know. It is commonplace for even that most astute in your profession. Too often, you find a glitch, a mere sliver of something off, something being…. skewed; not to your liking or within the immovable frames you wish for your story to set so comfortably within."
"So you attack with all your might at that flaw, you dig through every modicum of logic you possess- until you find yourself a trove, a reason this flaw was born- you find a beginning to your end."
He paused, staring intently to each of them.
"But what about your means? What about all the hues of gray between your black and white?"
"I would venture that creating a drug cartel as a proxy is a specific grey area, Marcus." Beckett retorted.
"You're not listening, ma'am." The large man sneered. "So you know about Afghanistan; you know that they employed my brother to sell opium up and down the northeastern seaboard… but it's not that simple- even so, you know this- and so you look for a common thread- a tether that will justify the means."
He pointed to the picture of Burbury and continued.
"Think of the road you are on. Think of all of the roads you have traveled to be here, in this room of all places, to question a man that was going to kill you for information that has nothing to do with you, nor could it be relevant to your life at all."
"It's-"
"I'm sure you're going to say it's your job, yes?" DeWitt interrupted her, and a strange playful light filled his eyes. "It's unavoidable. Right?"
"Now, why am I here? What compelled you to talk to me above all others? What is telling you that this is the most important place for you to be right now?"
"Experience." Castle said immediately.
DeWitt nodded with a small smile. "Experience, instinct- they are your guides when you're not sure which path may be better to take. Sometimes it pays off. And others? Well…"
"Experience is the name everyone gives to their mistakes." Castle muttered.
"Just give us a straight answer, Marcus." Beckett demanded.
"I'm impressed," He completely ignored her and turned to Castle, giving a puffy smirk with the still swollen side of his lip. "You must be quite the avid reader."
"I love my books." Castle replied with a shrug.
DeWitt nodded appreciatively. "So, you are a well-learned man, so I'm assuming to be in this line of work, you undoubtedly know your classic mysteries as well."
"You could say that," Castle nodded slightly.
"Indulge me, if you will." DeWitt glanced between both of them, "And you'll have your answers, Agent Rook."
"If this is what it will take," Beckett let out a tired, low sigh as she leaned back in her chair. "Fire away."
"Let me ask you this, then…"
"Why did Edmund Dantes go to such unimaginable lengths to have his revenge when all the power and clout to simply snuff the existence of his wrongdoers from this world was but an unrepentant command away?"
He let the question hang in the air, glancing expectantly at both of them. "Why did he create such an intricate plot if only to take his vengeance out on a handful of people?"
"The Count of Monte Cristo." Castle acknowledged. "He wanted to see them suffer."
For a moment, DeWitt looked impassively at him, and then a small, sardonic smile began to creep into his cheeks.
"Are you sure?"
A quizzical furrow shaded the author's eyes.
"Why did you fly all the way to Savannah about a murdered New York Senator?" DeWitt mused.
"To find his killer, to find Rathborne."
"The ends of one puzzle, yes." DeWitt nodded slowly. "But there is more to it than that for both of you, isn't there?"
Castle couldn't help it. He looked straight to Beckett with nothing but concern. It didn't take the eternally insightful mind of an author to venture what DeWitt's innocent question conjured within the mind of his partner. Gone was the vibrant spark in her eyes. Now, all that remained was her fury, cold and clawing for its due. For a fleeting moment, he honestly wondered if DeWitt would make it out of this room alive.
"The end of one journey is only the small, misguided first steps to another's inception. Am I right, Agent Rook?" DeWitt nodded sagely and it took all of Castle's restraint to not reach across the table and add another bruise right on top of the one Kate just applied. "And if I'm not mistaken, you are intimately aware of the truth in that little nugget of wisdom."
"I'm warning you Marcus," Castle growled. "Leave her-"
"So has it ever occurred to you that perhaps Rathborne's drug syndicate wasn't a front," Marcus casually interrupted, "but maybe… just maybe, it is a means to an end?"
"To what end?" Castle asked slowly.
And as quickly as it filled his eyes, the playful glint in Marcus DeWitt's eyes fled behind a stony gaze.
"Are you forgetting that I was never a part of this group?" Marcus leaned forward in his chair. "You might want them brought to justice, but I want them dead for what they are doing to my brother. Do you honestly think that I wouldn't have already acted upon any of them if I knew anything more? Would I have stayed under a rock for twenty years if I knew who any of them were? We're done here, Agent. "
To Castle's shock, Beckett immediately nodded in agreement.
"Okay," Beckett pushed herself away from the table and stood. "Suit yourself. But so you know, you're wrong."
Quite certain it hadn't even been close to the two hour mark of their first attempt, Castle watched curiously as she leisurely made her way back to the door. Wondering where she was taking this, he immediately stood up and followed. But, the very moment her hand grasped the door handle, she turned her head back to chained man.
"We were led to you, actually…" she said.
Looking back to the table, Castle had to bite back the urge to smile- she was good. Marcus had turned his head away from them like a petulant child.
"…So, if you want to thank anyone for your current predicament, thank your brother."
The effect of Beckett's slip was instant. DeWitt jerked up from his seat, fit to charge them both if the fury in the sudden roar that left him was any indication. But just as the motion of his body tilted forward like a rushing bull, the sound of chains already stretched to their limit popped with a crackling thrum, and the hulking brute nearly fell back over his chair from the shear force the floor-bound chain recoiled back to him.
"What did you do to him?" Marcus roared in the midst of struggling with his bindings.
"We didn't do anything to him," Beckett replied calmly, and to Castle's surprise, she calmly strode over to the enraged man and came to a stop just a few scant, baleful inches from his contorted face. "The reason we're here- the reason you're here, Marcus, is so we can find out who did."
"Bullshit. Where is he? Where is my brother?""
Beckett didn't move. And for a few moments, Castle looked on admittedly tense as she seemed to be putting on a withering game of chicken between her and their suspect. But then, she lifted her hand and pointed straight to the file still resting in front of Marcus.
"You see that file that you still haven't touched? Open it and you'll find out."
Without another word, Beckett back away and strode past Castle and straight to the door. She vanished into the hallway before he could even open his mouth.
But Castle stayed in his spot. As much as his feet were screaming at him to find Kate and see if she was alright, he couldn't take his pitying gaze off of DeWitt. He really didn't know what was about to hit him, and no small part of the author honestly didn't blame Kate for it either. With furrowing, deliberative eyes stilled on the file, Marcus' hand slowly crept up to the table and splayed out over its cover.
"You shouldn't have made her mad, Marcus." Castle shook his head and opened the door.
The last thing he heard before the thick steel door closed behind him was an unearthly scream of anguish leaving that last surviving member of the DeWitt family's mouth.
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AN: The quote about experience that Castle says is credited to Oscar Wilde. Every other quote-looking thingy is straight from my addled brain.
Oh, and 3 MORE TO GO until we're finally up to new chapters!