Author's Note: I'd like to thank KB4RC and Smgeiner for their reviews. KB4RC: I think the use of "Always" there was just to show Alex that Kate really does care for her, but I totally see your point. I won't use it that way in the future. Thanks for your input! Enjoy the next chapter!

Chapter 37

Beckett couldn't believe it. Iron Gates was being true to her nickname and throwing up an iron gate because…why? There was no real reason. Dr. Taylor had been murdered, presumably by the Shadow Fox, but Gates didn't want them looking into the possibility. It didn't make sense. It would be like asking a Medical Examiner to look at only part of a body and rule on the cause of death. Beckett sat down in frustration. She wasn't going to stop doing her job, even if the Captain wanted her to. Her gut said the two cases were connected; maybe if she found the connection, Gates would change her tune.

The smell of Chinese food brought her out of her revere. "I hope you haven't eaten yet, because I brought lunch."

Ryan looked up from his phone. "Thanks, but I'm meeting my wife for lunch. Sorry man."

"Me too." Esposito was putting his coat on. "Lanie and I are going out. Next time."

Castle looked disappointed. "Oh, okay."

Beckett grabbed her coat. "Let's take this somewhere more private."

A few moments later, they found themselves on the roof.

Castle pulled a couple containers out of the bag. "That bad, hunh?"

Beckett took the chopsticks he handed her. "You have no idea. We started looking into the hunting accident and Gates shut us down."

Castle opened his container. "Is it connected?"

"It wasn't an accident." Beckett swallowed. "I have to wait until Friday to talk to O'Connor's supervisor."

"What for?"

"O'Connor was the one who took Dr. Mahra's statement. I want to talk to the supervisor and see if I can't find out what she was reporting."

Castle stole a mushroom from Beckett's container. "He failed to mention that. Did the other victim go to the FBI as well?"

"I don't know." Beckett stole a chunk of beef from Castle's container. "How's the book coming?"

"I called Alex and she asked to be removed from the manuscript. So I had to cut that character." He went to steal another mushroom and Beckett gave him the carton. "But the ending is still off, so I'm taking a step back."

Beckett opened the chow mein. "Good. Maybe when you go back to it, you'll see what needs to be fixed."

"That's the plan." Castle put Beckett's carton down between them. "Anything I can do to help?"

"No, thanks." She traded the chow mein for her Mushroom Chicken and ate a few bites in silence. "What kind of information could get you killed?"

"You mean if you're a research doctor?" Beckett nodded. "Well, it depends on who the assassin's client is. You said O'Connor mentioned the info she had was about her company?"

"Yeah."

"Okay, so the client is either from her company or a rival company. The rival could have been hoping that she could be a mole for them and then got upset when she didn't stick to the plan. But I'm leaning more toward her company." He traded his broccoli beef for the chow mein. "She was in a research team that has now lost 2 members. What was Dr. Taylor's position?"

"She was the team leader." Beckett stole another chunk of beef. "Dr. Mahra was second in command."

Castle sat back as a thought hit him. "Maybe the murders had nothing to do with Dr. Mahra's visit to the FBI. Maybe the timing was just a coincidence."

Beckett rolled her eyes. "You know I don't believe in coincidences."

Castle smiled. "Just hear me out. What if the two doctors were killed because of their positions?"

"How do you mean?"

"Dr. Taylor and Dr. Mahra were in the positions of power within the team. Without them in the picture, someone else now has the opportunity to step into their positions."

Beckett gave Castle a look. "Seems a little simple for one of your theories. No wonder you can't write the ending."

"Sometimes the simplest solution is the best way." A look crossed Castle's face and he quickly grabbed the receipt from the bag.

Beckett had to laugh. "They overcharge you?"

"No." Castle finally found a pen. "I need to jot down this idea before I lose it. I think I may have just figured out how to end this book."

Beckett grabbed the chow mein while he was writing. "I don't think that receipt is big enough."

"It will at least let me leave a couple notes to myself. Got it." He put the pen back in his pocket and finished the broccoli beef. "Let's get back inside; it's cold out here."

Beckett helped collect the trash and they put the leftovers in the break room fridge. Then she moved the board to where she could easily see it from her desk and started walking Castle through it. Esposito and Ryan slowly trickled in and together they spent the rest of the day piecing together Dr. Mahra's last few days. Statements from her neighbors were reviewed, though not very many had known her at all, let alone well. Financial records revealed that Dr. Mahra's purchases rarely deviated from the same few stores. Her phone records showed that she only called a few people, and all of them were either co-workers or family.

Beckett was finally able to contact Anita's family and inform them of her death. Though it was difficult to talk to the family because of the language barrier, one of Anita's brothers spoke enough English to understand what Beckett had said and then translate for the family. When asked if he knew anything about Anita's work, the brother admitted that it had been a few weeks since the family had heard from her and they had begun to fear that something like this had happened. Beckett hung up the phone after that conversation with the same feeling she always had when she had to notify a family: grief and determination to not let a killer get away with what he had done. The team said goodbye and went home for the night when it became apparent that they weren't going to be able to get anything more done that night.

Gates called them in to the precinct for a meeting early the next morning in her office. "What do you have so far?"

Beckett took a deep breath. "The Shadow Fox is back. Dr. Parish's autopsy report confirms this."

"And where is Dr. Parish?"

Esposito was quick to answer. "She was called away to consult on another case."

Gates looked skeptical, so Beckett quickly continued her report. "The victim, Dr. Anita Mahra, was part of a five person research team for Vertanin Pharmaceuticals. The team was developing a new drug to treat Alzheimer's. According to the people we've interviewed, she was quiet and a workaholic."

Esposito jumped in with a side comment. "Half of her weekends, you were more likely to find her at the office than you were at home."

Beckett continued. "Last week she met with an FBI agent with information regarding her company. As of right now, we don't know what the information was."

"How do you propose we get it? You don't have enough for a…" Gates was interrupted by a ringing phone.

Esposito answered it. "Javier Esposito, Homicide. Yeah. We're on our way." He hung up the phone and returned to Gates' office. "We got a body."

"Let's go."

Beckett was surprised when Perlmutter was the one to step out of the coroner's van at the scene. Lanie must be busy with the case from Maine, just like Esposito said. The group all ducked under the tape and entered the dirty alley. The victim was facedown in a pool of blood. As they got closer, they caught the foul odor of fermenting garbage and urine. Perlmutter tucked his tie into his shirt and bent down to begin his preliminary exam. Esposito and Ryan went to interview the witnesses while Beckett and Castle went to talk to the first responders.

"What did you see when you got here?"

The senior officer responded. "Nothing at first. We were responding to a public disturbance call. Nothing was happening, but we decided to check it out anyway. We went to investigate and didn't see anything. The body was covered by that tarp the CSU guys just bagged." Beckett turned to look. "I didn't see it. We were about to leave when Kip here noticed the blood and checked under the tarp."

"Then what happened?"

Kip was still visibly pale. "I bolted for the end of the alley before my breakfast came back up."

Beckett smiled. "First dead body?" He nodded. "That's okay. I'd be more worried if you didn't hurl."

The senior partner was trying not to laugh. "We called it in. We think he came out of the bar there to take a leak when he was mugged."

"What makes you say he was mugged?"

The junior officer pointed. "We found his wallet near the other end of the alley while we were roping it off. The cash and cards were missing, but the I.D. was still in it."

Beckett nodded. "At any time did you touch anything?"

The officers shook their heads. "Not without gloves."

Beckett thanked the officers and joined Perlmutter at the body. "What do you think, Perlmutter? Mugging gone wrong?"

"You know I hate to speculate in the field." Perlmutter finished writing and stood. "But in this case, I can answer your question with a resounding 'no'. This attack was way too precise to be a spur of the moment killing."

Beckett nodded. "Do we know who the victim is?"

"Dr. Rodger Fendway." Perlmutter went back to the body.

Castle looked at Beckett. "That's one of Dr. Mahra's colleagues, wasn't it?"

"Yep." Beckett looked up as Esposito approached. "What do we have?"

"No one heard a thing. Bar manager says Fendway left his bar around midnight but never came back. Was kinda pissed about the unpaid tab." Esposito glanced at his notes. "He said Fendway must have been with a friend because they were talking in hushed voices. Ryan's gone to get the receipt."

"Got the receipt." Ryan showed Beckett the evidence bag. "The friend paid with a credit card, so we should be able to track down who Fendway was with."

"Good. Have tech run that as soon as you get back."

"You got it." The boys went over to the gathering crowd and started taking statements.

Castle turned to Beckett. "I take it back. This has nothing to do with positions of power within the group."

Beckett nodded. "We need to find out what these doctors were working on."

Beckett and the team spent the rest of the morning establishing Dr. Fendway's timeline. CSU was still processing the scene. It was unlikely that they would turn up anything useful considering the location, but Beckett was hopeful. Something, anything, that might point them in the right direction would be wonderful. By late morning, Fendway's timeline had been flushed out and Castle was returning from his lunch run. Perlmutter hadn't called about the autopsy results yet, so Beckett moved on to reviewing the CSU results from Dr. Mahra's scene. When nothing new surfaced, she turned to comparing the boards. Something about the timeline was frustrating Beckett. The Shadow Fox always seemed to know where the victims were going to be and when they were going to be there, but Drs. Mahra and Fendway only had one place in common: work. So how would he know both victims' schedules?

Castle seemed to be thinking along the same lines. "He uses partners."

"What?"

Castle moved the boards closer to Beckett's desk. "I was looking at the timeline and thinking about how it would be difficult to follow them both, so I'm thinking he must use partners. Or at least hire people to follow the marks around."

Beckett nodded. "I was thinking about that too. I want to talk to the remaining co-workers again."

Beckett shut the door to I1 behind her. "Thank you for coming down Dr. Sulu. I just have a few more questions for you."

"This is about Rodger, isn't it?" Beckett sat down. "When he didn't come in this morning, I knew he was in trouble or dead."

Beckett started softly. "As you know, we've been looking into the deaths of two of your colleagues and I was hoping you could help. Do you know if either Dr. Mahra or Dr. Fendway were followed in the last few weeks? Do you remember seeing anyone hanging out around them that maybe seemed out of place or shouldn't be there?"

"Not that I know of. At least they never mentioned anyone stalking them. How would that help?"

"Well, it could mean nothing." Beckett wrote a note in her book and then changed tactics. "What the hell were the five of you into? Because I'm trying to figure out why three of you are now dead, but I can't seem to grasp the answer."

Sulu shrugged. "The news says Rodger was mugged behind a bar. It's funny; he became a doctor, with a great paycheck, but he insisted on going to the bars where he grew up. I always told him he should upgrade. I mean, that's a bad neighborhood. But no; he had to go there."

Beckett wasn't about to be sidetracked. "What were the five of you into?"

"Nothing. Nothing that could warrant murder." Sulu was getting frustrated. "Detective, can you hear yourself? You're making it sound like we are being targeted. Victoria was killed in an accident, Anita was carjacked, and Rodger was mugged in a crime-ridden neighborhood. No one is following them. It is just a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences." From the folder she'd brought in with her, Beckett produced a cast of a knife wound. "This is a cast from Dr. Mahra's wounds. It shows us the kind of knife that was used to kill her." She pulled out 2 more casts. "These are from a double homicide in the Roosevelt Hotel a few months ago. You want to know the scary thing? These two casts are identical to the one we got from Dr. Mahra."

Sulu was in shock. "No…"

"Rodger's body is in the morgue right now. What are you willing to bet that I'm going to receive another cast that looks just like this?" Beckett gathered the casts and her folder and left I1 to return to her desk.

Castle met her on the way. "Gates was watching."

Beckett nodded. "That's why I didn't mention Lanie working on Dr. Taylor's case in Maine." She sat down. "Where's Perlmutter on the autopsy?"

Esposito returned to his desk with a coffee. "He just called. Autopsy's done. He's waiting on you."

A/N: Yeah, more fun with Perlmutter. I will admit that I like writing for him; it seems to be really easy to get inside his head. Some of the other characters...