Chapter 38
The Case of A Death In The Family
Part 2
Dr Joshua Leeds' office was located in a building in Midtown Manhattan where a number of medical practices were located. Thankfully the dark cloud that had descended over Beckett and I when we were leaving the precinct had lifted on the ride to Dr Leeds' office. I made a special effort to try and lift the dark mood cracking jokes and fleshing out the idea of a surgeon harvesting tourists' organs for the black market. I am pleased to report that my efforts worked. I got Beckett to laugh a couple of times, and she even offered a couple of suggestions about the story idea. One of which was to drop the idea.
As we approached Dr Leeds' office, a well endowed blonde young woman emerged from the doctor's office. I held the door open to allow her to pass. I'm sure she had a rather nice face but my eyes were drawn to her well enhanced chest. She gave me a cursory glance before she sashayed her way down the hallway. I could not help but stare at her as she walked away.
Beckett had paused in the door way and regarded me. She cleared her throat to attract my attention.
"What is it with men and boobs?" She asked.
"Biological." I said quickly. "We can't help it."
That is so true. At least, it is for me. I could give you chapter and verse about the matter but I wont. This is not time and certainly not the place for such dissertations.
There was an amused look on Beckett's face as she regarded me. "But it doesn't bother you that they're so obviously not real?"
"Santa's not real." I countered. "We still love opening his presents."
Personally I thought it was a great counter argument. Beckett on the other hand rolled her eyes and shook her head. There was also a smirk on her face as if to say: 'Men'. She made her way into the offices of Dr Leeds and I was right beside her.
Dr Leeds' staff, three in all assembled themselves in the reception area behind the waiting room. Thankfully there weren't any patients waiting but I would imagine that since Dr Leeds had vanished they would have notified the patients about the cancellation of appointments.
Julia Hammond was the senior nurse, a woman with short blonde hair. She was aged in her mid forties. She was sitting down across from where Beckett and I were standing. Beside Julia was Maggie Dowd, a woman aged in her mid to late twenties with black hair. Beside her was a male nurse Mario Guerrera, aged somewhere around his late twenties I would hazard at a guess. All three of them were still in a state of shock on having learned that their employer had been found murdered.
"It wasn't like him to disappear." Nurse Julia informed us. "I think deep down, we all knew that, something was wrong."
Her colleagues nodded their heads in agreement.
"Did he seem agitated at all?" Beckett asked. She had whipped out her small note book and was making notes.
"No. I mean it was pretty much business as usual." Nurse Julia replied.
"Except for the wedding." Nurse Mario announced. "We were trying to clear his schedule for the honeymoon."
"When was the last time you saw him?"
"Last Tuesday. He was on his way to meet his fiancee." Julia said.
"What time did he leave the office?" I asked.
Julia was thoughtful for a moment and looked to the others.
"Around 5:30." Nurse Mario supplied.
"Yeah." Julia nodded her head in agreement.
"When I called at six, he was fine." Nurse Maggie said. "He was in traffic at the tunnel."
Beckett made a note in her pad before she turned to look at me.
"He'd left Manhattan then." She said.
"Why would he come back?" I questioned.
Beckett turned to look at the three nurses.
"Did Dr Leeds have any enemies? Anyone that he had operated on who had complications or a bad experience?" Beckett asked them.
"None of his patients had complications." Julia asserted.
"That doesn't mean that they were always happy." Nurse Mario informed us. "Cosmetic surgery is about self image. For some people, it changes their lives. For others, nothing's ever enough."
Nurse Mario punctuated those remarks with a shrug of his shoulders.
"Did any of his patients ever threaten him?" Beckett asked.
"One." Julia announced. She paused before revealing the name. "Jacey Goldberg. She was a patient of Dr Leeds until about three months ago."
"What happened?" I asked.
"She wanted a face lift." Julia replied.
"So?" Beckett said, after noting down the name of the patient.
"So, she already had three." Nurse Mario informed her. "Dr Leeds refused to perform the operation."
Julia rose from her chair and went over to the filing cabinets.
"So what did she do?" I inquired.
"She sued him." Julia said, as she opened a drawer on the filing cabinet and searched through the files. Finding the file she was looking for she pulled it out. She turned and approached Beckett holding out the file to her.
"It was thrown out of court, of course." Julia added.
"That's when the threats started." Nurse Maggie announced.
Beckett slowly opened the file and took a look. Her eyebrows shot up like skyrockets as the colour drained from her face. A little concerned I leaned in to take a look at what had shocked her. My jaw dropped at the horrific sight that my eyes beheld. For a moment I thought the photo had been touched up using one of those photo editing applications that distorts peoples' faces in an amusing way. Sad to say, this photograph had not been touched up in any way at all. I could not help but let out a squeak of shock.
Beckett dragged her eyes from the photo to look at me. We both wore horrified expressions. It took us a few minutes to recover from the sight of that photograph in the file. It was a sight that could cause nightmares, let me tell you. I looked over to where the three nurses were standing and they all had understanding looks on their faces.
Beckett obtained a few details about Jacey Goldberg as well as one of the photographs from the file before we thanked the nurses for their time and headed back to the precinct. Just before jumping into the car, Beckett called Esposito and ordered him to dig up information on Jacey Goldberg.
On returning to the precinct Beckett updated the murder board with the information we had obtained from Dr Leeds' employees. I was doing my normal role of supervising Beckett. Prominent under the title 'suspect' was the hideous headshot photo of Jacey Goldberg.
Captain Montgomery was heading out for the day but stopped by the murder board. Beckett gave him an update on the investigation so far. He looked at the photo and visibly shuddered at the sight. I know how he felt. I had been trying to scrub the image from my mind without much success.
"At the very least, she should be arrested for the violating the laws of nature." Captain Montgomery remarked, once again shuddering.
Esposito and Ryan walked up to join us.
"Check this out." Esposito announced in way of greeting. "Jacey Goldberg's husband, Jack, had her committed to Bellevue a month ago for psychiatric treatment for her little obsession." Esposito made a circle around his face.
"Guess who testified in support of her commitment?" Ryan added.
Beckett brightened. "Dr Joshua Leeds." She said.
"Mm-mmm" Esposito murmured.
"Mandatory one month treatment program." Ryan informed us. "She was released last week."
"Three days before our doctor went missing." Esposito said.
"Mentally unstable surgery chick." I mused allowed. A smile blossomed across my face as a thought occurred to me. "This is way better than harvesting organs." I said a little excitedly.
Beckett shot me a look but did not respond to my musings.
"Get here in here." Captain Montgomery ordered before he departed.
As it was late in the day Beckett decided to bring Ms Goldberg in the following morning. She gave that task to Esposito and Ryan. Beckett returned to her desk and started catching up on some paperwork that had been awaiting her attention. That was my cue to take my leave. I bid everyone a good night as I left the bullpen.
XXX
It was mid morning the following day and Esposito, Ryan, Beckett and I were standing in the observation room staring at Jacey Goldberg who was seated at the table in the interrogation room. She was seated beside her lawyer.
For some minutes there was stunned silence in the observation room. You could hear a pin drop as we all gazed at our suspect. If the photo was hideous then the real thing was ten times worse. Jacey Goldberg has so much work done on her face there was little or nothing left of the original face. There were cheek implants and a chin implant and there was so much botox that there was little facial movement. And those trout lips. Her breasts as well had received considerable augmentation that they now look like...how can I say this delicately? They looked like a pair of air bags that had deployed. By looking at her you could not even begin to guess how old she was.
As we watched, Jacey pulled out of her purse a round mirror and started to apply another coat of lipstick on those trout lips of hers.
"Look at her." Esposito said, breaking the silence. "How can anyone do that to themselves?"
"Right." I replied. "It's like she escaped from The Island of Doctor Moreau."
"Come on, guys." Beckett said as she turned for the door. "She's not animal. She's a human being."
"Yeah I know, but..." I turned my head to look at her. "Wait. Are you being sincere, or quoting The Elephant Man?"
There was a mischievous glint in Beckett's eyes as she shot me a look before heading out of the observation room. The guys started sniggering.
"Oh, saucy." I smiled as I followed her out.
Beckett opened the door to the interrogation room and strode in. I was right behind her, closing the door behind me before I took the chair beside Beckett. Jacey was still applying lispstick but when we entered she put away the mirror and lipstick back in her purse.
"Mrs Goldberg, I'm Detective Beckett." Beckett announced, then motioned in my direction. "This is Richard Castle, a consultant with the department."
"What's this about, Detective?" The lawyer asked.
Beckett ignored the lawyer's question as she opened up her portfolio she had in front of her. I was finding it extremely hard not to stare at Jacey. She reminded me of a parody of Jessica Rabbit with none of the sexiness of the cartoon character.
"Mrs Goldberg, are you familiar with a plastic surgeon named Dr Joshua Leeds?" Beckett said.
"Yes."
"You recently sued him for malpractice?"
"That's correct." Jacey nodded.
Beckett consulted the file in front of her.
"For refusing to perform elective surgery; specifically, a face lift, facial implants, and liposuction."
"I can assure you, each procedure was medically necessary." Jacey insisted.
"Dr Leeds didn't seem to think so." I pointed out to her.
"That arrogant bastard thought he could play God." Jacey shot back.
"Well, if you wanted the surgery so badly," I said slowly, "why didn't you just see another lips. Doc..doctor?"
There was an awkward pause following my Freudian slip. I swear it just came out. I did not mean to say it but it just tripped off my tongue. Admittedly I was staring at her lips at the time. It could have happened to anybody.
"Because I wanted the best." Jacey said. She turned to her lawyer. "Who is he to deny me the best?"
"So, you threatened to ruin him?" I questioned, having recovered from my little faux pas.
"Why does he get to tell me what I can and cannot do" Jacey scoffed. "Why does he get to decide what I look like?"
"Is that why you killed him?" Beckett said.
"What?" Jacey blinked.
"Dr Leeds was murdered last week." I informed her.
"Murdered?"
Jacey blinked rapidly. It was the only way she could express facially, her surprise at the information we had just told her. The rest of her face was filled with so much botox that it was impossible for even the barest of twitches.
"Yes, a couple of days after you were released from the psychiatric treatment facility that Dr Leeds helped commit you to." Beckett said. She looked across to Jacey's lawyer. "That's motive and opportunity, Counsellor."
Jacey sat back in her chair blinking several times. She looked at Beckett.
"I said I'd ruin him, not kill him. Big difference." Jacey said.
"Then I suppose you won't mind telling me where you were last Tuesday night?" Beckett told her.
Jacey regarded Beckett for a moment before she turned to look at her lawyer. The lawyer shrugged his shoulders as if to say to her that it was okay to tell Beckett. Jacey then turned back to Beckett. She informed us that she was in hospital last Tuesday night. On being pressed by Beckett what she was doing in hospital Jacey said having surgery. What kind of surgery was Beckett's follow up question. It was then when Jacey revealed what surgery she had. How can I say this delicately? Yes, umm...labial augmentation surgery.
Beckett and I shared a look at that piece of news. I don't know who was more surprised, me or her. I think it was a dead heat. After the initial surprise wore off me I had a whole raft of jokes and remarks and puns that were just begging to be voiced. I had to purse my lips very tightly to stop myself from speaking. I think Beckett was a little grateful for my restraint.
Thankfully for me at least I was spared further gory details, so to speak by the chirping of my phone announcing the arrival of a text message. It was from Mother reminding me that I had an important meeting I had to get to. I whispered my apologies to Beckett who did not look too pleased at my sudden abandonment of her. I told her where I had to be and why, and that seemed to assuage her. I could not get out of the interrogation room fast enough, leaving Beckett to wrap the interview by getting details from Jacey.
For what happened after Beckett had left the interrogation room, I have to thank my beautiful and ever extraordinary muse and partner in life. She was not going to tell me when I got back to the precinct later on in punishment for having abandoned her but after some begging from me, she relented.
She was making additional notes on the murder board when Captain Montgomery stopped by for a briefing on her interview with Jacey Goldberg.
"So, where was she?" He asked.
Beckett finished writing on the murder board and turned to look at the Captain.
"She was...in hospital." Beckett replied hesitantly.
"Getting more surgery?"
"Yep." Beckett nodded.
Captain Montgomery frowned in confusion.
"What's she got left to operate on?" He asked.
Beckett looked a little embarrassed. She cleared her throat and then cast her eyes quickly downwards towards the floor before looking up again. Hoping that the Captain caught the meaning.
"Oh no." It seems Captain Montgomery understood.
"Oh yes."
"Seriously?" Montgomery said surprised. "What could they possibly do down there?"
"Well, apparently, quite a lot."
Captain Montgomery shuddered at the thought.
Beckett did not provide any details to the Captain about what kind of work they can do 'down there' nor did she tell me when I begged her to later on. I had to resort to turning to the internet to find out what can be done 'down there'. I will spare you the gory details.
"Well if Leeds had a reputation of turning people away, maybe there's someone else that he pissed off?" Montgomery suggested, having recovered from the shudder.
Beckett informed the Captain that she had Esposito and Ryan going through Dr Leeds' patient files to see if they could find something. She also said that CSU had found nothing after going over the doctor's car.
"It would be almost impossible for a run of the mill revenge murderer to be that invisible." Beckett added.
"You thinking it was professional?" Captain Montgomery asked.
"I don't know. Mrs Goldberg had enough money to pay someone to do it." Beckett said. "And her surgery is a pretty convenient alibi."
She frowned and then shrugged her shoulders.
"But torture and suffocation? That doesn't seem like the work of a disgruntled trophy wife turning fifty." She added.
"A surgeon with broken fingers?" Captain Montgomery said pointedly. "That's someone sending a message."
XXX
The important meeting that required my presence was located at a Downtown boutique. I was seated in a chair surrounded by dresses hanging on clothes racks. I managed to get there at the appointed time which surprised both Mother and Alexis.
Alexis pulled aside the curtain and stepped out of the dressing room. She approached me hesitantly, feeling a little awkward. A big smile appeared on my face as I looked at her. She had changed into a cerise prom dress.
"What do you think?" She asked me.
"You look beautiful." I replied.
My darling daughter let out a sigh of exasperation.
"Dad, you say that about every dress." Alexis said.
I must admit I had said it for each dress that she had tried. I could not help it. She did look beautiful.
"Don't you think this makes my skin look pasty?" She asked.
I leaned forward in my chair as I looked at her.
"Sweetheart, I want you to know." I said. "No matter how you think you look, you are perfect exactly the way you are."
I was offering her some positive reinforcement. For my efforts I got an exasperated roll of the eyes.
"You're not helping." Alexis muttered.
Mother chose that moment from her dress hunting to return. She carried with her a dress that she had found.
"Oh, God no. Hideous." She declared, having taken a look at what Alexis was wearing.
"Thank you!" Alexis said with some relief.
"Here, try this." Mother said handing over the dress that she had found. "Alright. It's a good colour for you."
Alexis took the offered dress and quickly vanished into the dressing room to try on the dress that Mother had found for her.
"What are you doing?" I demanded.
"What?"
"'You look hideous'? Are you trying to give her body-image issues?" I could not help but shoot a glare in Mother's direction.
"Oh, news flash." Mother volleyed back. "She already has body-image issues."
Mother went on to explain that it was an intrinsic part of being a women to have such issues. Every woman in the world has some part of herself that she absolutely hates. Her hands are too small, her feet are too big, her hair's too straight, too curly. Her ears stick out. Mother paused and checked out her ass in the mirror before resumed speaking. Her butt's too flat, her nose is too big. And nothing we men can say will change how they feel.
What men don't understand, Mother added, is that the right clothes, the right shoes, the right makeup, hides the flaws that women think they have. Those things make them look beautiful to themselves and that is what makes them beautiful to others.
I honestly had never thought of it that way. Mother's sage words had given me a little insight into the female psyche. It gave me pause for thought. A wistful smile came to my face as I looked at her.
"Used to be, all she needed to feel beautiful was pink tutu and a plastic tiara." I said, thinking back to those days not all that long ago when Alexis was a little girl.
Mother smiled back. "We spend our whole lives trying to feel that way again."
The curtain of the dressing room was once again pulled aside and my darling daughter once more emerged. The sight of her took my breath away. I don't think I had seen a more beautiful sight. The teal dress she was wearing was perfect.
"What do you think?" Alexis asked nervously as she looked from Mother then to me.
I smiled at her. "I think It's you."
XXX
While I was preparing my credit card for the shock of the battering it was going to get. It was not just a prom dress that Alexis was getting, there were the accessories to go with it. Detectives Esposito and Ryan were at Dr Leeds' office going through his files trying to find something. I have both the guys to thank for what comes next in this story.
When the search of the files turned up nothing Esposito and Ryan turned their attention to Dr Leeds' personal office and started searching it. What they found at first was that it appeared Dr Leeds was a boy scout, he volunteered for Doctors' International, did pro bono work. Esposito even remarked that the good doctor did not even have any porn on his office computer. Something which Ryan found a little odd.
Esposito search of the doctor's desk was delayed for a few moments by a locked drawer. It took him only a moment or two to unlock the drawer. On opening it Esposito found a cheque book and some files. He wondered aloud who locked up their cheque book. He took a look in the first file and found it was about the wedding.
Ryan picked up the discarded folders and perused them. That was when he found something that had nothing to do with the wedding preparations. It was a medical file. What was odd about this file was that the patient information had been blacked out.
"Maybe Dr Leeds had a secret after all." Ryan remarked.
The boys took the newly discovered file over to Nurse Julia to see if she knew anything about it.
Nurse Julia confirmed that the writing was Dr Leeds' but she claimed to have never seen the file before. As she looked through the file, the only thing she could glean was that the patient had been a male aged 55. There was no indication what kind of procedure had been done on the patient. What she could not understand as she told the boys was that she Dr Leeds' primary nurse. He never conducted an operation without her.
Nurse Julia had Nurse Mario to check the doctor's diary for the March 18th, the date when the operation had been conducted. Nurse Mario reported, after checking the diary, that Dr Leeds had been at Mercy Hospital attending a panel on reconstructive surgery. Nurse Julia looked confused and wondered aloud why Dr Leeds lie and why he had operated without her.
XXX
With my presence no longer required, I left Alexis and Mother to continue their shopping expedition and returned the precinct. On my return I found Beckett standing by the murder board. With her was Captain Montgomery and Esposito. Esposito was briefing on the outcome of the visit to Dr Leeds' office. I took my usual seat and listened in on the briefing.
"According to the hospital, the procedure lasted nine hours." Esposito as he pinned a copy of the medical records on the murder board. He stepped back and resumed talking. "Neither the assisting nor the anaesthesiologist were with the hospital. Both were brought in by Dr Leeds, neither of his regulars."
"A nine hour mystery operation he didn't want his own people to know about?" Captain Montgomery questioned with a frown on his face.
"The hospital must've had some record of the patient." Beckett said.
At that moment Ryan came up to our group. He had a frown on his face.
"Get this. The hospital can't find the file. It's like it never happened." He said.
"Who did you talk to?" I inquired.
"Patient information."
"Well that's your first mistake." I intoned.
Everyone turned their attention to me. I saw confused looks on their faces.
"You want to find someone at a hospital who had treatment there, there is only one department to go to where nothing ever falls through the crack."
Beckett raised a questioning eyebrow at me. I did not keep them in suspense.
"Billing." I informed them. "Someone had to pay for it, right?"
I got a brief smile from Beckett following my little assist to the investigation. She headed for the telephone on her desk to speak to the billing department of the hospital. I rose from my chair and headed for the break room. This called for a celebratory cappuccino, I thought to myself.
A few minutes later I returned to the break room with two cappuccinos as I approached Beckett she was finishing up her call to the hospital. She thanked the person on the other end of the line and then turned to look at me. There was a pleased look on her face I noted. I handed over her cappuccino which she accepted with a grateful nod of the head.
"Well, it looks our mystery patient's hospital bill was paid promptly and in full." She announced.
"By whom?" I asked.
"Wire transfer."
Beckett turned and called Esposito over to her. The detective came over.
"See what you can find on this account number." Beckett passed to Esposito a post it note where she had scribbled the account number she had gotten from the hospital.
Esposito nodded his head turned and headed to his desk to get the information that Beckett wanted.
Beckett propped herself against her desk and took a sip of her coffee. She looked up at me.
"So, did Alexis find a dress?" She asked.
"Yeah, a cute one too." I said a little wistfully. "Boy, I can't believe my little girl is going to the prom."
I took a sip of my coffee and allowed a smile to reach my lips.
"My only comfort now is the long standing tradition of torturing the boyfriend."
"What do you mean?" Beckett asked.
"You know, the time honoured hazing that goes on in those few moments we share, where he and I are alone, just before my daughter descends the stairs."
On the cab ride back to the precinct I had started to think up of things that I could do to haze, Alexis' date.
"I remember the terror of meeting my date's old man." Ryan chipped in.
Both Beckett and I turned to look at Ryan.
"What did he do?" I asked.
"Checked my wallet for condoms, showed me his gun collection." Ryan said. The look on his face told me that Ryan still might have nightmares about that meeting. Ryan looked up at us.
"My hands were shaking so bad, I could barely put on the corsage."
I smiled in sympathy before I turned to Beckett.
"What did your father do?" I asked her.
"I...I...don't know." Beckett stammered, her face creasing in a frown. "I was in my room."
"How was your date when you finally came out?" I asked.
Beckett was thoughtful as she considered the question.
"You know, actually, now that you mention it, he looked terrified." Beckett recounted.
Ryan and I exchanged knowing looks.
"And this whole time, I thought he was scared of me."
"Nope." I said with a smile. "And now it's my turn."
"What are you planning?" Ryan asked eagerly.
"Something befitting the name, Castle." I informed him, lifting up my chin.
Beckett gave me one of her eye rolls.
Esposito had finished his checking into the account number that Beckett had given him. He rose from his desk and came walking over to us.
"You're not going to believe this." He announced.
"What did you find?" Beckett demanded.
"The account the money was wired from? It belongs to the US Attorney's Office." Esposito said. "Whatever the procedure was, Uncle Sam paid for it."
"I guess we can rule out boob job." I remarked.
The joke was met with suppressed grins from the boys and an eye roll from Beckett.
"Why would the DOJ pay for cosmetic procedure?" Ryan questioned.
"There's only one reason." Beckett declared. "To change someone's identity."
"So you think they guy was in Witness Protection?" Esposito asked.
"If Dr Leeds was tortured, I think our killer's trying to find this guy." I pointed out.
Beckett glanced at me. "Then we better find him first."
"How do you find someone who is in Witness Protection?" I asked her.
"We ask the people who are protecting him."
Both Ryan and Esposito sucked in their breath noisily as they recoiled at Beckett's statement.
"Ask Hard Candy? Good luck." Ryan muttered with a shake of his head.
"Hard...hard Candy?" I stammered, looking from Ryan to Esposito.
Esposito looked at me grimly.
"Assistant United States Attorney Candace Robinson." He explained. "She makes mobsters cry."
XXXXX
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