Irises
by softydog88
Chapter Thirty-Six
Déjà Vu
Déjà vu is the mind's way of letting you know you're in the right place at the right time—Unknown
August 4, 2015
"What have we got, boys?" Beckett asked.
"Marilyn Singletary, 29," Ryan said. "Single slug to the head. Looks like a .38."
"OK," Beckett said, putting on a pair of gloves, "let's get started."
Before they entered, she took another look at the apartment.
"We've been here before, haven't we?" she said.
"Sure," Castle said. "This is where we arrested Melissa Curve, that woman who confessed to murdering the bartender."
"Yeah, that's it," Beckett said.
They entered and went straight to the bedroom. Marilyn was on her back, eyes open. The bullet had entered just above her right ear.
"No scorch marks," Castle said. "The perp wasn't up close."
"Were the lights on when you got here?" Beckett asked.
"Nope. In fact, we had to take the black sheets off the windows to let some light in here," Ryan said.
"Pretty good shot in the dark. Maybe the perp used night vision goggles."
"Good ones aren't cheap," Espo said. "Maybe this was a professional hit."
"One shot, from that distance, at a girl in bed?" Beckett said. "Not likely. A pro would get up close."
"Yeah, you're right. We can run down the places in the city that sell them. Maybe someone bought a pair recently."
"Check out the rest of the house," Beckett said, and Espo and Ryan left.
"Why do I get the feeling," Castle said, "that we're not going to have that kind of luck in this case?"
"We won't," Beckett replied.
Laney arrived. She took a scalpel and made an incision to insert the thermometer into the liver, then made a quick calculation.
"Time of death is between 10 and midnight," she said. "I might be able to narrow it down when I get her back to the lab."
And just like that, Laney was gone with the body.
Beckett looked around. "BS in economics from NYU," she said as she read Marilyn's diploma on the wall. "Impressive."
"She read a lot," Castle said, "and not easy stuff, either. Plato, Aristotle, Thomas Aquinas, Kant, Nietzsche. And that's just philosophy. There's also Dickens, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Faulkner and Hemingway. I'm impressed."
"Weird how you read those in chronological order."
"That's how they're organized on the shelf."
Beckett spied a poster on the wall that she recognized.
"Irises," she said, chuckling as she pointed to it. "One of van Gogh's finest and most popular paintings. God, don't I sound like the perfect tour guide."
"Ah, Castle said as he joined her, "that's the one at the Getty Museum, right? The one in L.A.?"
"I taught you well, Castle."
"I've seen this one before," Castle said as he stood in front of another poster. "Socrates, about to drink the hemlock."
"Jacques-Louis David. Another one at the Met. Not surprising, really. It goes with the philosophy."
She turned her head, shut her eyes and placed her hand over them.
"What's wrong?" Castle asked.
"I think it's the beginning of a migraine," Beckett said. "I'll be all right."
Ryan came in. "No signs of a struggle," he said. "And no forced entry, either. She must have known her attacker. Either let her in, or the perp had a key."
"A former roommate?" Beckett asked.
"Definitely a possibility," Ryan admitted.
They continued to inspect the apartment.
"Irises!" Beckett said in the living room. "Another poster, and this one is the one from the Met."
"She loved van Gogh," Espo said. "There's a poster of Starry Night in the bathroom."
Beckett squinted and bent over, fingers at her temples.
"That bad?" Castle asked. "Maybe I should get you home."
"She loved van Gogh," Beckett repeated. "Yeah, take me home, Rick."
Beckett was lying in bed with a cold compress over her head. Castle came in holding Beckett's phone. "It's Lanie," he said. "Do you want to take it?"
She nodded and took the phone.
"Hi, Lanie."
"Hi, Kate. I didn't catch you at the precinct. Espo said you left early."
"Yeah, I've got a migraine. I just want to lie down, turn off all the lights and go the hell to sleep."
"Ooh, sorry to bother you. But I wanted you to know something about Marilyn Singletary's death."
"She didn't die of the gunshot wound?"
"She may have been trying to commit suicide. Espo found a cup with her fingerprints on it, and I tested it. The same substance was in her stomach. It turns out Marilyn Singletary had enough hemlock in her system to kill a moose."
"Hemlock?" Beckett said, and she dropped the phone. Shards of memories began pounding her brain, as though she was experiencing her migraine from twelve distinct locations. She covered her eyes with her hands; the fuzzy outline of the world turned to black and her brain was filled with words and the words slid across her head and lodged in her ears, pounding like a jackhammer. A faint light emerged; a pinpoint in the middle of her consciousness, and it began to grow. Soon it was blinding, and then it flashed in a sea of white and she was standing in a huge room surrounded by people. She recognized it at once―the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Then she saw herself from above, years ago, home from college for the summer, an idealistic volunteer leading tours and answering questions. She tapped a young girl on the shoulder.
"It's pronounced Sock-ruh-tees. That's him, sitting up in bed. See that cup he's reaching for? It has poison in it, and that's what's going to kill him.
She was talking to this girl, but the image grew hazy. It began to fade; Beckett bore down and concentrated with her entire will, and her head exploded in pain for the effort.
"I'm a summer guide here at the Met. My name's Kate. And I'm around here all day, so if you have any questions, just ask, OK?"
"Pleased to meet you, Kate. My name's Marilyn and this is Jason."
She began to wail at the pain; tears streamed down her face as her memories grew stronger. Castle put his arms around her, but she shrugged them off. Marilyn tapped Kate on the shoulder, asked for help, and ran away. Kate struggled to keep up.
"Ah, Irises. This is one of our finest and most popular paintings. It's by Vincent van Gogh."
The pain grew more intense. She shut her eyes harder and pressed her hands over her ears.
That girl...she came back, didn't she?
The vision resumed and suddenly she was face-to-face with Marilyn again.
"Irises again? I'm not surprised. Lots of people have spent many hours here getting lost in that work. I don't think there's a more popular painting in the whole museum."
Then Marilyn was talking rapidly, clearly proud of some newfound facts she had discovered since her last visit.
"Remember when I was looking at the 'Death of Socrates' painting and you told me there was poison in that cup? It was a plant called hemlock. That's the poison Socrates drank."
van Gogh…Socrates...hemlock.
Suicide.
Beckett thought back to the crime scene. It was all there—the philosophy, the van Gogh, the prints of both Irises and The Death of Socrates. And her name was Marilyn. It hit her like a thunderbolt, and the color instantly drained from her face.
She fled.
Castle was so stunned he sat there for a moment before following Beckett. He found her sitting on the sofa, crying. He put his arms around her and asked "what's wrong?" and this time she hugged him back and cried into his ear.
"It can't be. It can't be. Not that sweet little girl!"
To Be Concluded…