Emergence
Chapter 51
Kate had decided to work a few hours in her office before beginning her shift at Reach Out, but facial recognition had still not come through with anything on Brett Paulsey. She wondered if the vain salesman had plastic surgery. The next time she was close enough, she'd look for telltale stretched skin and scars. As impossible as it seemed, Google showed no listings for the name Brett Paulsey. If she were going to identify him, she'd need fingerprints. It shouldn't be hard to get them. His office would be empty through most of her shift. If she played her cards right, she should be able to slip in and lift them off the shiny surface of his desk. With luck, she might be able to retrieve his coffee cup from the trash to score both prints and DNA.
Castle had volunteered to be the evening's sales patsy, donating a small amount of money, at least small for him, toward the cause. He'd grinned, suggesting that it might even be tax deductible if he used the transaction as research for a book. Kate had her doubts about that, but she was grateful to Rick for wanting to help. She'd arranged for him to masquerade as one of the people on the call list that Reach Out provided, in the same way, that members of the U.S. Attorney's staff would be playing their parts in her undercover operation.
Kate arrived a few minutes early to start her stint in the Reach Out boiler room and had to wait for another employee to vacate her station. She took the opportunity to check if Brett Paulsey was in his office. Through the window in his door, she could see him at his desk, but figured she could use one of the minuscule breaks she was allowed, to check again later. She scanned the list of prospects she'd been given. The night before, she'd discerned no pattern to the names, except that they were in alphabetical order. The ratio of men to women seemed roughly equal, and her potential customers were spread across ethnicities. She suspected that Brett Paulsey's method for choosing his targets might have something to do with the envelope he'd received from Myrtle Stoppelmoor. She photographed the list with her phone so that she could search for connections the next day. It was a relief that many of the people on her list didn't answer their phones, or hung up quickly if they did. For the ones who responded, she made sure that her pitch was unconvincing.
During her second and last break, she noticed that Brett Paulsey's office was unoccupied. Making sure she was unobserved, Kate went in. A cardboard cup with the Java Hut logo topped the trash in his wastebasket. Using an evidence bag she'd stowed in the pocket of her frilly jacket, she retrieved it. After a quick walk back to her station to her station, she carefully slipped the cup into the tote bag she'd hung on the back of her chair.
When Kate returned to the loft, Castle offered her a late-night cup of cocoa. "You look smug," he observed.
"I feel smug," Kate admitted. "I got my hands on some evidence and managed to keep anyone - except you - from being ripped off."
"Being of assistance to the love of my life could never be a rip-off," Castle declared.
"Don't use that line in a book, Castle," Kate counseled. "Your readers will never buy it."
"It was only meant for one reader. And it's true, Kate. You are the love of my life, which brings me to another question. I understand that you won't have time for a honeymoon for a year, but even so, we should start thinking about a date for the wedding. After Mother deluged you with the pile of brides' magazines you have yet to touch, I did some checking. The better venues in Manhattan fill up over a year in advance now, so if we want to snag one, we're going to have to start looking."
Kate sighed. "Castle, I know you're right, but with this investigation, I just don't know if I'll have the time."
"Kate, I'm willing to do the legwork or at least the finger work. Most of those places are viewable online. They post pictures and video. But I'll at least need an approximate date and size of our guest list, to determine what's going to be available." He cradled her cheek in his palm. "Unless you just want to run off to City Hall."
Kate stroked the hand warming her face. "No City Hall, Castle. My Aunt Theresa would never forgive me. And I only plan on getting married once. I want it to be perfect. But I don't think I want the ceremony to be in Manhattan. I saw a picture once; I think I was eight. It was a fall wedding. The bride was glowing in white and she and the groom and their guests were surrounded by trees blazing in incredible colors. It looked magical, like something out of a fairytale. Ever since, that's the kind of wedding, I've always imagined."
Castle pressed a kiss into her palm. "Then that's the wedding you shall have."
At the desk in his office, Castle sipped his second cup of coffee. Hoping to get some fingerprint results, Kate had headed for her office right after breakfast. After she left, Castle had googled fall colors and immediately found that the task of locating Kate's dream spot, would be complicated. The weather service put out maps showing when leaf colors peaked, but they were only for the present year. Resorts everywhere claimed to have the best of nature's artwork. It would take some heavy research and some luck, to pick exactly the right location to give Kate her childhood dream. Nonetheless, he'd make it happen. His fingers would ferret out the perfect place.
Kate wished she'd grabbed an hour or two more of sleep. Despite the clout of the U.S. Attorney's office, she'd been informed that it would be at least a few hours until she received her fingerprint results and a day or more before she'd get anything on DNA. She considered leaning back in her chair and catching a nap, but as the new kid on the block, it wouldn't look good, if someone looked in while she was asleep. She sent the list she'd photographed on her phone the night before, to her computer, and began to do a search on the names that appeared on her screen. There were few geographic similarities, but they had all made moves within the past few years to less expensive housing. Perhaps that was the common thread. Someone was gathering information, legally or otherwise, on people who'd had the misfortune to fall on bad times, and would be looking for opportunities to get back on their feet. They might even have been victims of scams, who were pegged as easy marks. Either way, the lists of possible prospects would be a treasure trove for someone like Brett Paulsey, or whoever he really was. She'd overhead the pitches of some of her fellow employees. They were good and unfortunately often effective. People who could afford it the least were being scammed the most, and she suspected that her call center was not the only one. She needed enough evidence to close down the entire operation. The more time that passed, and the more calls that were made, the more victims' hopes would be raised and dashed. She glanced at the time displayed on her screen. Her shift wouldn't start for two hours. She had time to grab a meal before she had to be at her station at Reach Out. She needed something meaty she could dig her teeth into, and she really wanted a strawberry shake.
