Ian
Chapter 50
Castle arrived at the Twelfth bearing coffee for himself and for Kate. The raccoon circles under her eyes made her exhaustion evident and she took the proffered cup gratefully. "Get any sleep?" Castle asked.
"Not much," Kate admitted. "You?"
"Same. So how are we doing?"
Kate pointed to the file on her desk. "We woke up a lot of scientists. A lot of them were fascinated to get a call from the police and highly disappointed we couldn't tell them what it was about. There were a few we couldn't reach. I sent unis out to try and find them. Then there were a couple who were just rude, defensive really. And Castle, they weren't professors and they didn't work in industry. They were grad students, but their theses were on scatter patterns."
"Grad students would be likely to be in need of extra bucks," Castle offered.
Kate nodded. "Exactly what I was thinking. Want to go talk to them?"
"Wouldn't miss it. But on the way I need to tell you about a visitor I had last night."
Stopped at a light, Kate chewed her lip hard as she mulled over what Castle had relayed from his midnight intruder. "Well, you were already suspicious that Sofia wasn't exactly being forthcoming. If it's true about your old muse, I'm sorry you had to find out that way, Castle," Kate claimed, ignoring her own secret twinge of satisfaction. "But it explains a lot. And what he said about Fallon tracks with what Esposito told me. He had a buddy check up on him. The guy is ex-military."
"You could pretty much tell that from looking at him," Castle opined.
"Yeah, but there's more. He was stationed in the Middle East for a while, black ops. The rumor was he was doing missions in Syria."
"He could have known about Amir," Castle realized.
"Exactly. Putting that together with what the guy who purports to be your father said, paints a pretty frightening picture. And concerning whether he really is your father, did you send those swabs off to a lab?"
"I did," Castle confirmed. "I stopped by Mighty Messenger on my way to the precinct. The lab isn't far. It's only a couple of hours away in New Jersey and I was promised the swabs would be there before noon. I can track them too, to make sure. So I should know something in a couple of days, but Kate, there's something about his eyes that's a little like mine. If Ian had been around he probably could have told me exactly what it is. If the man was lying, it's one hell of a coincidence."
"If you had called Central Casting and asked them to send you a terrorist, you couldn't have done much better than Adnan Issa. He was swarthy with jet black hair and deep set eyes. He looked like it had been days since his last decent meal, and by the ramen containers in his wastebasket, Castle judged that might have been the case. Issa's voice was tired. "What do you people want with me now? Wasn't it enough that I got a call in the middle of the night?"
"Mr. Issa, with Professor Potter, you were listed as an author on a paper on scatter patterns. We believe that might have a connection to a case we're pursuing," Kate explained.
Air hissed out of Issa's nose as he jammed his teeth together. "Right, listed as an author. I wrote it. I'm expanding it in my dissertation. Potter put in a couple of commas and affixed his name. Professorial privilege. And for that he makes ninety thousand a year and I starve. So what could the N.Y.P.D. need to know about scatter patterns? Pretty eclectic, don't you think?"
"Not if you're building a dirty bomb," Castle put in.
"Oh. So think there's a bomb and you come after the guy with the Arabic name," Issa accused. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I know jack about bombs. My research deals with cancer diagnosis. If you'd actually read the paper instead of just looking at the citation, you'd know that. And I have no interest in jihad. I was born in Mount Sinai Hospital in Manhattan and if anyone in my family practices any religion at all, it's Christianity."
"Mr. Issa," Kate soothed, "we would have questioned you if your name was Jones. We're trying to solve a murder and we track down leads, not ethnicities. So is there someone you know in your discipline, whose work might be applied in a less positive direction."
"Sure," Issa returned, "Brad Gutman, if you're really interested. He has blond hair and blue eyes. He lives near Columbia somewhere. I'm sure you can look him up."
"We will, Mr. Issa," Kate assured him.
"Are you going to look Gutman up Kate?" Castle asked as they left the warren of graduate student offices.
"Don't have to, Castle. He was the other guy on our list."
If Brad Gutman was blond, it was barely discernible. His head had been shaved. He eyes were blue, but pale, not the deep arresting shade of Castle's. He smiled in welcome at Kate, but Castle noted his eyes retained an icy defiance. I apologize if I was abrupt when the officer called me last night. I'd spent eighteen hours on the computer and had just fallen asleep. I'm happy to serve the public good in any way I can," he pronounced, "but I can't imagine how anything I do might be of help to the N.Y.P.D.."
"Mr. Gutman, did you write a paper on scatter patterns?" Kate began.
Gutman shrugged. "Professor Lochner wrote the paper. I was the second author. I ran a number of his simulations for him. A lot of math. Usually the whole subject puts people to sleep. Why?"
"We feel it might have an application to a case we're working on," Kate replied, guarding her words. "Would you by any chance have a copy?"
"Gutman shoved his hands in his pockets and shuffled his feet against the floor. "I'm sorry but since it's in a journal that requires subscription, I'm not supposed to give it out. Copyright laws. Really it's just a lot of academic mumbo jumbo. You'd need graduate level courses to make head or tail of it. I doubt it will solve any murders for you Detective, probably just give you a headache."
"Fine Mr. Gutman, our mistake," Kate responded. We can leave you to your work now."
"Demeaning, dismissive asshole! Kate, why did you let him go like that?" Castle demanded as soon as they were out of earshot.
"Because I don't want to tip him off, Castle. Did you see the tattoo on the inside of his wrist, fourteen?" It's a white supremacist tattoo. And there were three different rags about guns and weapons sitting on his bookcase. Remember Oklahoma City? After 9/11 that was the worst terrorist attack we've ever had in this country and it had nothing to do with the Middle East. It was a couple of homegrown white guys pissed off at the federal government. They both had military involvement. One of them was a militia sympathizer. I could see someone like Gutman being pulled into a plot like that. He may already have been contacted. I'm going to put a surveillance team on him. Um, what are you doing?"
Castle punched letters into his phone. "Ordering a copy of that paper. The journal only wants forty bucks for it. I'll send it to my printer at the loft. We can pick it up on the way back to the precinct. While we're there, I can make more coffee. I think we both need it."
Kate rotated her stiff shoulders and rubbed her bloodshot eyes. "Castle you've got that right."
