Guardian Angel

Chapter 37

"You've been busy," Johanna comments as Kate pulls on her clothes from the day before.

"Mom, you didn't!"

"Of course not," Johanna reassures her daughter. "I'm not on earth as a voyeur, but I do think you and Rick are a nice fit. And you seem to be getting closer to bringing Coonan and Bracken to justice."

"I hope so, Mom. Castle does have a way of encouraging people to help us out."

Johanna chuckles. "I wish I'd had him around when I was in practice. But I didn't have the tools you have now, either. You remember the old dial-up internet in my office?"

"At the time, I thought it was cool."

"Yeah, you did when you found that chat room with other girls who like motorcycles. I had a hard time getting you away from the keyboard."

"There are times I can't wait to get away from it now," Kate confesses. "Computers have changed. Too bad criminals haven't, but we can use their tools against them. That's what I'm waiting for, to find what Coonan and the guy Bracken probably sent after him, squirreled away on drives."

"You were never very good at waiting for anything," Johanna recalls. "But it looks like Rick has the hang of keeping your mind — or something — occupied."

"Mom, quit it!"

"I'm going, Katie-girl, but I'll be around if you need me.

Kate's nose follows the siren-scent of bacon into the kitchen. From the stove, Rick looks over his shoulder at Kate, smiling. "Eggs will be ready in a minute. There's coffee and juice. If we hurry, I can drop you at your place to change before I deliver Alexis to school. She should be down any minute."

Kate colors. "What are we going to tell her?"

"The truth: that you were exhausted and fell asleep watching T.V. — unless you want to add details."

Kate holds up her hand. "No, I'm good. I'll meet you at the 12th after you're done dropping her off."


"What happened, Babe?" Kate asks as Castle drips his way into the bullpen. "You look like a drowned puppy."

One of Alexis' classmates was bringing a project to school. She tripped, and the whole thing fell into a massive puddle. Alexis and I helped her rescue what we could."

"Did Alexis get soaked too?"

"Uh-huh, but she said she'd dry off in the locker room and change into her gym clothes. I wish I had a locker here. You don't suppose Montgomery would…"

"No, I don't think he would. Why didn't you go by the loft for dry things?"

"It wasn't on my way, and I didn't want to miss anything. Has Wong got the data from Maddox's drive yet?"

"He's still working on it, but he thinks he'll have something soon. Montgomery got an update from the lab, though. They tied Coonan to three more murders. I was just about to check for any ties the victims have with Bracken. If you want to go change at the loft, I can give you the names to check with your resources there. We can find more, faster, that way."

"All right," Castle agrees. "The Red Hots are supposed to be arriving this morning if the brown truck isn't four wheels in the mud. When I return, I will have Wong's reward in hand."


Settling behind his desk in a plaid flannel shirt over a mercifully dry T-shirt and jeans, Castle rereads the names Kate gave him. One, Devin Marist, looks vaguely familiar. Rick can't pin down why but decides to go with his instinct and start with what rings a bell. At least it isn't a common name. Most of the listings he gets when he types the string into Google refer to a college, so he tries again with the appellation in quotes. That strategy yields only postings for a young athlete's track meets; nothing that would pull Bracken's attention.

The Swiss Army Knife of search engines is not about to do the trick. Rick types his credentials into his news archive service and tries again. The article that pops is an image from an issue of the Columbus News from the 1970s, showing a Devin Marist breaking ground on a building on Columbus Avenue. Marist named it Liliana after his wife. A toddler in the picture is identified as Devin Marist, Jr. Checking out Liliana Marist, Rick finds an obituary in 1992, listing her as a mugging victim and her only living relative as a son, Devin.

Rick signs onto another service, one dealing with unsolved crimes. Liliana is there, but with only a few details, one of which is that a person of interest was never charged, due to the D.A. at the time, William Bracken, deciding he didn't have enough evidence. That's why Rick recognizes the name; it was in Johanna's papers. Devin had written to her about his mother. Since the letter was in his stack, Kate may not have even seen it! Rick prints out what little he has, and runs for the door.


Kate startles as Johanna shimmers in behind her and points at a name on the report from C.S.U., just as Castle bursts out of the elevator holding up his paperwork. "Kate! I've got something! Devin Marist! It looks like Bracken let his mother's killer walk."

"That was pretty much what I was going to say," Johanna confides. "You go ahead and see what Rick has."

Hunched over his desk, Lou Karnacki flips through a pile of old case files he's gathered. He managed to clean up a lot of the stench that Bracken left in the office, but it wasn't easy. To gain support from certain quarters, there were a few things he had to let go. Most of them were minor, white-collar crimes involving limited amounts of money, but he had to steer one case in the wrong direction.

At first, it seemed like a D.U.I. arrest. No one had been hurt, and the driver was Scotty Crawford, the scion of a major contributor to his party. Lou made sure a technicality arose: an intoxilyzer overdue for calibration. It was enough to get the case dismissed. Then more details started to turn up on an unsolved hit-and-run — leading back to the boy. With a D.U.I. conviction on the record, Lou might have had enough to make the case, but in that political climate, he had to drop it. The family promised Scotty would go to rehab and get straightened out. But two years later, there was another "accident," and another dead body. The Crawford family sent Scotty overseas to run a resort in the Maldives, out of reach of U.S. law. Even if Leo had the guts to oppose the Crawfords, there was nothing he could do, but there were whispers in high political circles. No doubt Bracken heard them — and the bastard knew all about the mechanics of protecting the guilty. He'd practically invented them. Maybe Leo has blood on his hands, but at least he never sent a Coonan after anyone. And when he gets through, Bracken won't either, no matter what it costs.


Devin Marist must have gone to someone in the N.Y.P.D. about what happened to his mother," Castle figures. "Think we could find them?"

"Maybe, Castle. If there was a match to his D.N.A., there has to be a file on his case. We need to talk to the detective in charge. It was," Kate hits a few keys, "Roy Montgomery!"

"Didn't he say anything? He must have seen the name."

"He had to leave for a meeting with the Chief of Detectives, so he just forwarded the report to me. I don't think he read it. When he gets back, I'll have to tell him about Marist."