Guardian Angel

Chapter 39

A harried woman with hair sneaking out of her bun looks up as Kate and Rick approach her desk. "Can I help you?"

"I'm Detective Kate Beckett, and this is Mr. Castle. We need a minute of Mr. Karnacki's time."

Messy Bun pokes an errant strand back into place. "Mr. Karnacki doesn't have a minute today. He's already running an hour behind. You can make an appointment."

Castle's eyes flick toward a nameplate half obscured by a pile of documents. "We can wait, Ms. Harbrough. Perhaps he'll have a call end early, or a meeting fall through."

Strands fly free again as Harbrough shakes her head. "Nothing ends early for Mr. Karnacki, but," she waves her arm at several time-worn wooden chairs, "I won't stop you from wasting your time."

Kate nods. "If Mr. Karnacki does have a second, please tell him we have additional information on Dick Coonan."

As Kate and Rick perch on the unpadded seats, a text dings on Kate's cellphone. "What's up?" Castle queries.

"It's a precinct wide announcement from Montgomery. Everyone has to return to the 12th by the end of shift to clock out. Damn! I haven't had to do that since I made detective. What the hell is going on with 1PP?"

"From the look on Montgomery's face and the stack of paperwork on his desk, I'd guess some serious penny-pinching. But," Rick adds, looking at his watch, "we have hours before you have to head back. I could order a pizza, and if we share it with Ms. Harbrough, it might put her in a more charitable mood."

Kate regards the dragon at the gate. "I'm not sure that's possible, and after listening to Maddox's audio files, I'm not hungry, but we could try a search on our phones for the two other DNA matches we got from Coonan."

"I don't know how much we'll get out of the straight search functions, but my home network will recognize my cellphone's IP address and allow me to link in to my subscriptions. Using a standard keyboard would be faster, but the phone will be better than nothing. It might even give us something else for Karnacki."

"Go for it, Babe. Which one are you checking out?"

"Perry Storch. For some reason, I have a mental image of him balancing on one leg in a yoga studio. That's where I would put someone with a name like that."

Kate suppresses a giggle. "I'd put him behind the grill in a really bad steakhouse."

"I could picture that," Castle acknowledges, "but let's see what we get."

Castle thumbs in his passwords and keywords to begin his search. "Hmm. I found his obit. No mention of yoga or cookery, though. He was a construction worker. Death, again, was attributed to a mugging. He left a wife and three children. According to this, he had been spearheading a grassroots organization working for safer conditions on construction sites. At the time of his death, the group's target was, oh, here we go, Granville-Atlantic." Castle mimes looking into a crystal ball. "Ah, the images are becoming clearer. I sense a pattern forming."

"Try the other victim, Babe, Larnie Bradwell."

"Larnie Bradwell," Castle repeats. "Oh! It's a guy. I have an obit on him too. He worked for an auditing firm, Mastercheck, and supposedly died due to random violence. He had a wife, two kids, and four grandchildren, and he was a year away from retirement. Want to bet Mastercheck was auditing something connected to the Toch Brothers?"

Kate pulls out her own phone. "I'd make that bet. Mastercheck must be on Google. Yeah. They have a huge website, and there are a bunch of logos from their clients. Wait, I recognize this company, Sivista. It makes fibers for textiles. I remember because years ago, it went after a company my father represented, claiming that his client stole their process. Dad was sweating bullets over that one. His client almost went out of business while he fought the suit because Sivista has deep enough pockets to keep delaying."

"Toch Brothers' deep pockets?" Castle wonders, with busy thumbs.

"I don't know, but Dad won a settlement, eventually. It turned out that Sivista was the one that stole the process. But he had to dig through tons of documents to find the clues."

Castle regards the results on his screen. "Bingo! The Tochs own Sivista. You're lucky they didn't have Bracken send Coonan after your father."

"It wouldn't have done much good," Kate realizes. "Dad submitted the documents he found to the court. They were part of the public record. Killing him would have just raised more questions. Settling quickly once the information came to light kept it under the radar a lot better than the death of a lawyer in the case would have." Kate shudders. "Still, you're right. I could have lost both my parents to Coonan, Bracken, and the Tochs."

Rick reaches for her hand.

"Thank The Father you didn't," Johanna whispers. "Maybe that's why he let me come to you."

Castle scoots his chair closer to Kate's and puts his arm around her shoulders. "We have a lot more for Karnacki now. The Tochs do a lot of business in New York and support Bracken to be their fixer. What D.A. wouldn't want to get his teeth into that?"

As if on cue, a door opens, and Lou Karnacki sticks his head out. "Harbrough, can you reschedule…"

"Mr. Karnacki," Kate interrupts springing to her feet, "we have information on Dick Coonan — and his boss. You need need to hear it, the sooner, the better."

Karnacki gestures Kate and Rick to follow him. "I have five minutes before a conference call. Talk fast."


Karnacki drums his fingertips against the edge of his desk. "If a fraction of what you've told me is true, this mess stretches way beyond my jurisdiction. I'll have to get the U.S. Attorney in the Southern District involved and possibly other federal agencies. Coonan will turn out to be a minor player."

"All of which would mean that any deal he has with you wouldn't protect him with the feds." Castle assumes.

"As much as possible, we'll coordinate our efforts, but yes, Mr. Castle. That is essentially correct."

"But, you'll still be keeping him under wraps until he testifies?" Kate queries.

"I may be coordinating that too, but now that we have his documentary evidence against Bracken, it isn't as much of an issue, particularly since it's backed up by what you've brought me. Tell Montgomery that I'm the one who owes him a bottle."

"I'll do that," Kate agrees, "but he'd probably like it better if you could do something about his budget cuts."

"The Commissioner and I have a standing lunch date," Karnacki confides. "I'll see what I can do."


Rick watches as Kate clocks out. "Wow! 5 p.m. on the dot. Nicely done, Detective. What do you plan to do with your unexpected freedom?"

"I have no idea, Castle. I'm still wired from our meeting with Karnacki."

"I know, I am too. But we could wind down during a walk to the loft, in the happy absence of rain. Alexis is going to a group violin lesson this evening, and Mother will be at the theater. Perhaps we can throw together a little dinner, sip some of your favorite wine and see what develops."

"Sounds perfect, Babe."

Castle offers his arm. "Then let us begin our sunlit stroll."