Evelyn

Chapter 18

"Are you sure this is the right address?" Rick asks, gazing doubtfully at the Forest Hills estate on the road up ahead.

"This is it," Kate confirms. "But it's not as weird as you think. I checked with Alexis. The familial match didn't come from CODIS. It came from a genealogical database. As far as we know, Hannover Payton isn't a criminal." She drives up to an intercom in front of a gate. "Detective Kate Beckett and Mr. Castle to see Mr. Payton."

"Hold your badge up to the camera," a voice crackles from the speaker.

"Your badge is getting quite a workout today," Castle comments.

After Kate does as requested, the gate begins to slide open. "Drive up to the house," the voice instructs. "You'll be met."

Kate steers her unit along a curved driveway leading to an impressive mansion. A young man is waiting. Kate immediately recognizes his voice as the one from the intercom. "I'm Jeff Danforth, Mr. Payton's assistant. Please follow me." Jeff walks briskly to a side door away from the formal entry and leads Rick and Kate down a long hallway. He knocks lightly on a heavy oak door before pushing it open. "Detective Beckett and Mr. Castle are here."

A middle-aged man with sharp features and an even sharper expression rises from a chair behind a massive desk and extends his hand. "Detective Beckett, Mr. Castle, a pleasure. I admit that I've been known to pick up one of your books, occasionally, Mr. Castle. If I don't have pressing work to do, they're the perfect length for a coast-to-coast flight and a good read."

Rick adjusts his face into his greet-a-reader smile. "I'm glad you enjoy them."

"I was more than a little shocked to get your call," Payton confesses. "My brother, Duncan, has been gone for 20 years. He was an avid sailor and often took his boat out from our place on the island without alerting anyone. There was a storm before both he and his boat disappeared. Our family paid for a search for months. The boat was found by a Coast Guard patrol. Apparently, it drifted with the current, but my brother wasn't aboard. After seven years, my family regretfully had him declared legally dead. So, you believe Duncan was murdered?"

"We do," Kate allows. "As I explained on the phone, a sibling match to your DNA was found on a weapon we believe belongs to a serial killer. Can you tell us something about your brother's activities?"

"What Detective Beckett is asking diplomatically," Castle inserts, "is did Duncan do anything that would make some nut case think that God wanted to take back your brother's soul?"

Payton strokes the salt and pepper stubble beginning to form along his jaw. "I suppose, to be honest, Duncan was considered the black sheep of the family. When he was at Cornell, he got involved with drugs. The school thought he might have been distributing them to the other students, but they had no evidence. Even so, they requested that he withdraw. My father took him into the business, but Duncan preferred being behind the wheel of a ship to being behind a desk. Dad was thinking of setting him up with an upscale charter service when he disappeared."

"Is there any way someone might have concluded that your brother was using his boat to run drugs?" Kate asks as gently as she can.

"Duncan was clean!" Payton insists. "He went through rehab twice and the second time stuck. He sailed because that was his passion."

"Would someone observing from the outside who didn't know him well, believe that?" Castle questions.

"Perhaps not," Payton concedes. "So, you think some lunatic thought Duncan was using his boat to move drugs and killed him for it?"

"It's possible," Kate responds. "We may learn more when we get a chance to question the suspect. At least we'll know what avenue to pursue. Can we help you in any way – contact other family members?"

Payton sinks into the soft leather of his chair. "I appreciate it, but no. My parents have both passed on, and since Duncan is already legally dead, I prefer to leave the matter alone. If he was murdered, knowing it won't change anything now."

"All right," Kate agrees, fishing a card out of her pocket and handing it to him. "But if there's anything you need to know about the case, feel free to contact me."

Payton inclines his head. "Thank you, Detective. I will."

Evelyn checks her email. The lab that's analyzing a swab with cells from the inside of her cheek promised to rush her the results, but they have yet to arrive. So far, she hasn't discovered anything that would make her believe she carries any genetic diseases, but then such things can come as nasty surprises. She took the afternoon off in part to spend some time shopping with her girls, but most of the summer clothes were pretty well picked over, and the back-to-school collections are yet to arrive. The teens got bored and decided they'd rather see the latest Twilight movie – by themselves.

Evelyn decided to spend the time doing what research she can, based on her birth family name. As far as she can tell, it didn't originate in Africa. It was most likely assigned as a symbol of ownership by a slave owner in the antebellum United States. She found one possibility. Stoot is a variation of Stow, and there was a Stow who landed in South Carolina in 1678. There was another one who arrived up North in 1775, but as a bonded servant, unlikely to own slaves. It's hard for her to pick up a thread, so many slaves were named after their owners, but she finds one Stoot who seemed to have followed the underground railroad to Michigan. That ancestry would make sense with her birth parents being from Detroit. She has no idea how they ended up without a listing for a next of kin, but if her family was in the area that long, there might still be remnants around. She'll be thinking more about whether she wants to try to track them down and what she would do if she succeeds. Right now, it seems like she's having more luck working with Dr. Burke to answer her questions than she would with distant and out-of-touch relatives. Still, she can't help being curious, and sooner or later, the kids may be too.

"Are we going to visit the families of the straight-up matches?" Castle wonders, as Kate heads back toward Manhattan.

"We can try," Kate responds. "They were matches because they had rap sheets. We at least have emergency contact information for them, but it could be completely out of date. I thought we'd start with the most recent and work back."

"Who's that?" Castle asks.

"His name is Norris Ratched."

Rick guffaws. "Are you kidding me? Like the tyrant of the cuckoos' nest?"

"Except this was a guy, and according to his record, he had a wife."

"Then, we're notifying the soon to be grieving widow that her husband is probably dead?"

Kate shrugs. "I don't know how much she'll grieve. He was busted three times for domestic abuse."

"He should have been in prison after the first one," Rick declares.

Kate nods. "I agree, but you know the system doesn't always work that way."

Rick slaps his palm against the dash. "Maybe Johnson wasn't always so wrong about working for God."