Flu
Chapter 118
"Dad, I almost forgot. Eduardo had a package for you. It looks like a book. I put it on your desk."
Rick plants a swift peck on his daughter's forehead. "Thanks, Baby. That's got to be the book about the China Doll Murders. Maybe it contains some insight into the current case that we've missed. Come to think of it, considering we have almost no insight into the current case, somewhere in those pages, there must be something we've overlooked."
Rick makes the short walk to his office and tries to pull the tab on the padded mailer. It rips halfway across. "Damn things never work. Not an auspicious start." He grabs a scissor from a drawer to free the thin volume from its prison. The book, showing signs of heavy use from a previous owner, slides free. Propping his feet on his desk, he begins to read.
A half-hour later, Kate sticks her head in the door of her speed-reading husband's domain. "Find anything?"
"A lot of details about dolls and crime in the twenties. There is one thing, though, about cocaine. That was the era in which it was theoretically outlawed. But it became so popular during the latter half of the 1800s that by 1900, 5% of the population was addicted. Even with new laws against it, there were still a lot of users in the 1920s – as there are now. This author, Beryl Gordon, theorizes that the face of the china doll, with fragile white skin, might have been a stand-in for a cocaine addict."
"Do you buy that?" Kate asks.
Rick sits up in his chair, laying the book on the desk. "I don't know. But someone who read this book before me must have. The references to cocaine are underlined, and there are comments in the margins. But who knows who made them? This thing is out of print. I got it from a used bookseller. Perhaps there's a connection to whoever sold it to the dealer."
Kate's brows meet skeptical grooves flanking the bridge of her nose. "That would be quite a leap, Babe."
"Maybe not. This copy was the only one for sale. We're not talking about the Black Dahlia. This murder mystery isn't exactly mainstream. I wonder if Lanie did a drug screen on Melissa Sawyer."
"I think she has a Facetime date with Lorne tonight. We should ask her in the morning," Kate suggests.
"Good thought," Castle agrees. "I'll have this finished by then, in case I find anything else we should ask her about."
"While I have the chance, I'm going to catch up on Temptation Lane," Kate decides. "Don't read too late. I miss you."
Rick grins. "I'll be done in time for us to drift off to slumber blissfully entwined."
"With a cause of death that obvious, I only run a basic screen. It didn't show any cocaine. But after you called this morning, I did a secondary screen. She was on methylphenidate," Lanie reports, "probably for A.D.H.D."
"Would that have made her look like she was on cocaine?" Rick questions.
"She might not have had much of an appetite. Her weight was on the low end. She wouldn't have been sniffing or anything, like a cocaine addict. But being that thin, she could have looked like she was on cocaine or amphetamines to someone who didn't know better. You think her killer was after cocaine addicts?"
"That was one theory in a series of similar killings back in the twenties. If this is a copycat, it's possible," Rick explains. "Was there anything else that might make someone think she was on drugs?"
"Like did she have tracks or something? No. But she might have seemed nervous or excited," Lanie adds.
"Maybe even more so if a great sale turned her on?" Rick inquires.
"It's not out of the question," Lanie acknowledges. "I have girlfriends who get as jazzed by a great bargain as by six cups of coffee. Shopping could have been Melissa's thing."
"That's something we should be able to find out from her friends and family," Kate realizes. "I can clear talking to them, or at least sitting in, with Ryan."
"Which may give the killer a motive, but we still aren't any closer to finding out who she is, or keeping her away from Alexis," Rick worries.
"Babe, Alexis isn't overweight, but she's way too fond of pizza and a good hot fudge sundae to look like a cocaine addict," Kate declares. "We can check if the boys turned up anything from the glove suppliers. If we can find the killer that way, the drug addict angle won't matter."
Occupying a huge lot on Staten Island, The Grainge makes big box stores look like mom and pop operations. Anything most factories could want, and then some, is on a rack or in a corner of the warehouse space. That includes protective gloves of every kind and description, including a few boxes of blue nitrile, XXXXL.
"We don't get much call for them," Mel Finkelstein explains to Kate and Rick, tugging on the dayglo vest that serves as a warning for forklift drivers to keep their distance. "After you called, I asked our order people to get a list together. Usually, they do that once a month for products we want to promote. Since the flu epidemic, we haven't had to push the gloves. So, they didn't have one ready to go. They should have it now." He pulls out his phone. "They sent it to me. I can forward it to you." He regards the screen. "Looks like there was only one order including XXXXL in the last six months, an outfit called KRS Tech. Offhand, I don't recognize the name. The address is in Manhattan. With what real estate goes for in your neck of the woods, it must be a small operation."
"Except for the size of the gloves," Castle quips.
As soon as he and Kate are back at the 12th, Rick runs a search on KRS Tech. He snorts at the screen. "What's on the web is mostly P.R. with almost no real information. From what I can see, KRS is developing a meet-up app for what they call people of extraordinary dimensions. It's still in the start-up stage, so I'm not sure what extraordinary is supposed to mean."
"Maybe women with big hands," Kate suggests. "The address isn't far from here. We could check the place out."
Rick scowls. "Kate, a visit to a vast wonderland of industrial supplies is one thing. Even if the murderer were there, it's unlikely our paths would cross. But she might actually be front and center at KRS. The boys should go, or at the very least take point, leaving you and The Peanut in a safe space."
Kate sighs, rolling her eyes. "I wasn't planning on charging in there. I'll get with the boys and give them the rundown on the situation. The killer may not even be on the premises, but they'll probably want to go in with a tactical team just in case."
"Which Esposito would very much enjoy leading," Rick points out. "The man does love pointing a big gun."
Kate flutters her lashes. "I wouldn't know. I never dated him."
"Considering Javier's preference for women of the stripper persuasion, I'm glad to hear it. But I bet your legs would look great wrapped around a pole."
Kate shrugs. "I couldn't tell you. It's been too long since I could see them."
