Private Nose

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: We nose I don't own Castle. Rating: K Time: Sometime in season five.

Author's note: This is a sequel to Good Golly, Miss Molly and to A Merry Furry Christmas.

"Rick? Alexis, honey? It's Mommy."

Meredith let herself into the loft with a key she'd borrowed from Rick. After all, she was Alexis' mother. He couldn't possibly mind.

"Rick, are you here?"

Then she heard the sound of movement in his office. Good, she thought, he's writing.

She walked to the office and took a step inside. Then she froze in place. She tried to scream. She tried again. The third time was the charm. She screamed loudly and fainted.

Rick and Alexis came running down the stairs.

"Meredith, what happened to…"Rick stopped when he saw her lying unconscious on the floor.

Alexis rushed to her. "Mom! Are you okay? What happened?"

Meredith opened her eyes and tried to get up. Her feet pushed against the floor and moved her back out of the office a bit, but she didn't manage to get to her feet. Finally, Rick and Alexis got her to her feet.

"Run!" She yelled, grabbing Alexis and pulling her towards the door. "Run for your lives."

"From what?" Rick asked.

"There are giant wolves in your office." Meredith was still trying to drag Alexis out of the loft.

"I don't see any wolves." Rick said. "Not even little ones."

Alexis pulled away from Meredith and looked too. "No wolves, Mom."

"What were they doing?" Rick asked.

"One was on your laptop, writing, I suppose."

"Literary wolves?" Rick said, frowning. "I know humans have been encroaching on the wildlife, so I suppose wolves would move into the city sooner of later. I'm just surprised they could pay the rent in Manhattan."

"This isn't funny, Rick. There were wolves, huge wolves, in your office."

Alexis put her hand on Meredith's forehead.

"No fever, at least not that I can feel."

"There were wolves in there!" Meredith screamed. "And they were wearing clothing!"

"How were they dressed?" Rick asked, curious.

"In suits."

"Not writers then. Maybe publishers? I know, literary critics."

"This is serious!" Meredith screamed.

"Of course, it is." Rick said. "I know a guy, someone who can help you. He has a real nice…facility in upstate New York. I could give him a call."

"I'm not delusional." Meredith yelled, starting to cry.

"Of course not. You just need a little rest."

"You're not sending me to one of those places!" Meredith yelled. "I know all about that. I accidently read a script on my agent's desk about a remake of the movie Gaslight. I am not crazy! I'm not."

"Of course, you're not, Mom." Alexis said soothingly.

Meredith pushed away from Rick and Alexis, grabbed her suitcases and headed for the door. She got there just as Kate opened the door.

"I am not crazy!" Meredith screamed. Then she pulled the loft key off of her key ring and threw it at Kate. And she was gone.

"What was that all about?" Kate asked.

"Meredith said she saw three giant wolves in my office. Well dressed wolves."

Kate glared at the office and strode to the doorway.

"I know you're in here. Come out right now."

As soon as she spoke, three large wolf-like beings appeared.

"Hello dere, Dee-tective Beckett. How's t'ings?"

"What do you think you're doing, Buggsy? You scared Meredith away and she may never come back." Suddenly Kate wondered why she was complaining.

"We wuz gonna surprise youses." Buggsy said, smiling and showing some very large fangs.

"You did that."

"Um, we brung youses some new ice cream. Dat nice Miss Molly has thunk up a really great ice cream an' Da Boss, Don Vorleone, Da Vorlagfather, t'inks it's gonna be a best seller."

Buggsy held up three one-gallon packages of ice cream and his two pals, Muggsy and Puggsy held up two other packages that must have contained ten gallons each.

"Da newest flavor is chocolate cream pie, banana cream pie, coconut cream pie and key lime pie flavored ice cream. We brung youses a liddle sample."

"And a taste for yourselves?" Kate said, coldly. "And how did you manage to hide so quickly?"

The three suddenly disappeared and then reappeared.

"Dat kid, Curly, made us da cloak o' invisibility. It's a big help when we needs ta get around on Oith. Youse hoomans ain't used ta seein' Vorlags from anudder planet around here."

"Kate, since they were kind enough to being some ice cream, the least we can do is try it." Rick said, as ingratiatingly as he could.

Kate sighed. "I've had a really bad day, so an ice cream sounds perfect right now."

They had to get out a punchbowl to hold the Vorlag's ice cream and some large cooking spoons for them to eat with, but soon all were gathered around the kitchen table, enjoying the ice cream.

"This is great." Alexis said.

"Can we get some from Miss Molly?" Rick asked, hopefully.

"As it happens, I knows a guy." Buggsy said with a sly wink.

Rick noticed that Kate looked kind of glum.

"Bad day at work?"

She nodded. "While you were at home helping Alexis, we had a murder. The girl, Wendy Walker, was only nineteen, a student at Hudson U. She broke up with her boyfriend and I guess he couldn't handle it. He stabbed her to death with a kitchen knife."

"Dat's a shame." Said Muggsy, and then inhaled deeply. "She lives over a pizzeria in da West Side? Studying medicine, too."

"That's right. How did you know?"

Muggsy smiled. "I could smell ever'ting on youse, da pizza from downstairs, da traffic from da West Side Highway, an' from her homewoik."

All three Vorlags inhaled deeply.

Buggsy spoke first. "Some dude what's into weapons was dere."

"An' a guy what drinks honeyed milk." Added Muggsy.

"Dere was also some chick who's a doctor type." Puggsy finished.

"Detectives Esposito, Ryan and Dr. Parish, the ME."

"But da boyfriend hasn't been dere for t'ree days." Buggsy said.

The other two Vorlags nodded.

"How could you possibly know that?" Kate demanded.

"Whin he was dere, dey was, how you sez, makin' whoopee an' dere pheromones is all over youse. But dey is old. T'ree days, at least. Nuttin' from him since den."

"Are you sure?"

"Absolutely."

"We have a BOLO out on him, so we'll see what he has to say for himself."

"We gotta git back to da Moon an' woik for Da Boss, or we'd stay an' give youse a paw. But, we know a guy who can help. We'll call him on da ole Ameche an' have him drop by."

The suspect, Thomas Hartman, was arrested the next day at his apartment. He said he'd been so depressed when Wendy broke up with him that he'd bought some weed and went to the roof of his building and got stoned for three days. He vehemently denied killing her, but he had no alibi. No one had seen him on the roof.

"What do you have on the Walker murder, Detective?" Captain Gates demanded, once Kate was through interrogating Hartman.

"He has a shaky alibi which can't be confirmed, but we can't place him at the scene of the crime."

"The victim broke up with him just before she was killed, didn't she?"

"Yes, sir. But there are breakups all the time when no one gets killed. We'll have to turn him loose."

"We did get an anonymous tip that Hartman isn't the killer." Castle said, unhelpfully, Kate thought.

"That's very valuable, Mr. Castle." Gates said sarcastically. "Now see if we can get a tip on who the killer is."

"What were you thinking?" Kate whispered to Rick as they got back to her desk.

"We do have a tip." He said defensively.

"From an extraterrestrial who based his tip on what he smelled on me."

"From three Vorlags, and I've been smelling you for years. I'd believe anything anyone smelled on you."

Kate rolled her eyes.

Meanwhile, Alexis, doing her homework at the loft, heard a soft tapping at the front door. Opening it, she found herself face to face with another Vorlag.

"Mind if I come in, Dollface?" He asked.

Alexis stepped back and let him enter.

"Sam Spade Vorlag, private nose. You must be the cop dame Da Boyz sent me to see."

"I'm not a dame." Alexis said coldly.

"Sorry, Buddy. The long hair and the fact that you shave your legs had me fooled."

She glared at him. "I am a woman, not a dame. Understand?"

"Just pulling your leg. You must be Alexis Castle. Da Boyz described your scent to a tee."

"My scent?"

"You got it, Toots."

Alexis smiled up at the Vorlag. "Let's get one thing straight. My name is Alexis, not Dollface, Toots or dame. Got it?"

"Sure thing, Alexis. Mind if I take the old Burberry off and hang it up?"

She pointed to the closet. "You can hang your trench coat in there."

If Da Boyz, as Sam Spade Vorlag referred to them, were dressed like 1930s or 40s gangsters, Sam was dressed like something out of a Humphrey Bogart movie, maybe Casablanca or the Maltese Falcon. He wore a blue suit with wide lapels, brown brogans the size of small boats, a white dress shirt and a short, hand painted silk tie. He'd put his fedora in the closet with the coat. Alexis noticed a conspicuous bulge under his left armpit.

Rick and Kate returned to the loft to find a large Vorlag sitting on, or perhaps engulfing their couch, reading a paper and drinking from a fifth of Rick's scotch. He got to his feet and smiled.

"You must be Detective Beckett and Mr. Castle. Don Vorleone, the Vorlagfather, asked me to help you out with your recent murder." He held out his massive paw and they both shook.

"How much of my scotch have you had?" Rick asked.

"Just enough to wet my whistle. About two fifths. That's nothing to a Vorlag. I'll send you some Delvian whiskey in return. The Delvians are intelligent plants, so anything they make out of the stuff they grow is first class, all the way."

Before Rick could say anything, Kate spoke. "How do you propose to help us?"

The big guy shrugged. "Nothing to it. I'll just go to the crime scene, give it the old sniff test and ID the jamoke like that."

"Do you have any idea how hard it'll be to get you to the crime scene?" Kate demanded. "You'll stand out like…"

"A Vorlag among hoomans. No problem. Don Vorleone lent me one of the cloaks of invisibility. We'll just head over there after dinner and I'll look around. In and out in no time. What could possibly go wrong?"

Kate just rolled her eyes.

But, after a hearty dinner, which wiped out half of their refrigerator, Sam snuck into the back of Rick's Mercedes and they headed for the crime scene.

When Rick opened the back door of his car, nothing happened, or so it seemed. Then he heard a hoarse whisper.

"Okay, pal. I got this."

The three went up to Wendy's apartment. Once in, Sam took off the cloak of invisibility.

"It's nice for getting around on the QT, but you get kinda stuffy all wrapped up in that thing."

Sam walked around, inhaling deeply. He went through every room in the apartment, then came back to Rick and Kate.

"Da Boyz was right. That jamoke Hartman hasn't been here for days. There is another scent that ain't the cops or the dame's, though. Let me just have a little look-see." With that, he disappeared again, although the front door did open and close.

Sam was back in five minutes.

"Got him. Neighbor in number 17. He's done this before and he keeps souvenirs. I smelled something with this Wendy's blood on it and older blood from about eight other chicks. But, we gotta move fast. There's a message on his answering machine from some travel agency. He's planning a trip to Brazil."

"The US has no extradition treaty with Brazil." Kate said.

"So, we wait for him to come home and slap them bracelets on him." Sam said.

"We can't. We'd need a search warrant to get access to his apartment and we don't have probably cause."

"My nose isn't enough?" Sam asked, somewhat offended.

"Not on Earth."

"What would you do back on Vorlag?" Rick asked.

"I got a pal on the force. I'd go to him and everything would be copacetic."

Castle smiled. "I have an idea." Then he explained his idea to Kate.

"Castle, you're out of your mind."

The next morning as they headed for Gates' office, she repeated herself.

"Castle, you're out of your mind."

"Trust me."

He knocked on Gates' door and walked in as soon as she looked up, Kate following behind.

"Captain, we have a possible lead on the Walker murder, but unless we show it to you, you'll probably think we're crazy."

Captain Gates stared at Castle over the rims of her glasses. "I already think you're crazy, Mr. Castle, and I'm beginning to have my doubts about Detective Beckett. Now, get out of here and find some non-crazy evidence."

Kate spoke up. "Sir, you really should come with us to the crime scene. It may be the only way we'll ever catch Wendy Walker's killer."

"Ryan and Esposito can't do this?"

"No, sir."

Gates stood up, grabbed her pistol and her coat and headed for the door.

"The only reason I'm doing this is for the chance to prove you both crazy and get you out of my hair."

Once at the crime scene, Gates looked around.

"This is it? An empty apartment?"

"Look behind you, Captain." Castle said.

Gates turned around, screamed and went for her gun.

"Don't get all excited, Gorgeous. "I'm a licensed private investigator. I just don't happen to be human."

"You can't be real." Gates insisted. She began gingerly touching Sam, looking for zippers or some evidence he was a human in a disguise.

"I don't usually go this far on the first date, Babe. What kind of a Vorlag do you think I am?"

"You're real." She gasped.

Sam nodded. "Sam Spade Vorlag, private nose."

"Private nose?"

"You hoomans call 'em private eyes. Since we have such a great sense of smell, we call ourselves private noses. For instance, you had oatmeal for breakfast this morning, with too much sugar. You also had wheat bread toast, butter, not margarine, some bacon, and a glass of orange juice. Before that, you and your hubby were makin' whoopee. You had your hands cuffed behind you, while he…"

"That's enough!" Gates screamed. She pulled out her Glock. "You're under arrest."

"What for?" Sam asked, smiling.

"For…for…being in this country illegally."

Sam shook his head.

"Lemme show you my driver's license." He pulled out his wallet and handed her the license.

"You live in San Francisco?" Gates screamed.

"You bet. The City, as we like to call it, has always been friendly to folks who are a little different."

"A little?" Gates said.

"You live at 891 Post Street, apartment 401?" Castle said, looking over Gates' shoulder. "That's where Dashiell Hammett lived and where Sam Spade lived in the Maltese Falcon."

"Quite a coincidence." Sam said.

As Gates dithered, Sam explained what he'd found and how.

"You want me to get a search warrant based on something you smelled? No judge would ever issue a search warrant based on that."

Sam shrugged and then disappeared.

"Where did he go?" Gates demanded.

"He used the cloak of invisibility. Curly made it." Castle said.

"I did see the apartment door open and close." Kate added.

Gates just shook her head.

After a few minutes, the door opened and closed and Sam suddenly appeared.

"Where did you go?" Gates demanded.

"Just out for a breath of fresh air. It's kind of stuffy in here." He inhaled deeply. "See?"

Castle sniffed as well. "I think I smell smoke."

Kate sniffed. "It smells like bacon burning."

"Someone should investigate." Sam said, calmly.

The smoke was coming from an apartment at the end of the hall. They pounded on the door and then broke it down. After all, someone inside might have been overcome by the smoke. In searching the apartment to make sure that no one was there, they discovered bloody clothing and photos of dead young women, including Wendy Walker.

"You set the fire." Gates accused Sam.

The Vorlag shrugged. "You going to tell people that a large, well dressed, extraterrestrial from the planet Vorlag made himself invisible and set a fire? Really?"

"Take the win, sir." Kate said.

The police arrived soon after the fire department and when the killer came home, he was arrested. No mention was made of how the fire may have started. And no large, well dressed private nose was seen. Not that he wasn't there.

Several days later, Rick and Kate came back to the loft and found a dozen unmarked quart bottles in the kitchen. Tucked under one was a note:

Dear Rick and Kate,

I told you I'd get you some Delvian whiskey. Enjoy. And if you ever get to the City by the Bay, look me up.

Sam.

"Would you like three fingers of Delvian booze on the rocks?" Rick asked Kate.

"I thought you'd never ask, Mr. Castle."

"This is the best whiskey I've ever had." Rick said. "We may have to go to San Francisco and look up Sam to get some more."

Kate nodded. "There's just one thing about this case that bothers me."

"That we needed a private nose to solve it?"

"No. I can't get the image of Gates with her hands cuffed behind her while…making whoopee out of my head."

"Ewww!"

The End

Author's note: I'm still plugging away on Deadly Planets. I've got about 40,000 words done so far.