The Woman in the Yellow Dress
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: I own neither Castle nor a yellow dress. Rating: K Time: Early season five. Others know Kate and Rick are a couple, but not Gates.
"Don't touch me."
"What?" He screeched. "What did I do?"
"Don't touch me at the crime scene. It's bad enough that Ryan, Espo and Lanie know we're together. I don't want you to try to hold my hand, put your arm around me or anything else where any uniforms, CSU people, or any civilians can see us."
"My mother, your dad and Alexis know about us, too, you know."
"They aren't likely to drop by the precinct to gossip about us in front of Gates."
"Since I don't work for the NYPD, I don't see how their non-dating policy an apply to us." He grumped.
"Do you think Gates will see it that way? And if push comes to shove, One PP will back her up, no matter what the mayor says. So, no inappropriate touching. Okay?"
"What about appropriate touching?"
She smiled.
"We can do that at the loft tonight."
Kate pulled her police cruiser up to the usual crime scene. There was yellow crime scene tape, police cars, the morgue wagon and uniforms holding back the idle curious. And, Esposito was standing in front of the building.
"Wow!" Castle said, getting out of the car. "A nineteenth century, three story brownstone, with a view of Central Park. Nice."
Kate tried not to laugh at his enthusiasm.
"Maybe if you sold as many books as Patterson, you could buy one of these."
"Never. The loft has something no other place has. You."
"For that, you'll get a very appropriate touch tonight."
They stepped under the crime scene tape and Espo came to them.
"What do we have, Espo?" Kate asked.
"Possible burglary gone wrong. Take a look at the front door."
Rick and Kate looked.
"A bump key." Kate said. "Someone broke in and ran into the homeowner?"
"Not quite. The vic is the maid. Lanie's here. She can tell you more."
The vic was laying face down in the entryway, a pool of blood by her head.
"What can you tell us, Lanie?"
"The deceased is the maid here, Nancy Brown. According to her ID, she lived here."
"Do you have a time of death?"
"Based on liver temp and lividity, between five and eight this morning. Once I get her back, I can be more specific."
"Cause of death?"
"Blunt force trauma to the skull. I'd say the marble bud vase over there was the murder weapon, but I'll check carefully. There's a spatter of blood by the wall there, so I'd say she came to see what was happening, saw the killer, ran, got hit once and knocked down, then the second blow killed her. She had her cell phone in her hand, but hadn't dialed."
"Who called it in?"
"The vic's daughter and the daughter's fiancé. They're in the living room, to the right there. Ryan is with them."
Ryan met them in the living room. He took out his notebook.
"The daughter is Carolyn Brown, age nineteen, sophomore pre-med at Columbia. Lives on campus. The fiancé is George Gordon, age twenty-six, also a sophomore in pre-med at Columbia. Lives off campus near the university."
Kate looked a the two. Ms. Brown was a petite African American, dressed in distressed jeans and a blue sweatshirt. Gordon wore khakis and a green polo shirt. He had his arms around Carolyn who was sobbing.
"Ms. Brown, Mr. Gordon? I'm Detective Kate Beckett, 12th Precinct, Homicide. I know this is a very difficult time for you, but if we could ask a few questions? This is my associate, Richard Castle."
Carolyn Brown moved away from Gordon, but took a tissue from him to wipe the tears from her eyes.
"Certainly. The sooner I talk to you, the sooner you'll catch whoever did this."
"Your mother was the maid here? Who owns the house?"
"Mr. Jack Hobbes."
"And is Mr. Hobbes here?"
Carolyn shook her head.
"He's just flying back from the Johnson Space Center in Houston."
"Is he involved in the space program?"
Ms. Brown almost smiled.
"He is the majority owner of SynTeq, so, yes, he is very much involved in the space program."
"Oh." Kate said. So this was not a murder involving your common, garden variety New York millionaire.
"I called him just after I called 911. He was on his private plane. He said he'd come straight here from the airport."
"Can you tell us how you came to find the body?"
"George asked me to marry him last night. I called my mom and she wanted to meet us for lunch. She called Mr. Hobbes and he got us a reservation at the Tavern on the Green. He loves that place and it's just across Central Park. Although it was late, he did get us a reservation for eleven o'clock. My mother is very punctual and when she didn't show up, I called her. It went straight to voice mail. We decided to check on her. When we got here, the door was open and we went in and…."
She broke down crying again.
"Did either of you touch the body, or anything else?"
"I touched the door to get it all the way open. And I checked Mrs. Brown's pulse. I was a surgical tech in the Navy. That's how I got interested in medicine. Then we went outside to wait for the police."
"Okay. First, I'd like you to go through the house with Detective Ryan to see if you notice anything missing. Then I'd like you to go to the 12th Precinct to give a formal statement and, if you will, have your fingerprints and DNA taken."
"Do you think we're involved in this?" Carolyn said angrily.
"No. But we'll be going over the house for fingerprints and DNA that shouldn't be here, so we have to know whose prints and DNA should be here."
The two went off with Ryan to look through the house.
"Jack Hobbes is really rich, isn't he?" Kate asked Rick.
"He's a multi-billionaire. He probably has billions he hasn't gotten around to counting yet."
Ms. Brown and Mr. Gordon got back to Rick and Kate just as Mr. Hobbes arrived. Hobbes pulled them into a hug.
"My God, Carolyn. This is awful. Don't worry about a thing. Anything you two need, anything at all, just let me know."
"Mr. Hobbes? I'm Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD, homicide. We need to talk to you."
"Certainly. Certainly. And what I said to Carolyn and George goes for you too, Detective. I'm not without influence in this city. If there are any problems, let me know." He reached into his pocket and pulled out a card. "That has my private cell phone number on it. Call any time of the day or night if you need something."
Kate wasn't sure if having a billionaire breathing down One PP's neck would be a good thing or a bad thing, but she took the card.
"How long have you employed Mrs. Brown, sir?"
"Almost eighteen years. When the IPO for SynTeq first popped, I wanted to throw a party. I wanted a nice party, not the usual geeks guzzling beer, playing video games and trying to score with the few women who'd shown up. I ran into Mrs. Brown and she did such a good job, I hired her full time."
"My dad left before I was born." Carolyn said. "I always thought he'd show up if he heard Mom had money, but he never did."
"Your mother had money?" Rick asked.
"Yes." Hobbes answered. "The first Christmas, I have her some SynTeq stock options. When she cashed them out, she made over four hundred thousand dollars. Since then, she's invested conservatively and is worth about three quarters of a million now."
"Excuse me, but why would a woman that rich keep working?"
"Mom said she couldn't stop working. "Resting is rusting.", she always said." Then she frowned. "This was supposed to be her day off. But when she knew Mr. Hobbes was coming back, she said she'd just stay long enough to give the place a once over." She began crying again.
There was a commotion at the door.
"Jack! It's me. I just heard. It's true? Oh, God! That's awful. Officer, will you please let me in?"
"Who are you, sir?" Kate asked.
"Jason Hibbing. I'm Mr. Hobbes' attorney. "I'd like to help."
Kate wasn't sure that adding an attorney to the mix would actually help, but she didn't want a fight with a billionaire's attorney. She nodded to the uniform. "Let him in."
"Did Mrs. Brown have any enemies?" She asked.
They all shook their heads.
"Everyone loved Mom." Carolyn said.
"Do you or Mr. Gordon have any enemies?"
"No. And I haven't lived here since I got accepted at Columbia, and George has never lived here. No one would go looking for us here."
"Mr. Hobbes, you must have stepped on a few toes in your day."
He shook his head.
"I can't think of anyone who'd break in and kill someone."
"Jack! I know you like to think the best of people, but there are people who hate you. Bill Cummings, for one."
"That was ten years and more ago."
It looked to Kate as if Hobbes didn't want to talk about this Cummings,
"This is a murder investigation, sir." She said sharply.
"Bill was one of the original partners with SynTeq. Him, me and Alex Arkov. Our first product was the Ali Baba anti hacking program. Pretty good for the day and cheaper than our competitors. Bill wanted to continue with anti hacking software, but Alex and I wanted to branch out. We had a lot of arguments, which Bill always lost, two to one. Eventually, we agreed to buy him out. We paid the full market value for his shares."
"He wasn't happy? " Castle asked.
"He was at first, but he burned through the money pretty quickly and none of his ideas panned out. Alex and I had three or four very successful products on the market while his went nowhere. He started calling us and saying we had somehow tricked him into selling out. That's ridiculous. He was an adult, he knew the risks. But, if he'd stayed with the company, he'd be a billionaire today."
"That's not all." Hibbing said.
Hobbes sighed and went on.
"When no one at SynTeq would take his calls, he came in one day and demanded to see Alex and me. But, we were out of the office. One of the secretaries tried to stop him from breaking into my office and he punched her. A woman who ran the Xerox machines was next. He broke her nose, knocked out a few teeth and broke a couple of ribs when he kicked her as he was on the floor. Four engineers, including an All American rugby player from Cal, tackled him and held him until the police arrived."
"At his trial, he claimed to be the victim of financial misconduct. He said the two women had gotten what they deserved for keeping him from exposing the truth." Hibbing said. "He spent four years in prison and was released some ten years ago. We haven't heard from him since."
"What about the other partner, Arkov?" Kate asked.
"He sold out four years ago to me." Hobbes said, smiling. " I believe his yacht is moored at Freeport in the Bahamas. He's quite happy and will be as long as the rum and the fashion models hold out."
"Anyone else?" Castle asked.
"Marina Gorham and the whole Humanity First crowd." Hibbing said.
"Really, Jason. They're peaceful protestors."
Hibbing snorted.
"They are when the news cameras are around."
"Perhaps you could just explain this to us?" Kate said, having trouble keeping her temper.
TBC