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.
"Several of us, Will Sommerville at Aquarian, Miles Chen at Brabant, Sadhu Singh from Singapore Technologies..."
"I think the police would like you to just cut to the chase, Jack." Hibbing said.
"We think Earth's future is in space. Someday, and not that far in the future, we'll be able to put Earth's polluting industries in orbit or on the Moon. I know, I know. It seems like a pipe dream now, but when the Wright Brothers first flew in 1903, did anyone think that a Moon landing was only sixty-six years away? We have plans for an unmanned base on the moon, and then for a manned base. From there we can..."
"Stop making speeches." Hibbing interrupted.
Jack Hobbes sighed and shook his head.
"Marina Gorham heads an operation called Humanity First. Among other things, they believe that anything to do with space is a waste of money. Mostly, they believe that anyone who's rich is prima facie a criminal who could only gotten their wealth by stealing from the poor. They've picketed both my home and office, as well as places where I've spoken about our projects. And..." Hobbes stopped for a moment. "And, someone, no one knows who, used real human blood to paint "Murderer of Earth. You're next." on my door."
"I assume all of these acts were reported to the police?" Said Kate.
"I have the police report numbers. " Hibbing said. "I'll send them to you."
"Anyone else?" Castle asked.
"Lisa Kopanski, I suppose." Hobbes said.
"And she is?" That was Kate.
"We eventually hope to set up an observatory on the far side of the Moon. What with atmospheric pollution and light pollution from cities, you can see..."
"If they're that interested, they can look it all up on our website." Hibbing interrupted again.
"Because the Moon has no atmosphere, micrometeorites. things no bigger than a grain of sand, can damage sensitive equipment. Lisa developed a lidar, that's like radar but using a laser, to detect incoming micrometeorites and trigger a cover for the observatory. She...Um...claimed that I had taken advantage of her financially and...Well, she claimed I'd taken advantage of her sexually and sued."
"She was paid very good money, considering that we're the only game in town, so to speak. No one else needs to protect an observatory on the Moon, since no one else is planning one." Hibbing smiled and Hobbes groaned. Hibbing went on. " Sexually, she liked to chain Jack to her bed and dominate him. Nothing rough or cruel, she just liked to be in charge. And she took videos of the whole thing. No one on the jury thought she'd been taken advantage of sexually. The videos are all over the internet."
Hobbes blushed and looked away. Hibbing went on.
"Then there's Walter Wellington, street name Windy, because he talks so much."
"Street name?" That sounded odd to Kate.
"He's a homeless man who has decided that Jack is an Imp of Satan, taking the whole human race to Hell. He believes Jack's kryptonite, so to speak, is New York City garbage. So, he lays in wait for Jack and throws garbage at him. We've reported him to the police, but it doesn't do much good. He falls between the cracks in the system. He's invariably found to be too crazy to go to jail, but when he gets to a psychiatric facility, they find he's too sane to be there and is released after a few days. I'll send you what we have on him."
"That should be that." Hobbes said, thankfully.
"Jack!" Hibbing said. "You can't be serious. Have you looked at the detective?"
Hobbes stared at Kate and a look of shock came over his face.
"Oh, my god! It's her!"
"It's who?" Kate demanded.
"Come into my office." Hobbes walked rapidly away from them. The three had no choice but to follow.
When Rick got to the office, he had a major nerdgasm over the electronics in the office. It was all newer and more powerful and expensive than anything he had. He almost missed Kate's shriek of, "That's me!"
Rick turned to look at where everyone else was looking. They were staring at a painting of a woman in a long red dress. There was no doubt in his mind that the woman was Kate Beckett.
"How did you get a painting of me?" Kate said sternly.
"It's not of you, Detective Beckett. Her name is, or was, Daisy Bell. If I could explain?"
Kate nodded and Hobbes went on.
"I won the painting in a poker game when I was at MIT. Conrad Dobbler owed me fifty dollars that he didn't have at the end of the game. He had said his mom had paid fifty for it at a garage sale, so I ended up with the painting. Several years later, a friend of mine said I might have a genuine Toulouse-Lautrec. Do you know about him, Detective?"
Kate shook her head.
"I know the name, but you might want to fill in the blanks for me."
"Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec was a French nobleman's son who suffered an accident as a child and whose legs never grew as he became an adult. He became a painter in Paris in the 1890s. Toulouse-Lautrec was an alcoholic and hung out in the...seamier parts of Paris: Bars; Dance Halls; Brothels and such."
"Was this woman a prostitute?" Kate demanded.
"No, not at all. She was a singer and by all accounts was magnificent. But she did dress rather scandalously, for the period, anyway."
Castle had to agree with that. The woman's long, lithe legs were visible to the tops of her thighs and her dress was very low cut.
"I still don't understand how this relates to the murder."
"Patience, please, Detective."
"As I said, I was told this might be a lost Toulouse-Lautrec. I had it examined and was told it was a forgery. A brilliant forgery, but a forgery none the less. Toulouse-Lautrec had already painted a near identical portrait of Daisy Bell, he was one of her lovers, and he would never have made a copy of a prior painting." Hobbes grabbed a pad from his desk. "Look. Here's a photo of the real Daisy Bell painting."
Kate looked at it.
"They look the same to me."
Hobbes shook his head and smiled.
"Look at the woman in the background in the right upper corner. In the real Toulouse-Lautrec she's wearing a blue dress. In mine, the dress is yellow."
"Why would someone make such a brilliant forgery and then make a mistake like that?" Castle asked.
"No one knows. There were rumors that it was some kind of a practical joke, or even a scam, but no one really knows."
"I still don't see..." Kate began.
"Just a bit more, please." Hobbes said, apologetically.
"The real Daisy Bell painting belonged to a Jewish art dealer in Vienna, Austria. In 1936, the Nazis took over Austria. Like too many people, Isadore Blum didn't take the Nazis seriously in 1936. By 1938, he did. He got his four children out of Austria and to the US. He gave his oldest son, Theodore, five paintings that they could sell to support themselves. Regrettably, the rest of the Blum family was murdered by the Nazis and their paintings, including the real Daisy Bell, were stolen. It's believed that thirty-two paintings were stolen."
"We move ahead to 1945. The Germans are losing the war and a group of Nazis load up a train with looted art works. The train was attacked by the RAF and badly shot up. The art works were loaded as fast as possible and many of the Nazis on the train were killed, so no one knows exactly what art was destroyed, or not, on that train. After the war, Allied experts sifted through the wreckage and found a few burned scraps that had been part of the Blum collection. Three paintings were recovered by the Soviets, but they refused to give them to the Blums. The current Russian government feels the same way, that they are the property of the Russian people."
"About two years ago, I was at a charity gala for the Manhattan Art Museum when a woman named Sarah Blum approached me, threw a glass of champagne in my face and called me a Nazi thief. She's the granddaughter of Theodore Blum who founded the Blum Art Gallery, one of Manhattan's finest. She now owns and runs the gallery. She also is a fanatic about getting the art stolen from her family, as well as any other art stolen by the Nazis, back to the rightful owners. She believes that my painting of Daisy Bell is the real one and that I've used my wealth, scientific abilities and connections to change the color of the woman's dress to hide the fact. She sued me to get the painting and lost. She couldn't find a single reputable art restorer who would say that changes like that were possible. She hasn't let that stop her, though. She is harassing me, the Russian government and even the museums that bought the five paintings that the Blum children brought to the US in the thirties. The courts ruled that there was no coercion and they got a very good price for the five paintings. Back in 1938, $150,000 was a lot of money."
Kate refrained from mentioning that for some people today, that was a lot of money.
"Was that the only painting of this Daisy Bell that Toulouse-Lautrec did?" Castle asked.
"No. He did a portrait of just her face." He brought that painting up on his pad and showed it. Then he handed the pad to Kate. "Scroll to the right and you'll see the other painting Toulouse-Lautrec did of her. It's a nude."
Kate looked at it and turned the pad off.
"I'd like you to go with Detective Ryan and check the house for anything that might be missing. Then I'll need you to come to the precinct to give a written statement. And if you two would, we'd like to fingerprint you and get a DNA sample."
Hobbes looked like he was going to say something, but Hibbing spoke first.
"Don't worry about it, Jack. They'll go over the house for prints and DNA, so they need to know who's prints and DNA belong here in case they find some that doesn't match."
They finished and headed back to the 12th Precinct.
"We need to get all the records for the people Hobbes mentioned, and check for anything else involving Hobbes. He must have stepped on a few more toes in his life." Kate said to her team.
"Paperwork? That sounds like my cue to leave." Castle said. "Then he leaned over to whisper to her so that Gates couldn't hear. "Chinese tonight?"
Kate nodded.
"I'll see everyone tomorrow then." Castle said loud enough for Gates to hear.
Castle was busy with the Chinese take out when Beckett came home.
"Dinner will be ready in about five minutes." He said, putting the spring rolls on a plate. When he got no reply from Beckett, he turned around. She was standing at the hall closet, staring straight ahead.
"Are you okay?" He asked.
"Yes. No. No, I'm not okay."
Castle walked over to her and put his arms around her. She settled into a hug.
"What's wrong?"
She sighed and held him tightly.
"I was nineteen when my mom died, the same age as Carolyn Brown. But she was the one who found the body. And for what? Money? Some stupid painting? Some vague political goal, or just plain insanity? Why do people do these things?"
"I don't know. I just keep following you around in hopes we'll find out one day and be able to put a stop to it."
"Sometimes I think I'd just like to go someplace totally off the grid, like central Alaska, and live where I'd never have to hear or see anything about another, stupid, senseless murder again."
"But you're too good at what you do to do that, and you care too much about the people left behind. You couldn't do that."
TBC