Twelve:
Roy Montgomery was sitting in his office staring at the computer monitor and reading his emails as he normally would upon arrival. He sipped on his carry out coffee, trying to make it last as long as he could as he read a memo from the Chief of Detectives detailing new procedures for evidence documentation. He actually chuckled as he read it, knowing just how hard it would be to implement in a place like this.
It didn't take long for him to realize that this place was even worse than he feared. Morale was nonexistent, thanks to not only the malcontents that seemed to be everywhere, but the supervisors as well. This included the previous Captain who cared only about surviving long enough to get his time in to retire.
That wasn't to say that everyone there was bad. Unfortunately, it appeared that anyone who had any potential quickly learned what a lost cause this place had become and did whatever it took to obtain a transfer anywhere else. He had spent his first week doing nothing but interviewing each one of his direct reports along with their personnel records and wondered if he would survive the year he needed before retiring.
Roy hadn't given a great deal of thought to Beckett, or anyone else at the twelfth since he was forced out. He could only hope that the deal he had with Bracken that had kept Beckett safe up to now still applied. The guilt he carried for not being able to prevent Johanna's death was burden enough to bear.
He was more than a little surprised when the desk sergeant calls up to inform him that Richard Castle was there to see him. Having no idea why he would want to talk to him after everything that has happened, he considers refusing, saying that he was too busy for visitors. He reconsiders and tells the man to send him up, curious as to why he wanted to see him.
A few minutes pass before there is a knock on his door and he calls out for them to enter. Flashing one of his best public appearance smiles, Rick enters the office carrying two large cups of coffee. "Thought you might be in need of the good stuff." He offers as he sets one of the cups on his desk.
Roy takes the proffered cup and removes the lid to see that it is exactly the way he likes it. Thanking him while gesturing for him to sit, he gets right to the point. "I'm surprised to see you here, especially after the way things ended..."
Rick takes a seat directly facing Roy and smiles as he takes a sip from his cup. "Honestly, so am I. Let me get straight to the point. I know all about you, Raglan and McCallister... I know you were the one that shot Bob Arman when he tried to wrestle away your gun. I know that you're thinking of something to say that might buy you enough time to go for your service weapon."
Rick's last remark seems to have drained every drop of blood from Montgomery's face, which brings a smile to his as he continues. "Did you know that John Raglan was dying? Less than three months. Pancreatic cancer. Thought he'd clear his conscience by confessing his sins to Beckett, but ended up with me instead."
The confused look on Roy's face after his last remark seemed to prove that he was no better than anyone else at the twelfth that he had worked with. All of them accepting the persona put forth from the stories in the gossip rags rather than the man they had worked with for two years.
"What do you want from me?" Roy inquires after finally regaining some composure.
"What I want from you is to make up some excuse and get out of this office as quickly as you can. Outside the precinct, around the corner is a black Suburban. I'll be waiting for you in it. If you're not there in fifteen minutes, William Bracken will be the least of your worries."
The emotionless way Rick delivered his warning as he rose up from his seat was all the proof Roy needed that this was not an idle threat. Tossing his paper cup into the trash can beside the Captain's desk, he turns and is out of the office without a word. It felt as if the carefully crafted world that he had created over the last twenty years was imploding before his eyes.
Castle knew about his arrangement with the Senator from what he had said to him. It also appeared that Rick knew that Bracken had spies everywhere and didn't want to tip his hand by leaving with him. Pulling up his calendar, he smiles, seeing that he has a meeting downtown in a little more than an hour, providing him with the excuse he needed to slip out.
Exiting the precinct, Roy is tempted to go in the opposite direction from where Rick was waiting, but knew there was nowhere he could go. It was obvious that Castle had some very powerful connections, maybe as vast as Bracken. One thing was certain, he was in deep shit.
True to his word, Rick was sitting in the front passenger seat as he rounded the corner. Roy opens the door behind Castle and climbs inside. Not a word was spoken as the SUV sped out of the city to and Industrial Park complex. The Suburban pulls inside the loading dock and the door closes before stopping by the stairwell.
Roy tries to mask his surprise seeing the man he had assumed was nothing more than caricature created in the media move through the Federal building like a seasoned pro. Judging by the way he interacted with the others there, he was. Leading him into what looked to be a small conference room, Rick gestures for him to take a seat while they wait for the others to arrive.
Several minutes pass in silence before the door opens and a man enters. He was significantly older than Roy with a build and facial features that were similar to Castle. Taking a seat directly across the table from where Roy is seated, he lays the Manila folder he had carried under his arm before him. Opening the folder, he scans the documents before speaking. "Roy Montgomery, Captain NYPD, Youth Pastor at the Harlem Heights Baptist Church, volunteer youth councilor at the Washington Heights Boys Club, father of three, married for twenty-five years... and a former member of a group of rogue cops. A group of cops that kidnapped mid level criminals, holding them for ransom until one went sideways and an undercover FBI agent was killed."
The man pauses with his emotionless recitation for a brief moment to see Montgomery's reaction before continuing. "But your time working with Raglan and McCallister mysteriously vanishes. Everything that could have tied you to them gone. Somebody made sure you were clean. Somebody with significant juice to pull those type of things off."
"Somebody like the former ADA and now US Senator William Bracken."
"And while your former partners languished about, you thrived. Why was that? What did you have on him that not only kept you alive, but allowed you to become a respected member of society? Whatever it is, you're going to give it to me."
"I can't. They'll kill my family if he even thinks that I've failed to keep my end of our deal." Roy replies, trying to plead with the man across from him.
"Your family will be dead the moment you walk out of this building and the press gets a picture. You have one option. Give us everything that you have on Bracken, agree to testify against him and we'll put your family in WitSec. That's it. Take it or leave it. Frankly, I don't care. We'll get him one way or another." The man closes the folder and starts to rise up from his seat.
The emotionless way he spoke left no doubt in Roy's mind that the man wasn't joking. "Safety deposit box, Manhattan Trust, Fifty Third and Lexington. The key is hidden in a false bottom of the middle drawer in my desk."
"Congratulations Mr Montgomery. You just saved your family." the familiar sounding man remarks, as he moves away from the table and walks towards the door. "Some others will be in to get your statement and make arrangements to extract your family." He stops at the door and looks back towards Roy. "How many?"
Montgomery gives him a puzzled look, not understanding the question. "How many people died so that you and Bracken could succeed? Ten? A hundred? You could have stopped him long before the first one, but you put your own freedom above everything and everyone. So if you're looking for sympathy, I suggest you buy a dictionary. It's there somewhere between shit and syphilis." Jackson Hunt replies as he exits, leaving a broken man alone at the table.
X-X-X-X
Rick personally oversaw the extraction of Roy's wife and children, using the excuse of an escaped felon who had sworn revenge against him and his family. He thought a friendly face would assuage her fears. He assured her that Roy was already in a safe location and was helping with the case.
As soon as they were gone, Rick entered Roy's office and found the safety deposit box key exactly where he said it was. He would have to wait until the morning before visiting the bank to get the proof that would put away Bracken forever. Or at least he hoped so.
Twelve hours later Roy finished with his statement detailing a network of corruption rampant throughout the NYPD, including Internal Affairs and several high ranking officials in PP1. This information alone would be enough to guarantee that the corrupt politician would spend the rest of his life behind bars, but Rick was sure that there was more. Much more.
Given Bracken's ties to several select Senate subcommittees, it made virtually every agency a possible mole for him. It now fell upon Rick to decide who he could trust and who he couldn't. While the money that Bracken was able to extract from his thieving kidnappers may have gotten him started in politics, to ascend to the level he was now took serious cash. The type of money that would have him beholding to others.
He needed to follow the money.
Arriving at the bank just as it opened, Rick retrieved the safety deposit box and inserted his key as the assistant manager inserted the master. Opening the box, he finds several Manila folders inside. Carefully extracting the contents and placing inside his briefcase, he locks the box and thanks the suspicious bank employee for their cooperation.
Upon his return to the Federal building, he locks himself in a small conference room and begins to examine the files. It was no surprise to Rick that Roy would have been able to force the type of arrangement he had with Bracken. Everything from bank receipts for deposits to secret accounts the then Assistant District Attorney would later use to fund his initial run in politics, to tapes of phone conversations where Bracken selected their targets for kidnappings.
A check of the FBI banking database revealed that these accounts had been closed for over a decade and with no proof of where the money went, he was at a dead end. The type of money that Montgomery had given him may have been enough to get him started, but was nowhere near what was needed to run for the Senate.
Montgomery inadvertently provided the key to bringing Bracken's empire down with an off hand comment about how a certain drug dealer seemed to be protected by somebody very high up on the food chain. A drug dealer named Vulcan Simmons. A search of arrest records showed that in spite of several arrests for drug trafficking, Simmons was never brought to trial.
Simmons had risen amongst the other drug suppliers to that of kingpin for the majority of the city. The DEA was sure that Vulcan controlled the heroin trade throughout the five Burroughs, but was never able to make a case. After several failed attempts, they gave up, convinced that there were informants within the agency tipping Simmons off.
A brief meeting with Hunt regarding what he found convinced the assassin that normal channels would not work and three days later, Simmons mutilated body was discovered in a warehouse by the pier. The official explanation was Simmons was a victim of an ongoing war between him and a Mexican cartel for control of the city. While it was a rival that put an end to Vulcan, they were aided by intel on his whereabouts by a supposed rogue DEA agent for cash.
With Simmons death, his entire organization seemed to collapse almost immediately. Vulcan had such a tight reign on his business and obsessive control over everyone involved through compartmentalism, that his death left a void that no one could fill.
The list of those implicated along with Simmons included several prominent members of the NYPD including a Deputy Commissioner and several members of Internal Affairs. At least five people at various levels in the DA's office were named as well. But the cherry on the sundae was the political action committee that not only funneled the majority of the money that Bracken used for his campaigns, but also served to launder the money from Simmons' drug business.
X-X-X-X
Rick had his nightly phone calls to Alexis, carefully omitting that he was sharing his home with not one, but two women. As far as his daughter was concerned, he was still working with the NYPD. As her time at Princeton was coming to an end, he knew that he needed to keep her out of harms way and arranged for a month long visit to her mother's. While she balked at the idea, Rick managed to assuage her concerns by promising to meet her Los Angeles before flying to Australia for a week before school started again.
Three weeks later simultaneous raids were conducted at 1PP, the District Attorney's office, Internal Affairs, and the headquarters for the Political Action Committee known as 'America First', by agents of the FBI, DEA, and the state Attorney General. All told, over fifty arrests were made with charges from money laundering, racketeering, obstruction of justice and criminal conspiracy most prevalent.
Almost anticlimactic was watching William Bracken along with his aide and campaign manager being led down the steps of the Capitol in handcuffs by a team of agents from the Attorney General's office as his fellow Senators looked on in shock. Bracken was charged with over twenty crimes, the most serious being conspiracy to commit murder. While the corrupt politician tried to profess his innocence, one by one the others arrested confessed their wrongdoings at Bracken's insistence in exchange for reduced sentences.
X-X-X-X
The arrest of Bracken put a 'paid in full' on the obligation that Rick felt towards Kate. With her mother's murderer behind bars, she was free. It also brought to an end to an awkward month living with Castle and his 'girlfriend'. Rick had insisted that she stay with him until Bracken and his cronies were arrested and she reluctantly agreed to the arrangement.
Deep down, she hoped that staying with him would give her an opportunity to undo the damage done by her and Tom. Unfortunately, the opposite happened. Instead of having a chance of being alone with him, she was forced to watch as Rick and Jennifer's relationship blossomed. She not only became his work partner, but now was sharing his home (and bed) as well.
Kate wondered if this was how Rick felt watching her and Tom together. While neither was overt with their interactions, it was apparent that the two had real feelings for each other. There were no grand PDAs staged for her benefit as she had done to him for nearly a month. No insults regarding her skills as a detective. In fact, both treated her with courtesy and frequently wanted to hear her theories as they worked the case.
As she prepared to leave Rick's loft for what she was sure would be the last time, her mind drifted back to their first meeting. Having nothing but the persona portrayed in the tabloids and fan websites, she assumed that he was exactly as they portrayed him to be; a narcissistic womanizer. The way he behaved when they first met did nothing to change her opinion. In fact, it may have confirmed it. His smug confidence only seemed to support her feelings that she was nothing more than a conquest to him. A notch on his bedpost, nothing more.
His willingness to use the relationship that he had with the mayor to force himself onto him team cemented her belief that he was cad, caring about no one other than himself. While Kate always prided herself for her ability to look beyond the evidence to find the truth, she seemed to be unable to do so when it came to anything regarding Castle. In fact, she was able to ignore it all together.
Somehow he managed to scale the walls she had built around her heart. He had proven that she was more than a conquest, saving her life on multiple occasions, yet her own doubts held her back. Seeing him as the devoted father and loyal son when she lived with him after her apartment was destroyed should have removed all doubts regarding the type of man he truly was.
That was what scared her. He was wanting something that she couldn't give him. Until Johanna's killer was brought to justice, she would never be able to give herself totally to anyone. While living with Rick and his family gave her a glimpse of what could be, it wasn't what she needed. At least then.
She exchanged an awkward embrace with Rick as she left his home. The two exchanged the type of insincere platitudes of staying in touch that neither believed to be true as his door closed and she pulled her suitcase towards the elevator. The doorman greeted her in the lobby and offered to help with her luggage, which she declined. She did allow him to hail a taxi and the two exchanged pleasantries as she climbed inside.
During the cab ride back to her apartment, she began to second guess her logic for keeping Rick at arms length the way she did. As much as she wanted to blame her need to resolve her mother's case, she knew there was more than that. How else could she explain the fact that she had developed feelings for Mike Royce. Feelings that she was sure was love until he convinced her that they would never be returned. Or the time she spent with Will. Hell, she had thought they were moving towards marriage until he forced her to choose between her career or his.
Granted, hindsight being 20/20, even what had happened with Tom went farther than merely an attempt to make Castle jealous. She now understood just how cruel her treatment of him was and was honestly surprised that he tolerated it as long as he did. Just another indication of how he felt for her that she somehow ignored.
The cab comes to an abrupt stop in front of her apartment building and she quickly exits while tossing the driver his fare. Once inside her home again after nearly a month, she can't shake the feeling of emptiness that creeps upon her. Her apartment had always served as her safe spot. Her fortress of solitude. Now, all it seemed to be was a prison, a place where she would spend her time in solitary confinement.
A quick check of her cupboards and refrigerator confirmed that there was nothing there to eat. A trip to the nearest deli followed by a stop at the corner bodega would provide her with sustenance for the evening. She picked at the sandwich and sipped her glass of wine as music from her iPod played in the background. The music did little to lighten the somber mood she was in as she wondered if this was to be her fate.
In spite of the fact that he had given her the one thing that she had convinced herself would set her free, the knowledge that her mother's death was avenged seemed hollow and empty. All of the things that she had told herself that she would finally be able to do now seemed of little importance.
She had won the battle, but lost the war.