The 'war room' referred to a glass-walled office suite that stood centralized upon the fourth floor towards the east end past the break room. Before the advent of more reliable and secure communications technology, it served as the hub for medium to large scale Homicide operations within the Twelfth precinct's jurisdiction. When they'd needed to organize canvases or approach a suspect tactically, that had been the room in which the logistics were planned and coordinated between participating personnel. On occasion it redeemed that function. The rest of the time it was used to handle overflow for investigative interviews and staff meetings.
Presently, the blinds were closed. Several steel-legged, blue padded chairs were occupied along its south-facing exterior wall. The cluster there was exceptional among the otherwise bustling floor in that none of them were conferring together. They waited their turns in a collective, brooding silence marred only by the furious pecking of their thumbs at their cell phones. Each was armed with either a laptop or folders stuffed with documents.
"They're not here on hurricane business," Beckett murmured in suspicion as they approached.
"Nor'easter," Rick said at a similar hush to her left.
"Huh?"
"Harbinger isn't a hurricane. It's a nor'easter. It's a matter of geographical origin. Common mistake."
Beckett's eyes arose in their sockets. Welcome back indeed. She paused near the doorway and stared down a portly, white-haired man in a powder blue suit who was unwittingly barring the way. He glanced up from a manilla folder and stared back a bit wide-eyed, then gave her a jerky head-to-toe as if jolted by a delayed reflex.
"Thanks," Beckett stated dryly, "but I'm here to use the door you're blocking, not improve the scenery."
Blushing furiously, the man shot away without a word and kept right on trucking down the hall.
A thrumming of humor arose from her companion. "Wow. Look at him go." She didn't. "To be fair," Rick deposited, still quietly and at a proximity that made her skin prickle with awareness, "you'd be an improvement on any scenery. Why, I'd push Julie Andrews off her mountaintop mid-twirl if she was blocking the sight of you."
The heady aromas familiar to him were like a warm pair of hands sliding around her waist in a possessive embrace. No one nearby was studying them with undo interest, so she indulged a playful reminder. "That'd be assault."
"Assault, necessity—let's not quibble over minor details on such an auspicious day, hrm?"
Heh. Ahem. No, Katie. Work.
Beckett's sharp knock produced an audible, "Enter," and she pulled the portal wide enough for her and the author to slip inside.
A single glance around the room dispersed all humor.
Michael Rendell, in a crisp white shirt laden with full insignia, was sitting in one of the chairs on the far side of an oval table. The Assistant Chief of Detectives for all of Manhattan. To his right sat an only somewhat less daunting figure: Julian Alvarez, Deputy Inspector for the borough's Forensic Investigations division. Also present were Captain Gates and tech analyst Tory Ellis. Lanie Parrish was in residence. She smiled at Castle and more broadly still at Beckett, giving the latter a perched eyebrow that stated plainly: Ooh, honey. We're gonna talk later. Just you wait. Next to her sat a well-muscled and thickly bearded Lieutenant John Kirkland from ESU. Finally, and unfortunately closest to the door, sat Ethan Dickson from the 114th precinct in Queens.
Ethan fucking Dickson. Bane of her police academy training in the flesh, complete in a sharp navy suit that made her feel irrationally slack in plainclothes.
What the-literal-hell?
The last eyed her with what she knew to be no less contempt than she harbored, but he hid it behind the minimal breadth of a token smile. Subterfuge was a waste of grudgingly handsome features. The fair skin surrounding those beady brown eyes was smooth and clear, not a wrinkle or crease of veracity.
"Detective Beckett," Victoria Gates greeted evenly, "thank you for deigning to join us."
Shit.
Ethan smirked at that, but she slapped the bastard on ignore within her mind and faced the Captain's intense gaze with a squaring of her shoulders. "I came in as soon as I got your message, sir."
"Was there some confusion about the urgency when you left this morning?"
Wow. Really? The woman couldn't be bothered to explain why Beckett's team was needed back at full strength so abruptly in the first place, but she was going to give her grief about not doing it faster?
"That was my fault, Captain," Castle volunteered. "Detective Beckett caught up with me while I was coming in from the water. I wanted to get cleaned up before we left." No mention of the chilling near-miss under brutal waves or the rescue of a fellow surfer. "Mike," he added with a grin instead, "if I'd known you were the one waiting, I would've taken the long way 'round. How are Anna and the boys?"
Of course he would know the ACD for Manhattan. Jeez.
Chief Rendell didn't smile, but his posture belied an easy receptiveness. Huh. Not just known then, but well liked. "They're good, Ricky, thanks for asking." The dark-skinned man held out a hand toward the pair of open chairs. The man's palm looked older than was supported by his fifty-something face and the creep of white at his temples. "Take a seat, please. We've got some trouble here. I'm hoping you can help us with it."
Castle glanced aside at Kate with a slight arch of his eyebrows and tugged out the free chairs. He eased around her to take the one on the right, sparing her from sitting next to Ethan. She could have kissed him for that.
"What's going on?" Beckett asked before delving into her coffee.
Yum.
"Ethan," their ACD spoke up, "this ball began in your court. Why don't you explain?"
Yuck.
"'Began'?" the suited weasel repeated with some surprise. "Does that mean I'm officially being asked to hand it off to these—to the Twelfth?"
"It means that you were just given an order, Lieutenant," Alvarez answered with a baleful glare. His voice quivered with anger. "Don't waste time we don't have by making him repeat it."
Phew. Watching an adversary get dressed down wasn't disappointing, but the Deputy Chief was well-known for being a hard-ass who didn't play favorites. He could turn on anyone in the room with the same ferocity given the right incentive. Strange, maybe, but Kate liked that about him. It was a clean outrage on behalf of victims that elicited such. That stemmed in no small part from the man's personal losses to violence according to stories on the grapevine; a wife and child who were killed in the crossfire outside of a bank during a robbery. Thirty-five years on the job hadn't dimmed the DC's inner fire by any discernible measure.
Ethan pursed his lips into a line of checked anger and stood, smoothing his tie. "Have your tech try to keep up," he said with barely a glance at Gates. Not even a nod to Tory. Scumbag. He advanced to the east wall and pulled a white screen down out of its fixture near the ceiling.
Across the table from him, Tory stroked at the mouse-pad of her laptop and sent an image onto the screen via a Bluetooth equipped projector bolted on the north wall above and behind her. It was a night shot taken from the bank of one of Manhattan's rivers. A body lay center frame, splayed upon a crinkled brown canvas.
"White male," Lanie spoke, seemingly studying the image for the first time. "Those evidence capture tarps are ten feet square, so guess 5'11", maybe six feet. Looks middle-aged, forty-to-fifty. Jeans, t-shirt and jacket—tennis shoes still on. The body looks to be in pretty good shape, all things considered. He couldn't have been in the water for long. Which river?"
"East River," Castle surmised, though he couldn't have known for sure as far as Beckett knew. A piercing quality in the others' gazes when they looked at him made the detective's fingers curl into fists of wariness on her lap.
"That's the Robert Kennedy bridge," Kate explained. She took over to see who looked away, to her. Everyone did, but it took a few telling moments. This isn't about my team at all, is it? You sent me to bring you Castle—only him. "You can see some of the river," she continued behind a well-kept poker face, "but not much in the way of reflections along the central swath there. That's shadow. This was taken under the bridge. No supports are visible, which suggests the Kennedy. It only has the main braces on either bank. A while back we fished a bar owner out of the water near a dock a little upriver from there. Technically, I guess this could be the Hell Gate too, but—
"At that angle," the writer jumped back in, "you'd be seeing lights from the waste treatment plant on the west bank if it were. Reflections of them on the water to the left of the bridge's shadow I mean," he clarified with a hand rising to encircle the space being described. "That place is lit up like Christmas at night. But there aren't any visible here. Plus," Castle added with a smirk at Ethan, "your accent is all Queens. Dead giveaway. They say it's slowly fading out these days. You must be native."
Dickson scowled.
Beckett turned to one side, unable to completely smother a smile.
"I can see why the Twelfth's Homicide unit has the closure rate it does," Rendell said with a glance at the two of them, "but for the sake of brevity let's spare ourselves more show-and-tell. Some of the preliminary question marks have already been crossed out." Kindly delivered, but an admonishment all the same.
Chagrined, Beckett nodded a stiff affirmative.
"Continue, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, sir. The body was found by a couple of lovesick teenagers on Shore Boulevard around four o' clock yesterday morning at the edge of a nearby skate park. Their statements as well those from a few other friends who were with them at the time seem to corroborate none of them being involved. Cause of death," Dickson continued, "was initially categorized as an accidental drowning. That was supported later when the medical examiner found elevated troponin and CPK enzymes, suggesting—
"A cardiac event," Alvarez murmured aloud. He met Kate's gaze by chance and clarified, "Heart attack."
"He must've been near the water when it happened and fell in," Lanie suggested. "That'd make sense. No one swims the toxic stew of the East River intentionally. He wouldn't have had much of a shot at reaching safety while in cardiac distress."
"None of which adds up to Homicide," Castle concluded with a furrow of his brow.
"Not unless he didn't fall," Lieutenant Kirkland spoke up. For Beckett, there was a note of reassurance in his proposal. Not because of the contribution itself, which was rather a given, but for its implication that the ESU agent appeared to be just as ignorant of the case and the meeting currently underway as she was.
"People, please," their ACD spoke up calmly. He glanced to his left at Alvarez in disapproval for the man having jumped in and stirring the pot. The ruddy-complexioned DC smiled slightly and lifted a hand slightly in wordless apology.
Dickson was massaging his temples with obvious irritation. The appendage fell away moments later and with a sharp snap of his fingers he pointed at the screen.
Tory discreetly rolled her eyes, but brought up the next image.
A smaller corner of the first tarp was shown in an overhead shot with a few personal effects arranged upon it: a wallet, keyring, watch, and a few other items there were less clear as to their function. Yellow, L-shaped rulers provided a sense of scale.
"Some of this has since been discarded as evidence," Dickson stated. "Likely debris from the river. Note that black canvas bag on the right," Ethan said with a hand lifting to point it out. "It was holding a digital camera. The rest of the images we have for you this morning are going to be shots recovered from the memory card it was holding. Up until these were processed yesterday afternoon, this was shaping up to be the accident it resembles." That timeline matched up to when Gates had approached Kate about going to retrieve Castle.
"What," the author asked with his eyebrows arched, "he got a shot of his killer?"
The interruption didn't garner any reprisals that time. Not even from Dickson. A brief series of shared looks passed among their superiors amidst an air of general discomfort. Then the Lieutenant from Queens said, "Not exactly," and gestured for Tory to continue. "Give me a few seconds on each of the next several images, but keep it moving."
There was a common theme to the following half-dozen pictures. It was daytime, but the bend of visible shadows weren't consistent from one to the next, indicating various hours or perhaps even different days. Wherever they were taken, it was woodland. Dense growth of mostly deciduous specimens bore their brilliant autumn mantles amidst clogs of ivy and underbrush. Some of the trunks of the larger examples were strung with fuzzy-looking vines that sprouted spindly off chutes like so many caterpillar legs. Curious stamps of civilization were also present in a few photos, including the rusted out hulk of an old truck. In others it was subtler; a rusted metal bucket, a pair of old boots sitting beside a rotted stump. One image showed a red fire hydrant jutting out of the forest floor like an incongruous bloom.
She glanced at Castle to share her confusion, but his eyes were rapt to the screen. He looked…
"You recognize something?"
Rick twitched and looked at her. Then glanced around the table at a sea of expectant faces. "It's NoBro."
"NoBro?" Beckett parroted with a frown.
"North Brother Island," he clarified. "It's not surprising if the name doesn't jump out at you. It's been almost sixty years since it was a relevant aspect of the city. It hosted—well, technically still hosts an old hospital that was built around the turn of the twentieth century. They used its isolation to deal with cases of contagious diseases like Smallpox. It assumed a few different identities before it was finally shut down in the sixties. The remnants of it have been moldering away out there since then. It and South Brother Island are both designated as conservation land these days with no visitors allowed. They're for the birds in a literal sense."
Kirkland snorted aloud in appreciation for the turn of phrase.
Kate looked at the others around the table. None of that information looked like news to their ranking members. With a pinging of curiosity she frowned and asked her partner, "If it's off-limits, how come you're able to recognize it by the foliage and some old trash?"
"If you're willing to jump through the proper legal hoops, it's possible to finesse a visitor's pass. It's no easy feat." He considered briefly before shaking his head and continuing, "Uh, there's good reason for that. A number of structures are still standing on the island, but most are significantly degraded. The ground itself is unstable in places. A grid of subterranean utility tunnels span most of the island. Some of them have buckled and collapsed. That's the appeal for the few who visit. It's a fine example of nature reclaiming a site of prior habitation. It's studied as a model of what might happen to civilization in the wake of an extinction level event. You know, what becomes of what we leave behind."
"What was your interest in the place, Mr. Castle?" Captain Gates asked.
Kate's fingers reclaimed fisted aspects. The tone of the question was sharp, suspicious.
Her partner answered readily, seemingly unfazed. "I was considering a writing project from the perspective of a soldier who was wounded in the line of duty and billeted there after World War II. One of the previous incarnations I mentioned saw the island serving as a military base. That project didn't end up being published, but my fascination was cemented the moment I set foot on the island. For a while, I was obsessed with learning everything I could about the place."
Beckett's gaze jerked back to the others around the table. So, that's why you need him. Thank God. They wanted her partner's expertise regarding the island itself, not the case. It galled her that no one could be bothered to say as much in the first place. Thanks for freaking me out over nothing.
"I'm not sure why you're asking me about the island," Rick continued, also facing the others around the table. "I haven't been there for years. If you want detailed information, you should be talking to Jonas Hughes from Parks and Recreation. He's more familiar with NoBro than anyone."
"Retired," Gates stated succinctly. "We're trying to track him down, but he moved out of state. There are a few other people in his department who've been to the island, but they aren't anywhere near as familiar."
"Jonas kept very detailed records, including maps."
"Nothing digitized," Chief Rendell concluded. "We need ready access to the data."
Whoa, whoa, whoa. Hold the fucking phone. 'Ready' as in real-time access?
"Augustus Finch," Castle said, evidently not catching the underlying meaning that snagged Kate's attention. "He's, ah, not an official resource. You might need to be willing to waive some trespassing charges on his behalf, but he's a famous urban explorer. Finch is a local fixture. NoBro has always been his favored stomping grounds. He doesn't know the technical aspects of the island the way Jonas does, but he's your next best bet."
"Great idea," Ethan interjected dryly. He gestured to the unfurled screen on which the images were being relayed. "Got a Ouija board handy?"
Rick sat back in his seat as if the words were a smack in the face. He blinked rapidly a few times with his lips poised apart and the words flown. Grief found a home for itself at his eyes and mouth. "He's the victim? I…" He shook his head, clearly at a loss.
Beckett leveled a heated glare on Dickson before resting a palm on her partner's shoulder. "You knew him?"
"Not… No. Not exactly. Um, we exchanged emails and a few phone calls back when he first became interested in visiting the island. That was, goodness, years ago. I advised him not to go at the time, but he was very enthusiastic. It was obvious he wasn't going to be deterred, so I gave him what knowledge I could."
"We're not here about trespassing charges," Rendell assured evenly.
Castle nodded in understanding and took a deep breath in and out. "Right. Um." He shook his head again and seemed to rally his wits in the wake of the unpleasant surprise. "Sorry. In that case, I guess you're talking to the next most experienced person with actually being there, yes. What is it you need from me, Mike?"
"We're sending in an investigative team," The ACD answered. "They need a guide." He lifted one hand slightly in forestallment and clarified. "An on-site guide, Ricky. You'll be going with them if you're up for it."
There you have it.
Surprised, the author asked, "When?"
"The logistics are being prepared as we speak. An hour maybe. Two at the latest."
"No." It flew out of Beckett without proper aforethought like a vocal version of the Patellar reflex. "No fucking way."