Whoopsie.
The words seemed to hang upon the air after having flown. It felt to Kate like they took a couple moments to fall, like a banner for a surprise party being dropped from the ceiling alongside a shower of multicolored confetti, flapping merrily into place while bearing an absurdly grim announcement: Surprise, Katie! You're fired!
A sea of dumbfounded faces stared back at her.
Time recovered from its hiccup and jolted forward on its axis of inevitability. Gates's face took on a murderous pinch. Rick leaned closer at her right as if primed to shield her from a physical backlash. Kate could practically feel Ethan Dickson's sadistic glee building to a crescendo as they awaited the swift downstroke of an ax upon her career.
Deputy Chief Alvarez laughed.
The man's booming mirth was such a fierce counterpoint to the gaping silence that the others twitched in surprised unison. The older man wiped at one eye, still chuckling, and commented gaspingly, "Dios mio. Apologies, my friend," he added with a stout clap of one palm on Chief Rendell's shoulder. "It was like looking in a mirror."
The ACD grimaced and snarled, "Not by a mile. Trust me on that, you bastard."
That only induced more quivering of the other man's shoulders.
Beckett's cheeks felt like they were aflame.
"Sirs," Gates began tightly, clearly furious, "please excuse that outburst. Obviously," she stressed with a seething glare at her subordinate, "my detective's concern for her partner far outweighed her common sense." The Captain had struck the nail squarely upon its head. It didn't seem likely that accuracy was going to translate into much sympathy by way of repercussions.
Damn, damn, damn!
"Victoria, it's fine," Rendell said with a sigh. He rubbed a pair of fingers into the corners of his gaze and pinched the bridge of his nose. "As our Deputy Chief intimated, that kind of polarization is already a popular sentiment regarding this operation. Given what's headed our way, I'd be surprised if it wasn't."
"Chief," Kate began, "I'm sorry. That's not what I meant to say. Well, it's definitely not how I meant to put it."
"Oh hell," Alvarez issued dryly, still somewhat red-faced but in control of his amusement again. "We're a little past that now. Speak your mind plainly, Detective Beckett."
Kate shifted uncomfortably with a glance at Castle and then looked back to the senior officers across the way. She could rattle off a short list of good reasons why she didn't want her partner being borrowed. "The storm," she stated succinctly with a splay of both palms. That was the easiest impediment to lean upon.
"The worst of it is still several hours off yet," Kirkland spoke up. "We have a small window that should allow us to act if we really must." Should. No one seemed to miss the lean of significance he lent that particular word. Despite lending his support vocally, she could sense a twin to her surprise and wariness in the ESU team-leader's posture. Like her, he was responsible for the safety of whatever team was operating under his command.
"We really must," DC Alvarez stated grimly.
"And it is going to be a quick trip," Rendell stressed. "At best we're only going to have a few hours on the island. That's why we need a guide. We can't risk taking someone unacquainted with the place. There might not be time to stop every ten minutes to either pour over maps or radio someone else who could so by proxy. No offense, Ricky, but that's why even a civilian member of the NYPD is acceptable at this point."
"None taken. Why the urgency though?" Castle asked. "What did you find that can't wait two or three more days?" The tone of the second question wasn't plaintive, but almost expectant. It was the next logical thing to be asked really, but the manner of its delivery brought the fine hairs on the back of Beckett's neck to attention.
All eyes turned to the three across the table.
"We were getting to that part," Chief Rendell answered. "It's not a secret we're hiding from you, Ricky, but it is, uh, very sensitive material. That's why I'm trying to get through all of the information we need addressed before getting to that part. Trust me when I tell you that the reason takes time to digest—time we don't have. While we're on the subject, though, let me add this much: we're blacked-out on this matter as far as the media goes. No one here talks to anyone outside of this room about any of this. I'll have your badge and your ass if you do. That's a goddamn promise."
Yeesh. The older man's countenance was more threatening than mere words conveyed.
"We're trying to limit the exposure on this case to essential personnel for as long as we can." He took a deep breath and released the tension that had knotted in his shoulders and neck. "Having said that, one of the reasons we brought this matter to the Twelfth is because your house has handled cases that were similarly...delicate. Not long ago you managed to confront and contain one crisis in particular that I doubt needs expounding upon."
Only Rendell and Alvarez seemed to be read-in on the details of the dirty bomb threat that happened last year. The others at the table, excluding Lanie, broadcast confused glances to one another, even Gates. Beckett shared a look with Castle. Even after all this time the memory of that case elicited a hint of pallor in the author's features. She could feel a tingle in her cheeks denoting the same in herself.
"Your house closed that case without anything getting leaked," the ACD stated. "It was very impressive."
You can thank Roy's leadership for providing that unlikelihood.
"You said that was one of the reasons," Castle ventured. It went without saying that he himself was another such causality.
Gates's cut in to explain at that point. "We're the only jurisdiction in the city right now that isn't expecting to get hit by those looters organizing themselves online. That we know of," she added meaningfully with a flick of her gaze to Chief Rendell. Apparently, she didn't trust to hope that the East Village would remain unscathed. Their ranking figure either didn't notice her gaze or feigned as much. "Most of the other precincts as busy trying to preempt that threat as they are with preparing for Harbinger."
Silence fell while the others digested the information.
The Assistant Chief checked his wrist watch and looked at Tory, "Take us through the rest of the images, please. Ricky, if you could, describe what we're looking at. I need locations and any especially relevant information you can think of."
Castle exchanged a look with Tory and nodded.
A swap at the screen revealed a riverfront view of the island, presumably taken from a boat. A wide swath of old wooden pilings, two dozen or more, thrust from the water at irregular heights leading in from the river to a large, rusted metal gantry erected upon the bank. The piles must have borne the burden of a sturdy pier once.
"This is one of two old ferry landings—the northwest face, specifically. The other is located across the island on the southeast side. It's an appropriate image to start with, because it's the first hurdle we need to surmount to attempt visiting. The sea wall the army built combined with shallows and natural rockiness forbids easy landfall. Frankly, even the ferry landings are no simple feat. You don't really dock on NoBro so much as you run your vessel aground. The rocks extend out pretty far and the current is swift. You can't just power towards the shore and coast the rest of the way when you get close. Either your momentum will be too great and you'll compromise your vessel or your speed won't be enough and you'll be peeled away by the current and swept back downstream."
Lieutenant Kirkland from ESU pointed out, "Finch made it."
"Yes, but Augustus had the luxury of choosing the optimal time. The light in this picture, rather, the absence of it shows us he made this passage early in the morning at slackwater—the lull between tides. The water was still high enough to allow an outboard motor to get close without the full strength of the current fighting his approach."
Kirkland frowned. "How do we get there?"
"We have others working on that," Rendell stated. "There's a line of people outside waiting to go over the logistics. Our focus right now is the island. Let's stick with that."
Castle didn't look convinced but acquiesced with a nod.
"It's strange," Beckett commented. "You said you found Finch early Sunday, but this indicates a morning arrival that happened hours later. When were these pictures taken?"
"Saturday," Tory piped up, "according to their timestamps."
"That doesn't make any sense," Rick agreed. "There're regular patrols around those waters. It's close to Riker's Island where any craft would be considered a potential security risk. They record, or at least radio check, everyone who moves through the area. If Augustus arrived Saturday and stayed overnight, which would be a very strange thing for him to do, someone should have spotted his boat anchored offshore and investigated."
"Maybe his boat was damaged when he approached," Beckett mused. She stiffened with a different thought. "Maybe it was taken from him." They matched stares. She could feel the questions churning behind her partner's gaze. Gears turning within gears, same as hers. If precedent was any indication, their respective mental sprockets were likely spinning along similar courses. Sometimes they seemed downright intertwined, like misplaced parts still turning to the meter of a single, larger mechanism from whence they originally came. She looked over at Dickson, and though she loathed interacting, asked, "Did you find his vessel?"
"Not yet. We've been focused elsewhere," the Queens officer replied coolly.
"Ricky," Rendell cut in again. The man's voice was strained. His patience with the back-and-forth was clearly waning. "Can you get us through these images? It's important."
"Yes," the author replied mildly, "let's talk about these pictures, because there's a curious quality to them that isn't making much sense. Tell me, did you rearrange them out of order on purpose to see if I could recognize the island without any meaningful landmarks to go by?"
The addressed man's eyes widened briefly. His lips came apart but slammed shut again without reply.
That's why the light and shadows look off from one picture to the next. Sonofabitch.
Richard shook his head but didn't get into a debate about the subterfuge. All he said was, "Whatever you found must be bad." He focused on the screen. "Go on, please, Tory."
Their tech analyst obliged after shooting an uncomfortable glance to the ACD. She wasn't the only one who did.
The next photograph was taken on the island itself. It was a disquieting sight. From out the foliage which pervaded in-frame arose the stern edifice of a four-story building extending out of frame in both directions. The main double doorway sat with one of its portals missing and the other ajar. Broken out windows gaped with blackness. Vines strung multiple sections of the façade. Their patterns across the dark grey stone lent a strange impression of scales, like a snake.
Richard's voice dissolved the communal silence. "This is the Tuberculosis pavillon. It's on the north half of NoBro at a closely central position. It never actually saw use in its intended purpose. Its completion coincided with the original hospital's closure. The army repurposed it as a barracks for its single male soldiers. It was reconverted to something closer to its original purpose when this was being used as a drug rehabilitation asylum. In terms of NoBro's timeline, it's the youngest structure on the island."
Lieutenant Kirkland leaned forward in his chair. "If someone were present on the island—hiding out there, let's say—that'd be the most likely place to find them?"
Castle looked at him and then tilted his guise at the picture, considering. "It's difficult to say. There were around two dozen structures that could potentially serve as shelter last I knew. Crude shelter," he added as an afterthought. "This or the hospital itself would be the surest bets, yes."
A glance back at Tory prompted the next image, and the one after that and so on. The commentary offered became more succinct from Castle, perhaps indicating mindfulness of time working against them. "That's the old morgue. It served in that function across every incarnation. The similar red-brick building behind it with the smokestacks is the coal house. That fell out of use after the army left. It was shuttered even while the place was still in operation as an asylum. Both buildings look intact from the outside, but their roofs are mostly gone. They're full of debris and overgrown plant life."
Despite the circumstances, it was oddly relaxing listening to her partner talk. Months without contact had produced a yearning for the specific timbre and cadence typical to the man. He had the flow and vocabulary commensurate to a storyteller.
"This is the caretaker cottage. It was originally the house provided to the hospital's supervising physician. It's more structurally sound than that crumbled entryway suggests but, again, the roof is spotty at best. With a few exceptions, this is a fair approximation of what the other surviving structures resembled the last time I was there."
"Crude shelter," Kirkland reiterated with a nod of agreement. "Good. That ought to limit the options we need to worry about clearing later."
The next image came up and Tory, squinting at her screen, said, "It looks like the rest of these pictures are interior shots, maybe of this same building."
"That sounds about right," Castle agreed, focused on the projection panel. "This is the hospital. It was called Riverside originally. I can't recall now what designation the army applied, if indeed they did. It's more widely known by the name bestowed during its latter days as an asylum: The Teeth of Seven Sorrows."
"Wow. That's cheerful," Lanie remarked with a wrinkling of her nose.
Castle issued a wordless hum of agreement. "Despite being a relatively contemporary fixture, the asylum ended up being an infamous example of archaic psychology in action. Indeed, it was really more of a horrific blend of outdated psychology and religious fervor, as the name itself implies."
"What do you mean?" Dickson asked.
"The Teeth of Seven Sorrows is a thinly veiled reference to the seven deadly sins of man. It was a widely held conceit among the staff that drug addiction and mental instability were self-inflicted punishments for immoral behaviors and beliefs. Or the absence of belief, for that matter. That erroneous mindset wasn't quite so out-of-date as assuming mental disorders were signs of demonic possession, but in some ways their slightly more updated outlook actually made things worse for the patients. The asylum didn't close from a lack of funding, you see. It was very hastily and quietly dismantled over a three-week period after a patient escaped to the mainland and told horror stories of the treatment he suffered there, some of which were immediately verifiable by his markedly diminished physical state."
The table shared wayward glances of varied aspects. Disgust reigned as the common denominator. DC Alvarez grimaced and crossed himself.
Chief Rendell cleared his throat and said, "I, uh, appreciate the history lesson Ricky, but let's stick to information that'll be necessary for the trip. Please."
A few more exterior shots scrolled by while Castle obliged and resumed narrating. "The Teeth has three wings and stories, each of which conforms to a basic U-shaped sprawl. It's modest in comparison to other institutions of its kind, totaling around 150,000 square feet. That's not including a pair of sub-levels, which I guess we can call 1 and 2 for now. '1' is a full basement encompassing all three wings. It contains the 'Agitation Ward' of isolated patient cells along the east and west, while the center area was dedicated to utility purposes. Sub-level 2, the lower, is about a third that size from what I recall of the blueprints. There were no labels on them to indicate its purpose. Whenever we spoke about it, Jonas expressed suspicions that it was a swimming pool with shower areas; something about the orientation of the plumbing and replacement parts he found elsewhere on the island that belonged to a filtration system. Anyway, it's unconfirmed and moot besides that; the level is structurally compromised."
"You can't get down there?" Rendell asked.
"Technically, you can," Castle answered with a light scratch of one cheek. "East and west stairwells provide access. But the east doorway of the only room down there is locked, chained shut, and the door frame has buckled. By now it might have crumbled entirely. As for the west entrance, its blocked by damages along that hallway. Part of the ceiling and some of the interior wall collapsed. Even if the door does work, you can't get to it."
Beckett didn't miss their ranking pair in white exchanging glances.
Alvarez said, "That's some impressive recall, Mr. Castle. Thank you. You mentioned before that the hospital was reasonably sound, yes?"
"It is within the context of sudden and lasting abandonment," Rick hedged slowly, his gaze on the images that intermittently flicked by on the screen. "As you can see, there are weakened walls, crumbled ceilings, and rotted floors in several areas. Most of the main foyer collapsed into the first sublevel, effectively splitting it in half. There are ways around the blockages, but the debris makes traversal hazardous. It's remarkably intact as a whole, though, all things considered. That's partially owed to the care of its construction, but more so to its design by a rather infamous architect, Damon Trevor. His claim to fame, a dubious and purely posthumous distinction, was bestowed for a strict sense of utilitarianism that mitigated wasted space even, and perhaps especially, to the exclusion of aesthetic values. I mention that now because the hospital is full of cramped rooms and suffocating corridors. Trevor's buildings have a habit of capably enduring the ages, but they're a claustrophobic person's nightmare."
"That's good to know," Kirkland said with a scratch at his bearded chin. "Tactically speaking, it sucks. 'Fish in a barrel' comes to mind. What was that other big building?"
"The tuberculosis pavillon?"
"Yeah. Was that designed the same way?"
"I'm afraid so. In fact, they delayed its construction by six months so Trevor could oversee its construction. I guess someone on the board of directors was a sucker for symmetry. That's the extent of his influence though. Any other structures were built by army engineers or commercial contractors."
"And there are over two dozen of those?" Kirkland asked.
"More or less. Like I said before, though, it's been years since I...since…"
The way his voice trailed off to silence brought everyone else's attention to the screen where Castle's was fixated. It was the image of a dark stairwell with a short, debris-strewn hall extending out ahead. It led to one of the aforementioned doors that was chained shut. White paint shone at the walls from beneath peeling flakes of a yellow top-coat that still clung to its surface in frayed and brittle curls.
"I thought you said that doorway was buckled," Kate said once she caught on to what had stalled her partner.
"That's not the east entrance. It's the west. I don't… Augustus must've cleared away the debris. I don't see how he could've—oh, damn. There, on the right edge of the frame. It goes all the way up like a pillar. He must have cleared away the debris over the course of his last several visits and found materials to brace where the ceiling caved in."
"That's crazy," Dickson said. "He's lucky he didn't bring the whole thing down on himself."
"Crazy," Castle echoed with a nod of agreement. "Next image, please, Tory."
The west doorway itself comprised most of the following photograph. It looked its age. Paint was faded and peeling from its surface. The chains that had once secured it, visible in the previous image, were gone.
"Next image," Rick requested softly. It felt like everyone was holding their breath.
"Before you do," Chief Rendell spoke up, "let me warn you again: none of what you're about to see leaves this room. Also, I realize that you're all experienced staff here, but…"
"Don't barf," Dickson inserted into the pause with a sneer.
Deputy Chief Alvarez looked prepared to lunge across the table to communicate an intense displeasure with the Lieutenant, but the switching of images at the screen stole all attention.
It seemed as though everyone present suffered the same automatic reaction once the reality of what they were looking at sank in a few seconds later. There was a collective sound to the moment, something sharp that nestled between gasps and clipped, wordless outcries.
Castle jerked right up out of his seat to stand with his blue eyes gaping wide. In the next instant he snapped them shut and turned a sharp about-face with an expelled, "Oh God." She could hear the thumps against the glass walls where his arms lifted and sought it out for support. His forehead made another when he buried his face among the vertically poised limbs as if to shut out even the backwash of light from the projector.
"Holy mother," Kirkland croaked. He genuflected clumsily.
The sight of the Olympic-sized swimming pool piled at its center with bodies—one coldly discarded atop the other in a single, huge heap—took Kate's breath away. The gruesome display was revealed by shafts of sunlight entering from above through a gap not visible in-frame. The collapse of the main foyer had clearly penetrated beyond the primary sub-level. Towers of debris bordered the mass grave, casting strange-looking rhombuses of shadow. Sunlight shone like liquified gold against the abundant dimness. Fragile beauty and horror were wed too intimately to divide and the contrast inherent to the combination made Beckett lurch where she sat around a sudden roiling of nausea.
She found herself reaching blindly for Rick and didn't find him. The wayward limb stopped seeking but remained hung in the air as if stuck.
"How fucking many are there?!" Kirkland rasped while abandoning his seat.
"Dozens," Lanie issued, also risen and clutching the table edge. "Dozens upon dozens." Taut knuckles shone palely in the projector light. Her expression wasn't visible, but her voice sounded weak and thready. "Maybe a hundred. Good god. There really could be."
Beckett ripped her attention from the screen and rose to approach her partner's back. She felt him twitch from the lay of her hands at his left hip and between his shoulder-blades. The writer's trunk swelled and sank with deep breaths in a too-swift rhythm.
"I'm o—" he husked but cut sharply to a halt. "I'm okay. Just...need a minute."
She lingered there, rubbing slowly and wordlessly along the channel of his spine while turning at the neck to assess the others.
The three figures sitting across the table were more composed, if only just. Gate's eyes seemed to gleam like onyx gemstones when they fixed for a moment and stared back at her. Rendell and Alvarez waited in silence with their gazes lowered to the table before them. Even Dickson, who'd made a pathetic show of bravado moments beforehand, sat with his back squarely to the screen and didn't meet anyone else's stare. He wouldn't look at the screen—wouldn't or couldn't.
"I'm—" she had to stop and work up enough saliva to speak clearly. "I'm going."
Julian Alvarez met her gaze. He was the only one in the room who did. No one else said a word.