A Murder Below Zero
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: There's zero chance that I own Castle. Rating: K Time: In an AU future.
Once the coffee rotation had been set up, Kate got to work. She wanted to learn as much as she could about the three suspects they'd seen the day before. She hated to do it, but she included her own father in the list. She booted up her computer and began to search the records.
The was thankful that her dad came out as a thoroughly upstanding citizen except for his problems with alcohol after her mom had been killed. Plenty of people had drunk too much due to the stress of the wars. Nothing there.
Next, she checked out Josh Davidson. He'd had trouble with women before he'd come to her attention, but she knew that already. Since she'd tried to bust him, he had a clean record. He'd either changed, which she thought unlikely, or he was a lot more careful. Nothing there.
Gina Cowell was just another good time girl. Arrests for solicitation and possession of controlled drugs, but nothing major. She noticed that Cowell had been in the military and checked those records. She'd been assigned to an anti-aircraft missile battery that had been badly shot up during the wars. She had been unhurt, but most of her friends had died. She'd had psychiatric treatment, but no treatment since service.
She was about to check the public records of the three when her phone rang.
"Beckett." She answered.
"It's me, Rick. We have a murder on our hands."
"Tell me where and who it is and I'll be there."
"Not over an unsecure line. Meet me out front in five minutes, okay?"
"I'll be there."
She went to tell Captain Gates that she'd be leaving.
"Ma'am, I just got a call from…" She looked around the room as if searching for a hidden mic "…those people. I have to leave."
Gates just nodded. Kate left the precinct.
In front of the precinct were three eight-wheeled armored vehicles. She wondered if Special Ops people always travelled in groups.
The rear ramp of one of them dropped down and Rick called for her to come on in.
Once inside she was handed a mug that she was sure held coffee. Not only did it hold coffee, but it was a grande skim latte with two pumps of sugar free vanilla.
"Okay, how did you know this is my favorite? I haven't been able to get this for years."
"I just did a little research on you." He smirked.
"Just how much do you know about me?"
"A lot less than you know about me."
"Oh, how do you know I haven't been looking into your private life?"
"You don't have the clearance to get anything at all about me and if you tried, I'd be notified immediately."
"I'm not sure that I like having you know so much about me while I know nothing about you."
"Let me buy you dinner and you can ask anything you like."
"I can ask, but will you answer?"
"Unless you ask about anything classified. Have you ever eaten at the Officers' Mess at Fort Foster?"
"Are you just being polite because your research already told you that I've never been there?"
"I'm asking because I don't know. Shall I pick you up about seven?"
Kate wasn't sure that she'd agreed to go out with him, but she nodded.
"Seven will be fine."
"Don't worry about having to dress up. Even though the wars have been over for more than a year, they haven't gotten back to peacetime spit and polish. Yet."
"Getting back to our job, who's the murder victim?"
"Captain Tom Demming, your favorite Constabulary officer. Don't worry, I already established you have an alibi."
"How?" Kate asked, getting just a bit angry.
"Technical means. Nothing intrusive."
"You'd better not have any photos of me nude, or you're in real trouble."
"Not a one. I swear."
They arrived at Demming's apartment to find two Special Ops troopers guarding the door. Once inside, they found Lanie and Dr. Tom examining the body. Demming was sitting in a chair in his living room.
"Anything, Lanie?" Kate asked.
"Single GSW to the right temple and his service sidearm is in his right hand. Someone tried to make this look like a suicide. There's no gunpowder stippling at all by the wound. That would have been a dead giveaway to the greenest ME that this was murder."
Dr. Tom stood up and moved to the vic's right.
"I figure if he did kill himself, he'd have had to have stood right about here when he shot himself sitting over there. Pretty good trick."
"Anything else?" Rick asked.
One of the Special Ops people spoke.
"You might want to take a look in the kitchen, Boss. Start with the freezer."
"The kitchen?" Rick said, heading there with Kate right behind. He opened the freezer.
"Wow! I haven't seen that much steak since I got promoted and General Montgomery took me to the General Officers' Mess."
"There's more than steak in there and they're all prime cuts. His rations aren't that much above mine and that'd be about ten years of my meat rations." Kate said.
"Check the cabinets, Boss."
Rick opened one.
"Wow, again. Now I haven't seen that much really expensive alcohol since I was invited to the Senior Sergeants' Mess for a drink a few years ago."
That made Kate curious.
"I'd have thought that the Officers' Mess would have the best alcohol."
"Most people think that." Rick said. "But the majority of the officers are junior officers who'll drink anything and probably spill most of it. The senior officers are too smart to spend money on their juniors, so they have a small supply of really good booze hidden away for their use only. But the Senior NCOs? They're mature men who truly understand what luxury is. Nothing but the best for them."
They went through the kitchen and found it stuffed with luxury food items.
"Okay if every Constabulary officer in New Eboracum put his annual rations together and had Demming keep it for parties and such, it might just explain this. Which I don't believe for a second." Rick said. "So, where the hell did he get all this black market stuff."
"You'll want to look in the bedroom, boss."
"He'd better not have been sleeping on a bed of twenty-year old Strathclyde whisky. That'd be too much."
He and Kate headed for the bedroom. Rick opened one closet.
"Kate, look at these and tell me what you think."
She examined the women's clothing in the closet.
"These are all high-end clothes. Very expensive. Very, very expensive."
Rick held up a diaphanous black shortie nightgown and then held it against himself.
"Do you think Demming liked to play dress up? I think he'd look rather fetching in this little number."
"The dresses are all different sizes, so I'd assume they were for his girlfriends. And if you're wondering what I'd look like in that black thing, don't."
Rick smirked.
"Never crossed my mind, Kate."
She didn't believe a word of it and stuck out her tongue at him.
They opened a second closet and found men's clothing.
"I recognize some of the tailors' markings." Rick said. "These are all hand made and hand made for Demming." He looked through the clothes. "Now here's something." He pulled out a uniform and held it up.
"It's his dress uniform. So?"
"Ah, my dear Detective Beckett, look at the rank. Demming had a dress uniform with a Constabulary major general's rank insignia on it. It's got his nametag on it, so it was meant for him. Our Constabulary captain was expecting to rise in the world. Interesting."
There was a commotion from outside and they could hear Ed's voice. In a minute he came into the bedroom.
"This is unbelievable, Rick. There's no way that Demming got all of this…Hell, there's no way he got any of this legitimately. This kind of corruption in the Constabulary is going to have MinSec working overtime. I'm going to call it in and have a forensics team go over the place. We'll have everyone who ever worked with Demming brought in and grilled and we'll have anyone who's ever been in the building brought in as well." Ed caught sight of the uniform Rick was holding. "What the hell is that? He was planning to become a Constabulary major general? He was barely capable as a captain." Ed shook his head.
Kate made a list of all the labels in the women's clothing and Rick did the same with the men's clothing. A check of high-end clothing boutiques and gentlemen's' tailors was of no help. Everyone readily admitted to knowing Captain Demming and told Rick and Kate that Demming had told them he came from a wealthy family, which Rick and Kate knew was a lie. Demmng had spread his shopping around to many places, so no one questioned his purchases. They admitted they weren't likely to question the purchases of a Constabulary officer anyway.
Rick checked his watch.
"It's getting close to seven. Ready for our date?"
"Are we going to stop investigating now?"
"The Tenth Directorate people will be along right behind us and ahead of us in most cases. We may as well have dinner."
"If the Tenth Directorate are handling this, why did we bother?"
"They have a reputation. The people we talked to will probably start turning in their mothers for some imagined crime just to get rid of the MinSec people. Sometimes that'll work and sometimes having a beautiful NEPD detective asking the questions works better. It was worth a try."
Kate managed to suppress a smile when Rick called her beautiful. She wasn't vain, but she knew she was attractive. But, it was nice to know he thought so as well.
They drove across the bridge on the Jollie River to Fort Foster and Rick pulled up in front of the Officers' Mess.
"Are you sure I'm dressed all right?" Kate asked. "I was enlisted when I was in the Army so I never saw the inside of the Officers' Mess. It always seemed kind of…intimidating."
"You're fine. Most people here will be off work and coming in for a drink and then dinner. Don't worry about it."
Rick took her arm and led her inside.
They were met by the hostess, Angela, according to her name tag. Angela had probably been drop-dead gorgeous in her youth and was still an attractive woman: Slender; firm bodied; and silver haired. She smiled at them.
"Colonel Castle and a date. Excellent. You need a good woman. You need a good woman badly. You're too old to be a bachelor."
"Angela, this is Detective Kate Beckett, NEPD. We're working a case together and we've only known each other for a couple of days."
Angela looked Kate over.
"An NEPD detective. That means she's not just gorgeous, but smart and tough. You should ask her to marry you tonight."
Kate laughed.
"I'm an old fashioned girl, Angela. I don't accept a marriage proposal until at least the third date."
"Then there's still hope for Rick." She turned to Rick. "Rick, General Montgomery is in the back office. He'd like to see you."
"Okay. Can you get Kate seated in the dining room and have someone get us drinks? My usual and whatever Kate wants." Rick smiled at Kate. "Montgomery probably wants an up to the second briefing on our case."
Rick walked a way and Kate was escorted to the dining room by Angela.
Rick went past Montgomery's protective detail without being challenged and went into the back office. Montgomery was sitting there, drinking three fingers of Strathclyde whisky. The bottle and an empty glass were on the table.
"Sit and pour yourself a drink. From what I've heard from MinSec, we'll be needing a stiff drink.
Rick poured himself a drink and sat.
"What do you think of Detective Beckett?" Montgomery asked.
"As advertised. They told us she's the best NEPD has and I believe them."
"Does she know anything about our connection to her mother?"
TBC