The Death and Life of Teresa Wyler

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Do I really have to tell you I don't own Castle? Rating: K Time: Shortly after the episode Still.

"How serious?" Kate asked.

"We started having sex. Oh, I should tell you, my lawyer in LA said I should tell you that George and I didn't have sex before I was seventeen. Seventeen is the age of legal consent in the State of New York, right?"

"Yes, it is. I wouldn't worry about it though. The DA is highly unlikely to charge a man when they've put him in jail for fifteen years for a crime he didn't commit. It would look like they were trying to punish him for being right when they were wrong."

"That's good." Mrs. Gordon said with a smile.

"Please continue." Kate said.

"Well, I got pregnant with Missy. That's our daughter, Melissa. George insisted that we get married, and my parents agreed. They were kind of upset that I'd gotten pregnant, but they felt that I'd be better off with George than with some of my high school boyfriends. As Daddy said, "At least he isn't some dope smoking hippie."."

Kate suppressed a smile thinking about some of the things her dad had said about her boyfriends in high school.

"It was really great. I had this wonderful home, and we had a live-in maid to take care of things and George hired a nanny right off. She was from England and really knew her stuff. He even bought me my own car. He got me a brand-new Corvette. And clothes? I could buy anything I wanted, and George would just smile. He said he wanted me to be happy."

"And were you?" Rick asked.

"At first. I still hung around with my old high school friends since George was at work a lot. But we did go places. He took me to Europe and the Caribbean, and he even bought a place in upstate New York where we could get away for a weekend. I guess the relationship between me, and my friends had changed. I had all this money and they had none, really. And even when I paid for everything, they accused me of being a showoff, like I was trying to buy their friendship. They called me Mrs. Rich Bitch. It took a while, but eventually my old friends and I drifted apart."

"How long did that take?" Kate asked.

"Maybe three years. I still had fun. I could go to movie matinees, and Broadway shows and just go out and do things in New York. There's always something to do here, just like in LA."

"I guess I started thinking about things when I turned twenty-one. Did I really just want to be Mrs. George Wyler for the rest of my life? I thought about if for nearly a year and finally decided the answer was no. I wanted more."

"What did you want then?" Rick asked.

"I didn't really know. But I wanted out. I guess I could have just asked for a divorce, but I really didn't know anything about the law. It seemed just easier to just up and leave. George never paid any attention to my spending, so I was able to get a little nest egg together of $30,000. And then one day I walked out the front door and never looked back."

"You left without telling Mr. Wyler why you were leaving?" Kate asked.

"Oh, no. I wrote him a three-page letter explaining it all. I left it right on his desk where he'd be sure to see it. You can't imagine how surprised I was to hear that George had been convicted of my murder."

"You never heard about the trial, in Los Angeles? Did you go straight to LA?" Rick asked.

"Not a word. And yes, I did go straight to LA. I didn't want to fly because you have to show your ID and everything and I was afraid George would go after me and try to win me back. So, I found this girl who was driving to LA and wanted someone to share expenses and share driving. I paid her in cash, having left all of my credit cards with George, and gave her a phony name. And before I knew it, I was in LA."

"What did you do in LA?" Rick asked.

"I got a job right off at Zenith Studios. I got a job in wardrobe." Teresa giggled. "One thing about buying so many clothes. I did learn a whole lot about clothing."

Rick and Kate exchanged glances. Zenith was the studio where Heat Wave had been shot. Rick could use his contacts to check on her story.

"Did you divorce Mr. Wyler?" Kate asked.

"Of course." Teresa said. "I'd never have married Duke if I was still married to someone else. As soon as I got a job, I got an attorney and filed for divorce. The attorney put an ad in the local papers advising George that I was divorcing him, and I got a no-fault divorce."

"And then?" Kate asked.

"I met Duke. He went to the UCLA Film School, and we just clicked. He had lots of ideas about movies, and we got a little money together, he had some and I still had most of my nest egg and we made a film." She giggled again. "I mean it wasn't Citizen Kane or The Godfather, but Ravenous Mutant Cyborg Zombie Piranhas grossed eleven times its budget. Not many films can say that."

"Ravenous Mutant Cyborg Zombie Piranhas?" Rick said, struggling to keep a straight face.

"Oh, people laugh, but it paid for my new boobs." She shook her boobs and Kate was afraid that they'd fall out, but they didn't.

"So, you're in the movie business?" Castle asked.

"Indeed, we are. Duke is the producer, director and writer and I'm the star. And I help him with some of the other things."

"Okay, Mr. and Mrs. Gordon, I think we're done here. If you'll wait a bit, we can have the recording transcribed and you can sign it. The District Attorney's office would like to talk to you. I understand there's someone from their office here to take you there."

"Oh, thank you, Detective Beckett and Mr. Castle and may I say we have Heat Wave on DVD, and we just love it. There are some problems but the story was fantastic. Isn't that right Duke?"

Duke just nodded.

"Thanks." Castle said, a bit embarrassed. Heat Wave had not been the success he'd hoped for. Far from it.

Once the Gordons had left for the DA's office, Kate went over the transcript of the hearing, looking for inconsistencies, or things she could follow up on. She found nothing.

Castle, meanwhile, had gone to make a phone call. He was back in ten minutes.

"I called a few friends at Zenith Studios. They know, or at least know of, the Gordons. They both worked there, she in wardrobe and he wrote a couple of scripts for low budget action movies they did. He did go to UCLA, but never graduated. Right now, they make low budget soft core porn movies, starring Teresa. Oh, she's known as Teri Gordon, professionally. They make two movies a year that go direct to DVD and make enough money to make two more movies the next year and live a nice, if not opulent, LA lifestyle. The people at Zenith put me onto a site where we can watch some of their movies."

"We?" Kate said. "Soft core porn?"

"I could watch it by myself."

Kate glared Ryan and Esposito into silence, then smiled at Rick.

"Okay. Maybe something will give you some good ideas."

Castle just groaned.

Gates had been out at One PP during the statement from Teresa Gordon, but came back later. Rick and Kate briefed her on what had been said.

"She said she left a handwritten letter to George Wyler when she left?" Gates asked, obviously not believing it. "Do you believe her?"

"Not really. There was no one in the house after she left until Mr. Wyler got home, their security system showed that and he certainly had no reason to not mention it even if he'd destroyed the note. I think Mrs. Gordon just made that part up to make herself look good for the press. But, there's no way we can prove she's lying. It wouldn't do us any good anyway. There's no law that says you have to leave a note when dumping your husband."

"And she said she never heard anything about Mr. Wyler's trial? It was front page news for weeks."

"Yes, sir. It was front page news in New York, but maybe not in LA. And again, there's no law that says you have to report that you haven't been the victim of a murder."

"Even if it was front page news, there's no reason to think she would have seen it." Castle added. "There are people who have no interest in anything happening in the world. They don't know who the President is and don't care. I wouldn't take Teresa Gordon for anyone who looks at anything other than the entertainment section of the newspapers. Maybe the comics."

Gates glared at Castle, but she knew Detective Beckett and her shadow were right. They couldn't prove anything Teresa Gordon had said was a lie and even if they did, there was no crime committed.

Rick and Kate went home that night and came back to the precinct the next morning.

"How was your movie night?" Espo asked.

"Awful." Kate said.

"We got four of their movies, plus Rabid Demented Psycho…Whatevers." Castle said.

"That's Ravenous Mutant Cyborg Zombie Piranhas, Castle." Kate corrected.

"They basically make the same two movies each year. One is a post-apocalyptic action flic that's probably filmed in the desert east of LA. It features Teri Gordon as the queen of a female tribe fighting off radioactive male zombies. All the women wear leather bikinis but manage to shed them for some reason in about the first ten minutes of the film. The second is shot in an abandoned high school in LA County somewhere. Teri is a teacher with a group of cheerleaders who are menaced by extraterrestrial invaders who take over the bodies of the male teachers and students. Somehow, fighting off the aliens involves the women taking off their clothes."

"Makes sense." Esposito said. "Any teenaged male could easily be controlled by a naked cheerleader. The aliens wouldn't stand a chance."

"Thank you for that brilliant critique of the film." Kate said sarcastically. "You should drop by the New York Times and offer your services."

"So how is Teresa Gordon as an actor?" Ran asked.

"She makes my ex-wife Meredith look like Meryl Streep by comparison, or perhaps the legendary Katherine Houghton Hepburn."

"The worst was Ravenous Mutant Cyborg Zombie Piranhas." Kate said. "Truly a stinker for the ages."

Castle nodded.

"Alexis' third grade Christmas play was better and more believable."

They were interrupted by Tori Ellis, the precinct's computer expert.

"Castle, I did the search you asked for last night."

"You asked for a search?" Kate said.

"I forgot to tell you in the excitement of seeing Raving Monstrous Crappy…"

"What do you have for us, Tori?" Kate said with a smile, cutting off Rick.

"I did a word search in the LA papers for the name Wyler from the day that Teresa Wyler was allegedly killed to a week after George Wyler's conviction. I got a couple of hits for William Wyler, a director from Hollywood's Golden Age, and a James and Louisa Wyler, student athletes at USC."

"James Wyler pitched for the Mets for a couple of seasons." Espo said.

"And Louisa Wyler missed being on the US Swimming team for the Sydney Olympics by a fraction of a second." Tori added.

"We'll brief Captain Gates on what we've found." Kate said.

Gates nodded after Kate briefed her.

"The hearing for George Wyler's release is tomorrow. The DA wants both of you there in case there are any questions about Teresa Gordon's statement. Considering she said nothing of relevance to the case, I don't see any reason for you two to be there, but that's what the DA wants." Gates said.

"We'll be there, sir, but all that's needed is the fingerprint expert's testimony and the DNA specialist to prove that Teresa is alive."

TBC