Shattered Lies
Chapter 49
Kate gazes wide-eyed at Persky. "You were a homicide detective? How exciting! Did you have any big cases?"
Persky shrugs. "Not too many. Where I was, it was mostly drug dealers and those people killing each other. You know what I mean. Check for any obvious witnesses. Make a report. Not that much else, except for this one case that made the papers. There was this gangster rapper who came from one of the gangs; you know the type. He decided to go back to the old neighborhood; claimed he wanted to do something for the kids there, and he got himself shot. The department made a big deal of it because it wanted to look good to the press, so we had to work hard on that one."
"Did you find out who did it?" Kate asked.
"Some gang leader, they called him Speedball. The rapper was preaching in some kind of campaign to get kids off drugs. Anyway, Speedball decided he might cut into his business and took him out. He wouldn't have changed anything anyway. Those people are determined to kill themselves and each."
"Not interested in bettering themselves," Castle agrees. "Mothers with kids and no fathers around. They just jump into the sack."
"Right," Persky concurs, digging into a slice of pecan pie and smacking his lips. "Ooh. Marybelle outdid herself. This is outstanding. But yeah, a lot of loose bitches popping out pups, and doing - whatever- for money. I did have a case like that. She was from the islands or something. Had two kids, a boy, and a girl. Probably putting out to buy groceries and things went bad for her. At least that's what I figured. No witnesses. No real evidence, so my lieutenant said I could pack everything up and let it go."
Kate leans over the table, aiming her cleavage at Persky's eye line. "If there was no evidence, what did you have to pack up?"
"Clothes and stuff the medical examiner took off the body. He said there might be some tests that could be run on them someday. Stupid, right? Why would anyone want to? But if the N.Y.P.D. decides to keep that junk around forever, it's no skin off my nose, right? Damn! This pie really is delicious. Can't get it like this in New York, can you?"
"Nowhere I know of," Castle agrees, thinking of at least three bakeries that could probably do the job quite nicely.
Persky pats his expanding belly and dabs at his lips with a paper napkin. "Well, it has been a real pleasure meeting you folks, but I want to get home before the game starts."
Castle gives him a thumbs up. "I hear you, man. Should be a great one." He can barely contain himself until the bell on the door signals Persky's departure. "Kate, that was brilliant! You reeled in that bigoted asshole like one of the fish in the lake."
"Yeah, Castle. Now we just have to track down where the N.Y.P.D. is storing the evidence from Jada Bergeron's murder - if they still are, and hope that any DNA on those clothes didn't degrade too much to analyze. And then we'll have to find a match."
Castle grabs a quick kiss. "I'll bet Montgomery can help us, and Lanie's pick of forensics gurus and the technological marvels Out of the Cold has purchased, can do the job. But you know what? I didn't schedule the charter to take us back to New York until tomorrow afternoon, and one of the pamphlets we picked up said there's an open house going on at the field station tomorrow. We might be able to get a line on someone who could be useful to Out of the Cold at some point. If nothing else, it could be a nice jaunt by a lake - if you're into it. Or would you rather spend your time playing fun and games at the hotel?"
"Maybe," Kate proposes, using her fork to scrape the last bit of peachy pastry from her heavy stoneware dessert plate, "we can do both."
Castle strays from the group as the guide explains the ins and outs of the minnow farming that still supports many residents of the area. The tour would have made a great field trip for Alexis' middle school class, but's it's not exactly what he had in mind.
The visit isn't a total loss. He and Kate have managed to get the name of a professor who studies the breakdown of things in fresh water, that they can contact later if need be. But as Castle stands on the lakeshore, visions begin to bombard him of another body of water, a much smaller one.
Some of his sitters occasionally pried themselves off the couch long enough to take him to Central Park. He liked the carousel when he had money to ride it, and he loved wandering around the zoo. But he especially enjoyed climbing on the big boulders around the lake. They weren't always available. Teenagers used them as make-out spots, which when he was young had a definite ew factor. There was one afternoon when his sitter had settled on a bench with her paper bag and left him free to roam. His favorite rocks were unoccupied, and he was having a great time until he slipped into the water, spraining his ankle as he fell.
He managed to pull himself out, but cold, wet, and in pain, he was trying to limp back to Martha's latest hire when a man approached him and said he could help. The would-be rescuer offered a beach towel he said he'd been using to lie on the grass and suggested that if the little boy went in some bushes with him, he'd help him dry off.
The miserable Richard Rodgers had agreed, but once he started to shed his clothes, discovered that the kindly stranger had other things on his mind than helping him. When he realized what was happening, he screamed, kicked and eventually bit to get away.
His minder was too set on giving him a lecture about showing up wet and dirty to listen to his story, and after a while, he pushed it to the back of his mind. It was more fun to write his first tales of spies who could defeat any villain without even messing up their hair.
He couldn't even remember what the man in the park looked like. It was as if his mind had pushed what happened down into a hole somewhere and thrown dirt in on top of it. But after Kate asked him about his own trauma, the memory had slowly begun to push its way to the surface and while he was looking over the water had emerged full-blown. He remembers a face leering at him, and nausea rising in his throat at the feel of the man's hands on him. It all descends on him like one of Central Park's boulders crashing on his head.
Kate startles Rick as she comes to join him. "What's going on Babe? You look like you lost your best friend."
Castle turns to her. "Hardly. She's standing right in front of me."
"So where's that famous Castle smile? Come on, Rick, what's wrong?"
Castle stares out again at the rippling blue surface. "Kate, I have something I want to, need to, tell you."
Kate grabs for his hand pulling him down to sit cross-legged on the grass with her. She frames his face in her palms. "Whatever it is, I'm listening."