The pounding started around 8:55 in the morning. Someone was very insistent that they get into the loft. It wasn't until Castle heard the following words that he bolted out of bed and made his way to the front door. The second he did, he regretted it. His hangover took center stage. The pounding started again, and his head felt every blow.
"Richard Castle, this is the NYPD. We have a warrant for your arrest."
This made him stop short of the front door and rethink his approach. He didn't recognize the voice that made the demand, so at least it wasn't Kate. And for that he was grateful.
"Richard Castle, we know that you're in there. Make this easy on yourself and open the door, sir."
Knowing that he would never impede a police warrant being served, he took hold of the door handle and opened it. What he saw on the other side shook him. Standing there with a warrant clutched in her hand was Kate. Espo walked forward physically preventing him from moving from the doorway against the door that didn't open. Ryan made his way to the computer in Rick's office.
"Kate? What's going on?" Rick asked as she walked around the loft as if she owned the place. She was moving towards the bedroom and other areas in the loft, apparently looking for something.
"Can someone please tell me what's going on?" Rick demanded as patrol officers started to rummage through the loft and his question still went unanswered.
When Kate emerged from Castle's office, she had the shirt he'd been wearing last night in an evidence bag. She nodded to Javi, who turned Rick around, placed his chest against the door, pulled his left arm up behind his back, and cuffed his wrists together.
"Richard Castle, you are under arrest for the murder of Joshua Davidson."
"Wait, what? Hold on a sec…"
"You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. With these rights in mind, are you willing to talk to me about the charges against you? Do you understand these rights as I have read them to you?"
"Yes."
"Is there anything you'd like to say?"
Rick simply shook his head "no", not saying a word.
Xx
The police had the courtesy to let him get dressed instead of hauling him from the loft in his boxers and tee shirt. Esposito took him by the arm and brought him to his unmarked car. He took Detective Esposito's advice and didn't say one word. He kept silent the whole ride back to the 12th precinct. By the time they got to the precinct, it was just short of 9:30 in the morning. Esposito took him from the car and brought him straight up to an interrogation room where he connected his handcuffs to the center eye bolt in the middle of the table, just to make sure he wouldn't go anywhere. When Espo pulled tight on the cuffs to make sure they were locked securely Rick gave him a look and he knew that Esposito already had made up his mind on his guilt or innocence. And it wasn't in his favor. They let him sit in the interrogation room for almost an hour and a half before Ryan came in. The second Rick noticed him walking in, he knew that Kate had lost all respect for him as a friend and a person.
"Mr. Castle, where were you last night between the hours of 8 p.m. and 11 p.m.?" Ryan asked.
This could go either one of two ways. He always liked Ryan and if he spoke now, Kevin would get brownie points for making him talk. Kate and Esposito were certainly on the other side of the mirrored glass, watching the exchange. He just said the one thing that he knew would piss her off and maybe even get Esposito's ire up as well.
"I'm not saying anything until my lawyer arrives. It's my understanding that this is one of my rights as Detective Esposito read them to me. Until my attorney arrives, I'm not saying anything to you or your partner or even your boss," Rick said as he inclined his head towards the observation room but never once made eye contact with the two people in the room.
"Mr. Castle, that's your right, but if you do decide to talk I'm sure that the lead detective will go easy on you. Just give us your movements between the hours of 8 and 11 last night, then you might be able to get out of here sooner than you think," Ryan added hopefully.
Rick sat stiffly on the ridiculously uncomfortable chair and thought about how badly they wanted him for something he didn't do. He knew this was their tactic. They would play nice until they needed him to confess to something, whether he did it or not. He knew that when he left Josh in the alley last night he was very much alive. He knew this to be true. But the fact was that they didn't. And he was not going to willingly give up any information for them to mull over, no matter what. He was going to make them work for it. And if Kate had that little faith in him, to think that he would actually kill her boyfriend or any other human being, she had another thing coming.
"Detective, I repeat my request. I need to see my attorney before I speak to anyone working this case. That includes your boss - who I'm sure right now is looking at me, wondering why I'm not talking to you. And you can tell her, even though I know she can hear what is being said right now, that from this point forward I will have nothing to do with your team or the NYPD. Now if you don't mind, I'd like to make my phone call to my lawyer please."
Xx
Kate knew Rick was right. She and Espo were standing on the other side of the glass, watching Ryan try to get a confession out of him. It was a longshot that wasn't going to happen and they both knew it. This was Castle they were talking about here, and there was no way he could kill anyone, let alone her boyfriend. Still, she wasn't a hundred percent sure about his innocence. From the minute she received the phone call this morning from Dispatch until she talked to Lanie about what she had found on the body, it really could have been him, and that's what she was basing all her subsequent actions on.
As she looked at Rick through the glass she was slack-jawed, knowing that he just gave up working with them from now on. She wasn't going to be upset about him not working with her anymore, but it hurt to know that he left her.
She knew it was a gamble to send Ryan into Interrogation to ask Rick for an alibi, but if she laid eyes on Rick nothing would ever be resolved. However, she ended up having to go in anyway after she got the report from Lanie specifying Josh's COD. For now, she'd let him stew in his own juices for a while, then he could call his lawyer and have him show up while she questioned him on her own.
Xx
Kate was sitting at her desk when her phone rang. She looked at the caller ID and saw that it was Lanie calling.
"Beckett," she answered.
"Kate, I have the results from Josh's autopsy. On top of his face being beaten to a pulp, it seems that something heavy was dropped on his chest. If he didn't die from blows to his head, he would have died from internal injuries in a matter of minutes. There's no way he would have made it out of the alley to get help from anyone. The only two things that are out of the ordinary are the perfume and the nail polish chips that I found embedded in his shirt." Lanie sighed and went on sadly, "Castle is a match for the blood spatter. It's all over Josh's shirt, head, and the alley around his body. I'm not telling you how to do your job, girl, but if it were me I would look at Castle's hands to see if he has any abrasions or cuts on his knuckles."
Hearing this information from Lanie would definitely have given Kate the impression that Rick was the person who killed Josh. But two things that Lanie found had her second-guessing his guilt. The nail polish just threw her for a loop because she knew as well as anyone did that Rick didn't wear nail polish.
"Lanie, what is the COD?"
"His official cause of death is blunt force trauma. There are too many areas with too much damage to pin down which he actually died from, but that's my official ruling."
"Thanks, Lanie."
Once Kate hung up the phone she needed to add the autopsy findings to her murder board. She looked at the picture of Rick under the suspect list and couldn't believe it had come to this. Could he have done this? She hoped not, but her captain told her to go where the evidence leads, not the other way around.
"Beckett," Ryan called out to her.
"What is it, Ryan?"
"Listen, about Castle…"
"Ryan, I know that you did your best, but let's face it, Castle was never going to say anything incriminating to anyone. He's too smart and knows our playbook. Right now, I'm letting him think about what happened."
"That's the thing, Beckett," Kevin argued. "We really didn't give him anything to think about."
Kate spun around and looked at him with an arched eyebrow.
"What are you saying, Kevin?"
"We hauled him in here without any hard evidence. All we have is a bloody shirt, which is circumstantial at best. There's no security camera footage from the alley. Hell, we can't even put him at the scene. "Then there's the injuries. Can you explain how Rick crushed Josh's ribcage?"
"Listen, Kevin, my job is to gather evidence, find leads, and arrest a suspect for questioning. The DA is the one who has to build a case and prosecute."
"Come on, Beckett," Ryan persisted. "You know his attorney will have him turned loose before the sun sets tonight. You know if it was anyone other than Castle, you would have brought him in and questioned him as a Person if Interest then you would have let him go until we had some real evidence."
"Yeah, but he did it," Espo said as he walked into the bullpen heading towards his desk.
"Why do you say that?" Kate asked.
"Beckett, it's simple - motive. He couldn't stand you being with Motorcycle Boy. So, he took matters into his own hands and he offed the dude."
SMACK! Esposito flinched when Ryan's open palm forcefully contacted the back of his partner's head.
Spinning to confront his friend, Esposito bristled indignantly. "Seriously, dude?"
"What happened to 'innocent until proven guilty', huh? This is Castle, people. Not some low-life off the streets. He's been with us for years, he's our partner, he's saved our lives for God's sake."
"Either way, let's keep him in there. Espo, turn up the heat by ten degrees, let him sweat some more." Kate ordered.
"Nothing good can come of this 'rush to judgment'," Kevin pleaded. "Frankly, I'm disgusted at what I've participated in already."
"Ryan, go home," Beckett directed "You're too close to Castle to be objective."
"And you two are not? None of us should be anywhere near this case." Kevin turned and stalked away, disappearing into the elevator as its doors slid closed.