Very Castle Celebrations
Chapter 22
This July Fourth the Castle family will not only be celebrating their country's independence, but grabbing hold of the last of Kate's freedom from a daily grind. Much as he understands her need to return to full-time action, Castle isn't looking forward to Kate's absence from the loft. It's not that he feels inadequate to take care of Jackson. He and his son do just fine. It's just that he'll miss her. He's going to jam as much togetherness into the weekend as he can.
They will have company in the Hamptons house. Mother will have performances and be unable to drop in, but Alexis and Cary will be coming. He doesn't expect that their presence will be intrusive on his time with Kate. The young couple is so lost in each other that they will probably spend their hours in the sun strolling hand in hand along the beach or doing other things he'd rather not think about.
Other than the obligatory holiday barbecue, he and Kate won't be spending much time cooking. He made sure that the housekeeper stocked the fridge with an assortment of deli items that they can stuff into sandwiches or just open and eat.
Jungle-like humidity has descended on the city, spurring a mass exodus to find relief in the waters of the Atlantic and the ocean breeze. The ordinarily uncrowded beach below Castle's grounds may end up well populated. Fortunately, his pool is private. His usual preference is to use solar heating to keep it warm, but with the current weather, a cooler temperature will feel good. It's still a little early for Jackson to get his first swimming lessons, but the baby may welcome the chance to paddle his hands and feet in the water while supported by parental arms. Both Castle and Kate have had to do enough wiping up after their son's baths to know how much he enjoys splashing.
As she floats on her back, Kate's new bathing suit looks breathtaking. Still self-conscious about stretch marks, she's shied away from bikinis, but the ruby red one-piece hugs every toned curve and leaves little doubt that she's still the source of Jackson's nourishment. Castle would love to strip it off her, but Jackson is wide-awake in the portable playpen they've brought poolside. Also, as soon as she's out of the water, he'll have to start the grill. Like the college students they are, Alexis and Cary will be arriving just in time for lunch.
With Kate intent on keeping her abdomen taut and Alexis attempting to avoid the "freshman 15," he's making chicken. It's already marinated but will take a lot longer to reach a safe temperature without burning, than hamburgers or hotdogs would.
The air is becoming even more oppressive and what were white fluffy clouds have now darkened to an ominous gray. He can hear the first rumble of thunder in the distance. Looks like he won't have to worry about outdoor cookery after all. He calls to Kate. It doesn't take more than his finger pointed at the sky to get her out of the pool. She towels off quickly and picks up Jackson while Castle folds the playpen to carry it into the house.
Cary and Alexis are late, their drive slowed to a crawl by the pelting rain. They're both drenched by the time they've made the short run from Cary's car to the front door of the beach house. As the torrents beat against the windows, Castle would not dismiss the possibility of animals lining up two by two. He has the chicken under the broiler and a large pot of boiling water ready to receive the corn on the cob Kate is shucking. While Alexis and Cary are drying off, Kate also performs the honors on a watermelon, the sharp crack of her chef's knife hitting the cutting board and echoing off the tile in the kitchen.
Even with soggy guests and a lack of grill marks, the holiday feast is a merry occasion. Alexis is anxious to talk about both her seminar and her tutoring project. Castle can see Cary struggling to figure out how much he has to dumb down his discussion of the relationship of string theory to music, for consumption by a mystery writer and a former cop. All things considered, Castle thinks the young man does an admirable job.
Except for Jackson, everyone helps to clean up. Much as he could have done without the dampening of the celebration, Castle is grateful to be spared the chore of scraping charred bits of chicken from a grill rack.
With pool play and beachcombing on hold Castle hauls out the puzzles and board games that bear witness to summer evenings spent in the Hamptons with Alexis when she was growing up. The one game Castle doesn't want to play is Clue. He is firm in his resolve to put off detecting - at least for the long weekend.
The group decides to put together a giant jigsaw puzzle of fireworks exploding over the water - seeing as it is unlikely that they will experience the real thing in the deluge. After hours of fitting together 999 pieces, the picture is almost finished except for one missing piece. Alexis remembers that the piece went missing when she was six and she "accidentally" flushed it down the toilet.
Castle stares at what, although less than an inch wide, appears to be a gaping hole in an otherwise perfect scene. He hears Cary come up behind him and put a hand on his shoulder. "I know how you feel. It's like solving one of your mysteries. You can't stand not finding the one element that completes your story. When I'm working on a theory, I'm the same way. Everything is about filling in the missing factor so that the whole thing makes sense. But I think I know how we might be able to fix this. Do you have a printer here that works with your phone or your computer?"
Castle nods. "I have a 3-in-one. It works with both."
Cary claps his hands together. "Great! If your phone has a zoom, we can take a picture of the top of the puzzle box and capture the section where the missing part is. Otherwise, you can send your picture to your computer and enlarge and crop the area we need. It wouldn't have to be by a large enough factor cause much distortion."
Castle shakes his head. "No computer enlargement necessary. I can zoom in on part of an image on my photo app without losing much definition and then capture the result with a screen shot. I see what you're getting at. If I can print out that part of the puzzle, we can make a piece to fill in what's missing. I think I even have some cardboard and glue around here that we can use to make an insert that's reasonably sturdy. We can trace the hole to make our fill-in the right shape." Castle is delighted with how quickly he and Cary replace the missing sky-sparkles.
Kate recognizes the expression on Castle's face as he surveys the completed picture. "What's rattling around in your brain, Babe?"
He can't help grinning at her. "I know I said I wasn't going to think about Havah Greenspan's case while we were here, and I won't anymore. But I just realized that even without street cams and TV coverage, someone is always taking photographs at a parade. That would be even truer if a rumble broke out. The pictures might have made The Ledger, or if not, perhaps the Jewish News. Either way, they'd be in a newspaper morgue somewhere. If we're lucky, those photos will have our missing piece - whoever dealt Havah her fatal blow."
Kate sighs as she pushes her hair behind her ear. "It's a long shot, Castle."
He agrees, but if he can find the right images, it will shrink a decades-old haystack.
