Shared Obsession Chapter 17
Slightly stiff from a restless night, Castle drops into his accustomed seat next to Kate's desk. He looks on as she hunches over her computer screen. "What are you doing?"
"Filling out the paperwork to dismiss the charges against Scoville."
"Shouldn't you have done that already when the forensics cleared him?"
"Montgomery was upset that we have to let him go. Before Romy finally fessed up, he'd already told the mayor we got the guy. Before he backpaddles, he wants to make sure all the Is are dotted, and the Ts crossed. We got the ballistics back on the bullet that killed Max. It matches the one that killed Donny. So, case closed, I can cut Scoville loose. But I really thought he did it. I'm usually better at reading people."
"In the time we spent with Max, he barely said a word. As suspicious as I was, I still thought he was just knuckling under Brandon. We couldn't have known about the guilt that must have been eating at him. People are good at hiding their pain, Beckett. Sometimes too good."
"Yeah, he must have been a mess inside," Kate agrees. "Imagine shooting your best friend and having to lie about it."
"Hold on a second, Beckett. Why did he have to lie about it? If it happened the way Romy described it, it would have been involuntary manslaughter at most, right? He didn't mean any harm. None of the kids did. It was just a terrible tragedy. And those kids are in an accelerated program. None of them should be 18 yet. As minors, if there were convictions, wouldn't they be sealed? With the fancy lawyers those kids' parents could afford, the whole mess would probably just disappear.
"And there's another thing that's been bugging me. Why would Max go back and move Donny's body? Actually, he would have moved it twice. From the blood pool, it looked like he'd been shot on the bench, waiting for a drug deal, then fallen to the ground. Then he was dragged to the boat. If all the kids just ran off after Donny died, he would have stayed on the ground where he fell. Max would have had to be a cold-blooded killer to try and set Scoville up like that."
Kate presses her fingertip to her mouth. "And cold-blooded killers don't commit suicide out of guilt."
"Not any I'd ever write about," Castle agrees.
Kate's cell dings a text. "This is from Lanie. She says she found something inconsistent with suicide."
Pressing his hands against Kate's desk, Castle pushes out of his chair. "Why am I not surprised?"
Lanie points to the body on the table. "At first pass, it looks like suicide. But under the scope, I found an abrasion on his trigger finger. Normally we don't look for that, but this case felt so wrong…."
Kate nods. "I'm beginning to know what you mean."
"So what does the abrasion imply?" Castle inquires.
"That someone might have helped him pull the trigger. And one more thing. His blood alcohol level was 0.28."
"If he drank that much, wouldn't he have passed out?" Castle queries.
"Or pretty damn close," Lanie agrees.
"So someone could have put the gun in his hand and made him fire it," Kate realizes. "Max was murdered."
"And whoever did it, thought to hold onto the gun that killed Donny and use it again on Max," Castle adds. "Maybe the idea all along was to kill Donny. Someone put a bullet in that gun. This whole case reeks of a murderous conspiracy. And who in that tight little group orchestrates conspiracies?"
"Brandon!" Kate and Castle exclaim together.
"But his buddy Spencer bought the bullets," Kate recalls.
"Yes," Castle agrees, "he did."
Lanie raises an eyebrow as the detective and her shadow rush out of her lab. "That was interesting."
Kate stares across the box's no-frills metal table at Spencer. "You bought the bullets."
"That was just to screw around," Spencer protests.
"Does screwing around mean putting a bullet in the chamber so that Max would shoot Donny?" Kate presses.
"Detective Beckett," a Gentleman's Quarterly version of an attorney objects, "I can't allow my client to answer a question like that."
Kate ignores him and continues. "If the point of your little game was to shoot without bullets, why would you have them at all?"
"I told you I didn't know there were any bullets in the gun," Spencer retorts.
"Well, somebody did," Kate asserts. "And whoever it was killed Max. So where were you between 6:30 and nine last night?"
"At my Dad's club, with Brandon."
"Do you always hang around a club on a school night – a school night after one of your friends died?" Castle questions. "Or is it just a convenient alibi?"
Kate heads for the door. "Let's see if Brandon corroborates it."
Kate and Castle take seats opposite Brandon in the Redding Prep cafeteria. Brandon leans forward, his sincere gaze aimed at Kate. "Look, I know Romy and Spencer told you guys everything and that we're in big trouble. But I'm glad everything's finally out in the open. We should have just come clean with you guys after the accident."
Kate's eyes narrow. "Damn straight, you should have."
"But we didn't want to screw Max over," Brandon insists.
"So, instead, you decided to frame an innocent man for murder?" Kate returns.
"He isn't innocent. He's a drug dealer. He hooked Donny in the first place."
"Which makes him expendable?" Castle rejoins.
"I told Romy it was wrong to identify him as the killer, but she was determined to protect Max," Brandon claims. "She's been mothering him since fourth grade."
"Real motherly to get your kicks pointing guns at your friends," Castle counters. "And I suppose you played father. So where was father when Max was killed?"
Brandon lounges back in his chair. "Max wasn't killed. He committed suicide because he couldn't live with shooting Donny."
"Whose death appears to have bothered you a lot less," Kate observes. "So, where were you?"
"With Spenser, at his Dad's club. Ask him. I'm sure he'll confirm it."
"Which could easily be another lie," Kate points out. "You guys always agree on your stories, don't you? You weren't at the park. It was the drug dealer. It was Max. You're always in sync. Maybe that's why I have no reason to believe you now."
"You don't have to believe me," Brandon declares triumphantly. "I have proof. We'd take videos of the game, just for laughs, you know?"
Castle snorts. "Sure, pretending to shoot your friends is hilarious."
"Sometimes it's best to have the last laugh," Brandon throws back. "Romy's dad, Mr. Lee, is an IT geek. He hooked us up to share files over Bluetooth. Amanda shot this that night." Brandon holds up his phone, displaying a short video.
Castle winces as Donny doubles over and falls to the ground. "Convenient that you decided to play where there was enough light to pick up the action."
Brandon shrugs. "Your tax dollars at work. The city's trying to deter crime."
Castle shoves himself away from the table in disgust. "It didn't do much to deter this one."
"Not a crime," Brandon insists, "an accident."
Rising to join Castle, Kate turns back to Brandon. "Playing with an unlicensed gun, making false statements, obstructing an investigation. I think you'll find there's more than enough crime to go around, Brandon."
Brandon offers her a card.
"What's this?"
"The number for our family's lawyer. I believe he hasn't lost a case yet."