Disclaimer: Yeah, you know the story by now...

Chapter Seven

Detective Richard Castle stood stoically in front of the unwelcoming metal table in Interrogation Room One. In his hands he grasped a manila folder and in his eyes lurked a steel hardness, as cold as the slab in autopsy where Marcus Albicca lay. Behind the table, a nervous Parker Lin sat staring at his fiddling hands.

After a brittle silence, Castle began in a soft voice. "So, Mr. Lin, you have a bit of a temper, don't you?

Parker rubbed his face with his hand, as if he hoped to gain some sort of false security from the gesture. "That was a while ago. I've changed."

The detective only raised his eyebrow. "Zero points for originality, Lin. I've heard that one too many times to count."

Lin stared up at the detective; dark brown eyes met flashing indigo with a tangible harshness. Castle continued, "You know Marcus Albicca?"

This was confirmed with a sharp nod.

"So why'd you kill him?"

Suddenly, a distant anger gushed into the mahogany depths of Parker Lin's eyes. "I didn't kill him." Blunt determination leaked into his voice.

"Heard that one before too."

Parker took the bait, and he bit back with a vengeance. "Look, detective; I had nothing to do with Marcus' death," he bellowed with surprising force for a man of his impeded stature. "We were…" he trailed off, once again seeking solace in observing his hands on the table, "Good friends."

"Really? 'Cause I have a witness that saw you and Mr. Albicca arguing a few days ago. Care to explain that?"

Lin sat still, engulfed in the cocoon of his own silence.

"You got angry, didn't you Lin? It's happened before. It just got too much; the anger just bubbled and toiled inside you, until it was at a rolling boil and it all just overflowed. So you killed him. But why?"

"I didn't kill Marcus!" Lin yelled as he rose from his plastic chair, and the room quaked when his fist met the table. And with that, Detective Castle knew he had Lin; all he had to do now was watch Lin unnervingly and see that rocky exterior shatter like glass under a hail of bullets.

"I could never kill Marcus. I loved him." Castle heard the reverberations of sincerity's bells in his voice. "We argued a few days ago; yes. Marcus and I have – had- been together for eight months, and though I came out of the closet a while ago now, Marcus hadn't." Parker Lin gazed up at the detective, gaging his reaction, but if Castle was surprised, there was no hint of it in his cold blue eyes. "We fought because I wanted him to stop keeping it a secret about us, but Marcus was scared of how people would react. It frustrated the hell out of me, but we settled it. We couldn't stay mad at each other for long."

Castle nodded almost imperceptibly. "I hope that's the truth, Lin, but I'm still going to need an alibi for 8 to ten AM on Monday."

There was a little softness in his command that convinced Lin that the detective believed him, and he closed his eyes, thinking. "I was at work," he said hesitantly, "I work at Walker's Café. I went in early that morning to catch up on some stuff. God, I shouldn't have gone."

Behind the glass, Kate Beckett frowned and pulled out her phone.

However inside the metal box, Richard Castle walked towards the central table. "No, Parker," he began sincerely, "whichever bastard did this shouldn't have killed Marcus."


After Castle arrived back into the bullpen after escorting Parker Lin out, a crease emerged between his eyebrows as he caught sight of a certain woman smiling all too delightedly at her cellphone. "Boyfriend?" he shot at Kate Beckett in a vain attempt to sound off-hand. Unfortunately for him, his voice broke mid-word, and his nonchalance ended up about as smooth as that of an over-caffeinated, over-protective grandmother. Not quite the look he was going for.

Kate Beckett raised one eyebrow and smiled cunningly. "Daughter, Castle."

Castle almost spat out his coffee, and the resulting snort-choke wasn't in the slightest bit attractive. "You have a daughter?"

Kate's face was suddenly so tender; so sweet, that Castle found himself even more drawn to her. "Indeed I do. Her name is Alexis, and she's thirteen. She's wonderful." The reverence in her voice shone a thousand times brighter than her words.

"I'm sure she is," Castle agreed animatedly. "Wait, thirteen?"

Kate Beckett laughed loudly at Castle's math-isn't-my-strong-point expression. "I adopted Alexis when she was seven," she explained, and Castle's incredulous face cleared. "Do I really look that old, Castle?" she teased.

"No!" Castle yelped. "I didn't mean… I thought… you," he stuttered incomprehensibly as the ruby tinge flourished in his cheeks.

Kate's grin only widened.


"Okay, thank you very much," Ryan finally put down his phone after a one-sided 'conversation' with a particularly chatty café-owner, who didn't seem at all fazed that his employee was a possible criminal. "Hey, Castle!" He called across the Precinct to where Castle sat at his computer.

"Yeah?" the other detective called back as he made his way across the near-deserted bullpen.

"Lin's alibi is clear. Manger confirms that Lin turned up early Monday morning. But then…" he trailed off.

"We kinda already figured that one," Castle finished.

"Right," Ryan concluded. "So what now? Go over what we have; see if we've made a mistake?"

There was a long pause, where Castle was prevented from speaking by his fixation with the murder board. "The page from the book," he answered finally. "That's what I don't get. Why leave a specific page from a specific book behind if it doesn't mean anything? I think that's our next lead."

Ryan nodded. "We could check Albicca's apartment again, see if there's anything there?"

"Good idea."

"Didn't we give the keys to the apartment back to the building manager?"

"Yeah; we had no reason for which to keep them at that point. Hattie Preston, right?"

Ryan nodded again.

"Well then, let's go."


Detectives Castle, Ryan, and Esposito were chatting amiably as they entered the apartment building. The conversation, revolving around highly important topics such as who was going to thrash whom at the next PlayStation night, lasted until they reached Hattie Preston's door.

"Mrs. Preston? " called Castle. "NYPD. Could we have a moment of your time?"

A loud thump resounded, followed by a crashing of something unintelligible. After a pregnant pause, Hattie Preston shouted hysterically: "Don't come in!"