Shared Obsession Chapter 61
"Did you make contact?" Kate asks softly as Castle returns to his spot by her desk.
"I did, but we'll need somewhere more private to talk about it."
"Castle, we'll find a place to do that when we can, but things exploded on the Allison Goldman case while you were gone. The boys are running down some new leads now." Esposito gestures Kate toward Ryan's desk. "Looks like they've got something. Come on."
"This is Allison Goldman's laptop," Ryan explains, indicating a small computer. "We're looking at her email account. Allison wrote, 'Lee, can we meet on Tuesday instead, this week?' Lee writes back, 'Sounds good, the usual place."
"So Allison's imaginary boyfriend has a very real email account," Castle observes.
"He goes by the screen name LWax220. The husband said that didn't sound familiar to him."
"No surprise there," Castle comments.
"Cyber tracked it down," Esposito continues. "And get this, Castle. The guy's a writer."
"A real writer or an 'I took a course at the learning annex' writer?" Castle questions.
Esposito turns the laptop towards Castle, displaying an author's page showing pictures and descriptions of a few titles. "His name is Lee Wax. He writes true crime."
Castle scans the book listings. "Bobby Socks and Blood, the True Story of a Cheerleader, an Eagle Scout and the Murder that Shocked America. Not my segment of the book-loving crowd. Still, the genre has its fans."
"Maybe Wax wanted some new ones," Kate speculates. "He wasn't selling enough books detailing other people's murders and wanted to commit something original to write about."
"Death by motor oil is original," Castle notes.
As Beckett knocks insistently on the door of Lee Wax's apartment, it drifts open. She puts her hand on her weapon. "Stay out here, Castle." She enters cautiously, automatically using law enforcement protocols to clear the space, then signals to Castle. "There's no one here. You can come in."
A woman's voice calls angrily from the hall. "Who the hell are you?"
Castle turns to see an attractive woman holding an empty trash container. "Who are you?"
"I'm Lee Wax and you're in my apartment."
Castle's eyebrows rise. "You're Lee Wax?"
"That's right. And either you tell me who you are right now or I call the cops."
Beckett holds up her badge. "I am a cop, Detective Kate Beckett. We'd like to ask you some questions about Allison Goldman."
"Allison?" Lee reaches for her phone. "Uh, just let me get my lawyer."
"And why do you think you need a lawyer?" Kate asks.
"Why do you think?" Lee returns.
"So you're confessing?" Castle queries.
Lee stares at him in confusion. "Confessing? I'm not confessing to anything. My publisher instructed me not to talk to law enforcement until I have my lawyer present."
"Your publisher?" Kate echoes.
"Yes. And I would like to state for the record that I never harbored nor did I conceal a fugitive."
"Conceal a fugitive? What are you talking about?" Kate demands.
"Allison Goldman. If you're here, you obviously found her."
"Yes," Kate confirms, "murdered."
"Murdered? Murdered by whom?"
"Given your regular meetings with her, the natural suspect would be you," Castle points out.
"Why would I kill her? I'm a ghostwriter working on her memoir," Lee explains.
"Why would Allison Goldman need a memoir?" Kate queries. "None of this adds up. We'll need to talk at the 12th Precinct. If you like, you can call your lawyer to meet us there."
Lee shakes her head. "Wait!" She reaches into a pile of papers and old articles on a table and holds up an FBI wanted poster with a photograph of a younger, but recognizable Allison Goldman."
"So Allison was a fugitive," Castle realizes. "Beckett, the stolen identity, the lies to Michael Goldman, this case is finally starting to make sense."
"And my book about her should be a blockbuster," Lee declares.
"But she was murdered," Castle reminds the would-be biographer.
"Which," Lee proclaims triumphantly, "will make it sell even better."
Beckett points to the FBI poster clipped to the murder board. "That's Allison Goldman?" Montgomery asks.
"Aka Cynthia Dern," Kate replies. "In 1989, she and two friends set off a bomb aboard a tanker owned by a big oil company."
Montgomery nods. "I remember this. Some environmentalists were protesting the Exxon Valdez spill."
"Yes. One was caught. One was killed. But Cynthia Dern was never found," Kate continues.
Montgomery stares at the crime scene photos of Cynthia's oil-covered body. "It looks like her past finally caught up to her."
Castle takes a seat next to Beckett, opposite Lee Wax and her lawyer in the box. "This is unnecessary," attorney Tim Eikhorn insists. "My client obviously had nothing to do with Cynthia Dern's murder. She was just putting out her story to the public which she has a first amendment right to do."
"A story she admits would be more lucrative with a murderous ending," Castle throws back.
"What we need here are the complete facts," Kate interjects. "Given the manner of Cynthia Dern's death, the murderer was using the oil to send some kind of a message. Ms. Wax, what exactly did Cynthia tell you happened aboard that oil tanker?"
"Jared Swanstrom built the bomb. Cynthia and Susan Mailer snuck on board to set it. Only something went wrong. The last thing their eco-terrorist group wanted was another spill. The oil was scheduled to have been completely pumped out of the ship and no one was supposed to be aboard. But the captain, Sam Pike had come back. He was paralyzed in the explosion."
"How did you track down Cynthia?" Kate asks.
"I didn't," Lee admits. "She contacted me. She'd decided to turn herself in but before she did, she wanted to get her story out to the public and express her remorse."
"And get public opinion on her side," Castle speculates.
"It's a great way to influence a potential jury pool," Lee agrees.
"But she did it, right? She blew up a ship and paralyzed a man. So how was she planning on influencing them?" Kate presses.
"Cynthia told me that on the night of the bombing she tried to back out when she realized Pike was aboard. She said she argued with Susan Mailer to call it off. But Susan refused and went to set the bomb herself. Ironically, she was killed in the explosion. She was vaporized."
"Unless you're talking about a nuclear explosion, and even that is controversial, bombs don't vaporize people," Castle asserts. "I had to study their effects for three different books. They blow victims back, burn them, take off body parts, and cause lethal concussions, but don't vaporize them. Any decent forensics team would find what was left of Susan Mailer."
"But no one ever found a trace of her," Lee argues.
"Which means that there is something seriously wrong with the tale Cynthia was trying to foist on you," Castle concludes. "Maybe that was yet another lie that contributed to her death."
"But regardless of that, why would Cynthia Dern come out of hiding now?" Kate wonders.
"She needed the money," Lee replies. "I laid a few hundred on her every week. It was part of our deal. If the book sold well, I would have gotten it back in spades."
"When was the last time you saw Cynthia?" Kate asks.
"Tuesday afternoon."
"Did she mention she was going to see someone else, maybe someone from her past?" Kate queries.
"No. Cynthia was really paranoid about seeing anyone from her past until the book came out. She made me swear that I wouldn't tell anyone."
Kate studies Lee appraisingly. "But you did anyway."
"I made a few calls." Lee looks at Castle. "An author has to do her research, right?"
"And know how to keep a promise of confidentiality," Castle shoots back, Powell painfully springing to mind.
"I'll need a list of everyone you talked to about Cynthia," Kate instructs. "Start writing."
While Lee is conferring with her lawyer and filling a legal pad with names, Castle draws Kate into an empty stairwell. "We need to talk about our next steps with Bracken."
"I know, Castle, but Lee Wax may be writing down the name of Cynthia Dern's killer right now. You know how important it is not to let a murder go cold."
"We both know that, Beckett. But the two that are viscerally important to us are heating up."
"So what do you want to do?"
My contact thought the thing I could uncover fastest would be Quistel's money laundromat. I need to look into his and Manna's holdings of desert property. And I'll also be checking into Bracken's purchases in New York. But I can do that while we play our various waiting games, like this one. So can you. I have my laptop. I can link it into my system at home. If you need it, I can link you in too."
"All right, Castle. Go ahead to link yourself. We can see what access I'll need as we go. But as soon as I figure out the next step to investigate Cynthia Dern's murder, I'll have to take it."
"Understood."