Author's Note: Ok, so I have decided to go in a bit different direction with this. I originally started writing little tidbits of a case just to keep the normality going, but I got really into the mystery. So, this will now be a case fic, as well as, of course, the romance. Its going to progress slowly, though, as I feel it will seem more realistic that way. I hope I can keep you guys interested in it for that long. Anyways, I hope you enjoy what I have decided to do. Enjoy =)
"So, yesterday at approximately 10:51 a.m. Lauren Tovar was found in her apartment by her roommate with her throat slit." Kate Beckett started to fill Castle in on their current case. "She and her roommate, Emma, had lunch plans and Emma had come to pick her up only to find her laying on the floor behind the couch with a pool of blood around her. Lauren was currently working for the New York Times as a journalist." Kate leaned against her desk, staring at the murder board with Castle next to her. A little too close, if she was being honest.
"Ok. So, maybe she was writing an article about a touchy subject and someone didn't want it hitting the public. What sort of pieces did she write?" Castle asked.
Kate checked her notes. "We spoke with her editor and she told us that Lauren wrote mostly just articles featuring local restaurants that were fairly new or just opening. She would write a review and then give a background on each restaurant, a little about their heritage, their story, and why they wanted to open a restaurant."
Castle nodded. "So, the chef of a brand new Italian Restaurant notices that Lauren didn't exactly have a pleased expression as she sampled his food. Maybe she made a comment about it to a waiter or another patron and it got back to him. Either way, her article could completely destroy his business. So, he follows her back to her apartment one night and slits her throat, making sure she is never able to talk again." Castle had a far-out look in his eyes.
Kate brought him back down by saying, "Come on, Castle. Killing someone over a bad review?" She rolled her eyes.
"Yea, you're probably right," he said dejectedly, " I still think you should see what her latest article was going to be about, though."
"Already ahead of you, bro." Esposito walked in with Ryan holding a stack of papers. Ryan, who was completely oblivious to the fact that the pair had sort of reconciled, noticed Castle and gave a confused expression to Kate, who simply shrugged it of. "We got this off of Lauren's desk. Most of it is a bunch of jumbled words and scribbles. But, it says something about the Golden Dragon. It's a Chinese restaurant over on 57th and Lex."
Ryan interjected, "Yea, and from the looks of it, she wasn't so much bashing the food as she was the owner. Says something about him being an arrogant tyrant who didn't know how to treat his customers."
"Alright, Castle and I will go check it out and see what information we can get from the owner. Meanwhile, I want you guys to check into Lauren's hobbies. Was she in any clubs? Did she regularly work out at a gym? That sort of thing. And check her financials. See if there was anything unusual she was spending her money on." Kate said as she grabbed her coat.
The boys nodded and headed to their respective desks.
Castle followed Kate into the elevator. "So, you thinking maybe I was right?"
"No." Kate said without any hesitation.
As Kate drove her Crown Vic to the location, she could feel Castle's eyes glaring at her. She tried to ignore it, figuring he just wanted attention or something. However, it was very irritating, so she finally turned to glance at him saying, "What, Castle?"
Castle shook his head. "Nothing," and he turned his head the other way.
Kate knew he wasn't just going to let whatever was tumbling around in his head drop.
After a few seconds of silence, he finally said, "I just noticed that you were wearing a different shade of lipstick than you normally do."
Kate turned to him, confused. She was not at all expecting him to say that. A comment on the case, or an annoying remark maybe, but not that. How did he notice that? He was right, of course. Her old one had run out the other day and she decided to go with a new shade when she went to the store to get another one. She fully was not expecting anyone to really notice, though.
Kate, flustered, replied, "Um, yeah. I am."
Castle turned back toward the window with an accomplished grin on his face. He knew he had frazzled her a bit, which was his reason for saying it. Just a tiny step to show her that he isn't oblivious to the way she addresses her appearance.
They pulled up to the building on the corner and both of them exited the car. Kate and Castle walked through the double doors to find a small, quaint restaurant inside. To their right was a tiny desk with a young Chinese girl standing behind it. At the back was a large desk with two registers and two slightly older ladies standing behind them chatting. There were an assortment of tables throughout the room, larger ones in the middle, and smaller ones against the walls. In the back to the right was a kitchen where they could see an elderly Chinese man and woman cooking. The girl behind the desk saw Kate and Castle and asked, "Table for two?" She looked to be about eighteen or so.
Kate flashed her badge. "Actually, we were wondering if we could speak with the owner."
The girl looked confused, but replied, "Alright. Just wait here and I will go and get my father."
Kate nodded. "I like it in here. Its cozy," She heard Castle say next to her.
"Yea well, he doesn't look very cozy." She gestured at the man who was walking towards them. It was the man who was cooking in the kitchen. He had dark, cold eyes and short jet-black hair. He had a scar that ran down the right side of his face in a jagged way. He was very short, probably about 5'3 or so. She noticed the young girl talking with the woman in the kitchen, probably her mother, looking their way with suspicious expressions.
As the man approached them, Kate held out her hand and said, "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. And this is Richard Castle." She gestured towards Castle who held out his hand as well.
The man shook their hands and replied, "Jian Tang. What can I do for you?" Unlike his daughter, he had a very rich, noticeable accent.
"We are investigating the murder of a woman by the name of Lauren Tovar. Did you know her?"
Jian looked very surprised. "Lauren? She's dead?"
"We understand that she was doing an article on you restaurant?"
Jian nodded. "We, my family and I, just opened this restaurant about a month or so ago. My daughter, Erin," he gestured towards his daughter in the back, "just started college this year and we had a hard time trying to come up with her tuition. I lost my job last year so we were depending on my wife for money. She worked at a small restaurant a few blocks from where we live. We were struggling, though. When this place became available, I suggested we open a restaurant of our own to help Erin with college."
"Why did you lose your job, Mr. Tang?" Kate asked, taking out her notepad.
Castle noticed Jian's eyes shift away, nervously. "It was just a misunderstanding."
Kate and Castle exchanged a look. Mr. Tang continued, "When Lauren asked to do an article about my restaurant, I jumped at the opportunity, figuring it would bring in more business."
"You must have been angry, then, when you realized that it was going to have the exact opposite effect," Castle interjected.
Jian looked at him through crinkled eyebrows. "What are you talking about?"
"We saw Lauren's notes and from the looks of it, it didn't seem like she was going to give you a good review," Kate explained.
"What? No. Lauren loved my food. She also loved the fact that we had opened this place for my daughter to have a better life. She said it would make a good story. She was going to help my business greatly with that article."
Kate gave Castle a perplexed look. "Then why did she write those things?" She said to him.
"Maybe we misread? Maybe she was talking about another restaurant?"
"Maybe." Kate looked confused. She turned back to Jian and said, "Thank you for your help. If we have any more questions, we will contact you."
Jian nodded and went back into the kitchen.
As Kate and Castle walked back to the car, he asked, "What if he was lying?"
"I don't know, Castle. He looked pretty sincere."
They both got into the car and buckled up, Kate turning on the ignition. "Well maybe he is just a really good liar."
"I think we should take a second look at Lauren's notes before we make any accusations." Kate replied and pulled out into the street, heading back to the 12th.
There were a few moments of silence before Kate spoke up. "Did you ever want to be a journalist, Castle? Or was it always just crime novelist for you?"
"Nah, I thought journalism would be too hard."
Kate looked at him. "Why is that?"
Castle smirked at her. "In case you haven't noticed, I am not very good with being told what to do. Never mind being told what to write. No, I don't think I would be very good at that at all."
Kate smiled and rolled her eyes. "Well you have a point, there."
Castle met her eye. "And what about you? What did you want to be before you were a cop?"
"For awhile, I got interested in being an attorney, like my mom. She made it sound so exciting and not all about just being deceitful like people make it seem. She felt that she was making a difference in someone's life by defending them."
"What about when she was defending someone who wasn't really innocent?"
Kate smiled softly and put her head down for a second. "She never told me about those sort of cases. When I dug deeper into the career, I realized that I couldn't do that. I couldn't vouch for someone when I knew they were guilty."
Castle nodded and looked out the window, deciding to drop the subject. He surprised, therefore, when she continued. "I told my mother that and she just gave me this knowing smile. I realized that it must have been hard for her, as well. That's when she told me that I should be a cop and catch bad guys instead of defending them. I never really took that idea seriously until…" She looked out her window for a second before clearing her throat and saying, "But anyway, ever since then, being a cop is all I ever hoped to be."
Castle was struck with just how much he admired her. The fact that she opened up to him a bit, seemingly without even realizing it, said a lot about how much she trusted and was comfortable with him. The fact that she caught herself just gave way to her insecurities about sharing too much.
Still, she allowed him to see another tiny piece of her. He always thought that she became a cop for her mom, but now, maybe it was actually for her mom as well. Not only to avenge her death, but to make her proud as well; to accomplish a goal that her mother had set for her. He commended Kate for that.
Kate could feel Castle staring at her again. She looked over expecting to see the same mischievous glint in his eye as before, but was surprised to see a genuine smile overtake his features. It caught her off guard. "What?" She said, trying to sound forceful, but instead it sounded more like a soft whisper.
Castle just slowly shook his head, eyes still boring into her. "Nothing." Slowly he tore his eyes away from her, leaving her to wonder just what he had been thinking.
As they pulled into the precinct, Kate's phone started to ring. "It's Lanie," Kate said to Castle as she parked. "Hey, Lanie. Yea? Alright. We'll be right there." She hung up. "Lanie's got something." She and Castle got out and headed for the morgue.
They walked in the room to find Lauren's body lying on the table. "What do you got?" Kate asked, getting straight to the point.
"Well, I hadn't noticed it before, but when I looked more closely at her throat I saw that inside of it, there were red marks all along her esophagus. And it couldn't have been from her throat being slit because it was actually inside her body, not on the outside. So, I checked her stomach, figuring maybe she ate something too fast and didn't chew enough or something and she had to force it down."
"Well, did you find anything?" Kate asked.
"Well that's where it gets weird." Lanie walked over to one of the side tables.
"How so?" Castle asked as they followed Lanie.
"When I opened her stomach, I found this." She grabbed a crumpled piece of notebook paper with her gloved hands and showed it to them. "My guess is that it was forced down her throat, and from the looks of it, it had only been in her stomach for a couple hours before she was killed."
Kate took a glove and held the piece of paper with it, making sure to not contaminate it with her prints. "Have CSU run it for prints and see if they can figure out what was written on it."
"Will do." Lanie took it back and sealed it in a plastic bag.
"So, most likely, whomever stuffed that paper down her throat did it with rage. I just wish we knew what it said." Castle turned to Kate.
"We will soon enough." Kate replied and began to follow Castle out of the morgue. Before she left the room, however, when Castle was just out of earshot, she turned to eye Lanie. "And don't think you're off the hook. You have some serious explaining to do."
Lanie just smirked at her with mischievous eyes and waved goodbye.
Kate narrowed her eyes at her before leaving and catching up to Castle before he realized she wasn't behind him.
"I bet the person who killed her was the same person who forced that down her throat." Castle said as they entered the elevator.
"Could be. Let's just hope that CSU finds some prints so we can have our suspect." Kate said as the elevator doors closed.
They stood in silence for a moment before Castle said, "So what did you tell Lanie?" without even looking at her, knowing that she didn't expect him to notice.
Kate sighed, knowing she was caught. "Nothing. Just girl stuff."
Castle looked at her out of the corner of his eye and smirked at her feigned nonchalance.
She slowly glanced at him out of the corner of her eye and caught his gaze. He gave her a knowing smile and she blushed and looked away, trying to hide her own smile. Man, she thought, nothing gets past him.
Author's Note: I really hope you guys enjoy the mystery mixed in with the romance. Please please please review and let me know what you guys think of my ideas! I would so very greatly appreciate it!
Much love!
Emily