A/N Needless to say, big thanks go to Crystalline Green, once again she turned a very crappy chapter into something enjoyable to read. Cheers mate, you're the best!

Chapter 3 – The Crime Scene (AKA The Coroner from hell)

The ride to the crime scene was uneventful. It was almost lunch time when they arrived. "There's a wonderful Tibetan restaurant not far from here, what do you say we go there after we wrap this up Beckett?" Castle said after his stomach grumbled.

"Are you asking me on a date Castle?" Kate asked raising an eyebrow.

"Why, would you accept if I did?"

Beckett rolled her eyes. "You wish."

"Oh you have no idea what I'm wishing for right now," Castle said with a teasing smile.

"Keep your wishes to yourself and let me concentrate on the crime scene," Kate retorted, becoming irritated by him once more, this already being the second time that day. She could feel it was going to be a long one.

Castle followed her into the building, pleased with himself for getting on the detective's nerves, getting a reaction out of Beckett made his day all the more fun.

Ryan kept is distance from the pair, watching amused the exchange between them. 'They're either going to end up at each other's throats or in bed together,' he thought to himself.

They reached the apartment on the second floor without further comment from Castle, much to Beckett's relief. When he was in this type of mood he was tiresome, with his unrelenting wisecracks and energy of a child with ADHD.

Kate quickly surveyed the apartment, making a preliminarily analysis of it. The place was somber and small, it had only a living room with a small kitchen and on the left were two doors, leading presumably to a bedroom and a bathroom. In the center of the living room there was a cheap two seat sofa set up in front of a TV set which stood atop a small table.

There were no pictures decorating the bare walls, painted an inoffensive and utterly dull institutional cream. There were a couple of shelves mounted opposite the only window, but they were left empty, no books had been placed upon them, they were collecting only dust. The window itself had venetian blinds which had been left open, causing alternate slashes of light and shade on the wall. Looking around Kate realised there were no visible personal items anywhere that would indicate that this was someone's home, it actually felt more like a hotel room, cold and generic. On first impressions, Becket expected that this was temporary accommodation for whoever had lived there, all the evidence suggested their vic probably had not intended to stay for long.

A breakfast bar divided the kitchen from the living room. Two stools stood in front of it and on the laminate worktop sat a plate containing an unfinished meal along with half a bottle of beer. Apparently the victim had been interrupted by his killer.

Something else caught Kate's attention. Near the breakfast bar there was a trash can full of whiskey bottles and beer cans. Also the empty beer bottles sitting on the living room's small table didn't go unnoticed to Kate. Either this guy had thrown a party or he had a drinking problem. She was definitely betting on the second option. That scenario was all too familiar to her.

Her mind was quickly filled with memories of a period of her dad's life she would rather forget. She pushed those thoughts away the best she could. She had a job to do, she had to remain focused.

The CSU team had already taken over the place. They were busy looking for fingerprints, analysing blood patterns, taking pictures and all the other procedures they performed so efficiently. Sometimes it was easy to overlook the work they did, but without them Kate knew her team would have a much harder time catching the perpetrator. Also, without their trained eyes, they could risk missing evidence crucial to building a solid case for the prosecutor.

She finally approached the body that was lying next to the sofa. Expecting to see Lanie, she was surprised when she noticed a male figure dressed in a coroner's jacket, leaning over the body.

"Excuse me," Beckett said drawing his attention.

The man turned to look at Kate "Can I help you Detective?" he asked in an annoyed tone, irritated at his work being interrupted.

Ryan came over to join them, he stood next to Kate and he nodded his head towards the ME "Perlmutter" he said in a not very enthusiastic way.

Hearing Ryan's tone, Castle's curiosity was raised about the 'new' coroner. Ryan was amicable by nature, he got on with most people. The fact that he showed such an open animosity towards someone, was both highly unusual and intriguing.

"Yes that's my name, you really have amazing skills to figure that out, Detective." Perlmutter said in a snarky tone.

First Kate had to put up with Castle and now she had the grumpy Perlmutter to deal with too, the day really couldn't get any better.

"Lanie's away for a conference," Esposito explained approaching the trio.

"And this one is away for good," Perlmutter replied moving to the other side of the body in order examine his left arm. Which gave the team a better view of the corpse. A bullet hole was now clearly visible in the victim's forehead.

"GSW to the head, guess we won't need the coroner's report to know the cause of death," Castle said looking smug.

Perlmutter first turned to Castle assessing him with a squint, then to Beckett, "What is that?" he asked pointing at Castle.

"'That' is Richard Castle, the writer, he's... with us," Kate said amused by Perlmutter's reaction to Castle's comment. Perhaps this time Castle had met his match and Kate's recognised an opportunity, one too good to miss, to have some fun at Castle's expense.

"A writer?" Perlmutter asked Kate, a mocking note in his words and an incredulous look on his face.

"Hmm," Kate paused as if trying to make up her mind if that was the correct term to use in relation to Castle, she knew he was touchy on the subject "…yes a writer" she deadpanned, though she was having a hard time hiding her smile.

Castle watched the interaction between Beckett and Perlmutter becoming more nervous by the minute. Perlmutter was definitely giving him negative vibes and he found himself missing Lanie all of a sudden, she was much nicer and friendlier, plus she had a much better body then Perlmutter.

"You know Detective, cops with dogs - I get it, but cops with a writer...? What is he useful for? Writing insulting letters to suspects until they confess or maybe you force them to read his books until they spill their guts?" Kate and Esposito couldn't help a snort at Perlmutter's comment, which turned a nervous Castle into an annoyed one.

Despite her amusement, Beckett could sense Castle bristling and she knew that if she didn't step in soon, this was going to get out of hand. "Let him be Perlmutter, he's actually helpful sometimes," she said much to Castle's surprise. A compliment from Beckett? That was unexpected.

"He's helpful in what regard?" Perlmutter said raising an eyebrow at Kate.

"He brings me coffee, every morning, with a Bear Claw," Beckett retorted with a teasing look at Castle. A compliment from her obviously had to come with a catch, how did he not see it coming?

"Let's get back to things which matter shall we? Please, tell me what are your preliminarily findings Perlmutter, apart from the obvious GSW to the forehead," Kate said, trying to bring the discussion about Castle to a close.

"Actually, preliminary cause of death is the GSW to the head, like your 'writer' here said," Perlmutter put sarcastic emphasis on the word 'writer', unwilling as yet to let it go entirely. Kate heard it and knew Castle would too, so she gave him a warning glare to back down before he could open is mouth. Perlmutter continued, "But I found something else. He has four puncture wounds, two in his left arm one in the right and one in the neck, consistent with injection via a hypodermic needle. When I get back to the lab I'll examine the rest of his body to see if there are any more and I'll run a tox screen to try to find out what he has in his system."

Kate furrowed her brow at this "Do you think he was an addict?" she asked.

"I don't think so," Perlmutter replied, "the puncture wounds aren't located in the usual locations I would expect an addict to inject himself."

"So he could have been poisoned or sedated and then shot?" Esposito asked with a puzzled look.

"That I can only determine after I run the tox screen, for all we know the puncture wounds may not even be related to the murder itself."

"Maybe it's from a treatment of some kind, like Chinese acupuncture, or maybe a drug test," Castle interrupted the dialogue between the detectives and the coroner, already imagining a conspiracy theory for the murder, "Yes a drug test, maybe he was a test subject in a highly classified drug trial for the CIA. Then he stole the drug and tried to sell it to a foreign country, but they were monitoring him and found out before he could seal the deal, so they put a plan in place to eliminate him, making it look like a home invasion gone bad," he elaborated with childlike enthusiasm.

They all looked at Castle. Perlmutter was the first to retort "Yes, he's really very helpful," he said looking at Kate.

"Ignore him, that's what I do," she said, earning a resentful look from Castle.

"Can you give us a time of death?" Ryan asked.

"Approximately 36 to 48 hours, I'll be able to narrow it down once I conclude my examinations in the lab"

"Thank you Perlmutter," Kate said walking away from the body, motioning to her colleagues to follow her. She led them to the kitchen where there were less people and they could talk without interfering with the work the CSU team was conducting. "Espo, what did you find out about the vic before we got here?" she asked turning to her colleague.

"His name is Matthew Long, according to his driver's license he was 58 and he's from Virginia. The owner of the building found the body. The victim complained about the pipes last week, so the owner came here today to fix it and when no one answered the door, he decided to use his spare key to let himself in and take a look at the pipes, that was when he discovered the body. He also said that the victim had rented the apartment 4 months ago and payed six months ahead. I talked to some of the neighbours, the guy apparently kept very much to himself, so no one noticed a thing and no one heard anything, no gunshots, nothing whatsoever. Uniforms are still knocking on doors, so maybe something more will turn up."

"Thanks Javi," Kate said with an appreciative nod. "Ok guys I don't think there's much more we can do here, let's go back to the precinct and start with a background check on the victim. It seems he wasn't planning on staying here for long. I want to know as much about him as possible, most of all I want to know why he was here living such a sparse life," Beckett said with a pensive look. "Let's see how far that gets us, at least until we get something more to work on from the CSU team and Perlmutter."

As they were heading to the exit, Castle approached Beckett. "So, Tibetan?" he said raising is eyebrows.

"You act like a pregnant woman with a craving, you know that?" Kate said, sighing in defeat, "Let's go then, but only if they have take out, we're eating at the precinct. I want to start working on this immediately."

Castle smiled like a child who just had been given the biggest candy in the shop. "Yes, they have take out and you are going to love it. I promise you."

They were already out of the apartment when one of the CSU officers came running after them. "Detectives, wait."

Esposito turned to the blue eyed and very beautiful brunet who was now approaching them. "What's up Sandy?" he asked giving her a large smile.

"We found something, I think you should see it," she said with a shy smile handing two evidence bags to Esposito.

"Driver's licenses, several passports and a 9mm bullet casing," Ryan said glancing briefly at the two bags.

"Actually that is an unspent 9mm shell," Sandy clarified, "and it looks like there's a partial print on the jacket."

Kate took the bag with the bullet from Esposito "Same caliber of bullet that was used to shoot the victim?" Beckett asked, already having a pretty good idea that it was, having seen as many gunshot wounds as she had, she'd become pretty good at identifying the caliber on sight of the damage they caused.

"Yes, 9 mm, the CSU team found the casing from the fired bullet before I arrived," Esposito replied.

"Maybe the gun misfired and the killer just left the bullet there, it could be a dud," Castle said looking excitedly at the bullet, his eyes glittering, already revealing in the puzzle and intent on unravelling the story.

"He didn't bother picking it up, or maybe he was disturbed and didn't had a chance to recover it after taking the shot. He mustn't have realised that the unfired bullet carried is fingerprint," Kate said with a furrowed brow. "This is a huge break. Thanks Sandy, good job." Kate smiled at the young CSU officer.

Castle turned his attention to the evidence bag with the driver's licenses and passports, given it a closer look. "Fake id's" he said furrowing his brows "This has 'CIA cover up' written all over it. I bet the print on that bullet was left on purpose to lead us on a wild goose chase. Perhaps they're setting up a patsy, if we ever find who it belongs to".

Sandy looked at him puzzled, "CIA?"

Kate rolled her eyes. "Like I've said so many times before, just ignore him Sandy."

She smiled at Kate.

"We've collected prints too, we haven't run them through the fingerprint database yet, but they look to be from only two donors, most likely from the victim and the building owner. He said he touched the door handle when he came in and placement of the second set backs that up. We are still looking, we'll report to you as soon as we know anything more." She nodded and stepped back into the apartment to help complete their sweep.

Beckett turned to her colleagues. "It seems we have a lead to work after all. Let's go get the Tibetan food before Castle collapses and then get back to the precinct." She headed for the stairs followed by the three men.

"I've never collapsed from starvation, thank God," Castle said looking at Kate, "but there was once when I was having sex..."

"Castle!" Beckett whirled to face him, "I don't want to know!" she all but shouted giving him a severe warning look.

Castle gave her a big smile, raising an eyebrow. "Why detective..."

"Castle, zip-it! I said I don't want to know and if you really want the Tibetan food and to stay on this case, you'd better keep your mouth shut."

Castle glared at Kate "Jesus, someone is grumpy."

"Yes, you're driving me crazy." Kate said and with that she left the building, stalking with an angry gait to her car. Castle got in after her and miraculously he broke a record, he kept quiet all the way, until they arrived at the restaurant.