Troubled Castle
The precinct:
It is already late afternoon, but the time past by without noticing, because everybody is tying up lose ends of their cases. Beckett got the reports from Lanie and CSU, which confirms what the suspect had confessed yesterday.
Ryan and Esposito are still working on that part, they had their suspect cracked too, but don't have the hard evidence to cover it up so far. And the lawyer of Mr. Shaw is already working on the angle of getting the confession revoked.
Captain Montgomery left his office and shouts:'Esposito, my office. You have a visitor from DA Mr. Vance office, who wants to talk about the Shaw case.'
With a sigh Esposito gets up and walks over to the captain's office. 'That's the reason I don't like these Bill-Jill-Bob cases Esposito, everyone tries to get these done in a rush,' says Beckett, taking the opportunity to tease him.
'But at least I don't need weeks and a bunch of specialist to crack my cases,' is his offhand response.
With a grin she returns her attention to the paperwork on her desk, and just as she has been back into the details of the report her phone starts to ring. With a moan of herself, knowing that she will need the same time to go back to the same point in the report as she used so far, she takes a brief glance of the caller-id Alexis Castle. 'Hi Alexis, still problems with your boyfriend?' she asks with a smile and a crook eyebrow.
After a couple of seconds, the smile already gone, she interrupts, 'Alexis, slow down and start again.' After the next outburst from Alexis, Beckett is all professional: 'I want you to close the door and go down to the doorman and wait there for us. We will be there in no time, bye.'
This catches Ryan's attention and he shifts his position, so he could see Beckett's face. She literally jumps out of her chair, simultaneous graping her holster, turning towards Ryan. 'Get me a couple of patrols to Castle's apartment, one should stay with Alexis, the rest covers the floor the loft is on, but they should wait on us. We will enter the apartment first', is her only order.
Then she storms into the captains room only to give out the short order: 'Esposito, road trip now', turns and is on her wait out again.
Esposito, glad that he has a opportunity to escape from the Assistant DA, leaps onto his feet and is with a murmured 'Excuse me' out of the door. A couple of quick steps brings him to his desk, where he picks up his weapon from the drawer.
'What's happening', he asks Ryan as they follow Beckett. 'Something bad comes down at Castles apartment', is his short answer. And with a 'Crap' Esposito conveys for the two the feelings at this moment.
Castle apartment / building complex:
They arrive at the building in less than a quarter hour. They get out of the car and don their bulletproof vest as Beckett starts to go over the plan once more:'If we don't get any new information from Alexis, we will go up clear the apartment and see what we get. Because the ground floor is so wide and open, we can split up. Esposito you will cover the stairs to the bedrooms, while ...'
'It is okay Beckett, you went already two times over the plan, lets move', interrupts Esposito while grabbing his AR-15. On the way to the doors they are shifting the vests into a more comfortable position, checking that the weapons are in the right position, tightening the vest and Esposito slings the AR-15 so that he can easier transition to his pistol if needed.
As they enter the building they are nearly overrun by a very nervous and agitated Alexis. 'Why did you need so long to get here? Anything could be going on up there ... '
'Stop it, Alexis', Beckett breaks in on Alexis flood of words, 'Calm down and give me details I can work with. And where are the patrols?'
'I came back from school and went up to the apartment', Alexis starts slow. 'As I opened the door the apartment was still a mess', she continues, picking up speed. 'But right there at the door was a big puddle of blood, and so I called you, came down here - waited so long – two patrols went up - secure floor – what's going to happen, what should I do?'
At the end she is so fast that an observer may believe she switched the language in mid sentence. Beckett, who heard her before in a similar state, nearly understands half of it, but it is enough. 'Give me the keys, Alexis, and we will check the flat', she tells her.
The three Detectives turn into the direction of the elevator and start walking towards it. Beckett turns her head to check Alexis, seeing that she joined their group. Beckett pauses. 'You stay here', is her order for Alexis and anticipating,' NO BUTS, you wait here, you did everything alright so far.'
Leaving her at the desk, the three enter the elevator and start their silent trip upwards.
They arrive at the right floor, surprisingly without awkward stops. Checking in with the officer on the floor, they get no new information.
Marching over to the door they get their weapons out and ready. Beckett slips to the other side of the door, turns and with a small nod of all of them confirm that everyone is ready to rumble. She knocks onto the door and yells out:' NYPD, open the door Castle.' No sound is heard, now she enters the key into the lock and opens the door, giving it a hard push.
Esposito takes his role as lead and steps into the room, yelling:'NY...PD.' Next Beckett enters the apartment, scanning the centerline from door to the windows and to the right from there.
Taking in the puddle of dried blood just a couple of steps inside the room, knowing that this is the reason why Esposito stuttered at his yell.
She turns right into the direction of his study. Last follows Ryan, covering the left side of the flat, keeping his distance to Esposito, but tagging along. At the stairs they split up. Esposito brings his AR-15 up into a high ready position, letting the muzzle point into the general direction of the upper stairs-head and Ryan proceeds to the kitchen area.
Meanwhile Beckett arrives at the study, after already checking the small guest bathroom. Taking a fast look into the study, she goes in. Scanning from right to left she takes in all the details she could: the laptop on the desk, pages of the next book printed out and put on to a rope, the murder board displaying the rough facts and nothing behind the desk. 'Clear', she calls out, only to hear a similar 'Clear' from Ryan at the cooking island.
After both of them returns to the stairs, Beckett takes the lead up. Esposito lowers his rifle just split seconds before Beckett enters his line of fire and gets ready to move. Ryan is the next on the flight of stairs as soon as Beckett is in the middle of it. So logical as soon as Beckett arrives at the top of the stairs and takes two steps into the hallway, Ryan is in the middle of it and Esposito starts his rise to the higher grounds of the flat.
Until all of them are upstairs Beckett only holds the position, then she gets a pat on her shoulder from Ryan. The two go to the first door on the floor, while Esposito kneels down to cover the hallway.
The two position themselves on both sides of the door, and like at the entrance door, on a nod Beckett opens the door and Ryan goes in. Ryan checks the left side, while Beckett follows and covers the right side.
It is Alexis room, which is tidy, a pile of books on her desk is the only thing resembling chaos. A couple of posters on the walls shows clearly what music taste she has, a couple of Haley Blue posters are still on the wall. A quick dash brings Beckett to the walk-in closet, ready to engage she opens the door to find only Alexis clothes in there.
'Clear' from her and a confirming 'clear' from Ryan ends the search inside this room. They go back into the hallway moving up to the next door. Esposito tagging behind them to trying to get the best position for suppression fire.
But it is not needed, they move from room to room only to find out that Martha is the most chaotic person in this household, which is not such a big surprise for them.
On their way back to the living room Ryan contacts the CSU:'Where are you guys? - Okay – Yeah, the apartment is secure you can come up as soon as you arrives. Bye.'
After he finishes the call he says:'The unit got hold up by some traffic jam, they will be here in ten minutes.'
They arrive at the blood puddle and Beckett put into words, what the three of them out of experience know:'Someone was shot here, and for a laymen it may seems a lot but normally the blood loss should not be life threatening.'
'At least it was not a professional hit', comments Esposito and after seeing two quizzical faces he points over to the couch. 'Didn't police his brass! Looks like a 9mm casing, perhaps we are lucky and CSU can lift a print'
'I wouldn't count on that, so let's assume Castle is the victim, which suspects do we have', Beckett asks. 'Besides all guys we put away since he joined the 12th, we had run ins with Italian mafia, Russian mob or it could be a kidnapping', Esposito starts.
Ryan adds: 'Jealous authors, Beckett, jealous husbands and not to forget all the Derrick Storm fans, who didn't like the way he disposed of his hero and decided to give him the same treatment. Oh my, Castle as a victim is worse than as a suspect!'
'What happened to my Dad', Alexis asks, standing in the door.
'Alexis, I told you to wait downstairs', Beckett reprimands her.
'That seems to run in the family, she wont wait in the car either', Ryan adds. While Beckett gives Ryan her evil stare, she goes over to Alexis, ' I know it is hard, but can you tell me if something is missing.'
Accompanied by Beckett Alexis walks through the apartment. 'Nothing seems missing, my Dads phone is on the kitchen island and there is still ...' she stops talking, taking a deep breath and continuous in a more broken tone 'He didn't finish his breakfast. I evaded eating it with him, if I would have stayed, nothing of this would have happened.'
'You could not have change anything Alexis, maybe it would be worse if you had stayed', assured her Beckett.
'Wait a second for me outside and we will talk, first I have to deal with a couple of things here', she ushers Alexis out of the door and closes it.
'Esposito, get a hold of Martha and let her come to the precinct, also copy the surveillance videos. Ryan, you will stay here with the CSU, make sure that the brass is processed first and sent to the lab. I will drive with Alexis to the precinct to get her out of here and also give the Captain a first report', with that she is on her way.
'Why did you name Beckett as one of the suspects, Ryan', Esposito asks.
'She threaten to shot him a lot in the past.'
'True', agrees Esposito.