Beckett was licking calzone sauce off of her fingers as she stepped off the elevator into Homicide with Castle hot on her heels.
'Refresh me again who Nick Goddard is?'
'The sniper who threatened me at Rikers and the same one who shot John Raglan. This is going to be quick and dirty.'
She met Montgomery outside the interrogation room, and met his cool-eyed stare with one of her own. 'Sir, this won't be the piece of theatre the interview with George Elliott was. This guy will answer in very yes-no terms and that's all we are going to need from him.'
'Good. Go to it.'
Castle watched her walk into the interrogation room, but rather than stalk like the panther he knew she could be, he watched her sit down and treat it like a clinical Q&A.
State your name for the record.
Nicholas D. Goddard.
You live at 343 East Thirty-Third Street, apartment five-zero-one?
Yes, that is correct.
You are formerly of the United State Marine Corps where you earned commendations for your special skills as a sniper, corect?
Yes, a combat medal and other honours.
'Why is she establishing baseline with this guy when she knows that it will be a grapefruit of an interview?' Castle asked Montgomery.
'So that she can show this man has no remorse or compunction about what he did,' he replied. 'She is fact-checking with a hired gun. Just watch.'
Have you ever been used for contract killing before?
Yes but this was the first time I worked for a civilian body
Who contacted you?
He didn't give me his name.
Who paid you?
Guy who hired me said it was on behalf of several people but the money came from some dude named Spitzer. Corey, or Christian, something like that.
Christopher?
Yeah, Christopher Spitzer
'Now she's got the guy coughing up a confirming name that we have from at least two other sources plus evidence culled from good, hard police work,' the captain murmured. He watched Beckett calmly make notes as the man spoke; it was hard to believe this controlled woman was the same one who'd been a fire-breathing bad cop that very same afternoon.
How did you receive this information on who your target would be?
Email. He said I had to be at the northeast corner of Eighth Avenue and West Forty-Seventh on Tuesday morning. I had to wait until the car with a certain license plate got smashed up by the first hitmen, then once the lady driver was clear, my job was to take out her passenger.
What was the handle on this email?
It was Edmund Dantes. Just like out of that old French guy's book, the sandwich guy.'
'Why is he giving this up so easily,' Castle wondered as his writer's heart fought not to leap on Goddard for so woefully mangling The Count of Monte Cristo. 'Most hired killers are screaming lawyer until their lungs bleed.'
'This guy is in it for the money, not the love of the kill. Guys like that will sell out their own mothers to the cops.'
Montgomery knocked on the one-way glass to signal Beckett it was time for a break; when she met them in the Observation room, he looked at her and said, 'You buying this?'
'Yeah, he knows too many details not to be present and it would take more work and more phone calls for one of the men we've got on the ropes to get in touch with him to set him up like they did to Roman Moore. Even a quick 'meet me here to talk' would have been on our radar,' Beckett replied smoothly. 'What, you think this is too easy for him to give this all up?'
'I bet he's got marching orders that if he got scooped up by the cops he tells them everything than offs himself,' Castle theorized.
'That's probably true, Rick, but right now he is giving me a hell of a lot more than I had three hours ago on Spitzer. Add this to the information we found out about his financial records, which show regular transfers into his account from an account named to Camilla Streets. And we need to find out about this Edmund Dantes, if he's just a name ripped from literature or if there is a reason that name was chosen.'
'That can wait until morning, when we have Adam back in the saddle,' Montgomery told her. 'Once you are done here, you are going home for rest. It's been a busy, shitty day full of promise for more arrests, but remember Kate, we need to pace this. We need to take each step with a clear head and make sure that we are getting everything possible to bury these bastards.'
'I know that too sir.'
'Then wrap this guy up and have him put in Holding, but separate cells than George Elliott. No reason to have a potential death match on our hands.'
The last details Beckett wrung from Goddard meant he wasn't going anywhere and that the next morning, combined with the information they'd already pulled, they would have enough for an arrest warrant on Christopher Spitzer for even more crimes than George Elliott and he'd gotten an ass-load of them himself.
What wrapping him up meant most to Beckett was that she could go home and get the much needed rest her captain had all but ordered her to take. The moment she was through the door at home, she began to strip, the physical layers giving her tangible things to tug at as her wheels still churned.
She left a trail of her clothes until she was in just her bra and panties as she walked into the ensuite bathroom of the bedroom and began to run the tub. She sat on top of the closed toilet lid as she watched the water gush and gurgle from the spout, registering Castle's footsteps as part of the natural background noise of the home.
'Kate,' he started but she looked over and he cut himself off.
'Castle, I need to let it go for a few hours. I need to just let it go. It's...I didn't realize until we sent them away how much our children were keeping me balanced and focused. I could shut down when I needed to because I have my babies needing me. Now they're not here and there is just you, but you go with me wherever I need to go, and right now I need you to be the centre of it.'
'Okay.' He loved her, so in his mind when she asked this of him, it was no imposition, it was his job as her husband to do what she asked of him. 'What do you need from me right now.'
'I need my Castle, the one who pulls my pigtails and kicks my ass when I have self-doubt.
'Kate.' Castle moved over to her and plucked up her hands, kissed the knuckles. 'I will always be there to pull your pigtails, and you have much less self doubt on your mother's case than before. I know you will get these bastards and I will be there when you do.'
Beckett smiled at him, put her hand to his cheek as she remembered that promise from nine years before. She's wanted to reach out and touch him then, but she'd been so scared to do it that she'd instead picked up her chopsticks for the Thai food he'd brought her, and gone the schoolyard route of picking bits of water-chestnut from his plate.
'I love you so much,' she told him.
'I love you right back,' he replied. Turning around he tested the water for her, and since it would make a lobster cry uncle, he figured it was just right for his bride; the woman loved boiling hot baths. 'You want some of your salts?'
'Please.'
He found the tube of them underneath the sink and tipped them in, then pulled her to her feet and in a show of unending love for her, unsnapped her bra and slipped it from her body, helped her out of her panties and gracefully held her hand so she wouldn't slip getting into the tub. Castle pressed the wall-button for the jacuzzi jets.
'There. Get yourself all hot and bubbly, then come to bed and I'll finish the job for you.'
He did indeed finish the job for her, making her ache for him with a need she'd never known. When they'd finished and were still wrapped together in their bed, Beckett stroked her hands through his hair, let herself feel the smoothness of his skin, the texture of it. Here was love, solid and real in her life and no-one would take that from her.
'You're the best thing that ever happened to me, Richard,' she murmured.
'Same goes, Katie-Lou. Try to get some rest.'