Disclaimer: Don't own
A/N: As promised! A day early, in fact. I wouldn't leave you guys hanging, especially not after all the humbling reviews you've been leaving. A few of you have mentioned your hesitance in reading stuff by new posters, so I'll take this opportunity to thank you all for giving this story – and by extension, me – a chance.
So, after writing this chapter, I decided that being a mystery writer is really tough work. And fitting it all into a 44 minute episode? Props to the Castle scriptwriters. I'll stick to my day job.
The Art of Living 7/8
Castle stared at the high-tech murderboard he'd set up in his office. The case onscreen taunted him. Leads branched outwards; suspects and persons of interest and deceased witnesses formed an inescapable web, at the centre of which was a picture of Kate Beckett. He could see the accusation in her eyes, the disappointment.
One case. He couldn't solve this one case. Every lead was a dead end, every course of action headed off at the pass.
He rubbed a hand over tired eyes.
It was no use. He was no closer than he had been hours ago, days ago, weeks ago.
The soreness in his side had been thrumming for the past hour, and now was beginning to throb.
Time for a break. Time for some aspirin.
He stood up and dragged his feet out of his office and over to the kitchen. After taking a seat on one of the stools by the breakfast bar, Castle opened the bottle of pills, took two and downed them with the glass of water Alexis had thoughtfully left out for him.
Thank goodness for his daughter. His daughter who was going to leave him to go to university on the West coast. The exact opposite side of the country from him. His sweet Alexis, who left him pain medication and made him smile and took cookies to Beckett, handing them to her in the middle of the precinct.
Beckett.
Castle sighed heavily.
He dropped his head onto the cool, hard granite. He couldn't get her words out of his head. Or the look in her eyes. He'd need a thesaurus just to describe it, let alone come to terms with it.
His mother was right: for a writer he really didn't have the words when it mattered. But then, he told himself, but then he'd spent months telling her without words. He'd kept showing up, he'd been a silent pillar of support, her biggest fan. A stalwart. He'd continue to do just that, until he found the words.
What other options did he have, really? He could solve her mother's case. Then maybe she couldn't cower behind an unsolved anymore, behind this empty hunt for justice that was just her way of hiding from a life she was too scared to live. And then … and then he could crawl inside her heart and tear down all those fences and walls she put to guard that empty space where a warm home had once stood.
Sure. Easy. Piece of cake.
No problem.
He sighed again.
Except he couldn't even solve the damn case. He had nothing. Nothing.
And soon, he may not even have the luxury of being able to follow Kate day-in, day-out, an honorary crime-fighter who brought her coffee and made her laugh when things got tough. Or even when things weren't all that tough, just because he could.
Well, he refused to leave her alone. He still had the mayor on his side, after all. Kate would have no choice…
The lesser part of him was convinced he should have chained her to the couch instead of letting her leave two nights ago. But what good would that have done? He'd told Alexis that this was something Kate had to do on her own, she had to want it.
So what could he do?
Maybe it was time to throw in the towel. Cut his losses, rip out his heart and leave it by a roadside somewhere. At least then it wouldn't be his to worry about. He could move on. He could. If he tried.
He knocked his head lightly against the tabletop a couple of times. He hated feeling like this. Wasn't used to it. The last time he'd felt like this he had cut his losses, gone to the Hamptons with Gina and found himself in a committed relationship with her. And then Beckett had brought the magic back into his life. For the second time, at that.
He sighed again. He was doomed. Doomed to a life of boredom, without her wit and her humour, her not-so-well hidden pop culture nerdiness (a comic collection and Frank Miller trivia and Forbidden Planet!), and her secret love of soap operas. Doomed.
"What's this?" Martha asked, catching sight of him as she came through the front door.
He remained silent in his bubble of self-pity.
"Only one person I know can have you so out of sorts," she observed as she neared him. "Still no word from Beckett?"
"I find myself at a loss mother," he mumbled, lifting his head to catch her eye.
She set down her purse and came to stand next to him, draping an arm over his shoulder. "Now, now, kiddo". She offered a squeeze of solidarity. "It's not in our blood to despair. You'll figure it out." She paused a beat. "Or you could let me set you up with that student I was telling you about, from my acting school.
"Beckett is so ... complicated." He sighed, ignoring her last comment. "Complex."
"Richard, all women are complicated. You just weren't paying attention before Kate Beckett came along."
He dropped his head back on the table.
"Well then," Martha said giving him one last squeeze. "I'm making you the best damn white Russian you've ever had-"
"Kate speaks Russian."
"-best damn whiskey sour you've ever had. You know, I was famous for making these in my Broadway years. Can't tell you how many downtrodden directors I cheered up with one of these babies."
Castle watched his mother go about preparing a cocktail for him.
One drink, he told himself. One drink and then he was going to take another look at Kate's mother's case. He was going to give her closure, give her a chance at happiness.
Kate sat in her chair, staring with unseeing eyes at the ceiling. The Crombie case was not sitting well with her. It had been two days since Marcus Titshaw had confessed. Two restless nights of tossing and turning, trying to figure out what Marcus was hiding. Who was he so afraid of? Ryan and Esposito had run Crombie's financials. They'd checked his phone records. They'd called everyone Crombie could possibly have been with between 10PM and 3AM on the night of his murder, but so far: nothing. Marcus was refusing to speak with her, with anyone about the case. He seemed happy to sit in jail – hadn't even posted bail. His public defender was trying for a minimum sentence, but the mayor wanted to make an example of Marcus for his new, tougher stance on crime. And the entire city thought Marcus was the scum of the earth for assaulting Castle.
Two days since she'd seen Castle, too. She was, there was no point denying it, mad at herself. She knew what she wanted, she'd even confessed it to Lanie. But that night, standing in his loft, seeing him … He had still been weak. He'd looked tired, strained, in pain. He was still not fully himself. The idea of him coming back to shadow her…
Excuses, Kate. You're making excuses, she scolded.
The truth was that since he'd been stabbed, just looking at him caused her heart to seize up. And not in the good way.
The night of her mother's murder still stood vivid in her memory. It had not muted, had not faded or dulled with time. She had to concentrate, sometimes, to remember what her mother's voice sounded like, what her scent had been, how her touch had felt. But the night on which she'd crossed the yellow crime scene tape, when she'd seen her mom laying there…
Memories of that night required no prodding, no cajoling. They would readily leap out at her, crowd her, scream in her ears.
And what had happened in the alley on Saturday night … with Rick …
She didn't want to feel that kind of hurt again. She didn't want to have to find the strength to climb out of the gaping maw of loss. And the fear of it had caused her to get worked up, to lose her grip on what had been such an important conversation.
Kate took a deep breath. She sat up in her chair, posture rigid. Those kinds of thoughts were not going to get her anywhere. She was getting distracted. She needed to figure out what Marcus was hiding. Why he'd confessed to a crime he hadn't committed. And she would find the answer, she was convinced, wherever Crombie had been between 10AM and 3AM the night of his murder.
Focus on the case. Forget about Castle.
Decision made, Kate looked up in search of Ryan and Esposito-
And instead she found Alexis, standing right in front of her desk. Kate's throat went dry.
"Alexis?"
"Hi, Detective Beckett." Castle's daughter smiled a bit nervously.
"Is everything okay?"
"Would you…" she hesitated, "Can we get some coffee?" At Kate's surprised expression, she quickly added, "to talk. Please."
Kate sat in the booth at a coffeehouse not far from the precinct, waiting for Alexis to bring their orders. Alexis had insisted on buying, and Kate had been ready to revolt at the idea of two Castles bringing her coffee, but then she'd remembered the hug Alexis had given her the other night, the worry and the cautious affection she'd caught a glimpse of in the girl's eyes. A slight tug of warmth had pulled at Kate's heart, so she'd quietly acquiesced.
"Skinny latte with two pumps sugar-free vanilla." Alexis wore a wide grin as she set down Kate's drink on the table.
Kate looked down at the coffee in surprise, then back at Alexis.
She shrugged as she slid into her seat opposite from Kate. "Dad may have mentioned it once or twice."
Kate wasn't going to touch the topic of Castle with a ten foot pole.
"How are you doing, Alexis?" she asked instead.
"I'm okay," she answered too quickly, too brightly. At Kate's arched eyebrow, Alexis' brave face crumpled. "Actually, I don't know. I don't know how I'm supposed to feel."
"There are no rules for this," Kate said gently. "You're allowed to feel whatever you do."
"I talked to dad about it."
"That's good. It's important to talk about this, not keep it all bottled in."
"I don't know how you did it." Alexis glanced at Kate with a hesitant courage, looking lost and distressed. "How did you … I mean, dad didn't even die and I'm a mess. You … your mom…" Tears welled in blue eyes that were so much like her father's.
Kate moved around the table and slid into Alexis' booth. She ran a hand up and down the girl's back in long, soothing strokes.
"Your dad is fine, Alexis."
"I know." She sniffled. "Sorry, sometimes I just…"
"It's okay," Kate said. She watched the tears fall from the girl's eyes. "Alexis, if you don't want your dad to come back to shadow me, I will refuse to let him."
"You would do that?" Alexis looked at her in surprise.
Kate nodded.
Alexis considered Kate for a moment, before turning to her hot chocolate. She stirred the drink thoughtfully.
"I couldn't ask that of him," she finally said. "Two days ago, when you said I'd helped you guys find who hurt Dad … I realized why Dad likes it so much. It's the kind of thrill he lives for. And," here Alexis smiled, "this way is better than riding horses naked in Central Park."
Kate could not deny the truth in that observation.
"You know, Dad's not the same person he used to be before he met you," Alexis said, watching her. She was waiting for a reaction, Kate realized.
But you don't get to be one the better detectives in the city without developing a good poker face. Kate was used to suspects trying to read her thoughts in her eyes. Not that Alexis was a suspect…
"Don't get me wrong," she continued, "I've always loved my dad, but now … I guess I hadn't realized how good a person he is. How much ... substance he has. I take him a lot more seriously, too, than I used to." She shook her head in slight frustration. "I'm not explaining myself very well."
"I know what you mean," Kate said. They'd all grown, the three of them, since that first case Castle had made himself a nuisance in. It made her realize how much helping them solve cases meant to him. It held an importance for him that was completely separate with anything to do with her.
Alexis gave Kate a rueful smile, "I think his heart has always been in the right place, but he didn't really have a reason to be serious with it, before."
Kate said nothing, partly because she didn't know how she should respond to that loaded statement, and partly because she sensed that Alexis was winding her way to the heart of the matter. The real purpose behind this coffee date.
"Kate," she began seriously, "I know Dad won't stop coming to the precinct. What I said was true: when he sets his heart on something, dad doesn't budge. No one can stop him except by proving him wrong, and you know how Dad gets when he thinks he's right about something."
Kate was really glad for her poker face at the moment.
"I came here," Alexis said, "because I can't stop Dad from doing this, so I want you to promise me that you'll … take care of him. You'll look out for him."
Kate felt a fierce clash of relief and dismay at hearing Alexis' words. She wanted Castle back. She also wanted an excuse to keep him away. The two opposing forces duelled ferociously in her.
"I know you can't promise me that … I mean, I know Dad doesn't listen and he does what he pleases, but-"
"Alexis." Kate cut in, not sure what she could tell Castle's daughter. At the best of times, trying to rein Castle in was like roping the wind. At the worst…
"I just..." Little Castle sighed. "I'm asking the impossible, aren't I?"
"Alexis," Kate said, "I consider your father to be my partner. And if there's one thing that's sacred in the force, it's a partnership. I promise you that I will watch his back, and do whatever I can to keep him safe and out of harm's way." She looked Alexis in the eye. "Is that enough?"
Alexis nodded, looking like Atlas being relieved of his weight. "For now," she said. Kate couldn't understand, though, why Alexis was smiling as she said it.
Partner, Kate thought. She knew she could honour that professionally – assuming Gates let him back. Castle had been through too much with her for it to be otherwise. He'd watched her back, saved her life, kept her from running off half-cocked. She'd had partnerships with officers before. She'd lived through the cold feet, the fear that accompanied the return of a partner who'd been injured on the job, under her watch. She knew how to deal with all that. On a professional level.
Whether she could deal with the personal level, with the way Castle kept slamming into that wall she'd told him about, loosening the bricks and crumbling the mortar … that was a whole different matter. The trouble was, she was having a hard time keeping the two separate.
She watched Alexis sip her hot chocolate, and she consciously tucked away her worries. She hadn't been able to sort it all out yet. She needed more time to think it all over. Space. Perspective.
Excuses, Kate, a tiny voice whispered.
"How are things with Ashley?" Kate asked, mostly to distract herself.
Alexis' smile lit up the room. "Great! I mean, we hit a rough patch – he's been getting so busy with classes and papers and midterms and extracurriculars – but we figured it out."
"That's good."
"I'm still really disappointed about not getting early admission into Stanford – Dad told you about that, didn't he?"
Kate nodded.
Alexis cocked her head to the side. "Did you get rejected from any of the universities you'd applied to?"
She hadn't, but wasn't sure if that was what Alexis wanted to hear.
"You didn't, did you?" Alexis correctly read into Kate's hesitation. "Have you ever failed at anything?" she asked, exasperated and petulant in a way that was endearingly reminiscent of Castle.
Solving my mother's case, Kate thought. Being the kind of person I want to be.
"I consider failure an opportunity for improvement," she said aloud. It was the truth, too, and an easier one to tell. Though perhaps a harder one to live. "I just try harder, get better."
"Dad's advice was similar," Alexis said. "He told me that not giving up is a mark of success."
"Wise words," Kate grinned. "Sounds like something your father would say." She lifted a finger, pointing it at Alexis in warning, "and don't you dare tell him I used the word 'wise' in reference to him."
"Cross my heart," Alexis replied, grinning. "Besides, I don't think his ego could handle it."
They shared a laugh.
"So you're going to apply to universities for fall admission?"
"Yeah," she looked at Kate. "Can I tell you something? But you have to promise not to tell Dad."
"You have my word," she replied without hesitating. She knew first-hand how there were some things that daughters couldn't confess to fathers. She also knew that Castle's honesty-only policy worked both ways: Alexis would tell her dad when she was ready to.
"I haven't told Dad this yet, but since he got hurt, I've been considering staying in New York."
"But you had your heart set on Stanford," Kate said in surprise, "on being close to Ashley."
"I know I did," Alexis idly ran her spoon along the foamy top of her drink. "It's just ... I'm ... I don't know."
"It's not unusual for you to feel this way, Alexis," Kate said. "After a shock like the one you've experienced, it's normal to want to hold on tighter to those you love." She tucked Little Castle's hair behind her ear, letting her fingers gently slide through the smooth strands. "But Alexis, sweetie, you can't stop living just because you're afraid."
Alexis' eyes darted to Kate's.
"I've already given you my word," Kate said, not sure what to make of the sharp disbelief in the girl's expression. "I will do everything in my power to keep your father safe. I'm already planning on a probationary period for him," she half-teased. "Once his doctor gives him a clean bill of health."
"What..." Alexis trailed off, unsure. The same way she'd looked when she'd first broached the topic of Kate's mom, earlier in the conversation.
"You can ask me, Alexis, anything you want. I'll answer as best I can."
"What do you do when you're afraid?"
Kate stared at Alexis. What did she do?
"Well," she began slowly, "to be honest, I made a lot of unhealthy choices because of my fears." Clear green eyes met troubled blue. "I don't want you to make the same mistakes I did. I wouldn't want anyone to."
Kate stumbled at the empathy in Alexis' gaze. She looked so much like her father at times...
"But I'm working on it," she assured. "It's my one big failure," she told Alexis. "The one that I'm going to overcome."
Alexis gazed into her now-cold hot chocolate, mulling Beckett's words over for a few minutes before speaking: "I can see why Dad bases his books on you."
Kate let out a surprised laugh, half-amused, half-embarrassed – she had not been expecting that comment.
She thought of Castle. His unwavering support, his unshakable faith in her. He believed enough for the both of them, while she stood safely behind her certainty of their failure, her inability to be what he deserved. Her fear.
She was going to conquer it. Castle had framed his first rejection letter from a publisher; Alexis had embraced a contingency plan she'd never before seen a need for; and Kate Beckett would look Richard Castle in the eye and tell him that he was worth the risk of losing the equilibrium she'd worked so hard to achieve. And she would fight every step of the way to prove it. No more excuses.
She could do this.
She could try...
"Thanks, Kate," she said, looking lighter and brighter.
"Always, Alexis." Kate replied, feeling lighter and brighter herself.
"You know," Alexis continued with a warm, conspiratorial smile, "don't tell Dad, but it's a relief to get away from the loft. He can be a handful when he's not at a hundred percent. He gets bored really, really easily," Alexis let out a small laugh. "I waited until he went in for his mid-morning nap and then snuck out to meet with you. Well," she amended, "I left him a note. It takes a lot of creativity to keep him inside the loft. I considered setting a tripwire at the door, you know, booby trap the entrance so Dad couldn't leave. But then I realized he'd find that so cool, he'd spend hours trying to outsmart the trap instead of resting."
"He would get a kick out of that," Kate grinned. "It would just be safer to leave him inside with the tripwire..." she trailed off as realization struck.
Safer inside…
"What?" Alexis asked with concern.
"Booby trap the entrance," Kate repeated.
"You have that look Dad gets when he-"
"I think you just blew this case wide open, Alexis!" Kate said excitedly.
"You have to go?" Alexis asked in surprise.
Kate was halfway out the booth before she stopped herself. She settled back down firmly in her seat. "Alexis," she began-
Alexis laughed then, amused by the clear conflict on Kate's face. "Go. It's fine."
"Thanks!" She slid out of the booth, and without giving it much thought, affectionately tugged on a lock of Alexis' hair. "I'll make it up to you!" And Kate was gone.
Beckett stared intently at the murderboard, marker in hand.
"I thought Gates said the case was closed." Ryan came to stand next to her. Esposito joined them.
"We had the timeline wrong," she said. "All this time, we figured Crombie was killed between 3AM and 4AM on Saturday morning."
"It fits the timeline Lanie gave us," Esposito said.
"Lanie placed time of death between 1AM and 4AM," Beckett reminded him.
"But the alarm in Crombie's studio was deactivated at 3:03AM," Ryan said.
"Right," said Beckett. "And all this time, we assumed that Crombie deactivated the alarm when he reached his studio," she turned to them. "What if he was already inside his studio?"
"With the alarm on?" Esposito was skeptical.
"He was being blackmailed," Beckett pointed out. "And Marcus was afraid of something he refused to talk about. Maybe Crombie was taking extra precautions against whoever was threatening him."
Esposito remained skeptical. Castle would've back her up, Beckett thought.
"But then how did the killer get inside if the alarm was on?" Ryan asked.
"The back door?" she suggested.
"Did he jump from the building across the alley, Super Becks?" Esposito joked.
Beckett narrowed her eyes at him, but that only made his grin widen.
"Or he found some other means of entry," she said. "Maybe he scaled the wall. Or came through the skylights; those aren't alarmed." She turned back to the murderboard. "Which means the killer could have shown up as early as 1AM."
"Why deactivate the alarm at 3AM, when he was done?" Esposito asked. "Why not just leave the same way he came?"
Maybe he wanted us to think the murder was committed after 3AM.
Inner-Castle is back, thought Beckett. Now, she was getting somewhere.
Aloud she said: "To give himself an alibi, to make us think the murder was committed after 3AM." She paused. "Which means our killer is someone who knows the code to Crombie's studio…"
…the same person Rocky thought had come back to the scene of the crime, someone who wears suits and has an expensive haircut...
"…someone who could have scaled the wall or entered through the skylights…"
…someone who doesn't have an alibi for before 3AM!
Beckett's eyes widened – of course! She turned to Ryan and Esposito. "I know who the killer is!"
Beckett sat across from John Crombie's agent. His silver hair was immaculately combed, his suit stylishly cut, and his demeanour confident.
"Why is it, Mr. Fitzwilliam," she said, "that every lead I follow on this case points me to you?"
Fitzwilliam watched her impassively, but said nothing.
"I know why," she answered her own question. "Because you had means, motive, and opportunity. And we have evidence."
"I told you," Fitzwilliam said with a flicker of impatience, "I was climbing. With friends. I had left the city by three on Saturday morning."
"We spoke with your climbing friends. You were definitely there by 5AM, and we have your car passing through the Hudson Toll at 3:11AM." She noted the smug upturn of his lips. She liked them best like this. It was more fun to corner them in their web of lies when they thought they'd gotten away with it.
"What your friends found strange though," Beckett continued, "were the specks of green paint they saw on your climbing gloves. And what I find strange is that it took you two hours to complete a one and a half hour journey."
Fitzwilliam's eyes were intent on hers, calculating, even as his body language was calm and easy. He was trying to decide whether to call her bluff.
He settled for saying nothing.
"Here's what I think happened," Kate said. "You climbed into Crombie's studio before 3AM from the back door. You drowned him, and then threw paint over the crime scene to cover any prints you may have left – drowning someone in paint is, after all, a messy job. When you were done, you deactivated the alarm to give yourself an airtight alibi. You climbed back down the side of the building and drove the hour and a half distance to meet your climbing buddies, with a half an hour pit stop to clean all that green paint off your hands and the inside of your climbing gloves."
His eyes narrowed, that smug lift of his lips was back. He leaned back comfortably in his chair, flicking a piece of lint off his pants. "You have nothing," he said. "Conjecture. You didn't mention a piece of evidence in your little story." Satisfaction glinted in his eyes. "I would never hurt Johnny. What motive could I possibly have?"
"Conjecture is it?" she asked. "What if I tell you I had uniforms canvas the service stations along the interstate from Manhattan to Shawagunk Ridge? An employee at a service station near Poughkeepsie remembers seeing you in the washroom, washing your hands. He said it was hard to forget all the paint he had to mop up behind you. Took you half an hour to clean up," she said critically, "but you still didn't do that great a job." She paused before driving another nail into the coffin. "And CSU is searching your apartment for your climbing gear. You may have been smart enough to throw away your climbing gloves, but I bet you didn't throw away all your climbing picks. I bet they'll find a perfect match for the holes we found on the wall beneath the studio's back door, from where you drove your picks in. Are you still telling me it's all conjecture?"
His smile faltered.
"At first, though," Beckett said thoughtfully. "I didn't understand why you would kill Crombie. You planned this out very carefully. You made sure you had time to clean up after yourself. All signs of premeditation. The question remains: why would you want to kill him, Arthur? And why drown him in paint? Why didn't you take a weapon with you if you planned on killing John?"
Beckett looked at Fitzwilliam, giving him a chance to answer the question. Unsurprisingly, he held his silence. He was watching her, once again the very much the picture of cool and unflappable. Beckett had to give him credit for it. But she still had a few more cards to play.
"I think it's because you thought Crombie betrayed you, and that made you lose your head. You see: you genuinely cared for John."
There was the briefest of flashes in his brilliant blue eyes, and Beckett knew she'd found his weak point. She was going to get her confession if she exploited that weakness. And she needed a confession.
"John's paranoia," Beckett said, "led him to dig around your home and office. It led him to think you were hiding something. Usually, he was wrong about such things; just the effect of being off-medication. Turns out," she paused, watched his face carefully. "This time he was right. You're quite the wanted man, Arthur. The FBI has been looking for the person responsible for flooding the US market with quality forgeries. For a long time now, they've suspected an American citizen of working with the Chinese triad to funnel high-end fakes into the country, but they just couldn't figure out who it was. Imagine how pleased they were when I called them with your name. The feds are searching your office, your homes, and your financials. And two of their agents are waiting right outside that door." She indicated the door to the interrogation room with the tilt of her chin. She allowed herself a feral smile. "But they were so kind as to give me first dibs on you."
She had – after a lot of sweat and grief – finally extracted the truth from Rocky. He had been a surprisingly tough nut to crack, because he was terrified of Fitzwilliam and his associates in the triad. Twenty years in prison was a small price to pay for staying alive, he'd said. But once she'd informed the FBI about Fitzwilliam, they'd offered her a bargaining chip with which to turn Marcus, and Gates had made her take it: the promise of a new start under the witness protection program in exchange for testifying had Marcus caving like a bad soufflé.
But Kate wanted a confession out of Fitzwilliam. Because if the need for Marcus to testify was taken away, then the deal he'd made with the FBI would be off the table. She wanted to nail the bastard to the wall for hurting Castle, not let him walk away into a new life under the auspices of the feds.
She leaned forward, elbows on the table, and stared him down. "You killed a man who looked up to you as a father."
Fitzwilliam's eye twitched at that, his only outward exhibition of anger.
"He was so broken up when he found out what you were doing, who you were," Beckett pushed, allowing her tone to drip with disgust.
"Broken up!" Fitzwilliam said sharply. "Looked up to me as a father?" Fitzwilliam was suddenly seething, his voice getting louder with indignation. "He tried to blackmail me! He threatened to reveal who I was unless I paid him a hundred thousand dollars! When I confronted him about the blackmail letter he denied it!" He shook his head irately. "Looked me in the eye and denied it." He jabbed a finger into his chest in angered disbelief. "To my face!"
"Crombie wasn't the one blackmailing you," Beckett said. It was hard to believe the raging man in front of her was the same one who'd used his charm so effectively in their first interview.
"I saw the letter!" He was incensed. "Who else knew but him? I caught him going through my computer, digging around in my office. After I took him in like a son!"
"When John found out about your dealings in forged artwork, he told Rocky," Beckett cut into his tirade. "He had no one else to turn to, to talk to, so he told his foster brother. The brother who'd looked out for him when they were younger."
Fitzwilliam's red hot fury faltered before her. He frowned at Beckett, off-balance and unsure now that his righteous anger had been stripped from him. "You're saying … that this Rocky kid sent me the letter?"
Beckett nodded. "When Crombie found out what Rocky was up to, he was livid. He demanded Rocky give him the money, and then he hid it in his studio until he could return it to you. He kicked Rocky out after that, said he never wanted to see him again."
Fitzwilliam looked down at his hands. His breathing was quick and shallow. "No." His eyes rose to meet Beckett's. "No. You're lying."
"It's the truth," she told him. "Rocky thought you would pay to keep your involvement in dealing with forged artwork from coming to light. He sent you that letter without telling John, who didn't know about the blackmail until you confronted him. Rocky admitted to everything. He said Johnny was afraid of your temper."
"No..." he shook his head, struggled to come to terms with what Beckett was telling him. "I thought Johnny … he was a son to me. I couldn't let him ruin me. I just, I wanted to talk to him."
"And talking to Johnny meant holding his head under a can of paint?" Kate asked in disbelief. "Come on, Arthur. No one's going to buy that." She waved a dismissive hand. "You had the whole thing planned out."
"You don't understand. John kept insisting that he didn't want my money, that he would never have blackmailed me. Even..." Fitzwilliam wiped at his eyes with trembling fingers. "... even when I held his head under that paint, it was just to get him to tell me the truth. I didn't mean to kill him. But John just kept insisting," he said. He leaned forward, trying to convince her of his side of events, desperate to find his absolution. "I thought he was lying and I got so angry ... and he just wasn't stable, you know, when he was off his medication. He wasn't predictable. If I didn't do something about it, about him, I would've been killed. My ... business associates are not to be trifled with, Detective Beckett."
He sounded like a man, Beckett thought, who was trying to rationalize an unthinkable act.
The door opened just then, and the FBI agents Beckett had promised walked in. With a nod towards the agents, she picked up her paperwork and left the room. She had her confession. She had justice for Castle. For Alexis. Alexis, who would never have to live with the hollow, helpless anger of knowing that the person who had harmed your parent was out there, scot free.