A/N: I did do my research as best I could – but any errors in the forensics in this chapter remain mine. My advice – go with it ;-)
Chapter Twenty Six: Stand up, and walk the way you talk like you could die for it.
"Alakazam jackass," she says quietly.
She doesn't know exactly how long she stares at his name, mind reeling and purpose blindingly clear, but suddenly Ryan is using the dry eraser on Castle's words and the protest is out her mouth before she can even think on it.
"What the hell do you think you're doing?" she hisses at him violently.
Ryan's cobalt gaze is calm and steady, he's already finished making sure all trace of Castle's message is gone.
"Exactly what Castle just told us to do," he says quietly for only Kate and Javi's ears. "Being careful. His message says Valez is always watching – so maybe he's got corrupt cops on his payroll as well."
Kate's about to correct Ryan, tell him that the 'always' in the message is a personal thing from her lover to her, when it dawns on her that Castle could indeed be using the phrase two ways here. One word, but double duty. She stares back at the blank spot on the white-board where moments earlier the decoded words were written out, and forces herself to think hard on it for a moment or two more. In the end, she has to conclude that Ryan does have a valid point and that 'always' here can easily be ascribed to separate things.
"Sorry," she says with a soft smile in Kevin's direction, "you're right of course. We have to conclude that's a possibility and proceed accordingly."
Esposito blows out a frustrated sigh.
"So what now?" he asks, looking at Beckett for direction.
Kate chews on her lip. "Lanie did say she was going to have the ballistics run again, right?" she asks him.
Javier smiles, "Yeah, that's what she told us. Do you want me follow up?"
The brunette nods, "We know Dr. Niska had them run with Slaughter's initial autopsy," she says. "And I trust ballistics would have alerted someone if the slugs came back with a match to anything at anytime – and yet my gut tells me to look again. We can't let the case we build for Slaughter's murder end up being all circumstantial – we need some real evidence to make it as solid as we can."
Esposito grins at her. "Let's hope for something new from ballistics then. I'll check with them now."
Kate turns to Ryan, who's staring at Slaughter's bare bones timeline again deep in thought.
"Ryan?"
"Hmmmm," he hums.
"What is it?" she asks.
"Why did he want to kill him?" Ryan replies.
Kate frowns, "I'm sorry, what?"
Ryan turns away from the murder board to look at her.
"Slaughter," he says, nodding his head at the murdered detective's picture. "Why did Valez want to run the risk of a lethal injection by killing a police detective? What was in it for him?"
Beckett shrugs; sitting on the edge of her desk she studies the murder board too.
Narrowing her eyes she says, "You know, up until we decoded the message in Castle's novel I figured this was going to come back to the case Castle and Slaughter worked together."
"Well it does, doesn't it? I mean it has to since it involves the pair of them and that case was the entirety of their association." Ryan says quietly.
"Yes," she agrees, "but don't you get the feeling that it isn't the whole story? I mean, you said it yourself Ryan – he's risking a lethal injection for the homicide of a cop here. Those are huge stakes even for a drug-running gangster. Now we know Valez has reason to want some pay-back against Slaughter – Slaughter tried to frame him in order to take him off the streets, and we can be reasonably sure Valez knows this. But 'murder', there has to be more too this."
Ryan nods.
"Yeah I agree," he replies. "And what's his beef with Castle?" he adds.
"Exactly - Castle's the only reason Valez even remained free."
Her partner frowns.
"And we have a problem," he says. "How do we go about taking Valez' life apart properly looking for whatever trigger sent him after Slaughter, without tipping anyone off into what we're actually looking for?"
Kate gets up from the edge of her desk and steps close to the murder board again; when she turns to face Ryan suddenly a minute later she's smiling again.
"Well for starters we could fake the board," she tells him.
Ryan eyes widen in confusion. "I'm not following you."
Kate's grin is calculating, "We make this a dummy board," she reiterates, thumbing the white board behind her. "If we're truly heeding Castle's warning here, then we have to assume that by now Valez has learned that we've exhumed Slaughter's remains. He knows it's not being written off as accidental as he hoped and instead it's considered suspicious enough that it warrants being investigated. If that's the case, then a dummied up murder board will make it appear as if we're getting nowhere. We'll add only the details everyone knows – time of death, location, cause of death. Then we'll add a list of all Slaughter's open cases at the time; put some gang-bangers names up in the suspect column, add some of the names from the shootout that day to the potential witness list – that kind of thing," she says excitedly.
Detective Ryan grins.
"Okay, I see where you're going," he says, "what then?"
"Then the three of us covertly start our real investigation. We need to find out from Espo if there is anyone in the gang unit he trusts enough that we can hit them up for some information safely. Because you're absolutely right Kev, we need to know what happened to Valez after that case to make him suddenly want Slaughter dead so badly?"
"Motive."
Kate nods.
"As always," she muses, "motive is the key to everything."
Esposito returns to find Ryan and Beckett filling the Slaughter murder board in at what he can only describe as a 'break-neck' pace. The details are all accurate, but they don't look right somehow and the Latino detective stares at the board they've complied in his pretty short absence more than a little bit confused.
Clearing his throat to attract his partner's attention he arches both brows at them and crosses his arms expectantly.
"What," he says, nodding in the direction of the board, "is that?"
Ryan looks swiftly around the bullpen for eavesdropping ears, before he mouths the word 'dummy' at Espo, before smiling suddenly and physically blocking the view of the murder board from a uniform who's wandering by and appears to be perusing it.
Face darkening like a thunder cloud Javier steps towards his sidekick, 'What did you just call me?" he growls.
The uniform leaves and Ryan's shoulders relax, "Not you," he stage whispers before he tilts his head. "It."
Esposito looks back at the board and within seconds his face suddenly goes very neutral.
"Got it."
"Anyway," Beckett interrupts. "Do Ballistics have anything?"
Her partner grins nodding, before he walks past her into the conference room and waits for the others to join him, Ryan follows Kate into the room and secures the door.
"Slugs pulled out of Slaughter still aren't a match to anything," he begins and Kate's face falls instantly, "however," he hastens to add, "Lanie found residue in the wound tracks and so she had some additional tests run on the shell casings that were recovered along with his body at the scene. There are trace amounts of cocaine on them."
"And Valez is a drug dealer," she says, "but Javi that's really thin. You can test bank notes and pick up trace amounts of cocaine. I bet we'd find those same traces on half the shell casings we deal with."
Esposito looks smug, "Not these traces you wouldn't."
"What do you mean?"
"This cocaine is laced with a compound called 'Levamisole'," he says.
Beckett shakes her head frustrated. "Seventy percent of all seized cocaine is found to be laced with Levamisole," she tells him. "I don't see how any of this helps us."
"That's because you didn't let me finish," Esposito admonishes her.
The brunette detective shrugs to indicate he should continue then.
"As I was saying – the cocaine found on the shell casings is laced with the anti-parasitic "Levamisole' which, as you already pointed out is a very common adulterant often found in cocaine – however not at the levels Lanie's found here."
"What's weird about it?" asks Ryan.
"How high it is," Javi replies. "Lanie says she's seen a few cases of cocaine overdose over the last six months or so where the postmortem blood concentrations of Levamisole were at the kind of dangerous levels she's found here."
"Oh my God," Kate interrupts. "That's it Javi – it's like a fingerprint."
Esposito nods, "Exactly what Lanie said. Whoever is cutting their cocaine with this stuff and doing it at this ratio - they've made themselves distinctive. If we can tie Valez to this stuff conclusively, prove that he's the dealer behind it . . . "Esposito trails off.
"Then we can tie him to the bullets that killed Ethan Slaughter – albeit somewhat circumstantially." Kate finishes for him. "It's a start Javi, especially if we can come up with a solid motive for him to have done this."
"You hear that?" Ryan chimes in.
"Hear what?" He gets back in stereo.
"Why I believe it's the sound of hammering," he says smiling, "of the first nail in the Valez coffin."