Chapter 4.) Malpractice or Murder?
"That was pretty rough back there," Castle said sitting in his usual shotgun seat.
'They usually are,' Beckett said aloud now that she was completely alone.
"You're going to keep them together though right?"
"Castle you know that's not up to me."
"Still you're going to try at least," he said with certainty. "It's what you do, next to honoring the victims you make sure the families are taken care of."
They arrived at a condo complex on the higher end upper west side. Beckett ringed the doorbell and waited.
"So a very rich family sues the surgeon for their baby's death," said Castle. "What's supposed to be a very unpleasant civil matter turns into something more deadly when the husband begins to feel that the case isn't enough anymore. He wants the ultimate revenge. You took away my child, I take you."
"As nice of a theory as that is," Beckett now said in thought, "We both it's never that simple. If that's all it was why not just kill the person he was suing? Why go after the husband and why leave the kids unharmed?"
"Yeah I'm gonna have to think on that a bit."
A man in his mid forties opened the door.
"Can I help you," he asked.
"Patrick McConnell?"
"Yeah?"
Beckett raised her shield. "I'm Detective Beckett. May I have a word?"
"Murdered," Cynthia said a few moments later when the three of them, four if you included Castle's apparition, were in the family room.
"I understand you had an issue with Dr. Morena Moreno."
"You're referring to the lawsuit," said Pat.
"I am. Can you tell me what it was about?"
"Our daughter died detective," Pat said holding his wife's hand. "We probably shouldn't go into the specifics without a lawyer."
"I can always come back with a subpoena."
"Then you do that," Pat said harshly.
"No, you don't have to," said Cynthia. "You're trying to find out who killed her right, this isn't about our case?"
"No it's not," Beckett assured them.
Pat shook his head, "Not that we have one now anyways now that that goddamn bitch is dead."
Cynthia ignored her husband's comment, "Simple fact is she cut something that she shouldn't have."
It was a lot more complicated than that however. The infant had a disorder known as achalasia in which foods and liquids had a difficult time reaching the stomach. It had been discovered shortly after Kelly's birth when Cynthia noticed on a couple times breast feeding that Kelly wasn't swallowing the milk. Mercy General being a teaching hospital, an intern had perforated the thinner wall in the infants' esophagus causing uncontrollable bleeding during the Laparoscopic Esophageal Myotomy.
Pat continued from Cynthia's statement, "Dr. Moreno said that the surgery was her best chance, said it was a routine procedure but when it came down to it she failed. She had been up for over forty-eight hours straight."
"And instead of getting another surgeon equal to her to do the job, she let her intern do it. An intern can you believe that!"
Beckett did feel sorry for the couple. She could not imagine the thought of something going wrong with her twins when they were born. She was grateful to have two children who were born healthy and who were spared the expense and trauma of having to suffer through that.
Still she had to put her personal feelings aside for the moment as she had a job to do.
"I can't imagine how difficult this must be but I have to ask, where were you two between 7 and 10 PM on December 12th?"
"At home," said Pat.
"Can anyone voice for that?"
"My mother in-law and a friend's wife from work," he said. "Wait a second, you don't think we had anything to do with that do you?"
"I'm just asking questions."
Cynthia patted her husband's leg. "Let her do her job."
Pat stood, "No! After everything we've been through, you think you can just come in here and accuse us of something we had nothing to do with?"
"Mr. McConnell," Beckett said standing up too. "I didn't mean to offend you. I only want to find out what happened."
"Yeah we'll you're wasting your time here Detective. I'm glad she's dead so why don't you try to find the real killer because it sure as hell isn't either one of us."
"That was harsh," Castle said a few hours later to Beckett as she stood in the break room getting her coffee.
'You've seen people react that way, sometimes worse,' Beckett thought.
"Sure but he was a little excessive."
'He's a father grieving for his child.'
"Do you think he did it?"
'I don't think so. Mr. McConnell was beyond angry but I think he was angry for reasons not pertinent to our case. His own malpractice suit is most likely to go down the drink unless he ends up suing someone else at the hospital but that doesn't seem likely considering the amount of money he's all ready spent on this one.'
"You may be right and you did check their alibi's which cleared so now we're back to where we started."
Beckett took a sip of her coffee and then brought it down when Ryan and Esposito came into the room.
"Any luck on your suspects," Ryan asked.
"There's a lot of anger but they're not our killers," said Beckett, "What about you boys, anything on your end?"
Ryan smiled, "As a matter of fact we got plenty. While you were checking out female Dr. Moreno, we decided to check on male Dr. Moreno."
"Turns out as good of a professor as he was there were some students who did have a problem."
Beckett followed the boys to the white board. Fifteen names were on it along with their pictures.
"Meet the Anti-Bio 15," said Ryan, "Four boys, eleven girls from out of over two hundred twenty students."
"Anti-Bio 15," said Espo, "Seriously?"
"What you got something better?"
"The Troubled 15," said Castle, "No the Fanless 15. No, damn it I hate to say it but Ryan's is better."
Beckett hid her smile behind her hand. She recovered herself and then asked, "Okay so what is it about these fifteen that stick out?"
The board was numbered along with the names so they could keep track. Numbers one through eleven were the girls and twelve through fifteen were the boys.
"This is group 1: Numbers two, six, eight, nine, thirteen and fourteen were simply bored with the class," said Esposito as he circled the numbers in blue.
"Group 2: Three, eleven, and fifteen, hated the class," said Ryan circling the numbers in red.
"And lastly we have group 3: one, four, five, seven, ten, and twelve," said Espo, "Who are on the verge of failing the class. It isn't just any biology class, its zoology specifically," he said as he circled the numbers in black.
"Okay well I think we can eliminate group one," said Beckett, "Boredom isn't necessarily a valid reason to kill. Is there any way we can narrow down groups two and three?"
"We can cross off fifteen," said Ryan, "as well as four, five, and ten who were all at the library studying together."
"So we're left with five possible suspects," said Beckett. "I'll take them, I want you guys to look into anyone else who had a close personal connection, TA's, other professors, interns at the hospital, all of that."
"Leave no rock unturned," said Esposito, "Got it."
'Let's go Castle, we've got our work cut out for us,' Beckett thought.
"Sweet, I love this part!" Castle said getting excited.