Chapter 2: Off the clock and off the Books
Once the group had left the precinct, they all agreed to meet back at the loft to talk over what had transpired in the past couple hours, and the return of someone they had not expected. The cab ride back to the loft for Kate, Rick, Alexis and Martha was a quiet one. Alexis sat in the back with her father, and stepmother holding both of their hands while she quietly sobbed. Once they arrived back at the loft, Alexis went upstairs to her room to contact her professors about make ups, while the rest of the family remained downstairs.
Martha poured each of them a cup of coffee and looked at Kate. "How do you know this detective Kate?"
"Long story short, we all went to the academy together." Kate answered bringing the coffee up and taking a sip. She sat the mug down and looked at Martha "He was working a case with my friend Laurie. He made the arrest of the suspect while Laurie was chasing a false lead given to her by him. That made his career, but burned a lot of bridges at the precinct he was working at."
"Oh I'm sorry dear." Martha replied taking a sip.
"He got moved to the Bronx then IA." Rick answered taking his own sip of coffee, and squeezing Kate's hand. He saw his mother's look. "Kate told me a long time ago."
Before Martha could answer, a knock came from the loft door, and Martha went over to open it. Lanie, Ryan, and Espazito walked into the loft. Ryan was carrying food in one hand and drinks in another.
"Ryan, you didn't have to do that, we have plenty here." Rick said as Ryan set the food down on the counter, along with the drinks. The food came from Castle favorite burger place. "I'll forgive you though. Where's mine?"
"Bottom of the bag." Ryan replied setting the drinks on the counter. He sat down in the counter stool. "So did anyone pick up why they are looking at us besides the connection to Alexis?"
"Not really, all that I heard was them trying to confirm alibis and check financials." Espozito said taking his burger and walking back towards Lanie and the couch. "Henderson is an ass, but he is a smart one. Not revealing too much."
"I feel bad for Alexis. Poor girl has to go through this all over again." Lanie said taking a bit out of Espozito's burger to which she gave a smile. She quickly retrieved hers from the bag. "Where is she?"
"Upstairs. She had to reschedule to take her exams." Martha replied. She passed on the burger that was offered her. "Poor dear."
"Henderson must think he has something on us, but without access to any of the case….." Kate started to say when a familiar voice came
"I don't know about Detective Henderson, but I have something." Alexis answered coming down the stairs from her room. "I was able to record some things on my phone."
"Alexis honey you have to don't have to say anything." Rick said coming over to place his arms around his daughter.
"It's all right dad, I'm ok." Alexis replied getting out of her father's arms and walking over to the group and pulling out her phone. "One of the detectives mentioned something about surveillance footage."
"Did they say where Alexis?" Kate asked coming over. She put her arms around her stepdaughter's shoulders.
"I don't know, but I recorded what they were talking about on my phone." Alexis answered. She took out her phone and played the recording.
"This footage was from two days ago from a restaurant on the Upper East side." One of the voices on the recording says.
"Place looks like it's too expensive for detectives, wonder who paid?" Another voice came onto the recording.
"More than likely it was Detective Beckett's husband." The first voice came back onto the recording. They heard some shuffling. "There is our victim."
"When was this recorded?" The second detective came on again.
Castle hit paused on the phone. He looked over at the ensemble. "That is Rizzo's. We were there….."
Kate picked up where her husband left off. "Two days ago where we went to celebrate Martha's review from her last play."
Ryan and Espozito looked at each other for a moment and recalled it. Ryan spoke up first. "That is why they are looking at us. To them it looks like we…."
"Were conducting a pre-hit meeting and conducting surveillance." Espozito finished the statement. He went over to where the stools where and took a seat in one of them. "So how are we going to get out from under this microscope?"
"I would suggest we do nothing." Martha answered the question. She looked around the room at the group. "Let the information we provided speak for itself."
"I agree with Martha." Ryan spoke looking around the group. He shifted on his feet before choosing his next words. "If we are caught looking at this while IA's thumb we will probably face charges."
The group looked around at each other and thought about that for a moment. Ryan at the moment had the most to lose, with a young wife, and child at home. Though everyone else would lose a lot, Ryan losing his family would devastate him.
"I'll contact Pearlmutter and see if he can email me some pictures from the autopsy and all the usual paperwork that we run." Lanie said breaking the silence of the group. She moved away pulling out her phone to call.
"I'll check into the restaurant again and see if anyone remembers us and the vic there." Espozito stated. He pulled out his phone to look up the address. "Hopefully somebody will remember seeing something else."
While Espozito and Lanie were on the phones, a knock came from loft door. Martha went to go open it, and was surprised by the vistor on the other side. "Oh Captain Gates."
"Hello Ms. Rodgers, Sorry to disturb you at home." Captain Gates said apologetically which she really meant.
"Oh it's no problem at all. Please come in." Martha replied to the statement. She stood aside to let in the Captain, and once that happen she closed the door.
"Thank you. I'm glad you are all here, because I figured this is where you be." Captain told the group as she walked into the loft. She wanted to get over with in one shot. "I have orders from the commissioner. Until evidence points otherwise, you all are on paid administrative leave, with exception of Alexis and Ms. Rodgers."
"We had a feeling this was coming sir." Kate replied from the group who all nodded.
"Thank you Detective Beckett." Captain Gates stated with a serious face. Then she had a smile spread across her face. "With the official business out of the away, unofficially the commissioner doesn't like his best homicide team on the side lines, so here you go. This is from me."
She handed a flash drive over to Kate. "Sir what is this?"
"Everything on the IA investigation." Captain Gates replied with a sly smile. She saw the look on their faces. "They were pulled into a meeting in the conference room and one of them left his computer unlocked. Don't get caught."
They nodded their understanding and Captain Gates left them again in the loft to contemplate what they had been handed. They knew if they were caught, it will be a felony conviction and significant jail time. Yet the silence of the moment was broke when Castle took the flash drive out of Kate's hand and moved towards the office. He sat down and plugged it in as the rest filed into the room.
"Babe, what are you doing?" Kate asked already knowing the answer.
"Doing what the captain suggested. Investigating and not getting caught." Rick replied scrolling through the thumb drive files. He felt Kate's hands on his shoulders, and out the corner of his eye, Espazito coming around. "Looks like it's all here. Reports, records, surveillance, everything."
"Its gives us a idea what they have." Kate replied as Castle continued to scroll through the files again. She tapped on Rick's shoulders. "Click on that one."
Rick clicked on a file marked Beckett and Castle. It opened to a word document that had the internal affairs header at the top. "Son of a bitch."
"Henderson wrote a confidential report to the commissioner three weeks ago, request that our partnership be terminated." Kate summarized the report. She had Castle scroll down the report further. "He reported that neither one of us can remain objective."
"Wow, what ass." Alexis stated getting agreements from the rest of the room.
"Guys, I don't mean to sound like a broken record." Ryan sounded off. Everyone turned to look at him with curious eyes. "I'm with you, but I am saying because if we do this…"
"It has to be off the books." Kate finished the statement for Ryan. She looked around the room and thought about the words. "We don't have the resources of the precinct or labs at our disposal. So until we are cleared, this office because the precinct."
Everyone nodded and went about to find some things that could help with their version of the case. Alexis and Martha retreated to the comfort of their rooms or the living rooms, while notebooks, pens, and other materials were found and distributed. Within a few minutes the team had divided up the load and began to divide into the case.
"Castle, your computer may be top of the line, but video controls suck." Ryan said a couple hours later. Castle got up from a small table that he and Kate had set up for themselves. "It's the controls on the computer, they keep moving the video when I'm trying to focus in on something."
"Hold on." Castle told him. He opened up a desk drawer and scrumaged around inside it for a few seconds. He came out with a flash drive and a remote to which he handed over to Ryan. "Here you go."
"Any reason you couldn't give it to me earlier." Ryan said sarcastically getting a playful slap from Castle.
"Geez Ryan complain much." Kate said laughing coming in with more coffee. She passed them out to the group before sitting back down in the chair. "Well they just have an initial investigation going, but I'm not finding anything linking us to the homicide."
"Pearlmutter finished the autopsy on our victim. His name is Bradley DeGarmo." Lanie said sipping over her coffee. She set the cup down and looked over her notes. "Nothing out of the ordinary on him. COD nine mil to the left temple. No drugs or alcohol in his system."
"Same thing can be said for Rizzo's." Espozito said coming back into the office from his journey to the restaurant they had visited a few nights ago. He stopped in the center of the room and opened up the notebook he had. "The staff definitely remembers us and the manager remembers our vic being there with a some other folks. Mainly describe these gentlemen as business types, and looked like our vic was standing near one."
"Well he is a security guard, maybe he got a extra shift pulling private security." Kate replied getting up and walking over towards the desk. She looked around. "I wish we had the murder board."
"I would have set it on the computer, but we need that for surveillance footage." Castle smirked with a glance at Ryan.
"And it paid off." Ryan replied as he pressed a button on the remote. He pushed another button on the computer and brought the shot onto the big screen. "There's our vic right there, back against the wall near this group of four right here."
"Yeah I recognize a few of these folks." Kate replied coming up closer to the screen. Ryan zoomed in for her. "That is Senator Kendrick, Haskin, along with I think that is council woman Miller. Don't know who the other gentlemen is."
"That's Dr. Jeremey Nigel." Lanie said coming over towards the screen. She got a closer look at the man who was closest to the victim. "He quit practicing and went into the natural medicine game."
"I heard of him. Runs the biggest all natural medicine company on the Eastern seaboard." Castle said. He got up and move to the living room and scrummaged around for a minute. "He's being sued for a unlawful death for one of his medicines."
"That explains the security." Espozito answered getting a nodded.
"Plus the political power. All three of those political bigwigs voted for the tax break that Dr. Nigel's factory received." Lanie said.
"Fast forward Ryan." Kate said. Ryan fast forward the footage a little bit longer. "Stop. Look we left before they did."
"Yeah. There is no way we were planning a hit and running recon." Espozito stated coming over to the screen and tapping the screen. "We left before they did and all ended back home."
"There's outside footage too." Ryan interjected.
"Play it forward." Castled said to Ryan.
"Why, this proves we weren't doing anything." Kate said standing next to her husband.
"There's something about this gentlemen right here. He came in with the political party and hasn't ordered anything but drinks." Castle answered his wife's statement. Ryan did move the tape forward a bit. The party that the vic was providing security for left, and two minutes later the gentlemen that Castle was interested in left as well. "Stop Ryan and back up a few seconds."
"What did you see babe?" Kate asked.
"Missing finger, and tattoos on the hands." Castle said as he pointed to the screen. Ryan zoomed in. "There is your surveillance. Russian mob." The group looked as the man who the screen was currently fixed on was missing a index finger, and had Cyrillic letter on his hands. Signs of the Russian Mafia.
==========================================================================================================Thank you for reviews and your insights. I hope to continue to keep you entertain as the story progresses.