A/N

Sorry this took so long to update, I have been traveling so much for work, plus my family responsibilities. I hope you enjoy, I have most of the next chapter written, a shorter more family oriented affair, and then am planning on a lengthy chapter 7 to get us back into the case.

Chapter 5

As they approached the door to the autopsy bay, Beckett bumped Castle's shoulder, giving him a look full of love, squinting her eyes slightly. He understood immediately, behave yourself.

Walking in, they saw Lanie sitting at her computer, entering in notes from her clipboard.

"Find anything for us Lanie" Beckett asked.

"More questions than answers unfortunately and nothing to helpful" Lanie replied as she stood up, grabbing a pair of exam gloves and walking over to the sheet covered body.

"Here's what I have so far. I confirmed that the shotgun blast to his face was done postmortem. There are some contact burns around the temple suggesting that weapon was held fairly close to the face, but at an angle and distance designed to prevent any damage to the back of the head or the top. I did find a couple of injection marks on the body, and I have the tox screen at the lab now, we should get a list tomorrow. Other than that the rest of the external wounds, bruising and burns, were not fatal."

"So we don't know what killed him?" Castle asked.

"Settle down writer-boy, I did find something unusual on my dissection of his heart muscles. There is some abnormal damage around his A/V node. I think whatever caused the burns on his chest was electrical and I think whoever did it was smart enough to stop his heart with an electrical pulse."

"A reverse defibrillator?"

"It's possible, you would have to have some basic electrical engineering knowledge, as well as some heart physiology, but otherwise it's not an overly complex method to kill someone."

"What about time of death?" Beckett quizzed.

"Hard to tell. Rigor has not resolved, so I would guess less than 48 hours. Liver temp suggests a time of death greater than 24 hours, but with the body being moved it's hard to account for external temperature changes."

"Anything that might help us identify him?"

"Not much, I found some faint scarring on the arm, suggestive of carpal tunnel surgery, but the fading suggests the surgery was at least 3-5 years ago."

"The only other thing I noted was that there was some sort of oily residue in his pubic hair. It's the only hint of trace material I could find on the body"

"Any idea what it is?" asked Beckett

"Lab has it now, should have the breakdown by the morning?"

"What about those round red welts on the back of his head?" Castle asked.

"I'm not sure, but they are evenly distributed across what remains of the back and top of the head. I called a friend of mine who is a neurosurgeon, given the reverse defibrillator I wanted to see if the pattern could be some sort of jury rigged neurosurgery device."

"Maybe it's a mind control helmet." Castle remarked, a slightly mischievous grin on his face as he quickly ran through what he would use a mind control helmet for.

Beckett snorted at that response "Come on Manchurian candidate, let's go put the information on our murder boards."

"Thanks Lanie, let me know if you find anything else, and call me as soon as those lab tests come back, we are still swimming upstream trying to figure this one out and without a solid lead on who are victim even is, finding the killer is going to be tough."

Heading out of the autopsy bay back towards the street, Castle looked around, and seeing no one in the hall leaned over and kissed Kate on the cheek.

Pulling back he could see the started look on her face, as well as the blush reddening her cheeks.

"Castle!"

"Sorry, couldn't help myself, plus I checked there was no one around."

"Seriously?" she replied, desire mixing with annoyance

She smacked him lightly in the chest, but grabbed his hand and held it all the way to the car.

Arriving back at the precinct they both went to work on their respective white boards. Kate filled in the TOD time line and marked off some notes regarding when the body could have been dropped off in the warehouse.

Espo and Ryan had finished running down the license plates and had generated a list of registered owners. All 4 of them sat in front of the murder boards and bounced some ideas around. Talk turned to their plan of attack for the following day, seeing how it was getting late and no other reports were going to be coming in that day.

"I want you and Ryan to start talking to the registered owners that you guys pulled. Even if none of them are our murderer, they are the best potential witnesses we have right now." Becket instructed Esposito.

"What about us, victim follow-up?" Castle asked.

"Yeah, we have a narrow geographic range to work in, plus I want to go to this program about the brain at the museum, so far it's the only piece of evidence with a time and a location on it and if our killer is trying to send a message or communicate I want to be there."

"Field trip!" Castle's excited response and the gleam in his eye made him look like a kid in a candy store.

Beckett shot him a quick eye roll, and then turning back to Ryan. "One more thing, Ryan can you take that paper with the computer code on it down to your tech friends and see if they can decipher anything about it."

Sure thing boss, I'll have Keith, my computer guy take a look first thing tomorrow and see what he can make out of it."

Breaking out of their huddle, Beckett went to update Gates, who appeared to be packing up for the evening. Ryan walked back to his desk and called Jenny, and started making dinner plans, and Espo powered down his computer with one hand, while texting with his other. Castle was tempted to pull out his phone and play a game while he waited for Kate, but figuring he would make a better impression on Gates as she was leaving, he walked back over to his murder board, and went back to looking that the killer's note.

Richard Castle was a self proclaimed expert on many things, but his true calling of writer, had gifted him with an almost unnatural sense of reading meaning into words. The way they were put together said as much as the words themselves and he found himself deconstructing the killer's notes even further.

I have committed the perfect murder. Catch me if you can. I have left you all the clues you need to identify my subject here and maybe to even find me.

Are you two smart enough?

See you soon.

The first thing he focused on was the word choice, nothing overtly basic or overly complex in the choices, so he assumed a normal educational experience, at least a high school graduate. The tone of challenge was evident, and it clearly was designed to illicit a response from the people reading it. There was a clear link set between the killer and the victim. Given the sentence structure, it was leading one down a progression from victim to killer, plus the lengths that had been gone through to conceal the victim's identity, meant that figuring out who he was, would link back to the killer in some way. The use of the term "subject" was unusual; not victim, but he was not sure how the context was useful. Clearly there was also some level of personal involvement, the killer specifically knew that "two" people would be investigating. With no evidence to suggest otherwise, Castle could only assume that he and Beckett had been targeted in some way, even though their team was more than just the two of them. The final parting shot, no threat, no plea to stop or threat to kill again, just stating that there would be some future level of interaction made Castle shudder slightly. Clearly whoever had committed this crime had a larger plan in place.

Beckett left the captain's office, satisfied that Gates was aware of their progress, and in her stern, yet endearing way, had agreed with Beckett's plan of action for the following day. She walked up behind Castle, noting how deep in thought he appeared, seeing his eyes scanning and rescanning the killer's note. She placed a hand on his shoulder, and he leaned back slightly.

"Ready to get out of here?" she asked.

"Yeah, though to be honest I think my mind is going to be running in circles for a while trying to puzzle this one out."

"Well let's go home and see if I can get your mind on something else." Kate almost purred into his ear. She saw his eyes widen, and he grabbed her hands, trying to pull her towards him.

She pulled out of his impending grasp, narrowing her eyes at him as she motioned very slightly around her, spending an extra second on the closed door behind her leading to Gate's office. Kate let her face relax, smiled and then grabbed her bag and looping her arms through his walked them towards the elevator.

As the doors closed she turned to him, and wrapped her arms around him, and gave him a look that told him, now it was ok to engulf her in a hug, and that is exactly what he did.