Castle: Beckett's Security Blanket
Chapter 9: Keep Digging
A/N: First of all, let me just say I'm so sorry I've kept you all waiting so long for an update. My writing muse seemed to go on an impromptu vacation and my vidding muse took full control of my creative brain. So, if it's any consolation I've got a whole slew of new Castle video's on youtube for you to enjoy if that's your thing, lol. The link to my channel is on my profile page here on ff. Anyway, I'm focussing my attention on the writing now so you should get some more frequent updates on this story. We're getting closer to the end now, just a few more chapters to go. So, read on and enjoy!
"Alright Darren are you ready to play nice?" Beckett began; wasting no time as Darren Fitz was plunked down into the chair across from her by an armed officer who exited the room promptly after. Castle sat at Beckett's side; hands clasped together on the cold metal table as he stared daggers into the eyes of their so far only link to the sick and twisted human being responsible for this mess to begin with. If Darren Fitz knew anything more than he had shared with them yesterday they were both bound determined to get it out of him today.
There was an obvious change to Fitz' demeanour; something that didn't go unnoticed by either Castle or Beckett. No longer was he calm and collected, cocky or condescending. He sat hunched over the table and brought his forehead down to rest on his clasped hands as his foot tapped nervously against the hard linoleum flooring. Tough guy wasn't so tough after all it seemed. Not terribly surprising, Castle thought to himself. A night in a cold dark holding cell usually had that effect on people.
"Look if you're not up for chatting we could always come back later, send you back downstairs for a while"
"No!" Fitz quickly interrupted; clearly less than thrilled with the idea of spending any more time in lock up.
"Then tell me what I want to know Darren" Beckett challenged; her voice low as she folded her arms down on the table and leaned closer toward him.
"Alright look, I wasn't lying yesterday" Fitz began hesitantly.
"Yeah, we know there's… another party involved" Castle spoke; his eyes shifting over to his partner.
"Tell us what you know about him" Beckett urged him.
Fitz slumped back in his chair as his eyes darted nervously between Castle and Beckett; neither of whom looked like they were feeling very patient today and Fitz swallowed down hard the dry lump that had formed in his throat.
"Can I… get some water please" he asked meekly and Beckett rolled her eyes before pushing herself away from the table and heading out of the interrogation room.
Fitz put his hand to his throat and rubbed it in a dramatic fashion as if he'd spent the night in the Sahara desert rather than just the basement of the twelfth precinct. Castle however didn't feel like wasting any opportunity he had with Darren and leaned across the table; signalling Darren to move in closer which he did, hesitantly.
"You better not be jerking us around here" Castle began; his voice low and demanding. "You're going to tell us what we came here to find out. You understand me?"
"If I tell you anything, he'll kill me!"
"If you don't tell me anything Darren, I'll kill you myself" Castle warned and Fitz' eyes lifted in surprise.
"What? You can't… Cops aren't allowed to threaten witnesses, isn't there some law against that?" Fitz' voice was practically a squeak as he shifted nervously in his seat and the smile that reached Castle's eyes certainly didn't help him feel any better about the situation.
"Oh Darren, Darren, Darren" Castle sighed, leaning back in his chair and interlocking his fingers behind his head. "See that's where you're wrong cause, I'm not a cop. So, don't test me" he shot a wink towards Fitz who involuntarily sunk down further in his chair as he swallowed another lump in his throat.
"Alright" Beckett's voice suddenly swept into the room as she threw open the door and made her way inside with a Styrofoam cup in hand and placed down in front of Fitz. "Drink your water and start talking" she directed before taking her seat next to Castle again.
A half hour later Beckett and Castle emerged from the interrogation room and crossed the bullpen over to Ryan's desk where the Detective was on the phone and signalled that he would just be a minute.
"Alright, thank you" Ryan said before hanging up his desk phone and looking up to his two colleagues.
"Where's Javi?" Beckett asked as her gaze wandered the bullpen.
"Beats me" Ryan shrugged. "Said he had something to take care of. Get anything from Fitz?"
"Not much" Beckett sighed. "He swears he never got a name other than 'John' which we can safely assume is a fake name. He did give us the password to his Craig's List account so that we can track who contacted him and hopefully get a real name on this guy. He's going to sit in with a sketch artist and we'll see how much he remembers about what he looks like. What about you? Anything?"
"Well" Ryan began as he rifled through a few papers on his desk. "Been going through Fitz' phone records and he received two phone calls, both from the same number, each about twenty minutes before both those e-mails were sent to you"
"Okay, great" Beckett nodded for him to continue.
"Yeah except the calls were made from a burner cell so no name on the account"
"Well follow the phone, see if you can find out where it was purchased from and by whom" Beckett directed and Ryan quickly nodded; "On it boss"
Beckett headed back over to her desk with Castle following closely behind her as they left Ryan to his work. Stopping in front of the murder board Beckett leaned against the edge of her desk and studied the few details they did have so far. After staring at the board for several minutes hoping for something to pop out at her but coming up with nothing fresh Beckett let out a small sigh before digging her phone out of her pocket to check for any missed messages.
"Where do you think Esposito is?" Castle asked as he noticed her staring at her phone.
"I don't know, no messages from him" she shrugged, slipping the phone back into the pocket of her blazer. "Maybe it's just something personal"
Castle nodded in agreement although he was sure it was probably something to do with the case. At least he hoped it did. "So what's our next move?"
"Well I guess we can continue to look through the case files of that unsolved that Jersey P.D. sent over" she sighed. Truthfully there wasn't much more they could do at the moment and as much as she didn't want to be chained to her desk reading through case notes right now, she didn't have much choice. Castle noticed the defeatist look on her face and knew she could use some positive reinforcement right about now.
"First one to finish the file gets to punch Fitz in the face?" he asked casually and she narrowed her eyes at him in confusion.
"What, don't tell me you don't look at that face of his and have to supress the urge to punch it" he explained further and her eyes showed the slightest hint of a smile attempting to make its way to the surface of her otherwise stone-walled expression.
"We can't hit witnesses Castle" she reminded him.
"Sure you can, if you use a phone book. I've seen it in at least a dozen movies"
Finally, a smile creased her lips. He did it.
"Just get to reading Castle" she told him with a shake of her head but the grin was still unmistakeable, as much as she had tried to hide it from him. He smiled in return. "Okay" he told her before shifting his attention to the blue folder now in his lap.
When hours had passed and Castle felt like he was about to go cross-eyed if he read any more case notes he decidedly pushed himself away from the desk chair and wandered into the break room for a much needed caffeine fix. He returned a few short minutes later with two mugs in hand, placing one in front of Beckett before returning to his rightful spot in the chair at the side of her desk.
"Thank you" she told him sincerely as she set the case file down and brought the steaming mug to her lips, taking a second to blow on it a few times first.
"Hazelnut?" she asked quizzically as the new flavour lingered on her taste buds.
"Thought I'd try something different" he shrugged as he took a sip of his own. "Oooh, ah that's hot" he winced, lowering the cup back down to the desk surface and frantically waving his hand in front of his face as if it would somehow help his scalded tongue. It didn't, however, it did elicit a small chuckle from his partner as she watched him.
"I don't mean to interrupt tea time here" Gates' commanding voice suddenly began behind them; causing Castle to jump slightly in his seat "but where is Detective Esposito? I haven't seen him since our briefing this morning"
"Esposito?" Beckett questioned; trying to buy herself some time so she could come up with an answer other than the truthful 'I don't know'
"Yeah, you know, Spanish guy, hangs out with the skinny one a lot" she deadpanned, nodding her head over to Ryan's desk with a less than amused expression.
"He is… following up with some witness statements. Wanted to make sure we didn't miss anything" Beckett replied hesitantly and the Captain seemed to buy it as she slowly nodded her head.
"Alright well I'm headed out to a meeting at 1PP, please keep me informed detective"
"Yes sir" Beckett quickly nodded.
"Well that was close" Castle grumbled quietly as Captain Gates headed toward the elevator. "Espo better get back here before she does. What do you think he's upto?"
"Beats me" Beckett sighed as she punched a few buttons on her phone and brought it to her ear. "Straight to voicemail" she groaned before hanging up.
"So it took some digging, but I was able to track down that burner phone and where it was purchased from" Ryan began a few minutes later as he neared Beckett's desk and stood in front of the two of them. "Not that it did me much good. The phone was paid for in cash so the store has no name to tie it to. Sorry Beckett"
"Nope, that's about par for the course" Beckett sighed; shaking her head slightly. This guy was slippery.
"So what'd you do with Fitz?"
"I cut him loose. But we've still got eyes on him. You never know, maybe our guy will contact him again and if he does, we'll be waiting"
"Hmmm" Ryan nodded in agreement.
"Heard from Javi?" Beckett asked hopefully but Ryan quickly shook his head.
"Nada since he left this morning. What'd you tell the Cap?"
"That he was re-checking with witness statements" she shrugged. "That bought him a few hours but he better get back here soon"
"Before Iron Gates gets back and lays down the iron fist" Castle chimes in.
"Relax bro, I'm right here" Esposito's voice is heard and the three of them turn back to see him entering the bull pen.
"Espo! Where the hell have you been all day?" Beckett immediately questions as he comes to stand between her and Castle.
"Yeah, and… why do you smell like that?" Castle questioned, putting a hand over his nose and scrunching his face up.
"Probably because I spent all afternoon crawling around in dumpsters" Esposito grimaced.
"Dumpsters?" Beckett asked surprised. "Why were you…" she began but Esposito was quick to cut her off.
"Because after this morning I wasn't satisfied with CSU's sweep of your place so I went back to check myself" he stated gruffly, obviously still fuming about the photo she had shown him this morning.
"What'd you find?" Castle asked; quickly rising from his chair.
"Might be something, might be nothing but I grabbed this out of one of the dumpsters outside the building" Espo shrugged as he pulled out a small evidence bag from his pocket and held it out for Beckett to grab.
"Empty package for a camera memory card?"
"Like I said, could be nothing. But could be the killer bought it to take those…" he paused for a beat and swallowed, his voice going lower and softer as he continued; "those photos of you"
Beckett bit her bottom lip and slowly nodded her head. "Alright, well let's get it to the lab for prints"
"On it" Espo quickly nodded as he turned to head out of the bullpen.
"Photos?" Ryan questioned; completely lost as he glanced back and forth between Castle and Beckett.
"I'm sorry Ryan, I should've told you. I just got tied up with everything here. Go with Espo, he can explain on the way" she told him and Ryan quickly nodded as he followed after his partner and caught up with him at the elevator.
"You alright?" Castle asked softly as his eyes rested on Beckett.
"Fine" she said numbly. "Just anxious to finally nail this guy"
"Mmm" Castle nodded in agreement before looking back to the case file in his lap. His eyebrows knitted together as he skimmed over a page in the file and he quickly grabbed for a folder on Beckett's desk and began sprawling papers out across her desk.
"Castle, what is it?" Beckett asked urgently.
"I think… Maybe… I don't know, maybe nothing"
"Castle!"
"Well, this picture from the witness report of the unsolved, I feel like I've seen this face already" He explained as he continued to rifle through their current case notes; flipping through the pages of employee ID's.
"There!" He pointed his finger to a photocopy of an employee ID card. "Sam Foster! He's an employee from the theatre, and he bears a striking resemblance to this witness from the Jersey case, wouldn't you say?" He asked as he held up the photo for Beckett to see. "Only in Jersey he went by the name Sam Phillips"
Beckett instantly perked up and began rifling through the case file in her hand to until she found what she was looking for. "Says here he was in the same park the night of the murder but claims he was just taking a walk and didn't see or hear anything. They ruled him out as a suspect because he had no gunshot residue on his hands and they didn't find the gun"
"So, he could've been wearing gloves and stashed them some place along with the gun" Castle continued for her.
"Well, let's bring Sam in and see what he has to say about it" Beckett said before turning and heading toward the elevator with Castle right on her heels.
A/N: I know this chapter was pretty much all about case stuff but we've gotta get it out of the way right? It's nearing the end, if that's any consolation. Or maybe you like the case stuff, I don't know. Anyway, more to come very soon, I promise! As always, reviews are love :)