Shared Obsession Chapter 128

Kate takes a last sip of her latte. "Ready to go back in, Babe?"

"We probably should. We know Quintana didn't kill Vega but don't want to give him too much time to think up a cover story for taking Vega's $200,000."

Beckett grabs her folder and she and Castle return to their spots in the box. She pulls out two documents and pushes them across the table toward Quintana. "There's the $200,000 Mr. Castle was talking about, Mr. Quintana."

Quintana eyes the papers. "Those aren't my accounts. They belong to the foundation. My name isn't even on them."

"Which is why you hid the money there," Castle retorts, "to make it harder to find. But it's your foundation, Quintana. You set it up. You chair the board."

"And the money I put there was a charitable donation," Quintana claims.

"Wow!" Castle hoots. "A Ph.D., a J.D., time to spin a convincing tale and that's all you could come up with? It's a good thing for you that you run a paper. Otherwise, I doubt anyone would let you write for one. And I'd love to watch if you had to explain that 'donation' to the IRS."

"So where's the girl?" Kate demands.

"What girl?"

Kate breathes out her exasperation. "Mr. Quintana, you and your foundation are facing human smuggling charges. Do you really want me to add obstruction and aiding and abetting a murder to that? You like the press, don't you? How much are you going to like being linked to Cano Vega's murder?"

"You know what they'll see?" Quintana throws back. "That I saved a girl from under Castro's regime."

"For the not-so-piddling sum of $200,000," Castle reminds him.

"Well, I wish I could have done it for free," Quintana claims.

"Yeah, but you didn't," Castle counters.

"Are you really ready to stake your future on some girl you don't even know?" Kate asks.

Quintana slumps in his chair. "Vega had an apartment for her. I took her there when I got her to the mainland."

Kate leans in. "Where?"

"Union City, Summit Avenue."

A uniformed officer enters a sparsely furnished apartment. "NYPD! NYPD! Police! Clear!"

"Clear," Beckett declares from another room.

"Looks like nobody's home," Esposito observes.

"The girl's in dire need of a trip to IKEA," Castle comments.

"The bed hadn't even been made up," Kate says. "I don't think she was sleeping here."

Ryan shines his flashlight on the floor. "Beckett, looks like dirt."

"We'll get CSU down here. Kate walks to the sink. "Guys, there's blood."

Perlmutter smacks a file against his desk. "The blood's definitely Vega's"

"And the footprint?" Kate asks.

"That's harder to nail down. The composition of the dirt is pretty much the same as anywhere in the city."

"So we can't actually prove she was at the scene?" Kate queries.

Perlmutter's craggy features light with a smug smile. "I said harder, not impossible. There were traces of titanium dioxide."

"White pigment," Castle notes.

"The kind they'd use to mark the lines on a baseball field," Kate says. "So she heads to the field, takes a little batting practice on Vega's head, packs her things, and hits the road."

"Which would give new meaning to the term 'hit and run,' Castle notes, "except for the missing pieces."

"What missing pieces?" Kate asks.

"She just got in from Cuba. She was in Little Havana in New Jersey. How would she know where the ball field in New York is or that it even exists? How would she get there if she did? And did CSU measure that print? It looked a little big for a girl to me."

Perlmutter checks his file. "Here it is. There wasn't enough dirt for a definitive determination, but the estimate was for a man's size ten to eleven."

"Then either the girl has very big feet or she didn't make it," Castle suggests. "Cano Vega might have been there. What size are his feet?"

"Eight and a half," Perlmutter responds. "Smallish feet for a man, but not strange for someone growing up in poverty."

"So it could have been someone else, maybe our killer, a male killer." Castle offers.

Kate holds out her hand for the file. "We still need to find the girl, but we may have another suspect."

Beckett impatiently grasps the receiver of her desk's landline. "Beckett. B-e-c-k-e double t. Badge 41319. I need a T.S.A. hold on a potential fugitive. Yes, I'll hold."

"Uniforms are circulating the sketch of Lara our artist made with Quintana," Esposito reports. "They're plastering it on every storefront within a mile of her place."

"Yes, I need a contain and detain," Kate continues on the phone. "All no-fly protocols. Thank you."

"Maybe it was the Cuban government," Castle suggests. "They hated Vega for defecting. So they use a honeytrap. It works. He smuggles her back with him and bam! Her partner in the States kills him. And since it happened on US soil, Cuba can deny all responsibility. We really should stake out the Cuban consulate."

"Sounds like one of your books, Castle," Ryan says. "But why go to all the trouble? If there's a guy in the States already, he could just kill Vega."

"True enough," Castle acknowledges, "but honeytraps make juicier stories."

"I've had the consulate under surveillance for an hour," Kate says. "If Lara is working for the Cubans, that's where she'd go." Kate's cell buzzes. "It's our guy at the consulate. Lara just walked in the front door."

Kate holds up the sketch of Lara for Sanchez to see.

"I don't know what to tell you, Detective," the diplomat insists. "I've never seen that girl before."

"Then you should invest in some corrective lenses," Castle advises. "Our surveillance team saw her coming in here not half an hour ago."

"Surveillance team?" Sanchez echoes. "You're watching us now?"

"Only within the scope of the law," Beckett assures him."

"She's a Cuban citizen requesting asylum," Sanchez claims.

"And a few seconds ago you claimed you never met her," Castle reminds him. "So it's your memory, not your vision?"

"She's a suspect in a murder investigation," Kate inserts.

"And you expect me just to hand her over to American authorities?" Sanchez questions.

Kate strides up to Sanchez's desk and hovers over him. "As I'm sure you're aware, a country's consulate and its embassy have a different set of rights and privileges. This is only a consulate. You have no diplomatic immunity. Produce the girl now or I will get a search warrant and make a spectacle of your government harboring a criminal on American soil."

"Ouch!" Castle exclaims.

"Trae a la chica ahora," Sanchez mutters into his intercom.

A few moments later a very young and frightened girl appears. Her dark hair hangs unstyled with no adornments. She wears no makeup and her clothes are simple and well-worn.

"If she's a honeytrap," Castle murmurs, "she's not standard issue."

Lara trembles in her seat in interrogation. Beckett sits across the table with Castle at her side and Esposito standing at her shoulder in case she needs an interpreter. The girl's short fingernails dig into her palms. "No, I-I-I did not kill him. Please. You have to believe."

"Then why did you run?" Kate asks. "Why did you try to go back to Cuba?"

"I was afraid the man would kill me too," Lara insists.

"What man?" Kate probes.

"The man who come the night he died."

"Size ten to eleven," Castle mutters.

Marie Gainer is gazing at the featureless wall in the small room where she's been ordered to wait when a man finally comes through the door. He's tall, with white hair and black eyebrows. But rather than appearing threatening, his face displays a surprisingly charming smile. He places a file on the table. "Ms. Gainer, sorry you had to wait so long. I was otherwise occupied."

"What am I doing here and who are you?" Marie demands.

"Ah, I'm sorry." He extends his hand. "Anderson Cross. I've been called in as a forensic expert in international transactions regarding the Bracken investigation. As you can imagine, our organization is keeping a very tight lid on any communications regarding the case."

"And what organization is that, Mr. Cross?" Marie questions.

Cross continues smiling brightly. "That's need to know, Ms. Gainer, and I'm sorry, but you're not on the list."

"So, what do you want with me?"

"Ah, yes, as part of our review procedure, we monitor calls of anyone involved with the investigation. You received one we couldn't account for under high-security protocols. I'm sure it was innocent enough, and when you explain it, we'll be finished here."

Marie can feel a lump forming in her throat. "What call was that?"

Cross opens a file he's already memorized. "It originated in the office of Senator Brinkman, some days ago, right before Detective Beckett and Richard Castle were mistakenly informed they would be brought in to testify. So, who would that have been, Ms. Gainer?"

"I-I'm not sure," Marie claims. "I get a lot of calls."

"You should remember this one, Ms. Gainer. After all, Bracken and Brinkman are irretrievably linked. Anything from Brinkman's office would be highly relevant to your investigation."

"I think it was just someone curious as to how the case was proceeding," Marie says. "Of course, I wouldn't have given out any details of an ongoing investigation."

"Perhaps not, Ms. Gainer, but I believe someone was communicating a few details to you."