A/N: Chapter 10! Double digits, yo :) Wasn't the season premier just absolutely amazing?! For those of you still reading this fic, thanks for sticking around with my story. Beta by Diana.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Hanna Alexis Jordan lay on the bed, just like in Jerry Tyson's video from the day before.
What they weren't expecting was the location of the body. 3XK had placed her in an abandoned shop lot. As the other agents and the CSU team filed into the otherwise empty space, Castle tuned them out, focusing on his surroundings instead.
Beside him, Beckett looked around, taking in the room as she gave off commands. "Dr. Lanie Parish has been notified to come and examine the body, so until then, no one moves the victim. Dust the place down, 3XK's careful, but dumping her body here suggests it was out of convenience, so maybe he slipped up and left something behind. Cooper, look up the last owner of this lot – I want to know if there's any significance or ties to anyone related to this case. Also check how long this place has been empty, and if their water has been cut off. I'm betting 3XK dyed her hair blond as well, so he must have needed water to wash off the hair dye."
Dr. Parish arrived amidst Beckett's delegations, exchanging a brief greeting with the agent before she headed to examine the body. Turning to face the other members of her team, Beckett continued, "Lee, start looking for witnesses. Dom, see if you can pull up any surveillance in the area that we can work with." As two of them left, Beckett addressed the last member of her team and the two detectives. "Grey, Ryan and Espo, oversee and coordinate with the CSU team, will you?"
Beckett joined Castle as they headed toward Lanie and their victim. "Why dump the body here? Why change his MO?" Castle asked.
"I don't know, Castle. Maybe he couldn't go near the campus after we interviewed security there. Maybe he was trying to slow us down – identifying the vic from his video wouldn't take long, so by leaving her here and making us look for her, he stalled our investigation by half a day," Beckett theorized.
By then, they had reached the medical examiner. "What do you have for me, Lanie?"
"Based on lividity, I'd say she was killed thirty six hours ago. Preliminary COD is strangulation, the ligature marks on her neck seem to be consistent with 3XK's MO. I'd say she was strangled with the same kind of rope as the other victims. There's a deep cut on her elbow, which I think she sustained while struggling with him, but there's no blood stain on the sheets, so if you don't find any blood nearby, I'd say that–"
"She was killed elsewhere before he brought her here," Both Castle and Beckett finished her sentence at the same time.
"I guess some things don't change after all," Lanie muttered under her breath as the two of them stood awkwardly in silence.
"I'm going to go see if the boys found anything," Castle said, walking away.
When he was out of earshot, the medical examiner said conversationally, "So I hear that you've met Little Castle."
Beckett snorted softly. "That fast, huh?"
"Oh you know me, I like to be in the loop. She's got some fire, huh?" Lanie tells Beckett, keeping her tone muted as she swabbed the victim's elbow cut and bagged the sample.
Kate replies wryly, "Yeah, a little too much fire," as she unconsciously strokes her cheek, feeling the phantom burn of fire from Alexis' threat.
"A lot of things changed in the past three years, Kate. If I were you, I'd come clean to them sooner rather than later," Lanie advised.
"Yeah, well, they've been mad for three years, Lanes. Let's just focus on catching 3XK. After all, what's a few more days?" Kate murmured.
"Yo Beckett, we found something," Esposito's voice floated over, and the two women looked up to see him walking over with Grey, Castle, and Ryan, a backpack held between his gloved hands.
And just like that, their little moment was over. Lanie gave the instructions to bag the body, and told Kate, "I'll find out more once she's on my table, and I'll keep you informed."
Beckett thanked her quickly before she turned to see what the boys found. "It's the vic's backpack," Esposito told her, holding it open.
Ryan reached in, pulling out items as he told Beckett, "Her wallet's inside, with her cards and money, a couple of books, and this notebook that's been used pretty extensively."
Curiosity piqued, Beckett reached for the notebook that had half of the pages dog-eared. "Seems like she wrote everything in here," Beckett mused, flipping through the pages slowly, trying to decipher Hanna's messy scrawl. Castle had unconsciously moved closer to Beckett, hovering over her shoulder to look at the pages of the notebook.
"Wait, wait, let me see that for a second," Castle cut in, reaching for the notebook. Since he had gloves on, Beckett handed it over to him so that he could have a better look.
"This address right here, highlighted in blue, it's the address for The Old Haunt," Castle told them.
"What about the other address?" Beckett asked, referring to another address on the page, highlighted in yellow.
"86 Bedford Street, hmm, sounds a little familiar to me but I just can't place it," Castle replied.
"Grey?" Beckett turned to the agent, but he was already on it.
"It's a bar named Chumley's. The building's been around since the 1830s but it got turned into a bar during the Prohibition period," Grey supplied, reading from the screen of his tablet.
"Chumley's! Right, that's why the address sounds familiar. It's another historic Writer's Bar down in the West Village; it's the biggest competitor – actually, the only competitor of The Old Haunt in that category. But what was she doing at both those places?" Castle asked aloud to no one in particular, flipping through the pages slowly, paying more attention to Hanna's notes, hoping the answer would be on those sheets of papers.
"I think I have the answer to your question," Ryan supplied, holding up a sheaf of test pads. "She's a final year Business student, it's her thesis – she chose to compare Chumley's and The Old Haunt, and how they've managed to stay afloat all this time. Contrasting the income of Chumley's that were mainly dependant on literary tours, and that of The Old Haunt's funding which were of a personal nature. I've got interview notes on the staff of Chumley's here but nothing on The Old Haunt."
Flipping to the last used page of the notebook in his hand, Castle told them excitedly, "That's because they're here."
Beckett reached for the notebook, which Castle handed over readily. Rummaging a few pages back, she could tell that Castle was right.
"My guess is that she hasn't had the time to sort out the interview notes from The Old Haunt?" Grey pointed out.
Nodding, Beckett showed them the page where the most recent notes had started. It was dated two days ago.
"Time to visit The Old Haunt," she said grimly.
Agent Grey had volunteered to stay behind and oversee the bagging and tagging of the crime scene, while Lee still had some witnesses to interview, so in the end, only Agents Cooper and Dom followed them to The Old Haunt.
The two federal-issued cars arrived at the bar in no time - it was just a stone's throw away from the crime scene, further solidifying Beckett's theory that 3XK dumped the body there out of convenience. And maybe Jerry Tyson was just trying to screw them over.
They exited the cars, heading to enter The Old Haunt. Beckett hung back, reeling as memories of a better time assaulted her brain. The team had spent so many evenings at Castle's bar – the perfect place to go and unwind after solving a hard case. They never had to worry about finding a table because Castle always kept one in the back for them. And sometimes when it was just the two of them, Castle would bring her down to the hidden office, and it would be like the rest of the world just melted away, leaving the couple in their happy little bubble underground.
Still attuned to Beckett as ever, Castle turned back to look at her just before he descended the steps. "Beckett, you coming?"
"You guys go ahead, I'll head down in a minute." And just like that, Castle turned and headed in. She couldn't help but ruefully think how easy it was for him to throw that line at her. The line that she used to throw at him.
It just added to the mental and emotional pangs that she was still trying to recover from.
"Hey Kate, you alright there?" Dom had discretely sidled up to her side, fiddling with his tablet to keep up a ruse.
Wow, even Dom had picked up on it. Was she really that obvious?
Clearing her throat, Beckett stood a little taller. They didn't do these kind of things – they've always kept things strictly professional on the job, and neither of them ever had emotional interest in the other party. This made her feel all kinds of awkward.
"I'm fine," Beckett's reply was terse, a product of her efforts to bottle down her emotions that had been stirred up by old memories.
Dom pulled away, heading for the stairs and she felt a twinge of guilt. "I just… This place brings up old memories," she explained, hoping that Dom could tell she was giving up that little bit of information to make up for her short reply earlier.
"It wasn't my place to ask anyway, you just looked like you could use a friend," he told her.
Beckett inhaled deeply, walking over to him. Might as well do this now. "Dom, I know you mean well, and I appreciate it, I really do, but we agreed to remain professional on the job, to keep the personal things from spilling over."
"Beckett, colleagues can care about one another, you know. Just don't read into it too much."
"I think we should put our arrangement on hold," she blurted out before she could lose the courage.
Dom remained silent for a beat.
"Yeah, can't say I didn't see that coming," he said, ruffling the hair on the back of his head. "Don't sweat it Kate, it was no strings attached with no commitments involved. For what it's worth, though, I hope that you can be happy once more."
"You too, Dom. You're a good man, and I'm sorry if this is unfair to you – "
"None of that, Beckett. We were both consenting adults, and now that our arrangement has run its course, it's done. I'll see you inside, boss," he told her, shifting back to work easily, leaving Beckett with a departing pat on the shoulder.
She stayed on for another ten seconds, collecting herself and compartmentalizing her thoughts and emotions. She had work to do.
By the time Beckett got inside the bar, Ryan and Esposito were almost done with interviewing Tom, the bartender. The rest of the personnel cooperated readily with them, giving full answers to all their questions.
Hanna had gone by the bar a few times, working silently on her laptop in one of the booths. It wasn't until a few days ago before she started approaching the staff and interviewing them. In fact, on her last visit, she had asked if it was possible to get in touch with the owner of the bar.
A waitress remembered seeing her leave alone two nights ago, at around five thirty. Dom headed underground to collect the security footage from the manager of the bar. The rest of them headed outside, to see if the perimeter of The Old Haunt would yield anything.
They split up, covering different areas. It wasn't long before Beckett called out, "Found something!"
The others headed over quickly to see what she had uncovered. Beckett had taken out a swab kit and was taking samples of a rusty-red stain on the edge of one of the dumpsters.
"Based on the victim's height, this sharp edge of the dumpster would correspond with the deep gash on her elbow, especially if she was trying to pull at the cord 3XK strangled her with as they struggled," she explained.
"There's more here," Castle told them, gesturing to what looked like some bloodstains on the wall and on the ground a few feet away.
They took more samples, and Beckett handed them all to Cooper, who sealed them all in a large zip lock bag after he tagged them.
"The lab should be able to confirm if it's the victim's blood within the hour if I bring it in now," Cooper told her.
"Alright, get that to the lab, then return to the 12th with the boys. Start sorting through this morning's notes when you get there. I'll stay back and wait for Dom and the security footage."
By the time Beckett and Dom returned to the 12th precinct, things were in full swing. Dom immediately set up his computer and began going through the video while the others updated Beckett on what they'd learned since that morning.
The bed that Hanna was placed on was a brand new masseuse table. They'd traced the model back to its manufacturer, who led them to the distributors in New York. After a few failed attempts, they'd finally found a salesgirl who remembered selling the masseuse table a week ago to "this random guy."
When she was showed a picture of Jerry Tyson, she told them, "That's the guy! Only now he's thinner than when the picture was taken. Is he dangerous?"
The agents interviewing her subtly shifted the direction of the conversation, prodding her to tell them about the sale. She remembered the transaction because he paid for it in cash. He had apparently just paid for the bed and the frame, and loaded it into a large white van. When pressed for details, the salesgirl unfortunately couldn't help much with the description of the van.
Before they left, the agents that interviewed the salesgirl gave her a card to contact them if she remembered anything else or to alert them if he returned to the store.
The agents had pulled up traffic cams in the area from when the transaction was made, but so far, they couldn't identify which van belonged to 3XK. The location he picked was right in the middle of an area with lots of deliveries and pick-ups, so there were many large white vans coming and leaving.
A second team had been dispatched to both the crime scene and The Old Haunt to interview their witnesses about the van.
"Hey Beckett, I found something," Dom called excitedly as he plugged in his computer to share his screen on the projector.
Everyone crowded around the large screen as the agent explained his findings.
"So none of the security cameras from The Old Haunt or neighboring shops have a clear view of the alley we were in, but check this out."
He pulled up one of the screens that showed the corner of the alley and hit play. They all watched the screen in rapt attention as Dom continued. "Timestamp puts this at five forty, so that's well within our window for 3XK to strangle Hanna right after she left The Old Haunt. That," he emphasized, pausing the video so the still featured a man wearing a hat low on his face giving the camera a mock salute, "is 3XK. His face is mostly hidden, but facial recognition put it at a 65% match."
"Do we get a shot of him leaving?" Beckett asked.
He continued playing the video to show them a shot of the van leaving the alley a few minutes later, but a passing lorry quickly blocked their view.
"Damn. He must have timed to leave with the lorry. Can we find a shot of him entering the alley?" Beckett asked.
"Don't need to do that," he told her proudly, scrubbing through the video to pause at the screen with the back corner of the lorry. He quickly explained, "While we can't see the van directly, we can catch a glimpse of its reflection on the glass window of this shop. We can't make out the car plate, but we can ID the van's model based on its tail lights. It's an old Toyota model – barely used on the road anymore and there's only one car rental shop in New York that still uses it."
"Good job," Beckett praised, picking up her jacket once more and taking the piece of paper that Dom hastily scrawled the address of the rental shop on.
Turning to Castle, she asked, "You coming?"
A/N: Fun fact-I did some research, and Chumley's the real life version of The Old Haunt. How cool is that?! I know it had to be closed for reconstruction in '07, but for the purpose of my story, it's open for business :) I'm gonna be picking up the pace of the story from here on (provided that I can find the time to write), but in the meanwhile, thanks for reading and please REVIEW!