Murder They Wrote

By

UCSBdad

Disclaimer: Still not mine. Never will be. Rating: M, to be on the safe side. Time: The summer following Season Two.

FRIDAY

Kate Beckett glared at her phone. After picking it up a dozen or more times to call Castle and make some excuse for not coming to the Hamptons for the long weekend, she refused to let the phone intimidate her. I will go to the Hamptons and I will be with Castle. She thought.

She switched her glare to her suitcase. She had spent over five hours last night packing. She had gone through all of her clothes, except her winter clothing, trying to decide what to take to spend a weekend with a millionaire author. Every single thing she had seemed wrong. She started to get up, then sat back down. No! I am what I am. If my clothing isn't right…I'll feel terrible. I'll feel worse because Castle won't care. He'll be so happy to be with me, he'll be oblivious to his poorly dressed, out of style girlfriend.

She switched her glare to the briefcase by her suitcase. It was filled with reports from cases she was working on. What if Castle thinks I don't care enough about him to be with him 24/7?

Although she was expecting it, she jumped at the sound of the knock at her door.

She opened the door. Standing before her was a tall, slender black woman dressed in a severe blue pant suit. On her lapel was a badge saying, Chrystal, Empire Limo Service.

"Ms. Beckett?" she asked. "I'm Chrystal. I'm here to drive you to the Hamptons. Are these your things?" Chrystal didn't wait for an answer, but came in and grabbed Kate's suitcase and briefcase. "Ready?"

Kate nodded and followed Chrystal outside.

"Um, are you a cop?" Chrystal asked, hesitantly.

Kate showed her shield. "Detective Kate Beckett. Am I that easy to spot?"

Chrystal shrugged. "I make a habit of checking out my clients. I noticed the shoulder holster right off."

Kate laughed. "Okay, but don't think you can break all the traffic laws just because you have a cop with you."

Castle had said he'd send a car for her. When she saw what had arrived to whisk her off to the Hamptons, she decided that she had a different idea of what a car was than Castle did. It was a stretch limo.

Chrystal opened the door for her and Kate got in. There was enough room for a dozen people.

"Ms. Beckett?" Chrystal called from the front seat. "There's a TV at your right front, a drinks cabinet on your immediate left, there's some food on your right, by the mini-fridge."

"Is there any coffee?"

"The coffee maker is just above the mini-fridge. Do you like Jamaican Blue Mountain, Ethiopian Harar, or Sumatran Gayo Mountain? Just pull out a coffee package, put it in the top of the unit and press down. It'll make one cup."

Kate followed those instructions, selecting the Jamaican coffee and in minutes she had an excellent cup of coffee. It would be perfect if Castle had delivered it to me. She giggled to herself. Soon I may get my coffee delivered by a topless waiter. In bed, perhaps.

"Would you like some music, Ms. Beckett? I can put the CD on from up here. We have just about everything."

"Do you have jazz?"

Kate sat back as the opening bars of Duke Ellington's Take the A Train filled the limo.

Kate wondered about Castle's use of a stretch limo just to take her to the Hamptons. She decided that this was just the way Castle's mind worked. He wasn't trying to impress her with his wealth. He would just naturally want the best for her. I'm lucky he didn't send a double decker tour bus complete with a band, a chef and a masseuse.

Kate was so relaxed that she was slightly surprised when the limo turned off the highway and headed to a house ahead of them. Is that his house? Her answer came when Rick Castle walked out of the front door and stood there waiting for her.

Kate had intended to behave calmly when she saw him, not wanting to make a spectacle of herself in front of Chrystal. She took one step out of the car, and immediately ran to Castle, throwing her arms around him and kissing him fiercely.

"Miss me?' He asked with a laugh.

"No, not really." She said with a huge smile on her face.

"Glad to hear that." Chrystal said with a laugh. "I'm not sure what you two would be like if you really missed each other." Chrystal became all business. "Mr. Castle, do you need me to take Ms. Beckett's things inside?"

Castle shook his head. "No, I'll be taking care of Ms. Beckett from here on in." Castle handed her a bill, all folded up so that Kate couldn't tell how big the tip was, but from the reaction from Chrystal it was substantial. "You'll be back to pick her up on Monday afternoon?"

"Four o'clock on the dot." And Chrystal was gone.

Castle picked up her suitcase and briefcase.

"Rick, I'll take the briefcase, then you can put your arm to better use." He handed her the briefcase, put his arm around her waist and lead her into the house.

"And the briefcase is for..?"

Kate took a deep breath. Would Castle be angry that she'd brought work on her vacation? "I brought a few files along. I hope you don't mind. They're cases we've been having problems with and I hoped we could look at them together. I find I always do better when my partner helps me."

Castle laughed and hugged her. "You'll never change, will you? I suppose I should be happy you managed to tear yourself away from work at all." They stopped in the entryway and Castle leaned over and kissed her softly. "I'm glad you're here."

Kate rested her head on his chest. "I'm glad I'm here, too."

Castle gave her a quick tour of the house. They left her suitcase in the master bedroom and her briefcase in his office. The office was a corner office with floor to ceiling windows, flooding his work area with light. Books lined the walls and a desk faced the window looking out over the ocean.

Castle cleared his throat. "And this is what I like to call Kate's chair." Right beside his desk was a comfortable looking easy chair. "Try it out?"

Kate sat in the chair, moved from side to side, hooked a leg over the arm, then tucked her legs under her. Finally, she stood. "It's perfect."

He took her outside to show her the pool and then they walked along the beach, picking up seashells.

Castle checked his watch. "It's getting close to lunch time. There' a sandwich shop in town that makes the best subs you've ever tasted. Would you like to go there?"

"Could we do a little shopping, too?" Kate asked.

"Shopping?" Castle said with an exaggerated look of horror on his face. "You have the shopping gene, don't you?"

"Mostly, I have the cop gene, Mr. Castle. But I am a woman. You may have noticed that." Kate looked at her feet, being slightly embarrassed. "It's been years since I've been on vacation. I found that I don't have a lot of nice casual summer clothes. Things like shorts, tee shirts, sandals, and such."

After lunch, Castle pointed out the clothing stores to Kate.

"That's a cute top in the window, don't you think?" Kate asked.

"I guess." Castle mumbled.

Kate stopped and took his hand. "You hate shopping, don't you?"

He shrugged. "I like shopping for myself, but shopping with a woman…"

"Then why don't you run along and let me shop in peace. Shall we meet in an hour by those benches over there?"

"There's one good thing about shopping with you." Rick said very seriously.

"What?"

"At least if you ask me, "Do these make my butt look big?", I can honestly say that nothing could make your butt look anything but perfect."

Kate blushed. "In an hour, then."

In an hour, Kate walked out carrying several shopping bags. She quickly spotted Castle lounging on one of the benches. She hurried to him.

"I hope you weren't bored." Kate said, sitting next to him.

"In fact, I had a good time shopping. And I found something." He held up a rectangular white box. "Something for you." He handed it to Kate.

Kate opened the box. Inside she found a necklace and bracelet made from white seashells. "Oh, Rick! They're lovely. Thank you so much." She kissed him lightly and hugged him.

"Back home?" he asked.

When they returned, Kate decided she had to ask him something. "Have you gotten any writing done?" She was almost afraid of the answer. If he hadn't, should she even be here, distracting him?

"I have gotten tons of work done. I've printed out what I've got so far, would you like to read it?"

Kate followed Rick to his office, sat comfortably in her chair and read the title page. "Federal Heat? So you did decide to write about Jordan Shaw?"

"Of course not. I write about fictional people. I might get sued if I wrote about real people."

"You should have told me that sooner." Kate muttered darkly.

"That's why I never said anything to you."

Kate's heart skipped a beat as she read the dedication. "To the incomparable KB, who is so much more than NH."

"That's sweet."

"Outstanding. I've written a whole sentence that you like."

Kate tried to glare at Castle, but giggled instead. Then went back to the book. After ten pages she stopped. "This is terrible!"

"You also have the literary critic's gene?" Castle asked. "What's so wrong with it?"

"I assume that Shannon Hall is Jordan Shaw?"

"A purely fictional version."

Kate quoted. "Nikki Heat looked at the older woman's short, dumpy legs, covered with thick stockings and ending in ghastly sensible shoes." "And this, "Her butt drooped, but fortunately that was almost entirely covered by a baggy skirt."

Rick shrugged. "Nikki is the femme fatale in my books. Any other woman suffers by comparison."

"I know that Jordan isn't a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model, but this is too much. This is a well-known case. People are going to think this is how you think Jordan looks. Worse, since I'm known to be the inspiration for Nikki Heat, they'll think that I wanted her to be described as dumpy."

"I could make her better looking, I guess. But not as gorgeous as Nikki."

"You're being sweet, but you're wrong. Shannon Hall should be an attractive, older woman who keeps herself in good shape." She winked at Castle. "I can assure you that Nikki Heat knows that no woman will ever come between her and Jameson Rook."

"Okay, okay. I'll change it."

"Be sure you do and if the book comes out and she's not attractive, someone will be very angry that you didn't take your muse's advice. That's what I'm here for, after all."

"That's not all you're here for." He leered.

Kate read on. "Wait! You have Nikki figuring out that the code that the killer sent via the bandages is from one of the books that Rook wrote as Victoria St. Clair. In reality, you figured out that the code was based on Heat Wave. Rook should find that clue."

"Would you like to just write the whole book?" Rick's smile took the sting out of any rebuke.

"I'm your muse, writer boy. You know what they say about muses."

"What?"

"Muse it or lose it."

"Okay, Detective Heat, I'll change it.

Kate finished the rest of what Rick had written without doing more than pointing out some minor errors in police procedure. "All in all, I like it. I like Nikki in it."

"Can we look at the files you brought? I missed working with you, you know."

Kate grabbed her briefcase and pulled out a file. "Our vic is James Sanders, age 36, married and ran a one man, more or less, medical technology company in Manhattan. He was shot to death with a 38. caliber Saturday night special that was left at the scene, his lab. We haven't been able to trace the gun and forensics at the crime scene were negative. His financials show nothing out of the ordinary, but he had a big payday coming up. He'd developed a device to find certain genetic markers for cancer patients, but didn't have the money to develop it further. He was going to sell the process to a big pharmaceutical company. He'd have gotten 12 million dollars in cash and stock, plus a job at the company doing the development at a quarter million dollars a year, plus bonuses."

"Suspects?" Rick asked.

"His wife, Angela and his secretary/lab assistant/mistress, Carolyn Kane. According to Ms. Kane they'd been together for just over a year. Mrs. Sanders says she knew nothing of the affair, that her husband was a life-long workaholic. She assumed he was working. Ms. Kane said she and Sanders were in love, but the upcoming financial windfall would make a divorce just then difficult. She said she was willing to wait."

Rick shook his head. "The wife always knows, and the mistress eventually figures out that the divorce will always be sometime in the future. Alibis?"

"Both say they were at home alone. No one saw them. Their buildings have no doorman and no security cameras. There aren't many cameras near either of the buildings, either. Neither woman can prove she was home alone, but we can't prove they weren't. We're stuck."

Rick and Kate spent several hours reading all of the reports, building and discarding theories.

"I have a theory." Kate said. "This has to be it."

"Share?"

She looked very seriously at Rick. "A CIA assassin did it. The medical procedure was actually to change a spy's DNA so they could change their looks at will. Sanders was selling it to the highest bidder and the CIA lost out."

As Kate smiled, Rick ran his finger along her cheek. "Detective Beckett, you are truly remarkable. Only you could have come up with such a brilliant explanation. I bow to your brilliance." And he bowed to Kate.

"I have no ideas, Rick, and I'm getting hungry. What do you have planned for dinner?"

"The Old Hamptons Inn. Great food and great ambience. You'll love it. If we start our shower now, we'll be ready to go in another couple of hours.