Chapter 2:

Kate made her way to her desk as if floating on a cloud. This fact did not escape the notice of Ryan or Esposito. They whispered conspiratorially. "She's baaaack.." said Ryan.

"Yeah. And she's alone. She looks really happy. You know what this means?" asked Esposito. Ryan just shook his head. "Means she finally killed Castle and found a great place to hide the body!"

"Keep it up guys, you will talk your way into traffic duty yet" Kate said, without turning around.

She sighed and got up again, heading to the break room for coffee. As she prepared her third cup of the day (the first was consumed at the airport and the second in the car) she gave a wistful glance at the empty chair next to her desk. She shook her head to clear it. He wouldn't have been here today anyway, at least now she had tonight to look forward to. Still, though she hated admitting it and adding more volume to his inflated ego, she liked the unique perspective he brought to their cases. Oh well. He was a mere phone call away.

As if he was reading her mind, her phone rang in her pocket. She glanced at the caller id and was greeted by his smiling face. Dammit, he'd been messing with her phone again. She hadn't even known the phone could register a picture as caller ID, and she certainly hadn't taken any pictures of him. She flipped the phone open and sighed as loudly as she could. "WHAT, Castle? I'm trying to work here."

"Nonsense, darling, you are just trying to soothe your caffeine jones." His smooth voice issued from the phone and fell on her ear like a caress.

She spun around quickly, expecting to see him standing in the doorway. "How….how do you know that?"

He chuckled warmly. "Lucky guess. I can set my watch by you for pretty much the first hour of the morning. Listen, I'm sorry to bug you already.."

"No you aren't, don't lie" she cut him off.

"Ok, true, I do love bugging you, but I also like my chances of seeing you tonight, which I'm guessing are dropping with every word, so I will get to the point. What should I do with your luggage?"

"My… oh right. Just bring it to your place. DO NOT go through it. As a matter of fact, let's amend the plans, I will come by tonight to retrieve it." She replied, glancing out into the squad room and feeling relieved that her bat-eared subordinates were too busy talking to pay attention to her.

"Fair enough, sweetie. See you later." Castle murmured to her, then disconnected before she could respond. Probably did her a favor, she certainly wasn't about to respond in kind with terms of endearment.

Sudden activity caught her attention, and she strode toward Ryan and Esposito. "What's going on?" she asked.

"Duty calls, boss" said Ryan. "A body was found at DynaGene. Really messy from the sound of it."

Rick regarded the phone he had just slid shut, eyeing it as thought it might come to life and bite him. He hoped she wouldn't be pissed that he had hung up on her, but he liked having the last word, and he had a hunch he had spared her an awkward moment, trying to find words that would not be too much of a give-away to her squad buddies. Besides, if she was going to squirm, it was so much more fun to be in the room with her to witness it. In fact, if she was coming over tonight, he had preparations to make.

An annoying little voice in his ear reminded him that he should do the responsible adult thing first, and get some writing done. He sighed, sitting down at his computer , then brightened, deciding that seeing Kate would be his reward for a hard day of work.

The detective trio arrived at a building in an industrial park a few minutes later. They were introduced to Henry Sullivan, the facilities manager. They were all required to don gloves, which was the norm, but also some sort of filmy shower cap hair covering, goggles, jumpsuits, and paper booties. They were then shown into a room that was so white it was nearly blinding. The walls were glossy. That wasn't the only assault on the senses, however. The smell was overpowering. "Ugh, what IS that?" Ryan asked.

"Cooked Homo sapien" Lanie replied, leaning back to address them. She seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. As they approached, they understood. She was kneeling next to the body. At least, that's what Kate assumed it was, because to her it looked like nothing more than an oversized turkey carcass wearing the same garments the rest of them were. Lanie and the body were in a large stainless steel….closet? It was not quite high enough to stand up straight inside. When Kate stepped into the box, she noticed her feet getting warm. " Come to think of it, heat seemed to be radiating from all around her. "What the hell IS this thing?" she asked, stepping out again.

"It's an industrial sized autoclave. It's used for sterilizing containers and other materials used in manufacturing pharmaceuticals" This last came from the person who had accompanied them.

"So..my victim was sterilized to death?" Kate asked.

"Well I won't know till I get him on my table whether that's what actually did him in. For his sake I hope to God not. That's a horrible way to go. This thing does its job by pumping steam at 121 degrees C into a pressurized chamber. No bacteria on earth can survive it." Lanie replied, shuddering. "The meat is falling right off the bones"

"Castle's gonna be so pissed he missed this one" Esposito said.

"Nah" Kate replied. "He'd never have made it past getting in this silly outfit. Why ARE we in these get-ups anyway?"

Henry, who had accompanied them into the room, cleared his throat. "This is a clean room. We are required to keep particulates in the air down below 10,000 per cubic meter. Clothing and exposed skin shed particles at an alarming rate. The room is cleaned twice a day, floors , walls and counters."

"Exposed skin. Now I am really glad Castle's not here" Kate said.

"Yeah but that presents us with a forensic problem. Whoever put this guy in there had to have been gowned up like us, anyone walking past the doors would have noticed if he wasn't. That means NO fingerprints, no shed hairs, no shoe prints and any other trace was probably cleaned away" Lanie said. She backed out of the chamber and tried to blot her forehead with her sleeve. "Damn it is hot in there. You'd think it would have started to cool down by now."

Henry spoke up again. "That is a jacketed unit. It's like a double hull. Steam is piped between the walls constantly, to keep it warm, otherwise it would take forever to heat that much metal. There are also two drains with screens, I am not telling you how to do your job but you might check those."

"Is there anything else you can tell us that might be helpful?" Kate asked. "Is there any way to tell when this was used?"

"Well, the machine generates a printout with all of the cycle data, including the start/end time. Unfortunately they seem to have taken it with them. I can talk to some people, see who ran the last cycle before this one. We are required to keep careful records of the autoclave data for each batch, in the event that anything goes wrong." Henry replied.

"So our killer would have to have been here at the end of the cycle to take the printout. How long do the cycles run?" Kate asked, eyeing the complicated looking touch pad.

"The typical automated cycle runs 40 minutes, but it is possible to manually reprogram one of the cycles to go shorter or longer. You'd have to be well versed in this unit to do it though. That means you are either looking for one of my people, or an outsider with working knowledge of this unit." Henry shook his head sadly. "I hate to think an employee did this."

Do we have any clue as to who our victim is?" Kate asked, looking doubtfully at the mess.

"Not yet. I will most likely have to go off dental records for this one." Lanie responded.

Kate turned to Henry. "How likely is it that the victim was NOT an employee?"

He considered that. "Hard to say, but any visitor must sign the log, in and out, and all employees must badge into secured areas. I can get you a record of all comings and goings for this area."

Kate nodded. "Thanks. I think that's going to be all for now. Let's go, and let Lanie package the body for transport."