After the Vows

Jim Beckett's Journal

Chapter 16

Dear Johanna,

Once again my work has converged with Katie's in a very sad way. One of the women involved in my suit has been killed. Her name was Artemiz Alfarsi. I think the two of you would have liked each other. Artemiz is Persian for speaker of truth and it fit her perfectly. She was totally straightforward about everything she said and did which, aside from her gender, is exactly why the management of the company might not have been too fond of her. Artemiz never talked to either Ryan or Roselyn, so they have no special knowledge of her history. Katie was called out on the case, together with Lanie. Experienced as they both are with such things by now, they both found it upsetting. Artemiz had been beaten to death. Rick was with Katie and I think he was more disturbed than either one of them. He is always protective of women, something it took Katie about six years to admit that she actually likes.

Artemiz's death may not be related to the suit at all. There are sick souls who might have gone after her just because they thought she was a muslim, which she wasn't. Even if she had been, it certainly would have been no justification. There is a husband and Katie tells me the spouse is always the most likely suspect. That's a chilling thought, isn't it? Katie will have a long list of suspects to sift through. Since I knew Artemiz, I may be helpful to her. I don't know.

Aside from the horrendous loss of Artemiz, the suit is still going well. Dana is doing a better job every day. All the paralegals really look up to her. Ryan hasn't had much time to work with us, but Roselyn has. As she conducts interviews, our case becomes more solid all the time. Her mother would have been proud.

Rick will not be around for much of the investigation of Artemiz's death. He had a publicity tour scheduled after the original date of the wedding. Obviously he was not able to do it and Black Pawn, for that read Gina, is leaning very heavily on him to fulfill his contract for personal appearances. They are trying very hard to boost sales for Christmas after the fiasco with the video.

Rick's already started. He was on one of the late night shows last night. Katie couldn't go with him to the taping. She was on duty. Paula, his agent accompanied him. I think she wanted to make sure he showed up on time and help him field lingering questions about his disappearance and his marriage to Katie. Rick tells me that Paula was a little upset that she wasn't forewarned about the nuptials. She would have liked to make the best of the publicity. Of course none of us were forewarned. I barely had time to change my suit and make it to Rick's beach house in the Hamptons. Still, Paula would have liked more of a chance to use the ceremony to Rick's advantage. I think she has, regardless. She has put out several statements pointing out that people, particularly one TV reporter who speculated that Rick had disappeared because he got cold feet about marrying Katie, were dead wrong.

I don't stay up late enough to watch those shows, but I recorded it. Rick has started to be able to make jokes about having amnesia. When the host pressed him about it, he put a very confused look on his face and asked the host: "Who are you, again?" The audience cracked up. Rick has always used humor as a defense mechanism and he does it well.

He is scheduled to be leaving this morning to visit several cities. I think his total tour is supposed to be eleven cities. I don't remember which ones except that I know one of them is Minneapolis and Alexis wanted to make sure that he didn't, as she put it, "freeze his butt off." Her over-protectiveness has been steadily getting better, both through her support group and her relationship with Declan, but it is still there. Normally, Rick would do one of these tours in one long trip, one city after another, but he doesn't want to be away from Katie that long. He's broken it up into several pieces and he'll be taking red eyes back to New York in between. Gina has grudgingly agreed to that as long as he gets all his appearances in during the height of Christmas madness. He's also supposed to be writing. I guess he'll do that on airplanes and in hotel rooms. Not that I think she'd have to, but Katie certainly doesn't have to worry about Rick even looking at another woman, except perhaps to hand her a boarding pass. He won't have the time.

Alexis is preparing to play violin for another student production. This time it is Gilbert and Sullivan's Pinafore, but not any Pinafore that we ever saw. This one is also based on the web sing-a-long that Alexis played the music from before. The players will be wearing the same strange kinds of costumes. All of that makes absolutely no sense to me, but Alexis and Declan seem to think it's all great fun. I suppose that's what counts. I hope the rehearsals will help keep Alexis busy and help keep her from worrying about Rick during his travels.

Rick will not be the only member of the family to make the rounds of the talk shows. Martha will be doing it as well, to promote her play. She will be doing more daytime than late night. Katie and Rick find it amusing that Martha will be going on shows that specialize in doing a lot of cooking segments, something that is definitely not Martha's area of expertise. As I understand it, she will be getting some coaching from Morrison Collier. He is one of the co-hosts of one of the shows on which she's scheduled to appear. They are supposed to be cooking together on camera. I'll be working when the show airs, but I'll be recording it. That I have to see. If Collier can weather that, he may be a keeper for Martha. If that turns out to be the case, I hope she realizes it. The whole Castle clan deserves all the happiness they can get.

Forever love,

JB