Who Are You?
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: Here is more of the Castle I do not own. Rating: M Time: The future.
Chapter Six
Rick and Kate got home to find that both Martha and Alexis were gone for the evening. Rick made them dinner, then they snuggled on the couch watching a horror movie until bed time.
"I can see why you like that one." Kate teased.
"Hey! I like cheesy, low budget horror movies. Do I complain, um, do I complain much, about our Nebula Nine marathons?"
Kate leaned in and kissed him softly. "You're very polite about my Nebula Nine obsession. But I'm sure you bought this one because the actresses spend almost the whole movie in their underwear or less."
"You never saw Greta, the nurse, in just her underwear, or less." Rick defended the movie stoutly.
"No, she just wore her panties and a skin tight tee shirt which got soaking wet in every scene. However did she manage to fall in the moat at the castle? I mean she had to run towards the monster to get to the moat."
"I'm sure the director thought it was very allegorical. I suspect there may have been an homage to Kurosawa there."
Kate laughed. "You're going with that?"
"Of course. There's only one woman whose boobs I'm fascinated with." He kissed her and slid his hand over one boob.
"And who is that?" She teased.
"I'll show you." He slid one arm under her knees, and the other behind her shoulders and lifted her off the couch and carried her into the bedroom. She raised her arms and he took off her sweater, followed by her bra. They both laid down. Rick kissed her on the lips, softly at first, but then with more passion, his tongue entering her mouth, sliding inside and then across her lips, then back in her mouth.
He kissed down her neck to her boobs, working very slowly. Finally, he began running his tongue across the tops of her boobs.
"What are you doing?" She asked with a giggle.
"I'm autographing your boobs with my tongue. I've done R-I-C-K. and now C-…Oops." He began licking one spot on her boob.
"What are you doing now?"
"I made a G instead of a C, so I'm erasing it."
Kate started laughing. Castle kept kissing her. Eventually, he had finished his name and moved over to gently kiss her scar, then moved slowly down her stomach, removing articles of both of their clothes as he went. She spread her legs and he blew gently on her slit, then licked up and down. Finally he settled on her clit, inserting a finger inside her, moving it slowly in and out. Kate arched her back and moaned. "Enough. I need you inside of me. Now."
He nipped her clit with his teeth. "Not yet." He mumbled through her strip of pubic hair.
She grabbed his hair and pulled him up. "Yes, yet!" She moaned.
He lay on top of her for a second, looked into her eyes and said, "I love you, Kate. I always will."
"I love you right now, but if you're not inside of me..."
He slid his erection inside of her and began sliding in and out slowly, gradually increasing the tempo.
Kate put her arms around him and pushed her boobs into his chest, then wrapped her legs around his waist and tried to pull him deeper into her.
He sensed he was about to climax and slowed down.
She moaned, "Don't slow down. I'm close. I'm so close." And she was, and he was. He exploded in her as she raked his back with her finger nails and moaned his name.
Minutes later they lay together in a tangle. "We get to look at pictures of hookers tomorrow." She said, teasingly. "Right up your alley, I suppose."
Rick made no reply.
"Problem, babe?" She asked.
"I patronized prostitutes. When I was young and wild."
"Before you got old and completely out of hand?" She whispered.
"Not so funny. I thought then that being a hooker made sense as a career choice for some women. But I've seen hookers close up, even the ones who work only with high end clients, so called. It's a horrible choice for any woman."
"You sound like you're growing up."
He shuddered dramatically. "Anything but that. Can you help me avoid being a grown up?"
"I'll do the best that I can, lover, but I can't make any promises."
"I'll settle for that."
The next morning when they arrived at the precinct, Ryan was waiting for them with a handful of photos and a smile. "Good news. We think we have one of the women in the photos we found at the crime scene."
The team, including Johnson, gathered around Ryan's desk. "CSU got too many responses on facial recognition. These aren't the best photos and they're pretty old. Chances are that the girls in these photos have changed. Even things like a different hair style can throw off facial recognition software. So, they had a thought. Look for three of the couple of dozen under aged hookers they had as possibles and see if any of them had any connections. They found three that kept getting bailed out by the same pimp, a Carlos Moreno, now deceased. One girl, who has so many aliases we can only make her as Yvette Pretty died of a drug overdose five years ago. Another, Elena Cruz is totally off the grid. No arrests anywhere for about eight years. I'm thinking she got out of the life and is gone."
"There'd better be some good news in here, Ryan." Kate told him.
"There is. Last and certainly not least is Ynez Iturbide. Turns our Vice knows her really well. She runs a home for ex-hookers and girls who are trying to get out of the life. She has a place in the Bronx where they can stay, she has talked doctors into giving the girls free medical care, she knows people who can help with employment and she keeps the pimps away."
Kate nodded. They were finally getting someplace. "Castle and I will go see Iturbide. You and Espo keep interviewing cops who were connected in any way with the three dead cops or were involved in the investigation of their murders."
Ynez Iturbide's house was in a neighborhood that had definitely seen better days, but the house itself was reasonably well kept up. Kate rang the doorbell.
After a minute, a skinny girl with bleached blonde hair, track marks on her arms and a black eye answered the door. "Yes?"
Kate showed her badge. "Detective Kate Beckett, NYPD. This is Richard Castle. We need to talk to Ynez Iturbide. Is she in?"
The blonde scowled at her. "Do you have a warrant?"
"No, but I can get a warrant easily enough. However, I think that a friendly conversation would be in everybody's interests."
The girl thought for a second. "Wait here." She walked away, leaving the door open.
Shortly after, a short, rather heavily built Latina came to the door. Kate was just barely able to recognize her as the teenaged girl in the photos. "What do you want?"
"To talk to you about these three men." Kate showed the photos of the dead policemen and the three hookers.
"You sure you want to talk about them? They're cops."
"I want to talk about them. And we knew they were cops. Can we come in?"
Ynez shook her head. "You can, but your partner can't. I don't want a male cop in here."
It was Kate's turn to shake her head. "He comes with me. He's my partner."
Ynez smiled coldly. "He is, is he? Well, tell me, Detective, how many times has your partner ":accidentally" grabbed your boobs or your ass on the job? Tell me."
Kate's smile was warmer. "On the job? Accidentally? Never. He saves that for when we're in bed together at night. Mr. Castle is not a cop, he's a civilian who consults with the NYPD. He's also my husband. I use my maiden name for work. Otherwise, I'm Mrs. Castle."
Ynez stepped out onto the front porch and frisked Castle. "He's not carrying a gun? He consults? What is he really?"
"I'm an author. Mystery novels." Castle said, giving Ynez his most winning smile.
"What have you written?"
"The Derrick Storm novels and the Nikki Heat novels."
Ynez shook her head and frowned. "Never heard ofthem."
Castle was truly shocked. Someone who had never heard of him? "I'll send you over an autographed collection of my books."
Ynez snorted. "And what would I do with them?"
Castle shook his head slightly. "Well, considering what last complete collection of signed Richard Castle novels went for on E-bay, you might sell them. Or you could read them if worse came to worse."
"How much?"
If Rick was upset with how mercenary Ynez was, he didn't let on. "$2650."
"Okay, send them around. And you both can come in."
They walked through the house all the way to Ynez's office in the back, and saw no one. Rick and Kate could hear movement in the rooms around them, but saw no one.
Ynez sat at her desk and Kate took the one rickety chair in the office. Rick stood, smiling.
"Is this you in these photos?" Kate showed Ynez the photos from the crime scene.
Ynez frowned and nodded. "Yes. I was fourteen at the time."
"Do you recognize the men?"
Ynez nodded. "They were cops. All we ever knew was their first names. I've long since forgotten them. I hope they burn in hell."
"Are the white lines on the mirror in the picture drugs? Cocaine? Heroin?"
"Are you stupid?" Ynez shot back.
"No, but all I can testify to honestly from looking at these photos is that they're white lines of something. Anyone looking at the photo would assume the lines were drugs, but it's not proof."
"It was cocaine. The cops brought it. They said they stole it from drug dealers. They made a joke out of it. Said we were getting the best stuff, because they wouldn't take anything but the best from the evidence lockers."
"And you had sex, at age fourteen, with these men?"
Ynez looked like she was going to say something, but thought better of it. "At one time or another, I had sex with all three cops."
"Did you have sex with any other men while they were there? Were there any other people around?"
Ynez shook her head. "No. I never saw anyone but those three."
Rick spoke for the first time. "Did they ever mention anyone else? Like more partners?"
Ynez frowned slightly. "Once, they were pretty stoned, they got in an argument about how they did all the work and took all the risks, and someone else got too much money. One of them was real upset and the others told him to shut up."
"Any idea who the other person was?"
Ynez shook her head.
"Do you have any idea who killed the three cops? Did you hear anything?" Castle asked,
Ynez laughed. "Did I hear anything? Sure. Every dumb ass would be thug said they'd dropped those cops. If even one percent of them had been telling the truth, those cops would have had hundreds of bullet holes in them. Which wouldn't have bothered me a bit."
"Would you be willing to testify to any of this?" Kate asked.
When Ynez started to look unhappy at that prospect, Castle spoke up. "You're trying to save girls from the life. Don't you think that you should show them that you can stand up to the people who have been using them?"
Ynez shrugged and then smiled. "Considering that the cops are dead and the Tonton Macoutes are dead and gone, too, I might as well."
"One last thing." Kate said. "Do you have any idea where Elena Cruz is? She's been off the grid for about eight years."
Ynez looked at the ceiling, gathering her thoughts. "Elena? She hooked up with some fast talking con man. I haven't heard from her for years."
"Did this con man have a name?"
"George? Something like that. It's been a long time."
They thanked Ynez and headed back to the precinct to brief their team that Ynez had said that there was at least one more person involved in the thefts and that evidence, particularly drugs, had been stolen from evidence lockers. Ryan and Esposito were sent to look at the evidence logs from that period.
Tory Ellison approached Rick and Kate, smiling. "The guy at the Harley dealership was cute after all. He just might be worth a second look."
Kate grinned. "Did you get us anything?"
Tory nodded. "He wouldn't tell me anything about the guys who rented the bikes, but he told me that they have GPS on their rentals. He said you might want to drop by a place called the Roll Bar after one o'clock. It's a biker bar on…"
"I've been there." Kate said. "It's not an outlaw biker bar, but caters to upscale bikers. Even cops. Will they be there tomorrow, you think?"
Ellis shrugged. "He told me that they usually go there for some a couple of hours almost every day about lunch time. He didn't guarantee anything."
Kate turned to Rick. "Do you mind if Alexis and I go there?"
"Can I come too?"
Kate shook her head. "Alexis' dad? If anything will make him more macho having you around would do it."
"I guess I am pretty bad ass." Castle said happily. Kate did not contradict him.
Espo and Ryan came back to Kate's desk. "Johnson might want to get into observation. His brother, Sergeant Michael McCarty just called from the Three Two. He wants to come in and talk to us. He didn't say why."
"When is he due in?"
"Any time now."
Johnson headed for the observation room, followed by Rick and Kate.
Sergeant McCarty was a beefy, red faced man, balding in front and wearing a scowl. He sat in Interrogation One and glared at Ryan and Esposito.
"Is there some reason you have to pull this shit on us?" He barked.
Ryan was polite. "What exactly are you talking about, Sergeant?"
"Don't give me that. I've spent the last fourteen years trying to live down my gutless brother's cowardice and now you're dragging it up again? My family isn't dumb. We've heard about the dead body found where my brother ran away. We know that that bitch lieutenant from IA is sniffing around and you have some mysterious undercover Fed hanging around looking like some damned Serpico or something."
"We have an undercover Fed here? How do you know?" Espo asked.
The sergeant glared at them again. "We're not stupid, goddammit! The first day he comes in here the desk sergeant sees he's carrying. He asks for his badge. He doesn't have one, he says, but call up Captain Gates. Gates says he's a Fed and that he can come in any time. A Fed with a piece and no badge? That's Undercover 101, not to mention the damned beard, the long hair and the sunglasses. Word gets around. Gimme a god damned break."
"Any reason you don't want us to continue with the investigation?" Ryan said softly.
"What the hell are you implying?"
"You came in here to talk to us. We're investigating a freshly found old body that might, or might not, have something to do with the three cops that were shot back in the day. What? You want us to ignore the possibility there's a connection?"
"Is there a connection?"
Espo shrugged. "The ME said she can't tell us whether the dead guy we found was killed before, during or after the three dead cops, and that we'll probably never get any kind of definitive time of death. But we have a murder, so we have to investigate. You understand that, right?"
"Christ, you guys. If my useless brother had anything to do with that Haitian's death, do you really have to drag my family's name through the mud again? Haven't we had to put up with enough? The gutless bastard ran away. We haven't heard from his since he resigned and we don't care if we ever do. Chances are, if he was involved, he's got a new name and he's somewhere on the other side of the damned country."
Espo smiled. You're half right.
Ryan gave Sergeant McCarty his most reassuring smile. "Look, we feel for you and your family. We really do. But you know the drill. We have to investigate a murder. If it makes you feel any better, anyone who hasn't come forward with any information by now, is probably dead, or lost and gone. This investigation may get nowhere, but we are going to investigate. "
"Which means you're going to go around asking questions and bringing up my damned brother and the killings of three cops that he ran away from and now some drug dealers death. Yeah! That's no problem for the family." He ended sarcastically. Sergeant McCarty stood up and walked out of Interrogation One and on out of the precinct.
Ryan and Esposito joined Johnson, Rick and Kate in observation.
Oddly enough, Johnson was smiling. "That's not a bad idea that Sergeant McCarty had, you know?"
"What idea?" Kate asked.
"The idea that Henry McCarty is somehow involved in this. How about these scenarios? McCarty, for whatever reasons, pops the Haitian drug dealer. He hides the body. Maybe he's going to come back to it for the cash, maybe not. It's not important. But when he sees the three cops are going into the same building where he left the dead dealer, he panics and makes some excuse to get away. Since he's found to be a coward, he eventually resigns from the NYPD and disappears."
Johnson nodded to himself. "Or this one. McCarty runs away from the ambush and is the only one to survive. Later, overcome by remorse, feeling he has to do something, he guns down Moncrief and hides the body. Realizing he's screwed up twice, he hangs around long enough so that it doesn't look suspicious, resigns and disappears. "
"Two things." Castle said. "One, you do remember that you're Henry McCarty, right? And more important, why is this a good idea?"
Johnson shook his head. "The secret to being under cover is to never, ever step out of character. I am not Henry McCarty. I'm Michael Johnson. Secondly, we don't want anyone to know that we're investigating three dirty cops who everyone thinks are heroes. If they did have someone in Vice or the police intelligence unit, which they probably did, we don't want those people to figure out that they're being investigated." Johnson laughed. "And it's not like McCarty's reputation could get any worse, is it?"
Kate nodded slowly. "It's a good idea, if that's the way you want to do this."
"Of course it is. I wouldn't have suggested it otherwise." Johnson thought for a moment. "In fact, I know a guy who just might be able to drop a rumor that the coward Henry McCarty is even worse than everyone thought." Johnson laughed, then walked out of observation and to the elevator.
"That is one weird dude." Espo said.
"He's right, though. The only way to survive when you're undercover is to become who you're supposed to be. He's Michael Johnson, just like I was Fenton O'Connell."
"When I went undercover with the Russian mob and that poker game, I was Richard Castle."
Kate grinned. "And you made an excellent Richard Castle. You were exactly like him. Really. I hardly knew which one of you to shoot when I got inside." Kate checked her watch. "I have an appointment with Alexis to go to the Roll Bar to see if we can find her biker friend."
"Want me to go along?" Castle offered, again.
"We'll be okay. I know the place. It'll be okay."