It's quiet now, as if a payment of anguish has purchased a brief reprieve.

There are sounds in the confines of John's truck: the idling engine, running heat, and rhythmic whump-whump of the windshield wipers. Those are mechanical white noise though and they hardly register. A light dusting of snow has begun to fall outside, itty-bitty flakes that spiral crazily in the air. Upon the broad, cushioned backseat Beckett and Martha sit side-by-side. The older woman's head rests against the younger's right shoulder, more real for warmth than the burden of weight. Her eyes are closed and her breathing is even, but the grasp of her hand sheltered within in both of the detective's hasn't slackened.

She's awake as sure as Kate, though both of them are wrung out. The very idea of slumber couldn't be less welcome. At this moment, amidst this time of trial, she never wants to sleep again. Because that's been the case for a long time, hasn't it? It might as well have been. And her fiancé—the man she's come to know these past several years—just another figment within the ephemeral realm dreams come from.

Well, no. That's overdramatizing the matter. Yeah, just a bit, Katie. But dear God…in a way it feels kinda true. What he told her earlier in the day was such a shock—to imagine him as someone who once needed saving in that kind of way. Yet that revelation pales in comparison to what has been uncovered this evening.

He wanted to…go. She knows it's true in the very fibers of her being. The knowledge has taken up a literal residence in her back between her shoulder-blades as a deep and lasting ache.

This is the man who ripped a bundle of wires from an impromptu thermonuclear weapon—who chose to act on an impulse of mad desperation rather than succumb. You just don't get a much clearer picture of someone than that. There are people who are willing to surrender, and there are people who dig in their claws and have to be dragged kicking and screaming out of the living world. He's always been the latter, always; even when she wasn't, and had simply grasped his hand in hers in mute acceptance of their inevitable annihilation.

Because she's willing to die in the line of duty if necessary—not give up, but sacrifice for something greater than herself.

Castle wasn't. He acted. Death was intolerable. It was the case in front of the nuke. It was the case when she was rooted in place upon the pressure plate of an explosive charge poised to blow them both sky high. It was the case…so many other times. Only now is it clear those moments weren't driven by compulsions of self-preservation in retrospect. No doubt he wanted to survive as well, for the sake of his family and surely himself. But by and large he was moved to save Beckett. He couldn't let her go. The man would sooner die—either in her place or alongside her—before allowing her to be taken like that.

God. You hear people say such things—hopeless romantics with their inane and empty vows of eternity. But to actually see that promise made manifest, to know the truth of 'Always' in your very bones… The woman doesn't feel wise enough to comprehend the fullness of it. Her heart isn't big enough to contain all of the emotions attached to it. These are not new feelings. Beckett has been aware of them and more for some time now.

What she didn't know was that Castle had already been forced to live through what amounts to his worst nightmare.

Her mind travels inexorably back to the moments he's asked her to…stop. To live at what she felt to be the expense of her mother's long-awaited justice. All that time—he knew exactly what he was asking her to do, both the difficulty involved and the possible rewards it might hold. Fresh streaks of wetness race one another down the slant of the woman's cheeks. She brushes them away and sniffs wetly, stealthily so as not to rouse the companion leaning into her.

Detective Beckett wants to go home. She wants it more so than she can recall having ever been the case before.

But it isn't time. Not yet. Rick has asked her to hear his story, and by the heavens that bend above her she is going to do just that. It's not about balancing the debt she feels exists between them, though that would be enough. This is about knowing who Castle is—really, truly, and deeply. She wants that more.

In the dual beams of the headlights, through the sprinkling bits of snowfall, she sees John Autry and Henry Calloway at the front of the house. They shake hands as she watches, and then the deputy turns to head for the truck. A twinge of regret assails Beckett to see Henry left sitting alone there in the doorway, silhouetted by the light from his foyer. In the short time of their visit it feels like their lives have become bound by some ethereal cord, irrevocably linked by the shared knowledge of one terrible fragment of time. She wishes he could come with them. It's just as Rick told her: this story belongs to him too. But the man has his work, and it's not a nine-to-five gig. He has his chair, and the F-150 is too big for him to clamber up into. It's highly unlikely he'd accept John manhandling him in and out of the passenger seat.

They depart, and she lifts her fingers in a diminutive wave to the keeper. He waves back with a broad smile she knows is meant to bolster her.

And it does. She doesn't feel good—hell no—but what they're doing feels right. This time she's acting. Never mind the occasions she didn't ask Castle about himself, or did but allowed him to dodge her inquiries. That sucks big time, but it cannot be undone. This though, what they're accomplishing tonight; it is right and good. She's moving forward with purpose.

This must be why Rick didn't come along—foremost among other good reasons anyway. He wants her to do it, and by the act dispel her guilt over having waited so long. Misplaced guilt he'd call it. Whether it is or isn't will always be up for debate. But Kate can and will make it an issue of past tense—a was rather than an is.

"Where to?" she poses softly.

John's voice seems to fill the cab even when he's speaking quietly. "Back into town. We're headed to see a man named Anton Richter."

"German," she observes offhandedly.

"In name," the driver confirms as they turn back onto Montauk Highway. "But his family was from Russia. Anton was born here in the states. Still has a bit of an accent despite that. He grew up in your neck of the woods actually. Brighton Beach."

"I wouldn't call Brooklyn my neck of the woods," she replies with some humor. Growing up in Manhattan was a cakewalk by contrast to what she's encountered across the bridge and tunnel. "What's his part in all this?"

For several seconds the only reply is the wiper blades moaning against the windshield. Then the deputy asks, "Do you know how a penniless, second-generation immigrant from Kazakhstan ends up in The Hamptons, Detective Beckett?"

"My cynicism suggests they typically don't."

"Your cynicism isn't wrong. Anton Richter was born with the rare gift of perfect pitch. He was composing by eight. By twenty-two he was widely venerated as a master of the both the piano and cello."

Beckett's eyebrows lift with a murmured, "Whoa." But then frowns, stating, "I've never heard of him. I mean, there was a time I probably should've, when music was more of a thing for me. I made it a point to stay informed back then."

"You work out of the 12th in Manhattan?"

"Uh, yeah."

"If you worked in a Brooklyn precinct you'd probably know of him."

Martha stirred against Kate, lifting her head and stretching her neck with a slight grimace. But she smiled faintly into the detective's concerned visage and withdrew her hand to touch Kate's shoulder in mute reassurance.

"Uh," Beckett said lamely, blinking back towards the front seat and its occupant. "Meaning what exactly?"

"He didn't escape Brighton Beach on his musical merits. He got out based on his talent for murder."

Beckett's eyes widen. She gapes briefly. "Wh-what…"

"His crime isn't related to Richard," John readily clarifies, meeting her gaze in the rearview mirror. "He killed his wife back in 1968 when he caught her cheating on him. Allegedly that is. No one could prove it. Everyone knew, but forensics wasn't what it is now, and the cops didn't inspire much confidence with the locals at the time. Still don't from what I hear. Anyway, no witnesses and weak science; he skated on the charges after four months of hard investigating. The case became folklore. Even now if you drop the ball and let a perp walk the other cops say you 'Richtered it up'."

"How do you know this stuff?"

"We play softball against some of the boys out of the Seven-Four."

"So, we're going to see this guy…why?"

"Because he was Richard's piano teacher."

Kate just stared. She shook her head, not knowing where to even begin replying to that.

"One of the families here in Montauk took the man in," Martha said, taking over the tale. "Gertrude Haverstock, a wealthy widow." The actress paused, moistening her lips. "She…" A sigh cut the sentence off. "She sought him out and hired him as a live-in piano tutor for her son and daughter. By that point it was the only offer of employment he was likely to receive in the music business."

Beckett shook her head again. "That…makes no sense. For her part I mean."

"Mrs. Haverstock was known to behave irrationally," John offered from up front. His voice held only a hint of disapproval, but even so light a touch of it grated the words as they emerged like stones colliding in the earth. "She enjoyed causing a stir, getting her neighbors all atwitter about her latest, scandalous behavior."

"Did you know her?" Martha asks crisply from Kate's right.

The deputy's dark eyes lift to the rearview mirror again, fathomless pools marked by reflected lights from the instrument panel. "My father did. Are you telling me he was wrong about her?"

The diva shifted somewhat with seeming discomfort upon the seat. "No," she conceded at length. "He wasn't wrong. She certainly had her share of…eccentricities. And she didn't hire Anton out of the goodness of her heart." A long and narrow finger of disapproval thrust into the air over the front seat. "But your father never made it a point to brazenly judge his constituents, John Autry. Whatever opinions Frank bore he had the grace to keep them to himself. You may be your own man now, but don't think you can't still learn a thing or two from his fine example."

Kate felt a small smile creep across her lips. Momma Castle.

"No, ma'am," the deputy acquiesced, duly contrite. "I don't presume to have filled his shoes. Not by a mile."

"Well there now—that's something sensible to say."

Beckett was glad for the darkness as her shoulders quivered lightly. When she felt in control of her grim amusement the dark-haired woman posed, "So how did this guy end up tutoring Rick if everyone knew what he was?"

Martha stared at her for a beat. Her expression fell.

"Oh," Kate murmured. A pang of sympathy warred with her surprise. "You sent your son to him?"

"I got to know him first," the actress replied coolly. She sat up straighter upon the seat, banishing the guilt and schooling her features into something harder, almost haughty. "Say what you will about the man. Few took the time or trouble to get to know the first thing about him. We spoke at great length together. He grieved every day for what he'd done. Murdering his wife was an act of blind passion, not reason. It destroyed him as a man and a musician."

"Martha!" Kate hissed warningly.

"So you assume," John rumbled meaningfully in interruption. There was no sympathy in his voice, only an edge of warning. "Because he didn't actually confess anything to you, did he?" The man's tone made it more of a statement than a question. "Because if you told us otherwise we'd be forced to have our conversation with him from a holding cell, Miss Rodgers. There's no statute of limitations on murder."

Martha's expression crumbled as her features opened with trepidation. "N-no. He never—never said." She stopped, cleared her throat and swallowed nervously. "The point is: I wouldn't have sent my son to him if I wasn't convinced he would be perfectly safe. I never once considered it a gamble or I wouldn't have done so."

Yeesh, Martha. Beckett didn't say anything, but her mind was brimming with all manner of incredulous questions and recriminations. The arrogance of it—thinking she knew a murderer so well as to risk her son's safety. Good heavens. Although she mustn't have been entirely wrong. 'Cause he didn't kill Rick or anything. Still. It was a dangerously cavalier attitude and it sure as shit was a gamble. Swing by the precinct someday, Momma Castle. I'll show you monsters in the guise of men who are capable of weeping for forgiveness, pleading innocence, playing human like a pro—and killing you without blinking if it somehow furthered their lots in life.

"Katherine," the woman said hesitantly. "I-I swear, darling. I knew the man."

Beckett beholds her fellow passenger with no malice. But she isn't going to lie to make her feel better either. In a carefully neutral tone she replies, "Six hours ago I could have made a similar claim, Martha."

Those blue eyes seemed to flash-freeze in their sockets. "Don't you dare compare my son to…this."

"I'm not," Beckett soothed. "I'm just saying…I'm not sure we can ever fully know someone. It's in our natures to be full of surprises, good and bad. That's no denigration of us by its existence. It's just part of being human."

"Well said," John issues from the front seat, neither smiling nor frowning. He doesn't add anything else.

Martha offers nothing, only leans back against the seat and clasps her hands together in her lap. Her expression is pained at first, but slowly shifts to a more pensive one as they ride in silence together.

The truck slows some minutes later. Beckett's gaze shifts to the window at her left, though it's limned with crystals of frost and bordered by crusted ice and snow. In the view beyond sits a small, white, single-story cinder-block home on a street boasting many similar residences. There's a scarlet oak dominating the front yard, so huge-looking she thinks it has be nearing its four-hundredth birthday.

"This is it," John declares evenly.

"This was our summer home at the time," Martha reveals, subdued. "When all of this happened."

"Richter bought your place?"

"Without once haggling over my asking price no less," the actress confirms, smiling faintly. "Which was a godsend at the time. We needed the money badly. I hadn't worked in almost a year by then. He could've pinched the property for much less if he'd waited for the bank to take it away from me. That wouldn't have taken long."

John's breath plumed against the glass as he asked, "Why'd he buy it at all?"

"I…I'll let him explain. I don't think I could without making it seem…strange or somehow untoward."

"Stranger than murder?" Beckett murmured with a passing glint of grim irony. Never thought I'd be glad to have someone outside of my jurisdiction.

"He wanted to be…closer to Richard. Well, not Richard. Not really. But greatness."

The words drew Kate's and John's stares. The former's humorless smirk evaporates. A prickling of unease rises out of its hiding place in her belly to reclaim residence in her spine, as it has so often done today. "Martha?"

"I can't explain," she returns quietly, frowning somewhat, then almost smiling. "Let's go."