Anton Richter looks like a man, but over the course of the introductions it becomes clear that he is a great and swirling downward spiral of…nothingness. Light and sound fall into it, but they never hit bottom, never seem to glean a worthy return for their input.
Kate has heard about this in rare cases. Other investigators call it 'the living death', or 'the unbarred prison'. The murderer's body and mind goes on living and functioning. But the light of life within them is snuffed out, irrevocably sacrificed on the altar of whatever motive drove them to their misdeed.
Some people aren't built to be killers.
It occurred once in an early case in Beckett's career when a twenty-five-year-old woman, Anita Kiesinger, slew her husband and two-month-old child by cutting into the brake line of her philandering spouse's Audi before he left for work one morning. He was the target. The child was there by a cruel stroke of chance—their au pair noted a fever and the husband decided to skip the morning business to take his son to the pediatrician. A lousy husband, but a good father. Kate had been there as an officer when Royce did the notification. She saw the moment when it occurred, and looking back at it now the memory is colored by her perceptions: an imagined shadow passes across the woman's face. Then it's gone, and a piece of her soul—but not her life—leaves with it, borne away on the dark and tattered wings of Death. Fanciful musings aside, Kiesinger's eyes did go lights-out right there in a quiet corner of the Yoga studio. She didn't say another word to the cops or shrinks, and conversed only sparingly with her lawyer. Her hands signed her name, dotting and crossing as necessary; they fed and washed her vessel as the trial dragged on. The defense attorney painted an image of reasonable doubt and earned a not-guilty verdict. Even escaping justice garnered no reaction. Public opinion roared in protest for a couple weeks, but from Anita—nothing at all.
The woman lives somewhere in New Jersey now, if living is what it can be called. She came out of herself some over time. Only some. There was a picture of her in a magazine a couple years ago. In it she's smiling just slightly at an off-camera friend. Her eyes are still lifeless, unmarred by lines of vibrant emotion, and it's the same story in her cheeks and about her mouth. It's clean and clear.
That is Richter's smile as he observes Martha and John in turn while they describe in greater detail why it is they are all here tonight. "I'm happy to help you in any way I can," the shell of a man assures.
Such cases of extreme detachment do not meet the law's standards of diminished mental faculty per se. In order to be accurately assessed or profiled one must exhibit a return to a state of psychological stability. What's left of such people after the sacrifice of their humanity is not stability, merely a yawning absence of actionable instability. There's not much to be done in such instances. Unwilling patients cannot be helped, and living dolls with no apparent compunction for further violence don't merit institutionalization. They slip through the cracks of the system like the ghosts they are.
It's an odd kind of self-administered punishment, perhaps a glimpse of the burden of guilt in its purest form. But it isn't justice by Beckett's standards. Laws exist to be honored and adhered to. When the system fails, civilization has too in a small but noticeable manner. Circumnavigation of the rules leaves a bad taste in her mouth, and poetic—or street—justice is no substitution. It is an offshoot of anarchy. The flavor may be satisfyingly sweet at times, but there's no lasting nourishment to be gleaned for society there, only chaos.
"Katherine?"
Beckett blinks, realizes she's been staring holes into their host. She offers a wan smile to Martha, catching a glimpse of John as well. He seems to be on the same page at least. The imposing deputy's arms are crossed stiffly and his hands are white-knuckled into sledgehammer-sized fists of dislike. A flexing of his chiseled jaw sets the muscles to rippling beneath the bronzed skin.
She refocuses on the doll. "Thank you for having us, Mr. Richter. I understand it's difficult to revisit the past."
"There isn't much I wouldn't do for a friend," the man replies with a token smile for Martha. "They're a rare gift. For that matter, no former student will ever be turned away from my door. You're here on his behalf. That's good enough for me."
Just the thought of him in the same room with Castle as a boy makes the detective's skin start crawling again. She shifts uncomfortably upon the cushion of the cream-toned bergère, clears her throat. "May I ask about that? Castle being your student?"
The former piano tutor blinks at her uncomprehendingly. "Castle?"
"Rick."
"Richard," Martha offers helpfully.
Yeah, that's what I fucking said, Kate grumbles inwardly. This place and its people are beginning to wear on her patience. They see a different man in Rick, even Henry, who she enjoyed meeting. Worse, their perceptions are not entirely wrong. The author behaves differently with them. Clearly. No doubt it's a reaction to their expectations and their knowledge of who her fiancé was once upon a time. It makes reconciling what she knew and what she knows now both frustrating and difficult. He shouldn't change himself even subtly for anyone's benefit—not even hers. The days of needing to hide are done. Tough titty, bye-bye kitty done—and they aren't coming back for a goddamn reunion tour. Kate believes that's possible. She has to.
Tough titty, bye-bye kitty?
She shushes her amused internal version of Castle's voice, focuses on Richter as he speaks.
"Where to begin?" the man wonders aloud, looking somewhat overwhelmed.
"I first brought him to you in the summer of '73," Martha reminds him.
"Yes. I recall that afternoon. I was still a guest of widow Haverstock then, bless her heart." Kate's instincts twang like a poorly-strummed chord. Is he being flippant? His expression is neutral, making it difficult to determine. "I remember we struggled to get him to sit down and stay put."
Martha grinned and her eyes moistened some as the recollections likewise welled up. The actress turned to Beckett and explained, "It was Laura who first discovered it. She played the piano too, you see."
"As a mere hobby, not a mature effort," Richter stipulated, which is kind of a dick thing to say about a dead girl even if it's accurate.
Martha didn't seem to register the insertion, continuing with obvious pride, "I came home one afternoon and heard the music. I remember I didn't even set my things down first. I was drawn into the living room like...like I was sleepwalking. I think I exclaimed about the girl's amazing improvement as I went, but when I turned the corner Laura was standing beside the piano and Richard was on the bench at the keys. I remember her eyes as she watched him. They just…shone. She looked as proud of him as I felt. After I'd recovered from my shock of course," the woman added with a soft laugh. "God. He looked so small there—so tiny and…precious."
The description makes Kate's heart flip. She grins.
John's taut features wrestled themselves into a faint, brief smile.
Richter offered nothing.
"Uh, anyway," Martha said, "I didn't know what to do about it at first. Obviously I figured it out, but it took time. It was such a shock, the way he played."
"They weren't established pieces," Richter put forth evenly. "Therein lay the uniqueness of his…ability."
Beckett frowned in confusion. "What's that mean?"
"Well, if you'll forgive a self-serving comparison, there's more than merely raw talent at work in a child prodigy, like I was. I'll spare you the complex version by simply stating: it's a streamlined relationship between working memory and the cerebellum." Um…I'm pretty sure you just called me stupid right to my face, asswipe. "It's an innate emotional maturity which allows for higher cognitive function. But it usually manifests in disciplines with some manner of logical framework or rules. Richard's style was...different. It defied them."
"That's a working theory," John rumbles, "not fact. You're paraphrasing Vandervert, right? Poorly, I might add. Maybe you've read some of Shavinina's work too? If you have you know that while researchers have made progress, they still can't say with certitude whether a kid's traits predetermine their potential, or whether the potential itself is innate and influences the mind to enable exceptional performance. There're still arguments for genetic endowment and environmental factors too—we may owe prodigies to their parents in both cases."
Beckett almost whoops in applause. Go, John! Her grasp on his point is tenuous, truthfully, but enough to follow along at a distance. It's more than clear that their host got the message though and is not in any way pleased. Apparently the doll has some life in it yet.
"Forgive me," Richter replies slowly. "I should have cautioned that mine is a layman's understanding."
"Not at all. No one can argue that you were indeed a prodigy, Mr. Richter. That bestows an understanding of the phenomenon better than any average person's—including mine." No shit, the detective muses, impressed, because she sees John's compliment hit its mark. The man across from them all lifts his chin with a hint of seeming satisfaction and nods once minimally, as if conveying belated permission of the deputy saying so. If being an arrogant prick were a felony offense they could happily slap the cuffs on. Sadly, it isn't. More disappointingly, pushing their host's buttons isn't getting her any closer to a deeper understanding of her fiancé.
"Whatever the mechanism," Beckett interjects mildly, "you're trying to tell us that it was different with Rick. Is that right, Mr. Richter?"
"Quite," the man answers coldly. "For all of my attempts to train the boy, he couldn't read the sheet music for chopsticks, much less something of substance. He couldn't play by ear worth a damn either, an intuitive method of comprehension associated with prodigies." Martha's expression wavers to hear the rebukes of her son. "But..." the man inserts, and pauses, sighing mutely. He releases his tense upper body into the embrace of his chair as if stricken boneless by the memories playing behind his distracted gaze. "He managed to pick up some pieces, and I'll credit the young man on that endeavor: there was hardly a blip between him knowing one and mastering it. Too, his original work flourished, though they could not be called arrangements in the true sense of the term. I walked in on him one day as he was staring out the window, not bothering to look as he played something completely nonsensical. A fit of whimsy, yes, but also…admittedly breathtaking." Richter pursed his lips into a considering line. The detective felt her muscles grow tense. "It took me a moment to understand: he was playing in time to the raindrops slipping down the window pane. Can you imagine? Giving a light summer storm a song?" One hand lifted in a seemingly weary gesture of dismissal. "It's a small matter really. No outlandish strides of originality or lack of fundamentals changed what resulted whenever he sat before the keys." Kate's breath paused in her chest. She felt herself lean forward slightly in her seat. Her budding expectation of profundity was rewarded. "I imagine when he played the angels wept with envy of such perfection existing on earth."
Holy shit. Wow—just…wow.
Beckett stares, unblinking. Hearing a compliment such as that from a man like Anton is tantamount to catching the sun blundering over the east horizon at midnight—it just doesn't compute.
Martha is back to beaming with pride. "He was so good," she agrees. The woman wipes at her moistened eyes, and so misses the subtle, but cruel twist of their host's lips as he regards her. Venomous disdain for the inane comment drips out of his narrowed, steel-blue eyes like the tears which slip from hers.
"You said he wasn't a prodigy." John poses to the other man. "How do you explain his ability?"
Richter's subtle sneer quickly shifts to a placid expression. He seems incapable of holding onto any emotion for long—as she'd initially suspected. "Empathy. That was Richard's gift."
Is, Kate corrects coolly, not was.
"Empathy," John parrots.
"He might not have known the piano as a true devotee does—its intricacies, language, or practical workings, but he was more than capable of establishing a profound emotional connection to music in and of itself. He described it to me once as 'feeling' what note to play, when to play it, and how. Understandably perhaps, his strongest area of aptitude was his touch. By which I mean to say—
"He's acutely sensitive to a song's theme or a note's timbre without sacrificing tempo," Kate interjects with a small smile. She has enough experience to know some of what distinguishes greatness.
"Just so," Richter agrees, "but putting it into words does it little justice."
Silence settles into the wake of the emotionless admonishment. Beckett stands apart from the others in her mind, trying to digest this aspect of the man she's set to marry. It makes sense. Exceptionally strong empathy coupled with a powerful imagination can be applied to any format—writing, for one example, delving into the minds and motives of killers for another. Both are arenas in which Castle has excelled. Me, Kate adds to the list, because it's so true, though she means it sexually more than anything. He can be a real dunce sometimes when it comes to getting her—like any other man. But doing her… He's pitched more perfect games than not.
"I've never heard him play," Beckett hears herself say at length.
"No," Richter agrees, "you wouldn't. He never played again after that night on the beach."
That detail probably should've been clear to her by now. The pieces of the puzzle have been on the board for the better part of the day. Yet she hasn't had a quiet moment to put two and two together. Now, with a horrible sinking feeling, she spares a lasting look at Martha, whose expression has grown pale, drawn with sorrow and exhaustion. That's what you meant earlier—about me holding what happened to Castle against you personally. You weren't home, and he slipped away to follow his friend. Slipped away to be hurled into the sea, only to unwillingly return at a cost he's been paying for ever since. In his mother's mind it may go further still. Maybe she imagines her negligence robbed the world of his affinity for music, which may after all be the truth. No, not maybe—the poem in A Hail of Bullets was terribly clear. He went into the water with his music, but came to shore bereft. He buried it with Laura.
"But why," she murmurs aloud softly.
"Why?" Richter repeats, drawing her gaze. "I wish I knew."
His voice is an unwelcome distraction. It's also the first time she feels like he's expressed some semblance of strong emotion. It's vile bitterness. Quite suddenly she sees the aged man for what he is, and was. No mere doll. Time has given him at least some level of acceptance there. He's a black and bloated spider clinging to the gossamer geometry of a decaying web. And Castle was in his clutches once. Martha's friendship would likely have kept it that way if events had gone according to plan. The arachnid would have dined peripherally on the boy's juicy abilities and used that vigor to ascend out of the ignominy of its existence in Montauk. Perhaps back into some esteem among his peers, where he so richly belonged. Both of them would have become famous—one of them for a second, long-awaited time. Anton had killed his gift of music and would have siphoned a child's in its stead.
Beckett couldn't find the words to express her displeasure.
So Beckett broke his fucking nose.
A/N: Just one lonely chapter this time, despite having the long weekend. Which as we all know means: I suck. To be perfectly fair...um... You know, on a completely unrelated topic that is entirely blameless of my lackluster contribution, has anyone chanced upon Surviving Paradise by drdit92, or Garrae's What's Love Got to Do With It? Indulge your inner curious kitty. You shan't be sorry. You might even find sympathy for my predicament. For unrelated reasons. Also note: I'm no more a psychiatrist than an oceanographer. Grains of salt, folks, per usual.