CBs

Chapter 25

The chips were piled high in front of Judge Cecil Markaway. Castle's band of conspirators had been staked and schooled ahead of time to let the judge take as many pots as possible without arousing his suspicions. In addition to Castle, the table was occupied by Kate, Martha, Alexis, Balazs, and Bill Garrett. Castle had borrowed a bartender from the Old Haunt for the evening and had a prodigious quantity of thirst provoking snacks. The professionally served drinks flowed freely.

"If the city officials we're after had Cecil's luck in this game, they never would have needed bribes," Castle asserted.

"Fortune can turn in a moment," Martha proclaimed with all the drama of the Broadway diva she was. "Look at the Ridley Mason. One moment he's on the gravy train, the next, a slab in the morgue."

"Sounds like something you'd say, Castle," Markaway observed.

Castle swallowed, hoping the judge hadn't really picked up on the lines he'd scripted for his mother. "Actor or writer, it's in the genes. The creative spirit imbues us both."

"This is creative alright, Rick, if transparent. You put this whole scenario together to get me in a generous mood. So what do you want?"

Knowing they'd been caught out, Kate nodded at Bill, who outlined the warrants they needed. "Fine," Markaway agreed. "Seeing as there have been two deaths and yesterday the ceiling in the men's room at the court house started dropping plaster on me just as I was - never mind. I'll allow you some latitude. But now, let's play a real game, Rick. I've never seen you lose this many hands and I'm one city employee you can be sure doesn't have his hand out."

Ryan and Esposito stared at the murder board in disgust. Esposito banged his fist on a nearby desk. "Bro, that was the last of our interviews and we've got nothing. They all had solid alibis and no motive."

Kate came up behind them. "Maybe the alibis aren't as solid as you think. Have you interviewed the people providing them? You've got a hard alibi from Moochie Pritchard's metro card as well as from his boss, but what about Gritch McFeeley's client? What do you know about him?"

"Not much," Ryan admitted. "I called him and he verified that Gritch was with him."

"Go see him," Kate instructed. "There has to be a hole somewhere."

Bart Frampton had the look of someone who'd come up the hard way. Even though his suit was clearly hand tailored and his shoes spoke of Italian craftsmanship, his hands bore the remnants of callouses, his face had the creases born of long exposure to the sun, and his arms were well muscled. Though not quite as tall as Gritch, he still towered over both Ryan and Esposito. "Yeah, I was with Gritch, he confirmed. "He expedited some of our short term financing and we were going over the proposal for new construction."

"What sort of construction do you do?" Ryan inquired as casually as he could.

"We specialize in annexes, harmonizing additions with the design of established buildings." Frampton replied, caution shadowing his eyes.

"Any public buildings?" Esposito asked. "I hear the city is looking to expand the Fifty-fourth Precinct. Bunch of my bros assigned there."

Frampton drew in a breath and shook his head. "We're strictly commercial."

"Ever bid on a building for the city?" Esposito questioned.

Frampton put a finger at the side of his nose. "No, too much red tape.

"Javi, did you see that?" Ryan asked as he and Esposito left Frampton's office. "The way Frampton touched his nose, it was classic body language. He was lying."

"Yeah," Esposito agreed. "And even if Gritch doesn't have the muscle to crack a head, Frampton sure does."

"So maybe Frampton isn't just Gritch's alibi, Gritch is Frampton's." Ryan proposed.

Esposito picked up his pace toward the car. "Let's check this guy out."

Castle and Kate watched with dismay as dolly after dolly of bankers boxes were piled in the conference room at the Twelfth. "These are the records you requested from the builders contracting with Capital Expenditures," the officer in charge of the delivery explained. "There are more. We'll probably fill up the break room too."

Kate pressed her lips together as her forehead furrowed. "They're going to bury us in paper," she told Castle. "I should have known. It's a delaying tactic. My parents had that trick pulled on them constantly. Records always get delivered at the end of the day on a Friday too, just like this. Mom and Dad used to to hire paralegal temps to slog through it all."

Castle gazed at the wall of cardboard. "Quite a haul of records. See what I did there?" Kate's scowl convinced him he couldn't coax a smile from his wife. "Alright, not my most well crafted pun, but what are you going to do? I can get Alexis and Balazs in to help, but it's still going be like scaling a dead tree mountain."

"We will get it done," Kate declared, setting her jaw. "Ray Edelson has his team of retired officers. We can use them. We can also use whatever time any of the CBs can give us. If Trimp and his buddies want to stop us, they're going to have to do a lot better than this. But it is Friday and if we're lucky Bruce will be picking up information at the Aware fundraiser this weekend. That might help steer us in the right direction. Ryan and Esposito have a lead too. We can make our calls, put together a plan, and attack all this Monday morning."

The party was in full swing at Aware. Music poured though speakers, vibrating the floor, allowing even those dancers who couldn't hear it to move to the lively beat. Bruce and his wife Mira had decided sit it out, preferring slower fare. They had taken their drinks to a conversation corner where hands moved rapidly, discussing current topics. One of those topics was the death of Ridley Mason. Bruce had let Mira in on the mission and they both absorbed as much as they could. Ridley's devotion to his family was discussed with both faces and hands expressing a high degree of emotion. According to what Bruce picked up, Ridley had been determined to give his family everything possible, despite a civil service job and the high cost of living he the city. He had been particularly passionate about getting his daughter Sonia, also hearing impaired, into the best possible school. But he'd hit a wall. Then suddenly she was offered entrance, complete with a scholarship. Ridley had admitted that those events occurred with the help of one of the major movers and shakers in the city, but that the identity of Sonia's benefactor had to remain a secret. Another member of the group reported that recently Ridley had seemed nervous and upset. He'd said he'd made a hard decisions that would impact both his family and the city. Then he was reported dead. Various members threw out ideas about what supports they could offer for his widow Masha, his son Gregori, and of course Sonia. A continuous flow of food was being sent to the house and they wondered what else they could do. As soon as the event was over, Bruce and Mira wrote down everything they could remember of the conversation. Bruce wondered how he would be able to present details so obviously sympathetic to Ridley to the hot headed Esposito. He finally decided to try to pass off that chore to his very able captain.