AN:Thank you again to everyone for following, favouring, and reviewing this story. Here's the next chapter everybody, enjoy. Don't forget to Review. :)
Disclaimer: I do not own Castle or it's characters.
Castle and Mini Beckett on the case
Castle and I were walking through a local aquarium, looking at all the different fishes and sea creatures from the ocean. The aquarium just added a new exhibit to the place and it was sharks. They have about three different species of sharks; hammerhead sharks, tiger sharks, and blue sharks. It was an amazing aquarium and very huge, with nice settings and lighting. I've never seen anything like it.
"Thanks for taking me with Castle," I said.
"It's no problem, Alexis had a birthday party sleepover today, and my mom is getting ready for a new show, so I though why not invite my next favorite person," Castle said.
"Cool," I smiled.
We walked along the path and looked at each observation window, watching the underwater creatures go about their business. Castle and I passed a small food stand and Castle offered to buy us some lemonade. When he went over to stand in line, I looked at the octopuses in the one exhibit and the different color and size fishes swim around.
To my left I saw a women around her late twenties sniffling and wiping her tears. She looked distraught and I wondered why no one else went to talk you her. I walked over and asked the lady, "What's wrong?"
"I lost my purse and I don't have my phone to call my husband," she said.
"Did you misplace it?"
"No, I put it right up here to pick up the money I dropped after I bought a drink and when I turned around, it was gone."
"So it was stolen?"
"I'm pretty sure it was. I need it back, ASAP."
"Emily, what'cha doing?" Castle asked as he came over with our drinks.
"This lady lost her bag. We think it's been stolen," I said.
"Really?" Castle asked.
"Yeah, it was here and then it vanished," she said.
"I think this is a job for Castle and mini Beckett," I said.
"We can help," Castle nodded.
"Thank you so much," the lady said.
"What's your name?" I asked.
"Chloe Shyster," she said.
"I'm Emily Beckett and this is Richard Castle," I said.
"Castle? As in the writer?" she asked.
"Yep that's me," Castle said with a small grin.
"It's nice to meet you, my husband and I love your novels," she said.
"Thanks," he said.
"All right, let's get down to business. Is your husband here ma'am?" I asked.
"Yes, he was supposed to meet me back here after he was done using the men's room, but he hasn't been back yet. Now that my phones missing, I can't call him," she said.
"Here use mine, see if you can get a hold of him," Castle said handing her his phone.
"Thank you," she said and dialed her husband's number.
I looked around and tried to see anything suspicious but it seemed like any other day at an aquarium.
"What do you think?" Castle asked.
"I think we're missing something, but I don't know," I said.
"That's what I was thinking. We find the culprit, we find the purse, then possibly the husband," Castle said.
"Do you think the husband has it?" I asked.
"I was thinking that too, but why would he take it and leave his wife alone and scared," Castle said.
"Because people in relationships are crazy," I said.
"Well I can't argue with you on that," Castle chuckled.
"He's not answering I called twice and it goes to voice mail," she said handing castle his phone back.
"Hmm… we'll find him. What's your purse look like?" I asked.
"It's medium size and black with goldish zippers, and I also attached a little heart key chain to it," she said.
"Okay, that's descriptive. Now your husband," I said.
"He's about six feet tall and has short blonde hair and blue eyes. He has a slight goatee forming and a small mole on his neck. He was wearing a blue polo shirt, khaki shorts, with his favorite blue and white sneakers," she said.
"Okay, seems like we have something to work with," I said.
"Yeah, we should split up," Castle said.
"Agreed, you should stay with Chloe and I'll go alone," I said.
"No, you stay with Chloe and I'll go alone," he said.
"Excuse us," I said.
She nodded with a raised brow and stood a little off to the side.
"Why do I have to stay with her?" I asked.
"Because, if you're alone and something happens no one will know. If something happens when you're with her then she can help," Castle said.
"But what if she's the one who set all this up."
"I don't know about that, she seems pretty sincere."
"I guess, fine go alone. Just be careful, detective Castle."
"Same to you, mini detective Beckett."
I went over to Chloe and Castle went off by himself in search for her bag and husband.
"So, I guess we can retrace your steps," I said.
"Okay," Chloe said.
She went over what she did from the beginning, when they came in and to the end, where she lost her purse. When we got back to where we first met, I decided we needed another approach, we needed to check everything and everyone.
"Okay Chloe, there is one thing I can think of right now, check the garbage cans," I said.
"The garbage cans? Why the garbage cans?" she asked.
"Some criminals toss the evidence after they took what they needed. The trash is our next best thing."
"Okay, sounds good."
We checked each trashcan around the entire aquarium. When I was about to give up hope I found something deep in a trashcan, at the jellyfish exhibit. It was her purse but it was filled with bundles and bundles of hundred dollar bills. I'd say it was about ten grands in her black purse.
"Oh my god," she said.
"Do you know why there's this much money in here?" I asked.
"Honestly no, you probably think it was me but it wasn't I swear."
"But you said you needed it back, ASAP," I said feeling duped.
"No, I promise I don't know. I needed it because it has my inhaler, had my inhaler," she said.
"Uh-huh, then why would someone use your bag for a money drop?" I said
"To frame me, I don't know," she said.
She looked behind me and her eyes widened with fear. She let out a piercing scream and I turned to find her husband floating in the new shark exhibit, dead and bleeding.
"What's going...?" Castle saw the body and cut his sentence short.
"I think we found her husband," I said.
About twenty minutes later cops arrived with Lanie and my aunt Kate. Aunt Kate talked to the woman and Lanie checked out Chloe's husband's damp body. Aunt Kate walked over to Castle and me and said, "Were you two really trying to solve this yourself?"
"In fairness to us, we thought it was a simple purse snatching, who would have thought it was more," I said.
"Agreed, if I would have known it would wind up like this, you would have been my first phone call," Castle said.
"All right, did you two notice anything suspicious?" my aunt asked.
"Nope, I didn't. Except for the bag and the body," I said shrugging.
"Actually, there was a man on the phone in the bathroom. He was talking low and said the pickup was ready," Castle said.
"Do you remember what he looked like?" she asked.
"Yeah," Castle said.
"Come on, we're going to the precinct," she said.
We went to the 12 precinct and Castle was in interrogation with Aunt Kate, giving her a statement and telling the sketch artist what the man in the bathroom looked like. I was sitting at my aunt's desk listening to all the gossip floating around the precinct about the case.
Ryan and Esposito were interrogating Mrs. Shyster to see if they could get any good information out of her. I decided to look at the evidence board and tried to put something together. I sighed to myself looking over everything we had, it all didn't make sense.
Chloe's purse gets stolen, with ten grand stuffed in it, tossed in a garbage can, also her husband's missing, then winds up dead in the shark tank, and we have a suspicious man in the bathroom. The main question is why them? What makes them the target? Is Mrs. Shyster in on it or is she a target too?
So many questions and they're all unanswered, if we could just put the pieces together then it could bring us to the bottom of everything. Wait Shyster? I think I have an idea, I think I know why they're targeted.
I jumped onto my aunt's computer and placed in her password, which she should definitely change. I went onto the internet and searched Chloe's husband, Damien Shyster. It came up with thousands of websites, but I was only interested in one, the New York Times. I went into the website and the heading came up, conforming my theory: "Shyster and Mammoth donate 3.5 million dollars to help create shark alley at Grady Aquarium."
Now I know why they were targeted, Damien was targeted because he was one of the contributors to the new exhibit at the aquarium. Now we have to determine who and why? What was the motive? Was Mammoth trying to sabotage it to take all the credit? Did Chloe want to gain all the money in his bank account? Or is someone just enraged?
My aunt and Castle came out of the interrogation room with the sketch artist, and the sketch artist walked off. They came over to me and my aunt gave me the look that said "why are you on my computer?"
"Did you know Damien Shyster was one of the contributors to the new exhibit?" I asked.
"Wait really?" Castle asked.
"Yeah," I said.
"Let me see," my aunt said.
She leaned over me and started reading through the article I had up.
"Huh, someone neglected to relay that information. I'm going to go talk to Mrs. Shyster," my aunt said and walked off.
"Nice job, mini Beckett. How'd you figure that out?" Castle asked.
"I remembered seeing something in the paper and the name. So I went for it and looked it up," I said with a shrug.
"We have a situation," my aunt said as she walked out of the room with Esposito and Ryan behind her.
"What happened?" Castle asked.
"Howard Mammoth was just murdered," my aunt said.
I was stuck at the precinct, twirling around in my aunt's desk chair. I was trying to figure out who or why the two benefactors of the new exhibit at the aquarium were suddenly murdered. It just didn't make any sense. Then I decided to do a little research of my own, while everyone else was up to their own investigation.
I went back into the internet and typed in the search engine: "Grady Aquarium new exhibit." When it pulled up, there was already news on both of the victim's death. I searched through some more news on the exhibit, when I found something promising. The headline stated: "Local Animal activists not happy with new exhibit."
I clicked on the link and read through the article as fast as my third grade education would let me. I found out about a group of at least ten people who protested the building of the new exhibit and the shipment of the different shark species. The group called themselves, "Precious Lives", and the leaders name was Reggie Derwood.
Maybe they were behind the murders. I mean if they're that passionate about what they believe in, I wouldn't put it past them to try and kill the people involved. I moved to a social media sight to see if the protesters said anything about tonight. I went to Reggie's sight first and found a recent post: "Those bozos deserved it. I hope they rot in Hell, like those poor sharks they kept in fake habitats."
Well he sure sounds livid about everything, but it still doesn't prove he did anything wrong. I decided to look at more recent posts of Reggie's: "Those two bastards, Shyster and Mammoth, should get what's coming to them", "If I had any way to get my hands on those two rich, unhumanitarian, douche bags, I'd kill them."
Well seems like Reggie is getting guiltier and guiltier by each post. My aunt and Castle walked in talking to each other. They both had their thinking faces on and I knew they were discussing something in the case. I went up to them and said, "I know who the killer is," at the exact same time as Castle and my aunt Kate. They both gave me a funny look and I returned it.
"How do you know who the killer is?" my aunt asked.
"I mean it's just a hunch but a protester, Reggie..." I started but my aunt cut me off.
"Reggie Derwood, who's been stalking both of our victims and making rash comments at the protests," my aunt finished.
"Well I didn't know all that, but his social media posts sure are something," I said.
Castle and my aunt went over to the computer and read the same posts I did.
"Wow this guy is really something," Castle said.
"Yeah, he's real passionate about what he cares for," my aunt said.
"Passionate enough to kill," Castle said.
"Let's find out," my aunt said.
Two hours after searching for Reggie, police finally were able to track him down. I was standing in the observation room watching my aunt and Castle interrogating Reggie.
"Now listen to me Reggie, you're a class A nerd. You couldn't have pulled off two murders of high class people on your own. Now either tell me who's your partner in crime or go down all by yourself," my aunt said.
"Listen I'm not a snitch. I've seen the movies," he said.
"Well looks like you're going down for a long time Reggie. Your mom seemed upset when we showed up at your house," Castle piped in.
My aunt looked over at him and Castle shrugged his shoulders.
"I know I hurt my mom, I didn't mean for this to happen. It wasn't supposed to get traced back to me. He said it'll be fine and everything would be cleared if I played up," Reggie said sadly.
"Who Reggie?" my aunt pressed.
"His name was Jeremy Stanza. No one was supposed to find the money, he was going to take it and bolt. Then he was going to kill Mammoth, which he did," Reggie said.
"Why use Mrs. Shyster's purse?" Castle asked.
"Jeremy thought of it, we were going to frame her. If we'd take it, and it winds up being key evidence, she's the guiltiest person you have," Reggie said.
"Well, looks like your plan didn't go as smoothly. I hope you enjoy prison, thinking about how you didn't make a dent in saving the sharks, but making two widows grieve over their dead husbands," my aunt said.
They left the room and I watched as Reggie looked guilty and sad for what he's done. Knowing his crime was stupid and didn't do any good in what he was trying to accomplish.
Eventually they found his partner, Jeremy Stanza, and booked him for two counts of murder. Both Mrs. Mammoth and Mrs. Shyster thanked everyone for finding their husbands killers and they even thanked me.
"Well mini detective Beckett, I think we did a fine good job," Castle said to me.
"I think we did detective Castle," I said.
"We make as good of a team as your aunt and me. Guess it's the Beckett genes," Castle said.
"Guess so," I laughed.
He laughed along with me and my aunt came over to us.
"What are you two laughing about?" she asked with a chuckle.
"How good of a team we are," Castle said.
"And how good our Beckett genes are," I said.
"I guess you are pretty much a mini me. You sure know how to do some decent detective work," my aunt said.
"That's for sure, maybe she'll be like you some day," Castle said.
"Maybe better," my aunt said.
I beamed at compliments I was getting from them. I couldn't help but to think in the back of my mind, will I be like my aunt when I grow up, or will I travel down the dark and depressing road like my mom? I just hoped I keep my head together and steer in the right direction like my aunt did. At least I have people to help me down that long road in my all too soon future.