Another Chance

Chapter 23

Kate turns toward the chair beside her desk as Rick finishes a call. "Babe, the info from Macy's just came through, but it's a dump. It looks like they sent the names and positions of every employee. You can get through it a lot faster than I can."

Castle stuffs his phone in his pocket. "Is it just a bunch of images of paper records or is it digitized? Gotta be digitized somewhere, or they couldn't put out their payroll."

"It is digitized Castle, or at least some of it is." Kate slaps a hand to her forehead. "Search function! I'm really out of it this morning."

"Quite understandable." Castle wiggles his eyebrows. "Considering how into it you were last night. That kind of heat will scramble the brains - in the nicest possible way."

"It was incredible, wasn't it? But now I need a clear head if I'm going to get any serious work done."

"Tell you what. You 'control F' and I'll go make you a triple espresso."

"Deal!"

Kate takes an enthusiastic swig from the cup Castle hands to her. "I think I found our suspect. She's based in New York so she would have known about Tillie, and it would have been easy for her to be at the murder scene. Her name is Cyndy Collins."

"So, we can make a pretty good case against the evil Ms. Collins for fraud, but how do we tie her to Tillie's murder?"

"Step by step, Castle. Once we collar her for ripping off Macy's, we get warrants to search her home and her office for additional evidence. Any judge would give us those without much convincing. Depending on what we find, we go from there."

"Sounds like a plan."

Castle regards the art on the walls of Cyndy Collins' apartment. "I can see where she was putting her ill-gotten gains. These aren't prints, they're the real thing, and I've seen some of these artists featured at MOMA fundraising functions. Their work would not be inexpensive."

Kate studies the rest of the furnishings. "We know she's a thief. What we need is proof that she's our killer."

Castle points to some faint brownish marks in one corner of the room. "How about those? If Cyndy put the award she used as a murder weapon there, before getting rid of it, that's just about where it could have left smears of Tillie's blood."

Kate strides over and squats in front of the stains to take a look. "You're right, Babe. That does look like dried blood. I'll get CSU in here to go over the place. There may be more of it. If Cyndy did bring the murder weapon back here, it might have shed a strand of Tillie's hair too. Any of Tillie's DNA at all will make this an open and shut case."

"Great, but there may be some up and coming artists who'll need a new patron. Cyndy might have committed a multitude of felonies, but she has a good eye."

While she waits for Castle to arrive, Kate watches as Cyndy Collins sits in the box cooking. The woman's hands are trembling slightly, and Kate noticed that her voice did as well when she booked her. It seems like more than nervousness, more like a neurological problem, like Katherine Hepburn in her later years.

Kate turns as she hears Castle's footsteps approaching Observation. "How was your meeting at Black Pawn?"

"Predictable. They want more output, specifically more of the Derrick Storm novella-sized e-books. I'd rather write more Nikki Heats, I could just weave in our new cases together, but the smaller Storms seem to fit the short attention spans of a growing segment of my readers.

"This is all Patterson's fault. He started putting out those 150-page marvels, and now everyone thinks you should be able to shove a book in your back pocket. Hell, you can do that anyway if you download the digital version to your phone, but Black Pawn is thinking about a resurgence of the dime novel, with the addition of a couple of zeros to the price. The profit margin is great, but I'm not sure I'll be doing my readers any favors. The short form is not always the best venue for plot and character development."

Kate puts her hand to his cheek. "You'll make it work, Babe. But I'm wondering about the character in there. Something is going on with her besides being scared of going to jail. I think I'm going to call Lanie to come and observe while we question her."

Kate pulls out a chair opposite Cyndy and slides into it. Castle takes a seat next to her before she begins her questioning. "Ms. Collins, do you understand that you will be charged with multiple crimes including homicide and that you have the right to remain silent and the advice of counsel?"

"I told you I did when you arrested me. There's nothing wrong with my mind - for the moment anyway. I stole the money from Macy's, and when I thought Tillie Sondheim was on to me, I killed her. There were things I wanted - to own and to enjoy. But it doesn't matter now."

Castle leans across the table. "What do you mean it doesn't matter? Cyndy, you are going to spend the rest of your life in prison."

Cyndy shrugs. "What there is of it. You're Richard Castle, aren't you? I think I saw you on Jimmy Kimmel. You said you like to put twists in your books. Well here's a twist for you. The money, the paintings, the designer clothes, I won't have time to enjoy any of it. I have a degenerative disease, some kind of garbage forming in my brain, killing it piece by piece. I should have had another 10 years, but my doctor says the process was accelerated by stress. What I did to make the time I had left more livable, has taken it away from me. I got the results of my last scan an hour before the cops arrested me. Pretty soon I'm not going to be able to talk or walk. And I may have a month, maybe two. So you see, when I killed Tillie, I killed myself, and she died a much easier death than I will. No sentence a judge could pass on me could be worse than that."

Cyndy turns to Kate. "Give me whatever you want me to sign. We might as well get this over with."

Castle is lying next to Kate, the back of his head propped on his forearms. Kate snuggles into his chest. "Thinking about Cyndy Collins?"

"I am. I have put a lot of twists into my books, and I love poetic justice, but what she said and the way she said it, knocked the pins out from under me. I was wondering if her illness caused some kind of dementia that drove her to do what she did. What did Lanie say?"

"She can't be sure until Cyndy ends up on her autopsy table, but she doesn't believe that Cyndy's cognitive functions were being affected. She knew what she was doing when she phonied up the records and killed Tillie Sondheim, she just didn't understand how her body would react. Sometimes you never know about these things. Stephen Hawking should have had two years after he was diagnosed with ALS. He had decades. Cyndy's luck is going the other way. One thing that I've learned from my mother's death and from all the cases I've handled is that life can turn on a dime. If you don't grab onto it while you can, it may not be there the next day or even in the next minute."

Castle wraps his arms around her, hugging her tightly against his chest. "I'm grabbing onto everything I want right now."