Another Chance

Chapter 25

Castle points at the heavy black fabric shielding most of the windows in the apartment where the shots originated. "Kate, why would our shooter have blackout curtains?"

"To keep the sun out, Castle. Maybe he's sensitive to light."

Castle looks around, slowly shaking his head. "I don't think so. This place has fluorescent lights, and they're pretty bright. And this side of the building is shadowed from the sun by the other buildings on the block. There must be another reason."

"When we find him, Babe, you can ask him. It looks like he shot from his own apartment. No one else has claimed the place. We don't catch that kind of break much. Not only can we get the name he used to rent it, but we'll also have DNA and his personal items that we can use to put a profile together."

"Which begs an even bigger question than the curtains. Why would he do it here? Animals rarely foul their own nests, Kate. And he'd have to know he could never come back here. There's got to be some kind of a reason, maybe a twisted reason, but a reason. There must be a clue here somewhere. Wait!"

"What?"

"There's a pen on the coffee table. I used to keep one on mine when I'd lie on the couch and write in a notebook. I wonder…"

Grunting, Castle gets down on his knees and feels around beneath the worn leather sofa. He pulls out a bound, hardcover notebook.

Kate looks over his shoulder. "What is that?"

"A diary or a journal." It's more difficult to turn the pages with his gloved hands than it would be if they were bare, but he manages to scan through some of the writings. "More a diary. There are daily entries and multiple additions on some days. Most of them are about being watched. That explains the blackout curtains. He thought his neighbors were spying on him." Castle flips to later notations. "Kate, this guy was getting more unhinged every day. In the last entries, he doesn't even think anyone around him is from this era. He believes that they're time travelers sent to change history and wipe him from existence. That explains why he would want to shoot them, even if he was caught. He'd have nothing to lose."

Kate points to the scribbled pages. "But those don't tell us where he'll go, or whether he'll decide anyone else is a time traveler. Castle, we have to find him before we have another mass shooting."

Castle strides over to a wall of built-in bookshelves. "Maybe his reading matter will help. He's a science fiction buff; Heinlein, Asimov, Niven, Harlan Ellison. Ooh, I love this book! It's all about how Ellison wrote City on the Edge of Forever, arguably the best Star Trek episode ever, even after Roddenberry tore Harlan's original script apart. It looks like our killer loved it too. Some of the pages are dogeared, and there are notes in the margins. Kate, this is where his delusion came from! He thought that Harlan was telling the truth that there is a guardian who can send people through time.

"In the show, Captain Kirk fell in love with Edith Keeler, but he had to let her die to keep the Nazis from winning World War II. Our guy must believe he plays some pivotal role in preserving the future. There must be something he thinks he has to do…"

"Or someone else he needs to kill," Kate interjects.

"Could be," Castle agrees. "The story takes place during the depression, but it is in New York, the part of town where there were missions. There are still some missions left. Our shooter might have retreated to one of them."

"It's a shot, Castle. We'll get his name from the building's management company. It should be on the lease. Once we have it, we can check to see if the DMV has a picture and description. That would be better than what the lab can predict from his DNA. We'll start a canvass of all the missions. While we're doing that, the boys will still be interviewing witnesses and the building's other tenants to see if anything pops. Hopefully, one way or another, we'll get a line on this crazy."

Alexis carefully goes over every line Micah wrote about his Aunt Golda. He hasn't split any infinitives. There are prepositions at the end of sentences, but in plain language, that's not an offense. In fact, if he'd phrased what he was saying to please the grammar police, it would have sounded ostentatious. His words have a quiet comfort that's even tinged with a little humor. Other than taking out a couple of commas the mourners would never know about, she can't see a way to improve the recounting of his experiences with his aunt.

Alexis wishes that she'd met Golda. From what Micah told her, it seems like they might have been kindred souls. Not that she's ever had a crush on Leslie Nielsen, but she's had her share of celebrity adorations, especially of the ones who can play both comedic and serious roles. A poster of Chris Pratt occupied the wall of her bedroom until she moved to the dorm. And it's no secret to her why Golda would have enjoyed having Micah around. Who wouldn't?

Being with Micah while he says goodbye to Golda will take the better part of a day. If she is going to keep up with her work, she has to get down to it. She's studied enough calculus and physics to qualify for an engineering class, but she needs to review.

If there's any chance that she and Micah can make a go at starting a company when they graduate, she'll have to be at the top of her game. He'll be doing more of the engineering than she will. She can keep things organized. If she could do that for her father, not to mention the evidence room at the 12th and the inventory at the morgue lab, she should be able to do it for anything. Still, she'll need to understand at least most of what Micah is doing.

She also wants to give her dad and Kate a call to get an update on the wedding. She never cared much about Dad's wedding to Gina, but his wedding to Kate is different. Considering the terror she went through while he continually put his life on the line just to be with Kate, she's sure that he's committed to making this marriage work. Kate seems to be too. So everything about the ceremony and reception should be as perfect as it can be.

She might even get some ideas for her own wedding. Why is she fantasizing about that? It's not like she and Micah are engaged. But they are always talking about the future as if they were. At least she does, and he hasn't tried to make her back off from looking ahead that way. And she's looking ahead a lot. Silly as it was, she saw an incredible wedding dress in the window of a boutique the last time she went shopping downtown, and she had a hard time tearing her eyes away from it. She can see herself getting married. She just can't see herself marrying anyone but Micah. There wouldn't be any point.