Apologies for the delay. Been busy with work and play. I am writing this part to catch up with where I am later on in this episode.

Chapter 46 - Season 1 ep 10

There was an expected knock on the front door of Castle's apartment. He put down a half consumed mug of coffee on his way to the door he opened.

"Arrr, Dr Clark. Good to see you."

"Same my friend." The men shook hands.

"Come in. I will grab the file for you." Rick closed the door.

"Thank you." The doctor followed the writer, "A stabbing, Rick? Isn't that a little pedestrian for you?"

"Maybe."

"Usually when you call me, it's to ask what happens if you put a head in a microwave." Dr Clark Murray inquired. He entered office ahead of Rick, and looked about the writer's place of business.

"Well, this one's a little less made-up." Rick closed the office door and led the doctor to the desk where a file was placed beside his laptop.

"How so?"

"The victim is the mother of the detective I've been following around."

"Ah."

"The case has been cold ten years. I just figured, since you're the best forensic pathologist in the city, maybe you could catch something they missed." He reached for the file, took it from his desk, then handed over to the doctor who cast his eyes over the cover then flipped through the pages inside the cover, "You know reality isn't fiction, right? The odds of finding anyone's killer after ten years." The doctor explained giving Rick a doubtful gaze.

"Astronomical, I know. But I'd appreciate it if you took a look."

"Well, I'll do what I can, Rick. Just don't go making any promises I can't keep."

"Of course not. Thanks again."

The doctor gave a nod, "I must keep going. I will get back to you as soon as I can."

"I appreciate it." Rick placed a palm on the doctor's shoulder as they returned to the front door.

Murray walked out of the apartment farewelling Rick with a wave. As he closed the door and turned, Rick sighted his mother who stood at the base of the stairs. He also recognised the look and body language she exhibited.

"What was Doctor Death doing here?"

"Just a little consulting," Rick replied as he crossed the living room in search of his coffee.

"It sounded to me like you were looking into Detective Beckett's mother's murder."

"Must you always eavesdrop?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping. I happened to walk by your office door. I live here, too, you know."

"Yes. I'm aware." He cringed a little hearing the touch of sarcasm in his tone of voice.

Martha followed him to the kitchen, "So, does she know you're poking into her mother's case?"

"What's the sense in telling her until I find something new?" Rick retorted as he leaned against the kitchen counter to finish his morning brew.

"Well, you ever stop to think you're invading her privacy?"

"I'm not poking through her underwear drawer, Mom. I'm investigating her mother's murder."

"You are digging up her past, darling, without her permission. Now you either tell her or leave it alone."

He nodded, "I'll think about it."

"And by the way, Darling, if you want to keep that woman close to you, I would not recommend you dig about in her late mother's murder."

Rick sighed and scratched his head. "She's living with unresolved issues. You don't think she would like to put that behind her? To find the person who murdered her mother and have that individual charged? Its why she became a homicide cop."

"I reiterate, Richard." She pressed, "You are treading in deep water poking about in her private life. You know she's intensely protective of her business."

"Mother, I think I know her quite well now," he replied, reasonably confident of his statement. In a couple of months, he'd experienced the most intensive relationship of his life. It sometimes frightened him how much he loved Kate and it was instinctive he knew how terrified she was of her own feelings for him, for them. It made her recluse at times.

"You be very careful, Richard."

He watched his mother walk away to return to her bedroom. He was aware he was about to risk his relationship with Beckett, but if things paid off, they would find the person who murdered Beckett's mother.

They both turned towards the front door as Alexis burst through it, home from school. She was excited.

Not much later that afternoon, Rick found himself in the car with Beckett, who had picked him up a few blocks from his home. He'd been conversing with Alexis about her first date, when Beckett had called to let him know a body had been reported. The walk to meet her had cleared his head. He'd gone behind Kate's back about her mother's murder. His mother had made it clear he'd made a bad decision. He'd consented to his daughter going on a date with a boyfriend he hadn't met and his mother wasn't happy about that either.

Kate was quiet while she drove, only sipping on the coffee he'd bought her on his way. Her silence, provided him with time to finish up processing the events that had taken place at home.

"Alexis has been invited to the junior-senior prom." Castle informed Beckett several minutes into the drive to the crime scene.

Beckett knotted her eyebrow, "She's not a junior or a senior, Castle."

"I know that, and its exactly what I said to her."

"Who invited her?" She slowed the vehicle to a stop at a set of lights.

"Some kid named Owen."

"Owen." She echoed, "Have you met him?"

"No."

"Castle, he's asking your daughter out, you know. You need to meet him."

Castle frowned with partial frustration, "Have you been talking with my mother?"

Kate looked at him confused, "No. Why?" Her eyes were back on the road ahead. The lights remained red and she watched a woman wearing extremely high heeled shores cautiously cross the road. She could barely walk.

"She's messing with my parenting skills." He responded.

Kate laughed. "Do you actually have those skills? I mean, I thought Alexis was born a small adult."

"Yes, and yes. I have faith that I'm a good father."

"And you are. My Dad would have said no." She stated.

"Really?"

Kate nodded. "So, I would go and ask my Mom."

"So, your Mom was the go to parent." He confirmed.

Kate pressed her foot on the gas, "Total push over. Speaking of push over, did you see that woman in the heels?"

"Yeah, she hasn't mastered her heels like you have."

Kate laughed. "Years of ballet, Rick."

"Anyways, I thought it would have been your Dad, you know, being the daughter, Daddy's girl sort of thing."

"No. I was more a Mommy's girl. I liked to be with my Mom," she said, then fell quiet as she drove the car to the crime scene.

Rick decided to fill the empty space with the sound of his voice, "So Mother, is like," and he went an octave higher, "You are letting her go out with someone that you've never met? What kind of a father are you? What kind of boyfriend are you?"

Kate laughed, "You sound like Marge Simpson's mother." She drove the vehicle into an available car park.

"And therefore, like my mother," he replied, opening the car door.

"Hang on, she criticised your boyfriend skills too?"

"Yeah, she did." As they walked to the crime scene Rick chose to continue talking about Alexis' new boyfriend named Owen. He ignored Beckett's question, "Maybe you could run a background check on him for me, Beckett, make sure my child's life won't be in danger."

"I'm not running a background check on your daughter's date. What is he, fifteen tops?"

"Oh, come on. She says he's quiet, he keeps to himself, and he lives with his parents. Tell me that doesn't sound like a serial killer to you."

"Who's a serial killer?" Esposito asked as the two caught up with the detectives.

"Castle's daughter, Alexis, got invited to prom." Kate explained.

"It's her first real date," Castle added.

Ryan chuckled, "And you're worried he's a serial killer? You should be more worried he's a teenage boy."

"Ah, he's only fifteen." Rick replied.

"Between satellite TV and the internet, fifteen's the new twenty-five." Ryan replied.

"Dude's right. I was fifteen once." Esposito added.

"Still are," Ryan commented with a cheeky Irish smile that spread to Kate.

"If I had a daughter her age, I'd never let her out of the house."

Castle frowned at Esposito, "Thanks, guys."

All of them surrounded a sedan that had been clamped and consequently towed.

"Mmm hmm." Ryan hummed, "Car was towed in here a few hours ago because of parking violations. When the attendant went to look for the vin number, he found the vic slumped over with a bag on his head," Ryan explained.

Castle pointed at the front window, "Six parking tickets and a tow sticker, and no one bothers to look inside?"

"Tinted windows, sunshade on the windshield." Esposito said.

Castle added, "You'd think someone would try to at least look inside."

Beckett butted in. "Yeah, welcome to New York. You got an ID?"

"Yeah, Dr Joshua Leeds, 37" Esposito replied, "According to the business cards in his wallet, he's a plastic surgeon. The car is registered to him as well."

"Any money in the wallet, Espo?" Beckett asked.

"Yeah, couple of hundred bucks."

"Well, I guess we can rule out robbery," Beckett remarked, pulling a look of confusion and then curiosity and she peered inside the front of the car.

"A plastic bag and duct tape, Beckett? Not a very efficient way to kill someone."

"No, but it's very personal, Castle. All right, find and notify next of kin. Let's see how long he's been missing."

"From the state of decay, I'd say about a week," Lanie replied.

Ryan commented, "That matches the date on the first parking ticket.'

"Preliminary cause of death indicates asphyxiation, but I'll run toxicology just in case." Lanie said.

Esposito said, "That bag's pretty thin. Why wouldn't he just rip it off?"

"He must've been restrained," Beckett replied.

"That's only half the story." Lanie said, "His fingernails were removed. And each finger presents signs of having been broken pre-mortem." She held up the victims swollen hand and fingers. Overall it was ghastly. Swollen bruised fingers, bent out of shape from being broken or dislocated.

"Broken?"

"If I had to guess, Kate, I'd say our doctor was tortured before he was killed." Lanie suggested.

"Okay. Well, we'll get started, "Esposito can you get the vehicle to CSU once Lanie has the body out of it. We'll go find his next of kin, find out what his last actions were."

"As you wish." Esposito replied as he glanced at the ME's ass that was poking of the car.

Kate followed Rick who headed back to the car and happened to catch Espositos momentary admiration. Out of ear shot she muttered, "Wow."

"Did you see that?" Rick asked.

"If you're talking about Esposito perving on-"

"That's it. You think something is going on between them?"

Kate glanced back over her shoulder, "There could be." She looked to Rick's face wearing a cheeky smile.

"What?" He asked.

"Maybe we should go on a double date." She suggested which only caused Rick to laugh.

Castle said, "Courtney Morantz said that she and Josh Leeds were engaged for almost a year."

Beckett said, "Courtney stated Josh wasn't involved in anything that might've brought him into contact with criminal elements."

Esposito said, "And the Fiancée's story checks out. Cake shop confirms she was there waiting."

Ryan asked, "Heading to meet his fiancée at a cake shop in Great Neck, how'd he wind up dead on a street in Harlem?"

Castle said, "Well, maybe he had secrets even his fiancée didn't know about. Like maybe he secretly made a living out of using his surgeon skills to harvest organs off of tourists for the black market organ trade." His eyes widened, "Whoa, that was a good one. I'm writing that down." He rushed off to find a pen and sheet of paper.

With a roll of her eyes, Beckett said, "So instead of making up stories, we are going to establish a timeline. When did he get his first parking ticket?"

"Last Wednesday morning." Esposito replied pointing at the copy of the ticket. Kate wrote on the board.

"Okay, so you guys go to the midtown garage where he kept his car, and we'll hit his office." Beckett said.

"Okay."

They collected their belongings, Kate grabbed a jacket and car keys. They walked off side by side.

"Hey, can I ask you something?" Castle said as they began their trip to the elevator foyer.

"Since when do you ask permission to ask questions?"

"It's about your mother's case."

Beckett stopped walking and faced Castle.

"Have you ever thought about... reopening it?"

She pressed her lips, stopped walking and put a hand to his arm, stopping him as she asked, "What are you doing?"

"Nothing. I just thought if we worked together…"

"No."

"I have resources," he offered.

"Castle," she took an impatient breath, "You touch my mom's case, and you and I are done. Do you understand?"

"Okay." He nodded, swallowed nervously, then commenced to walk again. He had only walked a half dozen strides. "Why don't you want to investigate it?" He had to ask. He needed to know why.

Once again, Beckett stopped walking and faced him. "Same reason a recovering alcoholic doesn't drink. You don't think I haven't been down there? You don't think I haven't memorized every line in that file? My first three years on the force, every off-duty moment was spent looking for something someone missed. It took me a year of therapy to realize if I didn't let it go, it was gonna destroy me. And so, I let it go," she said then turned and walked into the elevator.

Castle quickly followed. "Sorry. I didn't know."

"Yeah, well, now you do."

The elevator doors closed. Rick stood still, contemplating whether to tell Beckett he'd asked someone to review the existing evidence. His gut told him to keep quiet for now, until he had something solid. They were talking about taking a small trip out of town when she next had a few days off so he didn't want to risk it.

After they returned from Dr Leeds surgery, Castle and Beckett opted to update the white board while they waited for the other half of their team to return to the Precinct.

"Last Tuesday. He was on his way to meet his fiancée," Castle said, as he filed in the time on the white board with neat hand writing. He capped the pen and turned about to face Kate as he asked, "What time did he leave the office, Babe?"

"Castle." Kate hissed, glancing around the office.

"Oh." Castle's hand shot to his mouth, then he brushed it off when he saw no one was within hearing distance. Kate relaxed back in her office chair. "Time?" He repeated.

"Oh!" Kate sat up and read her notes, "Mario said it was around five thirty."

"Five thirty." He pulled of the cap of the marker and once again wrote above the time line at the correct spot, "And Maggie said he was alive at six when she called him. He was in traffic at the tunnel."

Continuing from her notes, she read, "The patient who threatened Dr Leeds was Jacey Goldberg."

"You got the photograph of the lovely Jacey Goldberg?" Rick asked.

Kate laughed as she found the 8 x 10 inch picture then reached out to Rick to hand it to him. "Stunning woman, who was a patient of Dr Leeds until about three months ago."

"Person of interest." Rick commented as he pinned it to the whiteboard with a magnetic button.

"Write beneath her name that Dr Leeds refused to perform a further operation."

Castle said, "Good idea."

Like earlier her eyes got all big at the image of the woman, which Castle thought was cute. In fact, he thought she was dressed cutely that day in her pants and leather jacket and her hair was growing.

Rick put down the marker and stood back to view his work. "I thought I would end up an English teacher had I not written my first novel and been successful," he said waggling a finger at the board.

"You write neat enough to be a school teacher," Kate replied, always amused by his passion of penmanship.

"How's things coming along?" Montgomery asked as he approached also inspecting the white board.

"We're making progress." Rick replied.

"What the-?" He pointed at the photo of Jacey Goldberg and looked at Kate who smiled.

"Freaky huh?"

"Should be arrested." Rick commented.

"At the very least, she should be arrested for violating the laws of nature."

Esposito approached the group as he called out, "Check this out. Jacey Goldberg's husband Jack had her committed to Bellevue a month ago for psychiatric treatment for her little obsession."

"Guess who testified in support of her commitment?" Ryan asked.

Beckett said, "Dr Joshua Leeds.

Ryan said, "Mm-Hmm. Mandatory one-month treatment program. She was released last week."

Esposito said, "Three days before our doctor went missing."

Castle said, "Mentally unstable plastic surgery chick. That is way better than harvesting organs."

"Get her in here." Montgomery ordered.