Chapter 4

Re-evaluations

Friday 16 September 2011, morning

Beckett knocked on the door as she entered the captain's office.

"Ma'am?"

"If my mother drops by, you can call her 'ma'am'. Call me 'sir' or 'captain'."

Beckett shut the door as Gates put down the report she had been studying.

"Detective Beckett, back on active, as of today," said Beckett, placing her certificates on Gates's desk.

"Detective Beckett," Gates nodded in greeting. "Your reputation precedes you. Youngest woman in the NYPD to make detective. You beat me by six weeks."

Beckett frowned. "I didn't realize that people... kept score."

"Everybody keeps score, Detective," said Gates, examining Beckett's documentation. "Especially those downtown." She looked up at Beckett and smiled. "Looks like you passed your physical and psych evals, so welcome back."

Gates took Beckett's badge out of her desk drawer and handed it over.

"Thank you. I-I'll also need my gun."

"Not until you re-qualify."

"I'm sorry?"

Gates looked at Beckett in surprise. "You were on disability for over three months. Reg says you don't get your piece back until you re-qualify."

Beckett nodded. "And what about... Sir, I understand you asked Castle to leave the precinct."

"Yes, Detective. Whatever his connections, I am not going to have a dilettante writer wasting my detectives' time."

"Captain, Richard Castle is many things, but a 'dilettante' is not one of them," said Beckett. "I understand that he can be irreverent and annoying. I seriously wanted rid of him when he first started shadowing me for research. But, irritating as I found him back then, I was forced to admit quite quickly that he is good."

Gates looked skeptical. "You're honestly telling me that this playboy author, with no training as a detective, actually contributed to solving cases?"

"Sir, first of all, I've learned that the 'playboy' thing is largely an image constructed for publicity purposes. There have been multiple occasions when page six has claimed he was out on the town with some celebutante when I know he was..." Beckett waved her hand towards the bullpen. "Here, poring over financials, or having a burger with us after we solved a case. And it's precisely because he has no training that he is so helpful. He brings an entirely different set of skills and resources to the team. He notices different things; he thinks in a different way; he reads in different areas. And, frankly, sir, sometimes his reputation and his contacts open doors for us. I'm not saying he's better than a trained detective; it's simply that he has abilities that are complementary to ours. That's what makes him an asset."

"Are you sure you can make an impartial judgement about him?" Gates's tone was carefully neutral.

"I don't have to, sir. Could I ask you to glance at this report?" She handed over the other folder she had been holding. "When Castle started shadowing me, the Commissioner insisted on checking that his presence had no negative impact on our team or the precinct generally. In fact, there was a positive impact. In the time since our team was formed — Ryan, Esposito, and me — we have averaged a higher case closure rate than any other team in the city over the same period. You can see how our case closure rate ticked upwards slightly when Castle joined us in March 2009, but the real difference is that he had a serious positive effect on the speed with which we close cases. You can even see how our speed of closure reverted to the trend-line when Castle was away in summer 2009 for personal reasons and in summer 2010 to fulfill his contractual obligations to his publisher. Regardless of what anyone thinks of him, the empirical evidence suggests he is helpful."

Gates read the summary page, then looked up sharply at Beckett and drummed her fingers on her desk.

"So you want me to let him back," said Gates.

"At least on a trial basis, sir."

Gates held Beckett's eyes for several seconds. "All right, Detective. How long was it between Mr Castle starting to shadow you and you recognizing that he was an asset to your team?"

Beckett thought for a moment, staring into space. "I realized he was good pretty early on, sir. Thinking that his contribution outweighed how annoying I found him back then... maybe two months?"

"Okay, Detective," said Gates. "I'll make you a deal. He can come back for two months. I'll be watching him and your team, and if I make the same judgement as you, he can stay. If I don't, he leaves and you'll make no further appeals for his return, understood?"

"Yes, sir. Thank you."

Friday 16 September 2011, evening

"Castle, it says here that one of the men who were with Lockwood at the hangar — 'Anderson' was the name on his cover ID — had a titanium plate on his left femur." Beckett looked up from the file she had been reading. A stack of files sat next to her chair; she was engaged in absorbing every detail that Castle, Esposito, and Ryan had turned up after her shooting.

"Yeah, I remember. For about a minute I hoped we had found a break in their cover IDs... I thought we might be able to identify him from it — like in the George Burns case — but it turned out that there was no serial number on it."

"But I wonder if we might be able to identify the manufacturer..."

"There's something that looks like it could be a manufacturer's logo, but Perlmutter said it's actually an indicator for the angle of attachment. He also said the lack of a serial number meant it almost certainly wasn't implanted in the US, and probably not in any western country."

"That's not what I mean. I'm thinking back to one of my first cases after I made detective." Beckett leaned back and stared into space as she recalled the details. "A body had been found — multiple large-caliber gunshot wounds — but we couldn't ID him, in particular because his hands had been cut off, so we had no fingerprints."

"So you used a surgical plate to ID him?"

"We tried," said Beckett. "The autopsy found a plate in his arm, but the serial number had been partially obliterated by one of the shots. I spent several hours contacting manufacturers of surgical implants, trying to find out who made it. I learned that there are a lot of variations on the exact shape of the plates and the placement of the screw holes. So I think we might have a chance at matching this plate—" She tapped the photograph. "—to a specific manufacturer. And the femur is one of the strongest bones in the body, so there might be a limited number of people who got this plate. Especially since this particular plate covers the whole length of the femur, which would only be necessary for a serious fracture — probably multiple fractures."

"Did you ever actually find the manufacturer of your vic's plate?"

"Nope. Didn't need to. We got a break on the ID. CSU was able to lift partial prints from his cuff-links and we got a hit."

"Why'd the killer try to stop you IDing him? Presumably that's why his hands were removed?"

"No, it wasn't that. It turned out that he had a safe that opened using fingerprint scans — one of the earliest commercial models to use that kind of technology, actually. He had been involved in trafficking blood diamonds. He was killed by some underlings who wanted the gems in his safe."

"Wow," Castle shook his head. "But getting back to 'Anderson'... if the lack of a serial number on his plate means it wasn't implanted in a western country, we basically have to track down every manufacturer outside the West and try to match it to them. That could be hundreds of companies."

Beckett smiled. "I have an idea... if you don't mind spending some money, Castle."

"I think I've made that clear already, Beckett."

"Then — assuming we can set it up anonymously — let's outsource the search for a match. I'm not sure if this kind of job is suitable for Amazon Turk, but I'm sure there must be online services that can farm out tasks like this. Maybe your tech guy, Jack, can help?"

Saturday 17 September 2011, afternoon

"I pulled the report on the fire," said Esposito. "Check the date."

When Beckett had returned to the precinct, Esposito and Ryan hadn't hesitated to jump back into helping with the case. All they had insisted upon was exercising a modicum of caution to prevent Gates from finding out, since they were officially working on another case that Beckett was (theoretically) sitting out while she settled back in.

Beckett opened the folder and found the date on the summary page. "That warehouse burned down three weeks after my mom's murder."

"That can't be a coincidence," said Ryan.

"Someone was destroying evidence," said Castle. "Evidence that could lead to your mom's killers."

"But the investigator ruled it an accident," said Beckett.

"And there's nothing in there to suggest arson," said Esposito.

"Maybe someone altered it," said Ryan.

"There's an easy way to find out," said Castle. "Just ask the man who wrote the report. Rod Halstead."

"Unless they got to him, too," said Beckett. "Or unless he's dirty too."

"He's alive and on the job," said Esposito. "He transferred from Union City to New York six years ago, and is on duty today, as a matter of fact. As for dirty..." He shrugged. "I'd say you gotta confront him either way."

As Beckett drove them to the fire station in Queens where Halstead was now based, Castle read through the report.

"This says the fire was caused by a chance power surge to the junction box," said Castle. "Maybe somebody sabotaged the junction box and figured a power surge would happen sooner or later?"

"Or maybe it's possible to force a power surge," suggested Beckett. "You think we should ask if anyone could have faked the accident and see how he reacts?"

"Yeah. Maybe his reaction will hint that he's either hiding something or that he won't admit that he might have been deceived."

"But we should act like we believe what he says. If he's dirty, we shouldn't tip our hand."

"Warehouse in Union City," said Halstead. "Yeah, yeah, I remember this fire."

Castle and Beckett followed Halstead through the fire station as he looked through the report.

"The report said it was an accident," said Castle.

"Yeah, that's right."

"And you're sure?" said Beckett.

"Yeah, I'm sure."

"And this report hasn't been altered in any way since you filed it?" said Castle

Halstead looked at the report again. "No, why?"

"Mr. Halstead, this is very important," said Beckett. "Was there anything that you didn't put in that report?"

"What do you mean?"

"Anything that might indicate suspicious activity."

"Well, if there was anything suspicious, Detective, it would be in the report. Power surge to the junction box. One in a million event." He handed the report back to Castle.

Beckett frowned. "Mr Halstead, imagine for a moment that someone was willing to go to quite extraordinary lengths to disguise that fire as an accident. Would that have been possible?"

"No, no way," said Halstead. "Power surges are caused by things like connecting and disconnecting supplies or loads — either internally or externally, on the grid — or by static electricity or by lightning strikes. In this case, it was probably when the supply was reconnected after the power company did maintenance on the substation down the road. It hit this junction box..." He tapped the photograph in the report. "...and the faulty wiring caused an electrical fire."

"Could the 'faulty' junction box have been sabotaged?"

"Detective, that warehouse and its wiring dated back to the thirties and hadn't been properly maintained. You should have seen the junction boxes that weren't damaged by the fire. It could have started in any one of them. Insulation was flaking off the cables, corrosion was eating away at the connections. It was really only a matter of time until a fire."

Beckett held his eyes for a moment, then nodded. "Thank you for your help, Mr Halstead."

"Anytime, Detective."

Beckett and Castle sat in her cruiser and exchanged a glance.

"He's lying," said Beckett.

"You mean how he didn't actually answer your question about sabotage?"

"And why was there nothing about the other junction boxes in the report? No photos?"

Castle nodded. "You're thinking he made that up? Spur of the moment to deflect your question, without thinking that it should have been in the report?"

"Yeah," said Beckett. "We need to get everything we can on Rod Halstead." She pulled out her phone, then frowned and put it away again. "I'll get Esposito to pull his files when we get back to the precinct."

Saturday 17 September 2011, evening

Castle was looking through the files on Halstead as Beckett paced back and forth in his study. "This guy's got multiple citations for valor... commendations from the Mayors of Union City and of New York. He's literally saved dozens of people from burning buildings. It's hard to believe this guy's dirty."

"Yeah, well, we've been surprised before," said Beckett.

"Okay... Does he intersect with anyone else in the case? Montgomery, Raglan, McCallister?"

"No," said Beckett. "There's nothing in the files. He might have known them socially."

"But we've been over their lives with a fine-tooth comb. He's never come up once."

"Okay, so he was a target of opportunity," suggested Beckett. "He might have needed the money."

"Nothing in his financial records to indicate any problems and given his record, he's..." Castle paused.

"Given his record, what?" asked Beckett.

"I'm just saying, what if he's not our guy?"

"The fire wasn't an accident, Castle. I know it wasn't."

"Okay, let's accept that. An eighty-year-old warehouse burning down isn't suspicious in itself, but that it contained files related to the money from the kidnappings and chose to burn down a few weeks after your mother's murder is. But you can't know that Halstead's dirty. Maybe he's just unimaginative. Maybe he was assisted in the investigation by someone who... guided his thinking. You know, someone planted the idea of a power surge and then it was all just confirmation bias — Halstead just saw what he expected to see. Maybe he now realizes it was sloppy work and he's trying to cover himself. I'm just saying, Beckett, there are other explanations."

"You're right," said Beckett. "Damnit." She sat down and rubbed a hand over her face. "If we pull some more of Halstead's reports, could we get somebody to look at them?"

"I know a guy... well, no, not a guy this time," said Castle. "She helped me get the explosives and fire scenes right in Derrick Storm."

"Any risk that she might be linked to the Dragon?"

Castle shook his head. "I doubt it. She's a professor of chemistry at Oxford... well, actually, she might be a professor emerita by now; she must be close to seventy. But I know she often still consults in big investigations. She doesn't like to fly, and as far as I know she's never been to the US."

"Do you think she could look at Halstead's reports — especially from around 1999 — and give us an opinion on his competence? Because all these citations and commendations are only relevant to firefighting." She gestured at Halstead's file. "They don't really tell us anything about how good an investigator he is."

"Sure. She likes me to make charitable donations in return for her time, but that's not a problem," said Castle. "But might requesting more of his reports come to Gates's attention? Won't someone at the Union City fire department query all the requests from the 12th?"

"Yeah, Or notice they're all reports by Halstead and tell him and then he complains," said Beckett. "Although it's actually North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue," she added, pointing at the cover of the original report.

"Union City doesn't have its own fire department?" said Castle, tapping at his keyboard.

"Apparently not," said Beckett, absently. She started stacking the files back into the box. "We have to get more reports without drawing attention."

Castle was looking at his screen and not listening. "Yeah, they merged the fire department with..." He trailed off.

Becket looked at him. "Castle? Something wrong?"

Castle cleared his throat. "Union City merged its fire department with those of its neighbors... in January 1999." He looked up at Beckett. "The same month your mother died and the fire took place."

Beckett looked back at him, eyebrows raised. "Castle, the discussions to merge those departments must have started years before. Government of any level moves slowly on this kind of thing. The date really must be a coincidence."

"But they could've taken advantage of the coincidence."

Beckett frowned. "You mean that maybe during the bureaucratic reorganization it was easy for Halstead to be creatively incompetent in this investigation?"

Castle shrugged. "Something like that."

Beckett shook her head. "We're getting ahead of ourselves. We need Professor...?" She looked the question at Castle.

"Calder."

"We need Professor Calder's opinion on Halstead before we theorize any further. Which means we need to request the reports he's written. Slowly, so it doesn't attract attention?"

Castle smiled. "Or unofficially. Leave it with me for a few days."

Sunday 18 September 2011, evening

Castle answered his landline. "Hello?"

"Mr Castle," said the caller. The voice was electronically distorted.

"Yeah," said Castle, sitting up in surprise and grabbing for one of the burner phones from his desk drawer.

The distorted voice continued. "I'm a friend of Roy Montgomery's. I'm calling about Detective Beckett. We need to talk."

Castle activated a recording app on the burner phone and held it close to the landline phone. "Uh... okay, I'm listening, uh...?"

"You can call me Smith."

"Okay, Smith," said Castle, with a touch of sarcasm. "Before we go any further, tell me why I should believe you are — or were — a friend of Roy's."

"Roy knew you would ask that." The voice spoke slowly, careful to make sure every word was clear through the distortion. "He said I should tell you that he said this to you. 'I cannot make Beckett stand down. I never could. And the way I figure, the only one that can is you.' He also said that he called you on a child kidnapping case because he liked 'pissing off the FBI and because you think outside the box' and that you once described a case where the victim had both a wife and a fiancée as 'delicious'. Finally, he said I should remind you about 'full-bodied flavor' and 'a big-ass boat'. I assume these are references you are meant to recognize."

Castle exhaled slowly. "All right, Smith. You've got my attention."

"Mr Castle, Roy sent me a letter the day he died, telling me his intentions. He included a file of information that would be damaging to the person who had Detective Beckett's mother killed. The man you know as Lockwood had tried to force him to choose between the lives of his family and of Detective Beckett. Roy... took a third option. He sent the file to me, and sacrificed himself to kill Lockwood. I was supposed to use the file to protect Detective Beckett. Unfortunately, I was out of the city until the day after she was shot. I didn't even know Roy was dead until after I had returned and found his letter. If Detective Beckett had died, I would have made the file public. She survived, so I made contact and threatened to do so if they targeted her again. Detective Beckett is now safe... but there is a condition. The investigation into her mother's case must cease." The caller paused. "Roy said that he couldn't make Detective Beckett back off. You, Mr Castle... you have to. If you can't do that, I can't protect her."

"Smith... Mr Smith, couldn't you just release the file if we—?"

"Mr Castle, this is not open to debate. I'm not doing this for your sake or Detective Beckett's, or even to bring the person behind this to justice. I'm doing it because Roy Montgomery once saved my life. I will do what he asked, no more."

"Mr Smith, why are you calling me now? Since this... deal... has been in place since shortly after Beckett's shooting, I mean. Is it just because she returned to work?"

"It has come to... the other party's notice that as soon as Detective Beckett returned to work, the two of you started looking into the case again. They told me that they consider the deal conditional on the investigation not continuing."

"That suggests they have a source at the precinct."

"You're fishing, Mr Castle, but there's nothing to land. I don't know where their information comes from."

"And what about you? Are you safe from... the other party? They'll be looking for you."

"I know how the game is played, Mr Castle. I'm taking every precaution. And there are multiple copies of the file in the hands of various associates of mine. I have made it clear to the other party that if anything happens to me — to any of us — the file will be released."

"How exactly is the file damaging—?"

"You do not need to know that, Mr Castle."

Silence.

"Mr Castle? Do you understand the position?"

"All right, Mr Smith. But getting Beckett to stop will be difficult. At best I'll have to do it indirectly. I might have to deceive her."

"Your decision, Mr Castle. I've told you what you have to do. How you do it is your business."

"What else do I need to know?"

"Only that you are not to attempt to find me."

"Can I at least call you if something happens?"

"You can call this number and leave a voicemail message; I'll get it within twenty-four hours and decide whether to call back."

"Understood."

"I believe that concludes our business. Without intending any offense, I hope we never have to speak again, Mr Castle."

"Mr Smith," Castle acknowledged.

Beckett hadn't heard anything; she had been running on Castle's treadmill on the upper floor of the loft, partly for exercise as she rebuilt her stamina, partly as a distraction from the case. Castle waited until she came downstairs, showered and toweling off her hair, and waved her into the study and closed the door.

"About forty minutes ago, I got a call on my landline. He said he was a friend of Montgomery's and he was calling about you. That's when I started recording the call." Castle played the recording that he had copied to his secure laptop.

"You can call me Smith."

"Deceive me, Castle?" Beckett was looking at him in frank astonishment as the recording ended.

"For the benefit of anyone listening in."

"Ah. Okay, let's take stock. Although Smith didn't say so explicitly, he implied that it was the Dragon who was behind my shooting. And we now have a reason why there were no more attempts on my life — there's a paper shield protecting me. A conditional one. So, if we believe him, we can dismiss my hypothetical privately-motivated comrade of Lockwood. It was the Dragon, pure and simple."

"Although it's still possible that your shooting was a message or a distraction," Castle pointed out.

"True, but at least they won't repeat that tactic while this deal holds. If it really exists."

"Right."

"So do we believe him?" asked Beckett. "I recognize the reference to the boat and the bad joke about 'full-bodied flavor', and your comment about... Sam Parker, wasn't it?"

"When he wasn't pretending to be Jake Holland."

"The boat thing and the joke could have been overheard by anyone in the bullpen, but that conversation and the one during the Angela Candela kidnapping were private conversations between us and Captain Montgomery. It's highly unlikely anyone could have overheard either of them."

"The thing about you standing down was in Montgomery's office, but I think the door was open. And if his phone was tapped, his office might have been bugged as well. But in any case I suspect Montgomery told Smith about that less to establish Smith's credibility than to get my attention."

"Oh, it got attention all right." Beckett fixed Castle with a glare. "When exactly did Roy say that to you?"

"Uh... that was... just before I came to your place and we had that argument."

"And why you didn't tell me this?"

"You know, it... never came up... and I... didn't really want to revisit our argument."

"Well, that idea worked out, didn't it?" said Beckett, with mild sarcasm. "Tell me. All of it."

"Okay, okay." Castle frowned. "Well, I was already thinking about trying to get you to back off because of what your dad said, so when—"

"Wait a minute. Back up. What did my dad say? When?"

"He... came here the night after—"

"He came here?"

"It was the night after we found the chopper used in Lockwood's escape. You mean he didn't tell you?"

"No, he didn't," said Beckett testily. "And I'll be taking that up with him. What did he say?"

"He said you wouldn't listen to him and you wouldn't back down unless someone — he meant me — could convince you that your life was worth more than your mother's death." Castle raised his hands in a placating gesture. "That was his expression, not mine. And he asked me not to let you throw your life away." He paused and swallowed hard. "He was a father terrified of losing his daughter. I know that fear, Kate."

Beckett said nothing, but she was blinking away tears.

"The next day, after we found out about the changed records, I asked Montgomery to take you off the case, because I didn't think the detail he had on you would be good enough to stop Lockwood." During the investigation into Lockwood's escape, while trying to track down the third cop involved in the kidnapping operation — and not yet aware that it was Montgomery — Castle had noticed that certain reports involving Raglan and McCallister had been altered.

Castle continued. "He told me how you and he first met... that you were in the archives looking through your mother's case, and that he saw that with your tenacity and some training, you'd make a great detective. And, when it came to your tenacity, he said what Smith read out. I left the precinct to come to your place five minutes later."

Beckett took a long shuddering breath and rubbed her hands over her face.

"I feel as though I should be angry."

"But you're not?"

"I don't know exactly what I'm feeling." Her eyes were searching the wall behind Castle, as if seeking the answer there. Then she shook her head. "I'll have to figure it out." She drew another breath and visibly focused again. "Right, back to the call. I think — given the references to private conversations — that we can be confident that Montgomery contacted Smith."

"So do we believe what Smith said?"

"Montgomery must have suspected that I wouldn't let the case go. So he gave Smith these..." She waved a hand. "...recognition phrases so that he could contact you if necessary and you would believe him. Montgomery wanted you to believe him, so that you could keep me safe. And Montgomery died wanting to keep me safe. So we can trust his motivation in giving Smith those phrases."

Castle nodded. "You mean that we don't know that the rest of it is true, just that Montgomery would have wanted me to believe it."

"Exactly. The rest of the what Smith said fits with what we know, but that's all. We don't have independent direct evidence."

"But is it possible that Smith is the Dragon? Or someone working for him?" suggested Castle, then frowned "No, why would Montgomery have given him those phrases?" He brightened again. "Maybe the file does exist, but it isn't Smith who has it. Maybe the Dragon knows he can't kill you without the file going public, and so Smith's account is a bluff to get you to stop investigating."

"That still doesn't explain why Smith would have the recognition phrases." Beckett shook her head. "All right. We should come back to this and see if we can find another explanation, but let's suppose for the moment that Smith was telling the truth. He has the file, and he's blackmailing the Dragon to protect me. Then who is he? His voice was electronically distorted, so he was also probably suspicious that your phone was tapped. And it's pretty much guaranteed that that number will turn out to be a prepaid burner cell. And he gave away almost nothing about himself."

"The distortion was strong enough that on reflection I'm not even convinced Smith is a man," said Castle. "Accepting me saying 'Mr' could be a ruse. Same with the couple of other things he said about himself. Or she said about herself. That he or she was a friend of Montgomery and that Montgomery once saved his or her life."

"Castle, at the risk of offending your grammatical sensibilities, let's just stick to 'he' for convenience," said Beckett.

"Speaking of grammatical sensibility, you noticed that Smith only used 'they' and 'their' to refer to the Dragon? English lacks a gender-neutral third person singular pronoun, and using the third-person plural pronoun instead has a long tradition dating back to Chaucer, which might indicate something about Smith's education, positive or negative..." He trailed off as he saw Beckett's look. "Anyway, Smith — he, she, they, or it — didn't even want to give away the Dragon's gender. So he doesn't know that we know the Dragon is a man."

Beckett nodded. "Smith probably isn't an old partner of Montgomery — saving a partner's life is a matter of course for a cop. Presumably he wouldn't say anything that made him easy to find."

"Right. A civilian Montgomery saved while on duty?" suggested Castle. "No... that would be on record, I suppose. Too easy to find."

"Yeah..." said Beckett. "Maybe Smith changed his name or faked his death or did something that makes it difficult to find him now, even if there is a record of who he was back then?"

"He'd have to be confident that he was untraceable. We should keep that possibility in mind, but I think it's more likely there's no record of Montgomery having saved Smith."

"Maybe he saved Smith before he joined the NYPD?"

Castle frowned. "Thing is, I don't remember Montgomery ever talking about his life before becoming a cop, except indirectly, like mentioning his and Evelyn's thirtieth anniversary. Before we started going through his life in detail during the summer, I knew he had been in his mid-fifties and that he had been a rookie in the early '90s, but I hadn't put together what that meant — that he didn't join the force until his early thirties."

"But you know now that Montgomery had been a corporate lawyer before he joined the NYPD?"

"Yup. Seemed to have been a rising star, with the kind of stuff he worked on. But then suddenly he resigns and applies to the Academy. I figure that something happened to him, made him become a cop, but I don't know what. I think Espo knows at least part of it, but all he would tell me was that it wasn't relevant, and that I shouldn't ask Evelyn."

Beckett nodded grimly. "Yeah, something happened to him all right. He and I had that in common, at least... There was an attempted robbery at the law firm where he worked. The robbers had taken his colleague's kid hostage at home, and wanted to use her to force this colleague to open the vault where there was a stack of bearer bonds. Except that Montgomery had asked for a last-minute assist on an important client meeting, so this colleague wasn't there to open the vault, and there was no-one else present who had the combination. This was before everybody had a cellphone, so no-one in the office knew how to reach him."

"The kid...?"

"They killed the kid," said Beckett grimly. "And her dad — Montgomery's colleague — killed himself a few weeks later. He had been Montgomery's mentor and they had known the family well — the kid had known them as Uncle Roy and Aunt Evelyn. Montgomery couldn't stop blaming himself for calling his colleague away. Illogical, but these things don't have to be logical to..." She shook her head, unable or unwilling to articulate the thought. "I know he had therapy. I think it was the feeling of helplessness that really got to him, and ultimately led to his decision to resign from the law firm and enter the Academy."

"He must have buried that deep. Were the perps ever caught?"

"Years later — maybe around '97, I think — one of the robbers at the office was arrested in another case. He made a deal and I think they got all but one of the others." Beckett shook her head, drew a deep breath, and exhaled slowly. "You know, maybe Montgomery's background in corporate law was part of the reason Raglan and McCallister recruited him — they figured they would need someone to help them launder the ransom money."

Castle nodded in agreement. "But, getting back to the matter at hand... I can't imagine many circumstances where a corporate lawyer would be able to save someone's life. Not professionally, I mean."

"We don't even know if it's true that he saved Smith's life. It could be a false lead for us or the Dragon. If he's telling the truth, then it's clear that he's someone Montgomery trusted, but we don't know if he was really a friend in the conventional sense. And while he seems to owe Montgomery, it could be for some other reason. Maybe Montgomery saved someone he was close to."

"Or maybe 'saving his life' meant preventing him from being wrongly sent to prison for life."

"Yeah," said Beckett. "Do you think Evelyn might know who Smith is?"

Castle considered it. "She might know him, but to be able to identify him from the information he's given out? Like you said, we don't know if Smith was Montgomery's friend in a conventional sense. Even if Evelyn knew him, it might be as a former client or passing acquaintance. Actually, Montgomery would probably be reluctant to use someone who was known to be his friend."

Beckett nodded. "Right. And surely Smith wouldn't have given the Dragon more information than we have. If he called him, he would have distorted his voice in the same way. So, tentatively, Smith's identity seems secure. Although Montgomery might have letters or emails from him or photos including him." Her tone indicated that she was playing devil's advocate.

"Possibly. But how would you connect the sender of a letter or a photo of someone to Smith? I wouldn't dismiss the Dragon being ruthless enough to take out every friend, colleague, or business acquaintance of Montgomery's he could find, but he would have no way of knowing whether that would include Smith and all his associates."

"I know. Without knowing more about him, I have no idea how we — or the Dragon — could find him. Besides, Smith said that he knew 'how the game is played'. That suggests to me someone who knows all the potential routes to him. Still, we might want to quietly check with Evelyn."

"Very quietly. We have to act in public like we're no longer pursuing the case."

"Ah, Castle, we haven't actually discussed this deal you signed up to yet."

"Beckett, whether or not Smith is telling the truth, we agree that Montgomery wanted me to believe him. We're confident he was genuinely trying to protect you. So to keep you safe, I should act as if I believe Smith. So we should publicly back off.

"And remember what Smith said: it's what we did since you returned to work that drew the Dragon's attention. Assuming Smith was telling the truth, this makes sense. The Dragon knew we were pursuing the sniper. He would have known that there was no way to shut down the official investigation early. He had to let it reach its natural end as the leads dried up. But he could demand that we not open it again. But it seems that neither he nor Smith knew about my private inquiries, because in that case he would have called and warned me off earlier."

Beckett chewed her lip in thought. "You think we can really do this secretly?"

"I think we have to. Not just because of the Dragon's own reaction. If we continue working openly, Smith might conclude — this is still supposing that what he told us is true — that he had done all that Montgomery asked and that we broke the deal. He is trying to minimize the danger to himself, but he knows that he is taking a risk. He might decide that if we don't want the deal, he'll destroy all copies of the file for his own safety."

Beckett nodded slowly. "And if the Dragon can monitor phones or has an informer at the precinct, a conventional investigation probably wouldn't work anyway. Do you think that's how he learned that we were looking into the fire? Or did Halstead snitch?"

"Maybe pulling the report on the fire or the files on Halstead raised a red flag."

Beckett ran a hand through her hair in a gesture of frustration. "This case has too many 'maybes'." She shook her head. "You're right. We'll act like we're backing off in public." She looked at Castle. "Write me a story of how we do this."

"All right." Castle steepled his fingers and tapped them against his lips in thought. "Tomorrow, you tell Ryan and Esposito that you went through Halstead's life and there is absolutely no evidence that he was dirty, but that I'm going to reach out to a guy I know to get an opinion on Halstead's competence and a second opinion on the fire report. I won't. Late in the day, I'll come to the precinct and tell you that my guy has said that Halstead seems to be competent and that the fire does genuinely look like an accident, or at least there's no way to tell if it was set deliberately. Hopefully, if word of that gets out, the Dragon will think I'm deceiving you, like I said to Smith. Anyway, we act like the fire is a dead end. No more leads. You'll need to act depressed or frustrated for while. The rest of us will be worried, warn you against falling down the rabbit hole again. We'll try to get you to focus on new cases. Maybe you can go back to your therapist for a while, at least as a cover."

"We should pause for real for a little while, too. Let me continue reviewing the case and the data you've gathered in the meantime."

"I also want to think more about what Smith said. He left a hell of a lot of blanks. Like, what exactly could be in that file?

"And if it was so damaging to the Dragon, why didn't Roy just use it to protect me and his family?" asked Beckett. "Why did he have to sacrifice himself?"

"The first thing that comes to mind is that it was something to do with the kidnapping operation or the ransoms, something that would have implicated Roy as well. And..." Castle trailed off.

"What are you thinking, Castle?" Beckett prompted.

Castle hesitated. "I don't like to suggest this, because it makes Montgomery seem very manipulative, and, well, nil nisi bonum... But Montgomery would have known that after sacrificing himself, he'd get a full honors funeral."

"Right..."

"So if it later emerged that he had been involved in the kidnappings — after the file was released or in some other way — it would be difficult for the NYPD to withdraw pension benefits from the family of a man it had already honored as a hero. Maybe that was part of why he did it."

Beckett nodded slowly. "I don't like it, but that is a possibility." She bit her lip in thought. "But he may also have decided that, with Raglan and McCallister dead, he was the last person who knew who the Dragon was. Maybe he decided that as long as he was alive, there would always be a threat to me and his family."

"But now that he's dead, there's no reason for the Dragon to kill his family, at least."

"I hope so," said Beckett. She rubbed her eyes. "We need to stop and think carefully about the safety of... well, everyone. My dad, Alexis, Martha, not to mention the boys and Lanie. If the Dragon finds out about us... about any secret investigation, they could all be in danger too."

Author's note: (1) In canon, there was no mention of looking at Lockwood's associates. The surgical plate without a serial number is based upon a lead (which did not really pan out) in the case of a formerly unidentified decedent found in the UK in 2015.

(2) In 4x01 "Rise", Rod Halstead works for FDNY, but he wouldn't have worked there in 1999 if he investigated a fire in Union City, NJ.

(3) Union City and its neighbors did in fact merge their fire departments to form North Hudson Regional Fire and Rescue in January 1999: this is a coincidence between canon and real life that begs to be weaved into the story.

(4) Montgomery being a rookie in the early 1990s could mean that he was a rookie detective, except that he seems to have been the junior member of the kidnapping operation, and Gary McCallister was explicitly said to be an officer at that time during 3x13 "Knockdown".

(5) In canon, Smith seems very naïve, plaintively protesting that "we have a deal" at the end of 4x23 "Always". This fic tries to make him much more rational and cautious, and much less trusting.

P.S.: Now that the story is established, I aim to post one chapter per week. Real life will doubtless sometimes disrupt this schedule.