Shared Obsession Chapter 32
"Good, she thought, as the wind gathered up her hair," Castle reads from the book in front of him on an improvised podium. "No one will see my…." His gaze falls on the willowy figure in the hot pink dress. He clears his throat. "No one will see my tears."
The sounds of sniffles fill the seating area of Bartholomew Books as women, and a few men swipe at the tears on their faces, trying to grasp that Derrick Storm is gone. Rick makes his way to where Kate is standing behind the last row of chairs. "I wasn't sure you'd come."
"It took me a little longer than I thought to get through the rest of the books," Kate explains. "And I wanted to put out my mother's things so we could go through them as soon as we got out of here."
"It shouldn't be long. I already signed books for most of the people who came to the reading. I can take care of the few who are left and then we can go. Did you get anything to eat?"
"I didn't have time."
"Me either. And readings make me starved. Are you OK with stopping somewhere after we leave?"
"Maybe a drive-thru if it's fast. I really want to go through those papers."
"So do I. I can call ahead to Remy's to have a pick-up order waiting."
"Since when does Remy's do that?"
"They do for me since I bought a 25% stake in the place. They do have the best burgers anywhere near the 12th, and they're the only place in the area that still makes shakes with real ice cream. It was a good investment."
"I'm sure it was, but can you hurry up and greet your adoring fans so we can get out of here?"
"Absolutely."
"Beckett, was your mother into cryptography?" Castle wonders. "These pages have markings that I don't recognize."
"Mother had her own private shorthand. My father and I could never figure it out. That was part of my problem all the other times I went through her things. There are also what look like initials, but I couldn't figure out whom they belonged to."
"Well, maybe we can now. Look at this, Beckett, WHB. I looked up Bill Bracken. He's William H. Bracken."
"That's right, Castle. I looked him up too. He stayed in politics."
"Uh-huh. I also made a few calls. He's the Chief of Staff now for Senator Brinkman, which for all intents and purposes makes him the senator. Brinkman was 88 when he got reelected four years ago, and he's been deteriorating ever since. His staff wheels him in to vote, and they handle everything else. Bracken runs the whole show. Anyone who wants anything from Brinkman has to go to Bracken, and he pulls a hell of a lot of strings. And Beckett, Brinkman still officially has a seat on the Armed Services Committee, Bracken would have access to all kinds of military contacts."
"Including guys who would use military boot knives," Kate figures.
"So, from what we have so far, Celia and your mother both attracted Bracken's attention – and not in a good way. And he could have easily found a couple of mercs to put an end to his problems. Good God, Beckett, who knows how many others he might have had killed? And what if he still does? We have to nail him."
"Easier said than done, Castle. Lanie said the results on the eyelash and the lifts should be back sometime tomorrow. But she'll probably have prints from the frozen body first. As a cop, I have to let the active case take precedence."
"I'm not a cop," Castle announces unnecessarily. "I can run with whatever the lab comes up with on the eyelash and anything else. If I need to, I can call Murray in again."
"Castle, that could be dangerous. What if Bracken's still sending killers after anyone who's a threat to him?"
"It will be dangerous for you too, Beckett."
"But I'm a cop, Castle. I'm trained to handle threats."
"Which is something I'm sure a lot of dead cops told their loved ones," Castle retorts. "But I'll be careful. And I'll hang around with you and the boys as much as I can – and stay away from dark staircases."
"My mother was killed in an alley," Kate points out."
"Unless I'm with you and your brave band, I'll try to stay away from alleys too," Castle promises.
"I have an ID on the victim," Lanie informs bleary-eyed Beckett and Castle. "Her fingerprints were in the system. Her name is Melanie Cavanaugh. From what I can tell so far, COD was blunt-force trauma to the head. But she has a history of misdemeanor drug possession, and I haven't been able to perform the analysis yet for anything that might have been in her system."
Castle stares down at the body, which other than being dead and still partly frozen, appears more healthy than he'd expect of a drug user. "She doesn't look like a junkie."
"She appears to be in pretty good shape," Lanie agrees. "From what I can tell, the temperature where she was stored remained pretty constant."
"Like a freezer?" Castle asks.
"Uh-huh, But if she was sober for a while, any damage from drug use wouldn't be obvious. I'll know more when I can open her up."
How long has she been dead?" Kate queries.
"Well, considering how long she's been like this and factoring in decomposition, I'd say she was frozen within 24 hours of being killed."
"What do you mean how long she's been like this?" Kate questions.
"There's been nothing on her record for over five years. At age 34, she was initially reported as missing, but the cop who investigated put her disappearance down as a runaway wife."
"Which explains why she wasn't in the books of missing persons," Kate realizes.
"Obviously, she didn't run far," Castle adds.
Castle returns from the break room with coffee as Kate looks over Melanie's file. She glances up long enough to take her mug before returning to her reading. "It looks like Melanie had a troubled childhood, drug problems in her teens and twenties."
"So she was clean for about 10 years," Castle notes. "I read the case file while you were in the ladies room."
"I was only gone two min … never mind, speed reader, I know. Lanie will be able to confirm if the record is accurate. So since you're ahead of me, you want to tell me the rest?'
"She kicked the habit and met and married Samuel Cavanaugh. She worked in a restaurant. He managed a bank. They have two kids. But here's something interesting. After Melanie disappeared, her husband waited a day to call the cops. Apparently, that's why the investigating cop dropped the case. Melanie kept doing a Julia Roberts."
"She started hooking?"
"Wrong movie. 'Runaway Bride.' According to her husband, she ran away for a full two weeks before her wedding day. But she came back – no Richard Gere on a white horse required. After three supposedly happy years, she ran away again, and then several times after that. The file has no indication of where she went."
Kate presses two fingers against her bottom lip. "She must have had a reason for running away."
"My mother's been saying that about my father for my entire life. I may never know. But if someone smashed Melanie in the head and put her in a freezer, it sure as hell was no secret mission or tragic accident. If she ran, she was running from something or someone that eventually caught up to her."
Kate nods. "And we have to find out who or what it was."
