Shared Obsession Chapter 184
As Castle is filling in details on the murderboard, he notices a tall dark shadow on the white surface. "Demming."
"Castle," the robbery detective responds.
"Don't you guys have whiteboards of your own down in robbery?"
"We do. But Montgomery asked my looey to send someone up to work on this case because of the robbery involvement. I had the lightest load, so she sent me."
"Lucky us."
"Castle," Kate calls from her desk, "I tracked down Wilder's next of kin, his cousin Blake. He should be here any minute. Demming, the captain says we're supposed to loop robbery in on this, so you might as well join us. We'll be using the interview lounge."
"Sounds good," Demming says. "I'll just get some of the great coffee you guys have up here."
Castle grits his teeth as Demming strides off toward the break room. "You're welcome."
Blake leans forward in his seat, apparently eager to talk about his dead cousin. "You know how he got into his business? Acne. As a teenager, he had it something terrible. When he asked me to lend him the money to get started, I was happy to do it." Blake chuckles as if in fond remembrance. "He was one of the good ones. I mean, why would someone do something like this? I, um…."
"Blake," Kate gently interjects, "We were hoping you could help us with something. The display cases in the living room were broken into and their contents were missing. Do you know what was in them?"
"That's where he kept his books. He was a collector, rare books, signed first editions, that kind of thing."
"A noble endeavor," Castle says, "but an expensive one."
"Those books could run into thousands, maybe tens of thousands," Demming says.
Castle snorts. "You undervalue the written word, Detective. The Codex Leicester sold at auction for more than $30 million. Even the Canterbury Tales fetched $7.5 million. And you don't install a climate-controlled storage display like that for something in the thousands. We're probably talking at least a mil."
"So it was a robbery? Someone killed him for his books?" Blake questions.
"Maybe they were a target of opportunity," Castle proposes. "We did find a message written in an impressively macabre manner."
Blake strokes the beginnings of stubble on a face surprisingly rough in light of the family business. "That's odd."
"We're still working on that," Kate says. "But what we could really use your help on is the missing books. Did he have a catalog of his collection?"
"Sure. Damian looked to me to help him with the business side of things. The insurer he used is a friend of mine. He'll have a catalog."
"Well as far as we know, the books were the only thing missing," Demming says, "which suggests the perpetrator went there knowing what he was looking for. Could he have had an opportunity to case the place?"
Blake nods enthusiastically. "Yes! Damian had the kitchen renovated. Contractors were crawling all over the place for weeks."
After Blake's interview is over, Demming writes "Stolen books" on the murder board. "I'll track down the renovation crew and see if any of them have any priors."
"Thanks, Tom," Beckett says. "I appreciate your help on this."
"Kate, it doesn't make any sense," Castle complains as Demming heads for the stairs. "If someone did case the place, they would have known when Damian left for work. They also would have known the cleaning lady's schedule. If the motive was robbery, why not plan a time when no one was there? And why the bloody pronouncement on the mirror? This isn't a robbery with an incidental murder, it's a murder with an incidental robbery. Hell, Mr. Robbery Detective didn't even know what the books were worth. Perhaps one of the guys hammering away in the kitchen might. Some of those cabinet makers are true artisans. Still, I don't buy pegging this as a robbery gone wrong."
"You may be right, Babe," Kate acknowledges, "but right now robbery's the only motive we have. And we're stuck with Demming. We might as well make the best of it. If he wants to track down the kitchen crew, that's one less thing for us to do."
Castle wiggles his eyebrows. "If Demming weren't here, you would have had Ryan and Esposito do that anyway."
Kate smothers a giggle. "That's true."
"So it would seem to me that our next step would be to figure out who had enough of hate on for Damian Wilder to kill him. If Alexis was upset enough at Wilder to demand that I boycott his products, perhaps there was some animal protector willing to take the fight to a more brutal level. We should check out Damian's interactions with the animal rights activists."
"You can work with the boys on that, Castle," Kate decides. "I'm going to check Wilder's financials, see if there's anything there that will give us an idea who might want to hurt him."
"Blake said he helped with the financial end of the business," Castle recalls. "Maybe Damian wasn't paying the closest attention to the money. That can get a guy into some serious pain."
Kate presses her fingers to her lower lip. "Yes, it can. I'll see what the numbers show."
"Hey guys," Castle says, strolling up the aisle to Ryan and Esposito's desks. "There's plenty of the lunch I brought for Beckett and me still left in the break room. You're welcome to it."
"What did you bring?" Esposito inquires.
"Ribs. I figured after our time in DC, Beckett would want something to bite on."
"They give you a rough time?" Ryan asks.
"Bracken's got himself a smarmy defense attorney. He kept implying that Beckett and I were part of some conspiracy to smear the sonofabitch. I wasn't allowed to hear what he said to Beckett, but he was insufferable enough to me. And he went at her first, so it might have been worse. But anyway, the ribs are back there – and the sides too. But I was hoping you could do one little thing for me before you chow down."
"What do you want, Castle?" Esposito demands.
"See if there were any recent police reports about animal rights groups threatening Wilder."
"I'm on it," Ryan responds his fingers already on his keyboard. "Wow, good guess, Castle. Javi, look at this."
Esposito checks out Ryan's screen. "Yo, Beckett," he calls across the bullpen, "ran a background check on Wilder. Found this incident report that he filed three days ago – vandalism. Poured red paint all over his stoop. And his company is being picketed by animal rights protestors."
"From what Alexis told me," Castle adds, "Wilder claimed he didn't do animal testing. He even declared that on his products. But when the animal rights people dug deeper, they found out that one of his contractors, who was doing some of the manufacturing for him, was."
"It's a big escalation from vandalism to murder," Kate says.
'But it all makes sense," Castle argues. "The message on the mirror wasn't misspelled and it wasn't French. The killer was trying to write 'murderer.' But, for some reason, he stopped before he was finished."
"So far, that's conjecture, Castle. But I want to talk to the guy with the red paint," Kate adds. "I'll have some unis bring him in."
Castle glances at Ryan and Esposito. "Thanks, Bros. Enjoy the ribs."
"It'll be a while before the unis get paint guy in here. What are you going to do, Castle?" Ryan asks.
"I'll start with this." Castle marches over to the murder board and erases "Stolen books."
