Shared Obsession Chapter 201

In person, it's even more obvious to Castle why Maya Santori immortalized Xander Doyle in bronze. The man has a face with the toughness of a Roman soldier, yet the handsome contours of a Hollywood leading man. He isn't crazy about Beckett staring at it while she questions him, but she's acting as if Doyle's just another suspect. "That's right," Castle silently reminds himself. "Doyle is a suspect. But then, when he and Kate started out, Castle had been a suspect too. On the other hand, Beckett was already a fan. Castle doubts that Kate's a member of any drug dealer's fan club.

If Doyle's feeling guilty, neither his impressive visage nor his body language show it. "Yeah, I knew Maya. Met her at the club a few months back."

"And what was the nature of your relationship?" Kate asks.

"She said she liked the way I looked. You know how it goes."

"When was the last time you saw her?" Castle questions.

"Mr. Doyle, we have evidence that Maya came to see you on the day she died," Kate inserts.

"Yeah, she came to see me. Look, she said she was in trouble, needed my help."

"What kind of trouble?" Castle demands.

"I don't know," Doyle insists, "but I had the feeling she thought someone was after her."

"Oh, and why is that?" Kate presses.

"She, um, asked if she could borrow a gun."

"You're a convicted felon, Doyle. You aren't allowed to carry a gun," Castle points out.

"I don't carry," Doyle protests. "But that doesn't mean I couldn't own one – for emergencies."

"A thirty-eight?" Kate asks.

"That's right," Doyle agrees. "She seemed so upset that I gave it to her."

"Maya must have seen what happened to McHutchin and figured she'd be next," Castle realizes. "But our killer must have shot first."

"Mr. Doyle, did Maya give you any indication of what she was involved in?" Kate asks.

"Not with what she said. But if I was a betting man, I'd say drugs."

"Why do you say that?" Castle questions.

"Because a few weeks ago I ran into her on the street and she hugged me. I could smell it."

"Smell what?" Kate probes.

"That sick smell like paint thinner, acetone, bleach. I've got a buddy who smells like that. You know what he does? He makes meth."


Lanie's head emphatically bobs side to side. "Maya wasn't involved with drugs. Neither were Chloe and Todd."

"How do you know?" Beckett asks.

"Your guy was right about smelling chemicals, but the mix is all wrong. I found trace amounts of bleach, acetone, ammonia, and sodium chloride on all three bodies."

"Sodium chloride?" Castle echoes. "That's salt. Everyone has that on their body."

"Gold star for Castle. Yes, they do. But what's telling is not what's there, it's what's absent. If your guys were cooking up meth or other street drugs, there would be other substances present, including traces of the finished product. I didn't find any of those. That being said, they were definitely up to something."

Beckett's cell buzzes. "It's Ryan." She listens for a moment. "The search warrant for Evan Murphy's place came through. They found the murder weapon."


Evan cringes as Kate holds up an evidence bag containing a 45 mm pistol. "I swear. I have never seen that before in my life."

"Then what was it doing at your place?" Kate demands, leaning across the interrogation table.

Evan's fingers twist together helplessly. "I don't know!"

Kate penetrates deeper into the suspect's space. "What really happened on the night you followed Chloe to the club?"

"I told you. We fought."

"About what?" Kate challenges. "And do not say about the affair. What were the four of you into? What's the connection, Evan? And why did you kill them?"

Evan swallows – hard. "I'm not saying anything else without a lawyer."


"PD's office has been notified," Ryan reports as Castle brings Kate fresh coffee. "They're sending someone over."

"OK," Kate acknowledges. "Notify the DA's office too. Maybe they can cut a deal that will tell us what's really going on."

"Beckett, something's been niggling at me," Castle says. "When Earl came in while you were questioning Kitty Canary, he said he'd just heard – as if he was talking about the three murders. How did he hear?"

"The bartender."

"You didn't tell the bartender they were dead. You didn't show him photos of the bodies. Maya's pic was a publicity shot from one of her showings. Chloe's was from the faculty roster and Todd's was from his jacket. That's why he talked about them as members – present tense – of Kitty's burlesque troupe. And the news hadn't hit the press yet either. So how did Earl know?"

"Something's been niggling at me too," Kate confides. "The murder weapon."

"What about it?"

"It didn't have any fingerprints. If it was Evan's, why wouldn't it have had his fingerprints on it?"

"Because somebody planted it.," Castle guesses. "And Kitty and Earl have been steering us toward Evan from the start. They told us about the fight. They knew we'd be looking into him. What better way to seal the deal than making sure the cops connect him with the murder weapon?"

"It's a great theory, Castle. But we don't have a shred of proof to back it up."

"Yo, Beckett," Esposito calls across the bullpen. "The financials finally came back on our guy, Evan. No signs of unusual activity."

"If he was in on whatever Chloe and the rest were doing, wouldn't he have had a mysterious cash deposit too?" Castle wonders. "Unless he didn't actually know. But if Doyle thought Maya smelled funny just from a hug, wouldn't Evan have thought Chloe smelled funny too? He didn't give the impression of platonic admiration. So what would a teacher, a sculptor, and a vending machine operator be doing that would stink in all senses of the word? Wait, Beckett, what did Chloe teach?"

"I don't…." Kate grabs for a file. "Chemistry. She taught chemistry. Wait, CSU should have her purse. They ran it for trace and fibers. I want to see something."

Castle quirks an eyebrow. "Her money?"

A smile twitches on Kate's lips. "I think we're on the same wavelength, Babe."


Bow-tied Chief Tech, Carl, hands Kate an evidence bag containing a wallet. "You can take it. We already ran it. No fingerprints except the victim's and nothing that wasn't in other parts of the apartment."

"Did you examine the money?" Kate asks.

"Not by itself. We know that almost all U.S. currency comes up positive for cocaine, so unless we were looking for something specific, there was no reason to."

Kate pulls on a pair of gloves, removes three twenties from the wallet, and fans them for Castle to see. "What you expected?" she asks.

"Exactly. They all have the same serial number. They're counterfeit."

Marker in hand, Kate stands in front of the murder board. "All right. So we have a vending machine operator who provides an almost unlimited supply of one-dollar bills, a chemist who knows how to bleach them so that they can be reprinted, and a sculptor to make the plates. What's missing?"

"Ink!" she and Castle exclaim together.

"And who better to provide it than a tattoo artist?" Castle realizes. "That's the connection. Kitty and Earl were in on the whole thing. They probably killed Chloe, Maya, and Todd, to prevent exposure and then planted the gun to complete the frame they're trying to put around Evan." Castle winks. "Well, Miss Beckett, I reckon we oughta pay a call on Miss Kitty."

"Well, Mr. Castle, I reckon we oughta."

A/N In canon, the writers tried to make the scheme work by saying the $20's plates were for pre-1998 – before the bills were re-designed. Of course, they couldn't show a counterfeiting scheme that might actually work, on TV. The Treasury Dept. wouldn't like it much. Actually, it's against the law to show real currency on TV at all. It's considered a form of counterfeiting. U.S. twenties have had a security strip since 1992. Dollar bills don't have one because it doesn't pay to counterfeit them. So the bogus twenties would be pretty easy to spot no matter what design Maya made for the plates. But after all, the story is fiction. And the club was ready-made for laundering money.