Confession Chapter 36

As the flood waters recede and the city begins to glow again, the crowd inside Castle's loft thins. Finally, only he, Martha, Alexis, and a recently arrived Kate, remain. "I want to shower for about a hundred years," Kate declares.

"I would have thought you'd have had enough water for a hundred years," Castle quips.

"Not hot water," Kate responds. "Oh, you do have hot water, don't you?"

"Last time I checked," Castle says. "Need someone to scrub your back?"

Kate sighs. "Babe, I appreciate the offer, but right now I'm too tired to do anything but stand under a needle spray and let it pound all the grunge off me. And then I need to sleep."

"I get it." Castle pauses for a second to process the endearment he just heard for the first time. "Kate, people have been using the beds in shifts, but I'll have new sheets on ours by the time you're ready to towel off."

With Castle's use of "ours," zinging her brain, Kate stretches up for a quick kiss. "Thanks."

"You're welcome. Besides, due to Alexis' triumph at the poker table, I'm on bedmaking duties for the next month."

"Maybe you should learn to count cards," Kate suggests.

"I did learn to do that, playing with the backstage crews when Mother was on the road. It got me over a few financial humps at school, too. But Alexis calculates odds faster than I do. I'll have to brush up. Hmm, it might really be worth it if we could play a game of strip…."

With a tired smile, Kate interrupts. "I appreciate the thought. But I really need to get in the shower."

The writer sweeps a hand in the general direction of the bathroom. "By all means."

Castle gazes down at Kate. A sheet and light blanket cover her to the shoulders, but he can tell she's using one of his T-shirts to sleep in. In slumber, she looks uncharacteristically relaxed. Her fingers, often curled against her palms, now splay against the bedclothes. Her long legs stretch almost the length of the king-sized bed that accommodates his frame. The pillowcase is damp from hair she didn't take time to do more than towel dry. The warmth enveloping him is more protective than lustful, but he has no doubt that lust will creep up on him if he continues to stare at her. That wouldn't be fair to either of them. She badly needs the rest and he doesn't need the pain of longing for something he can't have. Not yet, anyway. As quietly as he can, he leaves the room and closes the door behind him.

When Maddox heard the buzz that a hurricane was headed for the city, he hoped that the confusion would offer some opportunity for escape. It didn't. If anything, the guards, grateful that the island wouldn't suffer any major effects from the storm, were more vigilant. That vigilance increased when transports arrived carrying patients from Belleview to the prison's medical facility. But the information spigot did open somewhat with the arrival of non-prisoners.

Drivers talked to guards who talked to each other. They seemed to take joy in someone like Michael Rafferty being brought down a peg. The tabloids gleefully accused him of making up stories about being stalked. But there was also the question of the mystery mansion in a very expensive county. Some of the press assumes the high-class pleasure dome was made up as well. Maddox knows better. Tooman had known better too. That was why the boss wanted him taken out. But the public loves a scandal – the more money and sex involved, the better. And the social media postings about the mansion in the woods will be on the web forever. That means the boss will want the whole operation taken out, not just Tooman.

If Maddox wasn't stuck in Rikers, the assignment would fall to him. But the boss will have other hitters on deck. He always does. Maddox suspects that while the area is still reeling from the effects of the storm, a team will arrive to do the job. If he can warn the cops and the prosecutors that something is coming, it will give him a lot more leverage to save his own ass. The lines of inmates waiting to use the phones to check on whomever they care about are a mile long. Still, Maddox has to get a message to his lawyer, ASAP.

When Kate returns to the 12th Precinct, Gates is briskly presiding over returning everything to normal functioning. Furniture that had been rearranged to accommodate emergency lighting and volunteer workers is being pushed back into place, or in Gates' idea of in place. The desks in the bullpen are more precisely aligned than before and no crumbs or sticky spots are allowed to sully the counter or tables of the break room. It wouldn't surprise Kate if Gates starts running white-gloved fingers over the surfaces in her domain.

Kate sits in her desk chair but quickly springs back up. Someone shorter than she is had been using it. She adjusts the seat and sits again, immediately checking her drawers. Except for the absence of several pads of sticky notes, nothing appears to have been disturbed. Still, Kate's glad she hadn't left any personal papers around. Gates may have a point when she insists that cops at work should keep things professional. Kate startles at the jangle of the landline. Words about a dead body pour from the receiver. There were too many of those during and after the storm, but they didn't usually have bullet holes in them.

"Any ID on him?" Kate asks Perlmutter as the gruff ME stows his liver temp probe back in his kit.

Kate flips through the wallet Perlmutter hands her. "Cash, credit cards. It wasn't a robbery. Hmm, Machad O'Leary. Why does that name sound familiar?"

"I've never heard of him," Perlmutter declares.

Kate taps her gloved fingers against O'Leary's driver's license. I remember. He was a suspect in a murder, one of Detective Bronson's cases. Supposedly the victim was O'Leary's mistress. But Bronson never found enough evidence for the DA to bring charges, so O'Leary walked and the case went on the cold pile."

"He's cold too," Perlmutter says. "Liver is at ambient temperature. Rigor's subsided. He was probably killed either early in the storm or before it. I can be more exact after I get him to the lab."

"Anything else you can tell me now?" Kate queries.

"From the size of the holes, it looks like the bullets were 22 caliber. And the stippling around the wounds indicates he was shot at close range."

"All right," Kate acknowledges, "thanks."

In the loft's kitchen, Castle pours two goblets of red wine and hands one to Kate. "Twenty-two caliber at close range." He closes his eyes. "The murderer has nursed a grudge, or even a full-blown hatred against O'Leary for a long time, but played at being O'Leary's friend. Perhaps even more than a friend. He or she conceals a 22, a pocket weapon, and gets close. O'Leary doesn't suspect a thing until," Castle mimes shooting someone, "Bam! O'Leary is dead and the killer escapes in the madness of the storm."

"But that doesn't tell us much about who the killer is," Kate protests.

Castle inhales the bouquet of his wine. "Ah. A small weapon, close range. Another mistress perhaps? Beckett, when in doubt, cherchez la femme."