Confession Chapter 41
"Alexis and her team are staying late at Marlowe again for last-minute mathlete competition prep. Want to stop at the deli and pick up some sandwich makings?" Castle queries as he and Kate leave the precinct for the day.
"What? You don't have some fancy dinner planned out?" Kate teases.
"I knew I wouldn't have the time. Besides, after lasagna for lunch, I thought you might want to go light, or lighter. Think about it, Beckett: corned beef piled high on fresh rye and pickles straight from the crock. And then there are the sides: coleslaw, macaroni salad, potato salad…."
"The kind with the hot mustard," Kate interrupts. "I like it spicy."
Castle grins. "Delighted to hear that. So, Goldblatt's or Hessinger's?"
"Goldblatt's has better pickles."
Castle offers his arm. "Goldblatt's it shall be."
Castle's gaze rivets itself on her mouth as Kate's lips close around a large dill pickle. He winces at the crunch as she suddenly bites down. "Feeling a little hostile tonight, are we?"
"Castle, you know I'm all for following the book – when it makes sense."
"And you don't think cutting off your day at shift change makes sense when you're pursuing a murderer."
"No, I don't."
"You said you don't have enough for a warrant to arrest Nedra. Would you get more by pulling her in for questioning tonight than waiting until tomorrow?"
"Maybe not. Especially if we have her phone calls tomorrow and can show a pattern of communication with O'Leary. But…."
"But you hate leaving the track in the middle of a race."
"Uh-huh."
"Kate, even if you were lucky enough to reach whoever dyed Nedra's hair, you would still have had to stop sometime."
Kate's eyes flash. "Castle, are you taking Gates' side?"
"What? No! I'm on your side, Kate. Always. Which means I don't want to see you run yourself ragged when you're not ready to slap on the cuffs. Gates may be a hardliner, but for tonight, at least, she isn't wrong. Is she?"
"Maybe not."
"And you did promise me later amusements," Castle reminds his partner.
"I did, didn't I?"
"Just don't do what you did to that pickle."
"Babe, I definitely have other plans."
A uniformed officer approaches Kate as she and Castle exit the elevator at the 12th Precinct. "Detective Beckett, this just came in for you."
"Thanks, LT." Kate checks the contents of the folder the officer handed her. "Finally! These are Nedra's phone records."
She drops into her chair while studying the documents. Castle plops into his spot next to her desk. "So? Any good stuff?"
"Not good stuff. Great stuff!" Kate uses a highlighter to mark a string of entries, then holds up a page so that Castle can see it. "All of these are calls between Nedra and O'Leary. And two of them are the day Perlmutter says O'Leary died. That's about as solid a connection as we can get."
"So are we going uptown so you can have your little talk with Nedra now?"
"Better. I'm going to get a search warrant for her new place. And I'll have some unis bring her here while I execute it. Then we'll have our little talk."
"Hoping to find the murder weapon? A receipt for a Stinger or .22 ammunition? Correspondence with O'Leary?"
"Any or all of the above. But if ballistics can match the bullet that killed O'Leary, the Stinger would seal the deal – if she kept it."
"Check for the apartment, and credit card at the beauty shop," Castle reminds her. "I doubt she expects herself to be found."
"I'm going to call Judge Markway for the warrant."
"Tell him I said hello."
Castle gazes around Nedra Voles' new apartment. "I can see why she didn't bring the couch. That loveseat barely fits and it looks new."
Kate tugs her gloves tight. "I'm going to check out her desk. Look around for any other places she could stash the Stinger."
"All right," Castle agrees. "If I were a pocket pistol, where would I hide?" A giggle forces its way through Beckett's lips. "Ah, and here I thought your thoughts were strictly focused on the job. But they might be in the right neighborhood, so to speak. A pocket pistol goes in a pocket." Castle pulls on a pair of gloves two sizes larger than those hugging Kate's fingers. He opens the door of a small closet and starts rummaging in the pockets of Nedra's clothes. "Eureka!" He holds up a palm-sized weapon. "Got one of your regulation bags, Beckett?"
Kate withdraws an evidence bag from her own pocket. "Right here."
Through Observation's one-way mirror, Kate observes an increasingly fidgety Nedra Voles. "Is anyone out there?" the suspect calls. "I've been in here for hours."
Castle raises a questioning eyebrow at Kate.
Kate nods and taps her favorite black leather folder. "We've got the ballistics report and she's cooked long enough. Let's go."
As she enters Interrogation, closely trailed by Castle, Kate smiles. "Sorry to keep you waiting, Ms. Voles. I'm Detective Beckett. This is Mr. Castle. I have some questions for you concerning an investigation I'm conducting."
Nedra wipes her palms against her slacks. "What investigation? I don't know anything about an investigation."
"The investigation of the murder of Machad O'Leary," Kate clarifies.
"Machad O'Leary? I don't know any Machad O'Leary." Nedra claims.
"No?" Kate unzips her folder and passes a document across the table. "This is a copy of your phone records. The marked number belonged to Mr. O'Leary. As you can see, you called and received calls from him a number of times."
"So, I talked to him. So what?" Nedra retorts, unable to suppress a slight tremor in her voice.
"You did more than talk to him, Nedra." Kate passes her a photograph of the Stinger. "Do you recognize this?"
"No," Nedra insists, "I've never seen it before."
"You know, that's peculiar," Castle says, "because I found it in the pocket of a very charming pair of harem pants in your closet."
"Pants that I'm sure will have traces of your DNA on them," Beckett adds. "But I doubt it will be necessary to test them. There are fingerprints on the gun, which will be much faster and easier to match to yours. And ballistics has already matched the weapon to the bullet that killed O'Leary. It's an open and closed case, Nedra. But you can help yourself by letting me help you. What happened? Why did you do it?"
Nedra smacks her palms against the table. "Why did I do it? Because it was the only way I could get free of that bastard. You have no idea what Machad was like, Detective. No idea what it was like to be with him."
"Then you should tell me, Nedra," Kate replies softly. "From the beginning. Tell me everything."
As a uniformed officer leads Nedra to Holding, Castle shakes his head in disgust. "That was the kind of story that makes me ashamed of my gender."
"It's almost exactly what Willa Metry's friends and family said she was going through," Kate recalls. "Except that Nedra fought back. No jury could hear her story and not understand why she thought she had to kill the sonofabitch. The D.A.'s going to realize that and offer a plea. I just hope Nedra's lawyer is up to negotiating a decent one."
"I think I know a lawyer who could handle it," Castle says. "And with a motive like that, she might even do it pro bono."
"Are you thinking of Sarah Brockman, the lawyer who got Tim Wheeler off?"
"Can't imagine anyone better."