Title: Double the Trouble

By: greygoose70

Summary: Two murders, one weird, the other not so weird, so what did they have common. DISCLAIMER: I have the privilege of writing about these fabulous characters. But do not have any association with AWM, the show, or the network.

Chapter 2

Never a dull moment in New York. She knocked back what was left of her cold coffee and stood. "Let's roll," she said, then headed for the elevator, pressing the call button when she got there. The doors immediately opened, and there he stood.

"Reykjavik," was all he said.

Beckett rushed into the elevator pushing the close door button as she entered, then leapt into his open arms and crushed her lips to his. Castle immediately encased her in his arms drawing her close, meeting her lips with his.

On the other side of the elevator doors Ryan and Esposito stared at each other in silence, Ryan finally breaking their speechlessness saying, "I guess we're taking the stairs."

"You're back early," Beckett said breathlessly after separating her lips from his.

"Big storm brewing in the Pacific, heading straight for San Diego. So I had Paula cancel the rest of the tour and chartered a flight back," he replied, his breathing also quite labored. "Where were you going?"

"Crime scene," she said, "and from what the boys told me, an unusual one."

"Well, we better get going then," he said reaching over to press the button for the ground floor, then pulling her back in for another passion filled kiss.

"Where we headed?" Castle asked as he exited the cruiser going around to join her.

"To the pool?" she answered.

"Ah, Paul Milstein."

It astounded Beckett knew how much information Castle held in his brain. It was spongier than a child's. No matter the topic, he could spout off some bit of trivia as an aside. It was no surprise then that some background on their destination was in his wheelhouse of knowledge. She knew a lesson in New York City history was coming. "Right. The Paul Milstein Pool and Terrace," she muttered.

Beckett and Castle stopped at the top of the steps sloping down to the plaza level. Below them, Beckett saw Ryan and Esposito. They stood side by side, hands on hips, staring across the pool in the North Plaza. Beside her, Castled balked and pointed. "Oh!"

Beckett raised her eyebrows, nodding. There sprawled across the bronze sculpture in the middle of the reflecting pond, was the body.

"Henry Moore," Castle said as they started down the steps.

Beckett had already begun cataloguing the scene before her, but she stopped and stared at Castle. "Our vic? Do you know him?"

Castle laughed. "No, Henry Moore was the sculptor. Abstracts of the human figure. The female form. Mother and child. Reclining figures." He pointed at the sculptures in the water. "Notice the hollow spaces. There like rolling hills. Beautiful isn't it?"

"Yeah, if you don't count the dead body," Beckett said.

"Right. Old Mr. Milstein probably wouldn't be too happy about that."

"No, I don't suppose he would," she said. They got to the bottom of the steps and strode across the walkway.

At the side of the pond, Ryan had his notepad out, already flipping to the next page. Espo stroked his chin, staring at the sculpture.

"Any ideas on how he got up there?" Beckett asked, coming up next to him.

"Best guess, someone. Probably several someone's, waded through the water, managed to climb the sculpture, and carefully placed him up there."

Castle stepped closer to the pool, reaching his hand out as if there might be some invisible barrier between him and the water. "It's almost as if he's part of the sculpture, isn't it. Fascinating. And no small feat to have hauled a body up there."

"You got that right," Espo said. "We've been trying to figure it out. That had to be some real Houdini shit."

"Sorry to disagree with you there, Espo. Houdini was an escape artist. A sensational one at that. Did you know he started as Harry Handcuff Houdini, escaping from police handcuffs. Fun fact. But this, my friends, is a case where escape did not happen. There is magic, don't get me wrong, but that magic lies in how our John Doe got himself sprawled out on top of the statute."

Beckett stifled a smirk. For Castle, talking about magic was like commentating the Super Bowl for a sportscaster. She could sense his giddiness. Castle stood near enough to her that she could feel his breath on the back of her neck. They both peered at the body on Henry Moore's reclining figure. "Any idea on the age of the vic?" she asked.

"Hard to say from this vantage point," Ryan replied, but then he and Espo spoke in unison. "Probably a college kid."

The two men had been partners for going on ten years, and like an old married couple, they could finish each other's sentences. Castle and Beckett were like that, too. They knew each other so well; understanding the inner workings of the other's mind was second nature.

"Not sure how Lanie's going to do the prelim on the body," Espo said, looking across the pond. "She can wade out there, but she won't be able to scale the sculpture."

Beckett peered into the water, then looked back at the reclining figure. "We need to get her up there," she stated. But how. She considered her surroundings, an idea forming. "Julliard!" She spouted.

The three men looked at her. "What about it?" Castle asked.

"They give performances. Sometimes they give them outside."

Castle's eyes widened with understanding. "Which means they use…"

"Platforms," they all said in unison.

"Espo, find someone at Julliard. Let's get a platform set up so we can get out there to the body."

"You got it, Cap," he responded, then left heading straight for the performing arts school on one side of the plaza.

Beckett surveyed the area. A crowd was gathering on the lawn, the steps, and the plaza level. "Ryan, get unis to start canvassing the crowd. Someone may have seen something."

Ryan scribbled something across the page of his notepad, then pointed his pen toward the building surrounding the plaza. "The windows. Maybe someone saw something."

"Get some unis on it. And get that area cordoned off - pointing to the steps where the growing crowd was spilling down the steps at the Illumination Lawn – we need to keep those people back. And check the cameras, on and off site. Maybe one of them caught our killer."

"On it," Ryan said and he strode off. Beckett heard him giving directions to some of the unis nearby as he set about enacting her orders.

A few minutes later, Esposito returned, a team of people behind him hauling steel-framed structures. They stepped into the pond, wading through the water. In a matter of minutes they, they'd set up the platforms, making a bridge between the plaza and the sculpture and dead body.

In another few minutes, Lanie Parrish, the medical examiner, was crossing the bridge. At the end of the platform, the crew from Julliard had put up a set of steps. Becket and Castle were across the bridge in seconds, catching up. "Get me something good, Lanie," Beckett said as Lanie started up.

"You know I will," the spunky ME replied lifting her hand in acknowledgement.

Beckett paced -as much as was possible, on the platform, impatience bubbling inside her. "Anything, Lanie?"

Lanie spun her head around. "Gees girl, give me a minute, will you?"

Beckett folded her arms and dipped her chin. "Sorry."

Lanie went back to work. "The way he's laid out, it's like he fell from the sky. There's definitely a wound to the back of the head. If I had to venture a guess, I'd say it's the result of drunken night gone bad."

"Yeah, but someone had to put him up there," Beckett replied, as Lanie came down.

"Let me get him on my table, then I'll be able to tell you more."

Just then an officer came up behind them, a notebook in his hand.

"Got something?" Beckett asked.

"Guy at Fordham reported his roommate missing. Five six. Dark hair. Slim. The John Doe fits the description. Name is John Woods."

They all fell silent for a moment, then Beckett let out a heavy sigh. She looked up at the body on the sculpture. "What were you up to, John Woo, and how in the hell did you get up there?"

"I think I can help with that," Lanie responded to Beckett's query. "There are ligature marks on his right wrist. Can't see his left at all until he's off the rack. If I had to guess, whoever is behind this kids death used a rope of some type to pull him up to the top."

"Inventive," Castle said.

Beckett couldn't disagree with that, but none of it answered the question why? Which she voiced out loud.

Castle cleared his throat. It was his tell. He had something important to say, and he wanted people to listen. "Killers are people too," he said.

Lanie glared at him. "Really? That's your big reveal. If you're saying they deserve some sort of sympathy for whatever wrongs turned them into monsters, you're not going to get any understanding from me."

"He doesn't deserve understanding, and that certainly wasn't the point," he said.

"Then what is the point, Castle?" Beckett replied snappily because she was feeling snappy. And frustrated. And hot. The sun had broken from its cloud cover and is turning the morning into an oven.

"We are all motivated by emotion," he began. "We do what makes us happy. What gives us some sense of purpose. Why did you become a cop?" Switching his look from Lanie to Beckett. He knew the answer to that, so he didn't expect an answer. "John Woo was killed by someone who knew him, someone who wanted to make a statement about the killing. This was a very personal and deliberate act. Why else would the killer go to all the trouble of hauling a dead body to the top a sculpture in the middle of a pond?"

Beckett realized Castle had a good point. "So we need to find out who John Woo is, who his friends are, what he was involved in, and who might have had a personal vendetta against him," she said. "Time to get to work."

End of Chapter 2