He was surprised at first when his phone rang around 5:10 in the morning. He was half tempted to let the call go to voicemail, but something made him answer.
He propped himself up on his elbow and reached for the phone. The second he looked at the screen, he sighed.
Beckett.
Ever since they had solved the murder of Sarah, the writer on the soap opera Temptation Lane, he and Beckett had drifted apart from each other, and the weirdest thing between them became evident. They didn't seem to be in sync with each other anymore. Of course, they had their disagreements, as every good partnership usually does, and this was not unusual, but for some reason, he thought she was thinking about something that kept her mind on anything but solving murders.
And after they closed the case, he invited her and the boys out for a drink. It was like deja vú again when everyone turned him down, and he was okay with that, but as he was leaving the 12th, on his way out, he passed the doctor on his way in.
His appearance here only confirmed what he was feeling.
"Castle." He answered.
"It's Beckett. We have a murder. I'll text you the address."
Before he could even acknowledge the call, it ended. This time, she seemed to be on automatic pilot and didn't care what was happening—strictly all business.
He drags himself from the bed, and as he does, he gets a text alert with the address of the murder. He takes his time getting ready because he knows that working side by side with Beckett will start getting on his nerves, which he doesn't need.
He gets out of the cab and sees the crime scene tape blocking off the entrance to a pizza parlor. Her car is parked right out front, along with the M.E. van just in front. As he walked through the front door, he saw her talking to Lanie. Whatever they're discussing looks serious, and he can tell it's not about the case. Before they can finish their talk, he sees the body in the oven and becomes very saddened and withdrawn as he stares at how the victim died.
Kate had started going over the body that was in the pizza oven. When she finished assessing the crime scene, Kate had other questions to ask Lanie that weren't imperative to the case they would investigate. She pulled her off to the side while still taking notes on her clipboard, and while she was still writing, Kate wanted her undivided attention, so she pulled down the clipboard as Lanie was writing mid-sentence. She looked directly at her and said,
"I need to talk to you about something."
"Kate, what is wrong? You look so serious. Whatever it is, it's not about the corpse in the oven. What's going on?" Lanie replies.
"Lanie, not here. Can we get together tonight at my place? I'll provide the bottles of wine. Would eight pm work for you?"
Lanie raised an eyebrow at the plural description of the wine. Knowing that her friend took a serious tone as she spoke, she nodded in affirmation.
Both of their heads turned when each heard Castle walk up to where the body was, and the second he did, Kate became quiet. Leaving Lanie to wonder just what in the hell's going on.
Rick knew when to keep his mouth shut, so he walked back toward the entrance and waited until Beckett had finished her talk with Lanie before she gave him what she knew about the case.
Less than a minute later, he hears her high heels walking towards him. He turns and waits.
Once their eyes lock onto each other, he sees what he thinks is a glimmer of regret in her eyes. But the second it presents itself, it's gone, and she starts describing the case they will work.
"So what do we have?" Rick asks.
"A John Doe for now. Lanie determined that he was placed in the oven between 2 am and 4 am. The pizza oven didn't finish the job, and it wasn't the oven that killed him. He was stabbed in the chest and abdomen repeatedly before being placed there and cooked in the hopes that the body would be reduced to ashes."
"Whoever thought they could get away with burning the body must have wanted it to look like a competing pizza parlor had placed it here. I did some research before I got here and read the complaints involving Authentic Nicks, Terrific Authentic Nicks, Terrific Nicks, Authentic Terrific Nicks, and there were a lot of them."
"What are you saying, Castle? That this might be a contract hit by a competing pizza parlor?"
His first thought was to tell her he was not suggesting this was. But when he was about to say something, she talked over him.
"Castle, I can't believe that's your theory."
Becoming a little more frustrated at her disrespectful attitude, he finally continued.
"Beckett, while it might not be a contract hit, there is one possibility that you're overlooking."
"Oh yeah, and what's that?"
"Whoever that is in the oven, he was involved in something that he had information about, and someone killed him to keep him quiet."
"And how did you reach that conclusion?" She asked.
"I know who is in the oven."
Kate stepped back from him, stunned at what he just said.
"Castle, did you have anything to do with this murder?"
"Come on, Beckett, how can you think that? To start with, I have an alibi. I was at home writing until 1 am. Your kill zone is between 2 and 4 am. After I finished writing, I went to bed. My mother got home before I went to bed around 2:15, so I have my whereabouts accounted for."
Beckett eased her body posture and asked,
"So, who is in the oven?"
"Gordon Burns."
Without saying another word, Beckett turned away and returned to Lanie. They had a brief conversation, and then she returned to where Castle stood.
"Okay, Castle, we'll see if your ID is right. For now, we're going to head back to the 12th. I have everything I need from the crime scene." She said. And spun on her heel and walked back to her car.
The ride back to the precinct was one met in silence. He expected this because he knew the gears in her mind were spinning out of control.
Once they got back up to her desk, she started asking questions.
"Spill Castle. How did you know it was Gordon Burns in the oven?"
"Even though somebody burned his body beyond recognition, he always wore a green field jacket. He was a war correspondent covering Gulf War II in Iraq. That was what I recognized. He was embedded with the 2nd Marine Division. Then his daughter died. Once that happened, he became a victim of the bottle. From what I understood, he got sober again, but he could only get puff pieces after that. We should talk to his editor."
Just then, her desk phone rang, and she answered it. After a quick conversation with Lanie, she hung up and looked at him suspiciously.
He simply sat there, waiting for her to say something.
"It seems that you were right. That was Gordon Burns in the oven. Lanie was able to tell that he had surgery on his right shin. At some point, he had surgery on it after it was shattered, and a titanium rod was installed in its place. She ran the serial number and came up with an identification."
He sat there, not saying anything, which upset her more. He knew she expected him to rub it in her face, but he remained quiet. He knew this man and hated that he was now dead.
"So, Castle, no snappy comeback about how right you were about who was in the oven?" She asked incredulously.
"Contrary to what you might believe, Detective Beckett, the fact remains that a man has been murdered. It doesn't matter how I knew it was him; I just gave you a clue about his identity. Now, I think the next step we should take would be to talk with his editor if it is okay with you. Somebody killed him for what he knew, and you might not believe it, but I think he was working on something major, something that he needed to report on, and yes, something they got him killed."
"We need to go down to the morgue before seeing his editor. Lanie has something for us that she found on his body."
Castle got out of his chair and started walking towards the elevator before Beckett could grab her coat and gun. But before she caught up with him, she had about a good fifteen seconds to think about how wrong she had been by assuming that he had anything to do with the murder.
Lanie had handed Kate a partially melted cell phone holder and a wallet. Kate opened the trifold wallet and noticed that his driver's license was melted, but behind the slot for the driver's license, she pulled out a partially burnt picture of a woman. Neither Lanie nor Castle knew who she was.
Sitting before Burns' editor, he confirmed that Gordon Burns was once his star reporter. The stories he sent back from the Iraq War were stellar, to say the least. Most of the time, they were front page news.
"Mr. Shaw, I'm wondering if you can tell me what Gordon Burns was working on."
He was working on the human interest story involving the pizza wars. Downtown, there are competing pizza parlors that are shady. And by shady, I mean they are cutting each other's throats to make a living. They're pulling High School pranks by flattening tires on delivery trucks, dumping soap into pasta sauce for the pizzas, and other pranks. Gordon was doing a puff piece on these guys."
Rick spoke up.
"Mr. Shaw, could he have been working on something bigger?"
"No, I would have known about it, and we talked often. I can let you read the last update he sent me."
"That would be fine, Mr. Shaw," Beckett commented.
The editor set them up in a conference room and gave them a laptop to read the last update that Burns had sent in. He was right. It was all about the pizza of wars. When they finished, they returned to the editor's office and returned the laptop.
Castle and Beckett returned to the 12th, and Beckett said she would update the captain about what they had so far. He sat down at her desk since they had some downtime.
Rick decided now would be a great time to tell Beckett how he felt. He knew she would be in the office with the captain for about a half hour, so he sat down at her desk and started writing.