Peter Hughes was a minor by one sole month, making it necessary for his father to sit in on the investigation; not a preferred situation considering that they could be partners in crime.
The fact that young Hughes had chosen to run from Ryan and Esposito served to only further the suspicion that he was behind the terrible deeds committed.
Did he match the sketch drawing provided by their witness? About as good as anybody else, once one ignored the pink hair and dress.
Was he capable of attracting and murdering young women? Under the right circumstances, why not? It was just as conceivable that the whole being gay thing was nothing but false advertisement, the pink hair a wig to be taken off at any time.
With fancy clothes and a nice hair-do, young Peter could most certainly pass as their suspect from enough distance.
Or perhaps, in his role as concerned father, Jeff had orchestrated the brutal rape and killings via a third party killer he'd hired, hoping to turn his son back over to the heterosexual side. Nah, that seemed too far off, even for this situation.
But one thing was undeniable in all of this- the connection to Michigan and the 70's murders.
The red flag of Jeff mentioning it out of the blue was only the beginning when it came to his bad feeling about these two. Add in the car, some halfhearted excuses about its whereabouts and why it was stolen in the first place, and of course his writerly senses…and Castle knew they were finally headed in the right direction.
"Peter, we need to know what your connection is to the stolen Camry. Did somebody at school want it? Did somebody on the street approach you?"
"I know nothing about the car.", the teenager defended and crossed his arms in front of his bony chest, "The car was stolen and that was the end of it. Nobody but the police talked to me about it. I didn't even realize it had been stolen until I came home from school."
Sensing the defiance in his voice, Beckett quieted down for a moment, using the opportunity to stare at both of their suspects in undisguised impatience.
"Where were you Tuesday between midnight and 7:30am?", she fired away, trying to narrow down the timeline of the third body drop near Ryan's apartment.
"In my bed until about 7am, then I was getting ready to go to school."
"Is there anybody besides your father who can collaborate this?"
With a disinterested shrug, he cocked his chin out the window.
"Maybe one of my classmates saw me walk to the bus stop? I don't know."
"Well, you better find somebody who saw you because right now you are under suspicion of murder."
"M…murder? What are you talking about?", the kid replied, his temper finally flaring as he stood up from the couch, his father following along slowly, "What's going on dad?! You know I would never hurt anybody!"
"These people are just doing their jobs…", Jeff replied evenly, although Castle could hear the underlying resentment in every carefully chosen word.
"Well, I didn't kill anybody. I was sleeping. And then I went to school."
"How much do you know about the 1970's serial killings in Michigan?", Beckett continued undisturbed but stood up as well.
When Castle followed along, he noticed her stepping aside, as though she wanted to be closer to the father, leaving him next to Peter.
"Not much…", he responded slowly, "We heard about it through family. I guess some guy was killing a bunch of university girls. What does that have to do with all of this?"
As Beckett went about another round of questions without giving them the desired answer, Castle glanced down at the teenager's skinny arms, his wrists so narrow that the excess band from his watch narrowly touched the glass face.
Jeff on the other hand was burly built, with strong muscles that could easily incapacitate somebody. But he didn't have the looks and neither one of them had the charming disposition they'd expected.
Still, he knew they were close.
When he noticed that all attention was on Beckett and her stern monologue about possible motives, Castle carefully raised his hand behind the teenager's head, reaching for a strand of the wavy pink hair. If he was wearing a wig, they'd have plenty of probable cause to bring them to the precinct for more tormenting interviews; or so he hypothesized.
With a quick tug, he pulled on the strand, then immediately moved off to the right, looking away from the conversation to hide his intention, and with it, his disappointment that the hair itself seemed to be real- or at least very firmly attached.
Peter jerked slightly, then glared at the writer as he rubbed the back of his head.
"What are you doing, man?"
"Me? I was just…you…you just had something there…", he lied in return, then met Beckett's questioning glance with a disheartened headshake.
The intense conversation continued for a few more moments during which nothing of importance surfaced. Jeff continued to plead his innocence, offering alibis for himself and his son whenever asked about certain timeframes, and eventually admitted that he regretted bringing up the Michigan Murders altogether.
But he had mentioned them and the connection was there, no matter how much the past hour had seemed like a glorious waste of time.
The answer was right here, in the drab rowhouse, just waiting to be discovered by two likeminded individuals who wouldn't give up until they found the truth.